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Liz Whitehurst is one of many young people who are giving up jobs in offices to take to farming. They are not from farm families and bring a new way and exciting way of looking at farming free of the pesticides and other practices common today. Only 2% of U.S. land is being used for growing fruits and vegetables, according to the Union of American Scientists cited in the Guardian newspaper, and this needs to at least double in acreage if American needs are to be met. Only 15% of Americans get the daily requirement for fruits and vegetables- so desperately needed is this  to lower the BMI of the 70% of overweight Americans with BMI over 50. In the light of this crisis the shift of young people to farming is an encouraging sign.  In 2015 Liz, 32 years, decided to buy a 3 acre farm in Upper Marboro, Md, giving up benefits and better pay at nonprofit jobs in Washington state.  Here she is shown picking up Aragula leaves in the November chill. She is not alone. She is joining a movement that is bringing highly educated, former urban first time farmers as the demand for better food, for local and sustainable food, especially fruits and vegetables grows in the U.S. Year on Year there is a 20% increase of farmers in states like California, Nebraska, South Dakota in the 25-34 age group. In the 2014 USDA Census this group is growing at 2-3% just when other groups are shrinking by double digits. These farmers are more likely to connect with the community supported agriculture (CSA) prorams and markets, to grow organically and limit pesticide and fertilizer use. They tend to have farms less than 50 acres. Liz leases the house and the fields from a neighboring couple in the 70's, growing organically certified peppers, cabbages, tomatoes and salad greens kale to aragula, rotating fields. On Tues, Thurs. and Fri. she and two friends are to be seen waking up in the early hours of darkness to kneel in mud and cut the greens. What motivates them is having a positive impact, to do that so it is immediate and you can see it making a difference, says Liz. Still young farmers face many hurdles, including student loan debt, and finding ways to meet the larger needs for online grocery service or the grocery chains. Yet a trend is taking shape for small and middle farms that provides some optimism as the number of farmers shrink significantly overall. Most alarmingly it is the lack of national and local policies to meet the health crisis of rising BMI's right at this level of local farms and community farms for local produce. Lack of any consciousness about this, even though good health in the U.S. as in other countries has always rested on what you are eating, long before processed foods became the norm this is the way the world met nutrition needs.    ...

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The Trump economic plan would use tariffs as a tool to get foreign companies to make in the US. It does not include incentives to American companies to create American jobs that won't be offshored and would be expanded, and keep American technologies and incentive based expansion with American companies. In this sense Trump's economic policies are indifferent to whether it helps American companies or not. Biden/Harris are determined to make it America that controls its own destiny. Why would foreign companies care about expansion and building America's leadership in technologies in the Free World, they would use their technologies in their own national interests. Even when they build factories for Chips as TMC of Taiwan is doing in Arizona they do so skeptical of the power of US engineering.  A holistic plan is missing when American leadership is turned over to foreign companies. Biden-Harris would use tax revenues from corporations to give them the best infrastructure and logistics in the world that supports their growth. This alone would add to America's growth by 1+ percentage points considering what we see in Indian growth with or without the best infrastructure. America's infrastructure is dilapidated. Trump lacks a plan to invest trillions of dollars in new infrastructure as Biden-Harris are doing. ...

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Galston points to the study in the Economist magazine by Ray Avent showing the hugely negative effect of Tech on jobs in the last 3 decades. He calls for using the full tools kit of solutions to tackle the problem. Society will face huge problems if nothing is done as divisions in society are likely to increase with a few people doing well with a large number of unemployed and the working class having stagnant wages. He points to BLS statistics showing worker wages increased annually by 0.3% after inflation for the period 1981-2014 in the U.S. This is not just a U.S. problem. It is a worldwide problem with particular relevance for U.S., Europe, India and China. Galston was deputy assistant to president Clinton for domestic policy, 1993-1995, and holds the Ezra Zilkha chair in governance studies at Brookings Institution.

