India to supply nurses to USA 1921

On Wed, 5 Jul 2006, Kamal R. Prasad

I have not heard this story, but by your own words, it was contractors who did this (i.e. your "private equity") and it was surely back in the roughly mid 1800s when labor of any kind had no rights at all. This was all discussed in another book I read by Aliene Austin: "The Story of Labor" which covered from 1792 to around 1940. You need to understand that the labor movement began in the mid-late 1800s in the USA and federal laws protecting labor and giving labor any rights did not come into being until the beginning 1900s. As a matter of fact, I've cited the laws in past postings and here is another copy of my "FAQ: Does Anyhone Owe You A Job?" which I have posted several times since I drafted it last year. --------

(draft) FAQ: Does Anyone Owe You A Job? Subbreastle: The Education of Kamal Prasad

Questions, a short essay, and references to publications.

The above question deserves to be answered by considering several different but additional component questions:

1. Do citizens-employees have any rights? Or, do only rich and powerful people have rights?

2. Considering the contrast between the rights of rich-powerful people and poor-powerless people, in whose shoes would you rather be?

3. Does the definition of a civilized society include any expectations on the part of any person or clbutt of persons of fair treatment from any other person or clbutt of persons?

4. Are there any details from history indicating that power sharing, equitable distribution of wealth, self-determination, and the establishment of kind of government was in the hands of the people?

5. What basis can be given for, if any, economic rights as well as political rights?

The above questions can be answered in many ways and from many viewpoints. Kamal Prasad, on internet newsgroups, has made many pronouncements generally in favor of wealthy-powerful interests of by being pro-offshoring in terms of US jobs to India, his country, which was once dominated by British Imperialism, which he did not like, but I think he has forgotten where he came from. Kamal has made many pronouncements, especially about what legislation cannot do, in 2005-6 and based them on economic arguments that I think are at variance with history and contrary to the accomplishments of pro-labor laws in the USA. The following is a short essay (and includes a list of source references) that indicates that there is a valid and significant alternative to his viewpoint.

I have now seen many textbooks on economics and banking that commonly cite that high levels of employment are preferable to high levels of unemployment. This is more for the good of society than the good of the individual, but individuals benefit from this.

Governance by democracy was formed in 527 BC by Cleisthenes in ancient Athens as the most just form of rule. During the Roman Empire there was much thought applied to justice and this includes rights of women to divorce their husbands in addition to the prior situation which grants this priviledge only to husbands of their wives. Around 200 AD, the Roman Empire created "public buttistance... to aid children without parents and other needy individuals" (ref 6, below). My readings in Will Durant's book The Story of Civilization revealed that there were actually many kings that recognized the exploitation of poor people by rich people and carried out many actions and made decrees in the name of better justice and to reduce unfair economic situations. At the time I wrote this essay I had been reading about Charlemagne (ref 8, below), King of the Franks (768-814 AD) who went to surprising and unusual lengths to prevent a wide range of exploitations by the rich and powerful against the poor.

Galbreath (ref 7, below): cites the history of the Employment Act of 1946 and that it was originally proposed that, actually, all citizens had a right to a job. Lobbying by some business leaders, on a variety of political grounds including that this proposed act would amount to socialism and interfere with business, led to the proposed act being watered down. However, it is noteworthy that a substantial line of thinking did recognize the need to give a job to anyone who wanted a job.

Book sources:

1. Legal Protection For The Individual Employee, by Finkin, Goldman, and Summers (1989, West Publishing Co., ISBN 031457221X, 1164 pp.). This law book begins with a history of employment practices, references many court cases, and includes discussions of many protections for employees including laws on minimum wage, protection for authors, OSHA, the Mine Safety & Health Act, workers compensation, disability, unemployment, the Trade Act of 1974- extended benefits, ERISA, the Federal Plant Closing Act, and Social Security (I have this book).

2. The Labor Story, by Aleine Austin (1949, Coward-McCann, Inc., 244 pp.). This book (I have it and read it cover to cover) gives a history of relationships between employer and employee starting in 1792 and ending in the late 1940s). At the end of the 1700s, employees had zero rights and even if they went on strike, courts threw them in jail and ignored workers complaints. Significant employee union formations, international movements and brotherhoods, and tactics to fight abusive employers began only in the late 1800s, and legal rights did not get codified into law until early 1900s

3. Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy (4th ed), by Ehrenberg and Smith (1991, HarperCollins, 718 pp.). This book (I have it) covers just about every aspect of labor economics in addition to including history and law formation, most of which are favorable to employees. Included are extensive discussions of 1932 Norris-LaGuardia Act, 1935 National Labor Relations Act, 1947 Labor-Management Relations (Taft-Hartley) Act, 1959 Landrum-Griffin Act, all codifications of laws dealing with union procedure and mostly, but not always, for the benefit of employees.

4. Social Welfare: A History Of The American Response To Need (2nd ed), by Axinn and Levin (1982, Longman, 351 pp., ISBN 0582284902). This book (I have it) starts with the Act for the Debt Relief of the Poor, in 1601 AD, well before the formation of the USA, and the text of that law covers five pages in the book. In short, it recognizes some rights of the poor to a decent life. The book then goes into the so-called "poor laws" in the American New England area in the 1600s, welfare history, The War on Poverty (1960s), and ends in the general area of rights of the aged, single parents, and welfare reform. All of the book views the history of how the US government and US society views those in poverty with sympathy, concern, and aid.

5. Our Endangered Rights: The ACLU Report on Civil Liberties Today, by Dorsen, ed (1984, Pantheon Books,333 pp.). This book (I have it) is mostly concerned with our political rights but part two includes the chapter enbreastled Economic Justice by Sylvia A. Law (pages 134- 159) and includes a legal-philosophical discussion of economic rights of individuals.

6. The Essentials of Ancient History: The Emergence of Western Civilization (4,500 BC to 500 AD), by Patterson (1995, Research & Education buttociation, 113 pp, and very nice maps, by the way). page 94, under section 9.2.3

7. Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went, by John Kenneth Galbraith (1975, Pelican, 335 pp.). I have this book and read it cover-to- cover. The referenced material is around pages 273-277 in this edition.

8. The Story Of Civilization, vol 4., by Durant (1950, Simon and Shuster, 1196 pp, eighth printing). The referenced discussion is around pages 464-467.

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If you read any of the books on the history of labor you will learn that the big corporations (your "private equity") even hired private agents (not federal soldiers) to shoot and kill striking workers, who were striking for their rights, and most of the time they got away with it. There were some events in which federal troops were used to put down demonstrations and strikes, too.

Your own government, as reported by Arundhati Roy, in her book "Ordinary Persons Guide to Empire" is responsible for fascist acts against the Indian people, even today. I have reviewed this book and posted that review here for all to read. In social development, your country is at least 100 years behind the USA.

On the Canadian side, they put a

Not true. They were put in concentratin camps until the war ended, and a few years ago Carter gave them all a govt appology and they got a big pile of cash, in compensation, each and every one of them. It was on television here.

You should

When are you going to realize that ethnic conflicts happen all over the world? India=Pakistan, Kashmir, Dalits-vs-Casted Hindus, right in your own back yard?

Generally, the US has been a land

When did the US expell anyone? Unless they did something illegal?

If they cannot be expelled -they

If that happened it was in the 1800s or long ago. Of course, in India, its the Dalits that get beat-up and attacked, if not denied a place in society, and it is permanent and by birth. Worse than being a black person in the USA.

Our economy has never shrunk. You got into some kind of trouble with your managers and had to leave the USA because of that trouble.

Just one case, you. I hear absolutely no stories of H1Bs being kicked out, but lots of US guys get laid off.

I know of another guy

And, you think no US guys get laid off and have to go somewhere? Or, nowhere? Or, do you think this "another guy" has a special right to a job, something you keep crowing about.

He

So, what. All the US guys who got laid off had to make way for Indians to get their jobs. A lot of them.

Or, he had a lot of debt. You make buttumptions that are not warranted.

I've been in my own country for over 60 years and I've seen a lot here. You have not.

The current

And, you don't want to give them an inch, do you?

What is your idea of fairness? Or, do you just think rich people should keep getting richer, and poor get poorer?

If it was about not beating them up or giving them equal

Its in the books, and Pratap Tambay talked about it, too. And, he had a better story than you had.

I read the book, you did not. Much more about India comes out in the Financial Times than the WSJ so I like to read about India. Roy says India is fascist. Do you think I'm going to pick your side over hers? She has good recognition with best seller books she has written. That counts for world wide recognition.

Anybody who gets picked up

Sure sounds to me like India is a pretty bad place.

Everyone wants our greenbacks. Rich people don't care how they get richer, they just want money and don't care where it comes from.

Proves MY point, not yours.

I told you its the unemployed lot who will go after

And, in India, its the high caste Hindus who beat up on the poor Dalits.

Its not relevant to rioters whether they loot a

Maybe in India. You have the Naxalites (1-4 of your country is in revolt) we just have a few scattered riots. Very small compared to 1-4 of your country.

They all got fines plus jail sentences. Here, read it again: ---------- From WSJ, Friday, May 26, 2006, Front page: (under headlines of Lay, Skilling convicted of fraud) "Guilty Verdicts Provide 'Red Meat' to Prosecutors Chasing Comapanies" by Paul Davies and Kara Scannell

Sidebar shows this:

Criminal convictions and plea deals (footnote 1)

CEOs................82 Corp Presidents.... 85 Corp VPs...........102 CFOs............... 36 COOs............. 14

Criminal and civil penalties (footnote 2)

Resbreastution........ 2.2 bil Recoveries....... 34 mil Fines ........... 79.1 mil Seizures ....... 27.9 mil

footnotes: 1. Through Mar, 2006 2. Through Mar, 2005

Source: Justice Dept.

Mentioned in the article as next tartgets: about two dozen cases of options backdating.

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And, a lot of knowledgeable people who are not worried and say not to worry.

That will provide the kind of srimulus

During the Great Depression, it is a fact, that there was surprisingly little violence.

Yeah, outside your own skull.

All that money in the Indian stock market came from somewhere. It just turned into vacuum in a couple of days. A lot of money. And, I'll bet that if I look at Indian websites, there will be some mention that a lot of Indians took a bath. Particularly the ones that came in late.

Yeah, it is. Because that is the way it is happeneing.

Do you know that our new bookstores and our used bookstores (because I have been in both categories) have tons of books on economic breakdown, depressions, collapses all going back for decades? Every few years we get waves of "scare" books. I'll bet you didn't know that. Even Y2K was a scare. There were five scary books before Y2K, even my brother could not be convinced (he bought weeks of food, water, bought guns and ammo) for nothing. Y2K came and nothing happened. Scare has been going on for decades. Now, the '97-98 Asian economic crisis was a problem. But, it did not spread. None of the scare books predicted these economic crises but they do make money for authors.

Never happened.

So, if someone wants

Anyone reading this besides Kamal care to look at where people are immigrating to (the USA) and where they are emigrating from (everywhere else)?

Open your eyes and brain, Kamal.