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An Independent Study on Offshoring IT?
vsprintf writes "What are the real effects of offshoring on the U.S. technology sector? Pick your economist on the subject. The Bush administration's Gregory Mankiw says it's all good, and exporting jobs is just a new way to do trade. In Congressional testimony, Ralph Gomory says a little bit is okay, but too much is bad, while Herman Daly says it's just plain bad. The ITAA's paid mouthpiece, Harris Miller, says it must be good because IT workers in India wear Nike tennis shoes. At last, it appears the IEEE-USA has persuaded Congress to pay for an independent study to determine how offshoring really affects U.S. IT."
The only people who will benefit from outsourcing are corporate execs and stockholders.
The rest of us will be left with nothing to do and it won't matter if goods and services are cheaper if you don't have a wage to pay for them.
Meanwhile the Indians etc. will be undercut by the Chinese and they'll be undercut by someone else.
Where does it end?
And this is good for anyone who isn't an exec at Nike, or significant shareholder therein, how exactly?
and it should be - why ? Someone buys shoes somewhere with money they have earned - earning money for someone making the shoe and I should benefit?
Didn't Bush just promise thousands of new jobs for the American working class if he were re-elected? How can he promise this while his administration is supporting the outsourcing of jobs to other countries?
Either I'm missing something (I hope I am) or this is the most blatant bit of double-speak I've seen in awhile. The sick part is he'll probably still be re-elected anyway. Le sigh.
"He does look a bit Oompa like, even if his Loompa is a bit off-kilter."
There's an argument there, but it's irrelevant here. The claim here is that IT outsourcing is beneficial to the US as a whole, because the IT engineers in Bangalore wear Nike tenis shoes.
If this is at all true, then clearly there must be some way in which Indians purchasing shoes made in Indonesia is beneficial to the average US citizen. The question is, outside of the vanishlingly small minority of the population who are either Nike execs or large Nike shareholders, how does the US (taken here to mean the majority of citizens thereof) benefit?
there's also the fact that industry prices go down in general, allowing joe sixpack to buy more stuff and live the good life. (nike is an exception as they don't sell shoes so much as 'swoosh' symbols)
Corporations don't pay any taxes these days. If this poorly made garbage never enters the US, no US tax will be paid on it.
You wanted globalisation America, this is what you get. it's not all wine and roses you know... It's all good fun when the only people suffering are foreigners you dont have to see, but as soon as it hurts a few jobs in the local economy everyone is up in arms about it... Does that not perhaps strike any of you as selfish at all? Reap what you sew america... reap what you sew...
Well, first you persuade other countries to open up their economies to your imports, claiming this will enable them to step up on the ladder towards geater societal wealth and towards a more skill-based economy.
Then, when they actually do, and start reaping some rewards from it, you start acting like it's the second coming of antichrist.
So what do you suggest? Stop outsourcing, stop manufacturing abroad? Are you also then prepared to accept the trade retaliations from the rest of the world? Some people applauded your steel tariffs as something good. Of course, the US ended up losing a lot more money - and more jobs - total than it saved in that particular sector by postponing an inevitable restructuring.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Social Responsibility Vs Entrepreneurial Spirit - always a delicate balance. I guess in a round about way the average citizen benefits because more profits => more corporate tax => more benefits/facilities/amenities/ less personal tax. But I know that it doesnt make sense to someone who has just lost their paying job. As an Indian, I would like to point out a couple of things: 1. Dont worry too much about outsourcing - its America which holds the strings of that puppet show - the Govt. can step in any time to level the playing field - it could be taxes, could be subsidies for local operators - anything which would make it not as viable to outsource. 2. Worry a lot about out-shoring - thats when (1) happens and corporate greed will find workarounds by not outsourcing but operating right out of cheaper countries. Now Free Enterprise is what makes America great - its a paradox US will have to deal with. As usual the truth is a shade of gray somewhere in between.
Simple, try to keep certain core industries and research in the country, and do moderate outsourcing which opens the doors for the wealth of everybody. But for heavens sake, keep some industries and research in the country or at least in the monetary zone.
