All right Corporate America Listen… Up!!!

This is for the Elites in the business corporations; you turned your backs on the very people who made you what they are today, you took American Jobs along with American Innovations and removed them from our country. You are the only one who can fix the America’s downturn; you must bring our jobs back. If you don’t, this great economic empire will dissolve; as its doing right now; right in front of your eye’s… and to be honest, I’m surprised the American People continue to support your efforts on Wall Street, Oh! I forgot the other corporations in the world support your efforts.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for expanding a business, but not at the cost of taking American Jobs from here and moving them to other countries. That is just plain wrong in my book, and nothing but greed on your part.

example: these news clips are from other sources, just don’t remember the web address



I selected this because I’m a direct recipient of this action, and 1 year later I’m still trying to regroup. I’m just ashamed of what big corporations have done to America’s Small Business’s, and I know there are many other big corporations out there that have done this vary thing. You have destroyed us with your greed.
Here’s another, and I’ve seen the affects of both…These are companies within my local area and I’m in a small town.




I can understand if the company not making money to support itself and needs to close, but that doesn’t appear to be the case, these companies are relocating jobs, telling their employee’s that they are transferring jobs to another part of the US; then what they don’t say is were taking some jobs form the other company and moving it to other countries…I saw these happen, just in the last few years...

What are you going to do Corporate America?

In an effort to stay competative in the world markets corporations
are forced to lower operational expenses. Never mind that it is a
self defeating strategy. They are banking on China and India taking
up American slack of purchashing power. They are investing in
foriegn manufacturing plants in order to manufacture products alot
cheaper that they can in the good ol USA. They turn around and sell
those products here at a substantial savings in wages and energy costs
while still making a fat profit. Now as America's purchashing power
dwindles they hope to open a vast new market of consumers in
developing countries safely stepping out of the USA before it crashes.
Just goes to show that their is no loyalty or honor among thieves when
it comes to making money. The sad part about this is that it is being
done with the full blessing of our government. (and has been for awhile
now). They forgot the political wild card. Once people start to see what
is going on, RIOTS emerge an topple governments making those cheap
labor countries into very expensive failed endeavors. Why you ask? Not
everyone wants to be corporate/fiscal slaves...........

Welcome to the world of "free trade" under NAFTA.

The reason manufacturing is leaving is because in our "free trade" partners' countries, business that are manufacturing goods for the US and global markets do not have OSHA regulations, EPA regulations, EEOC regulations or minimum wage standards. Workers do not have the right to organize. This adds up to a lot of fixed costs that our partner countries' businesses don't have to pay.

In order for US manufacturing companies to be competitive, they either do more with less workers, or move the plant to where the cheap labor is and the regulations are more lenient.

How NAFTA got passed with the blessing of labor with out the right to organize those "international" workers, I have no idea. In order for this trend to reverse, the US must insist on comparable regulatory oversight and worker protections with any country when creating new or revising old trade agreements.

Originally posted by indianajoe77
Welcome to the world of "free trade" under NAFTA.

The reason manufacturing is leaving is because in our "free trade" partners' countries, business that are manufacturing goods for the US and global markets do not have OSHA regulations, EPA regulations, EEOC regulations or minimum wage standards. Workers do not have the right to organize. This adds up to a lot of fixed costs that our partner countries' businesses don't have to pay.

In order for US manufacturing companies to be competitive, they either do more with less workers, or move the plant to where the cheap labor is and the regulations are more lenient.

How NAFTA got passed with the blessing of labor with out the right to organize those "international" workers, I have no idea. In order for this trend to reverse, the US must insist on comparable regulatory oversight and worker protections with any country when creating new or revising old trade agreements.

Still a huge difference in whether a worker makes .50 cents
an hour or 20 Dollars an hour. Don't forget pensions, medical
insurance etc,. Product quality is also a big issue. You are
correct that regulations ensure product quality however also
makes those products more expensive.

reply to post by Mr. D


And that creates a HUGE profit gap between using American workers in America, or foreign workers in another country.

reply to post by indianajoe77


Yes. Deregulation could help that however worker rights will suffer.
As always there is a delicate balance that needs to be kept. We
surely don't want to go back to pre-industrial revolution labor laws,
they are still worse in the U.S. compared to many western nations.
2 weeks vacation compared to at least one month in most european
countries. Yes higher wages offest days off however I'd rather have time
to spend hard earned money than work non stop and have that money
siphoned off in higher taxes eh?

reply to post by Mr. D


I'm not saying deregulate, even in the US. I mean our trading partners, the countries where our manufacturing jobs are going, should be required to have the same or similar regulatory and worker protections as the US. This would lift those workers up, while maintaining our high standards. Otherwise, we should either refuse those products entry into our ports, or apply heavy tariffs on those countries goods.

reply to post by indianajoe77


That would nullify the need to send our jobs overseas.
You are correct however they won't do that....they wouldn't
make the huge profits they are banking on.

reply to post by Mr. D


Its not up to the corporations to do it, only the State Department with their trade negotiations.

