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Reader question: Please explain this sentence, particularly “wrecking ball”: Corporate Globalization Has Been A Wrecking Ball To The American Dream. My comments: Corporate globalization means American companies has been moving factories abroad in search of cheap labor – and thus greater profit. This leads to fewer jobs at home, which means American workers no longer have many of the old jobs they used to have, especially the more lucrative ones. This, in turn undermines, seriously undermines the American worker’s chances of fulfilling the American dream – the dream, among other things, of achieving prosperity though hard work. With good jobs moving abroad, along with cheap labor coming in via immigration, both legal and illegal, the good old American dream threatens to turn into a nightmare for many. That’s why globalization is faulted as being a wrecking ball to the American dream. The wrecking ball, you see, is a metal ball swung or dropped from a crane to demolish old buildings. This ball, also known as wrecker’s ball has to be huge in size and enormous in weight, needless to say, thus enabling it sink through roofs and knock down walls. Hence, metaphorically speaking, if someone or something is described as a wrecking ball, he or she, or it is something that can do great damage and destruction. Another good old Yankee idiom, don’t you think? Well, not too old, actually. As a matter of fact, Merriam-Webster.com dates its first know use back to 1947. | 
