Tag: offshoring

The U.S. Chamber of Outsourcing

by Dustin Ensinger, EconomyInCrisis.org — Oct 12, 2010

Just last month, the Chamber lobbied vigorously to defeat the Creating American Jobs and End Offshoring Act, which would have given companies a two-year payroll tax holiday, reducing the amount of Social Security taxes they would have to pay, for new employees who replace workers doing similar jobs overseas. The bill would have also ended tax provisions that encourage the outsourcing of jobs.

“Replacing a job that is based in another country with a domestic job does not stimulate economic growth or enhance the competitiveness of American worldwide companies,” Chamber executive vice president Bruce Josten claimed in a letter to senators.

When the $787 billion stimulus bill was passed, the Chamber fought tooth and nail to ensure that a provision requiring that all stimulus projects include only Americans-made products and services was NOT included.

Who’s Looking Out for YOU?

Supposedly ‘Uncertainty‘ is the new Corporate buzzword.

‘Uncertainty‘ is the Mantra that keeps them FROZEN with inaction.

Well I guess, a lot depends on what kind of ‘Action’ — were looking at.

America’s Corporate Cash Cushion

Jonathan Cheng, WSJ Market Beat — Sep 17, 2010

The Federal Reserve put out its quarterly report on fund flows today, which shows corporate balance sheets more or less flat at $1.845 trillion, compared to $1.847 trillion in the first quarter of 2010.

[…]

“Companies weren’t stuck like a deer in the headlights because of regulatory or political uncertainty,” he said. Instead, he says corporate directors have been spending on capital expenditures, M&A, and buybacks and dividends.  [ … according to Anthony Carfang, from at Chicago-based corporate treasury consultancy Treasury Strategies.]

Dividends and buybacks, like the ones announced after market close yesterday by Texas Instruments, are on the rise […]

Be afraid, be very afraid, people — Or so the Corporate Speakers are telling us.

Our Kleptocracy: Saving the American economy by looting it

“Economists are already floating the concept that Americans better get used to a lower standard of living.  Hundreds of thousands of jobs have vanished forever in industries such as auto manufacturing and financial services. Millions of people who were fired or laid off will find it harder to get hired again and for years may have to accept lower earnings than they enjoyed before the slump.

…

Layoffs now taking place are similar to those in the 1981-1982 recession, when unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent and 2.8 million jobs disappeared, leaving industries such as durable-goods manufacturing permanently smaller. Some 14 percent of durable-goods positions vanished in that slump, and the sector never regained the employment level of June 1981.”

also at

“People who are my age have no idea what they are going to do,” Suter said, trying to angle a workbench into his trailer. “How they are going to live on $12 an hour without benefits when we’re used to $29 with benefits? You can’t make an economy on cleaning somebody else’s shirts or selling mutual funds. What are towns like Ypsilanti going to do?”

Ypsilanti is not the most besieged city in Michigan, but is an auto town, and its problems mirror those of the larger industrial Midwest. Just four square miles and 35 miles west of Detroit, it has lost more than 25 percent of its population since 1970. Schools have closed, as did its two other auto-related plants. Outside the Visteon plant, located on Factory Street in Ypsilanti alongside Interstate 94 and Ford Lake, the building that housed the UAW Local 849 is for sale. –snip–