Why the unions, who widely support Democrats, allowed Clinton to implement NAFTA (by allowed I mean even after it passed they continued to contribute to Clinton and other Democrats still to this day), I'll never understand. These trade agreements, that began being crafted under Clinton and have continued through both Dem and Rep administrations, continue to funnel union jobs out of the country, yet the union money keeps getting funneled to the same people that, through their agreements, are sending jobs out of the country.

reply to post by Shdak


Moving jobs overseas is symptomatic of a larger problem and that is the anti-business culture in the US.

Labor costs are too high in the US compared to other countries.

Regulations are too restrictive in the US compared to other countries. You don't have to cut through a mountain of red tape and conform to absurd codes and environmental restrictions in other countries. You don't have to restrict your freedom of investment in your firm by being forced to conform to mandated capital requirements.

The EEOC mandates placed on US firms simply don't exist in other countries. Someone does not perform, they get fired and replaced, period. Should workers have rights? Of course. Should a firm have to spend an huge amount of time documenting poor performance, justifying it to a HR department in order to replace a worker who is not performing? No. Should a firm have to "take necessary steps to ensure that an employee is given the tools necessary to do the work"? No, when the "tool" is competence, timeliness, interpersonal relationships. Is it reasonable that a worker be retained despite poor performance because he/she is in a minority group? No - it happens every day. Why do US companies all have both inside and outside lawyers who deal strictly with employee lawsuits? Because they are constantly being sued by poor performing employees.

If a male manager outside of the US tells a female co-worker that he likes her outfit and that she looks pretty, does he get jammed up in HR, sued or terminated? No. They don't because the politically correctness does not exist. Normal human interactions are not policed and punished (I am not speaking about legitimate harrasment which unfortunately does exist and when it does should be dealt with firmly).

The only people in the US who are not in a protected class are under 40 white males. Everyone else is protected and actions taken against them need to be heavily documented which not only takes time and costs money, but forces you to keep an under-performing employee on the job longer than you would like, again damaging productivity and hence reducing competetiveness

Do entities that exist outside of the US have to comply with worthless statutes like Sarbanes/Oxley? No, they don't.

Are they subject to the same level of external audits which kill productivity and cost an enormous amount of money? No, they are not.

Have the schools in the US continued to fail to properly educate, making new hires less than desirable? Yes.

Are non-US firms subject to extortion by unionized workers? No, they are not. It is far cheaper to spiff a government offical than it is to be subject to decades long payments in the form of pensions, medical insurance, etc.

For the same reason firms like Boeing are pulling out of states like Washington and moving to non-union, business friendly states like South Carolina, firms are pulling jobs out of the US.

Is the movement of jobs out of the country a problem? Sure it is. Is it due to the "greedy corporation" sure it is if you define greed as taking the steps necessary to remain competetive. Companies have a fiduciary responsibility to generate shareholder value and the business climate in the US is making that increaslingly difficult.

I find it comical that in a society where the majority of people own stocks, mostly via mutual funds in pension accounts, personal investment accounts or IRAs who have benefited massively due to the increase in stock price complain about those very companies who have delivered profits that have led to that increase by takeing steps to ensure those profits, in many cases those steps being moving work outside of the US

You can't have it both ways. Chat with a union worker who is rich due to a pension plan that makes no economic sense and ask him if he wants to trade the value of his pension account for more jobs or more job security. Ask him if he is willing to take the gains of the past 5 years and toss that back to his firm so that they can hire more workers or keep jobs in the states rather than ship them overseas. He'll tell you to get stabbed. Why? Because he's just as greedy as the firm he works/worked for.

We Americans are still the only real market for large corporations in this world. We have the power - if we organize as consumers and exercise that power - to execute any company that hurts our economy by tending solely to its own bottom line. We simply decide to not do business with them - en mass - and they cease to exist as a company. Takes about 6 months if the execution is done publicly and with plenty of PR that explains that this company's been targeted for death, and that it's because of (list the reasons that have to do with destroying our nation's economy). Then, the hard part is making sure that the professional marketer and media talking heads can't destroy the discipline required to cripple sales enough to initiate a Wall Street sell off. From there, it's look-out-below for any large company that's been cross-haired by such an effort.

