Welcome to the Third World

This is, sad to say, the most important post I have made in a long time. As Mr. T would say, get ready to feel pain. From an article in the Washington Post, this depressing story, featured yesterday at Daily Kos:

"In its biggest foreign market, BMW gets skilled workers for less

GREER, S.C. - When German automaker BMW put out the call recently to hire a thousand factory workers here, the people who responded reflected the upheaval occurring in the U.S. economy. Among the applicants: a former manager of a major distribution center for Target; a consultant who oversaw construction projects in four Western states; a supervisor at a plastics recycling firm. Some held college degrees and resumes in other fields where they made more money.

But they're all in the factory now making $15 an hour - about half of what the typical German autoworker makes...The International Labor Organization has pegged hourly manufacturing wages in Germany at nearly 24 euros, or more than $33."

Welcome to the third world, fellow Americans.  All the teabaggers are running around scared to death that, if Democrats have their way, our country will become more like Europe, where workers earn twice as much, and have 35 days of vacation a year and guaranteed health care.  God forbid that should happen to us.  Instead, with Republican control of the economy, we're now where European companies come for cheap labor.

"We are a low-wage country compared to Germany," said Kristin Dziczek, director of the Labor and Industry Group at the Center for Automotive Research. "And that helps put jobs here."

But the price of having a more globally competitive workforce means more in the United States could fall well short of the middle-class living standards that manufacturing workers once could expect. Wages adjusted for inflation have declined for these workers since 2003."

The price, of course, being paid 100% by the workers.  We don't see the rich, who get richer every year, paying any price.  But it's just fine with Republicans if American workers have to work for half price if they don't want to starve:

"We live in a global economy, and this is an example of what can be a win-win," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.)"

Thanks for that insight, Lindsay. If you can count having your pay cut in half as winning, we're doing great. I guess that fine attitude is why the mainstream press always says you are one of the Republicans that Democrats should work with.

And by the way, can you even begin to imagine, in your wildest dreams, that the following might happen when our jobs are sent somewhere else:

"...when Daimler decided to make the Mercedes C Class in Tuscaloosa, Ala., rather than in Germany, the union extracted promises that no workers would be left without a job."

The unions, which as you know are, in this county, regarded as little more than Communist terrorists, have about as much chance of protecting anyone's job from foreign competition as Donald Duck.

Well, here we are, in the third world, folks, with the trip being provided for free by the Republican party and its corporate backers.  I hope it's true, as they say, that getting there is half the fun, because I don't think it's going to be that nice now that we've arrived.

Comments

Silverfiddle said…
Let's mandate $40/hour minimum wage for manufacturing and see what happens?

Only a liberal could view Americans having jobs as depressing.

You omit that the German tax rate is much higher than ours, and the VAT tax that all citizens pay on every purchase is 19%. The cost of living places a crushing burden on average families, which have a lower standard of living than we enjoy here.

Because of this black market skill trading is rampant.

You should try living in a place before you start touting it as a Valhalla.
Poll P. said…
$15/hr x 40 hr/wk =???

eligible for foodstamps
unable to educate your children
unable to save for retirement
unable to support your mom whose social security check will disappear as soon as we have republican majorities
unable to treat your chronic diseases
unable to sleep at night for worrying
Green Eagle said…
Where exactly have you lived, Silverfiddle? I've lived in England, France, Italy and the Czech Republic. I've seen European life first hand. I know that the notion that we have it better here is a monstrous lie, peddled to get the suckers in this country to stand and applaud while the rich destroy them. But apparently (unless you are really rich yourself) you are happy to sacrifice your future so some hedge fund manager can make a billion a year. That's not my idea of a good life, but it apparently sounds like a great deal to our teabagging fellow citizens. Too bad you guys can't have the third world banana republic you want to live in without pulling all of the rest of us down with you.
Lisa said…
GE how long ago did you live there before or after they ran out of other people's money?
michael tedesco said…
Sad.

This is wrong on so many levels I am not sure where to begin. What is worse; the fact that highly skilled and specialized people are so desperate for work that they have to apply for manufacturing jobs that pay roughly the same as a waiter or the fact that European manufacturers see the U.S. a viable place to offshore cheap labor?

