Friday, January 6

Fewer decent US jobs meant more Americans went to work in defense sectors

That's why the defense-related sectors gained inordinate power in the United States. When Trump's presidency restores more jobs and a greater variety of them, this will break the stranglehold that the defense lobbyists and their policy institutes have had on American government. 

Then the nightmare of ceaseless U.S.-fueled warfare and war profiteering will finally end for Americans. Then the American military will once again be an honorable institution and our key intelligence agencies will no longer be ruled by operatives for foreign interests and their American puppets.
     
Record 95,102,000 Americans Not in Labor Force; Number Grew 18% Since Obama Took Office in 2009
By Susan Jones 
January 6, 2017 - 8:49 AM EST
CNS

(CNSNews.com) - Barack Obama's presidency began with a record number of Americans not in the labor force, and it's ending the same way.

The final jobs report of the Obama presidency, released Friday, shows that the number of Americans not in the labor force has increased by 14,573,000 (18.09 percent) since January 2009, when Obama took office, continuing a long-term trend that began well before Obama was sworn in.

In December, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, a record 95,102,000 Americans were not in the labor force, 47,000 more than in November; and the labor force participation rate was 62.7 percent, a tenth of a point higher than in November.

The participation rate dropped to a 38-year low of 62.4 percent on Obama's watch, in September 2015. It was only 3-tenths of a point higher than that last month.

[END REPORT]

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2 comments:

  1. bdoran17:24

    Well no - we're committed by treaty to defend 68 nations and in real terms #69 is Israel. This is like Defense cuts mean less war: no - the wars are due to our Foreign Policy not defense spending. Defense cuts just make it harder and mortgage future procurement for current wars-something we've been doing for 15 years.

    It's not the Horse. It's the Cart.

    An enormous Cart and a tired Horse.

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  2. Pundita13:20

    You make good points. But i wasn't thinking in terms of defense cuts; rather, more jobs outside the defense sector being available. Does that work out to the same thing in the end? There is a constant expansion of companies that are defense contractors; cyber security alone is huge and constantly getting larger. Putting a limit on the expansion isn't a defense cut.

    As to the rest of my argument, eventually it will be somewhat mooted by robotics; if decent jobs in non-defense sectors pull away many young people who'd otherwise go to work for the military, the military can eventually make up the shortfall with robots.

    However, I think that fewer volunteers to the military does translate into less tolerance in the electorate for endless warfare.

    But you're right; it comes down to defense policy. On the other hand, what treaty ally was the US defending when it made clandestine war in Syria? When it bombed Libya for 8 months? When it invaded Iraq and Afghanistan?

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