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.

Are you under the impression that businessmen are all the Hank Reardens and Dagney Taggarts of libertarian fantasy ?

No. I'm also not under the impression that politians and government regulators are all Jimmy Stewart, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" types either.

Business needs to be regulated, fine. Business also needs to make a profit. If you or government decides where business can hire or manufacture or if you decide how much profit should be enough for business to make then you might as well have government control of business.

You might disagree, but that's Fascism.

Nope. I'm quite aware that business people can be mean nasty SOBs. But they also want to expand their business. Command economies aren't cartels, they're government run industries. Again look at Amtrak, their chairman gets to go to congress and beg for money be given half of what he needs and is told to find a way to make it work without reducing service or increasing fair... No CEO wants to be in that position, they didn't spend all that time stabbing people in the back and climbing the corporate corpse mound to be reduced to Dickens characters.

There's a myth that the top players in industries have a live and let live understanding, but it's a myth. Competition is fierce in almost every industry, if a business isn't expanding then it's probably shrinking, the business cycle is not condusive to a company sitting on a plateau, the only way for a business to expand is to take business away from somebody else. When businesses to sit back in cartel manner the end result is something like what happened to our auto industry in the 70s: somebody find a way into the market and kicks the crap out of the lazy bastiches.

Command economies aren't cartels, they're government run industries. Again look at Amtrak, their chairman gets to go to congress and beg for money be given half of what he needs and is told to find a way to make it work without reducing service or increasing fair...

There are utilities which are automatically cartels. Public transport is like a utility in that they are necessities which everyone uses and which the public as a consequence demands supervision over. The public will not permit private interests to, say, quadruple the train fare or the water bill because as a practical matter the entry cost of the industry is so high that competition is practically impossible. Can private investors lay new sewer lines ? Isn't the cost of massive infrastructure investment so high (the Brooklyn Bridge, subway systems, commuter rail, sewer systems, etc) that the taxpayer is the final guarantor ? So since the taxpayer was the underwriter, the taxpayer will be the determiner of what a "fair" profit is.

There's a myth that the top players in industries have a live and let live understanding, but it's a myth. Competition is fierce in almost every industry, if a business isn't expanding then it's probably shrinking, the business cycle is not condusive to a company sitting on a plateau, the only way for a business to expand is to take business away from somebody else.

Even in war there are hot sectors where combat is intense and vast quiet sectors of little or no activity. You can't spread out your armor and aircraft carriers everywhere. They are concentrated on key objectives. Competition for competition's sake is wasteful. Plateau ? Technology plateaus. When it does competition drops as now. The breakneck technological change of the 80's and 90's in personal computers saw feverish competition that did in Wang, Digital Equipment Corp, Ashton-Tate, Osborne, Timex, CP/M, Wordperfect, Dbase, Clipper, etc. Now it has stabilized because the marketplace has settled on a standard and X86 technology has plateaued. You see, the tendency is inevitably towards cartels because cartels enforce technological standards and the marketplace wants technological standards, be it in word processors, DVD recording formats, VCR tape formats, or operating systems. The marketplace wanted first IBM and then Microsoft to determine the technological standards. People want to invest in developing software that they know will still be supported 8 years from now. If I came up with a fantastic new X86 operating system the marketplace would not want it because they are not going to invest in something that major players will not support. Nobody wants orphan production software.

It is almost like the progression of history where states are created by warlords on horseback and consolidated by bureaucrats. Businesses are created in the "heroic age" of the industry by entrepeneurs on horseback and managed a generation later by bureaucrats who are risk minimizers.

No utilities are usually monopolies, it's very rare for there to be any real competition between them where you live determines who gives you your service.

Public transportation depends on where you live. I haven't used a form of it in 15 years and have no intentions of ever going back, Tucson is too spread out for public transportation to be even useful much less necessary. And again these are monopolies not cartels, and as such have a LOT of additional regulation they have to put up with (like not being able to set their own rates and having minimum service standards they must maintain or lose their permission).

Actually yes private investors can lay new sewer line, in fact in most places if you're adding a new dwelling to a piece of land it's your job to lay all the line necessary to hook it to the main system.

Roads and bridges have nothing to do with this. Transportation infrastructure is one of the duties of government as laid out in the constitution. It's niether a cartel nor a monopoly, it's the government doing it's job (though not very well when you look at the potholes... always a great argument against socialized medicine).

Competition isn't for competition's sake it's for survival. As anyone that's watch western history knows it is the natural tendancy of bureaucracies to grow, this is just as true in the corporate world as it is in the alphabet soup of American government. As bureaucracy grows it increases a companies costs, both by adding people and by making them less productive on a man hour basis. When your costs are increasing you've got to find a way to increase revenue, raising prices isn't always a good way to do it, so that leave expansion, which causes competition. A company whose costs are constantly rising and whose revenue is not growing is a company that's going out of business.

Technology hasn't plateaud at all. The X86 chip might have the majority of the market but there's still plenty of competition, check out Solaris and Mac, then there's AMD making high quality clones of hte X86. And of course within the market that sells X86 based computers there are literally DOZENS of manufacturers all competing with each other, just check out BestBuy http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=cat01172&type=category and they don't even carry a major percentage of the brands available.

No the tendancy is towards competition. Remember when there were only 3 automanufacturer in America? Whatever happened to the Big 3? What happened was they got lazy. Standardization can and does happen with competion, desks are all the same basic height yet there are hundreds of companies making them. The growth of Linux and an OS on the X86 chip proves your wrong about there being no room in that marketplace. Cartels and monopolies happen, but the inevitably go away to, that's the natural flow of business. Hartz Mountain was the king of pet supplies for 20 year, now where are they? AT&T owned the entire phonesystem of America for decades, how many long distance companies are there now (some of whom starte BEFORE AT&T was broken up). The Big 3 are now in cut throat competition with at least 4 other car companies.

You got that last paragraph right, but you didn't carry it to the next step: once risk averse bureaucrats take over the company is now ripe for attack and new competition is almost inevitable. That's the natural cycle: start as something new and exciting, become king of the hill, get lazy, get replaced.

I'm quite aware that business people can be mean nasty SOBs. But they also want to expand their business.

Do they really? I would have thought that many of them would be content to collect a bonus or two, or perhaps cash in some stock options. There has been a growing disconnect between what is good for the company (shareholders, customers, and employees) and what is good for the CEOs and boards. There is the old Deming line that what is measured is what will be done; and that is most true when it comes to the compensation of senior officers. They will maximize their respective personal earning irrespective of what may happen to either the companies under their care, nor the countries within which they operate.

I would like to see compensation levels drop to more reasonable levels. I don't have a problem with people becoming vastly wealthy while using their god given talents; but, I am weary when someone can unscrupulously achieve this under a single reporting quarter.

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