Not so simple, I suspect. Who do you stop from outsourcing? Specific industries or govt. departments only? By amount? Since the bulk of IT growth in the last couple of years in the UK has been from govt. IT contracts, I can't see the govt. deciding to pay extra by preventing companies from outsourcing. Restricting by amount would simply be worked around by splitting projects.
Another problem with outsourcing is that it does not send a positive signal to new recruits. Later, if and when an IT boom starts, wage inflation then rockets because there's not enough 'spare' resource left. Companies are then forced to outsource from a resource and cost point of view. The initial costs of setting up outsourcing can be high, so once the cost benefits accrue, companies will not eagerly drop the process.
But don't ask me what the solution might be. Perhaps this report might give us some answers.
Did he inhale?
Outsourcing "IT" is like outsourcing "engineering."
If the question or design is simple then it is simply begs for a commodity-based result -- an answer or drawing. This is not to say that the people working on these problems are simple, it's just an issue of language, culture, and time-zone barriers.
America and the UK have proven themselves to be at the forefront of technology -- constantly improving on older developments; driving in directions yet unforseen. This happens daily, and in every sector of the market -- it is continual. Sure, some of our problems can be outsourced because they are simple to convey. However, much of our software and systems are more dynamic than we often admit. These "little" changes and enhancements are what I believe will be the demarcation point between offshore and traditional IT environments.
I don't think many jobs will be lost to foreign markets, because they will remain needed here. However, I think more jobs will be created in these offshored markets because of increased demand.
The big fallacy in all the economists' arguments for offshoring is right here: "US GDP increases, so that must be good for the US."
But what's really happening is this: incomes of a few CEOs go up from (say) $1M to $2M, while incomes of 10 times as many engineers go down from (say) $100k to $20k. That's a gain in money terms, but it's very bad for 90% of the people affected. So, it's bad for the USA.
As it is today, people in poor countries see their young children starve to death, or die from lack of medicine, just so people in rich countries don't have to suffer the discomfort of looking for a new job. Outsourcing is part of a re-shuffling of wealth that may be uncomfortable for a while, but in the long run economies around the world will become more similar, so we won't see the extreme cruelties and conflicts of desperation that we see today.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
As long as the big corporations and those corporations with friends in Congress make tons of money, nothing else matters.
And you just hit upon the cause of 95% of the problems in the U.S. today.
The U.S. essentially has a ruling class. Elections won't change a thing because the U.S. Corps. have bought off both sides.
The only way to fix it is to throw the Corporate influence out of government... good luck trying to do it.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
If you declare a six figure income, the government will take 40-50% of it. But most people earning that sort of money can afford the services of an accountant who can give them advice on how to make six figures look like five.
Don't agree with you on points 2 and 3.
2. Movement of employees - First off, it's very easy in the EU. There's almost no additional paperwork as compared to hiring a national. There are some problems with recognition of qualifications and social security but these can generally be sorted out. Companies REALLY want freedom of movement because it allows cheap laborers to move to domestic factories and qualified management to move abroad to run new factories/outlets.
3. Patents and copyright - patents are open and share knowledge. All the information necessary to replicate the technology or process must be included in the patent. When it expires or you buy a license, you can use the knowledge. One of the key aspects of patents is that you give up obscurity and secrecy for exclusive rights, the patent system was set up to encourage innovation and the spread of knowledge. Patents can be abused (for instance stupid extension for a different application after original expiry) but they're not inherently bad. Without patents, companies would keep their inventions secret and the invention might never enter the public domain.
Same applies to copyright - to gain it, you have to create a work. Once its created, its in the open.
It's called taxes. If you make a six-figure income, in most states the government will take 40-50% of it. If you work hard at avoiding taxes (residing in a favorable state, using loopholes, etc.) you can generally get it down to around 25%, but it's still nothing to be sneezed at.
For a low range in the six figures this is true, but as you progress towards the richer and then the wealthy, the actual percentage of assets paid in taxes drops dramatically. And let's face it, the people making money from off-shoring aren't in the low range of 6 figures. This is because most of the money the federal government gets from the rich and the wealthy comes from capital gains tax (the sale of shares) or dividends tax. The bush tax cuts have dramatically reduced these. Also, you have to actually sell your shares or get dividends for this to kick in. If, like Bill Gates, you keep your fortune in paper, then you are not taxed at all.
