"Bringing back American manufacturing isn’t the real challenge, anyway. It’s creating good jobs for the majority of Americans who lack four-year college degrees."

...............Mr. Reich: Please clue us in as to where the "good jobs" are for people with 4-year college degrees. Most of the ones I know are now working $8.00-$10.00 per hour jobs with no benefits and tens of thousands of dollars in educational debt. With a real unemployment/underemployment rate of 22%, your article sounds delusional.

...............The problem is that the financial terrorists are still in business!

The American people will have to just "suck it up". In case everyone missed it, we are on our way to a "global" economy. Flat wages, flat prices, flat regulations, etc. If the second largest economy in the world is China and the median income there is around $4,400 a year, do you really think the Chinese are going to raise the income of their workers to the level of U.S. workers? No, the median income of workers in the U.S.(relative to GDP) will be lowered further. This has been happening for decades and will continue for decades. Of course, now that people don't have access to credit cards like they did for the past 20 years or so, they are starting to notice. If Wall Street were smart, they'd start giving away credit cards again and people will go on with their consuming and not care about America's obvious decline to a Western backwater nation. At least until the next bail-out when there might not be any public workers left to blame.

Even the once-mighty United Auto Workers has been forced to accept pay packages for new hires at the Big Three that provide half what new hires got a decade ago. At $14 an hour...

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Forced?

Not forced, Bob.

The union bosses worked in tandem with the Obama administration to reduce wages, benefits and eliminate the right of members to strike in order to preserve their high salaries which comes from collecting dues.

The UAW bosses have happily allowed themselves to becomes fully co-opted to Barack Obama and the Democrats in order to save their high-paying jobs.

Had a nationwide general strike been allowed to proceed you can bet that new hires would be making a helluva' lot more than $14/hr and health care benefits would be restored.

But the union bosses at the instruction of Barack Obama made sure that a general strike was stopped before it could begin.

==The problem is the declining power of American workers to share in the gains of the American economy.==

I have this picture in my head of Robin Hood and his merry men (in tights) waiting in ambush with arrows notched in their bows. Suddenly, there's the sound of horns; it's the King's horny men riding through Sherwood Forest. Bows are stretched to max, arrows ready to fly.

Into view comes a convoy of armoured trucks bearing the logo of =One Percent $ecurtiy $ervice=. From the roof, a bullhorn blares the statement: "Workers of the world go screw yourselves".
Trylon

"""Mitt Romney says he’ll “work to bring manufacturing back” to America by being tough on China, which he describes as “stealing jobs” by keeping value of its currency artificially low and thereby making its exports cheaper.

Rick Santorum promises to “fight for American manufacturing” by eliminating corporate income taxes on manufacturers and allowing corporations to bring their foreign profits back to American tax free as long as they use the money to build new factories."""

When I see a pack of lies like this I just want to make a couple or few dung pies so I can shove the samo shit any rethuglican shovels out right back into their face. The softer the stool the better. Sorry, but I also fail to see any president since rear-end ronnie reagan that was NOT a republican and for those I would have some special soft pies made up for them. And there are more than a good share of congress that deserve special consideration and need their piece of those pies.

And Reich is correct about this is election year flummery. So the lies are expected just as we also witness the 'magic numbers' flying all over the place as in lowering unemployment, the ostensible economic indicator of the dow jones and all these new jobs appearing out of thin air just like when the fed 'prints' up a new batch of money out of thin air. Abracadabra hocus-pocus we all understand from the M$M how ostensibly real this is as is intended. But just wait for the day after the election and see what happens for real reality.

"That’s 19 percent higher than the pre-recession peak five years ago."

So why do they need more tax break incentives and subsidies? While workers are expected to work longer and for less without protections.

As to the Chinese threat, as I remember it, it was US corporations like Apple, and Nike that created it, and US consumers and the Big Boxes that support its boom. What are we fickle. Are we now "over" China? I hope our new "dates" (trade partners) are aware how unreliable our afinities are.

"President has not promised that if reelected he’d push for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to organize a union. He had supported it in the 2008 election but never moved the legislation once elected."

Well what if he does promise? What would that mean given you've already told us what he did with his last promise? This remark would be more fitting coming from a character in "Alice in Wonder Land" or "Through the Looking Glass" than in a serious article on politics and economics. Which reminds me, I am reading a serious book, "The Political Economy of Media and Power" edited by Jeffery Klaehn, which is fascinating.

