Jobs Jobs Jobs

Employers added more than 200,000 workers to their payrolls for a third straight month in February, a sign the economy was strengthening and in less need of further monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve.

Friday's Labor Department report, which showed nonfarm payrolls increased 227,000 last month, also bolstered President Barack Obama's chances for re-election.

The jobless rate held at a three-year low of 8.3 percent even as people flooded back into the labor force to hunt for work, and 61,000 more jobs were created in December and January than previously thought.

Republicans want to send your jobs overseas; you will be outsourced!!!

Senate Republicans successfully blocked a bill from coming to the Senate floor that Democrats claim would help keep American jobs from going overseas.

The Democratic bill would have ended certain tax breaks for companies expanding overseas while giving new tax incentives to businesses bringing jobs home.

Romney: 'I like being able to fire people' = Oh Tea Party you will be outsourced too!!!

Mitt Romney's position on top of the medal podium in the GOP race to be the top outsourcer. Mitt Romney went to China during 2008 to attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and, we imagine, to visit the hundreds of thousands of American jobs that have been shipped overseas as a result of failed GOP economic policies.


"Mitt Romney's record in the private and public sector has set the gold standard for undercutting American jobs," said Mark Brewer.

Gold medalist Mitt Romney made a career out of dismantling companies when at the firm Bain Capital, and while Governor of Massachusetts he consistently took policy positions that undercut American jobs, including vetoing a bill that would have stopped the outsourcing of state jobs overseas.

Silver medalist John McCain has called himself an "unapologetic" supporter of NAFTA, a policy that has ravaged Michigan and cost us countless manufacturing jobs.

Bronze medalist George Bush, until recently the undisputed champion of outsourcing, has overseen an administration that has been disastrous for American manufacturers, cost us thousands of manufacturing jobs.

"Mitt Romney, John McCain and George Bush may be championship outsourcers, but their wins have been America's losses," continued Brewer.

The thrill of victory for Romney ticket would certainly spell the agony of defeat for working families and manufacturers in the USA!!

Former employee of Mitt Romney says, "The only thing he's ever produced is profits for the rich."

Randy Johnson has been a critic of Mitt Romney for around 18 years. He was one of hundreds of people who were laid off when Romney's company, Bain Capital, bought and closed Ampad, an office supply company in Indiana.

"Those were the hardest times, you can imagine, when you see people crying at your desk at the age I am now, all because companies were putting profits before people," said Johnson.


He says Romney is in the business of making the rich richer and doesn't care about the middle class.

Unemployment at lowest level in 3 years!!!!

U.S. employment growth accelerated last month and the jobless rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent, the strongest evidence yet the economic recovery is gaining steam.



Nonfarm payrolls increased 200,000 in December, the Labor Department said on Friday. It was the biggest rise in three months and beat economists' expectations for a 150,000 gain.


The unemployment rate fell from a revised 8.7 percent in November to its lowest level since February 2009, a heartening sign for President Barack Obama whose re-election hopes could hinge on the state of the labor market.


"The labor market is healing, but we still have a long way to go to recoup the losses we have endured. We may be close to a tipping point where gains can become more self-feeding," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago.

Double Down Romney will destroy the middle class and create further extreme poverty in the USA!!!

Mitt Romney wants to double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression.

“Romney is satisfied to settle for an economy in which fewer people succeed, while the majority of Americans are left to tread water or fall behind,” Biden wrote in an opinion essay published today in the Des Moines Register, the biggest newspaper in Iowa, where the caucuses that kick off the Republican presidential nominating contest will be held Jan 3. “Americans cannot afford a return to policies that rewarded the recklessness of a few while millions of small businesses and workers were left to clean up the mess.”

99% get up off your sofa and take back your country....put down the 6 pack and get angry!

“This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share and when everyone plays by the same rules,” Mr. Obama said in an address that sought to tie his economic differences with Republicans into an overarching message.

Infusing his speech with the moralistic language that has emerged in the Occupy protests around the nation, Mr. Obama warned that growing income inequality meant that the United States was undermining its middle class and, “gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America: that this is the place where you can make it if you try.”

“This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class,” Mr. Obama told the crowd packed into the gym at Osawatomie High School.


“At stake,” he said, “is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement.”


Mr. Obama purposefully chose this hardscrabble town of 4,500 people, about 50 miles south of Kansas City, Kan., where Theodore Roosevelt once laid out the progressive platform he called “the New Nationalism” to put forth his case for a payroll tax cut and his broader arguments against the Republican economic agenda in what his aides hoped would be viewed as a defining speech.

Occupy Wall Street; Battle for New York

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is talking tough again, darkly hinting that he may have to take action to shut down Occupy Wall Street.


So it appears that his honour has found a new pretext to send the police in to clear the park. He has already sent his cops to arrest alleged law breakers in the encampment, accompanied by headlines urging "get tough".

As for homeless people, Occupy Wall Street security has reported that city correctional officials and some welfare officers have actively encouraged homeless people to go to a park where they will be fed and can sleep.

Occupy Wall Street has strict rules against drug use and alcohol use. But they can't always enforce them against people who have been encouraged to go to the park to, among other things, cause trouble.

In other words, city officials, who are expressing so much agitation are actually exacerbating the problems, and then pointing to them as a reason the occupation must be forced to end. The cops also have spies in the park and are monitoring developments closely. They had repeatedly refused to protect the park from the presence of predators - who they now blame on the protest.

Unfortunately, many media outlets are not interested in probing for the causes of problems and just focus on the effects.

Politics is what is driving the increasingly hard-line opposition, not pride in civic improvement.

