[lbo-talk] employment

[Cliff Staples]

I had to chuckle this morning at the headline on productivity increases in 
the business section of my local paper.  It said:  "Employers Suck More out 
of Workers."  I was amazed and amused to see such an honest description of 
what "productivity" is fundamentally all about.  But it also made me think 
that this straightforwardness suggests that people no longer feel quite the 
need to hide the truth about how capitalism works, suggesting further a 
smug confidence in the powerlessness of those workers to do much about it.

In any case, Doug, when you say "we're in trouble," well who is "we?"  If 
productivity is increasing and labor is weak, then capital gets increased 
profits instead of workers getting increased wages.  So who cares about how 
many jobs are created or destroyed?  Aren't there enough foreign markets to 
soak up the crap unemployed Americans can't afford?

Cliff

p.s. What's the profit rate doing the past 18 months (I know, look at the 
front page of LBO...)?

At 12:09 PM 9/5/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>This morning's U.S. employment report sucked. The survey of employers 
>showed a loss of 93,000 jobs, when flat to slightly up was a reasonable 
>expectation. We've now had seven consecutive months of job loss, something 
>we've never seen outside a recession. The workweek was short and almost 
>every industrial sector shed jobs. The survey of households showed a 
>shrinkage in the labor force - the entire reason for the decline in 
>unemployment from 6.2% to 6.1%. The share of the adult population working 
>was flat, and remains at a low for this cycle. People are buying stuff, 
>but it's not with their paychecks - it's all tax refunds and mortgage 
>refinancing. If the job market doesn't recover soon, we're in trouble.
>
>Doug
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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