The United States has slipped further down a global ranking of the world’s most competitive economies, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) survey released on Wednesday.
The world’s largest economy, which was placed 5th last year, fell two positions to the 7th spot – marking its fourth year of decline.
A lack of macroeconomic stability, the business community’s continued mistrust of the government and concerns over its fiscal health were some of the reasons for the downgrade, according to the annual survey.
“We have first raised a dust and then complain that we cannot see.” – George Berkeley
As long as we have an administration that supports forced unionization and increased unionization we will continue to fall. Why have so many jobs gone overseas? COSTS. What do unions do, drive up costs. What have they done for the American worker in the last 25 years? A socialist system will never have the output and economic growth of a capitalist system. The Whitehouse doesn’t seem to notice that.
#2, our economy needs people to spend money to keep it going and growing. Most American businesses try to staff on a shoestring and will pay the lowest wages that they can justify. Then these same powers-that-be complain because Americans aren’t spending. You can’t have it both ways.
American workers need some means of protections or, as we have seen, companies will run roughshod over them. These same companies have no qualms about picking up their marbles and taking them overseas if they don’t get their way, as well. It’s not as if the average worker has his or her choice of jobs these days and can simply bail to far-off lands for a better deal. Increasingly, they’re stuck, and consider themselves lucky if they have any job at all.
Unions need to come back — refined, less greedy, but stronger. Too many good workers are falling through the cracks because everything is stacked on the side of business. My son’s story is a cautionary tale:
His wallet was stolen about a year and a half ago. He canceled everything and got new cards, etc., and didn’t think about it after that. He just left college and has been interviewing for jobs. He was offered a decent one, part-time but he thought it could become full-time and he signs the offer. He signs off on the background check and does the drug test. He’s waiting to start orientation and calls to see what the holdup is. They’re waiting on the results of the background check.
To make a long story short, he is informed that he won’t be hired and they won’t tell him why but they gave him the name of the background check company. He finds out there’s a warrant for his arrest (!) for riding a bicycle on a sidewalk in his college town. First off, he doesn’t own a bicycle. Secondly, he never got any sort of notification that this was happening so he could clear it up. As soon as he found out, he called and explained that they must have made an error or stopped the person who stole his wallet and is apparently using his ID. He asked for a ticket number, docket number, anything, and they said they didn’t have to provide that.
So, I’m going back with him to that city to meet with the DA and try to clear this up. They want him to pay the fine. He gets a letter yesterday that they already sent it to collections so now it’s on his credit report, too. He says he will NOT pay the fine and he will request a jury trial. Even if he had $250, why should he pay that? He doesn’t own a bike and hasn’t since he was 16. The job is gone –they needed to hire someone else in the meantime. On top of that, he has student loans he has to repay and no job.
If we were rich or at least solidly middle class, we could have paid whatever it took to make this all go away quickly. We’re not and we can’t. Unions lobby the government on behalf of workers to try to make employment laws fair. They’re no longer fair. Every single job requires a background check now. What kind of country bars a young person from employment over a fictitious charge of riding a bicycle on a sidewalk? Ours. Oh, but they said it wasn’t the misdemeanor, it was the failure to appear in court. How can you appear in court when you don’t even know that there’s a ticket and warrant in your name?
This is what we’ve become. As more and more workers get trapped in these sorts of situations, it’s going to boil over. All of the power is on the side of business. Even the politicians are beholden to them because of campaign contributions. It isn’t healthy and it will blow up.
“The world’s largest economy, which was placed 5th last year, fell two positions to the 7th spot – marking its fourth year of decline.”
No let me see – are we better off today than 4 years’ ago?
A friend wants told me America is the only place in the world that average people argue and demand protection for the rich and the powerful. How on earth did unions ever become the bad guys? Bonhoeffer once said history cannot be rightly understood until it can be seen through eyes of the poor. Is not that the message of the cross of Jesus.
RE: “Unions lobby the government on behalf of workers to try to make employment laws fair. They’re no longer fair.”
Um, I’m not certain how a case of stolen identity has anything at all to do with “employment laws.” Somebody stole his identity and went out and caused trouble and now your son is carrying the consequences of that stolen identity crime. It’s bad luck — but it’s happened to tons of people before and it will again, without the slightest assistance from employment unions.
RE: “Every single job requires a background check now.”
Not true — the only thing I’ve ever had a background check for is for volunteer work with SAR — and I’ve had many many jobs and am likely to have many more. No background checks.
