We’re out of the woods; at last everybody knows it. Thank you, President Obama. We love you.

Caption: Obama happily confirms that the contribution check from front company CompleteControl has cleared.

See the video: Demographic winter. The long-term problem is the number of young people we are missing. Without them, the economy can’t really recover.

So, Ed, the solution to our economic problems is to make abortion illegal? Or are you saying simply that there needs to be a population explosion to correct economic problems? I would say that you ideas seem to run counter to common sense and intelligent discourse.

Ed,

A reach too far, perhaps?

Leftfield, Wisconsin

The big new trend that will decide our future is “getting ready for the 2012 elections”.
Again we are being distracted by presidential hopeful’s, including President Obama’s strategies (like speaking to the Chamber of Congress) to do well in the primaries and the general election. When do the immense problems of this country have center stage with the media and the actions of politicians? God help us!

Recovery???

It is a papered-over collapse.

But keep dreaming.

The Big Evil Gummint should _not_ be in the business of picking winners and losers.

The Big Evil Gummint rather _should_ be in the business of not allowing this moment’s winners to lock in their power permanently through government capture and inadequately-taxed wealth, and of not allowing the losers to go to the wall…for reasons both of human decency (the MArket is amoral), and because economies that don’t shoot their losers encourage risks-taking…there is more social mobility in the western European nations than in ours these days.

We are not so because there has been concerted effor to convince us that this moment’s winners and losers are in fact Winners and Losers, and that taxing the former is laying an hand on the LORD’s Anointed Ones, and the others essentially worthless sinners—just chaff destined for the fire—and that helping them goes against teh Will of Jeebus and His Most Holy Market.

For moderate conservatives:
When the losers are inadequately cushioned—when they die of illness, or lose their houses, or theri families are destroyed—at that point the temptation to pick winners becomes much more powerful, especially when they are sympathetic enough. If you don’t want industries bailed-out, see to it that their workers can survive the loss of their (often inefficient, stupidly-run, deserving of corporate death) companies.

Americans the number one thing about our economy you must understand is: jobs are not coming back to this country.

The multi- nationals are working on moving as many of them off shore as they can.

The factory jobs were first.

The office jobs are next.

Good luck to you all because now you are competing with India and China the Eastern Europe and South America for your office jobs.

The reason this depression is taking so long to die is the HUGE number of people who were financially screwed by the greedy self serving people and bankers who caused the economic collapse and the extent to which they were screwed.

This wasn’t a relatively FEW people losing a LITTLE money, it was LOTS of people losing LOTS (if not all) of their money. No quick recovery from that.

Enveloping every conversation about the future of the economy loom the almost insurmountable challenges of ecological destruction, resource depletion, and overpopulation.

Retooling and retraining doesn’t translate into jobs.

“Move around the world looking for a job.”

This guy is a win the future kind of bogus talking head.

where is this gentleman getting his statistics? it is absolutely false that we have not lost manufacturing jobs overseas. just look at where the product is manufactured. i was cfo of a manufacturer of jeanswear. all lost overseas. i saw many of my clients completely reshift their jobs overseas when i was in public accounting. this person has lost credibility in my eyes.

When a worker is replaced by a ROBOT, is the company that “employs” that robot TAXED — federal & state income tax — on that robot’s work??

If NOT (in SOME form, or other), the governments are losing money, and, of course, so are the workers who were replaced.

We should only trade with countries with wage standards, safe working conditions, reasonable hours, and environmental standards. Enjoy the race to the bottom instead.

I got a high tech degree and was unemployed to 9 months after spending 50K, the shift of the professorial training costs from business to individuals and government is a corporate subsidy. I have had bosses say we you dont have any risk, no risk! 50 grand for a masters that I cant go bankrupt on and I’m not compensated for that risk.
this is a wealth transfer to the rich from hard working middle class hope fulls like me.

steve

Any truth to the rumor that more jobs were created under two years of President Obama (much of it in a deep recession) than eight years of President Bush (the majority of it in an economic expansion)?

When a worker is replaced by a ROBOT, is the company that “employs” that robot TAXED — federal & state income tax — on that robot’s work??

If NOT (in SOME form, or other), the governments are losing money, and, of course, so are the workers who were replaced.
Posted by Ann

You haven’t been keeping up. In 2011 businesses will be able to take a 100% deduction for capital investment (replacing humans with machines).

I am an Texas licensed attorney who moved to New York State to be closer to family after my husband died. I was denied reciprocity for automatic licensure because I had not worked full time for 5 out the seven years prior to my application. Until I take the NY Bar, I cannot practice law here. However, I recently read an article in the NY Times about the outsourcing of legal work to India!!!!! Wow, vested interests and big busness rule the day. Let’s start by breaking down the artificial barriers between states that prevent the fluidity of the workforce and let’s start creating and enforcing the reasonable restrictions on foreign trade.

This guy needs to read the text of Bernie Sanders’ filibernie speech. There is more truth in 10 minutes of that than in what he has been saying for a half hour.

John
Williamstown, VT
@Jtaylorvt

Tom,

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PUSHING BACK about the “training issue”!!!!

