Replies to post #292745 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Alex G]

so there's supposedly a boost in "executive hiring", meanwhile the middle class and lower class gets "outsourced"

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript334_full.html#dobbs

"The power of big business over our national life has never been greater. Never have there been fewer business leaders willing to commit to the national interest over the selfish interest, to the good of the company over that of the company's they head."

The absence of a countervailing influence, countervailing political influence to the power of corporate America. Lobbyists, think tanks, across the board, the power of corporate America is unparalleled in Washington DC.

MOYERS: But isn't it an economic fact that people whose skills are obsolete or who don't seek the requisite education and training will be left behind in the world's changing markets? A world that Adam Smith and David Ricardo never could imagine.

DOBBS: I think that that is probably a fair statement. But not necessarily relevant to outsourcing. They're not sending those jobs overseas because the labor force in this country is not capable of conducting a business operation of actually doing those jobs. Not because they have an inferior education.

They're doing so because they, the financial institution, can pay cents on the dollar for labor in India, or the Philippines, or Romania and have to pay a living wage that provides a meaningful improvement in the quality of life for an American employee. And that's damnable to me. Do you remember through the 1980's and the 1990's when you heard corporate leaders and some of the best management consultants in the world talking about the empowerment of the employee. The importance of empowerment to provide the basis for innovation. The importance of having a happy, satisfied, educated, striving, aspirational employee in order to drive the successful corporation. That talk has disappeared.

Corporate America through its own devices over the course of the past decade has created an adversarial relationship between the employee and the corporate leaders. And that's unfortunate. And so, yes, I think you not only can be sentimental, and I think there's room for it, but in driving a business you have a responsibility to a variety of stakeholders.

You have a responsibility not only to your investors, you have a responsibility to the marketplace, you have a responsibility to your customers, to the community in which you work. You have a responsibility to the country that makes your business possible in the first place...