By Michael Snyder: The
stock market may be soaring to unprecedented heights, but things just
continue to get even tougher for the middle class. In this economic
environment, there is intense competition for virtually all kinds of
jobs. For example, more than 1,600 applications were recently submitted
for just 36 jobs at an ice cream plant in Hagerstown, Maryland. That
means that those applying have about a 2 percent chance of being hired.
About 98 percent of the applicants will be turned away. That is how
tough things are in many areas of the country today. It is now more
than five years after the great financial crash of 2008, and the level
of employment in the United States is still almost exactly where it was at
during the worst moments of the last recession. And this is just the
beginning. The next major financial crash is rapidly approaching, and
once it strikes our employment crisis is going to get much, much worse.
Working at an ice cream plant does not pay very well. But at least it beats flipping burgers or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart. And in this economy, there is no shortage of desperate workers that are willing to take just about any job that they can find. The following is how a Breitbart article described the flood of applications that were received for just 36 positions at an ice cream plant owned by Shenandoah Family Farms in Hagerstown, Maryland...
Of course most Americans are not fooled by the propaganda being put out by the mainstream media. According to a recent CNN poll, 70 percent of all Americans believe that "the economy is generally in poor shape".
And according to another survey, the economy is still the #1 concern for American voters by a good margin and unemployment is still the #2 concern for American voters by a good margin.
In other words, "It's the economy, stupid!"
The American people can see that mid-wage jobs are disappearing and that the middle class is being systematically eviscerated. The following is a short excerpt from a recent Business Insider article...
And this is just the beginning of the decline of the middle class. Another great financial crisis is rapidly approaching, and once it arrives things are going to get much worse than they are right now.
A number of very prominent experts believe that this next great financial crisis could begin in 2014. For example, in a recent article entitled "Top Ten Trends 2014: A Year of Extremes", Gerald Celente warned that "an economic shock wave" could hit the United States by the middle of the year. Here are some excerpts from that article...
-"In 33 years of forecasting trends, the Trends Research Institute has never seen a new year that will witness severe economic hardship and social unrest on one hand, and deep philosophic enlightenment and personal enrichment on the other. A series of dynamic socioeconomic and transformative geopolitical trend points are aligning in 2014 to ring in the worst and best of times."
-"Such unforeseeable factors aside, we forecast that around March, or by the end of the second quarter of 2014, an economic shock wave will rattle the world equity markets."
-"Nearly half of the requests for emergency assistance to stave off hunger or homelessness comes from people with full-time jobs. As government safety nets are pulled out from under them – as they will continue to be for the foreseeable future – the citizens of Slavelandia will have no recourse but action."
You can read the rest of that article right here.
And according to the Wall Street Journal, United-ICAP chief market technician Walter Zimmerman in convinced that 2014 will mark the beginning of a massive stock market decline. In fact, he believes that over the next couple of years it could fall by more than 70 percent...
Source
How the U.S. Employs Overseas Sweatshops to Produce Government Uniforms
By Michael Krieger: The following article from the New York Times is extraordinarily important as it perfectly highlights the incredible hypocrisy of the U.S. government when it comes to overseas slave labor and human rights. While the Obama Administration (and the ones that came before it) publicly espouse self-important platitudes about our dedication to humanitarianism, when it comes down to practicing what we preach, our government fails miserably and is directly responsible for immense human suffering.
Let’s get down to some facts. The U.S. government is one of the largest buyers of clothing from overseas factories at over $1.5 billion per year. To start, considering our so-called “leaders” are supposedly so concerned about the state of the U.S. economy, why aren’t we spending the money here at home at U.S. factories? If we don’t have the capacity, why don’t we build the capacity? After all, if we need the uniforms anyway, and it is at the taxpayers expense, wouldn’t it make sense to at least ensure production at home and create some jobs? If a private business wants to produce overseas that’s fine, but you’d think the government would be a little more interested in boosting domestic industry.
However, the above is just a minor issue. Not only does the U.S. government spend most of its money for clothing at overseas factories, but it employs some of the most egregious human rights abusers in the process. Child labor, beatings, restrictions on bathroom brakes, padlocked exits and much more is routine practice at these factories. Even worse, in the few instances in which the government is required to actually use U.S. labor, they just contract with prisons for less than $2 per hour using domestic slave labor. Then, when questions start to get asked, government agencies actually go out of their way to keep the factory lists out of the public’s eye, even going so far as denying requests when pressed for information by members of Congress.
Sadly, as usual, at the end of the day this is all about profits and money. Money government officials will claim is being saved by the taxpayer, but in reality is just being funneled to well connected bureaucrats.
From the New York Times:
WASHINGTON — One of the world’s biggest clothing buyers, the United States government spends more than $1.5 billion a year at factories overseas, acquiring everything from the royal blue shirts worn by airport security workers to the olive button-downs required for forest rangers and the camouflage pants sold to troops on military bases.
