Jobbed

It’s hard to turn on any news program without hearing about jobs. Good jobs, bad jobs, no jobs...take your pick. Everyone has a reason and a cure for the continued high rate of unemployment. The “job” in these discussions is a noun. Let’s spend a few moments talking about the verb: jobbed, as in “being jobbed”.

This term is an informal way of describing the act of cheating or betrayal. Archaically, it refers to turning a public office or a position of trust to private advantage. Hardly positive notes, but who can argue that they are not germane to what is going on around us.

President Obama recently nixed the Keystone pipeline project to the dismay of those tied to interests of the oil industry (Republicans, generally). This project, they argue, would produce many jobs that desperate Americans need. And look at the additional jobs the pipeline could provide farther down the road: HazMat personnel, environmental engineers, and countless others to be tasked with cleaning up an inevitable spill.

Washington state’s Hanford Site was created to produce plutonium for the first atomic bomb. Seven decades later, the cleanup continues with little hope of ever restoring the environment to an acceptable condition (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/story/2012-01-25/hanford-nuclear-plutonium-cleanup/52622796/1). Talk about a jobs creator!

California’s Governor Jerry Brown, on the other hand, is being demonized by some (Republicans) for continuing to press for a high speed rail project. This is a jobs creator, isn’t it? Why is there little bipartisan support? No, it’s not about jobs. It’s about being jobbed.

Wichita, KS knows first hand as they fought for Boeing’s USAF tanker project while the company assured the city leaders that such a contract would ensure Boeing’s continued presence in their city. Well, Boeing got the contract, but now it seems as though “unforeseen events” have forced the company to soon shutter the Wichita plants. This is jobbed with a capital “J”, wouldn’t you say? Many employee groups have taken cuts in pay and benefits as their employers promise to avoid bankruptcy only to find that the filing follows shortly thereafter.

We’re all being jobbed by someone, at sometime, for some ulterior motive. The politicians (left and right) seek to warn us that voting for any third party candidate is a wasted vote when, in fact, it only threatens their oligarchy. Corporations sit on large sums of capital and state they will hire only when consumer confidence returns. The problem is that the confidence will rise only after jobs are more plentiful. CEO’s know full well that many of the jobs lost over the past several years are not coming back, but they find it hard to state the obvious.

Banks find it more profitable to loan their money to the federal government rather than entrepreneurs and others seeking to grow (or start) their businesses. And with the Fed promising to keep rates low for the next couple of years, financial institutions see lending to anyone but Uncle Sam as fiscally unsound.

We don’t have a jobs shortage, but rather an expertise shortage as technology renders many positions passé and new positions unfilled due to lack of qualified applicants. Education isn’t stressed, though. Just jobs and who can create them as if they were lying in the bottom of a black top-hat alongside the white rabbit.

Until we realize the path to lower unemployment lies primarily in retraining and retooling for 21st century opportunities, we will continue to fall prey to the jobs mantra espoused by those looking to maintain their status quo while limiting the advancement of those they profess to represent. They’re jobbing us, in other words.

The jobless rate hovers near 9% while the jobbed rate is closer to 100%. The former is tied to our economy while the latter can be traced to the various and sundry leaders, corporate and political, that choose personal gain over a higher ideal. We’ll all be in a better place when both numbers come down.