Me and the Global Economy

Me and the Global Economy

by Richard E. Noble

I am told that in order for me to compete in the New World Economy, I have to be re-educated. But, I see my future in the New World Order in a slightly different light, or from a different perspective - that of a laborer.
As a laborer, in order for me to compete in this New World, I don’t need more education. In fact, I need no education at all. What I need to do is, learn to live on one handful of rice per week. I need to accustom myself to surviving in a grass hut with a dirt floor. I must learn to acknowledge that half of my children will die at birth, and I, myself, should not expect to live past the age of forty.
I should prepare myself to live without medical insurance, or any insurance - or medical treatment for that matter. For, in fact, my competition is in the third world, not the ‘new’ world. My competition lives in Taiwan, Malaysia, Mexico, Ecuador, Paraguay, China, Cambodia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Ireland, etc. And in order for me to compete in the labor pool against people who work for nine cents per day, and eat seaweed burgers for lunch, I must be prepared to do the same. I don’t need to upgrade my skills, I need to downgrade my existence, and my expectations. I must learn to survive as my competition survives. If they eat rat tails and roaches, and work twenty-two hours per day, then that is what I must do also.
What they are preaching to the working man today didn’t make sense when Herbert Hoover said it in 1929, and it doesn’t make sense today. America needs jobs, and jobs that pay a decent living wages – and the rest of the world needs the same thing. Everyone in America today wants a good paying job for themselves but consider minimum wages an adequate pay for everyone else. I am sorry folks, but it just don’t work that way.