How Congress Really Works
The discussion in Washington about the recent filibuster “deal” seems to center on the perception that Senate “moderates” have reasserted themselves. This is a nice, pleasant storyline - but it doesn’t seem to be a very accurate assessment of how Washington politics really works. In reality, congressional business is ultimately steered by how involved corporate America is in a given debate.
For instance, on the filibuster issue, the Washington Post noted that “one powerful group largely sitting out the fight is corporate America.” Business leaders were “wary of a strife-torn Senate killing pro-business items.” Thus, America gets a compromise.
On tax reform, it is the same dynamic. After the election, the New York Times published a report about social conservatives who were raising questions about President Bush’s proposal to flatten the tax system. Yet, because corporate America backed the idea, Bush is pressing forward.
We even see this dynamic on stem cell research. A large majority in the House supported more stem cell research - defying the religious right’s opposition. Why? Because the big drug companies and biotech firms desperately wanted the bill to pass.
To be sure, some of these examples may result in good outcomes. But the fundamental problem remains that corporate America is still very much calling all the shots in Washington. For every example of how this dynamic can create good results, there are scores of examples where the results are bad (passing the bankruptcy bill, passing the class action bill, voting down a minimum wage increase, just to name a few recent ones). Though the media may continue to frame politics as a “moderate” vs. “liberals/conservatives” battle, congressional action and inaction is primarily the result of what’s bought and sold by big money.
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Hmmm….corporate America has no dog in this fight? Unless you consider the history Priscilla Owens has of siding with huge corporate interests (as Barbara Boxer so eloquently pointed out in the Senate on the night the “deal” was struck), especially Enron (in 6 of 7 decisions). You bet your ass corporate America has a steak in this, as they do in nearly all of the Congress’ decisions.
May 26th, 2005 at 10:40 amCorporations do not vote on laws, congressmen do. Stop blaming coprorations!!! Blame the *congressmen* who actually pull the trigger to spend our tax money unconstitutionally on medical research, airline pension bailouts, etc.
May 26th, 2005 at 10:44 amTony - go suck eggs.
Go to redstate.org where they might agree with you occasionally.
May 26th, 2005 at 10:47 amI’m not sure if you pay attention to lobbying dollars (you should) but Congress and big business are nearly indistinguishable at this point. I include both R’s and D’s, they’re all in somebodies back pocket. Joe Biden to the bidding of MBNA in his vote on the bankruptcy bill comes immediately to mind.
May 26th, 2005 at 10:50 amOK Tony, I apologize. I just read St. Jimmy’s response on the Koran Flush thread. Damn, I feel embarrased. So let me try to address your points politely.
The whole point of this thread is to show that Corporate America trumps actual voters. Without addressing that you immediately say corporations are owed none of the blame and it is entirely Congresses fault as to how they vote.
While I agree with you that individual members of Congress are responsible for their votes, I digress with you when you say that corporations aren’t to blame. I mean, the whole thread is about the relationship between corporate america and our representatives. You can’t just shoo it away like a fly. Well, you can say as much, but most of us here, probably don’t agree with you.
Is that better?
May 26th, 2005 at 10:57 amSure it hurts your being screwed by an elephant and kicked by a jackass.
May 26th, 2005 at 10:59 amBy Tony’s logic (if you can call it that) if I get caught bribing an elected official, that official should get punished but I should get off scott free. After all, it’s not my fault that a politician votes the way I pay him to.
May 26th, 2005 at 12:23 pmDon’t blame congressmen or corporations. They are both imaginary entities. Legislative representatives, and legislative governments and corporations are very much alike. They are imaginary bodies. Blame the voters, like Tony. In fact, just blame Tony.
May 26th, 2005 at 12:46 pmkindness-
May 26th, 2005 at 12:54 pmI agree, there is a problem. But the solution lies in electing congressmen whose views and votes are constitutional in nature.
Gary, people should be free to give money to whomever they want (as long as its not used to commit a crime of course). Whether a congressman gets $0 or a million $$, casting a vote that abridges liberty or gives handouts to airlines, banks, etc is wrong. It’s up to us citizens to run, nominate, and elect constitutional candidates.
Yes, it is very sad that there are so few. But there are some.
May 26th, 2005 at 12:59 pmkindness
Thanks for the vote of confidence! Let’s hope it’s contagious.
