Thread: Cheap labor in - High paying jobs out

http://www.channelingreality.com/Econom ... 0Trade.htm

Free Trade is the Weapon of Mass Destruction being used to crush the American Middle Class. Our government officials have sold out the American people through the trade agreements that they've signed. The multinational corporations are making staggering profits by exporting knowledge jobs and production to where they can pay the lowest wages and they are importing their products and services to sell at developed world prices. The net effect is to drain the U.S. economy, shifting the wealth of our nation to the multinationals corporations and to the foreign countries who are the beneficiaries of the 'meat' of economic activity - jobs.

Free Trade in theory sounds good except for one thing - cheap imported goods don't make up for the loss in our standard of living. The infrastructure and the cost of living in developed nations is much greater than in the un- and underdeveloped nations. Since the population of unused labor in countries like China and India is greater than our ENTIRE population, there is no way for Americans to compete on wages other than to drop them to the same level or lower than in those countries.. That is why jobs are leaving this country. The only way to compete in this rigged game of 'free trade' will be to drop our standard of living down to the levels of the third world. That means dismantling our infrastructure because we won't have the tax base to pay for it. As we dismantle our infrastructure, we will become even less able to compete.

You might ask, "but aren't the corporations killing their own customer base? American employees are also American customers". The answer is yes, but the greed that drives each corporation to make their individual business decisions does not allow them to look at the big picture. They look only at their bottom line. So as one corporation reduces costs by exporting jobs, their competitors must follow suit. The net effect is to cannibalize the U.S. economy in waves of layoffs and exports of jobs. It is a race to the bottom.

To facilitate the process of driving wages down - to help corporations 'compete', Congress has effectively turned immigration control over to corporations. In fact, George Bush is going to implement a government website to aid corporations in finding foreign workers to import to the U.S... Obviously, every foreign worker in this country is displacing an American worker and each new wave of foreigners drives wages down even further.

Corporations, trade associations and our government are waging a propaganda campaign that puts Hitler's Big Lie to shame. We have population of over 300 million but we are told on a daily basis that we have shortages in every profession and occupation from dishwashers and maids; to scientists and teachers; to ski patrol experts and construction workers. We are told that the American people are lazy and won't work. We are told that Americans are uneducated and stupid. Name the occupation and there will be news articles somewhere that says we have a shortage of 'qualified' people. The propaganda by the Treason Lobbies attempt to justify the massive invasion of our country by illegal aliens and to provide cover for the corporations who are importing foreigners on Visa to replace American Citizens in the labor market. It is government sponsored labor arbitrage.

In the past, it was the treason lobby on the left that promoted and supported the illegal invasion of our country from the south while the treason lobby on the right pushed for visas for imported foreign workers but George Bush has changed all that. George Bush supports both treason lobbies.

WHY?

The obvious reason seems to be that because corporations control our political process, they buy the votes of politicians with campaign contributions. Often they contribute to both parties - but they give one party more than the other, or one politician more than the other. The most powerful members in Congress get the most money. Any politicians who do not play the game, feel the wrath of corporations at election time, when the money that would have gone to them, is used against them. In that way, politicians are locked into a system (throw me in the briar patch says briar rabbit) in which they must be responsive only to their corporate contributors which by definition is against the interests of citizens.

But that's not the reason. That has only been a means to accomplish the real goal which is Pan America through the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement ( FTAA). Treason by trade.

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There's a lot more good info here:
http://www.channelingreality.com/

YES YES YES YES!!

Great article, Lost_Mummy. Right on the money and job loss I might add.



It's time to Kick, Scream, Holler and Shut This Nonsense Down NOW.

Don't Spend, Save!!

Export jobs...import people....easier said this way!

You're right JackSmith.

Jobs Out + People In = BANKRUPT!

Eeegads!!

Five furniture plants have closed (or are closing )here in my area of NC just since June of this year. They are going to China, of course. Even the jobs with the state of NC are being taken by illegals, you know the guys you see working on the side of the road, holding the signs. It's pretty bad when my home state(a state who knows that my county's unemployment rate was at 13% a couple weeks ago) is hiring illegals and they KNOW IT! There are no jobs to replace the ones we have lost here, not even in fast food. Truth is, companies will hire a cheap illegal and not even blink an eye when a NC legal American citizen needs a job, having lost their job due to outsourcing and their unemployment benefits have run out. I have a friend in just that situation. She has been going to college since she lost her job to China, but her checks are running out. I told her that before I'd quit school and take some low paying, sorry job(if she can even find one), I'd go to the welfare office and tell them to set me up in an apartment, give me some foodstamps and medicaid just like they fork out to the illegals! Heck, she has worked since the age of 18, paid taxes, and has one child and has never asked the government for anything! Of course though, I think being illegal may be a requirement to recieve government aid!

