We are Cutting Our Own Throats
by James Glaser
Ju.y 28, 2010

American corporations are making huge profits, but they are not hiring. They have learned that they can produce the same amount of product, at less cost over seas. You and I, and the people who run the show in Washington, are standing around wondering when things will get back to the way they were. Well, news flash, they aren't going to.

Here is a good example of what is happening given to us by Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton:

GM now sells more cars in China than it does in the US, but makes most of them there. The company now employs 32,000 hourly workers in China. But only 52,000 GM hourly workers remain in the United States—down from 468,000 in 1970.

GM isn't just hiring low-tech assembly workers in China. Last week the firm broke ground there on a $250 million advanced technology center to develop batteries and other alternative energy sources.

Here is where the throat-cutting comes into play. You and I and the rest of the American taxpayers own 60% of GM. We bought that 60% when we bailed out GM with billions of tax dollars to keep them from going bankrupt. The company is the junior partner, while we own what is called a controlling interest. However President Obama, in his wisdom, decided that the people who put GM into the tank would be the best people to run the company and protect the taxpayer's interest.

Well, GM did what they thought was best, and they took our money and ran with it, all the way overseas and invested it in China. Meanwhile, back here in the good old USA, Congress has just passed another extension of unemployment benefits so former working Americans and former tax paying Americans can have 99 weeks on unemployment checks.

I am sure all of this makes sense to the President and our members of Congress, but it doesn't look good to me or all the people still out of work. We continue to pay unemployment benefits, while at the same time create jobs in China for Chinese workers... with our money. That, my friend, is an example of cutting your own throat.

Free JavaScripts provided
by The JavaScript Source