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Outsourcing: A New Occupational Hazard
NewsMax ^
| 10 March 2004
| Paul Craig Roberts
Posted on 03/12/2004 6:06:05 AM PST by Lexinom
Outsourcing: A New Occupational Hazard
Paul Craig Roberts
Wednesday, Mar. 10, 2004
Who does Bill Gates think he is fooling? Microsoft's chairman spent the last week of February on the college stump trying to talk up computer engineering. But nothing he can say can overcome the fact that students have been reading announcements from every American high-tech company, including Microsoft itself, about thousands of engineering and research jobs being moved to Asia.
On Feb. 16, The Associated Press reported that Siemens announced that the firm will move most of the 15,000 software programming jobs from its offices in the United States and Western Europe to India, China and Eastern Europe.
"Siemens has recognized that a huge amount of software development activity needs to be moved from high-cost countries to low-cost countries," explained a Siemens managing director.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; computer; economy; engineering; india; jobs; outsourcing; software; technology; trade
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No one seems to have a good solution to this very real problem. One has to ask the hypothetical question: If we have a
real war - World War III - who would make our our boots? Who would implement encryption in our communications equipment?
We can't let the Left get exclusive claim to this issue.
1
posted on
03/12/2004 6:06:05 AM PST
by
Lexinom
To: Lexinom
Outsourcing is NOT offshoring
There is a hugh difference.
2
posted on
03/12/2004 6:08:47 AM PST
by
corkoman
(Logged in - have you?)
To: corkoman
When it comes to high-tech items like encryption software, no there isn't.
3
posted on
03/12/2004 6:10:22 AM PST
by
Lexinom
To: Lexinom
Liesman pours cold water over the favorite "solution" offered by economists -- education: "In Oct. 2001, this country passed an ignominious milestone: For the first time ever, the number of college-educated unemployed surpassed the number of unemployed who don't have high school diplomas." Gee, just yesterday Alan Greenspan said that Americans needed more training in math and science to compete with the smarter Chinese and Indians.
Of course, that means he not only missed the above information, he also missed all the news about how Americans were forced to train their replacements, with the threat of losing their severance pay, and that it took 6-8 months to train 6 Indians to replace 1 American IT professional.
To: LibertyAndJusticeForAll
I'm of the opinion that this tendancy to throw "education" out as the universal panacea is itself a symptom of the problem.
Thomas Edison, one of the most brilliant inventors ever, was not college educated. He had intelligence, drive, enthusiasm, and ideas. He didn't wait for some state-sponsored job retraining program. He also didn't waste time in his youth sitting on the couch watching "Friends" (which, of course, was impossible then). I'm sure we could cite other examples besides Edison.
Something to be learned from this perhaps? Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye. Maybe the solution lies in us, not the government...
5
posted on
03/12/2004 6:30:07 AM PST
by
Lexinom
To: Lexinom
From the article:
"In Oct. 2001, this country passed an ignominious milestone: For the first time ever, the number of college-educated unemployed surpassed the number of unemployed who don't have high school diplomas."
... The BLS in its Feb. 11 job projections for the next 10 years emphasizes that seven of the 10 occupations with the largest projected job growth are so menial that they can be learned with short-term on-the-job training.
This Paul Craig Roberts must be a RAT for bringing this up!!! / sarcasm
6
posted on
03/12/2004 6:30:10 AM PST
by
lelio
To: LibertyAndJusticeForAll
The decrease by one thirs of CS enrollment at
MIT should tell us something. That is not a canary in a mine shaft falling over, that is the
foreman dropping dead. Either there are curbs of some sort put on the practice or we should give up all pretense of having an advanced ecomony. If pressure were put on developming tools to automate lower level coding and design issues, we could turn this around. This will never happen if the work can be farmed out to warehouses of Indian programmer. It goes against the whole history of how this technology developed in the first place which was competion for efficiencies
inside this country. People forget the sort of technology export restriction we had during the cold war. We also had leadership that understood that this sort of thing was national suicide. If we would have pushed for autoimation in manufacturing we would have not lost our lead in this area. We only have a short window - maybe 15 years to maintian or Science and Technology lead. After that we will be in depp Sh!t. The time to act is now. The GOP is being insane about this. It could well cost them their leadership and every conservative accomplishment of the last 25 years.
To: CasearianDaoist
thirs=third
To: Lexinom
. . . The Associated Press reported that Siemens announced that the firm will move most of the 15,000 software programming jobs from its offices in the United States and Western Europe to India, China and Eastern Europe. When you off-shore an off-shored job, does it count as one job lost or two (to the home country)? Or one job lost in the home country and one job lost in the original recipient country?
9
posted on
03/12/2004 6:34:26 AM PST
by
1rudeboy
To: Lexinom
Maybe the solution lies in us, not the government...
