Killer Politics (17 page)

According to the International Labor Organization, there are an estimated 250 million children, ages five to fourteen, working in hazardous conditions. Senator Bernie Sanders said, “Most of us would be horrified to support a business that exploits children. But chances are you may have done just that on your last shopping trip. Perhaps you splurged on a handcrafted carpet, without knowing it was made by a seven-year-old from India, where children are chained to looms for 12 hours a day. Maybe you just bought a soccer ball for your son or daughter, without realizing five-year-old hands inside a dark and silent factory in Pakistan produced your gift…. Children's rights groups estimate that the U.S. imports
more than $100 million in goods each year which are produced by bonded and indentured children.”

When we, as a country, import products produced by child labor, it says as much about our moral standards as it does about those who enslave children.

According to Reuters, “the annual cotton harvest in Uzbekistan depends on the forced labor of some 2.7 million children, who are all removed from school for six to eight weeks to work in the fields and enrich the elites of the country's authoritarian regime.” The story quotes a new study,
Invisible to the World: The Dynamics of Forced Child Labour in the Cotton Sector of Uzbekistan:
“Uzbekistan represents a rare instance of state-sanctioned mass mobilization of children's labour. The principal beneficiaries are not households or primary producers, but state-controlled trading companies.”

As a response to child labor abuses, the U.S. Labor Department, with $92 million allocated in 2010, funds 220 projects in 82 countries to address the issue. Compare that to the Bush administration, which proposed a $66 million
cut,
to $15 million, in 2008. Congress, instead, allocated $91 million.

It's important that our trade agreements reflect similar environmental standards, too. No more allowing into our playpens the flood of Chinese toys with lead paint. Nor can we allow crops treated with chemicals banned in the United States to appear on our shelves from other countries. What message do we send and what is the cost to American manufacturers when we import Chinese goods made in plants that do not have to adhere to the same pollution standards we have in America? In the end, the pollution from the very same Chinese manufacturing plants that put Americans out of work floats over American cities.

Trade can be a powerful tool for improving lives in America and abroad, but the benefits have to be balanced among the businesses that should make a profit, the employees, and the overall health of the economies of all countries involved.

All negotiators ought to know when they sit down that their goal is to benefit America as a whole, not just one sector at the expense of another. Trade agreements influenced by the corporate traders themselves, as has been the case, have led us down the wrong path, to shuttered factories, unemployment, and stagnant wages in America.

How Debt Reductions and Unions Can Help Set You Free

I WANT TO TALK ABOUT FREEDOM FOR A MOMENT. NOT THE DRAMATIC
“let my people go” freedom but rather the personal freedom that comes with making smart personal decisions. You live in the land of the free, but are you really free? If you are underwater on your mortgage and facing $1,200 health insurance premiums, payments on that Hummer you just had to have, credit cards maxed out, and a 401(k) that's going south in a hurry, well then, freedom isn't all its cracked up to be, is it?

I remember when I was growing up the television commercials warning about shady drug dealers and how they would get you hooked in a heartbeat. But no one ever warned us about the guys in the suits offering instant gratification. Buy now, pay later! Easy credit!

Don't get me wrong. Credit can be a wonderful tool for improving your quality of life. But too much debt limits your choices in life. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A man in debt is so far a slave.”

The way I see it, being debt-free and having something socked away for a rainy day offers peace of mind—and peace of mind is invaluable. Isn't peace of mind the point of it all? Unfortunately, this materialistic generation has been slow to learn. We really are the Greediest Genera
tion. We're working so hard to weed the roses that we no longer stop to smell them.

In the rush to own flat-panel big-screen TVs and BMWs, people soon discover that those things start owning
them.
The monthly payments demand you get up each day to pay for it all—sometimes at a job you don't like. I believe you have to love what you do to be successful at it. I also believe there ought to be some joy in our lives. It's just hard to get there if you've created your own economic prison and a cycle of living from paycheck to paycheck.

It's easy to point fingers and complain about the inequities in the system, but ultimately, you have to take responsibility for your actions. I'm an old-school, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of guy. I admire a good work ethic, and I believe in working hard to achieve what I want to achieve. That's what America is all about.

I have spent a good deal of time taking the system to task because a combination of deregulation and corruption has put too much power in too few hands. Capitalism often operates without regard to human rights and justice, and I think the system needs to better address those issues. Despite that, I embrace the risk/reward concept of capitalism.