I'd start with a big multi-national that has a lot of subsidiaries, and kill the whole extended enterprise. It'll make bigger news and a much bigger crater when it lands. Turn the campaign into a "freedom fight" and something patriotic for the Tea Party crowd to latch onto. Kill the whole thing in the most public manner possible, and then watch Wall Street start rethinking the whole globalization strategy. They may even return to seeing 25% ROI per year as good enough once again. It'd sure better than losing their *sses when the next conglomerate is selected for termination. After the first execution, the 2nd would be a cakewalk. Hell, Wall Street would shoot it in the head for you just to avoid the spectacle of it all. Just to avoid the circus publicity and how the masses would be learning again just how much power they actually have.

reply to post by Shdak


Growing my own food.

reply to post by NorEaster


How does collapsing businesses create more jobs for US workers?

How does collapsing a business pay the pension plan of retired workers of that business?

How does collapsing businesses encourage entrepreneurs to create businesses in the US with the fear they will be collapsed?

Where does all the money come from to pay the PR and Marketing Firms that will help publicize the "community action" you recommend?

How does anything you stated help workers in foreign countries achieve the level of safety and pay the US worker enjoys?

reply to post by dolphinfan


You sound like my brother. Big noise about how business deserves to do what it wants and to hell with EPA and OSHA and all that crap that protects people that either work for them or live downstream from them.

Fine. Have it your way. Then, when people decide they've had enough of your sh*t, you hire the troops to protect yourself from them. We won't pay for your protection. We aren't worth your spending to protect, so you aren't worth our spending (in state and local taxes) to protect. Local services are paid for by property taxes and the lion's share of that revenue is collected from private property in 80% of the communities in this nation.

Also, when you try to sell your widgets or whatever the hell you're making that is no friggin' necessary for someone to buy, good luck in finding a buyer. Why the hell should anyone buy from you if you don't give a sh*t about anyone but your own self. Screw the protection of a uniuon for your workers? Okay, then screw you. Go sell your widgets like pencils from a cup on a street corner. The word'll get out on your shop to other more worker-friendly businesses (maybe you even used to have them as a customer base) and suddenly they're buying from some other shop that doesn't sh*t on its own workers like you do. Oh well, you saved money, and isn't that what it's all about?

There's this Internet that exists now, and on it, regular meatheads (workers who don't mean a damn thing to geniuses like you) can get emails about your brilliant business best-practices and they can get the word sent on pretty damn fast to others like them who resent super capitalists and their bottom-line thinking. I wonder how long it'd take before some other B2B relationship of yours decided that it's better to pay a little extra for that widget than to be chum in the water (like you) as the real meateaters begin to circle.

But you go right ahead and spin your brilliant common sense solutions for the small business owner, and keep them fighting against the very people who hold their future in their hands. You have all the riffs, and God knows, they've been working like a charm for decades now.

Then again, they say that Twitter and Facebook are what launched the Egypt carnival, so maybe things are changing.

Ha! What am I thinking? Americans are stupid...right? Things don't change here. No one ever gets fed up with being screwed over here, and having a one-thousand-to-one advantage in raw numbers has never meant anything when it comes to rubber meeting the road. This is America. This isn't reality.

I think we can argue this endlessly, to me the obvious answer is to end the overall extreme, unprecedented trade imbalances and resulting currency flow imbalances against us, caused by NAFTA and other acts; if we don’t we are screwed.

My point is that Corporate America should be standing up for America and pushing for a fair trade act, they should be saying, the NAFTA program didn’t work to make America better…They should be pushing for a change now. They should be standing up for the people who made them what they are today…

Originally posted by indianajoe77
reply to post by NorEaster

 

How does collapsing businesses create more jobs for US workers?

How does collapsing a business pay the pension plan of retired workers of that business?

How does collapsing businesses encourage entrepreneurs to create businesses in the US with the fear they will be collapsed?

Where does all the money come from to pay the PR and Marketing Firms that will help publicize the "community action" you recommend?

How does anything you stated help workers in foreign countries achieve the level of safety and pay the US worker enjoys?

When you're really, really sick, they perform surgery on you. If they don't, you die. Simple.

If you were to have to have surgery without anathesia, you'd swear that you were being tortured. Surgery sucks, but the disease will kill you.

