Report Links Iraq Deals to Bush Donations
By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Companies awarded $8 billion in contracts to rebuild Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) have been major campaign donors to President Bush (news - web sites), and their executives have had important political and military connections, according to a study released Thursday.

The study of more than 70 U.S. companies and individual contractors turned up more than $500,000 in donations to the president's 2000 campaign, more than they gave collectively to any other politician over the past dozen years.


The report was released by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based research organization that produces investigative articles on special interests and ethics in government. Its staff includes journalists and researchers.


The Center concluded that most of the 10 largest contracts went to companies that employed former high-ranking government officials, or executives with close ties to members of Congress and even the agencies awarding their contracts.


Major contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan were awarded by the Bush administration without competitive bids, because agencies said competition would have taken too much time to meet urgent needs in both countries.


"No single agency supervised the contracting process for the government," Center executive director Charles Lewis said. "This situation alone shows how susceptible the contracting system is to waste, fraud and cronyism."


J. Edward Fox, an assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, took issue with Lewis' statement and aspects of the report.


"It would ... be incorrect to suggest that there is no overall oversight of this process," he wrote the Center. "The USAID inspector general's review of all Iraq contracts which was requested by USAID Administrator Andrew S. Natsios on April 14th has shown that all Iraq contracts to date have been done in compliance" with federal regulations.


State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, defending the way contracts are awarded, said: "The reason that these companies get the contracts has nothing to do with who may have worked there before. Those people in senior positions have no influence over the decision."


He added, "Competitive procedure is very, very important to us, and we have done that in Iraq."


The top contract recipient was the Halliburton subsidiary KBR, with more than $2.3 billion awarded to support the U.S. military and restore Iraq's oil industry.


Halliburton was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) before he resigned to run with Bush in 2000.


Halliburton's top executive, Dave Lesar, said Wednesday he was offended by criticism of the company's Iraq work but believed it was "less about Halliburton and more about external political issues."


"As a company uniquely qualified to take on this difficult assignment, we will continue to bring all of our global resources to bear at this critical time in the Middle East. We have served the military for over 50 years and have no intention of backing down at this point," he said.


Bechtel was second with a $1 billion capital construction contract involving Iraq's utilities, telecommunications, railroads, ports, schools, health care facilities, bridges, roads and airports.


The company's Internet site says, "We do engage in the political process, as do most companies in the United States. We have legitimate policy interests and positions on matters before Congress, and we express them in many ways, including support for elected officials who support those positions.


"We do not expect or receive political favors or government contracts as a result of those contributions."

The Center's analysis of contractor political donations showed:

_The top 10 contractors contributed $11 million to national political parties, candidates and political action committees since 1990.

_Fourteen of the companies won contracts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Those companies, combined, have given more than $23 million in political contributions since 1990.

_Most contractors, their political action committees and their employees have contributed just under $49 million to national political campaigns and parties since that year.

_In the same time period, contractor donations to Republican Party committees outpaced contributions to the Democrats, $12.7 million to $7.1 million.

Many of the companies with large contracts have important political connections.

Former Secretary of State George Shultz is a member of Bechtel's board of directors, although he has no management role, according to the company's Web site.

Riley Bechtel, the chairman and chief executive officer, was named early this year to the President's Export Council, which advises the president on programs to improve U.S. trade.

Jack Sheehan, senior vice president in Bechtel's petroleum and chemicals business, served on the Defense Policy Board, which advises the defense secretary on a variety of issues.

Other contractors also had connections. Among those cited by the Center:

David Kay, head of the Bush administration's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is a former vice president of Science Applications International Corp. He left the company in October 2002.

Christopher "Ryan" Henry left the same company as a vice president in February 2003 to become principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.

Scott Spangler, principal owner of Chemonics International, was a senior U.S. Agency for International Development official during the first Bush administration. The company receives 90 percent of its business from USAID.

Sullivan Haave Associates Inc. was founded by Carol Haave, currently the deputy assistant secretary of defense for security and information operations.

The Center's findings are based, in part, on 73 Freedom of Information Act requests and an analysis of a federal contractor database.

Center for Public Integrity


  ¶ 1:06 PM

  BUY AMERICAN

To keep America strong we MUST buy American. Want to reverse the jobless trend? Buy American!

So many manufacturers have moved their facilities overseas, so it may be a bit difficult to find a specific product that is American-made. But it can be done.

Howtobuyamerican.com website can help; so can this Union website.

