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The Full Outsourcing Discussion
GileadGreene writes "Thomas Friedman of the New York Times recently did an interesting Op-Ed piece about the "silver lining of overseas outsourcing": the growth that it generates in the US job market as Indian companies outsource work that US workers are better at. Apparently total exports from US companies to India have grown from $2.5 billion in 1990 to $4.1 billion in 2002 as well. So maybe this outsourcing thing isn't so bad after all." Ultimately, free trade works out well; I think one of the issues is that white collar jobs are just beginning to feel the pinch, and are acting like manufacturers did in the 1970s and 1980s.
Hemos adds: Ultimately, free trade works out well
then I read this in the article:
"look around this office." All the computers are from Compaq. The basic software is from Microsoft. The phones are from Lucent. The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke, because when it comes to drinking water in India, people want a trusted brand. On top of all this, Nagarajan said, 90 percent of the shares in 24/7 are owned by U.S. investors.
OK, so that's how Free Trade works out well: domestic workers are put out of jobs but the big multinationals reap the benefits. Where are the phones from Lucent and the the Carrier air conditioners manufacturered? Where does Coke bottle the water? They don't ship it over from the US. They probably have a filtering and bottling plant down the street.
The 90% of the shares owned by US investors aren't owned by your next door neighbours, they're owned by multimillionaire investment traders. They don't give a shit about the people making them the money, they're just cogs in their money-machine.
Saying Free Trade works out well because faceless corporation make billions is just plain wrong.
Trolling is a art,
The idea that America has an advantage in certain areas always comes up. But what jobs are Americans better at when the definition of doing a job well is increasingly based solely on the cost of labor?
No.. it is bad. Middle class is shrinking, and there aren't that many more rich people... So who do you think the money goes to?
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
sure.. it's good for the fat cats, but when is life not going to be? the points brought up in the article - All the computers are from Compaq. The basic software is from Microsoft. The phones are from Lucent. The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke - wherever the offices are in the world these things will be provided by these companies or such like. The only people whose pockets are getting lined are the Fat Cat's, not Joe Geek who just got pushed out of a job.
tim
> Ultimately, free trade works out well; I think one of the issues is that white collar jobs are just beginning to feel the pinch, and are acting like manufacturers did in the 1970s and 1980s.
So it didn't work out well for the blue collars, and it's not working for the white collars. I guess it's working well for the ivory tower folk. Or are you from India, Hemos? :/
All it is is hiring workers who do the job best, without regards to where the worker is. No big deal. There is nothing wrong with hiring the best worker.
There are many Americans who must call my programming company in Tirupathi with software specifications, requirements, bug reports, and customer feedback. All of this information must be managed between the American company buying the software and our Indian engineers. Are the people who manage this information not employed?
Maybe nothing, if American workers are all greedy and overpriced. If someone does the same job but for a much lower wage, they are clearly the better worker.
I think customer satisfaction is a major issue in outsourcing. I remember a friend complaining non-stop about Dell's customer service being incomprehensible after Dell switched to outsourced call centers.
Ultimately, free trade works out well; I think one of the issues is that white collar jobs are just beginning to feel the pinch, and are acting like manufacturers did in the 1970s and 1980s.
oh i DO beg to differ
right.. so we're feeling this "pinch" again.. and we're losing our jobs.. again.. more like a "punch" if you ask me
Ultimately, free trade works out well; I think one of the issues is that white collar jobs are just beginning to feel the pinch, and are acting like manufacturers did in the 1970s and 1980s.
It's easy enough for Hemos to say that -- until his job at ./ gets outsourced to India or the Philippines. You know, it'd be pretty easy to do that for all the ./ editors ... hmmmm ...
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
I don't get liberals- they tell us that we are supposed to care about third-world countries, and stop being greedy a--holes, but when it comes to discussions of outsourcing, all prior arguements are revered 180 degrees.
So what is it, gentlemen?
I sig, therefore I was.
Secondly, if the workers in the country where the jobs are exported have not protection, than everyone will loose their protection one day as well. Either labour laws are exported or we import a state of no labour laws.
This must be some new economic theory. That a $1.6 billion dollar trade increase is somehow more beneficial than tens of thousands of good paying jobs.
Very interesting.
Casual Games/Downloads
When we reach the point that none of the jobs are in the USA because its cheaper over seas will that be good for the USA worker?
As a guy who is conservative on economics and a believer in free trade that is a difficult question for me to ask.
I am currently unable to answer it myself,
but willing to admit its a possibility we may not always end up on the winning side of free trade.
Evil Man
With blue and white collar jobs fleeting, what's left? Pin-stripe lapels? The money gained from exportation primarily helps out those at the top, and most people can't be at the top. So while that's great for people with far too much money anyway, where does that leave the majority of people who need money to survive?
Now there ya go! Drop that doomed programming-job, and hop on to become a real Coca Cola truckdriver yea!
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
Seriously though, if we continue (to allow our "representatives") export middle and upper-middle class jobs, we WILL see a depression, and I don't mean like the '80s, I mean a real depression. We're more than halfway there already. It's too bad we keep electing politicians that just sit back and allow the corporate wonks to masturbate them.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
It certainly works out for the American companies selling the products.
Except whoops, they aren't American, turns out their headquartered in the Caymans for tax reasons. And their products are manufactured in China or Malaysia, and their customer support is in India.
But it does boost their executives, who live in the U.S. Though not legally, they also legally live offshore for tax reasons.
There are lots of good arguments for free trade, but Friedman doesn't know them.
Now, could you please answer just one question? We in the US were told when we shipped all our manufacturing jobs, and most of our dirty work, to the Third World, that all would be OK, because we would retrain to do the work of the mind. Which supposedly has a higher value.
Now that all the work of the hands is gone, we are starting to ship the work of the mind elsewhere. When the work of the hands and the work of the mind is gone, what exactly is left?
Please be precise, specific, and complete in your answer. Thanks.
sPh
"No Logo" is not a good book. It is a typical far-left screed that argues that only government elites should be able to make economic decisions, and argues passionately against letting the people themselves run their own lives. It is typical "the people can't be trusted: let the government take over"
I'm a little confused by the article... It states that this is a plus for U.S because all of these outsource sites buy Compaq computers, drink Coca Cola, etc. So, are we to believe those same centers here would not?
One of the frequent jokes about outsourcing is that the one group that will never be outsourced is management. That's not exactly true. If you were a company that wanted to hire a firm to write software for you, who could do it cheaper? An American firm who hires Indian programmers or and Indian firm whose entire employee roster works in India, including its management? At some point down this slippery slope to the cheapest price, even the "fat cats" are going to feel the effects.
It seems that $4.1 billion is not quite as much money as is lost by the people in the US not being able to buy things HERE because they dont have jobs. All that money goes directly to the corporations, and their CEOs when they sell any product. Eventually they'll simply start producing the products in the countries they're selling them to. They can make compaq computers in India if they need to.
In the long run, outsourcing will create some jobs, but it will be a fraction of the jobs that we currently have. Sure, people can retrain and new industries will develop, but the rapid loss of jobs puts a damper on the economy, one which can be tough to bounce back from.
The corporations are not worried about this, because they can still export products to other countries. Everyone else will have trouble.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
> I think one of the issues is that white collar jobs are just beginning to feel the pinch,
Ask anyone who has lost their job if it felt like a "pinch".
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Oh really?
I'd wager that the person who submitted that article is probably about 25 years old, and not a student of history. Let me explain.
We were pushed out of the consumer electronics industry by the Japanese before the end of the 80's. 10's of thousands of white collar jobs were lost. Likewise, we were pushed out of textiles, steel, and many many other goods.
In the early 70's all the way up till now we've seen a steady decline of the auto industry, and the ONE THIRD of the country's economy that the auto industry directly or indirectly touches.
There are many other examples. Read your history and learn about it. Or you'll be certain to repeat it.
Is it surprising at all? America's ludicrously high tax rates and unnecesary regulations essentially say "it is not good to do business, live, or work here". Don't be surprised if people do what the government encourages them to do.
Good for Indian people: more jobs.
Good for companies: cheaper labor. According to some of my Indian friends, the rupee is undervalued, so it's (currently) a win-win situation for the Indian people and the companies.
>All the computers are from Compaq. The basic software is from Microsoft. The phones are from Lucent.
Sure, that's good... until they outsource those jobs, too. What we should watch out for is that companies don't start a race towards the bottom, where everyone is fighting for scraps and the jobs go to the lowest bidder.
(start -1 Flamebait rant now)
- Manufacturing in the US (save automotives) is all but dead as those get outsourced to other nations where labor is cheaper
- Information management (programming) is outsourced off to India
- Cultural production is stifled and held in the hands of the Hollywood few
- Creativity production is stifled and bound by the overworked USPTO and overbearing DMCA
When the nation is nothing but accountants, lawyers, and doctors, whose primary role is to redistribute, rather than create, wealth, don't go crying when suddenly people realize you add nothing to the table.
(Well, this explains an awful lot of why US laws are like that. When you create woefully little, you must defend that little with all your might. Think: if the US can actually compete despite their higher costs because they add more value, what'd be the point of the tight-fisted IP laws?)
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
Would there not be a desire for Indian startups to replace the outsourcing to US comapnies, with cheaper Indian or Malayasin people? I'm sure there is an indian computer manufacture that can make a PC to run Windows, and replace Compaq in this place. Or, better yet, run Linux.
This counter-outsourcing just seems like a slowing of the bleeding.
the thing that he doesn't mention in the article is that those microsoft and compaq products he mentions are increasingly being produced by foreign workers.
microsoft is outsourcing.
i would be flabbergasted if those compaqs are made in america.
i realize that things are changing. it is inevitable. perhaps, if customer service improves due to actual customer support being economically feasible, that is a good thing.
however, what is the end game here? first, the manufacturing jobs left- but don't worry, there are going to be plenty of high-tech and knowledge worker jobs available.
now, those jobs are disappearing- both tech and knowledge. there are only going to be a limited number of those creative positions that he mentions that are available. if you don't believe that, try getting a director's job in hollywood.
i thought that maybe certain things would be immune- like washing machines, etc., that are too large to be shipped from asia- but mexico just got another manufacturing plant from maytag the other day.
and now that manufacturing barriers for media (tv, films) are declining, i don't see america maintaining its dominance there indefinitely.
what is the end game, again? what are we going to do to survive? what will pay enough to enable a family to own a house and a car?
competition is good. trade is good. but the next twenty years in america are going to be rough if we don't start thinking about these things, to avoid having a nation of burger flippers or anointed creative types and ceo's. and if the numbers get more skewed, we may yet wind up with a democracy instead of a republic.
stored on computers from birth to the grave
"The 90% of the shares owned by US investors aren't owned by your next door neighbours"
Guess who are the people driving the relentless spread and tyrannical globalisation of free markets?
Little old grannies. No kidding.
See all that money their now deceased men folk paid into pension schemes for decades? They want it back... With interest...
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
* Server implementation in latest tech - We'll do that
* XSLT internationalized web gui - We'll do that too
* SOAP and XML-RPC interface - Us again
* Integration with legacy COBOL system - Give it back to the yanks
The European Union says it has started imposing trade sanctions against the
United States in retaliation for tax breaks given to US exporters.
full stories
I can bet they were talking bad about early car manufacturers. Adapt and overcome. Learn new skills. Go to work for those giant megacorps, or don't. Start one yourself. They all started small. But just talking bad about outsourcing is not going to stop it. I think it's a natural business response, companies are only here to make a profit, if you can help them make a profit, they will need you. It's neither good nor evil, it just is
In the early 70's all the way up till now we've seen a steady decline of the auto industry, and the ONE THIRD of the country's economy that the auto industry directly or indirectly touches.
We have no one to blame but ourselves (Americans). The auto industry is killing themselves by making bad products. After all these years, a "pure" American car STILL does not measure up to the typical product from Toyota or Honda.
However, this example also illustrates a very important caveat to this whole situation: the competition can only be productive if there is an equal baseline established. As a country, we have decided that certain qualities are important to us, such as a clean environment, worker's rights, education, health care, etc. These are national policies, enshrined in institutions from the EPA to the FDA, and thus every state is subject to the same requirements. And it is here that the comparison with international Free Trade breaks down. If companies in India are not subject to the same requirements, if they are not required to care about the environment etc., then it is not really free trade. American companies can't ever hope to compete, burdened by costs they can't control. Instead, we merely subsidize a temporary exploitation of a less developed country. Once India and other countries develop to a similar level, they will likely begin to care about more of the same things, and at that point competition can begin to truly flourish without a need for restrictions. But in the mean time, I don't see how true Free Trade can exist without unfairly undermining important values we hold.
I just laugh at people who still think Free Trade is a good thing. Where's Ross Perot when you need him?
have grown from $2.5 billion in 1990 to $4.1 billion in 2002 as well. So maybe this outsourcing thing isn't so bad after all. Only during the Great Depression have we had such a crappy economy so 1990 would be a null comparison. It's easy to work some fuzzy math numbers now, but the effect can only be 'guesstimated' unless the author cares to dip back that far back.
One of the main differences back then (Great Depression) was the sense of patriotism amongst EVERYONE to pull together for country. Hard push when we (Americans) - the majority - feel conned about this current war on (t)error. We haven't even felt the effect of the baby boomers retiring yet, something that has never happened in the history of the U.S. - this many people retiring at once, so there can be no true number to put out as factual, and we already know Greenspan'll be jacking up the date retirees call it a day.
MoFscker
Like I said elsewhere, outsourcing is bad for companies in the long run, because they give away important knowledge:
Outsourcing is a big problem. I can't imagine why a smart thinking company with any common sense would export intimate knowledge of his core business processes and pay for it too!
So because every CEO and his goat is tripping over himself to do exactly the same as all his competitors are already doing, all these companies are flushing their corporate secrets to third world countries.
Might as well do law school then, because that will be the only business model that generates any revenue at all in the years to come. If only to sue all these outsourcing shops who suddenly decide that your (local) competitor, or your foreign competitor pays better for their (read: your) knowledge.
Hemos - Ultimately, free trade works out well
John Maynard Keynes - In the long run, we are all dead.
1. Why do economists get off so easy ? What is "ultimately" ? What happens in the short term ??
2. My friends and colleagues have been laid off due to outsourcing to India. People writing code are becoming handymen, plumbers, delivering pizza. Nothing against those "careers", but they didn't spend 4 years of school getting CS degrees to end up delivering pizza now, did they ?
3. The same New York Times ( 30 little turles - Feb 29 edition link here) has a long op-ed by Friedman where he argues thus - Be glad that Indians are writing code & not becoming suicide bombers like the Arabs. Friedman contends that America is secure because Indians are writing code & not blowing themselves up! How ridiculous is that ?!
This is slashdot, the mecca of Sysadmins and computer consultants. If we want to protect our jobs and our future we have to all come together. Outsourcing is very bad in many ways. One of which is, these people dont' pay taxes. In the long run outsourcing is bad for both The United states in general and for us. I say we boycott outsourced programs. If your incharge of selecting products dump any that have been made in india. Buy hoem grown or near home grown (European, Canadian, American). No matter how idealistic you are you have to admit this flow of jobs is more than disconcerting. Do you want america to be th land of oppertunity of the land of the service industry.
Lets choose home grown software. We are the largest market, our decisions matter. Every other country is very protective of it's markets, why not us. China has a chinese software quota lets have a american software quota. Write your congressman, write the president, vote for anyone but bush. Make it happen. We dont' have to take this sittign down. We can change it.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I am thinking in a historical sense here, so bare with me.
Us as a species in general have been pretty adaptive over the ages. We adapt to new enviroments through the plasticity of the body, we adapt to new problems through the complexity of our mind. There is a change now in the way our country outsources work to a place where it is cheaper.
Regardless of whether or not we like this, it is a business decision at best. I have seen companies make decisions like these on a daily basis, this is just in different context.
We could opt to fight for the return of the way things were done before, or we could adapt. Develop skill sets that make us innovative, and refresh the markets we currently work in.
Evolution is funny like that. The saying is only the strong survive.
Time to see who's been limping along in the herd and cull it.
*note: authors opinion is not a reflection of Slashdot's, Computer Geeks, 90% of apes with egos, or pretty much anyone but himself*
Firstly, I agree that free trade tends to work out well, in that it gets us closer to a perfect market, which theoretically will optimize allocatins of assets. If you think such an allocation is just (a big if), then free trade is good.
One way to reduce the pain that comes from the shifting of resources that accompanies the liberalization of an international trading regime is to to work at reducing frictional unemployment. The best way to do this is to subsidize education and other forms of training. More money always flows to innovators: those who engage in think-work as opposed to do-work or make-work (for lack of a more nuanced set of expressions). Subsidizing education increases our ability to create think-workers who will be more able to adapt to changing market conditions and shorten their stay in the frictional unemployment column.
In regards to the situation experienced by factory workers, and now lower-level programmers, we see yet another manifestation of ever-growing trend towards commodification. Widely available education will help move workers away from the commoditized industries and closer to more valuable forms of employment.
cleetus
How the hell can a person who is making $5 a day doing the coding work that used to pay $100,000 a year in the US supposed to buy the CONSUMER goods that drive exports?
This is nothing more than Republican propaganda. There is no recovery from outsourcing. If you don't believe me, LOOK AT DETROIT! It was outsourced in the 70's.
Apparently fewer students are pursuing EE/CS as a career. Supposedly down 33% over the last two years at MIT, 23% in the country as a whole this year. Potential gradual students are opting for Wall Street instead. See an article in today's NYT
Uh, WTF? Please explain what any of this has to do with the "liberals". For starters, most of the people concerned about loosing their jobs in this country aren't liberals (nor are they conservative).
Yes outsourcing is putting thousands of people out of work. Duly noted.
Yes outsourcing is driving down wages. Duly noted.
Everything you would ever want to carp about regarding outsourcing has been stated, you do not need to retransmit. The issue is now what are you going to do about reality. Are you going to bellyache about it and hope your low-grade tech skills will somehow merit $80k again? Or are you going to find those spaces where outsourcing won't or can't go and pursue ruthlessly?
The US has spent a quarter century ramming free trade down the world's throat and gleefully telling everyone else to "deal with change!". Well now that goes for you too. Outsourcing is reality. Route around it or be a victim. EOM.
All the computers are from Compaq. The basic software is from Microsoft. The phones are from Lucent. The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke
Right, the problem with this 'argument' is: 95% of the computer is made in Taiwan or China, the MS sofware is outsourced in India, the Coke is bottled right in India, the AC units are probably made in Japan, etc.
This article offers no proof of any kind that outsourcing is good for the US economy. It just uses a random collection of impressions ('oh my, they use Compaq here too', 'man, good thing they drink Coke, they don't get malaria') and then jumps to the conclusion: 'outsourcing is GREAT, it creates jobs in the USA!'.
Thomas Friedman has been the choir boy of the Bush administration at the NYT for quite some time now. So much for the 'liberal' media. I can't believe they keep him on staff.
there's no place like ~
Hemos says: "...one of the issues is that white collar jobs are just beginning to feel the pinch, and are acting like manufacturers did in the 1970s and 1980s."
Yeah? What else should we do? Lay back and enjoy getting screwed? What about our families that depend on a paycheck? What about retirement accounts that have been bled dry over the past 2 years? What about ANY type of freaking future? Go back in your hole and Fsck yourself.
Look, if I can taxes for defense, post roads, justice system, schoools etc, then why can't multinational corporations?
Just tax these bums the same amount they tax the American middle class. That'll fix the "oursoucing" problem.
No, group mainly opposed to free and fair trade are the liberals (the left). The Buchananazi's are a minority of those on the right.
What it is is that you are using the pejorative "liberal" for anyone who doesn't agree with you. Consider the possibility that different "liberals" feel strongly about different issues.
That is as BAD a generalization as any one an American makes.
Owing to hundreds of years of immigration, the US is one of the most diverse nations on Earth, despite the effort of the likes of WalMart and McDonalds to homogenize us.
"does the same job" can be a diffuse and difficult thing to measure. Witness the return of Dell support to America - because Indian workers weren't well-rooted in American culture. The same would happen if the tables were turned. Last I heard, American workers were incredibly productive.
As for overpriced, it goes with the cost of living. But that same cost of living sells lots of products for the very same companies that want to outsource. The article says that Indian companies buy US goods, but do Indian consumers? If an American company shifts an American job to India, does it also shift that purchase of its product? Will an Indian consumer base arise as fast as the American consumer base is destroyed?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"Most of the shares are owned by individuals through: 1. pension funds, 2. 401k plans, 3. mutual funds."
Think about it. If the entire employment of the US is outsourced (other than politicians, lawyers, doctors, nurses, hair dressers, and food preparation workers), there isn't going to be much of a market for stocks among the peons. Not only that, but the lawyers will sue the doctors, the doctors will malpractice the lawyers, and the politicians will have no constituents, only a rebellion.
And don't bother accusing me of parroting "democrat liberal mantra bs lines" because it won't wash. I bucked the trend by backing Barry Goldwater in high school in 1964, and have always favored conservatives.
UNTIL NOW. Until this issue opened my eyes.
Face it, this isn't a liberal/conservative issue anyway. The US is staring at its onrushing demise just like the USSR was a few years ago. In both cases it will be due to corruption and selfishness.
In the USSR, the State owned industry, and corrupted its house to death.
In the US, industry owns the State, and is corrupting its house to death.
When you travel 180 degrees on a circle either to the Right or the Left, you end up in the same place.
They must buy a lot of Coke to make up for all of the wages lost due to jobs being shipped overseas. When this initially happened to blue collar workers, everybody thought: 'It will be okay, we still have professional jobs and that's what we all want to do anyway.' We thought we were secure in those jobs. Now the white collar jobs are disappearing and we think: 'It's okay, we can all be in sales and management, those are the jobs we want anyway.'
Really?? Who's going to manage all of these people down the line? Who's going to manage those managers? It is completely rediculous that most of these people are managed from overseas. Sooner or later the management is going to follow the work force, and then the directors will follow the management. How long are we going to blindly follow this path?? Is this really the type of economic model we want for our nation?
Sure, let's all just pretend Free Trade Works No Matter What. Once upon time, people used to emphasize Communism Works No Matter What, and the results were excellent. Such is how idealogy works, except in America we don't look at "Free Trade" as an ideology because all its proponents have convinced of the wonderful brainwashing trick called TINA--"There Is No Alternative."
Capital is free to move, but laborers are not. If a corporation sees a market that has cheaper labor, it is free to move its capital into that market (read: country) and start up factories there, reaping the benefits. Meanwhile, if I, as a poor suffering laborer, want to move into another market, things are not quite so easy.
"Free Trade" is a misnomer. It's "Free" for corporations and concentrations of wealth to do what they want, while it's chains and shackles for the rest of us, the laborers. We're stuck exactly where we are, stuck with whatever hand the prevailing corporations of the day deal to us.
