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
Not at the price being offered.
But I recognise that people differ on this question, and it's all speculation.
Next time you want someone to mow your lawn, ask a neighborhood kid to do it and see what he wants for the job. Most just do it themselves at that point. No one gets better at that point.
Of course part of the reason for the ridiculous requirements is so that employers can claim that no Americans are qualified, therefore they must increase the number of H1-B Visas.
You are probably in better shape then people in blue areas. My observation is that the red area job growth is just fine - it's the traditional urban coastal areas and rust belt that are experiencing the doldrums.
New reports say a wave of Chinese automobiles will be hitting our shores. Under pricing the Koreans, Japanese and our own cheaper builds. Do you honestly think a non-union US autoworker can compete with ChiCom workers being paid ChiCom wages?
To add insult to injury, last year, when thousands of American High tech workers were unemployed, they increased the H1-B cap 20,000. Bastards.
I will say this to anyone, and I know it's easier said than done, but you have to network so that basically you can get a job without having to interview. I do presentations for local user groups, and I have gotten several job offers based on doing those presentations alone. Get a blog, and start writing about unique technical skills that you have, this is the way to go.
Good point.
Yes, because union workers already compete.....GM, Ford, BMW, Toyota, Nissan, VW, etc.
No it didn't. Post it and explain if you can.
theory. Outmoded ones.
2+2=4,,,always. It can't get outmoded. And if you want to introduce some "new" economic theory to the discussion, please do so. I have been studying it for decades, I'd be facinated to hear something new.
That's why I didn't ask you the question. I knew that you knew the answer. The other poster however, doesn't seem to grasp it.
Alabama is growing like gangbusters. A great place to be right now if in the job market - but frustrating if you are hiring.
I bet he considers "CHICAGO" style Pizza "New" as well.
The reason unemployment is low is people are having to work-2-3 jobs. I agree the insurance is high but it is only a small factor.
Also the people I see having to work 2-3 jobs is not nessecarily because they have "too many trappings" like you surmised. Some yes. But most I come across are very frugal.
Construction jobs used to pay $14-15 in my area. Now they pay $7-8.oo per hour because hispanics are willing to do it for that amount.
My main point is our country maybe getting a boost from low wages at this time but I think it is going to come crashing down. In the future you will see more people on welfare/public assistance, Heap, food stamps etc.
I do believe that these people simply aren't serious about hiring someone. They are fishing for the big one rumored to be in this lake, and they are just wasting their time and anyone who expects them to be reasonable.
It is hilarious to read some of the lists and experience requirements, you can just about add it up and realize the person would not only have to be eighty five years old, but also won't exist for fifty years.
Next time you want someone to mow your lawn, ask a neighborhood kid to do it and see what he wants for the job.
======
My gardener is A LEGAL MEXICAN IMMIGRANT -- and he is paid very well because he is LEGAL. And he is not happy with the illegal flood supported by Washington -- not because of competition, but because HE WORKED HIS ASS OFF TO BECOME LEGAL, LEARN OUR LANGUAGE AND BECOME SELF-SUFFICIENT. And he considers himself to be an AMERICAN and he is proud of it.
I've lived here all my life and I couldn't tell you what a "CHICAGO" style Pizza is.
I love thin crust pizza loaded with everything they tell you not to eat. :^}
The Honorable Paul Craig Roberts is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy, and research fellow at the Independent Institute.
A former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service, he is a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles and a columnist for Investor's Business Daily. In 1992, he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 1993, the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of its top seven journalists.
Roberts was a distinguished fellow at the Cato Institute from 1993 to 1996. From 1982 through 1993, he held the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. During 1981–82, he served as assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy. President Ronald Reagan and Treasury secretary Donald Regan credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious Service Award for "his outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy." From 1975 to 1978, Roberts served on the congressional staff, where he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy.
In 1987 the French government recognized Roberts as "the artisan of a renewal in economic science and policy after half a century of state interventionism" and inducted him into the Legion of Honor.
Roberts's books include The Tyranny of Good Intentions, coauthored with IPE fellow Lawrence Stratton (Prima Publishing, 2000); Chile: Two Visions—the Allende-Pinochet Era, coauthored with IPE fellow Karen Araujo (Universidad Nacional Andres Bello, 2000); The Capitalist Revolution in Latin America, coauthored with IPE fellow Karen LaFollette Araujo (Oxford University Press, 1997; in Spanish, 1999); The New Colorline: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy, coauthored with Lawrence Stratton (Regnery, 1995; in paperback, 1997); Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, coauthored with Karen LaFollette (Cato Institute, 1990). Roberts's The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press, 1984) was praised by Forbes as "a timely masterpiece that will have real impact on economic thinking in the years ahead." Roberts is also the author of Alienation and the Soviet Economy (1971; republished in 1990) and Marx's Theory of Exchange, Alienation and Crisis (1973; republished in 1983; in Spanish, 1974).
Roberts has contributed chapters to numerous books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship, including the Journal of Political Economy, Oxford Economic Papers, Journal of Law and Economics, Studies in Banking and Finance, Journal of Monetary Economics, Public Finance Quarterly, Public Choice, Classica et Mediaevalia, Ethics, Slavic Review, Soviet Studies, Cardoza Law Review, the Independent Review, Rivista de Political Economica, and Zeitschrift fur Wirtschafspolitik. He has entries in the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Economics and the New Palgrave Dictionary of Money and Finance. He has contributed to Commentary, the Public Interest, the National Interest, Harper's, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, London Times, the Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement, the Spectator, Il Sole 24 Ore, Le Figaro, Liberation, and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. He has testified before committees of Congress on 30 occasions.
Roberts is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World, the Dictionary of International Biography, Outstanding People of the Twentieth Century, and 1000 Leaders of World Influence.
Roberts has held numerous academic appointments and is a director of A. Schulman and the Value Line Investment Funds.
Roberts was educated at the Georgia Institute of Technology (B.S.), the University of Virginia (Ph.D.), the University of California at Berkeley and Oxford University, where he was a member of Merton College.
source: http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/bios/roberts.html
Good for you. Does he work for less than the neighborhood kids?
The reason people need to work 2-3 jobs is because they have two 40K SUVs in the garage that is attached to their 350K McMansion which is furnished with expensive electronics and furniture. And all of it must be purchased NOW NOW NOW No downpayment no payments for 12 months easy credit easy credit!
You can work for much less if you want to. I do.
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