The Short-Sightedness of American Corporations

It has become standard practice for American corporations, under the semblance of “too heavy a corporate tax burden in the United States,” to move their businesses to another country. Often they make these moves, in spite of the fact that they earned huge profits every year in the United States..


In addition to lower taxes in foreign countries, American corporations usually point to less government regulations and restrictions and greater corporate freedom, as their reasons for leaving. The fact that they are taking American workers’ jobs overseas doesn’t seem to have any bearing on their decisions. The only thing that seems to concern them is the increased amount of profits that they are going to make.


However, it’s apparent that these corporations are unaware that their moves are short-sighted and potentially detrimental to the United States and – themselves! For while it is true that their moves are having bad affects on the U. S. economy at present, it is equally true that their moves will have equally detrimental affects on their futures. But at present this isn’t apparent to them.


Nevertheless, what American corporations seem unable to realize is the fact that American companies are not welcome in foreign countries; they’re tolerated. They are unwelcome necessities, whose presence in a foreign country is analogous to a bad tasting bottle of medicine: You keep it around until what ails you is cure. Then you get rid of it by tossing it out as soon as possible.


Now, some may wonder, “What makes corporate America so despised and hated in foreign countries?” No one knows for certain, but I suspect that they are hated and despised overseas for the same reasons that they are becoming hated and despised in the United States: Many American corporations – particularly the ones that are going overseas, have become exploiters, who no longer seeks to invest in their workers, or offer them decent wages and benefits. Instead, they appear to be only interested in making as much profit as possible.


In foreign countries, where American corporations can make products without being subjected to regulations and restrictions governing safety, minimum wage, environmental protection standards, comfortable working environment (instead of sweat shops), many workers are severely overworked, extremely underpaid, exposed to health hazards, and often placed in harms way. This has led to a silent form of resentment in some foreign countries, and quiet, down-right hatred in others. When the day come that these countries can do without the American corporation, cooperate America is going to be hastily escorted out of the foreign country . . . to return to the United States ― with higher unemployment, a less educated and less trained workforce, third-world wages and benefits, less entitlements for the elderly and the poor, and a national debt that is bigger than the current one.

God, I hope our nation, its leaders, and its corporations get on the right path soon!