Posted on 02/15/2005 6:44:11 AM PST by dennisw
"The Great American Job Sellout By Paul Craig Roberts
Americans are being sold out on the jobs front. Americans' employment opportunities are declining as a result of corporate outsourcing of US jobs, H-1B visas that import foreigners to displace Americans in their own country, and federal guest worker programs
President Bush and his Republican majority intend to legalize the aliens who hold down wages for construction companies and cleaning services. In order to stretch budgets, state and local governments bring in lower paid foreign nurses and school teachers. To reduce costs, US corporations outsource jobs abroad and use work visa programs to import foreign engineers and programmers. The American job give away is explained by a "shortage" of Americans to take the jobs.
There are not too many Americans willing to accept the pay and working conditions of migrant farm workers. However, the US is bursting at the seams with unemployed computer engineers and well-educated professionals who are displaced by outsourcing and H-1B visas. During Bush's entire first term, there was a net loss of American private sector jobs. Today there are 760,000 fewer private sector jobs in the US economy than when Bush was first inaugurated in January 2001.
For years the hallmark of the European economy was its inability to create any jobs other than government jobs. America has caught up with Europe. During Bush's first term, state and local government created 879,000 new government jobs. Offsetting these government jobs against the net loss in private sector jobs gives Bush a four-year jobs growth of 119,000 government jobs. Comparing this pathetic result to normal performance produces a shortage of 8 million US jobs. What happened to these jobs?
Over these same four years the composition of US jobs has changed from higher-paid manufacturing and information technology jobs to lower-paid domestic services. Why?
During this extraordinary breakdown in the American employment machine, politicians, government officials, corporate spokespersons, and "free trade" economists gave assurances that America was benefitting greatly from the work visa programs and outsourcing.
The mindless chatter continues. Just the other day Ambassador David Gross, US Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy in the State Department, declared outsourcing to be an economic efficiency that works to America's benefit. There is no sign of this alleged benefit in US jobs statistics or the US balance of trade.
Repeatedly and incorrectly, US corporations state that outsourcing creates more US jobs. They even convinced a New York Times columnist that this was the case.
The problem is, no one can identify where the US jobs are that outsourcing allegedly creates. They are certainly not to be found in the BLS jobs statistics. However, the Indian and Chinese jobs created by US outsourcing are highly visible.
On February 13, the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News reported that jobs outsourcing is transforming Indian "cities like Bangalore from sleepy little backwaters into the New York Cities of Asia." In a very short period outsourcing has helped to raise India from one of the world's poorest countries to its seventh largest economy.
Outsourcing proponents claim that US job loss is being exaggerated, that outsourcing is really just a small thing involving a few call centers. If that is the case, how is it transforming sleepy Indian cities into "the New York Cities of Asia"? If outsourcing is no big deal, why are Bangalore hotel rooms "packed with foreigners paying rates higher than in Tokyo or London," as the Dayton Daily News reports?
If outsourcing is of no real consequence, why are American lawyers or their clients paying $2,900 in fees plus hotel and travel expenses and two days' billings to attend the Fourth National Conference on Outsourcing in Financial Services in Washington DC (April 20-21)?
On the jobs front, as on the war front, the social security front and every other front, Americans are not being given the truth. Americans' news comes from people allied with the Bush administration or dependent on revenues from corporate advertisers. Displease the government or advertisers and your media empire is in trouble. The news most Americans get is filtered. It is the permitted news. Many "free trade" advocates also are dependent on the corporate money that funds their salaries, research and think tanks.
Another clear indication that outsourcing of US jobs is no small thing comes from the reported earnings of the leading Indian corporations that provide American firms with outsourced IT employees and engineers. During the recent quarter, Infosys' revenues increased by 53%, TCS grew by 38%, and Wipro was up 34%.
On January 1, 2001, Cincinnati-based Convergys Corp had one Indian employee. Today it has 10,000. Why? Because it can hire Indian university graduates for $240 a month, a sum that is a small fraction of the US poverty level income.
