Is America the World's 97-lb. Weakling?

[Deja Q]

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,1081269,00.html

Get your economy-sized barf bags out, this one will negate the need for castor oil for decades to come. It's a HUGE 7 page article and my excerpts are from page one only:

They show one cartoon:


But the paper magazine has two more that are beyond insulting and patronizing of the American worker. I'm not surprised those particular cartoons weren't presented...

The stakes are mammoth: Respectable analysts believe it’s possible—not certain, but possible—that the U.S. standard of living, after decades of steady ascent, could stall or even begin to decline. More worrisome is the chance that if the world’s most powerful nation finds itself getting poorer rather than richer, some kind of domestic or even global political crisis could follow.

The CEOs continue to get richer. The rest of us end up poorer, bankrupt or worse, at the expense of people getting paid zilch for having pirated software programs in order to learn. Oh, piracy rates are HUGE in China and India; 90 and 74% respectively...

Snip

No one is saying that Americans can’t adapt and win once more. But look at our preparedness today for the emerging global economy, and the conclusion seems unavoidable: We’re not ready.

Well, corporations run our country. Maybe they should have helped prepare us instead of exploiting us with cheap plastic crap and game consoles that are the legal equivalent to crack cocaine? But they won't because their bottom line means more than our country; the very one that gives them tax breaks, tax shelters, worldwide protections, government sabsidies (CORPORATE WELFARE AND WE PAY FOR IT) and so on.

To understand better whether Americans are destined to be the scrawny and pathetic dweebs on the world’s economic beach, it’s necessary to refine the question. Who is most threatened? How come? What will it take to make America stronger in a new economic world? What political forces could propel—or derail—progress?

Man, I wish they had the other cartoons for all to see... :puke:


Okay, I'll add one more - from page 6:

Fixing all these problems would be a project of overwhelming proportions, yet it still might not make American workers competitive in today’s global labor market. The reason, again, is cost. American workers are enormously more expensive than their peers almost anywhere but in Western Europe. So they must confront what may be the most important question of their working lives: How can they be worth what they cost?

WHY do we cost more? Ditto for Western Europeans? Maybe because the prices for surrounding goods and services is so fucking high as well? And guess who provides those? The companies now offshroing, what a shock! (not)

[PurityOfEssence]

1. No, we're a muscle-bound thug

Looks tough, but has no ability to maueuver. Ooops, I used a French word.

[CJCRANE]

2. Surely it's a leadership problem?

I mean, how come America was booming (economically) and innovating in the 90's?

[wli]

3. the cost of labor is inflated by lack of nationalized healthcare

i.e. the largest corporate subsidy possible is nationalizing healthcare.

[oasis]

4. Bush has put America in the toilet. He and his cronies can weather the

storm because of the billions they've raided from the U.S. treasury.

[laura888]

5. "American workers are enormously more expensive..."

They make it sound as if this is a problem.

OK - so cut our wages so they're competitive and the U.S. middle class is gone.

Problem solved?