We live in a global economy and there is nothing you can do about it.

[kentuck]

Surrender.

That seems to be the message I hear from the corporate world. Naturally, they want you to believe that. They will not be happy until we can all compete with China and India. Then, the jobs can return to America because the profit margin will be the same at home as they are abroad.

Do you honestly believe that bullshit?

Would they be so quick to move jobs overseas if our elected politicians did not give them nice tax breaks to do so? Now they want more tax breaks to bring their truckload of profits back to America? Don't you know that will create more jobs in America? Indeed, that is what they are saying and requesting.

Yes, you can move your jobs to China or Indonesia or wherever you want but that country should not expect to receive any special favors from our government. And you should not expect to receive any special tax treatment from our country for doing so. In fact, we could request that those countries offer no special favors to you. You should be treated as every other business in that country. Let them give you the tax breaks they want but do not look for the US Government to speak up on your behalf. That is what I would like to hear our government say to these scavengers for low wages and high profits. You're on your own. You do not have the blessing of the government.

Do you believe we live in a new global economy and there is not a damn thing we can do about it??

[Harmony Blue]

1. More importantly the U.S. military should NOT be used to protect

these overseas interests if they do not pay taxes.

[dkf]

2. You still think the US will be the dominant force in perpetuity.

That is why you don't see it.

[kentuck]

3. We're all going to die eventually...

but why rush it?

Again, I don't buy your argument.

[Harmony Blue]

4. Not making an argument

pointing out that we indeed can control our destiny.

[kentuck]

7. I agree.

We have to stop letting the corporations control our destiny.

[girl gone mad]

16. it doesn't matter whether or not we're the "dominant force".

[TBF]

5. No problem - we will occupy globally and rise up together.

Buh bye capitalism :hi:

[Harmony Blue]

6. We live in strange times

indeed. I do not know what will happen to capitalism though moving forward.

[TBF]

8. My guess - we will move to democratic socialism

and eventually to socialism/communism. There are many things we can learn not only from the Paris Commune (my particular favorite), but also from the histories of both Russia and Cuba.

There's no doubt Capital will fight us every step of the way (and if they are operating globally we can as well).

[kentuck]

10. Simple math.

American companies cut 2.4 million jobs in America and created 2.9 million overseas. They say they are creating jobs and they are right.

[abelenkpe]

9. Global economy?

Ok, then we need to organize workers globally and push for FDRs second bill of rights globally to counter the decades of corporations pitting workers and governments against one another.

[jwirr]

27. The unions have been trying to organize workers for decades - we

have not had a lot of success.

[saras]

11. More and more of us don't live in an economy at all. We live in a community.

[OHdem10]

12. The Globalized Economy did not gloablize itself. Congresses and

Parliaments all aroung the world participate and gave
their approval for Globalization. Just as they founded
it they can make adjustments and reforms.

This idea that some out there force is managing our
destiny stretches the imagination beyond belief.

[Lionessa]

13. I have no problem with a global world. I do have a problem with a global world that

allows a few to glom on to the top while they force everyone else to fight for crumbs. As the global power for many decades our trade agreements should have assured that our trade was dependent on fairly paid and reasonably treated labor forces.

It isn't the GLOBAL part that's the problem. It's the CORRUPTIONS of nearly all financial & governmental systems globally that lead to these ridiculous race-to-the-bottom trade agreements that are the problem.

[jwirr]

25. They trade agreements and laws that favor the corporations have

made a lot of unethical and immoral practices in business legal. They are no longer considered corruptions. As one banker in one of the posts here stated: I am just trying to make a profit.

Unfortunately I think the slave owners in the 1850s would have said the same thing.

[Lionessa]

30. Legal corruptions are still corruptions, as I think you are pointing out.

[jwirr]

32. Absolutely. Maybe even worse.

[monicamonix32]

14. It's funny because the executives themselves don't compete with people from India, China, etc

You could easily find an intelligent person in China, India, the U.S., or elsewhere who'd do the CEO's job for a lower salary and do it just as well. Sheeeeiiiiittt, my friend's dad had his job outsourced to someone in India. He was forced to train his replacement in order to get his severance. You could do the same thing with the CEO and force him to train his cheaper but just as competent Indian replacement.

The difference between what's happening to the execs and the rank and file is the POWER to defend their turf. CEOs of large corporations have too much influence over their boards for the board to behave as an independent check. The shareholders are too dispersed and uninvolved to serve a proper check either. That there are actually Americans who support globalization the way it's been carried is a testament to the ignorance of some members of the American public. Our public education system is failing us.

[kentuck]

15. Good points!

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[FarCenter]

17. Actually executives do compete globally - an American is running BP, an Itallian is running Chrysler

[monicamonix32]

21. That doesn't mean a whole lot.

[JoeyT]

36. I never understood how that worked.

You may have to train your replacement to get your severance, but you don't have to train them well.

"What do I do when my computer gets a blue screen?"
"Set the wastebasket on fire and throw it at the manager. It's called 'rebooting'."

[Lizzie Poppet]

18. A big problem is that it's only partly globalized.

It's a "global economy" in terms of corporations being able to move goods across borders with minimal regulation or tariff...but it's far from globalized in terms of normalizing wages and cost-of-living, merging currencies, etc. In other words, it's globalized only in ways that benefit the 1%, and very carefully not globalized in any way that might conceivably interfere with maximum profit.

That will only change when those people reaping all the benefit no longer control governments. That probably means "never," but for the first time in recent memory, I'm allowing myself to hope. What worries me is that it still won't happen without violence...terrible, horrific violence.

[kentuck]

19. Do we "normalize" wages to match Chinese wages to American wages?

Or do we normalize wages to match American wages to Chinese wages? That is their goal, I have no doubt.

