Unemployment causes
The primary cause of unemployment in the US today is our policy on foreign trade. When we opened up to the China and other Asian markets our corporations quickly discovered that those nations were happily taking US products, copying them, and selling the counterfits back to our people as legit items. In order to protect their profits, they pressured Congress to pass laws to protect their property.
So now there's basically a gun to the head of other countries saying, "If you don't self-police and stop knocking our stuff off, you'll have your rights to trade with the U.S. revoked!"
But the corporations didn't do the same things where worker compensation and benefits are concerned. They didn't say, "Hey, we pay our people a certain amount, refuse to have child labor, and require that they receive certain benefits...so in order to compete properly if you don't self-police and do the same you won't be able to trad with the U.S."
Stuff from Asia is pretty much manufactured under slave labor conditions. The people are not highly paid and are desperate. When you step back we see that slave labor is alive and well in American culture...we've just outsourced it so we don't have to see the dirt we're rolling in.
