Bush left himself wide open for this attack from the Dems.
If we don't watch out, the Republicans will lose control of the senate and house.
The guy who wrote the scathing article was on Dobbs tonight, James Glassman of American Enterprise Assoc.
Ross Perot has moved jobs to India {last paragraph}
Relevant Exerpts:
President Bush Acknowledges Outsourcing Threat; U.S. General Attacked in Iraq; Interview With James Glassman
Aired February 12, 2004 - 18:00 ET
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tonight: President Bush acknowledges the threat to American workers from cheap overseas labor markets, the exporting of America.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we need to act in this country.
DOBBS: Leading Democrats today propose a new law to protect American workers from outsourcing of their jobs overseas.
in "Broken Borders," illegal aliens flooding into this country. Members of Congress today call for tough action.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: And I don't think you could build a wall high enough or wide enough to keep people out of this country.
DOBBS: Good evening.
President Bush today acknowledged that American jobs are being shipped to cheap labor markets overseas, what we call here the exporting of America. President Bush promised to take action -- quote -- "to make sure there are more jobs at home." But the president did not repudiate his top economic adviser's claim that outsourcing jobs is good for America.
Peter Viles has the report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Pennsylvania, where 132,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared, the president acknowledged, outsourcing is part of the problem.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There are people looking for work because jobs have gone overseas. And we need to act in this country. We need to act to make sure there are more jobs at home.
VILES: But the president did not challenge the conclusion of his own economic team that -- quote -- "When a good or a service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to make or provide it domestically." And that blanket endorsement of outsourcing has economic adviser Greg Mankiw in hot water, but Democrats try to keep the focus on the president.
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: This is the president's economic policy. And we cannot permit our Republican friends to try to shift the blame and the burden to Mr. Mankiw.
VILES: Senate Democrats pushing new legislation that would bring outsourcing under government scrutiny.
SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), MINORITY LEADER: Companies that export U.S. jobs would be required to disclose how many jobs are being shipped overseas, where they are going, and why.
VILES: The larger issue here is not corporate behavior. It's American trade policy, which now officially encouraged outsourcing.
MIKE EMMONS, FORMER TECH WORKER: When you move these goods high- tech jobs out of the country, there goes the R&D right behind it. They say they only do the low-end grunt work. Well, that's not correct. They are going after each and every job they can get. And I don't fault them so much. I fault our government for not standing up and stopping it.
VILES: On that trade issue, the administration continues to maintain -- quote -- "Free trade is win-win."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VILES: Offshoring a big issue in Harrisburg, where the president spoke today. EarthLink is closing a call center there, shipping the work to the Philippines and India, 400 jobs. And those workers got bad news this month. They have been denied special trade assistance by the Bush administration -- Lou.
DOBBS: Pete, thank you very much -- Peter Viles.
In "Broken Borders" tonight, lawmakers calling for action to stop the influx of illegal aliens into the United States.
And "Exporting America," commentator James Glassman says I'm outrageous. James Glassman says I'm wrong. He'll be here to explain why.
DOBBS: President Bush's proposal to give millions of illegal aliens in the country a temporary legal status has sparked widespread criticism. Opponents say it would threaten the country's economic and national security. Congress today began to look at that very question.
Louise Schiavone reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LOUISE SCHIAVONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The government says 40 percent of the illegal aliens in the United States have overstayed their visas.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: And I don't think you could build a wall high enough or wide enough to keep people out of this country who have no hope and no opportunity.
SCHIAVONE: Congress is beginning to digest a temporary worker program offered by President Bush in the pressure of an election year.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: You know what the conventional wisdom is? We're going to talk about it, we're going to debate it, we're going to discuss it, and nothing is going to happen this year, because the issue is too hot politically.
SCHIAVONE: The Bush plan would enable employed, but illegal workers to stay in the U.S. legally for perhaps three years at a time, with permission to travel in and out of the country. Employers would have to demonstrate that U.S. citizens don't want the jobs these workers take.
Denounced by some as a reelection bid for Latino votes, by some conservative as condoning illegal behavior, and by liberal Democrats as not going far enough, the proposal touches a nerve. A January CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup asked, should the USA make it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens? Only 23 percent said yes. Three-quarters of respondents said no.
Administration officials insist, the guest worker program is not designed to grant amnesty.
