Rod Kaufman said:
While it's obvious that Mitt and company intend to get the jobs back on track by way of a massive buildup in the military-industrial complex to the tune of 2.1 trillion dollars (3 trillion with the obligatory cost overruns factored in), what is not so obvious is why the unemployment rate dumped so much yesterday. For those who haven't been keeping up on current events, the rate spiked because the majors players in Europe (Britain, Spain, France, etc) are in an economic recession, as per the news. Since we export a lot of our manufactured goods to Europe and the countries over there can't buy them, US companies aren't hiring because European countries aren't buying.
I don't know where that comes from. Exports to Europe are still at much higher levels than they were in 2009, and the manufacturing sector actually
added jobs last month (although the growth in the US manfacturing sector is starting to slow as plants reach 80%+ output capacity.) Manufacturing is really the only bright spot in our economy right now. Although some are still struggling, other companies like Ratheon and 3M are having a tough time finding skilled domestic workers. Foreign-owned Mercedes-Benz has the same problem. Although China has undoubtedly slowed, it's economy is still going at a sizzling 8% GDP annual growth rate. (Ours struggles to maintain a paltry 2%.) IMO the real reason our unemployment rate remains high is because we have less than 4 million
job openings a month to accomodate
13 million people looking for those jobs.
David E