Many Americans think that an outsourced job is an existing job that is moved offshore. But many outsourced jobs are created offshore in the first place. On February 11, USA Today told the story of OfficeTiger, "the sort of young technology company that once created thousands of high-paying jobs in the USA, fueling sizzling economic growth." The five-year old startup business employs 200 Americans and ten times that number of Indians. The company has plans for hiring many more Indians to perform "tech-heavy financial services."
Under pressure from venture capitalists who fund new companies, American startup firms are starting up abroad. Thus, the new ventures, which "free trade" economists assured us would create new jobs to take the place of the ones moved offshore by mature firms, are in fact creating jobs for foreigners.
As a consequence, tech jobs in the US are falling as a percentage of the total. Clearly, tax breaks for venture capitalists are self-defeating when the result is to create jobs for foreigners, not for Americans. Why should the American taxpayer subsidize employment in India and China?
These developments have obvious adverse implications for engineering and professional education in America. The BLS jobs forecast for the next ten years says the vast majority of US jobs will not require a college education. University enrollments will decline and so will the production of PhDs as fewer professors are needed.
As India and China rise to first world status, the US falls to third world status where the only jobs are in domestic services.
This has enormous implications for the US balance of payments. Americans' consumption of manufactured goods is heavily dependent on foreign manufacture, whether that of foreign firms or that of US multinational firms that supply their American customers from offshore. How does an economy in which employment growth is concentrated in nontradable domestic services pay for its imports with exports?
Since 1990 the US has been paying for its imports by giving foreigners ownership of its assets. In the last 15 years foreigners have accumulated $3.6 trillion of America's wealth.
America has been able to pay for its consumption by giving up its wealth because the dollar is the world's reserve currency. As America's high-tech and manufacturing capabilities decline and its red ink rises, the dollar's role as reserve currency must end.
When the dollar loses its reserve currency role, America will not be able to pay for the imports on which it has become dependent. Shopping in Wal-Mart will be like shopping at Neiman Marcus.
Until recent years, US companies employed Americans to produce the goods that Americans consumed. Employment supported sales, and sales supported employment. No more. By their shortsighted policy of moving US jobs abroad, our corporations are destroying their American markets.
Economists give assurances that the dollar's decline and fall will bring jobs and industry back to the US. Once Americans are as poor as Indians and Chinese are today, the process will reverse. Multinational corporations will locate in America to take advantage of cheap labor and unserved markets. By becoming poor, the US can become rich again.
You might want to ask the economists and our "leaders" in Washington why we should put ourselves and our descendants through such a wrenching process."
--Jerry Leslie Note: les...@jrlvax.houston.rr.com is invalid for email
Quote: Find something else to do, move, go to China and work for 25 cents. Exhaust all possibilities and then if nothing comes of it I guess you die of starvation
This speaks volumnes about how you feel about your fellow countrymen and your christian or (lack of it) outlook on life. Nothing more can be said.
And tell me about the morality of depriving someone of a basic living so you can buy a plasma tv. Hypocrites are plentiful among key board cowards.
Next you will be telling me that you are a Christian. One who draws lines on the ground and says people on the other side should starve so they can keep up a standard of living. People like you make me puke.
Morality isn't a word that should ever pass your foul lips.
You have yet to make a case. I have eaten your lunch in this "debate" and reduced Mad Dawgg to posting gibberish. You would be wise to educate yourself a tad.
Don't foul that term by pretending your evil nonsense is Christian.
I've read most of your postings on this thread and you may profess to be a Christian and a Conservative but your dogma points directly to Socialism and/or Communism.
He asked a question I answered it. Please enlighten us all with the proper Christian response.
Yes, you will be graded.
I'd hire a legal Martian, if he or she spoke English, wasn't color blind or physically impaired, and could read English. No eyebrow or nose rings. Sheeesh!
There are some unwritten rules that apply when posting on a forum. One is anyone who first calls someone a Nazi loses all debates. Another is the first to "claim' to win a debate has clearly lost.
You will want to guard against taking yourself seriously.
"Give yourself some credit judge, you're a tremendous slouch".
I'm always amazed at who thinks they "won" a debate. It's always them.
You have yet to make a case.
You have certainly made your case. You and Hillary agree, government control of the economy and government set prices. A socialist conservative. Not just an oxymoron, but a plain old moron.
