Regarding the subject in this article:

http://news.com.com/2100-1022_3-5157588.html?tag=st_rn

India, Bangalore, China, Russia, Armenia, and many other countries have the right to offer the means or resources for their people to make a living. But, does it have to be at the expense of the U.S. and European workers who are also trying to make a living?

I.T. workers in the U.S. and in European countries do get higher salaries, but aren't salaries in those countries commensurate with the cost of living?

When jobs are farmed out, the quality of life drops for the people whose jobs were lost. But, it's not just the people who lost jobs who are affected. Other businesses would be affected simply because the people who lost their jobs or who are having to hold lesser jobs will not be shopping for their goods or will be doing so less frequently. There is a domino effect to outsourcing when the oursourcing is to foreign companies or workers.

While the companies doing the outsourcing will be better off in the short run, in the long run their businesses will suffer because their products or services won't have the same market as before outsourcing.

Sure people can retrain, but in a lot of cases, their original training was at a high cost of money and time and service to their employers. If the bottom line matters more than the overall good of the country, then, eventually the overall quality of life in the U.S. and European countries will shrink.

I myself am doing what little I can to reverse the process. If I know of a company that outsourced to foreign workers, then I will not use their products or services. As an example, a major bank that I used to do business at no longer has my account. Some credit card operations were farmed out to foreign workere and as soon as I recognize an accent, I request to know where they're calling from and I tell them I'm not interested in their business. I feel better when they tell me that my conversation is being monitored because I know that somebody in management is getting my message. Any kind of telemarketer should indicate in their call who they are, and where they're calling from.

If we all took similar actions, then profitability would be taken out or reduced from outsourcing to foreign countries.

I know that many who frequent this forum are employers, but I have to ask how you feel about this subject.

Any kind of comments or suggestions are welcome. :

Frankly I think it's justice that the US and Europe are getting a taste of their own medicine when it comes to the global market.

Originally posted by adorno

I.T. workers in the U.S. and in European countries do get higher salaries, but aren't salaries in those countries commensurate with the cost of living?

no. Btw if wages rise in those countries they simply move again. Like for instance a lot of companies in eastern europe have moved to north africa.

Originally posted by adorno


While the companies doing the outsourcing will be better off in the short run, in the long run their businesses will suffer because their products or services won't have the same market as before outsourcing.
welcome to capitalism, companies think in the short run.

Originally posted by adorno


Sure people can retrain, but in a lot of cases, their original training was at a high cost of money and time and service to their employers. If the bottom line matters more than the overall good of the country, then, eventually the overall quality of life in the U.S. and European countries will shrink.
and everywhere else too, that's quite obvious, a company doesn't care about people, it needs to make profit

global social organizing is a good way to stop all of this

Its sad, because we don't have enough jobs on our soil and now we are moving to other countries offering jobs?

With all techology making the world smaller place, there is less reason to make different salary doing the same work in different countries. These differences will be gone eventually and I find this to be positive thing.

Originally posted by bagpuss
Frankly I think it's justice that the US and Europe are getting a taste of their own medicine when it comes to the global market.

Why be so nebulous? Explain what you mean by 'their own medicine'? Can you actually contribute anything to this discussion?

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
global social organizing is a good way to stop all of this

I hope you're not advocating socialism because if so, not only will the developed countries be hurt, but all other countries will hurt even more.

If global socialism is what you advocate, please explain how the world will be better off.

After that, can we get back on topic if you care to address the original subject.

Originally posted by 7de5igns
Its sad, because we don't have enough jobs on our soil and now we are moving to other countries offering jobs?

There are plenty of jobs in this country to probably have close to 100% employment. If a lot of those jobs are shipped overseas, then it's not a problem with enough jobs; the problem is who those jobs are going to. And, who is going to other countries for jobs? The problem is jobs going overseas, not people going overseas for jobs.

If I didn't understand you, please explain.

Furthermore people, does anybody have any suggestions besides socializing the whole world?

Originally posted by adorno
Why be so nebulous? Explain what you mean by 'their own medicine'? Can you actually contribute anything to this discussion?

I'm sorry I didn't think I was being nebulous, I thought it was fairly obvious that I was refering to the fact that much of the world has had industires wiped out by US and European companies by being unable to compete in the so called "global market" and therefore it's somewhat poetic justice that the champions of globalisation are experiencing a small fraction of what much of the rest of the world goes through.

Originally posted by adorno
I hope you're not advocating socialism because if so, not only will the developed countries be hurt, but all other countries will hurt even more.

global social organizing = socialism???? what the hell, it means informing people, raising awareness and organizing them behind a cause via for instance unions or protests for causes like: minimum wages, worker rights, right to drinkable water, electricity etc

if you consider that socialism well go right ahead, i consider those things to be basic human rights

(my political ideology,if you care, is libertarian socialism )


Originally posted by adorno

After that, can we get back on topic if you care to address the original subject.

what the hell i was on topic, i'm sorry that i don't only care about US or EU "people" but about the whole world

I myself am doing what little I can to reverse the process. If I know of a company that outsourced to foreign workers, then I will not use their products or services.

If you really took that literally, I think you would find it hard to live your life here. As others have mentioned, today's market is a global market and if you're thinking of reversing that, it ain't going to happen. It will only get better(or worse, from your point of view) and and thus suggesting that we quit doing business with a company for no reason but because they have few workers offshore is IMHO senseless and least practical.

Bush spends 150 billion on war in iraq

our economy sucks right now

all companies are outsourcing.
It is cheaper for them.
Bush needs to help the economy.
perhaps a new law.. like a tax for outsourcing

by outsourcing, companies save 30%
if bush taxed them 20 or 15% for doing this,
they would hire pple here and therefore raise the economy

[vote for me for president] . hahaha joking

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
global social organizing = socialism???? what the hell, it means informing people, raising awareness and organizing them behind a cause via for instance unions or protests for causes like: minimum wages, worker rights, right to drinkable water, electricity etc

if you consider that socialism well go right ahead, i consider those things to be basic human rights

(my political ideology,if you care, is libertarian socialism )




what the hell i was on topic, i'm sorry that i don't only care about US or EU "people" but about the whole world

Ok! Good.

You're not advocating socialism as in economic policy. You sound more idealistic than ideological. Nothing wrong with that. Idealism works best when dealing with smaller groups, such as cities, towns, countries, businesses, social groups. World idealism doesn't get much done because there are just too many differences between governments and peoples. But it doesn't hurt to try.

By the way, this discussion is still off topic.

Originally posted by ilyash
Bush spends 150 billion on war in iraq

our economy sucks right now

all companies are outsourcing.
It is cheaper for them.
Bush needs to help the economy.
perhaps a new law.. like a tax for outsourcing

by outsourcing, companies save 30%
if bush taxed them 20 or 15% for doing this,
they would hire pple here and therefore raise the economy

[vote for me for president] . hahaha joking

This economy grew at the fastest pace in over 20 years. This economy has produced enough to create millions of jobs. Many of those jobs are being outsourced to foregin workers. The problem with the economy is not in growth, it is in the number of jobs produced. Many other jobs will not come about if companies continue insisting in productivity gains from their current workforce. If that productivity were translated into new jobs instead of people working more, then it's possible that there would be full employment. Productivity gains in the U. S. last year was 7%. But neither Bush nor any other president can force companies to hire new people instead of getting more out of the current workforce.

Some of the suggestions you make to keep jobs here are the responsibility of the Congress, not the president.


(By the way, companies using foreign workers save up to 80% and more in labor).

This economy is doing great but is not doing so good for those unemployed.

Originally posted by adorno
Regarding the subject in this article:

http://news.com.com/2100-1022_3-5157588.html?tag=st_rn

India, Bangalore, China, Russia, Armenia, and many other countries have the right to offer the means or resources for their people to make a living. But, does it have to be at the expense of the U.S. and European workers who are also trying to make a living?

I.T. workers in the U.S. and in European countries do get higher salaries, but aren't salaries in those countries commensurate with the cost of living?

When jobs are farmed out, the quality of life drops for the people whose jobs were lost. But, it's not just the people who lost jobs who are affected. Other businesses would be affected simply because the people who lost their jobs or who are having to hold lesser jobs will not be shopping for their goods or will be doing so less frequently. There is a domino effect to outsourcing when the oursourcing is to foreign companies or workers.

While the companies doing the outsourcing will be better off in the short run, in the long run their businesses will suffer because their products or services won't have the same market as before outsourcing.

Sure people can retrain, but in a lot of cases, their original training was at a high cost of money and time and service to their employers. If the bottom line matters more than the overall good of the country, then, eventually the overall quality of life in the U.S. and European countries will shrink.

I myself am doing what little I can to reverse the process. If I know of a company that outsourced to foreign workers, then I will not use their products or services. As an example, a major bank that I used to do business at no longer has my account. Some credit card operations were farmed out to foreign workere and as soon as I recognize an accent, I request to know where they're calling from and I tell them I'm not interested in their business. I feel better when they tell me that my conversation is being monitored because I know that somebody in management is getting my message. Any kind of telemarketer should indicate in their call who they are, and where they're calling from.

If we all took similar actions, then profitability would be taken out or reduced from outsourcing to foreign countries.

I know that many who frequent this forum are employers, but I have to ask how you feel about this subject.

Any kind of comments or suggestions are welcome. :



Anti-outsourcing bill killed in Colorado Senate

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_569419,0003.htm




BTW please note: Indian market sells Ford cars, Coco Cola, Levis, Wranglers, Maybelline, Adidas, Reebok, Nike, American Express, Citibank, Mc Donalds, HBO, Hallmark, Disney, MGM, DELL, Microsoft, APC ........pretty long list of brands....hard to remember

Originally posted by ilyash
Bush spends 150 billion on war in iraq

our economy sucks right now

all companies are outsourcing.
It is cheaper for them.
Bush needs to help the economy.
perhaps a new law.. like a tax for outsourcing

by outsourcing, companies save 30%
if bush taxed them 20 or 15% for doing this,
they would hire pple here and therefore raise the economy

[vote for me for president] . hahaha joking


I think your on the right track, when I thought about this issue, I as well came up with the same solution, a company should pay additional taxes on each out sourced employee. Level out the playing field, if out sourcing to india (with tax plan in place) is only marginally cheaper than having USA based employees, most companies will keep their business and working force here in the USA.

Just thought i would bring up the figures and the gep in cost between a British employee and one in India.

Let's say we've got a major global bank out sourcing to India eg HSBC, Barclays etc

You have 5,000 call centre staff based in the UK who get paid £16,000-£20,000. Best case scenario the salary costs will be around £80,000,000.

In India you can pay them £2000-£4000 as a salary.

Move your 5,000 call centre positions there and it will cost you around £10,000,000.

If you want to rrnslate that into dollars, the exchange rate is so low at the minute that it is £1 sterling for every $$1.90 so you might as well double it unless you want to be exact.

The saving isn't marginal, it is quite big as you can see and that is what has been so appealing to them.

For that reason i can't see how your per employee tax idea would be accepted or is workable ForceHost.

I would point out however that some companies are bringing these type of jobs back to Europe and America for certain fields where face to face communication with the client or a fellow company colleague is necessary.

Critic,

Originally posted by ForceHost
I think your on the right track, when I thought about this issue, I as well came up with the same solution, a company should pay additional taxes on each out sourced employee. Level out the playing field, if out sourcing to india (with tax plan in place) is only marginally cheaper than having USA based employees, most companies will keep their business and working force here in the USA.

Imposing taxes on companies just to keep jobs in the country will NEVER HAPPEN. There are just too many lobbyists who would insure that the government never voted that way and not only that, there is just no way that you could stop a company from doing business the way they want to.. Taxes are passed by Congress and approved by the president.

The best way to stop what's happening is for the people to react forcefully, and I don't mean violently.

I'm sure we can come up with ways. We just have to keep thinking.

I aleady mentioned a simple thing that I'm doing and I'm pretty sure that those companies are not getting any of my business or money. Not if I can help it.

What is so difficult about hanging up on a telemarketing call from overseas. What is so difficult about moving your bank account from a bank that ships jobs overseas? Why couldn't you buy a computer or software from a computer or software company that keeps jobs here at home? If enough people did those and took many other similar actions, the profitability that comes from shipping jobs overseas wouldn't be as high.

To fight anti-capitalistic ideals, I make a point to only purchase goods manufactured in third world countries by underpaid laborers. By buying cheaper shoes, I am able to replace the three pairs a year that fall apart due to poor construction.

But it doesn't seem to stop ! (http://www.hindu.com/2004/02/13/stories/2004021301801500.htm) I mean outsourcing to India !

I would like to see my country go back to the old ways of imperialism but this will never happen because we have our nose in everything. I think it should be illegal for companies to outsource. I am 18-years-old and I have not been able to find a job and here bush wants to give illegal immigrants job... pssh


I'm with you adorno I think for now on if a product is produced somewhere else i'll **** them. I don't like foreigners and i'll admit because you are the ones stealing the jobs.

Originally posted by Kerry Jones
I would like to see my country go back to the old ways of imperialism

Don't you mean isolation?

Originally posted by Kerry Jones

I'm with you adorno I think for now on if a product is produced somewhere else i'll **** them. I don't like foreigners and i'll admit because you are the ones stealing the jobs.

They are not stealing your jobs they are competing quite fairly and quite legally within the global market that the US is so in favour of, they just have the edge on price.

You're all in a global market and as such have to compete. If you cannot compete you loose. It is as simple as that.

It applies to companies just as much as individuals.

Many people in the US and Europe earn around $10 -$15 an hr (myself included) from which they can make a more then reasonable living.
That is up to $2400 a month peeps. Not exactly minimum wage.

Somewhere in this thread I've seen people say that the cost of living in the US and Europe is higher then in the rest of the world. Fair enough. But some people just make outrageous salaries.

When I need tech support I must pay up to $350 an hour. When I want a website designed I pay 20k.

So when I need a tech support guy (gal) I scratch my head and calculate that this person charges more per day then I earn in a month. Yet he lives in the same country I do.

At the same time I can get top quality support in Kazakhstan for $25 / hr. A fortune to them, a reasonable amount to me, not even worth getting out of bed for the western tech support peep.

I'll outsource to Kazakhstan and not loose a moments sleep over it. Lower your prices, lower the standard of what you concider "quality of life", get with the program and compete.
Or.... you are unemployed.

It's called capitalism. Best one, best offer gets the job. The US became a superpower with it. Now it's time to reinvent it.

Originally posted by Pilgrim

I'll outsource to Kazakhstan and not loose a moments sleep over it. Lower your prices, lower the standard of what you concider "quality of life", get with the program and compete.
Or.... you are unemployed.


well that's one way to deal with it, lower the quality of life for everyone... you can also try to make it better for everyone, i'll go for the that one ;)

Originally posted by Pilgrim
It's called capitalism. Best one, best offer gets the job. The US became a superpower with it. Now it's time to reinvent it.

they didn't get the superpower because of best one gets best job, but because of world war 2, violence, protectionism and exploitation...

You must be one of those "my glass is half full" people my mother has told me about when I was little :D
Mine on the other hand is always half emtpy.

You are right ofcourse. Your method is to be prefered ;)

That opens up a whole new can of discussions though. CAN you have a good qualtiy of life for everyone without there being poor people or do you need some people to be poor in order for other people to be richer?

Originally posted by Pilgrim
You're all in a global market and as such have to compete. If you cannot compete you loose. It is as simple as that.

It applies to companies just as much as individuals.

Many people in the US and Europe earn around $10 -$15 an hr (myself included) from which they can make a more then reasonable living.
That is up to $2400 a month peeps. Not exactly minimum wage.

Somewhere in this thread I've seen people say that the cost of living in the US and Europe is higher then in the rest of the world. Fair enough. But some people just make outrageous salaries.

When I need tech support I must pay up to $350 an hour. When I want a website designed I pay 20k.

So when I need a tech support guy (gal) I scratch my head and calculate that this person charges more per day then I earn in a month. Yet he lives in the same country I do.

At the same time I can get top quality support in Kazakhstan for $25 / hr. A fortune to them, a reasonable amount to me, not even worth getting out of bed for the western tech support peep.

I'll outsource to Kazakhstan and not loose a moments sleep over it. Lower your prices, lower the standard of what you concider "quality of life", get with the program and compete.
Or.... you are unemployed.

It's called capitalism. Best one, best offer gets the job. The US became a superpower with it. Now it's time to reinvent it.

How did the U.S. ever get anything done before outsourcing to other countries become the way to save money for corporations? There are many small companies in the U.S. and Europe who don't have the resources to outsource to other countries and yet they're continue to do business and prosper. Competion is good but not at the expense of hurting your country and eventually the companies doing the outsourcing. If a company cannot compete within the environment that it was created under, then it needs to figure other plans or simply disappear. There will be others taking over where they left off.

The bottom line does matter and companies have the right to find ways to save as much as they can. If small companies can continue to exist and prosper without outsourcing, so can the larger corporations.

If you paid somebody $325/hr to do a job, I'm sure there were plenty of others willing to do the same job for a lot less. That Khazastan price of $25/hr you mentioned is one that a lot of people here in the U.S. would be willing to take.

I have to admit: outsourcing saves companies money in many ways: lower salaries, no pensions, no U.S. taxes, no Social Security taxes, no Medicare taxes, lower cost for workspace, and many other ways.

But, I consider it my duty in this global economy to fight back and make it less profitable for those companies.

I tell you right now: something will be done, both politically and through the people's uprising.


:

Hi,


I tell you right now: something will be done, both politically and through the people's uprising.


And what's stopping everyone else doing the same? The US created an import tax on steel last year which effected companies around the globe. The EU got back at them by tipping people off that the whole of Europe would introduce massive tax increases on US imports. The US got scared and removed the tax.

If the US introduced a tax on outsourcing work, many other countries would do the same which will effect US citizens working as freelancers for foreign companies.

If you can't compete on price, compete on quality. Does the indian company offer freephone support? Friendly staff with local accents? When British Telecom moved Telephone Enquiries over to india it was appauling and people used different services. The outsourced staff could speak english (they watched the London based soap EastEnders) although they had no idea on geographical references or other common knowledge.

Stop moaning and learn the tricks to free trade ;)


Rob

Originally posted by bagpuss
Don't you mean isolation?


I used to wish the US would go back to it's old isolationistic ways, but it'd be impossible in the 21st century without a huge reduction in fossil fuel usage, among other things.

I do wish we'd get out of the damn UN though, along with the UK - it seems like the US and UK perform a majority of the police actions as well as bearing the brunt of costs for things such as relief efforts, etc.

But if the US and UK left the UN, it'd collapse - which probably isn't a good thing, but I don't know as I haven't examined much of the UN operations and methodologies as of late.

Hi,


I do wish we'd get out of the damn UN though, along with the UK - it seems like the US and UK perform a majority of the police actions as well as bearing the brunt of costs for things such as relief efforts, etc.


It's true that the US and UK do a lot of the work and offer most of the resources although they're also taken more seriously and get favours as a result. In the EU, Spain gets more financially then it puts in (at the expense of the UK) although people don't exactly sit up and listen to them do they.

Isolating your country is not a good thing, other countries won't help you and suspision will grow. The last thing you want is 1000 chinese fighter planes flying into your country as the other countries didn't bother to warn you.

:)

Rob

In my first post i demonstrated the gap in pay between Britain and India for a similar job.

BUT

What actually is the problem here exactly?

Isn't it just "supply and demand" in action on the global stage?

