Obama Says Offshoring Fears Are Unwarranted

alphadogg writes "The perception that Indian call centers and back office operations cost US jobs is an old stereotype that ignores today's reality that two-way trade between the US and India is helping create jobs and raise the standard of living in both countries, US President Barack Obama told a gathering of business executives in Mumbai on Saturday. President Obama's remarks come after some moves in the US that had Indian outsourcers worried that the US may get protectionist in the wake of job losses in the country. The state of Ohio, for example, banned earlier this year the expenditure of public funds for offshore purposes. US exports to India have quadrupled in recent years, and currently support tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the US, he said in a speech that was also streamed live. In addition, there are jobs supported by exports to India of agriculture products, travel and education services. President Obama, who is in India on a three-day visit, said that more than 20 deals worth about $10 billion were announced on the first day of his visit."

Comments

Re:Obama is not the Great Leader that many wish hi

[codepunk]

I am not even going to entertain the idea that raising taxes is a smart thing to do, only a idiot want's to give more hard earned money to a wasteful organization like our government. The govt does not create jobs, it does not create wealth it only consumes other peoples hard earned money. When I am in a financial bind I quickly work to reduce my financial burden by making cuts to non essential items, why should the govt be any different?

Re:Obama is not the Great Leader that many wish hi

[0123456]

It's pretty ironic that the "populist" tea party movement probably has a lot
of people who would be well served by the kind of Progressive movement that existed
100 years ago. Instead, they're voting for more Corporatism.

It's the widespread adoption of socialist... sorry, 'progressive'... policies which has got us into this mess: imposing more of them is hardly going to fix it.

Re:Automation versus offshoring

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Unfortunately that is a study in delusional optimism.

The actual most likely scenario of mass deployment of AI robotics goes like this:

• robots replace workers in companies owned by the super-rich first, because at first true AI is expensive
• these companies immediately gain massive advantage over others and get richer yet, buying up smaller companies
• the accumulation of wealth escalates exponentially as the top companies, already massively automated, fire workers of these new acquisitions and replace them with robotics
• rapidly accelerating rate of unemployment leads to escalating depression in wages as many, many human workers compete for the few remaining non-robot jobs and are treated with ever increasing contempt as dime-a-dozen disposable entities, ultimately far cheaper to produce then the robots, although far less capable and durable.
• the robotics technology progresses displacing people from all jobs, including the intellectual ones, which is the exact same pattern of what occured with Japan and China when the greedy US businessmen preyed on the national pride and arrogance of the average American until it became obvious that these "menial" workers can do all the "fancy" jobs which were supposed to "stay home" too.
• the unemployment rate escalates out of control, consolidation of wealth escalates out of control, the end result: a handful of owners of vast self sustainable robotic exploration, mining, and fabrication infrastructures and de-facto armies surrounded by billions of powerless and utterly destitute people reduced to living like animals and utterly dependent on the good graces of their hereditary (or by whatever means the control of robots is kept) Lords and Masters who not own everything around that has any value but are capable of squashing any dissent in a very decisive manner.
• Robotic Capitalist Utopia.

The only way such a scenario can be avoided is if the deployment of robotics is somehow kept in check by concerns other then simple mindless greed, odds of which are next to nil.

Re:Apparently Obama knows not Grigsby & Cohen

[Your.Master]

What's supposed to be illegal is offering H1-B workers less money than they would offer American workers. Offering H1-B workers more money than locals isn't supposed to be illegal; it's just completely illogical. Economics is supposed to take care of that.