Global Work Force Helps Fed on Inflation -or- The Great Divide

Alan Greenspan is a fruit loop. So says this article from the AP.

In this article we learn...

While Alan Greenspan' has won praise for his successful 18-year battle to keep inflation under control, he's the first to say he's had a lot of help. Among those most responsible are tens of millions of workers in China, India and Eastern Europe.

Adding all those workers to the global economy has made the Federal Reserve's inflation-fighting job easier by increasing competition. That has helped hold down labor costs — the biggest single expense for employers — and, as a result, prices. It has come at a cost: Many of the jobs being done overseas used to be in America.

Gee -- Ya think?

For those U.S. workers who still have jobs, the pressure on their wages has intensified as companies use the threat of moving more production overseas — where labor is far cheaper — as a way to extract concessions from their U.S. workers.
This phenomenon has hit manufacturing the hardest. But service workers are starting to be hurt as well. The ability to transmit digitally massive amounts of information to faraway places has led companies to send overseas jobs in such high-tech areas as architecture, computer software, medical services and engineering.
"It is one thing to celebrate keeping inflation in check. It is another thing to celebrate that living standards are stagnant or falling for most American workers," said Thea
Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO.

Why does our government reward those who send jobs overseas, especially when it comes at the expense of its own citizens?

Greenspan also has a benign view about how the U.S. can deal with workers who have lost jobs and or seen their wages depressed because of foreign competition. He thinks the country can solve this problem by doing a better job of educating workers so they have the skills they need for the high-tech jobs of the future, rather than the low-skill jobs that increasingly are moving to other countries.
That solution, Greenspan believes, will help combat the growing wage inequality in the U.S. This trend has seen incomes for high-income Americans rise sharply while the wages of low-income workers have been stagnant.

Uh-Huh, and how's that been workin' for ya? Seems to me the result of this policy is the devaluation of college education. If everybody has a degree, nobody has a degree.

Other analysts are not so sure that Greenspan's approach will work, especially given that high-tech jobs are being sent to countries with well-educated workers who earn far less than Americans.
"The idea that you can educate yourself out of this problem is not accurate any
more," said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a
liberal think tank in Washington.

A liberal think tank? Well thank you Jesus!

Of course this article only deals with one half of the problem, ignoring a related problem with an enormous amount of bearing on this subject.

Illegal immigration. Illegal immigration creates a glut of workers, and supply and demand starts working its magic driving down wages and benefits for citizen employees.

We've been sold a bill of goods here and I'm waiting for people to get on the stick and join me and MJ I screaming about this.

Why is this OK? Why aren't more people upset about this?

Is it the charge of racism?

The group most hammered by these stats are African-Americans and earlier immigrants.

I'm just puzzled that this issue feels untouchable, something not to be discussed in polite company. The gutting of our country is not a suitable conversation?

I call bullshit!

What say you?



illegal immigration
alan greenspan
outsourcing