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Mike
Source
X art by WB7
Working at an ice cream plant does not pay very well. But at least it beats flipping burgers or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart. And in this economy, there is no shortage of desperate workers that are willing to take just about any job that they can find. The following is how a Breitbart article described the flood of applications that were received for just 36 positions at an ice cream plant owned by Shenandoah Family Farms in Hagerstown, Maryland...
Thanks to persistent unemployment and low availability of low-skill jobs, Shenandoah Family Farms’ ice cream plant in Hagerstown, Maryland has received over 1,600 applicants for a grand total of 36 jobs. Many of those applicants are former workers at the Good Humor plant that was bought by Shenandoah Family Farms. “You’d think that after 20-some-years working someplace at least somebody would think you area a good person, that you’d show up on time every day, and that would be worth something,” Luther Brooks, a 50-year-old former worker at the plant told the Washington Post. “I can’t get nothing. I’ve tried.”Anyone that believes that the economic crisis is "over" is just being delusional. It may be "over" for the boys and girls that work on Wall Street, but even their good times are only temporary.
Of course most Americans are not fooled by the propaganda being put out by the mainstream media. According to a recent CNN poll, 70 percent of all Americans believe that "the economy is generally in poor shape".
And according to another survey, the economy is still the #1 concern for American voters by a good margin and unemployment is still the #2 concern for American voters by a good margin.
In other words, "It's the economy, stupid!"
The American people can see that mid-wage jobs are disappearing and that the middle class is being systematically eviscerated. The following is a short excerpt from a recent Business Insider article...
A startling number of middle-class jobs may be headed toward extinction.As mid-wage jobs disappear, they are being replaced by low wage jobs. As I mentioned yesterday, one recent study found that about 60 percent of the jobs that have been "created" since the end of the last recession pay $13.83 or less an hour.
More than any other job class, mid-level positions have struggled to recover from the recession, and only a quarter of jobs created in the past three years are categorized as mid-wage. There are high-skilled professional jobs that require college degrees and low-skilled service jobs for less educated workers, but the middle is getting squeezed.
And this is just the beginning of the decline of the middle class. Another great financial crisis is rapidly approaching, and once it arrives things are going to get much worse than they are right now.
A number of very prominent experts believe that this next great financial crisis could begin in 2014. For example, in a recent article entitled "Top Ten Trends 2014: A Year of Extremes", Gerald Celente warned that "an economic shock wave" could hit the United States by the middle of the year. Here are some excerpts from that article...
-"In 33 years of forecasting trends, the Trends Research Institute has never seen a new year that will witness severe economic hardship and social unrest on one hand, and deep philosophic enlightenment and personal enrichment on the other. A series of dynamic socioeconomic and transformative geopolitical trend points are aligning in 2014 to ring in the worst and best of times."
-"Such unforeseeable factors aside, we forecast that around March, or by the end of the second quarter of 2014, an economic shock wave will rattle the world equity markets."
-"Nearly half of the requests for emergency assistance to stave off hunger or homelessness comes from people with full-time jobs. As government safety nets are pulled out from under them – as they will continue to be for the foreseeable future – the citizens of Slavelandia will have no recourse but action."
You can read the rest of that article right here.
And according to the Wall Street Journal, United-ICAP chief market technician Walter Zimmerman in convinced that 2014 will mark the beginning of a massive stock market decline. In fact, he believes that over the next couple of years it could fall by more than 70 percent...
In what may be the bearish call to end all bearish calls, one technician believes 2014 will be the year of “major reversals,” with the Dow Jones Industrial Average expected to start a two-year decline that could eventually take it down more than 70% to below 5000.If his forecast is correct, it will make what happened in 2008 look like a Sunday picnic...
“Based on our longer-term time cycles the present stock market rally must be considered the bubble to end all bubbles,” Mr. Zimmerman wrote in a note to clients.So what do you think the rest of 2014 will bring?
He doesn’t believe the Dow Industrials will hit a long-term cycle low until 2016, somewhere in the 5770 to 4650 range. The Dow hasn’t seen those levels, which are 65% to 72% below current prices, since late-1995 to mid-1996.
Source
How the U.S. Employs Overseas Sweatshops to Produce Government Uniforms
By Michael Krieger: The following article from the New York Times is extraordinarily important as it perfectly highlights the incredible hypocrisy of the U.S. government when it comes to overseas slave labor and human rights. While the Obama Administration (and the ones that came before it) publicly espouse self-important platitudes about our dedication to humanitarianism, when it comes down to practicing what we preach, our government fails miserably and is directly responsible for immense human suffering.
Let’s get down to some facts. The U.S. government is one of the largest buyers of clothing from overseas factories at over $1.5 billion per year. To start, considering our so-called “leaders” are supposedly so concerned about the state of the U.S. economy, why aren’t we spending the money here at home at U.S. factories? If we don’t have the capacity, why don’t we build the capacity? After all, if we need the uniforms anyway, and it is at the taxpayers expense, wouldn’t it make sense to at least ensure production at home and create some jobs? If a private business wants to produce overseas that’s fine, but you’d think the government would be a little more interested in boosting domestic industry.
