I have also tired of these simple minded talk show hosts using the America psyche for their own manipulation and use. None of them are talking about the real issues and problems and why certain thing have happened. Why? Because then someone, an elected politician might then have to explain themselves for the first time.
But more importantly, I recognized a serious problem with these elected officials of ours. These elected politicians basically have just sat back over the last three years and let the jobs leave America. All of them act as if there were no warnings, but I'm going to shock you with some documents from the Labor Department that were made available as early as late 1998 and February, 2002 of the coming job crisis in America.
The following is the first part of a report that appeared in Labor Month In Review in February, 2002. Labor Month in Review is issued monthly by the Department of Labor. Pay special attention to what you are about to read. It makes you wonder after reading this, was anyone in the White House, the Senate or the House of Representatives reading this then?
February 2002, Vol. 125, No. 2
You can view this entire report at the Department of Labor
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/02/contents.htm
Labor month in review
The February Review ( published February, 2002 )
The official first year of the 21st century was remarkably difficult. The end of the first quarter marked the end of a record-setting economic expansion. September witnessed a series of terrorist attacks that deepened and accentuated the ensuing recession. By the fourth quarter, the unemployment rate was higher than it had been in more than 7 years. At the time this is being written, payroll employment had continued to fall and job losses over the period since March 2001 totaled 1.4 million.
David S. Langdon, Terence M. McMenamin, and Thomas J. Krolik report more completely on the labor market in 2001. They find employment declining in a wide range of industries, earnings growth slowing in most occupations, and joblessness rising for all major demographic groups. One particularly important development they note was the relatively small share of job loss accounted for by workers on temporary layoffs and the continued increase in the share accounted for by permanent separations.
This graph published in 1998 projected the loss of jobs in the types of occupations listed.
Keep in mind this only shows the top ten occupations. The numbers are in thousands of jobs.
This graph published in 2000 projected the loss of jobs in the types of occupations listed.
Keep in mind this only shows the top ten occupations.
Pay special attention to the graph below. It shows those in the manufacturing field unemployed from January, 2000, to January, 2004. These graphs are published monthly. Wasn't anyone in Washington seeing these monthly? The numbers are expressed in thousands. As you can see, in December, 2000, losses in manufacturing jobs started to increase and continue. As you can see, by June of 2003, nearly 1.3 million Americans working in manufacturing lost their jobs. Not part-time jobs, but permanent long standing jobs.
Why? Corporations shut down manufacturing facilities in the United States and moved or began purchasing goods made overseas in countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Phillipines, Guam.
Has the Walmart Corporation played a huge role in the loss of American jobs?
Beginning in late 2000, to win Wal-Mart's business, suppliers were forced to close U.S. factories and source overseas, with millions of American jobs lost in the process. Wal-Mart alone accounts for 10 percent of all imports from China, and its shelves bear little trace of the "Buy America" philosophy of its' founder. No other area has felt the "Wal-Mart effect" more than retailing. The retail giant now accounts for 35% of food sales, 30% of consumer staples, 25% of drug store products and 15% of magazines, books and apparel. Entire Chambers of Commerce have been wiped out with the arrival of a new "superstore," while "greeting customers at Wal-Mart" has replaced "hamburger flipping" in the national debate over wages and trade. Because of the large food market Walmart has captured, stores such as Safeway, Albertson's and Kroger are barely surviving. The pricing cutting that Wal-Mart has done in food to "run" the competition out of business makes it impossible for the others to survive without cutting the pay and benefits of unionized employees.
Which brings me to the Union aspect of Walmart. Walmart is very anti-union. Wal-Mart is in fact rabidly anti-union, deploying teams of union-busters from Bentonville to any spot where there a whisper of organizing activity.
A spokesperson for Walmart told a Texas Observer reporter in Jacksonville, Texas in 2000, "While unions might be appropriate for other companies, they have no place at Wal-Mart." This person made this statement after a National Labor Relations Board Hearing on the company's manhandling of 11 meat-cutters who worked at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Jacksonville, Texas.