As a former union-member/representative and now the president of a corporation (read small business owner with an incorporated business), I have observed that there are valid arguments to be made by both sides on this issue. Corporations tend to do what most individuals would do given a shitload of money and an agenda; offer it to malleable politicians who will then table and support favorable legislation.
Some corporations offer their employees attractive wages and benefits, and practice social, economic and environmental responsibility knowing that they sacrifice profit-margins by doing so. Some corporations prefer to worship avarice, and conduct their businesses accordingly.
People act in a similar manner. Some give freely give of themselves; others are selfish. Some devote their efforts to helping the world, while others exploit it.
Corporations, People; People, Corporations. Frequently, it’s damned hard to tell them apart.
May 26th, 2005 at 1:04 pmSt. Jimmy: The problem is that our economic system actively rewards the profit-at-all-costs corporations and penalizes the responsible ones. So evolution will keep providing us with many, many more of the former until we change the rules.
May 26th, 2005 at 1:18 pmWell, I can tell you an easy way to tell the difference between a person and a corporation…
May 26th, 2005 at 1:18 pmJust see which one has the most rights (bankruptcy, tax breaks, loopholes, lack of enforceable responsibility to others health and basic rights) and there you go…bingo…a corporation. Easy.
St. Jimmy makes a good point about human nature. In an ideal world (hey we can dream right) the government has the vision and the courage to reel in the more predatory elements of capitalism because at the end of the day it is the citizens whose interests they are charged with looking out for and as business becomes more technological, automated and efficient (i.e less dependent on humans), simply providing jobs is not enough. Greed is too shortsighted.
May 26th, 2005 at 1:26 pmTony and his reverence for the Constitution as the “revealed word of the founders” belies his bullshit. Like I said, blame Tony, because his votes have put radical activist lunatics in a position to place other radical activist lunatics on the bench.
May 26th, 2005 at 1:33 pmCorporations are people, Tony? Go away.
May 26th, 2005 at 1:34 pmWritten by a fellow who was once where you are now, St. Jimmy. You may find it interesting on many levels, and you can read and dowload it free here:
http://www.gangsofamerica.com/
I am all in favor of free enterprise and as few regulations on the market as possible. The bigger the corporate entity gets, the more regs it must have. Cells in an organism either self regulate or get regulated for a reason, viability of the entire organism.
May 26th, 2005 at 1:39 pmThis just strikes me as huge step backwards: treating all corporations as the same and as evil.
If you’re going to do this, then why bother participating in the political process?
Let’s make-believe that tomorrow all corporations suddenly vanish? What be the result? Take your time.
The anti-business, anti-corporate Old Left is just getting in the way of progress.
Douglass Massey has it exactly right: “Liberals have to come to terms with the market and embrace market mechanisms as the only way to run a society that produces widespread material well-being and respects individual rights and liberties.”
Yes, we do. The problem is NOT corporations. Unless you want 85% of America unemployed.
The problem is how the game has been rigged.
Massey, again:
‘What we’ve had over the past thirty years is a false bill of goods sold to the American people by conservative interests, who have hijacked markets and skewed them to their own interests, and called it the “free market”. If you turn markets over to people who have a narrow stake in it themselves, they inevitably write the rules to pervert the market itselfâ€â€as we saw with Enron, and the savings and loan scandal, and many others.’
Exactly. Whereas the Old Leftist anti-corporate, anti-business fuzzy Stalinism just drives legitmate people into the arms of the DeLay wingnuts.
We need to participate. Blaming everything on corporations is sad, quite frankly. And well below the usual ThinkProgress.org standard.
Try this instead. From Mother Jones: Return of the “L” Word: An Interview with Douglas Massey
May 26th, 2005 at 1:43 pmThom: The economy did just fine before there were corporations, and will do just fine after. Corporations don’t produce anything but paper; working men and women produce, and corporations put their logo on it and sell it back to them.
No, not all corporations are evil, if that even means anything. But the corporate system rewards profiteering and punishes responsible behavior.
May 26th, 2005 at 2:07 pmOK, Let’s go w/ the alternate topic that St. Jimmy brings up. It really is a corralary to the topic of the true thread, ie - corporate interests vs. elected representatives.
I grew up a Union Electrician’s kid whose father grew to own a Union Electric partnership. i also grew up in a town dominated by a General Motors plant (which has since been closed by GM).
Any party in a negotiation is going to try to get the most out of any agreement that can be reached. That is just the nature of the beast. It can be done so that both sides reach a profitable and wholely workable agreement (Union Electricians) but it can also tank a company, union or institution (GM/UAW, most airlines, just about any sport and their respective players).