Use them -- they can help you find just about any type of product you need.

Also shop at the Buyamerican.com website, it sells only American-made products.

  ¶ 9:52 AM

  For Your Reading Enjoyment

I ran across three blogs that I thought my readers might find interesting:

Rightwingslayer

Newscompass

Sickofbush


Check them out. Note, however, the first two blogs lean a bit more to the "left" than this blog. Also, the Rightwingslayer's anti-Bush rhetoric is more pronounced than what this blogger espouses, still he makes some valid points.

The Sickofbush blog, despite it's name, seems to take the most moderate approach of the three in its reporting on the Bush administration.

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN

For those wondering about the reference to MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN in the Righwingslayer's "A Fable by John Liechty" -- it refers to the prophecy found in the Bible (Daniel 5:25-28), which reads as follows (depending on the Bible):

Dan 5:25 And this is the inscription that was written:

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

:26 This is the interpretation of each word.
MENE: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished
it;
:27 TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances, and
found wanting;
:28 PERES: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to
the Medes and Persians.
  ¶ 5:54 AM

  Al Sharpton -- The Liberal O'Reilly

I like Sharpton, but he is not presidential material -- not because he's black, but because he has a "problematic" past. Rather than running of President, he should host his own news program. He could do more good hosting his own nightly news show. I would jump at the chance to watch him; I believe his take on world events would be a breath of fresh air.

Some of you may not know what I mean about his "problematic" past. Let me explain. I'm talking mainly about the 1987 Tawana Brawley incident. Sharpton, while wearing two hats -- as a civil rights activist and a plaintiff's lawyer -- repeatedly accused a white prosecutor and other law enforcement officers of raping Brawley (a black teen-ager), in upstate New York. A grand jury later found that the girl lied about the incident and, in 1998, Sharpton (and two others involved in the case) was successfully sued by the prosecutor for defamation.

When asked about the Brawley case, Sharpton defends his actions by saying that he thought she was telling the truth, and thus had gone to her defense (at the request of her parents). I believe his explanation. I lived in New York at the time and I know that there was reason for the black community to distrust the law enforcement community.

Sharpton also has made some very unpolitic and incendiary remarks in his career, some of which have been viewed as anti-Semantic. Take the comments he made at Gavin Cato's funeral in August 1991. Cato, a black boy from Crown Heights, was killed when a car in a Hasidic rabbi's motorcade accidentally veered off the road and hit him. That accident touched off a number of racially motivated incidents including the knifing of a Jewish boy by a gang of black youth.

Sharpton said of Cato's death: "The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident. ... It's an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights. ... Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid. ... All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin' and grinnin'. Pay for your deeds." ("The diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights," was a reference to the Brooklyn neighborhood's Orthodox Jewish population.)

Like most people, Sharpton isn't the same person he was 10 years ago. After he became a candidate for President, he told the Washington Post in June 2003, "I've grown … I'm not as brash. There are ways I look at life now that I would not have when I was a younger man from the ghetto." Still, such incidents and remarks will prevent him from being a viable presidental candidate. However, they wouldn't stop Sharpton from being a good Cables News Show Host. That group thrives on controversy.

Give Sharpton His own News Show
Hopefully, once Sharpton gives up his bid for President, the cable news networks will give him his own news program. CNN or MSNBC would be well served by Sharpton. He is smart, quick-witted, and has a young audience. His show would probably attract the same audience as "The Daily Show" on the Comedy Channel. What more could a network ask for?

Anyone that has watched the Democratic Candidates' debates, or last night's "Hardball" where host, Chris Matthews, interviewed Sharpton in a "candidate forum" broadcast live from Harvard's Institute of Politics, couldn't help but agree. Sharpton quickly won over the audience and more than once put the fast talking Matthews in his place.

Although I'm not among the above-described demographics, I know that in addition to the "20 somethings," much of the black community, and others (e.g. myself and many liberals), would watch such a show. So Cable News Networks -- break the mold -- give this smart, intelligent, and witty, black man a show. It would surely be like no other on televison. You won't be sorry.

  ¶ 6:21 AM

  Anti-Semitism

A few incidents in recent days got me thinking about Jews, Zionism, and Anti-Semitism.

1. Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, who is labeled a "moderate Muslim" gave a speech to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, where he uttered the phrase "Jews rule the world by proxy, they get others to fight and die for them" (among other things), which got a resounding round of applause. That phrase and the audience's response to it, caused an uproar in the U.S. But I noticed that there was not the same feeding frenzy in other parts of the world (at least in the print media).

