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Just
reading this list is exhausting.
While
these acts have beneficial and protective aspects, they have
also encouraged businesses to move their facilities. That
"sucking sound" popularized by Ross Perot is not
just down to Mexico, but elsewhere as well. The result has
been a dramatic loss of heavy industry in the U.S.
The
young and the middle-aged alike are realizing that their dream
of "having a job with a company forever" is an illusion.
Companies have been downsizing, rightsizing, and capsizing
for some time now, and they continue to do so-more now than
ever before. Even the federal and state governments are getting
into the act with layoffs and attrition of jobs.
In
addition to all this uncertainty and mutual lack of loyalty
between companies and employees, even the workers who do keep
their jobs have no guarantee of promotions due to the shrinking
number of management positions. These circumstances aggravate
the already tryingly long commutes in rush hour traffic and
increasingly typical frustrated boss-spelled backwards, that
double S-O-B.
Finally,
if all this isn't bad enough, under recent tax laws employees
are shafted more than ever with limits and thresholds for
their employee deductions and higher social security tax limits.
This results in more couples working than ever before and,
on many occasions, working more than one job. It is now almost
impossible to have only one job in the family and make ends
meet! Today, many households need three incomes just to survive.
Sadly,
even having more than one job does not produce any major positive
effect on most people's bank accounts. Why? Because of tax
laws. This was well illustrated in 1994 by Jane Bryant Quinn
in her Woman's Day article on "How to Live on One Salary."
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