Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?

[RainDog]

I know people have noted this book before, but this is a great read. This article from "In These Times" provides an except.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6194/what_we_can_learn/

In 2005, the real hourly wage for production workers in America was approximately 8 percent lower than it was in 1973, while our national output (productivity) per hour is 55 percent higher. So it’s dubious whether most Americans have gained even a penny in purchasing power since 1989. And even skewed by all this U.S-type inequality, we understate what Europeans at the “middling” level are able to get for free, i.e., publicly provided goods like education, healthcare, cities like banks of violets. Even apart from the grotesque U.S. social inequality, the net purchasing power disparity after we toss in the public goods is not so great.

...It’s no accident that the social democracies — Sweden, France and Germany, who kept on paying high wages — now have more industry than the United States or the UK. During the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, the Anglo-Americans, the neoliberals, The Economist crowd, and the press generally, would taunt the social democrats in Europe: “You’d better break the unions.” That’s the way to save your industry.

Indeed, that’s what the United States and the UK did: They smashed the unions, in the belief that they had to compete on cost. The result? They quickly ended up wrecking their industrial base. But Germany, Sweden and France ignored the advice of the Anglo-Americans, the Financial Times elite, the banking industry: Contrary to what they were told to do, they did not wreck their unions.

...That leads to a seeming paradox: Higher labor costs can make a country more, not less, competitive. In many ways, the United States and the UK got out of manufacturing because their labor costs were too low. I have spent my life watching plants close in Milwaukee and Waukegan, where skilled labor was paid $26 an hour, only to reopen in Georgia and North Carolina, where it was paid $8 an hour. While still fighting over severance two years later, we get the news: The company is bankrupt. The products it makes so cheaply are now crap.

Between the religious fundies and the supply-side fundies in American life, if I could get a job in western Europe, I would be out of here and good riddance.

[Warpy]

1. In smashing the unions, they also set the stage

for the destruction of the demand side of the economic equation. It turns out that no matter how much you shovel at plutocrats, they won't create a single job if there are no customers. Only an ocean of debt has kept the economy afloat for the last 20 years.

The right wing very neatly choked the goose that laid all the golden eggs and we're going to have a long time to suffer as nations with economists feigning surprise before the politicians finally realize it and do something about it.

[RainDog]

3. Yes. The right wing led the charge

but Clinton presided over NAFTA.

It's a mistake to put all the blame on the "right wing" unless we include politicians like Clinton in that equation.

[valerief]

5. Clinton isn't exactly left wing. He's a Dem, but that doesn't translate to progressive or liberal. n

[RainDog]

7. exactly. but on this site

"right wing" usually indicates Republicans.

it's important for people to recognize that many in the democratic party do not represent the best interests of the middle or working classes.

since we have so little choice in our representation, and since there is about a ice cube's chance in hell that the U.S. will admit how its conservative economic policies have HURT this nation - I don't really see any reason to want to be here.

I've looked into starting a biz overseas - nothing big - I sort of stopped trying to move in 2008, but now find my optimism was more about wanting this nation to improve, rather than about any rational reason to believe it would.

[valerief]

8. Good luck! I don't blame you one bit. nt

[Warpy]

6. Clinton can assume plenty of blame

because he didn't even try to overturn the worst of what Reagan did in his first two years and, in fact, expanded on it when the Democrats lost Congress.

I blame him most of all for not fighting the GOP on the repeal of Glass Steagall. It's doubtful they had the votes to override a veto.

[valerief]

4. The pols are the ones getting the lobbyist jobs after they leave office.

They're benefiting from the big sucking sound, too.

[valerief]

2. Them Yer-Peein' Socialist Atheists ain't nothing but

MY HEROES!

:loveya:

[laughingliberal]

9. I've thought so for a long time. nt

[Kievan Rus]

10. I feel that way every day. I'm headed for Europe the first chance I get

[hobbit709]

11. I was born in Austria.

[gateley]

13. I bet Austria is beautiful -- do you ever go back?

[hobbit709]

23. Haven't been there since XMas of 72.

Money has been the main problem.