2. Two new books recently hit the bookstores: Never Again?: The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism by Abraham Foxman (Foreword by Elie Wiesel); The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It, Phyllis Chesler

3. The October edition of the Whistleblower magazine, had a piece titled "The New Anti-Semitism," and the U.S. News & World Report magazine headlined a recent issue "The New Anti-Semitism" and devoted quite a bit of print to the subject.

But is there really an upsurge of Jew hatred around the world? Or is it just a rise in criticism of Israel and its policies?

I, for one, wholeheartedly disagree with Israel's Palestinian policies and if you ask, many Israeli's and Jews also disagree. Yes, they must protect themselves against suicide bombers but they also must ask themselves what has made young Palestinian's so desperate that they are willing to die in such a horrible manner.

In my own humble way, I held a summit meeting (albeit via chat) with three, well-educated, Jewish friends. All three live in the U.S. and all have doctorates of some kind or the other. Here is what I found out.

All Jews have an ultra sensitive radar when it comes to any anti-Jewish comment or action. All three believe (and say many of their family and friends also believe) that the unwillingness to even tolerate any discussion that is critical of anything Jewish, including Israel is unhealthy. However, they also say that the American Jewish community has been very successful in dampening any critical discussions concerning Israel.

To my shock, one friend pointed out that one of the reasons that so many in the U.S. are amazed at the rise in Anti-Semitism is because the U.S. media is controlled by Jewish interests (I investigated this comment later and she is right -- virtually all television news and a great majority of newspapers are controlled by people of the Jewish faith), thus the U.S. public is basically kept in the dark about many things, especially when it comes to Israel. Admittedly, I had noticed the marked difference in the coverage of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict among the world media -- the world media's coverage of the conflict is basically balanced (but only if you read more than one newspaper on the subject), U.S. coverage (no matter which newspaper you pick up or news channel you watch) is another story -- our media makes very little mention of the Palestinian dead, seldom try to deal with the issues confronting the Palestinian people due to the Israeli occupation, or try to understand what caused this latest uprising (other than "the Palestinians hate the Jews").

I was also told during this mini-conference that while there is little discussion of the reason for this last round of Israeli / Palestinian violence in the U.S. media, it is all they talk about when in a family gathering. All three feel that the U.S. public needs to better understand the history, economics, and politics of the region. But feel it will never happen -- most Americans have little interest in their own history, economics or politics, so how can you expect them to care about Israel's? They are right.

But again, is there a rise in Anti-Semitism? The consensus: Outside the U.S. undoubtedly; in the U.S. maybe. I have noticed more unsupportive comments about the Israeli / Palestinian conflict among my circle of friends, co-workers and acquaintances. One of my friends noted that a newsletter recently circulated around her office pointed out the preponderance of Jews in the Bush Administration. (??) (I guess at some point I should investigate.) That led to a discussion of how many Jews served in the U.S. Congress. Although three of us felt that there was a proportional representation (i.e. we had no idea), one said that there were a lot of Jews in Congress and after a bit, named them off. Later she e-mailed me a list of Jews serving in Congress. She said that there is a website that notes Jewish VIPs and among that list is the following:

108th Congress
Senate (11— 2 Republicans, 9 Democrats)

Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Carl Levin (D-MI), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Arlen Specter (R-PA), Norm Coleman (R-MN),
Ron Wyden (D-OR).

House (26— 1 Republican, 24 Democrats, 1 Independent)

Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Shelley Berkley (D-NV), Howard Berman (D-CA), Eric Cantor (R-VA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Susan Davis (D-CA), Peter Deutsch (D-FL), Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Bob Filner (D-CA), Barney Frank (D-MA), Martin Frost (D-TX), Jane Harman (D-CA), Steve Israel D-NY), Tom Lantos (D-CA), Sander Levin (D-MI), Nita Lowey (D-NY), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Steve Rothman (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Adam Schiff (D-CA),
Brad Sherman (D-CA), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Robert Wexler (D-FL).

I asked that since Jews only make up about 2% of the U.S. population, if Sarah is right (name changed), why do they think there is such a disportionate representation? Their take: Due to their history, the Jews have always pushed education and knowledge. They also have always endeavored to participate in public affairs not only to better their lives but the lives of others around them. Those are the very traits that lead many people (Jewish or otherwise) into public service.

