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They're All Against Jobs
Who is against jobs in the United States? The big banks, Wall Street, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Business Roundtable, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, Corporate America, the President of the United States, Congress of the United States. Everyone is crying for jobs, but no one seems to understand why there aren't any. And the reason for those opposing jobs is money.
Beginning in 1973, big banks made most of their profit outside of the United States. Industries off-shoring, investing, banks financing the investments, transfer fees, fees and interest on the loans made for bigger profits. Long since, the big banks under the leadership of David Rockefeller have led the way to off-shore and make a bigger profit. Goldman Sachs, AIG, Citicorp and Wall Street, conspiring for a bailout and now using it for bonuses, make more money from the off-shored operations.
The Council on Foreign Relations ought to be renamed the Council on Making Money. A recent PEW poll reported fully 85% of Americans said that protecting United States jobs should be a top foreign policy priority. But only 21% of the Council on Foreign Relations agrees. Financial interests organized the Business Roundtable to continue off-shore investment and profit. The local Chamber is for Main Street America, but Tom Donahue and the United States Chamber have sold out to the financial interests and oppose jobs and producing in the United States. Thirty years ago, hundreds of thousands of Arrow shirts produced in China were a best seller in the United States. But at Christmastime, the Chinese supply ran short and the retail stores had to order the same shirt from New Jersey. They made 20% less profit on the New Jersey shirt. Retailers are all for profit from imports and against domestic production and jobs in America.
Corporate America would fight any initiative by the President, the Congress, or the government to create jobs in the United States. That is, production that faces competition offshore. In globalization, U. S. production can't make a profit, can't survive. Its competition will off-shore the same article for a lesser price, putting you out of business. Moreover, Corporate America doesn't have to bother with labor in China. The China government controls labor and you don't have to worry about a work stoppage or minimum wage. All they have is a maximum wage.
And Corporate America doesn't have to worry with clean air and clean water or the environment in China. Nor does it have to worry with OSHA and all of its safety rules. Many times the factory building is furnished and you don't have to worry with capital costs. If you make a profit, you can just reinvest it in an additional operation and not have to pay any U. S. income tax. If the operation fails, walk away with no legacy costs. Corporate America bitterly opposes its government protecting and strengthening the U. S. economy because producing again in America will put the executives back to work. They can send a Jaycee to China to watch the quality control daily and sit on the 32nd floor on Sixth Avenue with the internet, keeping check, and, leaving early for a massage and drinks. With production in China they don't have to work.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President dithered for months over the number of troops. But he can't equip the troops except for the favor of a foreign country. The War Production Act of 1950 requires the President to make sure that we can produce in- country those articles necessary for our national defense. Enforcing this law would limit the campaign contributions. Under Section 201 of the trade laws, the President is supposed to take action, like impose tariffs or quotas, when a certain production is endangered. Not only endangered, our automobile production has been bankrupted. But all the President does is give Detroit bailout welfare. The President doesn't want to limit the campaign contributions.
The same with Congress. Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota long ago tried to allocate the tax incentive for foreign jobs and production to domestic jobs and production. The Business Roundtable and the U. S. Chamber fought it like a tiger and killed it.
As the President said in his West Point talk, there is fierce competition in international trade and globalization. All countries move to protect and build their economies while the United States goes out of business. The one advantage that the U.S. has is its richest market in the world. It is fast becoming the poorest market and the U.S. is losing any clout to maintain a strong economy.
The economy is in the hands of Summers, Bernanke and Geithner. Campaign contributions are in the hands of David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel. The poor President is smart, diligent and working his head off campaigning. But he is inexperienced and not governing, and the Congress is in a Mexican standoff over an archaic filibuster rule that reveres democracy by the minority.
Of course, the media, which knows this and keeps it top secret, is owned by big business.
If I don't meet you in the breadline, my children will.
Merry Christmas!
86 Comments so far
Show AllFormer Sen. Hollings offers some fine sentiment, but his blinders are at the very forefront. Can he really imagine that Obama is some sort of lone knight battling against his very cabinet and party? I think not.
