Why are we becoming a country that makes nothing? Why are manufacturing jobs moving elsewhere? Jobs that the so-called working man needs.
Here’s my enemy list for the working man.
1. Al Gore and the environmentalists. They had a grand vision of this country being smokeless. They attack all manufacturing plants, all smoke stacks, and all forms of energy needed to run manufacturing. They are winning. Jobs are being lost to their crusades.
2. Tax policy in this country. When manufacturing plants have one of the highest income tax rates of anywhere in the world, it makes it hard to compete.
3. Labor unions. Their greed and work rules destroyed the auto industry. They have run other industries out of the country.
4. Government regulation. No country in the world regulates industry more than the US. Regulations cost money. Money that piles on labor costs, tax bills, regulatory costs, energy costs, and other disadvantages placed on US manufacturing.
5. Free trade. It’s hard to compete with China where a worker makes a dollar a day. The hope that China will be a market for US products that overcomes the imported goods that are priced based on cheap labor, less regulation, lower taxes, and cheap energy. Sorry, working man, you will never win on this playing field.
6. The idea that finance will replace manufacturing in this country and that growth will balance out the jobs lost by manufacturing. That happened, then the housing bubble hit and wiped out the jobs in finance. Plus, financial institutions don’t hire working men. Or, few at best. We were going to retrain the workforce and integrate them into finance. Never happened.
7. Education and training. Our failing educational system produces far too many high school dropouts. Most manufacturing hiring came from high school graduates who got some technical training to work in manufacturing. We have too few technical job training sites because there are far too few jobs for those graduates to get.
So, working man with no job and no prospects look around. The enemies are mostly those you see as friends. Your government, especially Democrats who purport to be on your side are supporting most of the actions on the enemy list. Over zealous environmental regulation, regulation in general, labor unions, China, the educational status quo, high taxes on business, Wall Street, and your other enemies.
Wake up. The Democrats have done far more than the Republicans to limit your job prospects.