Posted on 09/08/2004 3:36:00 PM PDT by Destro
Posted on Sun, Aug. 22, 2004
Business books: 'Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas'
"Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas," by Lou Dobbs (Warner Business Books, 208 pages, $19.95)
Look out, Silicon Valley! Bangalore, India, is gaining on you. Some folks in India even believe that their country's version of Silicon Valley has already surpassed its California counterpart as a center for high-tech employment.
In his new book, "Exporting America," CNN's Lou Dobbs shows how strongly that belief is held in India with a headline from the Jan. 6, 2004, issue of The Times of India: "Silicon Valley Falls to Bangalore."
The story under that headline, Dobbs writes, bragged that Bangalore has 150,000 information-technology engineers compared with 130,000 in Silicon Valley. Dobbs believes that that story can't be written off as merely nationalistic exaggeration.
"India is only one of the many countries benefiting from the exporting of American jobs. But it has also been one of the most aggressive in pursuing professional-level jobs, from medical technicians to software programs. American companies have been all too happy to answer India's siren call of educated English-speakers willing to work at some of the world's lowest wages," Dobbs writes.
General Electric's Capital International Services, Dobbs points out, was one of the pioneers of outsourcing domestic operations to India. The company, Dobbs writes, employs 1,300 at its four centers in India and says it saves about $400million annually by not having Americans do those jobs.
"The people there write software; they review invoices and insurance claims; they do market analysis. CIS also offers its services to other American companies looking for outsourced resources," Dobbs writes.
Although India lags behind other Asian countries in manufacturing, it has a leg up, according to Dobbs, in the service sector and is a magnet for some of America's highest-paying jobs.
"There are programmers all over the world, but the Indian Institutes of Technology (known as IITs) are turning out thousands of these programmers a year. They are men and women who are well-educated, speak impeccable English, and are thrilled to make $10,000 a year," Dobbs writes.
GE, as Dobbs makes clear in abundant detail, is only one of many companies outsourcing high-tech and professional jobs to India and other parts of the world where wage expectations are lower. Among the others spotlighted by Dobbs for outsourcing jobs to India, the Philippines, Romania, Ireland, Poland and other countries are IBM, SAS Institute, Intel, Microsoft, Perot Systems, Apple, Computer Associates, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and Sun Microsystems.
Early in the book Dobbs delivers a broadside against the general trend of shipping jobs offshore. He says it is undermining the American middle class, putting Americans out of work, forcing Americans to work harder and longer for less pay, devastating some communities and depriving governments at all levels of the tax revenue for upgrading public education and providing other essential goods and services.
Dobbs, whose views on shipping jobs offshore have been under continual attack by advocacy groups and consultants for multinational corporations, takes the view that corporations who send jobs offshore are firing their own customers, because American workers will eventually find themselves unable to purchase the goods and services being exported back to America by American companies.
"India can provide our software; China can provide our toys; Sri Lanka can make our clothes; Japan make our cars. But at some point we have to ask, what will we export? At what will Americans work? And for what kind of wages? No one I've asked in government, business or academia has been able to answer those questions," Dobbs writes.
- Cecil Johnson,
Knight Ridder Tribune
I answered that already - the foreign student trend will not last.
so who fills the seats then? believe me, US higher education engineering programs are worried about that. that's my point, without domestic enrollment, they are going to be in trouble a few years from now.
Dobbs is out of his gord.
I wish CNN would outsource HIS job overseas by putting some smooth talking Austrailian or Indonesian or Indian on the anchor desk to read the financial news.
Bullshit!
It is not corporate greed that is shipping U.S. jobs overseas.
It is the stupid environmental laws that thr democrats passed.
The democrat voters are too stupid to catch it.
No wonder that the democrat party leaders and politicians hold their base in such comtempt.
A more stupid bunch has not been had since the creation of Adam and Eve.
call centers don't generate much pollution.
These are basically minimum wage jobs you are describing. So mainly these jobs go to people just entering the job market who are unskilled. Kids and illegals.
The pool of this category of workers is very large. If there were no illegals, these jobs would go to teenagers, like they obviously do in places where there are no illegals.
So to venture a guess as to why they cry "we need these illegals". It could be that they are paying them less than minimum wage. Which many surely are because the restaurant business is very hard to succeed in. Very slim profits. Or it could be that it is not the restaurantuers doing the crying, but the politicians.
Very true for consumer electronics. But for high-end commercial tech and raw high-tech componentry, the US is still just about the only game in town and will be for the foreseeable future. A lot of that Japanese stuff still has plenty of USA in it, it just isn't obviously visible when looking at the Japanese branded gadget. The US is lousy at developing consumer products, but fantastic at producing technology and technological innovation. We should be focusing on our strengths as a practical economic matter.
For a very simple example, who do you think has a world-wide lock on the silicon process technologies that everyone uses to produce their electronic gadgets?
Tax imports.
Precisely. I don't know why the media keeps repeating this myth, but it is WIDELY known in the industry and Indian software engineering is looked upon with great skepticism because a lot of people have had very bad first-hand experiences with it. It is an exercise in masochism to try and outsource any kind of vaguely complicated software development to India.
And as for communication, it is like dealing with people from a different planet. They may nominally "speak English", but syntax is the most minor part of the communication problem.
