Robert Scheer: One Betrayal Too Many

[Stoic]

Truthout

Space permits only one example, that of General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, whom Obama selected to head his “Jobs Council of leaders from different industries who are developing a wide range of new ideas to help companies grow and create jobs.” Was that some cruel joke? GE under Immelt has grown and created jobs, but they are abroad rather than in our own troubled country. As a result, by the end of last year, only 134,000 of GE’s workforce of 304,000 were based in the United States; the remainder—and 82 percent of the company’s profit—were sheltered abroad.

[iemitsu]

1. i have felt that betrayal for some time now

so i'm not surprised by this.
obama needs to not be the democratic candidate for president. if he wins workers stand no chance of surviving in this country.

[alc]

2. it's a global market

If they don't compete globally they will be gone in 10 years (or 15, or 5 ). Best case, they will be bought by a foreign company if they are not one of the global leaders. Worst case, they go bankrupt and all US jobs disappear.

If they want to sell globally, they have to build overseas. Either that or we have to decrease our salaries/benefits and taxes to match what they can get anywhere else.

We are in bad need of new ideas for creating good paying US jobs. Trying to compete with foreign labor forces that can do traditional US jobs cheaper is not a long term solution.

[izquierdista]

3. It is NOT a global market

You can't get a Chinese to come and fix your drain for two dollars; you can't get a Mexican to fix your flat tire for $2 (well, only if you happen to be in Mexico at the time). You can't buy potatoes for 15 cents a pound like you can in Eastern Europe. If it really WAS a global market, such arbitrage would quickly disappear from all the traders coming to take advantage of it.

Large corporations promote the fiction of a global market, because they have the resources to take advantage of it. They want to produce where the labor costs are the lowest and sell where the wages are the highest, never mind that it is untenable to do so. But can the individual American pull the same trick? Maybe. If he needs medical care, he can get on a plane and go to where labor is much cheaper and not pay American prices (if it's not an emergency or a long term recurring problem).

We had good paying jobs in the US when there were more union members and there wasn't all this "free trade" going around.

[KoKo]

4. +!!!

[jtuck004]

9. Sure it is, and has been for decades. There is no drain to fix or

tire to inflate, however, without wealth-creating jobs, without manufacturing the pipes and tires. And that only happens with an investment in people.

The reason we did so well for so many years is that people coming from farms were employed in factories, many paid enough to buy the things they were making. When the banksters killed the economy of the thirties we brought it back with government spending, both in domestic jobs and military, and then profited from re-building the world we flattened in the process.

But all that time we were investing in ourselves. Schools and training programs flourished, and the jobs people took created spinoffs and new ideas, which created more jobs.

But instead of insisting on continued investment in our people, in slowing down our borrowing, recognizing that the world was getting flatter and planning for the time when building up the countries around us would remove that dependency we had profited from for so long, and responding to the changes that our own technology brought us, we continued went on a credit and spending spree. We ignored our responsibilities to ourselves and our country. And when we were told we need to reign our borrowing in for the good of the nation we ran like little puppies to a new master called Ronald Reagan who began to sell off our wealth, telling us that by keeping the rich wealthy it would be good for all of us. It hasn't been.

Until we rid ourselves of that wrong-headed notion,take the hit that deflating the debt we owe will require, and insist on investments the size of which will require a force the size of our government, we are going to continue down this road. Oddly, that is likely to be the most painful course, because it offers the least hope of all.

[yurbud]

6. this sounds like a variation of ''Obama has to be president for ALL Americans''

[yurbud]

7. what ''new ideas'' can't be outsourced overseas? And ''free trade'' doesn't just hurt us but

people in every country that pays above the absolute lowest wage.

[Blue_Tires]

5. kick

[Marnie]

8. I have been saying this since 2008

Obama is a Republican.

Always listen to what the Republicans say, they eventually tell the truth however twisted. Because they are so proud of their own cleverness, they will always blabber it out.

They called Obama the Manchurian Candidate. Isn't it time the Democrats realized the truth of that statement?