I want to remind everyone that the reason corporations exist is because at some point we granted corporate charters (that's We, The People, granted corporate charters) which could be revoked if the corporations did not serve our economic interests. During many years of judicial distortion, corporations gained rights of personhood, and, through further distortion, became not just people, but people who get the rights of being a person but do not have any of the responsibilities (if a corporation steals, it is not prosecuted as a person who steals, but as an entity with thieves within).
What a distortion it is to think that we, the people, want corporations whose leaders can enjoy the benefits of the US but not give anythink back the country that allowed it to exist. What do I mean by this? They don't give us taxes, because they base their corporation in the Caymans, or whatever. They don't give us jobs, because the outsource. But the upper crust of the corporation benefits from the American lifestyle, and the corporation itself benefits from the captive American market.
If this were a different day, any corporation that could be described in this way would not be allowed to exist. But nowadays, we have schmucks like Friedman telling us it's just the matter of course, that Free Trade will prevail. That people accept this as anything other than a heavy pile of bullshit blows my mind.
This is not about us American laborers being able to compete with those cheap Indians. It's about us not jumping headlong into a world where we allow corporations the rights to do whatever they want, include exploit our market and our laws, without serving the public's economic interest in the slightest.
I hope this becomes and STAYS a national issue. If we have politicians worth a damn, they'll understand that this may be the single most important issue in the coming years. We cannot be manipulated into buying into an idealogy that does serve us. And this is an idealogy, like any other.
Free trade does work out well, but the problem is that it does involve both winners and losers, in the short term. The short-term losers know exactly what to blame: free trade. The winners, by and large, are diffused through the entire economy and over the course of many years: they benefit enormously from free trade, but they don't know it.
For centuries, protectionists have traded on this asymmetry. They point to the real, obvious, and acute problems caused by trade, and deny any theoretical 'ivory-tower' benefits because they are in the unknown future. This is the thinking that resulted in the Smoot-Hawley Act in the US, and similar measures throughout the world, contributing to the profound and lasting slump through all of the 1930's.
Today's protectionists, of course, say that they aren't like that, and that they only want to stop 'bad' trade. But what is 'bad' trade? In the end it still boils down to what it has always been: 'bad' trade is trade that adversely impacts politically powerful groups (such as farmers, steelworkers, perhaps now programmers), regardless of the damage such trade restrictions cause to the economy as a whole.
What was true 200 years ago is still true today: protectionism ends up leaving us all poorer.
i read the piece and was bored. it just felt like a half-assed defence of bushs bad policies. vote nader.
I was listening to a debate on this issue on NPR recently (with keen interest, as you might imagine), and one of the economists in the discussion put the issue much better than I could have. Every text on international trade says that free trade works because differing factors of production (technology, labor, capital) create comparative advantages among nations. Each country focuses on exploiting its comparative advantage and trades to obtain goods and services it's at a comparative disadvantage for producing.
But the present situation violates the key condition for the mutual beneficience of free trade -- low mobility of factors of production. Capital and technology have been able to cross borders for decades, but only now, with increasing virtualization via ultra-high bandwidth communications, is labor able to "virtually" cross borders at will. Indian engineers striving to take my job away, from the point of the hiring corporation, might as well be in the U.S for the most part. (The obvious difference being that they can work for 1/10 my salary, in part because of the lax environmental, health, and other regulations there, and any form of social contract.) The same is true for any occupation which does not require a physical presence at the point of sale or production. To say, "This is just like when manufacturing jobs went overseas and the American worker will just have to bootstrap and retrain" is ridiculous. What kind of knowledge work can we retrain for that isn't just as likely to get shipped overseas? The pro-outsourcing ideologues are short on examples.
Clearly, we're experiencing a paradigm shift and will be forced to re-evaluate the dogmatic appraisals of free trade. In my opinion, the answer is to tax outsourcing companies in proportion to the difference between the costs of compliance with publicly beneficial regulations in the U.S, for example the aforementioned health, environmental, and social laws. India can afford to undercut U.S. labor because the majority of its populations lives "like animals", in the words of a family member of mine who's just been there.
I'm not afraid of competition, but I want a level playing field.
sPh
What exactly are we exporting to India, besides jobs? As much as I would like to say that our IT outsourcing is the main cause of all of these new Indian imports, I don't know that much about the Indian economy.
If our outsourcing IS causing an increase in the Indian economy, then that would be a BAD THING. On the other hand, if our outsourcing ISN'T the cause of India's growth, and their growth is a result of some other factor, then the extra Indian imports are a GOOD THING.
Or am I wrong?
Is in fact very simple. Business should outsource whatever doesn't add value to them. Storage, burocracy, etc.
Since on IT, the people actually developing the software ADD value to the business, because the better the developers, the better (well...ideally) should be the final product/service, outsourcing them is, well stupid.
Companies just want to look better on profits for the next quarter.
As a liberal who believes in free trade, I take offense at your remark. While there are "protectionist liberals" (eg Gephardt), there are plenty of "free trade liberals" (eg Clinton), and on the other side, there exist "protectionist conservatives" (eg Bush).
The ways in which I (as a free-trade liberal) might differ from a free-trade conservative is that I believe in more unemployment protection, lower taxes on the middle class, figuring out how to deal with the Cayman Island issue, and ensuring that environmental and worker protection occurs worldwide.
However, all of these issues are complex: there may be reasons to delay certain elements of free-trade to ensure that it is done properly (the same way that implementing capitalism in post-USSR Eastern Europe worked best when they waited for the appropriate institutions to be developed rather than just saying "free market! go!"). Read Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, to see how a free-trade believing economist can see major problems with how free trade is being implemented...
-Marcus
You bet! Regulations about chemical safety, for instance, (like methyl-iso-cyanate) are completely unnecessary. Just ask the people of Bhopal.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Other countries (India and other tech savvy foreign countries) are using their skills in their home countries for 1/3 the Aemrican rate, instead of coming to America to make more money like they used to. heh maybe cause Patriot Act wont let in skilled math and scientific people from these countries. heh who knows. Good that other countries are starting to get out of poverty, but maybe they should themselves demand the money they deserve. Makes it better on both fronts. More competition is always good. Higher rates for skilled people there. Don't have to worry about too many jobs getting outsourced here. Encourages more people from other countries to diverisify and not going into Math/Engineering. I'm Iranian... i know how the (middle class to high class families) parents push heir kids to be engineers, doctors, chemists in these countries. Not that thats bad, but everyone becomes the same thing, and the supply of this labor gets too cheap. Heh 30 friends from these regions and only one left the stereotype and went into business. thats my 2 cents.
I would guess it'd be the work of the naked body. There's more American porn stars than any other country! You too can be the next Ron Jeremy!
They modded me down so I'll post it again:
This is slashdot, the mecca of Sysadmins and computer consultants. If we want to protect our jobs and our future we have to all come together. Outsourcing is very bad in many ways. One of which is, these people dont' pay taxes. In the long run outsourcing is bad for both The United states in general and for us. I say we boycott outsourced programs. If your incharge of selecting products dump any that have been made in india. Buy hoem grown or near home grown (European, Canadian, American). No matter how idealistic you are you have to admit this flow of jobs is more than disconcerting. Do you want america to be th land of oppertunity of the land of the service industry.
Lets choose home grown software. We are the largest market, our decisions matter. Every other country is very protective of it's markets, why not us. China has a chinese software quota lets have a american software quota. Write your congressman, write the president, vote for anyone but bush. Make it happen. We dont' have to take this sittign down. We can change it.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
The problem with comparing dollar amounts is the question arises as to whether we are talking about constant dollars. Assuming a 4% annual rate of inflation that $2.5 billion in 1990 would be expected to grow to $4 billion by 2002 without any real increase in exports. So it's hard to tell if this really means anything....
What you are saying is correct, but unless you own enough stock to live off dividends, that doesn't do 90% of the people any good. Who cares if the stock I own is doing great, IF I DON'T HAVE A FRICKIN JOB AND CAN'T PAY MY BILLS............... That is the boat that increasing numbers of Americans find themselves in. It's great if my investment is doing well because all the big multinationals have shipped jobs and manufacturing and accounting overseas, but my investment alone won't provide me a living....
This is a concept the young replublican, right wing, econ-nazis' need to learn to deal with, or as Dlyan said these times will be a changin'
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
The argument has been made that the money flowing into the US from India only benifits wealthy people. This agument is not valid because you cannot take one iteration of the money flows and declare a conclusion. A short example for you: CEO gets a bonus for cost reduction from moving a call center overseas. He puts the bonus in the bank, the bank must now loan out that sum minus the required reserve or loose money in the interest it must pay on the CEO's deposit. In order to make a loan it must be competitive in it's rates so it makes a low interest loan to build a new house for Joe Geek. Joe Geek gets a new house at lower cost, the tradesmen that build the house make a living, the building supply industry sees growth and expand production by capital expenditure and increased hiring. They get their new computers from the CEO's company at a lower cost making them more profitable and increasing their stock value, this in turn increases the value of Joe's retirement portfolio.
Nobody likes it but you have to compete for employment. You may not do the job that you want to do, but that is they way things go. In the medium and long run everybody is better off when the competitor with the relative advantage wins.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
It isn't as though the number of manufacturing jobs in the US has shrunk, or real manufacturing wages have fallen, since the 1980s. No, that has not happened at-all.
I don't doubt that free trade will generate a great deal of wealth. The question is - who will get it? In the example of the Coca Cola-brand bottled water sold in the Indian corporate park - how much of that wealth ends up in the hands of white collar workers?
Obviously - those who have power will use it to secure for themselves a share of that wealth. Duh.
This is not even about workers in India and the United States "competing" with eachother.
Let's take an instructive look at the case of caterpillar. Caterpillar (they make tractors) maintains factories both in the United States, and in Germany, and in third world countries. They have, in fact, more factories than they need to build enough tractors to meet demand.
So, when American workers went on strike, they simply increased production in their German (and Mexican, IIRC) factories. The German workers make slightly more than their american counterparts would-have but that doesn't enter into it. With the additional power provided by their international organization, caterpillar was able to break the strike.
So, yes, free trade does generate wealth. But, as with other aspects of trade and commerce (slashdotters are most familiar with the effects of intellectual property law) it will also tend to concentrate existing wealth in the hands of those with the power to take advantage of it.
Pretending, in the case of so-called "free trade" for which ample data is now available, that this is a net benefit for the relatively powerless general population is utterly facetious.
To put it another way - there are all sorts of events, dependent on free trade, might generate wealth for the general population. However, that has no input into the process by which events are made to occur. Events are made to occur because they benefit a particular group of individuals, powerful enough to actualize them. This may or may not have some benefits (lower commodity prices, in this case) for the general population which may or may not outweigh the costs (lower wages, lower employment level) to the general population. Theory can take us this far and from here we should rely on the evidenciary record.
I think it is abundantly clear from the past ten years that the movement of jobs overseas harms the general population more that it benefits the general population.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Thousands of American cities and towns have never recovered from the mass exporting of jobs- autoworkers, fabric mills, shoes and garments, lumber and steel, etc etc. And now white-collar workers are getting it in the rear.
Yeah, this is like so good for the country. Christ, what kind of delusion does this guy live in? They better get those Chinese markets opened up, because Americans are going to be too poor to buy anything.
---
SCO is weenies
Gator is Spyware
Microsoft is thugs
> > fund managers make zillions based on return. they don't care.
> Fund managers don't own the funds they manage.
Parent's parent had the reasoning wrong, but he's right in his conclusion. Fund managers don't care because their remuneration is obscenely high, even though hardly any of them even match the performance of the simple index.
Incompetent as they are, I doubt most managers are quite stupid enough to buy their own funds.
This article offers no proof of any kind that outsourcing is good for the US economy.
Let's go a step further: if the computers are from Compaq, the software from Microsoft, and the phones are from Lucent, do you really think that means more US workers have good jobs? Or maybe the "lucky" ones who have jobs are just forced to work harder? (And pay more payroll and state taxes because income tax has gone down for the ultra-rich, and someone has to make up the difference.)
When US companies benefit, read that as: fat executives get fatter, and US workers work harder for less.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Wait until Taco outsources YOUR job!
This guy is way out there
then i expect he'll change his tune
I would like to know the source of his trade figures.
I don't think he can go around spouting numbers without attribution any more that I can get away with saying that 83% of NYT columnists are liberal.
. Ergo sum cogito - Yoda
Check Out This Modern World for some more commentary on this...
Part of the issue hinges on whether the US jobs of the companies mentioned are being affected.
One person has family who work in one of the US Carrier plants. That plant is closing and the work is being transferred to three other US based Carrier plants, and one in Mexico. The one that is closing is a Union plant. The other ones... aren't.
So, the company is doing its best to screw the US workers for as much as it can. Carrier also have (who'd have thought) non US plants. just because the brand name is American, it doesn't mean that any of the workers who made/packed that product are in the US.
Z.
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
other than politicians, lawyers, doctors
Why let these guys off the hook?
I guarantee you we wouldn't have an H1-B and an outsourcing problem if these programs targeted lawyers.
The US has had 200+ years of incredible growth and opportunity as it grew to its potential. Not that our potential is filled, but for the most part our boarders are. The easy part of growth is over.
We are at the decision point.
We can either go on with 'mature growth', or we can turn aside, with things like protectionism. At the same time, we need to understand what Free Trade really means, because fairness must be part of it. IMHO, the precedent to watch is/was the Muslim world around the time of the Renaissance. Up until then, the Muslim world had been the shining light of the planet. After that, they turned their backs on all of the things that made them great. (like science and math)
Creation Science alongside Protectionism, anyone?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
It's only outsourced because it's cheaper in US dollars.
The US dollar is heavily propped up by other nations that manufacture primarily to the US retail market. Japan and China are the classic examples here. As a result, the US dollar is greatly overvalued, causing everything to be cheaper elsewhere. This would explain why 1. manufacture goes elsewhere, 2. software production goes elsewhere, 3. the trade deficit is so high.
The US keeps its economy from totally collapsing only from the budget deficit spending. It should rather choose to devalue (inflate) its currency, until the US actually has an absolute cost advantage in something. Of course, the lender nations to the US is not going to be happy about that, but I'm guessing that right now, jobless Americans aren't going to care about that.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
You don't even care that your fellow Americans are reaping the benefits of a overall favorable business relationship with India. That India is pumping more money into the United States of America than the US is putting back in their country. That have a trade deficient with this country that probably's not going to change anytime soon.
You just care that your current chosen field as seen a drop in wages and positions due to the increased competetiveness of a lesser development country.
Your arguments are shallow and short-sighted. It does not even consider that the increased competition may spur further improvements and innovation in the industry.
(i)Should the Indians simply continue buying American goods but never trying to sell anything in return?
(ii)How are they suppose to get the money to buy American goods?
(iii)What is your perfect trade ratio? Cause you have a favorable trade imbalance and you're apparantly still not satisfied. Should the Indian descend further into poverty while buying more American goods? Is that what you'd prefer?
Try changing perspectives once in a while, things make a lot more sense then.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
Outsourcing doesnt make any sense, no matter what way you look at it. When we stupidly sent all our manufacturing jobs to India everone said "Hey it doesnt matter, we can all do IT!"...so now we outsource all our IT....what will we say now..."Hey it doesnt matter, we can toil in underground sugar caves for our Indian overlords!".
Some good websites are:
http://www.rescueamericanjobs.org/
http://www.washtech.org/wt/
http://www.techsunite.org/
http://www.cwa-union.org/
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
seems the link is dead now (its on fron page of news.google.com) but here is a Reuter's story
**
EU Hits U.S. Goods with Sanctions in Trade Battle
Mon Mar 1, 2004 10:59 AM ET
By Patrick Lannin
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The EU imposed millions of dollars' worth of sanctions on U.S. goods ranging from jewelry to textiles Monday, carrying out a threat aimed at getting Washington to change a disputed system of export tax breaks.
The United States regretted the decision, the first time the EU has imposed sanctions on U.S. goods in a move that could cost U.S. companies $315 million this year and $666 million in 2005.
Officials on both sides of the Atlantic have played down talk of a trade war. EU industry, worried about a rise in the cost of imports, said the move was regrettable, but understood the decision by European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.
The sanctions are aimed at prodding the U.S. Congress to replace the tax breaks with measures in line with WTO rules.
"Despite waiting for more than two years, the U.S. has not brought its legislation in line with WTO rules. We are therefore left with no choice but to impose countermeasures," Lamy, who negotiates trade for EU states, said in a statement.
"The name of the game is not retaliation but compliance: countermeasures will be lifted the day the FSC is repealed."
The Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) tax breaks system has aided firms such as Boeing and Microsoft.
They were judged an illegal subsidy by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2002. It said the EU could respond by imposing up to $4 billion in sanctions a year on U.S. goods.
Lamy, not wanting to hobble transatlantic trade, decided to apply gradual pressure by phasing in sanctions.
They start at $16 million as an extra five percent duty on selected U.S. goods in March. The duties are due to rise one percentage point a month to total an estimated $315 million in 2004 and $666 million if they run throughout 2005.
The 10 states who join the EU from May 1 will also have to apply the measures if they are still in place.
The Commission softened the blow for EU firms, by hitting items less than 20 percent of imports for a particular product.
U.S. REGRETS EU MOVE
Based on the full $4.0 billion, the main sector to be hit would be U.S. jewelry at an estimated $1.43 billion.
"Given the economic and political complexity of this legislation, we have urged the EC to refrain from imposing retaliatory tariffs," said Richard Mills, a spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick.
"We regret they are moving forward," he added.
He noted that key committees in the Senate and the House of Representatives had approved bills to bring the United States into compliance with the WTO and that the administration of President Bush had worked closely with Congress.
Lamy has said the fight should be compared with $1.0 billion of daily transatlantic trade, and that the EU has coped since 1999 with $100 million of U.S. sanctions a year in a beef row.
The dollar's weakness is likely to lessen the pain for U.S. exporters, but Zoellick and other top officials warned Congress last week that the sanctions could hit growth.
German exporters gave cautious backing to Lamy.
"I regret that the dispute...had to come so far. The imposition of penalty duties will in individual cases bring additional burdens for the importing companies concerned," said Anton Boerner, head of exporters' group BGA, in a statement.
"The EU had finally to act in order to remain credible. The USA has had enough time to fulfil their WTO obligations."
EU-U.S. trade ties have seen bruising battles recently. The EU came close to sanctions after Bush ordered a rise in steel import duties, but the duties were ended in time.
At the same time, the EU and United States are major players in getting world trade talks back on track.
more
Which colors your outlook, I think.
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SCO is weenies
Gator is Spyware
Microsoft is thugs
Ultimately, free trade works out well; I think one of the issues is that white collar jobs are just beginning to feel the pinch, and are acting like manufacturers did in the 1970s and 1980s. Yeah, tell "free trade works out well" to people in those areas that still haven't recovered from the loss of manufacturing jobs in the 70s. There are a lot of people who have missed the past few boom economies.
Then we tax every corp in the world, regardless of whether they do business in the U.S. or not, for the privilage of being able to sell in the US. If they don't pay, well, they'll be considered a rogue corp and dealt with occordingly.
This way we (in the U.S.) can sit around on our asses and do nothing! Think about it - permanent vacation!!!
Some people, I think the Morphia or something like that, invented this a few years ago. They call it "protection" I think.
Something to consider.
Yes, I'm joking.
There is no spoon or sig.
India aint the only place getting U.S. jobs. China is getting a bunch. And they sure as hell do not give two shits about worker's rights or human rights.
Here's a way to make true free trade between India and the US: Sure, let the US outsource jobs to India, in return, US citizens can buy land in India, buy food, etc. Guess what? The things that make life in India affordable on a pittance of an American's salary will dissappear in about 2 months...as the prices of everything equalizes in India and all of a sudden, a programmer making 10K/yr can't even afford rent on a cardboard box anywhere near where he can get to work. Of course, what's the likelihood of the Indian gov truly opening their markets?
For similar arguements, check out a recent op-ed by economist Paul Krugman and a recent article on outsourcing in the Economist.
Yes, I referenced an article from the Economist. I realize that makes me a f#$%'n prick.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/01/technology/01bil l.html?ex=1078722000&en=31d099587f6b4293&ei=5062&p artner=GOOGLE
If you write free code, then how can an Indian programmer be any cheaper.
What are you guys worried about anyway?
The article points nothing out about how the average worker is going to benefit.
I read Thomas Friedman but this little snipet has nothing to do about a Silver lining.
WOW an indian anmimation company outsources to the US for animators and writers to put a Hollywood finishing touch on an Indian Folk tale.
I think Thomas Friedman is spot on about Arab/Israeli issues but he is way off in the America outsourcing jobs issue.
Probably the solution is for American workers to move to India and teach the Indians that they need to unionize and create medical insurance, workers Comp and stock benefits.
What this really comes down to is that US companies are finding it harder to find Slave labor to create mega profits for themselves.
The US was built on Slave Labor.
The RailRoads, Textiles, the industrial revolution.
Hell they put Henry Ford on trial because he wanted to pay his workers $5.00 a day!!!
I disagree, the North American Auto industry is growing. Parts are being offshored at an astonishing rate, but all automakers are doing this. I don't consider any automaker pure anything, they're all fighting like crazy to be the most competative they can. There is a strong focus on cost, quality and performance.
GM, Ford, Toyota, Daimler Chrysler, Honda, Nissan are all publicly held companies with North American macturing plants.
There is a Toyota/Lexus plant is within 20km of my house, and it's growing bigger every year.
Middlemen and executives
No wonder there are so many out there singing the praises of outsourcing. But can anyone give an example of a working economy (I said ecomomy not market) of only managers and salesmen?Feh.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Look I used to be a tried and true replublican till I saw my friends jobs being outsourced overseas, and the suffering they went through. Then I was laid off and out of work for 9 months ( which is apparently minimal from what some folks have told me), found a new job that pays 20,000 less a year, thats a pinch, being out of work for 2+ years and having to take an $9.00 job is a punch. Basically Bush and the Fox-News crowd don't care, they have thier millions and could care less if the rest of us starve.
Then in the name of religion, they use issues like Gays, abortion, prayer in public schools... ( all issues they have used since Reagan and done extactly nothing about in the last 20 yrs) to suck in the voters from the religious right, that they would otherwise never get, to vote for them and continue looting the US, and throw the evangelicals a bone every now and then.
I have had enough, I plan to use the Reagan formula 'Are you better off than you were 4 years ago???' No, bye bye Repubs... it's that easy.
I don't care if there is Gay marrige, cats and dogs living together, whatever as long as I can provide for my family. Thats the bottom line, the rest of it is window dressing.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
I read Tom's comments on how he saw Pepsi and other companies expanding into South Asian markets and I think he missed at least one important point. How can he compare Pepsi's (and other low-tech companies and functions) expansion into South Asia to technology jobs outsourcing? It seems a little under-educated. Here's what I mean.
For Pepsi to move into India probably required the construction of new manufacturing and distribution facilities. Production continued in Pepsi's traditional markets and probably had little impact on peoples jobs in places such as the US. There was probably little or no job "outsourcing" required to add carmel coloring and sugar to filtered water and CO2. Pepsi's overall headcount probably increased and the net effect on the US economy was job stability (unless or until the colored fizzy sugar water is imported from overseas).