The 11 employees were sick of working harder and longer for the same low pay. "We signed Union cards, and all hell broke loose," said Sidney Smith, one of the Jacksonville meat-cutters who established the first-ever Wal-Mart union in the U.S. Voting in February 2000, they decided to join the United Food and Commercial Workers. However, eleven days later, Wal-Mart announced that it was closing the meat-cutting departments in all of its stores and would henceforth buy prepackaged meat elsewhere. That is why you now see only pre-packaged meats in Walmart stores.
But the repressive company didn't stop there. Smith was fired for theft after a manager agreed to let him buy a box of overripe bananas for 50 cents, Smith ate one banana before paying for the box, and was judged to have stolen that banana.
So, for all of you workers at Safeway, Albertson's, Krogers, you are in a no win situation. Your companies are truly in financial difficulties and unless you want to go to work at a Walmart store for much less pay, I suggest that you stop the strikes.
Here are some other tidbits you may not now about your favorite Walmart:
Hourly wages paid to undocumented cleaning staff contracted by Wal-Mart were paid $2.00 an hour.
Net worth of the Walton family which owns Wal-Mart, $102 BILLION
67% percent of Wal-Mart workers who can't afford company health insurance
38 is the number of states in which Wal-Mart faces lawsuits for making employees work "off the clock"
25 is the number of states in which Wal-Mart has been charged with worker's rights
25 is the number of states in which Wal-Mart is the largest employer
Now the last one is what everyone should be very concerned about. Walmart is the largest employer in 25 states. What I predicted eight years ago that Walmart would crush the small independent business owners and provide nothing but low paying jobs to the masses has come true. You've done it to yourself America. You wanted cheaper prices, you kept shopping at Walmart and now you've paid the price dearly in jobs lost. And Walmart is not the only chain that has done this. KMART, Target, Dillards, Sears and others.
Did you ever wonder why all those signs that Walmart use to have and brag about in their stores started disappearing about 3 years ago? Back then, they talked about the small businesses they were buying from that Walmart only bought, "MADE IN AMERICA". That should have been your first clue when those signs started disappearing.
What I do not understand is why Walmart has not been investigated by the FTC for Unfair Business Practices.
Furthermore, the National Labor Relations Board should immediately set up elections in Walmart stores for employees to allow them to vote for a union. They should also setup safeguards to prevent Walmart from using strong armed tactics from preventing it. Or has the right to unionize also been taken away from Americans?
Now, you are probably asking, what does Walmart have to do with all the jobs losses in America. Stop and think a minute. 3.1 million Americans have permanently lost jobs over the last three years. 90% of those were in the manufacturing job sector, or 2.6 million jobs lost overseas. Manufacturing jobs are those that make clothing, linen, car parts, kitchenware, candy, etc. Did you know that your favorite Reese's peanut butter candy bar is not made in the U.S. anymore?
And there are now 8.3 million Americans without jobs. 3.1 million of them have lost their trade or job permanently in this country due to corporations moving operations overseas.
In a report at the Department of Labor, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.t02.htm another 969,000 jobs will be lost between now and 2012 in these jobs sectors that have been hit the hardest. In the manufacturing industries, employment is projected to decline at an average annual rate of 7.2 percent between 2000 and 2010. Other industries with projected rates of decline above 3 percent are coal mining, metal cans and shipping containers, and luggage handbags, and leather products, clothing. All five of these industries are in the goods-producing sector. Virtually wiping out those job occupations in this country compared to what they were in this country five years ago.
What I find amazing is how our elected officials have just sat by the last three years and let this happen. What one hears from nearly all of these elected officials that they did not know what was going on. Now you know that was a lie, they did !
Here is a site that lists jobs layoffs by state if you are interested in what has been going on in this country.
The data has been pulled from all fifty state employment departments.
http://www.samnow.org/state-job-loss-stats.htm
If you want to do your own research to find out more disturbing data, go to the this area at the Department of Labor,http://www.bls.gov/emp/empocc1.htm
If you want to see in graph presentation the unemployed by job occupation the last 4 years, go to this page at the Department of Labor. http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab11.htm Keep in mind, your elected officials get this same information monthly.