[gateley]

26. I hope you get a chance to go soon. :-)

[Violet_Crumble]

12. Most Definately Not!

I wasn't born in North America or Europe, but unless anyone wants to argue that Australia's an island rather than the smallest contintent, when it comes to my wages and working conditions, I've got it just as good as if I was in Europe :)

[RainDog]

14. I'm happy for you!

It would be wonderful to live in a nation that wasn't still debating whether creation myths should be taught in science classrooms.

Isn't it interesting that social democracies have been able to increase the well-being of the general population, increase personal liberty and yet not have citizens living in fear of their lives being destroyed by an illness that requires health care.

But there has been good news here this week. It's just sad that CA put civil rights to a vote in the first place - that the idea that civil rights should be up for majority vote is crazy, esp. in a nation that still has to fight against people who claim that adam and eve and the dinosaurs all shared time/space real estate.

I know the way that religion is too often perceived here is not the only problem, but I cannot think of another western democracy that has so few protections for people and so large of a population that does not accept the most basic premise of biology.

[david13]

15. I won't say wrong. But I think we all, from time to time think, would

I rather live somewhere else? Might I move to another place, far away?
Remember. Visit first. Then decide.
dc

[RainDog]

17. the real issue is why is this nation not capable of making the political change necessary

to improve the lives of the majority of citizens in the same way that those people in other nations have worked together - and elect candidates that actually spend their time in office structuring laws that provide protection against the tyranny of the powerful.

as far as the other - I've lived in a western european nation before - I have ex-in-laws there and know others there not connected to my in laws in other nations. I'd looked into chamber of commerce information for various nations before, went back to grad school, have looked for some jobs within my field - the big issue for me is that I have children and I would not like to be so far away from them. that's the big, big issue - and it is a big one - that seems to keep me here. that's what always make me pull back.

Canada has a more responsive, liberal and rational govt. than the U.S. too, tho. And it's closer by.

[david13]

19. Yeah. But the weather? Eh? dc

[RainDog]

20. well, it would be ahead of the curve to move north in advance of climate change...

sometimes I'm not bad at reading some tea leaves - not all the time tho. back in 1985, I thought Ikea would be successful in the U.S. if they ever opened places here... lol. I helped to keep my kids' college education funds from getting eaten up by wall street by putting their funds in euros - and it did save and make money for them.

as far as a tipping point for climate change - I have no idea. but I also don't have much hope for a political system held captive by religious extremists finding a way to deal with needed changes - not to mention the hold that lobbyists for things like the oil industry have here.

Balance of powers works for me - including a balance of the interests of working people and the investment class. Contrary to right wing b.s., we're not all part of the investing class - do not have the same protections, the same favorable legislation...

the first time I ever went overseas was when I was graduated from high school. it was a revelation to me. travel, imo, is one of the best educations people can ever get - plus, Europe can also be a geek disneyland. :)

[Touchdown]

16. Yes.

On so many levels, and for so many reasons.

[Brickbat]

18. No, but I was born in the wrong decade.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

21. Yes. Only in the last decade has the realization become

so obvious in so many ways. A guy recently posted a video of his lovely home and gardens
in Overberg, Netherlands and I felt such a sense of ...loss, envy, delight all those things. In
the years to come Americans will begin to slowly emigrate to other countries. Too many of
us long for something else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt9zkC4WDeY Lovely home and gardens in Overberg.

[slampoet]

22. I have been in the work force for 30 years. The min Wage has been frozen for 18 of those years.

Twice in two 9 year periods with no increase at all.

[Greyhound]

24. Your final sentence sums it up, "...if I could get a job in western Europe, I would be out of here

and good riddance." It's the standard of living, put another way, the return on one's life, that creates the demand and enthusiasm for doing one's job.

When people are comfortable and not stressed over basic necessities they want to do better. When they worry about keeping an inadequate paycheck coming in and, if something goes wrong (a broken car, a sick child) how it will be fixed, there is no enthusiasm and frequently hostility toward their "employer". I've seen employees purposely sabotage their employers time and again for no other reason than that they know they are being abused, taken advantage of, because there are no/few alternatives.

We are not just going the wrong direction, we are on the wrong road.

[JustAnotherGen]

25. Actually

I was born in Europe. :-) Army brat. There's something about where I was born though that has 'stuck' in me. . . .