The problem is brutal, extractive Capitalism--which we have been taught to worship as the only economic choice. Yes, we have iPhones, Pads, etc. But we all know what price we have paid--directly, and in the form of human, environmental, and social devastation. Capitalism cares nothing for its workers, their jobs, their children, their ability to live, their country, their very world itself--and soon will be able to do without them, as Reich says. Maximum profit at any cost is the sole value. But where are the shoppers? OVERSEAS! WE can just wither away. Imagine if our businesses had refused to contract with the Chinese dictatorship to use their slaves to make our iPods, etc. Imagine if we refused to buy the Saudi's oil. Etc. We must ask ourselves: would we like to have a small but sufficient job, say, in a co-op, one we could feel good about doing, and breathe clean air, drink clean water, eat uncontaminated food, not be in the National Guard (to be shipped to the next war), and give the kids a fine education, OR: would we like a big TV and an iPhone and live in a desert of pollution and perpetual war on some "enemy.?" I understand what a terrible choice this is for an American, who does not yet live in one of the world's huge, disgraceful slums. (Full disclosure: I have a big TV, a new laptop, my wife has an iPad. I live in a city whose air is dangerously polluted, and whose educational system is near the bottom rank). Capitalism being what it is, the idea that it can rage on forever on Planet A is a pipe dream: In default of some such choice--as above--its death-throes will be gruesome in the extreme, first for the poor, then for the rest of the 99%, last for the Overlords (tho they must think they will live forever, somewhere, somehow...).

Now that the "job creators" have seen, for the last 4-5 years especially, that they can continue unchallenged to rake in profits while laying off thousands of workers, cutting back on benefits and expecting twice the work from half of their former employee population they aren't about to start hiring again or restoring benefits in any statistically meaningful way. Why should they?

Those who are (still) working full-time have been subtly conditioned into feeling fortunate to have a job AT ALL and those who are still trying to find a decent job are giving up in increasing numbers.

What has happened in this country over the last 5-6 years in particular didn't just transpire out of nowhere. The slow but steady decimation of the working middle class has been a prime objective of the profit-obsessed and increasingly globalized corporate sector since the 1980's. It is absolutely appalling.

Jobs, jobs, jobs! We need more jobs! None of these politicians are serious about creating a situation where job growth is possible. The jobs that need to be done—rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, for instance—go undone.

Perhaps the question needs to change. Instead of asking how to get more jobs going, the question should be how to create an equitable society where less work is necessary, where necessary work is given a priority, and not just work "to make it." In our present environment, if you want to keep a job, you'd better do what you're GD told, because there are plenty out there looking for yours, so keep your ethics out of the matter.

Remember that old promise that automation, robotics, and computerization would give us more leisure time, freeing the common man from endless toil? As we’re seeing now, people are being freed from endless toil, but ending up unemployed, despised, and on the streets wasn’t quite the promise made. Those who are “making it” are working as many hours as please their employers, going into debt to go to school to be retrained or fit to be rehired, and there’s just no time for the children, for the community, for the private life. The children and the older people are taken care of by the experts—and don’t question that, because you’re talking jobs!

Saying we need people to buy more products to stimulate the economy and thus produce more jobs is a questionable solution. The solution that drove this economy this past century has been planned obsolescence, both in terms of stoking desire for the new and in deliberating designing products to break down. Stimulating the economy by going shopping was pushed for decades; this most ballyhooed activity replaced leisure-time ones such as intellectual pursuits, learning the arts, or producing things oneself for pleasure and utility. How many people even know how to cook anymore? Ever thought you could make your own clothes and save money? Hah! As a pretty good seamstress, I can tell you that just buying the materials alone will be far more expensive than going out to buy something readymade, even if you’re willing to accept the crap offered by the likes of Jo-Ann Fabrics. The best solution is to buy used stuff, but then you get branded weird for not wearing the latest designs.

Why produce quality products that last when everyone can be driven to desire the next new thing, which stimulates the economy? The effects of this overproduction on the environment go largely unnoticed, even on sites such as this. When was the last time you saw an article on the issue of our growing garbage dumps on CD?

When I was younger, I could buy a fairly well made old car for four hundred dollars or so and get it fixed for a reasonable amount now and then, use the car for 5-6 years when necessary, and rely otherwise on public transit. But the automakers increasingly make parts from plastics and/or downsized materials, and there’s no reasonable way to fix them. Public transit has been cut severely, and promising demonstrations of transit lines running on electricity have been excised. If you think that perhaps there’s a bit of suppressed technology in engine technology, you’re branded a lunatic as well, despite these little noticed outbreaks of people showing that cars actually can be run on water.

Production and distribution of products requiring fewer and fewer workers are here to stay, and don’t say anything against it because Homeland Security has Luddites on their list of threats to Amerika. But assuming that our answer out is more production jobs is lunacy; we have to find a better, saner way. Try to find a university that is going to educate you in these ways. No doubt there are some out there; how many have any government funding?

