Boycott companies that offshore their call centers (vanity!).

Many people feel strongly about not shopping on Thanksgiving. Well, I have a cause of my own. Not doing business with any company that offshores its call centers. After dealing with some script-reading cretin out in God-Knows-Where because Old Navy's online credit card payment isn't working, I've decided that enough is enough. With so many Americans out of work, businesses should set up call centers here in the USA, not in some Third World slum half a world away. This may not be PC, but we all know it's true.

“America needs factories, and America needs jobs.”

Great. I agree - America needs jobs. (It also needs to stop giving out disability benefits to everyone with joint discomfort, but that’s another story.)

I’ll tell you what: go start a call center firm like, say, Infocision (whose services my company has contracted in the past). Report back to me on...

1) The quality of resources you are able to hire for the hourly rate you are willing to pay

2) The ease at which you win contracts while paying a rate that actually attracts employees

3) Your profitability - or more likely, stunning lack thereof

I’m guessing you are not a principle or executive in a publicly traded company. I’m guessing you don’t have a responsibility to employ large numbers of people. I’m also guessing you have never had to make trade-offs to keep some very good people employed.

You are speaking philosophically, not practically. As an executive, I recognize the value of outsourcing. Here’s what I tell my American employees:

Outsourcing means job security for the full time staff. Why? Because I choose to meet variable capacity demands through contract - often offshore - labor. This keeps costs low so I can continue to employ my full timers, who are great. Moreover, when the variable capacity need wanes, I let the contractors go first instead of firing full timers. If I filled the variable need with full timers, I would have to lay off full timers when the time comes. Oh, and, by the way, this isn’t a tenured position - I’d lay off whoever I thought was doing the best job at that time, not who had been there the longest.

They tend to appreciate that. Contract labor comes and goes. My employees stay. I keep costs low and the business is successful. Stockholders win. My highly talented staff wins. Everyone wins.

Let me know when you actually have to make these kinds of decisions instead of just complaining about them.

I agree that the cost of manufacturing is a small part of the total cost of an item, and that those jobs are increasingly automated and unattractive. (How many Americans would want to spend 8 hours a day putting together Lego sets, no matter how it’s done?) What is critical is that the CREATIVE side of product development remain in the US, and even that is in jeopardy as American universities continue to crank out foreign students with degrees in hi-tech fields, who then return to their home countries.

Good post.

I am simply providing a view of the other side, of the coin.

America has been outsourcing ever more American businesses, for over an entire generation now.

America now is 17 trillion dollars in debt. And growing.

That impacts everything in America. Including importantly, our very own military superiority.

China now exports more than America does.

Quite a bit of that, comes right back to America.

I am just pointing out, that this new reality has very adversely impacted America’s financial health.

I from my own standpoint, think it is time to bring back American jobs.

Back here.

To America.

...What is critical is that the CREATIVE side of product development remain in the US, and even that is in jeopardy as American universities continue to crank out foreign students with degrees in hi-tech fields, who then return to their home countries...

I completely agree there, and I think we have been making a huge mistake in this area.

40 years ago when I was in graduate school in engineering, we had more applications from India than from any other country, including the US. The US as a whole should have been enticing these students (the best and the brightest from around the world) to stay here, become citizens and strengthen the US. To some extent, many of them did, but when we started issuing "diversity visas" to Somali goat-herders we weakened our country. Now the Democrat party wants to open the floodgates for all the disadvantaged from the third world to come here and get on welfare. The Republicans need to counter with automatic visas and a route to citizenship for every applicant with a BS or higher (no BAs here thank you). We will get the same number of people from the third world, but they will be scientists and engineers instead of goat-herders.

Like them or hate them, Apple is a great example of just what you propose. Product development and engineering is done in the US. Manufacturing in China, and US product support is in the US or Canada.

Thank you for the non-defensive reply.

I agree with all your points. On trade, the problem is that China will not float the yuan. We’ll never be on a level playing field until they do. They’ll be ready to float it when they have destroyed the dollar.

In the meantime, we have a currency devaluation strategy coming out of the Fed that *must* be stopped. We have an entitlement state that discourages productivity and discourages people from actually getting jobs. All this is happening while the liberals allow an invasion on our borders, thus allowing cheap (but illegal) labor domestically.

The liberals are destroying America. Bear that in mind. Any company that does it’s best to generate and retain wealth by decreasing costs is slowing the demise of our great country. The alternative is to bankrupt ourselves faster.

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