ASA HUTCHINSON, UNDERSECRETARY FOR HOMELAND SECURITY: The president's plan provides a disincentive to immigrate illegally to the United States when this type of program is the beginning of a path to return home and not a path to permanent residency or citizenship.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: But that result will never happen, when the vast majority realize that they will be deported after their temporary status expires.
SCHIAVONE: And this question remains unanswered: Is it safe to assume that millions of foreign workers, permitted to establish roots, marry and have children in the U.S., will ever choose to leave the country?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCHIAVONE: Lou, in the 2000 election year George Bush carried about a third of the Hispanic vote. This move could give Mr. Bush an even larger block of Latino support in November -- Lou.
DOBBS: Louise, thank you very much -- Louise Schiavone reporting from Washington.
Today's hearing came only hours after police in Arizona discovered dozens of illegal aliens hiding in a home in an exclusive suburb of Phoenix. Several people believed to be illegal alien smugglers were also arrested also in the raid.
Mike Watkiss of our affiliate KTVK reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE WATKISS, KTVK REPORTER (voice-over): Just off the scenic second tee of North Phoenix's Orange Tree Golf Course, a small army of local and federal cops making quite a find.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is going on next door?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A coyote hotel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's running.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You wouldn't expect it out of this neighborhood, I don't think.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like it's probably a stash house for smuggling, human smuggling.
WATKISS: Indeed, inside this Spanish-style home, in this decidedly upscale corner of the valley, well over 125 men, women and children discovered, packed shoulder to shoulder inside the rented home, a place with no food, no furniture, and where all of the toilets and showers were overflowing with human waste.
SGT. DAVE LUNDBERG, PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT: Oh, it's deplorable. It's disgusting. The people that smuggle these people they have no caring for human life. They treat them like cargo. That's all they are to them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By spot count that there's probably 125 people in the house, we have got women. We've got minors. We have a little boy, it looks like he's about 4 years old. In interviews with some of our agents, some of the people said they had not eaten in three days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It scares me. It scares me very much.
WATKISS: Nick and Antoinette Zendelbock (ph) live next door. And they say, for the last several weeks, they have known something was wrong, with the constant coming and going of large vans in the middle of the night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I called the police. They have been on stakeout. They have been watching the house.
WATKISS: And while watching the home, officers saw two vans leaving the property loaded with people. Those vans then stopped on nearby streets, and officers entering the Shea (ph) address to make this extraordinary discovery.
LUNDBERG: What we're trying to do is develop information to get the people that are really responsible for this, the people that are making the money off of those people. And that's who we are going to target and we're going to try to put an end to them.
WATKISS (on camera): People who are so desperate to get over our borders, to put up with this and pay this kind of money, my goodness, how do you combat that?
LUNDBERG: Yes, I know it's difficult. It's extremely difficult, because they are coming up here. They want to come up here. They want to work. They want to come to the United States for something better. But to go through this, this isn't better.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Mike Watkiss reporting from our affiliate KTVK in Phoenix.
Still ahead here, "Exporting America," two very different reactions to our extensive reporting to the shipment of American jobs to cheap labor markets. Congressman Sherrod Brown and James Glassman join us, James Glassman of the American Enterprise Institute.
Also, "Made in America," tonight, one American company managing to give its customers the latest in technology while keeping its production and jobs in this country.
Those stories, a great deal more, still ahead here. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: My guest tonight says the White House's claim that outsourcing is good for the economy is outrageous. Congressman Sherrod Brown says outsourcing is to blame for hundreds of thousands of job losses in his home state of Ohio. He joins us tonight from Cleveland.
Congressman, good to have you with us.
REP. SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: Thank you, Lou. Good to be back.
DOBBS: The issue today, at least in the Senate, providing proposal to at least constrain outsourcing overseas, is that something you can support and will support?
BROWN: We have seen -- in the first part of the last decade, we saw continued job loss in manufacturing jobs.
And I remember during NAFTA in 1993 the debate that we were told over and over that, if you get more education to prepare for this, then we'll just ship out the low-skilled jobs, but there will be plenty of jobs for people as they get educated more. But we're seeing more and more that we're losing computer engineers. We're losing radiologists. We're losing all kinds of white-collar jobs, all kinds of jobs in addition to manufacturing jobs, which we're losing by the droves in my state.
We're losing all kinds of higher-tech jobs and all over the place.
DOBBS: And what in your state -- and I'm referring to your colleagues in the Democratic Party -- what are you, the governor, what are all of you doing there to try to help business hold those jobs for Americans in Ohio?
