What Should a Documentary Filmmaker Ask About Offshoring?

Philadelphia-area development economics and finance student Rachel Anderika and her associate, programmer/filmmaker Krishnan, are making a documentary about the effects of offshore outsourcing. Their "still under construction" Web site, Project Outsourced, gives you more information about their work. They're interviewing economists, bankers, anti-outsourcing advocacy groups, pro-outsourcing CEOs, columnists, and others. Where you come in is helping Rachel and Krishnan come up with good questions to ask. We'll forward 10 - 15 of the highest-moderated ones posted here (within the next 24 hours) to them. Expect summaries (and possibly audio or video clips) of the answers in late May, and news about the finished film this Fall.

Comments

Outsourcing on Slashdot: Fair and Balanced?

[mr.henry]

I think /. should have a disclaimer on every outsourcing related story that mentions that their parent company, VA Software, has sent American jobs overseas.

V
Valence Technology
VA Software
Veritas
Verizon

Here is a list of companies that use outsourcing.

Re:Practice of outsourcing (not a question)

[Penguinisto]

Err, I may be wrong, but didn't Honda "Outsource" their labor to the United States (as it was cheaper to hire American workers to build cars for sale in the US than to build 'em overseas then ship the things via ocean freight?)

It seems that this outsourcing thing can and does work both ways, no?

(err, cue massive down-modding by disgruntled outsourced IT workers...)

Re:Practice of outsourcing (not a question)

[Dorktrix]

It had less to do with ocean freight than the cost of tariffs on sedans... Ironically, most of these tariffs are artifacts of the "free trade" Regan administration in an attempt to save American car makers from the Japanese car makers during the 80s.

What about failures?

[hirschma]

How about a look at how and why offshoring fails. There was an article about it just today at MSNBC.

Re:Practice of outsourcing (not a question)

[Misch]

Correct. Many Hondas sold in the US are made in the US. If you want to check, look at the first character of the vehicle VIN. If it is 1 or 4, then it was made in the US. My Honda Civic Hybrid's first character is "J", indicating it was made in Japan. Here is a partial decoder.