Edward Conard, the former director of Bain Capital and a contributor toMitt Romney's presidential campaign, believes that the rich should be idolizedlike gods, because they mass produced things such as paper clips and iPhones,making our lives easier. He actually advocates that "the wealthconcentrated at the top should be twice as large." (Seepart one of this post)
Actually, Edward Conard is wrong in that, it was only after the historyof banking did man learn how to profit from invention. Long before"capitalism" was invented to exploit man's innovation, through naturalhuman evolution we learned many things to make our lives easier. Can you imagineif "fire" were patented and someone could earn a royalty every time apack of matches were produced?
Since American companies first started outsourcing jobs for cheaper laboroverseas, they created a whole new generation of consumers in foreign countries.The CEOs said they had to send jobs abroad because of global competition -- thatbeing, European companies were also outsourcing jobs to Asia for cheaper labor(China wasn't outsourcing jobs).
CEOs and Republicans have been saying that over regulation, high taxes, andlabor unions have been to blame for the outsourcing of domestic jobs, jobs thatonce paid a "living wage". Boeing recently built a factory inSouth Carolina to escape the machinist union in Boeing's home state ofWashington.
Tech companies such as Microsoft and Apple have been taking full advantage ofcheap labor for years at the expense of American workers.
So has the banking and telecommunications industry, sending jobs to placeslike India.
The auto industry moved from Michigan to southern states, which are generallyanti-union and pay much lower wages. And "the Big 3", besides justcars, have been exporting factories all over the world. Since then, cities suchas Detroit, Pontiac, and Flint have gone broke and turned into slum cities. Justask Mitt Romney: LetDetroit Go Broke -- and Mister Romney is from the Detroit area, his fatherhaving worked in the auto industry.
But even with all this cost cutting in labor, the auto industry still neededa taxpayer bailout as the auto executives flew to Washington D.C. in theirprivate jets with their hands out.
In return, autoworkers saw their wages and benefits slashed. New employee'swages were reduced by half, from $28 a hour (a living middle-class wage) to $14a hour --- which is $29,120 a year before taxes --- just above the poverty wagefor a family of four. (50%of all Americans now earn less than $26,364 a year.)
Dan Akerson, the newest CEO of GM, complained that the company has lost a half-dozen candidates for management jobs because of salary restrictions for executives on companies getting TARP financing. But Mr. Akerson's compensation tripled in 2011 to $7.7 million.
By contrast, Ford's CEO Alan Mulally ranked #1 in auto CEOpay, with $29.5 million. Mulally's compensation was up 11% from 2010 and brings his cumulative take to $148.3 million since joining Ford six years ago. Chrysler's CEO Sergio Marchionne received no base salary, but he did receive shares worth $600,000 as a Chrysler director.
In 1972 Republic Textile moved to South Carolina to follow the movementof the textile industry from New England. Mike Diamond has been making a livingin anindustry that's been going-broke for about 50 years as he supplied usedtextile machinery to more than 40 countries, and helped play a central part inthe gradual movement of textile production from rich countries to poorer ones.Even within a single country, textile production gradually shifts to poorerregions — just as it has in the United States — usually in search of lowerlabor costs.
But the CEOs are always trying to convince the politicians and the generalpublic that Americans "lack the necessary skills" -- and that overregulation, high taxes, and labor unions are the cause of outsourcing.
But the truth is, it's always been mostly about cheaper labor elsewhere, andyou'll notice that "living wages" are never mentioned by them.American workers can't compete with poorer countries where corporations can pay$1 an hour for common unskilled labor. Our domestic engineers can't be expectedto work for $8 hour like they do in China. So the CEOs are lobbying to have VISArestrictions eased to allow the importation of cheaper labor (engineers, etc.)from other countries.
Since the 1930s, the American government has offered preferential treatmentto American producers in the awarding of federal contracts. If a domesticproducer offers the government a more expensive bid than a foreign producer, itcan still be awarded the contract under certain circumstances.
But more recent freetrade agreements have granted other nations the same negotiating status asdomestic firms. The Obama administration is currentlypushing to grant the several nations involved in the Trans-Pacific deal thesame privileged status.
A group of 68 House Democrats and one Republican sent a letter to PresidentBarack Obama urging him to reconsider an element of the controversial "freetrade agreement" currently being negotiated by the administration. Ifapproved in its current form, the pact would effectively ban "BuyAmerican" policies in government contracting.
Americans don't lack jobs skills and they aren't demanding too much. They justwant a job. A job that can cover the cost of food, electricity, and rent. ButAmerican CEOs would rather pay foreigners $1 an hour and lobby congress to havetheir personal and corporate taxes lowered, while cutting TANF, food stamps, andMedicaid for those who can no longer find a job earning enough to pay for food,electricity, and rent.
And then after the massive layoffs off 2008-09, the CEOs and Republicans(and Fox News) disparaged the unemployed and poor, and blamed them for being irresponsible whenthey lost their homes, and blamed them for living above their means, or accusedthem of being lazy (or lacking job skills), and deliberately got the media andthe general public (those with jobs) to turn the blame against the victims oftheir corporate strategy of manipulating their bottom line -- and at any cost tothe people of this country.
The New York Times reports: "With few places to turn, construction workers have colonized Craigslist as the cyberspace equivalent of the street corner or the Home Depot parking lot. That is because carpenters, bricklayers, roofers, painters, electricians, plumbers and carpet installers have largely been left out of the economic recovery. Builders are not hiring, homeowners are deferring renovations, and Republicans won't finance highway and bridge projects. Republican state-run governments are also laying off teachers in en masse, complaining that union "bosses" have demanded too much, just because teachers have been earning a middle-classwage.
Some say the economy is getting better because the top 1% has recouped its losses in the stock market since 2008-09; but for most working people, the economy has been stuck in the mud. The job gains doesn't take into account 8 million workers who were laid off during the recession, exhausted all their unemployment benefits, and are no longer being counted by the labor department. The ones that do find work are usually working for much less than before. Andthatdoesn't count the 6 million college and high school grads, who have no work history at all, and also aren't being counted in the unemployment rate, and now have to look to McDonalds and Wal-Mart for jobs paying $8 anhour.
I think the American people would have been better served with domestic jobs,and to hell with iPhones made in China. The rich and all the EdwardConards in this country may think they're worth a damn, but they just don't givea damn about this country...they're all "global" now, and we're theorphaned children, begging in the streets.
As the Obama administration indicated its readiness to enter into substantivediscussion with Congress with the goal of approving pending "free tradeagreements" with Colombia, Korea and Panama, a very wealthy and powerfulcoalition of business groups sent a letter to President Obama and Congressionalleaders in support of an "expanded trade adjustment" which includes assistancefor workers dislocated by international trade as part of thepackage.
While reading this letter (below), please notice all the nuances and vaguereferences (using words like "displaced" instead of laid-off orfired). Then think about the last 30 years: emerging markets, outsourced jobs,closed factories, high unemployment, urban decay, depressed wages, fewerbenefits, reduced worker's rights, union busting, corporate bailouts, collectivebargaining eliminated, corporate tax evasion, taxpayer-paid subsidies, recordprofits, record CEO salaries & bonuses, the Bush tax cuts, the past"free trade agreements" (jobs moved to Mexico, India, China, etc.),the shrinking middle-class, and then finally the Republican/corporate push tokill Medicare & Social Security for American workers when they can no longerwork. Then look at the list of signers (lobbyists) to this letter.
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