Ugh.
Green Eagle said…
Or the fact that our national descent into hell is just fine with people like Silverfiddle and Lisa?
Anonymous said…
I live for part of the year in the second poorest county in Michigan. Those who make it through high school there are lucky to have a job. A twenty year old I know was thrilled to find factory work this summer. He is working the graveyard shift and has to commute thirty miles. He earns $11.50 an hour. An Arby's opened in a nearby town two years ago. There were over two thousand applicants for jobs...many of them with college degrees. I know of a young woman who just got her masters degree in education. She was hired by the local school system to work 38 hours a week and earns less than $29,000 per year. The town where I stay, because of failed millage vote, has turned off the city street lights. The county is not plowing many of it's roads in the wintertime because of lack of funds. Meantime, Nestle has started bottling water there. They have provided some minimum wage jobs but are depleting water levels in this water rich area (200 lakes in the county). Oil and Natural gas companies are paying for drilling rights on the farmlands where they will use hydrofracturing---a method of drilling through bedrock to depths of several thousand feet. Hydrofracturing can and does release arsenic and mercury into the drinking water.
Third world here we come. The Nestle's and the Natural gas companies are the winners. The working poor (mostly white republican) residents of the county will descend further into poverty.
Green Eagle said…
"The working poor (mostly white republican) residents of the county will descend further into poverty."

Don't feel bad about missing out on the trip, Anonymous. They're taking us with them.
Lisa said…
And you wonder why people were against the 800 billion dollar stimulus.
I know if they didn't pass things would be so much worse.
Maybe they should have another one. Or maybe they should stop their overreaching into business and let the businesses get the economy going because obviously the government doesn't seem to be able to get it done.
mastercynic said…
everyone knew the stimulus was far too small, but even so it saved at least 3 million jobs and prevented a depression - had conservatives not been hell bent on saying no to any and all legislation (including their own) in order to make this administration look bad, whatever the cost (i.e. - destruction of the United States) we might now be starting to repair 75 year old bridges, repaving roads that have turned to rubble and re-engineering 21st century power grids and communications capabilities that don't come close to measuring up to 3rd world countries. but instead they find it better to line the pockets of theur wealthy masters and spread the lie that you, too, can be rich.
Lisa said…
Not everyone. There are economics who have opposite views on that.
Not all economists agree with Keynesian economics.

Some economists believe in the build it and they will come theory while others believe in let them build it and more will come theory.
Krugman of course will always believe in the government intervention being he is a pro government guy.
But he also isn't the smartest because he works for the Times.
Silverfiddle said…
I don't believe you, green bird, about having lived in those places. If you had, you would immediately know what I'm talking about, but you don't.

You addressed nothing I said. You have no coherent economic philosophy, hence you are a liberal.

And no, I am not rich. I am a military veteran who had to go out and get another job when I retired. And that's not a complaint. Just letting you know where I stand.
Green Eagle said…
"I don't believe you, green bird, about having lived in those places."

Thanks for that vote of confidence, Silverfiddle. I really don't give a damn what you believe, since everything else you believe is a load of crap.

And Lisa, "There are economics who have opposite views on that."

No there aren't. There ARE, however many "economists" that are willing to take corporate money to say whatever suits the corporations' convenience.

Right wing economic cant has caused two depressions in the last hundred years. There is exactly one reason why the one in the thirties was so much worse: That time, Republicans had three years to make things worse with their pandering to the rich, before a responsible Democrat could take over and start fixing things. This time, thank heaven, we only had to wait a few months for adults to replace the criminals that people like you put in charge.
Silverfiddle said…
Economics right out of Karl Marx

Study history. We had all kinds of panics and crashes and the system always righted itself. Progressives got involved and the great depression lasted a decade. Not a very good track record for progressives.

And your beloved liberals of today are in bed with Wall Street and the corporations.
Green Eagle said…
"Economics right out of Karl Marx"

You seem to be unaware of this fact, but Karl Marx died in 1883, before Republicans perfected their techniques for ruining the economy.

I suspect you have never read a word of Marx, given your gross misunderstanding of what he actually said. However, being a right winger, you really don't have to know anything about something to spout the canned views with which you have been filled.

And for your information (you are just about the only person here that doesn't know this) the economy began to recover virtually from the day FDR and the Democrats took over, and only faltered in 1937, when Republicans convinced Roosevelt that he had provided enough stimulus. As soon as he realized that was wrong, things turned up again. I know your conservative cant denies this, but however much you shout out your lies, that is the truth.
Silverfiddle said…
The bread lines must have been a sign of the recovery....
Green Eagle said…
Silverfiddle,

I wanted to use a couple of charts to answer you, which I couldn't put in a comment, so I put my reply in a post. I hope this is okay.

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