Corporations don’t need as many of us as workers but still need us as consumers.

[kpete]

Some Hard Truths about America

By Robert Parry
July 15, 2010

A hard truth about the U.S. economy is that corporations don’t need as many of us as workers but still need us as consumers. That dilemma helps explain why unemployment is stuck near 10 percent and why the economic recovery is stumbling toward a double dip.
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The Washington Post reported Thursday that nonfinancial companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion – about one-fourth more than at the start of the recession – but won’t add personnel in part because they’re waiting for consumer demand to pick up, which isn’t happening because many Americans don’t have jobs or are afraid of losing theirs.

Yet, even if that vicious cycle could be broken, there’s another reason for the lack of hiring: companies have found they can make do with a lot fewer American workers. The recession has been a way to cull payrolls – and to discover that many jobs don’t have to be filled again, either because of new technologies or because the jobs have been shifted overseas.

Both these trends predated the recession but the rapid shedding of jobs since the Wall Street financial crash in 2008 – some eight million jobs lost – has spotlighted this structural change. Further, corporate determination to remain “lean” has turned the worker-surplus issue from a personal crisis for many American families into a systemic one for the country's economy.

more:
http://consortiumnews.com/2010/071510.html

[villager]

1. Ergo, we need to withhold our "consuming," to the maximum practicable extent, until the corporados

...come around...

[TwilightGardener]

2. Completely agree. They don't want to hire us, but aren't able to convince us to

go even broker buying as much shit as we used to when we had jobs. Jeez, I'm shedding a tear, I tell ya...

[Oregone]

3. Well, credit has been bridging the gap for some time now

Seems like that ship finally sailed. I wonder whats in store next

[inna]

5. " I wonder what's in store next" - that's a quadrillion dollar question right there.

[Spyderama]

4. Excellent Article...

... Now Let's talk about birth control, the subject we should have been discussing publicly and politically since about 1969.

<http://www.e-tabitha.com/2009/09/surrealistic-rapture.html>

[OHdem10]

6. Henry Ford saw the connection. He recognized people had to

earn enough money in order buy his cars. He raised their salaries.

Today, the companies need to hire workers.

[notesdev]

7. Why should they need you?

They get a tax break for giving your job to someone in Indonesia. What the hell good are you in that scenario?

I can't wait until we get Democrats in office, then we'll get rid of this incredibly labor-hostile tax break-for-offshoring law!

[upi402]

8. Some of us tried to warn fellow Dems of this problem during NAFTA

I remember getting the snot bubbles kicked out of me -so to speak- here for fighting my fellow Dems against NAFTA.
For justice in a capitalist system, some protection and well paying jobs are necessary.

All I have to say now is, "no shit Sherlock". We're done now.
gl

[NightWatcher]

9. Consumers or War Mongers?

If we continue to take part in two or three wars at a time, plus countless military actions (drones, narco actions, etc), they don't even need us to consume. Instead, they'd be satisfied if we'd stay scared and angry at people "over there".

The "great thing" about a bomb is that as soon as it's dropped it needs to be replaced, by another expensive bomb, and by golly they'll keep building them as we keep dropping them.