Posted on 07/30/2003 2:20:00 AM PDT by sarcasm
NEW DELHI: The United States of America is currently facing a double whammy, thanks to the growing tide of "outsourcing" worldwide. While high-paying tech jobs are moving overseas - especially to India, US workers are being replaced by their less demanding (in terms of dollars) foreign counterparts.
Just as millions of American manufacturing jobs were lost in the 1980s and 1990s, it's now turn for the white-collar American jobs to disappear. Foreign nationals on special work visas are filling some positions but most jobs are simply contracted out overseas.
A US media report said that till now nearly half-a-million American tech jobs have already found their way offshore, and India has been the hottest spot for these migrants. The other destinations include Philippines, Malaysia and China.
A survey done by Gartner Inc. says that one out of 10 jobs in the US computer services and software industry could shift to lower-cost emerging markets by the end of 2004.
Research director at Forrester Research, John McCarthy, who has studied the exodus of white-collar jobs overseas, was quoted as saying in ABC TV, "The train has left the station, the cows have left the barn, the toothpaste is out of the tube... you're not going to turn the tide on this in the same way we couldn't turn the tide on the manufacturing shift."
After all, it's all about cost savings that matters. Indians are all working at a fraction of the cost paid to the American workers. For example, American computer programmers earn about $60,000, while their Indian counterparts only make $6,000.
California-based consulting company - NeoIT - that advises American firms interested in "offshoring" jobs previously held by Americans feels, "They need to significantly reduce their cost of doing business."
While, Wipro's Vivek Paul notes that American workers might resent the "offshoring" trend, but all Americans will benefit in the long run.
I've done it, and expect that I'll do it again. My father did it--TWICE. Gosh, LOTS of people do it every day.
Yea, that's right - overnight, shouldn't take more than a minute.
That pesky eating thing should be a good motivator.
And of course, just keep repeating all of the "global economy", "wake up and smell the capitalism", "just maintaining competitive edge", "they're all international companies now" mantras as you lose everything you ever worked for as I am right now.
If you're "losing everything you ever worked for," then you never had it in the first place. Yet another American discovers that he doesn't actually own anything except the debts he ran up spending on his "lifestyle."
It'll give you a warm feeling for a moment while you are realizing that money really is the most important thing in life when you are out of it.
As more than one sage FReeper has observed, "Don't live within your means--live UNDER your means."
I think Congress is bloated, ineffecient and overpaid. Can't we offshore them as well?
I've emailed all of the "Gang of Seven" in their comments sections, and told them that the issues of jobs going overseas, non-citizens taking jobs at home, and the porous borders are an issue with tens of millions of voters, and they are just waiting for a candidate that represents us voters instead of each other. In this crowded, close field, if one of these candidates gets smart, it's a nice chunk.
I wish everyone who is concerned would do that, but write individual letters...it has more clout if a lot of independent, individual, different letters bring up the same thing.
The Free Traitors are the ones who refuse to discuss history or anything factually related and who concentrate on one line insults and their religous belief in Free Trade. They are very similar in tactics and logic to gun banners.
I love computer programming. I really enjoy it. So all my experience in the trade, 17 years of it, and my education, and doing what I love -- I have to discard that because Bush won't enact a few tariffs?
I think the term "free traitor" is unnecessarily loaded and harsh. I think the more accurate term is "unequal traders", and we can call free trade "unequal trade". After all, that's what it is.
Like with abortion, "How could anyone be against a woman's right to choose? Isn't that all American?".
When in reality, neither message has anything remotely to do with the image they portray.
Today's Free Trade is NOT about the free market. The free market is the system our founders based our commerce on, where the intrinsic, underlying moral values of the people involved in the free market governed the equitable, free exchange of goods and services for other goods and services or currency. Sort of like John Adams said regarding the Constitution...
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798Well, as far as I am conerned, the same holds for the Free Market, ie... The Free Market was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the economy of any other. This is a basic truth. Like our government, it was not supposed to be very regulated or burdened with miriad rules. The people, the companies will govern themselves as to moral issues when this is the case. But, when the moral issues are removed, you do not have what was intended for the Constitution, and you do not have a true free market.
When we use our foreign policy and economic policy to set up shop and trade with countries who exploit their people's mercilessly, who keep them down without a hope for true liberty or freedom, who trample the moral values our own system was based upon...and when we do it knowingly, without compuction for those very underlying values, then we do not create a free market...no, that free trade has nothing whatsoever to do with, and is in no way similar to the FREE MARKET. It's wordsmithing for popularizing and putting forth a policy to drain the Umited States manufacturing, technological, agricultural, energy and other critical industries in order to weaken us...plain and simple...and it is working.
That is what is really happening here IMHO, and until we refocus as a people on that underlying moral foundation and the absolute need for it...we will continue to lose ground.
It's called freedom to the free traders. Unless the US government sets up "free trade" deals with third world countries which allows corporations to relocate there for the slave labor, then turn around and dump their cheap labor products back on us, flooding the market and undercutting their American competitors then we're living under tyranny and repression.
In reality we all what know it is, even the free traders, though they won't admit it: corporate welfare. Unlike prior to the 1990s and our 200 year history, companies are now free to exploit slave labor and the American market at the same time without penalty. The result is millions of lost jobs in the country. In the future, the only freedom the free traders are going to have is what gated community to live in. And they're going to need one.
It's just that when you live in a mud daub house in a field of pig sh*t, living on 2 pringys a day (where a pringy is worth 1/200 of a dollar)....well, it's tough to compete against people who have that sort of low living expense.
It's slave labor by American standards. In India, a programmer makes $6,000 on average as opposed to their US counterparts, who make $60,000.
I don't blame these companies for taking advantage of the situation, it's being handed to them on a silver platter by the US government who is allowing them to do it. They don't have to, they used to protect American workers from this sort of two-faced backstabbing for the sole purpose of greed.
The people have more freedom than China, but the lower class/caste is still kept down and they work for squalor with little or no chance for advancement into either management or ownership.
It is not representative of the free market...but it is a lot closer than China IMHO.
Our trade policies need to reflect an increasing carrot (meaning less and less tarriff and restrictions) to countries that come closer and closer to a true free market where those moral values and those liberties are represented.
Just my opinion.
Our failure to enforce the immigration laws and allowing guest workers here while there is 6.4% unemployment reported by teh Federal government is would have been like welcoming Japanese or German troops in WWII. as to the Free Trade advocates that is earning them the nickname Free Traitors because they are so anxious to destroy America in teh name of their own profit or because they believe that Free Trade is synonomous with Free market and refuse to look at the reality we face.
Except that's not entirely true. The market dictates lower prices not the corporations themselves. They will keep prices high as long as demand is sufficient, which is until consumer spending power hits bottom because of offshoring.
Tariffs that other countries levy on our products also increase prices domestically. You won't here anything about that from the Free Traders.
He wants his kids to grow up as Americans and can't imagine anything worse for himself and his family than packing up and moving back to his home town.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.