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The growth in U.S. GDP was 1.7 % in 2011, yet unemployment dropped by 0.7% in the last 12 months to 8.3% by Feb. 2012. A pickup in hiring is seen in job figures. Christina Romer gives as an explanation to the rise in unemployment in 2009 to 10%, more than expected, and the drop since then, to the overreaction of companies to the financial crisis by laying off workers and freezing hiring- with hiring picking up as conditions return to normal levels. The unemployment rate as defined is also not an accurate measure of the jobs situation, as it reflects only workers who are looking for work, and many workers drop out of the jobs market when they are discouraged especially the long term unemployed. Taking into account people who have dropped out of the labor markets the unemployment rate was 11% in Nov. 2009, according to Luce in the Financial Times- in Ezra Klein, Washington Post 12/12/2011, Wonkbook: Real unemployment rate 11%. Lawrence Katz, Harvard Labor economist also cites this as one of three jobs crises in unemployment today that need to be addressed, the other two being: foreclosures and debt, and the low number of jobs added because of automated manufacturing- in Friedman, NYT, 12/10/11, The Next First 100 Days. Explanations for the low GDP growth as unemployment declines is a likely productivity slowdown. Prof. Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, sees a slowdown in productivity. Worker output for every hour worked, how productivity is measured, increased only 0.4% in 2011 and 0.9% in the last 7 quarters, and is trending downward in the longer term. A more likely explanation is that unemployment is still at higher levels but is understated in unemployment figures....

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Cooling wage increases shown in the March report give the Federal Reserve more room to pause interest rate increases after the next increase says this report in WSJ. 

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With continued job growth the US Fed is planning to continue its sequential interest rate increases. The Fed raised interest rates 0.75% at each of the last 3 Fed meetings and a fourth 0.75 rate increase is expected when it meets on November 1-2, 2022. This is the most rapid rate of increases since the 1980's and it is designed to bring inflation under control.

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Anglo American responds to declining commodity prices and the slowdown in China with deep cuts of 53,000 jobs from its 151,000 workforce. Some of the jobs will be layoffs and other job cuts will be through sale of mines. In Australia mining employment is down 13% in the 2d quarter of 2015 over prior year. Anglo American plans to sell over a quarter of assets in the downsizing. BHP has spun off over ten mines into a separate company called South32. American Pittsburgh based company Consol Energy says it will no longer provide guaranteed health insurance to retired workers. Anglo American is one of the hardest hit companies. It had losses of $3 billion for the first half of 2015, and needs $1.5 billion in cost cutting to become profitable again.

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Kathryn Ruemmler is legal counsel at Goldman Sachs, and adviser to the CEO. The WSJ looks at Epstein file releases by the US Justice Department on Ruemmler's connections to Epstein in 2019 as a legal adviser. Some of it is after FBI arrested Epstein. Other files released show Ruemmler had consulted with Epstein on jobs she was interviewing for with Goldman, and potential jobs at Google, Facebook and Citadel, according to this report. This aspect is similar to what is reported in the media about Mandelson having consulted with Epstein for job offers at large financial companies. In the case of Mandelson he described his access to influence in Labour government decisions. The Mandelson connections are rocking the British government of PM Keir Starmer for his poor judgement in appointing Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US and lack of due diligence on his background.  WSJ report says Ruemmler had helped try Enron executives and this brought her attention that led to her going to the White House as Barrack Obama's counsel. She left in 2014 and was a white collar defense lawyer at Latham and Watkins.  ...

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The unemployment rate drops to 6.3% in April 2014, as a significant number of Americans stop looking for jobs they cannot find. 288,000 new jobs were created in April 2014, according to the Labor Department. Yet the participation rate has declined to 62.8%, the lowest in three decades, and wages are up only about 1.9% from the prior year month. The unemployment rate which counts involuntary part-time workers and workers discouraged and not looking for a job was 12.3% for April 2014.

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In his State of the Union Address president Biden set the tone for the next 2 years of his term, and in preparation for another term to Build Back Better for America. He talked about his efforts to address the needs of America in rebuilding aging infrastructure, restoring its place in manufacturing, chips and science, and addressing climate change with trillions of dollars of investments. No longer would crowding out of government investment happen as it did in the last two decades with neglect of infrastructure, manufacturing, workers and families, and massive misallocation of capital in capital markets. On Jobs, America and Renewal, "on rewarding work, not wealth" "Jobs are coming back. Pride is coming back because of the choices we made in the last two years. This is a blue collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives." He told Congressman McCarthy-          "I don't want to ruin your reputation but I look forward to working with you." Reminding Republicans-  "The people sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict gets us nowhere." ...

