[r9etb]

The suits running businesses have gleefully offshored engineering jobs. I suspect there was some small measure of payback in those decisions.

Well, yeah -- the payback comes from a focus on "looking out for the share-holders." Lower costs and all that, and thus (supposedly) higher stock prices.

Their payback is in the form of higher bonuses and stock options.

There seems to be no room in such decisions for the longer-term considerations, such as what happens when the domestic manufacturing base goes away; and the "service economy" business model runs afoul of the fact that the hard capital needed to run it has moved overseas.

This is the sort of stuff Lenin was talking about when he said that capitalists would sell him the rope he used to hang them.

[brownsfan]

“This is the sort of stuff Lenin was talking about when he said that capitalists would sell him the rope he used to hang them.”

And the sort of stuff that some of us on FR have been posting about for years. At first we were ridiculed. Then the attacks got to be more personal and vicious.

Now, it’s gotten strangely quiet.

[algernonpj]

There seems to be no room in such decisions for the longer-term considerations, such as what happens when the domestic manufacturing base goes away; and the "service economy" business model runs afoul of the fact that the hard capital needed to run it has moved overseas.

Decision making solely based on quarterly profits and bonuses / stock options based on the same, never made any sense to me. Then I realized that upper management worked on the principle grab your money and run - let some one else deal with the long term fall out.