RE: “What kind of country bars a young person from employment over a fictitious charge of riding a bicycle on a sidewalk?”
None — but there are [i]companies[/i] out there who bar a young person from employment over having an uncleared warrant out for his arrest.
RE: “average people argue and demand protection for the rich and the powerful.”
[Constitutional] protection, that is.
As a non-member of the Evil One Percent, thank goodness “the poor” still have an interest in limited government and limited central planning, and justice and constitutional protection for all, even The Wicked Rich.
RE: “Most American businesses try to staff on a shoestring and will pay the lowest wages that they can justify.”
Precisely so — staff on a shoestring and pay the lowest wages that they can *justify* and still keep good workers in a competitive environment — that’s what I recommend to my corporate clients anyway.
RE: “Then these same powers-that-be complain because Americans aren’t spending. You can’t have it both ways.”
I have no clients who are complaining about lack of consumer spending. Since almost all of them love Dave Ramsey, quite the opposite. We should have less consumer spending, not more, less debt, not more.
Our economy will do just fine once the horrendous weight of excess regulations, central planning subsidies and mandates, excess consumer and government debt, massive tax load, Obamacare, and bloated government size gets flushed out of our system.
Until then, my corporate clients and hopefully many other corporations will still hold onto their capital in order to pay for all of the future unexpected silly and stifling demands of our government overlords.
RE: “None—but there are [i]companies[/i] out there who bar a young person from employment over having an uncleared warrant out for his arrest.
I should add that the two main reasons why companies can demand and get background checks from potential employees is when 1) the cost of having Crazy Lawless Employee is far greater than the cost of not filling the position and 2) when there are more good solid prospects for such positions than positions. In such cases, businesses can easily ask for and receive background checks with draconian rules and policies in place for when a prospect does not have a completely pure-as-the-driven-snow report.
Actually, Sarah, we discovered yesterday when he went to deal with this at the courthouse that it wasn’t due to his stolen wallet. It was due to a corrupt individual and a system that shoots first and asks questions later. No file, no report, no contact, nothing. How on Earth a warrant could be issued over something like that is ludicrous. I won’t detail further because I’m sure you’d spin it on behalf of the PTB and because he’ll likely be suing, besides.
It’s weird how among so many people and institutions in this country, it’s only money or status that buys access, resolution, and justice. Folks like us can’t afford to have attorneys and consultants at the ready. No doubt, if we had power, standing, and/or money, there wouldn’t have been a warrant. If a ticket came in with one of our names on it, a well-placed phone call would have been made and it would have been resolved before it got to the starting gate.
Same on the business front. You must live in a special place, Sarah, because every job my son has applied for since leaving school, including the most mundane restaurant and retail job, has required a background check. His friends have reported the same thing. However, if you already have power and standing or come from a family which does, then I’m sure the background check is waived. And that was precisely my point.
People with money, businesses and contacts have people like you making straight their paths, Sarah. Most other people do not. I’m just a former editor and schoolteacher who doesn’t begrudge the elites hiring their lawyers and “consultants,” but I don’t understand why they, on the other hand, begrudge the common people having an organization on their side. Yep, the interests can sometimes compete but they only seem to mind competition if it doesn’t benefit themselves. It’s quite sorry when the elites actually bank on common folks not having the access, knowledge and support they need to defend their own interests. Personally, I’d want to win and thrive on a level playing field, honorably, and not by beating others down or keeping them in a position of disadvantage.
The unions are weak or non-existent. And now a labyrinth of job application requirements for even low-level jobs is used to keep the rabble at bay. This isn’t about keeping out crazies; it’s about keeping the large numbers of job seekers busy and hopeful and to keep up the appearance of a fair system of equal opportunity without bias, strings-pulling or patronage.
But, that’s fine. We all know the score and can wave and wink at each other on occasion from across the growing chasm that divides the elites from the others. When it all melts down, as it will sooner or later, the elites should have their foreign relocation plans firmly in place and the commoners must be well-versed in survival skills and the shadow/secondary economies that are already coming into play.
Because when you set up a system by which no common applicant whose report, for whatever reason, doesn’t return as “pure as the driven snow,” then you are keeping a lot of talented, highly employable people unemployed indefinitely, regardless of the economy. (The rich and/or connected remain employable regardless of how impure their record may be, if they even had to submit to a background check.) Add that number to the number of felons and chronically unemployed and you have a substantial number of people who are idle and will remain idle. The libs will say we need more welfare any the cons will say “tough luck, it’s not our problem” but the social instability will have the same dire results.
