As I write today, the deliberate impoverishment of the American people at the hands of the Republican zealots appears to be nearing a peak.The NYT quotes a Professor of Business today that more and more workers are getting whipsawed by job cuts, salary reductions, benefit cuts and other devices engineered by consultants to keep companies like Airlines and Automobiles afloat.Scam artists feeding on the carcasses of these bloated corporations are having a field day.The losers, of course, are the workers.
One of the opportunities opened up for the vultures is finding a way to eliminate what are euphemistically called legacy costs ( Pensions plus health care benefits) that were promised to retired workers at places like GM, Ford, Chrysler etc. Those have come under assault by a couple of vulture capitalists.One of these, a man called W.L.Ross ,has already earned a name for himself by accumulating stock in several sick steel companies and after removing their legacy costs, turned around and sold the entire package to a corporation from India for a cool 4.5 billion making more than a 1000% profit within three years.He now promises to do the same for the automotive parts business.He has his eyes set on Delphi Corporation, a sick division of GM.He plans to declare bankruptcy for Delphi and that will enable him to jettison all legacy costs shafting thousands of retirees.
In Bush’s Brave New World,it is not enough to meet your obligations.You need to be ruthless lest people like W.L.Ross miss their meals.I am sure Ross’s example is going to be copycatted by many imitators.
Katrina may have been only a warning.The deluge is yet to come for millions.