Michael Moore: "We can’t keep waiting for the cavalry to come. That’s because we’re the cavalry."

[kpete]

Michael Moore: Profits Are Way Up at General Motors ... So Why Aren't They Hiring?

"If we want a life worth living for ourselves and our kids, we have to go get it ourselves. We can’t keep waiting for the cavalry to come. That’s because we’re the cavalry."
August 18, 2010 |


So General Motors is back to making billions in profit. And if the past is any guide, we know what that means: time for some layoffs!

Or maybe not. Back in the '80s and '90s, when GM was consistently posting giant profits, they were simultaneously firing tens of thousands of workers in my hometown of Flint and across Michigan. Right now it looks like the only person being canned is CEO Edward Whitacre. (Only last week Whitacre was saying he wasn't planning to leave anytime soon—kind of ironic that the former president of the Boy Scouts of America failed to Be Prepared.)

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To understand what's happening, we have to focus on the bottom line, just like they do. And what the bottom line says is that the entire business world has figured out how to make huge buckets of money without hiring us to work for them. I'm not sure how in the long run this benefits these companies. Maybe the same robots who make most things now are also programmed to buy them?

But the upshot is this: We have to face the fact that most of America's CEOs don't want the economy to get "better." Because for them, it couldn't get better—they've got profit coming out their ears, while with 9.5 percent unemployment their entire workforce is too scared to ask for a 25 cent-an-hour raise. They'd be happy to have things stay just like they are now. Forever.


more:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/147886/michael_moore%3A_profits_are_way_up_at_general_motors_..._so_why_aren%27t_they_hiring/

[DJ13]

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