Posted Aug 27, 2008 @ 12:21 AM
In his 2001 biography of Theodore Roosevelt, "Theodore Rex," Edmund Morris wrote, "Indeed (the United States) could consume only a fraction of what it produced. The rest went overseas at a price that other exporters found hard to match. As Andrew Carnegie said, "The nation that makes the cheapest steel has the other nations at its feet." "More than half the world's cotton, corn, copper, and oil flowed from the American Cornucopia, and at least one third of all steel, iron, silver, and gold."
This was the United States in 1901. Roosevelt had just become president because of William McKinley's assassination, and he recognized that America was a country of hard workers that needed a break and a share of the wealth that they were producing. Morris goes on to write, "Even if the United States was not blessed with raw materials, the excellence of her manufactured products guaranteed her dominance of world markets.
Advertisements in British magazines gave the impression that the typical Englishman woke to the ring of an Ingersoll alarm (clock), shaved with a Gillette razor, combed his hair with Vaseline tonic, buttoned his Arrow shirt, hurried downstairs for Quaker Oats, California Figs, and Maxwell House Coffee, commuted in a Westinghouse tram (body by Fisher), rose to his office in an Otis elevator, and worked all day with his Waterman pen under the efficient glare of Edison light bulbs.
"It only remains," One Fleet Street wag (in Standard American English, that's a reporter folks) suggested, "for us to take American coal to Newcastle."
Morris then goes on to write, "Behind the joke lay a real concern: The United States was already supplying beer to Germany, pottery to Bohemia, and oranges to Valencia."
Morris then proceeds to tell the reader that the United States was the richest nation on earth with an economy that was growing by leaps and bounds, and that London was about to be replaced as the financial capital of the world. It was a very rosy outlook for what would be called "The American Century." That was in 1901. In 2008, after the eight year reign of George Bush, things don't look as well for us as they did in 1901 or 2001 either. Just why is that?
Just ask anyone who has been on the point of termination in their job and asked to stay on for a few weeks to train their replacement in India what they think about the outsourcing of jobs. The man whose job was outsourced to India's sister was visiting me and telling me about his thoughts on the subject. They were a bit more colorful than I can relate here.
Don't think for a moment that a college degree or two will save you from having your job outsourced. It won't. These outsourcing horror stories are really close to home. Many people have been educated for what were supposed to be safe jobs, and would be yet, if the greedy corporations were not outsourcing their jobs or stealing their pension funds just to squeeze out a few more dollars of profit.
There should be huge fines, taxes, and other fiscal punishments imposed on companies who outsource Americans' jobs to other countries. Such fines should also be imposed on business and factories relocated to other countries. Each year we make less and less in terms of manufactured goods and lose hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of jobs that pay a living wage.Last week I was making the argument at the home of a friend that Americans are too willing to buy cheaper foreign goods or cannot find American-made goods in the market. Just to really make the point, I took my friend and his bride on a tour of their home. Their bureau drawers revealed clothes made all over the Asian continent, South America, and Mexico (which is part of North America).
Their toaster, microwave, telephone, radios and other appliances were made in China. Their shoes were made in India, and much of the food in their kitchen came from foreign nations. One of their cars was made in Japan and the other was made in Germany. OK, I confess that I drive a BMW, but my van is a Ford which was not made in Mexico, and it's also older than half the people who live in the country.
So what does this state of affairs portend for the nation?
Morris wrote in his book about the year 1901, "As a result of this billowing surge in productivity, Wall Street was awash in foreign capital. Carnegie calculated that America could afford to buy the entire United Kingdom (That's England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland) and settle Britain's national debt in the bargain.
"For the first time in history, translantic money currents were thrusting more powerfully westward than east (toward Europe). Even the Bank of England has begun to borrow money on Wall Street. New York City seemed destined to replace London as the world's financial center."
Today we are up to our eyebrows in debt to China. Thank you so much George Bush and your Republican Party too. Do you remember the nice big Clinton cash surplus we had seven and a half years ago?
So that is this week's look at then and now. It's not too pretty, is it? With this election year, I say it's time to give the other team a try. Never in our history have working people been so looked down on and shown less respect. Never has the working citizen been so stripped of a way to make a decent living. Never have workers had so many jobs taken away from them and sent to distant parts of the planet. Never in our history of the last 70 years have unions had such a low membership. Never before have working class Americans been so brutally treated in every area.
Too many people are forced by circumstances to become service workers and wage slaves. As Labor Day draws near, reflect on these things as we outsource our self respect along with the jobs of American laborers that we have betrayed as a nation. And it's really too bad that we don't make anything anymore to sell at home or abroad.http://www.milforddailynews.com/opinion_columnists/x594222851/Johnston-U-S-has-outsourced-its-self-respectInteresting comments follow.
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