Democrats and Republicans care more about maintaining their jobs than they do about the American people. The empire cares more about maintaining the illusion of Democracy under their two party - de facto, one party - system.
Here's my prediction on how the managed propaganda scam will play out in the next elections:
As we get closer to the next election, we'll begin to hear more and more of this: "Obama's heart is in the right place but, poor guy, he lacked experience. What a mess he inherited!"
Obama will throw a little bone or two and the propaganda will turn that into: "But now, look at him go!" We'll start to see this in the MSM: "Yesterday, President Obama took issue with Joe Lieberman ..." or "President Obama says the health care issue is not over! Americans deserve better!"
The other head of the monster empire, the Republicans, will nominate a "very scary candidate!" and, well, ....... you know the rest.
Yes.
Yep, the ONLY thing Obama acts for is reelection.
Because of that he should get the resounding defeat he deserves.
Congress is nothing more than corporate toadies.
Go third party.
Anything, but the paradigm must be altered.
Fritz Hollings is a good man and I agree with what he said here....We need more senators like Hollings in the Democratic Party!!!!
You've got 'em - Lieberman, Nelson, Landrieu, etc etc - DINOs and worse.
Dear WizardLeft1999,
We have received your request for more Senators like Fritz Hollings. We regret to inform you that we are not offering that model anymore. We only did it in the past because the labor movement demanded it and they had power and votes. Now they have neither. As a consolation we will be offering a full array of moderates in the 2010 election. We are not impressed by threats to vote Republican. Go ahead. Fine with us. We can sit on the sidelines for a few years while they accelerate the trashing of the country. You cannot start a third party. Go ahead, try. It won't work. It could just as well be against the law.
Sincerely,
The Democratic Party.
Other than the Honorable Mr Holling's bland excuse for this useless president, this article points to and advocates "hacking at the roots." Something that we should all keep in mind as we attempt to educate others of the truth of our plight.
OR we could demand a crash program to produce electric cars, the solar film roofing to power them and our homes, and the creation of JOBS in order to abandon those of warring for oil elsewhere AND TRULY LEAD THE WORLD in a new millenium.
That's how it could and should be done, boysgramps. It's possible. But it will never be done under our present non-democratic, one corporate party system. If we started demanding things, we would find out just how broken our system is. In fact, those who are demanding things, such as demonstrators, are having their heads busted and are being arrested. The only demonstrations that our Democrat government seems to be listening to are the staged Tea Parties put on by frustrated idiot Republican conservatives.
Buildings, machines, and manpower are lying idle.
The EV1's were crushed to appease oil.
Ethanol, food burned as fuel, is subsidized.
After Pearl Harbor, an empty field in CA produced an aircraft carrier in less than a year. It most certainly could be done were it not for the viscus greed.
Let's give up jobs for a real social revolution where every person can work. Forget the USCoC and the gov't. Walk away from it all; begin to network; and tell everyone else to leave us alone.
Nice Dream for you as an individual, I hope it works out. It doesn't work that way in terms of social movements.
If you create anything of real value that exists outside the corporate system, it will be co-opted back into the system or destroyed.
This is my country buddy, I'm not walking away from it. I want to see its wealth grow and the benefits of that wealth distributed equally.
You really don't understand ecomomics or capital, do you?
Let's see, someone is for 'social revolution', networking, solving the problem ourselves, and some else disses that poster and offers no solutions. I think we get further when staying positive.
We shouldn't confuse "economics" with current theories of economics. Neither should we conflate "capital", that which invests in and derives from production, with the well-known power-wielding assets of BigCorps. Workers and other regular people can combine small investments to create new businesses which will, of course, provide jobs that allow the earners to purchase the products of the new businesses.
A great deal of America's wealth is out of circulation, but 'economically' I do believe there is enough left to form an alternate system. And studies show that local economics causes money to circulate locally many times over.
We can do this. We have done this already (credit unions, for instance) and should consider greatly expanding a DIY economy.
