The United States has the biggest economy in the world, and the top five multinational corporations in the world, are all United States based, in fact, in looking at the market capitalization of all the biggest corporate players in the world, the United States dominates that list, and it isn't even really close. There is, as might be expected, a downside to what appears to be so very good for America, which is, that essentially what is good for American-based corporations, its executive offices and its stockholders, does not trickle down as much as it should to the taxpayers of this country. That is to say, as disclosed in the book, "The Betrayal of the American Dream", "between 1999 and 2008 … foreign affiliates of U.S. parent corporations increased their employment abroad by 2.4million jobs, or 30 percent. During the same period, they slashed their employment in the United States by 1.9 million."
What this essentially means is that multinational corporations have deliberately outsourced millions of jobs to foreign affiliates of these multinational corporations, at the expense of domestic employment. Obviously, the main reason why this has been done, is that the cost of labor overseas, along with other associated costs, are less expensive than they are domestically, which is wonderful for a given company's gross margin as well as its profitability, but it is not of any benefit for those that are capable of doing the same job, domestically, that have thereby had their jobs reduced considerably or even eliminated. In addition, the fact that wages overseas are lower exerts price pressure amongst domestic workers, for there are ready alternatives for these multinational corporations to turn to, which they readily do.
In point of fact, if the rules of the road, seem to stipulate, that multinational corporations are not compelled by law, to favor domestic labor and domestic manufacturing, then it doesn't take a genius to understand, that this trend of outsourcing jobs to foreign affiliates is just going to get greater and greater, which is why the percentage of the underclass in America stays stubbornly high, and why the middle class in America is becoming hollowed out; whereas the rich have never been richer, and the overall income inequality in America, is now reaching all-time highs, all this in an era, that has the progressive income tax, and all sorts of laws that in theory, are leveling the playing field.
Rather, it appears that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, of which, the multinationals essentially have structured their businesses in such a manner, that their greed for profit and their intense desire for reduced taxation, trumps over fairness and their inherent obligations that they owe their mother country, and in particular the people that populate it. While we should be cognizant that it is a competitive world and that the production of products and the export of them is a critical component in regards to our balance of trade; it is a massive misstep to not acknowledge that how governmental policies are enacted and enforced in actuality, appear to be quite good for the biggest multinationals, as if the multinationals are America, but the multinationals are definitely not America, because the true direct beneficiary of the multinational's success, is always going to be those multinationals, and for the most part, it is not going to be the domestic workers that are out of the opportunity of a domestic job, or have seen their wages and careers stagnate.