Robert Reich: The Great Decoupling of Corporate Profits from Jobs

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:




Published on Tuesday, July 27, 2010 by robertreich.org
The Great Decoupling of Corporate Profits from Jobs

by Robert Reich


Second-quarter earnings reports are coming in, and they're making Wall Street smile. Corporate profits are up. And big American companies are sitting on a gigantic pile of money. The 500 largest non-financial firms held almost a trillion dollars in the second quarter, and that money pile is growing larger this quarter. Profits that plummeted in the recession have bounced back. Big businesses have recovered almost 90 percent of what they lost.

So with all this money and profit, they'll start hiring again, right? Wrong - for three reasons.

First, lots of their profits are coming from their overseas operations. So that's where they're investing and expanding production.

GM now sells more cars in China than it does in the US, but makes most of them there. The company now employs 32,000 hourly workers in China. But only 52,000 GM hourly workers remain in the United States - down from 468,000 in 1970.

GM isn't just hiring low-tech assembly workers in China. Last week the firm broke ground there on a $250 million advanced technology center to develop batteries and other alternative energy sources.

You and I and other American taxpayers still own over 60 percent of GM. We bought GM to save GM jobs, remember? .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/27-3

[erodriguez]

1. Worth the read.

[enough]

2. Reich makes it chrystal clear. (NT)

[applegrove]

3. K&R