Maybe I’m ‘late to the party’ (again) and should have seen this one coming BUT no! After years of watching Japan ‘languish’ in ‘economic hell’ do we/I see evidence that they are suffering from the exact same malaise that afflicts the US.
That ‘Japanese quality’ (idiotic) US ‘middle class’ consumers are so fond of doesn’t come from Japan…it has ‘Made in China’ stamped on it!
Understand good citizen that ‘super efficient’ Japanese workers are literally starving to death while their jobs were ‘off-shored’ to cheaper labor markets.
This is not a ‘local’ or even an ‘isolated’ phenomenon…the ‘buy and sell’ crowd has ‘fucked’ the entire global economy due to their ‘disregard’ for basic economics…your workers are also your customers!
Not paying your workers enough to purchase your products isn’t ‘somebody else’s problem’, it’s yours!
Screw your workers and pretty soon, everybody’s got a problem!
Welcome to Amerika!
We have two offerings tonight, both ‘illustrate’ the depth of the problems we face as a society…problems caused by seriously twisted individuals, acting in concert to serve their own warped self-interest.
As I have said multiple times in the past, we really do need to redefine the term ‘criminal’.
Partly to prevent this shit from spreading and partly to correct this insanity from destroying civilization…if it isn’t already too late!
Let us proceed with our first article:
Honda Strike Becomes a Rallying Point in China
Joe Tan/Reuters
Security guards on Friday at a Honda manufacturing plant in Foshan, Guangdong Province, that was shut after a labor dispute at a parts facility.
By KEITH BRADSHER and DAVID BARBOZA
Published: May 28, 2010
FOSHAN, CHINA — A strike at an auto-parts factory owned by Honda in southern China has unexpectedly become a cause célèbre in the nation’s struggle with income inequality, with Chinese media reporting extensively on the workers’ demands and calling on the government to do more to increase wages nationwide. [How will the Chinese government ‘deal’ with this well publicized worker uprising? The article even goes on to point out that this is not ‘new’ and usually it is ‘hushed up’ so the, er, ‘effected parties’ don’t suffer from a well-deserved ‘Black Eye’ in the marketplace. The fact that this story is even appearing in the US MSM tells us to anticipate price increases on Honda products (if you’re still stupid enough to buy them after reading this article!)]
Strikes have occurred before at Chinese-owned factories and on rare occasions at foreign-owned plants. But the authorities have typically hushed them up and either sought a quick deal or sent in the police. [Which of these two tactics do you think is most prevalent, considering the nature of the capitalists who, er, ‘escaped’ to China?]
The 1,900 workers at the Honda factory here have been on strike to demand higher pay since early last week, and on Friday there was no resolution in sight. The resulting shortage of transmissions and engine parts has forced Honda to halt production this week at all four of its assembly plants in China, with one closing on Monday and the other three on Wednesday.
The work stoppage is the clearest sign yet of growing labor unrest in a country that is now the cornerstone of many companies’ global supply chains.
Zheng Qiao, the associate director of the department of employment relations at the China Institute of Industrial Relations in Beijing, said that the strike was a significant development in China’s labor relations history because the workers appeared to be well organized and united. [We can only wonder how much of this ‘unity & organization’ can be attributed to their ‘communist indoctrination’?]
“The strike at Honda is the largest strike that has ever happened at a single global company in China,” he said, adding that, “such a large-scale, organized strike will force China’s labor union system to change, to adapt to the market economy.” [Do I need to ‘translate’ that for you good citizen? The ‘employers’ moved to China to escape unions, never mind environmental regulation. How much do you want to bet this dissolves into union busting that ‘re-ignites’ the currently latent ‘communist fervor’ of their forebearers? The resulting ‘bitch slap’ will be so richly deserved that it is a royal shame civilization won’t survive to witness it!]
Workers here have discovered the same weapon that the United Automobile Workers used to become the most powerful industrial union in the United States: shut down a crucial parts factory, and auto assembly plants across the country have to close. [This is the problem the predators have yet to crack: what do you do when the stooges wise up and say, “fuck you, I’m not gonna do it anymore?” Ultimately, it’s cheaper to pay them.]