Now let's take a look at our favorite industry, computer technology. IBM, Microsoft, HP, Motorola, municipal governments, and many other groups are moving (notice I did not say expanding) jobs to India. The jobs here in the US are replaced by (perhaps several) jobs in South Asia. The net effect on the US economy is job loss.
I think this gets to the nub of why Tom is wrong. Just like with textile, steel, glass, and automobile manufacturing, jobs lost to overseas labor remain jobs lost. BushCo likes to talk about the "freeing up" of the US economy to "do other things". Nice theory. In practice the gap between the have's and the have-not's (investors/boardmembers/managers and labor) in this country is ever widening.
We keep talking about how a crisis came in the 1970s and 1980s as manufacturing jobs were destroyed in the United States, as if it were in the past tense.
r oit
But, last time I checked, all the previous centers of manufacturing that were once booming cities are still teetering impoverished ghost towns.
A small list of the casualties of the last big free trade expansion:
Akron
Boston
Buffalo
Chicago
Cleveland
Det
Erie
New York City
Philadelphia
Shall we add to the list these IT cities?
Austin
San Diego
Phoenix
Redmond
Maybe we should just trash all of our cities?
This is my sig.
It is a bad thing. Outsourcing tech support even to US companys is bad...
Why? Because it's all about time... the outsourcer gets X amount of money if they answer Y amount of calls.
The more calls they answer, the more money they get.
What usually tends to happen in this type of situation is the execs at the outsource-500-support company come up and figure "Hey, fuck helping dell's customers, more calls = more money, let's make sure every call is under 7 minutes weather the problems fixed or not"
Therefore it's no longer important to hire qualified people. You can take any common person off of the streets in india and put them in the cubicle, doesn't matter, they don't care if she fixes the problem or not... as long as they get rid of the caller in under 7 minutes.
Some qualified people end up in the tech support dept, because they want to help people... but they end up getting fired because they have a few calls that took 20 minutes to fix the callers problem..
Both US and any other outsource tech support company's use this trick... i mean hey, it brings the money in, doesn't it?
So, I'm against outsourcing tech support, as, the outsourced company never does care about the people they're handling.
Excuse my grammar,
Just my two cents,
Gotta love the response rate to this thread, as thousands of out-of-work slashdot geeks post their comments. Also, has Compaq outsourced their tech support? I just keep having this image of one of the programmers calling Compaq tech support and hearing the phone ring next door......
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
If anyone thinks outsourcing is good at all, they are no-brainers and stupid, especially if they are living in U.S.
"Can architect masterful C++ for $4.50/hr"
I doubt it.
In fact, you can't even give a definition of "architect" in this context.
I've read many many /. posts complaining about being put out of work because their company outsourced to XYZ country.
How can you say this is a bad thing at all? All it does is reflect on the inefficency at the US site which was shut down. Think about it. A company isn't going to higher labor at 1/2 the cost if it takes 3x more time to complete the project. The developers in
The only reason they would move jobs to XYZ country is that those programers are able to create the same or better product and a lower price. aka: they are better than you at your job.
This leads me to the conclusion that tech workers or any workers for that matter should figure out how to better compete. Either with more education, more specialized skill, lower living standard etc.
The united states and it's residents have been sitting on it's laurels too long while the rest of the world was striving to become competitive. If you get laid off because you are not as good at your job as someone else, the only person you can blame is yourself.
Companies are not beholden to the country they reside in, and they shouldn't be. It is in their best interest to be trans-national. Just as it is in the best interest of the United States to have free global trade which will bring down prices of consumer goods in the US. The only problem is that the United States as a whole (not government) hasn't decided/found which things it can do better than everyone else... and that's the US as a whole's fault, not India or China or where ever.
Basically, I say to you, realize that you were bested and try harder to surpas those who bested you.
- The vast majority of job losses since the start of the decade are cyclical in nature, not structural
- Higher productivity is the only way to lower prices and increase wealth across the whole economy. Outsourcing helps companies to lower prices and improve the standard of living across the board. In any case, outsourcing's contribution to the overall jobless figures is overstated. Over 2 million jobs a month are in a state of flux in the US economy, with jobs being created as others disappear.
- Although IT jobs are currently undergoing what manufacturing went through in the 1990s, many more jobs will be created in the US as a result of the lower costs associated with outsourcing IT work. The jobs created at home will be higher paid too.
I think of this in the same way as the metaphor of the digger. Two men are walking past a building site where a house is being constructed and see a man working with a mechanical digger. One says to the other, "If it weren't for that machine you could have ten men out with shovels doing that work." The other says, "If it weren't for your shovels, you could have a hundred men out there with teaspoons doing it." What would be the point? All that would result would be the house being too expensive for anyone to buy.Bottom line: If you make stuff cheaper, society as a whole benefits. Yes there are painful individual cases where people lose their jobs, but because the house is so much cheaper, they don't have to work huge hours to buy a house when they do get a new job.
One final point of my own. I'm a bit worried by the rising tide of protectionism in the US. It was protectionism and xenophobia that ultimately set up the economic conditions for two world wars.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
If every company does this, it's a disaster. The jobs your consumers used to hold are gone, and they can't buy your stuff anymore. Up to now, individual industries have outsourced leaving the vast majority of consumers unaffected, but a significant percentage feeling the pain. Now every company can do this, and the pain will be felt by a much larger number.
I fear there is a real potential for a spiraling deflation. At some point, consumers won't be able to afford products, which means companies will outsource more jobs, and so on. At some point it will level off, but your average American is not going to be happy to have it level off toward the level of India and China.
Dilbert's company outsourced the project to an Indian company who can do it cheaper.
That Indian company outsourced it to an Afghani company because they could do it cheaper.
And the Afghani company outsourced it back to Dilbert's company.
Somehow, that doesn't seem so ludicrous.
Null
Because you know, the Burear of Labor Statistics wouldn't ever provide false statistics right? After all, what do they have to gain - they're not associated with the currently Republican Party or anything...
Oh wait, yes they are.
Jobs writing software *are* manufacturing jobs, and as such it makes historical sense for them to eventually leave this country to be done somewhere cheaper. We might expect the software market to behave the same way all the other markets have: leaving us with fewer manufacturing jobs but lots of jobs providing service around software. For instance, not as many cars are built in the USA anymore, but there is plenty of work for mechanics, car salesmen, junkyard operators, tow trucks, customizers, etc.
I used to write software for a living. Now I'm unemployed. As much as I'd like to go on writing software for a living, because I like it, I figure it's time to compete in this global world and move into a speciality which I can rely on to be in this country for a while.
"Adapt and overcome. Learn new skills. "
I agree 100%.
So what should I train in? No, really.
... in the eyes of management who are so rich they don't need to work in the first place.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
>>Ultimately, free trade works out well; I think one of the issues is that white collar jobs are just beginning to feel the pinch, and are acting like manufacturers did in the 1970s and 1980s.
Blue collar work went oversea and we have ghost towns in old factory cities. Now white collor jobs are going overseas and basic service jobs. So what's left flipping burgers or being a manager. The jobs of people who do most of the spending inside the US are going away. These CEO's have to be pretty short sighted not to see they are reducing the customer base.
If you had bothered to RTFA you would see that not only has trade increased, but jobs have been created here. So while there may have been a loss of "tens of thousands" of jobs, there has also been an an increase in other jobs, leading to a net gain. And no, I'm not talking about service industry jobs flipping burgers at McDonalds.
The company I work for is in the process of outsourcing a substantial part of its workforce to India. Since the transition to India started, the company has conducted a series of information sharing sessions with its employees, during which they have been releasing and revising their justifications for outsourcing. Here is the latest (paraphrased):
Have any other companies tried using this Baby Boomer excuse? In a sense, I suppose it gives some hope to those who have been laid off (just live off of your *savings* until 2010 when there will be more work than you could handle), but I doubt it.
Your argument is a joke. See Subject.
:)
Free Trade is good for developing countries, everybody!
My story begins: I miss my old router, but after 18 months it just died. It had to be replaced.
Actually, I'd like to be able to buy products that don't need any support at all, but unfortunately the lowly sales employee couldn't even tell me if the router had web based administration. (He looked like a deer in headlights on that question.)
So how do I find products that fit my specific needs? Why, I do the research, listen to the wonderful people who post on Slashdot, and throw darts in the dark whilst blindfolded... And what comes next? I'm talking to Sanjay for 2 hours trying to get the port forwarding to work for the FTP server. The final result? Miserable. It's still not working. So I even tried another router... Nope. That one couldn't even get any of the ports to forward. Now I feel gun-shy even at the thought of dialing tech support.
Of course, if I were a real techno-geek, I wouldn't need any tech support at all, but apparently a lot of people do need it because you have to wait 15 to 30 minutes just to suffer the dreaded question: "And what version of Windows are you using?"
Yes... if I hear that question again, I am going to reach through the phone and beat the holy-- Oh, nevermind... My blood pressure is up again. Better calm down before I have a stroke.
And yes... It's at that point I usually do fire up that ol' Win98 box out of desperation. Never mind the fact that no one in their right mind would run a server off Windows 98.
But seriously, if you're concerned about the rampant outsourcing of jobs to India, don't worry... It's just a fad. Eventually, someone is bound to realize that those "cheap workers" just don't work.
In the meantime, the situation keeps getting lost in the translation.
You have the carriage in front of the horse here.
It is not the government encouraging people.
It is people with disproportionate power encouraging the government.
This is how corporations came to be in the first place. Judges, lawyers and the people paying those lawyers (the rich factory owners).
The framers of the constitution knew the danger of allowing corporations to gain the rights of individuals. Any citizen of that time knew that corporations are incompatible with democracy. The American democratic experiment has failed for the majority of the population.
The richest country in the world, (unparalled in human history) will not allow its own citizens basic rights that less wealthy countries give their citizens. Just check some numbers. Real wages in the U.S. are at 1960's levels and are still decreasing.
Regulations are necessary in any society. Regulation is a word used instead of law. How can you argue that law is not necessary. But anyway environmental law is not enforced in this country anymore. Funding has been slashed or self regulation has been put in its place. The country side has been raped as it is with these ineffective laws, without them we would have the same environmental degradation as China and Mexico. Then there is financial. Have you already forgotten Enron?
As for tax rates. Check the numbers again. Your taxes are no worse than any other western nation. The question is where do those taxes go. Why are you not concerned about corporations receiving subsidies from the government. If you take the time to check you will find that at least half of the fortune 500 have received substantial government subsidy and even bailout in the face of bankruptcy. Give your head a shake and repeat with me: there is no free market, there is no democracy.
Unless you make a few hundred million a year.
As for your president, following his little performance on the steel tarriffs, can we class him as one of your dreaded liberals? After all, he brought in illegal protectionist measures and only backed down after the EU threatened retaliatory measures that would affect the export of goods from key states in the 2004 election.
"What is it gentlemen" indeed!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Outsourcing is nothing more than law of competitive advantage at work. It's a basic fundamental force of economics that simply can't be stopped. Its been happening for centuries. It's just that for the first time in history, its the white collar guys who are feeling the pain because the skills of people in the developing world are catching up. Ultimately though, outsourcing is good for the economy, though politically unpopular. When a company can save money by outsourcing one production line, it can reinvest those savings for new product development or manufacturing or other things domestically, thus creating new jobs. Also remember that the basic churn of jobs in the U.S. is enourmous. The number of people in the employed in he U.S. both in terms of absolute numbers and as a percentage of adult population are near the highest levels they ever been. Think I'm making it up? Try this story from The Economist (re-printed at CFO.com). Gritch all you want about this, but it's going to continue, and any presidential candiate who tells you he's going to staunch the flow of jobs going overseas (excepting of course federal jobs) regardless of party, is selling you something they can't deliver.
"You actually have some good points to make, but you let yourself down with confrontational comments ..."
"I really wish that political discourse in the USA would calm down and grow up."
My instinct is to agree that civility is desirable, but other factors can trump civility. I speak here without reference to specific posts.
Would it have been the right choice to tap Ghengis Khan, or Stalin, or the gentlemen whose initials are A.H. and must never be referenced in unrelated internet discussions,politely on the shoulder and say "Excuse me, sir, but I beg you to consider that what you are doing is unfair."
Confront the wrong. Confront lies. Confront evil.
That said, confrontation and incivility are not the same thing.
The majority of the people out there are socially conservative, fiscally "populist". Which means when liberals talk about banning guns, they may pick up the odd vote or two in New York and San Fransisco, but they lose a whole lot more in the "fly over" country in-between.
By the same token, it takes an economist to understand that losing my job today is good for the economy as a whole. The average joe worker just knows he's losing his job to some foreigner in a place he has trouble naming. A rising tide might lift all boats, but if your boat is sinking, you are still going under.
If the Democrats adopted a more socially conservative agenda (ie, abandoned affirmative action, their anti-gun stance, etc) they would remove the Republican lock on the "white-man" vote and would be an unstoppable electoral force.
The problem isn't outsourcing per-se. We all know free trade is Good Thing(tm) and putting up trade barriers will only make things worse in the long run but crap man, could you at least give the programmers a second to find a new vocation.
That's what's got us all pissed off. We spent thousands, often tens of thousands of dollars on a top notch education in a field that everyone said was the wave of the future only to lose our jobs a few years later. At least when manufacturing and textile jobs started to slide America bucked up and tried ebb the flow. Now there's a 'well, it's happened before and it turned out ok... so fuck off' attitude.
I'm not so worried about myself. I'm stable and satisified enough in my career but there are still a ton of college kids that got into the field either because it was still decently hot a few years ago or because of *gasp* a sincere interest in computers who are going to be quite screwed come graduation day. It would be nice for those fellas to have something to look forward to and hopefully the generation below them won't be stupid enough to go into something as unimportant to America as technology.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
I highly recommend "On Globalisation" by George Soros. It's a very well-researched and well-argued piece of work that warns of the dangers of market fundamentalism, i.e. the idea that market forces always magically coincide with the public interest.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
For more information: Intresting news article
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
.. sits a white caucasian guy munching a bagel. His phone rings and he leaps into life... 'Hello, thank you for calling Coca Cola India. My name is... er... Gupta. Isn't the weather in Bombay warm at this time of year? How may I help you?'
I think one major point that this debate is overlooking is that it does NOT address quality. Only cost.
From the anecdotes I have heard, Indian IT and software development efforts are just as spotty as domestic development and IT work. Some of it is great, most of it sucks.
Many argue that since more Indian companies have CMM certs, that is a guarantee of quality. Having been involved in a couple of Fortune 500 companies during ISO 9000 and 14000 efforts, I suspect that CMM certs are no different: vacuous paper chases.
It is a sad fact that the state of the industry is such that volunteers can consistently put out better software than large commercial enterprises. Free software is not perfect, but the fact that billions are spent on comercial software and it can't beat a bunch of volunteers is interesting, to say the least.
I think the problem is that most software is R&D and most companies are unwilling to pay for R&D and incapable of managing it. Until this changes, offshoring is not the solution.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Nice job with the "Sparky" attempt at maginalizing your debating partner there, but you're full of shit.
Let's look at some Dept of Labor statistics, shall we? You can find them just like I did (given 5 minutes and an annoying Liberal cry-baby to spank).
Here's a hint, look under Employment Situation:
Jan 94: 121,971,000 employed. 65,286,000 not in workforce.
Jan 04: 138,566,000 employed. 75,298,000 not in workforce.
While there are significantly more people not in the workforce, I submit to you that most of those are retired! (baby boomers getting older, that sort of thing)
So, contrary to your whining, there are 17 MILLION MORE PEOPLE WORKING now that there were 10 years ago. There is no impending doom!
This is a concept the young liberalcrat, left wing, econ-morons need to deal with, or they'll get left behind (whining about it all the way, no doubt).
...neglected to mention is that we have a $8 BILLION TRADE DEFICIT with India. Now, how could (or why would) the talented Mr. Friedman make such a mistake?!
t ml
Reference:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0402/26/ldt.00.h
Someone actually had to pay this guy's way to India. That's amazing. I don't understand why we just didn't fire Thomas Friedman a long time ago and replace him with someone in India for 1/10th the cost. I'm sure there are plenty of Indians out there that would do his job.
What would you write about then Mr. Friedman?
The bottom line is that outsourcing is a direct result of the nature of IT and software development: those industries are location-independent. Protectionist trade barriers are not going to help in the long run. If it can be done over a network, it will be. Folks on Slashdot love to talk about telecommuting, and brag about how they can ssh into boxes 100's of miles away to fix problems. The logical extension of that is to locate the people doing the work in a cheap place. All the better if they're already there - then you don't have to pay for moving costs. Ever wonder why service jobs stay in the US? It's because they are location-dependent. They involve providing service to people in a specific location.
With the points above in mind you basically have three options:
- Get a job in the service industry
- Move to where the jobs are (I currently live 6000 miles from home so that I can work in the field I want to - and no, I'm not Indian, and I don't work in software or IT)
- Find a non-service-industry job that is location-dependent and tied to the area you want to live in (I'm working on that one right now)
Of course, none of those are any guarantee of perpetual employment - the world is a dynamic place, and you have to stay on your toes. But they're much better options than just sitting around whining and asking for protectionist legislation that will ultimately hurt the US.Since the U.S. is outsourcing jobs that can be, literally, performed by peons for pennies on the dollar why doesn't OSDN ship the maintenance of Slashdot to India? Surely a bunch of Indians, who received education in proper English, can maintain such a mess of a script that is Slashcode. And they certainly could do a better job at catching duplicate articles (search archives before greenlighting submissions = how hard?). And then we don't have to sit through the incessant naive political one-liners from incompetent "editors."
I dont get this. When the American company goes to a third world country sets up its McDonalds and Cokes and kills the local competing brands and consequently puts the local workers out of a job, American extols the virtues of capatilism.
When the third world country does the same thing back to the US (namely replace programmers with its own) why is America crying. It is still capitalism at work. I dont see what the big argument. Yeah you lost your job. Big deal. Capitalism, the concept you so strongly support is all about surivival of the fittest. Someone lost a job before and you gloated over it. Now you lost it and someone is gloating over it. Its time to shut up and move on.
Absolutely agree with the long-term benefits and even a few of the short-term ones.
That said, no one on either side of the issue seems to have a plan for how to ease the displacement and transition those affected people into these new "better" jobs.
Pro-multinationals expound benefits and the broad horizon of "better" jobs for Americans. Great, and I'm all for that--but what are those jobs? Not a whole lot of speculation or identification of these. If this isn't dealt with, these are going to turn into the economic equivalents of Iraq WMD--everyone knows they're there, but no one seems to be able to find them when it would most benefit them. Worse still, absolutely no one promoting multi-national work has any sort of plan for how to deal with the real disruption of real lives, with real consequences. C'mon folks, someone tell me something about training, support during displacement, the things those affected by this need to hear.
The anti-multinationals are even worse--blind, reflexive resistance to an economic force that, better or worse, is going to run it's course regardless of whether we like it or not. What are these people doing to lobby and advocate for the training, support and assistance the displaced are going to need?
Hey, I'm all for better, sustainable work and a career that builds on what I've already done, rather than locking me into a single competency. So somebody start defining what that is, how I get there, and, if the cost is my immediate employment, what support I have to get there.
Right now the answer to the above seems to be: "You're on your own, because no one has a clue." If that's the best the pro-multinationals can come up with, is it any wonder so many people are knee-jerk opposed to this?
I did RTFA, but I must have missed the part where it stated that somehow $1.6 billion in increased trade (a lot of it with companies that make a lot of their equipment overseas) had created anywhere near the amount of jobs that were lost. So great, we lose 50,000 jobs, but we gain a 1000 (or 2000 or 5000). I'm sure economists everywhere think that the US is the one really making out here.
Casual Games/Downloads
So it looks stellar! Let's think about that. The difference between $4.1 billion and $2.5 billion is $1.6 billion. In 1990 our trade deficit with India was about $700 million. In 2004, our trade deficit ballooned to $8,066 million. (That's $8.1 billion, folks!)
Plug those numbers into your trusty calculator free-trade advocate, and you will find that our exports are up a whopping 64 percent. However, our trade deficit has shot up 1,152 percent. And, what you say, you didn't think percentages could go above 100?!?
So, maybe this experience with India is anomalous. Lets take a look at China, the other major player in outsourcing. In 1990 our exports to China were $4.8 billion, while our trade deficit was a measly $10 billion. After years of outsourcing, by 2004, our exports have shot up to $28.4 billion. However, the trade deficit has enlarged to $124 billion. These respective percentages are 591 percent for exports, but 1240 percent for the trade deficit.
The truly bad part about all this, as has been pointed out earlier, is that our "exports" really may not be anything but paper goods. Apparently, these exports largely are value that American companies derive from selling products to India and China, whether the products are actually made in the U.S. or not!
Does any of this mean that outsourcing works? I think clearly not. The countries that have gotten all the American jobs are clearly benefitting in gross disproportion to the benefits we receive from sending them all our jobs.
This is not a strategy for success free-trade advocate, but it is a stellar strategy for FAILURE!
Ultimately, free trade works out well...
And where exactly is this mythical country that allows "free trade" ? I used to clear (through shipping agents) containers (those big boxes you see on the back of lorries) imported from all over the world. There are tariffs (taxes) on every item under the sun - this is done in the country`s interest to stifle trade in those products. The only countries I can think of who might have "free trade" are those without border controls of any type.
What a joke. The US trade deficit with the rest of the world is at absurd levels. For the size of the Indian domestic market US imports are paltry in comparison to what they sell here. That great sucking sound you hear is real net wealth being rapidly and permanently transfered from the US to Asia for short term gain. What exacerbates the problem is that China and India indirectly support the US domestic spending spree by plowing their profits into buying our cruddy treasuries and keeping interest rates artificially low.
an ill wind that blows no good
If you really are old enough to have remembered Goldwater, then you're old enough to have heard these tired arguments every five years every time ANY industry goes overseas. You're also old enough to (supposedly) have some historical context on this. Will all jobs go overseas? Well, over 50 years, almost ALL tech jobs will. I guarantee it. Hell, all the "tech" jobs from 1950 have. Is there anything wrong with that? No, because they're replaced by whatever becomes high tech.
Looked at another way, if the US maintains a static labor market, we will become irrelevant and reduced to 2nd-world status quickly. Would you want to have the same sort of jobs available to Americans now that existed 50 years ago? Of course not, because bolt-turning jobs don't pay well, because anyone in the world can do that now. Unless the US keeps innovating, there's nothing to sustain the high salaries commanded by US labor. Unfortunately, we haven't figured out a totally painless way of getting rid of jobs that become less-needed as we innovate, but getting rid of certain jobs has to happen. Don't worry, assuming the US economy stays healthy over the long term, they WILL be replaced. This has occurred in a healthy manner for 100 years. Note that the total loss of manufacturing jobs that has occurred over the last 50 years has had NO ill effect upon the US economy or unemployment. Do you have any reason to suspect this one is different as you claim? Or is it just because the white collar nature of these jobs hits too close to home?