In recent job employment projections, the Department of Labor is stating that the employed will grow from, 144,013 ( 144 million, 13 thousand ) in 2002 to 165,318 ( 165 million, 318 thousand ) in 2012. That is an increase of only 21,305, ( 21 million, 305 thousand jobs ), or 2.1 million a year. America has lost 3.6 million jobs the last three years. There will be a further projected decline of 7.2% annually in certain job sectors. This 7.2% represents approximately 1 million losses in jobs a year. So the net growth of jobs over the next ten years, 1.1 million jobs a year. And they say the economy is robust and jobs are going to be created to bring things back to where they were. I do not believe so. For example, all you heard about in the media for January was that there were 112,000 new jobs, what you didn't hear was, there was 111,000 that lost their jobs, a net gain of only 1,000 jobs for January, 2004.
What I am very concerned about is that nearly half of the 3.1 unemployed that are collecting unemployment benefits will no longer be able to collect them after May 31, 2004. Their benefits will run out and Congress is very unlikely to extend them again. Reports coming in from organizations that run food banks across the country report a 15% increase in people coming to the food banks in the last 6 months. This is going to increase four fold over the next five years. This is going to worsen as more jobs are lost and not replaced.
I have brought all this to your attention my fellow Americans for truth and other reasons that should be self evident without me having to explain them. I also need to express my feelings about something.
Instead of listening to all this lambasting of candidates of whether Bush went AWOL, or whether Senator Kerry after returning from Viet Nam with his medals, protested with Jane Fonda against the war, Americans need instead be asking these candidates and other elected officials some hard questions.
The future of America is at risk here, the future of your children and your grandchildren is at risk here. Pardon the expression, but get off your duff America and start asking the questions, the right questions. Stop all this madness of this teenage like gossip of candidates. Stop listening to those on talk radio shows that are simply playing your emotions to keep you from the real facts and questions that need to be asked.
I happened to accidently turn the radio on a channel that had Rush Limbaugh on the other day. I could not believe that he was bringing up the sad situation that Senator Kennedy had 30 years ago with the car accident and that woman. What does any of that have to do with the "real" problems of today. Come on my fellow Americans, stop letting these people lead you down a path of not only childish thinking, but sheer ignorance of letting someone like that manipulate you. And no, I am not a a Democrat, nor am I a Republican. I am registered as a Independent, but I am an AMERICAN first who cares about her and her people first, not a party! That is the problem in this country, not enough people caring about AMERICA, but too wrapped up being either a Democrat or Republican.
In closing, I am going to mention a document that I recently came across that has been declassified by the government. It originally was classified as top secret. I believe someone made an error in declassifying this document.
It is a document that entails plans and subversive tactics for the overthrow of the Cuban government in 1962. What is so disturbing about this document is, there are recommendations for U.S. agencies to use various plans like "blowing" up parts of the base in Cuba we have there, to actually using a commercial airliner to be flown into the base to use as an excuse to attack Cuba. These plans were written up by the Joints Chief of Staff at the time for the Secretary of Defense. My fellow Americans, this is disturbing to see that our own government would actually think of doing such things.
If you want to view this document, it is in .pdf format and you will need Acrobat Reader to do so. It is a large document of 770K and will take a couple of minutes to download. You can view it at:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/northwoods.pdf
Do yourself a favor, read this document, you will learn a great deal and will be totally shocked by its contents!
I remember something John F. Kennedy said many years ago said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for you country."
My fellow Americans, America needs you. She is in serious ill health. She has been used and manipulated by greed and by men that are not honorable in the best interest of you. It is time that you, each of you take back your America. And the only way you can do that is in the upcoming elections. Get out there and vote. Start attending political functions and start asking the right questions. Write your present Senators and Congressman and start asking the right questions and most importantly, demand a reply. You are paying their salaries.
If you have not read my last column, What Americans Don't Know Is Keeping Them From Seeing The Truth.
, please do so.
