Globalism Is Pushing The Standard Of Living Of The Middle Class Down To Third World Levels

[Cali_Democrat]

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/global-economy-23-facts-which-prove-that-globalism-is-pushing-the-standard-of-living-of-the-middle-class-down-to-third-world-levels

Global Economy? 23 Facts Which Prove That Globalism Is Pushing The Standard Of Living Of The Middle Class Down To Third World Levels


Think a global economic system is a good thing? Think again. According to Michael Snyder, we're going to equalize our way down to the standards of living in third world nations, and we're well on the way. (That is for 99% - 99.9% of us, the rest will be fine).

From now on, whenever you hear the term "the global economy" you should immediately equate it with the destruction of the U.S. middle class. Over the past several decades, the American economy has been slowly but surely merged into the emerging one world economic system.

Unfortunately for the middle class, much of the rest of the world does not have the same minimum wage laws and worker protections that we do. Therefore, the massive global corporations that now dominate our economy are able to pay workers in other countries slave labor wages and import the products that they make into the United States to compete with products made by "expensive" American workers. This has resulted in a mass exodus of manufacturing facilities and jobs from the United States.

But without good, high paying jobs the U.S. middle class cannot continue to be the U.S middle class. The only thing that the vast majority of Americans have to offer in the economic marketplace is their labor. Sadly, that labor has now been dramatically devalued. American workers now must directly compete for jobs with millions upon millions of workers on the other side of the world that toil away for 15 hours a day at slave labor wages. This is causing jobs to leave the United States at an almost unbelievable rate, and it is putting tremendous downward pressure on the wages of millions of jobs that are still in the United States.

So when you hear terms such as "globalization" and "the global economy", it is important to keep in mind that those are code words for the emerging one world economic system that is systematically wiping out the U.S. middle class.

Read the full article....http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/global-economy-23-facts-which-prove-that-globalism-is-pushing-the-standard-of-living-of-the-middle-class-down-to-third-world-levels

[yourout]

1. Thank you Bill Clinton.

[TheKentuckian]

2. Just Reagan's 4th and 5th term. Part of the machine.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

17. President of the World

[Cassandra]

24. Actually, NAFTA was a Republican bill first signed by...

Poppy Bush, but Clinton agreed with it and extended it. Thanks, DLC (now Third Way).

[Indydem]

3. HOW DO YOU STOP JOBS FROM LEAVING???

"We cannot allow tens of thousands of factories to continue to leave the United States. We cannot allow millions of jobs to continue to be "outsourced" and "offshored". We cannot allow tens of billions of dollars of our national wealth to continue to be transferred into foreign hands every single month."

Make outsourcing illegal? Ok, so XYZ corporation will just move their operations to the Caribbean, still import the goods to the US and they won't have outsourced a few job, they will have outsourced all of them.

[hay rick]

6. Tariffs. nt

[Indydem]

9. OK.

So how much in tariffs are we going to have to place on imports to preserve these industries? We can't begin to touch the costs to manufacture ANYTHING in these countries.

After you've started a trade war and we can't get sugar, coffee, or oil anymore, then what?

[Motown_Johnny]

15. you don't put tariffs on countries that produce sugar, coffee or oil

you put them on manufactured products from places like Mexico and South Korea.



America's purchasing power runs the global economy. You can't honestly believe that countries are going to stop doing business with us over import taxes. It would be economic suicide for them.

[RainDog]

20. we could trade with Cuba for sugar!

LOLOL.

they've had to resort to sustainable farming to survive since the fall of the USSR so they've really improved their farming practices, too.

we could also legalize hemp and grow it here rather than importing it and use it for so many products we purchase that are created in horrid environmental conditions overseas.

China's sky looks like Victorian London's polluted hellholes.

So that we can purchase singing fish from WalMart...

