By
Luis Manuel Aguana
To President
Donald Trump
with the
gratitude of the people of Venezuela
It seems
that many of the decisions that President Donald Trump is making not only
inwardly in terms of domestic economic policy but outwardly in terms of foreign
relations are pointing to a development of fundamental principles that had been
ignored by previous U.S. administrations and that now take effect when the
results become evident. Two examples of this are his policy in relation to
domestic employment and his policy in relation to Latin America, especially in
the case of Venezuela. Let's look at both.
U.S. Inward Policy: Case Unemployment
Contrary to
economic analyses suggesting that President Trump's industrial relocation
policy decisions may not impact job creation in the United States, the
unemployment rate fell in September 2018 to 3.7%, its lowest level in 49 years
(see news in Spanish on CNN https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2018/10/05/la-tasa-de-desempleo-en-ee-uu-cae-a-su-minimo-en-49-anos/). The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States expects
unemployment to remain below 4% until the end of 2020. This makes President
Trump one of his administration's greatest political successes.
Robert
Reich(1), a university professor and former Secretary of Labor during the
Clinton administration, categorized the competitive positions of Americans into
three major groups in the early 1990s, and I think they can still be applied to
an analysis of this phenomenon. Reich thought that this categorization also
applied to other countries: a) routine production services; b) personal
services; and c) symbolic-analytical services. Let's see:
Routine production services cover tasks performed by low-level workers in high-volume production
companies. They are considered manual tasks and consist of a repetitive control
of the work that includes the entire command and control management pyramid
(foremen, line managers, personnel and section chiefs). These services can be
found in many places in the economy where tasks are tedious and repetitive,
such as entering data in a terminal as tele-operators or bagging different
pieces in a production line. Contrary to what we thought at the beginning of
the modernization product of this period of high technological intensity,
repetitive uses increased significantly in this category.
Personal
services also accomplish simple and repetitive tasks. These
services are provided on a person-to-person basis but unlike the previous
category workers are in direct contact with the final recipients of their work.
Such is the case for example of waiters, hotel employees, secretaries, auto
mechanics, airline hostesses, nurses. By 1990 this category included nearly 30%
of the rapidly growing U.S. labor force and outperformed the combined
automotive, steel, and textile industries. At this time, according to Bureau of
Labor Statistics projections, the largest projected growth per major
occupational group in 2014-2024 is supportive occupations related to health
care, at 23%, with the creation of more than 1.3 million jobs. (see Bureau of
Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook
Handbook in Spanish (OOH), Edition 2014-15, Occupational Employment
Projections, 2014-24,
online http://www.bls.gov/es/ooh/about/proyecciones-de-empleo-ocupacional.htm (visited 01/25/2019)).
The third
category of jobs corresponds to symbolic-analytical
services, which includes the activities of experts, scientists, engineers,
bankers, lawyers, planners, consultants in various specialties. These experts
analyze and solve problems using symbols simplifying reality with abstract
images. These people work alone or in small groups, and may be connected to
large organizations worldwide. They are highly skilled and their work is not
repetitive but rather creative.
Where will
the new jobs be in the United States? In the first two categories of Reich,
according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, and are those that are especially
located in the country, not outside it. According to Table 2 of the projections
cited, the 3 largest projected occupational groups in the United States are in
professional and technical occupations related to health care (1.3M jobs),
supportive occupations related to health care (0.9M jobs), and Meal preparation
and services (0.8M jobs), all with some repetitive component, as highlighted by
the Reich classification.
On the other
hand, these figures correspond to the table "Distribution of nonfatal
occupational injuries and illnesses by private industry sector, 2017" of
the Bureau of Labor Statistics for November 2018 (see 2017 Survey of
Occupational Injuries & Illnesses Charts Package, November 2018, in https://www.bls.gov/iif/osch0062.pdf), where the Health care and social assistance sector had the highest
number of private sector injuries and illnesses. This will mean that for the
next few years, more and more workers' compensation for repetitive work
injuries will be necessary in the categories where the largest amount of
employment will be located in the United States.
The success
of the American policy on employment is based in my opinion on a simple and
clear determination of President Trump according to his own slogan: Buy American - Hire
American. From there everything else can be deduced, including its
commercial policy with the rest of its peers in the world. Nobody else would do
something else if what they really have in mind is the welfare of their own
people.
U.S. Policy Outside the United States: The Venezuelan Case
After 20
years of the growing Cubanization of Venezuela, with the catastrophic economic
results that we Venezuelans now suffer, the final solution was in the hands of
the U.S. government, especially because of the determination of President
Donald Trump: we don't want communist governments in Latin America.
That is a clear policy position. If we extrapolate it from history, the phrase
"we don't want communist governments" is centered in all the
decisions of countless U.S. Presidents in the past. Why had this been
forgotten? I thank President Donald Trump for rescuing that policy from the
ashtray of American memories and applying it now especially to the cases of
Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
From the
very moment the constitutional situation of the illegal tenant of Miraflores
was defined, and more openly as of January 10, 2019, the United States closed
ranks with the Venezuelan people. Note here that each statement by the
spokespersons of the U.S. government emphasizes that the U.S. government and
people support the Venezuelan people and their determination to achieve
democracy and freedom through peaceful and constitutional means.
They do not
refer to Juan Guaidó in particular but to the person whom the mechanisms of the
Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela indicated as the new
Constitutional President. That is what makes that in that country where it is
clear what the constitutional institutionality means, all the springs of
support to our political situation will be triggered. But that would never have
been possible without the determination of its President Donald Trump.
Nicolás
Maduro Moros is no longer President of Venezuela. And that, it seems, is still
not completely assimilated by all Venezuelans. It has not been in vain years of
official propaganda that makes even some opponents, especially the
collaborators, still believe that it is necessary to negotiate with him or one
of his thugs. And it is with that conviction that the President in Charge of
the Republic, Juan Guaidó, should immediately make arrangements to kick out those
who hold positions that do not correspond to him in the administration of the
State, a situation that should not and cannot wait one more minute. And in this
we are accompanied by the first world power.
It was the
United States, with its Secretary of State at the head, that convened today a
session of the United Nations Security Council to formally debate the
Venezuelan case with the rest of the world's powers. Never before had we gone
so far in the discussion of this serious problem that we caused ourselves by
accepting a putschist as President in 1998.
But the most important thing is
the accompaniment that the Venezuelan people give to that support, not only to
Juan Guaidó but also to the democratic institutionality represented by that
Constitution, to which the Government of the United States is giving its
support and which the Venezuelans still do not seem to understand very well. If
we do not respect that, the U.S. government will not. Let us remember Article
333 of the Constitution: "Article 333:
This Constitution shall not lose its validity if it ceases to be observed by
force or because it is repealed by any other means other than that provided for
therein. In such eventuality, every citizen invested or citizen invested or not
invested with authority, shall have the duty to cooperate in the restoration of
its effective validity”. In other words WE ARE THE RESPONSIBLES. We
already have the help we needed, the rest is up to us. Let's make it count...
Caracas, January 26, 2019
Email:
luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
(1)
Robert
Reich, El trabajo de las naciones, hacia el Capitalismo del siglo XXI., Págs.
174-178, Vergara Editores 1993, ISBN 950-15-1305-X
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