Also, lately there has been a wave of corporate off-shoring (also known as inversion), where you reincorporate in a tax shelter (like the tax-free bermuda), so that you pay dramatically less taxes. It's part of the reason why 60 percent of US corporations didn't pay any taxes between 1996 and 2000 (microsoft being one of those 60 percent).
But it is dumb to say that the average Joe in the US gets no benefit if some rich honcho makes a few billion bucks from some folks in India.
Objectively true, some of that money does flow back to regular people. But more is lost by off-shoring than comes back in corporate profits, since only a percentage of the profits gets spent or reinvested inside the US.
Problem...not everyone can live like the US...if they do...then we all die. There aren't enough resources to go around. 6 billion plus people all can't drive cadilacs. Not that we shouldn't raise the standard of living...but we need population control before that becomes a universal option.
Some people live in the desert and complain that there's no rain
hey idiot...
you CAN'T pay into insurance of a 401K when you don't have them.
If you paid any attention to the news, you'd know that less and less people have insurance and less and less people have 401ks. Less people can afford insurance (esp health insurance) and companies offer less perks. The "benefits" you are touting are already going to fewer and fewer people.
It's nice to read the whole fucking message before you go off on your little tirades. If you did you would of realize THAT is how your argument makes no sense.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
If Nike does better, all US-based employees of Nike, from execs down to janitors, benefit. The extra money the US workers earn gets spent in the US, further benefiting other US companies and strengthening the US economy. Maybe those janitors will buy computers, benefiting the tech industry. Also, since anybody can buy shares in Nike, the average US citizen is free to benefit from Nike's success directly as a minor shareholder. You don't need to be a "significant" shareholder to benefit from Nike's success.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
6 billion plus people all can't drive cadilacs.
This is certainly true, and it's an important injustice.
But the extreme cruelties and conflicts of desperation are not from lack of cadillacs. It's from fundamental issues like lack of food, water, medicine, and basic comforts.
As for getting luxuries and additional comfort without destroying our planet, technology may offer solutions, as more and more people put their minds to these problems. Today only the privileged few in rich countries can contribute to this development (I'm exaggerating, but I suppose you understand what I mean). As economy improves in more and more countries, just imagine the potential, when billions of people can contribute, inventing, developing and buying environmentally sound technology.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Actually the west is moving away from free markets, just as the rest of the world has been perusaded to move towards them, so this is no surprise (examples patent and copyright laws deisgned to protet existing industry stuctures for fear of job losses, high regulatory burdens which criplle start-ups and small firms, heavy government subsidies for certain industries)
You are correct to remind us that capitalism is not a zero-sum game; wealth is created. It is unevenly distributed, but still, most people have gained in the past. If your boss increases his own income by $100k and increases yours by $5k, well, the bottom line for you is a gain of $5k.
Now, that is changing. Today's CEO is greedier than Carnegie or Rockefeller or J. P. Morgan were. To increase his personal income by $1M, today's CEO will destroy the careers of dozens of engineers. They are not being replaced by automation, which increases the productivity of other American workers. They are being replaced by Indians and Chinese. To economists, it's a gain if one man gains $1M while 10 others lose $80K each. In the real world, it's a disaster for our society.
One possible way to attack the problem, without unduly restricting the economic freedom which helps the whole world to progress, would be to recognize what these CEO's are doing. They determine their own salaries, in reality. A CEO who takes home more than 40 times the median salary of employees in his company is basically a thief. "Compensation" in excess of 40 times the median salary in the same company should be regarded as prima facie evidence of theft.
Companies win bids for state contracts by massively underbidding small local companies, and send the labor offshore. They do not pass the savings they get by employing cheaper labor back to the state, the companies pocket those as profits. Only one group of people wins here, and it the companies.
It does matter where people are located. It isn't right that entire towns in the US die because the company headquartered there is allowed to up and move to a place where the labor is cheaper, and where they do not have to abide by stricter labor and environmental laws.
In the US, companies are allowed to exist by the will of the people (they must get incorporation papers from the government, the government [supposedly] is for, by, and of the people. That means that in the US, corporations have a responsibility to the communities that allow them to exist.