The most successful "outsourcing" project I was ever involved in used Canadians, and we ended up bringing them here. Exactly like working with Americans, only cheaper. The only countries that work well for outsourcing are Anglosphere countries, mostly because they speak the same language natively, are well-educated, AND THEY SHARE THE SAME CULTURAL CONTEXT. That last part is more important than most people can possibly imagine. Scotland, Ireland, Australia, England, Canada, and New Zealand are by far the countries that it is the least hassle to outsource to, but for better or worse, you won't save too much money by doing so.
I never said they did. As far as I'm concerned, they should deport all illegal aliens today, no matter what their occupation. The economy will manage in their absence.
I do not believe for an instant that there is anything so special about those turkeys that their jobs could not be done by people making a lot less money--as top corporate executives used to make not that long ago, and during a time when American business kicked worldwide butt.
Now, the people working in Mexico are being outsourced elsewhere because they are making a whoping .50cents and hour and someone else will do it for less...
I ask those who think this is good? WHO is going to BUY these products when eveyone's jobs are outsourced? The people who used to make these good in the USA made good wages and could afford new washing machines, refrigerators, cars, etc., but if they are unemployed and not buying and the people making these products are being paid slave wages, who will buy these goods...
No one worried about this as long as it was the "manufacturing" being shipped out; then someone decided -- hey with the internet we can outsource our high-paying computer jobs, won't have to pay benefits, retirement, insurance, FICA, etc... so now the higher paying jobs are going .. yet another group of people trying to decide if they want to be cops, teachers or...
Lest you all flame me; a few months ago there was a special program aired on CSpan with the top economists, Chamber of Commerce head, etc., and the bottom line was "WE DON'T have an economic model to base this on, and thanks to the internet this is growing so fast, the implications are, as yet, unclear, but the economic professor who wrote the current book being taught on econ, says he is very concerned about this ... I own my own business, so have no ax to burn, but if I was one of the many who worked in Silicon Valley and have been outsourced, I wouldn't be a happy camper... or if I worked for MayTag and made $15 and hour and found my job shipped to Mexico -- or ugh, China -- China HATES the USA -- yet we are sending all our technology and many jobs there --
So, don't laugh at Lou Dobbs... who, BTW is a Republican (a Conservative Republican). This President Bush didn't create this, it was conceived under 41 and implemented by Clinton (you know the Democrats who USED to be pro-business, pro-Union and then sold out!). Our Government used to have checks and balances, no more, now it's who has the most money and right now, it's not the Republican Party, but since Clinton, the Democratic Party has the deepest pockets.
Yes, they would. History repeats itself; many of these people are cut from the same cloth as those who ran sweatshops, and prompted child labor laws. A hundred years later, it's become acceptable for them to crawl back out from under their rocks, and since they can't do it here...
It's ALL about morals and ethics. It's also about national pride AND national security. I find it really funny that these "Republicans" have totally adopted the Libertarian view on trade.
Lou is a good guy - he was very straightforward this evening, calling terrorists - terrorists and promising to stop broadcasting inane attacks on Bush's military record of 35 years ago - I think he's just about the only acceptable figure on CNN
You know what I find really funny?
American corporations are allowed to shop worldwide for the cheapest labor rate.
But American citizens are not allowed to shop worldwide for the cheapest prescription drugs and college textbooks.
The same drugs and textbooks that those American companies sell more cheaply overseas, thereby contributing to the lower cost of living overseas.
I wonder how many Indians would be able to afford the college education needed to take away our jobs, if those Indians paid what Americans have to pay for textbooks and medicines.
Number one the "isolationist" far-right and their children are most likely the ones in uniform protecting you and your "more global, more multi-national, and less 'nationalistic' butt -- and mine.
Number two try visiting some progressive, New Democrat sites such as the DLC's New Democrat On Line (ndol.org) and see how the left really feeeeeeeeeeels about globalization. They love it. They intend to set the rules. They intend to prevent laissez faire capitalism while using the market economy to bring prosperity to the world.
They assure their street demonstrating anti-WTO comrades that social justice, economic justice, racial justice, and environmental justice are the goals. I.e., socialist world government, once there is prosperity.
Who are they? The entire Marxist-leftist-liberal establishment of the world. They are the world's elite who occupy government, Davos, the U.N., NGOs, international labor, and most international organizations.
I did not intend to insult you by my number one remark but I like the U.S. being a sovereign Nation.
Many of us are opposed to sending our technology off shore -- many of us are NOT against true free trade with countries that have inherent comparative advantages beyond uneducated and educated "cheap" labor. Why didn't they develop their own economies then out compete us? We're handing it to them owing to IMO the left's schemes to redistribute Western wealth.
Of course not, you neither know what their function is nor have any idea how much the average CEO actually gets paid, even the MegaCorp ones. I have no use for an Indian CEO ("Indian" with respect to their country of origin and residence) at any company I'm still involved in. None at all. They simply couldn't do the job. That they are Indian nationals has a lot to do with it. Fortunately, there are quite a number of excellent CEO types to select from here that can be had for a reasonable price that can do the job. Which is a good thing, because it isn't something you can outsource.
What is it that you think a CEO actually does?
It just seems to me that when America licenses and protects business, that those businesses should have obligations to We the People.
Just as We the People have been the ones drafted to war to save the sorry butts of those fat CEO's.
If American citizens are expected to do die for their country, then Ameircan companies should be expected to look out for American citizens.
Business and citizens should either prosper together or fail together.
A perfectly valid point that I can definitely stand behind. Basically a rent-seeking behavior by American business.
He is a persuader.
A salesman.
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