US Needs Cabinet Level Department of Trade and Industry

There is no question that US trade policy is abysmal and manufacturing jobs are leaving the US in droves. There are massive trade deficits month after month with no end in sight. Yet the US government does nothing to reverse this situation. Other countries have cabinet level departments of trade and industry to promote domestic manufacturing and to encourage trade that is favorable to that particular nation. At a minimum this would comprise a balance of trade so that there would be no deficit or surplus. Striving for this goal would be responsible both to the nation (in this case the US) and to other nations who are trading partners. Rather than free trade on the one hand or protectionism which didn't take other nations' interests into account on the other, balanced trade should be the policy of the US. That might require seeding, nurturing and leveraging some industries and sunsetting others. While other nations pursue rational (and mainly selfish) policies, the US, in the name of free trade, leaves the door wide open for other nations to sell anything they want into our markets, flooding our markets with cheap goods, while US corporations are "free" to export jobs to other countries. Such a deal! Meanwhile, stuff that could be produced locally is transported halfway around the world by container ship.

Japan has MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) whose goal is to create Japanese jobs and wealth by exporting manufactured goods around the world but mainly into the US market. An American MITI would also be in the business of creating US jobs that weren't exportable and strengthening the US industrial base. By the way MITI has now morphed into METI. Part of this cabinet level department would act like a national employment agency insuring that human capital found its way to wherever it was needed the most. This would also have the salubrious effect of diminishing unemployment. It's worth quoting at length from the Swedish national employment agency to show just how advanced other countries can be while the US stays in a state of mental retardation accompanied by extreme hubris and jingoism. Please note that this is a national or public employment program and not a private employment agency. As such it is absolutely comprehensive and thorough, not the usual hodge podge, catch as catch can, fall through the cracks system found in the US. Important functions have been socialized while the jobs themselves remain privatized. An intelligent trade-off between privatization and socialization has been realized.