Yes I understand capital is tools as means to produce items for use. I understand that economics is to reality as astrology is to astronomy. It is my country when someone else wants something from me. Wealth is being redistributed in this country.
My thought is not mere individualism. It is working for something tangible. Most people equate wealth with money. I can't eat money. Money is illusory.
"I want to see its wealth grow and the benefits of that wealth distributed equally."
If the wealth grows, where will it come from, profit from some anonymous foreign laborer? And distributed to whom; USans or any people in need?
Nationalist capitalist drivel.
US embassies, working with the US Chamber of Commerce and overseas Chamber of Commerce offices, are totally committed to exporting jobs.
From the US Commerce Department Warsaw office: The Polish market offers significant opportunities for U.S. [job] exporters. Poland has proven to be a very attractive location for U.S. businesses. We estimate that more than 350 U.S. firms now have offices, factories, subsidiaries or joint ventures operating in Poland. The U.S. Commercial Service in Warsaw (CS Warsaw) is a part of the global network of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Our office offers a variety of products and services to facilitate U.S. [job] exports. Our staff can help to identify potential business partners, obtain valuable market intelligence, and launch a company into Poland.
http://warsaw.usembassy.gov/poland/commerce.html
And the previous US ambassador was totally in on exporting jobs under the US "MANUFACTURING INITIATIVE"!!!
"Our Commercial Service—the part of our embassy that devotes itself to trade promotion--has given priority to several sectors, under the Department of Commerce’s priority “Manufacturing Initiative.” I would like to mention just a few. . .
"Environmental Technologies: We are striving to bring American leaders in the environmental technologies sector to Poland. A number of industry leaders are present in Poland, including Atkins, Fluor, Parsons Brinkerhoff, C.D.M, Foster Wheeler, Caterpillar, U.S. Filter and others."
"While some in the media enjoy trying to poke holes in projects in the offset program, in reality, this has been a very successful stimulus to the overall growth in the U.S.-Polish commercial relationship. The American and Polish companies who have been involved have every reason to be proud of their efforts."--Ambassador Victor Ashe, September 13, 2005
http://poland.usembassy.gov/poland/ashe_amcham.html
Ambassador Ashe was replaced on September 28, 2009 by Lee Feinstein, an international lawyer who has worked at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution.
Ahh, but wait until they have to pay Euros to the Polish workers, instead of Złoty. That will be in 2012. By then, people in the USA should be poor enough to work for low wage on US dollars and the new markets will be Poland, China, etc. So Americans will get "their" jobs back, but under the new working terms worked out offshore. Have a nice day. :-)
Thanks, Senator - now I understand that when your colleague Sen. Dodd said, 'Frankly, they own the place,' the place he was talking about was Earth.
"Oh yeah, commie? Well, if you don't like it, go find another planet to live on."
As we careen closer to the corporate feudal nightmare portrayed in the original "Rollerball," how will those who warned against it be framed?
Well said. I would add that Obama was the one who chose his team. But maybe his team was chosen for him. I'm so mad at him right now though that I don't want to let him off that easy.
One of the reasons I hate this healthcare bill so much is that it further entrenches corporate-government control.
By corporate-government control I mean corporate control of us through the government.
Is this the same Fritz Hollings who probably now wants us to forget his was the third name on that travesty of legislation The Gramm-Rudman-HOLLINGS Balanced Budget Act of 1985, passed to hamstring any progressive attempt at social reform? How'd that work out with the fiscally responsible in power, Fritz? Oh yeah, their mouthpiece said "deficits don't matter" - apparently even if they are illegal.
Remind me now: who was in charge when all that de-regulating, tax-sheltering, tricklin'-down supply-siding voodoo was pushed through congress at the expense of the American worker; you know, the system that eventually brought down the world economy? Oh yeah, the fiscally responsible.