All i can say is that it is the 21st century and so much of this talk about manufacturing reminds me of the industrial revolution and all that implies. I never even read articles that are actually written by people who are in that job market, to be honest.

And i think the meme that nation states are even real is the illusion. It is another pretense, in my opinion. Going backward is never a solution. That is what i have found, anyway. If the 'good old days' - which lasted about a second in world history time - and just who on this planet were those days actually 'good' for - were the 'right' road, then we wouldn't have ended up where we are now, would we?

That path has played itself out and still is. Why do people in this country always long for the post WWII years? It has never been real, as far as i can tell, but now the pretense has been ripped off. I think things have gone exactly as the power brokers have planned for quite a while now. Yes, the disparity of wealth is obscene. But the middle class was short lived as far as i can tell. I think it was a fluke and then 'they' figured out a way around it.

What sort of jobs is Reich alluding to here? I don't quite understand where he ends up. Anyway, i just felt like posting here, although i am far from an expert in this area, that's for sure.

Not only is the elite economy a slave racket exploiting the people, it's also extremely hard to analyze. In contrast to that, not only is the people's economy the people's salvation, but it's also easy to understand. Because it makes sense. The dots connect very clearly, so what's good is good and what's bad is bad.

So when the elites say they are bringing manufacturing back to Merka, we have to read between the lines, and try to put it into context. To make matters worst, we have the fake contestants, Repuks and Demoks, spouting different lines to read between. Twice the work. It's all a huge mess, largely explaining why Merkans don't involve themselves in public policy. It's very deliberately complicated, to create high-end jobz for people like Robert Reich. He needs the prestige of Berkeley, and Berkeley needs him to spout more gibberish, so it can gleam better.

Reich helps us read between the lines of Repuk propaganda, but his agenda is to get Demoks into the whitey house, so the people can be enslaved by the state, by lawyers, by other coordinators/professionals, and by labor unions, and less by korporate CEOs, militants and religious zealots. But slavery is slavery. We the people do not discriminate between the different flavors.

Some elites embrace manufacturing as something new. Novelty itself excites people, and elites readily exploit novelty when that helps them exploit the people. They notice that the press in particular gets excited about new developments. Merkan manufacturing is new because China is getting more of das kapitalist inflation, where das kapital addicts people on material opiates and they spend mo mo munny for opiates, pushing the slave wages higher.

So now the elites put their evil finger in the wind again and found the Merkan deep south a newly beaten and ripe population for new levels of exploitation. The Repuk element swoops in for the kill, while the Demok element licks its lips for fringe opportunities, just like in the military-imperial enterprise. Neither is interested in helping those people move toward universal enlightenment. Universal enlightenment, solidarity, equity and justice is the people's agenda, the crucifix to the vampire elites.

New developments in elite spheres fascinate some people. But the real news of the day is that many more people are starting to Occupy Their Own Minds, and gaining awareness that their own economy, the people's economy, is much simpler to understand, much broader, coherent and stable in its benefits, and much more fulfilling to own and operate. We need the simplicity, the stability, the fulfillment, and many other benefits that the "supply-side" ekonomy cannot deliver, Robert Reich. News to you, old boy. Secure your battlements. The wind and rain are going to beat on them and there will be fewer slaves to buttress them for you.

"But American manufacturing won’t be coming back."

Really? This guy pontificates and we are supposed to accept his opinion without even considering the implicit assumptions buried in it? The assumptions that global capitalist ideologues want us to buy. Who decided this is all inevitable, the same group-think PhD's in economics that created the global mess we find ourselves in? How much credibility do these "experts" have?

We are talking about an economic system... a "system". Systems are designed by human beings for a purpose, they are not immutable laws of nature (especially when talking about *economics*). What is the purpose of an economic system? Who decides the purpose, the 1%?

Isn't a self sufficient economy a worthy goal? I'd bet the Greeks would say yes. Bringing back manufacturing just to eliminate dependence on external actors is reason enough.

Why are we supposed to "compete" against Chinese working for $4/hour? To prove our allegiance to the principles of capitalism? An economic system that provides the opportunity for citizens to earn a respectable livelihood is reason enough to bring back manufacturing.

What happens when the global oil supply for shipping drys up or becomes prohibitively expensive? The entire global economic system falls apart. Again Greece may be a preview of things to come.

Use tariffs, import quotas, incentives for local manufacturers and farmers, anything that works. Encourage efficiency within the national economy, but don't just throw the national economy away for the love of some economic ideology. This is stupid. No capitalist plays by the phony rules of capitalism anyway, we see blatant evidence of this every day.

the manufacturing jobs will return when Americans are willing to work cheaper than the Chinese.

