Item of Concern

[caraig]

Prepare your tinfoil hats for this one! I'd like to propose a concept here that hit me just now as I was reading the latest Slashdot article commentary. As most of you know, the US is going through a crisis of domestic unemployment. Despite government figures, unemployment has not been getting better and more and more jobs are being sent overseas. High-tech/IT jobs are down 18 percent (this is where I got hit.) At the same time more and more people are finding their unemployment benefits running out.

This is the tinfoil hat part. Both Democrats and Republicans are saying that they want to address this problem; the Republicans are saying that it's actually already addressed, that our economy is stronger than ever and unemployment is dropping. However, popular theory holds that both parties are 'in the pockets' of big businesses and corporations. If this is true, then isn't it possible that it is in the best interests of the reigning administration -- of whichever party it is -- that they NOT do anything about outsourcing=offshoring jobs? Cheap labor == higher profits. And US labor, especially tech labor, has been amongst the most expensive in the world.

Keep in mind I'm making no distinction between either party; I am going with the assumption that either party could and would be more mindful of corporate interests than that of the populace.

I don't know. I think it's too far-fetched to think that there's an actual active conspiracy to destroy the US workforce in favor of the Bottom Line. Would either party even let SOME offshoring go on at the request of big businesses? That's harder to say.

Anyway, Things To Keep You Up At Night. Pax!

Comments

Conspiracy or Apathy

[tamahori]

I think ascribing this to an active conspiracy may be over the top, it's more that both parties really don't care about the US, and only what they are paid.

Even the corporations aren't on any anti-US kick, they are just paying money to give them the most room to move they can get, and then doing whatever makes the most economic sense right then, it's how corporations have to operate.


I suppose you could call it a conspiracy of apathy and short-term thinking if you wanted.


Brett

[ruggels.livejournal.com]

I would have to agree with the other poster on this, is that it is not an active conspiracy. In reality, few things are. I think the gross numbers on unemployment are down, but that the various locations and vocations are unequally effected. For instance, a large amount of game production, and a lot of high tech has left the area, because the profits were down, and they moved the companies to North Carolina, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest, where the taxes, expenses and wages are lower. It's not a conspiracy, but the corporationa and companies all responding to the situation in a similar, optimal (mini-maxing) way. Think of the corporations as Champions Players, they will work to make the most powerful character at the least point cost they can.

Then there is the effect of illegal immigration, supressing the low end wages, and hospital. See the Time Magazine this week. This theory about Immigration, for me was chilling, but shows why neither party was eager to step up border security. On the subject of the below Washington Post Editorial http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64622-2004Sep5, Mark Kirkorian opined the following:

An alert correspondent pointed out an an op-ed in today's Washington Post on the plight of unskilled workers, which never once uses the word "immigrants," despite the fact that the foreign-born make up 40 percent of workers with less than a high-school education. The op-ed's author, "a spokeswoman for the Russell Sage Foundation's project on social inequality," lists several government initiatives to improve the status of low-wage jobs, including a higher minimum wage, more subsidies for business, and socialized medicine. Of course, the market would improve the lot of low-skilled workers if only immigration laws were enforced and numbers were brought down -- thus adding fewer people to the low-skilled labor force in the first place and increasing the bargaining power of those remaining.

This reinforces my general observation that mass immigration helps the Left not so much because of the addition of Democrat voters (though that's a long-term consideration), but rather that mass immigration is the main engine driving the social problems (poverty, income inequality, lack of health insurance, etc.) that the Left points to as the rationale for increasing the size and scope of government.

And because of contributions by the food processing industry that actually sends busses to the border, the Right will do nothing either.

Scott