All this will do in the long run is keep prices of goods and services higher than they should be. This will limit excess money reinvested into the economy which will in turn take away more jobs. If anything outsourcing LOWERS prices for everyone and therefore promotes more spending thereby creating MORE jobs while increaseing productivity and GDP, which allows for the lifestyle we all enjoy.
Wrong. I haven't seen one bit of evidence that says that lawsuits have caused the financial industry to have to outsource. The fact is that while there may be some frivilous lawsuits several hedge funds, and other financial banking institutes have been caught in corruption. Their own corruption is what brought the lawsuits and caused any ill effect as a result. Don't rip people off and lawsuits go down.
Looks like someone's been brainwashed by Rush Limbaugh. Spewing the party line about trial lawyers is lame, and is analogous to proclaiming all CEOs guilty of severe SEC violations.
They should not be afforded the opportunity at the expense of American workers so that some rich a$$ can pocket another million in stock options. BTW, I saw a 20/20 special on the working conditions of the call centers in India and those people work 12 and 16 hour shifts 6 days a week. If that isn't exploiting the workers there, then I don't know what is. My father has proved his worth more than anyone I know. After 13 years in the Air Force and 18 years at Lockheed/Martin, he proved it over and over again. I am quite certain he is FAR more valuable than the CEO who put 25 million in stock options in his pocket after that round of layoffs. BTW, it was not just the outsourcing that took its toll on my father's job prospects. The crappy way the Bush admin handled the recession was a HUGE part of it. Better watch it, those "country accent" Americans make up a good portion of the Bush sheep. You are seriously deluded if you actually believe this. The US is BY FAR the single biggest and most lucrative market in the world. They ARE. The majority of the workers of both of those companies are right here in the good ol' USA. The workers that are overseas for the most part support the sales in those parts of the world and, aside from a few manufacturing positions at Ford, they have not outsourced nearly as many high paying jobs as some other companies. I believe that the companies must prove their worth to us. Those that outsource already lose my business (Wal-Mart doesn't get my money, neither does Dell, and Microsoft has lost my personal business as well) and deserve to lose their right to the benefits of being an American business. Kerry is on the right track. Far from erecting barriers to trade, he will correct the tax code so that companies are rewarded for keeping jobs in the US rather than shipping them overseas.
Outsourcing also lowers the wages paid in THIS country, as evidenced by the unprecedented lowering of the average income over the course of the Bush administration.
Good for you Andy! I wish more people would do this. Sometimes it's tough to consciously pay more for a product, but i do it frequently either because i don't like a particular company, or i prefer where a selected good is from. Price and quality are determinants, but not the only ones. In Solidarity, bnb Fellow Wal-mart / Dell Avoider. .
People keep saying get educated and you will be fine. But what type of job will be save from outsourcing? First it was just the manufacturing jobs. Next came the IT jobs, then it is the financial service and engineering jobs. Now they say go get a job in field such as biomed. What is so special about those fields? I bet within 10 years China will have more qualified biomed researchers than US . So from my understanding is the world will just be follow the model for US and Japan, where Japanese living standard get higher and US living standard becomes lower until they are comparable. This does not mean US will get to the point of current Chinese living standard, but why is there any reason US will enjoy a higher standard of living on the average if the situation continues? Maybe China will catch up fast enough so that the US living standard won't get reduced by much. But then there is still India, and maybe in the future Africa (you never know). Maybe we can hope for the day where everyone will enjoy good living standard in the world in the near future, but I won't bet on it.
This goes far beyond Walmart/Dell, can you honestly say you can go one day without using/buying something that's imported from China/Inda/etc. You think driving a Ford is buying American? Wrong, a lot of the auto parts are imported. How about surfing on ClutchBBS, you are typing on a keyboard most likely made in China, you internet traffic go through CISCO routers that has a hugh outsource presense in China, so are you going to stop surfing? I can go on and on about this, but face it, we are living in a global economy, nothing is "America only" anymore. With the aid of current communication advances (internet/wireless), this is a much more efficient economy, and it's better in everyway. So, We should be able to buy a computer from DELL for 400 dollars instead of 4000 dollars so our kids can learn better. We should be able to drive a car thats safer more efficient. We should be able to make a long distance phone call for 2 cents instead of 2 dollars a minute. Trust me, being an American already has many advantages. Biggest being the system, the free society and market economy. Being an American does not mean you are entitled to make 5times as much for doing the same job. Instead of whining, get up and compete.
So I should take a programming job that makes $12K a year with no benefits and plenty of unpaid overtime. The careful reader will note that $12K a year is below the minimum wage and below the poverty line.
No, you should work hard (keep learning) and make yourself more valuable than $12k a year position they are out-sourcing. Instead of running away from the competition, take on the challenge, that's the American way.
It is funny about made in america. I was actually shocked that I playe din an outting for FFA/4-H this past summer and some of their door prizes were FFA glasses, and you guessed it made in china. Even groups you think would be 100% USA often opt for teh cheaper solutions
Become a farmer. The US is a great exporter of food products and these 3rd world populations are always growing. Seriously though, look at this outsourcing process from another perspective. What real steps can you do to stop it? Tax structure would have a marginal impact. The differences in costs for certain things is too great to say Tax code would be meaningful. If the US was to somehow outlaw outsourcing, competitors in China, Mexico, etc. would develop products. Could they ever make something like MS Windows? No. But what if a company over there develops some technology. Can Microsoft not purchase that company b/c in a sense it has outsourced its software development? What about Cisco who grew so aggressively by acquisition? On the flip side, if those foreign countries can't sell here, thats tantamount to trade barriers and would set off trade wars. No doubt about it, outsourcing in the short term is painful b/c it results in lost jobs. The transition is difficult. But simply put, its not a force you can stop b/c its not a simple thing. Any person that thinks they can stop it or even meaningfully discourage it is naive to put it simply. As for the impact on our society regarding standard of living, which many people argue, in my mind its clear. The US standard of living will increase b/c people can afford more goods and will have access to better goods. If we stop outsourcing, essentially we are propping up prices here and supporting the jobs of a subsegment of society that essentially is a tax on the rest of the country.
By increasing your knowledge or doing whatever it takes to prove to a company that you bring more value to an organization than if they outsourced that job. US worker productivity is through the roof in this country which is another reason for the slow growth of employment. In order to be compensated by a firm for your actions you must prove to them that you are much more productive and can do more for the firm than someone in India. And if you can't, switch fields. I don't understand what the government has to do with it. If you owned a lemonade stand and you lost money by hiring MBA's to work there and the job could be done by high schoolers for less, then you would do so. If they can do your same job cheaper then you need to get better or get a new line of work my friend.
That's a BS answer. I will restate the problem. People in China and India will work for less than our minimum wage with no benefits, doing jobs that require college education and field experience. We can not compete head with India or China on wages. By "increasing your knowledge" takes time and money, with no guarantee that the targetted profession will hire me or that this job too will be sent overseas after I am hired. I have not mentioned the government.
i guess "them's the breaks." if you have a skill or skill set in demand that can't be easily replaced, you will be hired at a salary commensurate with your worth to the company. if not, you won't get a job or you'll have to take less than you want or go into another line of work. you and andymoon (andy more than you) seem to be going on an emotional rant against "greedy corporations" more than making a logical business argument. corporations (here and everywhere else) are about making money. and they should be if they wish to stay in business. if they can get something for 1/2 price, why shouldn't they? supporting americans is a nice, warm, fuzzy thought but to say a company should purposely spend much more than it has to to get a job done is illogical. if the job can be done for 12K, then they should pay 12K for it. if that puts an american out of work, then i feel bad for that person, but that's life. if you happen to choose a career with more trained people (supply) than jobs (demand) then i guess you won't make as much. when the internet was booming in the late 90's and computer related jobs were paying enormous salaries, did those guys say "man, i'm really making more than i should be, maybe i should ask for a paycut to to the normal amount paid for this job" or did they say "holy crap, i can't believe i'm getting paid this much" and run laughing to the bank? presumably, they ran to the bank. and i applaud them for getting paid a lot. now we have the flipside and some people will suffer at the hands of market capitalism. it sucks, but it's reality. andymoon, i'm sure your dad has done a fine job in whatever he does, but if the company feels they can get the same performance from someone for less, why should they feel beholden to him? he's just a guy they pay to get a job done. a company is just someone we work for to get the most money we can for our skills. a product is just something we buy to get the best bang for our buck (outside of "buying american" and such). hoping we'll take care of our own is nice but it's not practical that i can see. forcing a company to have to pay more can only keep prices higher. tax breaks to companies that hire americans have to be seen as barriers essentially equivalent to tarriffs designed to keep foreign goods out. if you think that's the way to go, then i guess more power to you but in the name of efficient and practical business paying less for the same service is the way to go. i'm 22 and going for a MS in petroleum engineering. i have my whole work life ahead of me and i worry whether i'll have a job when i get done. but i'm not gonna say someone has to pay me a lot because i'm american (as much as i'd like to). if i do have a job waiting for me, great. if i don't and it's in india, then i guess i couldn't competitively price my skills and while it will suck that my chosen career path won't work out as i hoped and i'll have to possibly retrain as something else, them's the breaks.
Why do people blame the government for being unemployed? To turn that around, when you land your dream job, are you thanking the government? No, of course not. You are applauding your efforts. Why then, when the situation is reversed, are you blaming the government for your misfortune? What ever happened to personal accountability?