These people abroad aren't stealing squat, they see a job advertised in their country and go for it. In some ways it is just a progression in the structure of the service sector in MEDCs like those in Europe and the US; it will balance out a bit and some jobs will return to the domestic market.

I'll give you another example, telephone banking, i could ring up and ask for a real time overview of my bank balance and if anything is coming in tomorrow. It's not rocket science really and if you can make a saving of 87.5% on salaries as per my last example then you'll do it.

From the 70s through to the early 90s, the British motorcycle industry vanished bar a couple of companies as they were more efficient and cost effective in Japan and the Asia, those people go and find other jobs in the same sector or another one, it happens.

In Britain the Quartenary sector has grown much in recent decades.

If these people were coming to your country and being employed to do jobs which natives could do and the quality was less and there was a possible open discrimination then i might agree with you but that isn't happening here.

I find myself agreeing with some things said by bagpuss which doesn't happen everyday believe me.

If you want to keep the jobs in America or wherever but still want the companies to accept it you'll have to subsidise them like in the US airline industry, but that creates its own problems, for one, an over crowded market that is inflexible, really some airlines shouldn't be in existence over there but i go a tad off topic.

This look like "mountain out of a mole hill" moment to me.

Critic,

Originally posted by amard
Hi,



And what's stopping everyone else doing the same? The US created an import tax on steel last year which effected companies around the globe. The EU got back at them by tipping people off that the whole of Europe would introduce massive tax increases on US imports. The US got scared and removed the tax.

If the US introduced a tax on outsourcing work, many other countries would do the same which will effect US citizens working as freelancers for foreign companies.

If you can't compete on price, compete on quality. Does the indian company offer freephone support? Friendly staff with local accents? When British Telecom moved Telephone Enquiries over to india it was appauling and people used different services. The outsourced staff could speak english (they watched the London based soap EastEnders) although they had no idea on geographical references or other common knowledge.

Stop moaning and learn the tricks to free trade ;)


Rob

Like I stated in my previous posts, I'm all for competition. What is happening with outsourcing is not competition: it is mostly large companies shipping jobs overseas in order to get better bottom lines.

When companies in other countries don't have the skills for certain tasks, then they will ask for help until they get somebody trained within their own staff. I've seen it happen first hand.

Competition from overseas for goods and services is not on an equal level.
There are government protectionist policies in place which prevent real competition.

How many foreign car plants are permitted in the U.S. from Japan, Korea, and other countries. How many GM or Chrysler or Ford plants exist in those countries?

Tell me: If American workers wanted to move to India, Khazastan, Russia, China, Armenia, and other countries to take back some of the jobs which they lost here in the U.S., do you think they would be permitted?


The tricks of the trade don't favor the U.S. and Europeans as far as real competition.

Tell me: If American workers wanted to move to India, Khazastan, Russia, China, Armenia, and other countries to take back some of the jobs which they lost here in the U.S., do you think they would be permitted?


errr.... probably.

It's certainley easy for a British person to work in India, not sure about someone from the US as it's not the most liked country in the world. If you've got skills, most of those mentioned countries will welcome you with open arms.

I know a couple of people working for a Telecoms company which offers outsourcing in India, they're loving it.

:)

Rob

Originally posted by jpavleck
I do wish we'd get out of the damn UN though, along with the UK - it seems like the US and UK perform a majority of the police actions

You must have missed a few news broadcasts :D

The actions you are talking about were not sanctioned by the UN. The rest of the world didn't WANT you to take police actions. Against all good advice it was done anyway so yes... now you pay for it yourself.

And the point Adorno makes is a valid one. The US imports far more then it exports. Which is bad enough for a countries financial situation to begin with.

This also means that you yourself are the most vulnerable to trade wars. There is a good reason even the Bush administration backed down from the steel tax despite stiff oppostition from the steel lobby.

This is not ment to be a "I hate the US" message. But you have to realize the world is becoming one global marketplace and there is no going back to the old days. The US is not and can not be an isolated nation anymore. Holding on to that view will be the end to your nation as we know it within 5-6 decades.

You go with changing times. Changing demands. Adapt. It's what the dinosaurs or companies like networksolutions failed to do.
Find your strong points and exploit those. If call-centers is not your strong point due to labor cost... then find alternative labor.

Originally posted by Critic
In my first post i demonstrated the gap in pay between Britain and India for a similar job.

BUT

What actually is the problem here exactly?

Isn't it just "supply and demand" in action on the global stage?

These people abroad aren't stealing squat, they see a job advertised in their country and go for it. In some ways it is just a progression in the structure of the service sector in MEDCs like those in Europe and the US; it will balance out a bit and some jobs will return to the domestic market.

I'll give you another example, telephone banking, i could ring up and ask for a real time overview of my bank balance and if anything is coming in tomorrow. It's not rocket science really and if you can make a saving of 87.5% on salaries as per my last example then you'll do it.

From the 70s through to the early 90s, the British motorcycle industry vanished bar a couple of companies as they were more efficient and cost effective in Japan and the Asia, those people go and find other jobs in the same sector or another one, it happens.

In Britain the Quartenary sector has grown much in recent decades.

If these people were coming to your country and being employed to do jobs which natives could do and the quality was less and there was a possible open discrimination then i might agree with you but that isn't happening here.

I find myself agreeing with some things said by bagpuss which doesn't happen everyday believe me.

If you want to keep the jobs in America or wherever but still want the companies to accept it you'll have to subsidise them like in the US airline industry, but that creates its own problems, for one, an over crowded market that is inflexible, really some airlines shouldn't be in existence over there but i go a tad off topic.

This look like "mountain out of a mole hill" moment to me.

Critic,

Consider this:

What is there that cannot be produced in India, China, Korea, Khazastan, Russia. Nothing.

Can those countries produce anything cheaper than in the U.S. and in Europe. Most definitely.

If they can produce the programs, the computers, the automobile, or any other goods or services a lot cheaper, then what is there left for the developed countries to do?

Eventually, all programming, all hardware, all web-hosting, all web-pages, and anything else to do with computers can be done a lot cheaper in those poorer but developing countries. Why would anybody use an American worker when it all can be done for a lot less from overseas.

And, don't give me that about we will find other jobs to take the place of those we lost. It may be too late before we realize that it was a mistake to just let it happen.

I am a proponent of competition, but competition is not what is happening. I've had to change my points of view lately and for good reasons.

Originally posted by Kerry Jones
I am 18-years-old and I have not been able to find a job and here bush wants to give illegal immigrants job... pssh

I'm with you adorno I think for now on if a product is produced somewhere else i'll **** them. I don't like foreigners and i'll admit because you are the ones stealing the jobs.

Don't be mad at people just because they are more qualified and will work cheaper than you. Besides, with your attitude, it seems that you would have other issues getting any job at all.

Consider this:

What is there that cannot be produced in India, China, Korea, Khazastan, Russia. Nothing.

Can those countries produce anything cheaper than in the U.S. and in Europe. Most definitely.

If they can produce the programs, the computers, the automobile, or any other goods or services a lot cheaper, then what is there left for the developed countries to do?

Eventually, all programming, all hardware, all web-hosting, all web-pages, and anything else to do with computers can be done a lot cheaper in those poorer but developing countries. Why would anybody use an American worker when it all can be done for a lot less from overseas.

And, don't give me that about we will find other jobs to take the place of those we lost. It may be too late before we realize that it was a mistake to just let it happen.

I am a proponent of competition, but competition is not what is happening. I've had to change my points of view lately and for good reasons.

Look, the West and transnational companies have used the Lesser Economically Developed Countries as their factories for decades now. Normally the raw material is mined or sourced from one set of nations, another group will manufacture it and then it gets sold mainly in the More Economically Developed Countries. This isn't a new thing really but the rate of numbers is a bit different but this also has a lot to do with certain other financial conditions such as the global downturn but it has also made good sense to the boards of these companies.

This will not always be so, take the "tigers" os South Korea like Samsung; S Korea a Newly Idustrialised Country noe employs thousands but that would not have seemed possible only a few decades ago would it?

India now has an area of its country in computers to rival Silicon Valley, well nearly but you see what i am getting at.

There is a rebalancing that occurs as some of the lesser developed nations advance they now employ thousands of their own and abroad.

BUt where they employ people, the MEDC's like Europe and America are turning more and more to robotics removing the need for aa many people to manufacture goods anyway. So they are still just ahead of the others in most areas.

What is left for Europe and America? Where it is going, more tertiary/service srctor focused, it's what we're good at. However this will change over time, as science advances the utilitities and raw materials will grow and they will probably be a return to Primary secor work . There are also specialist areas of manufacturing and processing which the India's and China's of this world cannot do or see the need for not to mention RnD and the Scientific industries .

But if you disagree adormo fine but enlighten us as to how you would maintain the prosperity of the western world and not actually increase unemployment by forcing companies to take the more costly and rigid approach.

Oh and Kerry Jones, for your information jobs grew by 112,000 in the US last month so you might be looking in the wrong places or setting the bar too high.

Critic,

Originally posted by dthigpen
Don't be mad at people just because they are more qualified and will work cheaper than you. Besides, with your attitude, it seems that you would have other issues getting any job at all.

More qualified? You have to be kidding.

No doubt there are some pretty sharp people taking some of our jobs.

But jobs are not going overseas because those people are smarter or better trained.

The jobs are being outsourced to foreigners just because they work for a lot less and the cost of doing business there is cheaper.

Plain and simple.


Kerry Jones:
You're still 18 and you sound mad. Change the attitide a little bit. You'll eventually get what you want. By the way, without a degree it's going to be harder, even if there are a lot of jobs that can be done without a degree.

Originally posted by Critic
Oh and Kerry Jones, for your information jobs grew by 112,000 in the US last month so you might be looking in the wrong places or setting the bar too high.

Critic,

To be fair, I was following a conversation about the US IT job situation a few months ago and from what I remember is that although the jobs in IT are growing, it'll take until 2010 for it to hit the same amount of jobs available in IT in 2000 or so.

I sorta don't mind all this - I've been consultanting for several years now, and although the money has gone down some there seems to be a lot more consulting opportunities now. I'm not saying that if I had to do it all over again I'd go back into consulting (My expertise is to much of a niche market), in fact I'm trying to get out of it, but if your not real picky in your jobs or pay, you should do fine (I've done everything from interim IS Manager to data entry/inventory and POS - I'm an IT whore hehe).

I look at this like a tempering process, a way to seperate the wheat from the chaff. The dedicated, intelligent people who love IT will stick with the hard times and come through ahead - the people who went into it in the dotcom craze because they'd be rich from it will leave and jump to another field. My only problem is that although I have plenty of experience and certifications, I have no college degree (Working on it now, actually) - so getting a fulltime job has been real tough for me - consulting hasn't been to bad though.

It's sad, but I feel like my experience is actually hurting me - I'd be more then happy in a tech support position or something NOT management, but I can't seem to stress that fact enough to potential employers. It's almost like they see my resume and assume I'd charge to much. I almost feel like adding "I WILL WORK A LOT CHEAPER THEN YOU THINK" to my resume. I don't need much hehehe - I live quite cheaply so whether I'm getting 11$/hr or 55$/hr I'm happy. Oh well *shrug*

Originally posted by Critic

But if you disagree adormo fine but enlighten us as to how you would maintain the prosperity of the western world and not actually increase unemployment by forcing companies to take the more costly and rigid approach.
Critic,

Look... I'm not going to pretend to know the answers to a very complicated question, especially when I'm just a simple person with hardly any power. The power lies with not one person but with people in groups influencing corporations and governments.

Before outsourcing became so popular, how did companies survive? Are you telling me that the only way a company can survive is to go to outsourcing? Before outsourcing became popular the cost of doing business was higher, but most of those companies survived and many of them became huge. If a company cannot survive in a marketplace, then according to traditional competitive environments, it is bye-bye (survical of the fittest).

My argument is against companies that don't need outsourcing in order to survive. Their biggest reaon for outsourcing is a better bottom-line.

A lot of the time, outsourcing IS the only way to survive.

I'll give an example - Wal*Mart. They are huge company and employ more people in the US then any other company. Products that get placed in their stores can make or break a company - and they know that. They use that to their advantage to get those ultra-cheap prices.

Now, let's take Huffy bicycles - they are the largest manufacturer of bicycles in the US and walmarts chief supplier. Even though they sell so many bikes that they occassionally have to call in competing bike companies to produce their bikes, they've been losing money every year for the past 5 years. They had to close their last US plant and move it to the east in 1999. Why? Because Wal*Mart is a cut-throat operation, which destroys the American economy be forcing companies to reduce their prices so there's sometimes a profit of 1 cent or less.

So why hasn't the government come after Wal*Mart? Well, it's simple. Singlehandedly, Wal*Mart has kept the US inflation rate down, making the US look good. I absolutely avoid Wal*Mart at all costs - I don't care if item X is $5 more at the store across the street, at least I can sleep well at night knowing I'm not contributing to the destruction of the American economy by shopping at a place that's a worse monopoly then any other company that has ever existed.

If you want more proof, just look at company profiles that supply to Wal*mart, you'll notice a horrible trend with a majority of them outsourcing everything they can off-shore to meet the bloodthristy demands of the Smiley Hellhound.

Originally posted by adorno

Competition from overseas for goods and services is not on an equal level.
There are government protectionist policies in place which prevent real competition.


So let me get this right you are complaining about protectionist policies against the US, are you not aware of the long list of quotas, subsidies, tarffis and tax breaks used by the US to protect it's industries over the last 30 years or are you just pretending they don't exist?

Boo hoo hoo. I love this new wave of protectionist bullcrap. These same white collar crybabies told the blue collars to shut up and move on 40 years ago when their jobs went to South America and elsewhere.

My wife's uncle has been unemployed for 2 years, and he keeps bitching about this crap. Shut up and do something new already. There's no rule that says any company has an obligation to keep anyone. Typewriters, welding machines, and computers replaced millions of jobs, and people always bitched, but guess what happened?

People will adapt and life will improve. Free markets will always work.

Originally posted by bagpuss
So let me get this right you are complaining about protectionist policies against the US, are you not aware of the long list of quotas, subsidies, tarffis and tax breaks used by the US to protect it's industries over the last 30 years or are you just pretending they don't exist?

Read again what I said:
"Competition from overseas for goods and services is not on an equal level.

There are government protectionist policies in place which prevent real competition. '

I mention 'equal level' and 'real competition"

No doubt the U.S. has some anti-competitive policies but it's not at the same level as what is happening in other countries.

jpavleck:

You have answers to the problems you presented in your post.

Don't buy from Wal-Mart if you don't like their heavy-handed tactics.

Not only that: if a company cannot make a profit by working with Wal-Mart, then I'm sure there are other ways that they can sell their products, even if they don't deal with the biggest bully on the block.

You're both right to some extent. When talking about goods, China won't buy as much as they'll sell us. America subsidizes U.S. farmers with billions a year, effectly shutting out dozens and dozens of poor countries.

Originally posted by MDJ2000
You're both right to some extent. When talking about goods, China won't buy as much as they'll sell us. America subsidizes U.S. farmers with billions a year, effectly shutting out dozens and dozens of poor countries.

You're right about one point, not so right on the other point.

The U.S. does subsidize farmers, and I'm not too crazy about that.

But consider that American farmers produce so much of anything that it makes their product prices lower not only here in the U.S. but in the rest of the world. In that case the poorer countries get a huge benefit.

But heck, I find myself responding to too many posts that have digressed from the original point. I guess I can't help but to respond.

Originally posted by adorno
But consider that American farmers produce so much of anything that it makes their product prices lower not only here in the U.S. but in the rest of the world. In that case the poorer countries get a huge benefit.


so that's good? :eek:
Because of the free market forced uppon the poor countries the farmers lose their jobs since they can't compete with the western subsidized agriculture business.... which then results in them willing to work for next to nothing, transnational companies take advantage of that which in your logic would be a good thing since the people who work there make "a living" and the rich countries get cheaper products and companies make bigger profits. (which you first said was bad)

that's quite a double standard you have there

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
so that's good? :eek:
Because of the free market forced uppon the poor countries the farmers lose their jobs since they can't compete with the western subsidized agriculture business.... which then results in them willing to work for next to nothing, transnational companies take advantage of that which in your logic would be a good thing since the people who work there make "a living" and the rich countries get cheaper products and companies make bigger profits. (which you first said was bad)

that's quite a double standard you have there

When a country can produce their own goods and services, then no outside intervention is warranted. In my last post I mentioned that I'm not crazy about the U.S. government subsidizing farmers. There is however a benefit to poorer countries when food is very abundant and cheap.

But I still DO NOT AGREE WITH SUBSIDIZING.

There are just too many countries where the government gets in the way of the farming or other industries. In cases like that, the people need help. That's not the same as taking over their industries.

I do not advocate taking over any industries of any other countries, farming or otherwise.

When a country needs assistance in getting their farming or other induscties going, then I would support getting involved. Once they can manage their own affaris, we need to respect their wishes and leave if that's what they want.

Originally posted by adorno
There is however a benefit to poorer countries when food is very abundant and cheap.

depends, i think it's better to develop agriculture there

Originally posted by adorno

There are just too many countries where the government gets in the way of the farming or other industries. In cases like that, the people need help.

if people want to have government control via a democratic elected government we should respect that

same if they choose something different

In the US a lot of private industries rely on the government (tax payers) too mostly via the Pentagon and NASA.

Originally posted by adorno

That's not the same as taking over their industries.

I do not advocate taking over any industries of any other countries, farming or otherwise.

When a country needs assistance in getting their farming or other induscties going, then I would support getting involved. Once they can manage their own affaris, we need to respect their wishes and leave if that's what they want.

this is all ofcourse the opposite of whats happening right now

Adormo,

You said you want "real competition" correct.

Well surely that is what is happening with outsourcing isn't it?

You have an America who is free to do as he/she wishes, you have an Indian say who is free to do as he/she wishes.

The company moves the jobs to India from the States to increase the profit margin which will create more finance for expansion and will boost its share price if its has one.

As it all started with outsourcing what is your problem, you seem to be contradicting yourself?

In the current and future financial world your goal of keeping jobs at home is not possible, they will be where it is best for them to be and that is that.

Oh and earlier you said that some recent events have forced you to change your view on this, what exactly is your global view? Do you support the Capitalist model or not?

In the US a lot of private industries rely on the government (tax payers) too mostly via the Pentagon and NASA.

Eric Cartman, if you are referring to weapons maufactureres or telecommunications firms, they rely on the industry they're in. eg Satellite development or fighter aircraft or Submarines [National defence tools] with Bae Systems in Britain. Their creators and managers are merely exploiting opportunities which is what business is about. I would agree when it comes to airlines, a couple should've folded post 9/11 like with Swiss Air in Europe but didn't.

Critic,

Originally posted by adorno

No doubt the U.S. has some anti-competitive policies but it's not at the same level as what is happening in other countries.


It's not at the same level as other countries? Please, firstly the vast majority of countries around the world are unable to afford huge subsidies or tax breaks like the US / EU / Japan, secondly any that dare follow the lead of those three in regard to tariffs or quotas are beaten by them in the WTO / IMF etc until they give in and open up their markets, with the odd exception like China who are strong enough to do defy them.

The idea that the US is competeing at a disadvantage is ridiculous, the billions of subsidies and tax breaks given to farmers, Boeing, defence contractors, Microsoft, GE and so on is more than many countries GDP.

Originally posted by adorno

There is however a benefit to poorer countries when food is very abundant and cheap.


