Jobless benefits and the unemployed; China’s trade policies; the official end of the recession

A helping hand or a handout?

Re “Jobless to be a political force,” Sept. 22, and “Jobless dispute complacency claim,” Sept. 22

Eighteen months ago, I offered a job to an applicant who had been unemployed for three weeks.

Although she was happy with the job, the salary and the benefits, she turned down my offer. Frankly, she told me, she wanted to to exhaust her unemployment benefits. She reasoned that by the time she factored in gas, childcare, lunches, work clothes, etc., she considered it a “wash.”

She called me when her benefits were exhausted and asked if the job were still available. This time, I turned her down.

Even if the job had been available, I would not have hired her. She had already told me what type of person she was.

Leslie Rodriguez

Los Angeles

Nevada’s Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Sharron Angle, was quoted in your story as saying: “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job but doesn’t pay as much.” If she’s so keen for job seekers to accept a low-

paying but honest job, why is she seeking one in politics?

Ed Brand

Valencia

Ninety-nine weeks of unemployment insurance payments should provide enough time for most people to find a job in their chosen field. Or it should provide sufficient time to begin training toward a new career.

Instead of being productive, some unemployed spend this time lobbying for further extensions of benefits.

Extending jobless benefits does not create jobs; it creates larger “jobless unions.”

Michael McAndrew

Fullerton

Let’s put this into perspective. We all know how devastating the oil blowout has been to jobs in the Gulf of Mexico. If that accident had put all the people in all the related industries out of work, it would still be dwarfed by the job losses in the last presidency.

Those jobs are gone, many forever. President Obama stopped further losses, but it took 30 years of Reaganomics to dig the hole this deep. It would take divine intervention to re-create those jobs in only 22 months. Those who are out of work want jobs, not welfare.

Congressional Republicans are blocking every effort to create jobs, and then they put the blame on the very people who can’t get work.

Darryl Dickey

Porter Ranch

Jobs, China and trade

Re “America’s trade traitors,” Opinion, Sept. 22

Peter Navarro’s Op-Ed article pointed out a fact that proponents of free trade traditionally deny: That is, free trade is a Utopian concept. It seems Adam Smith’s invisible hand is, in fact, not invisible. If unintended consequence applies to regulation, then it also applies to absence of regulation.

The theory goes that a nation’s wealth could be calculated by the amount of industrial labor — with well-paying jobs — that was available to that nation’s labor force. For decades, our politicians have facilitated the exportation of our once massive industrial base to other countries. With this base gone, what will be the engine for our economic recovery?

To expect one party or the other to ameliorate the economic collapse is totally unrealistic. Politicians are only interested in getting reelected.

If a real solution is ever found, it will be by accident.

Russell Rankin

Downey

It is beyond tiresome to hear from writers like Navarro that China’s trade policies are leading us to economic ruin.

After World War II and for many years beyond, we were an exporting powerhouse creating millions of middle-class jobs and still had enough wealth left over to help our former enemies get back on their feet.

Along the way, we got a bit fat and very lazy and let ourselves go from being the No. 1 creditor nation to a top debtor. Many of our corporate titans discovered that shortsightedness, tied to well-timed stock options, was more profitable personally than trying to keep us ahead of foreign competition.

Steven Goodman

Encino

I agree; corporate executives who do business with China at the expense of U.S. jobs and manufacturing are thieves and traitors. Corporate executives who take advantage of cheap foreign labor and factories overseas seem to forget that, when they bring the product back into the country, the people they need to buy it can’t afford to because their jobs were sent overseas.

Navarro’s criticism of Obama’s failure to crack down on unfair Chinese trade practices isn’t fair. Ending trade agreements that allow corporations to manufacture overseas and base their home offices offshore to avoid taxes while getting tax breaks has been a constant theme in Obama’s speeches and is part of his domestic agenda.

But it’s tough to accomplish with the timidity of the Democrats and a GOP longing for the days of Reaganomics.

David P. Lewis

Long Beach

Navarro has hit the nail on the head. There is ubiquitous talk about jobs, jobs, jobs every day, and the obvious cure to the problem — which is bringing jobs back from China — is being studiously avoided.

The fact is that big business and the banks do not want to hire more. They are doing just fine with outsourcing and derivatives, and more labor costs equal less profit for them.

This talk of lack of demand and an unfriendly administration is hogwash.

To begin with, a mass body of unemployed cannot spend; and if demand were to increase, the new jobs created will go to China. It’s like carrying water in a basket.

Malcolm Young

Culver City

How refreshing to read Navarro’s insightful challenge to corporate America’s role in support of unfair trade practices and currency manipulation by China. He believes that “what all these American business groups and corporate executives now doing business with China fail to understand is … when jobs move to China, Americans are damaged.”

I believe they do understand what it means to America, but they are primarily concerned with corporate profits, not the economic interest and future of a nation.

Tom Johnson

Anaheim Hills

Not buying the recession story

Re “Recession is over, say economists,” Business, Sept. 21

The National Bureau of Economic Research, a private, nonprofit research group, has announced that the recession officially ended in June 2009.

In a related story, the bureau also announced that I would be winning the Super Lotto drawing next week.

I give both announcements about the same level of credibility.

George Ronay

Westchester