The Newest Banana Republic

If only we could grow bananas.

In the first decade of the 21st century, Detroit, Michigan, lost 25% of its population. Gary, Indiana, lost 22%. Flint, Michigan, lost 18%. Cleveland, Ohio, lost 17%. In St. Louis, Missouri, 19% of the housing is vacant. These population losses were not the result of the Black Plague or killer viruses or a nuclear attack. They were the result of corporate CEOs, pushed by their own greed, by the greed of Wall Street and that of large retailers such as Wal-Mart, aided and abetted by “our” government, into moving millions of manufacturing, software engineering, information technology, engineering, research, development, and design jobs offshore.

The process of moving American jobs offshore left cities, counties, and states with shrunken tax base.The resulting state and local budget deficits are being used to dismantle public sector unions and to cut social services. Public assets, such as water companies, and future income streams from parking meters, toll roads and bridges, are being sold off to foreign buyers in order to insure another year of local and state government solvency.

In the first decade of the 21st century, Americans lost 5,500,000 manufacturing jobs. US employment in the manufacture of computer and electronic products fell by 40%; in the production of machinery by 30%, in motor vehicles and and parts by 44%, and in the manufacture of clothing by 66%.

In other words, in ten years the US economy was decimated by jobs offshoring for the sole purpose of higher rewards to capital in the form of multi-million dollar executive bonuses and large shareholder capital gains.

[...]

With all income gains redirected to the financial and war sectors, the distribution of income in the US has become, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the worst of all developed countries. The Central Intelligence Agency--yes, the CIA--concluded that America had achieved not only the worst income distribution of all developed countries but also a worst income distribution than Brazil, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Bulgaria.

  Paul Craig Roberts

Please remember that Mr. Roberts is a conservative and an assistant treasurer of the US under Ronald Reagan.

And that income redistribution is the goal.  Mission Accomplished!   Income redistribution is only a commie idea if it's being redistributed downward.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.