You mean in the same way as India for example benefits the US and Europe with an abundant and cheap supply of IT workers and call center operatives.

Originally posted by Critic

Eric Cartman, if you are referring to weapons maufactureres or telecommunications firms

no i was more referring to technologies/side products that follow out of research payed by taxpayers and then handed over to private corporations

Like a company needs to make something for NASA, so that company will do some research which will lead to the thing NASA required but in the process they'll probably have found some side-products that they can launch on the global free market.

That opens up a whole new can of discussions though. CAN you have a good qualtiy of life for everyone without there being poor people or do you need some people to be poor in order for other people to be richer?


many more people could have a good quality of life,
if the distribution were not so wide.

trickle down economics which is a favourite of special
interest groups when arguing for lower taxes has its
basis in the premise that when there is more money
left in an economy, it circulates and creates jobs because
everyone spends their tax savings.

the fallacy in this argument is the star system
where huge amounts of money are concentrated
in the hands of a few who cannot possibly spend
all of their money. because these stars are also
somewhat greedy, the money is stuffed into the offshore
equivalent of a mattress, never to see the light of day
again.

in other words, concentration of wealth sucks an
incredible amount of money out of the world system,
not just one country.

capitalism is fine, but when professional non-owner CEO's
suck millions of dollars out of a company, then capitalism is
not working at it's finest. could the owners(shareholders)
not find someone cheaper to do the job? after all, that
is a basic tenet of supply and demand.

Put this another way, is anyone worth 100 million
for delegating responsibilities and reading reports?
Would you do as good a job for say, 2 million?

ok, i'll get off my soapbox now :D

Originally posted by bagpuss
It's not at the same level as other countries? Please, firstly the vast majority of countries around the world are unable to afford huge subsidies or tax breaks like the US / EU / Japan, secondly any that dare follow the lead of those three in regard to tariffs or quotas are beaten by them in the WTO / IMF etc until they give in and open up their markets, with the odd exception like China who are strong enough to do defy them.

The idea that the US is competeing at a disadvantage is ridiculous, the billions of subsidies and tax breaks given to farmers, Boeing, defence contractors, Microsoft, GE and so on is more than many countries GDP.



You mean in the same way as India for example benefits the US and Europe with an abundant and cheap supply of IT workers and call center operatives.

The U.S. in general has a negative trade balance against the rest of the world. If we were taking advantage of the rest of the world, they would be owing us, not the other way around.

A lot of what our farmers produce is virtually given away to some of those countreis which use our products.

There a lot of our farmers who receive subsidies which I don't agree with. But even when they receive subsidies it is for the wrong reason. In many cases these farmers are given money so that they don't overproduce. Stated another way, we are paying farmers not to grow their crops.

There is an uneven playing field when it comes to trade. In a way I can't blame those poorer countries for being protectionist because they would otherwise become dependent states.

The US could cope without ths subsidies and now so many of them use GM seed they are more profitable in the domestic market, not that i would but it though.

New Zealand farmers resisited the removal of subsidies at first when they were gotten rid of a few years back but the industry has adapted and i heard from a New Zealand farmer on the radio that things are now back to normal and with some bettr off.

You must of ALL heard of New Zealand lamb, farming is no small thing there.

Critic,

Originally posted by adorno
The U.S. in general has a negative trade balance against the rest of the world. If we were taking advantage of the rest of the world, they would be owing us, not the other way around.


Wrong, if the US did not employ it's protectionist policies it would simply have an even worse balance of trade deficit than it already has (the same applies to the EU).

You are appear to be in some form of denial when it comes to global economics, the US and Europe have a negitive trade balance with the rest of the world, becuase consumers there have many, many times the income of consumers in most other countries.

Originally posted by adorno

There is an uneven playing field when it comes to trade.

Yes there is and which country in the world spends more than, most countries GDP on protecting it's industry?

Originally posted by bagpuss
Wrong, if the US did not employ it's protectionist policies it would simply have an even worse balance of trade deficit than it already has (the same applies to the EU).

You are appear to be in some form of denial when it comes to global economics, the US and Europe have a negitive trade balance with the rest of the world, becuase consumers there have many, many times the income of consumers in most other countries.



Yes there is and which country in the world spends more than, most countries GDP on protecting it's industry?

You keep talking about U.S. protectionist policies without mentioning specifics. I don't know of too many industries in the U.S. where protectionist policies are allowed to dictate how trading is conducted. Manufacturing, service, computer, and even farming jobs have gone overseas. Who knows, in the future we may be outsourcing our military to foreigners.

You are the first person I've heard who talks about the trade imbalance in terms of differences in personal incomes within trading countries.

Show me some studies where what you are stating is the correct measurement of trade imbalance.

Meanwhile, the U.S. trade imbalance is hovering between 400 and 500 billion dollars.


Look up 'trade imbalance' on a search engine. You'll find thousands of articles discussing the issue, some of them actually claiming that there is no problem! But the majority of them will point to trade deficits as a problem.

Originally posted by adorno
You keep talking about U.S. protectionist policies without mentioning specifics. I don't know of too many industries in the U.S. where protectionist policies are allowed to dictate how trading is conducted. Manufacturing, service, computer, and even farming jobs have gone overseas. Who knows, in the future we may be outsourcing our military to foreigners.


I think I've been more specific about US policies than you have about "the rest of the world". If you want some examples, here are some industries / companies / consumerables that have received the "protection" of the US government over the last 20 years:

Farmers - will recieve around $190 billion over the next few years in subidies.

Microsoft, GE, Boeing and many other large corporations recieved billions in tax-exemptions as so-called "foreign sales corporations", which translated to the US wanted to give it's industries that compete in the global market an unfair advantage, this was ruled illegal by the WTO in 2002.

Steel tariffs, again ruled illegal by the WTO.

Some of the items that have / had tariffs or quotas placed on them in the last 20 years to protect US industries include textiles, clothing, tapestries, machine tools, dairy, cars, chocalate, candy, wine, beer, fruit, baby food, in fact hundreds of food products and so on....

Here are some facts for you :

- U.S. dairy import quotas permit each American citizen to consume the equivalent of only one teaspoon of foreign ice cream and one pound of foreign cheese per year.

- Under U.S. law, any foreign company earning less than 8 percent profit on a product is judged to be prima facie guilty of selling at a loss. As a result of this over40 million fewer sweaters from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea were sold in the United States in 1990. This caused the closure of more than two-thirds of all Taiwanese acrylic sweater companies and thousands of Taiwanese have lost their jobs.

- The average U.S. tariff is between 5 and 6 percent, while the average Japanese tariff is between 3 and 4 percent. More importantly, the U.S. has far more products (over 3,600) restricted by import quotas than does Japan.

- In 1985 the Federal Reserve Bank of New York study estimated that only $5 billion to $8 billion of the $41 billion trade deficit with Japan was due to Japans protectionist meaures.

So please stop pretending the rest of the world is playing unfair, the US is the worst offender of all.

Originally posted by adorno

Look up 'trade imbalance' on a search engine. You'll find thousands of articles discussing the issue, some of them actually claiming that there is no problem! But the majority of them will point to trade deficits as a problem.

I never said a trade deficit was a good thing, just blaming it on the protectionism of other countries is wrong and in the case of the US hypocritical.

USA, just stop outsourcing oil from the Middle East and everything will be fine.

:banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

Originally posted by bagpuss
I think I've been more specific about US policies than you have about "the rest of the world". If you want some examples, here are some industries / companies / consumerables that have received the "protection" of the US government over the last 20 years:

Farmers - will recieve around $190 billion over the next few years in subidies.

Microsoft, GE, Boeing and many other large corporations recieved billions in tax-exemptions as so-called "foreign sales corporations", which translated to the US wanted to give it's industries that compete in the global market an unfair advantage, this was ruled illegal by the WTO in 2002.

Steel tariffs, again ruled illegal by the WTO.

Some of the items that have / had tariffs or quotas placed on them in the last 20 years to protect US industries include textiles, clothing, tapestries, machine tools, dairy, cars, chocalate, candy, wine, beer, fruit, baby food, in fact hundreds of food products and so on....

Here are some facts for you :

- U.S. dairy import quotas permit each American citizen to consume the equivalent of only one teaspoon of foreign ice cream and one pound of foreign cheese per year.

- Under U.S. law, any foreign company earning less than 8 percent profit on a product is judged to be prima facie guilty of selling at a loss. As a result of this over40 million fewer sweaters from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea were sold in the United States in 1990. This caused the closure of more than two-thirds of all Taiwanese acrylic sweater companies and thousands of Taiwanese have lost their jobs.

- The average U.S. tariff is between 5 and 6 percent, while the average Japanese tariff is between 3 and 4 percent. More importantly, the U.S. has far more products (over 3,600) restricted by import quotas than does Japan.

- In 1985 the Federal Reserve Bank of New York study estimated that only $5 billion to $8 billion of the $41 billion trade deficit with Japan was due to Japans protectionist meaures.

So please stop pretending the rest of the world is playing unfair, the US is the worst offender of all.



I never said a trade deficit was a good thing, just blaming it on the protectionism of other countries is wrong and in the case of the US hypocritical.

Any trade deficit means that those other countries with the surplus are having an advantage over the U.S., not matter how you paint it. And I'm not saying that the U.S. doesn't subsidize some industries or companies. But whenever it occurs, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, its not good for free competitive enterprise.

When a foreign government subsidizes corporations such as in the airline industry, then the other side has a right to protect its corresponding industry. If as an example planes being sold by Airbus were to be priced lover than comparable jets from the U.S. then the government needs to step in to protect its side of the industry.

The cost of doing business in the U.S. is higher than in most other countries. So, it stands to reason that most goods being imported into the U.S. will be lower priced.

If airplanes, cars, boats, tvs, stereos, computers, software, clothing, shoes, food, and just about everything else can be produced for less in other countries, then, what would there be left for the U.S. to do? Most Americans would buy the less expensive item most of the time. Then where would the U.S. be able to compete without some protections?

Tell me: how many tvs are built in the U.S.?, how many stereos?, how much clothing?, how many shoes? More and more computers are being built in other countries. Now, the software jobs are getting exported. So are the service and telemarketing jobs. The U.S. lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs in the last few years. Those manufacturing jobs are lost forever. How many shoe factories remain in the U.S.? How many toy factories? I'm not crazy about protectionism, but we can't let the rest of the world have everything.

You apparently didn't want to look up "trade imbalance" and spend some time reading. If you like I'll look up the articles for you to read. But be prepared to spend a few weeks reading.


This thread has gotten too lengthy for any new reader of the thread to want to spend time reading it. Between you and me, we're not going to resolve any problems going back and forth.

What I'll do is assume that you don't agree with any kind of protection for U.S. I.T. jobs. That is what the thread was originally about.

I'll leave it at that.

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
depends, i think it's better to develop agriculture there



if people want to have government control via a democratic elected government we should respect that

same if they choose something different

In the US a lot of private industries rely on the government (tax payers) too mostly via the Pentagon and NASA.



this is all ofcourse the opposite of whats happening right now

Eric Cartman:

Your're not really disagreeing with me, you're restating some of my points in different ways. If you read my posts carefully you'll see what I mean.

But I have to ask you what you mean by:

"if people want to have government control via a democratic elected government we should respect that

same if they choose something different"

Democratic elections I agree with. If "they choose something different" then it wasn't by an election was it?

People don't choose dictatorships. A democracy is where people choose their type of government and who is going to run it and they have a say as to how it is run.

So, please explain.

Critic:
quoting from your post:
"Oh and earlier you said that some recent events have forced you to change your view on this, what exactly is your global view? Do you support the Capitalist model or not?"

Under true capitalism everybody would be playing on the same level field. That's not happening because there are too many problems with government interference in all parts of the world.

Also, there are a lot of companies who have shipped jobs overseas with the promise that savings would be reinvested in more job creation areas of the company. But where the savings happened and new jobs were created, those new jobs also went overseas so they could have even more savings.

Vicious circle.

http://www.hindu.com/2004/02/15/stories/2004021501051200.htm




One may not be able to control whether wages are lower in Bangalore than Buffalo, but you could make sure broadband access is not better there

Demographic cycles - 101:

When any third world country begins to employ medical advances, their population explodes (death rates plummet) and remains alarmingly high until they practice birth control. This can take decades or even centuries to kick in, so they experience famine, disease and a gazillion other social problems brought on by out of control populations.

India experienced this over the past 200 years and had to do something or face a massive social problem. They chose to invest a lot of resources into educating their population in computer science and the results have been beneficial to both their country and anyone affected by global instability. Now days, we are all affected by unstable regimes and we all benefit when countries are stable and participating in the industrial high tech boom; aka 9-11...a symptom of what happens when a backwards, hungry, impoverished population fall prey to 'propaganda' distributed internally by the criminals in charge of an unstable nation. It often requires the ruthless acts of a criminally insane regime to control that kind of population. Kind, good hearted politicians don't survive in a country on the brink of chaos.

So, I am an American and was hit very hard by the influx of Indian software engineers. Prior to y2k I was cranking in $100k-$150k per year and afterwards noticed a huge segment of the old jobs I used to snap up like candy aren't there anymore...outsourced or salaries are downgraded, times have changed to be sure.

But I admire India for doing the best for THEIR people without resorting to drive jets into our buildings. They have chosen to attack their problems with peace, education and capitalism and any country who takes that approach should be applauded, admired, copied and emulated.

Can you raise the global standard of living? Perhaps but folks in the U.S. and U.K. will find their standards and luxuries will probably erode while others are rising.

Is it ethical for a U.S. firm to outsource? Well if you are a stockholder and your family depends on a retirement account based on stock in that company, you HOPE AND PRAY they reduce expenses, even if it means outsourcing. Is it good for the local or national economy? One can argue many aspects of that but it is good for YOUR family and for anyone else wise enough to invest in firms that outsource, slash expensive high tech staffing and find alternatives that cost less around the world. I believe such outsourcing and sharing of knowledge will benefit the whole of mankind, reduce terrorism, increase political and economic stability globally and as much as I'd love to see every american driving a caddie, if everyone on the planet drove VW's and ate well enough and slept in a warm house and that meant only a few Americans could afford Caddies...I'd go for that...


...sorry...but I want to see all people all around the world have a chance in their brief lifetimes at having some stabilitiy in their countries, cities and neighborhoods and if their political system can achieve that (or move towards that) using peaceful, capitalistic, educated methodologies, I applaud them.


When you lose a well fought sporting match do you run to your car and break out an AK47 and gun down your opponent or do you buy them a beer, congratulate them on beating your butt so darn well and then try to learn something from their methods, tips and tricks?

And then return to the playing field with new tricks, new techniques and beat them the second go-round? Life and political systems are difficult to predict and the global economy as we are now seeing is unfolding faster and faster, so much so it is hard to predict who will be the 'top dog' in the year 2100. But if the path to that milestone is paved with a peaceful, educated, capitalistic war I will be far happier than if it is filled with new countries learning how to make nukes to wipe out their neighbors or drive them into U.S. skyscrapers.

I suggest we all take a few weeks out of each year or months from each decade and go to an impoverished place and help them develop some high tech skills and bring them into the new century with survival skills (and an education in birth control) so as this century plays itself out, we learn to play/compete fairly, peacefully, with great imagination and technological development so that, as they say, the strong may rule the weak but the smart rule the strong...

Forget subsidies and tariffs. That won't save you in the long run.

Whichever country chooses to educate their children today for emerging technologies...that will be the top dog tomorrow.

...and they deserve every bit of the winnings.


...and countries who waste their education funds on 'bombs and tanks' to find vapor-ware WMDs that never existed and people who elect or allow crooked politicians to mislead them and squander their educational funding...well, they deserve what they get in the long run as well.

Sad, but true.

Originally posted by adorno
Eric Cartman:

Your're not really disagreeing with me, you're restating some of my points in different ways. If you read my posts carefully you'll see what I mean.

But I have to ask you what you mean by:

"if people want to have government control via a democratic elected government we should respect that

same if they choose something different"

Democratic elections I agree with. If "they choose something different" then it wasn't by an election was it?

with something different i ment for instance: if the public chooses to hand over public transportation, water, electricity, telecommunication etc to private powers thus reducing democracy we should respect it... although it's very unlikely that people will choose for that on their own (just like they would choose for dictatorships), in most of the world the government has chosen to do that for them.

Originally posted by adorno

People don't choose dictatorships. A democracy is where people choose their type of government and who is going to run it and they have a say as to how it is run.

So, please explain.

a democary doesn't require a government (or a government in the sense like we know it now)...

Originally posted by adorno
Any trade deficit means that those other countries with the surplus are having an advantage over the U.S., not matter how you paint it.


Yes they have the advantage of a large low cost supply of labour, now if only you could of come to that conclusion earlier instead of trying to blame protectionism.

Originally posted by adorno

I'm not crazy about protectionism, but we can't let the rest of the world have everything.


Which brings me back to my first post of how the people of the US and Europe are feeling some of the effects of the "free market" and it's about time.

Originally posted by adorno

You apparently didn't want to look up "trade imbalance" and spend some time reading. If you like I'll look up the articles for you to read. But be prepared to spend a few weeks reading.


Having spent three years at university reading economics I don't see the need, however you might like to try reading "Intenational Economics" by Steven Husted and Michael Melvin it will give you a more realistic grasp of the situation.

Originally posted by adorno

What I'll do is assume that you don't agree with any kind of protection for U.S. I.T. jobs. That is what the thread was originally about.


Not really, if IT jobs were protected, then that would force up the costs of other companies who use IT services, they would be forced to use expensive home grown IT workers rather than outsource cheaply, which can result lower pension funds, stockmarket value decrease, job losses, companies going bust and so on. Also many IT jobs would be extremely difficult to protect, such as programmers where there is very little difference between (other than cost) someone completeing a project down the road and someone doing the same in India.

Originally posted by adorno
I'll leave it at that.

Okay. :)

Originally posted by chrisranjana
http://www.hindu.com/2004/02/15/stories/2004021501051200.htm

I hate it when I agree with democrats. But they do make a good point now and then.

We should make sure that our infrasture keeps up or stays ahead of many other countries who would take advantage or our "free trade' policies.

South Korea's infrastructure for broadband and its usage is way ahead of the U.S. I have no problem with that since it's the people who are driving up the need for broadband. When a government makes it a requirement and subsidizes an industry, I have a problem with that.

At the moment, I don't think that the U.S. government needs to interfere in broadband. But perhaps strong encouragement for companies that are engaged in telecommunications could help us out.

Originally posted by kckclass
Demographic cycles - 101:

When any third world country begins to employ medical advances, their population explodes (death rates plummet) and remains alarmingly high until they practice birth control. This can take decades or even centuries to kick in, so they experience famine, disease and a gazillion other social problems brought on by out of control populations.

India experienced this over the past 200 years and had to do something or face a massive social problem. They chose to invest a lot of resources into educating their population in computer science and the results have been beneficial to both their country and anyone affected by global instability. Now days, we are all affected by unstable regimes and we all benefit when countries are stable and participating in the industrial high tech boom; aka 9-11...a symptom of what happens when a backwards, hungry, impoverished population fall prey to 'propaganda' distributed internally by the criminals in charge of an unstable nation. It often requires the ruthless acts of a criminally insane regime to control that kind of population. Kind, good hearted politicians don't survive in a country on the brink of chaos.

So, I am an American and was hit very hard by the influx of Indian software engineers. Prior to y2k I was cranking in $100k-$150k per year and afterwards noticed a huge segment of the old jobs I used to snap up like candy aren't there anymore...outsourced or salaries are downgraded, times have changed to be sure.