That led me back to the media. If the U.S. media is in the control of the Jews (now I know it is), how do they think U.S. media ended up in their control? Their take: Again it’s the emphasis on education and knowledge, but add to that mix the Jewish family's tendency to nurture a child's interests (whatever they may be) and you have the perfect ingredients for a successful actor, musician, writer, poet. If a Jewish couple has a child that wants to be in the arts -- they encourage that child, support him or her long past the time other ethnic groups would have pushed the child out of the nest. In fact in many famous Jewish directors, producers, actors, interviews they tout the full, unequivocal support of their family.

But that still doesn't answer how Jews could end up controlling so much of the news media. The group didn't have an answer, except to say that because of their education, the continuing thirst for knowledge, and interest in public affairs -- mixed with hard work -- quite a few to end up in the news business.

That brings me back to the Malaysian Prime Minister's remarks. Yes, they could see how it could appear that the Jews rule the world by proxy because of their influence in the U.S. But they were also quick to point out that outside the U.S. it is different -- there is not as much participation in government, they believe, due to discrimination. The media, as a whole, though, still attracts many Jews no matter where they might live.

Are they worried about an up rise in anti-Semitism in the U.S.? Yes, especially if the war in Iraq continues to go bad -- inevitably that will cause more and more to view the Iraqi situation as an extension of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict, especially after the Israeli raid on Syria.

But they also are optimistic; they believe that even if there begins to be a growing discontent within the U.S. population concerning Israeli, that discontent will not spill over into outright anti-Semitism. Why? Because Jews no longer live in their own little enclaves, they are part and parcel of everyone's everyday life, just like Catholics, Buddhists, Mormans, Asians, and to a growing extent Blacks and Hispanics.

  ¶ 5:29 AM

  The Bush Administration's Full Court Press Against Media Organizations

I am a proactive news gatherer. I'm a CSPAN addict, and I watch BBC News, PBS programming like Lehrer News Hour and Washington Week, ABC nightly news, various Sunday news shows, and select programming on CNN and MSNBC. I also visit numerous news media websites worldwide on a daily basis. Thus, I feel that I am qualified to comment on all of the uproar over the Bush Administration's drive to convince the American people it's the news media that is lying to them about the progress of lack thereof being made in Iraq, rather than his administration.

First, I believe that the media did let the American people down in the prelude to war. For example, there was scant investigative reporting on whether Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction. Yes, there were talking heads opining that Saddam didn't possess any weapons of mass destruction, but no hard-hitting investigation like what is happening now that we are in this quagmire.

Second, when covering the administration's distaste for the current news coverage, this writer feels that maybe the media should be just as pedantic as the administration when it comes to pointing out that the administration also has never given the American people the full coverage on what was and is happening in Iraq.

Next, has anyone ever looked into how much of the alleged "progress" being made in Iraq is just getting the country back to where it was -- prior to the war and/or prior to the devastating sanctions era? It may present a different picture than what we are now getting. For instance I know for a fact that many schools were up and running as soon as the war, or to quote the administration "major combat" was over, and without the help of the U.S.

Also, someone should ask the administration which news coverage it does like? Fox, or perhaps coverage in another country like the UK, Australia, Canada, China...?

Finally, the author does feel (and has felt for a long time) that, in their chase for ratings, television news abdicated its duties to educate the American people. There is virtually no investigative reporting. Instead we get talking heads discussing a situation to death. I know it costs money to get people in the field, but if some of our news organizations allied themselves with other newsgathering organizations I bet they could come up with some good programming. I mean Oprah, in an effort to inform the people about what was really going on prior to the war, did some very nice investigative pieces about Iraq. To gather and present the information she aligned herself with various news organizations. She made ALL of the TV news outlets look bad.
  ¶ 6:28 AM

  The Vanishing Middle Class

We are headed back to a two class society, either rich or poor -- no middle class. Where there is no middle class there can be no democracy!

The gross disparity in wealth between the classes is growing at an alarming rate. So fast in fact, that statisticians are having trouble staying apace with the changes.

In the past, even if you didn't grow wealthy, you at least knew you had a good chance to improve your status -- if not in the middle class, you stood a good chance of moving up, and if already in the middle class, you also knew your financial situation would probably improve over the years. That was because the industrialized businesses within the U.S. churned out better jobs and greater wealth. The belief that tomorrow would be better than today united everyone -- all races and cultural heritages. But those golden days are quickly fading; when you look at statistics it is quickly apparent that all but the top 1% of the U.S. population are losing economic ground.

