China, The Red Menace

So here we all are, shocked that China would be sending us intentionally poisoned or defective products. This from a country that pays their workers an average of 17 cents an hour. Talk about cutting corners. I don't have time to repeat all the shortcuts that I have heard Chinese companies make to get their product to market at the lowest price.

Who might be China's number one customer (and I don't mean what country - we all know it is the US of A)? That might be WalMart. This company has done more to run small and medium sized manufacturing jobs out of this country than anyone else. This is after they single–handedly destroyed small town America.

Here's another news flash. WalMart's profits were not as high as expected in the last month. Why, you may ask? Because their customers don't have enough money, until payday, to buy their products.

So WalMart destroys good paying American jobs, then wonders why their new, lower-paid, customers can't afford to buy their products. If they had only looked at history, maybe Henry Ford and the $5 work day, they would see that if you don't pay people enough to buy your products, your sales may go down.

It is not just WalMart that is to blame. It seems that in the Bush era, what is good for the corporations is good for America. And low paying overseas jobs are great for corporate America's bottom line. At what point in our history did the well-being of one's employees become of so little consequence? When did America's companies become only international companies, with no thought to what may happen to the home market, which is the engine of the world economy.

I live in Michigan where this dilemma has hit the hardest. If you cut everyone's pay, sometimes by half (see Delphi Corporation), who is going to buy your products? Will we go back to the 19th century where the chasm between rich and poor was horrifyingly large? It wasn't until Henry Ford and his concept of paying workers a livable wage, so they could afford his product, that the large middle class in this country was created. Look at the rates of poverty in the late 19th century, across all age groups. Compare that to today's. The change is remarkable.

It is ironic that in the first decade of the 20th century Teddy Roosevelt went after large corporations and monopolies and in the first decade of the 21st century, George Bush is doing his best to reverse all that. And those corporations are crying that it is unfair to business to not let them hire illegal aliens at half the wages of the locals. It hurts their bottom line, they say. They can't compete.

It is hard to feel sorry for the people who are destroying the middle class of America (OMG - I'm Lou Dobbs). Now even our houses, which most Americans counted as their single most valuable asset, are losing value. And Wall Street just noticed this last week. Oh my... when will they pick up on the China connection???