Seriously! South China News reports that the dirty rotten greedy heartless scoundrels that are U.S. and Europe's corporate executives are lamenting slave minimum wage pay increases in China.
The prospect of workers in China making a whopping 900 Yuan per month ($132 U.S. Dollars), for God knows how many hours of work and under what conditions, has actually frightened the overpaid, undertaxed greedy bastards otherwise known as CEO's.
UPDATE: Thanks for all the birthday greetings. For clarification, I do realize we still make stuff consumer goods in America. I resorted to hyperbole. And I've been told my claim, which I pulled out of my ass, that we manufacture more stuff consumer goods elsewhere is false. My bad. As I explained to DocGonzo in the comments, "if I'd known this diary was going to make the rec list, I would have put more effort into it!"
First they outsource most of the middle class wage manufacturing jobs to China in order to exploit the most desperate people in the world by rendering them slaves while pretending to employ them for their own benefit. Then, when pay starts to creep up above bare subsistence levels, they become "extremely worried".
These executives, at least a large portion of them, must be sociopaths. They simply do not care about human beings. They do not care about the environment. They do not care about the future for our children. They do not care how many people die by way of starvation, industrial accidents, cancer, lung disease, etc, so long as it serves their intersts. They care about two things: Their own personal exorbitant compensation, and profits for their shareholders.
Upton Sinclair's "Jungle" is alive and well, although it has mostly been outsourced to Asia.
According to a survey of major US and European corporations published this week by Credit Suisse, 40 per cent of executives are either "very worried" or "extremely worried" by rising wages in China
Why would U.S. executives fret about rising labor costs in China? Wouldn't that make U.S. manufactured goods more competitive? Yes, it would – if U.S corporations actually manufactured stuff in America. Unfortunately, most of the goods produced by U.S. corporations are manufactured outside of America. So if China's labor costs increases, it hurts the profits of U.S. companies that are manufacturing in China, and it hurts companies like Walmart, which provides "value" to its customers by demanding that suppliers seek out and enslave the least advantaged people on the planet.
Think about it. We've reached the point where we manufacture so little here, and so much elsewhere, that domestic corporate executives are distressed about the prospect of manufacturing in China becoming less competitive vis a vis U.S. manufacturing because of rising labor costs. Read that again, and fathom how completely sick that proposition is.
manufacturing wages have risen steeply over recent years, climbing from around 5 per cent of US factory pay in the early years of the last decade to 11 per cent today. But worker productivity has risen just as fast, with factory output per hour worked climbing from 10 per cent of US levels to more than 20 per cent in 2009.
As a result, although wages have increased steeply, according to Goldman Sachs, unit labour costs in China were actually lower last year than they were in 2001. In other words, Chinese manufacturing industry has become more, not less, competitive.
How dare workers expect to benefit from increased productivity? Ungrateful bastards! They should be happy to have a job working 70 hours a week for 5 or 6 dollars per day.
Maybe I'm just jet-lagged and cranky because I'm 50 years old today. When I find myself wishing I shared Jerome a Paris' optimism, it's time for a trip to the shrink. I'm not worried about my own retirement, but I can't shake the feeling that by the time my kids reach retirement age, unrestrained capitalism and prodigious corporate influence on public policy will have led this country, and the world, into total dystopia.