But I admire India for doing the best for THEIR people without resorting to drive jets into our buildings. They have chosen to attack their problems with peace, education and capitalism and any country who takes that approach should be applauded, admired, copied and emulated.

Can you raise the global standard of living? Perhaps but folks in the U.S. and U.K. will find their standards and luxuries will probably erode while others are rising.

Is it ethical for a U.S. firm to outsource? Well if you are a stockholder and your family depends on a retirement account based on stock in that company, you HOPE AND PRAY they reduce expenses, even if it means outsourcing. Is it good for the local or national economy? One can argue many aspects of that but it is good for YOUR family and for anyone else wise enough to invest in firms that outsource, slash expensive high tech staffing and find alternatives that cost less around the world. I believe such outsourcing and sharing of knowledge will benefit the whole of mankind, reduce terrorism, increase political and economic stability globally and as much as I'd love to see every american driving a caddie, if everyone on the planet drove VW's and ate well enough and slept in a warm house and that meant only a few Americans could afford Caddies...I'd go for that...


...sorry...but I want to see all people all around the world have a chance in their brief lifetimes at having some stabilitiy in their countries, cities and neighborhoods and if their political system can achieve that (or move towards that) using peaceful, capitalistic, educated methodologies, I applaud them.


When you lose a well fought sporting match do you run to your car and break out an AK47 and gun down your opponent or do you buy them a beer, congratulate them on beating your butt so darn well and then try to learn something from their methods, tips and tricks?

And then return to the playing field with new tricks, new techniques and beat them the second go-round? Life and political systems are difficult to predict and the global economy as we are now seeing is unfolding faster and faster, so much so it is hard to predict who will be the 'top dog' in the year 2100. But if the path to that milestone is paved with a peaceful, educated, capitalistic war I will be far happier than if it is filled with new countries learning how to make nukes to wipe out their neighbors or drive them into U.S. skyscrapers.

I suggest we all take a few weeks out of each year or months from each decade and go to an impoverished place and help them develop some high tech skills and bring them into the new century with survival skills (and an education in birth control) so as this century plays itself out, we learn to play/compete fairly, peacefully, with great imagination and technological development so that, as they say, the strong may rule the weak but the smart rule the strong...

Forget subsidies and tariffs. That won't save you in the long run.

Whichever country chooses to educate their children today for emerging technologies...that will be the top dog tomorrow.

...and they deserve every bit of the winnings.


...and countries who waste their education funds on 'bombs and tanks' to find vapor-ware WMDs that never existed and people who elect or allow crooked politicians to mislead them and squander their educational funding...well, they deserve what they get in the long run as well.

Sad, but true.

Wow!

I thought I wouldn't have to continue being involved in this thread too much, but I can't just sit here and listen to you without answering.

When a country trains its people in a new technoloby you hope it's to help it's people get better jobs and raise the standard of living for the whole country. But when a country trains thousands or millions simply so that they can take jobs from the U.S. and other countries, how does that help the entire country.

The training the Indian techs received was mostly intended to target the American and European jobs where companies were looking to save money. I have no doubt that IT training is used in India to help run government and businesses in that country. But the real target of the massive training which occurred was for foreign jobs.

Terrorism will not disappear when the whole world is stable and everybody has a good standard of living. Osama bin Laden will use economic hardship as an excuse to terrorize his country or other countries. His real reason is to keep a way of living or return to a way of living from 1400 years ago. Osama does not want any other religion to be practiced in any part of the world. He wants Islam.

If the whole world consisted of millionaires, Osama would terrorize those who did not believe in his way for the world.

Power is another reason for terrorism. Too many wars have been started simply because some people wanted the power to rule over people.

Countries such as the U.S. build waapons for defensive purposes. You apparently believe that Bush mislead the people into war. While WMDs have not been found, the Iraqi people will be better off in the long run, and the rest of the middle-east and the world don't have to worry about an unstable government and leader. Though WMDs have not been found, the whole world is better off.

People don't allow the president of the U.S. to get away with malicious conduct. If the people disagree with the current government, then they will vote it out. I'll bet you a dinner anywhere that the people of the U.S. will vote again to "allow" Bush to continue running the presidency. Notice that I mention 'presidency' in order to point out to you that big decisions by the government occur with three branches of government. We also have a Congress which approved the use of war to remove Saddam Hussein.

The world has not seen a third world war mostly because of the deterrent which exists in our defensive system. In that sense, the whole world benefits.

The education system? Nobody has a better education system than the U.S. If people remain uneducated or untrained it is not because of lack of education funds or facilities.

Birth control? There are countries whose population got alarmingly high because people were looking for old-age protection. In other words, mother and father would have many children to guarantee that when they got old there would be plenty of children who would take care of them. In those huge countries (polulation wise) you'll find families with 8, 10 or more children.

A country does not get to be top dog simply by educating the whole pppulation. Democracy and economic systems determine who ends up on top. Communism and socialism cannot compete with capitalism when it comes to productivity. Free people and free markets will always triumph. Notice I said "free markets", not protected markets.

In the real world the smart don't necessarity rule the world. That's very idealistic. You need smarts and educatin and strong defenses.

I'm sure there were plenty of people a lot smarter than Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Hitler, and other monsters through history. But how did those monsters get to power?. The good and smart people let them.


Enough for now.

Today, on 'This Week" on ABC there was a panel of people discussing outsourcing.

I don't like Chuck Schumers politics that much, but I was in agreement with him on this issue.

If you can get a transcript of the program, you'll get a good understanding of the issue.

There was a lady there (I don't remember her name at the moment) who argued the free market side and Senator Schumer was pointing out the problems with outsourcing.

Essentially, outsourcing is good for companies looking for a better bottom line so that it can grow and produce for investors. Good old capitalism.

The lady in the panel stated that the savings to these corporations could product 20 million new jobs in the next few years. I agree with that. Good old capitalism.

Now what's going to happen when a company saves and reinvests and creates those new jobs? Those new jobs could also go overseas so that the companyy ends up with a better bottom line again. Good old capitalism.

Now, when an American company saves money with outsourcing, do the consumers get a price break? I haven't seen it. Also, when a person is unemployed, underemployed, or takes on a reduced salary, the market for goods and services shrinks.

There might be no end and we might just have to end up being a lesser country. A lot ot other people around the world wouldn't mind that, I'm sure.

But I'm sure a strong U.S. is better for the rest of the world.

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
with something different i ment for instance: if the public chooses to hand over public transportation, water, electricity, telecommunication etc to private powers thus reducing democracy we should respect it... although it's very unlikely that people will choose for that on their own (just like they would choose for dictatorships), in most of the world the government has chosen to do that for them.



a democary doesn't require a government (or a government in the sense like we know it now)...

There a lot of public services which are better served by the government and you mentioned some of them. There many industries where government regulations are needed, but not government control.

I would venture to say that if you gave 'informed and intelligent' people the choice on whether something should be run by the government or by private businesses, the people would choose private businesses. Remember the 'informed and intelligent' part.

Now, that last sentence of yours has me confused again. What does it mean?

Some food for thought for the hungry.......

http://www.quotegarden.com/consumerism.html

The gap in our economy is between what we have and what we think we ought to have - and that is a moral problem, not an economic one._ ~Paul Heyne

Originally posted by RajanUrs
Some food for thought for the hungry.......

http://www.quotegarden.com/consumerism.html

The gap in our economy is between what we have and what we think we ought to have - and that is a moral problem, not an economic one._ ~Paul Heyne

Having and wanting more, that's what has driven the U.S. to become the best and biggest economy the world has ever seen.

There is nothing immoral with wanting more if you can afford it and you don't hurt enyone while doing it.

Some quotations need to be trashed.

Originally posted by adorno
I would venture to say that if you gave 'informed and intelligent' people the choice on whether something should be run by the government or by private businesses, the people would choose private businesses. Remember the 'informed and intelligent' part.

yeah the people from business school i assume ;)

to quote Chomsky: "education is a system of imposed ignorance"

Originally posted by adorno

Now, that last sentence of yours has me confused again. What does it mean?

well you can have a democracy without a government (like we know it now). Do some reading on libertarian socialism and prepare to fall from your chair :D

Originally posted by adorno
Having and wanting more, that's what has driven the U.S. to become the best and biggest economy the world has ever seen.

There is nothing immoral with wanting more if you can afford it and you don't hurt enyone while doing it.


which is exactly the opposite of what the US has been doing

Originally posted by adorno
Having and wanting more, that's what has driven the U.S. to become the best and biggest economy the world has ever seen.

There is nothing immoral with wanting more if you can afford it and you don't hurt enyone while doing it.

Some quotations need to be trashed.

And there you go Adorno - wanting more is not an emotion exclusively owned by the U.S. or Europeans and finding ways of getting more legally, peacefully, taking a RISK (as funding an EDU program is really a huge risk-I know this personally) to GET MORE is exactly what foreign nations are doing.

At http://www.eduhosting.org is a news link and it goes to UNESCO (a United Nations EDU program) and they are featuring leaders around the world (Presidents/Dictators/Kings...you name it), who have made great strides in the advancement of their EDU programs compared to what they were only a few years ago.

And a recent article there was from China. Now if you THINK India was a tough nut to crack and you THINK China has already grabbed a huge share of the global economy, wait until their 1/4 of the world's population enter the IT industry en-masse. As an RCA executive once noted about Asian Consumer Electronics, we can't even produce them here for the same cost the Asians are selling them for on the shelf. Salaries for IT staff? You can pay them 1/5th or less of the wages we make and it is a generous deal so if they sell that labor pool for HALF of the price I'd like to charge for migrating a mainframe to a Unix or 2k Lan and it costs them 20% of my figure for their labor (high), then that still leaves a neat 30% profit (of my figure) for the corporation who manages that labor pool.

If you really want to help Americans make money with the influx of foreign labor, your best bet is to form a corporation that employs that labor pool and sell stock to Americans because if you don't and those corps are owned by foreigners, not only are jobs lost here but (panic) our trade imbalance goes into the mega-deficit (already is, but what the heck), and we become a huge nation of the needy who are cared for by others (already are...look at the British, Filipino and Russian Nannies) and suddenly POOF! we don't have the jobs and funding to pay for that care and we become the impoverished. Real estate prices start to fall, the U.S. economy does a crash and burn unlike anything we've know (just did and will again) and that cycle will repeat until our wages for serving our own infrastructure can compete with foreign workers. In the meantime there will be legislation I am sure to put stop gaps in this and of course reciprocal tarrifs overseas but with the global economy that is now emerging, a global standard of living will also likely emerge, along with a global 'living wage' and as I said...the DIFFERENCE in the standard of living between San Francisco and Bangledesh or Peking will gradually become less and less...more VW's here and I think the name of that car, when this transition finally balances out will be

http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-08/18/content_255746.htm - From China Daily - Some 23 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China are now producing cars as hundreds of billions of yuan were invested in the automobile industry over the past few years.


Back when I studied Demographics we learned about the fall of Rome, the rising of superpowers, bilateral (what we had with the USSR) and unilateral super power structures (what we have now) and we figured either Brazil or Chine would be the next superpower and would pass up the U.S. It is hard to imagine unless you step back from a 50 or 200 or 500 year view and examine the history of humans over a 10,000 year journey.

So, Adorno, thank you for trumpeting in the decline of the U.S. as we know it and doing so here in this forum of global publishers and webmaster so the word will get out...the global economy emerging and people all over the world WANT what we have.


The good news in it all I guess is that as fossil fuels begin to dwindle and prices rise, only those countries with oil rich deposits will be able to afford to really play in the final scenes of the technological boom of the 17th-21st century. After that, countries who are investing in alternative energy supplies will be the capitalistic industry leaders (and their std of living will be higher than the rest) and as articles now mention here in in California, , the encroachment of condos into the San Juaquin Valley, where 80% of the PRODUCE for the entire country is grown...will mean we can have our housing tracts but the price of lettuce is going to be about double or triple as will brocolli and everything else that is green (except for good Humboldt which is grown elsewhere).


So things are changing and if you want to 'save' the U.S. from the pending disaster and errosion of our ability to buy a Caddie you better...

'Teach your children well' - Niel Young.

Originally posted by adorno
Having and wanting more, that's what has driven the U.S. to become the best and biggest economy the world has ever seen.


Wrong the, single biggest factor in the size of a countries economy is the size of its home market, certainly some countries got ahead of the game US, Japan, Germany, Franace, Britain etc, although much of this success was down to empries, slavery, WW2 and so on, but in the end what counts is the number of consumers in your borders.

Originally posted by adorno

There is nothing immoral with wanting more if you can afford it and you don't hurt enyone while doing it.


Take a look at the level of consumer debt and see how people want what they can't afford.

Too much to read, but basically I don't think outsourcing will ever go away.

Let's bring up a radical situation by saying that outsourcing is going to be banned.

What will happen? Corporate expenses increase, cost of goods go up, people buy less of the goods, moe layoffs...back to the 80's.

There's always going to be unemployment in the U.S. Does anyone think outsourcing make it worse? I don't. Check out the unemployment rates of the last 30 years.

I'm a small business guy, so this problem of "outsourcing" barerly affects me.

Has everyone missed the fact that Dell and several others are pulling their support centers from India and back to the U.S. due to massive customer complaints about communication issues?

Face it, Dell wants customers to be repeat customers, not one time customers. I'm sure I am not the only one who called up their Corporate and told them that they better hope they save a lot of money by doing this, because they will never make another dime off me again as long as they use support in India. Their biggest customer base is still in the U.S., so that is still who they have to cater to most. If I call their support and get someone whom I can barely understand, I hang up. I can build my own computers and servers, and Dell had best understand they are only a conveinence to me...I dont NEED them.

Either I am damned important, or I was among thousands who complained.. It doesnt do them any good to save money on support if they start losing the customers they are supporting.

If outsourcing is supposed to save money for US then what is the issue? Isnt a penny saved a penny earned ? If it is not saving money then why are they outsourcing ? What is the US doing with the money saved ?

Originally posted by RajanUrs
If outsourcing is supposed to save money for US then what is the issue? Isnt a penny saved a penny earned ? If it is not saving money then why are they outsourcing ? What is the US doing with the money saved ?

Who said it saves the U.S. money? Only the companies in India would claim that. It does NOT save the U.S. money, it only saves money for the company that's outsourcing. However, it does cost the U.S. to LOSE money as stated before. The American Government cannot tax workers in other countries, so it loses that much everytime a job is sent overseas. The local economies suffer because the techs that lose their jobs cant shop and spend anywhere near what they could before.

A very small example of this can be shown by my household and the little Indian store down the road. I made my wife quit smoking. She was buying $60 per week in cigs there. That comes to $240 per month, Almost $3000 per year. The owner said he hopes not too many people quit smoking.. When places lay people off to send jobs overseas, it's equal to thousands of wives quiting smoking at once, and it can make a serious dent in that local economy. Each person can suddenly no longer spend $thousands$ every month in the local area.

So who saves money? Only the company that did the outsourcing, and even that is short term. Take Dell for example. Many people, because of what Dell did, will no longer buy their computers. Dell doesnt have to worry about serving them in the future. So now, they have lost that bit of future revenue. However, unlike a lot of companies, Dell quickly realized that, and pulled their tech support back to America.. many other companies are following them too. Only those who continue to outsource will suffer financial damage in the future. Unfortunately, they are so short sighted, they wont see that till it's too late.

I had no problem really with the outsourcing...till I read some news stories that interviewed those Indian techs......they in effect called Americans lazy, said Indians did it better, and basically, tough luck. We all know that's a bowl of crock. They dont do it better, only cheaper. What a tech makes there in the Indian economy is equal to a tech here making $100,000 in the American economy....and they say the American techs get paid too much and should do it cheaper....:eek: :angry:

Well i for one said that it saves all companies vast amounts of money but i didn't say the US s in the gov.

However if you look at it like this you can see the Amrican market actually benefiting from Outsourcing if it is successful for the company.

Say Joe Bloggs PLC moves 5000 call centre jobs to India saving it $140 million. That in turn is factored into the financial reports.

These things stand a good chance of happening >>

Money is put bac into the company making it more funacially successful
Share Pri.ce will rise by at least 5%.
US shareholders sell shares and make a tidy profit which they then put back into the US economy by buting a car or TV etc.
Pension plans in that particular company's stock will become more valuable.

If this happens in multiple companies then the major US indicies will rise whcih is ultimately good for the economy.

Either way, Outsourcing and finding more efficient labour for certain jobs has happened for hundreds if not thousands of years and will continue to do so. It is how the world goes round as i explained earlier. Therre is no problem here, if jobs are lost then they find new employment elsewhere, the US labour market will change to accomodate the need. Look, Britain lost vast amounts of its Secondary or manufacturing industry in the latter half of the 20th Century but we're still here, we adapted and if necessary so will the US or any country. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD *directed at nobody in particular*

Critic,

Originally posted by Critic
Money is put bac into the company making it more funacially successful
Share Pri.ce will rise by at least 5%.
US shareholders sell shares and make a tidy profit which they then put back into the US economy by buting a car or TV etc.
Pension plans in that particular company's stock will become more valuable.

And that's how the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer...lol

I for one am in hardware, not phone technical support.....nor will I ever be now that I have seen what can happen. Until the "Star Trek" transporter is invented, I dont have to worry about Indians, or any other, doing my job through the phone :stickout:

I did a big software gig for a large insurance firm. The floor was full of about 50 Indian techs who had been contracted and I was also hired on (I guess I was the token white guy).

We were doing OraPerl and as I started sniffing around I found that 75% (conservative estimate, closer to 90%) of them could barely code Perl, let alone OraPerl. In every desk drawer were idiot's guides and I realized these guys were all students learning on the job; but they were cheap and the U.S. firm (here in the San Francisco Area), thought they were getting a good deal but not really. These guys took forever to get things done and often blew my whole day while I had to teach them how to do it. I couldn't 'offend' them and not teach them or my contact, the 'Head Indian' heh heh, would fire my ***. I kinda figured he/they were using that firm to get their aunts and uncles and nephews over here...it worked. There were tons of them at that firm.

After a few months, as his guys got up to speed, guess what? I guess they didn't like my hourly rate or something.


Now, bear in mind I felt royally used (and obviously was) but I still believe that if we don't pour our money into education (which we do not do Ardono...sorry if you don't see it, but I work with kids and teachers and programs are being slashed... they can't even afford school busses in this 'affluent' area and student to teacher ratios are skyrocketing), anyway, if we don't reverse these trends we will be on the short end of the global economic stick...plain and simple.


You don't think the smart rule the strong? Well, if you measure the number of patents filed, the engineering of the patriot missles, U2 supersonic jets, tomohawk missles, nuclear devices, etc. you'll find the folks with the smart technology rule the world. Plain and simple...even in your 'military saves all' view. Things might be a bit different if we had the crummy tanks and Saddam had some high-tech Russian version that was faster, shot further and more accurately and our stuff was substandard. But that is not how it is...today. Tomorrow, that may change if we don't have the engineers to create both a military with smart weapons and...

...the civilian engineers to create smart infrastructures, whether they are web related, biotech or agriculture...without sharp engineers we are doomed and without heavy edu funding, there will always be a shortage of sharp engineers, which brings us to the REASON why firms started outsourcing in the first place.