Face it, this isn't a liberal/conservative issue anyway. The US is staring at its onrushing demise just like the USSR was a few years ago. In both cases it will be due to corruption and selfishness.
That's too ridiculous to even be speculative. The USSR collapsed because its centralized economy fundamentally didn't work, and because Reagan tricked them into a military spending spree - which gave us a bunch of debt but killed them. Put it this way - if you're so certain, how about a rough year for the US's USSR-style demise?
Very interesting to read.
My problem with outsourcing to countries like China, and India is that American workers can't compete, and never will be able to.
With ~ 1.2 billion ppl in China, and ~ 1 billion in India, it's a question of supply and demand. Companies that locate factories or outsource in either country can pay whatever they want, and abuse the workers any way they please, because they have a virtually unlimited supply of labor.
So basically, this is how it works. Living wage and better jobs leave the US, leaving the newly unemployed unable to help support the US economy. Those jobs go to countries where wages are extrememly low and will remain stable for the next century because of population.
In those countries, the wages are too low and the working conditions not conducive to self-sustained economy growth. Basically, no consumer-class is being created. Hence, the argument that we are "spreading the wealth" or "creating economies that we can sell to" are moot if not disengenious.
Meanwhile, in the US, an as of yet non-existent "new industry" is supposed come along to create "new! better!" jobs, than the ones previously displaced by outsourcing to other countries. Contenders for the "NEW and IMPROVED" job creation engine are:
The previously mentioned and dicounted increased global trade (hint: currently our biggest trade defecit is with China.)
And BioTech which is still about 5-10 years from any major breaktrough. (but who's to say we can't outsource gene-sequencing. Doh!)
Finally, the political realities in those countries are firmly anti-labor, pro-business, and without organized labor and/or enforced government protections for the laborers overseas there can be no uppward pressure on wages and working conditions.
In those countries the only answer to labor exploitation will unfortunately be civil war witch only creates more poverty, more terrorism and more exploitation.
Unrestricted free trade can become a good thing for the US and the world if implimented slowly over decades, (unfortunately, having a country whose leadership changes every four years doesn't help, as it's not conducive to long term stategies.) but that would eventually create equallities between economies, and businesses wouldn't be able to take advantage of the currently encouraged inequallities.
Basically, the CEO's want to make their companies look good at the expense of the world-wide, future and present, middle class, or more to the point are too short-sighted to see where we're headed.
cat sig >
Don't forget corporate CEO's and the appointed board
don't work for the people, but rather for the investors of the company.
Given this, it is obviously inevitable that offshore outsourcing will replace
many many jobs. Why? Basically it comes down to: Does the CEO and board
care about providing jobs to U.S. citizens or care about providing money to its investors?
Obviously CEO's and the board care about providing money back to the investors
by whatever means possible. "Whatever means possible" has been given alot of
meaning from insider trading scandals and cooking the books. "Whatever means possible"
also means if we can outsource the it, then so be it.
Workers will gripe because they finally wake up and realize that the company -does not care-
about the workers. Of course it is politcally incorrect to make the mistake of saying that if you
are a CEO or a member of the board.
As people are faced with these kinds of decisions in their lives, they will ultimately have to
answer for their basis, execution and consequences of their decisions.
BTW, the "free-trade advocate" I discussed earlier is not really for free trade. They are for fixed trade, where everything is fixed in one party's best interest. This point is missed by the free-trade advocates. Because with true free trade monetary policies are not artificially propped up and people can go work in whatever countries they want!
The economists tell us that free trade and globalization helps everyone and makes more jobs in the US as well. *BUT* If the IT jobs go away I still won't be able to find a job, even if there are millions of other well paying jobs available because I won't have any experience in those fields. "Hey Tommy, go get your f#$%^in shine box!!!"
That's right -- in fact, any kind of protectionism functions just like a tax. If American consumers can buy equivalent goods and services cheaper from other countries but are not allowed to, then the difference in price is effectively a sales tax that the government is collecting on behalf of the protected industries.
For example, Canada applies protectionist policies against cheaper American milk, so a poor single parent with three young kids is paying what amounts to a 30% sales tax (or more) to Canadian dairy farmers every time she or he buys milk.
Since when were 3rd world counties banned from having economies?
America has done astoundingly well through free trade. The fact is that, like Britain a few hundred years ago, you're very good at it. Opening up free trade with Japan (which you did at gun point, I might add) is a great example of free trade's win-win effects. Sure your car makers got a cick up the butt in the 70s, but they deserved it, and you've still got a vibrant car indurstry. Sure most toys are now made in China, but who wants to pack card board boxes with floppy bunnies every day anyway? Your economy and technology has always advanced fast enough to more than compensate.
Your economy, and therefore every enfranchised citizen, has benefited enormously from your access to other countries resources, markets, and even labour force. It was only a matter of time before the newest industry - IT - matured to the point that it became more internationaly integrated.
For a country that prides itself on it's own freedoms, and despite the overwhelmingly positive record of the US on the international stage, I'm afraid many Americans still seem very unwilling to allow that other human beings have any right to fair treatment at all.
Simon Hibbs, London.
What's worse than the 25 year old that submitted the story.......
t m
Thomas Friedman is a reporter with a degree in Mediterranean Studies and a masters in Modern Middle East Studies.
http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/thomasfriedman.h
So.. Tell me this! How is this guy qualified to write an article on economics and trade?
He isn't.
I have no doubt that his awards are deserved; however, this gentleman, like me, has no long term involvement with economics and trade. BAH!
I find his article to be nothing more than propaganda for the rich.
The "law" of comparative advantage is risky because it encourages countries to put all their eggs in one basket. For example, if all the programming for US banks moves to India, what if India is nuked by Pakistan? Our banking system will be in disarray. Or what if all the nuts, bolts, and wires for our military equipment, trains, busses etc. come from China and we go to war with China over Taiwan or something? They can hold our economy hostage.
Space-probes carry redundant or extra instruments in case one fails. Countries should do the same. (In the economic case it is not really "redundant", just split up.)
We are becoming a nation that does not "do" or make anything real anymore. It is pushing us all into sales or marketing directly or indirectly.
It limits career options and puts us at risk. The dogma of comparative advantage tries to optimize a single variable, output, at the expense of many other important variables.
Table-ized A.I.
What do they say on this? Any links?
I met Blair about twelve years ago....
Of course, Messerschmidt and Mitsubishi would have been supplying us if we DIDN'T HAVE SMOOT HAWLEY.
... too much "free" trade ???
So how come we not have a profound and lasting slump now? Smoot Hawley?
Or
Sorta interesting, in light of this discussion. Entertainment is certainly going to be part of the outsourcing, as mentioned by Tom's reference to animation. Many countries outside of Europe are also getting in the act. Possibly the next LOTR will be from India's Bollywood!?
I doubt many of us would really be interested in this as the net effects would slash personal incomes by about 40% and double the unemployment rate. Every regulation diminishes the profitability that companies can achieve, and if you think impersonal corporations and "fat cats" are the only ones affected by this you're gravely mistaken. Those profits pay salaries and reward investors, and it's pretty well established that the only factor that actually positively impacts environmental quality is wealth.
When we push regulations here and abroad, we have to be conscious of the economic impact those regulations will have. In a bunch of cases you and I will think that the pain we'll have to collectively absorb is worth it, but it's silly to evaluate the merits of regulations without regard to the economic impacts. To try to foist these regulations on other countries so we don't feel the effects of our decisions as badly as we are right now seems morally repugnant. We made these choices, and we have to live with the consequences. Other nations aren't responsible for relieving any self-inflicted pain we may be suffering.
Right now unemployment is well below 6%, long considered the absolute lowest possible sustainable unemployment rate. Personal incomes are rising across the board, and the proportion of Americans who are investors has risen well above half from a tiny fraction as little as 30 years ago. We're experiencing economic success (even now) well beyond the wildest dreams of our parents and grandparents. I don't get all this dire talk about us becoming a nation of "burger flippers" and WalMart retail employees because of free trade when all the evidence seems to show that we're far better off than the generations that preceeded us.
Of course we can remedy this success by imposing additional regulations on our economy, making foreign producers even more efficient in comparison. Or we can start ramming regulatory "reform" down the throats of countries we trade with so they'll be less able to purchase the high-value goods we tend to produce in the U.S. We can accomplish a "level playing field" in the same way that communism did, by lowering the standard of living of everyone except a small selected elite to near poverty. Yeah, that's going to help us and our environment!
Sheesh.
If you use this argument to say that outsourcing is OK with you, then you have to support welfare too, because both are providing a salary to people outside the US work force in the hopes that that money will come back and support the work force.
Come on guys. This article is one of the WORST articles Ive seen yet. Who let the CEO's on this message board. Outsourcing does not benefit anyone but the well payed higher echelon of people in the corporations and the countries which we provide our jobs. You can NOT compete with other countries who have unfair trade practices and whos cost of living is far below ours. The only outcome is that the quality of living in the US will drop as will wages. Stop feeding us this third rate swill and come up with some decent economic principles to advocate your beliefs. Until then STOP putting this fecal on the main page.
Transnational corporations will destroy their own markets. Perhaps this seems apocalyptic but allow me to clarify.
There is the historical "fordist" model of development. No when Ford started out - very few people could afford to purchase his products - so he paid a very good wage to his employees which granted them sufficient buying power to purchase his product. The spinoff benefits from this increase in buying power spread through the economy and the buying power of many increased. (This is of course over simplified)
Many people believe that:
"Ultimately, free trade works out well; I think one of the issues is that white collar jobs are just beginning to feel the pinch, and are acting like manufacturers did in the 1970s and 1980s."
The real problem is this. Transnational corporations (this term is interchangable with multinational corporations but it is a more effective term in that it accurately demonstrates that such corporations exist among many nations and also supersede the boundaries and perhaps legal jurisdiction of nation states) are moving jobs out of the country to areas where workers have the necessary skills but not the same level of income requirements as workers within developed nations. Therefore Company X may move its software development efforts to India. Great, these people are now receiving a wage they might not otherwise have had - BUT they do not have the same purchasing power as the now fired employee in the developed nation had.
This is key. Transnational corporations WILL NOT lower their prices because their costs of production are lower - simply because their costs of production are lower (such a move would be dictated by external competition or another initiative) so the prices of these products remain relatively constant. But the buying power of the United States, Canada, and Europe etc. is decreased. They will be producing a product at a price their traditional markets cannot afford - and they won't pay their new markets enough to improve their buying power to the point where they can consume the produced goods.
This is how transnational corporations are slowly destroying their own market. A revisitation of the Fordist perspective or an understanding of the importance of the strength of key domestic markets would be helpful.
Susan Strange has written two books that would be an excellent primer regarding many of these issues and other issues surrounding globalization and financial capital. Mad Money - and Casino Capitalism are very much worth the read.
If she's better and cheaper, what's your answer? How can you add value to your services to compete? That's the question we should be asking... not whether it's "fair."
I'm not talking in a vacuum here... I've been fired... or rather, "outsourced."
That's right... I'm a doctor and I was fired (it was not for incompetence, so you trolls can pipe down)... it's happened to many ER docs. An ER contract changed hands, and I was unceremoniously terminated. With the growth of large contract groups in my specialty, that outsourcing threat is ever-present; all it takes is the decision of the hospital administrator. Sales guy shows up with a slick brochure, a sales pitch, and a lower bid, and boom. If it happens, I have 60 days to find another job in the area, or uproot my family and move.
I'm not unsympathetic to the outsourcing threat, and it's not a question of skills... I'll stack my clinical skills up against anyone in my specialty. It's more a question of adding value to my services... being available, affable, reliable. My partners and I make it a point to cultivate relationships with other physicians, our patients, our administrators, and the medical staff as a whole. We try to be responsive to their concerns, address problems promptly, and above all do a good job. We've taken a proactive approach to the outsourcing threat. Is it a lot of extra work? Oh yes... and even despite all that, I can still be outsourced, but that's simply the reality. Since I'm unwilling to throw away the years I spent in school, I have almost no alternative except to work harder, smarter, and stack the deck. Despite all that, the brutal truth is that I can still be fired at any time.
It's a global markeplace, even in medicine. Some medical specialities like Radiology can even be outsourced overseas (Teleradiography has completely changed portions of that speciality, and it's already being done halfway 'round the world).
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Or are you going to find those spaces where outsourcing won't or can't go and pursue ruthlessly?
Alright Slick. I'm on board with you. I'll stop my whining. So tell: were are these jobs that can't be outsourced?
What is the magic job that will accomodate the 3 million jobs lost since Bush entered the White House? What job will accomodate the 150,000 new workers who enter the workforce every month? What job will accomodate the millions who will continue to lose their jobs because of outsourcing?
Before you answer, consider this: unless a job requires both the customer and the service provider to be located in the United States, it can be moved to another country.
So put your money where your mouth is: where are the fucking jobs going to be?
thx,
Eric
The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants. - Albert Camus
Outsourcing is dillution of the resource of manpower. US Jobs feed by US employees = good times US Jobs feed by + US employees + India + China + ... = depression
"This is a concept the young replublican, right wing, econ-nazis' need to learn to deal with..."
Your points were great until you had to start the name calling. Calling republicans nazis makes your credibility zero.
This is a concept the young democrat, left wing, econ-commies need to learn to deal with, or as Dlylan said these times will be a changin'. It's not so nice the other way around, is it?
Yes times can change. I don't know if you realize this but we live in a democracy. We elect our leaders. In about eight months you and I will have an opportunity to elect a new President. Our system is great however over half of the U.S's eligible voters don't vote. This fact angers me deeply. We take our system for granted and then complain.
Our GDP per capita is the highest in the world. Poverty as defined is the U.S. is nothing like it is in Africa where I lived for two years. I saw things that disturb me to this day. At least in this country you won't die if you are unemployed.
Enough of my ranting and raving. Sorry for trolling and flaming but after living in what seemed as hell for two years and experiencing a truly corupt government it makes me upset when someone attacks a group of people whom they don't agree with. Instead of attacking debate them.
In Soviet Russia, software explodes you!
(sorry, I couldn't resist)
>Yes, I want to be able to huff and puff about complex issues - like outsourcing of jobs to India - without any reference to reality. Unfortunately, in this life, I'm stuck in the body of a reporter/columnist.
Hmmm. He writes for the New York Times. I fail to see the problem.
Huff and puff away, good reporter! Just make sure your huffing conforms to the NYT editorial line.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
He says that indian companies are buying computers and that this is a net gain of sales.
However, if the call center was in the US, the US company handling it would still have to buy computers, software, drinks, etc. I don't see how an Indian company buying these instead of an American company really makes any difference to the bottom line of the selling companies. He is claiming that these sales would not have been made, but the call center would HAVE to buy what it needs to run no matter if it's American or Indian. So his entire basic premise seems to be wrong.
Evan Reynolds evanthx@hotmail.com
Two peanuts crossed the street. One was assaulted.
>> Most of the shares are owned by individuals through:
1. pension funds
2. 401k plans
3. mutual funds
" Oh yeah?!? "
Well, here's a well worn republican conservative bs mantra for you:
"Where did you get your facts?" I don't believe you. Do you believe everything you read on the Christian Science monitor, or whatever ultra-con crap you got it from?
If you ever bothered to do research with multiple sources, you'd know how lame and untrue your statement was.
~"Republicans hate america. They hate flag-wavers. Republicans shouldn't be allowed to vote."~
:.:The purpose of this post is to bring into sharp relief the absurdity of blindly dismissing someone's facts simply because they don't cite the source. I see ultra-conservative republicans do this with moderate frequency on slashdot and annoying frequency on post-'00 TV talk shows (esp. anything on FOX). Parent did not disprove it's parent's validity, only refuted it by proffering an alternate scenario. Neither parent nor parent's parent cited their sources. This isn't a debating society, but I'm so d*mn sick of the "You liberals are all liars" argument that I'm a half inch from throttling the next republican I run into.
... economic equilibrium.
Don't forget that globalization (what outsourcing is a part of) theoretically results in economic equilibrium.
This means the standard of living in the US absolutely must go down, as the living standards in India and other countries rises, if true globalization is achieved. Don't forget to add that to your rosy outlook. Sure looks rosier to India and other nearly third world countries, than it does for the U.S.
As one country gains, others must lose.
I am not saying this is either good, nor bad. That is up to a given individual's opinion. I am merely stating the economic theory as I remember it from macro economics (16 years ago?) My memory might be fuzzy.
l8,
AC
Assume the following:
If one aims at a bruto salary of $60000 year, that's 60000 / 0.6 = $1000000 (1 Million bucks )
If the taxes are the same on income and over selling of shares, it results in the same netto income.
So, you have to be a millionair already in order to earn from you stock portfolio the equivalent to a $60000 year salary.
And that's not even taking the higher risk in the stock portfolio into account (let's just say that you would party during half of the 90s and starve during half of the 00s)
our unemployment rate has been dropping steadily for the lat 8 months:
Either because people are dropping out of the labor force, or because Phd's are taking jobs delivering pizza's to survive. Sure, pizza delivery counts as "employed" in the stats, but it does not give the whole picture of the gutting of the middle class.
Table-ized A.I.
Bottom line: If you make stuff cheaper, society as a whole benefits. Yes there are painful individual cases where people lose their jobs, but because the house is so much cheaper, they don't have to work huge hours to buy a house when they do get a new job.
I understand the argument, but I think that it leaves out a crucial point. If the standard of living and cultural values were everywhere equal, then there are no implications to buying the cheapest global labor to get a task completed. However, if you are searching for the lowest cost of production, independent of it's source, you are tacitly approving and supporting a set of cultural values that you may not agree with. This is how you wind up with major corporations supplying rugs and apparel produced in sweat shops by children. If markets are amoral, and price is the only driver, then why not use slave labor? Definitely a cost reduction.
Ultimately, there is an implicit "import" for every "export". The import is a set of cultural values. For every imported good you buy, you are supporting the values and objectives of that society. Further, if you don't factor this value based cost into your decissions, then ultimately you are importing the another cultures values as it represents the lifestyle you will have to adopt to compete.
That is an excellent point. China is socialist, and as such workers are the slaves of the ruling class. There is no free trade where slaves are concerned.
Japan has been in a severe recession for over a decade with no end in sight. Why? Corruption and outsourcing. Japan was a manufacturing powerhouse, but as their wages started to creep up, the Japanese manufacturing giants turned to China, Malaysia and other 3rd world countries to setup shop. Japan never developed a services industry to replace lost manufacturing jobs. The US now in a similar position with it's service industry, as those jobs go abroad there will be nothing to fill the void.
...like go on dates with our "Canadian girlfriend."
Believe it or not I actually had a Canadian girlfriend.... no, really I did!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
1970s manufacturing was similar, but, this doesn't support the argument that outsourcing is good. since the 1970s, vast portions of the US have been reduced to poverty as the jobs left...the "rust belt"..rural new england...even sunny california have all had their livelyhoods destroyed by the export of manufacturing jobs. The places that prospered were the place swith industries that could not be exported: Silicon Valley..Route 128..new york city..los angeles jobs in technology, medecine, finance, media. Is the south, manufacturing survived due the lax laws on ecology and workers' rights. What did american consumer get as workers' lost so much? well, TVs can be bought for $29 new (but forget about having them repaired). Do you really need a new tv every year? more cheap plastic junk, except that in the past ten years it is now being made in China instead of Japan. The U.S. manufacturing economy gave birth to the service (repair) economy, where TV repair, auto repair, vacuum cleaner repair, maytag repairman, etc were fixtures of small town markets along with the retailers. Now, it's cheaper to buy a new tv than repair and old one, and so there are no more repair shops. Wal-Mart has destroyed the local retailers, so they're reduced in number as well. Soon, there will be one or two banks in the US, one or two major retailers (walmart and who?), and one or two major jobs (head of major corporation, sell-out academics and economists) and a system with less wealth distribution than royal france.
We have away our manufacturing jobs witht he promise that high-paying tech jobs would be the replacement, in a world economy that we would come out on top. We haven't. Let's not give away the programming jobs as well. And then, let's take back manufacturing.
We
10% of chinese export is bought by Walmart.
The average american family saves $1400 a year buying foreign goods. Since the avg family makes 30k/year, the silver lining is purchasing power.
I remember these numbers from some woman from some US agency being interviewed by a chinese news station.. Sorry, no links.
The law is a weapon of the government, not a protection for the likes of you. Surely you understand that.
"What we should watch out for is that companies don't start a race towards the bottom, where everyone is fighting for scraps and the jobs go to the lowest bidder."
How can there be anything wrong with this? Of course there is nothing wrong with getting the best deal. Pay the real value, and no more, for everything.
--> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/india_pr
The major different between outsourcing of 80-90s and now is that we outsource KNOWLEDGE. We outsource KNOW-HOW in financial, architectura, back office, etc. The Internet made REDISTRIBUTION of KNOWLEDGE around the world very chip when CREATION is long and costly process. It's very good for a mankind as a whole, but bad for us in States, at least now. No new inventions, no new technology, no re-education help because these skills and knowledge can be wired to everybody too. Including our enemies.
Keep in mind that the products that Thomas Friedman mentioned in his column are themselves produced outside of the U.S. So we are sending our jobs and products produced elsewhere to India. I fail to see how that creates many jobs here in the U.S.
I believe in information age, things move so fast and it is so easy to outsource -- the rules have changed. I think this will not lead to many more jobs in the U.S. as trade has in the past. This is a problem that has to be addressed and no smoke-and-mirrors by Friedman and others is going to change that.
"and are acting like manufacturers did in the 1970s and 1980s"
Yes, and we all know how well that worked out for the manufacturing workers in the US. What a stupid comment by Hemos.
Of course, this is to be expected from Slashdot staff, whose parent corporation VALINUX produces software to assist in the offshoring of jobs. Don't believe me? Check out their press releases or my journal for more info.
It's not enough to know that jobs are moving over seas, you need to know why.
The simplest answer is that it is cheaper to hire people in (India), labor cost less. Materials cost nearly the same, transportation costs nearly the same, time runs at the same speed. Labor.
Why is labor cheaper in 2nd-3rd tier economies? Cost of living is cheaper. Why is cost of living cheaper? Imports cost the same, travel, utilities, products cost nearly the same barring local production costs being cheaper. What is the biggest expense month to month and year to year for anyone in the world?
Housing. Rent, Mortgage, Real Estate, Property. What can't be exported or imported? Housing and Land.
Home prices and in parallel rental expenses have been going up 12% - 24% year over year in all regions of the USA for at least a decade. What is the annual cost of living inflation rate or even the average annual wage increase? More along the lines of 3% - 8% annually. Compound this over ten years and you can see that housing expenses have become the number one increase in cost of living throughout this America.
How is this possible? People still 'buy' homes right? People still rent apartments? Yes and No. More people are renting than ever before. Homes are being mortgaged using 30 to 60 year payment plans. Nobody who has 'bought' a home in the last ten years, excepting the very wealthy, will even come close to owning their home in the next ten years. As mortgage rates go up cost of living goes up, as mortgage rates go up, comparable rental rates go up... they are directly manipulated to equal local mortgage rates.
