The country is in crisis. Unemployment is still hovering at 9 percent, income inequality has soared to record levels, and 46 million -- one in six -- Americans are living in poverty. Meanwhile, corporate taxes are at their lowest level in 50 years. Some corporations like General Electric didn't pay a single dollar in taxes in 2010, despite the fact that profits are through the roof. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reports that corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in profits.
But instead of doing their part to create jobs, Big Business lobbyists and right-wing politicians are complaining. Outrageously, the complaints are never louder than when an attempt is made to give ordinary, working Americans a fair shot at getting ahead. For the millions on Main Street struggling just to make ends meet, the whining from Wall Street is disrespectful. But it's the bullying by corporate-backed lawmakers that is truly setting the dangerous precedent for all of us.
Just look at the hysteria over the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a neutral independent agency tasked with safeguarding the rights of employees -- both union and non-union -- and ensuring that employers and unions play by the rules. In response to the NLRB's complaint against Boeing for allegedly retaliating against its union workers in Washington state, Big Business and its friends on Capitol Hill have not stopped kvetching about how the 'overzealous' agency shouldn't interfere with business operations. Instead of letting due process take its course, they've moved from moaning to rewriting the rules by dismantling the NLRB. Despite legal documents and video interviews that strongly suggest Boeing violated the law, in September the House went so far to pass a bill that would prevent the NLRB from holding companies accountable when they unlawfully cut and run.
And Boeing is just the beginning. Earlier this year, the same right-wing whiners were up in arms over a minor regulatory initiative from the NLRB to standardize union election procedures. The simple rule change would modernize an outdated process plagued by delays, bureaucracy, and taxpayer-funded litigation. But corporate interests claimed this was Armageddon, and then tried to delay the agency's hearings and implementation process. Since the agency didn't acquiesce, Rep. John Kline (R-MN) has come to Big Business's rescue with a new bill that would put this small scrap of progress for workers on permanent hiatus.
The latest round of trumped-up outrage comes in response to a ruling that requires companies to post notices informing employees of their existing rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) -- rights they've had for more than 70 years. The poster is a commonsense way to ensure that everyone knows the rules of the workplace, without imposing an undue burden on businesses. Predictably, corporate interests like the Chamber of Commerce have sued the agency because they can't possibly handle the burden of posting a free poster. Bills have even been introduced to stop the poster from ever seeing the light of day.
That's right: The folks sitting on $2 trillion in profits are complaining about a poster.
Not content to unravel protections for workers piece by piece, the House Appropriations Committee just upped the ante by releasing a bill to cut the NLRB's funding by at least 20 percent, effectively hamstringing the agency altogether.
Want to know what's really worth some outrage? That the outcry over these small steps toward balance for everyday Americans has nothing to do with jobs. Recently small business owners surveyed by McClatchy newspapers even confirmed that regulations aren't preventing job creation. On the contrary, the problem is the lack of consumer spending, a direct result of the stagnant wages and race-to-the-bottom economic model that corporate interests continue to promote nationwide.
With such an extreme imbalance in our economy, we can't afford to let these attacks succeed. Because this isn't really about the NLRB. Nor is this just a labor issue. It's about standards that hold big corporations accountable so that the rest of us have a fair shake, commonsense safeguards that protect our families, our communities, and our health. We need agencies and institutions like the NLRB that can protect everyday Americans, without being bullied by corporate-backed politicians.
Main Street is doing its part to get the economy back on track. It's high time that politicians and corporate CEOs do the same. And they can start by pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, putting an end to the pity party, and playing by the rules -- just like the rest of us.
Follow Kimberly Freeman Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/araw
Glenn Greenwald: Immunity and Impunity in Elite America
Will Congress Stop the NLRB? - Phil Kerpen - National Review Online
Why did all of the Copper mines and smelters close in Northern Michigan? EPA
Why did all of the Paper Mills close everywhere in the USA? EPA
Why did all of the Steel Mills close in Pittsburg and the Midwest? EPA
Why did the computer chip manufacturing plants close in the USA? EPA
If the EPA's proposed "Cap and Trade" is passed by the US congress, our remaining petrochemical industries will relocate to foreign countries and then they will lay off most all of their thousands of employees as they close down their refinery businesses in the USA.