Open Customer Systems in the Swedish Public Employment Service   Background   Great changes have taken place in Sweden’s Public Employment Service (AMS) over the past few years. The break-through of the new information technology has enabled us to develop a variety of on-line placement services. The main purpose of the AMS` Internet programme is to improve and modernise the infrastructure provided by the Employment Service by creating a comprehensive web- site for placement, vocational guidance and information on education and the labour market. Through the Internet development, we can gradually transform the physical infrastructure to a virtual one, creating a higher transparency on the labour-market.   The Virtual Employment Service contains several benefits:   §         Information and electronic communication is accessible 24 hours a day directly from the customers homes and/or workplaces. The distribution of placement services and labour-market information is no longer restricted by the physical locations of  employment offices. §         Employers and job-seekers may now control their own information-spreading and contact each other directly, without any intermediary. §         Providing a service of equal quality to all citizens are greatly enhanced. At the same time, the basic services can still be adapted to individual needs, through a high degree of personalisation and interactiveness. §         Since most employers and job-seekers can rely on the new self-service tools, the personnel at the employment offices can focus more on long-term unemployed and other job-seekers who need more individual guidance, as well as on companies and market-sectors that experience shortage of skilled and educated labour. Overall, the cost-effectiveness of the Public Employment Service will thus increase. §         The development of recruitment services on the Internet will also benefit the Swedish companies directly, making their recruitment processes more effective.   AMS´ Internet-site has been a tremendous success. Currently, more than 400,000 individuals use our Internet services each month. This corresponds to over ten per cent of the Swedish work-force! After only five years, the majority of AMS´  information and brokerage services are accessed through the Internet.   Current Services   In the spring of 2000, AMS´ web-site comprises the following main services:   §         Job Vacancies AMS´ web-site provides Sweden’s leading job vacancy service. In January 2000 it attracted more than 350 000 visitors, and the number  is growing month by month. Visitors can access all job vacancies reported to the Employment Service. If the employer has an e-mail address, this can be linked to a ready-made application form which the applicant can fill in and e-mail to the employer directly. Employers also have the possibility of adding their own logotype and a link to their own home page, as well as presenting the enterprise, the workplace and/or the working unit concerned in words and pictures. Job vacancy advertising is free of charge to employers. An employer can follow on-line how many times the ad has been read. Tens of thousands of job opportunities all over Sweden are posted each day, and we also offer links to private job-sites as well as to the web-sites of the public employment services in Europe and North America. §         CV [Curriculum Vitae] Database The CV Database is an on-line service for firms wishing to recruit new employees. Everyone wishing to look for a new job can register his or her  CV at the AMS´ web-site. By creating a search-profile employers can find suitable applicants without difficulty and contact them directly.   Job-seekers present their qualifications by means of an occupational nomenclature and search words. For example, there are searchable words for education, skills and knowledge of languages. The search tool is based on AMS Job Profile Matching System.  An employer wishing to run a detailed search for people with particular skills bases the search on the same Job Profiles.   An exhaustive list of qualifications is vital in order for the employer to obtain an accurate picture of the individual, and the CVs should be regularly updated. The job-seekers also  add a personal letter to potential employers, where they are able to give a more personal presentation of themselves.   For the enhancement of information quality, the CVs are subject to minimum requirements concerning content and accessibility. However, to protect the integrity of the candidates, they are able to keep their names and their current employer anonymous - this is an option very few use, though.   At the beginning of year 2000 more than 22,000 Swedish companies were registered as users of the CV Database and it contains about 50 000 accessible CV:s.   §         Recruitment assistance In the spring of 2000, a Recruitment assistance tool will be introduced as a further service to employers. They  will be able to conduct an individualised recruitment dialogue with job applicants. This application aims at helping employers to sort large amounts of applicants automatically, thereby rationalising their administrative efforts to select candidates for interviews. Hopefully, in a longer perspective, it will also give us a more realistic picture of the actual selection-criteria used on the labour-market, which in turn will help us provide even better labour-market information and make our labour-market programmes more effective.   §         The Image and Artists Bank The Image and Artists Bank is one of the world’s largest Internet galleries. This service enables artists to present their skills on-line in the form of reference pictures and qualifications. This bank is intended to be a meeting point for artists and clients. It currently holds presentations of about 1500 Swedish artists and photographers. An English version of the Image and Artist Bank is being prepared, as well as possibilities to present video art.   §         Occupations and Education In order to provide information and guidance when choosing an occupational direction and/or a suitable educational program, the AMS web-site currently holds two extensive databases;  Occupational A to Z and Educations in Sweden. The Occupational A to Z contains descriptions of 500 occupations, showing duties,  training alternatives, employment prospects and rates of pay. Educations in Sweden holds up-dated information on more than 3500 education programmes and training courses all over Sweden, as well as information on different ways of financing studies. §         Information Service AMS provides a wide array of information on our Web-site, aimed at job-seekers, employers, journalists and the general public. We provide information on: -     The service provided by the employment offices -         Labour market programmes -         Unemployment benefits -         Reports and statistics about the Swedish labour-market -         Information on how to find jobs/applicants abroad, living conditions in other countries and EU-information related to the labour-market -         Internet-based papers and magazines concerning the labour-market, as well as a press-room   §         Call-Center To create a professional customer-support for our Internet clients, AMS has established a special call-centre. Here, customers can get support for our Internet-services, as well as gain information on any subject related to the labour-market, educations or unemployment benefits.   Future Development   §         New web-site AMS is preparing a profound rebuilding and improvement of our employment services on the Internet. The "new generation" will include greatly improved functionality and interactiveness, where each and every customer – job-seekers and employers alike - may create their own, personalised web-site. Here, they can freely choose which services they want to use, and they will be able to subscribe for the information they want and have it transferred to them by the communication channel of their choice, be it e-mail, cell-phone or any other electronic channel. In this way, e.g. job-seekers will be able to get new vacancies and messages from employers delivered to them automatically, without having to search the databases each time they use our services. Our customers will also be able to subscribe for information on activities offered by their local employment office, articles about their occupational field, housing possibilities, create links to other web-sites, and much more. The administrative support will also be enhanced, so that e.g. employers may easily gather all information concerning a specific recruitment - i.e. advertisement, applications, contacts with applicants - in one place, thereby getting a better overview of the recruitment process. The new site will be built up successively during 2000.   AMS is also developing a job-seeker program where job-seekers will be able to get on-line support in their job-seeking. This program will be interactive, and through the dialogue the user will gain access to various testing tools, vocational and educational information, labour market information and job search advice.   §         System support for internal recruitment Large companies and organisations have called for an application whereby AMS Job Profiles and CV Databases can be used for their internal job markets. As a response, AMS has developed a special application for in-house use in companies, based on our occupational templates and on our external placement systems. The aim of this venture is to facilitate internal recruitment by the organisations concerned, but also to provide simple means of combining internal and external recruitment.   §         Local web-sites All local employment offices around Sweden already have their own local web-sites, within the framework of AMS general web-site. We are now developing these local web-sites, enhancing the possibilities for information-spreading and interactive dialogue between the local employment offices and their customers. For instance, job-seekers may register themselves at the employment office, apply for participation in labour-market programmes, communicate with their employment officer through e-mail or "e-visits".  This will in particular benefit job-seekers living far away from an employment office - which is not unusual in a sparsely-populated country like Sweden. §         Multimedia Features The scope of services is broadening and the level of interaction is increasing. In the near future, when high-speed transmission becomes more common, there will be better possibilities for including multimedia features as well. AMS is following these developments very closely and is preparing to produce films about occupations and sending Web-TV in the future. When this is a reality, it will also create new possibilities for performing interviews and dialogues through the Internet.   Conclusion   During the past five years AMS has created an employment service system on the Internet with a rich content and advanced functionality.  That this development clearly fills a market need is shown by the large amount of Swedes using our Internet services on a regular basis. We were also very proud to be the first winner of the "Golden Link" in 1999 - an Internet award given to the authority providing the best net-services to the Swedish citizens.   Of course, this development would not have been possible were it not for the rapid break-through of IT in Sweden during the 1990`s, with world-leading companies in the Internet and telecom sectors and a very deep Internet penetration among the general public. In turn, this situation creates almost unlimited opportunities for further extension of our Internet services in the years to come.

