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

Me | Me

[A. Pole]

Works for corporations too.

Not really. Smith's "the butcher, the brewer or the baker" are the REAL people.

Corporation is a legal CONSTRUCT and a curtain behind which the actual players can hide to avoid personal responsibility. This can be beneficial for the society as the incorporated people might experiment without much fear.

If the general benefits from this immunity are larger than the losses from unprosecuted errors/fraud then the allowing, maintaining, protecting or even subsidizing by the taxpayers makes sense. If corporations become the tool for looting, treason and impoverishment then it is time to end the shell game.

[A. Pole]

Sounds like a small step to outright govt ownership. I think that is calling for socialism.

Every system if abused can lead to its demise. Stupid capitalists can sell the rope to their enemies to be hanged. (As Lenin noticed). When people abuse freedoms it leads to the restrictions. That is why we have traffic police and speeding tickets.

[Havoc]

So, we should seal the borders? Allow no foreign goods?

Uh, did IQ's just drop sharply or were you expecting we're all stupid in the U.S.? Foreign trade and legal immigration pre-existed outsourcing and "free traitorism". I don't think anyone here is advocating doing away with trade (as opposed to free trade or outsourcint) or *LEGAL* Immigration. You guys have to float to these extreme arguments out of absurdity to beg the notion that the world will end if you can't get your way. The world didn't end prior to these corrupt anticonstitutional policies, and it isn't going to end if we get rid of them either. You'll probably jump up and down and screem about not being able to make profit in the illigitimate fashion you are now; but, I'm sure you'll get over it. I bet you cheat at computer games don't you..

[Havoc]

That is the whole point of corporations to begin with. These people have been seeking refuge behind the protections of incorporation and think themselves above the fray, above the law, above common decency... When people surrender all notions and pretense of ethical behavior and, like lawyers, concern themselves no longer with what is right but rather with what can be argued on appearance to be legal, abuse becomes the standard.

Corporate America long ago had it's conscience surgically removed so they could treat people like cattle at the direction of superiors who had no conscience to begin with. With no conscience, you have no standard of patriotism or personal responsibility. This is how you get employers complaining about the dissappearance of employee loyalty whilest they fire people before those people can retire in order not to meet their own agreed to responsibilities to their workers.

I think any number of us here could write a book on the pretensious and scurilous nature of the modern corporation from personal experience - yet we continue to let it go on.
Because we've let it go on so long, now we're in the new mess - subversion of our economy and constitution in the name of "higher" profit. Outsourcing isn't being used to create profit where none exists, it's being used to destroy profit margins of domestic companies which are not outsourcing while further padding/lining the pockets of firms that have more money than they know what to do with already.

I've no illusions that we're going to see economic despots get religion; but, This is our country. We as citizens make the rules for how Companies can function. This is our system of government and our nation collectively. It's not a corporate theocracy in which we worship at the alter of a few mogul/tyrants. And it's time that crap ended.

[dcwusmc]

Bush Senior sunk himself. His "read my lips" fiasco started it, his executive order ban on firearms finished him. Perot was no more than icing on the cake already baked.

[dcwusmc]

Your laundry list of government interference in the economy is one MAJOR reason for outsourcing. Government IS the problem, just not quite the way some here are alleging. Thus, Bush CAN do something to improve the economy: Get FedGov the hell out of the way. Stop regulating us to death. Abolish the alphabet regulatory agencies. Et cetera.

[Havoc]

I don't know where you get this notion that corporations and business only exist for profit. Profit is the primary motive; but, the furthering of societal goals is a rather important part of business. We don't build M1A1s merely for profit nor do we make cars merely for profit. We build them because we have to have them to function. Everyday people have sense enough to reailize that if you're manufacturing tanks while we're at war and your only concern is what you're getting paid, you're pretty much a piece of crap. I think we generally would say that is mercinary. I feel like I almost have to give you a lessen in ethics and morality so that you can get the point - and that is it's own commentary.

[Havoc]

That's one heck of a great illustration LOL. Love it.

[XBob]

try this:

Guy: I need a new job, my employer is going to
outsource my position. I'm a brain surgeon.

Facility: sorry, we're looking for a janitor and you're over qualified.

Guy: Can I train on-the-job? I really need the job.

Facility: Sorry - you would just leave if another brain surgery job came along. Can't use you, I've got some mexicans applying. Get out of here. My answering service in India will contact you if any jobs show up which you qualify for.

