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
Bump for later.
quick break to get some smokes, I will be back and I am happy you agree that I did not state I favor government setting prices for good and services in the USA, we can continue the discussion any I will answer your question in ten minuts.
Tariffs are government set prices when used as trade policy. But that isn't the point. YOU were talking about minimum wage laws. But nice try.
Show me where I stated I support government setting prices. Or admit the mistake and we can continue the discussion.
I already showed you, and there was no mistake. And conversing with you is boring anyway, teaching children fundamentals is boring at my age. So if you want to slink away, I won't be upset.
He left the kitchen before I arrived. I merely planted the grave marker on his lack of relevant retort.
No you did not, not once, not ever. liar, liar pants on fire.
he is not very bright, battle star is a great show.
I'm sure, to you, I am bizarre. You have no other response. People don't largely go out and commit treason for the sake of commiting treason. They do it by allowing their more seedy impulses get the best of them. Intent has nothing to do with it. It is the result that matters. And the result is that your collective action by assenting to the prevailing condition is treason. You've sold out your fellow contrymen for profit. Were the sellout a matter of national security documents, it might be more obvious to you. But national security documents and plans are not the sole target of seditious action and never have been. Wars have been fought in the past to destabilize regimes through economic subversion when armies were too big to handle. Subvert the economy and you subvert the capacity for war. Again, the intent is not the matter to consider, it is the result that makes it treason. And your poor judgement is what gets you there, Baltar.
Ya know, I saw this program one night, and there was this character, he had a little dog, and the dog ran away,and....
this is true, and if you are saying that my policies if inplimented would result in higher prices then I agree, but that is a far cry from government price controls. I remember when government did set wages and prices (Nixon, 70's) not at all the same.
Minimum wage laws are intended to promote fairness. Whether they do or not is an entirely seperate debate. If your beef is with minimum wage laws, then go address it to congress. Trying to use it as an excuse to commit treason is morally and logically objectionable on it's face.
LOL,, yeah, you won the debate,,,lol,,
So you support minimum wages laws or not? Do sugar subsidies set the price of sugar? Do high tarriffs on specific imports set the price of those products? Does government raise or lower those prices by using those means?
Take off your little hat and stop dancing for a minute.
I had Meek add my Labmix, LulaBelle to the picture because it lacked a dog. I remember once in a flame war you called my dog useless. You were right.
Really? Which is better intended consequences or uninteded consequences?
Do you believe government should set a minimum wage?
They are socialism. And I know perfectly well what they are intended to do, and it ain't fairness.
You support minimum wage laws?
Trying to use it as an excuse to commit treason is morally and logically objectionable on it's face.
I repeat, you are a coward. And you haven't a clue about morality.
Where do you get your idea of morality?
Quote: The government places regulations on businesses including minimum wage regulations, OSHA regulations, EPA regulation, Hiring practice Regulatations etc. Do you support any of these government interventions?
I do support them to a degree. And notice the word DEGREE. Too much or too little of anything is bad of course. If you do not support any of the above regulations you truly are a nutcase. I don't want our country going back to sweatshop conditions. I do not want companies flagrantly allowed to throw pollutants in the river to get in my drinking water or spoil my property. The countries I see on TV without any EPA regualtion are the ones with literally turds running down the middle of the street. I want my airline pilot to have so many hours off between flights(etc). Do you want your children in a daycare center without any licensing and control?
LOL,, no kiddin! Unless you can sic 'em on this worthless piece of dung who keeps calling me a traitor from behind his keyboard.
I would counter that. Many of these guys are bright. They are, however, frustrated when their intent to befuddle and obscure with the mud of duplicitous and decietful argumentation is met with the power washer of clear example and the like. When you start clarifying terms, noting past action (EG our system having been supported by tarrifs from the time of Washington), etc, their arguments begin faltering and they get steamed.
Lack of intelligence isn't the problem. They are smart. They're just using the smarts to bs everyone and when they don't get away with it and are exposed in the doing, they get angered like a thief caught red-handed .. deamanding his rights and protesting his innocence till the jury sees the tape. Later the thief wants to argue technicalities, entrapment, you name it. These people are addicts where profit is concerned. And unless we intervene in the situation, their treason will be all our undoing. The alcoholic will fight for his whiskey right up till his liver erupts. And it isn't a pretty fight. Why should we expect these addicts to respond any differently? It isn't smarts they are lacking in.. To quote Miller, "It is their judgement that has been sorely lacking."
Protectionism doesn't work and we know it.
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