BROWN: Well, there's all kinds of things we need to do in terms of the education system, in terms of better job training, you know, all of that.
But it's what we do nationally that, instead of the president's answer that the answer to every bad statistic and every bad report about the economy, about job loss, is more tax cuts for the most privileged and trickle-down economics, hoping that some jobs will be created among -- for the rest of us, and continued trade agreements, CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Free Trade Act for -- Area of the Americas, which will quadruple the number of low-income workers in NAFTA, we need to stop those and move in a different direction.
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: The president, in the interest of fairness here, Congressman, I think, as you know, today acknowledged, for the first time, the threat to American jobs from outsourcing. He did not repudiate the statements of his chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, but he did acknowledge it for the first time.
Now, you, as a Democrat, what would you like to see done in terms of trade, in terms of the balance of capital flows, as well as services and goods? What would you like to see done to bring some sort of redress?
BROWN: Well, first of all, as we have a capitalist system with great dynamism to it, a capital system that works very well, a market system, we have rules. We have rules about the environment and rules about worker safety and rules about consumer protection.
If we're going to pass international trade agreements, as we should, they should have similar kind of rules, not as high a wage as obviously as a steelworker in the U.S. or in Lorain, Ohio, but certainly rules on the environment and worker safety. You go to Mexico, you don't see those kinds of worker protections or environmental safeguards.
You see wages that people can't live on. You go to China, it's even worse. If we're going to do trade agreements, as we should, we need trade agreements with rules that will lift up all boats, rather than continuing to pull down U.S. food safety standards, U.S. worker wages, environment, all that these job losses and all that this has done to pull down our standards.
DOBBS: Well, Congressman, as you well know, NAFTA was signed by a Democratic president.
BROWN: Correct.
DOBBS: The World Trade Organization was signed by and ratified by Democrats. The Democratic Party, the Republican Party, it seems to me, at least, bear equal responsibility for the half-trillion dollars in trade deficit, current account deficit, that we now have, the imbalance in trade.
Is there, in your judgment, any single straightforward way in which to begin to redress the imbalances? BROWN: Sure, there is.
First of all, I agree that it was President Clinton. Now it's President Bush. The issue is today. And today, an overwhelming number of Democrats say no Central American Free Trade Agreement without strong labor and environmental standards to lift them up so, that, ultimately, they buy our products. And that's the goal, to begin to right the rules so that their living standards go up south of the border and they begin to buy American products, and then trade works for both countries.
The way it is now, trade only works for the investors. It doesn't work for a steelworker in Lorain or a rubber worker in Akron. It doesn't work for a computer engineer in Palo Alto. It works for wealthy investors in the U.S. It doesn't work for Mexican workers. It works for wealthy investors in Mexico.
But until we have real standards, it is simply not going to work for most of the world's people. Until the workers in Mexican can buy American products, trade really doesn't work.
DOBBS: Congressman Sherrod Brown, thanks for being with us.
BROWN: Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: Well, my next guest takes a decidedly different view. James Glassman wrote an article this week that begins by asking, "What Has Gotten Into Lou Dobbs?" In it, he takes issue with our extensive reporting here on "Exporting America," our conclusions and positions.
Glassman says our list of companies sending American jobs overseas, which we update here every night and post on our Web site, include some of America's most innovative companies. James Glassman is a resident fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and joins me here in New York.
Jim, that was quite a little article.
JAMES GLASSMAN, RESIDENT FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Well, I think it was quite accurate.
DOBBS: OK, let's start with the accuracy.
The fact is that we are seeing hundreds of thousands of jobs being outsourced on the basis purely of a corporation's interest in achieving the lowest possible price for labor. Does that make sense to you?
GLASSMAN: Lou, that is called trade.
And we have been doing it for hundreds of years.
(CROSSTALK)
GLASSMAN: You majored in economics at Harvard. You understand that Adam Smith, David Ricardo showed that trade is good for both parties.
DOBBS: Absolutely.
GLASSMAN: So outsourcing, offshoring, whatever you call it, it is always called by something different during different generations -- those are the words right now. But it's trade. And it's good for the Indians and it's good for Americans.
DOBBS: OK. Let's assume that trade is good, because here no one has argued otherwise.
But what we have argued is that trade that is not mutual, mutually beneficial, doesn't make a lot of sense. We're looking here -- since you brought up trade, we'll go back to outsourcing those American jobs. We are looking at a half-trillion a year current account deficit.
