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IBM announces that it will expand jobs in the U.S. by 25,000. This is only one of several such announcements in recent days. All good news and a remarkable turnabout for our jobless, moribund economy with an estimated 9.7% real unemployment (by the U-6 measure).
Trump is partnering with corporate America to bring back jobs. The real jewel in the crown will be Apple building a domestic plant to assemble phones, something Mr. Trump has been asking Apple chairman Tim Cook to do.
The Chinese can't be too happy with the election results. A man who forcefully opposes lopsided trade deals with China and Mexico, who campaigned on bringing jobs back to America... from China... who will improve American military readiness after eight years of decline. And who wasn't afraid to take a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan.
But to get America working again, we need to take the factories from somewhere, mainly China and Mexico. By lowering taxes and regulations, notably in the area of environmental and energy, we will lower the cost basis for building and operating plants. By renegotiating--and enforcing--trade treaties, we will make it more profitable to export, and slightly less profitable to import.
Some warn this will lead to recession if not a global crash as with the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which is blamed for deepening the Great Depression. However, increasing domestic economic activity is hardly the route to Depression. On the contrary, by establishing a stronger domestic economy with more and better jobs, the U.S. inoculates itself against economic downturns.
IBM announces that it will expand jobs in the U.S. by 25,000. This is only one of several such announcements in recent days. All good news and a remarkable turnabout for our jobless, moribund economy with an estimated 9.7% real unemployment (by the U-6 measure).
Trump is partnering with corporate America to bring back jobs. The real jewel in the crown will be Apple building a domestic plant to assemble phones, something Mr. Trump has been asking Apple chairman Tim Cook to do.
The Chinese can't be too happy with the election results. A man who forcefully opposes lopsided trade deals with China and Mexico, who campaigned on bringing jobs back to America... from China... who will improve American military readiness after eight years of decline. And who wasn't afraid to take a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan.
But to get America working again, we need to take the factories from somewhere, mainly China and Mexico. By lowering taxes and regulations, notably in the area of environmental and energy, we will lower the cost basis for building and operating plants. By renegotiating--and enforcing--trade treaties, we will make it more profitable to export, and slightly less profitable to import.
Some warn this will lead to recession if not a global crash as with the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which is blamed for deepening the Great Depression. However, increasing domestic economic activity is hardly the route to Depression. On the contrary, by establishing a stronger domestic economy with more and better jobs, the U.S. inoculates itself against economic downturns.
To understand what a trivial thing this is -- except in PR world -- consider that 5,099,000 people began a new job this past October and that there were 5,534.000 advertised job openings as of the end of the month.
To understand what a trivial thing this is -- except in PR world -- consider that 5,099,000 people began a new job this past October and that there were 5,534.000 advertised job openings as of the end of the month.
It's not trivial to those 25,000 people, nor to the supermarkets, real estate brokers, service providers, car dealers, schools, and departments of revenue which will all benefit. Economic activity has a ripple effect.
As for "advertised job openings" how many of those are real--half? Two thirds? The U-6 unemployment rate is 9.7% nationally, and much higher in certain regions and among certain ethnicities. We desperately need more economic growth to put people back to work.
High cost of living comes from overly large and highly regulatory government, over taxation, and over litigation. All of this needs to be addressed in the coming years. Tort lawyers donate heavily to the Democrats; with a Republican majority in both state and federal government, it's possible that we can finally put a limit on frivolous lawsuits and frivolous regulations that have choked off economic activity.
It's not trivial to those 25,000 people, nor to the supermarkets, real estate brokers, service providers, car dealers, schools, and departments of revenue which will all benefit. Economic activity has a ripple effect.
Pointless propaganda sometimes has a ripple effect as well. In the grand scheme of things, promises are worth very little and 25,000 jobs would be nothing more than small potatoes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
As for "advertised job openings" how many of those are real--half? Two thirds?
Why would so many people pay to advertise job openings that didn't exist?
Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
The U-6 unemployment rate is 9.7% nationally...
It's actually 9.3% -- the same as it was in August of 1996.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
...and much higher in certain regions and among certain ethnicities. We desperately need more economic growth to put people back to work.
Perhaps the GOP should have tried to support the recovery then. The Fed has been pushing monetary policy to its limits while Congress choked the life out of fiscal policy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
High cost of living comes from overly large and highly regulatory government, over taxation, and over litigation.
I pay enough attention to the real world to know that all that is made-up partisan bunk and bluster.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
...with a Republican majority in both state and federal government, it's possible that we can finally put a limit on frivolous lawsuits and frivolous regulations that have choked off economic activity.
More than half the states already have limits on tort awards. All these really do is limit the amount of penalty that local juries can assess against reckless corporations who have knowingly and deliberately put their customers at risk. These limits are just Get-out-of-jail-free cards for the worst sorts of corporate criminals. But many people do root for the bad guys.
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I read the article out of curiosity to see exactly what IBM is making/doing these days. I haven't seen or heard about them since the mainframe 4341 went away 20 years ago. Unfortunately there were no clues given, so I did further research and found this. They added 70,000 people in the last year, mostly through acquisitions, but lost more than that.
In the grand scheme of things, promises are worth very little and 25,000 jobs would be nothing more than small potatoes.
The larger number of issues are:
1. It hasn't been made clear to what extent these are all new roles. I can recall my own national government flogging the creation of what was a significant number of jobs to our economy only for most of them to be either taken up immediately by people relocating from the other side of the country and plants elsewhere in the EU.
2. It hasn't been made clear to what extent the creation of these roles might be offset by losses elsewhere.
"We are hiring because the nature of work is evolving - and that is also why so many of these jobs remain hard to fill," Ms Rometty wrote in USA Today.
"As industries from manufacturing to agriculture are reshaped by data science and cloud computing, jobs are being created that demand new skills - which in turn requires new approaches to education, training and recruiting."
3. Rather importantly it hasn't been made clear what the nature of these roles are going to be. From the broader discussion outlined above though you can be quite sure that a substantial amount are going to require STEM skills, which are currently undersupplied.
4. This is good for the economy. Kudos to the Trump administration if it happens to be as a result of prospective changes in United State's industrial policy. But whatever number of jobs are being created here are probably destined for people with MSc's in areas fields like Data Science and Cloud Computing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pub-911
Why would so many people pay to advertise job openings that didn't exist?
To understand what a trivial thing this is -- except in PR world -- consider that 5,099,000 people began a new job this past October and that there were 5,534.000 advertised job openings as of the end of the month.
There have been a few articles in recent days that touched on the newly recognized "presidential tweet risk" that investors and public companies now face. I guess this is another approach that companies might be taking to address it.
Rometty is continuing what is emerging as a formula among technology companies: in conjunction with meetings with Trump in his Manhattan tower, pledge to create jobs and invest billions of dollars in the U.S., even if the plans had already been in the works since before he was elected. The advantage for companies is that it can deflect criticism from the new administration that the industry is shifting jobs offshore, while also giving Trump a way to take credit for job creation goals that may have little to do with his election.
Doesn't have to be. Maybe Apple could stash away "only" $50 billion instead of $216 billion in cash?
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