An Open letter to President Bush (End run vs. Outsourcing)

You don't know me, nor do I expect you to. But I'm one of those voices out here in the ether that actually did vote for you. I'm not one of those seminar caller types nor a Democrat pretending at being a republican to subvert the party faithful in dishonest fashion because their ideas aren't popular enough to win them anything. No, I'm a life-long republican who cherishes the memory of Ronald Reagan and who thought highly of you right up to the time you sunk a knife in my back economically.

Sir I understand it's a hard job being president. I also understand that in IT my job causes me to have to think on my feet and respond to an everchanging environment just to keep it. And while I was busting my behind for a company I happened to love doing a job I happened to love, you decided it's a good thing to do an endrun around equal protection and hand my job to a Mexican worker at 1/3 of the rate I'm being paid. Sir, Retail employees get paid more than that Full time and they're earning below the poverty level. The Job I hold for the moment requires a lot of hard work and problem solving skills, it requires good customer care skills, and it requires a long knowledge of Computers and software I didn't get from a degree but from practical experience.

I worked long and hard for years looking for the break that would get me in the door with my current employer. And I currently have a carreer with them. Or had, rather. I've worked for EDS for nearly 4 years. I will lose my job just short of that anniversary or just after it depending on how the breakdown happens.

I have a handicap that keeps me from driving a car. Not an official handicap, because it's so rare a problem that 1/2 of 1% of Americans have the condition so it doesn't rate being called what it is. I'm a blip on the screen. But, it means I have to live close to my employer and sometimes rely on others to help me get things done. I've lost everything and put my life back together 3 times in 15 years sir. And having just accomplished it again after 4 years with my employer, your policy has killed any protection I might have otherwise enjoyed from having my job destroyed by foriegn competition. And it puts me right back on the brink again. Sir, if I don't stand a chance of winning, it isn't competition - it's fish in a barrel. Where is my equal protection under the law?

The "competition" didn't get hired because of race or creed; but, because of national origin. They got hired because their cost of living is low enough that they can be paid sub-poverty wages to do my job. They are taking my job because they aren't constrained by the laws we have in this country to protect us and preserve our liberties. Lower cost of living, and no laws to constrain them. See, we used to have what was called ANTI-DUMPING laws on the books before Nafta to prevent the subversion of our economy by those who would attempt to compete on an unfair basis and put American firms out of business. We aren't a global economy, the globe is not the United States of America. They don't respect our rights, our Constitution, our laws or ourselves. The average citizen of the world might; but, we aren't dealing with them, we're dealing with the leaders who have their boots on the neck of the citizen of the world.

It seems today that I have to be a Mexican to get a fair shake in America. There are some 8 million of them here illegally as a tax on our system and working here taking jobs that Americans can do; but, which apparently, nobody wants to offer a fair wage for as long as they can get slave labor off the books. That isn't enough though. We need to employ More workers from Mexico, India, China.. As long as we're doing it, sire, why not be obvious and lets put Sally Struthers on the TV to advertise IT Jobs for the people under repressive regimes in africa who can live on 52 cents a day, "the price of a cup of coffee." I don't care what color their skin is, No citizen of the United states could live on that and shouldn't be asked to compete with it. It's too blatently obvious that it's unfair. And that seems to be why it's "good for us all".

Your policy sir. It's you on the tube telling me it's good for me to lose my job to a Mexican worker outside of our system and in a manner with which I cannot compete. There isn't a job comparable to it here that I can take to make up the difference cause those are being outsourced too. Outsourced. How about endran. Because sir, that is what is happening - it's an end run around our system - around our rights, our laws, our constitutional provisions and protections. Your policy has relieved me of my job without due process. It tied my hands before I had a chance to respond. And so many businesses are being forced to do the same thing, that I don't stand a chance any more than those earning 3 times what I do in the same field who have lost their jobs already and have had to take 11k a year Retail jobs just to eat while their houses go up for sale.

I don't have a degree. I don't get retraining. I just get to lose my job at the whim of your policies and will likely lose more than that in the end. You see, I bought a new home too - a year ago. This job made it possible for me to do that. And as with my Job, I had to get a huge break to be able to pull it off. I've been behind you and a cheerleader of yours since I first heard you speak. I understand that the tanking economy isn't your fault. I understand it isn't your fault we were attacked. I understand and agree with pretty much everything you've done to date, sir. This however is in my mind beyond sickening. It is a betrayal of myself, my coworkers and every other hard working IT worker, Auto worker, etc that has lost their job due to this. It is a betrayal by their government and their employer. And it's a distrust you've earned by subverting them and me. For me, it's not just my Government, it's my own party.

