Customer Reviews:
 Yes the squeeze is real but June 26, 2008
1 out of 11 found this review helpful
this is still the biggest economy in the world. With globalization, outsourcing, downsizing in manufacturing jobs, the unemployment rate (UR) should be 10 percent or more. Government UR showed only 5%.
The underground economy is thriving. Mexicans and illegal aliens are working in construction, cleaning, restaurant, nannies, casino, etc.
With the population 310 million (25-30 million illegal aliens), and everyone is working in the underground jobs, therefore the real UR is probably 3 percent. In the European Union, UR is 10 percent.
China, even with all the exporting and foreign direct investment, the average person makes only $5000 USD per year! Indians make $3000 USD per year. Americans are making $40,000 per year.
Why does every book give you the complaint? Number one, it sells the book, a good marketing strategy.
Americans spent too much. Every kid has a cell phone, PDA, and eats super burgers. Parents continued to drive SUVs, hummers, etc. People lived in the McMansions, and saved no money. People making $100,000 per year, but has no money left. It all has to do with education and self-discipline.
The pessimist like the Greenhouse talked about these issues that existed for 20 years. There is nothing new in this book.
 Uncovering the Meida Shroud June 9, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book add to the growing number of titles lifting the shroud corporate media have wrapped around the economic realities of our time: ripping out 'labor' from the economic legs of 'land, labor and capital.' Think of it as the Gilded Age 2.0,complete with neo-robber barrons, thanks to laissez-faire corporate globalization.
As Matt Taibi wrote in "The Low Post," "One of the biggest purveyors of this dreck is arch-capitalist spokesmodel Thomas Friedman, who has spent the last ten years trying to talk himself into the position that having to compete with Chinese and Indian industrial slaves is somehow a good thing for America. Nothing makes Friedman happier than being able to appear before a bunch of old ladies in some cobweb-strewn Midwestern library or Jaycees hall and deliver his favorite faux-homespun platitude about the new global economy, a clunky tale about advice he often gives to his daughters. "Girls," his story goes, "when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, 'Tom, finish your dinner. People in China . . . are starving.' My advice to you now: 'Girls, finish your homework, people in China . . . are starving for your jobs.' "
"Well, that makes sense. According to The New York Times, what we need to do to compete with China economically is adopt commensurate "homegrown business practices" that will enhance our performance.
"What do they have in mind? Eliminating the freedom of speech? Outlawing free trade associations? Legalizing child labor? Eliminating all environmental regulations and letting workers roll around in hazardous chemicals for fifteen hours a day for ten cents an hour? Ending all forms of corporate transparency? Come to think of it, we could solve our juvenile delinquency program and our trade competitiveness problem at the same time -- let's just lock up our high school dropouts in toy factories, get those little bas*#!*s making radioactive Lego sets six days a week for a buck a shift. Imagine the profits!"
It's going to be tough breaking through corporate media's stranglehold on information. But there's hope for light on this subject thanks to this book and Aronica and Ramdoo's The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman Wake up America! [...]
Something we need to care about May 26, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
If you find yourself wondering, "Is this all I'm worth?" when you look at your paycheck, meager benefits (or lack thereof), other poor job opportunities or rising gas, college and home costs, and the increasingly unattainable "American Dream", you are not alone...
This book is an excellent primer for those of us who want to know why American jobs are so much less fruitful than those of our parents or grandparents generations (for 20 or 30 somethings). It is a sociological eye-opener on par with "Fast Food Nation". It emboldens us to get more politically involved, and helps us form opinions on many of todays very relevant pressing issues(health care, illegal immigrants, the minimum wage, dwindling union support, offshoring and job security, education costs and standards, corporate corruption).
The Big Squeeze covers several case studies sprinkled with analysis and history of all parties involved in our mighty economy. Greenhouse makes a very well informed argument for adapting to changing and new economic pressures and in the end of the book lays out his proposals (albeit too idealistic for most administrations) for solving many of the problems he has dissected. I commend him for tackling such a huge subject with so many variables and attempting to pull it all together into a comprehensive book that educates the lay person (who is not an economist) on what is happening in this country. He makes the reader aware that this is truly an epidemic and raises the red flag.
While this book is not "light" reading, it does tell positive tales of employers doing the right thing, and of immigrants who have succeeded and injustices that have been unveiled so as to balance the overwhelming sea of pessimism and hopelessness that these types of books tend to hold between their pages.
 Corporate greed May 14, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book gives a highly detailed look at individuals who suffer from losing jobs as a result of corporate greed. It contains much useable reference material.
 Corporate power and arbitrariness harm American workers (3.5 *s) May 3, 2008
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
The book is both an overview of the deteriorated state of affairs for American workers as well as a few up close and personal looks at some of those so affected. For one brief generation after WWII, American workers empowered through union contracts, achieved a somewhat harmonious status with their employers, which included good wages and benefits and expectations of job security. And the government provided support as well, especially for veterans. But that's not the way things are now.
As the author so well examines, employees are now viewed as mere factors of production and can be subjected to egregious capriciousness. They now can be fired arbitrarily, forced to work off the clock, have their time sheets altered, forced to work as so-called independent contractors or part-time, etc. Employee wages have been flat for over thirty years, despite increasing productivity over those years, while CEO pay has skyrocketed. The labor movement is a mere shell of its former self with private sector union membership being at the same density as one hundred years ago. Advances in computers and telecommunications have facilitated shipping even high tech jobs overseas; trade agreements have enabled establishing production off shore for intra-corporate trade; and immigration is having profound impacts on jobs and wages domestically. Those left behind after downsizing have to redouble their efforts with apparently little appreciation by many employers. The traditional way to advancement, education, is increasingly becoming out of reach for many because of the costs. American workers have truly become an afterthought or invisible.
There really is nothing in this book that has not been discussed repeatedly in the electronic media, books, and newspapers over the last several years. The Wal-Mart model has become pervasive. Occasionally an organization will come along like Costco that demonstrates that workers can be treated well despite the demands of the retail world, but they are an exception.
US corporations are ascendant; they have a great deal of control over media content, they dominate the political process, and they hide behind the mantra of competitiveness to squeeze American workers for higher and higher profits. The author, more hopefully than convincingly, calls for a return to kinder times. But there will be no voluntary relinquishment of power. There has to be a realization on the part of American workers on the realities of excessive corporate power and a willingness to assert political power to transform the process in favor of workers. This book clearly shows that American workers are now being squeezed almost beyond imagination with no end in sight.
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