High Unemployment – Wrong there ARE Jobs

August 5, 2010 at 1:57 pm | Posted in economy, government, rants, social comment, taxes | 4 Comments
Tags: corporate greed, executive salaries, maquiladoras

The debate goes on. Should congress extend unemployment benefits and should the government be instrumental in creating jobs? Some members of congress are sympathetic to the plight of so many Americans who are out of work, out of money, and out of options; while others don’t seem to give a crap if our citizens are homeless, hungry, or even dying in the streets. It is as if they possess a coldness, a lack of empathy, an attitude that says – let ‘em die, more for me.

Related to the problem of unemployment is illegal immigration and claims that illegals are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens; though it has been demonstrated that, in general, even jobless Americans will not do the work many of the illegal immigrants are doing. I find a lot of irony in the sentiment that American jobs are being taken by illegals when the truth of the matter is American jobs are routinely being given away to people in other countries. Please explain to me what the difference is between foreigners doing our jobs on American soil, or somewhere outside of our borders?

Customer service and manufacturing positions, to name a couple, are being outsourced by some companies, while others are using maquiladoras just south of the border because wages are lower and workplace standards are less stringent. I have had the misfortune to be acquainted with an individual who by virtue of a family manufacturing business, somewhere in the eastern U.S., is quite wealthy; he probably has enough to live extremely comfortably for several lifetimes. While keeping the business (back east) in tact, he recently set up a maquiladora in Mexico, just a stones throw from the U.S. border because: 1. having way more money than one needs just isn’t enough for some people, 2. he wouldn’t want to have too long of a commute as there is no way in hell he would actually live in Mexico because it’s, uh you know, filled with Mexicans. I opined that perhaps the right thing to do would be to stay in the U.S and give those jobs to our own. He actually tried to convince me that his motivation for doing this was to help Mexicans. I almost choked on my own bile wondering if I really appeared stupid enough to believe that load of steaming dung. I guarantee you, his motivation is his bottom line, nothing more.

I believe that one of the ways to create jobs and stimulate our economy would be to stop the outsourcing and bring the jobs back to America. Oh, you say, but that will cause the prices of goods and services to go up because American workers cost the companies more. I’m not buying that and neither should you. The real reason to save money on wages is so that executives can continue to receive obscenely large compensation packages, many of which could feed a small country for at least a year. Executive Paywatch lists the top hundred highest paid CEOs’ yearly salaries that range from over one hundred million to fifteen million. It must be pretty tough to survive on that kind of money so they throw in some additional perks such as limos, stock options, corporate jets, to name a few. The compensation of lowest paid on the top one hundred, on the list, would create over five hundred, thirty thousand dollar a year jobs. Executive PayWatch has an extensive database of executive salaries. Imagine how many entry to mid level jobs could be created if these greedy bastards could somehow find a way to manage on a mere million or two per year. I’m in no way suggesting this will solve the problem of record unemployment but it would be one step in the right direction, and we have to start somewhere. It is my belief that companies engaging in these practices should either be taxed at a higher rate or have some other sanctions imposed upon them; or be given incentives to keep jobs here in the good old U.S.A.