Now I've heard all the arguments for outsourcing and all the copout phrases about what we do about companies that have outsourced to the US. Tell me, sir, how many of them outsourced to do an endrun around their system of government, their constitution, their laws and their workers. How many of them outsourced to us to produce goods for their home market. That isn't an argument that flies with me in the face of doing an endrun around us. They've built plants in our land and are working within our market, within it's rules, within our laws, within the constraints of our constitution and are paying a competative wage. Our companies are doing the opposite. And any way you cut it, it is economic and constitutional tyranny. I'm not a single issue voter sir, until that single issue is my life and livelihood.. until members of my own party call me a robber and a thief for expecting to keep my job when I've worked my behind off to do so.

I did it right. I've busted my backside under an ever increasing workload, kept my promise to my employer and my client. Never missed a metric, never dropped the ball for either of them and have always exceeded expectation as a member of one of the best teams on this planet in my humble opinion. My job is gone not because we didn't produce and not because either couldn't afford it; but, because Mexicans work cheaper and don't have our protections, laws, rights or constitution. I have a strong work ethic and a loyalty to my company that even now makes me shudder to say a bad word about them. I have no illusions; but, I was raised that if you do your best it pays off. I know now that if you do your best, you get kicked in the teeth just as hard, and if you get ahead a little bit, the government will be there to kick you back down. I appreciate how hard your job is. Mine is pretty dang hard too. But how about you and everyone in government work for $600 a month from now on like the Mexican workers replacing us. How about you all work for the income you're forcing me into. If it's good for us, it should be good for you too. You, and all the ivory tower types in our party that hiss at me for being upset over losing my job and wanting to defend myself. How would that be, sir? I'd just as soon see little Tommy Daschle and Ted Kennedy go fly a kite as hear them spout one more offensive evil lie about you. But I'd just as soon, too, see you join them holding the string if you're gonna ruin me and tell me it's good for me. How about if we just outsource your jobs too - oh, wait, that would be unconstitutional too, wouldn't it.

Good rant.

Sent my own in January (Indian guy, here on an L1 visa). Got a picture of the President and Laura and a fund raising letter back for my efforts.

I used to be a Democrat. I turned 18 in 1974 and nobody registered Republican that year. My worst electoral mistake was voting for Carter in 1976. I voted for Reagan in '80 but didn't change my registration until '84 as I kept thinking that the Democrats would come to their senses. Abortion and the nuclear freeze movement disabused me from that.

I'm fed up with Bush's seeming indifference to those of us who have been "impacted" and "displaced". It looks like the Herbert Hoover wing has taken over the GOP but I'm not planning on bolting the party for several reasons.

First, where to go? The Democrats are the party of the super rich and the dependent poor. The is really no place for working people there. The Democrats use the unions but don't really do anything for the membership. Kerry would do no better for working people than Bush.

Second, historically outsourcing has not been beneficial. The best example of this is the Roman Empire, where grain production was outsourced to the African provinces. When production or transportation was disrupted by rebellion or piracy Romans starved. Right now we are outsourcing our technical in industrial bases to India and China. Hopefully someone will recognize what a risk this is to our national security before we reach the point where we can't defend ourselves.

"Free Trade" is a different issue. international commerce is usually beneficial as long as a reasonable balance of imports and exports, on a cash equivalent basis, can be maintained. Which is to say as long as access between markets is mutual and trade is truly free. The problem today is that a lot of what is described as "free trade" isn't. They have access to our markets but we don't have equivalent access to theirs.

Third, Bush is only here for four more years (if we're lucky). Even though the party of Reagan is dead here in California and the "moderate Republicans" (RINOs) have taken over, conservatives remain in power in the red zone. This year's Republican convention could be interesting.

If the election where held today, I myself would just stay home. I could never vote for Kerry but Bush has done too much that is against my interest to permit me to cast a vote for him in good conscience. I keep hoping to wake up one day and hear that he has said "Illegal immigration is not in the best interest of American workers and it gives Mexico an excuse to never make anything any better in their country too, let's stop it now." Or maybe, "Countries that don't open their markets and their economies to our products or our capital have no right to expect that we be open to them." But I doubt it.

