"SHOW US the jobs!" people scream. - Give me a break says Stossel

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Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
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Originally posted by: ntdz
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Give me a break indeed. As I and others have noted here many times - outsourcing can infact help companies currently employing Americans stay in business and/or employ even more Americans.

Outsourcing has become a dirty word but it really shouldn't be. Should we promote outsourcing? maybe, maybe not -but to sit and whine about something that is going to happen because of the nature of business economics is rather silly.

Yes, people lose jobs -but as noted in the piece - the people actually are better off in the long run with better and higher paying jobs they wouldn't have considered if not for being laid-off.

"outsourcing can infact help companies currently employing Americans stay in business and/or employ even more Americans."

You keep saying it but where is the proof?

You and none of the Republicans can show the proof because the above is all a LIE.

Well the LIE is coming home to roost with more people homeless than ever before.

The Republicans continue to hide behind phoney numbers but they will no longer be able to hide the blight.

Take some econ classes and get back to me. His statement is 100% correct.


This guy has a PhD in economics does that help?

March 15, 2005

America?s Has-Been Economy
By Paul Craig Roberts

A country cannot be a superpower without a high tech economy, and America?s high tech economy is eroding as I write.

The erosion began when US corporations outsourced manufacturing. Today many US companies are little more than a brand name selling goods made in Asia.

Corporate outsourcers and their apologists presented the loss of manufacturing capability as a positive development. Manufacturing, they said, was the "old economy," whose loss to Asia ensured Americans lower consumer prices and greater shareholder returns. The American future was in the "new economy" of high tech knowledge jobs.

This assertion became an article of faith. Few considered how a country could maintain a technological lead when it did not manufacture.

So far in the 21st century there is scant sign of the American "new economy." The promised knowledge-based jobs have not appeared. To the contrary, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a net loss of 221,000 jobs in six major engineering job classifications.

Today many computer, electrical and electronics engineers, who were well paid at the end of the 20th century, are unemployed and cannot find work. A country that doesn?t manufacture doesn?t need as many engineers, and much of the work that remains is being outsourced or filled with cheaper foreigners brought into the country on H-lb and L-1 work visas.

Confronted with inconvenient facts, outsourcing?s apologists moved to the next level of fantasy. Many technical and engineering jobs, they said, have become "commodity jobs," routine work that can be performed cheaper offshore. America will stay in the lead, they promised, because it will keep the research and development work and be responsible for design and innovation.

Alas, now it is design and innovation that are being outsourced. Business Week reports ("Outsourcing Innovation," March 21) that the pledge of First World corporations to keep research and development in-house "is now passé."

Corporations such as Dell, Motorola, and Philips, which are regarded as manufacturers based in proprietary design and core intellectual property originating in R&D departments, now put their brand names on complete products that are designed, engineered, and manufactured in Asia by "original-design manufacturers" (ODM).

Business Week reports that practically overnight large percentages of cell phones, notebook PCs, digital cameras, MP3 players, and personal digital assistants are produced by original-design manufacturers. Business Week quotes an executive of a Taiwanese ODM: "Customers used to participate in design two or three years back. But starting last year, many just take our product."

Another offshore ODM executive says: "What has changed is that more customers need us to design the whole product. It?s now difficult to get good ideas from our customers. We have to innovate ourselves." Another says: "We know this kind of product category a lot better than our customers do. We have the capability to integrate all the latest technologies." The customers are America?s premier high tech names.

The design and engineering teams of Asian ODMs are expanding rapidly, while those of major US corporations are shrinking. Business Week reports that R&D budgets at such technology companies as Hewlett Packard, Cisco, Motorola, Lucent Technologies, Ericsson, and Nokia are being scaled back.

Outsourcing is rapidly converting US corporations into a brand name with a sales force selling foreign designed, engineered, and manufactured goods. Whether or not they realize it, US corporations have written off the US consumer market. People who do not participate in the innovation, design, engineering and manufacture of the products that they consume lack the incomes to support the sales infrastructure of the job diverse "old economy."

"Free market" economists and US politicians are blind to the rapid transformation of America into a third world economy, but college bound American students and heads of engineering schools are acutely aware of declining career opportunities and enrollments. While "free trade" economists and corporate publicists prattle on about America?s glorious future, heads of prestigious engineering schools ponder the future of engineering education in America.

Once US firms complete their loss of proprietary architecture, how much intrinsic value resides in a brand name? What is to keep the all-powerful ODMs from undercutting the American brand names?

The outsourcing of manufacturing, design and innovation has dire consequences for US higher education. The advantages of a college degree are erased when the only source of employment is domestic nontradable services.

According to the Los Angeles Times (March 11), the percentage of college graduates among the long-term chronically unemployed has risen sharply in the 21st century. The US Department of Labor reported in March that 373,000 discouraged college graduates dropped out of the labor force in February--a far higher number than the number of new jobs created.

The disappearing US economy can also be seen in the exploding trade deficit. As more employment is shifted offshore, goods and services formerly produced domestically become imports. Nothink economists and Bush administration officials claim that America?s increasing dependence on imported goods and services is evidence of the strength of the US economy and its role as engine of global growth.

This claim ignores that the US is paying for its outsourced goods and services by transferring its wealth and future income streams to foreigners. Foreigners have acquired $3.6 trillion of US assets since 1990 as a result of US trade deficits.

Foreigners have a surfeit of dollar assets. For the past three years their increasing unwillingness to acquire more dollars has resulted in a marked decline in the dollar?s value in relation to gold and tradable currencies.