Originally Posted by rebellady1964

Five furniture plants have closed (or are closing )here in my area of NC just since June of this year. They are going to China, of course. Even the jobs with the state of NC are being taken by illegals, you know the guys you see working on the side of the road, holding the signs. It's pretty bad when my home state(a state who knows that my county's unemployment rate was at 13% a couple weeks ago) is hiring illegals and they KNOW IT! There are no jobs to replace the ones we have lost here, not even in fast food. Truth is, companies will hire a cheap illegal and not even blink an eye when a NC legal American citizen needs a job, having lost their job due to outsourcing and their unemployment benefits have run out. I have a friend in just that situation. She has been going to college since she lost her job to China, but her checks are running out. I told her that before I'd quit school and take some low paying, sorry job(if she can even find one), I'd go to the welfare office and tell them to set me up in an apartment, give me some foodstamps and medicaid just like they fork out to the illegals! Heck, she has worked since the age of 18, paid taxes, and has one child and has never asked the government for anything! Of course though, I think being illegal may be a requirement to recieve government aid!

rebellady1964... Good luck to your friend! With the official unemployment rate of 13% in your county, this is clearly a conspiracy.

Here's an article which describes both the conspiracy as well as the national statistics... It says there are 44 million unemployed or underemployed, which is 29% of the workforce.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne ... rcing_.htm

While there has always been a flow of immigrants legal and illegal to the U.S. looking for increased opportunity, economic and foreign policy (often inseparable) have forced great increases in immigration. There are several actions that they U.S. has taken and continues to pursue that encourage illegal immigration and they serve policy makers in a number of different ways.

[lost_mummy: I just included list item #3, but read the whole article]

3) UNDERMINING AMERICAN UNIONS AND WORKERS: The constant mantra of “illegal workers do jobs that American workers don’t want to do� is purely baloney. The official American unemployment rate of 5.5% is based on a definition that makes unemployment appear to be lower than it is. If you take the total unemployed, plus all marginally attached and discouraged workers, plus total employed part time who want full time work the real number is 12.2% or 18.5 million workers. In addition there are 1.3 million people who are incarcerated that are not counted. Much of the time the incarcerated are the product of lack of hope of participating in the legal economy. Another 4.4 million worked full time and made less then than the federal poverty rate of $19,000/year. Amazingly this figure included 500,000 families where there were two full time workers.

Also not counted are the 20 million U.S. workers who are under employed for their skill and educational level. Consequently if you add the real unemployment numbers of 18.5 million, 1.3 million incarcerated, 4.4 million poverty workers, and 20 million underemployed you get a total of 44.2 million workers who are unemployed or underemployed in the American workforce. This dwarfs the estimated 10 million illegal workers in the country.

With the defeat of the recent miserly proposal to lift the $5.15 minimum wage ($11,330/year) by a $1.10 reveals the real motive of government policy, suppress wages. The real problem is not getting people to work, it is to get people to do backbreaking work for minimal wages. To do so companies and government policy pit desperation against employment to drive down worker wages not only through outsourcing to other countries, but also a policy of allowing if not encouraging insourcing, the admission of legal and illegal workers to push down American wage and benefits.

This problem is not only limited to the uneducated worker. Legal immigration of educated workers has caused an increase in the unemployment and underemployment (being employed at a lower salary and skill level then they have been trained for) of college educated U.S. natives. While the bio-tec, information technology and medical fields have been especially hard hit by this phenomena, others are soon to open. Last year Mississippi started recruiting teachers from India.

Unemployment and underemployment (not earning enough to lift themselves from poverty) is a world wide problem effecting an estimated one third of the worlds population. Consequently, corporations which feel no obligation to alleviate this situation but every desire to exploit it shape government policy accordingly. There are more people in India with bachelors degrees that speak English then there are people in the U.S. There is why Republicans show no real desire to support public education because at any level you can import labor already educated and trained for a cheaper cost.

If government wanted to stop illegal immigration it could do so tomorrow, simply jail corporate employees and officers who hire illegal aliens or contractors who do it for them. The message would soon travel south of the border to let people know there are no jobs in America, but that would mean wages and benefits would have to increase and corporate profits decline. Corporate control of government will not allow that to happen.

Government policies focus on apprehending aliens because it creates the illusion of action while doing nothing to actually stem the flow. Government action against employers is hundreds of times more cost effective but that would mean offending campaign contributors. Demonstrating this, government actions against employers for hiring illegal aliens have fallen from a meager 400 complaints per year to one.