[Toddsterpatriot]

I don't know where you get this notion that corporations and business only exist for profit. Profit is the primary motive; but, the furthering of societal goals is a rather important part of business.

When people who don't own the corporation get the government to force the corporation to do what they want, rather than what the owners want, that is socialism.

I guess if it gets you what you desire, that's ok, but it's still socialism.

Start your own company get your own investors and do all the good for societal goals you desire. Just keep your hands off other peoples property.

[Toddsterpatriot]

I love that you guys think the government can fix the "fair trade" problem or the outsourcing problem. Government will always lose to the corporations. And if the government ever wins the collateral damage will hurt far more of the little people than will be helped.

You socialist leaning types need to get the evil corporations on your side.

You need to decide in which order of importance the following rank.

American worker income. American corporate profits. Government revenue from corporate taxes. Total government revenues.

When you figure out how these rank then we can talk about how to work with the evil corporations to actually improve these.

[ARCADIA]

Abolish the alphabet regulatory agencies. Et cetera.
(Note: I am not sure which list you are referring to so I will answer in general)

I think we are pretty much in agreement on that. We have a strange and unhealthy business environment today. But, why not; when people are seemingly free to pass whatever environmental and social regulation farts into the room without the slightest apparent consequence.

We decide to curtail logging to save the spotted owl and furniture prices go down as our factories move overseas. We pass additional emissions regulations and prices drop yet again. Our juries award huge settlements liberally without any notion of how that will impact them and our economy.

No matter how stupid we act we feel no pain. We are doing damage, but the feedback mechanism is no longer there. Our consumer products are coming from factories located beyond the reach of the goofy regulations. So we remain ignorant until the damage becomes extreme; until we have destroyed our domestic businesses.

If this were a contained economy, then people would immediately see prices rise, shortages, and product cancellations every time they added yet another stupid regulation. On the other hand they would see the benefit of reducing excess tasking. As a first step in improving our domestic business environment we will need to scale back our dependence on imported products.

[Havoc]

The guy works for EDS, they have been importing Asians for years and they were already outsourcing in the late 1990s. This guy had to be blind not to see the writing on the wall. Now he's complaining??

Well, let's see, I think I've been over this earlier. Let's revisit, shall we. Four years ago I got sick with pneumonia. I was a good salesman at the time; but, the business I worked for got sick about the same time I did. It took six months fighting everyday for a few more minutes here and there till I couldn't stand and a few times collapsed. I wouldn't give up. But within a few months of working part time bad hours on commision and making nothing - I was tapped. By that time, business had pretty much died and I couldn't live on it because there was no traffic coming through. I was also getting written up monthly because I was sick and therefore not performing with no traffic.. Go figure.

Long story short, My Motorcycle - my only transportation - died. The engine seized at 70. Thirty Days later, my home which I hadn't been able to afford to insure burnt to the ground. If you want a complete picture, I lost my girl while I was in the hospital so it was a real happy time.

When I started at EDS it was an answer to a dream because I'd been wanting for 10 years to work for them. They opened a new facility to support Delphi Automotive so that Delphi could seperate it's support desk from GM. For the first time, I was in a carreer, not a swingshift hope to get buy job. I saw this as the company Ross Perot put together. Ross treated his people well - like human beings. But as with every other case in modern history, when the founder goes and a board takes over, people stop being human beings and start being a constraint on how much more money could be made if only..

You Pile work on people till they strain under the load and work them like dogs till they burn out.. Do you know they actually know standardized burnout rates for how long they can work a person under gruelling conditions before they snap or leave or both. They get real itchy comin up on that time frame. Corporate america believes in buying a race horse and running it full tilt till it drops dead. Compensation is a properly worded bit of psychobabble slap on the back to make you understand "we appreciate you [for earning us all this money and putting up with our abuse with no real reward for all the extra work]."

I'll digress back to my point. EDS looked like a sound place to go at the time. I'd do it again in the same circumstance because I trusted in the integrity of a name that had earned that integrity under Ross to the extent that not a single person I've worked with in the last 4 years that was there when Ross still ran it could find a solitary bad thing to say about him. Not one. And that is monumentally difficult to find.

EDS has been the fullfillment of a dream in more ways than one. They've treated me like gold up to now. And my local bosses are still trying to look out for us while our coporate heads have sold us out. It feels like good cop bad cop. Or Mom soothing your nerves while Dad accepts the check to sell you into slavery. We've been through hell and back for our client and our company for 4 years. And the thanks we got for doing it for them both is to be disowned because we're Americans.