Recently the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans have expressed their concerns. According to Bloomberg (March 10), Japan?s unrealized losses on its dollar reserve holdings have reached $109.6 billion.

The Asia Times reported (March 12) that Asian central banks have been reducing their dollar holdings in favor of regional currencies for the past three years. A study by the Bank of International Settlements concluded that the ratio of dollar reserves held in Asia declined from 81% in the third quarter of 2001 to 67% in September 2004. India reduced its dollar holdings from 68% of total reserves to 43%. China reduced its dollar holdings from 83% to 68%.

The US dollar will not be able to maintain its role as world reserve currency when it is being abandoned by that area of the world that is rapidly becoming the manufacturing, engineering and innovation powerhouse.

Misled by propagandistic "free trade" claims, Americans will be at a loss to understand the increasing career frustrations of the college educated. Falling pay and rising prices of foreign made goods will squeeze US living standards as the declining dollar heralds America?s descent into a has-been economy.

Meanwhile the Grand Old Party has passed a bankruptcy "reform" that is certain to turn unemployed Americans living on debt and beset with unpayable medical bills into the indentured servants of credit card companies. The steely-faced Bush administration is making certain that Americans will experience to the full their country's fall.

Paul Craig Roberts, a former Reagan Administration official, is the author of The Supply-Side Revolution and, with Lawrence M. Stratton, of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow?s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
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Another one:

April 18, 2005

Outsourcing?A Greater Threat Than Terrorism?
By Paul Craig Roberts

Is offshore outsourcing good or harmful for America?

To convince Americans of outsourcing?s benefits, corporate outsourcers sponsor misleading one-sided "studies." Only a small handful of people have looked objectively at the issue. These few and the large number of Americans whose careers have been destroyed by outsourcing have a different view of outsourcing?s impact.

But so far there has been no debate, just a shouting down of skeptics as "protectionists."

Now comes an important new book, Outsourcing America, published by the American Management Association. The authors, two brothers, Ron and Anil Hira, are experts on the subject. One is a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the other is professor at Simon Fraser University.

The authors note that despite the enormity of the stakes for all Americans, a state of denial exists among policymakers and outsourcing?s corporate champions about the adverse effects on the US.

The Hira brothers succeed in their task of interjecting harsh reality where delusion has ruled.

In what might be an underestimate, a University of California study concludes that 14 million white-collar jobs are vulnerable to being outsourced offshore. These are not only call-center operators, customer service and back-office jobs, but also information technology, accounting, architecture, advanced engineering design, news reporting, stock analysis, and medical and legal services.

The authors note that these are the jobs of the American Dream, the jobs of upward mobility that generate the bulk of the tax revenues that fund our education, health, infrastructure, and social security systems.

The loss of these jobs "is fool?s gold for companies." Corporate America?s short-term mentality, stemming from bonuses tied to quarterly results, is causing US companies to lose not only their best employees?their human capital?but also the consumers who buy their products.

Employees displaced by foreigners and left unemployed or in lower paid work have a reduced presence in the consumer market. They provide fewer retirement savings for new investment.

Nothink economists assume that new, better jobs are on the way for displaced Americans, but no economists can identify these jobs. The authors point out that "the track record for the re-employment of displaced US workers is abysmal:

"The Department of Labor reports that more than one in three workers who are displaced remains unemployed, and many of those who are lucky enough to find jobs take major pay cuts. Many former manufacturing workers who were displaced a decade ago because of manufacturing that went offshore took training courses and found jobs in the information technology sector. They are now facing the unenviable situation of having their second career disappear overseas."

American economists are so inattentive to outsourcing?s perils that they fail to realize that the same incentive that leads to the outsourcing of one tradable good or service holds for all tradable goods and services.

In the 21st century the US economy has only been able to create jobs in nontradable domestic services?the hallmark of a third world labor force.

Prior to the advent of offshore outsourcing, US employees were shielded against low wage foreign labor. Americans worked with more capital and better technology, and their higher productivity protected their higher wages.

Outsourcing forces Americans to "compete head-to-head with foreign workers" by "undermining US workers? primary competitive advantage over foreign workers: their physical presence in the US" and "by providing those overseas workers with the same technologies."

The result is a lose-lose situation for American employees, American businesses, and the American government. Outsourcing has brought about record unemployment in engineering fields and a major drop in university enrollments in technical and scientific disciplines. Even many of the remaining jobs are being filled by lower paid foreigners brought in on H-1b and L-1 visas. American employees are discharged after being forced to train their foreign replacements.

US corporations justify their offshore operations as essential to gain a foothold in emerging Asian markets. The Hira brothers believe this is self-delusion.

"There is no evidence that they will be able to outcompete local Chinese and Indian companies, who are very rapidly assimilating the technology and know-how from the local US plants. In fact, studies show that Indian IT companies have been consistently outcompeting their US counterparts, even in US markets. Thus, it is time for CEOs to start thinking about whether they are fine with their own jobs being outsourced as well."

The authors note that the national security implications of outsourcing "have been largely ignored."

Outsourcing is rapidly eroding America?s superpower status. Beginning in 2002 the US began running trade deficits in advanced technology products with Asia, Mexico and Ireland.

As these countries are not leaders in advanced technology, the deficits obviously stem from US offshore manufacturing.

In effect, the US is giving away its technology, which is rapidly being captured, while US firms reduce themselves to a brand name with a sales force.