We are a nation of debtors whose income barely equals our expenses and often does not meet it. Out of control real estate values are bankrupting our nation. The average home where I live is priced at $420,000... average, meaning 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, small yard, 1.5 car garage, built in the 1980s over 20 years old. It is worth barely half of that, most likely less.
People are still buying because the banks and credit companies let them... which encourages the value of real estate to continue increasing well beyond any reasonable expectations of anyone to pay for it and still save for retirement or for the childrens college funds. This means they have to borrow even more to pay for the 'cheap' imported products so they can save their cash for old age. Insanity.
Now real estate isn't to blame... they are simply following market forces, "what the market will bear". The problem is that the market can't really bear it without creating enormous amounts of debt to finance everything. We are spending money which won't be realized as real value for 30 to 60 years. This is billions if not trillions of dollars I'm talking about. The federal deficit is nothing compared with the amount of consumer debt which is building up quietly behind the scenes with no one watching or assuming accountability.
The worst part is that we can no longer afford to compete with the rest of the world because property holders and credit companies are holding our paychecks hostage for the rest of our lives. We are paying so much for the right to have our basic housing needs met that we can't afford to take a pay cut. Not if we want to live where there is work to be done.
Look into this. It's much scarier than I've let on.
c ya. Got to go pay the rent.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
The revised 10 "hottest jobs" list has recently been published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The top seven: waiters & waitresses, retail clerks, janitors, hospital orderlies, etc.
You get the picture?
That's the future - thanks to "free trade" - which the offshoring of American jobs (and now over one-third of the US economy) has given us - although taking American labor out of the picture in favor of cheaper foreign labor has nothing to do with "free trade" whatsoever - AND THAT'S THE POSITIVE NEWS!
Ultimately the outsourcing/off-shoring phenomenon will be much worse for workers in intellectual property fields such as programming, materials research, drug research, and so on, because while for a manufactured good there is still the eventual cost of shipping and importing it into the United States (read: why Honda has car assembly plants in the US), for intellectual property, there is no cost to "import" the new drug formula, the new plastic specification, the new lines of code.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Well it IS much more beneficial for the execs and those on top. They can save a lot more money and use that money to expand thieir profits, which makes their options and bonuses go up.
Understand it now?
Nothing more to say honestly.
It would seem like corporations employ, invest and sell stuff to Gremilins or Hobbits. Nah, to Orcs, otherwise they would be too good.
People? Nope, they don't get money via salaries (me looks at payslip), shares (me looks at certificates), or pensions (looks at pension certificate), they don't provide services for the megacorps (me thinks about previous contracting gig with big megacorp). Nope, in spite of every single economic measure showing that people in developped countries get richer thanks to corps based on their countries, we have still the "insightful" commentary of people that would not see the benefit of free trade because their dogmatism clouds any logical thinking. They will be only satisfied when their countries go back to the backwardness and living standards of 50 or 100 years ago.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So, as my security decreases because my chosen field is being moved overseas I "batten down the hatches" financially. I buy less, I economize, and I expect a downturn in both the economy and my personal finances. Companies, other than my bank, profit less and less from me. We'll see if the savings they get buy getting cheap labor overseas completely offsets the decrease in spending by their customers. In the end, I don't think they'll like the outcome. Of course, it'll be too late by then.
Duration of unemployment ...
way up , near record
and
Labor force participation rate way down.
Bottom line : Bush is jobs fuck up.
Something you Conservo-Libertarian econo idiots will only understand when Bush and Cheney lose their jobs.
Understand this: Many of the people posting here are either losing, expect to lose, or worrying about losing their jobs. This creates a certain amount of anger and bias when discussing this topic. It is very easy to form an opinion about something that does not directly affect you. To call someone "retarded" because they are afraid of losing their job or angry about already losing their job is very insensitive.
With that said - go fuck yourself and your two cents!!
-- Have a nice day.
#|
xenophobia
Stop it! Stop insuating that people who disagree with you are "racist". People who disagree with you are not automaticly "racist" or "protectionist".
Wanting a smart trade policy and immigration quotas is not "racist" or "protectionist". Please, criticize away but "playing the race card" by screaming "xenophbia" is unfair and whiny.
Anyone who's read Critical Path and has an IQ of 99+ can see that modern humanity, with our "superior" intellects, is in a position to engineer a "positive-sum" game, ie, create an environment where it is possible to get resources (eg food) without pillaging your neighbor.
Note to the small minded: A positive sum game is not a utopia, it is not a state where everyone can have everything they want, all the time. And if you know what positive sum is and think it's impossible, I pity your narrow vision.
Social Security DID NOT FAIL.
On paper, it is flush. This is because back in '78 or so, we passed a major Social Security tax hike, with the express purpose of funding the payouts for Baby Boomers retiring post 2010.
In 1985, with eyes wide shut, the Social Security trust fund was completely wiped out. How? It was "borrowed". The fund is full of IOU's, due whenever. The money was grabbed with the sole reason of masking the humongous national deficit created by the supply sider's tax cuts.
The fund did not "fail". The same neocons that passed the tax cut made up the idiot idea that Social Security was "failing" to cover their own deception, and to create a meme that the more gullible would swallow. They knew it wasn't "failing" -- they were stealing it to get yummy tax breaks. And they had a Randian hatred of public programs, SS in particular, so they not only got gobs of cash, they also killed their hated liberal program, AND got to blame the program for a liberal "failure". A momumental game of chicanery that most Americans have swallowed.
Now, the national debt, that seven TRILLION dollars, is comprised somewhat of the IOU's owed the Social Security trust fund. IF the money was paid back, Social Security would not "fail". And as a sidenote, if the money had been left in the fund to gather interest, rather than being stolen by "borrowing" to finance giveaways to the wealthy, it would have generated large amounts of interest on investment over the last 23 years. Enough interest to have lowered Social Security taxes today.
And, one more thing: the Social Security program is still taking in more than it needs, even today. BUT THE MONEY IS BEING "BORROWED" AGAIN, for the same reason as in '85 -- to hide deficit spending.
To recap: Social Security was a success. Neocon ideologues hated it. They wanted tax cuts in '81. They hid the fiscal disaster of the tax cuts somewhat by robbing the trust fund. They blamed the trust fund for being a "failure" for having no money after they themselves robbed it. We have a stack of IOU's 7 trillion dollars high. And they are back in power, and are robbing what dreggs are left in the fund -- and Greenspan, that consistent Randian, proclaimed that we should cut SS because of the budget shortfalls.
Circular blame-the-victim garbage that will impoverish tens of millions of elderly people someday.
Let's keep this real. The program worked, was well funded, and was sucked dry by greedy rich people who didn't want to pay taxes. We need to pay the IOU's off, and restore the fund. That means RAISING TAXES. Go ahead, cry.
nuf sed
The closer you get to retirement the more of your investments should move to safer alternatives like bonds and cash.
If you reach retirement age and all or most of your portfolio is in the stockmarket you deserve every bit of bad luck you may get.
People that made their homework or got their fat arses to the office of a good financial adviser did not have any problems because if they were on the age of retirement they were not exposed, if they were young they were on this for the long term which so far has proven more redituable.
If you were especulating, you knew the risks: suck it up and bag it as experience (i.e. you were 35 and all your savings were in a single company that happened to be a dot.bomb).
In any case the former scheme in which working people payed for the pensions of old people does not wor anymore because pensioners will outnumber working people in the near future. People with far left political inclinations have yet to explain how we are going to pay for pensions if people are not forced to take care for themselves.
The only solution is people taking care of their own pension arrangements.
If people do not take any interest on their finances they deserve to struggle. It is not black magic, it is basic arithmetic, a bit of understanding compound interest (hardly rocket science) and a basic understanding of why some investments are riskier than others.
It is not like there is no information out there, the Economist or the Financial Times are cheap (stop smoking, that is enough to buy these or other fine publications). Thanks to them I have feared pretty well, forseeing things like the Euro appreciation and the dollar devaluation and managing no too bad during the dot.bomb (hint: I had my eggs in many baskets, not only IT ones).
I am not an economist, but for goodness sakes, encourage people to take responsibility and learn about how to handle their own money.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The "grand-faher" post argued that normal people do not benefit from globalization.
They do, amongst other things, pension funds.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The issue is that the jobs for americans are shifting. Straight coding and IT jobs are now seeing a pinch forcing Americans into project management, software architect, systems engineer (sales), and technical marketing jobs. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in the long run, but its pretty difficult for someone who has already started their career and has no desire/no training in those disciplines. As for those of us who are still in CS programs, I just really hope the top engineering schools start to realize CS graduates will be needing more skills than C++ and calculus. I think I heard of a combined undergrad in CS and business at uPenn. Thats a nice start. I know my school it gonna get kicked in the ass on this one, they have their head way too up their research *ss to see what is going on in the real world.
Computers got cheaper, the countries that better used cheap computing technology became more productive during the 90s raising the level of life there.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This is a mixed economy with all sorts of government intervention being exerted by all sorts of goverments. Calling this free trade is wrong.
I came across a columnist with an unconventional view, Paul Craig Roberts. In his June 18, 2002 column, titled, Importing people, exporting jobs, he points out the following:
"It is a mistake to see the loss of jobs and income as the workings of free trade. The downward pressure on incomes does not result from an exchange of goods. Something different is occurring. Middle class incomes are being traded away in order to gain larger bonuses for top management, and politicians are pandering to the immigrant vote at the expense of lower income native-born citizens.
The longer this process continues, the more explosive it becomes, both socially and politically."
I don't think I can say it any better. Like Paul Craig Roberts, I believe the US is heading for 3rd world status.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
And if every programming degree left, you might be right. But they're not. In fact, I would wager that those left *permanantly* unemployed in their field because of outsourcing are NOT the people spending $30,000 for education. It's more like the ITT crowd.
Part of the problem with programmers (in fact, a lot of the problem) was overhiring in the 90's followed by dot bomb. Without all the people who majored in CS then, we'd have no problem now.
In fact, I'd say that a small fraction of 4-year-college-level jobs will leave anytime soon. I'm hearing a lot of chicken little and little evidence.
While I like free trade, couple things bother me. 1. I just cancelled my pretty expensive static IP dsl line from Ameritech that I've had for 3 years because I just spent 12 hours straight talking to customer service to go through a pretty simple issue. Main problems: They couldn't speak English and followed scripts far too much. While people in the US still follow scripts, not speaking much english on phone customer support is not acceptable. 2. I have a problem with cheap products being sent from countries that have no environmental rules to speak of. They can dump their waste into the ocean that washes up on our beaches eventually, but if we have purely free trade, their goods will simply cost less.. there need to be some limits put in place to regulate countries that harm others. Beat your own workers, but don't dump in my ocean or pollute the air I breath.
The country hypotetically losing jobs (and here I want to remark: hypotetically) has now to offer surplus of workforce, that means people have to demand lower salaries to become competitive.
This is not a bad thing, most rich countries live a culture of consumerism and senseless wastage. Obscenily overweight people and SUVs clearly show that people in some rich countries can afford to demand subtantially lower amounts of money if they take responsibility of how they are spending it, that way they can become more competitive and make use of their experience at being more productive.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm personally disturbed by the outsourcing trend currently occuring since I am an employee in the US IT field. However, I have to respond to the whining that I see going on with regards to this subject.
It seems naive when an employee is upset that someone else won't take responsibility for maintaining their standard of living.
It's been a very very long time since businesses felt responsible for the financial security of their workers. Legally, companies are only required to pay their employees the minimum wage for work delivered. Anything outside of this has been offered strictly because companies want to acquire and retain those workers that provide better services than the norm.
People that work for a living are deluding themselves into thinking that they are more secure than if they started their own business. If you really want to beat downsizing, outsourcing and whatever the next big business buzzword is, stop working 80 hour weeks for someone that has no interest in your financial future and spend that time building your own software package, service or product.
I know that's what I'll be doing.
is that the way to stop terrorism from radical Islam is to provide ordinary Muslims with dignity and hope through jobs and capitalism, JUST LIKE IN INDIA. The entire discussion here is a tangent.
Right on target, oh learned one! Friedman knows even less than the majority of economists who espouse such nonsense - many of whom are extremely mathematically deficient! The proposition that American jobs exist independently of the American economy and that the American economy exists independently of American jobs is so obviously preposterous to anyone who has ever read "Wealth of Nations" and passed college-level math and econ courses. Of course, it really doesn't require anything more than basic arithmetic.....
John Kerry doesn't talk about that stuff (except recently when he started cribbing Edwards' speech), but he's the only Dem candidate people remember because his face is plastered all over the TV.
It would be more accurate to say you sound like John Edwards.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
Give me a brake. You obviously have not been to Malaysia, specially the capital, Kuala Lumpur, or the coastal towns.
And China has been growing faster than India and has a higer GDP.
Talk about ignorance.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If the Big Corps make more profits, they can hire more people; spread the wealth.
Yeeeah, Right.
More money means even bigger bonuses, salaries for the business; marketers(after all their markets grew), and if you fit "the mold", look good, have that incessent Type-A personality, maybe you can be one of the few lucky Coke:Lucent:whatever employees.
Yeah, it is class war, whatever you call it.
The auto industry is growing.
The auto industry in the US is also growing.
The two automakers with their world headquarters in the US aren't growing their US marketshare.
Production in the US is up, sales in the US are up.
To focusing on where the HQ building is rather then the vehicle is built is misleading.
Todays reality is that GM sells imports (Korean made) with a Chevy badge, and Toyota sells American made vehicles. I'll support the domestic industry, to me, that is the plant down the highway, not the one overseas.
That being said like a good free market consumer I buy the best vehicle at the best price.
Hi, I'm a liberal. I'm all for free trade. In the long run, it will allow poorer countries to come up to the level of the Western world. That's a good thing, even if it means that some (or even a lot) of the US's wealth is redistributed to the rest of the world.
But this isn't free trade.
This is huge multinational companies sending the jobs to places where they're cheaper to pay for and pocketing the difference. It helps exactly one entity: the company. Don't BS me about the stock market: that basically just helps the owners/execs/board members of the company a second time by letting them make the same money twice.
If the companies who were doing this were, in fact, passing real savings on to their customers, that would be one thing. Or if the quality of the service were significantly better. Or if they were able to provide comparable or better jobs, or the training for such, for the worker's they've just dumped in the back alley. But they don't do any of these things. Why should they? The American company today exists for one thing and one thing only: to make more and more and more money. In the end, that is all they care about, and the people who run them are no different.
Until and unless something is done to make it harder and/or less legal for them to keep growing and growing, purely concerned with making more money, they will continue to do this, and not care about product quality or consumer satisfaction or employee welfare. Nothing but the bottom line.
Is that really what you want--conservative?
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
I am sick and tired of being told that offshoring is good for America by people whose jobs are in no danger of being offshored.
Hey, New York Times?? You can hire NINE Tom Friedman's in India for the price of that one columnist by the same name!
How do you like it SO FAR???
Disgruntled American Tech Worker
Buzzing the information Superhighway at Warp speed
nothing else to say...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"Except it has absolutely nothing to do with who is best, rather it has everything to do with who is cheaper"
There is no difference! If someone does the same job, but cheaper, they are doing it the best.
It has to do with corporate whims which are completely beyond my control.
It has everything to do with "your own". If you are too lazy to get out from under that lousy corporation with lousy whims, it is your own action.
Otherwise, it is the whining of "i am standing in this cold wet puddle and it is COLD and WET and someone ought to do something about it!".... never mind stepping out of the puddle.
Honestly, what USEFUL, INTELLIGENT actions are we taking in North America (and specifically the USA) to keep jobs here? We all want secure, high paying jobs doing whatever we please so we can enjoy life in a big house and drive a big SUV to Wal-Mart and fill it full of cheap products and a tank full of cheap fuel.
In return for this lifestyle, Americans want the world to lap up its goods and its culture and like it. Send us grain, oil and money. Otherwise, you Indians can just stay home and farm, pull around rickshaws, drink Coke, eat McDonalds, watch our movies and listern to our music.
If Free trade threatens that comfortable little ideal to hell with it seems to be the prevailing thought in the US when times are tough. And when someone makes a counter argument that there are acutal BENEFITS to free trade and the resulting effects it's dismissed as being of benefit only to big multinational corporations. What a shallow, selfish inward-looking attitude. It's sickening.
Last I checked Coke, Microsoft and Compaq are all still headquartered in the US. Last I checked, the fortunes of those companies still had a direct effect on Mr. and Mrs. Jones' retirement funds (Where the hell to you think your penion income is from?). Last I checked, they were among the largest taxpayers in their juristictions (ask city council in Redmond to balance their budget without the tax contribution Microsoft makes).
You have to ask yourself: what are you afraid of? Why can't you see the good in progress? Why does a top-tier nation like the US want to hoard each and every job that can be had? Do we really NEED to hang onto such menial jobs as those being farmed out to India? Really, call centre and assembly line operators and the like are thankless, menial jobs requiring little in the way of special skill.
The same can be said about the code-monkey jobs and animation jobs there. Have you ever had to spend weeks on end coding Java or C++ to a strict set of specifications? Have you ever been on an animation crew doing in-betweens or colouring? I've done both and both are DAMN TEDIOUS. I'd have thought that as Americans we'd aspire to higher things anyways.
The world's a big place, there's enough of that kind of work to go around and still allow everyone to prosper to some degree, and if Free Trade can do that without government paws digging around with Soviet-style interference then all the better.
"US-UK-Israel: the real axis of Evil "
Nice bit of antisemitism there. All the problems in the world would go away if we just exterminated those stinking greedy Israelis. Their noses are too big!
(never mind the FACT that Israel is a beacon of justice and democracy in the Middle East. Never mind the FACT that the only ones who need fear the US and UK are despotic tyrants)
I believe, this line sums the whole conversation up, pretty well:
...If all the jobs become outsourced, then we'll all move.
This sounds like a repeat of Reaganomics.
1. Tax cuts to wealthy and corporations
2. It's SUPPOSED to trickle down to the rest of Americans
3. Instead, it all goes to support moving business investments overseas.
4. Middle and Lower Class Americans get screwed.
Why didn't we learn?
Hey Pal - fear impairs thought and lack of proper thought is being retarded. If calling spade a spade is insensitive, so be it.
That said - I am really glad you fear - for your job. You are the one who is fucking yourself dude and kindly DONT pass it on.
You can use my 2 cents when you lose your job eventually. Keep it with ya.
I mean, why bother with reality? Just let things go the way they're going and we'll have a full-blown fascist state in no time! Then the weathy pigs can just mow down what's left of the middle class with impunity. Arm yourselves before it's too late.
"Please do. I've seen reviews of the numbers before, and they showed the USSR made little or no change in military spending in response to Reagan"
They wanted to spend more, but could not. Reagan made their whole "evil empire" game futile. They invaded the Grenada? Reagan kicked them out and restored Grenada to native control. They annexed Afghanistan and Nicaragua? Reagan assisted the nationalists and the Soviet rule was never complete.
Before this, the USSR had an unbroken record of conquering more and more countries, which started with Lenin.
from biased moderators and racist audience? Troll? Whats wrong with you people? Try looking at why your ancestors succeeded and use the knowledge today.
"1. Tax cuts to wealthy and corporations"
No. The tax cuts went mostly to the middle class under Reagan.
"2. It's SUPPOSED to trickle down to the rest of Americans"
It did, always does. Except when Democrats say "let them eat cake" and cut off the trickle.
"3. Instead, it all goes to support moving business investments overseas."
Since it mostly went to the middle class, this is not true either.
"4. Middle and Lower Class Americans get screwed."
Since you have no idea what you are talking about.... how can the middle and lower class get screwed when their taxes are being cut? In fact, they were screwed (as is any taxpayer), but less so under Reagan due to tax cuts.
Please explain how wanting to be a caveman ("might is right") is better than being progressive ("to each according to his needs")????
Since progressivism is all about empowering the ruling class at the expense of the ruled while SAYING it is "to help the poor", progressivism is just "might makes right" that is less honest about it.
>That said - I am really glad you fear - for your job.
I wouln't say I fear it.
I switched careers 6 years ago. I'd rather not do it again. The ironic part of the story is that my old career is now experiencing a shortage of skilled workers. I guess I could return and bear the decrease in pay. But like I said, I'd rather not.
Maybe I'll try something new.
I don't understand how I am fucking myself, but I'll try not to pass it on. ( just for you... )
BTW, Don't assume they can't outsource your job. Whatever it is you do?
#|
Who would you rather have as a neighbor? Ayn Rand or Karl Marx?
If you accidentally toss your ball into their yard, the Randist will keep the ball, while mumbling about "property rights", and laugh over the fence at you.
The Marxist will deflate the ball and come into your yard and shoot you.
Randism, as ugly as it is, is selfish. The tyranny is limited to "your own stuff". In contrast. Marxists are genocidal megalomaniacs who are driven to a rabid frenzy that there are people somewhere whose private lives are not controlled by them.
"So when you don't see African American Males in your PHD CS classes, it isn't a problem with CS, it's a problem with colleges in general (and perhaps culture)."
It is not even a problem with the colleges, as (thanks to such racist policies as affirmative action), the numbers of African Americans present is in excess of the the numbers of those who are actually qualified.
We need to look further back down the line: the public education system. They are the ones who are doing a bad job at educating African Americans (relative to whites), and thus making them (as a group) less qualified at the college level and in the job market.
if you are fearing for your job all the time, it messes your head and messing with your own head with a construed future event amounts to fucking oneself.
Good that you are in a "safe" line of work. My work is 100% offshorable. I dont lose any sleep on it. I just live within my means -drive a cheap compact car, cheap house - no frills life. Do I hate doing it? No. Am I happy - very much. What would I do if I lose work - will cross the bridge when I get there, but I got plans.
But I am really glad that I can buy cheap groceries and household goods, thanks to open markets. I am glad I dont have to participate in food riots.
Fear mongering does no good to anyone and I feel that is what is happening on slashdot.
By Capitalizing almost Every Word In Your Message, You Have Rendered Yourself very DiffiCult To Read.
Please Try Again, But this Time Use Basic Writing Skills You learned In Third Grade.
If that Indian does the job better (same thing for less money) than he is actually more qualified and you are an overpriced prima-donna in comparison.
p
" India 's per capita income has increased by 61% from $1,600 in '92 to $2,570 in '02.."
I only briefly searched on this fact so bear with me. But how on earth can I compete with this? I can make more than this collecting spare change on the street. I'll keep trying, but it seems like a losing battle.
If someone else does a better job then money is not an issue. If they do a better job and for less money then they are a better choice. I am not talking about competing in the quality arena, that I can do. I can't compete with the salary.
If they are doing the same job for less, they are doing it better?
More efficiently maybe, but consider this from http://news.helplinelaw.com/1203/f_eco_cap1203.ph
#|
"they do not take into account the hunderds of thousands of H1B visa workers (Also taking jobs from americans here.)"
No, these workers do not take jobs. They earn them by doing them well.
