Flip the Flat World of Friedman over and see what is there.
Those are not potatoe bugs. President Roosevelt said economic diseases are highly communicable. Under the Flat World
there are many of these diseases.
The real flatteners are the bugs that
are parasites living off the least among us. Who, what, when, where and why did this all happened the way it did.
It certainly did not evolve in any automatic fashion. We should call Friedman Flat World Flatteners he says paved
the way for Globalization and Free Trade - Designer Flatteners- because it this al l did not happen by chance.
President Obama now follows the others as a Globalist Free Trader and does not even mention Globalization, Free Trade and
the Trade Deficit of our economic crisis. He jumps over the plight of the workers who lost their jobs and businesses and bails
out big money and the financial communities instead. This continues the lie related to the passing of the Free Trade acts
- Workers were told that anyone who would lose their jobs or businesses due to Free Trade would get help. No one did!
Here are some of the real results of Globalization and Free Trade that
was driven by elite groupings, governments acting as brokers and massive trans national corporations outside of any real definition
of Free Enterprise. We also have world organizations like the WTO controlling the flow of trade and wealth outside of any
democratic process.
1.
The U.S.A. has gone through the most massive dislocation of jobs in its history.
2. A new working poor class has been created.
3. The middle
class keeps shrinking
4. Upper classes are parasites living off
the suffering of the impoverished.
5. The homeless are shunted. There
are many who are working but do not make enough to afford housing.
6.
The need for emergency food keeps breaking records as the food bins in the suburban churches now serve their own instead
of the inner cities.
7. So called Free Trade is not trade as historically
practiced or defined. In the Flat World, it is primarily based on moving production from place to place for the sake of cheaper
and cheaper labor. The main commodities of Free Trade are the workers who are put on a world trading block to compete
with one another down to the lowest levels of wage slave and even child labor.
8.
High technology now serves as a tool of Globalization where one must be computer literate to qualify for even a minimum
wage job.
9. The PC Computer is now a core of the class room but
how can a throw away device worth only about $200, create value to any degree over its own value?
10. Local value added economies are being chopped up and the parts are being shipped around the world. The
money spent at the retail level does not generate itself again. The money goes to where the products are made and where the
investments reside. A Walmartising of America is taking place where retail workers need Government assistance in order
to survive.
11. At the same time the workers as taxpayers are asked to
support many who are on pensions although they will never have a pension themselves. The Federal Pension Insurance is
going broke trying to keep up with all the companies going bankrupt.
12.
We have latch key children forced to live without their parents with both parents needing to both work
full time and even more to pay the bills. We have many parents who have several part time jobs at the same time. The parents
meet each other to just say goodbye as they pass from one job to another.
13.
The U.S. prison population keeps breaking records due to the impoverished not able to find subsistent living pay.
14. The unemployment rate is fiction especially if compared to the 1970s when it was based primarily
of full time jobs with benefits. Today someone making only a $100 a month is considered employed.
15. Many are missing in action from any kind of reporting with only about 38% of all workers in the USA qualifying
for unemployment insurance. The Getting America Working organization reports that 50% of our human resources are not being
used.
16. The Trade Deficit keeps breaking records which means more and
more money has to be borrowed because no economy can buy more than they sell. According to one report the Trade Deficit is
the equivalent of a $50,000 dollar home for every family in the USA.
17.
Personal and business bankruptcies keep breaking records with about 48% of al l small business men maxing out their credit
cards to keep their businesses afloat in the Flat World.
18. Time Magazine
tells us that many Americans are going abroad for things like hearth surgery because they can not afford to have this done
in the USA.
19. Reportedly, MAX ipods are now being made under
wage slave conditions - how can this add value to anything in the long rund.
20. In Central and South American the discontent is reaching a boiling point. President Bush tells us there
are jobs in America that American workers will not take. He does not tell us that there are jobs in Mexico that Mexican workers
will not take wit even these low paying job now leaving Mexico for places like China where the pay is even lower. At the same
time China contracts workers in other countries for even cheaper labor.
21.
No one asks why the World Trade Center was the target of terrorists. This is another flattener that is hidded under the Flat
World of Friedman.
22. Friedman in his Flat World leaves out some real
flatteners. The U.S. Government start moving factories outside the USA in 1956 as temporary programs to help the Mexican and
Central American economies. The programs never ended and evolved into what is called Free Trade today. Friedman ignores
things like this.
23. He also ignores the fact that workers have no voice
in the process of Globalization and Free Trade. History tells us what happens when this is the case. It usually evolves into
wars and terrorism just as it is evolving now.
This is what you will
find when you flip the Flat World of Friedman over.
24. The U.S. Government
changed the rules about welfare and then the media later reports there are few people on welfare.
25. Only 38% of all U.S. workers qualify for unemployment insurance due to not making enough money in a period
or not working long enough on one job. This means there are millions missing in action from any kind of real reporting and
the unemployment rate is a fabrication.
26. The Government changed the
rules on bankruptcies and most likely the media will then report there are less bankruptcies while many do not make enough
money or have enough assets left to claim bankruptcies as they too join those missing in action from any kind of real reporting.
27. About 48% of all small business men have maxed out their personal credit cards trying
to keep their businesses afloat. The failures of any business after the first year is in the 80% range.
Welcome to the Flat World and if you are not part of any network, you do not exist.
28. In Cleveland, Ohio, 31 per cent are living in poverty which includes close ot 50 per
cent of the children.
29. In Cleveland, Ohio, teachers use food as an
incentive for students in middle school to stay after class for tutoring sessions. Food works.
30. In Detroit, Michigan, an elderly legally blind 85 year old gentleman goes shopping. He has to walk over
a mile to the nearest store near the downtowm rim of Detroit. There are blocks of nice green areas where many of the
neighborhoods in the rim have been torned down. As with many major cities, depopulated areas are used as buffer zones.
On the horizon the old houses in the old neighborhoods are still in view. He takes only a small amount and has another
small amount of money bugeted for getting mugged. He has been mugged twice and is used to the game now.
31. In a Chicago downtown area, there is a beautiful park with a beautiful water fountain. Behind
the fountain is a beautiful view of the lake and to the left there is another sea. It is a sea of homeless gathering in place
apparently reserved for them.
32. In Chicago, a cab driver from the Czech
Repulic says that he will give American one more year to find the American Dream. He says it is not worth working 15 hours
a day just to exist. He says in the old country, he may have had less but he had more time to enjoy life.
33. In Chicago, a cab driver from Morocco says he chose to be a slave rather than having
to kill someone in all the conflicts back home.
34. In Atlanta, a friend
gave us a tour of the city and told us that he took through all parts of the city except one. He says it was too dangerous
to travel through that section.
35. In Mexico just south of the border,
women workers are awarded for their hard work with large shipping boxes to live in.
36.
In Mexico, a few years ago, a priest from Ohio was part of a caravan delivering food to former subsistent living farmers who
lost their living due to NAFTA Free Trade.
37. In Mexico, small eateries
which fed their clientele direct from harvest and slaughter now face extinction due to Free Trade. Somehow, their streamlined
ecology with was no need of packaging, shipping or refrigeration can not compete with Free Trade which brings food in from
far away places in smoking refrigerated trucks that pollute the environment..