For the first time since the Great Depression, U.S. workers are not doing better than their parents' generation. The reasons for such a decline are not hard to discern -- in the last decade, middle-class jobs became scarcer, especially within the manufacturing sector. And even companies in other sectors that could create high-paying jobs (e.g. call centers, financial institutional back offices, and tech) are leaving our shores for overseas.

Is there any reason to believe any of these jobs will ever come back? Probably not -- as one astute writer put it "pinpricks become billions."

The U.S. won't be able to rebuild its high-income job base if our government continues at its current business-as-usual pace. The current congressional session was one of the worst for job creation, with dozens of bills that will do nothing to stem the flow of jobs outside the U.S. boundaries. Sure, the politicians say there isn't much we can do, but just as a billion pinpricks have decimated the middle class, the U.S. could influence its business base to create well-paying jobs (or at least stop exporting them) by the same method -- a few dollars here, a few incentives there -- pinpricks maybe -- but those pinpricks can add up.

The Henry Ford Principle
It seems that the U.S. has forgotten the Henry Ford principle: worker's salaries must be sufficient to allow them to purchase the goods produced by the factories (albeit foreign U.S. owned factories). Soon a large majority of the U.S. population will just barely be able to pay for shelter and food. Forget about the extras: cable, cell phones, dining out, DVDs, etc.; much less the necessities such as health care.

It was the well-paid manufacturing jobs that enabled the U.S. to have a vibrant middle class. By moving jobs to foreign sites, we are losing the vital clog in our "capital formation" process.

Just a generation ago, the typical American middle-class family lived on the income of a single breadwinner. Then in recent years it took two working spouses to live the modern middle-class dream, but even that can no longer slow the erosion of the middle class base. In 2003, many times even a two-income household is not enough to survive the skyrocketing cost of housing, health care and college while saving for retirement and shouldering growing debt loads.

Washington Needs to Act
It's time for policymakers to wake up to what's happening and do something about it. The jobless recovery should be a high priority for the next legislative session -- the voting public must write their representatives and let them know that we are worried sick about the severe decline of middle-class wealth occurring throughout the U.S. It is time for Washington to implement broader and more accountable workforce and economic development policies targeted at improving job growth and job quality in the various industry clusters.

The current Bush administration's simplistic idea of tax cuts to stimulate our sick economy overlooks the structural difficulties that have accumulated with decades of globalization. To quote the elder Bush, the real problem is jobs, jobs, jobs — and we are losing them by the millions.

America has foolishly decimated its productive capacity; first with industry-exporting boondoggles like NAFTA, and now with it twin evil outsourcing. While American businesses may save money through cheaper labor costs, the survival of the American middle class is threatened by such short-term economic thinking. How are we going to preserve our national engine of productivity, both human and industrial?

The current rate of industrial contraction is actually impacting U.S. security -- this nation needs to be particularly productive to support an expanded military.

President Bush has repeatedly said that he wants the nation to "create more jobs." But shouldn't he first act to save the ones we already have in place? Even his meager efforts at job creation is a bust because what he isn't telling the American people is that the new jobs being created aren't the $15 to $18 an hour jobs -- they are service jobs -- working at Wal-Marts, Starbucks, Home Depot. Those jobs pay at maximum $10 an hour. And as for the few jobs that aren't in the low paying service industry, what's to stop those jobs from being quickly outsourced or given to foreign workers?

The Frightening Facts
The U.S. manufacturing sector lost 95,000 jobs in April 2003, alone. (Washington Post, 05/04/03)

Financial service companies plan to transfer 500,000 jobs, or 8 percent of total employment, to foreign countries such as India and China over the next five years. Businesses and government also slashed their payrolls by 48,000 workers in April 2003. (Survey released by A.T. Kearney in May 2003)

Economist Michael Burt states that terrorism across the globe has caused "less damage" to the U.S. economy (around $50 billion), compared to the in lost wealth ($6 trillion) that resulted directly from the endemic corporate scandals. ("High Cost of Corporate Crime," Business Finance, October 2002)

Middle class barely treads water -- Millions of middle-class families can no longer afford to live on two incomes. (USA Today, September 2003)

The average U.S. family of four spends 21% less on clothes and 22% less on food -- both at home and in restaurants -- than a similar family did a generation ago. Instead families are spending more on essentials such as day care, housing and health insurance. (The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke, Elizabeth Warren, Amelia Tyagi, Basic Books (2003)).

