If you despise labor movements (unions), fair wages, equitable employment, and all government regulations to these effects then you support the corporate distortion of the free market. Rejecting labor means you embrace the “global economy” now pushing the American middle class closer to third world conditions with every passing day. There is no middle ground. The corporate takeover of government is all about removing any resemblance of a level playing field.
The labor agenda is known: Increased wages, worker benefits, equitable education, all parts of the plan. They could stand to calm down on the pension issue. Overly generous pensions, lifetime free rides were a mistake, many causing great harm but we’ve not even begun to feel the pain from these ill conceived devices now that contributions are decreasing. What is not widely known is how far corporations have gone with their presumptions that the American consumer base is declining and may soon be forsaken. The accepted economic phrase is “emerging markets”. Loosely translated these are markets where consumer spending power is increasing when compared to America. Wal-Mart wants in.
US corporations thank you for believing their tall tales of how free trade agreements will help American companies export goods. Never mind we don’t have the public infrastructure, ports, to handle the worlds largest container ships. Don’t worry about those details. Who needs taxes for infrastructure for the future when immediate profits can be pocketed now? Free trade agreements are cheap labor agreements, nothing more or less. As one international textile executive put it “we chase poverty”, moving mobile sewing operations anywhere the labor is cheapest on the globe. I personally know a textile executive who stopped in my office on his way from Chicago to negotiate with Butner Federal Prison in NC for cheap manufacturing labor. Ironically he spotted Bernie Madoff working the cash register in the canteen.
Corporations are not interested in job creation. No tax break will make them interested in job creation. Therefore any politician towing their corporate sponsors line is not interested in job creation or wage increases, they are interested in increasing profits for shareholders. <- That’s a period. The United States is, after all, beholden to the shareholder economy. The only solution put forward by corporate owned legislators, “lower taxes”, is about the most aggravatingly insane, narrow minded, out of touch one liner that working American’s can be insulted with. A repeated call for a failed and failing strategy. But you like it. Why? You don’t like being a primary component in the international consumer base? Think your spending power should rival that of a typical Pakistani seamstress on a loom? There almost isn’t an answer that can be correlated to prosperity for the American middle class. Our demise is often blamed on “liberalism” through some abstract, loosely correlated dialog or completely out of touch racist or bigoted rant. Somehow gays getting married and abortions are the causes of wage stagnation? Truth is there is no political party beholden to American workers. Politicians are RIGHTFULLY beholden to their corporate persons. That’s the way the law is written per the SCOTUS and their Citizen’s United ruling. Having conquered US politics these corporate persons now have their sights set on bypassing international laws and regulations with TTIP.
Until we can break the invasion of government by Wall Street the American middle class and working poor are at the mercy of an international race to the bottom deigned by corporations and implemented through their political ties and donations. This means voters must embrace consumer and labor advocates who are prepared to fight for a stakeholder economy and oppose the seemingly national obligation to insure investment gains on Wall Street at all costs. To do otherwise is to contribute to your own demise and you will not be at peace with the Lick Liberal.