[hay rick]

27. Sugar is already tariff protected.

Yes, we pay more for sugar as a consequence, and most people don't know or care. "Trade war" is probably not an issue when you're dealing with commodities. The primary effect on commodity prices would likely be indirect- the result of a stronger or weaker currency.

On the subject of labor costs, interesting link here: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_labor_cost_to_build_a_new_car

According to this article, labor cost accounts for only about 8% of the final cost of an American-built car. The current tariff on a car imported from Korea or Japan is 2.5%. Korea has a 4% import duty on American cars. Japan has no reciprocal tariff but finds other ways to effectively keep imported automobiles out of their domestic market.

Direct labor costs do not account for the majority of the cost of imported products. Imported products also have the built-in disadvantage of considerably greater shipping and handling costs. In recent years, China has accounted for the lion's share of manufactured imports and much of their "cost" advantage is attributed to currency manipulation.

I think the real barrier to rational protective tariffs (tariffs that equalize the labor-advantage of low-wage countries and offset the cost-savings of weak environmental laws/enforcement) is the political power of American and international corporations. Small per-unit savings can add substantially to their bottom line. Additionally, having labor markets in the developed countries forced to compete with third world labor markets adds substantially more to their profits.

Unfortunately, what is good for General Bullmoose is not good for the USA. Free trade has been a boon to the people in the board room but a disaster for everyone else. The only thing falling faster than the prices of imported goods at Walmart are the wages of the people who shop there.

[Hannah Bell]

29. if the us wanted to it could produce enough sugar domestically to meet consumption --

cane & sugar beets.

it's just economics (cheap labor) that keeps us from doing so.

[RainDog]

7. we can impose tariffs on goods imported from nations that don't pay living wages

...which would increase the cost of goods, which would help to cut useless consumption - and make it more attractive to keep manufacturing here. And the money could be used for infrastructure jobs here that are not outsourced.

we can charge for the environmental cost of transporting goods produced elsewhere. we can shop locally. it's not impossible to make it less attractive to starve the middle class here.

[leftstreet]

8. Let the rich take their fucking money and widgets and LEAVE

If you wake up tomorrow and several large ruling class money laundering megacorps are gone, here's what will happen: The working classes will still know how to build cars, fix broken bones, clean toilets, teach children, cook pot roasts, plumb sinks, write books and pour concrete walkways.

And we could probably figure out how to build a car or a toaster

The world would not end just because a handful of rich fucks weren't extracting profit from our labors.

[MedleyMisty]

35. Thank you!

Being working class myself, all the talk about "middle class" was alienating me. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, just as likely to spit on you because you work in fast food.

So yeah! Represent! :)

[Indydem]

4. The idea of this article is straight bullshit.

Lower class Americans (on average) have more luxuries that those in the upper classes of the third world.

The middle class, however depressed their wages, are still in possession of money, rights, and items that those in the third world would risk their life for. They are billions in comparison.

This is just useless hyperbole.

[RainDog]

10. bullshit

lower classes here to not have more luxuries than the upper classes in the third world. total, absolute bullshit.

it's the wage slaves in third world nations that suffer - and now U.S. companies want to exploit them.

In China they LOCK PEOPLE INTO GHETTOS at night so they cannot leave because they're so "dangerous" to the ruling class. This is what globalization of workers means for those people.

Ashcroft refused to allow workers in Central America file a lawsuit against Chaquita, whose thugs HELD CHILDREN at gunpoint while working in the fields.

bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

this is a fight against the predator class against every working person in the world.

[Indydem]

14. I call your bullshit and raise you a set of facts.

This is how the IMF divides countries into groups.

Low income countries had GNI per capita of US$975 or less.
Lower middle income countries had GNI per capita between US$976 and US$3,855.
Upper middle income countries had GNI per capita between US$3,856 and US$11,905.
High income countries had GNI above US$11,906.

Do you actually want to try to make the argument that people making between $976 and $3,855 PER YEAR are somehow better off in their own way than the American family making $20k with 2 cars, a home or apartment, 3 color tvs, 2 cell phones, and (on average) enough to eat?