This is where we are right now, and if you want it all to die, then don't cry when it does. Just man up and ride it into the dirt.

You want to save it, you have to agree to the surgery.

It doesn't matter how much it hurts. It's about survival in the end. The predators that this capitalistic free-for-all enriched beyond reason have infected the core of the entire political/societal body, and without major surgery, it's only a matter of time before death occurs. When that happens, everyone will suffer a lot more than the relative handful that will have to figure out how to carry on (as millions of once-hardworking Americans already are being forced right now) if we begin the necessary reeducation of the corporate class.

It's all totally non-violent and non-aggressive. No one HAS to buy from anyone, and it's perfectly legal to buy from someone else. You can even Tweet about it, blog about it, Facebook about it, email about it, and all that is free. Ask Egypt. Their revolution was sponsored by Twittert and Facebook - sort of - and hasn't cost anything at all to promote.

Don't forget the always-starved 24 hour news cycle, and what great live drama a corporate deathwatch would be. The coverage writes itself.

reply to post by Shdak

I love how you and NorEastr just ignored my posts that gave you viable solutions to just go on anti-business tirades.

The labor unions are at fault in this too, including the Democrats, who keep saying they are for the worker, while taking their union money and passing trade agreements that are lopsided to our businesses AND workers.

Right, right, its all big businesses fault. They are the only ones contributing to the politicians that create these things and the problems associated with them. The giant, international unions don't take your dues and contribute it to the Clinton's who created NAFTA?

Oh and also, if the unions are "international" how come they aren't trying to organize labor is Southeast Asia and Central America? Remember, a hostile government is no excuse for not organizing labor there. They had a hostile government during the fight for worker's rights here in the US during the late 1800's and early 1900's.

Originally posted by Shdak
I think we can argue this endlessly, to me the obvious answer is to end the overall extreme, unprecedented trade imbalances and resulting currency flow imbalances against us, caused by NAFTA and other acts; if we don’t we are screwed.

My point is that Corporate America should be standing up for America and pushing for a fair trade act, they should be saying, the NAFTA program didn’t work to make America better…They should be pushing for a change now. They should be standing up for the people who made them what they are today…

They should, but they've already proven that they won't, and they can't be shamed into caring. That means that they have to be forced to. Quarterly sales and revenue are the oxygen that they need to survive. The way to force them to care about this nation seems pretty obvious. If they want to leave, then fine, but they shouldn't expect to sell here ever again. I think they'll suddenly find their patriotic fervor if confronted to that extent.

If "freedom" (trademark pending) prevents you from seeing the obvious need for a solution here and the most obvious solution available, then enjoy the crash. It's coming and you'll get to experience it first hand.

reply to post by NorEaster


Ok, but how does your solution answer the questions I put forth to you?

Oh, I forgot, rail, rail, rail against business.

Originally posted by indianajoe77
reply to post by Shdak

 

I love how you and NorEastr just ignored my posts that gave you viable solutions to just go on anti-business tirades.

The labor unions are at fault in this too, including the Democrats, who keep saying they are for the worker, while taking their union money and passing trade agreements that are lopsided to our businesses AND workers.

Right, right, its all big businesses fault. They are the only ones contributing to the politicians that create these things and the problems associated with them. The giant, international unions don't take your dues and contribute it to the Clinton's who created NAFTA?

Oh and also, if the unions are "international" how come they aren't trying to organize labor is Southeast Asia and Central America? Remember, a hostile government is no excuse for not organizing labor there. They had a hostile government during the fight for worker's rights here in the US during the late 1800's and early 1900's.

Uniuons have lots 90% of their power and presence in the last 20 years. Your anti-union rant is 30-40 years old.

Sorry. Just because you posted doesn't mean that you made any sense. Unions were a really big problem in the 60s and 70s, but Reagan crippled them and even Clinton made sure they never got back on their feet again. Corporate/Wall Street devastation in this nation is pandemic. Unions don't even register on the scale anymore as far as day-to-day impact on business or the American worker. They give money to DNC candidates, but that's all they really do anymore. Even UAW folded when GM and Chrysler had to reorg their commitments.

My son-in-law's father lost 70% of his pension from Delco over the Bush Admin's handling of a union finacial mess that was caused by Wall Street brokers stealing from the fund. No one bailed them out and he lost his house and his retirement. Funny thing is that he's so programmed by the FoxNEWS echo machine that he blames Obama for the collapse of his pension fund in 2008. What a mess. Doesn't even understand who screwed him and never will.

The unions are on the ropes and have been for nearly a decade now.