Note: This was written awhile back. It has gotten worse. According to the Labor Department, as of Labor Day 2015, 93.6 million have workers have left the labor force and no longer even bother trying to find a job.
Labor Day has traditionally been a day of celebration and festivity. It was America's last fond grasping of an ebbing summer, celebrated with steak cookouts, picnics and the frenetic play of children before submission to the rigors and discipline of the classroom.
Labor Day also served as a celebration of the working man, the opportunity to honor our ancestral toils as well as ourselves for the remarkable American productivity that fed and clothed the world and instilled in them the dream that futures could indeed be golden.
Today 30 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. The bright shiny dreams of "tomorrow" are lost in the cold hard realities of an economy on the brink of collapse. 30 million dreams have been shattered and those millions of lost souls wander from the Ethernet submissions of resumes on home computers to the mail box to retrieve the unemployment check from a nation that says "we just don't need you anymore".
The "Easy Chair" is no longer easy. Where once those lost souls took respite from a proud day of work, the chair now reflects a permanent impression of ennui, serves as a confining realization that the world has moved on callously, and without them. The Project Manager has been replaced by computer automated auditing. The fellow who made fine Arrow Dress Shirts has been replaced by prison labor in China. The lady who sewed the Swoosh on the Nike shoe was shunted aside by a factory worker in Vietnam who collects his "dollar per hour" pay check in Saigon. By necessity to survive, the American factory foreman now mans the greeting desk at Walmart.
The American dream was shattered by NAFTA and Friedman's "Flat World" and, more recently, by Washington liberal minions who believe that Government (they of the big "G") create jobs.
So, 30 million Americans sit on that couch, or in the Easy Chair, angry and frustrated at a remote "them".
"Them" is more elusive than we might wish. It is the large American corporations that deemed themselves as "citizens of the world", no longer "American". They retain a laser focus on "the bottom line" of their corporate earnings report. They no longer embrace the idea that "what's good for business is good for America". They have abandoned the idea that they must champion community values, quality education or render support for the nation that birthed them. Target and Walmart will publicize their "million dollar" contribution to local hunger programs, or childhood nutrition, or "backpacks for school kids" campaigns, even as they rip the job rug from beneath a parents feet by filling their stores with cheap Chinese-made products.
"Them" is your Mastercard or Visa or AT&T masters who shift their customer service operations to India; never mind that one struggles with "sing-song" accents, an Indian will work cheaper, surrender work benefits...and that is so good for the bottom line.
"Them" are those wise government whose-its that deemed NAFTA and all other trade agreements as favorable for a more viable "world economy". Never mind that those trade agreements did not take into account the variances in fair labor laws, environmental restrictions or product quality audits.
"Them" are the American employers who worship the almighty dollar so much they choose to hire 20 million illegal Mexicans because they can pay them less in cash money and withhold paying benefits and damn the American who has to fund illegal medical, food stamps and education for all of them.
So, 30 million unemployed Americans wait...wait for an American awakening, an American renewal. Being Americans, they have not forsaken their dreams, just deferred them; waiting for America to hear them.
Meantime, they fore go the steak cookout for a hot dog roast. They fore go the last vacation of summer because gas prices are high, the car, if they still have one, needs work and...hey, they better stay near the phone....they might get a call for a job interview.
Sad. Damned Sad
17 comments:
this brought tears to my eyes. every word is exactly correct.
Thank you anon,for stopping by, for taking the time to read...and for caring. This is for all those proud Americans, having lost everything, are sleeping in their cars, or homeless shelters or on the cruel streets.
This is why we need common sense in the thought for a new way. I'm thinking communism, what do you think?
Nyet!
I hope the border is still open Im going home to Mexico to work.
Common sense......Communism....I don't think they go together. Another Nyet here!! Also , Labor Day was for all workers to celebrate. Somehow the unions have highjacked it and think it's for only union workers.
Today I am so F**king depressed. This made it so much more depressing since, like usual, your writing is 100% right.