They didn't originally start outsourcing (at least here in Silicon Valley where my client base lies) to save money. They did it because there just were NOT enouch engineers to fill the slots and they pushed the H1B visa program down Congress's throats to try to fill a ton of open positions. Of course they knew they could get these folks from Russia or India cheaper but they didn't care about that so much. I know a Russain girl who writes software and she makes total bank... They hired her (Hal Kinion) because she is damn good and they needed her real bad because da-uh! American schools weren't turning them out fast enough.

Now yes, with outsourcing becoming a software engineer is almost career suicide at this point...it has the same glamour and profit potential of becoming a sales clerk at a mall or perhaps a bit better, maybe a cosmotologist. This isn't the Clinton years to be sure. It may rebound and I think it will, as college grads in Com Sci slack off and the supply gets tight again and we will see salaries go back up.

But again, the educated population makes bank, buys the nice homes and rules their neighborhoods and in turn, affluent areas rule state government and affect federal decisions so the smart rule the strong...as long as there are smart people.


And if a million people in India study Com Sci and take jobs here, either by H1B visa or through long distance e-commerce (is that L-Commerce?) then they will have the cash, we will be a bit poorer for it but stockholders will benefit and those 'smart Indians' will be able to buy U.S. real estate and develop communities and businesses that help 'their relatives' come here etc. and...


...I don't blame them. If they are smart, educated, can work within the 'laws' of the U.S. and make a profit off our economy either from their own country or by coming here, and if we lack the engineers to do what they are doing or need to supplement our tech base with their personnel, then I would rather pay them to come and do the job than pay them (through government loans and military spending) to be impoverished and a breeding ground for terrorists.


Oh, and on the subject of Osama and what happens when an idiot/terrorist gets a grip on an impoverished nation, you don't see a whole lot of that kind of leadership emerge from educated populations... so again, thank you for proving my point my friend.

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
yeah the people from business school i assume ;)

to quote Chomsky: "education is a system of imposed ignorance"



well you can have a democracy without a government (like we know it now). Do some reading on libertarian socialism and prepare to fall from your chair :D

Eric:

You don't need to have a business degree, or a college degree, or a high school education, or even a middle school education to be 'informed and intelligent" If Chomsky really believed his statement, in that instance he was a dummy. Be informed, do your own thinking. There are many lessons to be learned from history and history's thinkers, but you can also do your own thnking and stop quoting from someone else in order to try to sound intelligent. Examine the current world in context.


Libertarian would have less government interference and regulations in just about every aspect of life. That's a good thing. So you and I agree in that respect.

But, whenever people take advantage of a lack of laws and regulations and abuse their liberties, whatever government is available will come up with new rules and regulations. Eventually we would be back to something similar to what we have today.

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
which is exactly the opposite of what the US has been doing

It's very simple to make a statement without backing it up.

Originally posted by bagpuss
Wrong the, single biggest factor in the size of a countries economy is the size of its home market, certainly some countries got ahead of the game US, Japan, Germany, Franace, Britain etc, although much of this success was down to empries, slavery, WW2 and so on, but in the end what counts is the number of consumers in your borders.



Take a look at the level of consumer debt and see how people want what they can't afford.

Hey, I don't disagree with you that the size of a market has a lot to do with consumption. But if everybody in the U.S. were to be content with just what they need, this wouldn't be as big an economy as it is.

If you have a car and you can afford one more you'll buy it. If you have one tv you'll get more for the family, even if they all watch the same thing. There are a lot of people who don't need to buy as much food as they do, but they do. We all want more if we can afford it, and even when we can't affore it.

Debt is not a bad thing. We know that eventually we have to pay, and most people and governments make provisions for that. The U.S. debt is pretty high, but as a percentage of GDP it's not as high as ten years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I still don't want to see any government being run with debts.

Originally posted by endore rocks
Too much to read, but basically I don't think outsourcing will ever go away.

Let's bring up a radical situation by saying that outsourcing is going to be banned.

What will happen? Corporate expenses increase, cost of goods go up, people buy less of the goods, moe layoffs...back to the 80's.

There's always going to be unemployment in the U.S. Does anyone think outsourcing make it worse? I don't. Check out the unemployment rates of the last 30 years.

I'm a small business guy, so this problem of "outsourcing" barerly affects me.

Let's bring up a radical situation by saying that outsourcing is going to be banned.

What will happen? Corporate expenses increase, cost of goods go up, people buy less of the goods, moe layoffs...back to the 80's.

There's always going to be unemployment in the U.S. Does anyone think outsourcing make it worse? I don't. Check out the unemployment rates of the last 30 years.

I'm a small business guy, so this problem of "outsourcing" barerly affects me. [/B][/QUOTE]

I'm not looking for outsourcing to go away. There are many instances where we need help and outside help is welcome.

The problem arises where a certain sectors of our economy is in danger of being lost forever. There is nothing in our economy that can't be done cheaper by foregin workers. So, should we just let it happen to help businesses with their bottom lines?

When a company saves money, they help keep prices in control, and investors can get a better return on their money. In many cases, outsourcing can save a business.

But, I ask again, what did businesses do before outsourcing became the way to save? Many companies folded when they couldn't compete. But others took their place.

When you farm out a job, or a whole sector of an economy, the people affected are the displaced workers and eventually the economy as a whole. There will be people without jobs or with lesser jobs who will be spending less, who will not be investing, who cannot send their kids to college, who cannot buy a car, who cannot afford to buy a house, who cannot afford to rent an apartment, who cannot go out to eat, who will be spending less in groceries, who will not go to the movies, who cannot afford to buy as much in clothes and shoes, etc. There is a trickle down effect to all sectors of any economy when one sector is affected so greatly.

Unfortunately, the problem has become so huge and its the topic of heated arguments in politics. I predict that right or wrong, some regulations will be enacted by Congress, especially in an election year.

By the way, nobody expects complete employment. There will always be people leaving jobs, moving from job to job, getting fired, etc. There always needs to be a pool of employees for employers to draw from, and then we would be forced to outsource to foreigh workers or to import workers. If full employment ever occurred, companies could not grow and thereby the economy would suffer.

Also, the 80's were a good period of growth for businesses, individual and government coffers. I wouldn't mind the economy of the 80s. .

Originally posted by Webdude
Has everyone missed the fact that Dell and several others are pulling their support centers from India and back to the U.S. due to massive customer complaints about communication issues?

Face it, Dell wants customers to be repeat customers, not one time customers. I'm sure I am not the only one who called up their Corporate and told them that they better hope they save a lot of money by doing this, because they will never make another dime off me again as long as they use support in India. Their biggest customer base is still in the U.S., so that is still who they have to cater to most. If I call their support and get someone whom I can barely understand, I hang up. I can build my own computers and servers, and Dell had best understand they are only a conveinence to me...I dont NEED them.

Either I am damned important, or I was among thousands who complained.. It doesnt do them any good to save money on support if they start losing the customers they are supporting.

Webdude:

Good points.

But,.did Dell outsource other high-paying IT jobs, and did they bring those back as well? Many jobs don't have direct contact with the public at large.

Originally posted by adorno
Webdude:

Good points.

But,.did Dell outsource other high-paying IT jobs, and did they bring those back as well? Many jobs don't have direct contact with the public at large.

A good question that I dont know the answer to. As far as I know, they only outsourced phone support for the general public. Actually, if you purchase a "server" and are a "business", you are in a different catagory and dont get "Indian" support when you call, you get good qualified American techs.

So as far as I see it, they only outsourced lower support. Which makes me wonder why the Indians think they do it better. What? They can read the Dell knowledgebase provided to them better than American Techs can? That's really all techs do at that level anyway. Based off local economies, (Indian & American), the Indian techs make a whole lot more take home.

Critic:

Quoting from you:

"However if you look at it like this you can see the Amrican market actually benefiting from Outsourcing if it is successful for the company.

Say Joe Bloggs PLC moves 5000 call centre jobs to India saving it $140 million. That in turn is factored into the financial reports.

These things stand a good chance of happening >>

Money is put bac into the company making it more funacially successful
Share Pri.ce will rise by at least 5%.
US shareholders sell shares and make a tidy profit which they then put back into the US economy by buting a car or TV etc.
Pension plans in that particular company's stock will become more valuable.

If this happens in multiple companies then the major US indicies will rise whcih is ultimately good for the economy."

Your're talking in terms of an investor in a company.

Why not look at it from the viewpoint of an employee who loses his/her job due to outsourcing. In previous posts in this thread, I and other people have looked at it from a displaced worker's viewpoint. Please present a balance.

There is no doubt that a company can save money by oursourcing. When they save money they can reinvest that money. When they reinvest they will likely create more jobs. When they look to hire for those jobs, what is there to stop them from outsourcing those new jobs to foreign workers again, since they know they can save more money that way?

Webdude:

quoting from you:

"I for one am in hardware, not phone technical support.....nor will I ever be now that I have seen what can happen. Until the "Star Trek" transporter is invented, I dont have to worry about Indians, or any other, doing my job through the phone "

Don't be feeling too secure. When the hardware can be moved to overseas to a cheaper environment and to lesser paid workers, your job also will disappear.

Originally posted by adorno
Don't be feeling too secure. When the hardware can be moved to overseas to a cheaper environment and to lesser paid workers, your job also will disappear.

You have to remember that I am involved in several areas, not only hosting. We have our DC here. Yes the company "could" decide to move that to another country....but thay arent financially strong enough to do that yet.

I am also involved in the local fiber infrastructure on a minor level. I doubt our fiber hardware will ever move to another country for people to work on :D

I also do mobile computer repair and networking. I dont have to worry about those going overseas either :D

And since in all cases I work for myself, nobody can be trained to replace me.. future employess I may have might have that worry, but not me..

kckclass:

Quoting from you:

"Oh, and on the subject of Osama and what happens when an idiot/terrorist gets a grip on an impoverished nation, you don't see a whole lot of that kind of leadership emerge from educated populations... so again, thank you for proving my point my friend."

Osam bin Laden would be terrorizing a country even if it consisted of millionaires. Poverty is the excuse he uses to try and convince people to follow him and his ideals.

As far as some of the other points you make in the same post that I quoted from:

The U.S. spends more than enough money in public education to turn out some of the best educated people on earth. Not everybody will take advantage of the benefit.

We turn out enough engineers, rocket scientists, doctors, IT people, etc., than there are jobs for. It is not a lack of trained people that's our problem.

In New York, I believe that the city spends more than $10,000 per year per student in a public school.. A lot of that money goes to wasteful spending. Most privated schools can give people a better education for a lot less than is being spent now. Funds is not where the problem lies. Think again.

Originally posted by adorno
Critic:

Quoting from you:

"However if you look at it like this you can see the Amrican market actually benefiting from Outsourcing if it is successful for the company.

Say Joe Bloggs PLC moves 5000 call centre jobs to India saving it $140 million. That in turn is factored into the financial reports.

These things stand a good chance of happening >>

Money is put bac into the company making it more funacially successful
Share Pri.ce will rise by at least 5%.
US shareholders sell shares and make a tidy profit which they then put back into the US economy by buting a car or TV etc.
Pension plans in that particular company's stock will become more valuable.

If this happens in multiple companies then the major US indicies will rise whcih is ultimately good for the economy."

Your're talking in terms of an investor in a company.

Why not look at it from the viewpoint of an employee who loses his/her job due to outsourcing. In previous posts in this thread, I and other people have looked at it from a displaced worker's viewpoint. Please present a balance.

There is no doubt that a company can save money by oursourcing. When they save money they can reinvest that money. When they reinvest they will likely create more jobs. When they look to hire for those jobs, what is there to stop them from outsourcing those new jobs to foreign workers again, since they know they can save more money that way?

Look if you can't see that the economy of a naion is about more than a small fraction of employees in an area where they just are becoming a possible financial liability when compared to their competition then you just won't understand. All of your jobs won't go overseas as their isn't the skill or cost efficiency in many areas like the Quartenary sector and for some it just isn't practical, this is why some of these jobs will return to the States once the correct balance is found but Outsourcing will exist.

Look being isolationist and forcing US companies to do something that will harm their share price and worth is going to be more damaging than a 100,000 jobs going overseas.

I've looked at it from the point of the employee, they and the labour market will learn to adapt as required; the US economy can cope and i honestly think you're making an Everest size mountain out of this mole hill Adormo. Maybe you should provide some balance but then maybe not hey?

Jobs gew in the US by 112,000 last month; now you might have some other shoddy economic areas but Outsourcing is not one of them in my view.

This thread is going round in circles.

Critic,

Originally posted by Webdude
You have to remember that I am involved in several areas, not only hosting. We have our DC here. Yes the company "could" decide to move that to another country....but thay arent financially strong enough to do that yet.


A company could almost immediately become financial stronger by moving their operations overseas.

I dont't think there is any safe job in the IT industry.

Also remember that when a small business competes with larger businesses for the same clientele, the larger business will win if they can do your task cheaper.

Critic:

Quoting from you again:

"Look if you can't see that the economy of a naion is about more than a small fraction of employees.."

It's not a small fraction. It's a big factor of the economy. The same kind of thing was said for TV manufacturing, shoes, clothing, toys and many other industries. We're not very competitive in those areas anymore.

Going around in circles is something people need to do until problems are resolved, one way or another. We're not going to solve those problems here, but we can make sure our voices are heard.

Originally posted by adorno
Eric:

You don't need to have a business degree, or a college degree, or a high school education, or even a middle school education to be 'informed and intelligent"

duh ofcourse not, i was being sarcastic in respone to your statement that people would prefer private companies over government or democratic control if they are 'informed and intelligent'. Which they ofcourse wouldn't, well you would if you have been brainwashed by neo-liberalism and capitalism thus i referred to business school.

Most of the stuff i learn in school on economics is complete ********, one just has to look around (globally) and read and check facts and one will notice it.

Originally posted by adorno

If Chomsky really believed his statement, in that instance he was a dummy. Be informed, do your own thinking.

indeed you should, that's what he meant, don't trust the education you get from school, the media whatever go out and check facts.

Originally posted by adorno

There are many lessons to be learned from history and history's thinkers

Indeed there are, but it depends on how you study history, cause the way let's see in recent history: the bombing of serbia/kosovo war will go into (mainstream) history won't be exactly the truth, the same will be true of the invasion of iraq and a lot of other things.


Originally posted by adorno

Libertarian would have less government interference and regulations in just about every aspect of life. That's a good thing. So you and I agree in that respect.

just some info: European and American libertarianism are basically the opposite, in europe one refers with libertarianism to libertarian socialism (left wing anarchism). Which results in great democratic public control of things . The american version of libertarianism is the opposite and will cause a hard unlivable living environment.
So we will probably disagree

Originally posted by adorno
It's very simple to make a statement without backing it up.

Saddam, Ceausescu, Suharto, Duvalier, Marcos, Mubutu....

and i'm sure the people of Haiti, Nicaragua, Chile, Brazil, East Timor, Palestina, the Kurds, etc will glad to help you out.

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
duh ofcourse not, i was being sarcastic in respone to your statement that people would prefer private companies over government or democratic control if they are 'informed and intelligent'. Which they ofcourse wouldn't, well you would if you have been brainwashed by neo-liberalism and capitalism thus i referred to business school.

Most of the stuff i learn in school on economics is complete ********, one just has to look around (globally) and read and check facts and one will notice it.



indeed you should, that's what he meant, don't trust the education you get from school, the media whatever go out and check facts.




Indeed there are, but it depends on how you study history, cause the way let's see in recent history: the bombing of serbia/kosovo war will go into (mainstream) history won't be exactly the truth same will be true of the invasion of iraq and a lot of other things.




just some info: European and American libertarianism are basically the opposite, in europe one refers with libertarianism to libertarian socialism (left wing anarchism). Which results in great democratic public control of things . The american version of libertarianism is the opposite and will cause a hard unlivable living environment.

Eric:

I'm not going to respond to any of your points because I have a hard time determining what you stand for and where you're coming from, Either you are a deep thinker who is too hard to follow or you are just rambling all over the place. Whenever you post anything I have to go into deep analysis mode before I can make out what you're trying to say.

So, I'll read your posts, but I won't know how to respond because I probably won't understand you.

I'm not trying to be offensive. You may have some good points, but I don't want try so extra hard hard to understand you.

Originally posted by adorno


Also, the 80's were a good period of growth for businesses, individual and government coffers. I wouldn't mind the economy of the 80s. [/i]

Ah, yes. The decade when the rich was definitely rich and the poor was definitely poor. Not much in between.

Adorno...attacked from all sides and as for fencing in this debate, an admirable job you are doing. But in this debate I am afraid reality creeps in:

1. Osama could never in a million years come to the U.S. or any nation of 'millionaires' and say 'Let's drive jets into some building.' He might get a few wackos in the middle of some desert somewhere to participate, but a few is not the hundreds or thousands he and his followers find ready to join him in an impoverished place like Afghanistan. Still, I will admit that if you can find just one nut to drive a van full of whatever to some govt. building, it supports your point to some extent that a terrorist act can be planned and executed with people from an educated population: there will always be strays here or there. But nothing quite so massive as 911 was. And if we had been providing massive EDU funding and social infrastructure funding, aid and relief to Afghanistan and their people were hooked into our networks and businesses (like India is now), I doubt 911 would have taken place. There wouldn't have been enough public support to create such a band of thieves as he was able to build. I think it is highly unlikely that such a group will come from India who is hooked into U.S. business, or from Malaysia, who is hooked into the computer industry as a whole, or from the Philipines where there are large anti-U.S. Muslims but who also enjoy economic benefits from quite a few call centers there.

So, call centers overseas, in theory and in reality, build a unified world, a more stable world and a more profitable bottom line for firms that use them, which helps stockholders who are wise enough to invest in firms that think globally. I think that is poetic justice on a global scale.


As for education and funding and 10,000 dollars per student quotes, I agree there is probably enough money to get the job done but apparently our government, either at a Federal or local level doesn't seem able to get the job done. You stated there were more than enough engineers coming out of our schools but that is only true when the economy is in a recession and nobody is hiring. When the economy is working, we come up short...very short. I am here, in Silicon Valley. Call any of the HR firms and ask them if there are enough programmers or network engineers when the economy is strong and they will tell you the H1B visa program is a godsend. I know of one HR firm that ONLY works with H1B techs from (ahem) mostly India. So our schools (or our government or the student body themselves) are not addressing the needs of the industries begging for talent. Only recently has a shift in welfare reform begun to include and require training to get benefits. I believe that is a good thing. If you don't enroll in classes that can help you get a job, you don't get a State check: perfect. To me that is a welfare system I can live with as the government is then shelling out money both to feed and house the students and insure they get some skills to make them productive.

As for your statement that there isn't a job in the U.S. that foreign workers can't do cheaper, that is true today and businesses have every right to tap that market, just as chip manufacturers tapped Eastern Asia, and while it would be great if this stuff were made here, we can't even produce it for the same price they can retail it for. I am a Union Electrician among other things and are you proposing that American Unions take a pay cut so they can compete with Joe Asia? Never happen. But what may happen is that as the economy slacks off and jobs disappear, Mr. Union will go off and be a bartender or a house painter and wait for better times and there will be less upward pressure on U.S. salaries and more upward pressure on foreign salaries and eventually, the playing field will become much more level than it is now. We are at the beginning of the new infrastructure of the global economy. As that expands and more and more people are hooked into the Internet, the price and playing field will become much more level. Already, in Belerus where labor costs are far lower than here, there are network and software engineers advertising rates that are only 1/2 of what you'd pay here. But those same folks used to work for about 1/3rd of our price and not that long ago, for 1/4 of our price. They are finding their capitalistic balance in what the market will bear and eventually that trend will be across the board and prices will be pretty level everywhere and outsourcing won't make a lot of sense when a few pennies saved force a firm to work with a staff that is 10,000 miles away.


