Fields: Don’t Bail Out Americans Who Move Businesses Overseas
BY SAM FIELDS
Guest Columnist
I don’t care if he is totally innocent. I hope Ronald Larsen gets screwed by the Bolivian government which plans to seize his 58-square-mile ranch and pay him nothing.
Forty years ago Larsen thought that ranching and farming in his home state of Montana was not profitable enough. Presumably cowboy wages were too high and the Montana government too overbearing.
So Ronnie opened operations in Bolivia, where land was cheap and business unregulated. Labor — mostly illiterate Guarini Indians – is unregulated, too.
Now the Leftist government of Evo Morales alleges that Larsen abused the human rights of his employees by paying them as little as $40-a-year. Larson denies this.
Morales wants to expropriate his ranch and give him nothing, nada, zilch. The story is here.
The actions of Leftist Morales are an outrage. They are a direct violation of Larsen’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, which prohibit the deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
It’s downright un-American.
Oh, wait a minute, he’s not in America.
Larson didn’t think he needed due process of law. Instead for decades, he just needed to be on the right side of a string of dictators who protected you as long as you greased the right greasy palms.
He is the poster boy for investors and businessmen who have fled America in search of low wages, taxes and minimal regulation. It all translates into high profits.
If he thought about it, Larsen probably figured he could leave America to pay slave wages, avoid regulation and do it all without a risk to himself or his investment.
After all, if the locals get a bit unruly, Uncle Sam will bail him out.
Didn’t the CIA overthrow the Chilean government when it seized ITT’s telephone business in 1972? Don’t we still demand that Castro return assets he seized from U.S. citizens fifty years ago?
Millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of investment dollars have been exported from the U.S. with exactly these beliefs.
Why are we doing this?
Wouldn’t we be better off if American businessmen who wanted to close down factories in the U.S. and move them to a host of third World countries knew they were on their own. If their property was seized, if they were arrested, or a family member kidnapped they couldn’t call on America to help.
There Oughta Be a Law prohibiting our government, and particularly the U.S. Embassy, from lifting a finger for them.
Let the word go out. Paying people 30 cents an hour comes with a risk to life, liberty and property.
And there ain’t no due process.
February 11th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
The importation of foreign goods from American businesses overseas allows us all to enjoy a better life through cheaper goods.
February 12th, 2009 at 5:40 am
Tibor
Yes, but there is no one here who can afford them. Do you really think the only thing that matters is cheap prices for salad spinners.
What about the environment? what about maintaining our own work force?
Do you not understand that a stong manufactuing base is a natonal security issue?
If the Morales government rips off Larsen’s business do you really think our government should intervene?
April 12th, 2009 at 8:12 am
[…] It is not a ship owned by Americans who registered it in Liberia or Panama to avoid paying taxes or complying with environmental standards. Or avoiding American labor laws which lets them to hire untrained foreigners to work for chump change. Nevertheless, these ex-pat corporations want the U.S. taxpayer to bear the cost of our Navy protecting them from Somali pirates. This brings up a piece I wrote about Americans who take their business overseas but expect the U.S. to rescue them if they get in trouble. It’s here. […]