Is there a way to keep the goose laying the golden eggs w/o killing the goose in the fight? We all agree there should be but that is exactly the fight we face in this issue. Balance. Cooperation. Harmony. All too frequently one party isn’t completely honest in a negotiation or doesn’t care about the outcome of the whole as long as they get theirs.
Look at our representatives in Congress. Even the ones we like still are beholding to the pursestrings of campaign contributions more than we would like. It’s not going to change right now. Money intersts hold more power currently than the actual voters. Part of that is because too many voters don’t vote. Part of that is because our media & advertizing companies make out like bandits under the current election system.
I wish it was like the old days. I remember a quote from Tip O’Neil (I think) were he said “with lobbyists you have to be able to eat their food, drink their liquor and take their money but be able to still vote against their interests when you have to”. My feeling is that the current crop of representatives hasn’t felt they’ve had to do that.
Sorry about the length. I’ll get off the soap-box now.
May 26th, 2005 at 2:28 pmGary, I’m familar with your other posts here and have great deal of respect for them and you.
But I believe you’re off base on this one.
The corporation is essential to our economy and will be for the forseeable future. The classic study being Ronald Coase’s The Nature of the Firm, a gloss here
As to your claim: “the corporate system rewards profiteering and punishes responsible behavior.”
Well, No and Yes. That’s exactly Massey is getting at.
If certain corporations get to write the rules due to political influence, both the market and out democracy suffer. The Enron-Cheney energy policy perhaps THE case in the point.
It’s wrong, however, to see that distortion/corruption as pro-business or pro-corporate in general: it only favors a select group, and does so at the expense of both citizens and other market participants.
Furthermore, for at least one of the examples that David cites, he’s simply mistaken.
Major research can not take place without massive infrastructure: the sort that only large universities and corporations can afford.
We have these advancements because of those investments, as well as the individual researchers involved.
Back to primary issue at hand. We need to ensure that markets are working in the public interest–and that corporations are playing fair.
I’m not interested in sacrificing progress and justice on the alter of Old Left ideologies.
May 26th, 2005 at 2:38 pmSumming Thom up in one word, his favorite= investments
May 26th, 2005 at 2:44 pmI’m not interested in sacrificing anything to any ideology, Thom. Old or new, yours, mine or somebody else’s.
May 26th, 2005 at 2:47 pmGary, if you look into Ted Nace’s book, you will find that corporations have been with us since before the revolution. In fact, we didn’t so much rebel against King George, as we did against the corporation of the day, i.e. the British East India Company and such. They have always been with us, but as Nace points out, something happened in Pacific Railroad v. Santa Clara (1868) which is still shrouded in a bit of mystery. Massey’s ideas are not entirely repulsive to me. I need to look a bit deeper to see what he is really after. Trust no one.
May 26th, 2005 at 3:06 pmI don’t think Thom has any idea what Massey is saying.
May 26th, 2005 at 3:09 pmSJS: that might be. I could just as easily misread his book as his online stuff.
I’ll be happy if you follow the Mother Jones link, read at least the interview, and judge for yourself.
I do understand how we can establish a market that ensures the public interest through more corporate oversight.
I don’t understand why the desire for more corporate oversight should be equated with being
against corporations and business in general.
Yet that’s what we have a good bit of in the above thread.
It might be fun, but it’s not helpful and won’t produce results.
Don’t confuse it, please, with actual efforts to bring about more oversight, accountability and transparency.
May 26th, 2005 at 3:50 pmGary Kleppe states:
“No, not all corporations are evil, if that even means anything. But the corporate system rewards profiteering and punishes responsible behavior.”
I would argue that 99.99% of corporations are not evil, in that they do not harm life, liberty, or property. A few do and should be punished (like Enron stealing from employee’s 401k’s, or a company who dumps toxic waste on other people’s property).
But by and large corporations (which are really just groups of people working together to produce a product or service) are harmless entities. Walmart does not harm life, liberty or property. Same goes for Coca-Cola and Home Depot. If they do, then they are and should be punished.
Profits are simply a sign that a coproration is pleasing its customers. What’s wrong with that (again, as long as their not harming liberty)? A company can pay their workers a penny/hour, charge $1000/can of soda, offer no health benefits, require 80 hours of work per week—so what? They’re not harming anyone!
