Sunday, July 29, 2012

"Don't call it a comeback...." ~ LL Cool J

I've been gone a little while. I've had company. First our favorite niece and her three kids (ages 14, 4 and 2). Fun times! A week of laughs, reminiscing and chasing the 2 year old who was chasing the "PUPPY!!!"

Then our oldest son, our daughter-in-law and our two granddaughters came for a week. Lots of hugs, laughs and water park fun!

Unfortunately, toward the end of their visit, I caught a chest cold that I'm still fighting and I feel like I'm on the losing end of that fight. It just keeps hanging on.

But, I'm back. Sort of. I don't feel very creative, but I find myself being pissed off a lot, mostly about politics and politicians who are completely tone deaf to the life and struggles of the average American family.

I really shouldn't watch political programs, but I'm addicted to yelling at the television.

My favorite program is Up with Chris Hayes (Saturday and Sunday mornings on MSNBC).  They really try to promote intelligent conversation. Sometimes the conversations are quite revealing.

Somewhere in between the family visits, Tom and I sat down on a weekend morning to watch a segment of the Chris Hayes program. One of the panel guests was Edward Conard, a former Bain Capital partner and author of a book titled "Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong," which, according to the Amazon.com book description, basically blames the victims of the economic meltdown (you know, us) for the economic meltdown.

At one point, Chris Hayes asked Conard to make his case off-shoring and moving jobs out of a high wage market like the United States to low-wage markets like China and India. When Conard stammered for an answer, Chris Hayes read an excerpt from Conard's book....

"Let's not kid ourselves about just how cheap off-shore labor really is. We not only pay substantially less per hour, we also avoid the costs we would incur if these workers immigrated here. We don't pay for their medical expenses when they show up in the emergency room without insurance. We don't pay for their pension costs if they don't save for retirement. We don't pay for their children's public education. Nor do we pay for their out-of-wedlock children, their unemployment benefits and workers compensation, their slip and fall torts, their wear and tear on our public infrastructure, and the cost of their drunk driving, drug use and other crimes. We outsource pollution, its adverse effects on our health and its cleanup costs. Neither the employees nor their employers are here to vote and seek political handouts."
Just reading this again makes me want to punch somebody.

First of all, he admits that even if they didn't ship jobs off-shore, they wouldn't hire from our pool of unemployed citizens. Instead they would tap the immigrants who will work for next to nothing.

Bain Capital doesn't want to contribute to health care, retirement, public education and public infrastructure. You know, those things we all pay for when we pay taxes. Apparently, they don't want to be a tax-paying entity.

Nor is Bain interested in contributing to unemployment benefits or workers compensation and other employee benefits provided by law.

And heaven forbid that Bain would be held responsible for pollution created by their company. They'd rather pollute another part of the world, which of course impacts us in the long run.

And, of course, they do not want their employers and employees to be able to vote because after all they may vote for representatives who just might pass legislation or regulations that might require Bain Capital to pay their fair share of taxes and comply with employment regulations.

I haven't read Conard's book. And, given the arrogant tone of the paragraph, I can assure you I won't ever read it  because I would feel the need to take a shower if I were to contribute one dime to Conard's income. His demeaning view of people as drunk driving, drug using, promiscuous, law-suit filing freeloaders is sickening. And given that he and his partners would rape another country and it's workers without regard or remorse for the working conditions and environmental impact is simply despicable.

That Mitt Romney, the current Republican presidential nominee, was/is a Bain Capital partner with Conard is too close for comfort for me and it should be for anyone.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen!!!!

Gravel Gertie

Anonymous said...

I've been without my Tao for too long. Welcome back.