NOW workers are seen to be “suspect” because they might move to India or China?
MAYBE THE M.B.A. degree is the WORST degree imaginable?!!!!! The employers fight workers when the workers are in unions (those few who still are); NOW, we hear, that the workers have SO much “agency” that they cannot be hired because they might BOLT to a Life Overseas??

This IS all about that huge CORPORATE BONUS for the guys at the top who Outsource the jobs, AND about the investors — WHO DO NOT INVEST IN THEIR COMPANIES, NO, THEY ONLY INVEST IN THEIR OWN PROFITS!!! Companies are NOT really companies anymore, they are just “Vehicles for Profit”! Really! I MEAN THAT, altho, a progressive economist could phrase it better for me. I HOPE you all see my point …. companies are NOT even INVESTING in their product or their workers, they are ONLY INVESTING in the “sell off”, of the “buy out” — the FINANCIAL ECONOMY has EVEN invaded manufacturing and services! It’s ALL about the FINANCIAL SCHEMES, NOT the product! I think I even read that a major AUTOMOBILE manufacturer makes MORE MONEY FROM THE LOANS THAN FROM SELLING THE CARS!!! THAT is what I mean by the “financializing of the ENTIRE ECONOMY”.

I wanted to be OPTIMISTIC, and this guest was getting me going in that direction, until he CLAIMED THAT THE CALLER — skilled, educated, serious worker who called — WAS TOO OLD AT 60 Y.O. ANYWAY!!! YIKES! What that man KNOWS compares to the freaky financial types who got us into Credit Default Swaps,etc. OUR ECONOMY HAS BEEN SEDUCED BY THE TRICKSTERS!!! TRICKSTERS!!! TRICKSTERS (and I don’t mean the guest, who HE risks being seduced by them, too, I’m afraid. Truly, I wanted to listen to him optimistically, but, he blew it, he could NOT see the Trickster standing right in front of him!!!

Then, a caller tells the previous caller to go teach English overseas. What if he has an ill child, or a brilliant chilt who is in the perfect school, or if he has ill parents, as he is likely to have at age 60 himself!!! Is THIS how it happens? The people in charge are TOO YOUNG TO KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT LIFE, SO THEY ACTUALLY THINK THAT EVERYONE CAN GET OFF AND MOVE OVERSEAS??? Come on, now! That’s no different that “YOU can be a MODEL!!!”

As the column of jobs, mostly low to middle range pay, marching out of the US, I heard that Mr. Altman, a little drummer boy,
“Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A new born China to see, pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum
To lay before the China, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum”

SORRY for the typos (11:43 a.m.) — I should never rush.

The MAN knows.The past the future.Everything.
And he is wrong about everything.Just like they were wrong about Japan.
Korea,Europe.And…just like their god,Greenspan,was wrong about the USA !!!
They remind me of a proverb. A Chinese proverb :
The cock is very proud of his loud cry;he thinks this brings up the sun.

Obama hired the off-shorer GM CEO to be his job czar.

Tells you all you need to know about the Democrats.

They have joined the Republicans to work for the elites instead of the people.

Don’t mistake the map for the territory,” was not an original statement.

“Don’t mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon.” is so old that nobody can really attribute it to a real person

Umm, I don’t think that economic success should be measured by growth of hedge funds. You do realize that hedge funds are designed to make money off of things going down right?

“have the choice to buy a cheaper product from over seas which uses fossil fuels to ship….”

Hey, you don’t have to look too far out into the future when oil rises to astronomical prices again to see this business modal fails.

The Declaration speaks about the “life, liberty, anf the pursuit of happiness.” Not 7 figure bonuses. Getting rich is fine, but the great middle MUST also benefit.

I lived in Australia for 2 years, a country that many would call “socialist.” The first thing I noticed getting off the plane, is how happy everyone is – the smiles – they all look younger.

The higher quality US products are NOT available.

Find a small counter top microwave made in the USA.

Not everything made overseas in low cost countries is low quality but I have had problems finding quality in some things and have found no high quality alternatives even at higher cost. I’d be happy to pay double for a microwave that lasts 15 years (like the first one I had) instead of 13 months like the last one.

Corporations don’t want educated Americans for several reasons:

Uneducated masses are good for them politically as they can be easily manipulated to vote against their own interests.

They don’t have to pay higher taxes to contribute to quality education when crappy will do.

When they need educated workers they import them through the H1-B visa program and pay them less than an American worker.

Every opportunity I get I re-post this fact: It is literally against the law for a U.S corporation to put the needs of its workers and the communities where they live above the need for a return on investment and profits.

It strikes me that “capital” has no boundaries and no allegiance to any country. It can go anywhere and be put to use at the click of a button. “Labor” is highly regulated and restricted geographically, and is at a huge disadvantage. Until we in the U.S. make “capital” pay its true fair share, things in our country will not get better for the people living here.

Made in the USA is very rare these days even for American Textbooks in our school systems! My business since 1981 was creating children’s art for our American Text Books in our American Schools. Today, my job is outsourced to India and Taipai. American Illustrators would receive $500 for a painting that now after years of copying our “styles”, a sweat shop assembly worker receives if she or he is lucky, $3. Do I want to move here as Mr. Altman suggests and do this? NO! I am an American and I love my country and my job.
Can I be re-trained and re-invented? YES!
I now have given talks to school children who have seen my American art in readers, textbooks and the dwindling children’s magazine market and I am now licensing out past art. My royalties are down from my children’s books and fees are very low for what work is now out there.
The solution is Government legislation requiring our American Text Books for our American children to be created by American Artists, Designers and Writers. This small change would truly put many Americans quickly back to work and improve our very poor educational system which is in decline with our very poor economy.
Dorothy Stott
New Haven, CT USA

ooops…. I forgot a word!