In the meantime, until that field is leveled, firms and nations who invest in educating foreign populations and utilizing their labor pools will enjoy higher profits...again, poetic justice on a global scale and yes, I agree it is at the expense of the American Standard of living and lost jobs here. It is sort of like enforced charity, caused by greedy corporations...Ironic and tastey from my point of view.

To counter it we need enough techs to fill the need in boom times and those techs need to be flexible and work other jobs in bust times and our present EDU system, no matter how well funded, isn't working OR the student body involved with that system isn't cutting it: we've grown soft. I just met a total hottie last night who is done with her 4th year of premed but doesn't know if she wants to go for another 8 years. I suggested she consider nursing which would only be two more and she wasn't sure if she even wanted to do that.... Now if some foreigner had done all that study in a U.S. University system and was that close to having a U.S. based job they would kill to complete that course of study. They are hardened, seasoned. They come from poverty and will work for a lower wage and try very hard to deliver and get another contract.

Compared to them, it is sad to say, Americans are soft, many are uneducated and unmotivated and while there are exceptions to that rule to be sure, slicing the population percentage wise, and you find some of our greatest minds and achievers are 'imports', first generation immigrants. After a few generations of nice cars and lax school systems we become the needy and the greedy: the fat American Euros and Asians laugh about behind our backs.


It is true that many of us work multiple jobs and long, long work weeks (some do), but it is also true that we have a huge and growing segment of poverty that just might be cured with a bit more edu funding, eh? And if that new educated body were willing to work for a wage that was even close to the Belerus example above, and were no longer on the welfare roles, would that help or hurt the American economy?

And so, might I suggest that one way to cure the outsourcing blues would be to educate our impoverished right here at home and reduce salary expectations and put these people in call centers and network support positions and if we had enough of them ready to work for $8.00 to 15.00 an hour instead of $15-$30, maybe more firms would keep their call centers based in the U.S. and if software engineers were willing to work for $15-$30 an hour instead of $30-$150, perhaps firms in Belerus would have a more difficult time finding clients.

And so as the salaries become level around the world, we will find outsourcing may decline, but that won't take place until we put our money into EDU, either through our school systems or via welfare reform or corporate grants and apprenticeships.

Touche~Sir Adorno..
:hammer:

Originally posted by endore rocks
Ah, yes. The decade when the rich was definitely rich and the poor was definitely poor. Not much in between.

Another rich vs poor argument? I'm sorry but you don't know what you're talking about.

There will always be rich and poor people, no matter what form of government or economic system. There are just too many variables and too many people. And, not every body is capable of becoming rich. Facts of life.

Having said that, I wish I was rich.

Originally posted by adorno
Critic:

Quoting from you again:

"Look if you can't see that the economy of a naion is about more than a small fraction of employees.."

It's not a small fraction. It's a big factor of the economy. The same kind of thing was said for TV manufacturing, shoes, clothing, toys and many other industries. We're not very competitive in those areas anymore.

Going around in circles is something people need to do until problems are resolved, one way or another. We're not going to solve those problems here, but we can make sure our voices are heard.

And as i said before Britain has lost a fair amount of its secondary/manufacturing sector/ more than America by some way from what i am aware of; in the same way as us, America will learn to adapt and other sectors of the economy will take the slack as companies/entrepreneurs see opportunities to exploit.

It was accepted here after a fashion and it will just take a bit of time and readjustment in the States. The outsourcing will plateau out ata point so you will never lose your manufacturing sector entirely. Also relatively speaking when talking about a country with a population on 280 million people the losses will be considered small.

just some info: European and American libertarianism are basically the opposite, in europe one refers with libertarianism to libertarian socialism (left wing anarchism). Which results in great democratic public control of things . The american version of libertarianism is the opposite and will cause a hard unlivable living environment.

Just some things that i want to say; left wing? maybe add a far infront of that or at least over here in Britain. You don't walk around here spouting off that you're a socialist i can tell you, very bad vibes if you know what i mean [the people the socialists ally themselves with over in Britain are unbelievable, in a negative way i'd point out]. If you think that American libetarianism would harm the living planet then in my opinion a European socialist model would probably send the entire continent back years and end in some kind of war dividing the continent for good or a very very long time. That is my "shoot from the hip" view as of right now but no need to turn this thread into a socialist debate, starta new one or PM me if people wish to continue this i think.

Critic,

kckclass:

Like I said, Osama would terrorize you whether you're poor or rich. His campaign is not about the ecomonic well-being of a country or a people. His campaign is about stopping the world from going to other religions; he is about taking everybody back to the good old days of the 8th century. His cause may be presented in a noble fashion, but his true intent is different. He would steer a plane into a government building or into your mother's house if you didn't see things his way.

Pure Islamic thought and Islamic way of life is what's driving Osama and his followers. Not any kind of noble ideals.
Look at what's happening in Iraq. No way Osama and Islamic clerics are going going to let those people establish a democracy where people can worship as they wish, run their own economy and establish a democratic government.


A company does have to look out for the investments of stockholders. That's not the argument. The argument is about when a company makes decisons that could ultimately harm the economy in general. If an economy is harmed, the company and stockholders will eventually pay the price and end up losing.

Now, when more than 200,000 H1B visas were issued in the late 90's and we had so many Indians and other foreigners applying for and taking on those IT jobs, I knew of too many Americans who were displaced by those foreigners. The lack of American IT workers was a big lie. There were plenty of qualified Americans who could've done those jobs. The only reason those jobs went to foreigners was to save money. Period.

It is true that a business that can save money by outsourcing should do so. But the American people have a right to fight back.

I say that any company that outsources jobs that can be done by qualified people in the U.S. should expect a backlash from domestic consumers.

I asked this question before, but I'll ask it again:

Shoud foreign worker be dependent on the U.S. or Europe to provide jobs for them? Can't the government and businesses in those countries handle their own business and people? Governments in those foreign countries are taking the easy way out and encouraging people to take on foreign employment. They need to build up their own infrastructure and businesses and not become dependent states. .

And, don't give me that about the world is becoming smaller and one economy. That will never happen as long as people want to maintain their own identities and cultures and ways of governments.


Lastly, how dare you suggest that we give up or lower our standard of living so as to help the rest of the world. We can help them, but we don't have to sacrifice something for which so many people have worked so hard for and made big sacrifices.

Give me a greak!

One more thing: The points you're making can be shortened; in other words, you don't have to so verbiose.

Please shorten you posts if you can.

Thanks...

Originally posted by Critic
Just some things that i want to say; left wing? maybe add a far infront of that or at least over here in Britain. You don't walk around here spouting off that you're a socialist i can tell you, very bad vibes if you know what i mean [the people the socialists ally themselves with over in Britain are unbelievable, in a negative way i'd point out]. If you think that American libetarianism would harm the living planet then in my opinion a European socialist model would probably send the entire continent back years and end in some kind of war dividing the continent for good or a very very long time. That is my "shoot from the hip" view as of right now but no need to turn this thread into a socialist debate, starta new one or PM me if people wish to continue this i think.


well it doesn't mean if someone claims to be something that he actually is it (quite obvious). Words don't mean anything, actions do.
Like the nazis claimed to be socialist, which they weren't ofcourse.... although hitler carried out a social revolution, the biggest reason why he was so popular in the 30's

we'll just leave it like this for now ;)

Originally posted by adorno
Shoud foreign worker be dependent on the U.S. or Europe to provide jobs for them? Can't the government and businesses in those countries handle their own business and people? Governments in those foreign countries are taking the easy way out and encouraging people to take on foreign employment. They need to build up their own infrastructure and businesses and not become dependent states. .


Governments in those countries are forced to open up there markets. If they don't, then "regime change" will happen. And a "democracy" will be installed. Brazil, Nicaragua, Chile, Haiti (now in the news), Venezuela, etc. are quite obvious examples of that. This basically counts for every poor country in the world.

The biggest reason why the US government hates Cuba is that it doesn't listen to them and it's quite a "good" example for the population of other countries, standard of living is quite good (although dropping because of the embargo and stuff), the doctors cuba sends around the world and all that sort of stuff. They don't care about the crimes Castro's regime commits since they support and supported regimes who did more horrible things.

Frankly, I'm not in the mood to read all that... :)

Originally posted by adorno
Another rich vs poor argument? I'm sorry but you don't know what you're talking about.

There will always be rich and poor people, no matter what form of government or economic system. There are just too many variables and too many people. And, not every body is capable of becoming rich. Facts of life.

Having said that, I wish I was rich.

Well, duh. Of course there will always be rich and there will always be poor people, that is obviously not the point. In the 80's however, the margin was just TOO wide! Higher unemployment, higher crime, worse economy in that era.

Originally posted by ilyash
Bush spends 150 billion on war in iraq

our economy sucks right now

all companies are outsourcing.
It is cheaper for them.
Bush needs to help the economy.
perhaps a new law.. like a tax for outsourcing

by outsourcing, companies save 30%
if bush taxed them 20 or 15% for doing this,
they would hire pple here and therefore raise the economy

[vote for me for president] . hahaha joking


America's economy does suck, here in the UK i can import DVDs from American at unbelievable prices because $1 is worth £0.52 and about a year ago it was worth around £0.75.

AngryAfghan, the dollar being at that kind of exchange rate is actually good for the US economy as long as it isn't left like it too long and it hasn't been yet.

Besides the dollar was considered by some to acutally be overvalued and as much as this is a low rate of exchange even when it readjusts it might only go back to the mid 60s or around that.

The ones who are feeling the pinch more are the French and the Germans which was evident by the reports from the recent G7 conference in Florida.

Critic,

Short and sweet, one more time...

I never said Bin Butthead wouldn't drive a plane whereever he felt it would get the most press (his goal), I said he would have a difficult time recruiting hundreds or thousands of people in an educated, prospering nation and that providing global edu resources was our best hope of providing global stability and that those 'grads' would seek work whereever they could, (outsourcing topic here) and that as their standards of living rose and salaries rose and their own infrastructures rose from that influx of capital, global salaries would become more level. It isn't about 'reducing' the standard of living in the U.S. but the result will be a reduction in the differences of standards of living that engineers or medical personnel in one region have compared to the U.S. or western world. And as that playing field becomes level you can high salaried positions here will be adjusted DOWNWARD. That is the fundamental law of supply and demand: we need techs and if TECH A is cheaper than TECH B and can do an equivilent job, who is going to get the work?

And subsidies or tarrifs or trade barriers are like dams in that equation and when released create huge economic changes that require panic mode adjustments.

And on the subject of tech shortages: I'm sorry but when the ecomony is rocking, there aren't enough of them in Silicon Valley and right now there are 192,000 of them UNEMPLOYED and migrating out of here and when the economy is going again, that trend will reverse and at it's peak, there aren't enough of them to go around...and so the argument for H1B returns.

Short enough...?

Very Interesting Thread :)


Someone posted a question, however not many took notice ..

Who is benefiting from outsourcing in USA ?

Who and where ? Well, its back to Industrial Revolution for the West in simpler words .. the death of middle class is sadly not impossible in US.

I was lucky to be in a place last week in NYC rubbing shoulders with 3-4 partners from Accenture, the world's #1 IT consulting firm.

If outosurcing were to be discussed what better source to hear from than the 4 partners from Accenture who recently came back from india after Accenture hired 5000 people in 18 months in Delhi, Banaglore and Bombay and is hiring 600 more this MONTH ALONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Outosurcing is creating markets that will boom in Asia .. US compnies are well aware of the 800 million consumers waiting for US / EU products in China, India and Pan East.

The ratio is simple : if 10 people lose jobs in US, 100 get that in India or China. Those 100 can support US goods indirectly or directly and become consumers as vorcaious as US counterparts. The profit is in the numbers, not how deep the pockets of US outsourced salaried employees are in India ir China or Russia.

India China alone have 400 million middle class each that is a billion people and a market segemnt bigger than EU & US combined in next 25 years.

The loot is clearly visible to the US corporations and these are the new rules of the game.

Short terms gains, as some people say is actually a long term well thought second wave of imperilasm.

However sad part is, 99% of us will not benefit from this as we consitute the worker or middle class .. not owners but salaried "clerks" as the Brits call them/

The beneficiries are top 0.0001% quota of people and throughout history they been ruling and profiting from every situation and possible market condition.

Survival of the fittest and the wittiest.
Accenture is one of these .. its not even a US company .. registered in Bermuda to avoid taxes. One of its biggest IT contract is a US government or military project in Navy . sad sad

The partners at Accenture love the global economy. They benefit 100 times more than a poor Network engineer working his butt off in Banaglore at $700/month thinking he is on top of the world.


If the middle class in US gets hit from outsourcing, its time to explore new avenues, shift careers and a complete change in ideology.

Also, taxing comanies based on outsourced % of employees will not work.
Its like forcing Boeing to pay taxes for the 747 parts made in China and Taiwan.



Who ever said life was fair ?

and what are they buying?

U.S. cars? They make them better in Japan.

U.S. Computers? They make most of that in eastern asia and it's cheaper from there.

U.S. Electronics of any sort? Cheaper and just as functional if not more so elsewhere. Sony rocks.

U.S. food? Perhaps. We do a pretty good job in farming.

This isn't a "I will tell you what..." reply, it's a question I have of what we are going to be supplying the world as the consumer markets out there expand. Biotech? Electronics? Autos? Food?

...or real estate? which will more often than not, require corporate purchasing power. An Indian making $700 a week isn't going to save the downpayment for a San Francisco property in his appreciable lifetime unless he co-ops the purchase.

...and so if this growing global economy really kicks into high gear and the entire world becomes as 'voracious' as Americans and Europeans, who will they be buying from and what products are they going to seek? Nike tennis shoes made in Thailand?

Originally posted by endore rocks
Well, duh. Of course there will always be rich and there will always be poor people, that is obviously not the point. In the 80's however, the margin was just TOO wide! Higher unemployment, higher crime, worse economy in that era.

Revisionist history on your part. Wrong on all points. The 80's were one the best periods of growth for everybody. Even the poor and minorities saw big benefits from that roaring economy. The domocrats and you would spin it into a bad period but the facts speak for themselves.

You may be able to spin to somebody who is not informed, but not me.

Adormo, that's not entirely accurate.

In Britain for one, toward end of the 80's and into the early 90's there was the build up to and then a full blown recession. The housing market also took a big hit which it will do again in the near future; the bubble will burst and i believe you have a similar housing market problem in the states.

If by everyone you just mean in the US then forget about that but i felt it necessary to show that in that particular case the entire decade wasn't all dandy.

Critic,

kckclass;

I'm glad your posts are shorter.

But I still having trouble with where you stand. In one post you contradict me, in another post you contradict someone else who is seemingly on your side.

I hate using 'quote' to point out some of what has been posted before because that would only make this thread so much longer. However, if you need to see what I'm talking about, re-read your posts where you're replying to someone else's post.


By the way, Bin Laden prefers to recruit well educated and well-off people for his cause. Needy and uneducated would probably be just looking for employment.

Originally posted by adorno
Revisionist history on your part. Wrong on all points. The 80's were one the best periods of growth for everybody. Even the poor and minorities saw big benefits from that roaring economy. The domocrats and you would spin it into a bad period but the facts speak for themselves.

You may be able to spin to somebody who is not informed, but not me.

could be quite true what you are saying since Reagan was the biggest protectionist US president since the 1930's. Handing over lots of public funds to private companies in the name of "security" and "defense". Ofcourse he was preaching and fighting for free market for the rest of the world at the same time, how ironic... ;)

Originally posted by Critic
Adormo, that's not entirely accurate.

In Britain for one, toward end of the 80's and into the early 90's there was the build up to and then a full blown recession. The housing market also took a big hit which it will do again in the near future; the bubble will burst and i believe you have a similar housing market problem in the states.

If by everyone you just mean in the US then forget about that but i felt it necessary to show that in that particular case the entire decade wasn't all dandy.

Critic,

In the U.S. the economy goes up and down in cycles. That doesn't change the fact the in the 80's we had a great economy. We had a down cycle in 90/91 and again in 2001, but the economy rebounded in both cases. Not everybody benefits, but the opportunities are there.

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
could be quite true what you are saying since Reagan was the biggest protectionist US president since the 1930's. Handing over lots of public funds to private companies in the name of "security" and "defense". Ofcourse he was preaching and fighting for free market for the rest of the world at the same time, how ironic... ;)

Biggest protectionist president? Explain how and with specific facts. Don't just make a general statement with no facts to back up your argument.

How about the Reagan tax cuts? Do you think maybe because people got to keep more of their income is a big reason that the economy grew so much in the 80s? When people keep more of their own money, they spend more and businesses sell more and more people get hired to keep up with the demand for goods and services. The deficit was something that also grew in the 80s and early to mid 90s. Why do you think that was? Well, I'll tell you: When the economy produced so much, revenue to the government grew tremendously; the spenders in government, democrats and republicans alike, just had to go and figure out how to spend the new money. Big spending by government creates government deficits.

Like I said, use revisionist history on someone else.

Originally posted by adorno
Biggest protectionist president? Explain how and with specific facts. Don't just make a general statement with no facts to back up your argument.


see the deficit rise and rise

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_3.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_4.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_5.html

Lowering taxes results in less government income . More government spending (creates the deficit), mostly via the pentagon hence the "security" and "defense" in my original post. The pentagon "subsidizes" private corporations for research and buys products of them. This is protectionism, state subsidizing the private sector (with the pentagon in between to make it look "less obvious"). This is what some economists call the permanent US war economy.

Some restrictions he put on imports

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa107.html

i think he put more restrictions on imports then the previous 6 presidents combined (could be wrong since it's been a long time since i studied the reagan administration)

Originally posted by adorno

When the economy produced so much, revenue to the government grew tremendously; the spenders in government, democrats and republicans alike, just had to go and figure out how to spend the new money. Big spending by government creates government deficits.


big spending by a government doesn't create deficits if the government also has a big revenue... which they didn't because of the tax cuts. Same thing Bush is doing right now ...

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
see the deficit rise and rise

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_3.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_4.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_5.html

Lowering taxes results in less government income . More government spending (creates the deficit), mostly via the pentagon hence the "security" and "defense" in my original post. The pentagon "subsidizes" private corporations for research and buys products of them. This is protectionism, state subsidizing the private sector (with the pentagon in between to make it look "less obvious"). This is what some economists call the permanent US war economy.

Some restrictions he put on imports

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa107.html

i think he put more restrictions on imports then the previous 6 presidents combined (could be wrong since it's been a long time since i studied the reagan administration)



big spending by a government doesn't create deficits if the government also has a big revenue... which they didn't because of the tax cuts. Same thing Bush is doing right now ...

[SIZE=3]PBS?[SIZE=3]

Outsourcing is ok if its done for the right reasons. Companies which do it for the wrong reasons often end up back-sourcing to inhouse solutions again (in the UK we have seen this with Ford and Barclays Bank).

Outsourcing to save money is only workable if you are big enough. Smaller companies wont see big financial gains and it would be better for them to remain inhouse unless for example:

- They wish to fill a gap in knowledge. Some smaller companies dont have the knowledge or resources inhouse to cope with certain areas of business, so outsourcing is a good way of doing this.

