Economy Sails Away From Workers

[kalian]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0213-09.htm

I lived in Michigan from 1976 to 1988, during the collapse of the U.S. auto industry, when laid-off workers used sledge hammers to take out their frustrations on Toyotas. They were being told that their jobs were going overseas because they had priced themselves out of the market and unionization was the culprit.

I lived in Japan during 1980. The Japanese blamed the problems of the American car companies on low worker morale resulting from the gap between their pay and that of over-paid managers and executives.

When I returned to Japan at the end of the 1980s, affluence was everywhere, CEOs were beginning to make American-style salaries, and ordinary people and pundits were wringing their hands with anxiety, predicting that the "bubble economy" was about to burst. A few years later, it did.

...more...

Sounds familiar, no?