All this to say that we need a fair system. Period. I’m done! 🙂
RE: “However, if you already have power and standing or come from a family which does, then I’m sure the background check is waived. And that was precisely my point.”
But the point you made was “Every single job requires a background check now” — and that was inaccurate.
Further, I wouldn’t know about what power, standing, or family “does” — I have none, and I’ve never been background-checked for a job that I can recall, nor have most of my friends. I have worked minimum wage cleaning stables, I’ve worked in huge corporate companies, I’ve worked in small businesses, I’ve worked in summers for corporate outdoor parties [I was the kiddie booth attendee] — no background checks.
RE: “I’m just a former editor and schoolteacher who doesn’t begrudge the elites hiring their lawyers and “consultants,†but I don’t understand why they, on the other hand, begrudge the common people having an organization on their side.”
Well, the lack of corporate experience shows, Teatime. You don’t know what it is to be in human resources in a standard-grade corporation trying desperately to fill jobs that have been open for months, and navigate through the illiterate scrawls of the applicants emails. You don’t know what the regulations are that one must now comply with. You don’t know what the necessary and “approved” paperwork requirements are. You don’t know what it’s like to be a sales manager or a product manager or a VP of logistics and simply be unable to find — despite all the job fairs and ads and Internet marketing and employee-bonuses for referrals in the world — any people who can read and write and show up to interviews shaved and not in flip-flops.
I’m also happy to have “an organization on my side” — but that’s not the unions, they are anything but on my side as a common person. I’ll stick with the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute as “organizations on my side.” My siblings will stick with the AAPS and other niche lobbying groups for their respective industries trying desperately to keep the government at bay and serve their customers. I’m considering the NFIB, since our state chamber has thoroughly surrendered to sticking their hands out for largesse from “economic development” and I want no part of that. But no — I don’t want a union.
They are rotten, corrupt, and they harm “the common people” far more than they help them. Exhibit A would be the dreadful Detroit car company unions. What a foul stench they have raised, and how harmful they have been to auto workers.
RE: “The unions are weak or non-existent.”
Fortunately true, or all of our industries would look like the Detroit car industry.
RE: “And now a labyrinth of job application requirements for even low-level jobs is used to keep the rabble at bay.”
Again with the bizarre words of paranoia and envy of whoever you think is the enemy. If a company puts out job notices, they’d *really really* like to hire somebody, and hopefully in as little time and with as little expense as possible. Corporations are absolutely glutted and gutted with paperwork requirements in order to maintain compliance with all the legal requirements that our beloved Federal government has loaded upon their backs. I know — I’ve worked with corporate lawyers who spend all of their time keeping up with the *daily changes in regulations and mandates and Federal requirements*.
RE: “This isn’t about keeping out crazies . . . ”
Right — only the background checks are about that — not the rest of the paperwork.
RE: ” . . . it’s about keeping the large numbers of job seekers busy and hopeful and to keep up the appearance of a fair system of equal opportunity without bias, strings-pulling or patronage.”
Uh . . . Teatime? This is paranoid beyond belief. Corporations don’t have any interest — none whatsoever — in “keeping job seekers hopeful.” They wish to make money. In order to make money they must have workers filling needed jobs, for which they advertise and hold job fairs and do any number of other time-and-money spending duties. Then they attempt to fill said positions rapidly and efficiently so that they can get work out of the employee.
RE: “Because when you set up a system by which no common applicant whose report, for whatever reason, doesn’t return as “pure as the driven snow,†then you are keeping a lot of talented, highly employable people unemployed indefinitely, regardless of the economy.”
This is the only sentence I seem to agree with from the entire paranoid rant. I wholeheartedly agree that draconian regulations and the horrendous litigation environment causes many many many more barriers to be put up against full employment of all those who wish to work. The minimum wage law is yet another in literally *hundreds of barriers to entry* for good work and gaining experience and getting a first step on the first rung of the career ladder.
Like I said, our economy will do just fine once the horrendous weight of excess regulations, central planning subsidies and mandates, excess consumer and government debt, massive tax load, Obamacare, and bloated government size gets flushed out of our system.
Until then, it’s going to be wretched for everybody, including your son. I hope it gets better, and I hope he finds something fantastic, and is able to keep it. But we’re in heap big trouble in this country and holistically it’s going to get worse until somebody with some fiscal sanity takes over both seats of Congress and the Presidency. I’m not hopeful.