6 Shocking Ways Capitalism Is Failing Working America

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/153901/6_shocking_ways_capitalism_is_failing_working_america/

Capitalism is coming apart at the seams and the middle-class is paying the price. This week’s news alone bombards us with examples of how, absent a dramatic rethink, our "free-enterprise" system may never again provide enough decent jobs for those who need and want them.

1. iSlavery

Apple is arguably the world’s most successful company. Yet most of the 700,000 jobs needed to produce its cherished products are located abroad, especially in China. Why doesn’t Apple manufacture in the United States? Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher writing for the New York Times reveal that Apple is looking for a cheap, “flexible” workforce that can be put to work whenever and wherever it is needed on the company's terms.

***snip

2. The Bain of Our Middle-Class Existence

A day doesn’t go by without suffering through another Mitt Romney defense of his career at Bain Capital, his highly profitable leveraged buy-out firm. Mitt repeatedly tells us that Bain created tens of thousands of jobs at Staples, Domino’s Pizza, Sealy, Brookstone, Sports Authority, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Toys 'R' Us.

For a moment let’s put aside the fact that Bain also drove a large number of companies into bankruptcy while loading them up with debt and extracting enormous profits along the way. Instead, let’s focus on the type of jobs that Staples, Domino’s et al. produce for the American middle-class. While these jobs are not as slavish as those sought after by Apple in China, most Bain companies pay so little and have so few benefits that it is impossible to support a middle-class existence from the jobs they create.

[limpyhobbler]

1. agreed except it's not so shocking really.

Just your run of the mill economic exploitation and abuse. I'm getting used to it.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. And it's probably not just six, either. n/t

[MACARD]

3. Its simple really

We let those in the 1% the ones who should be taxed fairly and regulated efficiently make up the rules for themselves. Mexico has a policy of Market self regulation, and it is an utter failure is there any reason to say that the American self regulation should be any more effective, no. the difference with america is that there was a middle class and the american middle class along with labor has a voice, a relatively small voice but a voice that keeps us from being crushed .

under the Bush administration a Monsanto (corn growing corporation) head ran the USDA. he has much to gain from under-regulating his corporation.

imo need a law no Cabinet members that can make profits from businesses they run based upon regulations they administer. If you are a Pharmaceutical executive who has much to gain from rushing untested drugs onto the market you should not be allowed to run the FDA.

[Doctor_J]

4. the only people who will be shocked by this are Fox Nation

i. e. the segment of the US that are clinically brain-dead.

[Chill Keney]

10. Clinically-brain-dead people don't watch Fox. They can't!

Although watching Fox might have caused their brain-dead state.

[justgamma]

5. It's a shame that those 700,000 people

will never be able to afford the product, they are making. If they hired the people here for decent wages, they'd have 700,000 new loyal customers.

[cbrer]

6. So doesn't it then

stand to reason that any purist system will never work in the long term? As wealthy and priviledged as most of America is, this article highlights the flaws in our capitalist system.

Will we learn from the excesses and shortages, and adjust accordingly? It certainly seems like it would be easier than watching the whole thing go down the drain. Something I'm hopelessly, emotionally against. Millions of damned fine people paid the ultimate price for this land.

What a crying shame it would be to let the greedy freaks win the day/year/eon.

Or am I being Captain Obvious here?

[provis99]

7. it's really no different than Roman Empire days.

soon the people in this country are just going to quit caring whether the empire lives or dies, and America will be swept into the dustbin of history, thanks to its greedy patrician class.

[girl gone mad]

8. k & r

[JHB]

9. Short version: those damn liberals were right again, curse it all!

I'm glad for the article, since repetition is what works, but every one of these points and more were made in real time, when it was happening or when laws were changed to let it happen. But that was so "anti-business" of them, so of course Very Serious People paid them no mind. It's not as if it affected anyone worth speaking of.