U.S. Industry Slowly Committing Suicide
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The dream, the charmed life we have all found so familiar is ending
The idea was for the big rich guy to help out the poor little guys, i.e., Japan, Germany, China, India, Mexico, etc.
The United States had so much money and so much industrial and economic vitality that what would it hurt to throw a few bucks to the Third World?
So first it was unlimited imports of foreign cars, with no deal for the other countries to take our cars.
Then it was NAFTA, the vaunted North American Trade Agreement. We all were going to keep on getting rich together, wasn't that the idea?
Everybody bought it -- Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives, especially the manufacturers who were bugged by those pesky union contracts. Only the unions complained about the unfairness. But half the UAW voted for Reagan, propagandized with guns and right-wing ideology and ignoring their roots and self-interest. It cost them dearly but they took comfort in their hatreds of so-called "liberals." Class warfare by the rich creating reverse class warfare in the working class, yup, no doubt! More clever by half than anything ever thought up by any ideologue in history.
At that time, 25-30 years ago, the widespread opinion was that the unions were getting too much money and had too much power anyway. They were to be cut down to size. Jobs of union workers could be outsourced, sent overseas, eliminated, etc., without too much damage to the national economy.
Not only that, we allowed the country to be flooded with illegal immigrants on the phoney claim "they will do jobs Americans don't want."
So, unions fell out of favor until now, in Michigan, only 7 percent of the Michigan workforce is unionized, and mostly that is in government, health care and education -- politicized areas that find it hard to operate without bargaining fairly with employees.
General Motors, for one, rolled along in Michigan like there was no tomorrow. Local folks usually bought GM cars, at least through the 1970s, until gas prices rose under the OPEC embargo.
The behemoth stirred for a while, punched out a few Corvairs and Pintos, but largely failed to respond. Not enough money in small cars.
Slowly, the American auto industry ceded the small, gas efficient car and truck market to the foreigners. The good, solid, apple pie and Chevrolet folks, looking for a deal as all Americans do, slipped easily over to Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, VW, all subsidized by their governments just to grab market share in dumb old U.S.
The large U.S. auto plants shrunk, but nobody paid it much mind. Other areas, like housing, would take up the slack.
Under the recent Presidential administrations (seven of the last 10 have been Republicans, but Democrats share no less blame) the easiest way to handle the public fears about the economy was to lie.
And, to allow a false economy to grow up. When people don't have jobs to buy homes, ignore their puny salaries and lend them money anyway. In fact, don't even check to see if they have a job. They called it "no doc" mortgage lending. Who cares where they might get the money to repay the mortgage loan?
No, NAFTA's great and will pay off with increased business from overseas. WRONG! It might have worked that way if politicians of both parties had the guts to demand fair trade from the foreigners.
But they didn't have the guts, and China not only has sapped most of our job base but bought up our assets at bargain prices. They've also manipulated their currency to give them a 40 percent advantage over the sliding US. dollar.
If we had to fight a major war we'd have to beg for guns, tanks and ships because we no longer have the industry to make them ourselves.
Dangerous, you bet! Especially if we get another hawk with ideas that we can continue to rule the world and dictate that every country become democratic republics like ours. Cowboy Diplomacy is not only stupid, but now is impossible.
While the Germans, Japanese and other industrial nations restrict their corporate CEO's salaries to about 10 times of the average pay of a worker, we blithely roll along at 400 times.
The ruling class gets obscenely rich as the U.S. sinks into the Third World. Even after a salary cut, GM Chairman Rick Wagoner makes 212 times more than the average GM worker's pay of $40,000.
Based on international standards, Wagoner would make no more than $400,000, plenty enough to live in high style in Birmingham, Rochester or Bloomfield Hills. And, about 2,000 GM white collar workers would have their jobs if his $8 million a year went toward their salaries.
But such restrictions surely would be called socialism by the ruling class, that has regularly denounced taxes, universal health care, decent pay and benefits, worker's and unemployment compensation as musty holdovers from the New Deal.
The unorganized 97,400 retired GM salaried employees are finding out the hard way what it means not to have a bargaining unit. They are all losing their health care benefits, AT AGE 65 WHEN THEY REALLY NEED THEM. "This is a knife stab in the back," said one shocked GM retiree. Sure, Generous Motors is putting $300 a month extra in the pension check, but a good health care policy costs, what, 5-6 times that?
Change will be hard for Americans to grasp since we all have been living in a dream world for the last quarter century.
With so much wealth around it was easy to scorn the little guy, the gritty working people with dirt under their fingernails. The ruling class conveniently forgot those folks were the bedrock of the economy that had made them rich.
The propaganda machine of the right wing began in 1988 when the fairness doctrine was removed by Congress, ending control of the airwaves by the Federal Communications Commission. Now we are politicized 24-hours a day on every radio channel by Nazi-style propagandists bent on keeping the ruling class in power. And, not surprisingly, even the little folks who are out of a job and nearly starving buy into it.
But if this economy, and the fact that 5 percent of the population has enriched itself at the expense of the other 95 percent, won't wake them up, nothing will. Little has changed in a two hundred years since Robespierre failed to see the French Revolution coming. But the revolution eventually will come, hopefully soon at the ballot box rather than the barricades or after the cities burn once more like 1968.
The dream world, the charmed life we have all found so familiar is ending--just look at the prices on the gas pump and the unsold houses glutting the market because few buyers have jobs.
The moment has arrived when Americans will kill for a job illegal immigrants now have -- cleaning motel rooms, hoeing sugar beets or picking cherries -- since there are few other jobs to be had.
The signs of decline of our economy are unmistakable and we need to rethink our national policies and philosophies, and quickly. So be careful who you listen to and take care to vote for candidates who will help the middle class, not further enrich the ruling class.###
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"The BUZZ" - Read Feedback From Readers! |
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bdbpem Says:
On July 22, 2008
at 08:58 AM
Good artical Dave. Another reason we do not need more of the same with John McCain. Time for we the People to take America back from the lobby in Washington.
Bernie |
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Geraldine42 Says:
On July 22, 2008
at 09:33 AM
WOW DAVE! Right on!!! Should be required reading for every registered voter.
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fwelsh Says:
On July 24, 2008
at 10:18 PM
I just read a book called
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Dave Rogers |
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