Posted on 11/23/2011 3:18:30 PM PST by mdittmar
Terry Maile’s supervisor called her into a conference room with all of her co-workers to hear the news: It was their last day of employment at Level 3 Communications in Pittsburgh.
That was it. The jobs were gone to India.
“I couldn’t stop crying,” said Maile, a divorced mother of one, who until that moment had spent her professional life as a telecommunications worker before being laid off first by Verizon and then by Level 3.
Even then, Maile said, she still believed in the American Dream.
You’ve got to work hard… work hard.
Maile owned her own home. Although she had been forced to liquidate her retirement after the Verizon layoff, she had begun to build it back up. Then came the Level 3 layoff. It shook her to her core.
That was my defining moment. I was filling out paperwork, and I couldn’t help it…. I was just crying and crying. I said, ‘They don’t understand…. We’re all interconnected.’
Ten years ago, back when Maile worked at Verizon, she earned $75,000 a year. At Level 3, she was paid $50,000. Today, she makes $8.50 an hour at a retail job. She applies for professional jobs every day. Sometimes her application is one of 400.
Maile, 58, plans to travel to Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks to raise her voice for benefits for the long-term unemployed. If Congress fails to act before leaving town for the year, benefits will expire for workers who have searched fruitlessly for jobs for more than 99 weeks. Some 6 million workers will stop receiving weekly compensation of about $300.
Maile plans to campaign constantly for jobless workers.
I had been blaming myself, until I realized what’s happening, until I learned more about corporate greed. And then I got active….There is a way out, for all of us, and it’s with collective action. We don’t have another choice. All of us need to stand together.
OK.... real life crap about to commence... this means I will get flamed... we are going to talk about mexico... here goes... the average wage in the big 3 is about 21 bucks an hour take home... the average mexican makes about 7 bucks, but it takes 2 or 3 of them to do the same job as 1 american worker... cost reduction per unit is less than 1%.... management makes the same in mexico as the US... no cost savings there... parts have to be transported across the border, and finished product has to be transported back across the border... so, if this is the case, where are the savings????
the savings are in the tax code, regulations, permitting, constant inspections, fines and temporary closings because a damn extension cord is worn out ( cost is 2100 people on a shift making 21 bucks an hour, shut the plant down for 4 hours over an extension cord, cost for labor alone is 176,400 plus expenses and utilities ) this does not include lost sales, lost units, overtime now required to make production quotas ( figure 2100 people at 21 bucks time and a half is 264 grand, on top of the 176 grand you paid people to stand around because an extension cord was slightly worn ) in mexico, they just unplug the damn cord, throw it out and replace it.... and lets not even get started about air and water quality, these plants in the US have to have their discharge water cleaner that you get out of your tap, and air quality is zero emissions... if you spray paint a metal chair in your garage, you put more pollution out that an auto plant paint shop.. that costs money, in the hundreds of millions per plant to install, and tens of millions per year per plant to maintain... in short, you better wake up pal, ‘cuz the man has destroyed the ability to maintain a manufacturing base here, and they are coming after your pringles next ( they contain a carcinogen, reported here today on FR )... once you open your eyes, you can never shut them again
OSHA said I had to put a taller guard on my fork lift,guess what,makes it hard to unload them trucks without going through the roof,harder to get those truck drivers on the road.
“That’s why the jobs are going to remain over there even if you abolished OSHA and the EPA and cut corporate rates to zero.”
Well put, and so true. At this point the US would have to send troops to China or India to defend there governments in the event of civil unrest, due to how heavily “our” companies are invested there.
“You mean they want to make a profit,how mean spirited!”
That attitude is why communism was born, and why it is back with a vengeance. There has to be some balance; just writing off so many unemployed isn’t doing anyone any favors. The American small businesses are dying the fastest from this environment; who profits from that?
“But cutting the corporate tax rate and doing away with overregulation will create a counterbalance to their lower labor costs.”
High transportation costs were supposed to do the same thing, but the Asians found a way around it: rather than sending everything to a country where many can’t afford them anymore, they can now sell them directly to their own growing middle classes that have replaced ours.
noun an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
Not true. Some jobs are already coming back as some of these jobs reach wage parity overseas.
What is your solution?
I am remembering my mid 1930s history. During those dark days, communism was on the rise then too, just like today. It seemed like the answer to all the ills of no jobs, etc... WW2 came around and voila’, everyone was employed again. So do TPTB angle for another war? It sure seems like it.
Profits for everyone during world war a-go-go!
It wasn’t people “employed” fighting WW2 that ended the financial woes of the 30’s and 40’s, because if it was, then the country would have fallen back into the same mess when all those soldiers came back home; unemployed. It was free market capitalism and the US entrepreneurial spirit rebuilding Europe, and elsewhere, AFTER the war that got us out of the mess the liberal Roosevelt polices created.
We could just as easily get out of the mess we are in now, if the government would get out of the way.
Free Trade???
or...
How our Corporations conspire with communists to destroy our Country and way of life, while some conservatives cheer our emasculation.
http://www.tradereform.org/2011/01/chinas-reagan-esque-trap-for-obama/
China Threatens to Use ‘Financial Weapon’ Against America
On Monday, People’s Daily, China’s leading newspaper, stated it was time for Beijing to consider using its “financial weapon” against the United States.
The Communist Party’s flagship publication suggested that the Chinese government “directly link” its purchases of US Treasury debt to Taiwan arms sales and “require” ratings agencies to downgrade the United States in order to force up interest paid to China. China should also “launch limited trade sanctions” against states whose representatives in Congress supportTaiwan. “China-US relations will always be constrained by these people and will continue along a roller coaster pattern if China does not beat them until they feel the pain,” the paper said.
