The disempowerment of the workers worldwide and the USA is driving the wage inequality wider each day, which puts the capitalists’ consumer-driven economy into a death spiral. This spiral began in the mid-1980s when executives and directors tossed aside their old patriotic inhabitations against laying off workers, cutting wages, closing U.S. plants, moving production overseas to dirt-cheap labor, and taking on debt.
Most of this was driven by locally owned companies becoming stockholder corporations where the bottom line was all that mattered, no matter the cost. Their only concern is the shareholders; but this way of doing business is proving counterproductive. There is no way to grow. There is no wages or jobs. No spending. No economy. It’s essentially like committing business suicide.
This type of death spiral was also supported by the business roundtable in the 1990. They changed their statement of corporations’ mission from making goods available at a fair price to generating economic returns to its owners.
In the past, workers were able to raise their wages through widespread collective bargaining or full-employment economy with an unemployment rate was at 5 to 4 percent, neither option is available today or likely to be any time soon.
So what to do? Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in “The Prince,” that there are two methods of fighting. One is with laws, and the other is force. The first one is proper to man, but the second is proper to beasts. Because the first one often does not suffice (think recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings) one has no recourse to the second.
I hope that I am wrong, but what I see at this time is our unions are going to be in the fight of their existence. This is the most perilous time of our life. The life we had is threatened like never before. Unions are the largest organized group of people who can save our country if things keep going the way they are heading at this time. We need to all stand together for power, but we each must prepare and plan to take care of ourselves and our families. We can fight the big fight and not be distracted by worry about things that can and should already be taken care of. For instance, stashing at least one month’s pay and at least a month or even a year’s worth of food, whether the food is staples (pasta, rice, canned goods) and meat or chicken in the freezer. Keep your vehicles' tanks full and if possible a gas can full. It’s in your best interest to also save money for house or rent payments plus extra. This is not new thinking for us old trade workers who had to prepare when...
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