And I would argue, that in general, and outside of Hollywood movies, it is.
Of course you didn’t say anything close to that. You are wise enough to temper your comments a little bit. But the implication of your comments is that the Rich are acting in their own interests to the detriment of others. Hence the vision of the big evil corporate empire casting 5,000 workers into the streets for a few measly points of earnings per share.
Well, I would say most poor…but have it your way! 
OK, let’s look at a (not very) hypothetical.
Your company has a factory in a medium-sized Midwestern town that employs 5000 people. The employees of the factory make a good living wage, and many of them have worked there for 20 years or more. Your company is turning record profits, and has no indication of doing any worse in the foreseeable future.
However, it is possible to move the operation to Lower Bahavagadoshitstan, where labor laws don’t exist and plenty of workers are available for $1 an hour. Predictions indicate that the profits of this move would result in a modest increase in stock prices. It would, of course, propel this town and your 5000 employees into ruin, where they’ll be lucky to find a $6/hr job at Taco Bell.
Is that right?
In his book Downsize This!, Michael Moore talks about how the current corporate mindset would consider this not only the company’s right, but its responsibility. The corporation has no responsibility to society whatsoever–it exists only to make a profit for its shareholders.
Shouldn’t the company have some responsibility to the people who helped make it prosperous? Do you see how the interests of the wealthy and the corporations can be in conflict with those of the working people?
Dr. J
Simulpost.
What gives you the impression that this never happens?
In my example, how exactly would this move be benficial to anyone but the shareholders? (Except, perhaps, the people of Lower Bahavagadoshitstan, who are now starving to death at a slightly less rapid pace.)
Dr. J
a) moving a company out of the country is a bit different than downsizing.
b) Moore is still pissed about Flint
c) the example is not a very common one
d) On a global scale I would say that the factory moving could be a pretty big boon for Whateverstan and its people and perhaps help to industrialize their country
e) if the company can manufacture good for a lower cost and deliver them to the US market more cheaply, then a lot of poor people woudl benefit. LEt’s say that the company makes winter coats for 20% cheaper. Well, porr people all over the US can now save 20% on coats.
f) the company would be doing everyone a disservice if they were not competetive and evetually lost market share and went out of business.
**
We’re not talking about moving the company out of the country. We are talking about outsourcing a significant portion of the work. This is usually what happens in downsizing. Outsourcing and consolidation of existing jobs.
**
And this makes his points less valid how? There are people who are pissed about what happened to this country during the Vietnam War. That doesn’t make their points less valid.
**
Oh really? Last year there were 1,149,149 layoffs in the United States. There has been an increase lately in the number of mass layoffs. Also there are currently a many layoffs per year as there are during slump times.
**
Ah yes. The old industrialization argument. People really are better working in an unsafe workplace with no labor regulations. They are better when they are beaten and abused by their employers. The idea that a country like Whateverstan would be worse off without forced work camps and low labor is ridiculous.
Now if they wanted to go in there and make sure that they complied with US labor laws that would be great. The workers would be doing better, and they would make a positive impact on the country. Of course they have still just screwed 5000 people out of jobs here.
**
But not if they don’t have jobs where they can afford the coats. And when have companies actually reduced costs on products after outsourcing the work? They don’t, they only increase profits.
From the journal of international affairs
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To a degree you are right. It’s not that the company president is necessarily a bad person, though he might be. He has to stay competitive, and if he doesn’t the shareholders will elect someone who will. Of course this doesn’t make it right, but that is the madness of capitalism.
Okay, let’s take Jim Bunning. What did he do after he left baseball? Ran for city council. Then state senate. Spent about eight years there, and ran for Congress. Twelve years later he ran for Senate. Like him or not, that’s a record of public service.
There are bound to be exceptions to any rule of thumb, but in general those who run for federal offices have established some kind of record in either lesser offices or in their careers. When running for office, this is generally what is emphasized in campaigns where negatives haven’t taken over.
Yeah. Most of the top ten also have lengthy records of public service going back more than 20 years, where people don’t generally make a lot of money. For those who recently entered office, a fair number, as I contend, have a successful business record, such as Lautenberg, Bennett, Edwards, etc.
That’s really not a very good argument.
Having worked for elected officials and on congressional campaigns, I’ll stick by my experience rather than groundless cynicism.
Actually, yes. For example, PIRG (Ralph Nader’s group) is known by most policy makers to be a bunch of nutballs (I don’t mean to offend any PIRG supporters, but this is the general feeling), but because of the issues they work on and the not-insignifiant membership, still manage to represent themselves pretty darn well. Also, Handgun Control Inc., despite having much less money than the NRA, has fantastic access to Congress… not to mention the White House. And it ain’t because of their contributions.
Call your local congressman’s office. Probably 99% of congressmen head back to their home districts for three-four days every two weeks, and spend most recess time in their districts. I guarantee there are public events you are missing.