The context for the stinging piece in the party’s self-described mouthpiece may be proposed arms sales to Taiwan, but the general message is clear: China should use its holdings of American obligations to accomplish its many geopolitical aims. “In fact, China has never wanted to use its holdings of US debt as a weapon,” the paper noted. “It is the United States that is forcing it to do so”.
http://visiontoamerica.org/3521/china-threatens-to-use-financial-weapon-against-america/
Cheer leaders for the type of “free trade” being practiced today need to remove their heads from their greedy...asset sheets.
This is such a nice gesture on your part.
My daughter,in her late forties,with an MBA,who always had great jobs couldn’t find work for 16 months. She collected and worked part time.
She has since found a good job but it was an awful experience-——she has always worked so hard.
I hope you can help someone.
I am sorry that you have had such a dreary career.
You also apparently didn’t read any of my links in my post to you so you don’t realize that you are simply an apologist for communist domination of this Country. The bottom line is your holy grail...after all.
I guess in your world Ronald Reagan didn’t starve the Soviet Union of US trade and Capital, he instead allowed our manufacturing and technology to be wholesale sent there to increase market opportunities for American multi-national corporations.
You cheer the forces of freedom and free enterprise getting into bed with the Communist Chinese? You must approve of trade deals such as those which allowed the Communists to steal our missile gyroscope technology.
Before that acquisition the Commies couldn’t hit a target 1000 miles away. Now their ICBMs with our technology are on a par with our own. And that is but one of many examples.
What is conservative about that? Those who cheer the bottom line above national security and the welfare of fellow Americans are not conservatives. They are traitors...or just plain ignorant. Which are you?
Like I said Corporate pimps put profit above country.
That’s not just wrong, it’s dangerous to our national security.
You and Obama are wrong.
Quit being a dupe.
After the Democrats’ mid-year election debacle, President Obama reportedly began reading about Ronald Reagan for political and policy inspiration. On critical China-related issues, however, Reagan’s star pupils these days seem to be in Beijing, not Washington. For recent Chinese economic and military challenges to the United States signal that Beijing is laying a trap for America closely resembling the trap Reagan laid to help bring down the Soviet Union. And Obama’s inept responses signal that America is falling into it.
Of all the U.S. Cold War strategies to bring about either Soviet cooperation or collapse, the cleverest and most effective was Reagan’s effort to try to spend America’s rival superpower into the ground through an unprecedented American defense build-up, while denying the Soviets access to Western technology and capital that would have helped them militarily and economically.
As Reagan realized, the Soviets were primed for a fall. Their economy was becoming less and less productive, and lagged badly in the civilian technologies increasingly critical for military superiority. Moscow had also squandered enormous wealth through unsuccessful military adventures in third world backwaters, on top of mounting expenses for propping up its East European satellites.
Reagan intensified Moscow’s economic predicament in three major ways. First, he constantly pressed for tighter Western restrictions on technology transfers to the Soviet bloc. Second, he blocked Soviet access to Western capital whenever possible. Third and most important, he launched a technology-led military buildup aimed ultimately at exhausting Moscow’s stagnant resources.
At the same time, Reagan moved decisively to shore up America’s domestic industrial and technology bases. He effectively combatted unfairly traded imports of semiconductors, machine tools, steel, and autos. And he devalued the dollar, ending the unfair competitive advantage held by undervalued allied currencies.
Today, three decades later, it looks like the Chinese have been paying the most attention to Reagan’s legacy. And considering the circumstances, who can blame them?
The U.S. economy is wheezing, unemployment is staggeringly high, government at all levels is tapped out, large states are on the verge of defaulting, consumers are on the ropes, and vast wealth continues to be drained by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Record federal budget deficits have led the Obama administration to announce major military spending cuts. But maintaining superiority against a rapidly strengthening adversary will require additional resources, which will further strain our country’s finances and volatile politics.
With its massive, technology-led military buildup and bully-in-the-neighborhood stance, China is clearly behaving like an adversary to East and South Asia, and the United States.
And in a 21st century twist, China’s predatory trade policies have helped destabilize the global economy. Yet in contrast to Reagan with his anti-Soviet economic strategy, and ironically, like the Soviets themselves, Obama clings to calcified, orthodox policies that keep enriching and strengthening China at America’s expense.
Last week in Beijing, Defense Secretary Robert Gates vowed to develop the weapons needed to counter China’s new stealth fighter jet, carrier-killing ballistic missile, and other emerging high- tech military capabilities.
Yet alongside this seemingly off-the-cuff commitment to massive new defense spending, Gates supports substantially easing U.S. export controls. For years, the flow of cutting-edge U.S. knowhow has greatly added to Beijing’s overall military capabilities. The administration’s new proposals would only open the floodgates wider.
Indeed, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has just offered to relax these controls in exchange for lowered Chinese trade barriers – foolishly rewarding Beijing for simply honoring commitments it has already made. Call it the Obama carrot-and-carrot approach.
Compounding these mistakes has been Obama’s failure to combat predatory Chinese trade practices, like currency manipulation, subsidies, forced tech transfer to do business in China, and IP theft. These mercantile policies have fueled China’s astronomical trade surpluses with the United States and put literally trillions of dollars into Chinese coffers. In addition to financing China’s military buildup, these sums represent enormous numbers of lost American sales and jobs, and have helped gut our own domestic manufacturing and R&D bases.
The truly disabled should never have to worry about money for basics in this country. Anyone that’s over a certain age though..
It’s not that simple. The jobs are heading out for a combination of reasons. If you got rid of government none would probably stop going out or come back. It’ll take a vast increase of worker ability vs the outside world.
Dude. Get a therapist. You are a walking projector.
And you are one of the “useful idiots” that communists so dearly love...and that’s being kind to your ilk.
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