The Brave New Globalist World (What is the real intention of the multinational corporations?)

interventionmag.com ^ | July 30, 2003 | Lawrence J. McNamee

[comnet]

It took generations of hard working, sacrificing Americans to build our economic system, a system now being dismantled by small-minded, greedy globalists. By Lawrence J. McNamee

As Americans witness the flight of their manufacturing and now white-collar service sector jobs to Asia and Latin America and other nations with low wages, some are asking, "What is the real intention of the U.S.-based multinational corporations?" Perhaps economic globalism represents an attempt to equalize incomes of the First World and Third World. Yet this policy is impoverishing American workers and providing highly exploitative, low-paying jobs elsewhere. This could be discounted as just misguided economic policy if the policy was not making the highest investment incomes in the world higher still.

When the United States shifted from a nation where most personal wealth came from some form of productive labor to one derived from the value of stock holdings, short-term thinking and shallow, self-serving policies took root. At that point the very nature of the game of capitalism changed for the United States and for the world. The speculative economy can be reported as doing well, while the productive economy and its workers' incomes are marginalized. Hence, we have our current "jobless recovery."

Today IBM contemplates firing thousands of American software engineers so that the company can employ thousands of Indian software engineers. The Indian professionals will work for a fraction of the salaries currently paid their U.S. counterparts. This is what commentator Kevin Phillips calls "the race to the bottom." In theory, minimized wages yield minimized costs which result in maximized profits. Unfortunately, this also increases unemployment and reduces the quality of life in the United States.

Such short-term economic thinking has the potential to turn the "race to the bottom" into a race to global ruin. Men are not angels, and appeals to the marketplace or to modernism are only a thin coating of gloss on the ugly surface of unchallenged greed. When coal miners went on strike in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt asked mine workers and mine owners to come to the nation's capital and negotiate in good faith. Representatives of the mine workers arrived, while representatives of the mine owners refused, citing a sort of "divine right of capitalists" as their reason. Roosevelt threatened to nationalize the mines if the owners continued to refuse to negotiate. Divine right took a fast turn and the owners sent their men to Washington and the matter was resolved.

Even in this age of lightning-fast communication, there remains such a thing as the national interest. Until globalist corporate America understands it is the national interest, and not short-term profits and stock market prices, that represents the ultimate "bottom line," this erosion of the economic infrastructure of the United States will continue. More jobs will disappear here and the gains to our neighbors will be small and temporary. The clock is ticking off a countdown to the end of the political-economic system that took so much of America's strength and heart to build. At least two hundred and fifteen years of innovation and sacrifice is being downsized to nothing.

Lawrence McNamee is a History Instructor and writer in San Antonio, Texas. He is the proud son of a retired American industrial worker.

[gcruse]

What is the real intention of the U.S.-based multinational corporations?

To make enough bucks to survive corrupt unions, overtaxation,
and onerous regulations.  Try it sometimes.  It's not easy.

[DTA]

"The analogy between the terms "global" [2] and "universal" is misleading. Universalization has to do with human rights, liberty, culture, and democracy.

By contrast, globalization is about technology, the market, tourism, and information. Globalization appears to be irreversible whereas universalization is likely to be on its way out. At least, it appears to be retreating as a value system which developed in the context of Western modernity and was unmatched by any other culture.

Any culture that becomes universal loses its singularity and dies. That's what happened to all those cultures we destroyed by forcefully assimilating them. But it is also true of our own culture, despite its claim of being universally valid. The only difference is that other cultures died because of their singularity, which is a beautiful death. We are dying because we are losing our own singularity and exterminating all our values. And this is a much more ugly death."

see: The Violence of the Global by Jean Baudrillard

[Trailerpark Badass]

You forgot frivolous lawsuits.

[gcruse]

We are dying because we are losing our own singularity

Not to mention the purity of our internal waters.

[gcruse]

You're right. I should have added that.

[chainsaw]

America is burning while our politicians fiddle!