YES YES YES...now this article and show of statistics much better fits the realism of our employment, unemployment, and underemployment situation in the United States.

Perhaps we need an American Labor Party?

Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain was a member of the labor party in the UK and become one of its greatest Prime Ministers.

We need someone standing up for the American Worker and self-employed workers. It's not Republicans or Democrats any more.

How did THIS happen?

And it happened so FAST!!

Judy, a labor party, would be great.

Yet, the Labor Party is in power now in Great Britian and they've presided over a period which has witnessed annual immigration double since 1997... I think that the frustation of the British people on immigration greatly weakened the Labor Party in the last election.

Some people say we need lots of 3rd parties, like they do in Europe... Our FPTP (First Past The Post) system encourages just 2 parties, but in Europe, they've got tons of parties... I used to be excited about this... Here's some info:
www.GlobalismScorecard.org/votingSystem.htm

But then, I learned about the high immigration in Europe and the EU Constitution (though it was shot down by France & the Netherthlands)... Also, I read that Germany legalized prostitution while at the same time "reforming" their welfare system so that if you didn't accept an offered job, then you'd be cut off from any benefits... So, there was a controversy that this would lead to forced prostitution... I don't know how they resolved this, but I imagine this was probably fixed, but it's still makes me wonder whether lots of parties is the answer... (Yet, I imagine more parties would help.)

I wonder if there's a way to get rid of all parties and the primaries too... And just have lots of people run for office and force the voters to learn something about each candidate by studying their record and policy statements on the Internet, rather than having blind faith in some nebulous, ever-changing, party ideology that isn't even shared by all members of the party.

Then, we can have something like IRV voting, in which you rank the candidates in order of preference.
http://www.instantrunoff.com/

Also, wikipedia has articles about various voting systems... There are other ones besides IRV which allow voters to rank the candidates... (The way the votes are counted differs from IRV.).. Also, I've read that "approval voting" is good too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_systems

But I think our current system would work, if people just stopped voting for "the lesser of 2 evils" and just kicked out of office anyone who wasn't doing a really good job... For example, in 2006, this would mean kicking out about 80% of Congress... I would shed no tears for these ousted scounderals and clueless folks who refused to listen to the will and interests of the people.

The immigration problem in Europe was the result of Globalization, all part of the false pipe dream of a great trading union which what was really afoot was the dissolution of the individual nations. The EU required open borders between the countries making it impossible to keep anyone out. France was the first to get tough; then Great Britain has now followed.

I think we need a Labor Party that represents the interest of Citizens with regards to their privacy, independence, jobs and a fair playing field against those wishing American Workers harm.

Big Business controls both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

A Labor Party would balance those interests.

Right now there is no balance. I think that has become a weakness in our system. The two party system used to be an advantage but on too many levels they have become one on major economic issues.

As a Republican I can see that our GOP has sunk its own ship. The infiltration of certain anti-American thinking is very deep within the leadership of the GOP which makes it frankly, a dangerous entity. Left unchecked, it will destroy the United States. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party hasn't done anything to stop it. If they regain the White House, then the same Big Business that has infiltrated the Republican Party is the same Big Business that underwrites Democratic Party candidates as well. George Soros, Mr. Open Borders, himself was the biggest contributor to Kerry.

In the meantime, we'll just keep hammering the Republicans who have the power right now to stop this Nonsense in its tracks. Close your wallets and Slam down the phones....until they resolve this problem.

"[politics is] the shadow cast over society by big business... talk of democracy has little content when big business rules the life of the country through its control of the means of production, exchange, the press and other means of publicity, propaganda and communication."
--- John Dewey
An American philosopher with interest in education, psychology and democracy. He lived from 1859 to 1952.

I think that Big Business has always had too much influence, but currently, (as Lou Dobbs says), "there's no countervailing influence to Corporate America."

Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt warned us about this... So, did our Founding Fathers... Thomas Jefferson wanted something in the Constitution that would prevent the "concentration of wealth" within large corporations.

Thom Hartmann describes this in a chapter on the "Boston Tea Party."
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=555

They covered their faces, massed in the streets, and destroyed the property of a giant global corporation. Declaring an end to government-backed global trade that was destroying local economies, this small, masked minority started a revolution with an act of rebellion later called the Boston Tea Party

[quote]After the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson proposed a Bill of Rights with 12 amendments, one of which would “ban commercial monopolies,� forever making it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, to do business in more than one specific product or market, and thus forever preventing another oppressive commercial juggernaut like the East India Company from arising again in North America to threaten democracy and oppress the people.

But Jefferson’s amendment failed and the corporations fought back. Now those corporations use the club of the amendments that did pass to influence elections and legislation favoring themâ€â€