GLASSMAN: Right.
DOBBS: How good is that?
GLASSMAN: It's not good. It's not bad.
We have, for the last 20 years, run a trade deficit. And by coincidence, for the past 20 years, we have had by far the greatest economy in the world. We've got an $11 trillion economy. We're bigger than the next five countries combined. We've got a 5.6 percent unemployment rate, compared to 10 percent in Germany. I think we're doing fairly well.
The reason we have such a large trade deficit is, we're doing a lot of importing, while the rest of the world, which has a worse economy, is not able to buy. That's the problem.
(CROSSTALK)
GLASSMAN: If you want to have a trade surplus, Lou, the best way to do it is to plunge the United States into a recession. If we don't buy anything, hey, we don't have a trade deficit anymore.
DOBBS: What is it with you people?
GLASSMAN: You people? What do you mean?
DOBBS: You people who seem to think there's only way for trade to work. Why in the world are you so opposed to the idea
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: Please, Jim, I let you finish.
GLASSMAN: Yes. Well, go ahead.
DOBBS: Thank you.
You could not conceive of the idea of restoring a manufacturing base to this country to actually manufacture products and export them?
GLASSMAN: Lou, over the last 10 years, we have manufactured 40 percent more than we did 10 years ago. Manufacturing is doing well. Jobs change. This is a dynamic society.
Now, the thing I'd like to -- the thing I would like to say is, free trade is much better than the alternative, which is no trade or obstructed trade.
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: Wait, Jim, you are far too smart to do something like that. There is not simply a Hobson's choice between free trade and no trade. I just offered you one, a mutuality of interest, mutual trade.
GLASSMAN: That's the idea of the World Trade Organization.
DOBBS: It may be the idea of some in the World Trade Organization. It is not the practice.
We have got 11 years experience with NAFTA. We have 10 years experience under WTO. It isn't working, Jim? What part of that don't you get?
GLASSMAN: It's not working?
DOBBS: It's not working.
GLASSMAN: Then why is the American economy as robust as it is?
DOBBS: Tell people it's robust.
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: Tell those 15 million people out there who can't
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: No, look in the camera, tell those 15 people out there who can't find a job right now...
GLASSMAN: I prefer to look at you. And let me say this.
This is a huge economy. I have tremendous sympathy for people who lose their job and are in pain. And for those people, we need to concentrate on helping them. How do we do it? We do it through job retraining. We do it through...
DOBBS: What are you going to retrain them for, Jim? You're a smart guy.
GLASSMAN: What do you mean what I am going to retrain them
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: What are you going to retrain them for? We're exporting many, many jobs.
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: We're exporting radiologists.
GLASSMAN: How did we retrain blacksmiths when the automobile came in?
(CROSSTALK)
GLASSMAN: Forty percent of Americans worked on the farm. Today, it's 2 percent. We produce far more agricultural goods than we ever did. We export agriculture.
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: Do you want to go back to policies of the 1850s in this country?
GLASSMAN: No.
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: Well, then why are you quoting these metaphors?
GLASSMAN: Because I'm trying to tell you, this is a dynamic economy.
DOBBS: Well, I think we understand that.
GLASSMAN: Every week, Alan Greenspan, in his testimony...
DOBBS: There's no fool here again, OK, no fool watching, no fool here listening.
Let me say this to you. David Ricardo, as you well know, never considered a world in which you were exporting American jobs to produce services and goods for reexport to the United States. It was never considered.
GLASSMAN: I really object to this term exporting American jobs.
DOBBS: Well, wait a minute.
(CROSSTALK)
GLASSMAN: It's not as though we start with 100 jobs. They have 100 jobs. We send a few. Our jobs have been on the rise for the last 20 years, enormously. We have 130 million people working in the United States.
DOBBS: Well, it's actually
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: ... million, but that's all right. GLASSMAN: Every week, as Alan Greenspan said in his testimony, a very interesting statistic for your readers.
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: They're viewers.
GLASSMAN: For your viewers and readers, right, in "U.S. News."
Every week, one million Americans leave their job, but one million Americans take a new job. It is that dynamism....
DOBBS: Jim, Jim...
GLASSMAN: It is that dynamism that drives the American economy.
DOBBS: American corporations are shipping jobs overseas for one reason.
GLASSMAN: They are not shipping jobs. And I really object to this rogue...
DOBBS: They are not shipping jobs?
