I warned just a few weeks ago that Phil Gramm (favorite to become treasury secretary if PaCain wins) was still directing McCain’s economic mouth. There is not greater evidence of that than recent McCain’s nonsensical statement that the ‘fundamentals of the American economy are strong’.
That kind of out-of-touch reassurance sounds very much like Gramm’s statement that the economic recession is nothing but a figment of the imagination, and that Americans have become a nation of whiners. This shows that both men are severely out of touch.
The to top it all, McCain tries to correct his disastrous slipped lip by claiming that by fundamentals, he meant the American worker. But even that is fraught with trouble considering how fast Americans are losing their jobs. I am distraught as anyone ought to be when anyone loses a job in this economy. The exceptions of course being George Bush, Dick Cheney, a host of white House psycho-phants and neo-cons, many, many Fortune 500 executives, Sarah Palin (as nominated VP) and John McCain (nominated presidential candidate).
As McCain was speaking about workers, thousands were being laid off on Wall St. Granted we might not feel much sympathy for these overpaid brokers and analysts, but the fallout won’t be limited to just them.
But PaCain’s ‘worker-thingy sympathy’ caused me to look up a talking point I had recently filed away. This had to do with the World Bank 2009 rankings of the best-worst countries for starting a new business. These rankings are based on the criteria of how quick and inexpensive it is to startup, paying taxes, business or property registration, construction permits, bankruptcy recovery, costs of importing and exporting, and flexible labour regulation.
Flexible labour regulation translates as to how easy or difficult/costly it is to terminate employees. In this, the United States can proudly claim to be #1, because it leads the world in the ability to hire and fire workers, where dismissal costs nothing… not even a conscience.
By the way, about six of the top 10 countries have this kind of aaaah, ‘flexible labour laws’ (aka firing your ass with just a smile to go with it)… that shows you how important this criterion is, and why this country is finally a world leader. The top 3 are Singapore, New Zealand and US in bronze position.
The bottom 10 are mostly from Africa. Interestingly, what many of these ‘bottom dwellers’ have in common is strong labour regulation. This includes Venezuela @175 out of 181, because Venezuela ‘has some of the strictest labour laws in the world’. Employers can’t dismiss workers without good cause.
Jamaica is @63/181, behind St Lucia @34, Puerto Rico, Antigua and Barbuda, and Bahamas. Its clear that Jamaica’s strong labour laws is an ‘impediment’. With China and New Zealand with a high rank of 0 in the Rigidity of Employment Index, Jamaica has a 4. The cost of firing an employee in New Zealand, China and the United States is $0, but it costs $62.00 (compensation, etc) to do so in Jamaica.
I hope that I’m not misleading you because I failed Charts, Graphs and Statistics 101… but all is not lost. Go to http://www.reason.com/news/show/123369.html and you can have the masochistic fun you want.
But the point is that when John McCain cries tears for American workers, those are all crocodile, my friend. McCain as far as I know, as never been against the export of jobs, nor for increasing the minimum wage, or any worker friendly legislation. The only reason he seems to have a ‘liberal’ immigration policy, is to supply cheap units to the national unskilled and low-skilled workforce.
But trust me, when low paid senators and corporate ceo’s start climbing that border fence, trust me, McCain’s protectionist shield will be raised.
Its already PaCain’s stated objective to give more tax breaks to the rich while soaking the 90+% below his class. And in his extremely privileged life, it doesn’t worry him very much that he lost count of how many homes he has, while around him many are losing the only ones they can count on.
So it’s not surprising that in this current crisis, McCain’s only idea is to form a co-mmit-tee. Many have long asked why is it that in bad times, companies like Merrill Lynch and Lehman want taxpayer-funded crash programmes, but always resist opening their books to public scrutiny. Phil Gramm (yes, him again) is one of the architects of the ‘don’t show, don’t tell’ deregulation of that sector. So it is no surprise that McCain follows the same lead. The blind leading the blind.
Give the idea of regulation of these companies to a McCain-formed committee and it will die a quick death… “The Committee is dead, long live corporate malfeasance”.
McCain is and will always be a stooge for corporations. And he will always be diametrically opposed to anything that threatens the well-being of the corporate heads. Once he has your votes, he will stay as far away from you as George Bush did from New Orleans after Katrina.