When I said, “most HORRID of human endeavors – slavery – “,

I meant to say,

“that most HORRID of human economic endeavors – slavery – …..”

(sadly, there are even worse “endeavors’, so horrid that I will NOT mention them, but we were speaking about economics, and in terms of economics, I do believe that slavery is the very worst “endeavor”)

I wonder why the Chinese and the Indians are gaining on us: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08creationism.html?src=me&ref=homepage

We’re out of the woods; at last everybody knows it. Thank you, President Obama. We love you.

The number of persons who are not in the labor force but want a job now:

6.643 million, the highest ever recorded and climbing.

http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t16.htm

The number of people on food stamps:

Jumps 400K in November to the highest number ever recorded, 43.6 million, and continues its ascent at a 45 degree angle.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/von%20havenstein/Food%20Stamp%20Feb.jpg

Ann, what do you suggest as an economic/political model? I think someone said they found Australia pretty ideal. Some type of socialism then? Somehow I have the feeling that if we just stopped making various parasites rich we would all be much much, so much I don’t think people would believe it, better off. I am not referring to taking away aid to dependent children, much the contrary, I am talking about cutting out absurd military spending, corporate welfare and tax breaks and diverting that energy into a new generation of consumer goods that will make present technology obsolete. Just imagine if the genius that produces such horrors as sensor fused weapons had been applied to creative instead of destructive ends. We could have such a bright future. The financial industry is another net parasite and the benefit they offer to society has been overshadowed by the effects of their crime and greed. All in all I think there are many things that we have not yet tried or considered and I wish we could break out of the lock that consensus stupidity has on society.

“We were a nation of SLAVE TRADERS and SLAVE OWNERS!!”

I take umbrage from this statement. My own family has been here since before the revolution and none of them and none of their close relatives ever owned slaves. Though it is probably true that if you go back far enough they themselves were slaves. The percentage of citizens who owned slaves in the north was small at first and later didn’t exist. I think the highest rate was in the south at about one third of the people owning at least one slave. But the people who owned more than twenty slaves was small, though at one time the state of South Carolina was populated 65% by slaves. Over all I believe that in the entire country at the time of the revolution only about eight percent of the population owned slaves. Even in the south there were twice as many white folks who didn’t own slaves than those who did. Did you know that there were three times as many enslaved Africans imported to Cuba than all of the United States, and five times as many were sent to Brazil. It’s hard for us to believe now, but I really think that these colonial slave owners were blind to the humanity of Africans.
And the other fact is that most Americans these days don’t even have ancestors that were in America during the days of slavery, so to say we are even the descendants of slave owners is also not true. The descendants of slaves families have usually been in America much longer than most Europeans.

The overwhelming need for alternatives to off-shoring/indifferent/mean spirited trans national corporations is at hand. My theory of modernized guilds/worker owned co-ops using short term 3 year non profit status to get going and being work…er owned would be an antidote to the inevitable off-shoring of value added jobs. The idea is short term non profit status to permit capital accumulation and organization and product development. The idea is principally oriented towards manufacturing of any kind and not so much about services as they are not requiring much capital and can be easily set up and are not being off-shored to repressive regimes as much. http://modernizedcraftguilds.blogspot.com/

“Jobs are leaving the USA and they’re never comming back” Says who? The business roundtable and others who benefit from such public policy. As if the “economy” was a force of nature over which we have no influence. We can make different decisions (most of our trading partners have).

For example: 1) Public financing of congressional elections,to re-gain control of our elected officials & public policy (best $10B we would spend every 2 yrs). and 2). If a company wants to sell in our $14 trillion market, they must produce and employ here (like most US firms are required to do in other countries).

Yes, we would have a little more inflation, lower, more realistic corp profits & stock values. But we would also have lower unemployment, higher incomes for working families, 1/2 the trade deficit (mostly oil) and more taxes to the Fed. Treasury to reduce that deficit. More equality & a better social outcome. WOW what a disaster!!
Posted by Dave

The WTO promotes trade by: (1) reducing tariffs; (2) prohibiting import and export bans and quotas; (3) eliminating discrimination against foreign products and services through its most-favored nation and national treatment principles, which prohibit treating “like products” differently based on how they are produced; and (4) eliminating other impediments to trade, commonly called “non-tariff trade barriers.”