You say responsible companies are not being rewarded. How do you want to determine the basis for reward? Majority vote? Your opinion? The opinion of some politburo stooges? I would prefer freeedom and to let the people (customers) decide who to reward based on who satisfies them best.
May 26th, 2005 at 4:19 pmI am Thom, but it was some of your rhetoric, and I am not above the use of rhetoric myself, that led me to conclude that you may be more reading more into what he is saying than is really there.
Tony like to argue with himself. I bet that’s not all that he does by himself.
May 26th, 2005 at 4:36 pmThom, only a piker conflates Stalinism with marxist theory and the various and succesful implementations of social programs in many social democracies around the world. There are no Stalinists on the left, man. Castro isn’t even a Stalinist. Kruschev repudiated Stalin before you were born.
May 26th, 2005 at 4:39 pmPlease don’t feed the monkeys…
“I would argue that 99.99% of corporations are not evil, in that they do not harm life, liberty, or property. A few do and should be punished (like Enron stealing from employee’s 401k’s, or a company who dumps toxic waste on other people’s property).”
May 26th, 2005 at 4:42 pmA company can pay their workers a penny/hour, charge $1000/can of soda, offer no health benefits, require 80 hours of work per weekâ€â€so what? They’re not harming anyone!
Okay, this wins the most unintentionally absurd statement of the month competition.
Congrats, Tony. For your prize, you may work eighty hours next week for a penny an hour with no health benefits. You’ll also be required to pay $1000 for any item of food. Get back to us the week after and let us know whether living like this causes any harm to you and/or your family.
May 26th, 2005 at 4:44 pmGary-
May 26th, 2005 at 5:04 pm1) I’m not forced to take the job
1a) I’m not forced to buy their products
2) It would be better than no job at all
3) The company is not harming my (or anyone else’s) life, liberty, or property.
I tried to warn you all. Don’t feed that spider monkey. He is a devotee of the Ayatollah Rand. He is truly cuckoo bananas.
May 26th, 2005 at 5:19 pmNotice Tony’s cukoo bananas:
“or a company who dumps toxic waste on other people’s property”
It’s my damn property and I can dump toxic waste on it if I want!
May 26th, 2005 at 5:22 pmVery good analogy Union Guy.
May 26th, 2005 at 6:03 pmYou want balance, go to Canada. I wish I could. This is George Bush’s world and you are either with him or against him. If you are with him you may be allowed to live in it, at a price.
May 26th, 2005 at 6:22 pmDavid #13, You are absolutely correct. Look at the new bankruptcy law that goes in effect in October. Corporations are completely protected yet individuals loose protection. Check out my website, (click on my name) listen to last weeks show and hear our discussion on the new bankruptcy law.
May 26th, 2005 at 8:11 pmSJS: my Stalinist remark was a cheap shot, I admit, but sadly on target in that the 20th century history of command economies is quite bad. Should you desire more on this.
1. Right now, the markets are being systematically restructured to benefit the few at the expense of the many. From energy to healthcare.
2. This rigging of the game, usually under the guise of “free-markets”, is being done legislatively by many of our elected representatives. Also executively, in terms of what does and not get investigated, enforced, etc.
3. In regard to 2., many large corporations are involved and footing the bill–re: K Street, etc.
4. When David and others call to our attention these abuses, David et al. are performing a valuable service.
This is what I think most–though not all–of us agree on.
Now, it seems to me we can have two responses:
(a) try to stop these people from further rigging the markets, and try to undo some of the past damage;
or (b) fantasize about failed alternatives to market economies.
The general corporate and business bashing seems to me closer to (b).
Likewise, I know several people in corporate America who share the belief that we more corporate oversight– and less of a rigged game.
They are also not fans of W, his war, or his vision for US. To put it mildly.
So why use rhetoric that seems to push all people concerned with business and corporate America into the “W” camp?
Let’s focus on the abusers and the abuses, please.
May 26th, 2005 at 8:40 pmAnti-capitalism is as inevitable as anti-communism. That does not mean the end of free enterprise or the end of minimal but necessary controls or regulations on markets. It does not mean the end of liberty or freedom or private property.
The Marxism of the Right is a recent piece by Robert Locke. It’s in the American Conservative Magazine, really.
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_03_14/article1.html
People like Tony are hiding under every bed in this country and we need a Sen. McCarthy to find them and expose them and drive them from us. Silly, isn’t it?
May 27th, 2005 at 4:21 amYes, thanks for that. I have heard about Perkins. Been meaning to read that.