I believe in paying my way, and I respect those who own up to bad decisions and pay their debts instead of taking the easy way out and declaring bankruptcy. But it seems to me that this generation has gotten fiscally sloppy—personally and as a nation. We have been so busy hedonistically living for today, we have not thought much about the future.

I remember even as child looking around and recognizing that some of the adults in my world were working at jobs they detested. Others found fulfillment in theirs. I resolved then to find an occupation that would make me happy and would make me feel at the end of the day that I had made a difference. I have been blessed to have that, but along with the blessings came an awful lot of work.

This is what I tell my children: Manage your debt. Love what you do. Work for yourself if you can. Stick up for yourself by joining a union
if you want to work for someone else. And through it all, leave the world a better place.

DON'T DIG A HOLE DEEPER THAN YOU CAN CRAWL OUT OF

The first advice I would give to any young person starting out is to be wary of debt. You are entering the job market at a most inhospitable time, so try not to exacerbate the situation by taking on too much
unnecessary debt.
There are two kinds of debt—necessary and unnecessary—but only you can define what is necessary for you and your circumstance.

No one really knows if the American economy will continue to churn out jobs at the rate it has historically. I'm optimistic, but economists are all over the map because with outsourcing and the vagaries of trade policy and global economics, we are in uncharted territory. After the first George Bush recession, the jobs lagged far behind, and that is what many predict will happen this time. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

The New Normal may well include higher unemployment. Rutgers economists Joseph Seneca and James Hughes say even Clintonesque job growth at 2.4 million a year would still mean unemployment numbers wouldn't fall to 5 percent until 2017. That's partly because, as the population grows, the labor force expands by a million annually. The job market may be further squeezed if those near retirement age, whose 401(k)s have evaporated, decide they have to keep working a few more years. It's not an easy time to be joining the workforce.

Well, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

As ruthless as it may sound, during a recession blood flows in the streets, and that's when the sharks make money. It's better to be the shark instead of the meal. There are opportunities in every economy, and it's the action of the risk taker that sparks economic revival. If you see an
opportunity to start your own business, do your homework, and then go for it.

Here's where
necessary
debt comes in. If you have completed a business plan, imagined every worst-case scenario, and it still pencils out, then that's the time to start talking to a lender—maybe even investors. Whatever you do, don't take a step until you know which direction you are going. A well-thought-out business plan is the key.

I have been pushing hard for the president and Congress to make available low-interest loans with favorable terms to small businesses—that is where the long-term stability of the economy will come from. It is about diversity. It's a way of hedging our bets. Why plow billions into Wall Street and ignore Main Street? Think about it. We're investing in the American economy. Let's use a time-tested economic investment strategy and diversify!

Did you know that slightly more than half of the jobs in this country are provided by small businesses? According to the Small Business Administration, that's about 30 million jobs. I've called for a small business czar to put the focus on job creation through small business expansion, so I was pleased when President Obama announced the formation of the Task Force on Middle Class Working Families, led by Vice President Joe Biden, to find the best ways to create jobs, improve workplace safety, and pursue other policies that benefit the middle class. I would add to the agenda finding a way to cut through all the SBA red tape and put loans to small businesses on a fast track. Small business owners who have tried to work with the Small Business Administration know how slow and unwieldy the process is.

And how about a stimulus package for the people on the ground floor of growing this economy? Give them incentives! Cheap loans with favorable terms! Zero interest for five years! That's how we can put Americans back to work again.

It's too early to know how much impact Joe Biden's task force will have, but he's a good man with blue-collar roots, and I think the president
needs more of that blue-collar background in the White House. In Washington, when billion-dollar industries start to collapse, it gets everyone's attention. So the president has wisely put big business experts like Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and economic advisor Larry Summers around him to help steady the economy.

But where is the guy in the administration who has sat up in bed at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat wondering if he can meet payroll, wondering if he is going to have to lay off workers? The president needs someone who has been in those trenches to advise him.

I'm serious as a heart attack about this. Washington sees the big picture, but unless you have been in the trenches on Main Street—where the most potential for job growth is—you cannot possibly know how to jump-start small business growth. I am sometimes dismayed when I talk to senators, congresspeople, and other Washington officials because they often don't have a clue about the obstacles small business owners face. That's because we have morphed from what was supposed to be a citizen government into one that is comprised of professional politicians who, as well meaning as they may be, are out of touch. Sure, get me Larry Summers, but get me Larry the Cable Guy, too.

That ought to make for an interesting conversation.

RETHINKING CAREER PATHS

Some jobs cannot be outsourced. Plumbers, electricians, mechanics, and carpenters are in demand and well paid. You want to make a good living and enjoy some job security? Consider the trades. The schools are often cheaper, and there is an opportunity to work for yourself, which I highly recommend. I think we are dug into a mind-set that the only real success in this world comes through wearing a suit and a tie. That couldn't be farther than the truth.

I speak from experience. My sons operate E. A. Schultz Construction—our small company that pours concrete and can build pretty much
anything you need built. Joe and Christian work hard on the job sites—it's backbreaking, physical labor, but if they choose to, someday they can take what they have learned in the trenches and apply that to management or even ownership. The best managers and owners in the world are the ones who have done every tough, dirty job in the business. If you've walked the walk, you can damn sure talk the talk.

I have worked for some of the biggest media groups in the country, and I always worked hard because I took pride in being the best employee in the building—and when I created my own businesses, I worked even harder. My work ethic will never be the reason I fail. I may make mistakes, I may get a bad break, but I won't ever fail because I didn't try hard enough. In fact, the way I see it, as long as I keep trying, I will eventually succeed. It's about seeking excellence. You can't half-ass it in this life.

I talk about an economic “New Normal” in this book—a world of suppressed wages, of peons and kings, and when you look at the imbalance of wealth in the nation and in the world, the evidence is there that this is what has happened, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying. It means we have to try harder. Forget about the odds and the statistics. One bright mind and a strong work ethic can rise above all that. We have got to become as tough as the times in which we live. The key to survival is excellence. That, and voting in your own self-interest.

WHY WE NEED UNIONS

Not everyone is cut out to operate his or her own business, but working for someone else leaves workers vulnerable. That's where unions come in. Without unions, the working conditions in America would be as bad as they are today in emerging economies around the world.

The working conditions in Chinese factories remain abysmal—in some cases, a death sentence. Reporter Loretta Tofani, who spent fourteen months in China researching workplace conditions, returned with
a report to
PBS NewsHour
in 2007 that featured photographs of workers in oxygen tents dying from inhaling metal particles, pictures of workers spraying lead paint with no masks on, and others with missing fingers.

There is a cancer epidemic in the making in China. Tofani said, “I found that there were carcinogens being used by people, by the workers, in a really extravagant manner. People were spraying benzenes. There were people who had silicosis from making our metal goods. And it would seem like it was in every industry. It was furniture. It was shoes, clothes, marble tiles, granite countertops. Virtually every industry went through this system, where workers were living and breathing in carcinogens or using machines that were unguarded and resulted in amputations.”

Why is this allowed to continue? In China, unions are forbidden.

Unions were instrumental in building the American middle class—an economic machine the likes of which the world had never before seen. There is no doubt in my mind that without unions, this would be a much different country. In this book I have mentioned countries with no labor standards where children as young as five are put to work. If you go back in American history, you'll discover child labor was once common here, too.

But late in the nineteenth century, unions appeared to defend the American worker. The most famous of them was the American Federation of Labor, founded by Samuel Gompers. At its peak, the AFL had 1.4 million members who sought child labor laws, workplace safety, a shorter workday, and fair wages. In short, what they sought, Gompers said, was “more school houses and less jails. More books and less guns. More learning and less vice. More leisure and less greed. More justice and less revenge. We want more…opportunities to cultivate our better natures.”

I remember reading about Samuel Gompers in school without ever grasping what a transformational figure he was. When he died in 1924, the world he left behind was on its way to becoming a much better place. What Gompers and other labor organizers did was to literally emanci
pate the American worker. Furthermore, I believe that the revolution in the workplace set the stage for women's rights and civil rights, too. They are all human rights issues. When it comes to human rights, if we are not advancing, we are backsliding.

For decades, because of the power of the unions, the middle class in America prospered, but that all began to change with globalization. The country adopted trade agreements that rewarded outsourcing and embraced a policy of indifference toward illegal immigration. Corporations brazenly turned the clock back on all the hard-fought gains unions had won over the years by moving factories overseas where unions were illegal and labor standards virtually nonexistent. Cheap labor flooded in from Mexico, and suddenly the incomes of middle-class Americans stagnated…stopped dead in their tracks. That's where we are today.

The crazy thing is that this new generation of CEOs doesn't get how important—how crucial—the middle class is. They seem to think they can continue to ship American jobs overseas with no consequences. They forget that the workforce is comprised of the very same people who make up the marketplace. It's an insane economic model that works only for a small, greedy few for a short while and is destined to wreak havoc on society as a whole. They just don't get that what's good for the middle class is good for the country.