A day before the mayor indicated that he may just have to "take action", he criticised the protesters for focusing on Wall Street. Congress is to blame, he insisted, politicians not financiers. Few media outlets noted that Bloomberg made his fortune on Wall Street and his news company serves its customers. This conflict of interest is blatant, but rarely noted.

The NY Daily News reported him saying: "I do believe in punishment." Koch then went on to blast the SEC for only fining Wall Street titans such as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup for their financial misconduct. "What the hell do they care? That's the cost of doing business," Koch said of the banks. "I want to see somebody - some CEO, some CFO - punished criminally."

The reason Bloomberg doesn't like Occupy Wall Street is because he likes Wall Street (especially while his police are occupying the place).

Musician Boots Riley who is part of the organising effort said: "We're ushering in a new phase in organising. It's a one-day general strike. It's a warning shot. It's beyond saying that 'we are the 99 per cent'. This is showing that the 99 per cent can be organised, that we won't be limited to the rules and regulations that unions have confined themselves to in the last 60 years."

To date, this movement has survived snowstorms and police attacks. Its tougher challenges may have just begun.

American Jobs Act

The American Jobs Act Could Prevent Hundreds of Thousands of Layoffs, and Allow Schools to Rehire Thousands More:



•Nearly 300,000 Educator Jobs Have Been Lost Since 2008, 54 Percent of all Job Losses in Local Government: Local governments shed nearly 300,000 education jobs between August 2008 and August 2011. By another measure, employment of teachers fell by 7.2 percent between 2007-08 and 2010-11.

•Local Governments Have Lost Nearly 200,000 Education Jobs Over the Past Year: Over just the past 12 months, local government education employment has fallen by 194,000 jobs.

•State and Local Funding Cuts Put as Many as 280,000 Teacher Jobs at Risk Next Year: In the four larg­est states, budget reductions threaten teacher jobs and key funding for schools. In New York City alone, nearly 780 employees were expected to lose their jobs by October. In California, budget triggers may shorten the school year. And in Texas and Florida, tens of thousands of teachers could be laid off.

•The American Jobs Act Will Support Nearly 400,000 Education Jobs—Preventing Layoffs and Allowing Thousands More to Be Hired or Rehired: The President’s plan will more than offset projected layoffs, providing support for nearly 400,000 education jobs—enough for states to avoid harmful layoffs and rehire tens of thousands of teachers who lost their jobs over the past three years.

Let’s face it…if you are the average American on Labor Day you are $#*&!.

The distribution of wealth in the USA is comparable to most dictatorships = 0.1% of the wealthiest equals the rest of us = 99.9%!!!


Much like our constitution calls for a separation of church (religion) and state = we need to evolve this concept to a separation of corporation and state. Our political system and sadly judicial system have become an instrument of corporatism and not “of and by the people”.

There are two futures for the USA.

a) Recognizing that greed has no natural limit. It will exploit and be as depraved as you let it = the course we seem to be on… = and lead natural to an American Spring in the distant future or

b) We can have a resurgence of the Citizen some could call this the worker but I prefer to think of it as the sentient being that has an inalienable right to develop and not be exploited. The Citizen has a right to social justice.

If we choose ‘b’, then the US and the World become a better place. The wealth gets distributed; exploitation drops and police states disappear (or at least are in the minority).

Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September (September 5 in 2011) that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.

Social justice is essential to universal and lasting peace. What is social justice?

1) economic growth is essential but not sufficient to ensure equity, social progress and the eradication of poverty, confirming the need for strong social policies, justice and democratic institutions;

2) now more than ever, standard-setting, technical cooperation and research resources in all its areas of competence, in particular employment, vocational training and working conditions, to ensure that, in the context of a globalization strategy for economic and social development, economic and social policies are mutually reinforcing components in order to create broad-based sustainable development;

3) special attention to the problems of persons with special social needs, particularly the unemployed and migrant workers, and mobilize and encourage international, regional and national efforts aimed at resolving their problems, and promote effective policies aimed at job creation;

4) maintain the link between social progress and economic growth, the guarantee of fundamental principles and rights at work is of particular significance in that it enables the persons concerned, to claim freely and on the basis of equality of opportunity, their fair share of the wealth which they have helped to generate, and to achieve fully their human potential;

5) mandated international organization and competent body to set and deal with international labor standards, and enjoy universal support and acknowledgement in promoting Fundamental Rights at Work as the expression of its constitutional principles;

6) growing economic interdependence, to reaffirm the immutable nature of the fundamental principles and rights and to promote their universal application;

Today most US unions are aligned with one of two larger umbrella organizations: the AFL-CIO created in 1955 and the Change to Win Federation, which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005. Both advocate policies and legislation on behalf of workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in politics. The AFL-CIO is especially concerned with global trade issues.

American union membership in the private sector has in recent years fallen under 9% — levels not seen since 1932. Unions allege that employer-incited opposition has contributed to this decline in membership.

Unions are currently advocating new federal legislation that would allow workers to elect union representation by simply signing a support card. The current process established by federal law requires at least 30% of employees to sign cards for the union, then wait 45 to 90 days for a federal official to conduct a secret ballot election in which a simple majority of the employees must vote for the union in order to obligate the employer to bargain. Unions report that, under the present system, many employers use the 45 to 90 day period to conduct anti-union campaigns. Some opponents of this legislation fear that removing secret balloting from the process will lead to the intimidation and coercion of workers on behalf of the unions.

During the 2008 elections, the Employee Free Choice Act had widespread support of many legislators in the House and Senate, and of the President. Since then, support for the "card check" provisions of the EFCA subsided substantially.

So when your potential future political leaders tell you that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme…..worry!!!