Barack Obama came swinging out of his corner in Round 2, and the quick polls by TV channels give him the bout, even if only on points. Just three weeks to go for the vote and one more round to go with Mitt Romney, a resurgent Obama has made the US presidential election a close race. In the townhall-type debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, Obama and Romney sparred on taxes, deficit, energy, pay parity for women and health-care issues.
Besides shoe-horning gender and immigration issues, Obama said he would, if returned, build on the five million jobs his Administration has created. By the latest jobs report, the unemployment rate dropped unexpectedly to 7.8 per cent in September, the lowest since Obama took office in January 2009. Even if he does get back into White House, he will have a task creating jobs on any big scale.
One in the audience said iPads are made in China, and wondered if the US would get those jobs back. If Romney was almost flippant saying the US can compete with anyone as long as the playing field is level, Obama was candid enough to admit that some jobs were gone forever. It would be extremely difficult, bordering on the impossible, for US manufacturing to match China’s. Obama dismissed the iPad-type jobs as low-skilled and said he was eyeing the ‘high-wage high-skill’ jobs. But he seemed to be getting too clever by half. He did not give any clue on how he proposes to do this, but does he really believe so many jobs, especially skilled, can be created to end US unemployment? If he is thinking hi-tech, then he is even more mistaken. For, hi-tech means fewer hands!
One reason for the high jobless rate in the US is the suppressed yuan that has engendered the manufacturing boom in China. The combination of cheap goods coming from China and cheap credit at home dazzled Americans. Then, the credit bubble burst, but by then some six million jobs had gone away! Still, naively, some Americans — including Obama it would appear — seem to believe jobs can come back. This is optimism.