Above: Here we go again? The past.
Above: Today
As you read this, there are tens of millions of people in China, India and dozens of third world nations who would love to do your job for one-tenth the pay. They are willing to work 12 hours a day. They don't expect a benefits plan or a pension package. They aren't going to waste countless hours chatting on their cell phones or updating their Facebook profiles. All they want is a chance. And increasingly, the big global corporations that dominate the world economy are giving it to them. It is called outsourcing, and if you don't believe that it can happen to your job, you might want to think again. It is not just Americans who are chasing after the American Dream these days. We now live in a global economy with a global workforce and the rules of the game have fundamentally changed.
It doesn't matter if you don't like it.
The truth is that the big global predator corporations that dominate the global landscape don't care about you.
- They don't exist to give you a good job.
- They don't exist to enable you to pay your mortgage.
- They don't exist to put your kids through college.
- They don't exist to provide you with a big, cushy pension in your old age.
So why should they hire you, when they can hire someone else on the other side of the world for one-tenth the pay?
Why should they hire you, when countries on the other side of the globe will allow them to hire workers in an environment of extremely low taxes and almost no regulations?
Why should they hire you, when a worker in a third world nation is not going to require health insurance, employer contributions to Social Security and unemployment, a benefits package or a pension plan?
The truth is that it is very complicated and it is very expensive to hire an American worker.
Millions upon millions of jobs have already been offshored and outsourced, and tens of millions more are about to be sent out of America. In fact, Princeton University economist Alan S. Blinder estimates that 22% to 29% of all current U.S. jobs will be offshorable within two decades.
All of our technological advances have made the world a very small place. In this new global economy, you had better get to know your competition.
So just who are you competing against? Well, in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
Are you willing to work for 86 cents an hour? No? You had better start getting used to the idea.
For decades, the American people voted for politicians from both parties who promised us that "free trade" and "the global economy" would be so good for us. But what they didn't tell us is that our standard of living would inevitably be forced down to the level of all the other workers around the world as labor became a global commodity. So now we reap the bitter harvest of our poor decisions.
For example, Detroit was once the 4th largest city in the United States, and it was a shining example of how U.S. heavy industry was providing millions of jobs for middle class Americans. See Detroit today in one of the above videos.
The millions of jobs that have been offshored and outsourced simply are not ever coming back.
During the really bad 2001 recession, the U.S. economy lost 2% of its jobs and it took four years to get them all back. But this time, the U.S. economy has lost more than 5% of its jobs and there is no sign that the bleeding of jobs is going to stop any time soon.
Yet the top politicians in both parties continue to insist that our trade policies are fine. They have no problem with the fact that we ship millions of jobs overseas and that the lopsided tariff and trade agreements the U.S. government has entered into have caused our trade deficit to balloon to ridiculous proportions.
The truth is that people need to start talking about the high cost of "free" trade. The other video posted above starts a little slowly, but by the end it will have your jaw hitting the floor.
But nobody takes all of this seriously enough. The once great American economic machine is being dismantled in slow motion, and nobody seems to really care. Now NBC is even promoting a new television show called "Outsourced" which makes a big joke out of it.
But the tens of millions of Americans who are currently out of work probably are not going to think it is too funny.
In fact, an increasing number of American people are getting really mad. Why? Well, because they are finding it really difficult to provide for their families.
According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007. But an increasing number of Americans are not even doing that well and have gone flat broke. More than 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which was a 32 percent increase over 2008.
The truth is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at an alarming rate.
The bottom 40 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
1 percent of the pie for 40 percent of the population? How long do you think that is going to last before people start getting really pissed off?
The American people don't need more handouts though - what they need are good jobs. But oops - we shipped all their good jobs to China and India.
The truth is that it doesn't take a genius to figure out why the average time needed to find a job in America has risen to a record 35.2 weeks and continues to rise.
Today there was a story by Stephen Bernard, AP Business Writer, On Thursday July 29, 2010, 5:38 pm EDT. Stocks fall amid uncertainty over the economy was the title. One paragraph stated: There was little to help traders get that clarity Thursday. The Labor Department said initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped by a modest 11,000 to 457,000 last week. That's slightly better than the 459,000 forecast by economists polled by Thomson Reuters, but investors were disappointed because the drop was so small.
In the paragraph in the original story - The Labor Department said initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped by a modest 11,000 to 457,000 last week.... My response is .... DUH .... that does not even begin to count those folks who fell off the list of the unemployed whose benefits ran out in July. July 2010 is the first wave of expired benefits since the accelerated downturn of the the economy in mid 2008. How can I put this in a classy manner... that still makes the point? To our Labor Department ... Fuck You.
There simply are not nearly enough jobs in 2010. Big corporations don't want to hire American workers anymore. In the new globalist system, there are far too many much less expensive options. The new playing field is governed by organizations with initials such as NAFTA, GATT and WTO and in this new game American workers are the big losers. Why in the world should big global corporations hire American workers when they are allowed to hire good workers on the other side of the world for one-tenth the pay and they don't have to give them benefits or a pension either?
I cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel for middle class American workers right now. Each month I see the population on skid row in Los Angeles rise as more families are displaced as they lose their homes.
The video below is the end of July update from Andy Bales, the CEO of Union Rescue Mission. July was a very busy month and a lot of good things were accomplished. If you read between some of the lines in this video you will hear how things are not getting easier in regard to the level of effort and expense needed by URM to continue to provide services. More people than ever before are in trouble and the numbers are increasing.
If you wish to see the original article that is a part of this blog entry and leave a comment as well for the author on those parts of this blog entry the link is: http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/why-are-the-american-people-mad-maybe-it-is-because-millions-of-their-jobs-have-been-lost-to-outsourcing-and-they-arent-coming-back
You may also leave comments for me if you wish as well, on this blog.
Update: Story sent to me by a friend on 8/5/10:
40 million people on foodstamps now ... another record (for the 18 month in a row) .. now 1/8 of the population ...
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/08/05/food_stamp_use_hit_record_408m_in_may/
hey Myles, if the economy's improving, how come foodstamp recepients are setting new records for usage.. every month, it's a new record, and it's been doing that for 18 months now. (I do not have an answer for my friend that wrote the commentary)
It's very weird that 1/8 of our country has to rely on foodstamps.. There is something not right about that.
And next month, it'll be worse..
very weird.
As a side note on food stamps, here is a story from 8/10/10 posted in The Los Angeles Times
USDA urges California to reverse food stamp policy, even though some could lose benefits
August 10, 2010 2:38 pm
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is encouraging California to consider reversing a policy that prevents some of the state’s poorest and most vulnerable residents from applying for food stamps, even though it could cost some current recipients their benefits.
The suggestion, contained in a letter to the California Department of Social Services, has raised concern among some advocates for the poor who were hoping federal authorities would allow the state to open the food stamp program only to those recipients of cash assistance for impoverished elderly and disabled people who would not be adversely affected.
"We really do want to make sure that we protect those households with disabled children and low-income seniors that benefit from the current policy," said George Manalo-LeClair, senior director of legislation for California Food Policy Advocates.
The letter received Friday from the Department of Agriculture said federal law prohibits California from changing the rules for some and not all recipients of Supplemental Security Income.
California is the only state that does not allow its 1.2 million Supplemental Security Income recipients to apply for federal food stamps. When the federal cash assistance program was created in 1974, the state decided to increase its matching grant -- known as the State Supplementary Payment -- by $10 a month in place of administering food stamps for them.
Note from Myles in regard to the above paragraph - California, one more step ahead of the nation :-)
Thankfully there are places such as Union Rescue Mission, The Midnight Mission and the other missions downtown. Perhaps California will lead the nation in the first state to have people starve to death if the people that cannot feed themselves and their family are too far from skid row.At the time, many Supplemental Security Income recipients qualified only for the minimum food stamp allotment, then $10. Augmenting cash payments by that amount helped the state reduce its administration costs and relieved elderly and disabled people from having to apply for food stamps.
However, a recent increase in food stamp benefits along with cuts to California’s cash assistance grants have raised concern that some Supplemental Security Income recipients are being short-changed by the policy.
According to state officials, Supplemental Security Income recipients who live alone or with another recipient would now be eligible for more benefits if allowed to apply for food stamps. But officials caution there would also be losers if the state reverses the policy, known as the food stamp cash-out.
Currently, households that include members who are not receiving Supplemental Security Income may apply for food stamps without the aid recipient's income counting against the rest of the family's eligibility or benefit levels. If California allows Supplemental Security Income recipients to apply for food stamps, it could reduce or eliminate their household benefits.
John Wagner, director of the California Department of Social Services, wrote to the Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service in April to ask whether the federal government would allow California to open the food stamp program only to households that depend solely on Supplemental Security Income.
"While FNS is unable to grant your request to partially end cash-out, I encourage you to consider the idea of ending cash-out completely" USDA Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon responded last week.
Citing a February study by the independent Mathematica Policy Research organization, Concannon said opening the food stamp program to all Supplemental Security Income recipients "would have a lesser impact on mixed households than in prior years."
When Mathematica estimated the effects in 2002, it found that changing the policy would add more than 52,000 households to California's food stamp rolls but reduce the total amount of benefits received by 12%. Under current circumstances, an estimated 54,000 households would be added to the rolls and benefits would drop 1%. Participation in the program would be higher if newly eligible households were automatically enrolled, the studies noted.
Jean Daniel, a USDA spokeswoman, said it was up to California to decide how it wants to proceed.
Lizelda Lopez, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Social Services, said state officials remain concerned about the 99,000 households they estimate would lose some or all of their benefits and would have to consider the options.
-- Alexandra Zavis
Posts