“In terms of shutting down a multinational’s entire operations, I think this is the first” in China, said Geoffrey Crothall, the spokesman for China Labor Bulletin, a labor advocacy group based in Hong Kong.
The official English-language China Daily newspaper ran a lead editorial on Friday that cited the Honda strike as evidence that government inaction on wages may be fueling tensions between workers and employers. [Ya think?] The editorial criticized the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security for not moving faster to draft a promised amendment to current wage regulations because of opposition from employers.[snip]
Ahem, this is PRECISELY what these mercenary motherfuckers moved to China to get away from!
Speaking for myself, I think it serves them right, fools who refuse to learn the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them!
Sadly, the short term result of this foolishness can be found in the article below:
Private pay shrinks to historic lows as gov't payouts rise
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.
At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010. [Um, USA Today is a ‘true blue’ patriotic news organization that would NEVER even suggest capitalism was faltering, much less failing. So instead you’re being told that these numbers are a ‘statistical aberration’ caused by the ‘poor economy’ that is still in the ‘early stages’ of recovery…]
Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs. [You have to be either extremely ‘optimistic’ or downright ‘deluded’ to not realize the massive shrinkage in our total payroll figures means there is nothing to support the ‘consumer economy’ globalization was to provide for us.]
The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. "This is really important," Grimes says.
The recession has erased 8 million private jobs. Even before the downturn, private wages were eroding because of the substitution of health and pension benefits for taxable salaries. [Yeah, having to devote increasing amounts of previously ‘disposable income’ towards future expenses resulted in putting a massive drag on consumer spending.]
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that individuals received income from all sources — wages, investments, food stamps, etc. — at a $12.2 trillion annual rate in the first quarter.
Key shifts in income this year:
• Private wages. A record-low 41.9% of the nation's personal income came from private wages and salaries in the first quarter, down from 44.6% when the recession began in December 2007. [Stop! What does this tell you? It tells me ‘capitalism’ doesn’t need all of the workers we have…in fact, it can’t use half of them…a fifty-percent ‘redundancy’ rate is unsustainable.
•Government benefits. Individuals got 17.9% of their income from government programs in the first quarter, up from 14.2% when the recession started. Programs for the elderly, the poor and the unemployed all grew in cost and importance. An additional 9.8% of personal income was paid as wages to government employees.
The shift in income shows that the federal government's stimulus efforts have been effective, says Paul Van de Water, an economist at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
"It's the system working as it should," Van de Water says. Government is stimulating growth and helping people in need, he says. As the economy recovers, private wages will rebound, hehopessays. [Um, that’s the ‘theory’ behind stimulus spending but there is nothing in our current economic environment to make that happen. There WON’T BE any ‘new, good paying jobs’ that come out of this disaster.]
Economist Veronique de Rugy of the free-market Mercatus Center at George Mason University says the riots in Greece over cutting benefits to close a huge budget deficit are a warning about unsustainable income programs.
Economist David Henderson of the conservative Hoover Institution says a shift from private wages to government benefits saps the economy of dynamism. "People are paid for being rather than for producing," he says.
Do you find it curious that USA TODAY felt compelled to close the article with not one but two conservative talking points? That damn ‘Liberal Media’ is everywhere!
So labor ‘unrest’ in China mixed with, er, ‘labor surpluses’ everywhere else. What do you suppose is wrong with this picture?
Is it time for capitalists everywhere to ‘pack up their tents and resume the search for the new ‘cheaper there’?
Of course it isn’t! It’s never really been about ‘labor costs.’ It is and has always been about ‘market share’. It drove the capitalists crazy that the world’s largest markets were dirt poor…and naturally, these pinheads failed to think through the ramifications of, er, ‘reversing’ that situation. Now they’ve done what comes ‘naturally’ and the piper is looking to be paid!
At the end of the day good citizen it would be nice to think everything is going to work out all right…but we all know there is little chance of THAT happening.
‘It would be nice’ if this resulted in a fairer, more equitable world instead of pretty much universal destruction…but hey, who knew?
I find myself in agreement once again with Ilargi and Stoneleigh…’who’s your friend’ is probably the most important issue to focus upon right now…the people fighting alongside you will hopefully out number the ones your fighting against.
Certain truths are immutable…
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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