Sorry, that’s not it at all. The reason most seats are uncompetitive is because of the political composition of the constituents. Do you think a Ted Stevens or a Bob Byrd are in very safe seats because they have access to a lot of money? Well, they DO have access to a lot of money, but Alaska is as safe a Republican seat as you get, and West Virginia is as safe of Democratic seat as you can find.
No, that doesn’t really do it. In any given cycle, not very many seats are actually competitive, for a variety of reasons. Political composition, gerrymandering, lack of good challengers, and so on.
http://congress.nw.dc.us/cgi-bin/emap.pl?dir=rollcall
The thing is, even if it takes money to get elected, there really isn’t that big a difference between the opinions of the public at large and those in Congress. Taking from the main line of argument in this thread, I suppose those believing the US to be a plutocracy would contend that PNTR for China is an interest primarily for the rich. Well, one could categorize it that way, but comparing the House vote to public opinion polls, people inside and outside of Congress see the issue in pretty much the same light.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr000418b.asp
Or perhaps there’s some conspiracy behind the close vote in the House, eh?
I read all of your posts and have a few simple points to make:
Funny how with nafta and all of that cheap labor overseas, and even after all of those horrible, brutish layoffs, teh unemployment rate has gone down and GDP has gone up.
One has to be very careful when using unemployment statistics to judge the health and welfare of the American public. A 4% unemploment figure just means that 4% of Americans are collecting unemployment benefits. It doesn’t mean that 96% of us are employed, that we are paid anywhere near what our labor is worth, or that we have jobs which use our training and college degrees. For example:
A person who is unemployed for more than 6 months loses their benfits and is no longer considered unemployed.
A computer programmer who loses a $23/hour position and is forced to take a $6/hour job washing dishes is considered fully employed if he works 40 hrs a week. This is called underemployment and no one keeps accurate statistics on it. The true test of our nations prosperity is to find out where all the money is going. Is the increase in the GDP only making the rich richer and the poor poorer? I think it is since real wages have remained stagnant.
Rex said
so if the country is making a lot more money, that may not be good because the wealth is not evenly distributed. And if the number of people filign for unemployment goes down, that is probably bad because it means that everyone has either been unemployed for more than six months or is washing dishes.
I am assuming then that the only way an economy can be considered successful is if it is both making money and redistributing wealth.
BTW, workers are so scarce out here that they are paying teenagers $12/hr to work at the gap and Wendy’s is paying $9.00/hour. THey can’t even get employees—not even the $23/hour programmers that are all out of work do to the rich stealing all of the GDP.
Sorry about the double post, my bad.
My only points were that unemployment figures can be misleading and that the figures on real wages (as reported by the CBS news)remain stagnant. This is good news for rich investors who are terrified of inflation reducing the value of their portfolios, it is not good news for people who work for an hourly wage. I have also heard stories of entry level positions paying high wages but apparantly not everyone is reaping the windfall.
To re-iterate my overall message: I believe that America’s best course of action is to seal itself off economically and begin a concerted effort to make all American’s more comfortable (not rich since that is a relative term) and America as a whole will be a stronger nation. This will never happen on its own no matter how high the GDP goes. Reagan’s trickle down economics bullshit has proven that. If you throw money at the economy it will inevitably end up in the bank accounts of the richest, stingiest, greediest sons of bitches America has to offer. An increase in the GDP just means that there is more money out there to be had, who do you think is going to have it? Single welfare mothers or Bill Gates?
So when the GDP goes up and these “rich greedy bastards” get most of the money, they don’t hire people, don’t spend it, don’t create new businesses, don’t build new houses?
It strikes me as odd that you use Bill Gates as an example. Did he not create a lot of millionaires through the creation of Microsoft? Does he not employ a lot of people at very high salaries? Hasn’t Microsoft greatly improved the economy of both Seattle and the US?
My point is that when more money is being made, more is being spent and there is more opportunity to improve one’s lot. The “rich” are often those that created companies which employ many people. The “rich” are not necesarily evil.
And refusing to trade with anyone is not necesarily going to improve the lot of the poor. How, for example, will one afford one of those great American cars when there is absolutely no Toyota or Kia to compete with? Ditto electronics, clothing, etc.?
In a previous post I stated that we are the rich people. “Rich” is a relative term and compared to third world people, you and I are both quite rich. I never intended to equate wealth with evil. I used Bill Gates as an example of a vicious competitor who schemed to destroy other American companies and hog the entire software market to himself. The fact that other people became millionaires along the way does not excuse his behavior.
I find it intersting that you use Toyota as an example of a good car that’s hard to compete with. How did it get to be such a high quality automobile? Japan (being a near perfect example of how a protected economy should work) has enormous non-tariff barriers set up to protect its domestic industries. There is, effectively, no competition in Japan from American cars since it costs an extra $20,000 (inspection fees etc.) to import a vehicle into the country. They make great cars because they decided to make great cars and did it. They have some of the highest manufacturing standards in the world and they don’t need to import billions of dollars of other countries goods to force their own industries to produce a viable product. If they could do it then so can we, we don’t need their cars or their electronics or anything else. We should be competing with Japanese products in Japan not the other way around.