If we don't want six-day workweeks at rock-bottom pay, we need to rethink how America's free market functions
By David Sirota
For the last two decades, we've heard many myths purporting to explain the loss of American manufacturing jobs. CEOs, for instance, typically say they have sent jobs overseas because they can't find skilled American workers. Conservative economists say the giant sucking sound is that of technology replacing obsolete workers. And conservative politicians say job loss is the result of high corporate tax rates, even though ours are among the lowest effective corporate tax rates in the industrialized world.

All of these explanations are fables with a purpose: They are designed to deny the obvious by pretending that exploitation and policies that encourage exploitation aren't the root cause of offshoring. More specifically, they ask us to ignore the fact that tariff-free trade agreements and tax loopholes incentivize companies to shift production to countries where slave wages, environmental degradation and human rights abuses are tolerated.

But now at least a few manufacturing jobs are suddenly coming back to America, and the same CEOs, economists and politicians who have tried to squelch any honest discussion of exploitation are inadvertently admitting that exploitation has always been the manufacturing economy's invisible hand. They are admitting it when they concede that jobs are returning primarily because American wages are precipitously dropping at the same time Chinese minimum wages have slightly risen - from awful (in some places, $100 month) to a mere terrible (still just a $240 a month).

This is not some fringe theory. It's a widely acknowledged fact.

President Barack Obama admitted it when in his State of the Union address he said jobs are returning because "it's getting more expensive to do business in places like China." Economists at the Boston Consulting Group underscored it when in August they said employment growth is happening because rising Chinese wages are "eroding China's cost advantages" while the United States "is becoming a lower-cost country" as American wages decline. And GE Consumer & Industrial CEO James Campbell reiterated it when he recently told the New York Times that "making things in America is as viable as making things any place" because domestic labor costs are now "significantly less with the competitive wages" - read: far lower wages - now accepted by American workers.

Now that this consensus is finally out in the open, the real question for America is simple: Do we accept an economic competition that asks us to emulate China?

If our answer is yes, then we should support current state legislative proposals to reduce child labor protections; back federal legislation to eliminate all environmental, wage and workplace safety laws; and applaud corporations that crush unions and further reduce wages in America. We should also probably encourage our fellow countrymen to follow Apple Inc.'s Chinese workforce by simply accepting $17-a-day paychecks, 12-hour workdays and six-day workweeks. Indeed, if we accept this race-to-the-bottom style of competition, then we're basically saying Chicago should look more like Chengdu; our heartland should look more like the poverty-stricken interior of China; and 21st century America should look more like late-19th century America.

If, alternately, we reject this dystopian future, then it requires us to more seriously consider things like tariffs, industrial policy, tax incentives for domestic investment and Buy America laws for government procurement. In other words, it requires us to declare that access to the American marketplace is no longer free - that corporations who want to sell things to Americans must play by our wage, environmental and human rights rules no matter where they make their products.

Between these two paths, there is no "third way"- - and doing nothing will likely mean that the uptick in American manufacturing jobs will prove fleeting. A choice, therefore, must be made, and it should be a no-brainer.
http://www.issuesandalibis.org/

Does this mean the Aerican-Chinese who immigrated here will go back? Where will they go?

Our corporate taxes are the second highest in the world at 35%.

and getting HIGHER!

I AM CORNHOLIO, China gives me TP for my bunghole

Clearly your totaly misinformed I hope this helps to form an educated opinion.

U.S. taxes are low relative to those in other developed countries. In 2008 U.S. taxes at all levels of government claimed 26 percent of GDP, compared with an average of 35 percent of GDP for the 33 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).


Among OECD countries only Mexico, Chile and Turkey had lower taxes than the United Shttp://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/international.cfmtates

Actually, China is our present.
Their CEOs are being toured here checking out exclusive, elite mansions to raise their kids.
However, even they will need to learn Spanish. What with the Conquista happening n all.

Corporate Taxes,not Average Taxes!


Federal corporate income tax is imposed at graduated rates. The lower rate brackets are phased out at higher rates of income. All taxable income is subject to tax at 34% or 35% where taxable income exceeds $335,000. Tax rates imposed below the federal level vary widely by jurisdiction, from under 1% to over 16%.

Yes our tax laws are verry complex what is stated as the tax rate is the number the accountants work down from, its pretty hard to say exactly what our tax rate realy is.

) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.


2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.


3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.


4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.


5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.


6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.


7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.


8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.


9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.


10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2011/03/ten_giant_us_companies_avoidin.html
I know your working years are behind you Mr Conrad but many of us still have long way to go untill we retire and we demand a fair and just world for ourselves and our children.

Not even a thank you? No appology?

To avoid such confusion in the future I would recomend a person turn off fox news and seek information for themselves.

This is called independent thinking, its much harder and time consumeing than parroting but far more rewarding.

Many many people do think for themselves but those that depend on Fox News seem to be the most vociferous

really don't mean nothing!
How much of those profits were made out of Country?
What matters is,what the actual Corporate-Tax Percentage is,not what Individual Entities for some reason or other get away with paying!

I have the whole world in my chopsticks

What matters Mr Conrad is what they actualy pay, that is called reality the other is called fiction.

If we don't want six-day workweeks at rock-bottom pay, we need to rethink how America's free market functions
By David Sirota

What do you mean if we don't want? I work 6-day weeks at rock bottom pay. In manufacturing.

And I'm grateful I have a job.

American company, American-made product. NOT American owned.

Rumor has it the owner grosses 10 million a month.

And I believe he does......

Sorry about your luck.

so the union busting that started 30-35 years ago with Ronald Reagan worked

While I do not condone manufacturing products that can be made in America abroad, I do believe it's important to understand that the economy is more global than it is American or Chinese

Americans have been living in Asia dirt cheap (and exploiting over there in both a personal and corporate sense) for years. Chinese executives are welcome to buy homes...someone needs to buy them.

I am in the first generation of Americans (I think) where I will not be able to afford to live better than my parents did - even tho I have more education than my father did

I am not disagreeing with the need to regulate our economy. I have felt for years that the economy needs tariffs in as well as tariffs out if other countries do not play fair

the concessions to open the doors to china are 4 decades old now - equal market access needs to happen - but there are a mountain of issues in doing business in china not the least of which is technology access

no one I know of is going to feel sorry for corporations because of an increased cost of doing business overseas.

but I am talking about a somewhat higher price to pay for corporations profiting overseas - a formalized local investment

but before anyone becomes indignant - remember that cut rate lap top you bought? It was prolly made in China by someone making $17 a day which is why you were able to purchase it at 1/3 or more of it's actual value...just saying

it occurs to me that fear of terrorism may also play an unmentioned role in their desire to return home as well

Sorry about your luck.

Not complaining. Just saying those working conditions are all ready a part of the American economy. I am grateful to have a job for sure.

Sorry that was rather harsh. For a time I worked 7 days a week twelve hours a day and do many six day weeks but I at least got time and a half and double time on sunday.

I too am greatfull to have a job in this economy.