03/26/2012
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Re: Allan Wall’s article Memo From Middle America| From Alabama To South Korea — The Treason Lobby Seeks To Intimidate Hyundai
From: Kathy Knechtges
I saw this coming clearly thirty years ago when Americans threw away a vast, wholly American-owned, auto industry. Each auto job created ten supporting jobs. These were among the best jobs that we had. We lost half of our middle class when we decided that all of our huge American manufacturing base was dispensable. Doing this was equivalent to taking billions of dollars and flushing it down the toilet every year. Nothing has replaced these jobs. The many new part-time retail and service jobs do not pay a living wage. As Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out — there went the ladders of upward mobility for much of our American working class.
Many conservatives were eager to punish the unions. Liberal environmentalists wanted to punish the car companies because gas prices are much lower here than in many other countries, and Americans prefer bigger vehicles. The South was eager to steal away business from the North by having workers that were free-riders on generations of union sacrifice, but made slightly less than unionized workers. The foreign transplants started competing factories with no legacy costs and no middle-aged workers. European and Japanese companies also benefited from having government paid health care for all of their workers in their native plants.
Many Americans saw a good deal here for themselves.
But they forgot that when you use a foreign competitor to punish a fellow American, you weaken our country.
The South just lost its economic independence. They have been overly colonized, and if their foreign paymasters ever decide to agree with the open borders advocates, just watch them buckle.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.