Has the recession created a "lost generation" of permanently unemployed?

Great Debates
281

That certainly was not the entirely of the discussion and with all due respect in the very post you cite I specifically state I am not defending illegal immigration.

Ridiculous. That is, of course, absurdly false, because most jobs simply can’t be done to the same level of aptitude by someone fresh off the boat.

But if it’s trivially easy to find someone who CAN do your job exactly as well as you can for half the price - and frankly, the legality of the immigrant is not relevant, because if an illegal immigrant could do it then so could a legal one - you absolutely are overpaid. How could you possibly argue otherwise? If your skills are so worthless that I can find someone half as expensive who can do just as good a job, isn’t it obvious you’re overpaid?

No immigrant could do my job as well as I do for half the price (any who could do my job as well as I do wouldn’t do it for half the price.) That’s true of most jobs. Most jobs just aren’t that easily replaced by cheaper labour or else they already WOULD be replaced. Hell, you can’t find anyone to replace anyone I know for half the price and expect as good a job.

282

I’m almost 38 and I still haven’t found a job I want to work the rest of my life at. I also know a fair number of people older than me who lost jobs in the past few years.

The thing is that at my age and experience level, I should be interviewing for pretty senior level management jobs. It would be pretty weird if I were competing for the same jobs as 24 year olds.

283

For one, since I’m in my late thirties and dinking my way through college, with the intent of getting a master’s and becoming a therapist, I REALLY hope the OP is totally wrong.
If I’m a therapist, and if I like it as much as I think I will, I won’t want to retire. I like to work.

For two, I’ve suggested we raise trade barriers with the intent of returning well-paid manufacturing jobs to the U.S. ** People keep telling me that this is nuts, and will make our economic situation worse.**

However, when we had fairly high import barriers and high taxes on the upper income bracket, we had a huge middle class and expanding opportunities-my parent’s generation. My generation and the ones following me have seen a downhill slide, and, you know, we’re deeply angry about it. We’re not being offered the opportunity to develop prosperity or security…only debt, insecurity, struggle, and a chance to prostrate ourselves for a job that may evaporate next week.

I expect to maybe make it into low middle class, if I’m lucky. I don’t expect to retire-I know I won’t have the money, so even if I have disabling health issues, I will have to work full time.
There’s a few good careers out there, but there’s more people than good careers. So, life is not good for us, and we’re angry. Not necessarily wanting a handout, just the wealth-building opportunity that America’s supposed to be…and kind of hasn’t been.

Oh, please don’t tell me how we American poor have it so much better than people in the third world. (a)I know that, and (b) I’m not paying bills in Pakistan. Also ©, it makes it pretty obvious you haven’t tried to live on what a U.S. service employee makes lately, and therefore don’t know what you’re talking about. It also (d) makes you look like an uncaring douche.

So if tariffs won’t give us good jobs what will? You shouldn’t just throw most of a generation of people away, declaring them superfluous to industrial requirements.
What can we do to expand the economy for people in their twenties and thirties, instead of having it forever shrink and pinch us harder?
Don’t just tell me I’m wrong, I want your ideas here.

284

We’re about the same age. Curiously, the “anger” you claim exists seems to be invisible to me, even though I’m no upper class twit (in fact, I don’t even KNOW anyone who’s upper class.)

With due respect, have you considered the possibility that being in your late 30s and still “dinking” your way through college might not be the best plan to wealth and retirement?

I just went to a high school reunion a few weeks ago, so everyone was about my age (38) and if there’s widespread anger out there I did not see it. Indeed, everyone seemed to be doing okay for themselves. But most of them, ya know, got college/trade school/university/etc. out of the way 15 years ago. They guy who owns his own auto shop finished his apprenticeship when he was 22 and has been working at it for 16 years.

First of all, correlation isn’t causation. It’s much easier to grow one’s economy in percentage terms when the world is rebuiding after a Depression and a catastrophic world war. I could point to a thousand other complication factors, if I must, but I shouldn’t have to.

Secondly, were they richer? Really?

I’m 38. My father turned 38 in 1982. Per capita income in 1982 was only 65% of today’s levels (that’s adjusted for inflation.)

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104547.html

There’s been a downhill slide for the last two years, but we’re in a recession. The overall trend line, over the long term, is up, and has been for a long time. The average American (or Canadian, in my case) is richer than he was a generation ago, and they were richer than the generation before that.

The same things that have always created wealth; ingenuity and hard work, supported by peace, a well organized physical and financial infrastructure, and the enforcement of the rule of law. Give a large number of people a stable, peaceful country with working institutions and the freedom to engage in industry, commerce and to live their lives as they see fit, wealth grows. Not perfectly, because you do have recessions and wars and natural disasters, but over the long haul it has worked marvelously. Regrettably, there’s no instant solution. It’s a long, gradual process. But it works better than anything else.

If tariffs are so great, why are you not calling for interstate trade barriers? Seems an easy solution.

285

Because the US Constitution doesn’t allow states to impose duties on other states.

Article I Section 10 - Powers prohibited of States

I bitched about this very thing when I found I had to pay a smog fee in California–even though it passed the emissions test.

286

You’re not wrong. No one has any ideas.

287

I know. It’a a rhetorical question, which has, in all the debates we’ve had on this subject, never been satisfactorily answered; if free trade is so bad for the USA, why is free trade with the other states not bad for the individual states? If tariffs saved jobs, wouldn’t the government be in a rush to amend the constitution to allow interstate tariffs?

