No manufacturing jobs in highly touted employment gains.

The Bush administration enthusiastically welcomed recent Bureau of Labor Statistics figures reporting that the U.S. economy created 207,000 new jobs in July. But high government officials ignored what kind of jobs they were. Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts examined the data and concluded that "21st century job growth in the U.S. economy has consistently reflected that of a Third World country."

Of the new jobs touted by the administration, Roberts pointed to 177,000 "in the domestic service sector" and 26,000 that are "tax-supported government jobs." In all, he stated, "Not a single one of these jobs produces a tradable good or service that can be exported or serve as an import substitute to help reduce the massive and growing U.S. trade deficit." Overlooked, he says, are "reductions in the productivity and pay of employed Americans in the manufacturing, technical and scientific [sectors] of the U.S. economy."

Recognizing that the outsourcing of jobs and industries has taken a huge toll on America's productive sector, Roberts asks: "Where are the jobs for the 65,000 engineers the U.S. graduates every year? Where are the jobs for the physics, chemistry, and math majors? Who needs a university degree to wait tables and serve drinks, to build houses, to work as hospital orderlies, bus drivers, and sales clerks?"