posted on May 21, 2003 08:39:34 AM new
Seems New Jersey contracted out the paperwork and call center for its Welfare Dept to "save" money. A company in Arizona was to do the paperwork and its call center in Wisconsin. They moved the call center to India.
So to cut budget costs, the dept that is supposed to aid the jobless, moves jobs first out of the state and then out of the country. This is going on all over and it bodes ill for the United States, at least if you work for a living.
There is a coming crisis of over capacity of production, not unlike that of 1929. When Americans lose their jobs they stop buying, and the cheap foreign laborers can not afford to buy much of anything.
posted on May 21, 2003 09:29:22 AM new
I knew we were in trouble when here in Pennsylvania Walmart became the largest employer in a former industrial state. Workers making $15.00-$25.00 an hour in the 1970's are now making $5.50-$6.50 an hour in 2003. Its only a matter of time.......
posted on May 21, 2003 09:34:26 AM new
This has been going on for some time. Politically conected companies such as Haliburton have transferred assets to off shore shell companies and have been avoiding paying tax on profits for some time in addition to replacing domestic labor. The Republican administration encourages this and refuses to close the loopholes which allow this unpatriotic behavior. More to the point our leaders have sold us out.
posted on May 21, 2003 09:38:30 AM new
Yes, jobs at Walmart here in AR pay the same....grocery store clerks are happy to make $5.25 an hour bagging groceries, but people who mow lawns get $20.00 an hour. Go figure.
-------------
Okay Reamond.....so what can be done? Every company is looking for ways to save on the biggest part of their budgets, salaries. All companies/business owners are working to keep costs down.
posted on May 21, 2003 09:39:59 AM new
This is a great big hallmark of the Bush administration. Since Jeb! took over Florida, he has "outsourced" the state's entire personnel record-keeping operation, almost all of the state licensing operations (for electricians, beauticians, real estate agents, etc.) and thousands of other Florida jobs to companies like Convergys and Accenture (formerly Arthur Andersen.) The really telling thing - when a legislator tried to amend the legislation allowing the privatization to specify that the jobs must be in Florida, the amendment was not allowed. Same with an amendment that said the jobs must be in the United States.
posted on May 21, 2003 10:36:58 AM new
Microsoft and HW both have sent jobs to India, as have IBM and others.
There is an unexpected rapid convergence going on here.
NAFTA and Favored Trade Status with China were to bring about a slow transition of the wage differential between the industrialized nations and these cheap labor countries. At some point the wages would meet in the middle, and the much of the labor force in the industrialized countries would move into high tech jobs that required "brain power and education" that wasn't available in these other countries.
But jobs are leaving the US faster than anyone other than Ross Perot thought, and totally unexpected, the "High Tech" jobs are going to india. The leveling of the wages is not occuring, it is all going one way-- lower and very quickly.
The US's most valuable exports are entertainment, computers and military equipment, and drugs.
Computers aren't really "made" here, and I don't know how much longer computers will be assembled here.
Entertainment doesn't create many high paying jobs, except for a very few actors, producers ect..
Drug development and manufactoring will also be leaving.
Military equipment export manufactoring is limited and spotty.
If events continue to follow the strict rules of capitalist economics, there will be two classes of people worldwide-- the poor chasing their next job/meal and the independently wealthy, whose wealth increases even more as wages fall.
As the jobs and economy and government regulations disappear that once supported a robust middles class, so goes the middle class.
It is somewhat impossible to command an economy towards certain results when those regulations and results ignore basic economic principles. That is why communist and socialist economies always fail.
It could be that the post WWII era and the conditions that gave rise of the middle class were just that, an era, and not a permanent status or opportunity.
We could very well be witnessing the end of the most prosperous era in human history.
posted on May 21, 2003 10:55:56 AM newthe "High Tech" jobs are going to india.
That doesn't surprise me at all. It's been close to 20-25 years, maybe longer, since I watched a 20/20 like program where they showed young Indian women being trained/educated to be computer engineers/programmers. At the time I found it so odd...as few individuals here were using computers in their daily jobs and until the what??? mid to late 80's early 90's, even fewer had personal PCs in their homes.
posted on May 21, 2003 12:39:52 PM new
Do you remember the ads put out by the Bush sr. Administration in anticipation of the NAFTA implementation:
"I can't find workers for 25 cents an hour!"
"Yes, you can, in Yucatan!!!"
