The Disposable American - Layoffs and Consequences.

Discussion in 'Politics' started by SouthAmerica, Mar 28, 2006.

  1. .

    April 2, 2006

    SouthAmerica: This is the book review as published on “Business Week” magazine dated April 10, 2006.

    (I did not write this book review – this is the book review published by “Business Week” magazine – I have to clarify that because there are some members of this message board who are not smart enough to be able to figure that out by themselves.)


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    Business Week – April 10, 2006
    Book Review:

    THE DISPOSABLE AMERICAN
    Layoffs and Their Consequences
    By Louis Uchitelle
    Knopf -- 283pp
    Editor's Review

    The Good An incisive critique of corporate downsizing and mass layoffs. The Bad Uchitelle?s policy proposals are hardly innovative. The Bottom Line An airtight case against the common wisdom that favors job cuts.

    Some economists call it the hedonic treadmill: The way many Americans work (all the time) and live (in an arms race for status) conspires against the happiness they say they crave. We're the richest, most powerful country in the world. But an increasing amount of hard data shows that as our ability to own homes and cars and TVs has increased, so have our rates of addiction, depression, and economic inequality. These findings are causing some economists and policymakers, including New York Times economics reporter Louis Uchitelle, to raise questions about whether we've sacrificed too much for growth. After all, if we're not achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number, why, asks Uchitelle in his important new book, The Disposable American, does the pursuit of growth still rule economic ideology?

    Fundamentally, Uchitelle's book is about what he views as the folly of the modern layoff -- one of the inevitable results of an economy designed for nonstop expansion. Uchitelle draws upon mounds of research to show that slashing staff in the name of growth does not, in the long run, lead to better stock performance. Yet CEOs, their thinking warped by Wall Street-induced short-term-itis, continue to hack away. The more anorexic their payrolls, the more obese the CEOs' pay packages. This culture, in which employees are treated as if they have sell-by dates, Uchitelle says, has huge, oft-ignored costs, and he rails against the idea that there's no alternative to reduction in forces. He describes the problems, especially the psychological fallout, so well that one yearns for more innovative solutions. But his prescriptions differ little from those backed by progressives since at least the 1930s. Still, the logic with which he lays waste to commonly accepted layoff rationalizations is airtight.

    Rationalization No. 1: Layoffs save money. What that equation misses, says Uchitelle, are hidden costs that include severance, potential lawsuits from aggrieved workers, loss of institutional memory and trust in management, a shortage of staff when the economy rebounds, rehiring expenses, and a culture of survivors who are risk-averse, paranoid, and alienated. Contrast that with the evidence Uchitelle marshals to argue for a no-layoff payoff: fierce loyalty, higher productivity, and superior innovation at such companies as Southwest Airlines and Harley-Davidson.

    Rationalization No. 2: So what if the labor market is a game of musical chairs where workers routinely get bounced? There are lots of good jobs, at least for the college-educated. Uchitelle's opinion, shared by a growing group of economists, is that, to the contrary, there just aren't enough well-paying jobs with decent benefits to meet demand. Today's low jobless figures miss all the people who are "bought out" but really exiled, who are "free agents" but really traded back and forth in the global discount labor bazaar. One of The Disposable American's most poignant anecdotes involves a 47-year-old executive who, after 25 years with Procter & Gamble, loses her $150,000 a year job in a buyout. Then, when one of the cheaper young staffers hired to replace her falters, she is rehired as a "consultant" -- at $75 per hour for three to five hours a week. There's also the laid-off sixtysomething who strenuously works his alumni network only to net zero job offers, even though he has degrees from Harvard and Wharton. His depressing conclusion? His education hurt him by setting him up for expectations that he can never fulfill.

    Many say that, in the end, layoffs will bring about a reenergized, dynamic U.S. economy, one that will eventually lead to another era of equilibrium. In contrast, Uchitelle argues that the rampant income volatility produced by a layoff-happy business culture is creating a society of downwardly mobile, insecure workers. The problem is that today's social infrastructure was built for the Company Man, not for the you're-on-your-own free agent. In this great risk shift, burdens once shared within society are being transferred onto employees' shoulders.

    That's why Uchitelle argues that America needs a new social safety net. His fixes include a passel of liberal reforms: a more progressive income tax, a government jobs program, an increase in the minimum wage, laws requiring severance packages, and stronger labor regulations. He knows that many will balk at these shopworn ideas. But instead of relying on logic to make his case, he appeals to Americans' sense of well-being: People who live in societies where these elements are a given, he correctly reports, say that they are more content. Similar results are reported by those who feel their work is stable. With such realities, Uchitelle says, layoffs should be the last place CEOs turn -- not the first.


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    #31     Apr 2, 2006
  2. Thank you pabst, that is exactly what I was talking about. All that nonsense about growing GDP, low inflation and 4.7% unemployment rate in this country means absolutely nothing to the average Joe if his previous job paid 20% more than his current one, if his last raise was 5 years ago and if the price of absolutely everything has virtually doubled during these 5 years. And this unfortunately is the real result of economic policies of this administration and republican government.
     