Who told us give the corporations what they want, kill the unions, and happy days will be had for all, specifically in the form of lots of good jobs for Americans? Who told us a rising tide would lift all boats, not just the yachts of the obscenely wealthy? Who told us we didn't need regulation, that good corporate citizenship would flower if we gave CEOs enough of our tax money to swim in? Who thinks going offshore to avoid supporting America by paying its taxes is All-American? Wait, it's coming back to me now - the fiscally responsible.
Who is in charge of this country every time the economy tanks, inflation and the deficits mount, the minimum wage is stagnant, and the worker is stiffed by the exploitative rich? Who started two massive foreign incursions and occupations and funded them off the books? Oops, it's the fiscally responsible.
I had to suffer through eight years with a dimwit southern conservative from a plutocratic party calling the shots. So why should I listen to another one now? Oh yeah, I shouldn't.
Take your teabagging to the braindead right who will continue to buy conservative tripe even as it kills them.
Obama is doing EXACTLY what he wants to do..... the bidding of the multi-national corporations and banking interests.....
and even in this article where the hell is the word MANUFACTURING mentioned?
or FAIR AND EQUAL TARIFFS
for example the average Chinese tariff is well over 20% - while ours is around 2-3%.
the same for South korea, Japan and all the other manufacturing powers.... they protect their industries with high tariffs while importing into our "free" market.
So even if the Chinese were making the same wage as an American doing the same job Chinese imports would still be cheaper.....
And Obama has never mentioned equal tariffs or the word MANUFACTURING - not even once.
it's not rocket science.
It's official now. This planet is one big asylum, and there are two types of people. The insane and the criminally insane.
I reckon if you're not insane you haven't been paying attention.
:(
"One flew east, and one flew west,
And One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"
It's the Combine at work!
"Hell of a life. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Puts a man in one confounded bind, I'd say." -- Scanlon
This economic crisis was designed and carried out by money to depress the price of labor. The U.S. has much arable land and plenty of people disdainful of education to work that land. The rest of us will be reduced to some sort of peonage as well. Capitalism will have prevailed again.
Remember, too: Jobs, jobs, jobs equals wage slavery, wage slavery, wage slavery---the chance to say "Yeah, boss!"
Also, the loss of decent jobs helps fill the military.
What a coincidence!
I just finished reading the life of Cicero, one of the few Roman Senators who tried to save the republic from military dictatorship. General Pompei was Rome's Pentagon. Senator Cassius was Rome's Wall Street. The next US President will probably be our Caesar and finish off the USA as a republic based on rule of law and representative democracy. Cicero could have written this column signed by Senator Hollings. The American republic is in deep, deep danger, because the President, the members of Congress, the Senators, and the military officers who have all sworn oaths to protect the republic and its Constitution, have almost all refused to do their duty and to honor their oaths.
SeriousCitizen 1:15 pm - I commend you on your study of the "model" for our Republic - The Roman Slave Republic. It was the Roman Slave Republic that our 18th century kiddie raping richfilth slave holding patrician animals in the Colonies wanted for themselves. The "Senate" you speak of in Rome was "owned" by kiddie raping richfilth slave holding patrician animals who before the Gracci Bros, ruled Rome with Impunity - the Plebs had no rights that any richfilth animals needed to consider. Just like today.
Cicero was one of the richest men in Rome, a slum landlord, and a massive slave holder. The only thing he ever opposed was the loss of Impunity by the patrician clans to a single "strong man". Because of this, before Octavian of the Julii, e.g. Octavian/Augustus Caesar, Rome had a century of Civil Wars between the Patrician Clans over who would be top-dog in Rome. The Plebs, "the mob", "the muck" were a political bargaining chip in the power game, nothing more.
Julius Caesar (Son of Venus) after accumulating vast wealth in booty and slaves from his 8 years of conquest in Gaul "bought" that bargaining chip by paying the rents of the poorest in Rome for a YEAR, plus other giveaways to the Plebs that got him the position of "Dictator For Life" (which was supposed to be Honorific and wasn't). Cicero, Cassius, & Brutus (his forebear was a Founder of the Roman Slave Republic) and the other Patrician clans (the ones for whom Caesar did not pay all their personal debts-bribery worked then and now) were Horrified by their loss of control - and they killed him for it. Standard Mafia practice - the entire political system including government of the "Vassal States was little more than a Mafia model based on personal loyalty to one thug or another - for life.
