nittie said:
...You can get workers for 18 cents per hour, high tech workers go for $8 an hour. A guy I do business with is going over there for six months he says if things go well he'll be able to set his company up and compete with major businesses when he gets back.
<div align="left"><!-- MSTableType="layout" -->
<img src="http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/artofthestamp/SubPage%20table%20images/artwork/history/Abraham%20Lincoln/BIGabraham.jpg" align="left" width="220" height="271"></div>
<font face="verdana" size="4" color="#0000FF">
<b>Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Abraham Lincoln
December 3, 1861
</b></font>
<font face="verdana" size="3" color="#000000">
Peeps, the current RepubliKlan political leadership and their corporatist (fascist) allies are the spawn of the slave holding plantocracy and the successors to the fascist states of the 20th century.
Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain are all admired by the RepubliKlan as prototypes for the type of ‘business economy’ they want to bring to the United States. In such a ‘business economy’ , labor has no rights, labor unions are banned; capital in the hands of a selected elite control the entire economy.
Todays RepubliKlans DO NOT agree with Abraham Lincoln’s philosophy about labor & capital that is quoted above.
Do these conditions sound like any major country on the world stage today, that’s operating a capitalist economy? Name the country…. Need a hint? 60% of the merchandise on the shelves of Wal-Mart, Target, & K-Mart come from this country. The country is China.
By proposing to move it’s company headquarters to Dubai , Halliburton is just being more aggressive than other American Trans-Global corporations who have been stealthily moving their jobs to India, Singapore, Indonesia, China, Barbados etc. The technical nerve-centers (those large rooms full of servers & mainframes) of the worlds largest financial institutions and insurance companies have already been moved to India.
Top level SAP or PeopleSoft IT workers who in the US would earn as much as $150. per hour are having their jobs outsourced to India where their replacements are being paid $35. per hour. Along with the $35. per hour, they are given Citibank credit cards with a $25,000. Credit line and a 35% interest rate. This is the vaunted new Indian middle-class that you see smiling and shopping in the malls on television. They are the new wage-slaves, they work 6 days a week, 12 -15 hours per day with few benefits.
At the top of this capitalist pyramid are the Indian ‘shot-callers’ such as
<font color="#ff0000"><b> TATA Consultancy Services</b></font> who have a dedicated sales force which is successfully pitching Fortune 500 CEO’s to kill American jobs and send the business to much lower cost India.
These cost savings are the “productivity increases” that you hear about when you listen to a business report. This is why corporations can announce higher profits and their stock price goes up, meanwhile American workers wages adjusted for inflation have been going down since 1999. Peeps I’m done, sometimes I forget that this is primarily a tits & ass board.
</font>
<hr noshade color="#0000FF" size="6"></hr><p>
<font face="arial black" size="6" color="#d90000">
Capitalism Doesn't Require Democracy</font><font face="times new roman" size="4" color="#000000">
<div align="left"><!-- MSTableType="layout" -->
<img src="http://www.usm.maine.edu/sb/Reich.jpg" width="200" height="280"></div>
<font face="arial narrow" size="2" color="#0000FF"><b>
Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written ten books, including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages; the best-sellers The Future of Success and Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Reason. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Reich is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine. </b></font>
<b>January 10, 2006
by Robert B. Reich</b>
www.CommonDreams.org
You may remember when the world was divided between communism and capitalism, and when the Chinese were communists. The Chinese still call themselves communists, but now they’re also capitalists.
In fact, visit China today and you find the most dynamic capitalist nation in the world. In 2005, it had the distinction of being the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
China is the manufacturing hub of the globe. It’s is also moving quickly into the highest of high technologies. It already graduates more computer engineers every year than the United States.
Its cities are booming. There are more building cranes in use today in China than in all of the United States. China’s super-highways are filled with modern cars. Its deep-water ports and airports are world class. Its research and development centers are state of the art. At the rate its growing, in three decades China will be the largest economy in the world.
Communist, as in communal? Are you kidding? The gap between China’s rich and poor is turning into a chasm. China’s innovators, investors, and captains of industry are richly rewarded. They live in luxury housing developments whose streets are lined with McMansions. The feed in fancy restaurants, and relax in five-star hotels and resorts. China’s poor live in a different world. Mao Tse Tung would turn in his grave.
So where are the Chinese communists? They’re in government. The communist party is the only party there is. China doesn’t have freedom of speech or freedom of the press. It doesn’t tolerate dissent. Authorities can arrest and imprison people who threaten stability, as the party defines it. Any group that dares to protest is treated brutally. There are no civil liberties, no labor unions, no centers of political power outside the communist party.
China shows that when it comes to economics, the dividing line among the world’s nations is no longer between communism and capitalism. Capitalism has won hands down. The real dividing line is no longer economic. It’s political. And that divide is between democracy and authoritarianism. China is a capitalist economy with an authoritarian government.
For years, we’ve assumed that capitalism and democracy fit hand in glove. We took it as an article of faith that you can’t have one without the other. That’s why a key element of American policy toward China has been to encourage free trade, direct investment, and open markets. As China becomes more prosperous and integrated into the global market -- so American policy makers have thought -- China will also become more democratic.
Well, maybe we’ve been a bit naive. It’s true that democracy needs capitalism. Try to come up with the name of a single democracy in the world that doesn’t have a capitalist economy. For democracy to function there must be centers of power outside of government. Capitalism decentralizes economic power, and thereby provides the private ground in which democracy can take root.
But China shows that the reverse may not be true -- capitalism doesn’t need democracy. Capitalism’s wide diffusion of economic power offers enough incentive for investors to take risks with their money. But, as China shows, capitalism doesn’t necessarily provide enough protection for individuals to take risks with their opinions.
</font>
<br>
<hr noshade color="#ff0000" size="10"></hr>
<p>