The “Hire Abroad, Fire at Home” Strategy

There was a very interesting article in The Wall Street Journal this morning by David Wessel. I hope it gets commented on by politicians and the mainstream press (including Wessel’s own paper).

It has to do with the employment strategy of the major employing corporations in America.

According to data from the US Commerce Department during the 2000s, multi-national corporations based in the US cut their domestic work force by 2.9 million while expanding it overseas by nearly as much at 2.4 million. The irony of that, of course, is that the 2000s were touted as an era of low taxes, low regulations, with an abundance of incentives to help corporations grow and make money for the rest of us. They did grow, but just didn’t make any money for the rest of us. Income and jobs stagnated during that time for the vast majority of Americans. The recovery from the 2001 recession was one of the most sluggish on record, and of course any minimal gains we received were wiped out in 2008.

This is interesting because by comparison, the nineties are now being ridiculed and dismissed by many on the right as a high tax, high regulation era that stifled growth and discouraged corporate profits. But, again according to the US Commerce Department’s numbers, in those years the multi-nationals created 4.4 million jobs in the US and 2.7 million elsewhere. They created almost twice as many domestic jobs as international jobs. Altogether, they employed 21.1 million here and 10.3 abroad. Not bad for a country led by a godless, commie, socialist, philandering, murderous tax and spend liberal.

Click here to go to the article in the Journal

 And click here for a summary of it at the Business Insider.

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