While the WTO has exceptions for conserving natural resources and for protecting human health, the regulating country bears the burden of proving that the exception applies. These exceptions have so many conditions and prerequisites that it is extremely difficult for any domestic protection to pass muster.

http://csdngo.igc.org/finance/fin_WTO_aprimer.html

Hi, almost 20 years ago I lived in Boston and I love this town and also a like and respect American people for the great country you’ve built. Listening to WBUR give me the wonderful feeling to be closer to something I really appreciate Boston and USA. Hi, Americans you are great, the market economy you created is the best system ever experienced by modern society. All you have to do is to hanging in there with the capitalism and take some corrective actions. Nevertheless those actions need to follow the American Capitalism values. Discussion about the alternatives given for the leftists are relevant but they would ruin what is still left, mainly the freedom to choose, the freedom to not be a highly tax payer like we in Brazil. Tax is more the 50% of the price of a car for example. The same Corolla or Civic you buy in the USA for US$17,000 coasts us US$37,500 and the ones seldom here are assembled at Brazilian territory. Our leftist government tax system charge us around 50% of tax we pay in almost every good, service or even food we purchase and uses tax resources (nation resources) to buy votes among poor people. That’s the truth. That leftist government though is plant of followers. Americans cannot imagine what is to live in a government economy ruled society like in Brazil. Brazilian constitution allowed people to express their our opinion, but the role society is tied up, because neither a publisher would issue a book nor a theater director would step on a stage to criticize government and the reason is simple no entrepreneur is able to invest if they do not take governmental incentives and those incentives are ruled by state law, that’s the true. More or less the same situation affects others leftists countries. Think about that. American needs to be the only country in the world to be free. Even if you doesn’t seem at the first glance capitalism allows faster economy recovery and believe me, capitalism doesn’t allowed power at politicians groups hands to left over and over years, even decades. Capitalism allowed society to move faster under the society mobility concept. Don’t consider the noise of the Brazilian economy success to deep, because the Brazilian people reality is very far from what Americans achieved and still have. You need to take back the ability to built , to assembly, manufacture that would allowed you to go reverse the huge commercial deficit and you don’t need to reverse the economy system to do that. I think president Obama is blind. He really cannot see, or school from where he is from is not in the synchronism to the American values at this moment and that have created a big confusion in his mind. In some of his speeches he seems to not believe in America and what a great concept it represents. In my country, Brazil we still have two different people categories, the politicians and there parasites and the rest, the ones who have to work hard to pay the bill. Don’t believe that universal health care is a reality in this country because like every other law in this country, this constitutional principle is a lie. Sometimes you cannot find a dash of what we would suppose to be universal health system and sometimes the service that you find doesn’t really coat to the initial idea of well being and rarely the good service is more associated to some corruption and poor people doesn’t have the access, the “right” let’s say. That’s the health system. You wouldn’t believe what goes into the education system, the mass transportation system, the vote system. Let me tell you something, the vote system is fine, it works very well. The problem is the whole process of election! Do you remember the 50% of almost every product or service, here it is. A large amount of that money is back on street near the Election Day. Politicians go to the streets and give money especially to poor people to vote in benefit of their on the party… Brazilian government built a kind of blind age and I really don’t know how far it will go, maybe forever! If it was a dictatorial ship people could one day go to the streets, like in Egypt, but here, in a “democratic” nation, what for?
Of course I know Germany is far from what I’ve described. Efficient Germans are a very well educated people and the welfare ruled system, government structure is tiny. German is undoughtily a main player. But in France there are also the people that belong to the party and the rest. Privileges are in one side. Guess which? Even if you argument that privileges also exists among VIP Americans, take a look at your neighborhood and your own family and see how money exchange of hands, and it mainly depends on self competency, on the risks taken, etc. In Brazil money also is moving of hands but mainly linked to government steps. I better say: it depends on the actions of who’s running the office and friends, lovers, so on. It’s the leftist oriented rules. One tip! Journalists tend to be leftist sympathetic, take care to what you really see in the world. Please be more of the side of investigation, do not report or give any opinion thru passion, take both side opinions and if there is no both sides, pay maximum attention. There is no coin one sided!

If you owned a trillion dollar supercomputer, would you unplug it and put it into the closet ? Each of us are walking around with more computing power than this and it is readily available to the business community. The business community is sitting on trillions of dollars in non performing cash. They should be hiring as many people as they can afford ! The stockholders of these companies should be outraged at the corporate leaders entitlement mentality, that is, I am the “Big Shot” , and I am entitled to not be forward thinking, because I take my orders from big mouth media talking heads. The American people elected a democrat to the White House, because they knew we needed real change. We got George Bush, in black-face ! President Obama, can redeem himself by letting the business community know that, they will be taxed at a HIGER RATE, if they don’t produce more jobs on expanding sales. In the 1960’s the marginal tax rate was near 80% on big money. This country was on the move then. Why? Because, when people have to… they will…. An effective executive does not beg and bow to stupid ! These are not the democrats that I once knew. They are emasculated Oprah dolls. If you think I am some kind of radical leftist, you are wrong. I believe in fair play, and bold ideas. Where are they ? Where is the vision ! The media (with the exception of NPR ) fills your head with images of wrong, like a movie star that snorts coke and does hookers with easy money that ends up in the hands of drug lords that murder 30,000 of the same movie stars’ countrymen. Am I supposed to admire this ? Am I suppose to believe Enron, AIG, ….K street gang… 2 trillion dollars to people who want to kill us. ( My ex boss was a republican, our union had to fight for a 10 cent raise, over three years, some two years ago. What kind of madness is this ? Instead of outsourcing blue collar jobs, maybe we need to outsource the 1% who own and control well over 90% of the wealth of this country. Then pull the plug on all military protection of foreign stupid and watch them go at it. I think back to when I was a kid and the first moon landing. That is the America I love.
Greatness, is only given to those who deserve it !