Best wishes and good luck in the job search. It's crowded out there. Keep swinging.

#8 The're not YOUR jobs ... they belong to the company (all the while neglecting to acknowledge whose tax money went into building the roads and other infrastructure which enable that the company to function and whose blood was given in protection of their free traitor a$$es Yes Benedick ... they are OUR jobs (spelling on purpose)

Is this John Kerry? I've never seen such a weak argument for claiming they are "OUR jobs" than this one.

The companies have paid far more than their share into building the roads and infrastructure.

And even if they didn't this is still a lame argument, since the companies can move to regions where there are just as many roads and infrastructure whenever they want to.

"If you do not have the particular set of job skills that an employer needs, or if you have priced your labor out of the marketplace, guess what? It's not the employer's fault. The fault lies with you. Either develop a new set of job skills that are actually in demand, or adjust your pricing. The employer knows what he's looking for. If you're not it .. it's your problem, not his."

So why can't they force you to hire Americans, if they force you to hire everyone else?

Agreed, but the more heinous thing that these people do is to ignore simple facts. The fact is, not everyone can be (nor would we want them to be!) nurses and biotech workers. Fifty percent of OUR OWN CITIZENS are below the median in IQ level. Other folks are limited by physical disabilities.

Other generations, who were not so completely fixated on personal greed, recognized this fact. They hired the mildly mentally handicapped man down the street to work on their lawn and do their odd jobs. They knew that if they hired their neighbors to work at their factory, it would help the entire town...and thus themselves. The idea back then was that everyone who was willing to work very hard, and put in the years of service, would benefit by having a modest, comfortable, middle-class lifestyle. Notice, this was NOT coerced by the Government, but was simply assumed, as people had decent moral values.

Ultimately, they knew that the jobs were a benefit to our Country, as well...having seen the importance of self-reliance during WWII.

Contrast this to the current crop of self-centered jerks, who are selling out their OWN CHILDREN'S future by providing our enemies with technology to fight against us. We also rely on some of these enemies for basic self-defense necessities like steel, due to our leaders' stunning lack of the ability to see past their stock portfolios.

A shocking decline in moral and socioeconomic values in one generation, is it not?

Oh, and "Havoc," you are a true conservative. The Democrats have become Socialists, the Republicans have become Democrats, and Conservatives are left to ???

Welcome the real world. Tell me, how much did you complain about the Mexicans not having the means to support themselves while you were doing well?

Or did you think that you as an American were "entitled" to a good paying job while the rest of the world could suffer without a second thought from you?

Do you think that God owes you a better life than Mexicans?

I've had to switch careers more than once due to jobs moving overseas. And I've had to settle for lower paying jobs many times in my life..but am now making more money than I ever have in a job I that love more than any I've ever had.

I learned to thank God everyday that he blessed me with a means to support myself even when I was making $8/hour.

Life is short. Attitude means more than income or circumstances when it comes to eternity. Stop complaining and learn to be thankful for what you have. You will be a happier person.

"Bush never said any such thing."

True enough, actually it was the head of the President's Council of Economic Advisers who said that outsourcing was just another form of trade and good for the economy. Such people rarely make such comments unless they are in fact administration policy.

"Administration policy"? The Bush administration doesn't tell businesses they have to outsource jobs.

Bush is just continuing the free-trade policy from previous administrations and has not decided to adopt Govt control of US businesses dictating and controlling who they can hire where.

If President Bush thinks he can be reelected with that sort of attitude about destroying people's livelihoods good luck to him.

Right. Unemployment is down, productivity is up, the national GDP is up...but Bush is destroying people's livelihoods. Just ask the DU.

"The vote totals speak for themselves. In neither house did the majority of Democrats support NAFTA."

Nonsense. The vote totals were mere window dressing. The Democrats controlled *both* the House and Senate as well as the Presidency in 1993. NAFTA wouldn't have even come up for a vote if the Democratic Party hadn't desired it to pass.

Don't lie. No political party will line up 100% against its own sitting president. As the numbers indicate and you pretend not to see nearly all Republicans and some Democrats constitued enough of a majority for it to come up for a vote and to pass. Like Peel on the Corn Laws, Clinton was willing to turn on his own political base in the name of "free trade".