Call center jobs are being relocated to India at the rate of one company per week. (PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer). In fact, experts estimate that employers will move about 3.3 million white-collar jobs and $136 billion in wages overseas in the next 15 years. To illustrate this point: In mid-February, Motorola announced plans to outsource all of its information technology to India. And a computer business leader recently stated, "Software development in the U.S. will be extinct by mid-2006, with gradual job losses much like the U.S. textile industry experienced in the last quarter of the 20th century."


  ¶ 7:04 PM

  The Hopeless Job Market

For a glimpse of the future of U.S.'s job market, look no further than the American heartland. At the end of World War II, agricultural production still accounted for nearly 10% of gross domestic product. Today, agriculture comprises less than 2% of our GDP.

Manufacturing is going down the same path. Since 2000, more than two million U.S. manufacturing jobs have been eliminated or moved overseas. Manufacturing's role in the economy has dropped from nearly 30% of GDP after World War II to barely 14% in 2002. And, according to Barry Bosworth, an economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., "In the case of a country like the United States, it could get to zero."

Manufacturing workers are being hit with a double whammy -- technological progress and globalization. The U.S. government's adoption of a liberal world trade system and the emergence of nations like China, India and Mexico as centers of manufacturing and technology for U.S. firms spells doom for this group of American workers.

Has anyone taken the time to really understand the economic and political implications of these changes on the United States as a whole?

More and more manufacturers have relocated operations to countries where labor laws and labor costs are more inviting. Industries as diverse as steel, semiconductors, shoes, clothing, toys, furniture, industrial machinery and computer technology have left US's shores in search of more profits.

Now white-collar service jobs are joining the exodus. According to Forrester Research, roughly a third of the 3.3 million service jobs (e.g. customer service and technology help desks) will move overseas by 2015. Technology jobs will soon follow.

The only possible exception to this dire trend is thanks to our Defense Department. For national security reasons, the Defense Department is expected to continue a domestic manufacturing presence, but only in the aerospace and defense industries.

The labor unions are pushing for monetary and policy changes that will protect U.S. manufacturing, which they say create more jobs than service industries. But, so far, the government wants to just retrain workers so they can move to new, and often lower-paying jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in June 2000 the average U.S. manufacturing worker earned an hourly wage rate of $14.32. The displaced workers lucky enough to find employment are now earning on average just under $9.00 an hour.

However, reflecting what seems to be most of Washington's sentiment, Bosworth opines, "It can be painful when you throw people in their 40s and 50s out of work or you close a plant in a small town. But in the long run, our future does not lie in the increase in manufacturing jobs."

Let History be Our Guide
Look at history and you will see that such philosophy is shortsighted. One of the primary reasons the South lost the Civil War was that the North had a ten times greater manufacturing base. One of the reasons the Allies won World War II, was the U.S.'s industrial (read manufacturing) might.

Some will argue that this is a different era because technology rules. But we exporting our technology jobs as well. In doing so all our populace's technological expertise languishes as we encourage other nations to put their population on a steep learning curve so they can fill U.S. businesses' employment needs -- where does that leave us?


Comparison of Union and Confederate Resources as of 1861:

Proportion of nation's population: North 71%, South 29%
Proportion of nation's farm acreage: North 65%, South 35%
Proportion of nation's manufacturing workers: North 92%, South 8%
Proportion of nation's manufacturing output: North 92%, South 8%
Number of factories: North 110,000, South 18,000

Questions to ponder: What material advantages did the North possess on the eve of the Civil War? Think of how these material advantages were decisive in the outcome of the Civil War?

The Jobless Recovery
This is the topic we will discuss next. Until then, here's some food for thought:

In 1933, in the midst of the depression, nearly one third of all Americans were out of work, but even as the unemployment figures improved, many in the work force were working only part time or at a reduced pay.

Sound familiar?



  ¶ 10:31 AM

  Let me introduce myself. I am a news junkie, and the author of a number of technical books. I also am writing a book that provides a satirical look of what it's like to grow old in a youth-oriented culture. So expect this blog to cover a wide-variety of subjects.

The subject weighing on my mind at the moment is the US government's inability to deal with and/or indifference to the threat to our middle class due to a lack of jobs.   ¶ 7:52 AM