I don't want corporations to take away my job

[redeye]

I am an American. Outsourcing hurts me by replacing my high-paying job with a low-paying job in a third world country.

I am white. Desegregation hurts me by replacing my high-paying job with a lower-paying job given to some black person who'll work for a smaller wage.

I am male. Gender neutrality hurts me by forcing me to compete with women.

I am straight. Not starving all gays to death hurts me by creating a surplus of labor that will at best force me to work for a lower wage and at worst will get me fired.

I am a Californian. Giving jobs to Southerners hurts me by replacing my high-paying job with a low-paying job in Mississippi.

I could go on forever... I take it that all of you guys are disgusted by the latter four statements. Why, then, do you guys support the first statement (and excue me, protectionism does just that), which is not different at all from the others except that it is not wrapped in race but in a flag?

[punpirate]

1. Sounds as if you need good long dose of unemployment....

These corporations depend upon the largesse of government bailouts thrown their way. They do not pay their fair share of taxes, often by moving their corporate addresses offshore. Yet, they are a protected species in this country, protected by Congress, protected by the law. They play one community off others in exchange for jobs, often forcing communities to give huge breaks on taxes, services, municipal bonds in order to bring in a few necessary jobs.

Virtually every state charters corporations under laws which state that its existence is dependent upon its continued usefulness and value to the state and its citizens.

When a corporation voluntarily chooses to sacrifice American workers' jobs in favor of profits, it violates that usefulness clause, and yet, Congress and state legislatures still shower them with tax breaks and other perks which amount to corporate welfare.

The usual complaint of the corporation is that its sole obligation is to its stockholders (they conveniently ignore terms of charter), and that's why they have to outsource. So, here's a nasty little statistic: slightly over 40% of the dollar value of all the stock issued in this country is held by 0.1% of the population. That's who's benefitting by that loss of jobs, along with some very greedy CEOs. One CFO said in the most recent edition of "Fortune" magazine that outsourcing protected executive jobs.

Further, outsourcing jobs hurts our economy in more ways that just the costs of unemployment insurance and retraining. It cuts tax revenues, and increases imports (and if you believe that the negative balance of payments hasn't hurt us, you need to do much more research on the subject).

Don't talk of protectionism unless you're willing to apply it equally. The greatest protectionism practices of this country actually protect large corporations, often unfairly at the expense of the people in the rest of the world to whom our jobs have been outsourced.

Cheers.

[ibegurpard]

3. Are you some kind of bigot?

Can't you see that all of redeye's statements are equivalent?
<sarcasm off>
:eyes:

[punpirate]

12. Yeah, I'm a bigot...

... I hate greedy, mindless, unfeeling corporations that put profits over people and rape the tax base to make a few people filthy rich.

(!)

[redeye]

14. And I hate...

...people who think that corporations should prefer Americans to non-Americans in their choice of people to do jobs.

[NashVegas]

40. Fine By Me - with a Provision

If you think it's fine for corporations to use cheap labor overseas, maybe you won't have a problem with these same corps and their stockholders MOVING to the location where their workers live. There is no reason why US taxpayers should pay for these corporations' Police department, Fire department, DOT, Medical, and other infrustructure requirements.

[redeye]

42. It's called globalization...

...and India will develop much more slowly unless it receives money from first-world nations, i.e. first-world nations' citizens (I loathe the term taxpayers). It's no different from black people having needed and still needing federal programs in order to be on a par with white people, income- and education-wise.

[NashVegas]

48. Bullfeathers

How nice to try to paint the global capitalists as some magnanimous benfactors. My charge remains: it is utter bullshit for corporate boards to kick back in Manhattan drinking New York resevoir water while their 3rd world serfs are dealing with cholera.

[blindpig]

92. .....and it sucks!

globalization is a disaster!!The rich get much richer & the rest of us suck snot. I suppose you consider chattel slavery in the old south as an employment opportunity. globalization couldn't exist at it's current level if the cost of transportation wasn't kept artifically low by gunboat diplomacy and wreckless environmental degradation.
go back home to the DLC

[Woodstock]

69. What an utterly simplistic way of looking at it

You have an excellent explanation above of what is really going on from punpirate. There's a "big picture" out there - open your eyes. You say you care about workers overseas - but US corporations don't have to play by the same rules there as they do here - corruption is rampant, even in more developed nations like India - and think how long it took the US to get to the point where workers have a certain level of rights, and even these are violated every day across the nation with alarming frequency (assignment - read about the history of US labor.) Rather than having a bar raised high for other countries to strive for, this is lowering the bar here and ultimately everywhere. You are simply not looking ahead at all if you don't see this. If you think "white collar" sweatshops don't exist overseas, you are wrong. And do you think, for example, Mexicans are happy at the waste pumped into their rivers so corporations who moved over the border can avoid US regulations? Nobody wins under this scenario. Far better we employ our own citizens and work as a society to TRULY help those in other countries to improve their lives.

[radwriter0555]

45. so instead of relying on corporations for your employment, start your

own company.

It's not that hard. Find what your community needs, fill the niche.

That is where I see the US going, economically. Retreating from the corporate dependence, to starting their own businesses.

The world is our oyster. Instead of whining and crying when crappy jobs go to other countries, create your own business, store, goods or services. Take the communities back from the mega corps.

[Woodstock]

71. Crappy jobs?

A software engineer is not a crappy job. I know lots of Americans who would love to be working at this job - but it went overseas to make some fat corporate cats richer. Seen on one of the software engineering forums - said by an unemployed software engineer who just watched his job go to India - one day, the only jobs left for Americans will be hamburger flipper and sex worker.

[iverglas]

72. ... or print your own money

"Self-employment" in this age is just outsourcing by another name. I know. I'm self-employed, have been for over 25 years, make pots of money ... and have no security whatsoever. And no benefits. No 5-day week, no 8-hour day, no cost-shared pension plan, no sick leave, no disability benefits, no unemployment benefits.

None of the things that my union grandfather spent the dirty 30s fighting for.

