i don't like hearing this so i suspect its the truth

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706644.html?hpid=topnews

[Scout26]

I'll save everyone the trouble of having to click on this drive-by posting.

What the article refers to is the the 8 million lost jobs probably won't be coming back, at least not any time in the foreseeable future.

[sanglant]

only when we learn to look within(our shores) will the lost jobs return.

[seeker_two]

What the article refers to is the the 8 million lost jobs probably won't be coming back, at least not any time in the foreseeable future.

Well....I guess that is change..... 

[makattak]

He's right and he's wrong.

Some of the unemployment is structural. But what that means is that enough jobs exist for the people who are unemployed, only the people who are unemployed don't have the skills to do them.

The vast majority of the unemployed don't have that problem. There simply aren't enough jobs for the people who are unemployed. That's cyclical unemployment. (I'll have to find an estimate for this, but from my impression there are 15 million people out of work and there aren't 7.5 million jobs that just can't find someone who can do that job.)

He's right that the jobs aren't coming back, but only so long as people are afraid to invest in the economy, though. He's wrong about the cause or rather, he's trying to point to a lesser cause as the major cause. We won't get the jobs back until the economy grows at 6-8%. With all this idle labor, that increase in productivity should be easy. Even if re-training had to happen, if a business felt the opportunities for growth existed, they would do the retraining. Few businesses are doing that. I wonder why...

[Waitone]

True as long as we go down the road we currently navigate.  It can be fixed quite easily but it would require a political spine republicans have historically failed to show.  The article is all part of the meme of the new reality, lowered expectations, and payback for generations of unfair advantage.  In short, it is collectivist drivel.

[longeyes]

The problem with that strategy is that for the past two decades we have allowed our industrial and technological base to deteriorate as talent and capital were grossly misallocated toward other sectors of the economy, even as other countries were able to attract the investment, the technology and the know-how to serve the U.S. and global markets.

For a time, none of this seemed to matter because we were consuming so much that we were able to support job creation at home as well as overseas. But now that the debt-fueled consumption binge is over, we find that we don't have the companies, the workers or the competitive products to replace the stuff we now import or expand our share of export markets. Even when we do, our companies are disadvantaged by an overvalued currency or unfair trading practices.

That's the money quote.

We've made it easy, way too easy, for the most holy American Consumer.  And consume we have, buying foreign stuff with cheap credit.

But who steered this consumption-driven policy, with all its economic and moral implications and repercussions?

Someone needs to pay attention to the fact that we've carried the load of military expenditures for the "free world" for decades, and while that's spun off many technological benefits it's also been a drain in many ways. Then there's the winking at intellectual property theft, running rampant since the good old days of Ampex...  And why is it that the Japanese can sell millions of cars here but we can't break into their markets?  There's a method to all this madness, and the sooner we unpack the madness and the mad people behind it all the better off we will be.

[MicroBalrog]

Just because the current system doesn't result in economic growth doesn't mean it is impossible. They're trying to get you to lower your expectations.

[Tallpine]

the people who are unemployed don't have the skills to do them

True, I don't have much documented experience at cooking hamburgers.

[Jamisjockey]

Drive by posting with no reason for us to click on the link.  Repost with commentary on why we should follow the link if you want.