May 27th, 2005 at 7:09 pm“Nothing is illegal if 100 business man decide to do it.”
Former United Nations ambassador and Mayor of Atlanta Andrew
May 28th, 2005 at 5:15 amYoung
“… As long as you continue to tar social democracy with all the crimes of communism, I feel equally entitled to tar the free market with the crimes of slavery, segregation, colonialism and genocide; piss me off and I’ll add fascism and the Nazis.”
Greg Erwin
May 28th, 2005 at 2:22 pmloupygarou, I will see that fine Devil’s Dictionary entry and raise you two:
ECONOMY, n.
Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.
LABOR, n.
One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
LAND, n.
A part of the earth’s surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.
A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep,
For the spark the nature gave
I have there the right to keep.
They give me the cat-o’-nine
May 29th, 2005 at 10:58 amWhenever I go ashore.
Then ho! for the flashing brine –
I’m a natural commodore!
Dodle
WAGE DECLINE & CORPORATE SELF-DESTRUCTION
Until recently, American corporations had been unable to destroy their own consumer market, because they were forced to maintain wages at a certain level. This was due to the limited supply of workers in their native country. The labor force supply-and-demand effect created upward pressure on wages. This prevented American industry from reducing wages below a certain level. In turn, this maintained aggregate labor/consumer income at a high enough level to purchase American products. With global labor competition, wages can be reduced drastically. With this reduction, however, comes reduction in the consumer income that purchases American products. This drastic reduction in aggregate consumer income will lead to a drastic reduction in consumer demand. If the average American worker is making $4/day, due to glogal labor competition, who will buy American products? CEOs? Congress? Bill Gates? Martians? Can the super rich really buy enough computers and SUVs to maintain American consumer spending and demand? If not, then where will the profits come from with drastically reduced sales? Can profits be made without selling any goods? Can labor costs be reduced enough to make profits without any sales?
Corporate America fails to understand that maintaining worker wages is to their advantage. It’s not only to their advantage, it’s a necessity. American labor “costs” actually provide the income to buy American products. (Labor costs = consumer income. Labor cost reduction = consumer income reduction. In reality, it’s worse than this. Consumer income reduction is > than labor cost reduction.) To restate this, as corporations lower labor costs, they lower consumer income as well. Corporations decrease the size of their own market by reducing aggregate consumer income. If they continue to increase profit margins by reducing labor income, they’ll eventually be unable to sell their products. There won’t be enough income to purchase America’s production. Remember slavery? Slaves never bought any products. They didn’t have any income. If we all become slaves, we won’t have any income either. And corporate America won’t be able to sell their products to anyone. Corporate America will have destroyed itself, due to its own greed.
Henry Ford said that he paid his workers well so they could buy his cars. Corporate America should take heed of this. The most productive economies we’ve ever had were when worker wages were at their highest inflation-adjusted level. There are 2 economic principles that are being ignored by Corporate America. Consumer spending is 2/3 of economic activity. They also ignore the fact that consumer spending is the biggest part of the GDP equation. (GDP=Consumer_spending+investment+government_spending+trade_balance) In reality, investment spending will be self-limited if consumer spending isn’t maintained. Production facilities will not be built if no one buys products. In addition, government spending is financed by taxes on consumer income. Thus, it is also very dependent on consumer income. Exports depend on foreign labor income, which creates foreign consumer markets. Since average foreign worker income is miniscule, this will never be a very large number. Imports will continue to subtract from GDP, as long as slave-labor wages are encouraged by “free” trade/slave labor agreements. Since consumer spending is strongly related to labor/consumer income, a reduction in consumer income will also reduce GDP. We’re not “growing” our economy by reducing labor costs. We’re shrinking it.
unlawflcombatnt
EconomicPopulistCommentary
http://www.unlawflcombatnt.blogspot.com/
________________
Investment does NOT create jobs. It only “allows” for their creation. Increased Demand for goods creates jobs, because it necessitates hiring of workers to produce more goods. Investment “permits” job growth. Demand necessitates it.
Building a factory does NOT create jobs. Demand for production DOES create jobs. Goods are not produced if there is no demand for them. Without demand for goods, there is no demand for workers to produce them. Without demand, no amount of investment creates jobs.
May 30th, 2005 at 9:28 pmOUTSOURCING REDUCES GLOBAL WAGES
Those who advocate pro-free trade often justify their position by stating a desire to uplift the poor in foreign countries. Not only do I oppose that position on nationalistic grounds, I question the benefits to 3rd world countries. Lack of benefit to 3rd-world countries is a point I’d like to make mainly with “liberals.”