What I'm personally seeing is that the US/EU companies are firing the junior programmers and keeping the senior architects due to outsourcing to India. The effect of this is to essentially cut out the entire next generation of software architects because they do not get enough experience (and often quit IT totally).
If you were a selfish nationalist , they are selling tomorrow for today. But if you were a Capitalist nation , it makes perfect senseDon't dish it out , if you can't take it applies for Capitalism as well. (think of this as payback for all the agent orange and napalam used in name of Capitali^H^H^HDemocracy)
The real sad part is that actual losers in this nothing to do with the past events which built up to this (and neither will those of the future).-- 250 USD per month and 70 hour weeks does not a sweatshop make.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
I started out "life" as an engineer. By the early nineties that was pretty much gone. I don't know if it was outsourcing or what - just companies going out of business or downsizing. I was always good with computers so I focused on that aspect of my career. Frankly, programming seemed to be what I was doing the most of as an engineer anyway. With computer technology on the "outs" in the U.S. there is little for technically-minded people to do. You can spend 100k on college and work at a grocery store, but I would think that is "a bit" of a disappointment. I teach at the college level part time and we are still seeing a continued drop-off in technical courses. I am surprised that I am still teaching this term. Nevertheless, people go to college to try to obtain decent jobs. So students will gravitate toward those areas that have the best pay / interest for them. What I worry about is what I may have to do next. I have a lot of un / under employed colleagues. I know many people who have switched careers (Real Estate, etc.). Seriously, I would consider becoming an automobile mechanic or residential electrician. Let's see, and auto mechanic with a P.E. license or an electrician with a BSEE. With IT salaries falling these are viable options in America. I just think it would be funny that the grease monky who works on your car has a master's degree, makes more money and works less hours than his previous corporate job. The fact is the developing countries can produce perfectly good engineers which means that all engineers have to compete with them. I do not believe that anybody can stop the world economy. I don't believe in "zero-sum" economics, but in the short term there is going to be a lot of pain from the richer / costlier countries. Also, let's hope the Chinese and Russians do a nice job designing our next generation military systems so that we can continue picking on people we don't like...or vote Bush out.
Big corporations, the ones doing the outsourcing, do not provide the bulk of the jobs. For geeks, which to some implies having more intelligence than the common worker, some of you are dumber than the proverbial doorknob.
The primary job creation engine of the economy is the small businessman (or woman). Big corporations get the headlines because they usually affect people in larger numbers at one time. However their numbers are really not that meaningful when you look at the number of people employed in this country. There are 138 MILLION people working in the US.
How many jobs were outsourced? Now, looking back on history shouldn't we consider the 70s the age of outsourcing automobile workers? The 80s textile workers?
As for the job creation. The capital gains tax cuts and similar equalizing of the percentage of income tax benefit the small business greatly. I know, I have four relatives with small businesses who have grosses from as low as 500k to nearly 5 million. Guess what, they have more money and they did exactly what was expected, they hired to grow even bigger.
Now what will stop this? Simple, raising the taxes on the "evil rich". Sorry, the proposed plans will smack down more small businesses than anyone. The ones with the millions and billions have relatively no income and have the means to dodge nearly most forms of taxes.
In the end the only proper way to deal with taxation is by consumption. The rich consume in a very big fashion and the fairtax will accomplish that. http://www.fairtax.org
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
In the 80's it was the Japenese and Germans beating the US in manufacturing, and people were claiming that we were doomed to become a third world nation. The US economic system kept going. Offshoring tech jobs will not lead to the economic disaster liberals are waiting for. Besides it must be good, George Soros' companies made millions consulting US companies on moving jobs offshore.
Get a FREE Sony PS3
Ultimately, jobs which can be exactly and specifically tied to a process / response tree (a flowchart of actions) are easy to outsource.
Programmers who are handed a function spec and expected to return with a function can be outsourced.
Creativity cannot be outsourced effectively. It lives where it lives. There may be creativity in the other country, but that's not outsourcing.
Most outsourced IT fails not due to the failure of the outsource employees, but due to the failure of the inside company project managers. As any consultant can tell you, the vast majority of people who think they know how to manage a project clearly do not. As a result, what gets sent overseas are poorly thought out specifications that don't properly describe the process the project manager intended, which itself never matached the user's need.