- Economies of scale. Some companies cant afford certain strategies within their business, by outsourcing they can take advantage of economies of scale as the outsourcer company probably already has the necessary infrastructure to implement what they are looking for. (example outsourcing to an application service provider would save the company heavy licencing fee's which the outsourcer has already paid).

Err yeah.... I just rambled on about some stuff I read today. ;)

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
see the deficit rise and rise

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_3.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_4.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_5.html

Lowering taxes results in less government income . More government spending (creates the deficit), mostly via the pentagon hence the "security" and "defense" in my original post. The pentagon "subsidizes" private corporations for research and buys products of them. This is protectionism, state subsidizing the private sector (with the pentagon in between to make it look "less obvious"). This is what some economists call the permanent US war economy.

Some restrictions he put on imports

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa107.html

i think he put more restrictions on imports then the previous 6 presidents combined (could be wrong since it's been a long time since i studied the reagan administration)



big spending by a government doesn't create deficits if the government also has a big revenue... which they didn't because of the tax cuts. Same thing Bush is doing right now ...

PBS?

Loog your credibility suffers tremendously when you use PBS as a source to quote from.

PBS is ultra-leftist in its reporting and analysis. There is nothing that any republican president or republican government official does that PBS agrees with. No matter what the issue, especially economics, they will always attack republicans as misguided or wrong.

If you want to argue an issue, please don't quote from BBC, Al-Jazeera, Pravda, or PBS.


Let me explain: Every time it's been tried, it has worked! I'm talking about cutting taxes to boost the economy.

It is true that initially the government will have less money after a tax cut, but eventually, after the tax cuts have had enough time to kick in, the economy gets a big boost and so does the government revenue.

After the Reagan tax cuts, government revenue more than doubled!!!!!!

But, greedy spenders in Washington saw so much money coming in that their eyes opened up big and they felt they had to spend it to impress their constituencies about how much they were doing for them.

Like I keep saying, revised or spun history from PBS or any other source does not work when you're talking to informed people.

The Pentagon, for your information, runs our Defense Department. It would be hippocritical and dangerous for our defense department to buy foreign for any of our major weapons systems. That's not to say that we couldn't use some foreign help or parts in building what we need. But for most of our systems, major or small, it behooves us to buy American. The Pentagon needs to keep many secrets and outsourcing can compromise those secrets.

Please, do yourself a favor, even if it hurts: watch and read other news sources, even if you disagree with them. You need to balance out your sources.

I DO!

Originally posted by adorno
If you want to argue an issue, please don't quote from BBC, Al-Jazeera, Pravda, or PBS.


Your lumping the BBC in with Al-Jazeera is hilarious, from that I guess you should watch less Fox.

Ok I understand your questiosn lemem ckear up :

read my post above in case you did nto see I mentioned YOU WILL NOT be benefitting a peeny from these voracious markets.

Taking on yoru examples, a Nike shoe made in Thailand will mean 5x profits to its top 10-100 people management and maybe top 10 sharrehlders.

Rest nothing ..

Similar with auos. A ford Escort made in China will be profits to top 50 management at Ford, not you or a $80,000 /year mechincal enginner employed in their Deabon Plant at MI.

Its the HIGH UP PEOPLE who benefit from outsourcing ...

Do you get my point ?

Regards




Originally posted by kckclass
and what are they buying?

U.S. cars? They make them better in Japan.

U.S. Computers? They make most of that in eastern asia and it's cheaper from there.

U.S. Electronics of any sort? Cheaper and just as functional if not more so elsewhere. Sony rocks.

U.S. food? Perhaps. We do a pretty good job in farming.

This isn't a "I will tell you what..." reply, it's a question I have of what we are going to be supplying the world as the consumer markets out there expand. Biotech? Electronics? Autos? Food?

...or real estate? which will more often than not, require corporate purchasing power. An Indian making $700 a week isn't going to save the downpayment for a San Francisco property in his appreciable lifetime unless he co-ops the purchase.

...and so if this growing global economy really kicks into high gear and the entire world becomes as 'voracious' as Americans and Europeans, who will they be buying from and what products are they going to seek? Nike tennis shoes made in Thailand?

Originally posted by bagpuss
Your lumping the BBC in with Al-Jazeera is hilarious, from that I guess you should watch less Fox.

The BBC is the equivalent of our PBS or CNN.

Did you see the resignations that occurred in the BBC last month because of their reporting about the Prime Minister?

I do watch Fox. But I also watch CNN, MSNBC, and the regular Networkd. I also read from variious newspapers. I wouldn't know about opposing points of view if I only had one or two sources for news.

You probably need to do the same.

ANY MINUTE the moderators are going to shut this puppy down...back to the original thread (and I have no idea what statements were contradicting Adorno, but fine... that doesn't make what was written untrue or unsubstantiated)...


a) this thread has turned into a Democrat/Republican/Liberal/Regan/Clinton/Bush debate. Some could argue Clinton had the best years and others say Bush inherited (uh, stole) a Presidency ladden with problems....he got what he deserved heh heh for the way he obtained that office.


b) who cares anymore? you guys beat it to death. we all did and it still remains that corporations are going to pressure govt. to hire outsourced labor and h1b visas when the economies are booming because shortages (even if temporary due to migration) and salaries (even though it's hard to adjust downward in the U.S. and U.K. when real estate is so expensive) are lower overseas...we all agree on that, right? Even if it's good, bad or ugly for the economy, corps are going to get their way.


c) so to me, the question isn't about some government policy that taxes or opens or closes our borders since that fluxuates from one administration and economic trend to the next.


d) isn't the real issue, at least to Adorno who has posted such a lively topic (where is that beer mug?) whether or not it is good or bad for the economy? And since both expansion (and contraction) of outsourcing and H1B visas are GOING to take place sooner or later, isn't the real question "How CAN a western/U.S./U.K./Europe/Japan/technical society benefit?"

You can't stop it so you better figure out how to ride the trends profitably, eh?


Now, all I need to do for THAT answer is read THIS thread and as someone mentioned not too far up the line, in addition to the obvious profits of labor savings, by creating a new "voracious" consumer society whoever is selling hot dogs at that time in that land makes bank; just ask Mr. MacDonalds or Mr. Toshiba how they feel when a 3rd world country becomes a viable market. I disagree that only the rich make bank because I believe in the ability of individual small businesses to tap that market internationally; I work with fishermen who sell salmon all over the world...but I don't want to debate that just yet...


And so, Adorno and room to which I feel so honored having shared this thread with...since it touches upon one of, if not THE most important e-issues of our time (somewhere in there)...global e-commerce, outsourcing, 3rd world tech development ad infinitum... and SO Adorno...


...what are you going to teach your children about the global economy and how will that lesson teach them to profit from it?


I would like to know, without argument, the answer to that question. It isn't a statement of any belief I have...just wondered how/what you would tell your own kids.

there... I found the :beer: that you deserve...

Originally posted by adorno
The BBC is the equivalent of our PBS or CNN.

Did you see the resignations that occurred in the BBC last month because of their reporting about the Prime Minister?

I do watch Fox. But I also watch CNN, MSNBC, and the regular Networkd. I also read from variious newspapers. I wouldn't know about opposing points of view if I only had one or two sources for news.


There is no equivilent of the BBC in the US, PBS can hardly be considered a major news bradcaster, whilst CNN is owned by Time Warner, the BBC is funded through taxation and is independent.

Regulations on televison news are far tougher in the UK than the US in regard to comment / editorial, if Fox or for that matter CNN reported the news in the states the same way in Britain there would be resignitions everyday. (for example Fox would not have been able to broadcast their inaccurate and overtly biased piece of editorial about the BBC in Britain)

Yes I am aware of the resignations, but would point out that record of the BBC when it comes to impartiality stands up a lot better then Fox or CNN, in fact it stands up better than any major news reporter with the exception of Reuters.

It's a shame most politicians (including Mr Blair) aren't quite so honourable when it comes to taking responsibilty for their mistakes.

Adormo, you'r really strting to come across a a tad arrogant or patronising or both with some of your responses. Now whether it is just how it is written i don't know.

Look the BBC i will disagree with and can have a leftist agenda on certain political issues but you live with it. If there was no BBC the news reporting and gathering industry would have a void that Fox couldn't fill in it wildest dreams or any other broadcastr for that matter.

It's coverage for that matter cannot be matched and the BBC News service is not just about politics. It will provide news from more places on this planet than i can count and a lot from your neck of the woods.

Every news service has apolitical leaning one way or another at some point. Do you consider Fox News to be impartial?

Look Fox has an associate provider over here called Sky News and i'll watch it all the time but as much as the two are one they're very different.

Did you also say that CNN was also like Al Jazeera, you're pushing it a bit don't you think.

Watch this, if yo're on broadband it will be instant, tell me what you think of it, it is from a thread a few weeks old but is relaated to this issue.

>> http://blugg.com/stuff/foxs_view_of_the_bbc_player.htm

This thread is waaay off course now, maybe it will ned closing soon.

Critic,

Whew, that was a lot of reading. Lets keep this thread on topic though.

I'm just a 19 (20 feb 24th) year old who has some college finished but no degree yet. I have never taken an economics course or a business course. With that said I'm still going to throw my opinions out there.

Capitalism

I heard people mentioning capitalism, capitalism is the reason jobs are going overseas. Well that sounds very interesting to me. I think these people forgot one thing though, in order for that to be true all governments and workers involved would have to be in a economy that uses capitalism (a lot of jobs outsourced are to countries that don't use capitalism).


Outsourcing

-Unions in the U.S.
OOO boy, here I come to open a can of worms. A lot of jobs are outsourced because of cost (and solely on that factor). The reason a worker in the U.S. costs so much to do the job is largely because of Unions. No don't get me wrong Unions were needed in the 1880-1940's but now they are worse then the mob. Union reps don't really care about the workers they represent:

--(I'd like to take a moment to back that claim up. I remember reading a news article about a Detroit steel plant. The plant needed to lower workers salaries so it could stay in business and compete with foreign steel. Well the Union said it wasn't going to allow that to happen so instead of the workers getting paid less the company went under and all the workers lost their jobs).

In some industries you can't work unless you join the union (which is total crap and is black mail). Unions which once helped the U.S. worker/economy have now become organizations they weren't intended to be (i.e. If i'm a libertarian and I'm in a union. It dosen't matter what I think, the union will send money to a political canidates campain [of their choosing] to help them gain power.


-Taxes/Tariffs

This is a way the U.S. should regulate outsourcing. Will new tariffs/taxes be passed to let American companies compete with the foreign companies, nope. Why not you ask, because American business pays for those political campaigns and they control the politicians.

Prime example NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), what a great idea. Now American companies can hire people in Brazil to do the job at 1/15th of the cost and ship it to Americans tax free.

I remember someone using the example of Walmart earlier. Let me tell you a little story about Walmart. I date a girl who's grandfather is the founder/owner of Lee's Aquarium. Lee's did the Aquarium products for Walmart (making fish tanks). Recently Lee's lost the contract to Walmart, why, because a chinese company can do it cheaper.

Now lets level the playing field. Lets say we raise tarrifs/taxes on imports. Lets say the cost of the chinese aquarium evened out to be the cost of the american aquarium after tariffs/taxes, who do you think walmart would choose. To say it's capitalism because some person in a third world country is willing to get paid 1/15th of an American workers cost is crap. Those people in those countries are being exploited, they work long hours and recieve crappy pay. It's sad that U.S. companies are happily using this cheap labor in order to increase their stock price so the ceo can buy that new Porsche he/she wants.

I remember someone talking about a large corporation in the U.S. being registerd in Bermuda to avoid taxes. That is one of the things that royally ticks me off. I believe congress need to pass a bill that if xyz percent of your revenues come from the U.S. you should have to pay U.S. taxes (again level the playing field).



-H1B Visa's

Whoever thought of this should be beaten severly. Sending foreign workers here to do jobs a person in the U.S. can do is just silly.n bI say we should cancel all of these and send some people packing.

-General Outsourcing and how to stop it

Outsourcing won't stop as long as American businesses own our politicians. What do we need to do to stop it. Pass taxes/tariffs on companies who use cheap labor to equal the playing field. Lower taxes on U.S. business and their workers. Stop spending more money then the government takes in.

---END

Sorry if this is kind of jabbered, I can't really concentrate right now.

Originally posted by adorno
PBS?

Loog your credibility suffers tremendously when you use PBS as a source to quote from.

PBS is ultra-leftist in its reporting and analysis. There is nothing that any republican president or republican government official does that PBS agrees with. No matter what the issue, especially economics, they will always attack republicans as misguided or wrong.

If you want to argue an issue, please don't quote from BBC, Al-Jazeera, Pravda, or PBS.


Let me explain: Every time it's been tried, it has worked! I'm talking about cutting taxes to boost the economy.

It is true that initially the government will have less money after a tax cut, but eventually, after the tax cuts have had enough time to kick in, the economy gets a big boost and so does the government revenue.

After the Reagan tax cuts, government revenue more than doubled!!!!!!

But, greedy spenders in Washington saw so much money coming in that their eyes opened up big and they felt they had to spend it to impress their constituencies about how much they were doing for them.

Like I keep saying, revised or spun history from PBS or any other source does not work when you're talking to informed people.

The Pentagon, for your information, runs our Defense Department. It would be hippocritical and dangerous for our defense department to buy foreign for any of our major weapons systems. That's not to say that we couldn't use some foreign help or parts in building what we need. But for most of our systems, major or small, it behooves us to buy American. The Pentagon needs to keep many secrets and outsourcing can compromise those secrets.

Please, do yourself a favor, even if it hurts: watch and read other news sources, even if you disagree with them. You need to balance out your sources.

I DO!


What are you still going on about? Cartman got you from all angles in his reply.

You're worse than Hannity and Combs.

http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/H/1994/ch13_p3.htm

http://www.washingtonfreepress.org/33/First.html

adorno, how old are you? were you even fully aware of what was going on in the 80's, or are you getting all your information from right wing reports? It seems like the only places where you'll find radical assertions such as yours, are from right wingers, and not independents who aren't biased.

There's other morons out there that want people to think that the economic boom during the Clinton years was because of Reagans tax cuts. LOL.

Tax cuts only benefit the wealthy. Republicans have a history of brutally messing up the economy, it's always been like that.

Wow, great thread, I really don't have an opinion to add at this time, but for all of you who disagree with outsourcing, and love google.. Might want to take a look at this..

Google India is hiring
http://www.google.com/jobs/sw-bangalore.html

Originally posted by adorno


If you want to argue an issue, please don't quote from BBC, Al-Jazeera, Pravda, or PBS.

allright :rolleyes:

maybe you should have checked out the cato source i gave you...
anyway

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/88-301/classical_model/deficit_data.html

data on US deficits


Originally posted by adorno


After the Reagan tax cuts, government revenue more than doubled!!!!!!


In nominal dollars it almost doubled, in constant dollars however it only grew 20% (if you are asking for a source right now, it means you didn't read the data on US deficits i gave you)

Cartman, you are ruthless... I used to be a research clerk for a Federal Judge in the U.S. When I am rich (if you are still poor), I'm hiring you... get em tiger...

dk2:

Great job!

You're 19?

You sound a lot more informed and a lot wiser than many other posters in this thread. While I don't agree 100% with some of your points, YOU'RE RIGHT ON!

Consider a career in politics or economics. You'll do well.


---------------------------------------

kckclass:

I'm still having a hard time understanding you, so I won't even try.

--------------------------------------------

bagpuss & Critic:

I didn't intend to turn this thread into a discussion about the news networks and how they present their news.

If you like, start another thread about that, or, would you like me start one?

-----------------------------------------------

endore rocks:

Quoting from you:

"adorno, how old are you? were you even fully aware of what was going on in the 80's, or are you getting all your information from right wing reports? It seems like the only places where you'll find radical assertions such as yours, are from right wingers, and not independents who aren't biased.

There's other morons out there that want people to think that the economic boom during the Clinton years was because of Reagans tax cuts. LOL.

Tax cuts only benefit the wealthy. Republicans have a history of brutally messing up the economy, it's always been like that."

What does age have to do with knowledge and facts?

I'll tell you how old I am. I'm old enough that some of my political heroes were John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey, even President Carter whom I voted for, and many other democratic government officials. I couldn't stand to vote for any republican back then.

But then I grew older and started examining my surroundinds and that of my fellow Puerto Ricans and black and other minorities who lived around me. When I examined the issues and where all the parties stood, I realized I and a lot of other people around me would be better off being republican. The republican party has a long way to go before I can say I'm with them 100%, but I could not see me being a democrat. However, there are some democrats that I could still vote for. I was brought poor and I never became rich, but as a whole, I think I and a lot of other people stand a better chance if republicans are in control By the way, it did take me a long time before I made the switch to republican.

Party wise, it is the liberal side of the democratic party which drove me away from it.


I was 100% aware of what was happening in the 80s and even a lot of people who didn't know what was happening then, benefitted from the 80s economy.

It sounds like to you , anybody that disagrees with you points is automatically a right wing fanatic, and democrats and independents know better how to run an economy and a government. Give me a break!

You can call me a moron, but before Clinton took office, the economy was already on an upswing. What had Clinton done to make the economy start recovering before he took office? Look it up. And yes, it was due to economic policies of the past, including Reagan's.

Tax cuts benefit everybody, wealthy or poor. And whether you like it or not, it is the wealthy in big business and the small business owners who are the driving force behing the American economy. The wealthy have more and they spend more. That's a plus for the economy. The wealthy invest more, thereby creating more jobs. Trickle down economics WORKS, whether you or l like it or not.

In the mid 90s the republican congress passed a balanced budget amendment and Clinton's hand was forced and he signed it. They also forced his hand on the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. He didn't want to sign it, but it was an election year.

Much of the boom in the economy in the 90s was due to the interned boom (the dot.com boom). It turns out that much of that economy was due to great expectations not backed up by reasonable economic policies. When truth caught up with investors and the businesses based on the internet, the dot.com bust occurred. To a large extent, much of the 90s economy was a lie and people are still paying the price for that.

The American economy goes up and down in cycles for different reasons. But I will always trust a republican more than a democrat when it comes to running an economy.

Having said all that, you need to remember that the U.S. economy is too big for any one person to understand, much less run it. The economy is too complex and large, and no matter who the president is, he has very little influence on whether an economy balloons or busts.

-------------------------------------------------


Now, this thread has become too large. Anybody new to this thread would not want to invest a long time reading it or responding to any points in it.

Not only that; the thread has gone too far off topic.

So if anybody insists on continuing this discussion, maybe they could just start another thread, or I will.

Thanks all.

.

http://news.com.com/2100-1022-5162467.html?tag=nefd_hed

I wouldn't worry to much about it, given the fact that the bottom is falling out of the American dollar and it is headed south at a rapid rate of notts and The Australia dollar is getting stronger and stronger every day it won't be long before Australia starts using America as it's off-shore labour market. :rofl:


Question "did you hear about America .. they USE to be a rich an powerful nation."


Doc

dk2 >> "Outsourcing - the debate continues!"

You have got to be joking :eek: [we need a smile where the jaw drops to the floor or a person passes out]

__________

>> http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=236119

9 pages of debate not enough for you, i don't know what more i have to say on the matter now.

Doc, just took a quick look at the exchange rates . HA what the Aus dollar is at might be good [$1 Aus is 77 US cents] but the pound is or was until 36 hours ago at an 11 year high, the dollar has fought back a tad. [£1 is $1.86].

Of course the exchange companies will screw you over and you won't get that good a rate but that happens with everyone. The dollar might as well have been 2 to the pound. Not so good for bringing in US created profits bit it is good for tourists and the like and America for the time being.

