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| The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker | 
| Author: Steven Greenhouse
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $11.92
You Save: $14.03 (54%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (17 reviews)
Sales Rank: 97476
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.7 x 1.3
ISBN: 1400044898
Dewey Decimal Number: 331.0973
EAN: 9781400044894
ASIN: 1400044898
Publication Date: April 15, 2008
Release Date: April 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 compelling account of what work life in America has become July 1, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I first picked up The Big Squeeze after I heard that it had a chapter about the factory closing in Illinois that Barack Obama spoke about in his keynote address to the Democratic convention in 2004. I grew up in the Midwest, and I care a great deal about the future of manufacturing, so that was the first chapter I read in the book. It was terrific. Yes, the chapter was about a factory closing--Maytag closed a 1,600-employee refrigerator factory and moved it to Mexico--but the chapter was far more than that. It was a great read about a devastated community, Galesburg, Illinois, and it was fascinating--it was even literary--because it tied in Carl Sandburg, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Ronald Reagan's Illinois childhood all with David Ricardo and the economics of globalization. The chapter had some very moving descriptions about how globalization affects workers. At one point tears came to my eyes.
Then I turned to the rest of the book, and I found it highly readable and intelligent throughout, whether it was discussing Wal-Mart workers, immigrant workers or contingent workers like freelancers. The book has very good, human stories of individual workers, and analysis that digs much deeper than other treatments of these issues. At a time when everyone is talking about working-class voters, this book really lays out what's happening to America's workers. And the story ain't pretty. Anyone who wants to know what's happening to the nation's 140 million workers should read this book.
eye opening, readable, balanced June 28, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I've long been concerned about the rough way that many workers are treated and I picked up The Big Squeeze at a friend's recommendation. I was impressed -- and angered -- by The Big Squeeze; it lays out better than anything I've read exactly what's happening to the nation's workers. Sad to say, wages are going nowhere for millions of Americans, pensions are going down the drain and in this age of Blackberries, everyone seems to be working more than ever. The best thing about this book is that it tells the tales of individual workers -- some are written like nimbly told short stories -- to explain the way that many workers are being dragged down by trends like offshoring white-collar jobs to India, factories moving to Mexico and the two-tier wage schemes that are hammering many twentysomethings as they enter the workplace.
Books about economics or about work can often be heavy-handed and hard to read, but I was pleasantly surprised at how readable this book was. And Greenhouse tries very hard to be balanced and fair-minded as he treads through some difficult terrain about globalization, labor unions, corporate culture and immigration. It's good that Greenhouse writes about the good and the bad, about Wal-Mart and other corporations that brazenly flout the law in how they treat their workers and about corporations like Costco that do right by their workers, companies that we can all learn from and that more companies should seek to imitate.
The Big Squeeze does a terrific job explaining in a very human, readable way the many painful things happening to the nation's workers. I think it's the best book on American workers since Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed.
 When an author longs for the Carter era, you know their book is in trouble June 28, 2008
5 out of 24 found this review helpful
I read a review of Steven Greenhouse's new book, "The Big Squeeze" in "Business Week," and looked forward to reading what insight he had into the corrupt and eggregious self-serving behavior of America's corporations. Not until reading Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" did I realize how oppressive corporations could be to their workers. Modern-day corporations like those depicted in "The Jungle," like Walmart, make my blood boil. So, I want to make it clear that I went into reading this book with a clear dislike of America's greedy corporations. To the end that Greenhouse focuses on the corrupt and evil nature of these businesses, his book is a success. However, it's when he veers off into the "root causes" of the plight of America's workers, that he alienates and at times infuriates his readers. Let me save you time--according to Greenhouse, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan are responsible for every single unjustice and unfairness that occurs today in the American workforce. When he relates an anecdote of a Walmart worker, let's call her "Sue," making paltry wages, having her overtime cut, and being unable to afford health insurance, he places EXCLUSIVE blame on Bush, Reagan, and Walmart. Were Greenhouse intellectually honest, he would admit that odds are that Sue got pregnant in high school, subsequently dropped out, had four children with four different men, two of whom are in prison, didn't go to college, smokes five packs of cigarettes a day (funny how Americans can always afford cigarettes, but can never pay their mortgage), and is on government assistance. Studies are irrefutable...those who go to college and earn even an associates degree, make two, three, and even four hundred thousands dollars more in a lifetime than those who don't. Ultimately, there is no room for personal responsibility in Greenhouse's diatribe against Republicans and "evil" corporations. His argument falls apart completely on page 43, when--attempting to demonstrate how Reagan obliterated the Roosevelt's "social safety net"--he lists statistics, attempting to convince us that we were far better off economically as a nation before Reagan became president. I was six years old when Carter was elected president, and I can still recall hearing my parents fight about high food prices. I can still recall waiting in mile-long gas lines, while my parents were sweating because the car was overheating in the line. I still remember watching the famous Carter "malaise" speech on the nightly news. Try as he might, Greenhouse will never be able to convince anyone...ANYONE...that Americans were better off financially before Reagan became president. Before Reagan, my family had to rely on my grandmother to survive, and that was in a run-down duplex at best. After Reagan, my family was elevated into the upper-middle class, and I have never looked back.