In an appendix, the authors provide a devastating expose of the three "studies" that have been used to silence doubts about offshore outsourcing?the Global Insight study (March 2004) for the Information Technology Association of America, the Catherine Mann study (December 2003) for the Institute for International Economics, and the McKinsey Global Institute study (August 2003).

The ITAA is a lobbying group for outsourcing. The ITAA spun the results of the study by releasing only the executive summary to reporters who agreed not to seek outside opinion prior to writing their stories.

Mann?s study is "an unreasonably optimistic forecast based on faulty logic and a poor understanding of technology and strategy."

The McKinsey report "should be viewed as a self-interested lobbying document that presents an unrealistically optimistic estimate of the impact of offshore outsourcing and an undeveloped and politically unviable solution to the problems they identify."

Outsourcing America is a powerful work. Only fools will continue clinging to the premise that outsourcing is good for America.

Paul Craig Roberts, a former Reagan Administration official, is the author of The Supply-Side Revolution and, with Lawrence M. Stratton, of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow?s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
 
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Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Give me a break indeed. As I and others have noted here many times - outsourcing can infact help companies currently employing Americans stay in business and/or employ even more Americans. Outsourcing has become a dirty word but it really shouldn't be. Should we promote outsourcing? maybe, maybe not -but to sit and whine about something that is going to happen because of the nature of business economics is rather silly. Yes, people lose jobs -but as noted in the piece - the people actually are better off in the long run with better and higher paying jobs they wouldn't have considered if not for being laid-off.

Uhm...where are they?

Did you know that the "recovery" was the most anemic ecnomic "recovery" after any recession? After every other recession the U.S. economy generated a much higher percentage of new jobs, but not this one.

If foreign outsourcing and global labor wage arbitrage (which also includes foreign work visas such as the H-1B and L-1 visas, mass legal immigration, and mass illegal immigration) are so wonderful then how come the nation has suffered such anemic job growth in spite of a continuing high rate of population increase (32.7 million people in the 10 years from 1990-2000 according to the Census Bureau)?

If you look at the record of the past five years, the U.S. economy has actually lost jobs as a percentage of working age population because the population continues to increase. The other huge issue that is difficult to quanitfy that has barely been measured is the issue of job quality. In other words, a "job" is not a "job"--a huge differnce exists between a middle class job and a temporary poverty wages job.

According to pro-capitalist economist Paul Craig Roberts who served in the Reagan Administration (not exactly a socialist circle), the nation is generating few first world knowledge-based jobs in import-export sensitive areas of the economy. (You can read his columns, such as "U.S. Labor Force: One Foot in the Third World" at http://www.vdare.com/roberts/all_columns.htm )

The real issue that Stossel didn't address and that so far almost no economist or politician will acknowledge or address is the issue of global labor wage arbitrage. Perhaps you can address it. The issue is, if the U.S. labor market merges with the billions of relatively impoverished people in the third world, many of whom are obtaining college educations, why won't the economic forces of supply-and-demand (of and for labor) dictate that American living standards must average out with those of the third world absent a gigantic increase in the demand for labor (very unlikely)? In other words, if the supply of able labor increases dramatically relative to the demand for labor, economics dictates that the price point (wages, standard of living) where supply and demand intersect must be lower since the supply curve will have shifted out. Basically, the owners of capital will keep a larger fraction of the value of the wealth produced in the act of production.

Could you please explain why global labor wage arbitrage and a merger of the American labor market with the billions of impoverished people in the third world will not, thus, result in the decimation of the American middle class and a reduced standard of living for most Americans. (For the purposes of this discussion, ignore the increased costs (and effects on the quality of life) of population increases suffered by the U.S. as a result of mass immigration.)

Of course, our dogmatic economists will yell, "Americans need better education! Americans need to retrain!" The proper response is to should back, "Retrain--for what???" Years ago displaced manufacturing employees were told to retrain--so they entered the computer field. Now laid off computer programmers are being told to retrain--for what?

Uhmm...Uhmm...I know! Biotechnology! Errrt! The U.S. already has an oversupply of life science Ph.D.'s (know what a postdoc--a poor gypsy scientist--is?) and biotech research can be done for lower wages in Asia. Try again. Uhmm...uhmm...Nanotechnology, yeah! Errt! There's no reason why that work can't be done elsewhere for lower wages. The point is that even "Next Big Thing" technology can be done elsewhere.

Americans can have all of their jobs back--just as soon as they are willing to work for third world wages and a third world standard of living.

We cannot innovate our way out of this mess. The only solution is to erect protectionist trade barriers to protect us from the poverty created by socialism, communism, and runaway population growth in other countries.

I'll respond to Stossel's weak arguments in my next post.
 

Infohawk

Lifer
Jan 12, 2002
17,844
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Originally posted by: ntdz
Take some econ classes and get back to me. His statement is 100% correct.

Are you sure you should be lecturing people about econ? You are the one who believes in big government spending and that messing with the free market can produce good results (jets stadium). The modern economic orthodoxy thinks such things are inefficient. (See Vic's post in the Jets post on what real fans of free markets think of people like you).
 

CADsortaGUY

Lifer
Oct 19, 2001
25,162
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www.ShawCAD.com
Originally posted by: Engineer
Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Hey CAD, check this out

Now there won't even be McD jobs in the U.S.

The article says North Dakota but I am sure they will set up call centers in India.

3-10-2005 McDonald's may outsource drive-thru calls

McDonald's wants to outsource your neighborhood drive-thru.

