CONTROL by GATEKEEPER

LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER:
How To Control Jobs/Prevent Access/And Get Rich

In the 1980s, as most people remember, a popular saying arose in opposition to the flood of foreign goods at the time. The saying was BUY AMERICA. This was the patriotic way to voice your opposition to the tide of goods that had been made by workers primarily in China, or Taiwan (same thing) or Mexico, or Japan, or you name it.

These workers all had about the same things in common: all fairly bright, able to take direction in the manufacturing process, and all willing to work for 3 Bucks a day! And, yeah – the obvious impact of this scenario and all these goods into America was two fold:

The “going price” for a pair of tennis shoes, for example, or a belt, or a shirt, or kitchen utensils was suddenly cut in half. Imagine the impact on American buyers when they experienced that. Everyone was saying “…Let’s have more of this.”

It doesn’t take Economics 101 – hell, PRE Economics will tell you that the end price of your gadget is determined by the cost of the material used to make it, and overhead, but primarily by LABOR. Labor is always the biggest element in the manufacturing process. Ask General Motors. In March 2008 – they just finished laying off 74,000 of their long time hourly workers. Bought them out by paying a large final paycheck. Couldn’t take the pressure any longer.

So American sellers jumped on this new development. Even after paying import fees, they could still sell the above-mentioned items at approximately half what they had to charge for American made goods of similar construction. The bigger sellers immediately bought a Congressman or Senator, and directed that stalwart to mount an attack on the import fees in Congress, in order to arrive at either new laws more favorable to them, or elimination of those laws altogether.

See, that’s how it’s done in America. Jesse James had to rob the trains, and broke the laws. Bush and company just change the laws. (Or write new ones that favor their business friends.) Bush went one step further. With regard to CHINA, the biggest thorn, by far, in America’s Economy, he named them to Most Favored Nation status. This designation grants to the receiving nation all kinds of trade advantages, such as low tariffs.

So where we found ourselves (American citizens, that is) after our brain-damaged President had worked this one, was, we had a flood of Chinese goods coming into the country. The goods were crafted with a labor index on the order of 10% of American rates. The quality of the goods used to manufacture the goods was probably on the order of 50% of American value. AND AS IF THAT WEREN’T ENOUGH, the geniuses in Washington provided either low or no tariffs to China. Anybody need me to tell them what all that caused?

The overwhelming impact on America was the obvious – jobs just magically disappeared, and not in small numbers. ALL – or 99% - of Mom & Pop stores, like hardware or 5 & Dime stores, just vanished. Chinese goods were SELLING for less than the Mom & Pops could BUY the same goods. Thus the rise of the super store – you know, the big barn of a store, no walls, no rooms, no sales people cause you just walk through that expanse and pick out your own purchase and take it to the cashier.

As mentioned above, the mantra of the 1980s was BUY AMERICA .- in the 00’s the new saying is HIRE AMERICAN. So, let’s see - how’s this for sticking together in America: In addition to the country’s trade laws skewing things so that Chinese manufacturers can sell their goods (made at labor costs 10% of ours) to American buyers, they EVEN grant Most Favored Nation status to eliminate any tariffs to China, et al !

Outrageous, huh? Oh, come on, you didn’t think this crowd would stop there, did you? Their next move was to make it favorable for companies in America to lower the labor cost of things that are manufactured right here, by a factor of 50%. But how can they do that? You can’t get a System Programmer who is used to $80 thousand a year to work for less. Sure you can. You just buy a Congressman or Senator, and ram through the new concept of Outsourcing. (They have a euphemism for everything, don’t they?)

So many Republican talking heads have praised the concept of Outsourcing I can’t even remember all of them. One of them, a female Congressperson, is memorable, however, because her statement was “…Outsourcing is good for America. It’s a new form of trade.”

ENTER THE GATEKEEPER

There are one or two impotent laws that are supposed to protect American workers. One states that jobs have to be advertised so that all job seekers have an equal opportunity to apply. (Kind of like competitive bidding for contracts, but we’ve seen how easily that concept was defeated, right?) The essence of that particular idea was that, Mr. Manufacturer won’t be able to hire a foreigner, at far less pay, unless he exhausts all the possible Americans looking for work.

Ah-h-h-h but, then there’s the Gatekeeper. What a smooth one this is. Who was it said, “…any law a man can craft, another man can defeat.” (Me, I guess.) All you have to do is advertise for your Systems Administrator, and stipulate that all resumes are to be sent to the Recruiting Company you have hired to do the actual recruiting. (Not the decision to hire, I said recruiting.) The recruiting company is given a list of the experience that all applicants must have, the educational requirements, etc. The Recruiting company then places the ads, and evaluates the resumes of applicants. Some of the resumes are inadequate in years of experience, or education, or whatever, and the recruiter rejects those.

Then those resumes that have everything asked for in the Job Order are forwarded to the Hiring manager. The hiring manager then proceeds to reject all of them for one reason or another, for whatever reasons. He doesn’t even tell the recruiter his reasons in most cases. Then the recruiting company either informs the applicant that his application was rejected (they call it “took a pass.’) or he arrogantly doesn’t even get back to the applicant, who reaches the conclusion he was rejected.

Oh- KAY. We’re having fun, now. Now the hiring manager for the big company says he is faced with the need to fill the position, but there’s no one available locally. Not to worry. He contacts his people in India, or wherever, and they fill the position in an hour.

Best of all – (you thought that was all of it, huh?) Best of all, in order to make it possible for the man from New Delhi to come to the US and take the job, there is the matter of a Visa. Not to worry. The same Congressman mentioned above, who was purchased to handle the Outsourcing caper, can handle the H1B visa matter.

Thus the Gatekeeper made it all work like clockwork. Nice, huh? So the end result is the big business sellers make tons of more profit by selling Chinese goods and American small companies are bankrupted. That’s big business 1, American people 0. Then other big business manufacturers are able to hire competent staff at 50c on the dollar, or less, than they would pay American staff. That’s big business 2, American people 0.

Finally, the big business hiring managers circumvent and make a mockery of American law crafted to protect the worker. That’s big business 3, American workers 0.

Three strikes and we’re out. Where is this kind of government headed?

Faithfully, in the interest of the American people
Bob