Third World USA

Last weekend I realized we're in big trouble in America.  Projects like the Keystone pipeline prove America is becoming more of a third world country for the rest of the developed world, and it's happening in large part because of the complete lack of accountability Republican voters have for their elected officials.

The Keystone pipeline will not make American businesses any money and the oil from it will not help our oil needs, instead it's already committed to foreign countries.  This pipeline will surely leak, and will only create 40 permanent jobs.  This isn't the latest example of greedy, corporate America abusing US citizens.  It's Canadians doing it.  It's Canadian oil companies who could create a far shorter pipeline to take the oil across Alberta and British Columbia to the Canadian Pacific Coast, so ask yourself, why would they build an much longer pipeline to come south instead of going west?  Let's look at the USA route:

1) Port Arthur, Texas is a foreign-trade zone, where goods come into America, but are treated like they haven't entered the country yet.  Port Arthur has something more.  It has refineries, a lot of them, and the oil would come across the US, get refined at the port and then loaded onto ships to sail away without a US tax or charge on it.  Even though it is traveling across the heart of America, the oil will not be taxed unless the product is refined and then 'taken back' into the USA (this happening in a country which proudly states "America First").  We regulate train lines more than pipelines, that's why the Keystone push.  Canada doesn't have a tax free zone on their Pacific Coast, let alone one with refineries to process the tar sands oil, and will likely tax the oil as it leaves Canada.  Factoring it all in, it's more profitable for the Canadian oil company to go with the far longer pipeline.

2) Labor costs are cheap in the United States.  Conservative policies have whittled away at workers pay and benefits, to where wages for most of the country have actually gone down in the last 50 years (factoring in inflation).  Even good union jobs are a hollow shell of their former selves.  A large portion of the country doesn't even receive a living wage.  This new American work reality has been created by Republicans.

3) Product and Safety standards are almost non-existent in the modern Conservative America.  We used to demand products were made with quality raw materials, with highly trained labor, and controlled testing.  Decades of lobbying have changed the system, to dirt cheap, unsafe raw materials, unskilled hourly workers and lax testing.  It's created a system where the question isn't if the pipeline will leak, but how bad.  It also makes it far cheaper to do a pipeline in the United States verses Canada, which still maintains rigorous quality standards.

4) Because it will done on the cheap, the pipeline is expected to leak an estimated 91 times in 50 years.  How bad remains to be seen, but we can expect a few of those leaks to be major.  If the Keystone pipeline was going to go through Canada, the company would have far more rules and regulations to follow, and if the pipeline leaked, the oil companies would have to clean it up.  Not in the USA!  They can hook up a sprinkler to the pipeline, spray unrefined oil all over the land for days and Republicans will ensure the company is not only blameless, they'll find them a tax break too.

(On a side note, the fact the union heads are fighting so hard to get this pipeline approved tells me how bad things have gotten for organized labor.  There was a time when the unions would have been the biggest voice against a boondoggle like Keystone.)

If this business model sounds familiar, it's because it is starting to look like the one US businesses adopted in the 1970's.  They realized they could ship the raw materials to a foreign country, buy off the local government, get slave labor to make their products, and then ship them back to the United States.  In the years that followed, the American manufacturing base was nearly wiped out.  If international business could lower the costs of raw materials, manufacture here, and in turn save on the shipping costs to and fro, the businesses might be able to find a low salary for the American worker just high enough for them to buy the products produced.  They've been trying to find that mythical price point for years, and are very close.

What is happening is so anti-American, you'd think the modern "America First" Republican voter would be out in the street demanding it stops, but the modern right doesn't care about what's best for Americans any more.  Their entire mantra is based around hating what the Democrats are for.  Their blind allegiance creates an accountability vacuum.  Since Republican voters are only concerned about what the Democrats are doing, they pay zero attention to the politicians they've elected.  The only time the GOP voter does seem to care is when the harsh reality of the polices they've endorsed comes to light, but even then, regardless of how little say the left has in their system, they can always find a Democrat to blame first.

From the foreign companies point of view, they don't have to rely on slave labor and inhuman conditions, common in many third world countries, hence their conscious is cleaner (heck, they can do an entire marketing campaign about how they love 'Merica!), and when you look at the bottom line, it is far more expensive to pay a military despot or evil dictator millions of dollars than it is to scratch out a $20,000 campaign check to get your own Republican lap dog who will sell their soul and the souls of their constituents, with a smile on their face.  It's a bargain to pay off Republicans to treat the American population horribly!

Keystone is just the beginning.  Look for many foreign economic powerhouses to start eyeing the United States as the place for their low wage, unsafe jobs.  As long as Republicans ensure salaries are low, regulations are unenforced, quality control is a low priority and safety is never a concern, and as long as the modern Republican voter doesn't notice what the people they've elected into office are doing, the USA will continue it's regression from the ranks of the developed nations to the under-developed.