Bob Shell wrote:
On Feb 13, 2006, at 9:24 AM, William Robb wrote:
Well, personally, I am against child labor.
And people making 50 cents a day. And having to live next to toxic
waste.
Those types of things only changed in the US with a labor movement. The
bottom line of capitalism, which has good points, but also bad
points, is profit.
And usually companies have to be kicked to insure worker's rights
because they
feel it cuts into profits.
And now companies are moving their factories offshore, in part to
take advantage of all the things listed above that are still allowed
overseas.
I'm not an economist, and I never played one on TV. But it seems like
very basic economics to me that if all the good jobs are outsourced
overseas and all Americans end up in "service" jobs, there won't be
anybody left to buy all the goods produced overseas by those outsourced
jobs.
Next door to me is a very small house. It has room for one couple with
few possessions. There are three young women living there as room
mates, and their boyfriends sleep over some of the time. All three
work for Wal-Mart and just barely get by. They pool their resources to
pay the rent, electric and heat, and have next to nothing left over
after that. Health insurance? You gotta be kidding.
Don't look now, but the "American dream" died some time ago. Most
people just haven't realized it yet.
Bob
Bob,
The 'Good Jobs' aren't going overseas. The crappy factory work is. This
leaves us with service jobs as the only crappy jobs available.
The good jobs are still around, not counting the ones whose good pay is
merely an artifact of unions (like Auto Workers, who make white collar
salary for barely skilled labour), and those cushy union jobs are in the
process of killing the golden goose. Just see GM for details.
What many people forget is that these jobs that are being lost were
already disappearing due to increased automation as high wages over here
were making the factories economically unviable without either heavy
automation or outsourcing. Be glad that somebody actually got the work,
rather than a machine. And they weren't all that good anyways.
There's a lot of options for getting good jobs for poor people. The best
option is skilled trades, which are hurting for people (tried getting a
plumber quickly these days). Skilled work is usually not getting
outsourced, and often can't be (And the big 'outsource IT to India fad
is mostly dead, now they outsource to rural states where they can get
more skilled workers with better english nearly as cheap due to low
costs of living).
-Adam
