[Shadow_Group] Fw: America's Middle Class Becomes the New Working Poor

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

rense.com

America's Middle Class 
Becomes the New 
Working Poor
By Frosty Wooldridge
Washington Dispatch.com
11-2-4
 
In the past ten years, American jobs screamed out of the United States at
an ever-accelerating rate of speed. While American workers stood in
unemployment lines, major corporations insourced, outsourced and
offshored jobs to Third World countries. Why? They could obtain labor for
$1.00 an hour and sometimes less. Capitalism knows no loyalty to man,
beast or country. 

At the high end, Congress offered hundreds of thousands of H-1B and L-1
visas that displaced 890,000 American high tech workers out of jobs while
importing cheap labor from overseas. 

To add insult to injury while displacing American workers--meatpacking,
chicken processing, paving, construction, hotel, roofing, landscaping and
other trade jobs were insourced to millions of illegal alien workers. 

America's manufacturing base and ability to sell products to the world
diminished with the rising power of corporations to control taxes,
tariffs and commodities markets. These huge corporations, run by American
CEOs, took advantage of their American roots and benefits enjoyed in a
First World country - while giving millions of jobs to people in other
countries. For what? Obscene profits! It's why you hear of their $125
million annual paychecks. They are the Ken Lays of Enron crowd who don't
get caught. Why not? Because what they do is legal, but then again, they
paid enough money into Political Action Committees and other
organizations to make sure they gained tax breaks and other benefits from
Congress. 

It's a hell of a rich man's club, but it's turning America's Middle Class
into the Working Poor Class. 

Who are these giants? You'd be surprised. They are some of our most
time-honored companies who built their empires on the backs of America's
working class heroes. 

According to Arianna Online, "Bank of America shouldn't be allowed to
have 'America' in the name of the company." One of America's largest
banks eliminated 5,000 jobs while outsourcing 1,250 jobs to India. It
announced it would cut another 12,000 jobs in the next two years.
Employees were given severance pay on condition they train their
replacements. 

Affiliated Computer Services offers business processing
technology--outsourced 1,300 jobs to India in the past three years. They
multiplied their profits by paying half the wage rate in a Third World
country of 1.1 billion eager workers. 
  
According to Arianna, "The company chairman is known as Darwin 'Survival
of the Richest' Deason." 
  
  
General Electric built its empire on American soil. However, it is known
as the father of outsourcing. It outsourced 12,000 jobs to people in
India who perform at phones answering credit card inquires and give IT
technical assistance while handling network security. The three leading
executives of GE make untold millions in salaries while American citizens
stand in unemployment lines. 

Halliburton, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney as its CEO,
enjoys 45 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens. Halliburton is helping
reconstruct Iraq with $73 million in equipment and services. The only
caveat stems from working as a civilian employee with Halliburton in Iraq
might find you with your head on a platter. However, stockholders make
millions. 

The Bank of New York, run by Thomas 'Pioneering the Loss of American
Jobs' Reny, in March 2003, sent 250 computer software jobs to Mumbai
where it already employed 670 workers. It plans to open a software
development center in the Philippines. 

American Telephone and Telegraph, or what we used to call Ma Bell - which
is about as ALL-AMERICAN a company you could ever find - outsourced 500
customer service jobs to India in 2003 in addition to another 3,000 jobs
outsourced before that date. 

Dell Computers employs 3,000 Indians in Bangalore and Hyderabad, India.
Sprint cut 21,000 American jobs in 2001 through 2003 and sent those jobs
to Third World countries. American Flyer, the makers of the little red
wagon we all pulled as kids, outsourced to China this year. Maytag in
Pennsylvania shut its plant while displacing 1,500 workers and set up
shop in Mexico. 

"Congress, the President and journalists sit around like outsourcing is
some incurable disease and they cannot fix it," said Paul Streitz, an
industry watchdog. "It is not. They say outsourcing is driven by the need
for firms to stay 'competitive.' But to stay competitive means lowering
costs and raising profits for stockholders and key executives. The
additional savings are not passed on to customers. No study has ever
shown that those companies using outsourcing are charging lower prices. A
chief justification for this abomination." 

If this trend is any indication, and it is, the best days of America's
working class fade in the rearview mirror. Americans compete with 1.3
billion Chinese and 1.1 billion Indians whose medium income teeters at
$2,000 a year. They will work for $5.00 a day whereas Americans must make
at least $15.00 an hour to maintain a decent standard of living. 

You have to ask who will have enough money to buy the goods and services
those companies market when the American Middle Class slides down the
tubes? What's in store for Americans? 

It means America's Middle Class races to the bottom of the 'standard of
living' barrel as its jobs outsource, insource and offshore. It means
millions work from paycheck to paycheck with few benefits and no job
security. It means the American Dream drops from achievable for the vast
majority in the past to a pipe dream for the new Working Poor Class. 
  
_____ 
  
Frosty Wooldridge is a teacher and author who has bicycled 100,000 miles
on six continents to see overpopulation up close and ugly. His explosive
new book is: IMMIGRATION'S UNARMED INVASION: DEADLY CONSEQUENCES. Copies
may be obtained: 1 888 280 7715
<http://www.frostywooldridge.com/<http://www.frostywooldridge.com/>>www.frostywooldridge.com<http://www.frostywooldridge.com/> 
 
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