2017-12-10davidstockmanscontracorner.com

... when goods-producing jobs peaked at 25 million back in 1980, there were only 6.7 million jobs in leisure and hospitality. Today that sector employs 16.0 million part-time, low-pay workers or 2.4X the four decade ago level.

Yes, there is nothing wrong with these jobs or the workers who hold them, but the fact that they constitute a rapidly increasing share of the mix is powerful proof that the job market is not nearly as awesome as it is cracked up to be; and that the monthly BLS report is surely no measure at all of a rising standard of living in Flyover America.

...

As it happens, [the number of breadwinner jobs] is virtually the same number posted by the BLS back in January 2001 when Bill Clinton was packing his bags to vacate the Oval office. In short, three presidents later---all of whom have claimed undying devotion to good jobs and rising living standards---and there is hardly a single new breadwinner job.

...

What does our latest Oval Office occupant plan to do about this? Why nothing less than borrow $1.8 trillion from future taxpayers in order to enable corporations and other business to crank-out even bigger financial engineering distributions to shareholders in the form of dividends, stock buybacks and M&A deals.



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