Fool me once, shame on you!
Fool me twice, shame on me!

I wondered why “training” is always the answer on economists’ lips. If you read the details on Egypt’s situation, unemployment correlates directly with education there. That is, the more education you have, the MORE likely you are to be unemployed in Egypt. All over the world countries are scrambling to train their citizens to complete for the same handful of jobs.

Then it became OBVIOUS. How do you tie up 5,000 people who want the same 2 jobs? Tell them they have to train to get them! Send the whole 5,000 off to spend money they don’t have for 2 to 3 years. When they come back say “Aw,the economy has moved on, go back and train for something else.”

THIS IS A NO BRAINER when you think about it. Does it make sense to tell someone to train and not tell them WHAT FOR? Does it make sense to say we need training and not we need buildings,equipment and a market? The only predictable outcome is the distraction factor.

at (Feb. 8, 8:08 p.m.),

I learned what I said about our being a slave-trading nation from wonderful, contemporary scholars. Many scholars working today are re-assessing primary source materials from early colonial and early national times from a POV which combines history AND economics AND statistics. There is a LOT of work that has been done in this area, and it is very readable as well. Our economy WAS a slave-based economy – that fact was the BASIS for all else that happened economically (& socially & politically). The best way I can convey this is to, once again, suggest reading the Brown University Slavery & Justice Report. It is available on the internet, or for purchase ONLY THRU the Brown Bookstore (if there are any left). I have gone to probably 2-3 dozen scholarly and academic lectures based on this research, because I am fortunate enough to live nearby Brown, and the university President, Ruth Simmons, and her initiative brought forth this report which then brought forth even more investigations, as well as a broadened audience, into this topic. At each lecture, I learn of more books to seek out.

You are RIGHT to correct me about how I phrased something though! When I said, “We Were a nation of slave traders and slave owners”, I can see how that could be misinterpreted. Altho we were, indeed, a NATION of slave traders and owners, yes, NOT everyone owned, and not everyone traded. By “nation” I meant “government(s)”.

This current research has shown, however, that a LARGE percentage of non-owners & non-professional-traders, nevertheless INVESTED money in slave trading ventures. AND, the ENTIRE economy was a slave-based economy. So, ALL economic matters, from growing onions (sold for the long voyages to prevent scurvy), to making ropes and barrels, etc., etc., ALL those economic activities took place WITHIN THE OVERARCHING SLAVE ECONOMY! The value of ALL land was based on agricultural prices which were determined by the slave economy. EVERYTHING economic was under the rubric of the slave economy; all economic values were under this umbrella. And, the industrialization of the North and the agrarianism of the South were entwined like HAND & GLOVE (VERY IMPORTANT!!)! Also, many of the businesses were structured vertically, also tying slavery together with all other economic ventures!!! And, there were political “deals” that helped this slave economy thrive!!!! IF I could explain it well enough, I would have spread the word by now, for how many times I’ve tried to write this. Sadly, I’m NOT the best writer on these matters. Again, the Brown Report says it so much better than I can, and with extraordinary depth and breadth. The Report also has many great bibliographic references!

There were farmers who were less affluent & powerful (many were struggling) than the “planters”; and there were Free People of Color who struggled to get access to jobs and lodging (they were far more detested by both rich & non-rich Whites than you might expect — not much “privilege for them, when you study their situation deeply!); and there were some slaves who did work away from their owner’s property sometimes bringing their wages back to their owner, and sometimes being allowed to keep their wages. There were indentured servants for a short time, but slavery was seen to “work better” for the planters, financially & racially (that’s a whole ADDITIONAL topic!) In ALL these cases, the value of the work done was DEPENDENT ON the overarching Slave Economy! The exact reception various people got for their work done was ALSO dependent on the overarching slave economy, and it varied according to time and place and local laws, which kept changing BASED ON the overarching status of the slave economy at any given time and place. Scholars present all this information in ways that COULD enlighten us today, since our corporations are seeking the closest wages to slave wages, going around the world to do so. Also, a few other comparisons between the slave owners and our corporations in the last few decades here: for the planters, sometimes having access to that cheapest of all labors was STILL too expensive for them, and the whole way the system worked shifted, usually to a different place. At other times, the shift was from buying & USING slave labor to produce a crop or to produce the appearance of wealth (as with “house slaves”) to SELLING your slaves as commodities.(When peonage came in after slavery was outlawed, we get to see yet another shift in “the system” complete with “tweaking” the way that the laws were enforced, as well as outright corruption which straddled the economic & legal lines!)

I did NOT mean to imply that every citizen alive today in the USA was either a slave owner, a slave trader, or a slave; and I apologize if it sounded that way. I just get so IRKED that major economists cherry-pick what they want to when they talk about America’s economic history! Shame on them! (Just as bad — tho I missed some of the program because my station was fundraising — is when they glorify the economy of the 1950’s and 1960’s, which can ONLY be done if you ignore the experience of Black Americans during that time period!). I stand by my statement that we were a NATION of slave owners and slave traders, except I DO SEE that that statement of mine COULD EASILY BE MIS-READ. I CAN see how my use of the word “nation” mis-fired, especially because, grammatically, I used it in the same sentence with words that refer to individuals (trader, owner). What I meant was that our GOVERNMENT and the LAWS and COURT DECISIONS allowed us to have and be a SLAVE-BASED ECONOMY. Yes, many people here today have families that came to these shores AFTER slavery, or maybe they did so themselves. That is the case with my mother’s side of the family.