Finally, when Greenhouse isn't blasting Reagan and Bush, he's criticizing our educational institutions for not educating more of the "disadvantaged" among us. He must be kidding. I am a college English professor. I can state unequivocally that nothing...nothing can prevent any American, regardless of age, from obtaining a college education. Nothing. If the disadvantaged aren't attending college, that is THEIR choice. When you consider all the grants, scholarships, and, even as a last resort, the government student loan program, funding is available for anyone who wants an education. Like anything else in life, an education takes hard work and strong will--two things that those on the welfare rolls are notorious for not willing to give, since being on the dole has programmed them to such a degree that they know the meaning of neither. Yes, it's true that high-income students are more likely to graduate from college than low-income students. How, exactly, is that the blame of our educational institutions? I am politically right of center. However, I still do believe that government can and should serve a purpose in our lives. Government can be an influence for good for those in need. I'm not saying that we should turn our backs on those in need. What I'm saying is that instead of providing the lower-class a litany of scapegoats, why don't we find a way to empower them to recognize the benefits of an education and hard work? Quite simply, government cannot be, is not, and never will be able to do anything for those who aren't willing to do it for themselves. So, blame Bush and Reagan all you want, Greenhouse, but by limiting your criticism to Republicans and big business, and excluding all other logical and viable factors for the plight of the US worker, you alienated a huge percentage of people, like me, who are just as fed up with the Walmarts of the world as you are.
In the end, what Greenhouse does by his unabashed liberal bias is alienate someone who was originally an eagar listening ear. I'm amazed that Greenhouse fails to practice what I long ago learned in English 101--if you want to persuade your audience, provide both sides of issue and let the reader decide. Greenhouse, like so many on the journalistic left, are innately incapable of being intellectually fair and honest.
Yes the squeeze is real but June 26, 2008
4 out of 30 found this review helpful
this is still the biggest economy in the world. With globalization, outsourcing, downsizing in manufacturing jobs, the unemployment rate (UR) should be 10 percent or more. Government UR showed only 5%.
The underground economy is thriving. Mexicans and illegal aliens are working in construction, cleaning, restaurant, nannies, casino, etc.
With the population 310 million (25-30 million illegal aliens), and everyone is working in the underground jobs, therefore the real UR is probably 3 percent. In the European Union, UR is 10 percent.
China, even with all the exporting and foreign direct investment, the average person makes only $5000 USD per year! Indians make $3000 USD per year. Americans are making $40,000 per year.
Why does every book give you the complaint? Number one, it sells the book, a good marketing strategy.
Americans spent too much. Every kid has a cell phone, PDA, and eats super burgers. Parents continued to drive SUVs, hummers, etc. People lived in the McMansions, and saved no money. People making $100,000 per year, but has no money left. It all has to do with education and self-discipline.
The pessimist like the Greenhouse talked about these issues that existed for 20 years. There is nothing new in this book.
Uncovering the Meida Shroud June 9, 2008
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book add to the growing number of titles lifting the shroud corporate media have wrapped around the economic realities of our time: ripping out 'labor' from the economic legs of 'land, labor and capital.' Think of it as the Gilded Age 2.0,complete with neo-robber barrons, thanks to laissez-faire corporate globalization.
As Matt Taibi wrote in "The Low Post," "One of the biggest purveyors of this dreck is arch-capitalist spokesmodel Thomas Friedman, who has spent the last ten years trying to talk himself into the position that having to compete with Chinese and Indian industrial slaves is somehow a good thing for America. Nothing makes Friedman happier than being able to appear before a bunch of old ladies in some cobweb-strewn Midwestern library or Jaycees hall and deliver his favorite faux-homespun platitude about the new global economy, a clunky tale about advice he often gives to his daughters. "Girls," his story goes, "when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, 'Tom, finish your dinner. People in China . . . are starving.' My advice to you now: 'Girls, finish your homework, people in China . . . are starving for your jobs.' "
"Well, that makes sense. According to The New York Times, what we need to do to compete with China economically is adopt commensurate "homegrown business practices" that will enhance our performance.
"What do they have in mind? Eliminating the freedom of speech? Outlawing free trade associations? Legalizing child labor? Eliminating all environmental regulations and letting workers roll around in hazardous chemicals for fifteen hours a day for ten cents an hour? Ending all forms of corporate transparency? Come to think of it, we could solve our juvenile delinquency program and our trade competitiveness problem at the same time -- let's just lock up our high school dropouts in toy factories, get those little bas*#!*s making radioactive Lego sets six days a week for a buck a shift. Imagine the profits!"
It's going to be tough breaking through corporate media's stranglehold on information. But there's hope for light on this subject thanks to this book and Aronica and Ramdoo's The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman Wake up America! [...]
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