← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Faust
Thread ID: 10333 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2003-10-08
2003-10-08 00:51 | User Profile
Factory Closures Devastate U.S. Towns
[QUOTE]Factory Closures Devastate U.S. Towns
International Politics Saturday October 4, 3:42 PM EDT By Andrea Hopkins
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When Jerry Wilmouth moved to Galesburg, Illinois, five years ago, everyone told him to get a job at Maytag Corp.'s (MYG) refrigerator plant. Maytag paid the best, they said, and the 50-year-old factory was the lifeblood of the city.
Now, Wilmouth and 379 others are spending their first week of life after Maytag -- the first of 1,600 workers to be laid off between now and the end of 2004, when the plant closes for good and Maytag moves the work to Mexico.
The 46-year-old father of three said he has little hope of finding work in Galesburg to match the $15 an hour he made on the assembly line, and now his 17-year-old daughter is thinking about joining the army to pay for college.
"Every decent-paying job in the area is going, going or already gone and I'm faced with taking a job for $6, $7, $8 an hour," said Wilmouth.
The loss of 2.5 million manufacturing jobs since January 2001 has devastated factory towns across middle America, where once-dominant local employers are pulling up stakes and heading to Mexico or Asia in search of lower costs and cheaper labor...
The exodus of 1,600 Maytag jobs is only the tip of the iceberg in Galesburg. Everyone from sheet metal suppliers to local firms providing toilet paper and light bulbs rely on the plant for business in the town of about 33,700 about 150 miles southwest of Chicago.
According to a study by the Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University, the Maytag plant is the dominant industry for nine surrounding counties. For every Maytag worker laid off, nearly three other jobs will disappear as the loss of so many high-paying jobs ripples through the economy -- taking total jobs losses to 4,166.
"Never in my life have I lived in a place that is sort of going backwards like this," said Chris Merrett, an associate professor at the institute.
"Along with agriculture, this kind of manufacturing was the economic base and those jobs are going elsewhere."
PINK SLIP DREAMS
Since the end of the 2001 U.S. recession, job losses have ballooned in many sectors despite economic growth. This "jobless recovery" has drained one in six factory jobs, squeezing many of the nation's more highly paid workers.
Manufacturing pays an average $45,580 in annual wages -- about 17 percent higher than the average U.S. job, according to the National Association of Manufacturers.
The layoffs have carved a swath of unemployment through the Midwest, where cornfields made way for factories after World War II as industry shifted from big cities to comparatively low-cost rural areas.
In Wichita, Kansas, some 11,000 aerospace workers have lost their jobs since 2001 as employers outsourced both parts supply and assembly overseas, sideswiping the local economy.
Carolyn Summers, a 41-year-old mother of two was laid off from her job at Boeing Co.'s Witchita plant (BA) two years ago, and she mourns the devastation she has seen.
"I see so many people that I worked with at Boeing, and they're still unemployed just as I am," said Summers. She blames free trade and President Bush for allowing U.S. companies to outsource overseas.
"I wish the government would really see what it is doing to the American people. We built this country, and I feel that they're letting it turn into almost a ghost town," she said.
A single mother, Summers most regrets the impact the loss her $18.67-an-hour job has had on her 21-year-old daughter, who was away at college studying nursing when the pink slip came. She now works at Wal-Mart to pay for her part-time studies at Wichita's local community college.
"That's one dream you're always saying -- 'My child is going to go to college'," lamented Summers. "All my American dreams just seem to (have been) written on a pink slip."
[url]http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1270[/url][/QUOTE]
2003-10-08 15:37 | User Profile
This just burns me up. Not only should we slap a hefty tariff on the products coming back into the US from relocated manufacturing facilities in Mexico and elsewhere, but we should also impose a heavy duty fine on the companies themselves when they do this sort of thing.
If the companies are going to put Americans out of work, then perhaps they should be put out of business, as well.