When I sit in a meeting with a project manager and an end-user constituency representative, 90% of the time I spend is reconcilliation of the ideas from both -- when they are quite sure they'd already done this "in the spec"
As long as there are bad specs and bad managers to watch over them, there will be jobs for local people with the chops to turn those into functional code.
-AP
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
No the anti-offshoring deal on Slashdot has underlying racism in it... or "nationalism" as the other poster said. The idea is that only our group should have the opportunity to do programming or whatever not based on skill (or competitiveness) but on nationality.
Slashdot is one the most subtetly racist sites on the internet.
The day I can elect to "incorporate" myself in the Cayman Island and chose to pay taxes there instead of filing a 1040 here. That's the day I will agree that we ALL benefit. So far, we have a very skewed system that allows corporations all these "freedoms" while we, the regular folk are allowed nothing.
Not that you would want to, but just try packing your bags and landing in Bangalore (or anywhere on this planet for that matter) and start looking for a job. You would be "deported" so fast your head you spin. Free markets may be good, provided it applies to all involved.
It's not even close to a free market, and if you insist on calling it that, I'll ask for your detailed proof of it....I see a completely unfree market, not only totally unfree but massively unfair as well, except for a ferw elite connected ones. A free market would mean at a minimum either zero tariffs or exact equal tariffs on import and export, both ways, on all goods and services. It doesn't exist in reality, so don't insist it does in some far off futre that hasn't arrived yet. A free market would have exactly the same regulations and workplace laws, either zero, or the same. And so on.
Actually, I'm a little older than most folks here on slashdot and I started "noticing it" and lobbying against globalisation in the early 70's, all the way to face to faces with congress people. And everything myself and many others warned about has happened. And it will continue to get worse and the really big losers are the US middle class. Some folks are actually sophisticated enough to "notice" the difference between produced wealth and artifically produced credit, and we can point it out. Fort example,no matter how many times the shills call 30 year mortgages (or now interrst only mortgages) better than the ten year ones I remember, it's still a worse deal for the consumer long term. Same with big ticket items like cars. Some of us have noticed that day to day figures and realites don't jibe with what we were promised and told about 25-30 years ago. All we have seen is crappier products on the shelves, an artifically inflated dollar that gives people the illusion they have more but gets them less in the long run because of the higher credit that has been massively pushed on people, and a steady erosion of benefits and pensions, with the projections for them to continually keep getting worse. I've seen first hand and personal what happens to small communities when the largest local employer offshores (leaving upper management intact of course). No, they aren't "better off". I've also been effected by the currently illegal immigrant invasion which is tolerated and encouraged by the billionaires.
It's not a recent phenomenon or interest of mine, and I've been pretty consistent on it. Giving corporate tax breaks to companies to outsource is just wrong. Trading without a quid pro quo tariff structure is wrong. Imposing a million detailed laws and regulations on people, then telling them they have to compete with an area/government that has little or no such laws is wrong.
And besides that, I'm a patriot and nationalist, I think it's a function of government to look out for the most people in it's nation, not the top 1% wealthiest internationalists who happen to have a home and HQ inside the US but are really internationalists and loyal only to their own personal profits at the expense of their neighbors. That's a morals and ethics issue there, so if you disagree we'll have to leave it at that, it's not exactly quantifiable in terms of only dollars.
We decide what goes on in this country, down to the rules and law that decide EVERYTHING. If WE decide that outsourcing should be illegal, and that anyone who participates in it should be skinned alive and then burned at the stake, then that is OUR choice.
It is a government for the people and by the people, according to the constitution.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
"...think of this as payback for all the agent orange and napalam used in name of Capitali^H^H^HDemocracy"
You worthless pcs. of shit.
Some how I don't think that the Service Men/Women who died trying save South Veitnam where thinking about "Captialism" - esp. those who Volunteered.
The money you make is a result of supply vs demand. When most of the engineers/programmers/etc are employeed throughout the world, the salary will be good, and all developed countries will be fine. When you add in a new country out of nowhere, the supply increases, the demand for any ONE person is lessoned, and thus the salary lowers. This HURTS ALL developed countries. It only helps emerging countries. Is Japan and europe worried about this too?
