Why I Outsource Offshore

Friday, July 18, 2003 | Me

[RockyMtnMan]

I am a capitalist not a globalist. Reagan believed in creating jobs for Americans through trickle down economics. The globalists would have the trickling happen in another country which breaks the cycle.

[palmer]

Consumers must make decisions based on cost-effectiveness and little else.

Cost-effectiveness must include the realization that their American purchase supports more domestic economic activity through the multiplier effect. That effect is not present when you make no domestic purchases and your (or your children's) taxes will ultimately increase to make up for the loss of taxable economic activity.

Also cost-effectiveness can't include convenience. A consumer's time is not so valuable that he must go to one giant store to buy everything made in China. If they do that (e.g. spur of the moment Walmart TV purchase) they end up with low quality items which negate any savings.

[PuNcH]

OK... so what WOULD you do? How do you fix it?

I would look to the constitution. There is damage done but we could do pretty bad before we did worse than handing nuclear bombs over to a communist govt and finacing their military buildup as the "free traders" have done.

[palmer]

Reagan believed in patriotism, for the most part people didn't take those large tax cuts and buy chinese TV's. Also cuts targetted at the wealthy are much more likely to result in investment which was primarily domestic.

[RockyMtnMan]

I agree with you 100%.

[Lion in Winter]

PuNch, my dear friend. I can call you friend, can't I?

I do understand your frustration.

Slave labor in China benefits this society in the same way it did before the American Civil War. However, please do not spread that around. You certainly do want another CIVIL WAR on your hands, do you?

You cannot talk reason to these fellows who are making a living off the labor of slaves in China.

Remember no man is really free while any man is a slave.

Gadzooks! I cannot, for the life of me, remember who it was, that gave us that little saying.

*/;^)

[RockyMtnMan]

The constitution already laid it all out. See: Post

[FoxPro]

How do you get the dollar to go farther here? It seems that if foreign labor is so cheap, and we import so much of their stuff, our prices should go down.

Insightful economic observation of the night. Do you notice nobody ever talks about this?

[Luis Gonzalez]

"The answer to America's high tech unemployment problems are hidden right here in FoxPro's post..."

Yes, I found it.

"I actually made $16,000 in about a day, tracking down a bug in a major government computer system."

[RockyMtnMan]

Do you notice nobody ever talks about this?

That's because it's not happening, companies are maintaining their prices and fattening the bottom line. Without significant competition there is no reason to lower prices.

[bvw]

IIRC, you said that during this process your wife left you, you lost your house, your family. She called you "a washed up computer hack".

[battousai]

"Am I taking jobs from Americans, yes"

I would say the answer to that is a big NO, there are no Americans who will code for $15 an hour, its like those tax breaks for people who don't pay taxes, you can't take away jobs that never existed.

But as you can see trade in skills, that is what off shore work is, actually created jobs and wealth both in the US and in Russia!

[FoxPro]

Good God!! That is NOT free market, that is NOT capitalism, that is NOT free Trade, it is SOCIALISM!!

Man I love your post. I sometimes feel the same way. You are thinking about this situation 10-20 years from now, and it does give one pause, an important pause.

[Lion in Winter]

Mr. Fox Pro,

Since you are bearing your soul, old man, exactly what was it then?

You know you have given us so much information so that we could understand your need NOT to have mop floors for a living.

Perhaps you could elucidate some marital advice as well?

You may help to save another unfortunate's marriage.

Not mine of course, as am a bereaved widower.

*/:^{

[meatloaf]

Not even close. Remember he said, and I'm paraphrasing, "You can't build it now." It has nothing to with outsourcing. It's due to more restrictive requirements and the potential for lawsuits.

As an example, today I called an HVAC shop to look at my mother's fifty year old central air unit. It worked fine last year. The guy on the other end of the phone starts talking about not being able to repair it if it has lost freon again. The unit uses R500 gas which I lucked out and found a full tank at much less than the going price of $1,000 per a few years ago. So gas is not a problem. THE EPA IS.

The guy was going on and on about a leak. Hey, find the leak and fix it. The unit doesn't have the crappy aluminum thinwall stuff. The coils in the beast are heavy copper. The compressor is a standalone design run by a separate electric motor via a belt. No "unit" design where the compressor and motor are packaged together so the death of a motor means you get to buy the whole thing.

Turns out the 220V motor that forces the air across the coils outside had died. No biggie, other than a 1/3 hp 220V motor isn't exactly a stock item around here. While the tech was there, I asked him about the life expectancy of new units. The response, If you're really, really lucky, 25 years. Normally it's 15 years or less. The beast at my mother's will probably do another fifty years.

But I digress, the engineer was talking about what was required to get a bridge design accepted today as compared to decade ago.

[FoxPro]

Our software company offshores, and some of our customers want to know if we could offshore some development work for them.

Send it to me, we are so agile now, and have plenty of capacity.

You know, don’t tell anybody, but my Russians admit that they spent many years divining ways to kill me, and I admit to them that my government did the same. We hope to resolve this issue over a cold bottle of Vodka someday. That will be a day of great moment for me.

[sinkspur]

Also cost-effectiveness can't include convenience. A consumer's time is not so valuable that he must go to one giant store to buy everything made in China. If they do that (e.g. spur of the moment Walmart TV purchase) they end up with low quality items which negate any savings.

Yeah. That's why Wal-Mart's the largest retailer on the face of the earth: they sell nothing but cheap junk.

Never mind that they sell the same thing Target, and Costco, and other retailers sell. They just sell it for less.

In your world, American consumers are all stupid, and getting taken to the cleaners by Wal-Mart.

[Reagan Renaissance]

"(The AW ban sunsets on 09/13/2004)"

That is only two months before an election. Want to bet on whether it gets renewed in Congress and signed by the President?

[palmer]

Stupid or thoughtless, doesn't really matter. The fact is there are American made TV's contrary to the theoreticians on this thread. If that poster could not find information that took me 2 seconds to find with Google, then they are stupid. If they buy a TV at WalMart because it's cheap and convenient, then they are stupid because it will probably break sooner than any other TV they could purchase.

[Lion in Winter]

bvw,

She called him names... I am fighting the outrage now.

How totally insensitive of her.

Imagine what she could have said if he had actually been forced, by those dreadful circumstances to MOP FLOORS for his living.

Why the mind simply boggles.

*\ :^ {