GLASSMAN: I really object to this rogue's gallery of America's greatest companies: Intel, Pfizer, Amazon.com
DOBBS: Shipping jobs.
GLASSMAN: You were once a journalist. You know the accuracy.
DOBBS: Is IBM shipping any jobs overseas? Is IBM?
GLASSMAN: It's creating jobs at home and it's employing people overseas. Just as Honda, you have Congressman Brown here.
DOBBS: I've got to tell you something, if you continue to this...
GLASSMAN: there are 13,000 Honda jobs in Central Ohio. Honda is the largest private employer in Central Ohio.
DOBBS: What's that got to do with...
GLASSMAN: I was wondering whether you would like to stop, that, too.
DOBBS: If I wanted to stop that, Jim, I would say I wanted to stop it. There's no difficulty getting my opinion on something. That is a transplant in a market in which it is brought, it's factories of production. It is not analogous in any way to IBM shipping 10,000 jobs to India solely for the purpose of achieving lower wages.
GLASSMAN: No, no, no. Solely for the purpose of achieving lower costs.
DOBBS: All lower costs are I achieved by what means?
GLASSMAN: All businesses strive to cut costs. And why do they do that? In order to increase their profit so they can reinvest their profits into growth.
DOBBS: Let me review the bidding war, Jim, very quickly. What you are refusing to acknowledge, a half trillion dollar current trade deficit. We are importing capital. We are squandering our wealth on a short-term basis, corporate America and U.S. multinationals are shipping jobs for only one reason, not for greater productivity, not for efficiencies, those are purely code words for cheaper labor costs and you know it and you won't admit it.
GLASSMAN: Absolutely -- no, of course I'll admit it. Obviously any business...
DOBBS: Then, how can you support it?
GLASSMAN: ...every business is trying to lower its cost. But by finding laborers in other countries and lowering those costs, they are able to reinvest in their own business.
DOBBS: OK, I want to show you something, Jim.
GLASSMAN: And increase business at home. They have done this consistently.
DOBBS: Let me show you what Jim Glassman wrote, if we could have that, which piqued my interest when I read it. "Once a sensible, if self-important and sycophantic, CNN anchor, he has suddenly become a table thumping protectionist."
Do you think I'm a protectionist?
GLASSMAN: I do. I really do. And I think the worst thing about it. I think the worst thing about it is, that you know economics. You do know economics. And you understand comparative advantage.
DOBBS: And what is it that...
GLASSMAN: You understand Adam Smith. You understand the trade benefit both sides. You know that. I wish you would concentrate your tremendous intelligence...
DOBBS: That statement is wrong. It's flat wrong.
GLASSMAN: Lou, I wish you would concentrate your intelligence...
DOBBS: When you are carrying a half trillion dollar trade deficit, it's not benefiting both sides. That's precisely the point. If it were I would...
GLASSMAN: Of course it benefits both sides. The United States is the most...
DOBBS: Do you realize there are 3 trillion dollars in IOUs held by foreigners against U.S. assets? Does that trouble you.
GLASSMAN: The United States is the most robust economy in the world.
DOBBS: You can keep doing it.
GLASSMAN: Obviously, we have problems.
DOBBS: You talk like a cult member. There's a mantra, you say market, you say largest and dynamic.
GLASSMAN: I don't think I've said market yet.
DOBBS: And it simply removes the need for rationality.
GLASSMAN: I just wish you would devote your considerable intelligence what I think is the biggest problem with trade, which is alleviating the pain of the people who get caught. Trade definitely has more benefits...
DOBBS: I am trying to stop the pain before it continues and that's what has got to be addressed. And you are too smart to buy in as a sycophantic response to your corporate bosses and say, you know whatever you want to do, whatever the American enterprise needs to do.
GLASSMAN: To have real economists on the show to discuss these things. People like Katherine Mann who has done a study which shows that computer jobs are rising in the United States.
You talked to Katherine Mann?
DOBBS: We have talk to...
GLASSMAN: Michael Beldon at NC State...
DOBBS: Don't waste our time running through a litany of...
GLASSMAN: I'm talking about facts.
DOBBS: Here are the facts. Half a trillion dollars in a current account deficit. Hundreds of thousands of jobs being shipped overseas, as you acknowledge, by cheap labor costs.
GLASSMAN: I don't consider it shipped overseas. That's not what's happening.
DOBBS: You may not, that's my word. And the fact is, it is exactly what is happening and why you won't acknowledge that is beyond me. Where do you want the United States economy to be in ten years? You can't talk about jobs to retrain.