The figures you give are DEVOID OF A CONTEXT, unfortunately. The new scholarship provides context(s); whereas, I can only struggle to do so. My best shot at it is this: let’s talk about one of your “percent” of people who did not own or trade slaves in the North: Census data show exact names of White people (remember, we had censuses since 1790); shipping company records show the exact amount of money many of these people INVESTED in slave voyages; or ship’s manifests show exactly how much was paid to which citizens, showing who made their living selling needed goods for the slaving voyages. THAT is the level of the new work; it is precise, tight, and yet presents broad views, and sometimes statistical analysis, and it is changing our entire picture of our history! It is NOT revisionist; no, instead, it is taking information that has been in front of our collective eyes for centuries and is looking at it anew to give a deeper understanding of our country’s history !

Thanks for pointing out what you did!

By the way,

SHAME ON THIS COUNTRY that the engineer who called in (and maybe wrote in, too?) and the illustrator who posted a comment — that THEY don’t have jobs, that they have LOST their jobs, that their JOBS HAVE BEEN TAKEN FROM THEM! SHAME on this country!

There are SO many GOOD IDEAS on this very page about regulations to put in place to change things! But our Capitalism is “stuck” in a very bad place, in an EVIL place, really! The laws of Capitalism are NOT FROM “ON HIGH”; they were written by people, and those laws could be CHANGED to better serve The People!

And, on top of that, our Democracy has been stolen out from underneath us, and it is NOT because we are not trying to participate!

SHAME!

Come,come now! Remember Citizens United?! Corporations by definition are not people and are not entitled to be treated as such..right? Therefore corporations cannot be expected to have some sort of conscience or moral values in the treatment of their employees. Corporations are not people. An entity that is not human cannot possibly be expected to have a conscience.

An earlier poster’s comment about loss of markets is interesting. Anyone interesting in shoring up the typewriter market? Long since gone with advent of computer technology. All those poor out of work typewriter workers struggling to make ends meet….Apple and IBM and Microsoft et. al. should be ashamed!

Ann

According to Wikipedia my stats were very accurate, though as you said, given without context (see below.) The error in my figures is that the eight percent figure I gave includes the families of slave owners(which I believe it should in most cases) and I had mistakenly said was at the time of the revolution which was incorrect.
I quote it below Wikipedia below. If you believe this is in error and you have proof of it, you should change the article, if you are correct it will be a permanent change. You are correct in that we were a government that tolerated slavery in some form. We are no longer that nation or government, unless you count allowing imports from countries that tolerate virtual slavery by capitalists and the Chinese fascists. I personally do count this and try not to buy products form firms like Nike. I also do not buy products that use celebrity endorsements because that money should be going to the workers not to those who are already rich. Our children should be taught that buying such products is a matter of shame and not pride.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States

As of the 1860 Census, one may compute the following statistics on slaveholding:[76]

* Enumerating slave schedules by County, 393,975 named persons held 3,950,546 unnamed slaves, for an average of about ten slaves per holder. As some large holders held slaves in multiple counties and are thus multiply counted, this slightly overestimates the number of slaveholders.
* Excluding slaves, the 1860 U.S. population was 27,167,529, yielding about 1 in 70 free persons (1.5%) being slaveholders. On the other hand, by counting only named slaveowners, this discounts people who benefited from slavery by being in slaveowning household, e.g. the wife and children of a owner. Only 8% of all US families owned slaves,[77] while in the South, 33% of families owned slaves and 50% of Confederate soldiers lived in slave-owning households.[78]
* The distribution of slaveholders was very unequal: holders of 200 or more slaves, constituting less than 1% of all US slaveholders (fewer than 4,000 persons, 1 in 7,000 free persons, or 0.015% of the population) held an estimated 20–30% of all slaves (800,000 to 1,200,000 slaves).

19 holders of 500 or more slaves have been identified.[79] The largest slaveholder was Joshua John Ward, of Georgetown, South Carolina, who in 1850 held 1,092 slaves,[80] and whose heirs in 1860 held 1,130 or 1,131 slaves[79][80] – he was dubbed “the king of the rice planters”,[80] and one of his plantations is now part of Brookgreen Gardens.

end quote

I would just like to point out that in the part of PA were I grew up there were no African-Americans at all. Since we did not yet have a TV, I never even saw an African-American person until I was about ten years old (no Asians or Latinos either) and was taken to Philly to visit the zoo. I could have driven an hour in any direction, and many hours in some directions and then would have had to search to find an African-American person. I know there were a few slaves in colonial times in central PA before the revolution, but not many. There were no migrant workers either, so it seems they actually did work their own farms with their loads of children who did not attend school during planting and harvest if they did at all. Certainly if slavery was as wide spread as you indicate there would have been a residual
African-American population like in the south. Not so.