There was always something I could do. Now my mother says it's all in God's hands now. I always relied on the fact that God gave me my brains and brawn to meet the challenges and surmount them all. To date that was so, now my brawn is bent and my brains are behind the times and my wealth went the way of the politicians irresponsibility.
Today I don't have the first idea of what to do and the politicians like rabid dogs keep attacking. Not yet living in the car, geez this is getting sooooo old. I do pray Romney doesn't pull a Bush and let me down. This country so needs a leader. Or maybe we could just get rid of government all together. Then what would all the back stabbing bottom feeding scum sucking griffter politicians and lawyers do. I am more afraid of them than the well armed anarchist.
Today is my dead father's birthday. A truly great man and industrialist who despised this holiday saying it was nothing more than a socialist's holiday to celebrate the unions. So there you are, 'eh. My dad. I love the guy so much.
What's this comment moderation crap, anyway??
Ken, I'll make you even more pessimistic today; go back to the blog where I showed you the electoral map; the chances of Romney even winning are very, very small. Obama owns the electoral map because he has 100 electoral vote head start with perennial liberal states like California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Deleware, Washington State and Oregon.
I wouldn't worry too much about whether Romney is going to be a good conservative. He's not likely to get the chance.
As to the "moderation of comments", I had a serial lib poster that I had to get rid of; they always want to turn my blog into an open forum on liberalism and then I have to moderate comments till they go away.
It's more fun watching you argue with the serial idiots. CHICKEN
I thought it was down to less than 30 electoral votes. I know its low enough that obutthead is on the "get rid of the electoral vote" warpath again.
I'm all for getting rid of the electoral college but I don't believe the Dems would be responsive to that anymore; they own the states with the largest electoral votes...maybe when we cede California to Mexico it will all even out. ;)
More to it than what you wrote. Forty years ago, we went from a production-based economy (where we actually produced goods) to a consumer-based economy (where the economic engine was driven mainly by consumer spending). Couple that with the rise of use of something called a "credit card", and the discovery of the stock market by people who previously did not participate (again, something called the "mutual fund" made what was mysterious and potentially financially dangerous now accessible) and the situation was set. Citizens could spend money they didn't have without getting a loan, and companies were now pressured to produce if not dividends, at least strong financial gains by years end because of the money being invested through the mutual funds. Now, entire industries were feeling the pressure to make more money and since the primary outlay was to salaries and compensation, off went the jobs to lands where $5 a day is a good rate. Debt levels reached record highs with consumers being able to buy the newest, latest, and greatest all on a card that they didn't have to pay off at the end of the month. The economy boomed with the transfer of funds from buyers to sellers. But this situation could not continue, and in 2008, it stopped. Home values withered to a fraction of what they were previously (overvalued, to be honest) and the easy credit came to a screeching halt. With relatively little industrial production base to fall back on, the bad got worse. Romney or Obama? Unfortunately, thre is little either can do to rectify this situation. Romney won't be as bad as the demonstrably incompetent Obama, but don't expect Romney to fix it in two years. This is a systemic problem that was years in the making.
Randy, all of that is true. Another truth is that we've lost the generation that lived through the Great Depression and practiced thriftiness and value hard work and saving for a rainy day. The later generations have forsaken many of the values that brought us to the heights of prosperity. I have a fairly critical essay on the Boomer Generation coming up on an upcoming blog. That too addresses some of our current woes.
As always, thanks for your comments.
Yep, an old Blog but still true.
Soon enough even the hot dogs will be made in China,
People here in Seattle have suffered terribly as you described so well. But they will all vote for Democrats without the slightest pause, it just has to be that way until the hurting is even more broad. This is the land of Patty Murray, we are going to fly this thing straight into the ground come Hell or High Water!
Goatroper, it's not just the suffering unemployed; Patty Cake and company stay in office because there are hordes of folks who live entirely off of the government and will vote to keep the gravy coming.
I read that half of all of last year's college graduates are still unemployed, living in their parents basement, and haven't a clue why...because they were indoctrinated by liberal academia.
Jerry, they already are...Smithfield Foods was bought out by the Chinese so be careful where you get your Christmas ham or cold cuts for football season.
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