"I plan to vote for the one that can do the most in terms of generating jobs and oppurtunity for us middle class folks"
You certainly won't want to vote for the Democrats, then. They plan on mandating more benefits that full-time workers are "entitled" to (thus encouraging more overtime, or contracting part-time workers), and they want to increase taxes on businesses (thus forcing more companies to leave the country, and the ones that stay laying off workers and cutting wages to make up for the loss).
The Democrats don't get it. They argue how bad companies are, and then forget that if the companies are forced by the government to cut cost, they'll often take it out on the workforce. The Dems seem to think that if they clobber corporations, the workforce will never suffer.
I hear ya. The problem for me is that I too live within my means, well below my means. I just fear that if my "means" we to suddenly go bye-bye, I would be up the creek without a paddle. Or a boat!!
As soon as my mortgage is paid off, I don't care what I do for a living. Until then I need my job.
#|
"Not any more. From the site politicalcompass.org Coke with Yet Another New Twist: Toxic Cola"
Political Compass is not a place for valid information. Their main thing, the compass itself, is very skewed to reflect their far-left-wing bias. They located the verticle access way off from where it should be (and the result is calling many left-wingers right-wingers). They measure the "center" from the far left.
- Remove Trade Barriers (Environmental, Labor Laws) which
- Reduces National Sovereignty which
- Allows for all 3rd World Countries to have an average wage of $0.02 a day (yeah, it's not there yet - and don't mention the huge debt that will NEVER be forgiven) which
- Which makes 1st and 2nd World Countries compete with more outsourcing, unemployment, et al until their wages are roughly the same which
- Makes for a much better world. Very even. 1% of the population owns everything. 99% starves.
Gotta love that Free Trade. Though, you can't argue that it works out well (even quite beautifully).
Removing trade barriers is less about "Reduces National Sovereignty" than it is restoring the sovereignty of the people. Such decisions should be left to the people MAKING THE TRADES, not the government.
Free trade does endanger certain government elites who get rich off tariff dollars. This is one of the main groups opposed to it.
"Makes for a much better world. Very even. 1% of the population owns everything. 99% starves"
That is the result under socialism. Under capitalism (free trade) everybody benefits, and poverty has gone down across the board.
Free trade is nothing other than the people being allowed to make their own decisions. Who but a fascist or other reactionary could oppose that?
Free Trade does not equal laissez faire... at least in my mind, although it seems a lot of people would object. Let some of the jobs be outsourced to India; that doesn't mean we should set up sweat shops there; it doesn't mean we should allow corporations to do whatever they want to do with the naive assumption that this will always turn out to benefit the workers (some vague trickle-down theory.) Admittedly regulation is trickier in a global environment, but it seems to me that that's just the reality we have to face whether we like it or not. The problem is that if we're so scared of globalization that we hold on too tightly, we just create bigger problems for ourselves down the road. How do you go to a third world country and try to negotiate environmental standards? They'd say, basically, "F. you, you've shut us out of your markets for years, and now you're trying to talk to us about the environment while our people are poor and dying." These countries would have a huge incentive to entirely deregulate and invite corporations in. I seriously doubt that a bunch of angry anti-corporate people are going to prevent that from happening. So instead, let's start taking tangible steps to improve their economies, while at the same time this helps our economy adapt to the inevitable shape of the world-to-come. Maybe this sort of Clintonian centrist view is what a lot of people would call mush-mush, because it doesn't give the good feeling that comes with identifying a clear villian. But in my opinion, truth does not always lie at the extremes.
Maybe this sort of Clintonian centrist view is what a lot of people would call mush-mush
Clinton was not a centrist. He was firmly left-of-center.
we should allow corporations to do whatever they want to do with the naive assumption that this will always turn out to benefit the workers (some vague trickle-down theory.)
Why not let the corporations do what the workers, customers, and investors want? That is the most accountable way, and it is called the free market.
I just think it's funny that techies are now decrying outsourcing, when for years they were so vindictive whenever anyone would complain about the loss of jobs due to the Internet or computers. In both cases there is of course greater efficiency, but the argument against it suddenly becomes more compelling when the one being downsized is you!
Hopefully this will make IT people less contemptuous of unions. Perhaps unions could then have a resurgence and reinvorgorate the Democratic Party. The Clinton/Gore administration was highly tech-oriented, perhaps to a fault. The argument against strategic trade was always that it would allocate resources inefficiently, and the bubble was clearly overinvestment. Perhaps now a more public-oriented tech attitude can be developed and channeled into unionization and a Democratic Party more in line with its New Deal roots.
As opposed to making things used by the rich lord of the manor? Look, US labor is *expensive*. Therefore, it makes NO SENSE to have things done here that can be done elsewhere cheaper. As far as your "disposable income" point goes, there's no better way to kill people's disposable income than to institute protectionist practices that raise the price of goods.
I saw a stat that to keep a single $30,000 steelworking job in the US, it would cost US consumers $300,000. Just want to make sure that you realize that WE ALL pay through the nose for the sort of protectionist practices that keep outmoded US jobs in the country.
When you start seeing places like BestBuy and CompUSA closing shop, it's time to get out of the country. Disposable income is a great driving force in the economy - and it makes those service jobs possible.
And as soon as I see that, I will. But with the proliferation of electronics affordable to everyone, it WON'T HAPPEN.
Seriously, what in the history of the US or economic theory makes you think anything like this is going to happen?
Perhaps now a more public-oriented tech attitude can be developed and channeled into unionization and a Democratic Party more in line with its New Deal roots
If you want to protect the US tech sector, stay away from unionization. Unionization, which increases wages way above the real value, is a strong disinctive for employers to employ workers, and a strong incentive to outsource. If you want Silicon Valley to look like Flint, Michigan, then demand unionization.
On the first one, I wasn't speculating, because he said he was a Goldwater supporter in high school. That election was in 1964, in case you're not aware. So no pretense is required there, as that makes the poster over the age of 50.
But you can wish whatever the hell you want.
Even Israeli government agrees that critisizing the state of Israel != antisimetism
There are some delusional self-hating Jews in the Israeli government, but the fact remains that hatred of Israel is a code-word for hatred of Jews as a whole.
The statement is simply a protest against the new World order where a single superpower and its cronies can don anything to any country
Yet, there is nothing like this. Iraq and Afghanistan were attacked only after they attacked the U.S. Only the real bad guys need fear.
People also forget that more high-paying jobs in these areas also breed consumers. One need only look at post-WWII, when Japan became an economic power, and believe it or not, this did not wreck the American economy as was probably predicted.
If India becomes more wealthy, it will become a market for the high-priced products and services that America sells.
"We will all have to support more and more people. In other words, bigger government, higher taxes."
This accepts the lie of the statists about how great government is, and how we have too little of it.
Government is way too big, and taxes are way too high as it is.
Like I said, GM sells Korea designed and manufactured cars here in North America with Chevy badges.
There was no design work done here, ask any GM employee if they are happy with GM cutting engineering and manufacturing jobs while they throw a Chevy badge on a Korean car.
The Japanese do some engineering work, and have design studios here, they're building factories here.
The badge isn't an indication of where the car was designed or made.
I'm scared about losing the manufacturing jobs, once they are gone it is a pretty reasonable step to move the design and test capacity closer to the factory.
They come from the Labor Department's. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
... from '83 to '03 a total of 38 million jobs have been created by private businesses in the United States. No other industrialized country in the world has matched this number.
* The peak unemployment rate during the recession that began in Clinton's term was 6.4 percent. The current unemployment rate is 5.6 percent.
* In the last year more than 2,000,000 new jobs have been added in the United States.
* Between 1983 and 2003 outsourcing went from 6.5 million jobs to about 10 million jobs.
* Between 1983 and 2002 jobs in-sourcing -- jobs coming TO the United States -- went from 2.5 million to 6.5 million.
* If you subtract the jobs coming to the United States every year from the jobs going out every year you come up with a "net" figure. The net outsourced jobs reached its peak in the early 1980's; a peak of about 4 million jobs. In other words, things were worse at the end of the Carter Administration then they are right now.
* During this same period
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I would like to see some more specific numbers... Whenever people start talking about how outsourcing is better for America they immediately jump to the most general numbers they can find. For example, they cite increasing exports or job creation in general. I have a suspicion they look at the general to avoid the ugly, concrete truth, but I can't be sure till I see the numbers.
I would like to see the average period of unemployment for those displaced by outsourcing, the average % difference in income after the period of unemployment, and the average loss of income during the period of unemployment.
Yeah, I realize these averages are still somewhat generalities, but at least they are within context and meaningful. I imagine that the numbers are much worse for people whose job's are outsourced than those who are simply layed off due to a downturn in an industry. At least in a downturn the whole industry isn't being exported.
I think free trade is ultimately a good thing. It lowers our costs, it distributes wealth more evenly to other countries, and it makes the wealthy even wealthier. Of course the down side is that it evicerates the middle and working class. Like I said, I'm ultimately for free trade, but we need to know what kind of pain it causes and we need to have the institutions/programs/etc in place to help relieve some of that pain BEFORE we start embracing free trade.
I'm still on the fence about requiring countries that we want to have free trade agreements with to have a certain level of environmental and labor standards. Afterall, part of the reason the United States was able to get where it is now is because we didn't have to worry about those things early on.
It's only within the last thirty to forty years that the middle class became wealthy enough to care about those kind of things, especially the environment. Of course, if we keep outcourcing work carelessly we won't have a middle class any more. Then the wealthy can roll back the progressive gains of the last 100 years and we can go back to being serfs for those who own all of the capital.
There are only three things that America does better than anyone else:
1. Music
2. Movies
3. High speed pizza delivery
The future of america is the Deliverator.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
I think you hit the nail on the head here.
I'd draw a parallel between free trade and the eighteenth century enclosure movement. Few of us today would want to live in a world in which the enclosure movement, with its increased agricultural productivity and resulting industrial revolution didn't happen. However, at the time, the enclosure movement was a disaster for almost everyone it touched. People deprived of their traditional agricultural rights starved; others migrated into cities where their children turned to crime and prostitution on a massive scale to survive.
Free trade is a similar issue on a less extreme scale. In the long term it will erase gross economic disparities between different parts of the world, and lower prices for goods, probably in greater proportion than it lowers wages, and result in a better standard of living worldwide. In the short term it will impoverish many and enrich a few, unless positive steps are taken to reduce the rate at which jobs flow overseas.
I'm not talking about legislating against offshoring. Once you lower the technical and tarriff barriers to trade, you might as well legislate against a flood after the dam breaks. The ridiculous training programs politicians are talking about are a mere fig leaf. It's not like we're retraining mechanical assemblers to be welders or something like that. We're losing entire sectors of our economy and highly trained professional jobs. Fundamental skills, like toolmaking, are being lost.
What we need to do is something that will reduce the marginal cost of hiring employees. If I'm going to hire nine employees at a cost of $500,000, we need to make it so I can hire ten for the same price.
Let me suggest two things.
(1) National health insurance. Right now, nearly every business that hires an employee (at least for a good job) pays an extra amount over and above salary for health insurance. Suggestion: take the total amount America pays on health care, and instead of paying for it through employment based health insurance, pay for it through tax supported health insurance. Consider what I am saying here: don't change the average amount we pay for health care, but the marginal rate employers pay for hiring workers drops to zero. I don't give a fig for how this is done, whether we have a national health administration or whether we give people vouchers for insurance, as long as it's taken off the employer's plate.
This also cuts a lot of incidental costs. We just had a multi billion dollar strike over health care premiums in California supermarkets. Health care is almost universally a major factor in strikes. It also reduces risks for small businesses: a single employee with a sick family member can sink a small business. Microenterprises will be a key component in job creation if there is a general contraction in the number of large company jobs due to offshoring.
(2) Reduce the payroll tax. Right now employers have to pay employees more to ensure that the employee has enough take home pay after taxes. If the payroll tax was lower, the employer could pay each employee less. Of course, this wouldn't necessarily happen right away, so here's a simple solution: drop the payroll tax by N%, and let the employer and employee each keep N%/2. The effect would be the workers would have more money in their pocket to go home and stimulate the local economy, and employers would have, in effect, lower marginal employment costs, so they'd hire more people.
Of course, both these reforms would shift more of the burden of paying for health care and retirement to income taxes, which will disproportionately fall upon people who make most of their money from investments. On the other hand, the benefits of free trade fall to these same people. What I am suggesting here is a quid pro quo: capital gets lower labor costs due to reforms and free trade, but has to give some of that back in the form of higher income ta
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Your argument doesn't take into account the speed of the job shifts.
If jobs disappear a lot faster than new "demands for workers" appear, we have a big, big problem.
It makes no sense to have 100 people digging a hole with a teaspoon. It also doesn't make sense to take every one of our jobs and move them overseas because they can be done cheaper there, for obvious reasons.
The middle ground is where the debate lies. If we lose jobs too quickly, with no replacements, this country is in trouble. The recent feeding frenzy among corporations makes it evident that the corporations don't care about the speed, because each corporation, when looked at in a vaccuum, should make this move to improve profits. But when every corporation does it, we have a problem.
The government of this country needs to manage that a lot better. With an absence of a "world government" that is interested in arbiting such problems, we need to do what we can for ourselves. Unfortunately, both parties have been bought off by business to take a hands-off approach.
Sadly, this may actually wind up creating a world government, because in the absence of one, corporations are free to do what they want and a single country won't be able to stop them. It just takes one large country (like China) to allow slave or child labor, and we'll all have to allow it because if we don't, we won't be able to compete.
Can you even imagine how bad a world government would be?
Well...I'd say the actual closings of shops here by companies...and having the last thing the US employees do is to train their indian counterparts for the new shop opening up over there...is a pretty good bit of evidence. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
For that sake of all that is Holy: DO NOT TRAIN YOUR REPLACEMENTS!!!
Who do you people think you are? Slaves? You certainly have the mentality of slaves ["employment" being a polite euphemism for "slavery," "employee" a polite euphemism for "slave"].
Do not train your replacements. Do not document your code. When the rat-bastards outsource your job, tell them to go to straight to Hell.
And tell them to take their two-week severance pay and shove it up their asses.
Bakunin is schizophrenic. He claims to be anarchist while at the same time advocating restrictions on people's freedom that only a State can accomplish. In any case, his is a minority strain of leftism.
Sorry, there is nothing like anarchism found in his views.
Back before the seventies, manufacturing ran away to the South with its "right to work" states - meaning that they could keep out unions for a while. When unions started to come in, they started sending manufacturing over the border, first, then overseas.
In the meantime, there was *much* talk in all the media about the upcoming "information economy", and how that would absorb all those lost jobs with new, good-paying jobs.
THERE IS NO "UPCOMING ECONOMY" TO REPLACE THE TECH JOBS. "There will be new jobs", they cry...yet can point to *NOTHING*. That is about as realistic as the Administration's claim, last year, that there would be 1.6 million new jobs created in 2003. It is no different than their claim that 2.7M new jobs will be created this year.
Where? Nurses' aides, pizza delivery, and telemarketing, no doubt. Large numbers of jobs that pay a living wage? Show me where.
I recommend y'all read "A Black Day for Capitalists", esp. you libertarians (who I *know* are *ecstatic* that the jobs are folowing the market).
Who, reading this, makes a significant portion of their income, right now, from stocks? I doubt that anyone who does so is reading slashdot.
Offshoring is good for jobs...right. And as Mr. Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute.
mark, still looking for a job
they don't waste their time arguing about economics on a technology website. That goes for me too. This is pointless, yet I'm still engaging in this debate. In the few minutes that I've spent reading the comments (on my lunch break ;), it becomes obvious that the protectionist/starving-programmer crowd will have the loudest message. Tell me, how does bitching about faceless corporations and their greed land you a job?
"Living wage" is a meaningless term. It varies according to individual's living situation, and cannot be quantified or set by government without disastrous results.
Else be prepared to face the consequences!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
When speaking of cheap versus expensive country, you forget about the currency exchange rate.
IIRC, Eastern Europe froze their currency rewlative to Euro that allowed their level of life to get higher.
At the same time, Chinese and Hindi governments hold the rate such a way to give themselves unfair economic advantage. If the rate would be more adequate, US would be able to compete. However, rates are determined by the relative strengths of export and import lobbies, and "import lobby" is much stronger in the US now.
As for your rants about India and third world "deserving" something/better life - I'd disagree on the spot. The real reason their level of life is lower is their uncontrolled birth rate. When you need to invest in 1 or 2 kids, they need to feed 5 to 10. Thus, the accumulation of wealth is not happening, the infrastructure is always behind, you can't find enough teachers and doctors et al.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
My2Cents:
Frankly I'm tired of listening to constant bull-shit over debates concerning outsourcing. How many of the bitching, wining people that are upset about jobs moving overseas were doing the same bitching and wining about their crap ass job that they had to go to everyday two years ago. The only way countries are going to keep from blowing themselves up is if everyone is truly judged as equal, which is definitely not the case now! That why your job goes to India for 1/10 the pay of you were making as one simple example. Who the hell wants to sit in front of a computer their whole life or be a customer support deuchebag that talks to idiots all day long. If somebody wants to work a crap ass job like picking rice or stitching shoes together in a sweat shop and enjoys it, great! This country was formed on the basis of freedom, if you want somebody to force you to do some crap ass work your whole life move to Russia or something, or build a time machine and go back and build a pyramid for King Tut. Time brings about change, if you are to weak to adapt to change you may as well start digging your own grave and save a couple thousand bucks. You need to take advantage of this time, go to school, become a teacher, something better then manufacturing a widget that aligns combo boxes perfectly in both Netscape and IE, who the hell really cares about that. How many more people need to die before people actually take advantage of the freedom that so many fought and died for, become an artist or a musician - most things that they create are crap anyway, those people are making enough money to eat and sleep in a bed. Who the hell really cares if you pimp around in a Beamer and your shoes cost 2G besides you. In the near future I would place great sized bet that NASA is going to announce they found life on mars, wouldn't it be a little more enjoyable to work towards exploring space. Yea we are a real advanced civilization we can stick some monkeys on the moon and a golf cart on a rusty old rock. Someone like Einstein isn't going to come along and be able to do things like that on his own, it needs to be a race effort. Quit being such a pussy ass bitch, remove the sand from your vaginer and take advantage of the freedoms you have,
peace.
So how do we stop the /. moderators from posting this non-sense and thus creating discussion over an article that is nothing more than opinion presented as some sort of fact that we are all ok, and that the ship isn't sinking?
*feeling helpless*
Quick, adapt yourself to the wage level of an Indian worker while enjoying life in America. Or should you be culled, too?
USSR collapsed not because of the military spending spree (they were spending A LOT during all the time of their existence, and Military Industry was providing TONS of jobs).
The real reason for the collapse was the death of the Communist ideology in the population's minds. Thus, there was no stimulus to work well and invent.
As late Soviet saying nicely summed it up: "They pretend paying us, and we pretend working".
Such an attitude can't sustain participating in a technological race. Certainly, there were inventors and scientists who have worked for the sake of it, but it was not enough. Thus, the quality of manufacturing, ergonomics and comfort&convenience were very low et al.
Also, the economy was inflexible with the planning athorities trying to plan in 1980 how many soap bars the country will need in Y2K.
This was what killed the economy and not the arms race.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
The poster is entirely right. What we have now is a rigged system that favours corporations and not people. I find many USians are unable to comprehend an economic system that enpowers both corporations and labour, invested as they are in their own ossified Union of States. The US stopped meaningful expansion a long time ago and has ceased to be a beacon of progress in the Americas. But you need look no further than the European Union to see an economic block that is still expanding and improving Europe. To join the EU you must bring your national laws in accord with certain labour, human rights, capital, and environmental regulations. But when you do, not only will your companies eventually enjoy free access to all the other EU countries, but so will your people. It's not perfect, but it works well and is one reason why most of Eastern Europe is clamouring to join. I put it to USians - imagine an Americas where NAFTA meant migratory freedom for all people, and not just companies, and where all countries in the Americas could join. That's what the EU is about, and why it's difficult to create and often subject to roadblocks and stalls. But it's worth it in the end. There's more about this here.
Da Blog
You're plain wrong.
First of all, cars ALWAYS add something in terms of equipment.
Second, many cars are priced at loss (most of small cars in the US, for example).
Third, have you heard about consumer and deale rebates? There were years when MSRP was not changed, but you could buy a car thousands off MSRP.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
de·moc·ra·cy ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-mkr-s)
n. pl. de·moc·ra·cies
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
4. Majority rule.
5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.
Entry: democracy
Function: noun
Definition: representation
Synonyms: capitalism, commonwealth, egalitarianism, emancipation, equalitarianism, equality, free enterprise, freedom, justice, laissez faire, liberal government, private ownership, representative government, republic, suffrage
Same damn thing.
Show me one US economist, journalist, or op-ed writer who has lost a job because of outsourcing, and gone on to write an opinion in favor of outsourcing. For that matter, find me one engineer who has lost his or her job through outsourcing - there are hundreds of thousands to choose from - who has gone on to find a better job because of the experience. Why is it that only people who have never lost a job this way are for more outsourcing?
The key to look for before accusing Bush in every mortal sin possible is drilling in Alaska.
The real reason why they want to do this is lessening dependence on the foreign-sourced oil.
Their goal is to lower the dollar value that will allow the American economy to stay more competitive. Some steps were made (against euro), but unfortunately it will call an outcry if gas prices go up, especially considering the sad fact that all of these brain-dead idiots called consumers gobble up 13-mpg SUVs like crazy.
Drilling in alaska (I know, it sucks big time) will allow to dampen the impact of having weaker dollar.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
..then why am I paying as much or more for goods such as shoes and clothing then I've ever paid in the past?
People are allowed to criticize foreign governments and special interest groups.
People are always threatened by free trade, since the benefits are diffuse, but the pain concentrated.
So, here's a thought experiment:
Explain why you think outsourcing to India is bad, or evil, or should be illegal.
And then explain why the same isn't true of outsourcing to say, South Carolina.
South Carolina has lower environmental and labor standards that the rest of the us. Lower wages.
You really want every state to make their own cars? Furniture? Grow their own oranges? Wouldn't that make more jobs everywhere.
In fact, couldn't we cure suburban blight by preventing cities from importing products from their suburbs?
Now, how is that a better alternative?
And how's that meaningfully different than what's happening in India.
And yes, I am a liberal Democrat who works in the technology industry. The job that might get exported is my own. But I've also worked on a job where engineering was in India, and product management was in the US. That particular product was something that wouldn't have been worth doing at US labor rates. In many cases, this isn't a matter of exporting jobs, but creating jobs that didn't exist before, or couldn't have had as much labor behind them.
Another way to think of it: How much extra are you willing to spend on products in order to have them done in the USA. Are you willing to have your support contracts 4x higher to have an American answer them. Are you willing to pay 4x more for clothes? $400 Nikes?
Me neither.
Moreso, I'd rather have Africa get richer exporting food, Pakistan richer exporting clothes, and then get to pay even less for those goods. Ever wonder how much each of us is paying in tax dollars per American farmer?
