Unemployed for more than a week in my life as a mechanic. I kind of wish I couldn't find a job as easy. Kicking back for a few months sounds good sometimes. Everybody has their own row to hoe. Just think Nixon was forced to resign his job (which would mean to me, that he was a traitor to our country). Giving any of these folks or crooks a free pass on their mistakes and misdeeds only compounds them. Unemployment is result of playing their game their way
That's not to say one could not see this coming back in the early 80's or even early 60's. The pukes have wanted to dismantle the New Deal and any other governmental reforms they encountered even before the gilded age (1890's)
They have reached the culminations of their efforts (took them over a century) to get to that place where they could do it, and now they are proceeding full speed ahead.
http://www.namebase.org/pirpost.11MAIGALOMANIA!
Citizens and the Environment
Sacrificed to Corporate Investment Agenda
A BRIEFING BY CORPORATE EUROPE OBSERVATORY (CEO)
February 1998
(snip)
Competitive Deregulation
The surge in investment in the Third World can be attributed to a
few key factors:
* trade liberalization and low transport costs which make it
possible to supply any market from anywhere in the world;
* the low wages and access to cheap raw materials available in
the Third World and former communist countries;
* the need to win new markets after the North has been
"saturated" (resulting in "low" growth);
* the removal of barriers to foreign investment in many Third
World countries, in part through bilateral and regional
investment agreements;
* and the increased competition to attract FDI which leads some
countries to lower or freeze labour and environmental
standards and to offer corporate subsidies and tax holidays.
This competitive deregulation and increase in corporate welfare
is also visible in the North. According to UNCTAD, corporate
taxes within the OECD have decreased from 43 percent in 1986 to
33 percent today, and many EU countries are caught in a downward
spiral.
Lifting All Boats?
The OECD claims that economic globalization in general and
increased foreign investment in particular will improve living
standards all over the world. However, the experiences of
countries which have removed all barriers to foreign investment
by joining free trade agreements are quite different. For
example, since Mexico signed the NAFTA, real wages in the country
have dropped 45 percent, two million people have become
unemployed, and the percentage of the population considered
"extremely poor" has risen from 31 percent in 1993 to 50 percent
today. <9> It has been demonstrated that those who suffer most
from the conditions created with these free trade agreements and
the consequent emergence of free trade zones are women and
children.
UNCTAD's 1997 Trade and Development report concludes that
globalization in its current shape is responsible for a dramatic
increase in global inequality. In 1965, the average personal
income in G-7 countries was 20 times that in the seven poorest
countries in the world. In 1995, the gap was 39 times as large.
Polarization and income inequalities are also growing within
countries: the share of income going to the top 20 percent of the
population has increased almost everywhere since the early 1980s.
UNCTAD blames the liberalization of market forces for these
developments, and considers the current situation inevitable
until regulation of the economy is put back on the agenda.
The Art of Job Killing
Although TNCs present themselves as creators of wealth and
employment, the figures reveal something different. In fact, one
of the main characteristics of a competitive and successful TNC
is the "shedding" of jobs. Between 1993 and 1995, global turnover
of the top-100 TNCs increased by more than 25 percent, but during
this same period the same companies cut 4 percent of their global
workforce of 5.8 million -- over 225,000 people. <10> TNC
tendencies towards mergers, relocations, automatization and
centralization of production and distribution are recipes for job
losses. A part of the obsolete workforce might be employed by
subcontractors, a "trouble-free" source of labour which TNCs
increasingly make use of. Subcontractors are often skilfully
played off against each other, resulting in lower prices as well
as reduced wages and worsened working conditions. Another
unfortunate fact about FDI is that it very often leads to the
buying up and restructuring of local companies so that they can
produce more with fewer employees. Around 2/3 of all FDI in the
period 1986-92 consisted of mergers and take-overs. <11>
The sad truth about TNCs is that the increased growth,
investment, monopolization and concentration upon which they rely
-- as well as the resulting job losses and environmental
degradation -- are a structural characteristic of the current
neoliberal economic model. However, the voices calling for a halt
to this endless pursuit of deregulation are growing louder, and
are more often coming from unexpected sources. UNCTAD's World
Investment Report 1997 ends with a warning to world leaders that
the activities of TNCs and their market powers can in fact
undermine the health of the global economy.(snip)
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