I thought highly of both companies when I hired in. I see a number of things Delphi could do to fix a lot of problems they have; but, I'm not sure at this point that you can really tell Delphi anything anymore than you can tell EDS anything. Nor am I motivated at the point of losing my job to be of any more help to the guy cutting my throat than I have to be. Delphi is self destructing at the direction of a few people IMO. I don't know that I can really say more than that due to confidentiality; but, Their own move to Mexico In my opinion will buy them time and time only.

We at the Helpdesk already know that our function for Delphi is pretty much mission critical. And from experience dealing directly with Mexico, the move to Mexico will be nothing short of an epic disaster. I don't think I was dumb to go there. I think I was wise in the matter given the facts on the ground. But corporations just can't seem to help themselves - their best product regardless of the name on the door is something you used to only see in combat hardened veterans and the desperately poor: The thousand yard stare.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Not really. Smith's "the butcher, the brewer or the baker" are the REAL people.

So, if these REAL people outsourced their work you wouldn't complain about it? That would be OK? It's only when a corporation does it that the practice is evil?

[XBob]

379 - "The important thing to remember is that the economy is secondary to our security as a nation. "

Without a good economy, there is no security.

Terrorism kills thousands.

A bad econcomy kills/disables millions and disables our country and our military.

[ARCADIA]

I love that you guys think the government can fix the "fair trade" problem or the outsourcing problem. Government will always lose to the corporations. And if the government ever wins the collateral damage will hurt far more of the little people than will be helped.

You socialist leaning types need to get the evil corporations on your side.

Government regulation is most often used as a corporate tool. Whether it is public pork, the protection or recognition of assets, or in the creation of entire markets, it is businesses which seek out government intervention. Where would the insurance industry be without mandatory liability coverage? Where would the Banking industry without FDIC? Where would our housing industry be without Fannie Mae and Ginie Mae? Or, our medical/pharmaceuticals business without Medicaid and Medicare?

If there be socialist then look for them in the Boardrooms rather then the production floor. Workers are not asking for a handout, they are not claiming ownership over jobs, and they do not want your property. All they want is the opportunity to market their skills; something which cannot be realistically done when the relevant jobs are located beyond their reach.

[XBob]

391 - of course, corporate profits are most important, people and country matter nothing.

Send me the money to buy a share in my corporation to ban ToddsNoPatriot.

I WANT MONEY !!!!! MONEY MONEY MONEY !!!!!

[Havoc]

When people who don't own the corporation get the government to force the corporation to do what they want, rather than what the owners want, that is socialism.

What, you mean like getting them to stop using slave labor? Child labor? Sweatshop labor?... We as the public have every right to put restrictions on you because as in any other area of life, people time and again cannot be trusted to do the right thing. There have been more than a few good books written and movies filmed on such issues. You act like it's never been done before and that no right exists to put limits on the behavior of people. That isn't socialism, that is civility.. ensuring that society has some measure of protection from those in our midst who would use use and or abuse us.

There used to be a time in this country when people would ask of themselves what the rammifications were on other people before they made weighty decisions. Today that has been replaced by concern solely over money. Personally, if I have to live under constant threat of ruin by tyrants, I'm better off to shred my SSN, sell what I have and find a nice piece of moutainside where no one will bother me. When you can't get civilized conduct from what purports to be civilization, it ain't worth it. If you can't provide security in a society, It offers nothing. We might as well all be living on a mountainside, we'd at least know we could rely on ourselves. It's a pretty deep subversion when you teach people that the things they've setup in society to secure themselves can't be counted on. It's nothing short of pseudo organized anarchy. And that is why it leads to revolution. But that is also why we make laws to prevent such subversions.

You know what Tojo, Mussolini, Hitler, Ghengis, Attilla, and Napoleon all have in common - they all thought they were doing something for the greater good. And they even said as much. It's their actions and results that tell us otherwise, just as now with free trade.

[Toddsterpatriot]

I think you inhaled a little too much rocket exhaust. You're making less and less sense.

[Havoc]

Government will always lose to the corporations.

That's a pretty big mouthful there, considering the Government is US. You're essentially stating you're at war with the average citizen and that the citizen must lose in order to keep you in posh surroundings. That isn't capitalism. It isn't Republicanism. It's dictatorial feudalism. As I've noted before, ya'lls statements would make great campaign commercials for the other side - or good reasons for a revolt. Take your pick.