America won’t improve our unemployment situation until we start building STUFF and then selling that STUFF to the rest of the world.  It is precisely our history of manufacturing excellence that historically allowed blue collar workers to help drive the American economy … from the ground up.  It is a pretty big deal when the country is producing more goods and selling more goods than at any other time in history.  That’s huge.

The Wall Street Journal writes HERE:

U.S. exports bucked a world-wide trade slowdown in June, but face serious headwinds from the recession throughout much of Europe and softening growth in Asia. The U.S. trade deficit with other countries narrowed to $42.9 billion in June from $48 billion a month earlier, the Commerce Department said Thursday, as imports fell and exports grew. Exports, which have been a pivotal contributor to the economic recovery, were strong almost everywhere except to Europe, where a recession and a protracted sovereign-debt crisis have sapped demand.

In June, the U.S. notched increases in exports of a variety of goods including pharmaceuticals, cars and industrial engines. Exports increased $1.7 billion to $185 billion, the highest monthly tally ever. Imports declined $3.5 billion to $227.9 billion, driven largely by a drop in oil prices that reduced the value of petroleum imports. Total U.S. exports are up 6% in the first six months of 2012 from the same period a year ago.

But middle class workers aren’t sharing in the profit gains as corporations and wealthy businessmen are making money hand over fist.

Mitt Romney said this yesterday:

“Government is the least productive—the federal government is the least productive of our economic sectors…The most productive is the private sector. The next most productive is the not-for-profit sector, then comes state and local governments, and finally the federal government.”

And as Ezra Klein responds to that assertion HERE -

The other part of Romney’s claim — that wages and employment track productivity — is actually false. Unpublished data from BLS, generously provided to me by the Economic Policy Institute’s Larry Mishel and Nicholas Finio, shows that wages tracked  productivity growth until about 1970. After that, wages stagnated even as productivity continued to grow.

Romney claimed in his interview with Tyrangiel, “higher productivity means higher wages for the American worker.” No it doesn’t, or at least it hasn’t for the past 40 years.

When Romney says that – he’s basically trumpeting trickle down economic theory.  He says if workers make more money for the man – the man pays you more money.  But as Ezra pointed out – not so much.  We wrote about this study HERE … the Economic Policy Institute wrote:

Reestablishing the link between productivity and pay of the typical worker is an essential component of any effort to provide shared prosperity and, in fact, may be necessary for obtaining robust growth without relying on asset bubbles and increased household debt. It is hard to see how reestablishing a link between productivity and pay can occur without restoring decent and improved labor standards, restoring the minimum wage to a level corresponding to half the average wage (as it was in the late 1960s), and making real the ability of workers to obtain and practice collective bargaining.

And just yesterday – President Obama buoyed by some of this economic news said this:

I said I believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back and GM is number one again. So now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs not just in the auto industry, but in every industry. I don’t want those jobs taking root in places like China. I want them taking root in places like Pueblo.

And you think this would be something we could all be proud about … but the Republican party REALLY wants … really NEEDS the economy to suck in order for them to usher in a new conservative era.  So – now they’re taking his comments out of context … again.

As the Hill points out HERE - now Republicans are saying Obama wants to bail out “every industry” … this tweet came from a Mitt Romney aide:

Here we go again. President opens mouth, proposes bailout “in every industry.” politico.com/politico44/201…

— Brendan Buck (@Brendan_Buck) August 9, 2012

And that’s funny because just yesterday – Mitt Romney was talking about how he felt politicians should be forced to take down dishonest ads etc even though Politifact has rated 43% of his statements to be dishonest (source).

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