"The real issue isn’t how to get manufacturing back. It’s how to get good jobs and good wages back. They aren’t at all the same thing."

Pure snake oil bullshit by one of Bill Clinton's architects of neo-liberal "absolute advantage free trade," which has nothing to do with classical capitalist free trade theory whatsoever.

Reich is a pig, a statistical cover-up artist and a liar de majeur. When US manufacturing job losses from NAFTA became too embarrassing, Slick Willy ordered Reich to stop keeping stats on those losses and no other president has allowed their Sec. Labor to compile agricultural or industrial sector-by-sector job loss statistics due to "free trade" ever since. The current "free trade" regime sans labor or environmental protections is THE biggest Bowie knife in the spinal cord of the remnant American middle-class, working poor and unemployed in U.S. history. It is THE primary reason why this country has not created enough good paying, well benefited jobs in 17 years, and will not do so as long as that treaty regime continues in its present form.

Reich is spouting the same hysterical neo-liberal lies as that egregious liar and hypocrite Thomas Friedman. He's sucking hard on the DLC trying to push them into pushing Obysmal into giving him a place on his team.

DON'T BUY REICH'S LIES. HE IS A PROVEN TRAITOR TO THE WORKING CLASS AND STILL DEFENDS HIS FAILED "FREE TRADE" GIBBERISH.

Tell us something we don't know? Solutions! Where are high paying jobs going to come from? How do we the people wrestle the power from the corporate conglomerates controlling media and government officials both elected and non elected.

The Clinton administration signed many bills that allowed all this to happen without a thought to the American worker? A Rhodes Scholar would of known the outcome of those trade deals he signed, deregulation of financial world, deregulation of media. It has been a well orchestrated plan of transferring the wealth and power to a few and democrats if they ever were honest were told to come aboard or get ran over and their family would be ran over too.

yes i have the same concerns with Obama. he has yet to reinstate posse comatatus and habeas corpus. both fundamental corner posts of the constitution. so why would he not demand they pay decent wages since it was tax payers money who bailed them out. ahh... yes how quickly they forget

it's great to chirp about the jobs GM is creating, but for them to make 7 billion in profits and then say screw the people who did it! just remember they think the same of their customers, just another way for the guys at the top to get rich.

they also froze the pension for their white collar workers too. basically letting them off the hook there as well and letting them scrape off the surplus for the executives pension fund and leaving the workers to deal with retirement themselves. they did this to the blue collar workers a few years back. check the book out "retirement heist" by Ellen Schultz. so once again the big wigs at the top pad their pockets at the expense of the workers

An exchange on globalisation:

This brings me to the final and perhaps most important point. I think that you tend to view the impact of globalisation too narrowly. Globalisation does not simply mean that transnational companies are able to shift their activities to force down the wages and conditions of the working class. It has a far broader impact. It poses an immense political crisis for the bourgeoisie. The very development of transnational production, the development of a truly global international financial system, which imposes its demands in every country, has undermined the political institutions through which the bourgeoisie in both the advanced capitalist countries and the so-called Third World has regulated the class struggle over the past half century.

This has decisive implications for the development of the struggle for socialism. It is wrong and completely one-sided to conceive of the struggle for socialism as arising out the economic demands of the working class, as if the struggle for political power somehow emerges from the struggle for wages, conditions and immediate demands.

History itself reveals that the development of the socialist revolution arises from great political developments and crises, in which social discontent over wages, working conditions and democratic rights begin to find expression. The Russian Revolution did not arise out of the wages struggles of the Russian working class, but from the political crisis of the tsarist regime. Likewise the revolutionary situations which developed in Germany in 1919 and 1923 emerged out of a political crisis. The Spanish Civil War arose not from wage and other demands but from the rebellion organised by the armed forces under Franco.

Today, the globalisation of production has created the conditions where once again great political conflicts, in which broad masses will be directly engaged in struggles over the control of society and the production and distribution of economic wealth, are being placed on the agenda...

...In Europe, globalised production has shattered the old political structures. The parties which once dominated the scene no longer command the support they enjoyed in the past and we find the re-emergence of fascist parties and tendencies.

Many more political shocks and surprises are in store, especially in a situation where all indications point to a major financial crisis in the US and the prospect of a recession...(2000)--Nick Beams

http://wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/corr-n24.shtml

Reich sez: "(Obama) supported (the Employee Free Choice Act) in the 2008 election but never moved the legislation once elected."

***
No, he did not support it. He SAID he supported it. Two different things.

It's quite easy to know where Obama stands on everything: when he opens his mouth, hit the mute button. Then watch what he signs.