Betrayed By Business Again

Here are two facts that, taken in conjunction, make a miserable comment on the state of the American economy:

"Unemployment rate rises to 10.2%
It's the first time it has hit double digits since 1983. Employers cut 190,000 jobs last month, a bigger drop than expected."

"Nonfarm business sector labor productivity
increased at a 9.5 percent annual rate during the third quarter of 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today."

Get the joke? Yes, the government's efforts to improve the economy are producing results, but our business leaders have decided to take all of their increase in sales in the form of "increased productivity," i.e. squeezing more work out of their existing workers. Still need a hint: they have decided to take all of the economic improvement in the form of higher profits, rather than adding more jobs. This has the double benefit of further enriching themselves, and seeing to it that American working people remain in misery.

Here's the story in our country, for those who have not accepted it yet. People who control big businesses in this country are almost entirely criminals, and like any criminal, from petty vandals to serial killers, they have no intention of stopping their criminal behavior. And they are not going to stop until the rest of us have the resolve to hurt them really bad. Ten or twenty or thirty thousand of them serving life prison sentences would be a start. We have a right to protect ourselves from predators, and no one can believe, at this point, that they will ever stop on their own.

Comments

Anonymous said…
It's not just a story in the media anymore.
It is EVERYWHERE.
The 'race to the bottom' is yielding it's results.
We are seeing the acceleration of a cultural shift that began years ago (the '80's).
Employees are looked upon as red ink on the balance sheet and a drain on profits. The day laborer business model is being applied to many business sectors. It started in construction with day laborers doing unskilled work.
Over the years they moved into more skilled trades. These jobs used to pay union wages, had benefits and supported middle class American families, who in turn supported small locally owned businesses.

Now the 'day labor' mentality has pervaded most sectors of American business.
Why pay American wages when you can hire people from third world countries?
Why hire full time employees when you don't have to pay benefits to part-time employees? Why hire employees at all? Use temps and consultants.
And of course the manufacturing jobs were mostly moved overseas years ago. We were told Americans don't really want to do those kind of jobs anyway, but I would bet there's more than a few who would take them now.

As you said, corporate profits keep increasing, but it's coming from money that used to go to middle class American workers and support American families and small businesses.
Our country is being gutted in the name of corporate profits.
We're told to 'adapt' to the new economy, but the American middle class of the post WW2 era was built on JOBS. And I think a good portion of those jobs aren't ever going to come back. If that's true, we will be losing a huge portion of the American middle class, as we knew it.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I had to put in my two cents worth and vent. It's based on what I've experienced being out of work for over a year and what I've been seeing and hearing anecdotally.
Green Eagle said…
Anonymous,

That was a beautiful comment, both in its content and in the emotion it revealed. I don't know how we are going to get out of the situation we're in until a lot more people feel this way.
I wish Obama and Congress would or could move faster to level the playing field between labor and business. FedEx is a huge corporation that gets out of paying benefits to employees by classifying them as independent contractors. We all know it's a ruse and there is a lawsuit pending. Why the Dept. of Labor has tolerated this blatent violation of labor law is despicable. Understandable during the Bush years because they were despicable. But now? The slow pace is despicable.
Derek said…
"Yes, the government's efforts to improve the economy are producing results, but our business leaders have decided to take all of their increase in sales in the form of "increased productivity,""

Lol, you have no idea what either statistic means.

"This has the double benefit of further enriching themselves, and seeing to it that American working people remain in misery.
"

The cornerstone of every GE argument, along with republicans are evil. Yes, Ge, all wealthy people just want to see the poor suffer.

"they have no intention of stopping their criminal behavior."

They are breaking the law? Pray tell how my sweet.

"We have a right to protect ourselves from predators"

But you dont have the right to tell someone how to live their life, what they can/cannot sell at what price (minus things like drugs and other like products), or take their property simply because you think they don't deserve it. Here's an idea GE. Become rich, just like them, then use your wealth (and therefore, in your eyes, power) to change the system.
Anonymous said…
"Become rich, just like them, then use your wealth (and therefore, in your eyes, power) to change the system.'

WTF son, get out of your dorm room a little more often.
"They are breaking the law? Pray tell how my sweet."
Derek, it would be very naive to believe that big money doesn't twist, bend and yes,sometimes break the law everyday.
It's the nature of greed.
They also often write the laws.
Good God, if everyone thought like you most people would still be serfs and slaves because that WAS the law at one time.

Derek, I've been around for quite a while. I've done many different things in life from working labor type jobs for small local contractors to working in the corporate world for huge global corporations and everything else in between.
I've tried to learn from ALL kinds of people. I've hung out with the locals on three different continents. I've broken bread, talked to and picked the brains of many people from midwest farmers, Las Vegas construction workers to NY financial district bond traders.
I've been to parties with LaJolla John McCain style rich Republicans, and I do mean RICH and I've been to parties in Brooklyn projects back in the day before NY was Disneyfied and all nice. I'm a believer in meeting many different kinds of people and learning from other people's perspectives.

Derek, once again you give me the impression that your arguments are based on ideology and formed by your view of the world from your dorm room with ideas based on what you read and see in the media, maybe the classroom.... but real life experience?
Experience at making your way in the world without your parents support?
Eh, not so much.

Popular posts from this blog

Wingnut Wrapup

It's Okay, Never Mind

Hamas