American Economy is Destroying Itself: Paul Craig Roberts

[teryang]

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts08252005.html

Hegemony Lost
The American Economy is Destroying Itself
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

<...Many uninformed people believe the problem is that America doesn't produce enough scientists and engineers. Manufacturing & Technology News reports that "a group of 15 US business organizations has launched a national campaign aimed at doubling within 10 years the number of bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics."

What is the point of this when there is a huge supply of unemployed engineers and technical people who have been displaced by offshore outsourcing and by H-1b and L-1 work visas for foreigners? I know an American software engineer in his thirties whose job was outsourced. After searching fruitlessly for a job for four years, he took a job in Thailand writing software programs for $850 per month....>

<...US executives, with an eye to quarterly earnings and their bonuses, continue to spend considerable resources lobbying for increases in work visas that enable them to replace their American engineers, scientists, and technical people with lower cost foreigners. These executives lie through their teeth when they assert the lack of qualified Americans for the jobs. The fact of the matter is, the executives force their American employees to train their foreign replacements and then fire their American workers.

In a word, American capitalism is destroying itself by dismantling the ladders of upward mobility that have made large income inequalities acceptable. By rewarding themselves for destroying American jobs and manufacturing, engineering and scientific capabilities, US executives are sowing a whirlwind. American political stability will not survive the turning of an American university degree into a worthless sheet of paper. Libertarians and free market ideologues who rejoice in freedom should open their eyes to freedom's destruction...>

[Faygo Kid]

1. Paul Craig Roberts is starting to get it.

The short-term Enron philosophy continues unabated, with complete cover provided by this administration and the GOP control of Congress. Can't believe I am agreeing with this guy; he sounds like another Paul Krugman.

[idlisambar]

17. better than Krugman I'd say

not on every issue, but he seems to have a better understanding of economic history.

[DELUSIONAL]

2. or if these well educated people do have jobs

many are working 60 hour weeks -- or doing the work of two.

Meanwhile the CEOs are getting millions.

End personhood for corporations.

[klyon]

15. and get their money out of our elections

and ballot box

KL

[forintegrity]

3. With lots of help from bush and

his cronnies!

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. We need to start helping ourselves.

Step one is to reward those companies which are loyal to American workers and which are creating jobs for Americans. The second is to look very closely at corporations that are outsourcing our jobs and find some way to ensure they get hurt by making sure they can't sell their products here. And finally, identify those countries which are taking our jobs and find out if they're at all involved with any of the monkey business that's been going on here.

We shouldn't do business with crooks.

[Eloriel]

9. I hate to say it, but I think it's too late for that

I think it's too widespread, too entrenched, and too much has already happened.

[salin]

12. I would add

also go after those companies who claim their "head quarters" are over seas in a tax haven - start determining local of businesses by where their headquarters exist (where the ceo and top officers conduct daily business) and where their board of directors meetings are held. Many of the corps doing the whole outsourcing thing are also evading taxation - and putting a bigger and bigger drag on the economy (because more of us now, and in the future have to carry the debt burden.)

Along the lines of your second point -- take away all of the bushite corproate tax cuts to any corporation which is shipping jobs overseas - giving a big tax incentive to keep jobs here.

[brokensymmetry]

5. CEOs will reap the whirlwind.

And when they do, I'm gonna party! :party:

[stevietheman]

6. I have to stress that I'm nonviolent, but I think we're not very far...

from CEO assassinations. Of course, we will also see greater nonviolent efforts to reduce the power of big corporations via boycotts, buycotts and divestment. Matters are coming to a head, and many in the public will most likely start taking matters into their own hands, whether nonviolently or violently. And the final straw might be the passing of the bill to eliminate the estate tax.

[wli]

7. there have already been CEO assassinations...

But they look more like BFEE -sponsored affairs.

[raccoon]

16. Can you elaborate on that? nt

[wli]

18. unfortunately no; I've not kept anything useful about it

I think one of the more prominent ones was the "father of the euro" or something similar. There have been several others. I don't remember anything truly useful for tracking it down.

[loudsue]

10. Matters ARE coming to a head: When people can't VOTE their

chosen representatives into office, they start getting antsy. It's the American way!

If we had a fair vote in this country....rather than one done IN SECRET, by republican-owned voting machine companies...we would have voted this whole bunch out a long time ago. We TRIED to vote bush out before he ever got in!

It's the vote. When our will cannot be done through our votes, we will begin exert our will as a people, one way or another. That is where we're coming to at this juncture in our history.

I hope it doesn't have to get ugly. But, then again, it's already gotten ugly. A war based on lies is REALLY ugly.

But I don't think the "estate tax" is even the least of our worries.

:kick:

[bemildred]

8. This is OK.

We will get Donald Trump to manage a leveraged buyout of China,
fire all the Chinese, and sell off their economy to keep ours
going another ten years.

[teryang]

11. Right

He can borrow the money from the banks, who borrow it from the Fed, which prints money to buy the goods from China, which lends money to the Fed.

What will it be like for China when they have $1,000,000,000,000.00 US in the bank in savings? Ultimately, US capital concentrations are going to be severely damaged by the impact of "globalization." The ordinary American citizen has been experiencing a decreased standard of living for thirty years. The final impact on American consumption will start damaging some of the financial elites quite soon.

It is only when this stage is reached that real political leadership emerges. Unfortunately, it only starts after we go over the cliff.

[Igel]

13. Economies tend to destroy themselves.

My parents wanted me to be an chem eng. I disliked the idea.

The English dept. at the school where I was a grad student had more undergrad majors than any 2 or 3 engineering departments.

Add in political science and sociology, and there were about as many undergrad majors than in the engineering school.

And the poli sci and English departments were in line for more faculty: the demand was that high. The engineering schools were dipping deeper and deeper into the foreign student pool for qualified candidates.

Questionnaires came back saying that math and science classes weren't "relevant" or were too hard, or the professors inflexible.

This was all in the '90s. American companies were complaining in two ways: (1) Not enough Americans with engineering degrees, esp. advanced degrees; (2) salaries demanded by entry-level American engineers were too high.

The current state of affairs was predictable. Actually, it was predicted.

[adnelson60087]

14. I would hate to be a high school student today

I have numbers of students asking me what area they should pursue as a career. I always steer them towards math and science areas, NOT computer science areas though. Kids always come back and say, "that's so much work" and "its so hard". It is very discouraging as a science teacher.