The world's largest fast-food chain said on Thursday it is looking into using remote call centers to take customer orders in an effort to improve service at its drive-thrus.

"If you're in L.A. ... and you hear a person with a North Dakota accent taking your order, you'll know what we're up to,'' McDonald's Chief Executive Jim Skinner told analysts at the Bear Stearns Retail, Restaurants & Apparel Conference in New York.

This has been discussed here before. I don't think it'd save too much if any - you still need a person to take your money. Unless of course you have to buy a McD's card and you just scan it and then charge it up with money every once in a while:p

CsG

It would probably allow 1 person to take orders for 2 locations. Not huge saving, but large enough to not be ignored either.

But again, someone would have to take the money. One for each location and they usually are the ones taking the orders. I don't see much if any benefit to "outsourcing" order taking for fast-food.

CsG

LOL...I wouldn't have thought there would be savings to automating McDonalds either, but it's happening. Automatic drink loader/fillers. Automatic fry basket fillers and loaders. Looking at automatic grills. Maybe it does save enough to warrant all of these innovations.

Oh yeah, automating the making process but the ordertaking and money exchanging doesn't look very promising to save money IMO.

CsG
 
Oct 30, 2004
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But it's restricting outsourcing that would be un-American and stupid. Outsourcing benefits the middle class by bringing lower prices.

That depends on exactly what you regard as the "price". If you merely look at the prices for goods and services that may be true. However, the issue is not really price but buying power, which means that we also need to consider wages. How are average people's wages doing relative to price?

If a person loses their $25/hour + benefits (about $50,000/year plus benefits) computer job and can only find work as a cashier for $10/hour (about $20,000/year) without benefits and the price of a pair of shoes has decreased from $30 to $20 as a result of foreign outsourcing (manufacturing of the shoes abroad, tech work for the shoe company, etc.), has the price really decreased for that person? [Let's not even address the costs of the lost value of the person's college education and the amount of money and opportunity cost wasted in that.]

Stossel only considers the front-end costs which is intellectually dishonest or at the very least evidence of poor critical thinking skills. What about the costs to society of having people who are unemployed and underemployed? That's a back end cost that also needs to be considered.

Might we be better off having lower unemployment, higher wages, a healthy middle class, almost no lower class, and higher prices similar to Japan?

But what about all those jobs going overseas? Consider 50 people in India doing programming that people in California used to do. They work for a company called Collabnet, run by Bill Portelli. The salary for each Indian programmer costs him less than half as much as an American's salary for the same job.

Note, he's talking about relatively high-value-added college-education-requiring jobs here and not stereotypical manual labor jobs. In other words, the jobs going overseas also inclue high-value-added middle class jobs that people are supposed to retrain for.

Yet the Americans who work for his company didn't lose their jobs, because outsourcing saved Collabnet so much money, Portelli could expand in America. "Basically, I've created jobs in America," says Portelli.

"I've built better products, created jobs, been able to raise salaries." Had he not been able to hire Indians, he says, he might even have gone out of business.

The flaw in Stossel's reasoning here is that you cannot just look at the impact of one company that partakes in it. Rather, the entire labor market in that particular field needs to be examined. So, perhaps Collabnet did benefit from it--but did it do so at the expense of its American competitors that did not outsource? As a result of Collabnet's presumably increasing market share brought on by its lower costs, how many American jobs were lost at other companies?

So Collabnet was able to stay in business--but was it able to stay in business in the American market because it produced a better product using American labor--using the same resources available to other companies in the American market that were using American labor--or was it able to stay in business by using cheaper foreign labor and not because it produced a better product? In a closed free market if Collabnet had gone out of business it would have been because its competitors were producing better work product at the same or at lower prices while employing Americans. In contrast, it's possible that Collabnet was able to remain in business as other American businesses suffered decreasing market share and fired their American employees, resulting in a net decrease of Americans employed in the high-value-added college-education-requiring computer services field.

But Stossel either blatantly and intellectually dishonestly evaded that possibility or lacked the intellectual capacity needed to conceive of it.

What?! The fact of the matter is, the most successful companies are outsourcers. And a Dartmouth study found that outsourcers are the bigger job creators.

What kinds of jobs are they creating? High-value-added college-education-requiring jobs or poverty wage retail jobs? When you consider jobs lost by competitors that were slower to outsource or that did not outsource, was the result a net increase of high-value-added college-education-requiring middle class jobs?


Since 1992, America has lost 361 million jobs, but during that same time, it also gained 380 million jobs ? millions more than it lost.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in the decade between 1990-2000 the U.S. population increased by 32.7 million, so America had damned well better gain millions more jobs for all of these people. Of course, it would also be good know what kinds of net new jobs were created.

"Oh, I love my job now!" That's Shirley Bernard talking ? the outsourcing "victim" the AFL-CIO wanted me to interview. At her old job at Levi's, the work was hot, noisy and physically difficult. Now, she's a secretary. She's paid more, too.

She worries about the long term, and she's still an opponent of outsourcing, but she admits that many of her co-workers have moved on to better jobs. "Some of them have got, really got excellent jobs that they would never have even left Levi's for if the plant hadn't closed," she says.

The problem with this argument is that it's an anecdotal example. Surely we could identify thousands of laid-off MBA's who are over fifty with years of experience and productive ability who now suffer age discrimination and cannot find appropriate replacement jobs. Ditto for computer programmers, etc.