Maybe Daniel Altman could enlighten us to some of these “High Value Products” that American manufacturing has moved on to? Besides airplanes I’m not sure what there is for manufactured exports. Maybe he’s counting the $600 toilet seats and all the other stuff the military buys.

If these braindead economists ever stepped outside their models for a minute they’d see clearly that the only “high value export” left is treasury bonds. If foreigners ever get their fill of those we wont have anything left.

Can we please get Michael Lewis back on? Its infuriating hearing Daniel Altman tell us that we have to “get used to it” – get used to throwing our trained engineers and 60 year olds out on the street.

Time for tariffs. Big tariffs. Until the trade is balanced. We’re the Americans, we set the rules. Not the corporations and their toadies like Altman.

If it’s not balanced, it’s not trade, it’s just slavery.

Would you please consider doing a show about people search engines, like Spokeo and their ilk? Their absolute, unchecked betrayal of people’s privacy is maddening. How can these types of companies be legal? If you have taken the time and spent the money to be unlisted, somehow they still gather info on you through online “public record.” How can we simultaneously be telling people to be vigilant in protecting their ID/privacy, and then have these companies post maps to where you live and what your credit score is? And, they make money doing it! Even when you request to remove your info, there is no guarantee that it will not reappear on that site or another one like it. It’s maddening and it’s a practice that should be banned. What possible common good can come from exploiting people’s privacy like this? I would love for On Point to take on this issue and see what the People Search Engine Industry has to say for itself. Thank you!!

at,

Hi! I tried to explain, as best as I am able, anyway, the nature of a Slave Economy, which was THE overarching economic structure of our colonial and national governments until the Civil War. (Actually, if I were a scholar, I would study to see if I could legitimately put in a parallel economic structure: the acquisition, legal & otherwise, of Native American land.) Isolated figures and percentages from Wikipedia will not help you understand more fully what I was TRYING to say. I did suggest that I am NOT the best person to explain this very important concept, but that the Brown Slavery & Justice Report is an excellent place to go for a really good accounting of what the phrase means and what that economic structure entails. It is available on the internet.

The independent film, Traces of the Trade explains it as well; the film focuses on Bristol, Rhode Island, altho it views Bristol in its larger American & international economic contexts. Sometimes the film is shown on PBS, but it did come out in DVD form.

Nell Irvin Painter’s book, “Creating Black Americans” is an excellent overview of African-American history from 1619 to the present (copyright 2006). Her section with the heading “The Enslaved Lay the Foundations of the American Economy” is an excellent piece to aim for, tho I’d suggest starting with the Brown report, then reading her book from the start, then arriving at this part of her book. Douglas Blackmon’s Slavery By Another Name describes the peonage system which was in place after slavery was outlawed. His book shows the economic structure that helped local Southerners, as well as MAJOR U.S. corporations, continue the basic economic principles of slavery, with a few ‘tweaks’ until the 1940′s.

The economic system of slavery is a larger concept than EVEN the horror of individuals losing their liberty! Slaves did so much of the work, but in a slavery-based SYSTEM, they also counted as a commodity; they could be used as collateral, etc., etc., etc (these “etc.s” are what these books describe in detail). Slave traders traded on the international market. Some of the most financially successful traders used vertical integration of their various slave-based businesses; doing this helped the Northern industrialists bring about their own burgeoning successes and wealth. As I said, our American industrial revolution, often thought of as an exclusively “Northern” phenomenon, went hand in glove with slavery. Once again, I do MY best to talk about these concepts, but the major scholars out there who are doing the new work are the people whom you REALLY want to consult.

The ONLY reason I talk about these matters when Tom’s topic concerns our economy (i.e., when the topic is NOT strictly about African-American or US history) is that if we do NOT understand our past, we will NOT understand our present, nor will we be able to have good instincts about what people in power are trying to “pull off” that could adversely affect us in our future. I see some parallels between these older time periods and now, and I believe that we need to understand the specifics to avoid being taken advantage of. Therefore, understanding the intricacies of THE major economic system in America’s history seems extremely important to me. Believing that we were a nation of happy yeomen farmers will NOT help us train our instincts, because it is a false notion, even IF small percentages of families did make their way in this fashion.

I also write about this stuff because I feel very blessed to have been exposed to so much of this information thru the Brown University initiative and thru my own genealogical research.

Each colony, and , later, each state, did have different profiles when it came to slave ownership, and even then, those differences also changed over time and varied according to changes in agriculture, technology, and international politics. The territories that were not yet owned by the US, or that were finally owned by the US, also had different laws about slavery. But, the various areas & governments communicated with one another to make SURE that they had the “best” laws for their own advantage. Many laws were also written about Free People of Color, because THEY were, for lack of a better term, the “fly in the ointment”! From early on in colonial times, slavery was NOT just practiced based on “custom”, but was, instead, deeply embedded in the LAWS and COURT DECISIONS of each area! THE overall, overarching economy of our nation was a slavery-based economy. THIS is the major information that, apparently, I am not very good at explaining. But the Brown Slavery and Justice Report is!

