Economy
In reply to the discussion: STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 23 January 2012 [View all]Tansy_Gold
(17,857 posts)Everything from steelmaking to auto assembly to washers and dryers and TVs and textiles. There is no cosmic law that says the only way to have a thriving economy is on the backs of slave labor. And the workers who prospered did not live in cages.
What changed it all, in my humble and admittedly poorly educated opinion, was simple greed. When the Japanese economy recovered after the war and there were workers available, US corporations started to move to the cheap labor. AND NO ONE STOPPED THEM. The consumers were bombarded with advertising that you had to have this gadget and that doodad, and it was all going to be cheaper if it was made in Japan. Then Mexico. Then Honduras or Egypt or Turkey or Bangladesh or Vietnam or China.
But with all the stuff being made "there," has the cost of living gone down? No. There was no precipitous drop in the cost of clothing just because Levi and Wrangler and Hanes moved to low-wage countries. A pair of Wrangler jeans on sale at Kohl's for $54?? What kind of effing bargain is that?
Toyotas are no cheaper than Chevys, even when assembled with non-union labor.
It's all greed. The savings go to the stockholders (a little) and the CEOs (a lot).
Look at the Apple deal to eliminate textbooks. Apple will get 30% royalty???? Excuse me? And of course the software and devices will all be Apple, for more profits, and the executives will become filthy fucking rich while kids still struggle.
Bill Gates defends his Microsoft copyrights, but he could still do that and sell MSOffice for $10.
I'm tired of the excuses that Americans aren't educated enough or Americans won't work hard enough or this or that or the other thing. It's just a bunch of fucking excuses.
The summer of 1968, I worked for a small specialty electronics firm in a Chicago suburb. Not consumer electronics, but the company made components for the equipment used by the consumer electronics manufacturers. The job I did required very little training -- half a day? -- but demanded absolute 100% precision. Are people saying it's impossible to find people to do that kind of work here any more? Or is that companies don't want to pay a living wage like my 1968 employer did? They want to keep it ALL for themselves?
Fuck that.
TG