[Destro]

Globalisim is the ruination of the nation

[vbmoneyspender]

Until globalist corporate America understands it is the national interest, and not short-term profits and stock market prices, that represents the ultimate "bottom line," this erosion of the economic infrastructure of the United States will continue.

I am a 50% shareholder of a close corporation -- so I am interested in learning when a corporation becomes part of the globalist corporate America complex. Will my corporation become a sentient member of evil corporate America when it employs 10 people or 50 people or a 100 people. Or does a corporation have to employ tens of thousands of people before it becomes evil? Hopefully, someone can define for me what the cutoff point is so that I will know when to stop expanding my business so that it doesn't become evil incarnate and instead continues to be run for profit for the benefit of its shareholders, its employees and its customers.

[martian_22]

They want the same thing every corporation wants - power. Power to make a profit.

As with all human forces and forms, it depends upon the use/mis-use of their power to measure their direction. Are you a good corp or a bad corp?

[Calpernia]

The USA was founded by Pioneers and grew to what it is today from entrepreneurialism. Part of the American dream was to come here, be free and OWN your own business.

Now adays, these large corporations (most of them) are nothing more than mini regime conditioning.

The Board of Directors keeps all the wealth and throws enough 'perks' to the employees to keep them coming back. Not much different than ShareCroppering.

Between corporate conditioning and our educational system, people from the babyboomer generation and on don't even know how to start and run a business.

WorldCom, Tyko, Enron, Global Crossing, Qwest, and more are just as much the crooks and a harm to our traditional values of the USA.

[Cacophonous]

What is the real intention of the U.S.-based multinational corporations?

To make enough bucks to survive corrupt unions, overtaxation, and onerous regulations. Try it sometimes. It's not easy.

Here's what it's not:

Until globalist corporate America understands it is the national interest, and not short-term profits and stock market prices, that represents the ultimate "bottom line," this erosion of the economic infrastructure of the United States will continue.

[comnet]

FBI to focus on varied counter-intelligence

WASHINGTON: The FBI believes more foreign spies than ever are operating in the United States to get a hold of everything from cutting-edge computer software to scientific research and sensitive defence technology.

Even as it concentrates on preventing terrorism, the FBI is overhauling its counterintelligence efforts to blunt the threat.

Agents are less focused on finding spies among diplomats and embassies --hallmarks of the long Cold War with the Soviet Union, and more interested in espionage directed at corporations, research centres and universities.

"Left unchecked, such a situation could greatly undermine US national security and US military and economic advantage,'' FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress recently.

For instance, the FBI believes China has more than 3,000 front companies in the United States whose real purpose is to direct espionage efforts.

Many of the thousands of Chinese visitors, students and business people who come to this country each year also have a government intelligence task to perform, authorities say. The FBI ranks China as the greatest espionage threat to the United States in the next 10 years to 15 years.

"They figured out that what they want is throughout the United States, not just embassies, not just consulates,'' David Szady, FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's a major effort."

China is not alone. Russia remains an espionage power, and the United States also must be vigilant against adversaries such as Iran and North Korea. Friendly countries such as Taiwan and India also pose a threat.

There are 40,000 foreign diplomatic officials in the United States, some of whom are intelligence officers. Saudi Arabia alone has 900 officials in this country.

Modern espionage can range from finding out where an aerospace company produces gyroscopes for satellites to socialising with a US nuclear research scientist in hopes of gaining scraps of knowledge. In one recent case, adhesive maker Avery Denison estimated a $50 million loss after a spy sold company secrets to a Taiwanese conglomerate.

To meet this challenge, the FBI has transferred 167 agents into counterintelligence and set up an anti-espionage operation for the first time in all 56-field offices. Each is putting together a comprehensive survey of the potential espionage targets in their domain to give the FBI its first broad national picture.

At the same time, the bureau must learn from mistakes like the case of Wen Ho Lee, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist initially charged in 1999 with 59 counts of mishandling nuclear weapons information. Lee eventually pleaded guilty to a single charge and, in an extraordinary move, President Bill Clinton issued an apology and said Lee's long captivity can't be justified based on the outcome. "The FBI did a poor job in that case," Szady said.

