American jobs must not be lost, says Kissinger

TIMES NEWS NETWORK ^ | JULY 16, 2003 | KALPANA SHAH

[IonInsights]

LAS VEGAS: When a former US secretary of state of the stature of Dr Henry Kissinger walks into a technology conference, 10,000 techies filling up the Ballroom at Mandarin Bay stand and applaud, even before he says anything. When he answers a question about outsourcing of economic activity, his reply draws a bigger applause from the largely American audience.

“If outsourcing would continue to the point of stripping the United States of its industrial base, and of the act of getting out its own technology, then it requires really careful thought of national policy and probably create incentives to prevent it from happening.”

It was Mr Sanjay Kumar, chairman and CEO of Computer Associates (CA) who put the question to him. Mr Kumar mentioned the increased outsourcing of technology related work, from insurance claims, airline reservations, computer programming to countries like India and China and asked Dr Kissinger whether this would erode middle class power bases in Europe and the US.

Dr Kissinger’s answer: “I don’t look at this from an economic point of view but the political and social points of view. The question really is whether America can remain a great power or a dominant power if it becomes a primarily service economy, and I doubt that. A country has to have an industrial base in order to play a significant role in the world. And I am concerned from that point of view.” The mood was unambiguous — American jobs must not be lost.

Mr Kumar also reminded him about his acceptance speech after winning the Nobel Peace prize where he had voiced concerns about the rise of technology, and asked whether he had changed his mind about technology since then. Dr Kissinger said, “My concerns have mounted since then. I am of a generation that grew up on books. It helps you develop concepts. With computers, you don’t have to remember things because the information is all there.” He worries that despite the fact that there is an explosion of information, the problem is how to transform information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom.

“I worked with leaders who had an intuitive sense of the future although they didn’t have so much information. Statesmen have progressively more information but they have progressively more insecurity because they have no sense of the evolution of the system,” he said. The role of technology should be to bridge the gap between availability of information and the ability to use it, Dr Kissinger said. An idea that the IT industry will have to mull over.

[A. Pole]

George Bush Jr. finds himself historically almost identically in the same shoes as his father did a dozen years earlier.

Sons tend to be similar to their fathers. Machiavelli wrote in his Discourses on Livius (book 3, chapter XLVI):

WHENCE IT HAPPENS THAT A FAMILY IN A CITY FOR A TIME, HAVE THE SAME CUSTOMS

It appears that one City not only has certain ways and institutions different from another, and produces men who are either more harsh or effeminate, but within one City such differences are seen between one family and another. This is proved in every City, and many examples are seen in the City of Rome; for there are seen that the Manlii were hard and obstinate, the Publicoli benign and lovers of the people, the Appii ambitious and enemies of the plebs, and thusly many other families, each having its own qualities apart from the others. This cannot only result from blood ((for it must be that it changes from the diversity of marriages)) but must result from the different education that one family has from another. For it is very important that a young man of tender years begins to hear the good and bad of a thing, as it must of necessity make an impression on him, and from that afterwards regulate the method of proceeding all the rest of his life. And if this were not so it would be impossible that all the Appii should have had the same desires, and should have been stirred by the same passions, as Titus Livius has observed in many of them, and (especially) in that last one who was made Censor; and when his colleague at the end of eighteen months ((as the law called for)) laid down the magistracy, Appius did not want to lay down his, saying he could hold it five years according to the original laws ordained by the Censors. And although many public meetings were held on this question, and many tumults were generated, yet no remedy was ever found to depose him (from the office which he held) against the wishes of the people and the greater part of the Senate. And whoever reads the oration he made against P. Sempronius, the Tribune of the plebs, wfll note all the insolence of Appius, and all the good will and humanity shown by infinite Citizens in obeying the laws and auspices of their country.

[Protagoras]

You are ignorant if you think protectionism leads to anything good. Populist crap leads to power for those peddling it, nothing else.

You folks seem to think that countries and companies that sell products for less than they cost to produce will prosper. That isn't ignorant, it's stupid.

Those countries will go under. In the mean time our people buy their stuff for less and the money they save ends up going to productive things like new ideas and products and productivity instead of propping up some union thug who desires $35 an hr. to make sneakers that a child can learn to do in 1/2 hr.

You are wrong, and what's worse, you never learned a thing from history.

I'm tired of being attacked by nitwits and called names for my positions so I call the names back. But I don't pull punches like you part time flamers.

[A. Pole]

I'm tired of being attacked by nitwits and called names for my positions so I call the names back. But I don't pull punches like you part time flamers.

Hmm.

