Dirty Republican Secrets

[mhr]

Psst, Psst, Hey You, Over Here!

Do you want to know a secret? Listen Up.

The Republicans have this secret agenda that they don't want anyone to know about. Quite simply they want to undermine the middle class in America by reducing wages to rock bottom.

You say you want proof. Here it is. The Republican Owners and arch conservative leaders of the Wal-Mart corporation just got caught importing illegal workers into the United States and paying them sub-human wages.

No you say. It can't be. Here it is read the story yourself from the NY Times. (see story below)

See, I told you. So now consider what it means when I say that Republicans are "cheap labor conservatives."

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/beattherightinthree.htm
(read the middle column article)(see excerpt below)

You will never get ahead with these folks, and now you know what we are up against in America today.

Thanks, I didn't know this.

You're welcome, spread the word!
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/national/05WALM.html

November 5, 2003
Illegally in U.S., and Never a Day Off at Wal-Mart
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
NY Times

They came from Russia, Poland and Lithuania, and their tales of washing and waxing Wal-Mart's floors for seven nights a week sound much like Pavel's.

Last February, Pavel responded to an intriguing Web site that boasted of cleaning jobs in the United States paying four times what he was earning as a restaurant manager in the Czech Republic. He flew from Prague to New York on a tourist visa and took a bus to Lynchburg, Va., where a subcontractor delivered him to a giant Wal-Mart.

Pavel immediately began on the midnight shift and said he soon learned that he would never receive a night off. He said he worked every night for the next eight months. In this way, Pavel, who refused to give his last name, became one pawn among hundreds employed by subcontractors that clean Wal-Mart stores across the nation, paying many workers off the books.

Snip ......

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http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/beattherightinthree.htm

When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just "dime-store economics" – intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don't really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don't. It all gets down to two simple words.

"Cheap labor". That's their whole philosophy in a nutshell – which gives you a short and pithy "catch phrase" that describes them perfectly. You've heard of "big-government liberals". Well they're "cheap-labor conservatives".

"Cheap-labor conservative" is a moniker they will never shake, and never live down. Because it's exactly what they are. You see, cheap-labor conservatives are defenders of corporate America – whose fortunes depend on labor. The larger the labor supply, the cheaper it is. The more desperately you need a job, the cheaper you'll work, and the more power those "corporate lords" have over you. If you are a wealthy elite – or a "wannabe" like most dittoheads – your wealth, power and privilege is enhanced by a labor pool, forced to work cheap.

Snip ......

[AP]

1. My theory: Bush is going to get US exports up by lowering wage rates,

and devaluing the dollar. The trade balance will improve. However, all the profits will go to the corporations. They'll call it an improving economy, even though none of the benefits will flow down to the middle class. They'll run on that. Stupid Americans will be fooled. Hopefully not enough for them to win elections.

[mhr]

2. Amen, Tell It Brother AP!

eom

[JackRiddler]

5. Trade balance unlikely to improve...

2/3 of all U.S. trade actually occurs within companies. For example, a car company importing parts from its own subsidiary abroad. Or those famous Walmart prison-camp sweatshops in China.

Things will have to get extraordinarily bad in the U.S. before these companies see a benefit in dropping their plants abroad and reinvesting here - so bad, in fact, that it would in turn probably restrict the ability of these companies to reinvest anywhere. (So bad, in fact, that it would probably devalue the States as a market, another big reason to invest here.)

It's a tight pickle!

How far will the dollar have to melt down before production investment in the U.S. is once again competitive against the Third World? So far down that the consequences in consumer inflation and possible asset-price collapse (as everyone flees to euro-denominated investments) will be much worse than the ostensible gains in trade competitiveness.

The U.S. has the power of being the center of the world economic system; different rules apply. Otherwise it would have long ago gone through a "correction" comparable to Russia's or Argentina's.

Europe, though nominally more expensive, has some major advantages: better educated populace, far more efficient manufacturing industry (per unit of energy consumed or per unit of investment). Has double the U.S. manufacturing base, meaning double the number of qualified personnel. European products obviously compete, with high trade surpluses for most countries here.

Then, when you then consider how much of the U.S. trade deficit is due to ENERGY IMPORTS... these don't go away unless consumption drops, or there is a conversion to alternative energies. Under the present system the former is considered a bad thing and indeed has very bad consequences, under the present ideology the latter is considered anathema.

Capitalism struggling in its own contradictions.

ON EDIT:

But that's a very good label, mhr, you should start a series of threads with that in the title to get it to stick among DUers:

Cheap-labor conservatives!

[Bogartmon]

3. Low wages, huge profits, yet lower taxes on corporations

Not only are corp. profits rising, they are paying less and less in taxes. All the taxes collected on corporations last year wouldn't cover half the defense budget. Social security taxes are paying for the various wars our conservative overlords seem fit to undertake.
I wonder why republicans can overspend so much money, so inefficiently, and not be called on it? Don't you?

[mhr]

4. Brother Bogart, We Need a Sermon! Tell It Brother, Spread The News!

eom

[AP]

7. Notice: corps doing better not because they're making better products

which more people want to buy. They're doing better because they're doing a better job of getting the gov't to shif the tax burden off them, and then having tax money shifted to them (eg, Halliburton).

[newyawker99]

8. Hi Bogartmon!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[grannylib]

6. Link to Galbraith article in October "The Progressive" re this...

http://www.progressive.org/oct03/galb1003.html
Should be required reading...he nails it.
Should this be separate post in the Articles forum??

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

9. kick

great website