I was watching online today CNBC's Larry Kudlow rudely trying to beat down Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, over Jared's defense of Hillary Clinton's proposals to take away the huge tax breaks and subsidies that oil companies, health care companies, and drug companies are receiving from the Bush Administration. Mr. Kudlow is also against Hillary's proposal to regulate the credit card companies as to their policies on charging high interest and high fees. He says that if Hillary or Obama enacts such things, then the U.S. will lose "jobs", and that Hillary is proposing "limiting profits". I don't know about the "jobs" part, but the part about "limiting profits" is a lie. If oil companies are made to pay the same taxes as other companies, that's fair, right? Don't you think so? Why give the oil companies such special treatment? Where is the "limit"? They could still make unlimited profits under Hillary Clinton's Administration. They would only have to pay more tax on those unlimited profits. Everybody wins.
As for "jobs" being lost, what kinds of jobs would those be? Most adults in America (the ones who are not wealthy) need jobs that pay enough for us to live somewhere, provide food and clothing, and some money for them to buy a few nice things. Most people also hope that those jobs provide medical insurance, which is something that everyone needs. A lot of jobs (most jobs) don't provide these things.
The banking industry is one that you can trust, right? It works like this: the U.S. Federal Reserve lends money to the big banks, so that they can lend it to people like you and me. The policies of the banks have lead to this current "crisis" in the mortgage industry. Lots of people are losing their homes now, and cannot pay their bills because the interest rates have gone up on them. Do you think that any one person or group of people was responsible for that? If so, who? Shouldn't a major bank like Chase make more sub-prime loans because Countrywide and Bank of America are doing it? The pressure to do it and thus remain competitive was there. The end result of all those sub-prime loans was something that banks traditionally don't want- and the economy doesn't want- a plethora of foreclosures, eliminated jobs in the mortgage industry, and stalled income from new home loans. Sure, creating the sub-prime loan product created lots of jobs. And lots of salespeople got big bonuses for selling loans to people who couldn't afford them. And other salespeople sold those loans up to Wall Street. It seems that the American banking system and Wall Street has a lot of "sanctioned fraud" going on, in the guise of "free market". Do all businsess transactions that we enter into have to be risky? Can't we trust anybody anymore?
Should any company send their call centers (and thus jobs) overseas in order to cut costs of having American workers? (A company can save a lot of money by doing that. They don't have to pay as much of an hourly wage, and they don't have to pay the Social Security tax for the worker if they eliminate the American job). With the "globalization" that business leaders have been lauding for a few years now, we common American workers are looking and wondering, "what's so great about it so far? The U.S. is not making nearly the amount of products inside the U.S. anymore. Lots of factories have been closed down all over the U.S. in the last 7 years.
I believe that a corporation who hires employees has a responsibility, not only to shareholders, but to the stakeholders as well. Who are the stakeholders? Well, one of the largest stakeholders in a company is the employees. They all have a stake in the survival of a company. Why? Well, because they give the largest portion of their time- a large percentage of their lifetime- to that company. Eight hours a day, for several years, is devotion. You stake your income, your paycheck, your pension, on that company. If your competitor moves jobs overseas to cut costs, smart business principles dictate that you must remain competitive with your competition in order for your company to survive, and the pressure for the company to do what their competitor did is overwhelming. For any one company to eliminate jobs here in the U.S. in order to re-create those same jobs in another country is downright unpatriotic, if you ask me.
It is one thing to open a new plant overseas to supplement a growing business that your company has overseas for a growing consumer base overseas. That's great- it means that a company is truly becoming global, and truly creating jobs . But when a company eliminates workers here to give those jobs to lower-paid foreign workers, that's not creating jobs. It's simply doing harm to America and its workers, and it shows no honor on the part of the management of those companies, and on the part of lawmakers who allow such things. Decisions like these by large corportations are often done hastily, and usually done for the sake of stockholders, not stakeholders.
The challenge for American companies and lawmakers: to preserve jobs. To modify current jobs to meet the demands of the future. To preserve the dignity of the workers. To preserve the security of the worker. To adequately compensate the worker.
There is one unfortunate but necessary mantra in today's society: don't trust anyone. Not your employer. Not your banker. Not the people on TV like on certain TV shows where people lie to you all the time (if anyone lies to me once and I catch them, I never trust them again anyway). You have to watch your own ass. You better have a plan B, C and D.
Hillary Clinton is proposing to put America back in the right direction, and by that, I mean the correct direction. Americans are living paycheck to paycheck now more than ever, and more people today than ever are a paycheck or two from being out on the street. If Hillary or Obama can get into the White House, they surely will face lots of brutal, sneaky, partisan attacks from the right-wing folks, many of whom are outlined in Al Franken's book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them". It was truly amazing that when Bill Clinton was in the White House, he managed to get so many good things accomplished despite all the personal attacks that were going on against him at the time- Whitewater, the Jennifer Flowers trial, the Monica Lewinsky embarrassment, and the impeachment hearings. Despite all that, plus more, he managed to leave the U.S. economy and the U.S. military in great shape for the future. It took a tremendous, unbelievable overhaul by the current administration to screw it up. I feel that Hillary has seen it all in terms of what kind of political opposition that she will face as she tries to pull off what she proposes. I believe that she can do what she says she can do. I know that she already has some brilliant people who would come with her if she makes it back into the White House. Bill Clinton would be there, too, contributing in some way, but Hillary would be the one calling the shots. She's done great for New York, and I know she'd be great as the President. Way better than the one we have now. I like Obama, too. I'm sure that he would also assemble a good administration were he to become the President.
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