And what really ticked me off....the ads are paid for with taxpayer funds....
A politician will call you intelligent to keep you ignorant. I tell you that you are ignorant so that you may want to be intelligent - Eugene Debs
[ edited by mlecher on May 21, 2003 12:40 PM ]
posted on May 21, 2003 02:42:03 PM new
The politicians are selling us out daily while they set back enjoying their posh offices and generous taxpayer paid expense account. Both sides are guilty. I tried boycotting china made goods, but the stores are stocking junk from every slave labor country these days like Sir Lanka, Korea, Vietnam, China, Pakistan, India, El Salvador, Turkey, Indonesia, and on and on..
posted on May 21, 2003 05:41:24 PM new
okay, look at it from my perspective as a former employer:
Employees must be paid at least min wage. I was a small business and did not have the start up capitol to pay much more, but I promised they would be rewarded for incentive. They help me grow and they get rewarded. They could care less if my company grew. They were sure I was rich because I owned my own business. Nothing could be father from the truth. I had to work two jobs just to keep the business going and the payroll up. No one had mercy on me. Not the Goverment, Not the Employee, Not the City or the State. The feds wanted to kill my profits with income tax. Next thing Hillary Clinton says I should pay everyones health insurance! WhenI couldn't ever afford my own! It seemed I was being punished for trying to start a business, a company a way. I was being kicked for being a producer in society not rewarded.
I the employer have to MATCH the amount of money for social security out of their check to the government
I have to pay workers compensation
I have to live in fear they are going to sue me for some frivolous injury - such as coming to work drunk and falling and blaming it on me.
If they are lazy and don't come to work I can fire them but they still have the right to go and file for unemployment which will reflect out of my pocket
If I am friendly to one of my employees an give an innocent wink or pat on the back for a good job they could charge me with sexual harassment.
A major part of my inventory was stolen...guess who! my employee.
I closed my store and got rid of all employees. I thank God everyday I don't have to deal with them and all their problems, threats, and harassments.
If I had a business with employees again, India would be a great place for my employees to work. The farther away the better. American employees for the most part, not all, but at least the ones I have employed are the worst. No body wants to start at the bottom. Who wants to work for min wage when they can deal crack etc or collect welfare. They tell you they are dying for work, then call in sick the next day. There is always an excuse.
Pretty soon, I am working for my employees! they become the boss! Covering for them, etc. Don't think I had just min wage jobs either I paid my sales people a flat 10 percent commission on their sales which could add up fast. Did they appreciate it? No they hated me even more. They were sure they were never being paid enough.
Employees and the word SATAN have the same ring in my ears!
IF you want to BLAME someone, BLAME LAWYERS! Hey Jo willing smoked ciggys for 30 years no he is going to sue the tobacco company and win a zillion dollars! hey hey
My kid is fat and he ate at Mcdonalds, LETs SUE!!!!!
Sueing companys is the way people make their REAL MONEY not working for them! Only the chumps do that! or of course STEALING inventory cash etc.
Their are some people who want to work, that have a good ethic and are decent people guess who they are! THE MEXICAN ILLEGAL ALIENS!!! BIG MAMA on welfare ain't gone roll off the rent to own couch to do any work or JR. the crack dealing freak on the corner of what used to be a fine neighborhood. Lazy slothful people are also to BLAME! and the general degeneration of our entertainment crazed jerry springer watchin society.
[ edited by orleansgallery on May 21, 2003 05:49 PM ]
[ edited by orleansgallery on May 21, 2003 06:09 PM ]
posted on May 21, 2003 11:56:50 PM new
Oh for the good’ol’days when a man worked for a pittance, down a mineshaft, while his kids pushed the coal cart.
One day (with a little luck) he can own his own mine and be the shafter instead of the shafted.
I laugh when I hear those on the ‘right’ complaining about cheap imports, 1st they want no government intervention and then they call for ‘protection’.
They seem to call for whatever is right for them, and not what is right.
The shrinking global capitalist economy seems to be trimming fat from the nations that have the most fat to trim.
It is unfortunate however that it’s usually the common sap that suffers, job loss, pay cuts or little rises to meet the rising cost of food health and education.
Don’t tell them that a new car is cheaper, what’s the use of that, when you can’t even pay for the roof over your head.
The ‘true rich’ can scream loss of profits, but it is hardly going the affect their food, education or health bill.
Yeah Lawyers,
look at how much those scum sewed Union Carbide for one small spill in Bhopal.
