Posted on 02/09/2004 7:12:02 PM PST by ETERNAL WARMING
Report: Exporting Jobs Overseas Will Help U.S
WASHINGTON — The movement of American factory jobs and white-collar work to other countries is part of a positive transformation that will enrich the U.S. economy over time, even if it causes short-term pain and dislocation, the Bush administration said today.
The embrace of foreign "outsourcing," an accelerating trend that has contributed to U.S. job losses in recent years and has become an issue in the 2004 elections, is contained in the president's annual report to Congress on the health of the U.S. economy.
"Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," said Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, which prepared the report. "More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing."
The report, which predicts that the nation will reverse a three-year employment slide by creating 2.6 million jobs in 2004, is part of a weeklong effort by the administration to highlight signs that the recovery is picking up speed. Bush's economic stewardship has become a central issue in the presidential campaign, and the White House is eager to demonstrate that his policies are producing positive results.
In his message to Congress, Bush said the economy "was strong and getting stronger," thanks in part to the administration's tax cuts and other economic policies. He said the nation had survived a stock market meltdown, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals and a global economic slump, and was finally beginning to enjoy "a mounting prosperity that will reach every corner of America."
The president repeated that message during a "conversation" on the economy with workers at SRC Automotive in Springfield, Mo., an employee-owned firm that rebuilds car engines. In one of his most fervent appeals yet to make his tax cuts permanent, he said congressional opponents are seeking to impose a broad new tax hike. "Make no mistake about it," he said.
The president's 411-page report contains a detailed diagnosis of the forces contributing to the economic slowdown that began about the time Bush occupied the White House, and a wide-ranging defense of the policies he has pursued to combat it.
It asserts that the last recession actually began in late 2000, before Bush took office, instead of in March, 2001, as certified by the official recession dating panel of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Much of the report repeats the administration's previous economic prescriptions. The Bush tax cuts must be made permanent, it says, to have their full beneficial effect on the economy. Social Security must be restructured to let workers put part of their retirement funds in private accounts, it argues, to address a long-term funding shortfall.
But the report devotes considerable attention to an issue that has become increasingly troublesome for the administration: the loss of 2.8 million manufacturing jobs since Bush took office, and critics' claims that the administration's trade policies are partly to blame.
The report acknowledges that international trade and foreign outsourcing have contributed to the job slump. But it argues that technological progress and rising productivity — the ability to produce more goods with fewer workers — have played a bigger role than trade.
Although trade expansion inevitably hurts some workers, it says, the benefits will eventually outweigh the costs as Americans are able to buy goods and services at lower costs and as jobs are created in growing sectors of the economy.
The report endorses the relatively new phenomenon of outsourcing high-end white-collar work to India and other countries, a trend that has created concern within affected professions such as computer programming and medical diagnostics.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Excuse the language, but BULLSHIT!
Yes.
Many jobs can't be physically outsourced overseas, so the "overseas" is brought to the US. Each is a step in cutting "costs" - the "cost" of labor. Each benefits the "bottom line" for the very wealthy, and a few others, but only in the short term. Bush not only proposes legalizing those already here, but bringing in more.
Their new philosophy to rationalize impoverization and the strip mining of the middle class is "globalism." You'll hear them say things like "Americans (not incl. them) have no God-given right to their standard of living."
Liberals have been almost completely coopted by appeals to helping distant others, they having little interest, even distaste, toward their American co-citizens.
I just got done with a four-month saga over a Dell Computer on this very point. Worked closely with the pros from Bangalore on this. Reloaded system software three times to correct what they told me was a boot virus. Turned out a local (American) system engineer ran hardware diagnostics only to find I had a bad hard drive. It never occured to the pros from Bangalore to try this.
The Indian hardware rep came to my office today to swap out the bad drive with a newly reconditioned one. Me, I'm on my way to Fry's Electronics to replace the one he put in there, figuring it will be good for about three weeks worth use.
The good thing about all this is I'll finally get some hardware expertise, because I'm not buying another Dell. Ever. I'll build my own before I do that, hardware skills or not.
He's neither. He's doing what his company (the RNC) tells him to do.
Cutting labor costs is a method of increasing productivity. Higher productivity is what has kept America competitive and what raises our standard of living.
Higher labor costs and lower productivity are bad for our economy.
Doesn't India have 1.3 billion people?
So how long will it take for that job market to dry up?
And this is why Kerry is no answer to this. There's a reason he's not using offshoring as a campaign issue. He's all for it.
He sells out his base for the new base, who votes the other way.
Bush like his father is grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory, as Kerry continues to rise.
One tone deaf move after another alienating his base and telling them to sit it out for the election.
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