GLASSMAN: I want it to grow 3 to 4 percent a year as it has done in the past 20 years. Partly because...
DOBBS: And how much of the GDP do you want to be imports? How much of that GDP do you want to be imports? GLASSMAN: I really don't know. I think that's up to individual Americans to determine how much do they want in imports.
DOBBS: Mr. Market...
GLASSMAN: If they don't want to buy goods from overseas, they have that choice. If they don't want to buy Japanese cars they have that choice.
DOBBS: You don't think there should be a balanced trade approach? Balance trade, protecting American jobs.
GLASSMAN: I don't know what that mean.
DOBBS: You don't know what it means?
GLASSMAN: I really don't know what balanced trade means.
DOBBS: Watch the show some more, Jim, we're going to make it clear.
GLASSMAN: Thanks for having me on.
DOBBS: Good to have you here, Jim.
Tonight's thought is on opinion. You just heard a couple. "Few people are capable of expressing, with equanimity, opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment, most people are incapable of forming such opinions." We have demonstrated the truth again of Albert Einstein's words.
In our series of special report, "Made in America" tonight, a company that struck a cord with consumers around the world for the past 60 years. Allen Organ Company, world's leading manufacturer of church organs and each and every organ crafted using cutting edge technology right here in the United States. Kitty Pilgrim has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In this church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the music is German, the organ is American, made just 20 miles away in Macungie, Pennsylvania.
The Allen Organ Company is the largest manufacturer of organs in the world. Started up just after World War II and it's still thriving, employing 450 people turning out about a thousand organs a year, selling them all over the world.
STEVEN MARKOWITZ, PRES. ALLEN ORGAN: This is a product that grew up in this country and the fact that we can dominate a market like we do is gratifying.
PILGRIM: Digital technology now makes up a portion of an organ, some parts of the factory look like a high tech lab.
MARKOWITZ: The computer in our larger organs really have super computer power with a number of processors that are working together.
PILGRIM: In this case, "Made in America" means constant retraining.
JANICE ROMIG, ALLEN ORGAN EMPLOYEE: So, I learn component locator which is that machine there. And then I learn the dip machine which is inserting IC in the boards. And then they asked me to learn the Axial (ph) machine, also.
PILGRIM: Behind the computer operations, the woodworking rooms are more what you would expect an organ company to look like. Cabinets and keyboards are hand assembled.
Many of the workers are of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, a traditional sign says don't forget, good work comes first. Carl Bechtel has been with Allen Organ Company for 15 years. Before he did this, he made caskets.
CARL BECHTEL, ALLEN ORGAN EMPLOYEE: This walnut wood, and it will be an oak interior.
PILGRIM: After the cabinet work, detail carving.
(on camera): The organs cost anywhere from $10,000 to half a million dollars and can take up to a year to assemble.
(voice-over): When they are complete, Bill Robiski, who is also a church organist, shows us how he tests them before shipping. Of course the real test comes on Sunday. Kitty Pilgrim, CNN, Macungie, Pennsylvania.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, a surprising jump in jobless claims hurt the stock market today. We did find one company adding jobs. Perot Systems adding jobs in India. Adding thousand of call centers and bill processing jobs in India and moving two new facilities there this year. A spokesman for Perot Systems said the company bought a couple of Indian firms that do this work. It will add another 3,500 jobs there.
Perot Systems will invest tens of millions of dollars into those facilities. At the end of last year the company told us it had sent fewer than 50 jobs overseas but clearly, Lou, it is expanding into the lucrative outsourcing business.
Ross Perot owns 30 percent of the company. He is its chairman. Of course, he claims the giant sucking sound phrase, American jobs to Mexico, big movement into India.
DOBBS: Well that's a large movement, remarkable because it is Ross Perot's company. When he talked about that sucking sound he thought it was all about Mexico. Hardly anyone could have imagined India, The Philippines, Ireland, Poland and various other quarters. Thank you very much, Christine Romans.
Entire Transcript:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0402/12/ldt.00.html
I always knew this would happen,should have hired me as a consultant ;) Thing is Texas, I do not want him to lose more!
I said this a years ago. And the Rats will take control. This is the issue that will kill the GOP "revolution." It is absolutely mindless to think that the Ameican people will sit out there and accept the exportation of these jobs. The GOP will lose everything over this. Bush is bungling his reelection in almost the exact same fashion as his father. It is surreal.