Where are the jobs,Boehner?

Unless you are a regular viewer of Fox News, you have heard that corporate profits are up, companies in the Fortune 500 have a $1.6 trillion cash surplus, the market is booming, then why is unemployment still at 9.8%?

That may not be hiring in Victoria, Texas, but they are hiring overseas where sales are surging and purchase orders are abundant.

A company that promised to break ground on a new plant in our city, Caterpillar Inc., has hired over 15,000 new employees this year but over half of them were hired overseas. You wouldn't think a company like UPS would be following the same trend, but they are.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, American companies have created 1.4 million jobs overseas compared to less than 1 million here in the United States. To show how drastic unemployment numbers are, if the 1.4 million jobs would have been created in this country the unemployment rate will still be at a high of 8.9%.

They don't teach patriotism at Harvard Business; they teach maximizing the bottom line. The multinational corporations will build where they can maximize their profits and have the abundance of consumers.

We all know that American companies have been outsourcing jobs for decades, but then it was clothing and toys; today it is semiconductors and software. Last night I saw a perfect example of that given by Keith Olbermann’s ,stand in, Sam Seder, when he showed a chart showing the cost breakdown of a $179 wholesale cost of an iPhone. The value in parts and labor: Japan $61 Germany $30 South Korea $23 China $6, other $48 and United States $11…. The Apple iPhone is as American as apple pie, mom, baseball and Chevrolet.

There's a reason for all this, but we won't discuss it because we're more interested in who is up, who is down, and who will get the benefit. We won't admit that the jobs that have gone overseas aren’t coming back, and they will remain with the markets of today like China, India and Brazil. Our total consumption is down 3% from last year, and we're spending 10% less on jewelry, furniture, electronics, and big appliances. In the next 10 years, all the growth will happen in Asia.

What's the difference between international growth and growth here in our country? All the countries that were mentioned have a rising middle class that consumes. We're squeezing our middle class with taxation, the high cost of education, health care, stagnant wages, and a higher shared cost of benefits and their retirement plan.

We all know that education, innovation, and consumption is the answer but our leaders are not laying the groundwork. Our cash strapped states will cut back education spending. Federal legislators will cut back initiatives for alternative fuels, so all this leads to low consumer confidence.

I found most of this information on the CBS News web site, “Where Are the Jobs? For Many Companies, Overseas,” but the information is not new to those who continue to search for answers.

I'm a little premature but after January 4th, I think I will give the local right-wingers a taste of their own medicine, by ending my blogs with “Where the jobs, Boehner?".That’s how Keith Olbermann ends his nightly show. The right-wing took about 15 minutes after the stimulus was passed before they all started asking “where the jobs, I thought the stimulus assured us that unemployment would never go below 8%." Remember?