Mooney view doesn't square with reality
I cannot say that I disagree with much of what Dr. [Peter] Mooney says [``It's still the economy, stupid,'' Perspective, Nov. 15, Page 6], but it is easy, so easy, to Monday morning quarterback an election. Sure we know now why we all voted as we did. Where was Dr. Mooney before the election?
Dr. Mooney needs also to read some of the business publications about outsourcing, first to China, now India. The Nov. 22 issue of Business Week talked of the scramble of the big companies to buy up and merge the various outsourcing players in India, especially all those that have located in the Bangalore region. These players are not the Indian-owned companies that we hear are the culprits, but the global giants such as General Electric, Citibank, IBM Global Services, American Express, Standard Chartered Bank, J. P. Morgan, and the list goes on.
Quoting Business Week: ``Almost as soon as George W. Bush was re-elected and the specter of a Democratic administration that might pull the plug on outsourcing receded, the deals began to flow.'' How does this square with Dr. Mooney's vision of a rose-colored economy?
William L. Smith
Conyers, Ga.
Mixing morality, economy is bad Rx
I disagree with just about every point that Mr. Mooney made in his shortsighted analysis of America's shift toward globalization in the last 15 years. I especially disagree about his trying to blend moralism and economic progress.
We have the richest country in the history of mankind and yet real wages for blue-collar workers continue to fall. What kind of message of hope is that for the next generation? Now, we find that this crunch is extending to white-collar professionals. When will it end? When Americans are paid as little as Chinese?
The argument that by free trade we are creating new markets for our goods is bogus as well. We have a huge trade deficit, and the countries like China don't pay their workers enough to purchase American goods in the amount necessary to offset this imbalance.
Mr. Mooney insisted the election was about morals linked to economic theory. I could not find any examples of how he views the wholesale dismantling of certain aspects of America's manufacturing base as a good and moral thing. I counter by saying that in fact it is an immoral action.
I've heard the argument that by engaging the Chinese in an economic partnership we could gently encourage change in their society. I don't buy this. It seems to me that the government is not putting any effort into trying to moderate the autocratic leanings of the Chinese government.
I believe many people voted the way they did not out of moral values, economics, or terrorism, but out of uncertainity of the future and what it holds. The politician who presented the best pablum got elected.
I truly fear what another global depression will do to our democracy and that tying our economy to so many poor unstable Third World nations in our race to the bottom for cheap labor could help faciliate such a meltdown.
Roger W. Bradshaw
Atlanta
