While you were sleeping....they came clean on the jobs data

By Lee Russ

Monday, February 13, 2006 at 08:18 AM

Seems that the Bureau of Labor Statistics performed a little task last week that they cleverly call "re-benchmarking" of the jobs data going back to the year 2000.

I don't want to give the story away too early, but lets say that, after reading the description on Counterpunch you may want to resurrect the concept of a "Y2k crisis."

In a piece titled "Forget Iran, Americans Should be Hysterical About This; Nuking the Economy," Paul Craig Roberts (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration) reveals that the newly revised data show that "Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth."

His conclusion?  "If you are worried about terrorists, you don't know what worry is."

Specific grim facts about the state of jobs in the US during the 21st century (so far):

**Communications equipment lost 43% of its workforce
**Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37% of its workforce
**The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30%
**Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its employees
**The workforce in motor vehicles and parts declined 12%
**Furniture and related products lost 17% of its jobs
**Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force
**Employment in textile mills declined 43%
**Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs
**The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15%
**Manufacturers of beverages and tobacco products experienced a 7% shrinkage in jobs
**The information sector lost 17% of its jobs, telecommunications work force declining by 25%
**Wholesale and retail trade lost jobs
**Accounting and bookkeeping employment shrank by 4%. (despite the much publicized "massive new accounting burdens" imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley)
**Computer systems design and related lost 9% of its jobs
**Managerial and supervisory jobs dwindled by 209,000 over the 5 years

In short, "The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost manufacturing jobs in the globalized 'new economy' never appeared," and "The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a super-economy that is 'the envy of the world.'"

Now we know that the publicly released info on jobs was massaged somehow, fully explaining how the politicians could keep announce with a straight face that jobs were booming despite the well documented loss of millions of jobs.  

While Mr. Roberts notes the use of terrorism to distract from the desperate straits of American workers, there are others.  Of course there's the manufactured fear that gays are going to sneak up and marry you against your wishes, the manufactured fear that secular atheists have already kidnapped Christmas while you weren't looking, and now hold it hostage in a WalMart warehouse.  There's the manufactured fear that secular atheists are at this very minnute plotting to inflict the nation with rampant euthanasia, all under the cover of a haze of medicinal marijauna smoke.

Then there's my current favorite: the manufactured fear that....well, hell, it's too convoluted and twisted for me to summarize, so I'll let Laura Adelmann explain it to you:

An American Perestroika
by Laura Adelmann
Feb 13, 2006

America is in the midst of a broad, radical perestroika - a complete restructuring of our society, orchestrated internationally and played out locally.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called the radical reformation which creates global governance a "quiet revolution." This revolution, much of its Marxist/Communist/Socialist principles bleached in marketing language of "sustainable development," seeks control of every aspect of human life. It is being implemented in cities across America through an anti-capitalist system of public/private contracted "partnerships" involving government, business, regional unelected governing boards and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). They jointly fund initiatives which, by astounding coincidence, carry out plans conceived at the United Nations (U.N.).

I left out the part about parents working to pay their "ever-bloating tax burden" while government schools indoctrinate our children to "hate America."

Never fear, though, we still lead the world in manufacturing outrage.  "Lost jobs?  What lost jobs...Where the hell are you keeping my Christmas, you gay-atheist-abortionist-Marxist-Communist-Socialist-Liberal-girlie man.  What?  What did you say?  I can't hear you, I've got crap in my ear."

Are you outraged yet?  Are you capable of outrage that isn't manufactured?