Welcome to the 3rd World America
First the corporations went offshore (for cheaper workers)
Now the best schools are going offshore (for fat endowments)
At this pace, here is my harrowing vision of the future: China and India become the U.S. But the U.S. becomes Latin America.
Welcome to the 3rd World!
And as long as you borrow and consume, you can't stop them.
And that's why I believe the answer to this loss/theft/transfer of the U.S. middle class -- is a United States workers' strike against consumption. I know it sounds insane. So much so that a friend said, "These people won't get up off the couch to vote! Now you're telling them to give up their snowmobiles." (We live in Montana.)
At this point withholding consumption is the only collective bargaining tool the American worker, his family, and his children have left. The U.S. economy is 2/3 consumption. If workers and their familes would merely withhold non-essential consumption, we might still be able to take back this country from the corporations -- before it's gone for all but its very richest citizens.
Today, our most profitable corporations, elite schools, and private capital are financing their side of this transfer with profits from our current-day, mostly debt-driven consumption. But the American consumer is tapped and corporations and the wealthy elite's only hope for continued excessive profit is to "develop" foreign markets. Did your income increase 23% last year. Mine didn't. Theirs did.
And the development of China and India is not so much development as it is a transfer:
First they profited as we buried ourselves in debt and trade deficits, chasing the American Dream: Dynasty, Beverly Hills 90210, Madison Avenue, etc., etc., etc.
Then they transferred production outside the U.S.; cut and stagnated U.S. workers' wages; and broke our (collective bargaining power) unions.
Now the elites of our country are tranferring our educational system overseas, replacing the U.S. middle class with a new one -- there.
And why do we let them get away with it? Because our leaders (e.g. Shrub) wrap themselves in the Flag, convincing one half of the U.S. voting population that the other half is sick and diseased, simply because it believes in human, consumer, gay, and reproductive rights!
But there remains hope. Today, these foreign markets aren't large enough to sustain this assett transfer. But in five or ten years they likely will be. And then it will be too late.
The answer is regulation. The answer is responsive (to the people) and responsible "social" democracy.
Socialism is not synonymous with poverty. It's a lie that elitists, social-darwinist, neocons and corporations want you to believe -- as they sell your future.
Is Europe poor? Do your research. Is Germany off-shoring it's production facilities and universities? What about Canada? Austria? Britain? Denmark? Finland?
Which country would you rather be in ten years: Germany or Ecuador? Canada or Mexico?
I see only two choices:
1. Unite, resist and reform corporations and the extreme wealthy through tax law and moral sanction. In other words, take back America from George Bush and his true "base" -- the monied aristocracy.
OR
2. Watch corporations and the elite sell your children's future to the Chinese, while your discretionary consumption finances the transfer.
Now the best schools are going offshore (for fat endowments)
At this pace, here is my harrowing vision of the future: China and India become the U.S. But the U.S. becomes Latin America.
Welcome to the 3rd World!
And as long as you borrow and consume, you can't stop them.
And that's why I believe the answer to this loss/theft/transfer of the U.S. middle class -- is a United States workers' strike against consumption. I know it sounds insane. So much so that a friend said, "These people won't get up off the couch to vote! Now you're telling them to give up their snowmobiles." (We live in Montana.)
At this point withholding consumption is the only collective bargaining tool the American worker, his family, and his children have left. The U.S. economy is 2/3 consumption. If workers and their familes would merely withhold non-essential consumption, we might still be able to take back this country from the corporations -- before it's gone for all but its very richest citizens.
Today, our most profitable corporations, elite schools, and private capital are financing their side of this transfer with profits from our current-day, mostly debt-driven consumption. But the American consumer is tapped and corporations and the wealthy elite's only hope for continued excessive profit is to "develop" foreign markets. Did your income increase 23% last year. Mine didn't. Theirs did.
And the development of China and India is not so much development as it is a transfer:
First they profited as we buried ourselves in debt and trade deficits, chasing the American Dream: Dynasty, Beverly Hills 90210, Madison Avenue, etc., etc., etc.
Then they transferred production outside the U.S.; cut and stagnated U.S. workers' wages; and broke our (collective bargaining power) unions.
Now the elites of our country are tranferring our educational system overseas, replacing the U.S. middle class with a new one -- there.
And why do we let them get away with it? Because our leaders (e.g. Shrub) wrap themselves in the Flag, convincing one half of the U.S. voting population that the other half is sick and diseased, simply because it believes in human, consumer, gay, and reproductive rights!
But there remains hope. Today, these foreign markets aren't large enough to sustain this assett transfer. But in five or ten years they likely will be. And then it will be too late.
The answer is regulation. The answer is responsive (to the people) and responsible "social" democracy.
Socialism is not synonymous with poverty. It's a lie that elitists, social-darwinist, neocons and corporations want you to believe -- as they sell your future.
Is Europe poor? Do your research. Is Germany off-shoring it's production facilities and universities? What about Canada? Austria? Britain? Denmark? Finland?
Which country would you rather be in ten years: Germany or Ecuador? Canada or Mexico?
I see only two choices:
1. Unite, resist and reform corporations and the extreme wealthy through tax law and moral sanction. In other words, take back America from George Bush and his true "base" -- the monied aristocracy.
OR
2. Watch corporations and the elite sell your children's future to the Chinese, while your discretionary consumption finances the transfer.