Posted on 02/04/2004 9:36:33 AM PST by ninenot
There is a simple free market solution to this problem - American consumers who get aplastic anemia from chloramphenicol will not buy these shrimp anymore.
Actually we need to understand that this will accelerate.
As jobs are lost, social programs such as welfare, food stamps etc must increase to keep people at the minimum acceptable level of poverty. Fraud in social programs such as workers comp and insurance will also increase as people resort to desperate tactics to make a living.
Consequently the regulatory and tax burden of American labor will continue to go up on remaining jobs. This increased cost will cause even more jobs to be transferred overseas until either trade restrictions occur or wages go into free fall.
If wages are allowed to go into free fall ... the repercussions to the economy will be horrific. There will be disgruntled employees who don't understand. Some of these will result in shootings. Many companies will layoff people and hire new people rather than adjust their existing employee's wages down and put up with the resulting attitude problems.
We need to protect our industries now. Immigration needs to stop. Tarriffs need to go up.
Won't happen if we learn robotics. Some of the kids are learning robotics. The rest hope to get a job in Hollywood, but who really needs yet another Starship Enterprise model maker?
Or Cosmetology.
"Won't happen if we learn robotics" - RightWhale
I agree that robotics can help minimize the labor problems. However whoever has the cheapest labor to manufacture robotics, the best and cheapest programmers and the most engineering capability is going to be at an advantage.
Also if we don't maintain our manufacturing base, there will be nothing to automate. We will have to build new plants from scratch, and much of the necessary knowledge will have been transferred overseas.
Automation and robotics are two fields that should be ultra ultra high on our protected and promoted industries.
However this alone is going to cause major shifts in the economy. Major categories of workers will be displaced as automation occurs and higher and higher levels of management functions are going to be automated.
How we deal with this is going to be critical. It has the potential to aggravate class differences. Retooling the workforce to available jobs is key. Supporting them during the transition is also key but it is a cost that many of my fellow republicans are going to see as unnecessary handouts instead of supporting the economy as a whole.
Baseless assertion. Robotics is closely tied to computer programming and mechanial engineering, both of which have been outsourced.
Can we start calling tarriffs what they are, which are "taxes"?
So, you're advocating tax increases on Free Republic. I thought that was unpopular around here...
So why, again, is it perfectly OK for someone to lose their job to automation, and a horrible crime for someone to lose their job to an Indian guy?
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2004 05:18:58 PM ] MUMBAI: If you thought that the US Senate had finished with cracking down on outsourcing, think again. Things could just get worse for Indian software and BPO companies. On Friday, President George W Bush signed into law a Bill, which bars outsourcing by the US Treasury and Transport departments, though this does not apply to the whole Federal government as some reports had indicated.As for private sector manufacturing companies...see the following thread:However, another Bill, called "Truthfulness, Responsibility and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2003" (TRAC Act), introduced in the US Senate last year, could halt outsourcing by the entire federal government, if it becomes law.
The objective of the TRAC Bill is "to ensure that the business of the federal government is conducted in the public interest and in a manner that provides for public accountability, efficient delivery of services, reasonable cost savings, and prevention of unwarranted Government expenses, and for other purposes”.
The TRAC Bill refers to outsourcing as one of the components of "contracting out" which will be monitored by the General Accounting Office (GAO). The new Bill says that certifying agencies will have to be formed in each department to monitor all projects contracted out.
These agencies will have to report to the GAO that the procedures followed for outsourcing are fair and transparent. These procedures have been put in place to make outsourcing as difficult as possible.
Currently two per cent of all outsourcing projects from India are from the US government. Typically, federal projects are not offshored to India in a major way as they often fall foul of the "buy American” provision that sets minimum levels for domestic content in products bought by the US government.
The Bill does not, in any way, affect outsourcing by private US companies except to the extent that it fosters a protectionist climate within the USA. Meanwhile President Bush has signed the omnibus spending Bill making it a law. The Bill is accompanied by a revised budget circular (called A-76) which will prevent outsourcing to India, or to any other country by the Treasury and Transportation departments.
A copy of the new law, which is available with The Economic Times , does not refer to India or even to outsourcing directly, but will nevertheless affect almost all developing and emerging countries including India.
The most damaging part in the new law is the following: "An activity or function of an executive agency that is converted to contractor performance under Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 may not be performed by the contractor at a location outside the United States except to the extent that such activity or function was previously performed by Federal Government employees outside the United States."
This clause will prevent any offshore outsourcing by the US federal government to any other part of the world. The law also revises a circular called A-76. The revised circular reads, "That in all public and private sector competition for more than 10 positions, a private sector offer would have to be 10% or $10 million less than the government offer to be considered."
What this means is that, if the positions of more than the 10 employees are affected, then the private sector offer would have to be 10 per cent less than the government offer. The A-76 changes have been dictated by the federal employee unions and industry associations.
US employee unions, like the American Federation of Government Employees, have hailed the provisions as being far more equitable to US federal workers. It will also affect small and medium companies in the US which benefited from outsourcing.
Info on The American Competition Enhancement Act of 2003 Introduced by Mac Collins
Disagree. Robotics relies heavily on software engineering and the ability to actually build something. America seems bound and determined to ensure only Indians can do that.
Now, inventing new kinds of ways to sue each other might be our path to salvation. :~/
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