So what happens when China declares war against us 40 or 50 years from now?
Why should they want to invade, if all knowledge has left the USA because of heavy outsourcing and all that is left are a few hundred million people whose major skill is to ask if one want fries with the order?
Seriously, that is one of the most ridiculous arguments I heard against outsourcing. Brain-drain and loss of skill are serious problems, but before worrying about chinese supertanks and missiles, one should be concerned about being able to keep up with the industry, having jobs for people that aren't rocket scientists etc. first.
All of the argumnts, pro and con, I see posted here assume one thing: that the service they are getting by off-shoring is equivalent. It is not!
The one place where I am affected by off-shoring every day is tech support. I maintain the computers for my company and I maintain the computers for a lot of small businesses on the side. It necessarily involves a lot of hardware installs and, thus, a lot of tech support calls. Did I say calls? When was the lat time you could actually call and get a real voice on the other end? Almost everyone has moved to e-mail based tech support. Many of the web-sites for computer hardware no longer list any phone numbers.
And here's my point. It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that those e-mails are all directed to someone with absolutely no knowledge of the English language. I have started collecting the e-mailed questions I submitted and the nonsensical responses I receive because some of them are hilarious.
A question about signal strength to the manufacturer of a Bluetooth USB adapter was answered with a discussion of the speed of the unit and culminated with: "As the unit is not powered the speed would be too high."
I have given up on all tech support. If I cannot get hardware running myself, in just a few minutes, I return it and try another product.
It really doesn't matter how much money companies save by off-shoring. Pretty soon they will be saving a whole lot more because they don't need any tech support at all when they go out of business!
Somehow I don't think that the service men/women who died trying to "save" South Vietnam were thinking about "Capitalism" or "Democracy" either. I am sure that most of them were thinking something like "I've got to get out of here".
However I do think that this was exactly the thinking that led the senior brass in Washington to send them there. The Vietnam war (and the Korean war too) was prosecuted because the rise of communism was seen as a threat to the American way of life - in other words a threat to Capitalism.
Unfortunately America preaches capitalism and free market economics all the time but is very two-faced about this kind of stuff. Massive subsidies to domestic industries and sanctions against foreign industries is directly contrary to these ideals.
Interference in the affairs of other nations is rarely welcomed, whether that is done through economic means or with a gun. The US doesn't like it when other nations try to interfere with its own internal affairs. For some reason though they seem to think it's perfectly OK for them to interfere with the affairs of others.
When you behave like that payback is inevitable - another name for this concept is Karma.
These "Benidict Arnold" corporations, in exporting good paying jobs to other countries, will do themselves in in the long run.
These megacorps want to get away without paying US wages, while at the same time, being dependent on a US consumer-supported MARKET to sustain their product.
Dell and HP, for example, aren't selling their expensive services and products to India. They are selling them to the USA and Europe.
Therefore, outsourcers depend on EVERYONE ELSE NOT outsourcing middle-class jobs, or else their market will ultimately collapse.
It's not just the corps that are betraying the American worker. Corporations will do anything allowed by law to make a buck. I don't have a problem with that, if business didn't make money, NONE of us would have jobs.
The traitor here is our government which does NOTHING to stop this practice, nor to even discourage it. Both parties are responsible. Both parties are beholden to the corps.
John Kerry gave some lip service to stopping outsourcing, but when you look at where his fortune comes from (his wife), mainly from OFFSHORING Heinz plants, one must wonder how serious he is about it.
The problem of outsourcing, like the IP cartels (MPAA/RIAA) are enemies that we can't vote out of power because BOTH parties are under their spell.
My solution to outsourcing is very simple.
Give all American businesses a tax credit equal to the salaries of all American citizens they employ inside the USA, minus the salary of all non-US citizens employed outside the USA.
This will allow outsourcers to play by the existing rules, while giving businesses who employ Americans a tax advantage over them.
There really won't be a loss in tax revenue, as all corporate taxes are illusory (all taxes get passed on to the customer), and it will help it, as it will encourage employers to employ more people and to pay higher wages.
