Sunday, October 16, 2011

Made In America?

Remember when things used to be Made in America? Today it is almost impossible to find anything that was truly made in the United States. Since the republicans under Ronald Reagan sold our government to the highest bidder we have been outsourcing out jobs and our souls. Whenever we hit a recession there was always something to pull us out, we built cars, computers or anything to put people back to work. Today even the great Ford Mustang is not made in America, in fact Honda is more made in America then Ford or General Motors.

Since 1981 the only thing America has produced is huge debt, and money. Thanks in large part to Al Gore, no he didn’t say he created the internet but he did have a huge role in making it what it is today. Without the internet we wouldn’t have had the great growth we had in the 1990’s, which made more people rich then ever before. The internet and the stock market are the only things making new millionaires besides the lottery, so when I hear right wingers say that hard work will make you rich it makes me laugh.

Steve Jobs was a great innovator when it came to electronics, to bad he didn’t produce them here in America, even when Halliburton got rich off the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan they packed up and left. The last 30 the income of the hard working Americans have dropped while the people who are rich keep getting richer and in a lot of cases they don’t really produce anything. In 2008 the CEOs of major banks helped crash the economy with their high stakes gambling, and when they lost the federal government bailed them out. Did anyone lose their jobs or go to prison for their actions? No and not only didn’t they suffer, but most of them walked away with over 10 million dollars in bonus money for their actions.

The recent CEO of HP was fired after less then one year running the company, and while he was a horrible CEO he walked away with over 10Million in bonus money. The system is set up so that people are not only rewarded when they succeed but are also rewarded when they fail, only problem is when they fail they walk away with millions while people living paycheck to paycheck lose their jobs, homes and sometimes lives.
A large part of the blame goes to the government, not because they caused the downfall of the American industries but because they allowed it to happen. The system now allows large amounts of money by people like the Koch family and now thanks to the supreme court even companies outside America can pump billions into our elections. Thanks to these bought politicians they made it cheaper for companies to send our jobs overseas then keep them here in this great country. Why would anyone spend 10 to 20 dollars an hour on an American worker when they can spend 1 or 2 dollars a day on Chinese workers and ship things back here with no fees.

If you take away the internet boom of the 1990’s we would really be in a 30 year recession with high unemployment. We may have become a third world country by now and we are slowly on our way to becoming one still. Right now 2 of the biggest money makers in this country either destroy the earth by drilling and spilling millions of gallons of or by letting people to die by denying much needed healthcare.
I dream of the day where Americans make things again, where people can go to a factory and make enough money to put food on the table for their family, or go to a hospital and not be afraid they will get bad news and have to decide between losing their home or staying alive. Until we stop allowing these big companies to buy off politicians to pass the laws they want I’m afraid we will continue to decline. The Occupy movement gives me hope but unless they can all come together with a clear message I fear they will fade away as fast as they started.

my demands should be simple

1. Term limits for ALL politicians so that they don’t have to spend every hour of every day trying to raise money and make promises to the rich and powerful

2. Make it cheaper for companies to make things in America, either by fair trade agreements or by charging higher taxes if most of their stuff in made outside our borders.

3. Get the money out of elections, either with public financing where every American pays 10.00 a month to pay for the elections or where the politicians can only accept 1,000.00 max from anyone with no outside money.

4. Fair tax system, one where there are no deductions that allow companies like GE, Exxon, Bank of America to not pay any taxes and in some cases get huge tax returns. One that makes sure that the millionaires pay higher percentage then their employees.

5. Single payer healthcare system, one that curbs costs on service and medicine and would keep 40K people a year from dying because of their lack of insurance. Our government pays more money for insurance and covers less people then any other country in the world.

No comments:

Post a Comment