Goose wrote:

Let's hope it continues

I never know what to make of these jobs numbers. Reading a few quick analyses, I've seen everything from "this is great news" to "The U.S. is the best house in a sh!tty neighborhood" due to all the global financial uncertainty that remains. 

But for today however, I raise my glass to these numbers.
 

Rongone wrote:

Too bad wages and salaries for middle class Americans remains stagnant. Over the last several years an annual increase of 2.7% for this group of workers is about average. This does not keep up with cost of living increases. At best, middle class Americans are treading water. Meanwhile American corporations and wealthy Americans are enjoying record profits and substantially increasing their personal wealth. Corporations are not repatriating profits, continuing stock buy back programs that benefit large shareholders and corporate executives, or parking profits in offshore accounts instead of passing on a portion of those profits to the employees of the company or investing it back into the business in capital expenditures or other business improvements. Capital improvements in the business could also expand related businesses that would be good for the overall economy. Corporations blame stagnant wages and salaries (except for those generous executive benefit packages) on such nebulous terms like: cautionary measures, economic conditions, government regulation, global competition, and (the one I like most) slowing productivity rates. Surely the executives of these global conglomerates are smart enough to figure out how to remedy some of these constraints that don't enable them to allow reasonable annual wage and salary increases for middle class workers while they rake in around 350% more than the average worker in their employ. Or, maybe they just are only concerned with their personal selfish interests.

The lack of business investment is not just a US problem (see link below) , but one that most of the industrialized nations are facing since the depression of 2009. Another concern is that where there has been big investment, many times it is in mechanization and robotics that actually replace workers. 

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/global-watchdog-slashes-us-economic-forecast-31489343

 

Unfortunately the link offers no explanation as to what corporations are doing with their earnings. They aren't spending it on employee benefits. They aren't spending it on capital investment. They aren't spending it on business expansion. What are they spending it on? Perhaps executive benefit packages and stock buy backs?