American jobs gone forever

December 2, 2012

Evidence shows job losses are permanent

Twice in the past five years, my wife and I drove to Southern California for a winter retreat. Each time we traveled on I-10 out west, we saw trainload after trainload of cargo containers bearing Asian names headed east and west for hundreds of miles.

Most of the eastbound trains were obviously loaded with imported Asian-made goods. I wondered what was in the containers heading west. Remembering the huge losses of American manufacturing jobs over the past few decades, I thought maybe they were empty.

Recently two television documentaries on Netflix answered this question, and provided chilling implications about a job-creating economic recovery anytime soon in the U.S.

The first show featured the port of Savannah, Ga. The video showed a steady stream of huge cargo ships arriving, laden with goods manufactured in Asian countries. Giant warehouses surround the dock and serve as temporary holding sites for these goods awaiting shipment throughout America.

The documentary next highlighted one of the area's largest warehouses and said it was full of the only American products to be loaded onto the cargo ships for their return voyage to Asia. The products being exported back to Asia — the only American-made product, mind you — were giant rolls of paper. When the paper gets there, most of it would be converted into cardboard for use as packaging for additional goods to be exported to America!

The second show described the operations of the huge port of Los Angeles, which accounts for one-quarter of all Asian imports. It, too, showed a steady stream of arriving and departing super-cargo carriers. The docks operate 24/7 unloading containers to be shipped via road or rail to other parts of America. The narrator asked the dock manager about return cargo. He replied that every cargo ship left the port loaded with recyclables and food grains.

We all know America has lost millions of manufacturing jobs to automation and nations with lower labor costs over the past few decades, but when we see the actual evidence of these massive trade imbalances, all of our guts should twist into knots. In just a few generations, our nation has gone from the world's dominant manufacturing economy to one trading our recyclables, trees, grains, dollars — and jobs — in exchange for lower-cost goods. This trade disparity proves these millions of jobs have disappeared forever.

Newly employed foreign workers now often work for American companies which have strategically outsourced jobs in order to increase profits and improve financial performance for their shareholders. I wonder how many of our lawmakers understand that we will soon have insufficient American consumer dollars from our collapsing middle class to support this one-sided trade situation.

Both political parties continually promise job-creating changes right around the corner. Our president keeps touting the millions of private-sector jobs created under his watch; he fails to add that these new jobs have barely kept up with population growth.

My question is: What new economic miracle will cause the massive job creation needed to adequately employ our expanding population? Is it even possible to reverse the twin forces of automation and lower foreign labor costs that have killed so many American jobs and caused so much wage stagnation?

Have our elected leaders taken every action needed to protect our nation's citizens from this tragedy? The evidence is pretty clear — they have not! Instead, they primarily serve their personal need to retain power by partnering with the special interests instead of those they were elected to serve — our people.

American auto companies like General Motors brag about Chinese demand for their cars, especially the Buick brand. They fail to add Chinese laws require that these Buicks must also be made in China. Why don't our lawmakers demand that foreign goods be made here in order to be sold here? Why don't they wage war against useless regulations at all levels of government that delay and prevent businesses here from expanding or starting up — and creating new jobs?

Leaders from both parties remain frozen in a phony war against each other instead of joining to take viable actions to foster a job-creating environment in America. As the green-energy fiascos demonstrated, government cannot create jobs, but its past actions, or lack thereof, have contributed to the massive loss of employment opportunities in our nation today.

Our elected officials could, if they wanted, take desperately needed actions to get us out of this terrible mess. It only requires them to unite and actually place the best interests of American citizens first. Maybe instead of our leaders and citizens uniting to fight this common enemy, we should divide further and escalate the war against all those in the dreaded opposite party. Just because it hasn't worked doesn't mean it never will — does it?

During World War II, if we had acted the way we do today, we would all be speaking German or Japanese. Is our coming economic collapse any less of an emergency than the war? Our people have always magnificently confronted any national emergency. However, until our leaders publicly and collectively acknowledge our present awful danger, our fear will never escalate enough to unite our nation's people.

These are my opinions. What about yours?

Mike Tower

Please visit the blog of a good pal:  Lee's Political Opinion, also the website for an organization we co-founded:  Citizens Against Politics As Usual