The Mean Index – Profit Over Jobs In U.S. – Opposite In Europe & Japan

 Empty - Ghosts of the Middle Class

There was a time when recessions caused employers in the United States to figure out ways to keep employees busy in order to keep from losing them. Now laying off workers seems to be the first, not last option for U.S. companies compared to the rest of the world.

In the past when economic downturns would hit, U.S. companies would do everything it could to keep from losing employees. Employees would be assigned cleanup tasks, filing and straightening up the storeroom. It seems that something has dramatically changed in the United States. An article titled “Unlike competition, U.S. values profits over jobs” by Paul Wiseman March 31, 2011 and published on the MSNBC website shows the difference in how some foreign country based companies treat employees in a recession versus United States based firms.

In the United States worker productivity is up as fewer employees are producing more output after companies shed workers during the recession. According to the article that is not the case in Japan and Europe. Productivity actually went down during the height of the recession during 2009 by 3.7 percent in Japan and 2.2 percent in Europe while U.S. productivity growth doubled from 2008 to 2009 and again in 2010. Now that U.S. corporate profits are at record levels, U.S. firms are hiring a pace far lower than businesses in other recovering nations.

It seems that companies in other developed nations kept more of their employees during the downturn, even at the cost of profits and productivity. Something has changed in the United States as employees are not seen as being as valuable as they once were. Downsizing and trimming the workforce seems to be the first strategy to deal with a downturn as opposed to keeping more employees and sacrificing some level of profitability. Earnings per share and bottom line profits have won out over retaining skilled employees throughout a downturn. Pumping every ounce of output from the remaining workers is seen as a better strategy than hiring new employees as profits bounce back, employee morale and well being take a back seat.

I guess the United States is firmly entrenched in the “employee as a unit of labor input” formula as opposed to an individual with respect, responsibility and loyalty if treated well. This should be no surprise when the action that are taking place in some states towards professionals such as teachers and firefighters as they are hammered down into the roles of “just shut up and work.”

Gaddhafi Moving Bodies Around To Fake Bombing Deaths

Muammar  al-Gaddhafi

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates asserted that Gaddhafi’s forces may be moving the bodies of those killed by their regime to sites bombed by the coalition in order to claim civilians were killed in the strikes.

If this is true, it is the most macabre stagecraft, but not out of the realm of reality when engaged with someone who seems to be in a state of mind not understood by most people. Are we really dealing with someone with conventional ideas of what it means to win or lose?

An article titled “Robert Gates On Libya Violence: No Proof Of Civilians Killed In U.S. Strikes” by the Associated Press and published in the Huffington Post details an interview Gates gave on Meet The Press.

Most individuals don’t think about a propaganda war at this level. Gaddhafi could be inflicting violence on his own people and then use those poor souls’ remains to point fingers at the United States and its partners. There may be almost no way Gaddhafi concedes defeat regardless of the outcome. He will claim martyrdom, a stalemate or simple survival as victories.

Japan Earthquake Caused Tsunami Damage In The United States Of America

Tsunami Damage In The United States

The United States is a long way from the power and destruction of the 8.9 earthquake and resulting tsunami that devastated Japan. We all send the Japanese people good wishes and prayers for a full recovery. Even with thousands of miles of ocean to cross the power of the tsunami still made an impact on the United States.

Initial reports said that the tsunami wave went around the Hawaii Islands, but video evidence show that a glancing blow was struck on the big island of Hawaii in the town of Kona over 3,850 miles from Japan. Unbelievably, cities in California were affected over 5,478 miles away.

Although the scale of damage in the United States can’t begin to compare with that in Japan, the tsunami managed to claim a life over 5,000 miles away from where it started. An article titled “NorCal man drowns trying to photograph tsunami ” by the Fox 5 San Diego Staff and CNN Wire and published on the Fox 5 San Diego website tells of a California man that was swept out to sea and drowned while trying to photograph the incoming tsunami waves.

Although the magnitude of suffering was vastly different from Japan to the United States, they were both touched by death and destruction from the same event that demonstrated the awesome power of nature. Man still lives with forces greater than himself.