Yes, capitalism is destructive of the old order, but it is a *creative* destruction. Buggy whip makers see their jobs get destroyed by capitalism instead of "protected" by the nanny state, but the new automobile manufacturing jobs soon outnumber the old buggy whip jobs by orders of magnitude, and pay more to boot.

Ah, here we have once again the old free traitor "buggy whip" nonsense. Tell me, what new technology has made electrical engineering obsolete ? What new Ameican industry is being created by free trade ? The Indian body shop ? And given that outsourcing is shifting technology and R&D to India and China is it not more likely that this supposed "new technology" will appear there than here ? What makes this such a salient political issue is that the public clearly sees that NOTHING is being created, just MNC's and their shills looting this country. Your pious faith that America can drain itself of technology and jobs and still magically come out ahead (or I should more accurately say your patter, your line) is seen through by ordinary Americans.

Protecting jobs from their capitalistic destruction will only rob your children of the better paying jobs that *always* replace whatever was destroyed.

Considering that net NO high paying jobs have been created for quite some time now, that is ludicrous. History tells us that free trade has winners and losers on a national level. Britain, for instance, lost because it should have gone protectionist in 1900 in response to the rise of protectionist Germany and the US. It is most emphatically not a win-win proposition.

And while an uneducated India of 1920 *could* fall for such Marxist, protectionist nonsense, the India of today is less likely to be so conned (though they do have some serious protectionist measures still in place)...

It was under "protectionist nonsense" that Hamilton, Jefferson, Lincoln, McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt built America into an industrial superpower. China and India both know that and that is why they have tremendous tariffs. They love "free trade" while it means capital, jobs, and technology moving from America to them. They are pure mercantilist about any flows in the opposite direction. They love "free trade" when it means picking our brains and our pockets. China loves "free trade" when it means steadily turning America into a nation that exports foodstuffs and raw materials and whose high technology advantage will soon be gone. They aren't stupid and they will not allow their business class to sell out the security of their country.

Security ? The entire thrust of modern human civilization has been people demanding that the random and predictable hardships of life (like illness, old age, paying for college, affording a home) be smoothed out. Whether you like that or not is unimportant. Human beings in the real world never viewed themselves as Ayn Rand heroic ubermensch. This is because human beings always place their interests and those of their loved ones ahead of "market efficiency" and what they have ahead of pie in the sky about "new technologies and higher paying jobs" especially when none are visible to the naked eye.

Try abolishing Social Security, Medicare, FHA, unemployment insurance, and the student loan program and see how far you get.

Societies that are destructive of this goal are rejected by their people. The Russian people rejoice at the destruction of the oligarchs and the restoration of order and security under Putin. East Germans have chosen to forget the Berlin Wall, fondly remembering the order and security of the past. The bottom line result of your free trade at all costs nonsense is a shift to the left that will make the New Deal seem practically Randian.

First of all, God owes me nothing save what he promises to fulfill. And that I don't consider as a debt to me. So, you can get off that haughty rant.

Second, I didn't comment on whether Mexicans deserve anything. Of course they deserve the right to build their economy the way we have. Whether they can't or won't is a question in my mind; but, it largely appears they won't.
That aside, it has not a single thing to do with my life here. I begrudge them nothing in their own land and as others, I give to charities that help overseas. If you're a Christian, you know the standard - don't simply give a fish, teach them how to catch their own. We've spent plenty of time and money doing just that; but, they still haven't budged to do for themselves. So you're answer is to put Americans out of work and hand them our economy and backhand anyone that has the God given sense to say it is an injustice.

The point is, these companies couldn't lower wages in this country like that and get away with it because nobody would take it. Supply and demand. They don't want to live with supply and demand so they've cheated the system to have a new standard. One for them and one for everyone else.

This isn't a business problem, it's a people problem. These people mostly don't give a hoot in hell about the people or the country that provided them the opportunity and wherewithall to get where they are. They are too concerned with their greed to have either respect or concern. Workers to them are cattle - pure and simple. And as with my company, they'll tell you what's happening is wrong, unfortunate, etc; but, that they are powerless if they want to stay in business to do anything but treat people that way because the people who they are competing with have set the standard.