I'm in a very, very specialized niche serving a very specialized "client". The one I used to work for, briefly. Very few people have the skills to create the kind of security that I do have by virtue of those specialized skills. Of course, I do live in a country where at least my health care is assured, so that's one thing I don't have to worry about that a USAmerican would.

"Self-employment", these days, is not much more than a fancy new term for "piece-work". I'm really a piece-worker, just a highly skilled and paid one. Most people who get their jobs converted to contracts aren't in quite the same bargaining position.

Those who are born to be self-employed, like me, will be that way more or less spontaneously. Becoming self-employed because you've been laid off and can't find a job ... not quite the same foundation or prospects.

A large majority of people don't really want to take anything back from the mega corps or anyone else. They want meaningful work, decent pay, time and resources for their families and security for their old age. There really isn't much wrong with wanting that. It actually used to be part of the social contract, and the labour-management contract. Back when there were unions, and a modicum of social cohesion ...

[jfkennedy]

91. The theory of unions

Though I agree with the theory of Unions its seems clear to me that there are no more powerful Unions in the United States. It seems that any discussion that has the rights of workers in unions in it is just and acadamic discussion that should be going on between 1950 and the 1970s.Think about it the only ones in the unions that have any voice today are government workers.

And even in the 1950s to the 1970s the Unions sold out to the Republicans,and the patrotism of the American dream that would help the middle class.Unions back then were always pro war. And union workers would ridicule liberals and protestors that were against Wars. As far as my research has shown the major unions like the AFL-CIO never would not let poor workers join.They would only let in the middle class and of course the mob.

In fact I think Reagan was the head of the actors union. I'm not sure.That fact is like a picture is worth a thousand words. A Republican the head of a Union give me a break.Thats like having Castro the head of the US military during the Cuban missile Crisis in 1962.

[rman]

2. there'd be plenty of jobs

for whites, blacks, male, female, californians, texans, etc.
if only those jobs would not be outsourced.

If Americans should be blamed for not wanting to give their job to people in India. Should then also people from India be blamed for not giving their job to Americans?

Of course companies do not outsource for altruistic reasons, they do so to increase their profit.

(That profit will then trickle down, so things'll get better for you eventually. It's just that you first have to get poorer before you can get richer. Or so the RW story goes.)

In the mean time Americans can migrate to India if they want a decent job. Sure wages are lower there, but also stuff is cheaper there.

[redeye]

7. I don't suppot trickle down...

...I support outsourcing not because of American workers but becaue of Indian and Chiense and Indonesian workers.

Besides, there would be enough jobs for everyone if only women were not allowed to work outside home, right?

[rman]

39. so, you don't support US workers?

Do you think companies are outsourcing jobs to help Chinese and Indian people?

That sounds a lot like the "liberate Iraq" argument for the war.

It would be different if there'd be a shortage of workers in the US and a surplus of workers in India, but that's not how it is. It's not like the people in India would die if they didn't get these US jobs.

I don't subscribe to your opinion regarding jobs and women working only at home.

[redeye]

47. It is like they'd die...

...in India people die from hunger; in the United States, not only do very few unemployed people die from hunger, but also there are more than enough resources to support a welfare state reduce that last number to zero.

As for supporting US workers, I support workers everywhere but stop short of class warfare (and no, unlike Rush Limbaugh I don't think that welfare is class warfare).

Finally, I'd agree with the liberate Iraq argument if only the US arrested or assassinated Saddam & sons and then stabilized the regions instead of killed between 6000 and 8000 Iraqis and stole Iraqi oil.

[teryang]

4. corporations have the privelege

...of marketing their goods in our national market. They benefit from our taxes, our infrastructure, and our system of social order and legal rights of which they take full advantage. In general they pay little in national taxes compared to the individual citizens. In fact, the portion of federal taxes they pay has been steadily declining for years. So it is the individual taxpayer who pays for their infrastructure. Individual Americans support them further by buying their goods. We are the largest market in the world. Yet they don't want to employ us because our standards are too high?

Corporations who use foreign outsourcing and other corporate evasion of their domestic social obligations (like federal, state, and local taxes) by setting up dummy fronts offshore are simply avoiding their share of the social contract. This is similar in nature to the situation before the failure of the ancien regime in Europe. Aristocrats and landed elites took possession of their feudal estates dispossessing the serfs from their hereditary role on the common lands destroying the reciprocal social obligations to the land. This was followed eventually by social upheaval and revolution. Property is the relationship of people to a thing. Changing those relationships arbitrarily without government intervention leads to exploitation and social instability.

[acerbic]

15. Concepts in a blender?

Corporations who use foreign outsourcing and other corporate evasion of their domestic social obligations (like federal, state, and local taxes) by setting up dummy fronts offshore are simply avoiding their share of the social contract.
...
So it is the individual taxpayer who pays for their infrastructure.

Foreign outsourcing = straight investing and creating jobs in another country = setting up a Caribbean P.O. box as head office to avoid taxes?

Handy obfuscation and demonization but does not compute. If a company keeps it's HQ in USA and pays taxes here but does all the production elsewhere, doesn't it mean paying taxes without using any infrastructure? Quite the opposite to employing Americans and using the infrastructure but not paying taxes...

[ObaMania]

5. Welcome to Third World 'Murica..

.. compliments of *GWB*!

[Spentastic]

6. That is utter nonsense

And I know that you know better.

The statements are not equivalent.

We are talking about entities that exist and have prospered due to infrastructure, skills, tax breaks and such like that existed in the host country.

By moving further afield to gain advantage solely due to cheap labour these entities in effect are stealing from the host nation.

They should be free to do this but should pay back all the tax advantages they have gained.

[redeye]

11. Nations exist to be robbed...

...by anyone who's smart enough to figure that out. And besides, those corporations benefited from the works of white America, male America, Northern America, and so on, so by the same argument, they shouldn't help blacks, women, and Southerners.

The government's duty is to everyone, not only to its citizens. Last time governments fulfilled their duties to their citizens, we got World War One. Therefore, there is no difference between the American government funding an American's job and the American government funding an Indian's job.

[Spentastic]

16. Do one

Then in a democracy the Indain should be allowed to vote for American politicians no?

Corporate globalisation and democracy are incompatible.

[redeye]

22. Yes, he/she should

I'm a pretty avid supporter of global government and destroying the concept of nation-states.

[Spentastic]

25. I agree there

However, without global government corporations are no more than theives.

Working in IT may be better than working in a field. However, since the rest of your country is not being developed when your labour becomes relatively expensive (5- 7 yrs) you may well be in a worse spot than when you started.

[redeye]

28. It is being developed...

...mainly if the US government starts pouring money or forcing corporations to develop third-world nations. I'm not saying that corporations should be allowed to do whatever they want to, only that the government shouldn't fight outsourcing.

[acerbic]

29. "since"?

However, since the rest of your country is not being developed

Says who (other than you)?

[Spentastic]

33. Oh it's you

Lucky me. I've seen the results of your ire before.

Yep, I completely overstepped the mark. There's me with my wild theorising again. Are you willing to provide evidence that in fact that businesses are constructing equivalent infrastructure in developing countries?

Lets assume for a minute that the reason that the U.S is largely as it is is due to the interaction of labour and capital. Infrastructure was developed to serve the needs of business at the expense of the public. Are corporations that have benefitted from such in the first world under any obligation to provide the same elsewhere? The fact they can't even be bothered with basic safety rules (Union Carbide) seems a tad worrying.

[acerbic]

38. You seem to have strange expectations...

Yep, I completely overstepped the mark. There's me with my wild theorising again. Are you willing to provide evidence that in fact that businesses are constructing equivalent infrastructure in developing countries?

Huh? Why should I "provide evidence" of that when the normal way of financing and developing infrastructure is that the corporations and their employees pay taxes and the government develops the infrastructure?

[Spentastic]

81. That's my point

If infrastructure in developed country A costs X and are funded by taxes then, If company formerly based in A then relocates to less developed country C and contributes (pays) less than X, then infrastructure in C will (o.k may) be inferior to that in A but will in effect have been subsidised by people in A. There is no transfer of wealth back to the originating country. Is this correct?

Part of outsourcing is lowering of tax burdens on corporations. It does not benefit people in C as much as penalise people in A.

The same goes for regulation. Is it cheaper to just dump stuff in the sea or process it and dispose of it properly?

[acerbic]

87. O'Really?

If infrastructure in developed country A costs X and are funded by taxes then, If company formerly based in A then relocates to less developed country C and contributes (pays) less than X, then infrastructure in C will (o.k may) be inferior to that in A
Does infrastructure in less developed country C cost X too or maybe less than X? :think:

[Spentastic]

88. Maybe

But it's unlikely to cost x/100000 is it?

On second thoughts they could probably employ former American software engineers to build their roads.

[TahitiNut]

57. "Global corporatism" vs. "global populism"

When the globalization of corporate predation outruns the balancing globalization of populism and democracy, people (all people) lose. When WTO prevails and an effort like Kyoto is smothered in its crib, people lose. All people. Everywhere.

"Global free trade" is all about tearing down the best efforts to protect people and the environment from predation. When this happens, everyone loses -- including the predators.

When predators run amok, they kill off the very prey upon which their survival depends. This applies to economic predation every bit as much as predation found in "nature."

[punpirate]

20. Wonderfully solipsistic...

... but not true, in any sense. The government's first obligation is to its people, and particularly so in the U.S., since it is part of the Preamble of the Constitution.

The U.S. has taken natural resources from everywhere, often at pittance prices, and generated huge wealth from that. In times past, it did put some of that back into the world community, but never to the extent that it exploited human beings and natural resources internationally.

Second, corporations have traditionally benefitted by exploitation of everyone, rather than just white, male, Northern American, as you suggest.

Last, how on earth did governments fulfill their duties to their citizens by creating WWI? If any of those governments what their ordinary citizens thought of a massive war with the prospect of killing millions of them, they certainly wouldn't have said, "yes, please." As with any contrived war, the ordinary people rarely have a say.

Frankly, I think you're cheerfully being quarrelsome. Not much interested in this sort of game-playing.

Cheers.

[redeye]

26. The governments didn't know that WW1 would be so long

When the Kaiser promised the German soldiers they'd be back home before the leaves fell, he believed that and meant the leaves of 1914, not the leaves of 1918 as happened.

I'm saying that when each government thinks only about its own people, everyone loses. For comparison, take oil-producing nations. If each thought only about itself and sold as much as it could, then prices would hit rock bottom and start digging and everyone would lose. However, by thinking about everyone and joining OPEC, all oil-producers are able to sell at inflated prices and thus they all benefit. Granted, the analogy is only partial because OPEC screws oil-consuming nations, mainly the USA, whereas internationalism doesn't screw anyone, but it really doesn't matter.

And as for corporate exploitation, they've exploited the third world since long before globalization (the predecessors of Exxon and Mobil, for example, got contracts from the British government for Saudi oil). So, should the third world now get its own share, finally, of jobs?

[brokensymmetry]

8. When I vote

I vote for candidates who can (in my opinion) do the best job for me and those I care about. Certainly, that will be the Democrat :-)

But I don't vote for candidates based on what they can do for other countries. I vote for them based on what they can do for America, or whatever venue applies. When I vote for a governor, I'll vote for one who can do the best job for Texas - not for one who might do a superb job for Kansas (or some other place).

Since you've offered a logical conundrum, please permit me to do likewise.

We all agree that Saddam wasn't a nice person. Should American soldiers be over there? Before you say "No" (or, perhaps "H--l no!), one might argue that we were helping Iraq rid itself of a cruel tyrant.

But if America serves itself and the world best by minding its own business and letting other nations enjoy self determination, then Saddam's brutality and the suffering of the Iraqi people is not something we should involve ourselves with.

I believe we need to do exactly that - stay at home, mind our own business, and take care of our own issues. One such issue is making sure that every American who wants to work can find a good job with a living wage and decent benefits.

[Muddleoftheroad]

10. Thank you Pat Buchanan

Sorry, America is part of the global club of nations and you can't just ignore the rest of the club. We are in an international marketplace. Ignore it at your own and our nation's own peril.

[brokensymmetry]

58. I can play that game too.

A side effect of exporting jobs is to maximize corporate profits - thus increasing the wealth of the top 1% some more.

Help me out here. Which party supports such a strategy?

[redeye]

13. I do, too

I vote for the candidate who's best for white people, because I am white, not black. I vote for the candidate who's best for men, because I am male, not female. I vote for the candidate who's best for straights (do you know that I lose 1/9th of women who're lesbians because they're allowed to have sex with other women?), because I am straight, not gay. And so on...


And no, I don't *really* do that, that was only an illustrative point.

[union_maid]

9. The are not the same statements

"I am white. Desegregation hurts me by replacing my high-paying job with a lower-paying job given to some black person who'll work for a smaller wage."

The goal of desegregation was never to provide a cheap labor force for companies. In fact, the lack of equal opportunity in the workplace provided very cheap labor in certain jobs.

"I am male. Gender neutrality hurts me by forcing me to compete with women."

Same as above

"I am straight. Not starving all gays to death hurts me by creating a surplus of labor that will at best force me to work for a lower wage and at worst will get me fired.?

Gays just stayed in the closet if they were working in fields where their sexual orientation didn't permit them to be open. Gays will not be moving into any area of the workforce. They were always there.

"I am a Californian. Giving jobs to Southerners hurts me by replacing my high-paying job with a low-paying job in Mississippi."

It's difficult and disruptive, but Americans have always moved to where the jobs are when necessary. It's not always a good thing, creating booms in a new area and then leaving higher taxes and more problems for those areas when the boom is over, but we do it.

All the groups mentioned above were meant to be full members of the workforce. The same goes for peopele who immigrate to this country with the intention of staying here. They do work harder for less for a while, oftentimes, but their goal is to reach equity with the rest of our society. None of those situtations were meant to stack the playing field against Americans making a decent living. They were meant to include others in the game on an equal basis.

Most of all, though, this is a different situation than we've ever had before. More jobs are more portable to all corners of the globe than ever were before. Many in farming moved to manufacturing when agriculture became a harder way to make a living. When that industry started to sputter in this country, the tech industry was already underway and it wasn't such a huge stretch for engineers to retrain and many of them did. There was a nasty recession, but that solution was available so there was hope. It offered a lot of jobs for both the white and blue collar people who might have looked to manufacturing in the past. Now, there's nothing. No new industries on the horizon, let alone in place that can't be moved offshore. We have a new problem and it needs to be looked at in a new way. Could and probably would go on for way too long, but it's time to get ready for work.

[redeye]

21. The goal doesn't really matter...

...and I guess you're right about employers being able to pay blacks less than they did whites. However, desegregation meant that they could employ blacks with much less harassment from the government and racist groups, thus increasing the labor supply.

I kinda agree about level playing fields; however, the equivalent in the United States of X dollars per year is in India 0.2X when considering only purchasing power, and between 0.01X and 0.02X when considering also GDP per capita (i.e. wages relative to the average wage). In other words, if a corporation ditches 500 American workers and hires Indians for a tenth of the wage, then the Indians benefit (agriculture pays much less than 1/10 of anything you get in the US and any other job has to pay less or the Indians would've taken it instead) while the Americans lose. If trade agreements force India to increase its minimum wage too much - for example, increasing it above the GDP per capita (it can be higher than the USA relative to GDP per capita because it's assumed that outsourcing will substantially increase Indian wages) - then they screw India. On the other hand, I do agree that there need to be some protections for workers in India, but they need to be drawn with respect to India's needs, not the USA's.

[are_we_united_yet]

17. Redeye

If you are going to move jobs overseas,

you need to sell your products there.

You can't call yourself an American Corporation.

[are_we_united_yet]

19. Wait...

Let me think this one through.

I'll get back to you......

[JohnyCanuck]

18. Yes but

In the above examples the competition is coming from other US workers and the corporations providing the jobs to all these workers whether, white, black, brown, female or male had to provide working conditions which, broadly speaking, were comparable. e.g. complying with environmental regs, and occupational health and safety regs and allowing workers the rights to organize in trade unions. In addition workers had the right to relocate from state to state and to some extent follow the jobs. So if a job moved from Ohio to Mississippi, the workers who lost their jobs in Ohio could if they wanted apply for a job in Mississippi even if at a lower wage.

I realize that some of the regulations governing rights to organize etc. vary from state to state and some states might have more restricive legislation than others. However the playing field on which these different ethnic groups and genders competed was not as wildly tilted as the playing field on which the North American workers are now expected to compete.

The rules and regulations governing things like industrial waste disposal, occupational safety, rights to organize etc. are usually much less restrictive for the employers in most third world countries and even if the laws are on the books they are frequently ignored -meaning that the North American worker has to compete with a worker who, while making a significantly lower wage, also has no legally enforced 40hr work week, little or no ability to organize an effective trade union to bargain for better salaries and working conditions, and might work in a plant or factory where the employer can dump hazardous chemicals into rivers and watercourses without paying for expensive treatment options to protect the environment.

The employers will all be happy of course when we are all competing for $4 an hour jobs, the environment is a steaming pile of shit because we cut our environmental regs (like Bush has done in the US) and we are all working 60 hr work weeks with no paid vacation. Hey that's how they do it in China right, and we want to be competive.

[gulliver]

23. Abuse of L-1 and H-1B laws

First, your string of "I am's" is ridiculous and has nothing to do with the issue of corporate outsourcing. You could go on forever, as you say, with such nonsense, but I hope you won't.

Outsourcing is questionable because it impoverishes the United States as a whole. If our standard of living were to drop 40% as has happened in Venezuela, this country (and probably the rest of the world) would be dangerously destabilized.

Second, the visa programs (L-1 and H-1B) are being abused. They were not intended to drive down U.S. wages, take American jobs, or hasten the exit of white collar work to foreign countries. But that is what they are doing.

If you want your kids to grow up in India, fine. I think you wouldn't if you had heard the stories I have heard about it. Corporate outsourcing of white collar, middle class jobs is nothing short of moving a poor standard of living to the United states. And with it will come gangsterism, suffering of the lower classes, and political instability.

That's what you are arguing for with your superficial silliness.

[redeye]

31. America first, again

What do visas have anything to do with anything? Besides, I don't really give a fuck what the USA's standard of living is; I care for the global standard of living. The USA is comparable to the pigs of Animal Farm, which rob the other animals supposedly becasue it's more importantly for pigs to live well than for other animals to live.

[gulliver]

36. "What do visas have anything to do with anything?"

Actually, I'm glad you brought this up. Arguments like yours are welcome in this debate because they demonstrate the weakness of the position you are taking for all to see. A lot of people are quick to think the way you do without asking themselves "What happens next?" If you think a United States reduced to the per capita income of China is good for anyone, you're not thinking very hard in my opinion.

Look. You put together a fairly nice string of rhetoric. I believe that you have what it takes to actually think through what you are saying.

[Woodstock]

74. Weak argument, indeed, to say visas have nothing to do with it

Exactly as you said. L-1's and H-1's are being used to drive down wages. I work with some of these people - when one thinks of sweatshops, one thinks of people sewing cheap underwear, perhaps. But there is a new class of white collar sweatshops as a result of these programs - people are being brought over making less than Americans in the same job (the ones who still have one, that is - more and more Americans are losing their jobs to the visa holders) and the visa holders are so afraid of being sent back to their countries, they work countless overtime hours, and work under overly demanding or demeaning conditions that Americans would rebel against, with nary a peep. This is just what is going on here - now look what is going on at the offshore "sweatshops." Overseas the corporations are not being held to American standards - standards we worked hard to achieve. It would be far better to TRULY help other countries, rather than taking further advantage of them.

Very shortsighted to trust the corporations on this.

[rman]

41. "I care for the global standard of living"

The global standard of living won't improve by having big business enrich itself. If this continues, the US will soon be in no position to help anyone.

[redeye]

43. It won't improve...

...by the US telling India to lift itself by its own bootstraps, either.

[sweetheart]

24. Free trade's lowest common denomenator

You know damn well the issue, as the first argument is macro, and the others micro. The first argument is not what you say. It is firstly founded on the myth that business just sprouts up out of the ground without government planning and public funding... and this taxpayer investment is a public obligation underlying appearantly private markets. This subsidy of the taxpayer to american business is disgusting, but if it is to exist, then the world beyond borders has not paid for the development, why should it get the jobs?

In the simple case, say the labour costs in a nation without any social infrastructure to pay for are 1 oreo per day. In another nation, say sweden, citizens get a huge set of social benefits from society. It is not fair to let swedish business dump labour wherever the oreos are cheapest. If they do, they should be charged a huge tarriff by the swedish government to equilize the social contract costs for the oreo nation.

Also, in economic planning, creating long term centres of business knowledge is complex, as it involves social investment, freeways, telecoms, power, water and waste disposal,.. universities, schools and companies that build that knowledge further in their business line disciplines. As these mature, the universities have the professional skills to transfer... as it stands, an aspiring american software engineer might best move to india to get skills, as the entire lot is being shipped offshore. The future potential to have expertise in the profession is being shipped offshore along with the jobs. If the taxpayers like you and me did not subsidize the busienss to start with, i'd have less issue, but as it stands, i'm being ripped off.

I think you should bend the argument differently... why does capital have more rights to cross borders than labour? Let the capital stay where it is, then let the people cross the borders. Whatever restrictions there are for capital moving across borders, people should have the same rights. Those states that invest in the capital basis for an industry like developing software... those states should get the long term benefits from the state investment... flexible labour is crap... and it will be too late when we're all holed up in cardboard tent cities because real buildings were too high on the salary scale... come on redeye, you must also then despise setting a minimum wage by the same vein...

[redeye]

34. I never said I was against minimum wage, open borders, or regulations

I only said I was against protectionism.

The micro/macro thing is wrong, because micro refers to the level of a firm or an individual whereas macro refers to the level of an economy. You might have a point about gays and women, but you don't have any point about regions in the United States (a state or even a city fals into the definition and paradigms of macroeconomics) or about blacks, who were sufficiently removed from white society to warrant an ability to consider each group as a separate economy (that was even truer in the days of slavery; arguably, the people in most of Latin America are the United States' slaves, so the situation is sufficiently comparable).

Then, you're right about outsourcing allowing firms to get labor from a nation without investing in it, but I think that the government exists partly to do just that - invest in its nation (or, if it doesn't have enough money, other governments should invest in it). Moreover, given the employment of, say, Indians in American corporations, governments only need to provide the initial setup of a university or local corporation for professional labor to flow there. Finally, the taxpayer argument is as valid as my saying that working people who pay taxes are right to want to gut welfare, or for white taxpayers to want to resegregate the US, or for taxpayers in New York and California to throw the south from the Union (because NY and CA pay more than they receive, whereas all southern states but Texas receive moer than they pay).

[buddhamama]

27. i do not support protectionism

what i support is fairness globally.

the Corps who are moving to foreign shores are doing so because labor is cheap,there are few, if any, worker and enviromental protections.
they can get away with murder,literally,without laws and regulations to concern themselves with.

viewed in the broader sense it is a no win situation for anyone except corporations.

[Loonman]

30. That's the way it is/put up or shut up

Nobody likes a whiner.

[Born_a_Democrat]

32. Here's your answer

I take it that all of you guys are disgusted by the latter four statements. Why, then, do you guys support the first statement (and excue me, protectionism does just that), which is not different at all from the others except that it is not wrapped in race but in a flag?


You are looking at this issue from a global perspective, meaning one job in India instead of here still helps the Human Race go forward. Very noble and if we were all ants whose purpose is to sacrifice themselves for the colony then outsourcing would be just another way of advancing.

However, humans have an inate sense of self-preservation. If I found you (a stranger) bleeding on the street and I felt my life was not in danger I would stop and help. But given the choice between saving your life or mine or my family's I would chose the latter.

I hold no personal ill will towards you but you can't have it both ways: you can't champion family values and then sacrifice that same family for the sake of a stranger. And I challenge anyone here who says differently to give up his/her job or their entire paycheck down to the last cent (in effect what would happen if you are outsourced) directly to a man or woman in India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia or any other third world country so that he and his family could survive.


Mike

[redeye]

35. You're right on one account -

namely that the whole is not more important than individuals. You're wrong on another account, namely that arbitrary groups are more important than individuals. I don't see why an Indian should sacrifice his job for the sake of lowering corporations' profits; I don't see why blacks should all commit suicide so that whites have better bargaining power with their employers; and so on. I care about myself, not about races, nations, sexual orientations, or whatever.

And on another note, unemployed American have welfare; unemployed Indians can only beg.

[PapaClay]

44. Huh???

"unemployed American have welfare" You must not be unemployed.

"I don't see why an Indian should sacrifice his job for the sake of lowering corporations' profits" Then give him yours.

[redeye]

49. I'm on kind of welfare myself - financial aid

And anyway, the USA has more than enough money to pay for a welfare state, which I support. India doesn't.

[bleedingheart]

53. India's problems begin at the top

a good friend of mine from college was born here in the US but frequently went back home to India to visit family.

I didn't know it at the time (was a bit young)...but she explained that the biggest problem in the world's biggest democracy was that no one liked to pay taxes. She explained how many of her relatives avoided the income taxes and how with no money they could not build the infrastructure necessary to promote growth......she was a pretty smart gal.

[PapaClay]

54. RE: "I'm on kind of welfare myself - financial aid"

Does "financial aid mean that you are a student? If so, are you supporting a family? Do you plan to get a job, or offer it to someone in another country?

The reason I ask is that if you don't have any skin in the game, the outcome doesn't matter.

[redeye]

56. I refuse to answer your question...

...on the grounds that it's an irrelevant ad hominem. Attack my argument, not me.

[ibegurpard]

37. Do you think you exist in a vacuum?

Do you benefit from the publicly subsidized education that allowed you to learn about the plight of people in other countries? Do you think that you would have had that opportunity if people in this country didn't have high-enough paying jobs to pay the taxes that subsidized that education? Can you honestly not see that self-preservation on the macro-level is essential to individual self-preservation?

[bleedingheart]

46. Outsourcing hurts

all people in a particular country. In fact the Mexicans are now starting to get hurt because the Chinese work cheaper than they do and thus Mexican jobs (the jobs NAFTA was going to help create to boost their country's economy) are going overseas.

If your okay with outsourcing that's fine. I am not particularly fond of it and personally I am not sure who is going to keep buying stuff in the US when high paying jobs have been outsourced for less overseas.

The corporations who outsource are looking for cheap labor.. they don't want to make life better in China or India or South Africa...they want cheap labor so executives can make more money so they can retire early to Palm Beach or the South of France...Hell the proof is in the Mexican situation... Mexico hasn't even begun to "turn the corner" and emerge out of third world status ..yet its jobs are being outsourced.

My country outsourced some programming jobs recently to India and according to my boss it is causing a number of problems. Its not turning out to be the wonderful situation they thought it would be because communication issues are rampant (not language related) ..its hard enough to promote communication in offices in the same building...let alone try and foster that across the world...
However they did put seven C developers (with college educations) out of work here... so I guess that's a good effect for some people...

[redeye]

50. I know corporations aren't exactly altruistic

I'm saying, basically, that even if what they do is done for the wrong reasons, it's mostly right (mostly because there're still the issues of environmental and safety protections in the third world). Take Iraq, for example; if the USA had assassinated Saddam and Sons in order to instate a pro-US dictatorship but instead fomented a revolution that resulted in a democratic state, then the motive would've been wrong but the result would've been right.

Mexico, anyway, is almost out of the third world; its HDI is 0.796 and its GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power is 9,000 dollars per year. China's and India's figures, by comparison, are 0.726 and 4,000 dollars and 0.577 and 2,500 dollars respectively. The UN considers a country to have high human development if its HDI is 0.8 or more, so Mexico is pretty close to the high HDI range (developed countries, by the way, are more or lses in the 0.9+ range; the USA, for example, has an HDI of 0.939).

And as for outsourcing screwing corporations, my common sense tells me that corporations don't outsource unless it benefits them financially. But then again, common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18, so I may be wrong.

[Armstead]

51. You miss the point -- And I resent your characterization

It's about concentration of power and wealth -- and a complete lack of values that is driving Corporate Globalization.

I'll make a deal with you. If a corporation wants to move it's operations overseas so it can exploit workers there at sweatshop wages, let them go. But, in exchange, they can't sell their products in America.

Ridiculous, you say? Well that's the only way to level everyone. Business is, among things, a social bargain. And part of the bargain is that if they support consumers through jobs, taxes, etc. then citizens support them with work and as consumers.

This stuff isn't easy. Obviously we need to encourage a greater flow of goods and services in the world, so that the disparities among nations can be lessened.

However, the current form of globalization is doing that by dragging everyone down towards the level of the lowest level, rather than helping the lower level nations rise closer to our level. It is the "race to the bottom."

The core problem is that power and wealth are being centralized. Business does not benefit societies as a whole -- instead they exploit society to enrich a small handful.

Sorry but your laissez faire form, of globalozation is right-wing trickle down corporate economics on a global level. And it will have the same effect as Bushism is having on the domestic economy.

You can;t escape that fact by cloaking it in your pretense of a socialist One World government either. Rather than democratic internationalism, that's International Fascism.

Yes that is oversimplifying. And You probably don't see yourself that way at all. But if you can use such insulting broad brushes to describe those who believe in fair trade, then so can we turn the tables.

[brokensymmetry]

60. Thank you!

You make the point very effectively!

[Woodstock]

76. International fascism

indeed.

[TahitiNut]

52. How many 'executive' positions are outsourced???

When corrupt corporations with cooked books and accounting evasions continue to increase 'executive' compensation while laying off workers and externalizing costs on a victimized public, where's the outrage?

When 'affirmative action goals' are met by importing bodies from and exporting jobs to third world countries, why do We the People continue to license their predation? Revoke their business licenses.

We buy into the mythology for the exporting of jobs as a search for more cost-effective labor. Nothing could be further from the truth. American labor is more cost-effective. It's the lax regulatory environment that's being sought. It's the opportunity, in jurisdictions with lassez faire oversight, for more corruption, payola, and profiteering.

Can anyone spell Bhopal? Can anyone look at the liability exposures? Can anyone look at the evironmental protections? Can anyone find an OSHA in India? Where are their Fair Labor Standards?

When corporations go where life is cheapened and serve to cheapen it further, we are all harmed.


On edit: It should be noted carefully that all 'free trade' globalization moves serve only to eradicate human protections against predation. When a WTO suit is levied, it is against a local regulation in jurisdiction 'A' that is not present in jurisdiction 'B' -- never the opposite. Thus, the transnational effect of globalization is to tear down uneven advances in the protection of both people and their environment, all for the sake of increased concentration of wealth and power, worldwide, into the hands of a decreasing few. Whenever equivalent global-scale advances are sought (i.e. Kyoto) in order to eliminate the unevenness of such protections, they're destroyed by the most powerful arm of global corporatist greed and predation: US government.

[acerbic]

55. Some answers

Can anyone look at the evironmental protections?

Yes, literally anyone can, e.g. here:
http://envfor.nic.in/

Can anyone find an OSHA in India? Where are their Fair Labor Standards?

Occupational safety issues seem to belong to the Ministry of Labour. Here's a list of labor laws (don't know how comprehensive):
http://labour.nic.in/act/welcome.html

[Woodstock]

77. What I'm hearing from Indians is that it's very easy to get around laws

All you need to do is flash a little cash.

[acerbic]

78. See? They are already getting closer to USA

in how their labor and environmental laws and standards work...

[Yavin4]

59. Redeye, May I Ask What Do You Do For A Living?

Just asking?

[redeye]

64. You may ask

but you won't get an answer any more than you'll get any if you suddnely ask if I'm a virgin. Both questions bear the same relevance to the topic.

[Blue_Chill]

61. OK so redeye why don't we send your job

to India I'm sure they need it more then you do. Until you give yours up, don't support someone giving mine away.

[acerbic]

62. Do you demand closing borders from all imports?

Are all your clothes made in USA? How about your appliances and electronics?

I dare assume that the answer is negative, so: why do you support giving away the jobs of Americans who make clothes, appliances or electronics?

[Blue_Chill]

66. Imports?

Are you saying that buying imports harms the US economy? Obsurd. Supporting foriegn business increases foriegn wealth and thus enriches the market for American goods to be sold there.

If you are asking if I am against sweatshaop being set up in places like china so that Nike can save a buck, yes I am.

[acerbic]

67. So now it's quite suddenly not about "giving away YOUR job"

...or someone else's as it was a few minutes ago but about "harming the US economy"? Please keep up the goal post moving and straw men erecting: it really makes your case. :-)

[Blue_Chill]

70. Your not making any sense

What jobs have been given away. Name them. I think you are mistaking jobs that haven't existed in the US for decades and that can no longer be sustained here with jobs that most certainly can.

Big difference.

[acerbic]

73. I guess you're trying to imply that you are making sense...?

What jobs have been given away. Name them. I think you are mistaking jobs that haven't existed in the US for decades and that can no longer be sustained here with jobs that most certainly can.

Why can't some jobs, e.g. clothes manufacturing, be sustained here?

[Blue_Chill]

75. Yes I am

Why can't some jobs, e.g. clothes manufacturing, be sustained here?

Competition has forced the indusrty to the point where increasing cost would drop the profit margain too far. This is what happens when you export jobs, you find your self with more profit so you cut prices to gain a competitive edge, by doing so you force your competitors to seek cheap labor as well.

So if IT jobs to to India, pretty soon you can expect many more of them to follow suit and the US loses many high paying jobs.

[acerbic]

80. Way to rationalize...

...but still you say that it's ok that people who make clothes in USA are exposed to competition so that you can buy cheap clothes with your high salary from a job protected from competition.

[Blue_Chill]

82. Way to spin

I'm saying that because no one stopped them in the first place it's now too late.

big difference!

[acerbic]

85. What "too late"?!?!

I'm saying that because no one stopped them in the first place it's now too late.

Spin this: clothes are still being made in USA. Why don't you just buy them instead of ones made abroad? What's stopping you from that simple act other than your own voluntary choice? What's making it "too late"?

It's this simple: you want to buy cheap stuff produced by competition with your high salary from a job protected from competition.

[Blue_Chill]

89. Yes too late

Spin this: clothes are still being made in USA. Why don't you just buy them instead of ones made abroad? What's stopping you from that simple act other than your own voluntary choice? What's making it "too late"?

It's too late because it no longer makes a difference. The balance has shifted and buying all the made in america clothes in the world will not bring a single job back or save one that a company wants to move.

It's this simple: you want to buy cheap stuff produced by competition with your high salary from a job protected from competition.

I don't have a high salary as I am the database administrator for a micro enterprise charity. I save for everything that I buy and I go without many of the things I could have by accepting a higher paying job. My job is not at all protected because by it's nature it can not be exported. My concern is that the field I have chosen and worked hard to enter (IT is much more difficult then filling out a job application) is being shipped away.

Buying foriegn goods helps the economy just as much as buying domestic. This is basic econ 101 stuff. None of this changes the exporting of jobs, that belief is a myth.

[Liberal Veteran]

83. You are correct there Blue Chill.

Right now, AOL (narrowband), Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, and a host of other companies are moving support to third world countries.

Insurance companies are starting to do it also.

It sucks.

What a lot of people don't realize is that during the mass migration of manufacturing jobs overseas, the promise was that the new "US economy" would be service based with clean high paying IT type jobs. Now those are going as well.

It's getting to the point where we will all be doctors/lawyers/etc or burger flippers.

[redeye]

63. Cut the ad hominem BS, please n/t

[Blue_Chill]

65. nice cop out response

Much like the chickenhawks support war unless they have go it isn't valid to support someone else loses their job unless you are willing to give up your own.

[Armstead]

84. Your initial post was an ad hominum attack

If you had stated the same points in a less acusatory way perhaps the reposnses might not be ad hominum.

[Liberal Veteran]

68. Oh BS.....

I work for one of those companies that is doing exactly what you describe in the first paragraph. I got my layoff notice in May and will be out of a job in September. I am currently having to work with these people from India who barely understand english and I barely understand their english.

The company I work for is extremely profitable and I and the people I worked with helped make this company one of the most profitable in the world.

I am well trained and have continued to keep my training up to date with numerous certifications. Now the bean counters have decided they can make even more money by paying some third world employee 1/5 of what I make and you don't think I have a right to be angry and bitter that I am being fucked over by a company I have worked my ass off for?

You know, I wouldn't even have a problem with it if my company had to do this survive, but we are making money hand over fist. This is about making a few people at the top who already have more money than god, that much richer.

And I don't mind telling you I resent the fucking hell out of being called a racist because I am angry my job is being exported for no good reason! How dare you?!!!

[Isome]

90. The Five Unequal Commandments ...

of Corporate Globalization:

1. Thou shalt not stop another country from selling their wares in yours. But you can price your goods so low that no country can match your price. Rule the world!



2. Thou shalt not have any labor unions that will create nuisance like demanding more money or more facilities.



3. Thy government shall reduce spending on social services and sell your education, your health and your environment to multinational corporations.



4. Thou shalt not make the rules. Market forces will set the regulations. It is another matter that market forces of the richer nations are always stronger.



5. Thou shalt privatise everything – from water to waste to the internet. Life is Private Profit.

The problem is not that people's bigotry is showing, it's that the sentiment of jobs staying "where they belong" is being misconstrued. To try to clarify what people are saying: corporations are reaping the rewards of U.S. government's largesse (tax breaks on the backs of taxpayers) while outsourcing jobs to foreign countries, so the corporation's upper echelon and stockholders can increase their profit margin year after year.

Lest it hasn't been said often enough: they do no favors for the foreign workers, that country's economy, or the environment. They are lured there precisely because there are few, if any, regulations to protect the aforementioned.

[Tigermoose]

79. Order vs. Chaos

You seem to want to live in a world without structure or order, because when you have structure or order, you then necessarily have an Other to that particular structure that exists outside of that ordered structure. Thus --> families, clans, tribes, city-states, empires, feudalism, nationalism. Ordered structures that arise to ensure survival and happiness for those living within the structure. You want to live in a fantasy-land of anarchy that ignores the reality of how ugly humanity is. All too often it comes down to this quote, from Army of Darkness: "Good, evil, it doesn't matter. I've got the gun."

I reject racism and gender as distinctions between US and THEM. They are outdated forms. But, I do think that nationalism is still necessary, and until a magical world government arises and solves all the worlds problems --> especially energy, I'll stick with my fellow Americans. I don't hate foreigners, but I recognize the need for Order to ensure happiness and survival.

Globalization really means Corporatism as the next form of order, but Corporatism is based on the ethics of money -- an evil system that will make even Feudalism look very attractive. So..we come down to a choice, a choice of raging against an evil system or choosing to submitting to the monied elite as our masters. Sure. We could choose equality ---> equally fucked. I'll stick by America. Yours is an opinion formed by an age of decadence and sloth, of assuming we can all just get along if we join hands and sing Kumbaya. It is important to remember that preferencing those within your Order does not mean you hate those outside of it, but simply that a choice has to be made, and therefore to preserve the Order you would necessarily choose to promote those within it.

Yes. The world does suck. And so does mankind. And it isn't fair.

CHOOSE.

[JackDragna]

86. Your arguments completely miss the mark.

You seem to view the idea of keeping decent jobs for Americans as similar to other struggles to keep an equitable work environment. The problem with your argument is that there's no attempt at "equality" being made by companies that move jobs overseas. I invite you to look at the countries where many industrial and technical jobs are going: India, Indonesia, Mexico and so on.

Workers there can be paid pennies on the dollar compared to an American. They get few benefits. Their workweeks can be atrociously long. There is often little government oversight of working conditions. Collective bargaining is nonexistent. In short, workers work in conditions similar to those at the very cusp of the industrial age in the West, the era of children in coal mines and the Triangle Shirt Factory fire.

These companies have no interest in improving the infrastructure in these countries. They only want the cheap labor. Whether the living conditions of their workers or anyone else in the country improve is of little consequence. If the workers think a little too highly of themselves and demand more rights and pay, the companies go elsewhere. It's already begun in Mexico: many "maquiladoras" that made cheap plastics are going to the poor Pacific Rim.

There is a valid question raised: do Americans have some fundamental right to high-paying jobs? I don't think they necessarily have a right to it, but it bothers me when companies enjoy the benefits of having their base of operations in the US and getting massive profits from selling their goods here, yet do not see fit to give Americans a chance to have those jobs.

I also think it's long-term economic suicide for people to pretend that jobs going overseas are just part of the new competitive global marketplace. When you take those jobs away from a developed nation like the United States, you're gutting its middle class. Its citizens will not have the same purchasing power and discontent will rise as those told that working hard and going to college will make them successful can't find work. The economies of the third-world nations to which the companies flee aren't improved, either, because the companies are allowed to employ every single business practice in the book to funnel profits towards the owners and away from the workers. The net result in the world economy will be an ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor and a continued slump.

The movement of jobs overseas has no similarity to your equivocations.

[Rainydaze]

93. I am also a techworker.

I'm not bluecollar, I was firmly in the low middleclass bracket until my job got outsourced to India. I believe I can speak on this as I have a direct stake in this issue, and I do not support overseas migration of jobs. Even worse with the mass migration, and it is en-masse. The market is saturated with unemployed college graduates with the exact skill set I have. Doctorate level candidates are applying for 9 dollar an hour jobs, at my fiancee's place of employment. And you support moving the jobs overseas. I've had to go back to school even though my current loans aren't paid, as my previous career choice is now invalid; and I've been unemployed for 6 months now. I think you are trying to stir up a flame war as your arguements are untenable, and silly me I took the bait.