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Issues about how many more jobs are supported by Apple beyond the 47,000 employees in the U.S. Estimates of job creation in China and overseas through supplier networks for iPads, iPhones and other products are as high as 700,000. Apple says it has "created or supported" 514,000 jobs in the U.S. Experts say it is hard to say how many jobs are supported. Of the jobs Apple counted in this number, the consulting group doing the estimate included 257,000 jobs at companies such as Corning that makes the glass for the iPhone, UPS, and a Samsung plant in Texas. The number was generated using a formula of the federal government's Bureau of Economic Analysis and how much money Apple spent on goods and services in the U.S. An additional 210,000 jobs were generated by companies making apps for Apple devices. The consulting company estimated that 45% of the 466,000 app related jobs in the U.S. -using the estimate of such jobs from TechNet- were for Apple apps. Apple released these figures on its website as criticism from the industry and outside mounts about whether Apple is doing enough for jobs in the U.S. Intel's Andy Grove is one of the industry executives who has pointed out that there is much scaling up at home that U.S. companies need to do....

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Whats different about the May unemployment numbers? The Labor department reported job losses were 345,000 in May, 2009, which is a drop from previous months. Manufacturing posted half of these job losses. Factory job losses have been aconstant inthis downturn, with losses of 156,000 in May, 154,000 in April, and the average monthly decline for the fourth quarter 2008 and first quarter 2009 of 171,000. Auto job losses are likely to be permanent, and further downsizing at GM and Chrysler could lead to steady job losses in manufacturing. The job losses in service related companies was 120,000 jobs for May 2009, much smaller than the 230,000 jobs lost in April, and much smaller than the average job losses of 334,000 in the fourth quarter 2008 and first quarter 2009. The steep losses in the service sector is unprecedented in ths downturn going back to the 70 years the Labor Department has tracked this data. But continued losses in manufacturing will weaken a recovery, especially as many of these jobs in construction and manufacturing are permanently lost. This recession is impacting men more than women because of construction and manufacturing job losses, blacks and hispanics more than whites, the less educated hit the hardest, and young people also hit hard....

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Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple and its CEO, passed away on September 5, 2011. He helped create the Macintosh, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone and the iPad, changing the way people work, listen to music, or work and communicate with portable handheld devices. He made significant contributions through the devices he helped create by making them easy to use, look and feel good. By making as he said "the whole widget," both the software, hardware and other design, and a relentless focus on how the products worked in the hands of consumers, Jobs was able to come up with unique products like the Mac, iPod, iphone, and the iPad. The pioneering work of Jobs began early, in 1977 with the first Macintosh computer, and continued through 2010 with the introduction of the iPad. Jobs first first period at Apple lasted from 1976 to 1985, closing when Jobs left the company after differences with then CEO John Sculley. He rejoined the company in 1996 when Apple acquired Next, the company founded by Jobs in the intervening period. The first period saw the emergence of Microsoft in the personal computer world. In 1997 Apple accepted an investment of $150 million from Microsoft and told Mac fans that "we want to let go off this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to loose." Microsofts Office software could be used on Mac computers by this arrangement and helped Apple survive this period. Later in a 2005 address at Stanford University, Jobs told students about the first period: "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." Jobs personal story is of being college dropout from Reed College, Oregon, where he dropped out after one semester in 1972, because of financial issues. He then worked parttime at Atari, and in 1975 associated with the Homebrew Computer Club where he met Apple co-founder Wozniak. He was the son of unwed parents, University of Wisoconsin grad student Joanne Carole Schieble and a Syrian exchange student Abdulfattah Jandali. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs shortly after birth. ...

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Kate Conger NYT looks at working for Google in 2007 vs 2025 how tech or software jobs are not exciting anymore. Many of the so called Tech companies -as technology and science is the very basis of life since the year 1700 in UK, Europe and the US and today's "Tech" is a misnomer in that context- have become huge bureaucratic, and unresponsive. Computer coding is not the profession it once was, not even in India as Indian reports show it has also lost it's glamour there. This kind of "Tech" of Google, Apple, and social media was always a cultural fad that made things look cool so that the highest profit margins could be made and justified, ignoring the essential facts about science and technology over 300 years 1700-2000 in the UK, Europe and the US. Since the early scientific observation in the 18th century in UK and Europe science has underpinned our lives, and with the industrial revolution and machines it has covered every aspect of our lives with new inventions and scientists into the 19th, 20th and 21st century. As a cultural fad of the Google /Apple kind it came on the back of the largest deindustrializing of US and Europe in the late 20th and 21st century, and ignored the fact that science and technological application is part of everyday life, the very meaning of the word modern that Japan, China and India has aspired to, to copy the Europeans and Americans, not the prerogative of any corporation.   ...