If the EPA had been created in 1865, the USA would probably be a third world country of unemployed beggars today, or maybe a part of Germany or Japan.
If the US economy implodes, the USA will probably resemble India, Mexico, China, etc., as these countries were in the decades before they industrialized. I do not believe that any of these foreign countries will help the US citizens if the USA is in distress.
Almost all products are made with steel, aluminum, plastics, lead, copper, lumber, paper, gasoline, diesel fuel, electricity, and other products that pollute or destroy the environment as they are produced.
I cannot think of any product that is manufactured using any processes that do not pollute the environment. Can you think of any?
The EPA is also destroying the few US manufacturing jobs that remain in the USA!
Most of the individuals in any future communist USA would want to work at something other than producing the basic food, shelter, clothing and other products required to sustain life.
The producers would strive to become members the a non-producing greedy government elite bureaucrat society, demanding and wanting the disgruntled producers to produce more and more so that privileged individuals of the government elite bureaucratic society class can keep themselves busy as musicians, poets, actors, social workers, philosophers, historians, politicians, bureaucrats, administrators, police, firemen, military, school teachers, judges and other endeavors that do not create any of the food, shelter and clothing necessary for maintaining the lives of the population.
The non-producing members of the government elite bureaucratic society will then let, require, and/or force those that the elite have deemed to be lower class to work harder and produce more and more of the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain the lives of all of the people including the elite class of bureaucratic government employees.
After NAFTA came GATT, WTO, Most Favored Nation (MFN) status for China, Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, H-1b visas, repeal of The Glass-Steagall Act, etc.
And President Obama is creating more FTAs.
Labor cost is normally the greatest cost component of most products and commodities, closely followed by environmental compliance costs, material costs and electrical energy costs.
The country with the lowest labor cost, lowest electrical energy costs, and lowest environmental compliance cost normally gets the product sale and the manufacturing jobs, and the import of foreign exchange currency in exchange for these products.
Free Trade does benefit the foreign manufacturers, US importers, US distributors and US retail sales outlets of foreign made products with jobs for supplying US average citizen with less expensive imported consumer products, but this is at the cost of losing jobs in the USA to make these products, and the increase in the Balance-of-Trade Deficit.
If the USA had innovative products that foreigners did not have, then the USA could get higher prices for those products, until the foreigners copy the US inventions.
The US government has also destroyed the US Technical human database that was previously used to create those innovations, patents, and inventions, and it will take generations to re-create that technical capability that won WWII and gave US citizens a bountiful lifestyle for a couple of decades after WWII.
Why would or should any individual, business, partnership, or corporation ever do anything like hiring another employee that did not profit that business entity?
If the US labor, US electrical costs and US environmental compliance costs cannot be economically justified, then profit is not possible.
Does any worker work without compensation?
Should businesses hire people and create jobs to be good citizens without a profit?
Will any laborer or other worker work without compensation or pay?
You are speaking about simple healthy business issues, not criminal ones, nobody said profits are bad, its what some do to gain profits at the expense of our society,
If that were the case, it would legal to sell meth to school children, call yourself a business, and claim its all fine because you are making profits.
You say:
“I do not think that I ever heard that any business or corporation owes anybody anything other than for that business to (try to) make a profit for themselves, the business owners, or corporation stockholders."
If profits alone made a business, then someone selling meth to school children could be called a good business because they profited the owners or shareholders...do you think anything goes when a profit is made? Or could some business be using criminal tactics in order to make their profits?
I think you kows what the issues are and continue to disseminate and dilute the true facts. You have never once addressed what the issues really are about. Its not about profits, or good business practices and you know it.
The USA has created laws (FREE TRADE TREATIES) that allows and ECONOMICALLY REQUIRES that US businesses to relocate their manufacturing plants and outsource labor expenditures to foreign countries with lower manufacturing costs and lower employee wage paying countries as much as possible since they have to satisfy the US consumer's demand for the very lowest price possible for each of the US consumer's purchases, or the company will become bankrupt by paying decent wages to US citizens and complying with US environmental laws.
Businesses that fail to take advantage of foreign labor and other costs face bankruptsy for their efforts to utilize US citizens.
The USA should repeal the existing FTAs, not let President Obama create more FTAs.