An average of under $70,000 for each of the 6500 deaths. And nothing left for ongoing medical expenses of those still alive and nothing for the ‘afterbirths’.
posted on May 22, 2003 09:54:46 AM new
I have seen a trend that goes back well over a century. I call it extremeism or "screw the other guy to the wall" ism. I don't know whether it's strictly an American thing or exists in other countries, but it's the belief that when you have the upper hand, you have to squeeze every last bit out of it and leave the other guy with no option.
We went from starving workers putting in 60 hours a week and barely making an existence to incompetent workers with "protected" jobs who do nothing but can't be fired. Now the pendulum has swung the other way.
Maybe if the bosses hadn't been so oppressive, the unions wouldn't have formed. Maybe if the unions hadn't been so greedy, companies wouldn't have shifted the work to Mexico and India.
But Americans aren't looking to do what is right. They are more interested in screwing the other guy to the wall. The workers don't understand that if they screw the company, the company goes bankrupt and they lose their job. The companies don't understand that if they screw their workers, 1) the workers won't have the money to buy the products the company makes and the company will go bankrupt and 2) the workers will produce shoddy products and no one will buy them.
This is a simplistic look at a more complicated problem. There is also the problem of fat cat bosses at the top getting millions of dollars for every penny they save, regardless of long-term result. You can save millions if you fire a bunch of workers or move production to Mexico, but at what cost? AT&T stock went up when they fired 20% of their employees, so they decided to fire 120% the next week. In some countries, notable Japan, when a company has financial problems, they don't cut the salaries of the workers who actually do the work. They cut the million dollar bonuses of the guys at the top who are responsible for the problem.
But the American Way is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and rarely does either side show any concern for the other. In the end, both get shafted.
That was an extremely simplistic and kindergarten view of the whole situation. It order for it to be taken seriously you new to throw in some ten dollar words and display some bar & pie graphs. Oh, and don't foget the columns of meaningless numbers.
Otherwise, it was so very true. But who is gonna belive you?
Reminds me of the line: "Why don't you just let some air out of the tires?"
A politician will call you intelligent to keep you ignorant. I tell you that you are ignorant so that you may want to be intelligent - Eugene Debs
[ edited by mlecher on May 22, 2003 10:06 AM ]
posted on May 22, 2003 10:11:39 AM new
There should be universal health coverage for all in this country, the cost should be paid through our tax dollars. And yes employers should contribute toward the benefits, the worker should also contribute basic health care is needed now. At one time I employed 8 FT and 6 PT and yes I was taxed, FICA matching, State Comp Insurance and on and on. On top of that when I turned a profit (and I did) I paid income tax on the profits. I worked hard and worked many hours. So what I profited and I paid when has it ever been different. It was a grind, I got tired and eventually moved on to other things.
And yes my workers stole, customers stole, and the politicians steal. But somehow I turned a profit.
As to lawyers, they are not a threat to society. Without the ability to retain council and attempt to recover damages if injured we would be living in a true corporate hell. Industry has a long history of knowingly selling faulty products which are hazardous. From the Ford Pinto to the Explorer nothing has really changed.
Police advocacy groups are using lawyers in a campaign against Ford Motors and it's refusal to address design defects in the Ford Crown Victoria which tends to explode in rear end collisions. These known defect has resulted in the deaths of countless officers. Ford has settled a number of cases out of court for undisclosed amounts but refuses to admit culpability in the matter.
posted on May 22, 2003 02:17:28 PM new
Stop the politicians from stealing our money and we can have health care for all. What we need badly is term limits for ALL politicians. Now they want to lift the sanctions on Iraq, so look for "made in iraq" goods coming to a wal-mart near you.
In the annals of armed conflict, there has never been an outcome quite like this, where the victors coddle the defeated enemy while visiting misery on their own people. If the rebuilding of Iraq goes as currently planned, the Iraqis will be enjoying their universal health care system just as Medicaid gets savaged at home. They will be counting up their personal oil profits while Americans face deep cuts in programs such as temporary assistance to needy families, the earned income tax credit, food stamps and education at all levels. Iraqis will be free to practice democracy in its untidiest forms, while Americans can be spied on and incarcerated without charges under Patriot Acts I and II.