Outsourcing does NOT raise aggregate global wages. In fact, outsourcing labor costs to a low-wage country REDUCES global labor wages and income. If a $90/day American laborer is substituted for by $2/day foreign laborer, it reduces aggregate global labor income. Global labor income is what buys production and creates demand. Outsourcing reduces aggregate global labor income, thus reducing total consumer spending world wide. American workers lose income and buying power with outsourcing. That loss is NOT made up for by increase in foreign wages. This is just plain common sense. It’s impossible for cost reductions to make up for wage losses.
If American workers can’t buy America’s production, then foreign workers need to pick up the slack. Does anyone really think that’s possible? Can $2/day foreign workers make up for the buying power lost by $90/day American workers? That’s $88/day/worker in lost labor income per worker. It would take the labor income of 45 $2/day workers to make up that labor income loss. Does anyone really think that’ll happen? Of course not. The only benefit to anyone is the short-term cost reduction to American outsourcers, and a slight price decrease for American consumers. The numbers just don’t add up. Global labor competition causes aggregate global labor income to drop. It increases the labor supply available to American corporations, and decreases worker bargaining power. This is simple supply and demand. If the supply of labor increases 100-fold, it will drive the “price” of labor down. Labor “price” reduction means labor wage reduction. Thus, the end result will be a dramatic reduction in American labor income, as well as a lesser reduction in global wages.
Outsourcing and globalization don’t “raise” anybody up. It drags all workers down. Jobs will go to the most impoverished workers, and employers won’t pay them a penny more than they have to. We cannot enforce minimum wage laws, or other worker protections in foreign countries. Even more important, however, is that Corporate America doesn’t want to. Why would they? It would increase the price of their exploited foreign labor. The poorer the worker, the more willingly they accept poverty-level wages. Their impoverishment is Corporate America’s gain.
Let’s not forget that someone needs to buy the goods produced. Who will buy them if American wages drop to the level of their enslaved foreign counterparts? People can’t purchase goods without income. And very low income means very few goods purchased. Demand cannnot be created out of thin air. Consumers must have sufficient income to create that demand. Without demand, there is no need for production, and no need to hire workers.
The entire world economy would collapse without the Demand created by American consumers. That demand is created by American income and borrowing. We’re almost maxed out on borrowing at present. In addition, inflation-adjusted American wages are declining. They’ve declined 1% over the last year, and 0.5% over the last 3 months. The last thing the US and the world need is a further decline in American wages. American wage decline hurts the US, as well as the major exporting countries. If aggregate American labor & consumer income declines, so does our ability to buy foreign imports. Increasing American labor competition with enslaved foreign workers is worsening this wage decline. It’s not only in our best interests to keep jobs in the US, it’s to the advantage of all countries that export to us. We need income to buy their goods.
“Opening up markets” sounds like a good idea. But it’s a smokescreen. It’s not the real motivation behind “free” trade agreements. The real motivation is “opening up” the American labor market to competion with slave-labor. Bush and his neocon supporters know this. They hope we won’t see it. Many of us do, however. Hopefully we can make others see this as well.
unlawflcombatnt
EconomicPopulistCommentary
http://www.unlawflcombatnt.blogspot.com
__________________________
Investment does NOT create jobs. It only “allows” for their creation. Increased Demand for goods creates jobs, because it necessitates hiring of workers to produce more goods. Investment “permits” job growth. Demand necessitates it.
Building a factory does NOT create jobs. Demand for production DOES create jobs. Goods are not produced if there is no demand for them. Without demand for goods, there is no demand for workers to produce them. Without demand, no amount of investment creates jobs.
May 30th, 2005 at 9:32 pmThe solution is to restructure the system. Like the American revolution’s Separation of Church and State, we have to bring about the Separation of Money and State. This simply means strict campaign finance reform. All election campaigns should be restricted to the same spending level, period! No one’s freedom of speech is limited. Only their financial advantage.
July 8th, 2005 at 8:04 amCorporate American did’t know that Congress would pass a bill such as Bankruptcy so fast. This bill made it even harder for Americans to servive our economic growth. Its even harder when the bill for minimum wage where passed about the same time. Then in Memphis, TN taxes went up and employment decreased. I wish things would get better for Americans, but right now I don’t see how. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poor. God we Americans need a serious pray today.
January 6th, 2006 at 10:34 pm