IS IT ANY WONDER THAT AMERICANS HAVE NO WORK?
by 82ndSgt, blogging at The Right Planet, ©2011
(Sep. 26, 2011) — Ever since the 90s jobs have been flowing overseas. At first, telecenter work was outsourced, and workers were callously asked to train their replacements in India. In some cases severance pay was used as leverage to compel American workers to train their replacements. Why pay an American $15 per hour when you can pay someone from India $3 per hour? The telecenters were first because -let’s face it- telecenters are fairly inexpensive to shut down in one place, and set up elsewhere. It was an easy way for corporations to cut costs. When this began to happen, no one really complained except those who were losing their jobs, and anyone calling customer service and encountering a thick accent (“could you repeat that please, Sajwat”?). Corporations were thoroughly enjoying NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and other ludicrous trade deals as they saw their expenses drop and their profits rise. Then the computer programming jobs began to be outsourced -again to India- but still lawmakers failed to see the fallacy of their globalist vision.
Lawmakers made the case that vibrant economies abroad would be good for our domestic manufacturing base as trade between thriving economies increased. Policy makers, both left and right, envisioned an interconnected world economy where free trade reigned and every country had a robust manufacturing base and a vibrant middle class. But then our manufacturing base began to be outsourced as companies like Caterpillar, Intel and General Motors built plants in Mexico, Brazil, India and China. What lawmakers failed to consider is that for a country to have a strong economy and a vibrant middle class, they must be well managed. That excludes three-quarters of the world’s countries. Poor people from poor countries don’t participate in the global economy. Heck, they barely participate in their local economy. They don’t buy American products, and they don’t vacation at Disney World. They butcher their own chickens for dinner, and they grow their own vegatables and rice. What’s more important, they would gladly assemble a GM product for a salary that would bankrupt any American.
And while American jobs were being exported to cheap labor pools abroad, cheap labor -in the form of illegal immigrants- has been allowed to violate our borders and take up jobs in our trades and services industries. Easily circumvented fences have been pointed to by Republicans, while easily discernible lies have been told by Democrats, as both try to strengthen their hold on the Latino vote while trying to convince us that they are taking this issue seriously.
Now green energy policy threatens jobs in the coal, oil and natural gas industries as well. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has been given vast new unconstitutional authority which it has been using to systematically destroy our ability to generate affordable energy. While countries like China and Russia snap up rights to oil fields throughout the world, we are told by the central planners in the current administration that in order to be seen as a good steward of world resources and a good citizen of the global community, we must dismantle our coal plants and allow energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket,” all while the country is being bled white of jobs.
The ill effects of globalization and one world governance can be seen in the European Union, as a row of economies -lined up like dominoes- stand ready to fall together like wheat to the scythe. This will of course be felt throughout the world as standards of living fall, and commodity prices, poverty, hunger and unemployment rise.
Globalization was supposed to raise standards of living throughout the world by stimulating trade and manufacturing and synchronizing world economies. By any metric it has been a complete failure.