288

Because American labor can flow between different states a hell of a lot easier than they can between different nations.

289

And yet we’re being told by the protectionists that unchecked illegal immigration - e.g. the free flow of labour - is equally problematic. Funny, that.

290

That’s a bit of a non sequitur, Rick. Should the elected government of the United States not look out for the best interests of American workers?

291

I am puzzled about the arguments (regarding the exchange value of the Chinese currency (Renmenbi). The simple fact is: the industries that the USA USED to have (textiles, shoes, tools, mechanical parts, etc.) are GONE-no amount of revaluation (of the renmenbi) will ever change that-the factories that made this stuff are gone, machines sold off/scrapped, and the expertise gone. Even if the Chinese raised prices substantially, these products will never be made in the USA anymore-the factors of production are long gone. So we will always have an enormous trade deficit with China.

292

Of course. What we’re debating is what IS in the best interest of American workers.

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
I am puzzled about the arguments (regarding the exchange value of the Chinese currency (Renmenbi). The simple fact is: the industries that the USA USED to have (textiles, shoes, tools, mechanical parts, etc.) are GONE-no amount of revaluation (of the renmenbi) will ever change that-the factories that made this stuff are gone, machines sold off/scrapped, and the expertise gone. Even if the Chinese raised prices substantially, these products will never be made in the USA anymore-the factors of production are long gone. So we will always have an enormous trade deficit with China.
[/QUOTE]

Errr… that doesn’t make any sense. You wouldn’t have a trade deficit with China if you sold them other things. China does import U.S. stuff, you know, just not as much as they export.

And why does the USA need a trade surplus with China? Obviously, in the long run, the USA can’t forever run an overall trade deficit with the rest of the world, but its trade deficit or surplus with one given nation isn’t particularly important. If the USA has a deficit with Country A with an offsetting surplus with Country B, it doesn’t matter to the USA.

I have a very substantial trade deficit with the grocery store; so far my deficit with them is entirely one-sided. I given them money and they give me foodstuffs; I’ve never been able to sell them any food. But I don’t care, because my trade deficit with Fortino’s is more than offset by my trade surplus with my employer.

293

You are puzzled because you appear to be factually ignorant on the subject you are arguing. The simple fact is that there are currently about a half a million textile workers in the USA as of 2008. I’ll let you read the rest of the BLS report for yourself.

294

Where on earth do people get this myth that NOTHING is made in the U.S anymore?

295

It was enough of it or do you think I’m mischaracterizing what you said? I may be mischaracterizing how you feel but I have no way of knowing that based on what you wrote. In a nutsheel, in that particular tangent of this thread, I said that illegal aliens created downward pressure on wages, and your response was that if an ilelgal alien can do your job for that much elss then youa re overpaid. My response is that this is true for every job.

And then you go on to defend it.

Ridiculous. That is, of course, absurdly false, because most jobs simply can’t be done to the same level of aptitude by someone fresh off the boat.
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Name one job that cannot be done by someone from another country? I guess there might be jobs taht are so uniquely American that only an American could do it but taking doctors as an example, did you know we import doctors? That’s right we import doctors from foreign countries to serve as primary care physicians in underserved areas because our domestically produced doctors all want to be specialists in NYC.

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And my point is that if this is your standard, everyone is overpaid. What do you do?

Medicine? You think the doctors coming our of Xinhua University are any worse than the ones coming out of our medical schools?

Engineering? You think the enigneers coming out of Indias top 7 engineering schools are any worse than the ones coming out of our enignerring programs?

What exactly do you do that a Chinese of Indian immigrant couldn’t do for half the price because I have three advanced degrees and I interact with Chinese nationals that are every bit as qualified as i am but probably don’t make 20% of what I do.

The world is getting flatter but it isn’t flat yet.

296

I don’t know if there is anything we can do other than slow down the shifting of the equilibrium. Even if we get the Chinese to play fair, we aren’t going to reverse the trade imbalance, we are simply going to have a longer transition period to some sort of parity between China’s wages with our own.

This doesn’t mean that China’s gain is necessarily our loss over the logn term but over the short term we have to adapt our economy much quicker than we would have to if China’s growth was more gradual.

297

It would make Chinese imports more expensive which makes a difference at the margins, margins that might amount to a couple of million jobs in the USA (China’s got a billion people).

This recession has pushed us from imprting 6 times what we export to China to importing only 3 or 4 times what we excport to China.

298

Before the recession they sold us 6 to 7 times as muchas we sold to them. They were a large driver of our tottal trade deficit.

When was the last time the USA had a trade surplus?

As a Canadian you might have a different perspective on free trade because of how good it has been for Canada (and i don’t suggest that canda has engaged in any shenanigans) and its workers. You might also have a different persepective on illegal immigration because of the demographics of your illegal immigrants (there aren’t as many, they tend to be better educated and your economy can absorb them very easily).

But rest assured that if you saw your current account drop through the floor and your wage levels stagnate or drop, you would start to have some doubts about free trade and open borders.

299

The trade deficit kept going up even right up until the recession started.

We don’t make nearly as much of the world’s products as we used to. Do you know how much freight costs coming from China to the US? Do you know how much it costs going from teh US to China? Its practically free.

300

Well, I suggest that you take a trip to your nearest Home Depot. Except for paint, lumber, and lawn chemicals, 95% of what is there is imported from China.
Even high-end power tools (Bosch, Porter&Cable) are now made in China.