If you actually try to make that argument, we have nothing more to speak of.

[RainDog]

16. per capita is not the ruling class of a nation

Conversely, you can put bill gates in a room with someone working a minimum wage job, too, and that makes it look like the person with the job must be doing really well.

the huge population of China is an example. They have experienced a huge growth in gdp but the wealth of the people in their nation is the lowest in the world b/c a very few have a lot while very many work for 2 bucks a day, if that.

You claimed that the ruling class is not as well off as the working poor here and that's bullshit. look at Saudi Arabia. look at India - do you not know how stratified those societies are - how much wealth is concentrated in so few hands? (a situation, btw, that the gop is trying to replicate here.)

[Indydem]

18. I didn't say ruling class.

I said upper class.

There is a difference, especially in monarchies.

I mean the upper income earners of any third world or developing nation are still living in abject poverty and squalor compared to even our poorest Americans.

[RainDog]

19. Upper class is not the middle class - it's the oligarchy

India and China, etc. etc. have not even had a middle class - have just begun to see a middle class arise from tech workers, etc. so even if you didn't mean ruling class, that's what you were talking about.

[OHdem10]

25. Do we mean the Ruling Class???

[RainDog]

26. whether this person meant upper class as upper middle class

or ruling class - either of them - the claim is bullshit.

There is an upper middle class in India now that lives in suburbs that look like SoCal. That's California, not Calcutta.

This is just an example of the bullshit that people in America believe in order to justify fucking over the middle and working class here.

[Hannah Bell]

31. bullshit on your stats. gni has nothing to do with the lifestyles of the upper classes in the

third world.

gni = gross national income.

per capita divides that income by head.

but the income is *not* divided by head.

the upper classes take a disproportionate share.

india is a low gni country, but india's ruling class lives just like the US ruling class.

[OHdem10]

11. I cannot resist but I have heard so many Republicans including

Cheney and Gingrich and COC Leaders in the past
I felt compelled to mention it.

[Doctor_J]

22. So we should let them push us down to Haitian peasant status?

You of course compare us to undeveloped nations, because among the rich nations our quality of life is near the bottom. Stop apologizing for the owning class.

[firehorse]

23. not bullshit

We are definately headed toward becoming a third world country in several areas. One of which is our education. I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years public education is gone entirely, and it becomes privatized. What will be the choices then, home schooling or go in debt for kindergarten? It's already happening.

Add to that the rising cost of food and water. How long till deregulation ruins our water supply, and clean water is a luxury only the elite can afford? It's already happening in pockets around the country.

[Hannah Bell]

32. a third world country = impoverished citizenry & rich, corrupt ruling class.

[Hannah Bell]

30. no, the lower classes in the us don't have more than the upper classes in the third world.

the upper classes in the third world have more than the middle classes in the first world, & about the same as their first world peers.

the upper classes are rich everywhere. they're a global class; they send their children to the same universities & they go to the same vacation spots & international meetings.

[pscot]

5. no one could have imagined

that shipping our industrial base to China would blow back on the middle class.

[OHdem10]

12. Keep the Globalization Message and Destruction of Middle Class

Alive.

[RoccoR5955]

13. That's EXACTLY the plan

Destroy the middle class, make them serfs, and they will accept anything, when they get nothing.

[Doctor_J]

21. From the "Duh" department

The owning class wants to turn the entire planet into Haiti.

[Rochester]

28. K. & R.

First time I've typed that on DU :)

[Cali_Democrat]

34. Thanks!

:hi:

[SlipperySlope]

33. K & F'n R

[AzDar]

36. K & R

[Raksha]

37. K & R

[Little Star]

38. "globalization" and "the global economy" will eventually...

bring this whole world into third world levels. Bank on it!

Wonder what paradise the PTB will take over for only themselves while the rest of the world becomes third world economies.

Long live the rich!!!! :sarcasm: