A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

by Bruce Cannon Gibney

Some existing and many potential jobs from the Rust Belt were shuffled off to Mexican maquiladoras or sent to the nearest thing America had to Third World labor and environmental conditions and biddable politicians, i.e., the Southeast. Detroit aggressively expanded south of the border post-NAFTA, while BMW opened a plant in South Carolina, a state refreshingly light of union laws and pollution constraints and always open to tax and regulatory concessions.19 While trade did cause reshuffling of incomes, some losses were partly offset by increased purchasing power. Prices for consumables from Asia and Mexico fell, and that was fine for middle-aged consumers. Eventually, of course, trade and immigration meant that the prices of services (wages) would follow the price of goods; again, fine, with Social Security on the way. The courses of trade and immigration have not been irrational or unintended. They have been sociopathically perfect as a strategy.