I'm happy for Ms. Bernard, but one anecdotal example does not an employment trend make. What about the tens of millions of Americans who lost their jobs during the recession and couldn't find anything comparable to what they had lost? Various news reports have cited studies that show that a huge number of such people cannot find jobs anywhere near comparable to what they had lost.

When a worker is laid off, it's easy to see her pain. Here it comes down the news wire: Thousands of jobs vanish in a single day as a plant closes. The benefits of free trade are harder to spot; when one individual finds new and better work because free trade helped a company expand, it doesn't make the headlines.

Right. In contrast, if a company were to announce plans to hire, say, 20,000 college degree holders, it would probably make news. So why have we only seen announcements about layoffs and few announcements about plans to engage in mass hiring? Why hasn't the Payroll Survey reflected all of this alleged mass hiring in the monthly employment reports and why has the amount of employment as a percentage of working aged population been decreasing?

Shirley's Levi's plant was featured in news reports as an example of the horrible damage done to an American community by outsourcing, but when we visited the site, construction workers were building a college there. Their jobs and all the other jobs created by the college won't make the evening news, but they're a product of outsourcing, too.

The question is, is that college really needed? Is it a real response to an economic demand for college-educated employees, or is it a response to the nation's education arms race whereby people seek out college degrees in the hopes of being able to obtain a middle class job? If it is the later, then that factor alone is not necessarily an indicator that the nation is generating new college-education-requiring jobs. Rather, it might be an indicator that the economy is losing middle class jobs, encouraging people to rush off to college to "retrain" in the hopes of landing one of the remaining middle class jobs. In reality, only a moderate percentage of jobs actually make use of a college education. However, a college education has become a requirement for being hired even though a job might not make any real use of the college education.

Come on now John. I know you can do better. Why don't you point to the statistics showing a huge net increase in the amount of middle class jobs generated over the past five years? (Answer--because there are now such statistics.) Why don't you come out and make a very convincing argument that directly addresses the simple issue of labor wage arbitrage--a very simple supply-and-demand issue? (Answer--because to even acknowledge the issue would weaken the claim that foreign outsourcing is good.) Perhaps Stossel could identify a field where a huge crop of high-value-added knowledge-based jobs that cannot be outsourced will spring up? He can't and neither can any politician or economist. Some economsits have even admitted that their belief that such jobs will open up is based on faith.

What I found telling about Stossel's essay or report is that he didn't make any real economic arguments. Rather he just pointed to selected anecdotal examples. He didn't even think to address the issue of whether foreign outsourcing is an instance of comparative advantage or of absolute advantage and whether the conditions for comparative advantage are present. (However, economist and opponent of outsourcing Paul Craig Roberts is happy to discuss it.)

 
Oct 30, 2004
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Originally posted by: dmcowen674

"outsourcing can infact help companies currently employing Americans stay in business and/or employ even more Americans."

You keep saying it but where is the proof?

You and none of the Republicans can show the proof because the above is all a LIE.

Well the LIE is coming home to roost with more people homeless than ever before.

The Republicans continue to hide behind phoney numbers but they will no longer be able to hide the blight.

It should be noted that foreign outsourcing is but one component of global labor wage arbitrage (whereby the U.S. labor market is merged with the billions of impoverished people in the third world). Other compontents that should be mentioned in the same sentence as outsourcing include:

Foreign work visas, such as the H-1B and L-1. Instead of sending the work overseas to the relatively poor labor, in this instance the relatively poor labor is imported into the U.S.

Mass legal immigration--the supply of impoverished often unskilled labor is increased legally, lowering the price point on the supply-demand curve. This hurts the nation's poor and lower middle class.

Mass illegal immigration--same as the above, but this time it's de jure illegal. It's actualy de facto legal since our federal government refuses to enforce the laws. (Thank you Benedict Bush.)

 
Oct 30, 2004
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Originally posted by: Aisengard
John Stossel is a bit of a twat. That said, the majority of the jobs being outsourced are manufacturing and simple, static jobs. If you can't learn new skills, you won't keep your job. Simple as that. You live in America, you have more of an opportunity to learn adaption skills. If you don't take the opportunity, that ain't anyone's problem but your own.

Oh great one, could you please help those of us who have lesser intelligence who have not yet identified the new fields that will sprout new middle class jobs? Could you please help the millions of Americans who are wondering what they should retrain for?

PhD scientists? Nope--we already have an oversupply. MBAs? They're a dime-a-dozen. Attorneys? They're a dime-a-dozen too. Computer programmers? ROFL. Engineers? Let's just say there's a reason why fewer college students want to major in engineering and it isn't because they're afraid of hard work and anticipate career stability and an abundance of upper middle class jobs in the field.

So, oh great one--can you do what no economist or politician has been able to do so far and tell us what fields to retrain for? You might say nursing, but the supply of nurses will increase as people rush into that field and foreign nurses can be imported anyway. (Nursing salaries also depend, to an extent, on patients' ability to pay medical bills, in which case nursing won't be a safe field if the rest of the economy goes to pot.)

Adapt--yes--adapt to living like they do in the third world. Adapt to being poor. Adapt to watching the value of your four year college degree evaporate as the job market for college degree holders evaporates.
 
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Originally posted by: Deptacon
jesus its been reproted numerous times on several differnt news channels... it killed the whole outsourcing movment on national tv several months ago. just think about it for a freakin second and it makes sense.

geez, hyundai created over 100,000 jobs last yr alone in manufcaturing plants, one of them right down the road from me. we dont outsource anywhere near that every year.

Actually, it's also been reported that overall, "insourcing" is a myth and that many of the alleged "insourced" jobs are really just instances of foreign entities purchasing American businesses. The jobs and the work are the same, it's just the owner that changed, yet they call that insourcing. See these articles from http://www.epinet.org (The Economic Policy Institute):

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_04062004
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_04072004

So, Americans lose jobs at Ford and GM and have them replaced by Hyundai. That's nice, but at the end of the day we still have a $650 billion/year trade deficit. Are those new Hyundais being sent overseas or are they merely for the American market? Shouldn't real insourcing--as a converse of foreign outsourcing--be an instance where an industry locates to the U.S. from another country for the purpose of producing goods and services for a foreign market? Is that happening at all? BTW, to pay for our $650 billion/year trade deficit we are "insourcing"--we're selling our economic assets.

outsourcing is just another way fro people who arent proactive enough to educate themselves and move up in the world to complain and beg for handouts...

Are they really begging for handouts or are they asking to be able to retain their middle class jobs so that they can keep working? Are they begging for handouts or asking not to get merged in with third world poverty?
 
Oct 30, 2004
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Originally posted by: MisterCornell
Hrrm... I'm not in the computer business. Nor is anyone in my family. I really don't care if computer jobs get outsourced.


First they came for the manufacturing jobs, but I didn't care because I wasn't blue collar.

Then they came for the computer programming jobs, but I didn't care because I wasn't a computer programmer.

Then they came for the legal research jobs, financial analysis jobs, radiology jobs, and accounting jobs, but I didn't care because I wasn't in those fields.

After America became a third world country, when the economy could no longer support my middle class salary and job, and when another American told my boss that he could do my same job for 20% of my salary there was no one to care for me.

 

herkulease

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2001
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I'd like to know how does one outsource medical services?

I don't see people going outside of the country when they have some health problems. or is it meant more along the lines of billing?


 
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Originally posted by: cubeless
the "show us the jobs" crowd, as opposed to the "sorry, i was out a)getting a job b) working at my job c)getting educated to improve my skills" crowd will always be with us... america was a good experiment in reducing the gap between the haves and the have nots, but human nature seems to be winning the war... this is why throughout history you have to have a nice revolution every now and then to bring everybody down to the minimum level so the upward cycle can all start over again...

Why do you assume that the "Show Us the Jobs" crowd doesn't want to work? After all, aren't they the "Show Us the Jobs" and not the "Give Us the Welfare" crowd? Are you saying that in reality they just want handouts and not middle class jobs?

Isn't it fun making ad hominem arguments? Sure beats discussing substantive issues like global labor wage arbitrage, economic supply and demand for labor, Bureau of Labor statistics, percentage of working aged people employed, quality of jobs, etc.

the evil capitalists have just made the cycle take too long by creating all the nice stuff to pacify even the least in our society... they complain to each other on their cell phones after watching another bunch of carp on their tv, both of which were made way outside of the USA, which they were able to buy because of some evil capitalist outsourcing 'american' jobs...

Are you sure that global labor wage arbitrage is really capitalism? After all, a good portion of the reason why the third world is the third world is because of socialism, communism, and runaway population growth. So, in a sense, isn't allowing global labor wage arbritrage really similar to importing the damage done by socialism and communism into the U.S.? Is artificially increasing the supply of labor in the labor market really a feature of capitalism anyway? I've never regarded suddenly adding a couple billiong people to the supply of labor as being capitalism. (In contrast, within an isolated national market, capitalism could very much be alive and well.)

and to all the whining liberals, where is your compassion for all of the rest of the poor and oppressed in the world who just want to make a couple bux so they can have a tv and cellphone (and maybe even indoor plumbing), too??? doesn't your limitless compassion encompass them, too?

That's a good point. Fortunately for me I'm an advocate of rational selfish interest, so I don't really worry about other nation's economic problems when it's beyond the ability of my government to influence them. A large part of our labor wage arbitrage problem is in fact altruism--especially in the immigration area.

things change. power shifts. feel free to blame the 'republicans' (blamers will always find someone to blame)... all empires die eventually... we've had a pretty good run so far, and i'm pretty sure it's still got some legs, but there's too many people in too many other countries for us to expect to way stay ahead forever...

We keep focussing on other countries and competing with other countries when the real issue is our own internal economy. If we were to engage in isolationism our economic fortune would depend on the populace's rationality and its own economic system. If other nations grow their own economies it isn't a problem. Tarriffs and a zero-dollar trade deficit policy would prevent any labor wage arbitrage and take account of increased environmental costs int he U.S. etc.

and if u need somethign to do with all the extra time u have now that u don't have to look for someone to blame anymore, start a 'buy american' campaign... i guarantee that the evil capitalists will provide whatever it is that you actually buy! but their little black hearts won't allow them to go out of business by acting on your disingenuous words that aren't backed up with corresponding actions...

Maybe you should actually examine the issues instead of succumbing to pro-capitalist religiously-held dogma. Instead of smearing your opponents as excrement-craving Marxists, might you actually consider some real substantive economic issues? Heck, I regard myself as a fan of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand and an advocate of a capitalist-leaning mixed economy, but because I have a high degree of intellectual honesty I'm open to questioning the wisdom of global labor arbitrage.

 
Oct 30, 2004
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Originally posted by: herkulease
I'd like to know how does one outsource medical services?

I don't see people going outside of the country when they have some health problems. or is it meant more along the lines of billing?

Medical billing is one area since some of that could be done over a computer. X-rays could be (and are being?) examined in foreign countries. I've read of British citizens being sent to India for surgery.

For the most part though medical services can't get outsourced since they involve direct interaction and are thus nailed down to the soil. Sadly, it's hard to have an entire economy that consists of providing medical services.

 

AnyMal

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
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Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Give me a break indeed. As I and others have noted here many times - outsourcing can infact help companies currently employing Americans stay in business and/or employ even more Americans.

Outsourcing has become a dirty word but it really shouldn't be. Should we promote outsourcing? maybe, maybe not -but to sit and whine about something that is going to happen because of the nature of business economics is rather silly.

Yes, people lose jobs -but as noted in the piece - the people actually are better off in the long run with better and higher paying jobs they wouldn't have considered if not for being laid-off.

"outsourcing can infact help companies currently employing Americans stay in business and/or employ even more Americans."

You keep saying it but where is the proof?

You and none of the Republicans can show the proof because the above is all a LIE.

Well the LIE is coming home to roost with more people homeless than ever before.

The Republicans continue to hide behind phoney numbers but they will no longer be able to hide the blight.

Oh blah blah blah yada yada yada. All you libs to is bitch and moan and accuse reps of being liars. How about you back up your claims for a change? :roll:
 

piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
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In a time of war, we need US Programmers. The Internet could be attacked and systematically destroyed and a lot of companies even banks would have to suddenly scramble to keep running. Your bank may now at this moment have people in India doing the work that should for security reasons be done in United States. They image your check and some person in India does all the data entry. Some people where my wife works at Bank of America lost their jobs this way.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
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I alwasy love when whippersnapper comes into these threads... corporate "slogans" and cheap talk have a way of shutting down under analysis and critical thinking.

While we disagree on illegal immigration, I'm for it, he's spot on on everything else. These so-called "jobs" for displaced sold by cheap laborites are not there, living standards in USA are declining over the aggregate, we are selling equity (personal, government and corporate) to the far east to enjoy our debtors life-style which will comes crashing down in 10-15 years...


I'm off to Switzerland then how about you?? need 2 million to immigrate so as long as property values hold I'm there soon.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
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Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: herkulease
I'd like to know how does one outsource medical services?

I don't see people going outside of the country when they have some health problems. or is it meant more along the lines of billing?

Medical billing is one area since some of that could be done over a computer. X-rays could be (and are being?) examined in foreign countries. I've read of British citizens being sent to India for surgery.

For the most part though medical services can't get outsourced since they involve direct interaction and are thus nailed down to the soil. Sadly, it's hard to have an entire economy that consists of providing medical services.

Not only that, with the influx of addional practioners from a labor pool entering that can't see much else to make money at in the disappearing USA jobs bank, the wage scales of medical professionals will also come crashing down.. Already Doctors and nurses are way underpaid compared to thier 1970's and 1980's compatriots.
 

RightIsWrong

Diamond Member
Apr 29, 2005
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Originally posted by: AnyMal

Oh blah blah blah yada yada yada. All you libs to is bitch and moan and accuse reps of being liars. How about you back up your claims for a change?

I think that WhipperSnapper gave you many, many arguments that completely shoot holes in the reasons by those of your ilk. How about you try to form a response to the points he made that actually requires more braincells than a two-year old being potty trained?

Instead, you tow the party-line rhetoric of "libs just bitch and moan", "call reps liars", "don't back up claims", etc. He, very competently and thoroughly, dissected the OP's source and claims with logic, reasoning and thought. How about you try to do the same to his arguments in return? If you support the outsourcing of jobs, dispute the arguments that he has brought forth that, I firmly believe, clearly show that it isn't the rosy scenario that companies and the ones that are either benefitting the most from it or never stand to lose from it state as fact.
 

cwjerome

Diamond Member
Sep 30, 2004
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Originally posted by: Zebo
I alwasy love when whippersnapper comes into these threads... corporate "slogans" and cheap talk have a way of shutting down under analysis and critical thinking.

While we disagree on illegal immigration, I'm for it, he's spot on on everything else. These so-called "jobs" for displaced sold by cheap laborites are not there, living standards in USA are declining over the aggregate, we are selling equity (personal, government and corporate) to the far east to enjoy our debtors life-style which will comes crashing down in 10-15 years...


I'm off to Switzerland then how about you?? need 2 million to immigrate so as long as property values hold I'm there soon.



Fascinating that you love illegals coming here to do our jobs, yet you get all prickly when jobs go to other countries. I think you've hit on a wonderful idea! Let's wallow in an artificial economic stasis and keep all jobs here AND bring in boatloads of illegal immigrants. That way we can avoid a higher-wage, dynamic and progressive economy :roll:

I hope you get your 2 million asap.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
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Originally posted by: cwjerome
Originally posted by: Zebo
I alwasy love when whippersnapper comes into these threads... corporate "slogans" and cheap talk have a way of shutting down under analysis and critical thinking.

While we disagree on illegal immigration, I'm for it, he's spot on on everything else. These so-called "jobs" for displaced sold by cheap laborites are not there, living standards in USA are declining over the aggregate, we are selling equity (personal, government and corporate) to the far east to enjoy our debtors life-style which will comes crashing down in 10-15 years...


I'm off to Switzerland then how about you?? need 2 million to immigrate so as long as property values hold I'm there soon.



Fascinating that you love illegals coming here to do our jobs, yet you get all prickly when jobs go to other countries. I think you've hit on a wonderful idea! Let's wallow in an artificial economic stasis and keep all jobs here AND bring in boatloads of illegal immigrants. That way we can avoid a higher-wage, dynamic and progressive economy :roll:

I hope you get your 2 million asap.

Illegals make up an insignifgant part of our economy, about 4% of GDP, which is why Mr.Roberts only mentions it in passing... plus it's the right thing to do..plus I personally benefit from it. Are you training your kids potential kids to be bus boys, stawberry pickers and nail pounders? Didnt think so neither is 100% of the rest of the population.
 

cwjerome

Diamond Member
Sep 30, 2004
4,346
26
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Originally posted by: Zebo
Originally posted by: cwjerome
Originally posted by: Zebo
I alwasy love when whippersnapper comes into these threads... corporate "slogans" and cheap talk have a way of shutting down under analysis and critical thinking.

While we disagree on illegal immigration, I'm for it, he's spot on on everything else. These so-called "jobs" for displaced sold by cheap laborites are not there, living standards in USA are declining over the aggregate, we are selling equity (personal, government and corporate) to the far east to enjoy our debtors life-style which will comes crashing down in 10-15 years...


I'm off to Switzerland then how about you?? need 2 million to immigrate so as long as property values hold I'm there soon.



Fascinating that you love illegals coming here to do our jobs, yet you get all prickly when jobs go to other countries. I think you've hit on a wonderful idea! Let's wallow in an artificial economic stasis and keep all jobs here AND bring in boatloads of illegal immigrants. That way we can avoid a higher-wage, dynamic and progressive economy :roll:

I hope you get your 2 million asap.

Illegals make up an insignifgant part of our economy, about 4% of GDP, which is why Mr.Roberts only mentions it in passing... plus it's the right thing to do..plus I personally benefit from it. Are you training your kids potential kids to be bus boys, stawberry pickers and nail pounders? Didnt think so neither is 100% of the rest of the population.

4% of GDP is not insignificant. You yourself have bleated on about what a *positive* impact illegals have on our economy. Changing your story?

The second part of your post is stupid on many levels:

1) Nobody said those jobs have to be careers. Teenagers, emergency jobs, etc...

2) The only reason those jobs pay sh*t is because we let illegals depress the wages

3) What's wrong with a rational guest-worker program to fill some of our "needs"

Seems you have created quite the rationalizations for something very damaging simply because you think you benefit from it. It's crystal clear that you care about nothing outside yourself, and when things go bad as a whole you can just splittsville. What a swell guy.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
Well gotta go splitsville this moring, IHOP is calling me, cheap food and decent service made possible by immigrants.. I'll just leave you with what whipper said to see if it makes sense "Fortunately for me I'm an advocate of rational selfish interest" does to me. Anyone that's not is a fool.
 

RightIsWrong

Diamond Member
Apr 29, 2005
5,649
0
0
Originally posted by: cwjerome
Originally posted by: Zebo
Originally posted by: cwjerome
Originally posted by: Zebo
I alwasy love when whippersnapper comes into these threads... corporate "slogans" and cheap talk have a way of shutting down under analysis and critical thinking.

While we disagree on illegal immigration, I'm for it, he's spot on on everything else. These so-called "jobs" for displaced sold by cheap laborites are not there, living standards in USA are declining over the aggregate, we are selling equity (personal, government and corporate) to the far east to enjoy our debtors life-style which will comes crashing down in 10-15 years...


I'm off to Switzerland then how about you?? need 2 million to immigrate so as long as property values hold I'm there soon.



Fascinating that you love illegals coming here to do our jobs, yet you get all prickly when jobs go to other countries. I think you've hit on a wonderful idea! Let's wallow in an artificial economic stasis and keep all jobs here AND bring in boatloads of illegal immigrants. That way we can avoid a higher-wage, dynamic and progressive economy :roll:

I hope you get your 2 million asap.

Illegals make up an insignifgant part of our economy, about 4% of GDP, which is why Mr.Roberts only mentions it in passing... plus it's the right thing to do..plus I personally benefit from it. Are you training your kids potential kids to be bus boys, stawberry pickers and nail pounders? Didnt think so neither is 100% of the rest of the population.

4% of GDP is not insignificant. You yourself have bleated on about what a *positive* impact illegals have on our economy. Changing your story?

The second part of your post is stupid on many levels:

1) Nobody said those jobs have to be careers. Teenagers, emergency jobs, etc...

2) The only reason those jobs pay sh*t is because we let illegals depress the wages

3) What's wrong with a rational guest-worker program to fill some of our "needs"

Seems you have created quite the rationalizations for something very damaging simply because you think you benefit from it. It's crystal clear that you care about nothing outside yourself, and when things go bad as a whole you can just splittsville. What a swell guy.

In response to your first point, those jobs are not intended to be careers. The point that is being made is that those may be the only jobs that are left if outsourcing continues in the sectors that it currently is in. That service industry jobs will be one of, if not the largest, business sectors.

Actually, your second point validates one of the arguments that Whip made. That, if allowed to continue at it's current pace, outsourcing will ultimately depress the wages of the majority of working Americans.

Your third point would be valid if those jobs could not be filled by Americans at all. The fact of the matter is those jobs are filled by "guest-workers" because they are all to willing to come here and make $40k/yr instead of the $4k/yr they would make in their own country. The same job worked by an American might cost the same hypothetical company $60k/yr.