    #32     Apr 2, 2006
  3. maxpi

    maxpi

    American workers are throwaways nowadays for sure. MBA's run everything and all they know how to do is squeeze money out of an organization. They value workers with a dollar based decision making tool. What is the cost of a nervous breakdown versus the reward from working somebody too hard would be an example. We are all just rented mules and when we break down or get lame it's "see if the government can't help you". It still beats full employment at starvation levels though.

    I do know some people from the Soviet Union that loved it. There is a certain mentality that is suited for it. One guy I know is a real purebred craftsman at what he does. All his work just looks beautiful. He takes great pride in that. Communism was fine for him, he works at a nice slow pace because they always hired 20 people and 4 that liked to work did all the work, then he could go home and enjoy his life. He has this really funny fantasy life game that we play all day. We refer to ourselves as "the family" and have rules that are made up along the lines of a mob crew. It is pretty funny, he is the second person from the Ukraine that I have met that can keep this fantasy game going perpetually. It's how they cope with their situation and have fun getting away with modeling the situation the way they see it so we can function in it.

    Americans are wrapped up in self promotion and seem to have about zero imagination. I think they are missing a hell of a lot.
     
    #33     Apr 2, 2006
  4. There is so much fear and stress going on in America now that is just pure insanity.
    I work in a casino now and I make good living as a Poker dealer but I am not allowed to get sick and these casinos surely operate as the old plantation slave masters. I am paid by the customer anyway so I am insulated from the corporate clusterfuck and MBA beancounters. They pay is 5.15/hour (plus TIPS*) as I work at a reservation and only Federal minimum wages apply not your California wages that are decent (miss the People's Republic minimum wage laws!) and cannot wait till the legalize gambling so Harrah's can come in and apply state laws non smoking laws that are also God gifts of California and blatantly ignored on the Reservation.
    Get it through your heads folks it has gone far enough! Time to the pendulum to swing back a little to the other direction. People are getting sick due to stress. Everyone is sick and corporare fuckism and curruption.

     
    #34     Apr 2, 2006
  5. It is the free market charade at work. If a corporation can hire a Indian or Chinese engineer for $10K/year as opposed to a American engineer at $75K/year, they will hire the Indian. In fact most Corporations prefer to hire Indian engineers regardless of pay scale.

    Even apart from the pay issue, corporations want worker drones. They want workers who will not complain and do work more than they are paid for. Walmart is an example of this. Most of their employees live at or below the poverty level and the states pick up their health care benefits.

    The funniest part of this whole free market charade is that it is hurting southern illiterate inbreeds. These inbreeds are the ones voting for the corrupt politicians at the national level who are selling out national policy to the highest corporate bidder. Maybe when these illiterate inbreeds can not feed their families they will stop having children like rats in perpetual heat. Good riddance.
     
    #35     Apr 2, 2006
  6. In some ways, this is very reminiscent of the industrial revolution, where the industrialists used up workers, viewing them as capital, not human beings.

    Had it not been for government intervention, unions, etc. a 2 class system would have continued in America.

    The greatest period of productivity and prosperity in this country came out of the programs of Roosevelt and the new deal, where people believed that they too could have a piece of the American dream, and in many ways the growth of the middle class made that a reality for many.

    Now it seems that we are headed back to a 2 class system, all by way of the regressive party....

    And of course the regressives want to eliminate the estate tax, so the aristocracy can continue unabated....

    One day the worker bee drone republican masses are going to wake up and relize they have been fucked up the azz by those they voted for.....

    By using religion and "social values" to distract this ditto head electorate into ignoraing what is actually taking place, these sheeple believe a return to "moral values" is going to restore America to what it was in the "good old days."

    One huge con job....

     
    #36     Apr 2, 2006
  7. Pabst

    Pabst

    Do you support unionized auto workers who happen to be your fellow Americans or do you send 35k to Sweden every couple of years for a new Volvo. Perhaps when American consumers look at their own reflection the mirror rather than flogging at corporate bogeymen and mythical "they's"....
     
    #37     Apr 2, 2006
  8. Watch the neo-commies go Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!


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    #38     Apr 2, 2006
  9. Red Herring Fallacy...of course.



     
    #39     Apr 2, 2006
  10. Pabst

    Pabst

    I realize English is neither your native tongue nor apparently a language you've become well versed but that's no excuse for faulty logic. Let's state some facts as evidenced by your posts on this thread.

    1. You're a poker dealer who makes a "good living".

    2. You work not for a major gaming corporation but instead for that most lionized of minorities, the American Indian.

    3. You wish that Harrah's, the epitome of state sponsored corporate greed, will open a casino so that you're compensation and benefits will be greater than presently.

    4. Yet, as you so eloquently state, you're a victim of corporate "fuckism and corruption."

    By your own admission are you not saying that you'd prefer working for Harrah's instead of the Tribe?

    Not to mention what is your compensation as a poker dealer? You're really nothing but a poster boy for what the anti-immigration crowd is railing against. You're a foreigner who barged into the United States, you complain endlessly about the free market formula that's allowed us to prosper, and think you should make an even better livelihood as a freaking POKER DEALER! Jeez.
     
    #40     Apr 2, 2006