Imported Goods and Your Economy
This article was originally posted on my personal web site in Oct 1998.
The current trend in manufacturing is to go Offshore.
What happens when you 'buy' into this prevailing philosophy?
In their frequent televised sessions of backslapping, congratulatory propaganda, the U.S. Administration frequently reports that the economy has never been healthier. They point to lows in unemployment to substantiate their claims, and to themselves as the sole facilitators of such niceties. As someone once quipped, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." In an informal survey of my own, I notice that married couples both work, and barely manage to hold their ground against rising housing, insurance, fuel and food costs. Their family budget is in chaos when prices increase on a daily basis - the recent OPEC oil shenanigans come to mind. In February 2000, U.S. Government voodoo priests, er... economists recommended a tightening of the reins on the money supply, as the economy was 'too healthy'. Is this possible? Or is it an attempt to control the speeding train of impending economic upheaval, facilitating the unloading of bags of your money before the crash. New prison construction and staffing is a major growth industry, which speaks volumes on expectations. A discontent, riotous public must be confined.
The economy may, in fact, be moving a lot of cash around, but it is moving it into fewer and fewer pockets, most of which were pretty deep to begin with. It's no trick to make money when you have money to spend - whether invested in foreign manufacturing plants, or in politicians. The average American, however, lives pretty much paycheck to paycheck, with more and more of his earnings being filtered off by do-nothing brokers, bankers, and insurance companies. Health care in this country is a cruel joke, and many major companies are not hiring employees, but contracting them, while forcing existing employees into retirement to save the costs of providing benefits.
Reality: You are now in competition with people whose idea of a good wage is 50 cents an hour. Everyone can't be a district rep, or a programmer, or an import tycoon. Many can't figure out how to program their VCR, much less program a computer. But they are able to show up, work hard, and dream of spend their savings on products produced by their neighbors, rather that lining the pockets of some third world dictatorship and the traitorous maggots who facilitated the exchange. Millions of Americans who depend upon manufacturing jobs in this country are going without.
This ain't your father's Oldsmobile.
Beginning with the Reagan era, Uncle Sam's answer has been to appease the Barons of Wall Street by making it profitable to take away your manufacturing job and send it overseas or over the border, where workers have nothing and will work hard for less. Where they have no protection from the same abuse and endangerment that precipitated the laws that now exist in this country. Where there are no laws concerning pollution , or health care, or safety, and the powers that be want to keep it that way. Our current dealings with the Chinese Government and it's people are a prime example. Prison labor, children working in sweat shops, enviromental devastation, and continuing human rights violations keep China at the top of the United State's Most Favored Trading Nations list and your local Target chock full of high profit, cheaply made, disposable crap. While Americans remain wrapped in a bubble of self-indulgence and denial over employment figures, all I see are 10,000 manufacturing jobs in Illinois that are gone, and $250 million per anum that the local economy will never see again - repeat ad nauseam throughout the nation. This house of cards will not last, and we are trading our hard-fought gains in becoming one of the richest per-capita countries in the world for beads and trinkets and landfills full of garbage. We are putting our neighbors out of work in exchange for bigger commissions, and then buying their homes off the courthouse steps when they can't pay the bills. And the Barons continue to profit, laughing all the while at the rubes who allow it to happen. For the bulk of the human race, in spite of it's rapid development of technology and science, hasn't altered it's fundamentally reptilian motivational stimulation in 10,000 years.
The current trend in manufacturing is to go Offshore.
What happens when you 'buy' into this prevailing philosophy?
In their frequent televised sessions of backslapping, congratulatory propaganda, the U.S. Administration frequently reports that the economy has never been healthier. They point to lows in unemployment to substantiate their claims, and to themselves as the sole facilitators of such niceties. As someone once quipped, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." In an informal survey of my own, I notice that married couples both work, and barely manage to hold their ground against rising housing, insurance, fuel and food costs. Their family budget is in chaos when prices increase on a daily basis - the recent OPEC oil shenanigans come to mind. In February 2000, U.S. Government voodoo priests, er... economists recommended a tightening of the reins on the money supply, as the economy was 'too healthy'. Is this possible? Or is it an attempt to control the speeding train of impending economic upheaval, facilitating the unloading of bags of your money before the crash. New prison construction and staffing is a major growth industry, which speaks volumes on expectations. A discontent, riotous public must be confined.
The economy may, in fact, be moving a lot of cash around, but it is moving it into fewer and fewer pockets, most of which were pretty deep to begin with. It's no trick to make money when you have money to spend - whether invested in foreign manufacturing plants, or in politicians. The average American, however, lives pretty much paycheck to paycheck, with more and more of his earnings being filtered off by do-nothing brokers, bankers, and insurance companies. Health care in this country is a cruel joke, and many major companies are not hiring employees, but contracting them, while forcing existing employees into retirement to save the costs of providing benefits.
Reality: You are now in competition with people whose idea of a good wage is 50 cents an hour. Everyone can't be a district rep, or a programmer, or an import tycoon. Many can't figure out how to program their VCR, much less program a computer. But they are able to show up, work hard, and dream of spend their savings on products produced by their neighbors, rather that lining the pockets of some third world dictatorship and the traitorous maggots who facilitated the exchange. Millions of Americans who depend upon manufacturing jobs in this country are going without.
This ain't your father's Oldsmobile.
Beginning with the Reagan era, Uncle Sam's answer has been to appease the Barons of Wall Street by making it profitable to take away your manufacturing job and send it overseas or over the border, where workers have nothing and will work hard for less. Where they have no protection from the same abuse and endangerment that precipitated the laws that now exist in this country. Where there are no laws concerning pollution , or health care, or safety, and the powers that be want to keep it that way. Our current dealings with the Chinese Government and it's people are a prime example. Prison labor, children working in sweat shops, enviromental devastation, and continuing human rights violations keep China at the top of the United State's Most Favored Trading Nations list and your local Target chock full of high profit, cheaply made, disposable crap. While Americans remain wrapped in a bubble of self-indulgence and denial over employment figures, all I see are 10,000 manufacturing jobs in Illinois that are gone, and $250 million per anum that the local economy will never see again - repeat ad nauseam throughout the nation. This house of cards will not last, and we are trading our hard-fought gains in becoming one of the richest per-capita countries in the world for beads and trinkets and landfills full of garbage. We are putting our neighbors out of work in exchange for bigger commissions, and then buying their homes off the courthouse steps when they can't pay the bills. And the Barons continue to profit, laughing all the while at the rubes who allow it to happen. For the bulk of the human race, in spite of it's rapid development of technology and science, hasn't altered it's fundamentally reptilian motivational stimulation in 10,000 years.
posted by Dr. Know at 11:01 PM
1 Comments:
Excellent post. The one world economy? The money resides with a tiny few, the rest of us provide the productivity. Nice. And linked in the post where you let me know of this piece. Thanks!
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