[oceanview]

spare us. tariffs saved Harley Davidson and continue to save the US light truck industry.

Dumping has been used effectively by offshore producers to knock out US industries, leaving themselves as the only survivors, at which point they then profit and prosper having knocked out the competition. Walmart does the same thing, knocking out small stores and then raising prices when only they are left, and yet you continue to tell us this is a "failed approach". You are out of touch with reality.

[meatloaf]

Why do I think your letter ended up at a landfill in India?

[Nick Danger]

I'm not blaming Bush for this, but its a big problem for our country and our party, and he is the president, its his problem now.

We can be sure that everyone in the White House remembers what happened to Bush-41. They are well aware that if the economy is not obviously in recovery by next Summer, Bush could be toast.

I don't know what they could do that they aren't already doing: tax cuts, deficit spending out the wazoo, near-zero interest rates... they have their feet on all the right pedals. Now it's pretty much stay the course and pray.

I think this "outsourcing to India" thing has its own magic and may have to be handled explicitly for political reasons. A lot of these jobs that are going to India are precisely the ones the domeheads told all the young people to prepare for, so as to protect themselves from third-world competitors. "Oh yeah, high tech, there's your salvation. Splat!"

We lived through the big "Japan will put us out of business" scare of the 1970's, and watched them go into the tank instead of us. So it's not like we aren't resilient folks around here. But Japan was not really a low-cost labor competitor. Certainly not by the 1970's. They beat us on technology, and on process. They had been listening to Deming when we ignored him. The truth is, American cars really weren't all that good back then, and our own Big 3 needed a swift kick in the butt.

It's hard to see where that fits our high tech industry. We're kicking butt around the world, in hardware and software, except for the manufacutring of these little commodity pieces that aren't where the value-added is anyway. The India thing is a pure direct-labor-substitution play, and in skill sets that typically require university degrees in the U.S. OK, Mr. Domehead Smartypants, where do we go to hide from that?

If I were Rove, I would have a plan in the can on this one, and get it out there before the Democrats finish theirs. Bush has to be seen doing something about this, not just the economy-in-general. The programmers may be the ones in the news, but India has medical doctors reading X-Rays for U.S. hospitals, under outsourcing contracts. If they can do that, there's no skill set you could acquire where you can hide from those guys. This is just plain going to scare people, and that's a political problem, not an economic one.

[Protagoras]

You are out of touch with reality.

[Euro-American Scum]

Kissinger at least has common sense when it comes to this issue. I wish our elected officials would demonstrate a little.

Don't hold your breath. GWB outsourced his soul for 30 pieces of silver.

[Euro-American Scum]

Hillary is listening. Come 2008, she will know what to pitch to these displaced workers. They are the swing vote she needs to put her over the top.

Except she won't do anything about it. Oh, it may get her elected, but she's knee deep in the outsourcing stampede. Just any upstate New York tech worker whose job was gutted courtesy of Covansys, an outsourcing firm Hillary was instrumental in awarding contracts to from NY state conpanies.

[Euro-American Scum]

I predict that Bush will be a one-term President if he doesn't wake up pretty soon.

I'm starting to hope this is true, even though I voted for him, and absolutely cringe when I see what's available on the other side.

[Euro-American Scum]

The depression elected FDR in 1932.

And held the White House for 20 years. Such was the impact of the Depression.

I am glad other people are talking about this. . .

So am I. But there is still precious little being mentioned in the media beyond the tech journals. You would think the liberal media would be all over this as the one issue with traction that would give their annointed candidate in 2004 a shot.

I'm not blaming Bush for this, but its a big problem for our country and our party, and he is the president, its his problem now.

I am. Because his trade representatives have endorsed it (offshoring) explicitly. His Commerce Department provides cash incentives for private enterprise to take their capital and labor dollars offshore. And his Education Department underwrites the training of foreign nationals in our finest universities and technical schools, at the expense of American students and workers.

Damn straight I blame him.

[Paul Ross]

The US, whether on a Gold Standard, or not, will continue to have no control whatsoever on either the exchange rate of the Chinese Yuan, or the general wages of the Chinese slave labor, as the Chinese government sets these.

[Euro-American Scum]

The programmers may be the ones in the news, but India has medical doctors reading X-Rays for U.S. hospitals, under outsourcing contracts.

That's not the only thing. H-1B doctors have already started to replace American physicians locally. They are promoted by provider groups as reducing HMO costs and not subject to state licensing and litigation laws. I wonder what happens when an unlicensed, incompetent Indian doctor kills a patient in surgery? What does the HMO say then? "Yes, but they sure work cheap."