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The Labor Dept. reported the U.S. added a seasonally adjusted 96,000 jobs in August 2012, down from 141,000 jobs in July 2012.

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Liz Goodwin and Riley Beggin report from Hillard Ohio where Amazon is building a large data center using land adjoining a school and a park for children. Parents are collecting signatures for a ban. About 70% of Americans are opposed to the data centers building in their local area, after an aggressive push with tax breaks and incentives provided by some states. Virginia, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio most aggressive data center builders in the US by 2026- construction jobs, and investment, as pros, electricity usage and use of farmland cons. Ohio's governor DeWine paused tax breaks after realizing that it cost the state $1 billion in lost revenue. Amazon says it has invested $70 billion in the state since 2016. Democrat politicians are not taking up the bans because of some unions supporting the data centers for jobs created in construction. Another reason is that politicians in general face attacks from the tech companies donating to campaigns against them if they call for a ban. Sherrod Brown Democrat in Ohio asks data centers to pay for their electricity but has not supported a ban-  “With data centers, we make sure the investors pay for electricity. Not the people who live in Zanesville or Coshocton or in Cambridge.” The big reason to support it from the jobs perspective is stated by the unions. Tim Burga of the AFL-CIO in Ohio says-  “These are creating good union jobs, both in the construction, but also in the keeping them secure and maintaining them."  Now you have a public frustrated particularly in quiet suburbs of America who see this as an intrusion into their lives, which means Republican and Democrat, Red State and Blue State, makes little difference. Construction workers and unions excited about the prospects for decent jobs after the Obama and Bush elites shipped 5 million jobs (Lighthizer USTR estimate) to China over 2000-2016, and transferred $20 trillion in American wealth to foreign countries by blindly accepting unfair trade with China, EU, Canada, Mexico. And see this as part of the MAGA effort to bring back the supply chains to America for all manufactured products in the interests of reliable supply, national security, and the promise of good paying jobs for the communities across America that depended on these jobs since the industrial revolution inthe US at the turn of the century in 1900. It took only 2 decades to wipe them out under what Lighthizer and Jamieson call "shortsighted leadership" of  Republican Bush and Democrat Obama and their corresponding elites. These communities were hit more than once, twice, thrice, four times in fact- in 2009 by the banker's aided and abetted financial crisis, by Bush starting and Obama continuing the Afghan Iraq wars on different pretexts (diverting trillions of dollars that otherwise go to job creation and manufacturing, new technologies), and then by Covid in 2019. This is the America in which the data center building spree is taking place- a plus if done right and with some carefully thought out plan for water/electricity usage costs and for AI guardrails, protection for farmland and areas near parks and schools, and residential suburbs.   ...

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Declining manufacturing wages in the U.S. and the return of manufacturing jobs. Indiana's experience with new manufacturing plants.

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Many Italian university graduates lack proficiency in foreign languages or computer skills. Lack of on adequate on the job training programs compounds the problems as graduates are not able to pick up the skills at work. This discourages hiring of new graduates, especially graduates outside of engineering and technical areas. Technical graduates face another problem- the slow level of technological improvement and application in Italian business relative to Germany or the UK. R&D spending in Italy is only 0.7% compared to 1.4% in France and 2% in Germany, according to the OECD. Only 41% of Italian university graduates work in specialized areas, 44% in Spain, compared to 60% in the UK and Germany. Being overqualified is common for young people, or lacking other business type skills with a overemphasis on the humanities.

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The Labor Department says the US lost 598,000 jobs in January 2009. And the figure for December 2008 was revised upwards from 524,000 to 577,000. The figures from December 2007 were revised upwards by 400,000 and is at 3.6 million jobs lost. First time jobless claims reached ahigh of 626,000 last week. The current unemployment rate of 7.6% does not correctly reflect the true unemployment rate because it excludes those adults who have given up looking for a job after failure to find anything. One estimate of this based on labor force participation at the level it was when President Bush took office, is 9.4%, by Peter Morici, economist at the University of Maryland. Though the Fed is creating money at a prolific rate to support failing financial institutions and support consumer debt, having more than doubled its reserves from $900 billion to $2 trillion, the problem remains one of creating demand. Falling demand as nervous and shaken consumers reduce buying of all kinds of products, leads to buildup of inventories, cutting production, layoffs, and even more incentives to save leading to the downward spiral. As more companies layoff there is a general tendency for all businesses who already face tight credit to plan on a longer downturn and not to invest. The self reinforcing pattern is just as strong in a downturn as it is in an upturn....