Also, you make reference to how few African-Americans live in areas of PA that you are familiar with. The Great Migration mainly took African-Americans from the South to the North, but the years of discrimination up north is being studied more, recently, so, perhaps some of your question will be answered in very new books. My own family left Virginia to go to PA, one side just after the Civil War (unless they fled, somehow, during the War), and then another relative in about 1900. I found out from research that things were very discriminatory against Blacks in Philadelphia at the end of the 1900′s, but not so much as in the Virginia that they’d left; yet, by 1910 or so, discrimination against and hatred of Blacks was increasing — in Philadelphia, in the land of the Quakers! There were more lynchings in PA in 1910-1912 than in the decades before; jobs that Blacks had held for decades were no longer available to them during this time period, either. Lots of other stuff was getting worse, too. Is that why my relatives, tho only two of them, made their own migration — how rare was this in Pennsylvania? — they migrated from being Black to being White. There are several recent books on the Great Migration, one by NPR reporter & Pulitizer prize winner Michelle Norris, and the other by scholar Ira Berlin.

You seem so interested in the history of where you grow up! I’d love to tell you how much fun it is to find some books on your local history and ask your questions based on primary source materials that are available right where you grew up! It IS amazing to learn about what people’s lives were like! Diving right into Wikipedia, as useful as it can be, is not going to let you know what I’ve been trying to say and that I got to learn because other people passed on the awareness to me!

Thanks for the conversation!

at,

Hi, again!

I’m just realizing that one phrase you wrote is perhaps WHY we seem to be speaking in parallel terms, missing each other’s points:

You said, “Certainly if slavery was as wide spread as you indicate there would have been a residual 
African-American population like in the south. Not so.”

… “wide spread”. Whether or not slavery was “wide spread” is NOT the point I’m trying to convey. The concept of an over-arching Slavery-based Economy is different than whether or not slavery was “wide spread”. Ahh! I think I figured out why I’ve been having trouble explaining myself! That’s it!

ALSO, you may find research into the relationship — over the centuries — between the wealthy planters and those who were White but not of the planter class very interesting! There are many, many ups and downs, exploitations sometimes, alliances other times. The study of that in Pennsylvania would yield stories that are very different than the same area of research in Virginia; and, in both cases, it would change in each decade (more or less), stretched out into the centuries.

That’s it for me for tonight!

Larry wrote,

“Corporations don’t want educated Americans for several reasons”

Wow, If this is the case why do corporations generally hire people with more educatation? This comment is really not supported by any factual data. Based on the DOL statistics, the unemployment rate for college graduates in January 2011 was only 4.2% compared to about 10% and 15% for those with only a high school diploma and high school dropouts, respectively. I understand that many people have left the labor force and there is also a large amount of “underemployed Americans. ” However, anyone who is even considering dropping out of college should ponder the DOL statistics.

America/Canada/the developed countries of the world have all been sent down a path to ruin. Look at what our polical/commerce/industrial leaders and these are all the same highly educated people told us years ago, We will be the technology countries, highly educated doing all the high tech jobs. They were either really short sighted, miss informed, or in the pockets of the big corporations who had dollars in their eyes. The saying was we need to go offshore to provide cheap goods to you our market. I guess this is happening,not, go look in a quality clothing outlet
try to find anything made in North America, and look it is so cheap to purchase, but now what choices do we have. Its ok the manufacturer is on the North American stock market and doing well. Great thinking the investors make money, our countries have job loses, the economy for the masses takes a big dive, but its ok those in the know will continue to get wealthy with these investments.Take a look anywhere in the USA/CANADA,you can see factories closed gone, and being dismantled, I know , I drive a truck delivering goods all across USA/CANADA, after a career in manufacturing and now seeing these situations in so many big/small/rural locations across our countries, it makes a person sick to see. I know we( the working people) of NA may have felt these losses personally but nobody is putting this terrible picture together and asking who said, this is the correct thing to do. Oh its protectionist, and we can’t do that, but profiteering is the flip side and thats ok . I would challenge the public of our countries to send in a pic of a fatory that has closed in your area, and a little history, I don’t know to face book and I am sure the result will scare all of us. We need to take a step back and make our own goods again.

America/Canada/the developed countries of the world have all been sent down a path to ruin. Look at what our polical/commerce/industrial leaders and these are all the same highly educated people told us years ago, We will be the technology countries, highly educated doing all the high tech jobs. They were either really short sighted, miss informed, or in the pockets of the big corporations who had dollars in their eyes. The saying was we need to go offshore to provide cheap goods to you our market. I guess this is happening,not, go look in a quality clothing outlet
try to find anything made in North America, and look it is so cheap to purchase, but now what choices do we have. Its ok the manufacturer is on the North American stock market and doing well. Great thinking the investors make money, our countries have job loses, the economy for the masses takes a big dive, but its ok those in the know will continue to get wealthy with these investments.Take a look anywhere in the USA/CANADA,you can see factories closed gone, and being dismantled, I know , I drive a truck delivering goods all across USA/CANADA, after a career in manufacturing and now seeing these situations in so many big/small/rural locations across our countries, it makes a person sick to see. I know we( the working people) of NA may have felt these losses personally but nobody is putting this terrible picture together and asking who said, this is the correct thing to do. Oh its protectionist, and we can’t do that, but profiteering is the flip side and thats ok . I would challenge the public of our countries to send in a pic of a fatory that has closed in your area, and a little history, I don’t know to face book and I am sure the result will scare all of us. We need to take a step back and make our own goods again.