US labor costs many many times as much as Foreign Labor according to the DOL website:
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ForeignLabor/ichccpwsuppt01.txt
The cost of Extended Unemployment Benefits, National Healthcare Reform, vacations, holidays, sick pay, and social security costs are also added to US company payroll costs and economically preventing the location of new manufacturing jobs into the USA, and/or preventing the keeping of existing US jobs in the USA.
The increasing cost of compliance with existing and future environmental laws is deterring the creation of any new jobs the USA.
The cost of electrical energy that is generated in the USA in compliance with US EPA regulations is at least ten times the cost for the same amount (kilowatt hour) of electrical energy in most Asian countries.
The EPA is the main cause of the high electrical costs in the USA.
These costs are hindering the US businesses that are economically competing for obtaining manufacturing jobs for US citizens in the USA instead of those businesses having to relocate or create those jobs in/to foreign nations as allowed by US FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS.
Whatever we do, don't give citizens an equity stake in the country - they might start acting as if they were owners, and take some pride of ownership.
Since we're so proud of what we inherited, it's obvious that we should imitate what other countries do - eg China or India - and just toss all labor laws and industrial regulation. If people die on the job, it's just natural selection. If bosses get assassinated, it's more natural selection. If Somalia kicks our butt, it's natural selection.
/snark!
These actions destroyed the opportunities for US citizens to be employed, unless they were willing to work for the equivalent of Asian Wages, or maybe less than Asian wages so that US labor costs can compensate for the US EPA compliance costs of having jobs in the USA.
NAFTA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on December 8, 1993 and he then started enforcing NAFTA on January 1, 1994.
What we can do to overcome this situation?
Do you think that maybe the foreign product manufacturers that export consumer products to the USA might have paid professional US lobbyists to spend hundreds of thousands of US dollars on wine, food, women, song, vacations, cash, sexual services, corporate jobs for the (unemployable) children/wives/girlfriends of enough of the US senators and US congressmen (and their congressional aids who actually control the members of congress) plus campaign contributions to entice (bribe) enough of our Republican and Democratic US Congressmen and Senators for the past 20 years to create all of these various "FREE TRADE LEGISLATION" to ratify various trade treaties that allowed, caused, and ECONOMICALLY REQUIRED our businesses to take advantage of the lower labor costs, lower electrical energy costs, lower business taxes, lower payroll taxes to pay for health care costs, lower unemployment insurance costs, lower environmental manufacturing costs and other anti-business costs that are not required in various foreign countries with fewer anti-business laws that are/were applicable to businesses in the USA?
How do you think that US Government environmental damage liability limits, pharmaceutical liability limits, product liability limits, tax exemption loopholes, agricultural subsidies, and other laws benefiting only a few people were created by our elected US congress and US senate, and then enforced by our elected presidents and their bureaucratic administrators?
Surely you realize that permanent jobs are only created by businesses, corporations, and businessmen in order to create wealth for those businesses.
The only way to create and pay for any of the Tax Supported federal, state, school district, and municipal government bureaucratic jobs and government contracts is for some or the NATIONAL WEALTH created by the private sector to be FORCIBABLY TAKEN from the private sector in the form of taxes, and/or TO OBLIGATE the wealth creating private sector though bonded indebtedness to create and pay for the funds to pay the public bureaucrat employee's salaries and benefits and also to pay for government contracts to perform some government service or create new infrastructure.
Our economy needs to be retooled and reeducated for a new era. Then, Labor redistribution will happen. I don't think any of that will happen until paying a mortgage is cheaper than paying rent and something happens to reduce our national debt.
In short, corporation won't start to hire and shouldn't start to hire until our government creates the conditions for growth though monetary policy.
US manufacturing business go bankrupt by using US labor and US environmental compliance manufacturing costs
The govt policy that got us into this mess was Republican, and the Republicans continue to block progress.
Which Free Trade Agreements did the Republicans create?
Why did Clinton sign the first of these?
Why has Obama created more of these FTAs?
There's enough self-pity in this to sink a ship.
You are demanding that OTHERS create jobs. Create them yourself! if you want companies to create jobs, stop the hysterical political correctness, with its avalanche of regulations and demands for special treatment and its minefield of potential legal challenges.