Note that, if your income stays still, and you pay twice as much for everything, you just had a 50% pay cut. Anyone think outsourcing would get as bad as that? Nope.
As David Ricardo proved a couple of centuries ago, the strongest economy is one where everyone does what they're best at. Trying to pick winners and losers just drags everyone down.
The problem with our economy today isn't outsourcing and free trade. It's the most bolluxed up, politicized, fundamentally ignorant economics team in the history of the country. I would have been hard pressed to find a way to have spent MORE money with LESS economic stimulus than the the Bush economic "plan."
My video compression blog
It all comes down to the markets - they want us to work at Inidan pay levels whiel paying american prices. Suprise, suprise, we can't.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
I think capitalism works. I think free trade is great.
I have the skills to manipulate the system. Much more so than 99% of the
population. And that doesn't even mean "gaming" the system. I can work within
it to quickly increase my capital income. am going to continue amassing
wealth, not working. I am not going to be a fast food worker, a steel worker, a
nurse, a computer programmer, or even a doctor or lawyer -- their days are
numbered, too.
I am simply going to be an owner.
I 0wn j00.
You can borrow my money, but you'll have to pay. You can borrow my land, but
you'll have to pay. You can buy my goods, and I'll make them cheap for you!
But not so much so that I won't profit as much as I can.
If you can't pay, then I don't want you touching my things. And there are a lot
of clean-cut, strong men with weapons, who are trained in fighting, who will
make sure you don't mess with my property.
I am better skilled than you at accumulating wealth, and I already own the
assets to leverage everyone into directing wealth my way. Wealth is like mass,
and my earning capability is like gravity. My wealth comes from everywhere.
One route is through you. You are my debtor. My consumer. I 0wn j00. My
police are numerous and better skilled than you at fighting, so you can't do
anything about it. And politicians, like me, are most concerned with personal
gain, so they will continue to pass legislation to promote their investments.
Investments in my corporations.
I know capitalism works. It certainly works for me.
But you can't blame me, can you? If I didn't do this, someone else would. You,
in fact, are selfish. You would do the same thing. That's why you like
capitalism, too. You couldn't be an 0wnz3r otherwise.
You make the point that Daimler is cutting US jobs and moving them to Germany.
What about GM moving them to Korea?
the real question is how much will it cost to re-educate them after they lose that work! We have no safety net in this country capable of keeping people healthy and fed while they are retrained for these alleged higher-tech jobs.
-pyrrho
Why are Americans overpaid?
Well, for one, it takes money to run OSHA. Good, drivable streets take money. Propper heating and cooling. Social Security, an outstanding law enforcement, a top flight military, etc, etc, etc.
In short, the history of the American worker has been about fighting for, and winning, decent rights and a fair wage.
But, off shoring is the way corporations are skirting around our hard won rights.
What's the solution? Well, a start would be a world wide minimum wage. You want to participate in the global economy? Welcome to it! But, you need to pay your citizens at least X dollars an hour, and provide them with certain rights.
In short, make it a fair trading ground. Will this crush coporations? Nope. We're just leveling the play ground so everyone gets a fair chance.
Adam Smith put this argument in a nutshell when he discussed the wages of labor:
If a family earns enough that it can raise more than two children to maturity, the supply of workers will increase, driving wages down until starvation limits the supply of workers.
If a family does not earn enough to raise two children to maturity, the supply of workers will decline, driving wages up, decreasing infant mortality, and allowing the supply of workers to grow.
Equilibrium is achieved when wages allow an average of exactly two children per family to survive to adulthood, with the rest starving. This is how the invisible hand works.
See The Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Ch. 8:
So you don't support free trade. Afterall, our ancestors suceeded were tariifs were the order of the day. Plus: a butcher can go work in a fcatory with little retraining. The same doesn't true for work that requires a college education. Plus, our ancestors came out on top laregly due to the GI bill. It wasn't till the 1940-1970's that we really saw a rise of the middle class in america as we know it (as opposed to the more limited english-type middle class that arrived with the industrial revolution and owned factories - and soon made the entry to middle classedom nearly impossible. As Elizibeth Gaskell once noted, the factory workers had come up through poverty but not the destitution that came to be inflicted on the wrokers later. As for Horatio Alger - it actually proved the so-called 'american dream' as just that, an illusion. Everyoen one of his characters runs into a point where they cannot get ahead and cannot save. It is at this point that an act of god - saving the faftory workers son or daughter usually - propels them to the stars.)
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
This is an oversimplification. Does this take into account non-wage costs, like workplace safety, environmental concerns, liability insurance, health care, and the like? Will US society be expected to give up its mores & values to compete against the global workforce? You (or the Cato Institute) seems to suggest that this is a good thing. I would be fascinated to hear how we can compete on that level...perhaps the rest of the world will automagically rise to our standards? Do tell.
===========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Tax cuts for the rich Money sent to India U.S. workers screwed
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Why is it that outsourcing is only thought of in terms of India?
If indians do such a crappy job, why are all the biggest firms outsourcing their businesses there, maybe to lose a few million dollars for the heck of it?
Im not defending India or outsourcing here but there must be something worthwhile that all companies are outsourcing to developing countries.Maybe India IS better than most other countries in this field.
We again come down to what America wans or the way the economy of he world works.Businness goes the way its most profitable.If outsourcing is profitable , companies WILL outsource irrespective of anything.Companies sponsor politicians so theres no way its going anywhere.
Lord of the Binges.
What's the solution? Well, a start would be a world wide minimum wage
The minimum wage is a very bad idea that needs to be abolished wherever it exists. Not increased. This is because whenever it is driven up, companies are forced to get rid of workers in order to pay for it. It is insane to pay for a wage anything other than the real value of the work.
If you think it is so good, why not raise it to $1000 an hour? Instant world of millionaires, right?
In short, make it a fair trading ground. Will this crush coporations? Nope
It has nothing to do with "Fairness". It has everything to do with ignorant government officials meddling in private affairs. No, it won't crush corporations. They'll survive, but with hardly any employees at all.
If you want to see a Saturn factory run by 8 workers overseeing acres and acres of self-maintaining robots, then boost the minimum wage.
"I'm sorry, but I'm old enough to remember Reaganomics. It DIDN'T work. Nothing trickled down"
I'm old enough to remember it, and what was before it. It worked very well. Tax revenues greatly increased under it (so it really helped the defecit problem). The reason there were defecits is because Reagan spent too much (he gave in and signed bad out-of-balance Democrat budgets).
The same thing is going on now. The Democrats criticize Bush for the defecit, while complaining that he is not spending enough on this and that. In other words, they want the defecit to be much worse.
Generally speaking, economists will tell you that Free Trade and Globalization is a net gain from the perspective of both trading nations (that could be alternately groups of nations that play similar trade roles, or even two regions within an nation).
If they're being honest, (and you are hereby warned about politicians commenting on economics) they will also tell you that structural change is inevitable, and that there will be losers.
Jobs and industry will be forced to disappear when they discover they can't compete with equivalent or even just-good-enough products or services; provided those are offered at lower costs, because no-one can.
Usually what happens is there is even more wealth created because of the effect of the lower product/service costs to the rest of the economy (more efficiency, expense allocations can be shifted to other tools and resources, more players can enter a field when cost barriers are lowered, etc).
But, there will be job losses to provide a sobering foil to the net economic gain. Those jobs are held by individuals with families and all the rest. It's not an exaggeration to say that the benefits to the nation at large come on their backs.
Any politician who talks trade and won't acknowledge that up front is offering a one-sided perspective. The bottom line is somebody has to pay a personal price, but without it the economy as a whole suffers.
Where things get strange is that no-one is 100% Free Trade today, but might be 80% or whatever. So everybody more-or-less agrees they would like to be 100% someday, but it's all about who can get the most from now till then; negotiation of the terms of the change from protectionism to openness.
Agriculture, for example, is nowhere near free trade. Computer Code? All the way there. Obviously the grunt geek could have learned a little something from the Sugar lobby.
Economists say that if you're affected by a trade correction (ie if both outsourcing killed your job and it seems to be getting more common) you should search for a new line of work, and those that are fastest at that will end up best off.
Who will Nader's running mate be? His ego?
He might as well have Trent Lott as a running mate. Nader is the GOP's best hope for a Bush re-election.
Don't blame 5 men for Bush's victory (the Supreme Court). Blame 1 man, the spoiler with the name like a Star Wars villain.
Yes, just spend another $30-$100 thousand dollars and retrain. Or as you say, 'study hard.' Would studying hard help you if Ty Hai could do your job for $1.00 a day? Or would you just be a hard-working jobless loser?
========
That's true, and what I was addressing was the macroeconomic side of things, where generalities are the norm. As such, I think the US economy is generally OK with, and more likely depends on, labor market turnover and the trade of low-tech jobs for high-tech jobs.
I admit that this rings hollow if it's your job that got cut (for example, auto manufacturing). Usually, people can retrain slightly and find another similar job that didn't get cut. Honestly, who has the same job for their entire lives anymore? I think everyone will have to retrain at some point, or more likely continually train.
The one exception to my analysis above is when a large employer pulls out of a small town, devastating the population and sending unemployment up to 50% overnight (see Flint, MI). I fully realize how terrible this is, and I believe this is a situation where government should get involved. I think that state and federal governments should match funds with local governments to attract new industries to small towns that lose primary employers. But the answer still isn't protectionism, which is implicitly the usual answer to the "offshoring" problem for most people.
BTW, a soviet style implosion isn't out of the question. Russia may be the future of America, a country ruled by oligarchs and plutocrats. Unless things change, I'd say it could happen as early as 2025.
It is of course impossible to prove such a statement either way, but I would bet against it. America's always been ruled by oligarchs and plutocrats, I hate to say, and I would say now less than ever. Two presidents in the last 20 years came from nothing (Carter and Clinton), and it was rare previously. You have your occasional Lincoln, but there were many more Adams', Jeffersons, etc. These were not poor men by any stretch. And I would say the country is ruled less by corporations now than 100 years ago (though still too much) - even MS doesn't compare to Standard Oil.
One way we in America can help other so-called third world countries is to mandate that anybody who wishes to import goods and/or services into the US MUST pay there employees a standerd LIVEABlE wage.
This is a terrible idea. Thankfully, it won't fly. The value of a "liveable wage" must be determined by the people involved, no-one else. Let the free labor market set it. That is the real value of the work.
Though this won't happen cause nearly all of our polticians have been bought (both repubs and dems) by major international corperations
No, it won't happen because it is fascist (government meddling in people's affairs) and it will result in massive firings of anyone whose job is below the arbitrary "livable wage" value set.
"Hakim, do you know why you are being fired?"
"No, boss"
"Here's why. The UN set your wage to a value that is so much that we can't pay it. I guess $2500 a year was not enough."
"So, boss. It is great to know that $2500 is not enough for the U.N., now that I am unemployed and making $0."
------------
The beauty of free market economics is greed. Greedy people are attracted to areas with high profits. If a sector is making lots of profit, other companies will want to jump in and undercut them to get a piece of the pie. The one that survives is usually the one that can supply the product at the lowest price.
It happened to clothing and it'll happen to cars.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Nelson Mandela has long had a mean antisemitic streak, and this letter shows it. It also shows that he knows nothing of Middle Eastern affairs. He'd best stick to Africa.
There is nothing racist, however, about Friedman. He stands up to the antisemites, and gets attacked for it.
So, an Indian could do your job better than you could. Get off your ass and find a job you can do well. Then you can take advantage of those prices.
Aways has been.
..
automobiles > europe
televisions > japan
audio > japan
and now computers > japan,india etc
Invented and developed in the usa,then ended up being dominated by other than usa.
The problem with free trade is that the nations of the world are not building up their own domestic markets. The whole point of free trade is that the world will eventually elevate its standard of living to a parity with the US, funded initially by US consumer demand enough to jump start a third world consumer class.
But, it hasn't happened yet in 50 years, and I don't know that it ever will. We -still- run a trade deficit with Japan, and we -will- run a trade deficit with China and India for as far as the eye can see. The bottom line is that the supposed raising of everyone around the world is not taking place, and, after 50 years, I would like to see some EVIDENCE that there will be a levelling out in trade with our partners.
This is my sig.
The unions are way too powerful in the US. They are not even legitimate organizations: most of the union members are there by force not by choice. If union membership were made a choice of the worker, the total unionized workforce would drop below 8%.
The least fascist route is to make union membership the choice of the worker. If a worker wants to join, let them. If they want to work (but not be in the union) let them.
Nope, outsoucing will create more jobs than not outsourcing.
The choice isn't between letting jobs go overseas and not. The choice is whether to let US companies make products in the most efficient way or not.
Let's say that Dell isn't allowed to have non-US call centers. And thus, say, a Legend computer is $200 cheaper since they can have their tech support in China. Then ban the import of competers from China. Then US companies will have to pay, say $200 more per computer than companies we compete with. We just got less competitive! Plus, the computers are just getting assembled here, so let's require that all the components be built in the US. Those used to be a lot of high paying jobs.
So, now Taiwanese motherboards, South Korean RAM, etcetera. So, all of a sudden the cheap parts of the computer get a lot more expensive. And the part added by US companies, the CPU and the OS, wind up getting a smaller part of the pie. And they start making less money because they sell fewer units.
And now buying a personal computer in the US costs $1000-$2000 more than in other countries. So, now, hiring a worker in the US gets that more expensive.
Anything gotten better yet?
Don't think about this as China and India stealing our jobs. Think of it as they gave us lots of extra jobs during the decades they opted out of the global economy, and are just now getting back to where they should have been in the first place.
If people are really worried about familes not having enough food to eat and clothes to wear, let's end the massively damanging trade barriers against third world nations on food and textiles! Food and Clothing will cost half as much, and that'll cost a lot less than doubling unemployment payments. And dropping farm supports would go a long way towards closing the deficit.
My video compression blog
And the Romans made the same mistake that most folks here are focusing on. They focused on labor-intensive projects, and actively resisted labor saving methods of construction, in order to provide more jobs for the "masses." Which resulted in a busy society, but one that was much less productive than it should have been. I'm sure they would much rather have had a lot more, and efficiently built granaries, city walls, etcetera, in order to hold off against the barbarian invasions. Plus having freed up some labor for a more effective military.
In the long run, labor saving techniques just means more gets done per worker. Bear in mind in that at least 90% of the jobs of 100 years ago no longer exist, but that we have a lot less than 90% unemployment.
The solution to free trade isn't less free trade, but a good social safty net and retraining, so that workers who aren't competitive can become competitive. Reducing trade is a subsidy by another name, and an expensive one at that.
My video compression blog
All Americans, and workers (largely) worldwide, have gained from the laws demanded by the labor unions. While the union management has become more management than labor, causing untold problems in every link of the labor chain, we're still waiting (and some of us actively working) for a more equitable alternative. Canada actually has a terrific system, where any collectively bargained labor contract is available to any worker whose job description is in the contract, negotiated by government, management and labor. It's a "fair trade" labor market. If the US were able to convince its labor competition to adopt such a regime, many of the flaws of the WTO would be addressed, and fair trade would include labor like any other product in the value chain.
--
make install -not war
Free trade is fair trade, and it does include labor. The workers choose how to participate.
The San Jose Mercury News recently reported that Siemens was planning on moving 15,000 programming jobs to Indis after closing several facilites in Europe and the US.
Where in India are these people going to come from? Thats a whole lot of people. Are there currently that many unemployed programmers in India looking for work?
"Free trade" is two words in a row, and nothing more. They have been used to sell so many contradictory policies to so many people for so long, that all they are is spin, and the soundbytes associated with highly constrained trade. And only the labor consumers can any longer fool themselves into believing that so-called "free trade" offers labor suppliers choice, or any liberty at all, except not to work.
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make install -not war
"in third world countries to surpress the working class in favor of the upper class"
Typically, the upper class is working class. That is how they got rich and stay rich: they work.
"Goverment regulation would mandate that massive firings not happen, and would force the upper class to take drastic pay cuts."
That is fascist meddling for you. The government should butt out of firings (or else the jobs become meaningless welfare make-work jobs: what else do you call it when someone is employed only because of government force and not because the work is needed?). Likewise, stay out of everyone's wallets.
"Free trade" in today's argument is used to refer to when people make economic decisions without being harassed by the government, especially across international borders. These decisions can include paying/trading/receiving goods/services/etc.
And only the labor consumers can any longer fool themselves into believing that so-called "free trade" offers labor suppliers choice, or any liberty at all, except not to work.
Hardly anyone believes that. In reality, it offers the most choice. Lots of new employers available.
There are losers in free-and-fair trade (face it, free trade is the most fair).
The first loser us the ruling class. They no longer get rich off tariffs. The second loser is the lazy bum or the company that makes crap. Competition makes it harder to get by doing this.
Hey Ford, no more Pinto. There's Honda Civic's available now.
"What we could benefit from is an economic/mathematical model that would confirm the hollowing out effect we constantly complain about."
We don't need a model. We simply need people to come on down from on high, and walk among the common citizentry.
Either the effects of outsourcing are in our heads (hence no model will be found as proof), or there will be real effects (hence a model would be unnecessary).
Let's have an example of this "government free" trade.
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make install -not war
Since jobs are more mobile than are workers, that kind of unmediated trade works for labor consumers, and against labor producers. That's why no one who actually thinks about it, or loses their job, believes that "free trade" is fair.
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make install -not war
If all you say is true, then SS was a failure?
If people had their money going into things like IRA's or 401K instead of a fund run by the government (not the best of managers) then retirees would have their money, free of the shadow of embezzelement. It's easy to play shell games with unseen money. Harder when you can. Plus a culture of fiscal responsability would have been established among the citizentry (the present one has poor money managment skills, and it shows). An empowered citizen is a better citizen, any just republic would be glad to have.
You must realize that these assholes aren't interested in building anything tangible or sustainable. They're only interested in creating market fluctuations which they can capitalize on.
So when the feds start spreading money into the stock market, it must naturally go up since your pumping so much new money into it.
Who wins from that????? The owners of the current equities.
Once they bail and take their profits, the market will go back down and the social security trust fund will effectively lose TRILLIONS of dollars!!!!
"Privatization" is essentially a program for transferring money from current social security taxes into the private coffers of the wealthy. It IS theft, but the stock market effectively washes the money clean.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Coca-Cola is carbonated filtered water with sugared bean syrup added.
Does it bother ANYONE that Coke is CHEAPER than BOTTLED WATER!?!?!?!?!?!? It's just Coca-Cola sans carbonation, high fructose corn syrup and powerderized beans!!!!!!!!
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
No, I really think we need to outsource ignorant self-serving economic analysts.
Yes, natural job destruction leads to diversification. It leads to higher standards of livings and new jobs produced by NEW DEMANDS!!!!
Outsourcing is the same old supply side nonsense. They are sending jobs overseas for the mere sake of driving down wages domestically. As opposed to creating MORE demand, they create LESS!!!!!
The prices really don't go down that much, most of the money is kept by corporations to create "efficiency" and "shareholder value". The basic translation is the RICH GET RICHER and THE POOR GET POORER.
By their calculations, our peak of economic prosperity should be reached when people are paid NOTHING and we're all slaves. That of course is THEIR point that they never share. They really don't give a rip about you or me. They only care about themselves and the corporate beasts that they THINK they control.
In reality
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Once the first nuke falls on Bangalore (or drives into town in a truck), all this discussion will seem as important as debating the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.
I just love it when free traders mess up occasionally and admit to their money grubbing unhuman slime nature:
Modern steel mini-mills are actually thriving; it is the old steel firms who have to deal with the leacy of massive pension costs from the days when they had to hire many times more workers than they need to today who are in trouble. The situation is much the same for autos and textiles; it is the transition from low productivity technology to high productivity technology, not so much competiton from imports, which is causing the bulk of the dislocation.
So what we're saying is that PEOPLE are the problem. Don't ever proclaim you're message here in Northwest Indiana. You won't escape without needing a VERY good health care plan of your own.
The truth is that the pension money was ALL STOLEN bit by bit by executives who could CARE LESS about the business OR the people working for it. They only cared about extracting THEIR WEALTH from the corporate organism.
What you people fail to realize is that we have effectively SUBSIDIZED commercial development overseas. The cool little techno-toys we are SOOOO dependent on are ALL produced overseas. That is, we aren't making capital investments in OUR OWN FUCKING COUNTRY!!!!!
That's not "competing" as a nation. That's "SELLING OUT!!!!!". Competing as a nation is the good ole cold war. Back than we KNEW that trading with slave drivers WAS WRONG!!!! We new it would ultimately undermine our democracy and standard of living.
Not now. We've been suckered into the belief that exploiting slaves is the path to prosperity (just like the Romans). Now we are SUBSIDIZING capital development in the high tech tools we NEED to foreign countries.
Honestly, you people think your so fucking clever. But you're really idiotic moronic savants. We as a nation are losing are ability to stand up to foreign tyrranny (like China). We are losing the ability to command our own destiny. We are selling out our neighbors and friends. We are DESTROYING America.
Make no doubt, that I and many others consider your kind a TRAITOR to the United States. You're a rotten cancer eating our nation from the inside out.
BTW, speaking of Health Care
Education ????? You're fucking kidding me right. Are you a moron or are you just stupid. Go take some classes from a University and tell me that education wasn't outsourced 20 years ago.
Real Estate?????? Ahh, you see we are selling America off piece by piece. Why would foreigners sell what we have. We are practically GIVING it away.
If Dante were alive, he would invent a new level of hell specifically for traitorous outsourcers like you!!!!!!
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Howzabout looking at the GDP figures? Malaysia's GDP/capita is around $8000, while India's is closer to $400 (yes, one zero less). This means Malaysia is roughly 20 times richer! Having been there some 10 times during the last year I alone, I can assure you this is not all concentrated in the Petronas Towers...
Malaysia isn't stealing Indian jobs. Instead, for most part, it's taking those jobs where the company actually wants, say, niceties like "functional transport infrastructure" and "no power failures". India tends to get customer support, which requires a cheap workforce; Malaysia's forte is more in back office outsourcing, which requires less people but more fancy technology to keep it running.
Cheers,
-j. (from sunny Singapore)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FB26Ad01.html
"Democracy has nothing to do with the economic system which the county happens to have"
Certainly it does. The more capitalist, the more democratic. The less democratic, the more socialist. It is this way the world over.
That's why no one who actually thinks about it, or loses their job, believes that "free trade" is fair.
Everyone who thinks about it knows that free trade is the most fair possible: under free trade, the people trading decide what is fair. It works for labor producers, which is why most workers favor it.
None of it is government-free. However, with free trade, there is less government meddling, so it is more free than otherwise. There is no such thing as a good tariff: any tariff removed is a breath of freedom.
Buying at WalMart pays low wages to area people and sends the profits to Texas. The local economy suffers, and in the long run, I suffer as a result.
No, it pays fair wages. Wages equal to the value of the work. The workers get paid for what they do, and that is good for the economy. The buyers get a great deal in the process. "Shop Wal-Mart: it angers people who are ignorant of economics"
Profits to Texas? You have no idea about anything of Wal-Mart. The company has nothing to do with Texas.
