The Return of the Robber Barons PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts08022007.html


A CounterPunch Special Report on the Economy

In Richistan: Fantastic Wealth for a Few; Steady Decline for Many
The Return of the Robber Barons
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The US economy continues its 21st century decline, even as the Bush Regime outfits B-2 stealth bombers with 30,000 pound monster “bunker buster” bombs for its coming attack on Iran. While profits soar for the armaments industry, the American people continue to take it on the chin.

The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the real wages and salaries of US civilian workers are below those of 5 years ago. It could not be otherwise with US corporations offshoring good jobs in order to reduce labor costs and, thereby, to convert wages once paid to Americans into multi-million dollar bonuses paid to CEOs and other top management.

Good jobs that still remain in the US are increasingly filled with foreign workers brought in on work visas. Corporate public relations departments have successfully spread the lie that there is a shortage of qualified US workers, necessitating the importation into the US of foreigners. The truth is that the US corporations force their American employees to train the lower paid foreigners who take their jobs. Otherwise, the discharged American gets no severance pay.

Law firms, such as Cohen & Grigsby, compete in marketing their services to US corporations on how to evade the law and to replace their American employees with lower paid foreigners. As Lawrence Lebowitz, vice president at Cohen & Grisby, explained in the law firm’s marketing video, “our goal is clearly, not to find a qualified and interested US worker.”

Meanwhile, US colleges and universities continue to graduate hundreds of thousands of qualified engineers, IT professionals, and other professionals who will never have the opportunity to work in the professions for which they have been trained. America today is like India of yesteryear, with engineers working as bartenders, taxi cab drivers, waitresses, and employed in menial work in dog kennels as the offshoring of US jobs dismantles the ladders of upward mobility for US citizens.

[Faygo Kid]

1. He's not the greatest writer, but he sure has passion. A former Reaganite.

Whatever he was in the past, I welcome him to the "stop Bush" club now. It's heartbreaking - Bush and his GOP sycophants can't stomach poor and near-poor kids getting health care, but $3 billion a week for war? Oil company subsidies? No problem.

I am mystified when so many say Bush has been a failure. Except for not yet busting the New Deal (Social Security), he has done extremely well with his other priorities - the transfer of the nation's wealth to a privileged few, including endless tax cuts for the richest, and the neocon dream of war in the Middle East (make that perpetual war).

Plus, he's not done yet.