Corporatism != Free Market
I'll believe in the benifits of outsoucing as soon as they start outsourcing CEO's. Currently some of them make over 400 times what the average worker makes. Think of all the money a company could save! Think of how much this would benifit the US economy! All of the arguments made about how IT workers make too much and if they deserve the jobs they spent years learning how to do, and years keeping up with all the advances apply equally to ALL workers, management included. Let's let blind adherence to capitalism is all good turn us ALL into poor burger flippers. Then capitalism, globalization, and free trade will have achieved what communism couldn't and turn the US into a third world country.
I've been out of work so no taxes from me from last year. I've also drastically cut my spending so bad for businesses too. From following my past employment, the savings from letting me go went for pay raises & bonuses to the guys in charge so no businesses savings but a money shift(investors are such suckers). Whether top management has upped their US spending habits and taxes to offset my sans-spending would determine whether it's a net loss/gain.
We got those things in the US after we industrialized, because that's when we could afford them. If we'd insisted on having that stuff first, we never could have industrialized at all. This pattern has repeated itself again and again as nations have industrialized. The USSR may be an exception, but is Stalin an example anybody wants to follow?
You're all fools anyway for talking like there's any solution to this. It's like protesting against gravity. If somebody in India can sell an equivalent product for less money, the only thing US law can do is prevent them from selling it in the US. If we seal off the US and refuse to let anybody here buy software from third-world countries, how will that stop Europeans from buying it, or Asians? It won't. It can't. There is nothing you can do.
Opening markets should be accompanied with freedom of movement and balancing social systems.
Once again, how do you plan to enforce it? Anyhow, what do you mean, "should"? Did you hear this from God? From Buddha? Or what?
The thing that makes me nervous about you people is the way you start with "it might be nice", upgrade it to "should" and then to "must", and then decide that if something must be done, then it also must be possible -- and the next thing you know, we've got something like the Cultural Revolution on our hands and millions of dead bodies all over the landscape. When some fool announces that pi "should" be equal to 3.0, I can't even bring myself to laugh any more. It's just not funny.
Hm, the AC who botched responding to you has a point, the people who aren't complaining about the Mercedes Benz plant are the Americans driving the Mercedes made by other Americans. The people complaining about outsourcing are doing so because the trend historically has been for the corporation to absorb 100% of the profit. Can you show me the day that Nike shoes went from $100 to $10 when they moved their production to China and paid a dollar a day for a person to churn them out by the dozens?
Second, in EVERY wave of outsourcing in the past, both the government and the corporations have been there to provide retraining programs and a safety net for those between whole new careers. Low rate loans for returning to college, placement support for finding the displaced people new jobs. When textiles were lost long ago, these people who operated looms and presses were retrained to operate other machinery and moved into better paying jobs. When the manufacturing sector really started to bite the dust, you could open a paper on just about any given day and see articles about what the government was doing for you, and articles about how this company or that company was offering its laid off workers workshops in moving up to higher-paid white collar positions.
Each time, this was hailed as an advancement for the people being displaced. Sure, it sucked for them at the time, but they had something to look forward to, and help in getting from where they were to where they were going.
When the dotcom boom died, there was still the corporate placement efforts, but the government had largely quit caring. People lined up for unemployment, but damned if you could get a scholarship or a loan to learn a new profession. The dot com bust was a correction of an over-saturated sector of the economy. Now that its corrected though, we're asked to tolerate additional losses.
Are we given some light at the end of the tunnel? Are we moving up? No, instead we're told to smile when we say "would you like fries with that?" and that in the long term after we're all dead, things will be OK. Better paying jobs? Doing what? The best answer so far is that the cream of the crop will float to the top and hold onto jobs paying better than ever, the rest? Well, they can go pump out people's toilets. Assuming of course they can get retrained for that, given the apprenticeship and licensing barriers of entry into plumbing, carpentry, and electricial work in most states. The worst answer so far, which nearly everyone offers is "I don't know." What can Americans do to have a stable non-outsourceable income now that all production industries have left? "I don't know."
The difference really is in the hoping. Before, people could aspire to something better and were at least given a good show of it. Now, we're all bitter cynics without even hollow promises of a better future.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.