Thursday, May 22, 2003

This is the bottom line result of Reaganomics II: Up until last August I was a senior IT administrator for a small high tech firm in the mid-Hudson Valley region of New York State. Before that I was a technology trainer and before that a DBA. After being laid off in August and searching for jobs constantly within a 50 mile radius, and getting nowhere doing so, I'm selling cars for a living. Now, I actually enjoy the new career and would like to think it will eventually lead to a good income, but what happens to all the time and education invested in IT? I know I'm not the only one with this problem. A good friend of mine, also a DBA, got laid off at the end of May. He's having trouble finding work, too. I know New York has been hit hard for a couple of years, but for a region that keeps hyping itself as "Tech Valley", the fact that thousands of IT pros are out of work doesn't exactly sing its praises.

Once in a while, there will be an article about this in one of the papers, but you rarely ever hear about it on TV, not even the cable news networks. Instead there will be some pundit saying that the upturn in the economy is only a matter of time or is already happening. Tell that to the 400,000 people who lost their jobs last month, or the 400,000 that lost theirs the month before, etc. Jobs are disappearing like endangered species and some people are starting to think that they may not be coming back any time soon if at all. At least one state's governor has gone on record saying so, and he's a Republican (Nit Romney, R-MA).

At least a dozen Nobel laureates in economics have issued a joint statement that corporate tax cuts do not lead to job creation or economic recovery. In fact, they can have the opposite effect, as corporations can post profits without having to spend any money on development. The stock market can go up or down without having any effect on jobs or consumer confidence. The trickle-down theory was proven false back in the Eighties, yet here is our leadership touting the "benefits" once again, depending on the electorate's short memory or lack of concern for anyone but themselves. In the meantime, CEO's have caused the biggest dollar loss of wealth in history (Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco, etc.). And these are the people our government keeps trying to help in the name of helping the rest of us. It's sickening. It's reprehensible. It's nuts.

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