Critic,

Critic .... seems it has dropped back a bit over night. It was around 79c yesterday. it did reach 81c at one point. The economists are predicting it will get as high as 84 or 85 .. It is the highest it has been in years .. a far cry from the lows of 45c not that long ago.

Not good for the export industry but great for people buying from the net and or holidaying overseas.

Doc

The United States Workers Protection Act seeks to prohibit taxpayer money from being used to outsource or take offshore those jobs formerly done in the U.S.


outsourcing is going to end sooner than many us think.

First it is the govt contracts (http://www.hindu.com/2004/02/20/stories/2004022005480100.htm) that shouldn't be outsourced

Then it will be contracts from big companies

Then of course jobs from the small companies

Then NO individual should outsource at all

I forsee the last 3 happening within the next year or two.

Originally posted by chrisranjana
outsourcing is going to end sooner than many us think.

First it is the govt contracts (http://www.hindu.com/2004/02/20/stories/2004022005480100.htm) that shouldn't be outsourced

Then it will be contracts from big companies

Then of course jobs from the small companies

Then NO individual should outsource at all

I forsee the last 3 happening within the next year or two.

I thought that, given most if not all companies are listed these days, and all that the shareholder is interested in, is profits, and the only way to make profits is to slash costs, and the most easiest way to slash cost, is to go off shore, therefore the process will continue ad infinitum. .. end of sentence ... start new sentence. .... What can people do to change this,

Doc

and where outsourcing stops of course H1B visas start !

Originally posted by TheDoctor
I wouldn't worry to much about it, given the fact that the bottom is falling out of the American dollar and it is headed south at a rapid rate of notts and The Australia dollar is getting stronger and stronger every day it won't be long before Australia starts using America as it's off-shore labour market. :rofl:


Question "did you hear about America .. they USE to be a rich an powerful nation."


Doc

Shall we bomb your country now or later?

Because that'll be the only way to remain in power if we continue to let our half-brain President run this country.

http://dailyshow.com/mp/play.php?reposid=/multimedia/tds/headlines/8096.html

Originally posted by Rob83

Because that'll be the only way to remain in power if we continue to let our half-brain President run this country.

http://dailyshow.com/mp/play.php?reposid=/multimedia/tds/headlines/8096.html

You talk about brains?

Relying on comedy shows for your news and views?

------------------------------------------------

dk2:

Think again about what you're doing.

I'm trying hard to stay off this thread because of what happened on the last thread which I started last week.. Too many people will quickly change the subject or will come in with their uninformed opinions. I don't mind listening to different points of view, but I would prefer that they at least have good knowledge on the subject.

Originally posted by Rob83
Shall we bomb your country now or later?

Because that'll be the only way to remain in power if we continue to let our half-brain President run this country.

http://dailyshow.com/mp/play.php?reposid=/multimedia/tds/headlines/8096.html

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart rocks.

Luckily i can get all of the shows via the internet (and watch some pieces on the site) and watch the weekly global edition on CNN International.

dk2:

See how your thread has progressed? People just don't know how to stay on subject, or won't.

Not only that.

Your thread has been merged with the original thread from last week, which means that not too many people will bother to read through all that material just to get to the end and any new points that people would like to make.

Outsourcing is getting pounded by the day.



Here's the catch: If more U.S. workers than foreign workers received the ax, the company would be "ineligible for further assistance" until it started hiring American employees again.



http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/international/stories/nsl,99240.html

Adorno said

"kckclass: I'm still having a hard time understanding you, so I won't even try."


And that is one of the problems in the world today. I can't understand why Russians do the things they do, so why try. I can't understand why India would want to outsource or why U.S. corps would put their own home labor market second to a third world country, so why try. I can't understand how Koreans would steal and torture dogs and eat them, so why try.

Ya know, yesterday I had to put my dog down and being somewhat of a hermit on a sailboat who spends a lot of time online or on a beach with that dog that was a tough nut and for some reason today I am gunning for someone...with all due respect Adorno and anyone else thinking about isolationist policies:


You're a human on a planet, not a castle on a hill with a moat. You have an obligation to try to improve the place (planet Earth) that gave you the breathe of life as well as an obligation to help effect positive change in humanity as a whole because if they screw up their environment (war does that quite effectively), it affects us here. If their population is starving or riots or nukes their neighbors, it affects us here. If their people cannot find work in India, they will immigrate with an H1B and that affects us here.

People who want to live in some isolationist's dreamworld are thinking like cavemen. You can build a retreat for you and your family (I did) and even lock yourself in and hope the world won't change and blow your little sanctuary away but more likely you will be subject to the whims of the politicians who move in sync with the Feds who move in sync (or at least respond) to global pressures; time waits for no one and this world is changing. Get with the program. Contribute to the global programs, expect people in India are going to participate in that program too, either in a negative or positive manner, but they will affect what happens at Safeway.


Now the belief that the effect is negative on U.S. jobs denies the SUM of the long range affects of how a poor economy vs. a rich economy in India or elsewhere can affect exports from the U.S. From selling them burgers and fries at Mickie-D's to wondering if they are going to be in a civil or external war to wondering if they are going to become a breeding ground for terrorists and as New York showed, that can certainly have a very negative effect on the economy; much worse than losing a few jobs which can be offset somewhat with gains in employment in export industries.

In short, if we teach their populations modern technical skills we gain an ally on the political scene and a customer at the consumer level, even though perhaps we gain a competitor in some technical field, but most important, we can a stable neighbor where there was the potential for either civil war (which isn't good for anyone's economy) and the way to do that is to teach. Period. Perhaps a lesson in international relations or demographic transitions will help you understand why education and international economics are keys to healthy economies today.

The good news is that whether or not you understand the value of helping third world countries obtain modern skillsets the process is exploding anyway because enough people on the planet do understand it quite well. If you want to profit from it write a book or start some venture that involves a foreign country. If you want to complain that the U.S. is losing jobs then work at mitigating that loss by giving a hand to industries that are tapping foreign markets. Simply complaining or hiding out while this process goes on will be fatal to many businesses.

It's a whole new world and those who embrace it survive. Those who run from it will be mowed down and those who THINK they are just sitting on the sidelines watching today will either become involved tomorrow or will be part of the casualty list of businesses that tanked because they weren't able to embrace (or ahem, to use your words...understand) the way business is done in the 21st century or the relationship they have, like it or not, with places like India.

And on the subject of comedy and politics, if the President is a clown, shouldn't the American People should be allowed to see him at his finest, especially during an election year?

kckclass:

Why are you responding to an old post? This thread was too long for anyone new to the thread to want to read it through it.

You made your points, even if you rambled.

If you feel nostalgic about a subject matter, start a similar thread but don't make it too similar or it will get merged with an old thread and your discussion will be lost in neverland.

When I can read through your rambling I understand your points; and some of your points are noble.

But you have to at some point realize that when you deal with the real world, oftentimes noble causes fall on deaf ears. You're not the first one in history to want to try to change the world. There are millions now, and many more in the past who wanted to change the world for the better. But you have to consider the real world conditions when you undertake such an endeavor.

Forget this thread and start another. I'll give you the subject heading: "Noble causes & world peace: pipe dreams?"

real world v pipe dreams.

real world...labs i teach kids get them good jobs and single moms can feed their families, gang bangers stop dealing drugs, teenage murders stop psychotic behavior, seniors gain self-esteem with new pc repair skills.


pipe dream...others are doing it too. oh wait, scratch that. i am not alone nor the only enlightened person. apparently there is a growing clique of 'off-the-beaten-path' brand of teachers doing this. ok, how about...

pipe dream...americans are helping folks overseas. ooops, my mistake. that is real world too. and as expected most of the time it results in better international relations and a better outlook for the communities we give to.

ok, how about...

pipe dream...using the skills they have learned they are able to reduce dependence on american donations. ooops, that happens too and american citizens save money.


how about


pipe dream...we never use foreign labor again and u.s. unemployment goes to almost 0. not bloody likely.


for me it's more than noble to help these folks. it's fun. i do it (for 20 years) because having written millions and millions of lines of financial software and the associated stress therein, i unwind when i teach, get loose, have a blast and enjoy the afterglow in a student's face. it's actually quite a selfish act when i host labs or teach. i dig it.


and i expect that as time goes on and we teach more folks overseas these skills, more people will get addicted to the process and...


...when enough of them understand the importance, things like OUTSOURCING (this thread) will be more readily accepted as the global economy becomes more real and prevelant.


i appreciate that you expect congress to wack firms using outsourced labor and i do not entirely disagree that it would be nice of american techs got to work on american projects...but...


between the stockholders and the techs overseas who offer great rates, u.s. firms are going to use the best labor pool they can find. sometimes performance is substandard (a lot of the time) and sometimes it is comparable and when it is, it reenforces that firms desire to use it...


in the meantime, hang in there, have fun and yeah, i think we have all kicked this thread 'bout to death.

Originally posted by kckclass

in the meantime, hang in there, have fun and yeah, i think we have all kicked this thread 'bout to death.

Like I said, you may have some points to make, but, you and I are about the only ones reading your posts and mine in this thread.

Start another thread like I suggested and maybe other people, besides myself, will be tempted to reply to your posts.

Another thing: when you post is it possible to not be so wordy? Many of your points can be made without having to provide extraneous background information. Lengthy posts just make a thread overly long and people will tune out of so much reading, expecially if people start quoting long posts.

America too gets the benefeit of outsourcing, Take the hosting business, I am from South Asia and If I go to rent a server with 500-1000gb of bandwidth it will cost me upwards of usd1000/- per month. but check out the offerings on WHT alone USD 99 can get a decent server !

As each country devolopes each has its advantages and disadvantages. we have political instability, High bandwidth costs, high capital costs low quality infrastructure etc.

While the devolped countries have higher cost of living but higher standard of living too.

Market forces create a balancing act. Basically in each country you adapt to what you can do best.

we devolope software, and we get beaten by quotes from russians, Indians etc

What I have come to accept is Global competition is a reality, create a niche of what you do best, Have a reason why you charge for what you charge, ( additional support , quality of work etc ) and you will create market for yourself.

Shaheer

Originally posted by Eric Cartman
no. Btw if wages rise in those countries they simply move again. Like for instance a lot of companies in eastern europe have moved to north africa.

welcome to capitalism, companies think in the short run.



Yep and all the manufacturing jobs lost in the 70's and 80's to Mexico have now been lost by Mexico. They moved them to Asia once wages and benefits "increased" in Mexico. No one cared much when blue collar jobs moved overseas but now that's it's tech/professional jobs everyone complains. No one cares when jobs are sent to Ireland (we lost a lot of jobs in the company I work for to Galway, Ireland). labor is cheap in Ireland and they offer awesome tax breaks but since the jobs are taken by white Europeans no one complains as much as to the jobs lost to Mexico, India, China, etc.

Originally posted by arpmn
Yep and all the manufacturing jobs lost in the 70's and 80's to Mexico have now been lost by Mexico. They moved them to Asia once wages and benefits "increased" in Mexico. No one cared much when blue collar jobs moved overseas but now that's it's tech/professional jobs everyone complains. No one cares when jobs are sent to Ireland (we lost a lot of jobs in the company I work for to Galway, Ireland). labor is cheap in Ireland and they offer awesome tax breaks but since the jobs are taken by white Europeans no one complains as much as to the jobs lost to Mexico, India, China, etc.

No body seems to be complaining about the job losses to Australia either. More and more Hollywood companies are opting to make there movies in Australia. Evidently the talent (camerea men, makeup etc etc) in Australia excells and the cost savings are great.

Doc

hi friends,

my 2 cents worth from southeast asia,

outsourcing means different thing in 2 different part of the world, the west and the east.

To US and W. Europe, many jobs are lost to countries like india and china where labour is cheap. This is largely due to: a ready supply of labour and the exchange rate in these asian countries.

At the receiving end of outsourcing are developing or third world countries who are happily absorbing all the jobs created in their economy. In general, outsourcing means Foreign Direct Investment, employment and a general higher spending power of the consumers in the economy, translating into growth.

As the boundries and barriers to trade "die", labour has become increasing mobile. This is a phen of the so-call "global market".
This process cannot be stopped, companies will always strive to lower their costs, and in this outsourcing case, companies will always try to lower their labour costs.

Of course countries can use political means to stop domestic firms from outsourcing overseas in ways like:

1. Helping to lower wages in the domestic labour market
2. Pass laws that forbide domestic companies from outsourcing
3. Pass laws that reduce the number of jobs that domestic companies can outsource.

One thing, if companies in any economies were be banned from outsourcing by the government for political reasons, what will happen is:

Inefficiency in production leading to
Higher cost leading to
Inability to compete with their higher prices leading to
Lower revenue and profit leading to
Either the company folding up or reducing its operations to cut cost.

Apparently, in the middle or long term, it will do the domestic economies more harm than good because jobs will be lost. This is inevitable.

However, lets look at things from a longer term perpectives,

If most of the developed nations were to allow their firms to outsource jobs, this may cause unemployment in the short term, BUT:

At the receiving end, developing countries' consumption will increase as employment rate increases. This will also translate into a bigger appetite for foreign goods. Imports from the developed countried (esp hi tech goods) will increase. This translate into revenue for the developed nations

In my own personal opinion, what the developed countries should do is:

1. Not give in to public sentiment and protect jobs at all
2. Educate the public about the real problem which in this case is to move up the value chain and train workers to do "hi tech" jobs that cant be outsourced
3. Focus on RnD that will cotinue to churn out new products and technologies to feed the economy and keep it growing.


In my country Singapore, we faced a crisis when unemployment rates hit an all time high in the last 2 years.

Here in my country, trade unions are "controlled" by the government and have little or no bargining power with the employers.

What my government did was:

1. Reduce corporate tax to help the private sector so as to deter unemployment
2. Reduce workers benefits and salary which translates into cost savings for the employers
3. Organising jobs fairs to match propective employers and employees because while some industries were not doing well, other were doing well and were in fact facing a shortage of labour. The only barrier for labour resources to move from industry to industry was the skill set possessed by the worker and thus:
4. The government took the initiative to push labour unions and several government organisations to provide heavily subsidised training courses to help the population improve their skills
5. Offered 300-500 to each citizen above the age of 21 for the last 2 years under our "Economic Restructuring Scheme" (ERS) to stimulate consumption and help the citizens to tide over this tough period
6. Government also worked closely with the local educational institutes to plan the syllabus to help fine tune the "skills" of our future workforce
7. Government emphasising on the life sciences with the hope on riding on the next would be "industrial revolution" of the world
8. Subsidise heavily RnD projects
9. Encouraging entrepreneurship within the economy with incestives

As such, from my perception from a country where the government takes a serious interests in the economic well being of the country, where the government has a strong say and control in the economy, what they did was not to protect the economy in the short term but to allow the population to suffer from unemployment while taking serious efforts to fixed it in the middle and long term basis.

Do they work? Well after 4 years of recession, we are finally seeing positive growth...:)

The golden rule is: You cant stop the inevitable, you gotta buck up and move on....

my 2 cents...:)

hi designnyc,

what you pointed out apparently is another economic problem: one that is domestic in nature, what you pointed out here is about the wealth distribution within an economy...from what i feel, its nothing much linked to outsourcing on a global basis.

with all due respect. :)

Originally posted by designNYC
Ok I understand your questiosn lemem ckear up :

read my post above in case you did nto see I mentioned YOU WILL NOT be benefitting a peeny from these voracious markets.

Taking on yoru examples, a Nike shoe made in Thailand will mean 5x profits to its top 10-100 people management and maybe top 10 sharrehlders.

Rest nothing ..

Similar with auos. A ford Escort made in China will be profits to top 50 management at Ford, not you or a $80,000 /year mechincal enginner employed in their Deabon Plant at MI.

Its the HIGH UP PEOPLE who benefit from outsourcing ...

Do you get my point ?

Regards

to DK2,

from what you posted:"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now lets level the playing field. Lets say we raise tarrifs/taxes on imports. Lets say the cost of the chinese aquarium evened out to be the cost of the american aquarium after tariffs/taxes, who do you think walmart would choose. To say it's capitalism because some person in a third world country is willing to get paid 1/15th of an American workers cost is crap. Those people in those countries are being exploited, they work long hours and recieve crappy pay. It's sad that U.S. companies are happily using this cheap labor in order to increase their stock price so the ceo can buy that new Porsche he/she wants.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

one thing, while there is labour exploited in third world countries/developing countries, I can tell you that most of them are not:

why?
1. Standard of living in lower here in asia (except japan) workers here can live comfortably with wages 1/5 those of the west
2. exchange rates, did you factor in the exchange rates? for 1/5 of the wages of those in the west, these workers in third country or developing countries are effectively drawing a salary of those in the middle working class and higher in their domestic economies
3. Hunger for success/desire to work hard. I am talking about extreme hunger and desire in asian's cases as being for poverty for decades, the population here are really hungry, really hungry, from the west's perspective, you might think its labour exploitation, in our view, its just to make a living.


you mentioned:
---------------------------------
It's sad that U.S. companies are happily using this cheap labor in order to increase their stock price so the ceo can buy that new Porsche he/she wants.
----------------------------------

i believe the decision to outsource is solely due to costs. Businesses will always strive to cut costs to compete on the market effectively and if you dont, you are out of the game. Labour is really cheap in asia and the quality of work is the same. Big businesses do not generally make haste decision. Outsourcing will be here to stay. Why? With every business decision, it always almost boils down to supply and demand:

1. Outsourcing will stop when the demand for outsourced jobs in third world/developed country will drive the labour "price" to that of the west. Outsourcing will stop. But this will not happen anytime soon as:

There is abundant supply of skilled labour in asia. India and China alone already account for about 30-40 of the world's population.


Also pls refer to my post earlier, a strong india and a strong china economically means a higher demand more imports, and im talking about a really high demand. (putting aside political reasons) Imagine with a combined population for china and india say 3billion later down the road say 5-10years, and each consumer consumes USD1000 worth of foreign products, that translate directly USD3000 BILLION worth of goods. Would you rather see a strong india and china from an economic perspective?

Originally posted by 7de5igns
Its sad, because we don't have enough jobs on our soil and now we are moving to other countries offering jobs?


Need solution :gthumb:

I 've it.

STOP INTERNET. and start with ballcock cart STOP INDUSTRIES start village works (i.e weaving manually, instead of steal post use mud post ) so that whatever profit generates that will be in same country :banana:

BEST THING start III WORLD WAR so that USA can make and sell arms ( just it did to come out of 1930 depression )

1st one is M.K.GANDHI 2nd is ?

Furthermore people, does anybody have any suggestions besides socializing the whole world? [/B]

I've given one answer.

one more here

REVERSE the evolution cycle :roll2:

Originally posted by adorno
This economy grew at the fastest pace in over 20 years. This economy has produced enough to create millions of jobs. Many of those jobs are being outsourced to foregin workers. The problem with the economy is not in growth, it is in the number of jobs produced. Many other jobs will not come about if companies continue insisting in productivity gains from their current workforce. If that productivity were translated into new jobs instead of people working more, then it's possible that there would be full employment. Productivity gains in the U. S. last year was 7%. But neither Bush nor any other president can force companies to hire new people instead of getting more out of the current workforce.

Some of the suggestions you make to keep jobs here are the responsibility of the Congress, not the president.


(By the way, companies using foreign workers save up to 80% and more in labor).

This economy is doing great but is not doing so good for those unemployed.




EXACTLY :beer: