I both agree *and* disagree with you: I think too often, companies “cheat” their workers by looking only at front-line labor costs, not counting the extra costs built in by offshoring /outsourcing, which are spread out throughout the product or system lifecycle, hidden under a multitude of budget items.
The issue is that if enough other companies are doing the same thing, then there is no *net* disadvantage to a company by being inefficient in such a fashion; or else there are other factors (local laws, tariffs, taxes, what not) which obscure the effect.
Cheers!
To a large extent, I would agree with you. And the companies that make those bad decisions will suffer in the marketplace.
However, with the primary H1-B and offshoring companies being massive, and the Obama Administration now considering them ‘too large to fail’ the normal marketplace correction can’t happen.
OR, the Government uses tariffs to protect those inefficient/short-term-thinking companies, again removing the penalties from bad decisions.
Stop protecting American companies from failure, and we’ll get back to where we need to be!
But that flies in the face of the simplistic, protectionist “Buy American!” groupies here...
And the government helps them by subsidizing their distribution of their products so they still appear to be cheaper. In California, it is the taxpayers that get to pick up the tab for port improvements, road maintenance, environmental effects, etc. Heaven forbid that some of that might be relieved by one of those awful tariffs or container fees! Just hint at it and you'll be accused of being a "protectionist" or wanting to start a trade war.