The bad news about American jobs: they're gone, all gone

So if you're gonna leave your town where the north wind blow
To go on down where that sweet soda river flow
Well you better think twice on it Jack
You're better off buyin' a shotgun dead off the rack
You ain't gonna find nothin' down here friend
Except seeds blowin' up the highway in the south wind
Movin' on movin' on it's gone gone it's all gone

–Bruce Springsteen, Seeds

The Boss was telling people not to come to Texas expecting to find oil company jobs when he wrote this song more than a quarter of a century ago. And, indeed, things were pretty bleak in Houston, which was where Springsteen was talking about in this song, back in the mid-80s when the energy industry went bust. I was in the crisis consulting business at the time and I remember flying into Houston around 8 a.m., picking up my rental car at Hobby Airport, motoring up the Gulf Freeway to downtown and seeing, perhaps, two or three other cars on the freeway the entire time. And this was during what was supposed to be morning rush hour! It was so bad in Houston the pawn shops were going out of business.

As a country, we have not sunk quite that low, but it has gotten pretty bad. The cry echoing throughout the land is "What about jobs! Where are they? Where have they gone?"

I’ve got some bad news for you. You ain’t gonna find nothin’ down here friend, except seeds blowin’ up that highway … those jobs are gone, they’re all gone.

What happened? Trickle down economics happened, that’s what.

Here was the idea behind trickle down economics as perpetuated by a series of misguided Republican presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan 30 years ago. Give massive tax breaks to the major corporations and their leaders because these generous folks will not only contribute to Republican political campaigns but they will re-invest all this money they don’t have to pay to the government in building additional factories and facilities that will create jobs.

And it worked! Only one problem. The Greedy Bastards (GBs) who ran these corporations built all these factories and facilities outside the United States where they created jobs for people willing to work for a fraction of the pay of U.S. workers. So where did all U.S. jobs disappear to? To Korea, India, Indonesia and, most of all, China. And they aren’t coming back.

The United States has become a service-based economy. For the most part, the jobs now available to U.S. citizens are in retail, the restaurant or hotel industries and the like. Oh, of course, there are a slew of high technology jobs for the taking out there, but our education system has de-evolved to such an extent that the only ones qualified for those jobs are those who have been educated outside the United States.

Is there a solution? Outside of major public works programs akin to the ones created by Franklin Roosevelt, there is not one that will put a significant amount of unemployed Americans to work. And a major public works program is not going to happen for a number of reasons. First and foremost: The Republicans running Congress won’t let it happen. Working stiffs don’t make political contributions, at least significant ones, and if they vote at all, it’s probably going to be for a damned Democrat, so Republicans are not about to be doing any favors for the average American working man or woman. Another reason is that there’s not much out there that needs to be built. We need less dams, not more. Fewer miles of highways, not more. Of course the United States could join the rest of the civilized world and construct a nationwide high speed rail system. But the Republicans won’t let that happen either because the GBs that run the oil companies as well as the Republican Party won’t let it happen. In fact, the wrongheaded Republican Presidential candidates are all advocating completely eliminating passenger rail service in this country!

Perhaps the best option for young Americans these days is a career in the military, especially if we can extricate ourselves from all these messy wars. The pay’s not great, but you get three square meals a day, housing and medical care all tossed in and, as long as you behave, you can do 30 years easy, then retire in your mid-50s with a nice, comfortable pension. Plus you get to travel. As available jobs go, it’s a helluva lot better than slinging fries at Henry’s Hamburger Haven, or even yelling "Next in line, please!" at Best Buy.

Cities will always need police and firefighters. Many communities can’t find enough dependable drivers with CDLs to man garbage trucks. (With options such as these, it’s easy to understand why so many of today’s youth opt for the illegal drug trade and a guaranteed six-figure, minimum, annual income.)

As for the dream of a standard of living superior to that of your parents: For the overwhelming majority of today’s American workforce it’s "gone, gone. It’s all gone."