Oh my, Gawd. This is a kick in the pants to every American citizen. Especially to those living without health care that have loyaly supported him. If Bush thought he had a war on his hands with Hussein, he hasn't seen anything yet. Sure, assure the Iraqi people universal health care while denying your own people that right. Bush can cram his little plan right where the sun doesn't shine.
In the annals of armed conflict, there has never been an outcome quite like this, where the victors coddle the defeated enemy while visiting misery on their own people.
I didn't support him and his politics before and I support them even less now.
Cheryl
My religion is simple, my religion is kindness.
--Dalai Llama
posted on May 22, 2003 06:44:01 PM new
Helen, this does not surprise me at all. They are stealing our money and giving it all overseas. I keep asking myself how much longer Americans will put up with this, but slowly they are draining us dry, and are taking our rights away. The amount of people going without health care is a crime here in America. We are the richest nation in the world, and cant take care of our own. Sad indeed.
My boyfriend who is (or was) an avid supporter of Bush about fell out of his chair when he read the article. Neither of us have health care coverage and our employers cannot afford to offer it to us right now (surprise - business is way down). Guess who he's not supporting anymore, Ah, some people just take longer than others to come to their senses.
Cheryl
My religion is simple, my religion is kindness.
--Dalai Llama
posted on May 23, 2003 08:12:05 AM newyisgood makes some good points about the need for balance but I think she's a bit overoptimistic about the pendulum swing.
There have been problems with union corruption, no doubt, but most working Americans never had the protection of unions. And they aren't doing very well. In fact, a study by the Congressional Budget Office found that the average after-tax income of the poorest 20 percent of American workers actually fell by $100 between 1979 and 1997. Those in the middle saw a very small increase of $3,400 - about half a percentage point a year. Factor in the average housing and healthcare cost increases (both of which outstrip overall inflation by a great deal) and you have a situation where more than 70 percent of Americans lost ground over the last 20 years.
Privatization of former public-sector jobs hurts that group badly. A study by the Chicago Institute on Urban Poverty found that salaries for entry-level workers dropped between 1/4 and 1/2 when jobs they formerly performed were handed over to private, for profit entities. That doesn't even touch the number of jobs that are sent overseas.
posted on May 23, 2003 05:18:55 PM new
Wait just a cotton pickin second....I'm so sick of all the blame going to one side...the rich republicans the poor democrats...it's all a bunch of poo.
BOTH PARTIES have their faults, but take a break to check out these facts:
Welfare- Bobby Kennedy's vision of giving a hand up has become a hand out which has created a nation of gimme gimme, you owe me, it ain't my job, pass the dip dips.
Right now, Oregon welfare capitol of the USA, has a death row inmate receiving dialysis-at a cost of $140,000.00 to the States Taxpayers. He is an ILLEGAL ALIEN deported TWICE for armed robbery before murdering a young girl!! Now the man needs a new kidney and most likely will get it at a the discount price of one million bucks. Why? How? You ask.
posted on May 23, 2003 05:18:57 PM new
Wait just a cotton pickin second....I'm so sick of all the blame going to one side...the rich republicans the poor democrats...it's all a bunch of poo.
BOTH PARTIES have their faults, but take a break to check out these facts:
Welfare- Bobby Kennedy's vision of giving a hand up has become a hand out which has created a nation of gimme gimme, you owe me, it ain't my job, pass the dip dips.
Right now, Oregon welfare capitol of the USA, has a death row inmate receiving dialysis-at a cost of $140,000.00 to the States Taxpayers. He is an ILLEGAL ALIEN deported TWICE for armed robbery before murdering a young girl!! Now the man needs a new kidney and most likely will get it at a the discount price of one million bucks. Why? How? You ask.
posted on May 23, 2003 06:35:32 PM new
"universal health care" for Iraqis is not news. It was common knowledge, before the war began, that lying bastard Bush would "give" it to them after the war had ended. Actually he is not "giving" them anything in the way of health care, Iraq has had "universal health care" and a pension system for many years, as have many other Islamic countries and most, if not all, enlightened European countries such as France and Germany.
................................
Pickypeg,
Why pay a million for a new kidney? Used kidneys are much cheaper and function just as well, so I am told.
[ edited by hibbertst on May 24, 2003 07:05 AM ]
posted on May 24, 2003 07:25:52 AM new
fight back-
get the indians to vacation in usa.
we will flip and serve burgers,clean the motel rooms,make bed,and be their tour guide and pimp.
except the indians are very cheap,they like to hold on to each us dollar,may be they will buy some gold from us.
