Tuesday, February 10, 2015

ObozoNomics, Part 32,145

The Obozo Administration and its shills, the MSM, bleat and yammer about "jobs recovery."

As it turns out, that "jobs recovery" is limited to two classes of jobs.

The BLS Employment Situation report, released this morning, finally showed an uptrend in higher wage jobs, but it wasn't all good news. As the Dent Research Employment Index reveals, the new positions created were heavily weighted in the lowest income bracket and the highest income bracket. The middle class is still left out of this recovery....

That is not a surprise to anyone who has been watching spending behavior carefully. It would account, e.g., for the increase in sub-prime auto lending and for the spate of construction activity on 'super-houses' over the last 12 months or so.

...The lowest wage category accounted for nearly 26% of the monthly gains even though this group holds only 20% of current jobs, while the highest job category accounted for more than 14% of the monthly gains, compared with its 9% share of jobs. Middle-paying jobs lost ground, making up only 18% of the total gains....

Well.  Perhaps this is related:

Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India. Some employees are training their H-1B visa holding replacements, and many have already lost their jobs....

The IT organization's "transition effort" is expected to result in about 400 layoffs, with "another 100 or so employees leaving voluntarily," SCE said in a statement. The "transition," which began in August, will be completed by the end of March, the company said....

Yah.  This is the sort of "immigration" that Republicans like--and about which, frankly, Obozo doesn't give a fart.

And of course, there's the good old-fashioned restraint of trade/oligopoly practice:

Some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley—including Apple, Google, Adobe and others—have been embarrassed by the evidence brought to light in an antitrust class-action lawsuit that contends they colluded in their hiring practices to try to control surging high-tech salaries. The lawsuit alleged the companies agreed not to poach each other's employees to try to keep a lid on salaries, a practice that restricts the earning power of engineers and other highly skilled IT professionals looking for jobs in the world's most competitive technology hub. U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh rejected one offer by the companies to settle the claims by paying $324.5 million compensation for the plaintiffs' losses. Court documents filed in mid-January show that the companies attempted to increase their offer to $415 million to try to put this case behind them.

Any economist who passed Econ 101 will tell you that the money--the spending-power--is in the middle class.  When it's NOT there, the economy of the US will falter, as it has been doing for well over 5 years now.

Congrats to the Obozo Team for their efforts, active and passive, at demolishing the middle class.  That's ONE accomplishment that he can put on his legacy wall.

No comments: