OMG! Former Bain Partner: "Let’s not kid ourselves about just how cheap offshore labor really is"

[kpete]

SAT OCT 20, 2012 AT 08:44 AM PDT
Former Bain Partner: "Let’s not kid ourselves about just how cheap offshore labor really is."
by Hammerhand

It was covered by UP with Chris Hayes on August 30, but he posted it to his tumblr page this morning, and I picked it up on my twitter feed.
http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/30/13576968-former-bain-capital-partner-extolled-the-virtues-of-cheap-offshore-labor-said-romney-would-own-bain-capital-record?lite

Sal Gentile@salgentile
Former Bain Capital partner: "Let's not kid ourselves about just how cheap offshore labor really is." upwithchris.tumblr.com/post/339559092… #sensata #uppers
20 Oct 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite

In his book published earlier this year, former Bain Capital partner and Mitt Romney supporter wrote this:

Let’s not kid ourselves about just how cheap offshore labor really is. We not only pay substantially less per hour, we also avoid the costs we would incur if these workers immigrated here. We don’t pay for their medical expenses when they show up in the emergency room without insurance. We don’t pay for their pension costs if they don’t save for retirement. We don’t pay for their children’s public education. Nor do we pay for their out-of-wedlock children, their unemployment benefits and workers’ compensation, their slip and fall torts, their wear and tear on our public infrastructure, and the cost of their drunk driving, drug use and other crimes. We outsource pollution, its adverse effects on our health, and its clean-up costs. Neither the employees nor their employers are here to vote and seek political handouts.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/20/1147485/-Former-Bain-Partner-Let-s-not-kid-ourselves-about-just-how-cheap-offshore-labor-really-is

[mucifer]

1. Wow that is crazy. It's just evil.

[roguevalley]

34. his karma must be shit colored.

[JNelson6563]

48. Very well said!

[JDPriestly]

67. It's just very honest. That is what free trade is about.

[Tumbulu]

72. exactly (nt)

[2on2u]

2. Dixie cup workers, who could ask for more? Use once, throw away what a great business

model.

[jsr]

3. Spread this far and wide, folks

[woodsprite]

15. Just posted to FB. n/t

[Hugabear]

4. Well, no shit.

Here it is, laid bare - the real truth of why so many companies would rather outsource jobs.

[Historic NY]

5. Its the "Bain Way".

[awoke_in_2003]

23. No, it is the way...

of corporate America. This article should surprise no one. The rich have always only cared about their money and getting more.

[Supersedeas]

99. Patriotism vs. Capitalism? It is more than just a slogan-it is a way of life in the Corporate World

the World where their sons and daughters do not fight in Wars for oil interests

[JaneyVee]

6. aka The Republican plan for America.

[beac]

7. There are Romney's real "victims".

People aren't humans to Romney and his Bain cronies. They are just labor devices.
Bain Capital -- slave traders for the modern era.

[renate]

8. it's sweet to see how much respect they have for the people who work hard so they don't have to

Who talks about human beings, the very human beings who make their success possible, with such contempt? To this guy they're nothing but a bunch of breeding-like-rabbits drunk-driving drug-using handout-seeking leeches--not people who are working hard to "take responsibility and care for their lives."

What he said about outsourcing pollution and its effects on our health is also contemptible--let's just pollute China, hey ho!--but the way he talks about people is absolutely sociopathic. I honestly don't think he believes they're human.

[undergroundpanther]

73. I don't think

Sociopaths are human,cause they lack what makes humanity humane.IMO.

[JHB]

84. Bipedal viruses, then.

[BainsBane]

9. "Political handouts"?

What a pig. This makes me ill.

[IDemo]

80. I'm sure he was talking about massive government subsidies and corporate tax breaks

Wait... no?

[lonestarnot]

10. Have I recently said how much I hate these motherfuckers? No, well, I HATE THESE MF'RS!

[TwilightGardener]

11. If you don't have to deal with workers as human beings,

then that's the ideal, isn't it? How awesome is it to have a bunch of little machines in a far off land, who don't "befoul" this country with their needs? Now if we could only get rid of ALL U.S. workers, and their sad little needs that ruin THIS country for the 1%...

[brush]

79. Nailed it

That's the repug goal for the rest of the country. Sensata (Bainport) is a prime example. We are so screwed as a country if the Romney/Bain business model is elected. Why pay Americans $20.00 an hour when you can pay some faceless "machine" in a foreign country peanuts and not have to worry about all his/her crappy needs which drag down the good ol' US of A's infrastructure. And these vultures are the first to holler patriotism. Well what about caring enough about this country to keep good paying jobs here like at the highly profitable Sensata plant? Well, sadly, I know the answer. "Highly profitable" is just not good enough when obscenely profitable is just a continent away.

[phantom power]

12. behold, the reason decaying middle class wages didn't come to a head 30 years ago....

as well as domestic environmental pollution problems.

Americans have been able to purchase just about everything dirt cheap compared to if Americans actually bought stuff made by other Americans. And the environmental impacts have all been experience by poor brown people. So pundits and politicians could all pretend we achieved some kind of huge environmental progress while it was happening.

[Fumesucker]

47. Not really, most of the excess profits has gone to the 1%, not to the 99%

If stuff had been made in the US rather than offshore then Americans would pay somewhat more but have considerably higher incomes over all.

Note how on this graph, the income gains have gone largely to the highest earners, not until you get to the 80th percentile do Americans have a noticeably increased income since 1970 while costs for most things other than electronic gadgets have climbed inexorably.

[reformist2]

13. It's an end run around unionized workers here in the US. And we let it happen.

Obviously the moneymen like people at Bain bribed our government to sign onto NAFTA and GATT and the WTO, but ultimately we bear some responsibility here. Just think how much other Americans 50, 80, 100 years ago fought to win a decent standard of living for working Americans. We need to apply our efforts to this cause with the same intensity if we're going to win back these basic human rights.

[WinkyDink]

43. White-collar men voted Republican.

[Jackpine Radical]

94. Not just that group. White blue collar workers

abandoned Carter for Raygun in droves, sucked out of the Democratic Party with manipulations that redirected their rage & fear onto mythological beasts like Welfare Queens, Commies, Wetbacks and the like.

And mostly those Reagan Democrats never returned. They're still out there in their bunkers, armed against the black revolution that will surely ensue when Obama loses the election.

[theKed]

14. Let's be serious

YOU don't pay for ANY of that anyways, you fucking tax-dodging Caymen account piece of shit. Fucking welfare queen.

[Delmette]

85. Then this 1% don't want to pay there fair share here in the United States.

Just let the middle class pay more and more and more.

[Frustratedlady]

16. Well, Romney started the company, gave the sales pitch to new hires...

I'd say he taught his crew pretty well, wouldn't you? Can't you just hear him giving this speech...behind close doors, of course?

Each day, I become more and more nauseated about what has been happening. Time to clean house, change some laws and bring the middle class back to where we worked so hard to get it to in the 1980s or so.

[justiceischeap]

17. And American's die a slow death because we have no more economy

to speak of. What they really want is to make it so we'll gladly accept making 99 cents an hour, working 12-14 hour days with no benefits. The 1% are no better than communist China, really.

[WinkyDink]

39. Exactly.

[reformist2]

46. And all the while they'll tell you that it's "the free market" at work. Isn't it great?

[Overseas]

18. K&R. Hope more Americans get to the polls this year to vote in all Democrats

so we'll have a better chance of defeating these trends.

[BlueStreak]

19. America would be a great place if only billionaires lived here

Just for reference that "Let's not kid ourselves ..." quote is from Ed Conard, in his book "Unintended Consequences" published earlier this year:

Want to understand the direction America heads if it elects Romney? This is it in one clean, simple paragraph. In short, they would outsource EVERYTHING if they could. That is great for billionaires, but not so great for the rest of us.

If you find yourself agreeing with that paragraph, and you are not a billionaire, you need your head examined. They are coming for you next.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Externalizing costs, that is the name of it

and we have been speaking of it many, many a times.

But now it is finally starting to enter the mainstream.

[Petrushka]

21. Posted to Facebook.

[Blue_In_AK]

22. It's hard to comprehend so much disrespect

for the workers in China and elsewhere as well as for workers in the USA. This attitude is really contemptible.

[Uncle Joe]

24. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[kath]

25. Well, this fucking sumbitch needs to be FIRST IN LINE for the guillotine.

[SmileyRose]

33. Why?

Granted part of the cycle was created by the 1%ers but WE are the ones with walk in closets and off site storage units full of cheap crap. WE are the ones with 50 T shirts and 10 pair of jeans apiece. We are the ones who hop on the internet to see just how cheap we can get it.

Some of the price shopping is due to lower wages but some is just plain greed on our part. Bottom line is that all the fewest a the very bottom of American economics (the people who never buy anything new and struggle just to buy shampoo) well the rest of us help keep this race to the bottom going.

All of us need to go on the buying strike unless ALL of the materials and labor come from the USA and we need to be willing to spend more and have less.

Unions tried to tell America this in the 70's and 80's and we were laughed at. Now everything we said has come full circle.

[JNelson6563]

50. Good points.

I often think about such things. I don't have any money so I consume very little but, as this has proven to be a long term thing I have grown to prefer being a minimalist type of consumer. I buy what I need, as least however much I can afford, and almost nothing else.

If I have to buy clothes or shoes or something like that I buy used as much as possible and get better stuff for very little money.

I saw a commercial on TV recently and it showed woman after woman thrilled to the core over their jewelry purchase that had arrived in the mail from a shopping channel. I wish I could believe it was completely unrealistic but, sadly, I know better.

We, as a society, sell ourselves into slavery for shiny technology, baubles and plastic shit with various media idols slapped on it. And we manage to enable those who sell us this crap to enslave many to make it for us.

We the people could put a real fast stop to this situation but we are too busy consuming & paying for what we consume to realize it.

Julie

[theKed]

92. Words of a wise man

"I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact."

[JDPriestly]

69. Thanks. And buy used stuff when you must.

[upi402]

26. Chris Hayes rocks, good report

My wife liked him post-debate. Pretty respectable since Rachel and Big Ed were in the room.

[lalalu]

27. Sad and scary but not shocking.

[kag]

28. This was posted on DU about a month ago...

with video:

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/1251100198

Doesn't make it any less disgusting.

[War Horse]

29. I spent 10+ years working for a large multinational corp

We were initially told to use "low cost sites" such as East European ones. Later on we were chastised for using those sites, as the Indian ones were a lot cheaper. After that, is was "China is a helluva lot cheaper than India".

It never really ends w/the hunt for cheap labor.

[JDPriestly]

70. Africa is next. And then there is the Middle East where people are really well educated.

[abelenkpe]

91. In Ghana it's already begun

Company I work for has offices in India, Malaysia, Taiwan and are opening one in China. Recently one of my coworkers was in India helping train her replacement listening to the India workers that all the good work was going to Malaysia and China worried they might soon be out of work. Gee, ya think?

[SmileyRose]

30. k and r

People need to understand that every time they spend money on cheap shit just to have more shit this is exactly what they are perpetuating.

[WinkyDink]

40. I get what you're saying, but now people often NEED to buy the cheapest they can find. My mother,

e.g., has no "walk-in closet."

Another example: I live near the Mushroom Capital of the World, in PA. GUESS where the canned mushrooms in my local stores---even with "PA. Dutch" on the label---come from? ASIA. (I always buy fresh, but that's not my point.)

American-made clothing and shoes? Good luck with those, if you want something a cut above utilitarian or "hunting".

[JDPriestly]

71. Garlic used to come from certain places in California -- and now often comes from China.

And my local grocery does not label food by country of origin very often.

[abelenkpe]

88. Gilroy!

Finding local produce is a chore. Crazy when CA grows so much food.

[JDPriestly]

93. Yes. That's why farmers' markets are so popular here.

And even in Los Angeles, pretty close to downtown, vegetable gardening has become very popular.

[mrsadm]

31. Of course American businesses would seek cheaper employees!

I'm not defending these scum but profit is all that drives American businesses (and all businesses). Of course the shifting of social costs like unemployment and pollution to whatever government (or none at all) increases profits. Let's not be naive anymore!

[WinkyDink]

41. Actually, the global nature is a relatively new practice. We've gone from "company towns" to no

companies and decrepit "towns."

Workers fought for pensions, vacation pay, etc., and magmt signed the contracts. It was a different era from 1945---1975.

[newspeak]

97. but some of those who created american companies

actually cared about their communities and the people. they were actually americans. these sociopaths only care about profit, they are not americans. they'd see this country go down in a heartbeat. i think the only fealty that have is to their portfolios.

we wouldn't have had the greedfest of the eighties. the hostile takeovers (some not even using their own assets, but junkbonds). gutting american companies some in the black, putting americans out of work and selling the company to any buyer-who gives a shite as long as they make even more money.

and when they move their businesses overseas, they care less about those workers or contaminating their water, air, soil. yes, they want the same thing to happen here. that's why they rail against regulations.

we need strict global regulations, because now, these corporations, if they don't like the workers pushing back or they've polluted the area, they just move on to another country who allows them to shite in their yard.

[catbyte]

32. This is why I hate business.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

35. Stopping outsourcing is not on Dem table, either

I don't hear either party discussing the end of outsourcing as a goal. Hilary, Geitner, they're all for increasing the H1B visas. Democrats are just not quite as anti-American-worker as the Republicans, so I held my nose and voted straight "D".

It ain't just Bain.

[BlueNoteSpecial]

36. Rewarded...

...for 100+ years of honesty and loyalty. Hard working citizens building and supporting corporate/business interests through purchasing goods & services, as well as taxpayer funded research & development/sweetheart tax deals (fiscal extortion), while fighting the same every inch of the way for sustainable wages, and safe working conditions. Make no mistake, good people, there is no going back, they will never deal honestly, they've indoctrinated a sizable portion of the citizenry, this is far beyond obscene, and there is a reckoning coming. It begins 11-7-12, and I've already voted for it. True Blue, through and through. Word, Democratic Underground!

[WinkyDink]

42. Remember the now-40-Somethings being sold the "It's GREAT to move from job to job!" line? How'd THAT

work out for them?

[abelenkpe]

90. I have nothing

That's how well it's worked out.

Three different 401ks, little savings, now I'm being told that if I want to keep my job it's off to Vancouver. Cause that will work with two young kids in school here and a hubby who is still employed.

What kills me are others in my age group that support the tea party. Cause y'know, gen x really needs to screw itself over more.

[abelenkpe]

86. Welcome to DU! Nt

[BlueNoteSpecial]

95. Thanks. Nt

[AverageJoe90]

100. True Blue, indeed. n/t

[arcane1]

37. One of the English language's most evil words: "externalities"

[WinkyDink]

38. MEGA-CAPITALISTS = Capital. THEY ARE NOT CITIZENS AS WE KNOW THE WORD. They are out to make the

highest profit at the lowest cost (DUH!), and thus, AMERICAN WORKERS WILL NOT---UNLESS WE ARE REDUCED TO THE LEVEL OF CHINESE SLAVE-LABOR---BE CONSIDERED the BEST HIRING PROSPECTS.

Pensions, health-care, time-and-a-half, vacation/childcare pay, child labor laws, OSHA, Minimum Wage---EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN LABOR GAIN IN THE PREVIOUS TWO CENTURIES IS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK, simultaneously with Social Security and Medicare.

Trust that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan believe, with all the fiber of their being, the same way this Australian heiress---THE RICHEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD---does:

Gina Rinehart, thought to be the world's richest woman, chastised miners for being “too expensive,” saying, “Africans want to work. Its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day.”

In a 10-minute recording posted on YouTube to the Sydney Mining Club, Rinehart lambasted the domestic mining industry, saying it couldn’t compete in a global marketplace. “Not with Australian prices,” she said. She also railed against the country’s carbon tax and regulatory “red tape.”
http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/06/13706124-worlds-richest-woman-lauds-2-a-day-wages?lite

[DJ13]

52. Thats the way I used to see it, but

These same multi-national corporations have no issues maintaining manufacturing in a country like Germany, with strong unions, mandated vacations, sick leave, higher wages, and higher corporate tax rates.

Our country is letting these corporations call the shots, but other countries dont, and they still operate there.

We need to stop coddling these bastards.

[WinkyDink]

54. I didn't research, but I do know that Germany's Aldi's is here, but non-union.

[liam_laddie]

83. Trader Joe's

is owned by one of the brothers who own Aldi's; one brother oversees the American interests, the other oversees Europe and other zones. Big Food...

[JHB]

89. They use nonunion labor here because they can...

...whereas in Germany, strong labor protections (including requirements for having employee representation on corporate boards) make it a de facto requirement for them at home.

And let's remind the people complaining about "European socialism" that those requirements were put there to keep these countries from going socialist. They took the wind out of communist agitation in the postwar years, and prevent the rise of a political party that would elect them into the Soviet orbit. No need to be radical when decent protections are built right into the law, is there?

[newspeak]

98. the thing is, unfettered capitalism will kill this whole planet

it becomes a cancer, continually growing and causing damage to everyone if left unchecked. and after everything is dead, the one with the most money and toys, do they win the greedhead booby prize?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

44. Salauds, trous du culs, pendejos, arschlochen

pìyǎn

[Kindly Refrain]

45. I hope that shitstain gets brain cancer.

[Auntie Bush]

55. +100 I wouldn't reallywish that on anyone but I wish we could MIHOP

[felix_numinous]

49. How cruel

--I find myself talking about sociopaths a lot lately, and this is why. Human beings are capable of such cruelty, and it is up to us to make sure people like this are not put in positions of power.

[brewens]

51. Their opinion of workers in general. Think you built this country, you right-wing

working class heroes? This is what your bosses really think of you. They resent giving you anything at all! It's they that feel entitled to massive profits without allowing their workers to benefit at all from their labor.

[politicaljunkie41910]

53. This is why their Pro-Life BS is just that, BS.

The only 'life' they care about is one that is white, and American. This only reason this whole Pro-Life movement exists is because the GOP is afraid of the white man becoming a minority in their country. This whole anti-abortion BS was brought about 30 something years ago was because white women chose to go to school, educate themselves, get good jobs, and have fewer babies. If the GOP can prevent abortions and control contraceptives, they can once again force their white women to have babies and replenish America with new generations of white babies.

The reason the Mormon church is one of the fastest growing religions is not because their missionaries are converting people in third world countries (well they do but the converts don't last), but because the average Mormon wife is having 5-7 babies. At that rate you can "take back your country back" in a few generations.

[ThoughtCriminal]

56. Stupid logic and ignores the hidden costs to our country

From the jobs lost here. Just because "We don’t pay for their medical expenses when they show up in the emergency room without insurance", we have to pay for it when a family member of the employee who's job got outsourced has a medical emergency. We also lost the tax revenue that would have paid for a child's public education. We have to pay the unemployment benefits. We have to pay for the infrastructure, even if the manufacturing base is exported. We pay for the societal costs of higher unemployment - alcohol and drug abuse, crime, health. And yes, since we all live on the same planet, we don't escape to pollution either.

He acts as if when a job out sent overseas, the employee here is just liquidated.

[bread_and_roses]

78. Excellent points (n/t)

[BainsBane]

81. He's not talking about us

He's talking about vulture capitalists like himself. This crowd has no concern about the American people or the nation. Their only loyalty is to wealth and themselves, an international financial elite.

[Zalatix]

57. Aren't you afraid you'll be called a Xenophobe or a John Bircher?

Hey, some DUers actually say that.

[Marr]

58. He's essentially admitting that they're destroying the US economy solely to

turn billionaires into multi-billionaires. Everyone else loses.

[cr8tvlde]

59. I think we've seen their safety net ... it's installed around the buildings to catch the workers as

they jump out...so they can be "re-engineered" to go back to slave labor for the profit of the "Romneys" of the world. Safety net, indeed.

[Brigid]

60. How many times . . .

Do these fuckers have to get caught saying shit like this before people wise up and start looking around for their torches, pitchforks, and guillotines??

[Cha]

61. I feel bad for those who have to work for these monster companies in China..

All this research on mitt leads me to wondering if he's ever been asked why he hates America?

Hasn't it been good to him and his family? Does he have some deep seated reason for crapping on our Country?

[Brigid]

62. Here you go:

$$$$$$$$$$

[Cha]

63. TAKE TAKE TAKE..Never gives

back except to the mormon church where his loyalties lie. And, where would they lie if he were to get in the ultilmate power trip? Yeah.

[kwolf68]

64. This guy just exposed the flaw of their version of "free markets"

A true definition of a 'free market' is the consumer bears the cost of all factors of production. "use" of the environment IS A COST of production. When the cost is passed on to the consumers, the buyers are responsible for the production and pays its cost at market equilibrium.

When factors of production such as pollution is NOT paid by the consumer and is thus externalized, then the price is BELOW market equilibrium, which is antithetical to pure free market principles.

Basically, these people are capitalist pigs, but HATE the free market.

[PD Turk]

65. ...

[JDPriestly]

66. Wow! The truth about free trade.

That's what it is about. All of it.

And that is why we should reinstate tariffs.

There is no future in "free trade" without equal rights for labor worldwide.

[Shankapotomus]

68. Another piece of living shit

What a surprise.

[BVictor1]

74. I certainly hope that someone in The White House watches UP.

Or that someone there follows Chris's account.

A quote like this would be great for President Obama to use against Willard in their foreign policy debate on monday.

This is where this man wants to take our country.

It's dangerous and as we've seen by worker morale in China, it can be deadly.

[bread_and_roses]

77. Well - a little tricky, that - since Obama is a good friend to "Free Trade"

Clinton and Obama - both pushing "Free Trade." Makes it kind of hard to make it a campaign issue.

[donqpublic]

75. Greed is a crime against humanity

[Lithos]

76. Not sustainable

They tried this w/ Indian based h1b's and Brasilian offshore people, but they ran into a long term quality factor. india and Brasil did not have enough people able to support the US market. Yes, it may appear on the books to work, but on reality it did not. Also, India and Brasil is now starting to increase its costs, so the equations no long work.

China lacks the necessary skills (English, etc.) and other English countries such as the Philippines, Singapore lack the language skills to support US growth. Many companies are starting to onshore basic services back for this reason. This includes companies which have particular needs such as retail as US retail models are incomprehensible to non-US people.

L-

[wakemewhenitsover]

82. Major scumbag. n/t

[Gidney N Cloyd]

87. And they don't clog up our potter's fields when they die.

What's not to love?

[ProudProgressiveNow]

96. Shared everywhere! K&R nt