. . . there's no skill set you could acquire where you can hide from those guys. This is just plain going to scare people, and that's a political problem, not an economic one.

You are so right about this. It's easy for the free traders whose own jobs they see as immune to sneer at those Americans whose livlihood has been destroyed. They don't realize that if a job can be done in front of a computer screen, it can be done overseas. And that includes everything short of manual labor. And we've got the illegals to do that.

[Paul Ross]

You are most likely right.

Kissinger may be breaking with his chums, not because he has suddenly seen the light and re-discovered patriotism, but because he always knew the score, and has known what these 'World Citizens' planned for our country: hence, he is in the most pivotal and influential position to BETRAY THEM and actually wake the SHeeple up (at least enough key ones to start making a difference and spoil things for these globalists). Hence, he is in a maximal position to extort from them his perceived due, to demand--and get--- strokes his well-known vanity...which he has felt neglected for some time now.

So if they start paying attention to him, then he would most likely clam up or reverse himself. If not, it could be interesting. Or it might prove fatal for Henry. Keep in mind, these are the same people who helped Bill Clinton with his 'Ron Brown' problem when Brown had tipped Clinton that he was going to talk to the US Attorneys and cut his own deal to save his skin. 3 days later Brown is pushing up daisies.

[Jim Cane]

You have a warped view of rights and where they originate from. See the Declaration of Independance for a brief explanation. (hint; they don't come from the constitution) And I never ever said that tariffs were unconstitutional, even though you continue to imply that I did. The constitution BTW, can't remove my rights anymore than it could remove the rights of negros and other slaves. Governments my usurp rights, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist, only that they are being violated.

I have a God given right to buy anything I like from anyone I like at whatever price we agree upon. The fact that governments use weapons and have the might to usurp that right is irrelevant. They do it to pander to people who want to profit from such force so they can retain power. The power you say you can morally grant them in elections as you pointed out. It's all about power and violating my rights so you can overcharge people for goods and services.

The Constitution takes away your right to buy and sell those negro slaves on the cheap, or even at all, doesn't it? Have you sold any nukes to the Iraqis lately?

And I'm advocating freedom. We disagree. You have no legitimate power to have armed men violate my rights so you may prosper.

Mr. Lincoln and Gen. Grant disagree.

As already explained, I don't derive my rights from the constitution. And I might add, I love it when so called conservatives maintain that government police agencies can legitimately give and take my rights. It's freakin sad that you folks think so. Just like liberals and other authoritarian thugs.

How's that Montana milita cabin of yours? Still snacking on those Y2K provisions?

Tariffs are fine by me as taxes, low and flat and uniform. Not as a means for government to pick winners and losers in order to give favors to people. Your idea on that is precisely the same as welfare recipients giving power to politicions in return for stealing from some and giving to them.

Alexander Hamilton's protectionist, govt-picked tariffs built this nation.

The Chicoms are doing the same thing now, and they are kicking our butts.

Please stop paying your taxes, throw away your driver's license and plates, and put your money where your mouth is. You can do whatever you want because governments are illegal and an invisible guy in the sky tells you so.

[Protagoras]

The Constitution takes away your right to buy and sell those negro slaves on the cheap, or even at all, doesn't it?

No such right ever existed and as previously explained the constitution cannot add or subtract any rights. If it did, you could sell your children into prostitution if it said so.

Have you sold any nukes to the Iraqis lately?

Doesn't look like anyone has. Still looking, and our soldiers still being killed everyday.

Mr. Lincoln and Gen. Grant disagree.

So do Hitler and Mao. And Yep, they used force to further their ILLEGITIMATE power, I refered to legitimate power. You don't read well.

Alexander Hamilton's protectionist, govt-picked tariffs built this nation.

Hamilton was a big government swine. Most of the problems we have had were caused by slugs like him.

And all the rest of your nonsensical fantasies about me follow the rest of your moronic post.

[Jim Cane]

You are a militia nutjob. I knew it!

[Protagoras]

I knew it!

Just one more incorrect conclusion in a lifetime of confusion.

[samuel_adams_us]

The incentive might be that the Indians won't be buying their goods and the americans here out of work won't be either. They company will drive down their costs but with no one buying, they will drive themselves out of business also. Did anyone here ever figure out why Henry Ford paid his people at least 5 dollars a day? So they could buy a car that he was building when the rest of the world was getting paid 2 dollars a day. Henry was smart for the long haul, today's business leaders have stuff for brains. The WWII generation spent many a year building the business and strength of this country and the hippie generation has taken the last 20 years to rape and pillage what the WWII generation built because they are too stupid and lazy to build anything for themselves.