Screw me screw you

It's become a fine art of coital mayhem in the market place. A somewhat devious plan of what may be termed content creep. The result of years of pain staking analysis to stretch the bottom line and hence enhance the coffers of corporate America and most other countries for that matter. Not just relegated to the goods but their production and services as well. Full service now means only what the fine print dictates. When was the last time someone pumped gas for you? Forget about checking the oil and washing the front window. And good luck finding a 16 oz. can of any fruit or vegetable in any market. An 8 oz. can of tuna went gradually down the scale to 6 1/2 then 6 and now a meager 5 oz. and not to forget to drain the 1/2 oz. of liquid. Airline seats shrink ever small even though our backsides get bigger and bigger and don't forget the baggage fees because shaving a pound or two here or there might just save millions in the long run. Won't the shareholders be delighted?

On the worker side it's no different. It was once about turnover. Never let the underlings rise to an expensive position. This was all accomplished by some crafty lateral moves on managements' part. Then the downsizing began. Tom, Frank and Bob all had the same workload at one time anyway. So it was a simple matter of firing Bob and splitting his job between Tom and Frank. When even that was not enough they fired Frank and heaped everything on Tom. No pay raise or benefits mine you but an important sounding title to make up for his loss. When even that was not enough they outsourced the whole department to a company in India. Eventually the entire company lands up overseas with only a small staff of administrators in an office. All well and good for the CEO and the shareholders, bad for everybody else. But how do they evade our so called "overbearing" corporate taxes one might ask? Simple. Just bribe the local officials in that far off land to report that your company has paid them the proper taxes to their country. And to add insult to injury our tax code allows for the write off and even rewards companies for doing this.

Lastly we have insourcing. When you can't ship a job overseas like many of the service jobs you hire someone from over there and bring him here only to pay him half the going rate or worse declare him an independent contractor even though he has set hours and all the other requirements of a company man. There's the Temp who gives the benefit of not having to pay benefits and doesn't mind when your telling him the job is over. Most agencies even offer medical and other goodies which of course are unaffordable to the poor slob working for them because he must pay out of pocket from some meager wages. Not to forget those two very dirty words over time. No such animal in this company. Must be worked just up to the cut off of a full time worker, so much cheaper that way.

So now you see just the tip of the iceberg. This shining apple to the world that's slowly rotting at it's core. This is the grand vision to return this nation to the days of yesteryear when the robber barons ran everything while the general populace died an early death because after all replacements are cheap. Screw me? No screw you. We're all screwed.