This article fails to mention that the trade defict with India is increasing, so the growth in trade is a false number.
There's one small thing people are forgetting when it comes to savings. The unemployed are cashing them out. Who cares about retirement, when you can't even afford the present? So much for "leverage" over the rich.
..and neither does the NY Times.
There was an article in the Thursday business section in the "Economic Scene" column trying to debunk the idea that a shift in jobs and income to the third world is a zero sum game and that US citizens (which I presume includes all first-world citizens) must lose income for the third world to gain.
The article was comparing the income gains in the US Deep South over the past century. The graph showd the percentage gains and losses by region -- ALL regions of the US showed double-digit income losses over this time period and the South and ONLY the South showed gains.
Yet despite the obvious evidence that the lowest income region gained and the higher income regions lost, they tried to say that high-income regions won't lose income while low-income regions gain.
I've become convinced that the media just can't report the reality of immigration and offshoring properly.
I think that the academic/left insists on seeing third world gains and first world losses as well as unchecked third world immigration as partly a pro-minority issue (gains for browns vs. losses for whites), and partly as neo-socialism (gains for poor peoples, losses for rich peoples).
The business/conservatives tend to see it as good for consumers (since some goods become cheaper) and good for business (which generally means good for a small percentage of capitalists), which is usually explained as being the source of new, unexplained, opportunities for workers.
Neither of them care about the too-rapid-to-manage erosion in income and opportunity for workers.
"Bottom line: If you make stuff cheaper, society as a whole benefits. Yes there are painful individual cases where people lose their jobs, but because the house is so much cheaper, they don't have to work huge hours to buy a house when they do get a new job."
Bottom line: Were's my "cheaper" health insurance?
I can't even afford a dentist, let alone a general physical. Were's my "cheaper" food? I spend the same if not more, and what I get can be carried on one arm. Where's my "cheaper" apartment? My place is now charging for trash, and before it was water. Trickle down doesn't work, isn't working, and there's no incentive to make it work.
A degree is not an assurance of wealth, you still have to get out there. Yes its tough, but guess what? Thats life. While I hate to talk like a motivational speaker (I'm usually the cynic), the whining on this topic is incredible. I would say unless you start thinking of solutions instead of grumbling, you'll be lucky to land a WalMart job.
...is actual free trade. what we have now is a mockery of a free market, where the most powerful proponents of free trade are hoarding all sorts of leveraged trade agreements with the back hand. what we really need to do is make it tougher to have it both ways.
don't assume, of course, that i'm all for free trade. but i really wish the folks publicly gunning for it would be honest about what they're really doing.
[|]
1) tax evasion != outsourcing != free trade
/. throughout the past few weeks and months.
While there is a common denominator to these events, namely economic activity occuring across political lines, they are not the same and should not be mixed and matched in arguments. For example, it is perfectly possible that a company with 100% US employees can be a legal entity in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying some taxes, but that has nothing to do with outsourcing or free trade (which are themselves seperate issues).
2) Salary != Quality of Life
There is an old saying referring to the accumulation of wealth over time that "It's not how much you make but how much you save." When Japanese car companies began competing against Detroit in the American auto market, it made us all better off. In the short run, the Japanese cars were cheaper for an equivalent product, saving the American consumer on the initial capital expense (i.e. the bottom line price of the car). Over time, it forced Detroit to compete, again to the benefit of the American consumer. IMO, the vehicles you can see the greatest change in the quality is in the cheapest cars. You now get airbags, crumple zones, AC, CD-changers, etc, all in a car that costs less in REAL (inflation-adjusted) terms than 10 years ago. SO you are now getting more for less, allowing you to take the money you saved and spend it on your swanky new HDTV phone or start that addition on your house, etc. So yes, salary is an important factor in your ability to provide for a family, but so are the choices on where you choose to spend your money. If buying an American car is important to you (because you don't want to put an American out of work so that you can have that addition to your house, that's fine, no one is going to stop you from spending it that way.) If enough people agree with you, than that American worker doesn't have to adjust to the market because they market is treating him just fine.
3) Reread #2 and now think of employees being the car and the employer being the family that is purchasing it. As much as we like to demonize (big) businesses, they are themselves consumers. If they can get an equivalent product(*NOTE below) from India for less, that allows them to spend more money trying to find the next big thing to make them money. And that's what the free market is all about, trying to find the next great way to make more money because the old way just got harder.
*NOTE: I fully recognize that there are several costs associated with Outsourcing other than labor that are often overlooked that may not make it equivalent. We have seen them posted on
4) The businesses are willing to pay YOU to help them get at this new source of profit if the cost of your skills (salary, benefits, etc) is less than the value of how productive they think you can be. If you want them to pay you that high price you think you deserve, have the skill set to match so that you are still a better value (productivity per cost) than your counterparts, be they Americans fresh out of college or Indian contractors.
5) The inability to see the future is not a failure of the free market. Just because we don't know what the next big thing is and who's going to be behind it, doesn't mean that it's not going to happen. Instead the whole point of the 'invisible hand' being invisible is that things are allocated properly because everyone is looking out for their own best interest. Anyone hear of Google 10 years ago? Microsoft 30 years ago? IBM 150 years ago? No, but they employ the thousands of people throughout the world (and despite the hysteria, this still includes the US) because they followed the market, saw an opportunity, and it paid off big.
6) What's the American worker to do? Do what they have always done: adapt to follow the money. Are there very significant obstacles? Yes, and everything ranging from a pinch to a punch is being felt as we try to manage them. Is there a high cost associated with training and education? Ye
The people who decide what is "free" decide what is "fair". In the US, the labor consumers decide, so the deal is "fair" for them, not for the labor producers. If most workers favor it (evidence?), they'll rethink that when their job moves faster than they can, as we've seen time and again, and Slashdotters are starting to see in our own industries now.
--
make install -not war
I was on a project that my company tried to outsource to one of the largest outsourcing firms in India. Tried is the key word here. After two weeks of training the consultants were supposed to be able to replace every American on the project. Four months later they still couldn't code anything that worked. It finally degenerated to the point where one of our developers was instructed by his manager to put the code in a Word doc so the consultants could type it in. About five months into the mess, the project was cancelled and another company was purchased to replace the product we were working on. The managers involved with the oursourcing moved on to another project where they again failed trying to outsource it.
To me free trade is akin to Free-ways in some respect. Free ways are optimised for travelling to specific long distance destinations under standard/normal conditions. But the same free ways, that epitomise efficiency under standard circumstances, turn nightmarish during rush hours. Also, they are non-optimal if you want to, say, enjoy the scenic view offered by some of the backroads. It is also non-optimal if you have already reached the destination and any further movement for you is largely restricted to the local grocery store.
I think socialism, free trade or capitalism are all free way philosophies that aim to optimise specific goals at the cost of some others that are perceived to be less important. In India, we took up protectionist policies for 40 years and those led to gradual but sure erosion of our production capabilities. But during these years there was great stability (not affluence but predictability). Over a period of time we became a nation with "chalta hai" (make do) attitude than a "can do" attitude.
I think India would have been much better placed if it were open to competition right from the word go. But we offered sops to local industries that became difficult to lift as time passed and Indian goods lost out on quality. So I think free trade probably is a good long term policy that will lead to faster acceptance of realities and attuning yourself to it.
Within this though I think there can policy changes that will make this transition a little less painful. But making drastic changes that are irreversible quickly enough can change the direction of the broader philosophy.
Imagine if you were to miss your exit on a Freeway and you just decide to make random U turn. If you are the only one doing this, it may be fine. But if everybody starts doing that and this becomes a norm freeways would lose their value in no time. I know what this kind of behaviour leads to and that is complete systemic atrophy.
There are a lot of models for economic success but they go hand in hand with the societal models. For the values that American's value like freedom, individualism etc. free trade is the most aligned economic model for continues success. Japanese have achieved it differently but then their social values are more community based than individual centric etc. The worst thing one can do is adopt an economic policy that is not in line with social goals and norms of the country.
two cents and some more
So OK, Coca-Cola bottles water for Indian techies. And they use Compaq computers... Everything goes to the shareholder, not to the, now unemployed, IT guy who has/had some stock options.
The 10 percent whealthiest people have more money than the remaining 90 percent together, again.
"Ive got my backup plan... do you?"
Sorry! Becoming a drug pusher isn't going to work.
Although when misery does increase in a society, alcohol sells very well. Just ask Russia.
"Then, you MOVE to someplace the job market doesn't suck."
India. All 6 Million of the unemployed + The one's just coming out of school. Hmmm...I wonder if we can get grandpa a visa? I'm certain they will welcome us with open arms, just as we did them.
Those jobs are mine, all mine!
The rest of the planet should just be settled to live in cardboard boxes so we can all kick it in our
H2 with 20" wheels.
The Cato Institute is an open supporter of Microsoft, Bill Gates visited them, funds them.
I think capitalism works. I think free trade is great.
I have the skills to manipulate the system. Much more so than 99% of the
population. And that doesn't even mean "gaming" the system. I can work within
it to quickly increase my capital income. I am going to continue amassing
wealth, not working. I am not going to be a fast food worker, a steel worker, a
nurse, a computer programmer, or even a doctor or lawyer -- their days are
numbered, too.
I am simply going to be an owner.
I 0wn j00.
You can borrow my money, but you'll have to pay. You can borrow my land, but
you'll have to pay. You can buy my goods, and I'll make them cheap for you!
But not so much so that I won't profit as much as I can.
If you can't pay, then I don't want you touching my things. And there are a lot
of clean-cut, strong men with weapons, trained in fighting, who will
make sure you don't mess with my property.
I am better skilled than you at accumulating wealth, and I already own the
assets to leverage everyone into directing wealth my way. Wealth is like mass,
and my earning capability is like gravity. My wealth comes from everywhere.
One route is through you. You are my debtor. My consumer. I 0wn j00. My
police are numerous and better skilled than you at fighting, so you can't do
anything about it. And politicians, like me, are most concerned with personal
gain, so they will continue to pass legislation to promote their investments.
Investments in my corporations.
I know capitalism works. It certainly works for me.
But you can't blame me, can you? If I didn't do this, someone else would. You,
in fact, are selfish. You would do the same thing. That's why you like
capitalism, too. You couldn't be an 0wnz3r otherwise.
Now, after it is completely offtopic, I am not afraid of infection. It's more about being exposed to the same combination of chemicals all the time increases your risk of getting whatever illness is en vogue at the time (cancer, allergies, metabolic illness). Almost all problems with food, cleaners, toxic incredients and other things in the household affect the people most who are constantly exposed to it. And dangerously low levels of a chemical also happens more easily if you are using only a very small subset of available products.
:) Every diet, every concentration of only one proven brand increases certain chemicals and lowers others, which may be antidotes for the poisonous effects.
Basicly I am just trying to keep the dose of everything as low as possible while not missing anything that is important for my metabolism. There is no class of chemicals that is not proven to be dangerous to the health if you get high doses of it for a long time. And on the contrary: There are lots of studies indicating that not getting most of the poisons at a very low level is bad for your health too, which is old news, as Paracelsus already stated in the Middle Age: It's the dose that makes the poison. So try to get a sensible mix of it.
(* Although in two party or one party states like USA, where both the Democrats and Republicans are almost identical, it is hard to say).
The two parties are rather different from each other. The list of differences is long and profound.
They are only "the same" if you look at it from some sort of fringe and have a false view: "the corporations own both parties" or "both parties are socialist".
The proper description is "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."
More seriously, though, it does send a notion wandering through my brain, as to the next step in outsourcing. They've outsourced manufacturing, and now white collar jobs. Could academia be next? Distance learning programs could go up in level, especially if fiber-to-the-door actually comes about.
Slightly more plausible, however, is for the next step to be boards of directors outsourcing management; Pointy Haired Bossing isn't that hard. =)
Of course, stockholding could be outsourced faster still....
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Sure, the whole world is plastered with American branded products, but almost nothing is MADE in America anymore. (My father-in-law is a very smart guy and very tough minded about buying stuff made here, so finding him a birthday present gets more impossible every year.)
Just because a lot of jobs are already moving offshore that does NOT mean that lots of NEW technology will automagically spring up to employ all the displaced workers here! We are seeing an economic change as disruptive as the Industrial Revolution and most of our politicians understand even less about technology than Al Gore.
I find your terminology disturbing. Stop "asking". Stop asking for "chances".
... goddammit, shoot back, you twit -- you're being shot at in the first place!
The people with their noses in the air are the ones dismissively telling us that "no one owes you a living". But this is America, the land of plenty, where you can drive from sea to shining sea over paved roads on essentially pocket money. This is the land of prosperity with hundreds of miles of waving grain. Why should anyone have to starve? Why should anyone find their household goods placed at the curb?
Don't ask; demand. Demand that we have the opportunity to earn a living. It used to be more than enough that the wealthy could have their large houses on the hill while the middle class had their picket-fenced homes down in the valley. That was a stable society that well merited the name "the best country on Earth". But now the homes on the hill are growing while the ones in the valley are being downsized. This is greed at its ugliest. It's a clear class war. And since it's war
The people who are cashing out your factories and moving that wealth offshore are taking advantage of the American cultural stability to loot the nation. Stop them. When your local city council hands out tax abatements by the bucket load, vote them out and install the hard liners who recognize that all that wealth is OURS, not just the exclusive property of a miniscule elite. We are all in this together. That wealth could not have been attained unless we worked to make the stability under which it grew. We all have a stake in society.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Oh, and BTW, union workers are generally more productive and quality driven than the non-union scab asswipes
Calling people "Scabs" just because they want to work for a living?
BTW what's so bad about giving more of the pie to the fucking people who actually do the work?
There is nothing wrong as long as it is the REAL VALUE OF THE WORK. When unions push the wages above the real value, something has to give (typically laying off workers to pay the few left).
Union membership must be the choice of each individual worker.
Unfortunately we can't. The secret to Orwellian control is to control all (or as many as possible) media outlets. Whether in America, Russia, Italy, China, Cuba, Venezuela and too many other places, the media now appears to be extremely well controlled - with the vast majority of attention focused on non-issues and trivial issues of little or no actual concern.
During the American Revolution individual pamphleteering became the order of the day - so to is this occasionally happening (not as frequently as I'd prefer) on the Web. But truth to tell, we are really way beyond that stage now - and should be actively and, if necessary, violently taking back what little remains of this once-democracy.
Please remember, it was little more than a variety of rag-tag militias that were decisive in the American Revolution - now the media wishes to make anything militia-like a horrible un-PC label.
To independent thinkers such as we - such drivel will only be ignored in the light of reality.
Offshore outsourcing is making a joke of Homeland defense. Citicorp among others is transferring personal, business and government financial, medical and other information overseas where none of it is controlled by U.S. laws to protect your information. What happened to the Patient's Bill of Rights? There were over 9 million personal cases of identity theft last year alone. This is nothing more than a run around by corporations and insurance companies to grab data to discriminate against medical patients and other entities. We have been here before. Microsoft and Boeing receive tax subsidies of 50 billion for outsourcing so the EU raises export tariffs on small American businesses like jewelry, toys and others. We have known that these subsidies were illegal when lobbyist for these companies implemented them and our elected officials have turned a deaf ear for over 5 years that we have been pettioning for changes. The EU has been screaming for over two years since they were illegally implemented but the influence that companies like Microsoft and Boeing have so much power that legislators are scared to do anything other than what these powerful companies lobby them to do. This has cost us 50 billion of taxpayer's money when implemented and now another 50 billion in penalty tariffs on other American small and large businesses. But no penalty tariffs on either Microsoft or Boeing products? If added up we now have created a 100 billion in lost taxes (100 billion deficit in trade) do to the destructive actions of the powerful few. What is ironic about this is that the Chamber of Commerce has also lobbied in favor for these domestic economic destroying tactics. Once the small domestic American business members realize that the Chamber of Commerce is destroying their customer base domestically in their name you should see a revolt among their ranks. We also saw AARP do the same thing to it's members by lobbing for the Health Care plan that is more a subsidy and give away program to the pharmaceuticals and HMO's than a solution the American taxpayers. It does not take a genius to see through the facade of lies and greed of these Benedict Arnold companies. Example: Earthlink Inc an ISP has moved close to 4,000 jobs of a 6,000-employee company to India and other places. Have they reduced their monthly ISP charges of $ 21.95 of course not and it is the same for most offshore outsourcers. The benefits only create profit at the stockholder level at the expense of the American economy. These corporations just released that they will be creating new jobs but they will be in India and other places for cheap labor not here in the states. "Corporations have been enthroned. An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. " Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) George King Edmonds Washington
You hit the nail on the head.
There ARE areas in the U.S. with relatively cheap real estate, but the almighty Transnationals won't "outsource" to telecommuters there, they force you to live nearby the offices (where it's expensive), or report to another "owner" if elsewhere.
OTOH, maybe real estate prices will "correct" soon, but that of course means serious trouble for all those people holding 90% mortgages.
Yow! I'm supposed to have a plan?
Most of the rich are rich because they worked to get there, and they work to stay rich. They are part of the working-class.
"Perhaps you should listen to a source other than Rush Limbaugh"
I just look at the list.
"Yes, it really is that bad out there and it's only going to get worse."
Worse? There is not anything bad about this at all.
As for the Walton family fortune, it is none of my business what fathers give to sons and daughters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/weekinreview/29j ohn.html
February 29, 2004
The Social Security Promise Not Yet Kept
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
OCIAL Security retirement benefits are going to have to be cut, Alan Greenspan announced last week, because there just is not enough money to pay the promised benefits. President Bush said those already retired or "near retirement age'' should not worry. They will get their promised benefits.
That, in short form, was the story carried on front pages and television news programs across the country.
But there is an element that was forgotten in the rush of news. It dates back 21 years to the events that catapulted Mr. Greenspan into national prominence and led to his becoming chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Since 1983, American workers have been paying more into Social Security than it has paid out in benefits, about $1.8 trillion more so far. This year Americans will pay about 50 percent more in Social Security taxes than the government will pay out in benefits.
Those taxes were imposed at the urging of Mr. Greenspan, who was chairman of a bipartisan commission that in 1983 said that one way to make sure Social Security remains solvent once the baby boomers reached retirement age was to tax them in advance.
On Mr. Greenspan's recommendation Social Security was converted from a pay-as-you-go system to one in which taxes are collected in advance. After Congress adopted the plan, Mr. Greenspan rose to become chairman of the Federal Reserve.
This year someone making $50,000 will pay $6,200 in Social Security taxes, half deducted from their paycheck and half paid by their employer. That total is about $2,000 more than the government needs in order to pay benefits to retirees, widows, orphans and the disabled, government budget documents show.
So what has happened to that $1.8 trillion?
The advance payments have all been spent.
Congress did not lock away the Social Security surplus, as many Americans believe. Instead, it borrowed the surplus, replacing the cash with Treasury notes, and spent the loan proceeds paying the ordinary expenses of running the federal government.
Only twice, in 1999 and 2000, did Congress balance the federal budget without borrowing from the surplus.
Both parties have treated the surplus Social Security taxes as "cash flow to the government," which has been allowable since the Johnson administration started counting Social Security as part of the federal budget, not as a separate budget, said C. Eugene Steuerle, a tax policy advisor to President Reagan.
He said that voters were promised in 1983 that the federal debt would be paid off with the surplus Social Security taxes. The fact that this has not happened and the debt has soared shows that "government usually can only deal with one objective at a time,'' Mr. Steuerle said. Back then, he added, the prime objective was to settle on a Social Security tax rate that would back the system and not have to be tinkered with for decades - not how the surplus would be handled.
He said using the surplus to pay routine bills makes sense to those who believe the government will have tax revenues in the future to repay the borrowed money.
President Bush asserts that making his existing income, gift and estate tax cuts permanent will spur growth that will, in turn, generate more tax revenue in the long run, making that repayment more likely.
Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said that making the cuts permanent will "promote prosperity for American workers'' and that older employees can expect full benefits.
But Mr. Greenspan's new remarks have brought that into question. Other officials have raised doubts. In June 2001, Paul H. O'Neill, President Bush's first Treasury secretary, said all that Americans expecting benefits have is "someone else's promise'' that the paper held by the Social Security Trust Fund will be redeemed with taxes paid later by oth
The point I was trying to make is that the we're looking more at the potential for option one to disappear. There is no point becoming educated in a new field unless that area can't be outsourced. Otherwise, the cheap offshore workers (who are now demonstratably as capable of learning at that level) are likely to be able to do that work also.
My personal view is that good software engineering requires personal interaction. To allow the programming to be done elsewhere will simply mean the local programmers being replaced with local business/system analysts.
Oopsie, I forgot one other necessary cultural behavior for a sustainable middle class:
o Mind your own business. If your neighbor howls with delight over the $60K he "made" on the stock market, you look at him, say "good for you, Frank" and continue raking your leaves -- not run into the house and try to out-daytrade him. It used to be that "nobody cared what anybody else made" (verbatim from an old neighbor of mine), but all that ended and now we have a constant push to keep up with the Joneses. To avoid the excesses of speculation, people should just mind their own damned business.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
"Competitive price and recognized brand are a proven combination for success."
Not true.
An economic profit is a profit that is more than the fair rate of return on investment, etc. A successful business or corporation will earn a business profit without any brand name recognition.
For example, you think that Compaq is a well known brand, but not when Compaq started.
Compaq successfully dominated the PC market without brand recognition against IBM which was a brand known to all.
It did so with a product and price that we far better than anything that IBM offered or was able to offer.
Once Compaq became an established brand and dominated the industry, sort of, Michael Dell successfully challanged Compaq and all the other established brands and now Dell is the most successful PC vendor.
Still the "brand" that holds the largest market share is "white box". It seemed to me that a great business opportunity would be to setup whitebox.com to sell generic PCs. There is a genericpc.com, as I recall.
The value of a well establish brand is always to charge a price higher than the cost to build and deliver the product or service. What companies fail to understand is that you can't stop reducing the costs just because you are successfully making a profit.
Many companies end up making no business profit, but believing they are making a profit because of the economic profit they gain from there brand. Many companies end with a negative business profit, concealed by an brand generated economic profit, and then when they take a hit to their brand name, they suddenly find themselves losing money. This happened to Compaq twice; the first time Compaq recovered, but the second time it found that it couldn't compete and joined forces with another company that has a negative business profit and a positive economic profit.
Dell is making both a business profit and an economic profit and is hammering HP. But there are at least two companies without the brand recognition of Dell that are able to beat or match Dell's costs and are willing to settle for less economic profit.
Both Infosys and Al Qaeda challenge America: Infosys by competing for U.S. jobs through outsourcing, and Al Qaeda by threatening U.S. lives through terrorism. As Michael Mandelbaum, the Johns Hopkins foreign policy professor, put it: "Our next election will be about these two challenges -- with the Republicans focused on how we respond to Al Qaeda, and the losers from globalization, and the Democrats focused on how we respond to Infosys, and the winners from globalization." says Thomas L. Friedman in his latest article.
E .h tml
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/opinion/14FRI
One is slow poison, the other kills instantly!