Off-shoring American jobs - good for corporations, bad for everyone else

Communities Digital News ^ | September 20, 2014 | Richard Cameron

[Noremac]

Every now and then I see an article that is so reality deficient that it commits what amounts to sexual assault against common sense. Actually I see them all the time, but one in particular had me shaking my head.

[C. Edmund Wright]

And the consumer demands low prices in many cases because of the pressure of taxes and energy and a lot of other things government has effed up.....

[Prince of Space]

My job as a hospital medical transcriptionist was off-shored to India almost 4 years ago. Via Dictaphone/Nuance, the work of the Indian MTs has to go through several revisions in order to be readable, so the company in the long run is probably paying them as much as they pay American MTs (4 cents/edited line), but they work 6 days a week/50 hours with no medical benefits since they have universal health care, no 401k, no family medical leave, etc.

In the long run, we will end up a third world country in the next 10 years, thanks to NAFTA. TPTB do not care about us as they are too busy chasing after the 2 billion people living in China and India to buy their products. Well, good luck with that when their economies come crashing down.

[rlmorel]

Until and when this government makes industry profitable by decreasing taxation and legislation, industry is going to go overseas, and I don’t blame them.

I don’t like it a bit, but if we expect corporations to be jobs programs out of the good of their hearts instead of moneymaking ventures, that is the way it is going to go.

[Noremac]

it seems to be a cozy partnership - so no, I can’t pin the Donkey just to predatory capitalists. Call it the Wall Street / Washington Axis.

[Noremac]

Yes, in a strict sense, that’s correct.

[CodeToad]

“They want cheap labor because the consumer demands products at the lowest prices.

But we are supposed to have a government to protect this nation from those in it that seek sedition of her commerce.

[C. Edmund Wright]

Blaming predatory capitalists is just insane. Blame government, and crony capitalists....now you’re talking.

[buckalfa]

--Americans, who are the prime consumers of most corporations, if they are impoverished, they will also stop buying goods and services and corporations will lose their profits."

One would think so but check the demographics. Asia has two billion plus potential consumers, America, 330 million. Yeah there are income differences at present but the playing field is being leveled. America will not be a prime market in the future.

[Jonty30]

Who will protect the corporations from the consumer who wants to save a few bucks on everything?

[Aria]

I agree....they’re impoverishing their own customers! Henry Ford knew better than this.

They already have billions...I guess it just isn’t enough. :-(

[SunkenCiv]

Two words — Hawley Smoot.

[Oatka]

Long term, it is not good for corporations either. At some point, if it continues, Americans, who are the prime consumers of most corporations, if they are impoverished, they will also stop buying goods and services and corporations will lose their profits.

I have been using that argument ever since NAFTA kicked in and its "virtues" were extolled. I wrote corporate CEOs and the media and said they all they were doing was laying off each others customers.

Those who bothered to answer patted me on the head and said that Global Competition (a race to the bottom) was good for us. I responded that I had no problem competing internationally with places like Europe where wages were equal or higher (we could lick 'em hands down). My problem was placing U.S. workers in competition with people who lived in mud huts and thought $1 a day was a great wage.

We are seeing the results today, and those same people can't seem to make the connection.

[AceMineral]

The job can be done by someone living in a mud hut for one dollar a day? Doesn’t sound like that great of a job.

[driftdiver]

Consumers have been trained that the lowest price is all that matters. Many consumer know price is only one factor, or should be only one factor.

Many companies sell value and people snap it up.

[trebb]

Long term, it is not good for corporations either. At some point, if it continues, Americans, who are the prime consumers of most corporations, if they are impoverished, they will also stop buying goods and services and corporations will lose their profits.

Doesn't stop those on welfare from chasing the free stuff with total disregard for the fact that it effectively enslaves them and the gravy boat will run dry at some point.

The similarity is that both are results of "liberal" lawmakers who think all money belongs to the government.

[Oatka]

The job can be done by someone living in a mud hut for one dollar a day? Doesn’t sound like that great of a job.

Compared to grubbing through the municipal dump for survival, I would imagine it is Valhalla.

[dfwgator]

"You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! "

[Noremac]

I confess ignorance. Dial me in. Is that a quote from a movie? If so, which one? Or is it from a book or speech. It’s interesting.

[AceMineral]

By “great” I mean something that takes a particularlly skillful effort.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

America has gone (way) overboard on the selling-out of American jobs.

Big time.

Bring back jobs to America.