However, the above is just a minor issue. Not only does the U.S. government spend most of its money for clothing at overseas factories, but it employs some of the most egregious human rights abusers in the process. Child labor, beatings, restrictions on bathroom brakes, padlocked exits and much more is routine practice at these factories. Even worse, in the few instances in which the government is required to actually use U.S. labor, they just contract with prisons for less than $2 per hour using domestic slave labor. Then, when questions start to get asked, government agencies actually go out of their way to keep the factory lists out of the public’s eye, even going so far as denying requests when pressed for information by members of Congress.
Sadly, as usual, at the end of the day this is all about profits and money. Money government officials will claim is being saved by the taxpayer, but in reality is just being funneled to well connected bureaucrats.
From the New York Times:
WASHINGTON — One of the world’s biggest clothing buyers, the United States government spends more than $1.5 billion a year at factories overseas, acquiring everything from the royal blue shirts worn by airport security workers to the olive button-downs required for forest rangers and the camouflage pants sold to troops on military bases.
But even though the Obama administration
has called on Western buyers to use their purchasing power to push for
improved industry working conditions after several workplace disasters
over the last 14 months, the American government has done little to
adjust its own shopping habits.
Labor
Department officials say that federal agencies have “zero tolerance”
for using overseas plants that break local laws, but American government
suppliers in countries including Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic,
Haiti, Mexico, Pakistan and Vietnam show a pattern of legal violations
and harsh working conditions, according to audits and interviews at
factories. Among them: padlocked fire exits,
buildings at risk of collapse, falsified wage records and repeated hand
punctures from sewing needles when workers were pushed to hurry up.
In
Bangladesh, shirts with Marine Corps logos sold in military stores were
made at DK Knitwear, where child laborers made up a third of the work
force, according to a 2010 audit that led some vendors to cut ties with the plant. Managers
punched workers for missed production quotas, and the plant had no
functioning alarm system despite previous fires, auditors said. Many of the problems remain, according to another audit this year and recent interviews with workers.
At Zongtex Garment Manufacturing in Phnom
Penh, Cambodia, which makes clothes sold by the Army and Air Force, an
audit conducted this year found nearly two dozen under-age workers, some
as young as 15. Several of them described in interviews with The New
York Times how they were instructed to hide from inspectors.
“Sometimes people soil themselves at their sewing machines,” one worker said, because of restrictions on bathroom breaks.
And there is no law prohibiting the federal government from buying clothes produced overseas under unsafe or abusive conditions.
Why am I not surprised…
“It doesn’t exist for the exact same
reason that American consumers still buy from sweatshops,” said Daniel
Gordon, a former top federal procurement official who now works at
George Washington University Law School. “The government cares most
about getting the best price.”
Labor and State Department officials have
encouraged retailers to participate in strengthening rules on factory
conditions in Bangladesh — home to one of the largest and most dangerous
garment industries. But
defense officials this month helped kill a legislative measure that
would have required military stores, which last year made more than $485
million in profit, to comply with such rules because they said the
$500,000 annual cost was too expensive.
As usual, it is all about the money. You think
average Americans are seeing any of that massive profit? Believe me,
someone is and it’s not you.
At
Manta Apparels, for example, which makes uniforms for the General
Services Administration, employees said beatings are common and fire
exits are kept chained except when auditors visit. The
local press has described Manta as one of the most repressive factories
in the country. A top labor advocate, Aminul Islam, was organizing there
in 2010 when he was first arrested by the police and tortured. In April
2012, he was found dead, a hole drilled below his right knee and his ankles crushed.
Conditions like those are possible partly
because American government agencies usually do not know which factories
supply their goods or are reluctant to reveal them. Soon after a fire killed at least 112 people at the Tazreen Fashions factory in Bangladesh in
November 2012, several members of Congress asked various agencies for
factory addresses. Of the seven agencies her office contacted,
Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York, said only the
Department of the Interior turned over its list.
Federal officials still have to navigate a tangle of rules.
Defense officials, for instance, who spend roughly $2 billion annually
on military uniforms, are required by a World War II-era rule called
the Berry Amendment to
have most of them made in the United States. In recent years, Congress
has pressured defense officials to cut costs on uniforms. Increasingly,
the department has turned to federal prisons, where wages are under $2
per hour. Federal inmates this year stitched more than $100 million
worth of military uniforms.
The Marine Corps and Navy still do not
require audits of these factories. The Air Force and Army exchanges do,
but the audits can come from retailers, and defense officials fail to do
routine spot checks to confirm their accuracy.
The Marine Corps and Navy still do not
require audits of these factories. The Air Force and Army exchanges do,
but the audits can come from retailers, and defense officials fail to do
routine spot checks to confirm their accuracy.
For now, Bangladesh’s garment sector
continues to grow, as do purchases from one of its bulk buyers. In the
year since Tazreen burned down, American military stores have shipped
even more clothes from Bangladesh.
This is the human equivalent of factory farming
and every decent American citizen should be appalled that this is
happening on multiple levels. Please share this post to raise awareness.Full article here.
In Liberty,
Mike
Source
X art by WB7
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