Wall Street was freed to operate without oversight
and regulation beginning in 1999, with passage of the GLM Act repealing parts
of the Glass-Steagal Act of 1933 and the The Bank Holding Act of 1956 (acts
establishing consumer protections and oversight of banks, investment bankers
and insurance companies). The stock market soared to a level unimagined. Of course it was a false boom, benefiting
very few and collapsing just as it had during the run up to the Great Depression. Our economy is recovering very slowly, but
masking this recovery is another booming stock market without a booming
economy, fueled by the same Wall Streeters doing the same things and producing
profits for the very same few.
They produce profit from manipulation of pricing and
money and produce nothing, not products, manufacturing, services, good consumer
wages or jobs. They care nothing of
worker’s rights and laws. They care
nothing of employment or unemployment.
They care nothing of the economy. They care only about their own
profits. They only care about the law
when they get caught. Furthermore, Wall
Street’s Banks, Investment Banks and Insurance Entities recently found it is
O.K. to illegally make $Trillions. After putting our economy on the brink as
well as a host of retirement funds, cities, states and even other countries,
when they had to pay up, the American taxpayer got the bill and their fines and
penalties so far have been a paltry $2Billion!
Not one, C-level executive has ever been charged or prosecuted! If you
seldom, or never, get caught it is simple finance: paying fines, some back amounts and legal
fees, is just cheaper than paying what the law requires and demands along the
way. Sound familiar?
Again, we are beginning to see these same Wall
Street results….high prices for commodities necessary throughout the
world….oil, energy, gold, copper, corn to name just a few. There are no
shortages, just perceptions. Wall Street does nothing to produce it and nothing
to protect it. They do nothing but trade
and manipulate its value in a game just like a casino. And, like all gambling, few players win, most loose and
only the house, those controlling the rules, win long term!
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
--Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Gates Spafford, 17 Mar. 1817
Much like Wall Street’s view of regulations, for 30+
years employers have made the case for the related notion (started by the Automobile industry) that worker
rights, unions, wages, benefits and legal requirements (laws) are the root of
their profit problems and getting rid of them the solution. If this were true why do UPS and Southwest
Airlines (to name but a few) remain profitable and successful EU nations and
Canada remain competitive with the highest employer/employee taxation rates and
the most generous employee protections, wages, benefits and security in the
world? If this were true why did the
greatest economic boom in U.S. history occur during the most active period of
Labor and Wage and Hour legal activity - the late ‘40s through the ‘70s?
Our country’s greatest competition is not with
China, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia or any other Low Cost Country (LCC). We
are competing with and against our self.
We are in competition with conflicting national business, legal and
people politics and wisdom. We are in
competition with policies and incentives rewarding employers for working and
manufacturing outside our country and taking work, business, profits and taxes away
from our own nation benefiting all citizens. We are competing with our own
sense of national identity vs. those of the Banks and Wall Street
Eventually the world will run out of, and is already
running low on, low labor cost countries.
Long shipping distances, rising fuel costs, the needs for safety,
security, health, educated workers, employees who work ethically with
efficiency, dependability and reliably, plus a resurgence of a certain
nationalism (Made in the U.S.A.), have already begun to outweigh the desire and
need for simple low labor costs. As the
economy and employment recovers the need for the disposed U.S. worker will create
a paradigm shift in people as a business, not seen in the U.S. for
decades. In fact it has already
begun. Most employers don’t understand
this yet, because theirs is a short sighted strategy of profit not longevity
and people.
Just as the army goes on its stomach so industry and
business goes on its people!
Next installment:
Abbreviated re-postings of the “Black Hole”