If you are serious I can put you in touch with a friend that does exactly that kind of work and is concidering relocating to N.C. to do phone support work. He is more of a hands on tech, (Unix, Windows, sys admin type) but phone support is all he can find at the moment.
In a true free market, global economy, there is no reason to be loyal to any country, including the US. Just move where the jobs are. Rising standards of living in these foreign countries will make that easier to do.
We already see this on a micro level with areas like the northeastern US slowly dying while the south grows.
Of course, India won't let you immigrate there to work: westerners need not apply. Wonder why?
Quote: I've read most of your postings on this thread and you may profess to be a Christian and a Conservative but your dogma points directly to Socialism and/or Communism
So I guess the past protectionisms this country had for their workers made this a communist country back in the '50's, '60's, 70's and 80's?
I'm not proclaiming to be a christian though I try to be.
I'm fond of a recent "re-imagining" of the old Sci-Fi series "Battlestar Galactica" in which the Character, Baltar, commits treason. He doesn't intend to; but, he's a self-centered, self-seeking, intellectual snob with delusions of his own granduer who uses women, etc.. his character flaws make him a worm in the eyes of society if they knew how he behaved. And his behavior ends up giving aid and comfort to an enemy he's sleeping with to get what he wants while the enemy subverts their defense systems. He is a traitor. The word is properly applied. His intentions matter not a whit to the circumstance. It's his actions and lack thereof that make him a traitor. And the same is true with free trade. Interestingly, with Baltar, when the enemy started dropping fusion bombs on humanity to exterminate them, his first thought was to call his lawyer to hide him from his actions - which even he knew were treasonous at that point.
The parallels with what is going on now in trade are unmistakeable. You guys have supplanted the leggy blonde in the story with Profit motive. You're actions are undermining the economy, the citizenry in general, the market and it's rules, national security as a result.. etc. And the immigration issue piggybacks right along with it to produce what is likely an un-intended consequence but still amounts to treason. Like it or not, the word is properly applied and I would gladly say it to your face in the presence of legal authority. Not liking the truth doesn't make the truth out to be fighting words. I'm confident of my case. And the nation is against you as the polls showed till it became unwise for the Companies controlling the media to allow the story to be reported. Since the polls reflected roughly 70percent of americans being against offshoring/outsourcing they stopped polling on it. Hard to sell something as "america agrees or accepts" when the evidence shows the exact opposite. So, now, nobody from politicians to the media wants to address it.
To: Protagoras
"And the illegal comment implies that you agree that government should set prices, Yes or no?"
We as a nation learned the evils of unrestrained capitalism in post civil war USA so yes I believe that government has a role to play in preventing a return to 1880's sweat shops, child labor shops, and monopolies. If a producers gain a prices advantage by using labor rates that would be illegal in the nation then the nation has an OBLIGATION to lay duties on those products equal too, if not greater then the advantage gained by the illegal labor rates.
254 posted on 02/15/2005 12:56:31 PM CST by jpsb
>I'm willing to work for the most I can get.
As do I.
>I'm a businessman. I take pay cuts all the time.
Do you think that endless "pay cuts" is a desirable
outcome?
>I'm not immune. And I can't "sic" knowledge on you. You >either have it or not. And it doesn't change whether you >do or not.
I don't pretend to know all, but I can see that a policy
of importing cheap labor/outsourcing jobs without regard
for consequences is going to be ruious for our society.
Folks who study in school, took the hard courses, got the
degree, worked hard, kept up with the changing technology
and got sacked by Carly solely because their job could be done less expensively in Bangalore aren't going to take
the Neutron Jack view when they lose their nest egg and home. They are going to feel cheated and sold out, and I can't say that I blame them. Pure economics mandates
certain outcomes which are anathema to well ordered, moral societies. I certainly hope our society is one of those.
We're in Birmingham Alabama.
So when you talk about "wages that are illegal in this country", you are saying you DON'T support them?
I was going to reply to this but post #273 says it much better than I ever could.
No, it put us on the road to Socialism. Lucky for us Reagan got elected and changed all that. Lucky also Maggie Thatcher came to power in England and did the same.
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