Contrary to the bullshit that the US population is served regarding socialism, the Swedish public employment agency acts to minimize outlays for unemployment insurance and to maximize participation in the job force or labor market thereby diminishing government expenditures. Here's a quote from their website: "the Public Employment Service is charged with ensuring that the unemployment insurance system functions as an employment conversion insurance." So the intention is to get people employed as soon as possible and to keep them off of unemployment insurance as much as possible, to ensure smooth functioning of the labor market.  

Obama is right to pursue a policy of rewarding corporations who create non-outsourceable jobs in the US with tax breaks and heavily taxing corporations who export jobs overseas. An incentive structure for corporations needs to be set up such that corporations have more of an incentive to pay taxes than to hire lobbyists. If they want to relocate overseas to escape US taxes entirely yet sell into the US market, this needs to be addressed with selective tariffs to give them a disincentive for doing so. Again the goal should be balanced trade - no trade deficit, no trade surplus - and then the US can't be accused of protectionism, just looking out for its enlightened self-interest while encouraging trade with other countries - not US corporations who have relocated overseas. A cabinet level US METI could encourage the growth of new corporations which have the attitude (after all, they're "persons" aren't they and persons can have "attitudes") of contributing to the national well-being by sharing profits not only with shareholders but with taxpayers as well. The attitude should be: if corporations don't want to pay taxes, let them leave and let new corporations take their places. The US should encourage some corporations (those who want to share) with subsidies and tax breaks and discourage others (those who don't want to share).

The problem with lobbyists running Congress needs to be addressed, the law changed if necessary. The current system is out of whack. American corporations should be subservient to the US government, not in control of it. A healthy tax policy would tax those most able to pay and not those the least able. That would mean that the most profitable corporations would be taxed the most and poor people the least. Instead we have the exact opposite today as lobbyists and accountants are paid by corporations to create and invoke policies which tax them (the corporations) the least and poor people the most. Obama's message of tax relief for the middle class while raising taxes on the wealthy is exactly the right antidote to the Republican imprecation "the Democrats will raise your taxes." Hell yes, they will if you're rich. But they'll reduce them if you're middle class. Right on, Obama! The Republicans will find ways to increase your taxes without saying so if you're poor or middle class while lowering them for the wealthy and rich corporations who can afford to be represented in Washington not by elected representatives but by paid lobbyists. The US government has become a plutocracy - government by, of and for the rich. McCain panders to the poor and middle class while representing the rich. Most, if not all, of his advisers are lobbyists.

The educational system needs to be reformed and students guided, and trained and informed in such a way that their talents will actually be used in the job market. In other words there will be a job waiting for them when they graduate instead of graduating into an empty job market or prepared for a job which has been or will soon be outsourced. Not everyone wants to go to college and become a computer scientist. So-called blue collar jobs are a much more natural fit for many workers because they require hands on skills and are non-sedentary and, therefore, more healthful in the long run. It's ridiculous that US citizens have been brainwashed to the point that people think they are failures or second class citizens unless they graduate from college. Coming out of college with $100,000. in debt from student loans is a ridiculous situation compared to having started a successful business in lieu of college. College mainly trains people to be employees. So what's the sense of going into debt to prepare yourself to be an employee and, therefore, subservient to your employer when you could be self-employed and, therefore, "free" in a society which supposedly values freedom? People are so brainwashed. I'd rather have $100,000. in the bank, no college degree and a four to eight year start on getting a business off the ground than be $100,000. in student loan debt and have a college degree which in many cases is a worthless piece of paper.

Finally, the military-industrial complex (the only source of good middle class jobs at present in addition to the health care industry which badly needs reform and job reduction) needs to be defunded with the funds being shifted to infrastructure rebuilding and seeding and leveraging new productive industries. The government needs to seed, nurture and leverage new industries, not totally own them. Industrial employees should be private employees not government employees. The purpose of government should be guidance and oversight - not ownership. Leave that to the private marketplace. What the US needs is not tinkering with its economy but a whole restructuring of the economy. The fundamentals of the economy are not strong. It needs a total make-over.