The FBI in early 2001 caught one of its own, Robert Hanssen, but he had been spying for the Soviet Union and Russia for years, resulting in at least three deaths of US informants and an immense intelligence loss.

Partly to blame, FBI officials say, was the drift away from counterintelligence after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The number of agents doing the work was cut by 30 percent -exact numbers are classified and there was a perception that catching spies was a dead-end for FBI careers.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, it became clear to Mueller that the FBI would have to revamp its counter terrorism and counterintelligence operations to meet threats coming from all corners of the globe.

Mueller made fighting espionage the No. 2 priority behind stopping terrorism, with the same philosophy of tracking and stopping spies rather than waiting to prosecute them. Training was strengthened, the career track resurrected and a cadre of intelligence analysts is being built.

Preventive efforts include FBI meetings with corporate executives, university officials and others to gauge vulnerabilities. It also means undercover work at conferences that draw foreign scientists and development of intelligence assets who describe for an FBI agent what the foreign government wants.

The FBI still is examining what went wrong in the case of Katrina Leung, a Chinese-born woman recruited in Los Angeles by FBI Agent James J. Smith to provide information about the Beijing government.

Prosecutors say Leung actually was a Chinese spy who used her long-term affair with Smith to get access to sensitive government documents. She has pleaded innocent. Smith also faces charges.

Szady said FBI headquarters would exercise greater oversight of intelligence assets, with far greater attention paid to red flags that might indicate a source has been compromised. In the Leung case, little was done after top FBI officials learned that she had passed classified information to China's intelligence service.

[comnet]

For instance, the FBI believes China has more than 3,000 front companies in the United States whose real purpose is to direct espionage efforts.

[Cacophonous]

As if that were not bad enough, commet - and it is - American corporations no longer consider themselves American, but "internationalist", "globalist", etc. (pick your favorite euphimism for Marxism". Sickening.

But hey! I can but lots of cheap crap at WalMart! Woohoo!

[Calpernia]

>>>>Hopefully, someone can define for me what the cutoff point is so that I will know when to stop expanding my business so that it doesn't become evil incarnate and instead continues to be run for profit for the benefit of its shareholders, its employees and its customers.

Oh please! You mean to try to claim that you don't know the difference between expanding a legitimate business versus a large institutional "Publicly Traded" company with dismal reports? The companies of recent scandals had easy access to billions of dollars of public money,
and they drank the "easy money", Kool-Aid. The problem is, easy money comes with strings attached called performance covenants (sales, profits, cash flow).

If a performance covenant is breached, then the money is usually due to be paid back immediately. So what do they do? Go Bankrupt.

[Calpernia]

Ping. See post #13

[vbmoneyspender]

Corporations can't regulate you out of business, they can't tax you to death and they can't put you in jail. Until they can, I will focus my concern on institutions that can do these things to me.

Also, I think a quick reality check is in order. Corporations are not sentient entities. They are organizations that are made up of people. People in these organizations make decision, not the organizations themselves. So if you have a problem with a corporation, the problem is not with the intangible business vehicle that is otherwise known as a corporation, but with the people who run it.

[Willie Green]

"What is the real intention of the U.S.-based multinational corporations?" Perhaps economic globalism represents an attempt to equalize incomes of the First World and Third World.

While that may be the political agenda of government bureaucrats, it is NOT the intention of transnational corporations. Their motivation is much simpler: to profit from the economic disparities that exist globally, without concern for the implications for the people of any particular nation. At this point in time, they view the American Middle Class merely as a market to plunder, and not as a workforce to employ. Once we are beaten down to parity with the global poverty level, they may (or may not) return to establish production facilities within our borders.

[Willie Green]

"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."

--Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:119

"We are infinitely better off without treaties of commerce with any nation."

--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1815.

"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

--Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816. FE 10:69