Mar. 26, 2004 - 20:00 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Middle Ground

Looks to me that about the only option for Americans to work anymore is in the service industry (so called). Manufacturing, what little there is of it is still going overseas. Now all sorts of work done by white collar types, including clerking, reservations clerks, computer programmers, the list is humongus, is rapidly being sent away, outsourcing, off shoring or whatever name they choose to give it, the available work is getting less and less for American workers. At least it seems so to me.

Of course Corporations and companies are against limiting outsourcing, vociferously ! Sure they are, under the present setup.

Their terrified screams of not being able to keep up with competition are lobbied and loud too.

So what is going to be left for the American looking for work ? Burger flipping, sweeping, mopping, and things like that. Working on city infrastructure can't be sent overseas, but heck we will have to compete with "undocumented workers" or illegal aliens to get that kind of work. Construction trades are full of those, as well as restaurants and so forth.

I can't see where restrictive tariffs will help a bit, but some method of control should be applied, I think. Obviously to me it seems that the business world is the power behind the throne here in our country. Seems like their battle cry is, "Find some one, some country who will do our work cheaper and we will transfer the work there."

Way back I think that companies here in our country started moving their work to the southern states. They could get along cheaper by paying less, with all the things that went with it. But then, as the folks down there found that the job they were doing paid a heck of a lot more up north, they unionized and demanded fair income and benefits like the northerners got.

There is one big business that as far back as I can remember did business world wide having employees citizens in each country they operated. Part of its title is, "International." I wonder how they got that way ? Then too I remember reading about a large car manufacturer who owned or partially owned factories in Europe in a place where they were bombed to dust receiving reparations for same -- even though in World War Two those factories were making war making machinery to use against us.

In the Rocky Mountain News this morning I read the following: 31 states where bills have been introduced this year to ban state agencies from using foreign off shore labor, 3 states where bills have been offered to restrict companies from state contracts and governmental grants and loans if they send jobs overseas, 3 states where bills have been introduced that offer preference to in-state or in-country companies that bid on state contracts. I would be willing to wager that those proposals never become reality.

Looks to me like, in the end, only the big companies and big stockholders will profit greatly while the rest of us slog away at nothing jobs, that is, if we can even find them.

When I was young we were taught to Buy American - period ! Now, how can we Buy American when the products are assembled with foreign made parts, by foreigners with nameplates of an American manufacturer ? Some time ago those foreign made parts were bought here, and assembled here by our citizens.

I really am not sure how this could possibly be rectified when the eagerness for the almighty dollar is prime with us all. Where in recent years it has off and on been the practice of shipping foreign goods here, selling them for less that the equivalent American products, "dumping" I think it is called. This carried on until manufacturers here would cut prices, and due to the fact that workers are paid less and have fewer benefits and less security, less foreign government control those businesses can undercut ours.

Doesn't it seem ridiculous that a foreign company can use the same materials, make the same product, pay the shipping and still sell their stuff cheaper here ?

Once immigration was strictly controlled, quotas by nationalities. It was our country, we had the right to establish quotas for immigration, we had the right to insist that someone here took responsibility for the incomers making sure they had shelter, food, and necessities until such time as they could support themselves.

The economists, the few who can agree with each other (which is a rarity) say that things are great and looking up, that productivity here is on the increase. What they don't say is how total income from work is computed, as a nation. Computer programmers and analysts now working in jobs paying much less, people our of work, things like that are bound to show a decrease in citizen income nationally.

I wonder if absolute ethics will ever exist in this world ? A dream perhaps.

Things are so out of kilter, I wonder will all sides ever try to find a fair Middle Ground ? . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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