EconomicsUSA: Construction: Indicators: volume of contracts and number of uneployed are pr+m indicators

It's one of my working rules of economic analysis of the nooz that the construction industry is a pr+m indicator of the overall economy's health (I'm thinking USA and Canada, but the rool seems to be the same also in UK).  Jim Puzzanghera, reporting for Los Angeles T+mz, gives us this boildown:

Government data released Thursday showed that economic output dropped 2.2% last year in California, one of 38 states that saw declines in its output as the nation's real gross domestic product fell 2.1%.

The drop in GDP nationwide was caused by downturns in construction and the manufacture of durable goods, according to a report by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis. Real GDP by state, which generally tracks the nation's GDP, increased 0.1% in 2008. [Updated at 11:25 a.m.:An earlier version of this post incorrectly said that 2008's increase was 0.9%.]

Click the t+stamp to Read mpre ... 

California's drop in output ranked 32nd nationwide last year and came after the state's GDP was flat in 2008. Drops in construction and retail trade were the biggest contributors to California's falloff as the economy struggled with the fallout from the recession, which technically ended in the middle of last year.

Oklahoma had the best economic output in 2009, with 6.6% growth. Nevada had the worst year, with its GDP dropping 6.6% in 2009.

I wonder how reformational economist Bob Goudzwaard (I have for several decades called him "Dr Bob"), how may he feel intellectually about the American national loss that results in zero growth or near to it. And then there's supplemental to Dr Bob's position the further hypothesis of restorative growth that reconstructs a wounded industry, which in the end entire chapter necessarily displaces workers.  There's no hiding from the fact that the realization, in part, of Dr Bob's attack on the notion of the pr+m value of economic growth as a norm for sc+entific economics > is now being fiercely contested by the many kinds of stakeholders in slowing the economy's growth toward zero.  In Dr Bob's thawt the USA's and Canada's economies shoud slow slow slow down, at least shoud slowdown their economic growth data, according to set and scrutinized and occasionally revised indicators.


One indicator of the slow down of economic growth in the USA and Canada is the loss of employment, or conversely stated the form is the same as the growth of unemployment (it's the terminology that is equivalent to double-entry bookeeping).   The ranks of the jobless are growing.   


In the Goudzwaardian no-growth economy, slowdown of growth economy is a start and it arrived with the USA Crisis and the World Economic Meltdown, regarding both of which we are said to have averted [according to Sen Harry Reid (D-Nevada), so I'll call it The Reid Doctrine],  the jobless (conceptualize that economically) are growing in number.  


So the Puzzanghera article (top) -- which instances these industries as pr+m indicators of the national economic growth and not least the annual economic growth,  not to leave out the annual Gross National Product, -- instances a remarkable few such industries > construction, manufacturing of durable goods, and in California a variation > construction and retail.


So, we're getting the fantasy behind Dr Gouzwaard's pr+m thesis for political economics of our t+m.  A t+m of near-WorldMeltdown (maybe it's coming anyway) and USA economy's near-zero low low growth, indicated by the real Gross Domestic Product USA which fell by 2.2% last year.  But let's dwell in that imaginarium a moment:  Here we are doing what's prescr+bd to get the economy functioning more normatively (again, but hopefully not qu+t what it used to be, since we must cut the fat of antinormativity, liposuction if necessary).  Here we are with heavy increases of the national expenses going to the new Federally-controlled  but-putatively-state-administered Obamacare system.  And the jobless, no-earned-income jobless, only income at tax-payers expense jobless, construction workers jobless, factory workers in the manufacturing of durable goods  jobless and, in California, retail jobless.


A reformational response m+t be:  develop an expansion of the numbers of construction industry workers who are members of the Christian Labor Association  USA (CLA-USA).  Grow this newly-expanded specialty union's staff to be large enuff to have a topnotch say in Federal congressional hearings, in govt/labor consultations and summits, press our membership in the World Trade Union Congress (WTUC) where secularistic unionism woud have to tolerate us.  We need a christianly-organized element in the workforce of construction workers in order to offer to the Spirit of our Lord an effectual active in-this-world  force (religious groundmotive = RGM) toward a better system of construction labor representation that embraces a number of different-value-system'd unions functioning alongs+d one another on the construction s+t and factory shop floor, and all of us learning to develop harmonious relations with the employer (the construction company or companies, whether privately-owned or publicly traded on stock markets, which detail carries a certain level of certification becawz the latter kind of company is subject to detailed govt regulation, much of which requ+rz regular reporting), the employer for whom we work.  

I think CLA-USA shoud have been much more active to enter the West Virginia m+n and coalm+n disaster -- where there was no union, thus no legally-mandated Safety Officer and reporting system deep within the m+nz themselves.  Montcoal, West Virginia belonged to the No Union tradition among Bible-Belt Christians. Massey Energy Company's sprawling Upper Big Branch mine. No, just let the owner run ruffshod and safety-lax or safety-deterrant all over us, we're so overrun trapped in our m+nz and sometimes lose our l+vz there.  This is apparently the case becawz the Christian-faith coalm+ners didn't want to belong to the secularistic Un+ted M+ne Workers (UMW); for some it was a case of no union that is not founded on the broad social principles of the Christian and Judaic B+blz.  Joining a christian union, the Christian Labor Association (USA) at your service, Judaically-observant Jews and other Jews too, and other nonChristians, are all welcome to join the CLA-USA's membership.  

And to join CLAC-USA allows you (upon being duly elected by your peers) to take leadership in the unit of workers, your coworkers in the m+n -- of course, all this under your company's ownership, your ultimate Boss on the job.  If, having been elected shop steward of the work unit, you thereby qualify also to become shop steward in a larger sense (Shop Steward is in certain important respects a lower-echeleon role in your company's staff, and simultaneously in the staff relations service for the union's Shop Stewards, a service actually run by Christian Labour Association (USA) to keep the whole contract-bound commonality of all the Shop Stewards among the membership in all the work units, organized and subsidiaries, in all the industries of CLA-USA Locals's memberships across the country.   The CLA-USA bringing them together in awareness of their public-legal status as the official interface in the m+n between the corporation, the union and its membership each member with his or her health and safetfy requ+rments, and the enkaptic public-legal recognition (legally, an enkapsis by intertw+nment) as the official interface between corporation, union/membership, and thus residually the state in its role of recognizer of the contractual bond between the company and the union, with its membership.

The CLA works to promote harmony between Employer and Employee. This makes us a unique organization. The CLA is a labor union, certified by the National Labor Relations Board and similar state and local agencies. Our right to act as bargaining agents for employees is protected by law. The CLA is not affiliated with a large international union, but democratically governed by its membership. The CLA promotes harmony among all workers. Our method of operation allows for the crossing of trade lines, eliminating craft disputes. The CLA realizes that the livelihood of the employer and employee is derived from the same source.</blockquote>CLA also works for health and safety on the job and longterm.

 

That's what West Virginian Christians in the B+blbelt m+nz have needed for some t+m.


The third case I want to mention is that of General Motors.  I was disappointed that CLA+USA didn't set up a hue and cry on that one.  But that's a story that has to be told in conjunction with the most recent offering of stock by GM on the stock markets, and apparently doing enormously well. A great body of investors wants to buy those stocks. But what stake do persons working for General Motors who wanted to be represented by another union have, really?


-- EconoMix