What happens if/when the largest/wealthiest corporations in America no longer need Americans?

[Duer 157099]

I'm beginning to believe that our current crisis is in part due to the fact that the most powerful multinational corporations in this country have discovered that they have a whole world full of people to sell their wares/services to, and that the US citizenry are no longer critical to their survival (and besides, have become to expensive to maintain).

Could this be what is really happening to us? Planned obsolescence of American workers?

[NightWatcher]

1. just wait till we're maxed out and unable to repay

we are a resource that is about to be completely exploited. Once we run out, they move on, leaving us like a ghost town or unkept field of rotten crops

[NoNothing]

2. This happened a long time ago

It's this thing called "globalization"

[EFerrari]

8. Yep. They don't need us and as they own our elected officials,

our sway with them is about nil right now, too.

We're pretty much window dressing at this point.

[HeresyLives]

10. Yes, they can sell anywhere and move anywhere.

It wasn't 'planned', it's just part of the change.

[Blue_Tires]

3. the USA is still a prime consumer marketplace

no corporations are leaving, ever...where would they go?

[Warren Stupidity]

28. The chinese and indian populations dwarf us.

Yes we still consume hugely out of proportion to our population, but that share is dwindling and the growing markets are in asia, not north america. Corporations don't have to go anywhere, at least the large ones don't. They are not individual entities, despite whatever delusion our supreme court is under with a location. Instead they are huge organizations spread out across the planet. If a corporation holds its board of directors meetings in New York City while it designs and manufactures everything in Shanghai, where exactly is that corporation located?

[randr]

4. One item that slipped under the radar

We bailed GM out in a year that they showed record profits in their China division. Multinational corporations seem to already be immune to being responsible across the board.

[truedelphi]

18. I didn't know that. Thanks for posting. n/t

[Arctic Dave]

5. We were their original investment, now that they have taken all capital they are moving

on to the next money maker. Look at any rust belt factory town and expand it to the rest of the US by the time they are done. They are financial locust.

[Soylent Brice]

6. K&R

they'll move on to greener pastures once we're wrung dry.
consumers always have been, and always will be, expendable.

brilliant OP.

[leftstreet]

7. We start selling the contents of our garages to each other n/t

[Uben]

9. Ask not....

.....if corporations need Americans, ask if Americans need corporations!

Our government was set up to be "for the people", not "for the corporations", like it is now. Slowly but surely the corporations have taken over our government through their deep pockets and the lack of quality elected officials. Politics is now a career and not just a service to the country. The careers come first, then the country.

[lunatica]

11. Once they kill the golden goose they move on to the next golden goose

Eventually they'll run out of golden geese, and then they'll do something to help us out. But as long as they can make the biggest profit possible profit comes first.

[change_notfinetuning]

12. I'd rather think about what would happen if Americans no longer needed the

largest, wealthiest, most powerful craporations. Unfortunately, we can't even get Americans to move their money out of the big banks, which would be a phenomenal start.

[subterranean]

13. They need us to bail them out when they run into trouble.

Come to think of it, they don't even need us for that since the government can just borrow the bailout money.

[truedelphi]

14. yes this is what has gone down the pike. And it took American workers who were

Disinterested in their fellow American workers to have it happen.

How many here gave a rat's ass when the textile mills in New England moved to Southern States? And then from there to foreign lands like Bangladesh?

People said, "Well, just what did those lousy little textile workers expect? They only have HS diplomas, and didn't go to college like me, and they deserve what they get."

Then in the late eighties when the automotive industries started going "global" and moving their work force to Mexico, what did other American workers say? Again, the refrain was, "I have a good job as a computer wizard, and that's because I put in hours and hours for a degree. So to heck with those illiterate oafs who worked in Detroit." Never mind that some of those illiterate oafs were mechanical wizards handling complex machinery.

Then it finally hit home. The nineties saw computer programmers get pushed out of American cubicles, so the work could go to Pakistanis and Indians.

Then there was outrage. But not until then.

[Urban Prairie]

23. During the Shrub's first term

A professor of economics on his staff issued a statement that white collar, college educated employees whose tech, legal, and medical jobs were being outsourced, would have to reinvent themselves, of which he said would to become "consultants" and "idea/conceptual gurus" or some such nonsense.

[newportdadde]

29. Actually there still isn't outrage - computer programmers were just geeks who made too much money.

They also were always telling us "No it can't do that" and not making systems magically do what they want.

Now... when you start getting into general areas of a business such as accounting/finance/marketing then the panic will start. Most corporations though are full of workers who are more then willing to thrown their IT department under the bus.

[truedelphi]

31. heh heh

You can throw the IT teams under the bus - just don't throw "The IT Crowd" off my cable TV!

(I am being slightly facetious of course. But that show has kept my spirits going for the last two years.)

[Duer 157099]

15. What would happen if "We The People" formed our own corporation?

Assuming it were possible. Would we just turn into the same thing we displaced?

[Jack Rabbit]

16. Exactly what's happening now.

Of course, we don't need those bastards, either.

[1776Forever]

17. It's easy isn't it - China = Billion, India = Billion, USA = 300 million - not hard to do the math.

Most of these guys could care less about the US. It is all about the money! How much damn money does one person need? Honestly - how much? A million, a billion, a trillion? How much?

[Doctor_J]

19. That's what we're already seeing.

and it will continue to worsen. We will be like a big Haiti, only with lots of resources to pillage.

[Romulox]

20. They loot the US treasury to the tune of trillions. It's current events. nt

[Edweird]

21. As if mega-corporations were a good thing? Let 'em go. We were better off without them.

We still need 'stuff'. We all do better if WE are the source of most of our own 'stuff'. We have everything in this country to produce what we use. 'Globalization' and 'free trade' are only good for the mega-corporations - while being absolutely horrible for the rest of us. Fuck 'em. Show them the door - only get the IRS to make sure they leave assets behind.

[dmallind]

22. You are asking as consumers?

Why would a company want to limit consumers capable of buying their goods? What is the advantage?

As employees? Sure that's possible, and in many cases well under way, but foreign inveetment in the US does not lag US investment in foreign production by all that much, and we would certainly be a ripe ground for someobody to use our well trained, highly educated and socially stable workforce even if no US corporation ever employed another American again.

[jotsy]

24. It's a double edged sword we're being shoved on to, as I see it.

The corporatocracy views publics throughout the planet as one of two things: labor markets and consumer bases, I don't believe we meet the definition of either at the moment.

There are a lot of ways this could go down, but all head in pretty much the same direction and none of it pretty.

No one stood up and demanded fairness or equal justice when they should have and now we're all going to pay the price.

That's a yes on both counts IMO. This has absolutely been engineered and has taken generations to facilitate. At this point it's like trying to outrun a predatory cat at top speed on a unicycle while juggling.

Good questions; k & r.

[The Gunslinger]

25. When?

Too late. It's happening now. They want to turn America into a cheap labor pool for their global business interests.

[Kyril Enko]

26. Ever heard of "Soylent Green?"

IT'S PEOPLE!!!

[Echo In Light]

32. +1 ... or some similar variation thereof

[troubledamerican]

27. Please. This is topic so paranoid/tinfoil.

Now STFU and put those ankle chains back on and get back to work. You don't have Communist "trade unions" anymore. This is AMERICA now. And your children are learning REAL values now that they're back in the factories.

[The2ndWheel]

30. Arthur Jensen might want to speak to you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BVqIjKyJh0