2003-10-08 18:48 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]This just burns me up. Not only should we slap a hefty tariff on the products coming back into the US from relocated manufacturing facilities in Mexico and elsewhere, but we should also impose a heavy duty fine on the companies themselves when they do this sort of thing.[/QUOTE]
Amen to that, Tex! :yes: GWB claims tax breaks for the rich and big business are supposed to create more jobs at home, but all they really do with no strings attached is to free up extra capital to move the jobs overseas. Of course, that's exactly what the NeoCons and their Wall $treet patrons who own GWB and the GOP intended for them to do all along. :furious:
If they really cared about American jobs (which of course we know they don't), they'd make the tax breaks for business contingent on hiring americans, and then make up the lost revenue with heavy tax penalties on foreign investment, outsourcing, and imports.
Especially all those @#$%^& Japanese cars ruling the road nowadays. Everytime I see all those Toyotas, Hondas, Izusus, Nissans, and Mitsubishis cruising down the freeway, I wonder how many livelihoods have been lost back home in the Midwest for each one. And do the people driving them even know or care? (And yes, when I finally broke down and bought a new car a couple of months ago, d@mn straight I put my* money where my mouth is and bought American!)
But buying American only counts as much as American companies keep the jobs over here. And since the executives who make those decisions depend on the favor of Wall $treet to keep their jobs, no amount of patriotic sentiment will stem the tide until the State does something about it to make it make financial sense to not send jobs overseas.
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]If the companies are going to put Americans out of work, then perhaps they should be put out of business, as well.[/QUOTE]
I couldn't agree with you more. Liberatarian chunder aside, corporations and their "property rights" are creatures of the state, and depend for their existence on the state and its people. When they destroy the people's livelihood and threaten the stability of the state, why should the people, the nation, and the state continue to support them? Unless, of course, the people have been hornswoggled and deluded, and the state hijacked to serve the interests of a parasitic financial oligarchy. :censored:
-GrayBeard foaming at the mouth
2003-10-08 19:45 | User Profile
Sad, sad story. Interesting how the journalist mentions the daughter joining the Army to pay for college. This is what W and the Zionist Warmongers want for your child. Also: Go to college for what?!?!? What job are you going to expect to find in New Order America? And the there's no cost saved on buying any Chinese products that can ever replace the wrecked communities caused by those outright Criminals in our government. The wrecking of a thousand communities across the United States, by the Mob that is in DC, is nothing short of High Treason. And there's only one penalty for that.
2003-10-08 21:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE=jesuisfier]Sad, sad story. Interesting how the journalist mentions the daughter joining the Army to pay for college. This is what W and the Zionist Warmongers want for your child. Also: Go to college for what?!?!? What job are you going to expect to find in New Order America? And the there's no cost saved on buying any Chinese products that can ever replace the wrecked communities caused by those outright Criminals in our government. The wrecking of a thousand communities across the United States, by the Mob that is in DC, is nothing short of High Treason. And there's only one penalty for that.[/QUOTE]
Jesuisfier, you are on to something. If all the factories are closed, then what jobs are left for young white men-- the Armed Forces. How clever, what better way to finish off your enemies than to have them fight your wars for you so you can have another country to parisitize. Also let the white girls who aren't with muds in the army also, so they could be killed and wouldn't reproduce.
2003-10-09 20:22 | User Profile
[QUOTE=fucla]you arent advocating violence, are you?[/QUOTE]
[I]Mais jamais, mon cher(e)![/I]
But what is the penalty for treason under the law, I-Spy? Politicians take an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution. Do they do that?
2003-10-09 20:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE=fucla]i have no problem with executing traitors. however, for some reason, i have gotten the impression that there are a bunch of peaceniks around here. :)[/QUOTE]
We are peaceniks for the most part. We're Constitutionalists for the most part too. War is useless, for an oversimplification, unless defending the homeland from invasion or direct attack. War might solve one problem but another one is always the result of war....sometimes even worse than the original. The oligarchs and plutarchs start the wars and the poor always fight them.
2003-10-09 20:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE=fucla]i have no problem with executing traitors. however, for some reason, i have gotten the impression that there are a bunch of peaceniks around here. :)[/QUOTE]
No peaceniks that I know of. However, nothing positive can come of any suggestions or allusions to, much less discussions of, violence or violent reprisals towards anyone or anything here at OD. Please refer to the board guidelines and stop.