Posted by
Young Democrat on Monday, March 16, 2009 3:09:41 PM
While the major economic crisis we are dealing with as a country right now is the freezing of th credit market due to the bank's poor liquidity and poor asset value, the story really getting lost is the fact that many companies are using the credit crisis as an excuse to reap all the benafits of the American economy without any of the costs.
When looking at the huge economic boom during the 20th century, the strongest factor in all of it, was the Ford economic model. He thought that by paying his employees more than they were worth, he would make them fiscally solid and by extention (not to mention most important) customers. The bottom line that Ford saw was that by not trying to exploit his workers he actually helped his company by making sure more product would be sold.
It was brillant, brave and really the model for the best of the business world. Helping your employees and your bottom line and the same time. Yet, those days are over. Now, we look at employees as a burden rather than a help. The realtionship between employee and employer has never been so contentious. Certainly exceptions remain but the realtionship between boss and worker is more adversial than friendly.
Because of our "free markets" even a good employer as the Big Three and many more companies as well, can be impossible. In fact Toyota, Honda and all have made their product more competively priced because they pay their employees less, don't give them adequate health care, and have horrible retirement plans. Not to mention they are "at will" non-union employees meanining they can lose their job at any time for any or no reason at all. Then the public buys the cheaper car. That in turns hurts the companies that pay their employees well. Then you hear from the business community, politicos and the general public to lower wages, benefits and retirement plans in order to stay in business.
Anybody can see that eventually Ford, GM, Chrysler have done all of that and will probably have to do more. Yet, lost in all this talk is the fact that by lowering the worker's standard of living they are less likely to be able to buy A.) the product they make but also B.) the product/service offered by the chattering class. And while I've focused on the automobile industry the same old song is being played across the country in every industry be it production or service.
And while everybody's yelling and pointing to the basic economic math that, yes, you can make a product or provide a service for less money, you also make sure the standard of living across this country goes down and down and down. It's a race to see who can truly win this country's race to the bottom.