I agree totally, up to a point. No matter what people do here they are still 10x more expensive than a workers in India or China for various reasons. Even if we were 8x more efficient companies would still just see "savings" in going overseas.
What I look to the government for is to make a market that's appealing to hire American workers. And that can be mostly done through reducing personal income taxes and increasing tariffs. Just a 10% swing on both of those could easily boost our economy.
10
posted on
03/12/2004 6:35:06 AM PST
by
lelio
To: 1rudeboy
When you off-shore an off-shored job
Come on, if you're trying to make a point at least have some backing on it. Siemen's growth of programmers in the US is due to buying out companies here.
11
posted on
03/12/2004 6:37:09 AM PST
by
lelio
To: CasearianDaoist
Bingo. Gutting the American economy in the name of "free trade" is killing us and will cause the GOP great angst. Where are the "old" conservatives?
12
posted on
03/12/2004 6:37:32 AM PST
by
Lexinom
To: lelio
There has to be some government involvement, you're right. I was just saying too many of us are "conditioned" to expect the government to come in and rescue us as individuals when the responsibility lies with us. I'm not an economic or trade expert, just a programmer who has worked with a lot of these Indian IT folks, so I don't know how the gov't would go about creating that environment you mentioned. We're dealing with the taxes (with the Dems kicking and screaming) and tariffs sound like a great idea, but will take cajones up at the top to stand up to international trade organizations. Bush tried this re: the steel industry but had to back off a couple months ago...
13
posted on
03/12/2004 6:42:29 AM PST
by
Lexinom
To: LibertyAndJusticeForAll; All
Of course, that means he not only missed the above information, he also missed all the news about how Americans were forced to train their replacements, with the threat of losing their severance pay, and that it took 6-8 months to train 6 Indians to replace 1 American IT professional.Like those teary-eyed Jewish children given NOT a shovel, but a shovel-head, to dig their own graves.
14
posted on
03/12/2004 6:43:04 AM PST
by
Lael
(Patent Law...not a single Supreme Court Justice is qualified to take the PTO Bar Exam!)
To: lelio
Siemen's growth of programmers in the US is due to buying out companies here. "Come on, if you're trying to make a point at least have some backing on it."
15
posted on
03/12/2004 6:48:50 AM PST
by
1rudeboy
To: CasearianDaoist
That is not a canary in a mine shaft falling over, that is the foreman dropping dead.Wonderful image!
Yes, it is national suicide. I can only assume that those who continue to chant the so-called free trade mantra are planning to retire on an island in the Pacific.
I say so-called free trade, because China and India continue to have extremely high tariffs, China has devalued the yuan 40% and is dumping goods on us, we subsidize our corporations to offshore with financial aid to 3rd world countries, and Communist China heavily subsidizes all of their businesses (while happily taking all our intellectual property).
The 2 billion people in China and India will never buy from us, they are simply making their own versions of these products and their people will buy their own version.
On top of everything else, Indians are being bribed to sell our financial account information. Check your bank for any odd electronic transfers!
May God Bless America and see us safely through this unprecedented time in our history.
To: Lael
Well, I would not trivialize the Holocaust by equating their torturous murders to our jobs, but I get your point.
What amazes me is that someone in Mr. Greenspan's position can be so IGNORANT, while demanding that Americans get more training at the same moment he himself is SO in need of more information!
To: LibertyAndJusticeForAll
Free trade and free traitors are costing us plenty.
18
posted on
03/12/2004 6:54:05 AM PST
by
TXBSAFH
(KILL-9 needs no justification.)
To: CasearianDaoist
People need to realize that the free traitors are trying to force America back into the agricultural colony that it once was long ago.
There will be no means of industrial production in the USA in the future if this "free trade" insanity is allowed to continue.
The simple fact is that we cannot EVER compete with Red China or India in labor costs.
It can't be done.Kill the EPA, OSHA, SS, throw out every environmental law, worker safety law, child labor law, tax, whatever(of course its not likely that any of these things will ever happen).
The communists will STILL have lower labor costs because you can't beat slave labor!
Free trade and its backers are destroying American industrial capacity with their communist Chinese allies.
And now that they have the blue collar middle class on the ropes the free traitors are going after the white collar middle class with outsourcing.
Our children and grandchildren will be a nation of door-greeters, hamburger flippers and ag workers feeding the industrial might of communist China and socialist India.
To: LibertyAndJusticeForAll
Science and Technology research and development capacities should never be traded, only their fruits should be the source of trade. If we do not turn this around, we will deeply regret it. Right now China not only requires tech transfers but R&D transfers. That amounts to long term suicide for short term sales. The West will never get a real piece of either the Chinese or the Indian markets. These people are fighting economic war with us. It is time to stop making trade policy an adjunct of foreign policy and make it part of the core of national security policy. The longer we wait on this the greater the danger.
Unfortunately, neither party wants this - they are both globalists.
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