The far left wants to mock and ridicule the same people who are supposed to employ them. Start your own companies - and stop the endless whining.
The avalanche of regulations you refer to are hard fought laws enacted to protect the lives and health of the people of our country. That includes the CEO's of these massive corporations that just want to pollute, pollute, and then deny help to those whom their pollution has damaged.
The far left is mocking and ridiculing the "people who are supposed to employ them" because the "people who are supposed to employ them" are not using their government welfare checks to create the jobs they said they needed the welfare to create.
What kind of American are you if you can sit there and defend those lies?
Businesses do not create jobs "to give ordinary, working Americans a fair shot at getting ahead." Businesses hire employees to produce goods and services at a price the consumer will pay. Jobs are not a welfare program.
When the government or unions raise the cost of doing business, there is less money left over to hire employees.
When the government or unions raise the cost of hiring an employee above the price of the goods and services that employee produced, businesses stop hiring.
Government and unions are currently raising both the cost of doing business and the cost of hiring. Indeed, the per employee cost of labor is actually going up during a recession when the price of labor should be going down as unemployment rises.
You want to restart the Great American Jobs Machine, get government the hell out of the way.
Businesses hire when the demand outstrips capability to provide a good or service. In the US consumer based economy, that demand is, or at least was, driven by a financially stable middle class that had confidence in their situations. That confidence is driven by making a decent wage to provide for themselves and their family. After a decade of stagnant wages, that middle class is stretched paper thin. They have no confidence because they have no stability in their employment, housing, or investments if they have any left that is.
Per worker productivity is at an all time high, so your point about the cost outstripping the price of goods holds no water. People are working harder and longer for less.
As sited in this article the major problem small business report is lack of consumer spending, not regulation. A result of 30 years of a concerted effort to gut the middle class and a drive to the bottom on wages.
It's called killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The is no possible way the 1% of the obscenely rich people who garner 60% of income in the US can consume enough to support the economy. The math just doesn't hold up. The bottom 3-4 quintiles of household income SPEND up to 95% (100% for the bottom income earners) of their take home pay. Food, housing, transportations, luxuries. That money is constantly circulating through the economy.
For example, if an employee can make one widget per hour and the market price of that widget is $5.00, then an employer will not pay an employee more than $5.00 per hour. If the government or a union raises the cost of hiring an employee above $5.00 per hour, the widget maker will stop hiring employees and may start laying off the less productive current employees.
You see this effect most obviously when the government imposes a "living wage" above the market wage for unskilled labor and youth and immigrant unemployment soars. However, government regulations and mandates can accomplish the same damage.
Nonsense. One word; INFLATION
"A result of 30 years of a concerted effort to gut the middle class and a drive to the bottom on wages."
Quoting a HP is like quoting 17 magazine. That 30 years nonsense makes everyone think there is only so much to go around and that the 1% is keeping it all - as if that pie don't grow. The truth is that over the last 12 years the value of the dollar has eroded by half. That's the direct cause of people not having any money. Inflation makes everything more expensive for everyone. It's the insidious tax that causes you to pay 100 a week for gas instead of 20. It's no different for corporations
its not for jobs tho- they make money either way......as always follow the money.
For everyone else's reference, here's a list of top lobbying spenders. It's data corresponds well to data I've seen elsewhere:
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2010&indexType=s
They have been hugely successful. Federal and state regulators are in retreat, liability laws are being nullified, and percentage-wise we have the fewest union workers since the 1890's. It's not good, and efforts like yours to inform people may be all that can stop it.
The writer is correct in assailing the G.O.P. but, does not address the Democratic party or Obamas role in the continuation of the American job Loss, under the guise of free trade. Politicians get Lobby money (it can also be called bribery) from companies that send/otsource jobs.
Stop this practice, and we will have good paying jobs in America again.
As has been stated many times, the government does not create jobs. Instead, the government can and should establish an environment where jobs can be created. Things that the government can and should do: reduce taxes and regulations; simplify the tax code; eliminate all subsidies, etc. are easy to recognize and implement.
Why hasn't Obama taken the initiative in this regard? Perhaps now that the country is on the ropes, he will move forward and do the right thing. The lobbyists cannot be allowed to run the country forever.