[BOG PERSON]

23. how can you possibly raise chinese wages to the level american wages

only like 300 million of them are in the labor market proper and the rest of them are subsistence farmers. our only hope is for china to withdraw from the Global Economy for some reason

[kentuck]

24. Right!

So I guess we need to lower American wages to match the Chinese wages, with inflation of the dollar and currency manipulation.

[Lizzie Poppet]

35. I suspect you're right!

Honestly, I can't escape the feeling that it's all making it's last few spins 'round the bowl and that this nation as currently constituted is on its last legs. I hope I survive the transition to whatever it becomes.

[jwirr]

20. I believe. As to what to do about it I would like to see something happen

that everyone screams about if you dare say it: isolationism with a few exceptions.

The multinational corporations can take their businesses to wherever they want but I want us to rebuild our own manufacturing base that supplies our own people's needs. We could do this with worker owned businesses. Use tariffs to control imports. If we have extra to export then we trade it for what we NEED to import because it cannot be grown here (coffee and bananas?).

I do not want to police the world anymore and I do not want to belong to NAFTA, or any other trade agreements. If we need to trade for something we need then we do it the old fashioned way that existed before globalization and the trade pacts.

I realize no one wants this however, I do not think we can heal America under this new world order of globalization and if we cannot heal ourselves then we have nothing to offer the world or even our own citizens.

[Chan790]

22. Hooray for tariffs!

Bring back the tarriffs...burn the FTAs. I'm all for that.

[Fire Walk With Me]

26. Definitely a new global economy and we'd better take care of ourselves and each other

because no one else is going to to it for us. Kick out the IMF and World Bank!

[Cats Against Frist]

28. I was thinking about this today, watching Rahm E. on MTP

I think that really, this whole debate boils down to the fact that formerly undeveloped nations are becoming developed as a result of global capitalism. Even if you kept the jobs here -- you would have to have a populace that was dedicated to buying goods from here and ban imports from other countries. This kind of tariff system is vastly unpopular and, in the age of the Internet, could start a huge uprising about why we can't buy $1 socks from other countries.

If you didn't impose tariffs, and let the system compete itself out, it's nearly assured that the cheap goods would trounce the more expensive ones -- doing the same thing that is happening now. I would venture to guess that in some of those back-room legislative sessions, there's a hedging built in that keeps some companies -- like Boeing from fleeing the country altogether and just enough jobs in this country to keep us afloat tax-wise to hold up the system. At least until the global capitalists move into whatever the next phase is.

That said, import-substitution industrialization has worked, but it involves large-scale nationalization of not only services and infrastructure, but durable goods as well. Like the "Unites States Pots and Pans Company."

I think the global capitalists are telling the truth -- look out, peeps, because there are teeming billions who will do your jobs for less -- and, as we've seen, you're too greedy to act in your overall best interest, and it doesn't even matter if we straight up tell you what's what anymore.

[Spider Jerusalem]

29. I honestly believe that, yes. It's unfortunate; it's also a fact.

Consequences of a global economy and of China and India rapidly industrialising with a growing middle class: increased market competition for globally traded resources, including most crucially oil. Global demand for oil has increased by approximately twenty million barrels a day since 1995, from c. 67 million to c. 87 million bbl/day; almost all of that increase has come from China and India and Brazil and the developing world. The result of this is a rise in the price of oil on the global market thanks to demand; this is why oil is at over $100 a barrel (NB: NOT $80; NYMEX crude is oout of line with every other global benchmark and major crude oil) and why you're paying over $3 for a gallon of gasoline (which is, quite honestly, cheap). And the US imports over half of the oil it uses. Like it or not, you're stuck with the global economy. You don't get to take your ball and go home when you're dependent to the degree the US is on imports.

The US could not hope to maintain its standard of living without a) massive imports of foreign-sourced raw materials like oil, copper, aluminium, iron ore, and so on; b) low-cost goods and food products produced by cheap labour in developing countries or by low-wage undocumented immigrant labour in the US--how much do you think your groceries would cost if they were produced by people being paid at least minimum wage? How much do you think the things you buy in Wal-Mart or Target or for that matter Macy's or the Gap would cost if they were made by American labour? The US can't supply the raw materials needed to meet manufacturing demand for finished goods for the domestic US market; the US can't produce those finished goods at an economically competitive price-point for Americans to enjoy their current standard of living at current average wage and salary levels. (And quite honestly one can argue that there's not any compelling reason why they should; the US has five percent of the world's population and uses a quarter of all the oil produced and a third of the total energy. Which is unsustainable.)

I never really see anyone paying much attention to these inconvenient facts.

[kentuck]

33. A good argument to wean ourselves off the oil addiction..

I would think. Also, the new energy technology, which we invented, is now being taken over by the Chinese. We lose again.

[Spider Jerusalem]

34. It's not a zero-sum game

Americans are generally too dependent on oil and automobiles and too sceptical of alternatives for one reason or another; that's the real problem. The intransigence of ignorant people and of anti-science idiots in positions of authority on the state level in a lot of places is why that new energy technology isn't being deployed on a large scale. You can blame part of that on inertia and part of it on infrastructure that makes a shift to more energy-efficient lifestyles more difficult, and partly on stupidity of the "not in my backyard" variety on the basis that "solar panels and wind turbines are ugly!".

[Hutzpa]

31. Of course there is something we can do about it

we can organized,

we can disrupt,

we can stop listening to their BS 24/7

turn that real life drama off and start watching current affairs.

Do your own research instead of listening to some bubble head on TV who is
their to serve their corporate masters.

All these are just a few things that can be done by the 99%.