As I've noted before, other countries have built businesses within our boarders to create products and services for our market here. We don't see them whining that they can't get a fair shake from the government or can't earn anything - because their mindset isn't a mindset of having to earn a million bucks on the first guy that walks in the door to do business with them. They aren't greedy. Sure they want to make money just like anyone else; but, they have a level of respect for their workers and a sense of honor with regard to what they do and produce within society. Something the US moguls and most politicians seem utterly lacking to comprehend - much less possess. And you're with them apparently.

So instead of sitting there building strawmen to shoot down arguments I'm not making or to Beat me up for ethical considerations I neither hold nor have proffered - one wonders why a person such as yourself who seems to be claiming Christianity (?) needs to stoop to dishonest and decietful argument tactics to paint me so he can apparently feel superior or something.

I'm glad you thank God everyday. I would thank God for you if you had the decency to love your neighbor as yourself. I don't think you'd expect your neighbor as a righteous person to twist your words, put words and notions in your mouth and decieve others about what you've said in order to act superior to you. What did Christ say, if he asks you to walk a mile with him, walk with him two. How do you square that with - screw you, you aren't owed anything and if it get's taken from you, you've no right to defend yourself. You don't. Cause it doesn't square.

And, see, I didn't come to this thread asking anyone for Christian decency which we know is a higher standard and most don't hold to other than in name. I came here just as a citizen to lodge a citizen's complaint that I am being disenfranchised right along with countless others. Now, others may not speak up or may not have a forum to. But I do, and so long as I do, I will press my position because in the end, if I don't - nobody else will. And if I don't at least try to make a difference, I've no right to complain in the first place. Just as if you don't vote, you've no right to complain about what you get in the outcome.

I've got a farmer's attitude because I was raised by them.
You assume more than your standing to do because you haven't bothered to read to know what I've said up to now.
So here's some advice, don't do it. Instead of putting words in my mouth and twisting the ones that have proceeded forth from me, deal with what I've actually said and if you have a question, ask it instead of making it up. That is honesty and a grounds for conversing. What you've done here so far is not. If you can't see clear to do that, then maybe you should be asking God a little harder for help with that.

Thanks bud. I'd privately thanked a number of others that I hadn't addressed publicly for coming into this slugfest and proffering a good word to let me know there are some sane people in our party and some level of decency.

It doesn't seem to occur to my detractors that I didn't come here looking for a way to get a government handout, to beg for scraps, or to request special treatment. I came here to lodge a complaint about what i percieve clearly with other americans something that is an injustice. And the Polls show that others are feeling the same way in droves. When upwards of 70% of people in the US think something is wrong, that isn't a mandate to do it but to rather not do it or undo it.

As I noted earlier, you won't see companies hiring pigmies in africa or Aboriginals at 52 cents a day to do IT security because the outcry would be so huge from the people that 70% figure would become unanimous. So, as I said, The best campaign commercial for the Democrats this fall is Sally Struthers pitching IT jobs for pigmies - for the price of a cup of coffee a day. If you don't think that would have resounding impact...

"And given that outsourcing is shifting technology and R&D to India and China is it not more likely that this supposed "new technology" will appear there than here ?"

What has been invented in the last 20 years in either China or India? What do you think that they will ever invent first before the U.S.?

You see, if you are right that real R&D is moving away from the U.S. over to China and India, then China and India should be coming out with revolutionary new products at a feverish clip.

On the other hand, if I am right that only mundane grunt jobs (often mislabeled as "high tech" by people who just don't know any better) are moving to India and China, then all new inventions will continue to come from the U.S. and Japan.

So there's your test. Show me where China and India are doing something more advanced than the U.S., and I'll concede that you are right and that I'm dead wrong. Pretty easy, eh?!

Of course, the reality is that for the next 30 to 60 years this thread will remain void of any such "evidence" from you. Not that you will admit that you are wrong and that you can't find some new Chinese or Indian super-invention...no, it will just be that no such new technology ever gets posted here.

You see, you'll fail the above test, but you'll do so quietly in the end...with a whimper...neither managing to show the "might" of Chinese and Indian R&D nor being honest enough to admit that you've never once had a clue about what you are talking about.

But hey, it is a simple test. Show me the new Chinese and Indian super-tech. Prove me wrong.

I dare you.

I challenge you.

And yes, I'm calling you to the carpet.

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