rtopia wrote:deva wrote:
And of course, our sense of our own history is very short and distorted. People enjoy a 40 hour work week, overtime pay, vacation, health benefits because of socialists who helped organize unions.
not entirely true...
true enough that my point stands
rtopia wrote:
deva wrote:
If big corporations had their way, we would all be sweat shop laborers working for a few dollars a day.
then it's a good thing we're not forced at gunpoint to work for someone isn't it?
no, just forced by economic necessity
quoted from an article by Paul Craig Roberts
The media reports the government statistic that 207,000 jobs were created in the U.S. in July
Of the new jobs, 26,000 (about 13%) are tax-supported government jobs. That leaves 181,000 private sector jobs. Of these private sector jobs, 177,000, or 98%, are in the domestic service sector.
Here is the breakdown of the major categories:
• 30,000 food servers and bar tenders;
• 28,000 health care and social assistance:
• 12,000 real estate;
• 6,000 credit intermediation;
• 8,000 transit and ground passenger transportation;
• 50,000 retail trade; and
• 8,000 wholesale trade.
Not a single one of these jobs produces a tradable good or service that can be exported or serve as an import substitute to help reduce the massive and growing US trade deficit. The US economy is employing people to sell things, to move people around, and to serve them fast food and alcoholic beverages. The items may have an American brand name, but they are mainly made off shore. For example, 70% of Wal-Mart’s goods are made in China.
Where are the jobs for the 65,000 engineers the US graduates each year? Where are the jobs for the physics, chemistry, and math majors? Who needs a university degree to wait tables and serve drinks, to build houses, to work as hospital orderlies, bus drivers, and sales clerks?
In the 21st century job growth in the US economy has consistently reflected that of a Third World country--low productivity domestic services jobs.
Over 5 years time 2001-2006
US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.
The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a super-economy that is “the envy of the world.” Communications equipment lost 43% of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37% of its workforce. The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30%. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its employees...
The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost manufacturing jobs in the globalized “new economy” never appeared. The information sector lost 17% of its jobs, with the telecommunications work force declining by 25%.
******
The multi-national corporation does not give a shit about you or this country. The drive for profit is its sole interest and that interest is destroying the economy of this country. The mom and pop business is more myth than reality at this point. And once there is nothing but crap corporate jobs with no job security, people will be working for whatever they are offered. The corporation may as well use a gun (and in many countries they do).