In fact the deeper you dig into our "richfilth kiddie raping slave holding patrician clans" you find not just the Roman Slave Republic as their "dream", but also the very concept of "Liberty" that they held near and dear would be anathema to you - Liberty meant their RIGHT to order the lives of all they controlled - just like today.
When we going strolling through the past for metaphors for our failing "Enlightened Democracy" Rome is a treacherous graveyard. It's very much like quoting a man who you think represents your ideals for personal Freedom in your society - then finding out his entire life and his Aristocratic wealth was based on nothing more than a gift of 200 human slaves as dowry from a richfilth slave holding animal and that "our hero" was raping a 14yo girl in the basement of his slave-built Georgian Mansion in between verses of the Declaration of Independence. Nice guy. Just a teensie bit conflicted.
And yes, you can confirm every bit of this with a couple of Googles.
"Corporate America would fight any initiative by the President, the Congress, or the government to create jobs in the United States. That is, production that faces competition offshore."
They used to call it treason. I say, bring back the guillotine.
Globalization and job outsourcing allows corporations to maximize profits and lower the costs of products.
For a long time, the lower cost of these goods and the availability of cheap credit has allowed these big corporations to continue to profit from their American market despite the dwindling real wealth of Americans. Things are changing now. Many people are fully in debt and can't charge any more. I expect we'll see many, many more "too big to fail" corporations who operate mainly overseas going to Uncle Sam for bailouts. If we can't afford to buy their goods, we'll be forced to, by charging them on the giant final credit card of last resort...the federal government.
This is one giant, chaotic free for all disaster. And when I say "all" I really mean all of them doing the grabbing and all of us being screwed to the wall by all of them.
The Council on Foreign Relations - a very Parasitic Organization where the most corruption in the American Political system occurs followed by the evil Trilateral Commission.....
Jobs? JOBS? How can you enslave 300 million humans unless you debase and degrade them into squalor, degradation, and destitution? How can you RULE THEM with impunity if you don't reduce the society to pre-literacy? Such "humans" don't need jobs, they don't need education, they don't need health care - they need to die-back to say 100 million so the MAsters can RULE THEM on the slave plantation with more efficiency. Yeah, I'm waaaay over the top. Sure I am. How's EFCA doing? How's that old Health Care debate going? And how long now do you think it will take for our 6th grade reading level to drop to 3rd grade? Small hint: The Lincoln v. Douglas debates required an 11th grade reading level for understanding. Education is the enemy of Tyrants.
It has taken 35 years to utterly destroy and lay waste the Roosevelt Legacy - but the monsters are just about finished with it.
Soon, if you don't see it already, you will perceive Hell on Earth all around you, and all according to Plan by the Masters, e.g. the same type of richfilth patrician clans who made this country for THEMSELVES - not for "the muck".
You want to stop it - shut it down. You can. You and your fellow Americans could pick any day of the week and just do it. Shut it down. If nobody goes to work, the country stops. If people drown the streets - not a march, so many that they just fill your downtown streets without moving - and you stay there until they give you what want.
What do you want? An equal starting place for EVERYONE at the table? The end to Constant War and the Rights of Conquest? The end of richfilth patrician clans as an artifact of our country and our culture (as was)?
If you don't, if you want a society based on Exclusion - you're one of them and will probably end up killing for them - Because "those folks are just doing it the wrong way"; Because "we need Law & Order"; Because "if the Master doesn't make enough wealth on us he'll leave us to die". Or something very much like that. Pretzel logic almost always suffices in cases of self-interest.
The dividing line in this country in the next few years will be determined by those who have missed a meal, and those who haven't. Those who still get to eat will be hired to murder the poor and the hungry - just like they always did, just like they always did. We'll just do it with MW and Sonic Weapons - as well as bullets and CNS gas.
