Putting a happy face on Slavery in America... We were just outsourcing it.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Look down at the pair of Nike's on your feet. The Levis on your legs, the Old Navy sweatshirt on your back, the monitor in front of your face. If you are like me and the vast majority of Americans, you purchase items made in places where there are few or no protections for the worker.

You pay $150.00 for a pair of designer shoes made by people who make $0.15 and hour while the designer lives in opulence and the CEO of the attached corporation makes Midas look like Ragged Dick.

There's a frightening trend here today. It started with outsourcing because it cost too much to keep the interests of the American middle class as a viable force. It was also against the interests of large multinational corporations to have a viable voting block have the cash to influence Washington.

Now, Delphi wants to cut wages to a ridiculously low level while pampering the CEO's and to keep the investors happy. Bush and company want you to believe that everyone invests in the stock market. Right. Try it on $10.00 and hour much less minimum wage.

Now, the corporations that were built on the backs of labor want to push labor out. If labor wants a living wage, they'll essentially open the borders to let in folks who will glut the market with strong backs and calloused hands. If labor wants a living wage, they'll close the plant and move it to a place where poverty is a way of life and Governments can be bought more cheaply than a US Senator.

The one question I have, is: as this continues, how long will it take before they realize that they have destroyed the market they seek to control?

I thought of this earlier today as a large machine rolled over a field of cotton across the street from my house. It was stripping the cotton from the plants doing a job once reserved for slaves then sharecroppers. "How far we have come," I thought. Then I remembered a year in a factory for minimum wage. I worked to make enough money only to eat and keep a roof over my head which I shared with another factory worker. That factory is long gone for years now, having moved to Mexico in the 80's.

The gulf between the haves and the have nots widens each day now and the balance becomes more tilted. There's a new slavery coming. One without whips.

The massa's are going to be carrying Tasers this time.

[skids]

1. Already here.

If you work in a job you don't like, doing things that you can't really be very proud of, making your boss rich and carrying his retirement portfolio on your back just to scrape by and make your credit payments, then I got news for you.

You may not be wearing shackles, but you are a slave.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

4. That's one of the worse things about a Government based on capitalism...

Like a game of Monopoly, once someone gets Boardwalk and Park Place, it's all over except the folding of the board.

[madrchsod]

2. alot of those mexican factories are now over in china

more and more industries in the usa are finding the advantage of employing mexicans here-work longer hours,do not complain,and do not unionize. i know i work in one such place, all white management, and 70% mexican american or older workers.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

5. I forget which economist it was, but he said that now, if the labor

in (X: third world country) got to wanting more, the corporations would pick up and move everyting to (Y: Third World Country).

There's a downward spiral for Americans today, and if it does not stop, we will be slaves if not indentured servants at least.

Yoo-hoo! Mr. Dickens?

[The2ndWheel]

16. We'll get the jobs back at least

After it goes through China and India, it'll move onto Africa. By the time Africa starts demanding more, the US will be begging for anything.

If we make it that far.

[Psephos]

3. One of the single biggest things you can do...

...is buy an automobile built with American labor.

As for outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, I don't know the answer. The majority of consumers choose low price over high price. We live in a global economy now, and that is not going to change.

I hate to see the shrinking of American manufacturing, but on the other hand, I always hated to see my family members trudging off to work in a factory, too. There are better uses for a life than to spend it doing something over and over that you don't like.

Peace.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

6. I've been doing that, but how many components of the car are

made here?

Not to be entirely protectionist, but America does need to try and at least maintain its population base in a manner that is at least tolerable.

[Psephos]

9. Tom, I hear you

As you say, the components are increasingly foreign content. Buying an American car means something quite different from what it meant 25 years ago.

Preserving the domestic labor contribution to American cars will be a struggle. How long can GM, for example, keep paying $50 - $60 / hour for assembly labor (wage + benefits + pension) when the same labor unit costs $10 in S.E. Asia or $15 in Mexico?

Your larger point is so true, that we need to ensure the strength of what made America a world economic titan, the middle class. It's clear to me that the future of the middle class won't be in manufacturing.

I'd be all for protectionism if there was evidence that it works, but with a global trading system, protectionism has become the economic version of slicing off your nose to teach your face a lesson.

Economists say the answer lies in continuing to increase the productivity of American labor, which has always been high. Not through downsizing and overtime, but through innovation and technology. That's been the way we've done it in the past. What matters is how much value ("wealth") a worker creates in relation to what he/she is paid. As long as that keeps going up, the economy will keep moving forward.

I think it's our nature as we grow older to increasingly fear change. But change is coming on strong. It always has. Even though I don't know the answers, I refuse to fear the future.

Peace.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

10. You are spot on. I think the crux for this country lies

in the ludicrous wages paid to executives and the concept that money is EARNED by investing.

Reality can be taken back to the child's tale of the squirrel who saves nuts for the winter. The rodent does not feed the maggot who will thrive in inclement weather, he simply saves.

Simplistic? You betcha. See Occam's razor. It's correct.

Peace, my Friend.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

7. Kicking because I think it's important.

[Jara sang]

8. New trick: Made in America labels

If you count Saipan as America, which technically it is, but they have set up sweatshops in the Northern Marianas with Chinese immigrant labor making Kathy Lees clothing, just one of countless "dirty little secret's"

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

11. It's all marketing these days.

Americans don't want the truth.

[cassiepriam]

12. We have been indentured servants to the robber barons for years now.

At least that is the case in my industry.

[earth mom]

13. People don't care unless it happens to them-and can't find a job that pays

a living wage.

Instead, they are more worried about being PC about illegal immigration which is blatant and total exploitation of workers on both sides of the border.

Who comes first? Us or them?

[MetaTrope]

14. Anyone notice Neil Bush's software firm Ignite is now based in Mexico?

[FormerDittoHead]

15. Recommended DVD: The Yes Men

In this curious documentary, there is a very humorous powerpoint presentation which touches upon this, only more on the perspective of exploiting the 3rd world...

It's uneven. I wouldn't buy it nor would I rent it by itself depending upon it to satisfy an evening's entertainment by itself.

However, there are some very disturbing and funny bits in the documentary, and if you can find it I'd recommend it.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0379593/

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

17. Thanks, I'll keep my eyes open for it.

the reviews were interesting as well.