"My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ---
"Because ya screwed the pooch son. Ya'll wanted them nigras in their place. Ya'll wanted them uppity bitches slapped down. Ya'll wanted to go to war all the time and kill and rape and torture and bring back booty and slaves. Because yu made psychotic animals into your Heroes and set about to become one of them. Because ya'll think yure bettern everyone else and yur shit stinks like French Cologne. Sorry son, you wanted to dance, now yu got to pay the piper and he's REAL expensive. Those psychotic animals yu wurshipped are going to teach you a NEW word, 'Vivisection'." Then thur goin' to demon-strate it on yu and yur wife and yur children, just so's you never furget it.
There's the lobbyists (corporations and foreign countries) and the lobbied (i.e. elected government officials). The lobbyists are just doing their jobs (making profits, building their national economies) and the lobbied are shirking their duty to serve the public interest to get payoffs from the lobbyists. The lobbyists may have the payoff money and own the media, but the politicians are supposed to fight back and say no; they don't but just accept the money, and that's the real crime.
Very important article. Sort of slammed me upside the head.
How stupid of me to think those people give a shit about America the Beautiful.
Fritz Hollings is Paul Craig Roberts on steroids...
-30-
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
You haven't read enough PCR if you think Hollings is PCR on steroids. That said, like many commentators these days they are rich in critiques but short on specific ideas for what to do about all the crises.
Is it now clear that our so-called democratic system and institutions are thoroughly corrupt?
The time for a nation-wide General Strike has come. If students, workers, unemployed - everyone did not go anywhere but into the streets for a few days, we would get the attention of the Oligarchy. Until then, brace yourself for worsening times. It will be interesting to see when the "last straw" will be drawn.
A general strike by students and whatever workers are left would get "recognition". Your schools would expel you for being troublemakers, and your bosses will fire you for not showing up. General strikes can't work in the US. The strikers will be demonized. The last straw will be drawn on election day 2012, when a riot will break out, somewhere, over voting irregularities, or lack of access to polling places. The National Guard and Blackwater will be activated - to maintain public safety. The MSM talking heads will marvel, finally, at witnessing(from their bunkers)the first US election decided by gunfire. And we will feel the full impact of the laws enacted to protect us from the terrorists.
We would have to overthrow the government, big corporations
and school administrators at the same time. But many top level
people in and among them would join us. It might just work.
So put together a strategy, give us some kind of plan of attack.
Treasonous bastards. We are fighting against the wrong terrorist.
Where was Senator Hollings when SC was getting grinded by the consequences of his support for NAFTA and China PNTR? He voted for the war as well. First sell out and then pretend to be a people's spokesperson. Typical politics !
He voted against NAFTA.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=103&session=1&vote=00395
there will be a day in this country when the people of
america get tired enough for a rebellion against all
of the above and this finally comes to an end. fritz
is right about all of this. but for now put your money
in a credit union. fuck the banks their fucking you.
also they will lend you money refinance your home
whatever. when there are no jobs like fritz said
and no money and people are starving the folks at the top
will pay for this. do you think american soldiers will fire on citizens that may be family? this is the only thing that will break the
stranglehold corps have here!
American soldiers shot 4 innocent Americans, hardly more than children, at Kent State. Will they fire on citizens that may be family? Yes, they will. But every day there are more Americans who have nothing left to lose.
"No more blood for oil"
"there will be a day in this country when the people of america get tired enough for a rebellion..."
Not as long as Dancing with the Stars and American Idol are on the idiot box.
All the people against jobs for America have ONE thing in common..they all have jobs in America. They also HATE American workers and they hate doing business in America beyond selling their cheap shit here. When they have no more customers here because they've put everyone out of work they'll all move to some other country and ruin it. Then and only then will things change. But first these pricks will squeeze every last dime out of this sad country. America's finished as a 1st world country. All we are now is a place to press gang our young to fight in Imperial wars for the BIG Corps.