Stop the Outsourcing of American Jobs

[Lunatic Fringe]

I am here to announce that an undisclosed American telecom company (huge, big, you'd know the name if you heard it, but I cannot disclose it) has decided to outsource most of its Help Desk and IT Administration jobs to India.

Folks, the only way this practice, greedy corporate executives sending jobs overseas to save a few bucks an hour, is going to end will be you demanding that Congress take action.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in free trade. I believe in Capitalism. But I also believe that corporate executives should have a responsibility to serve the interests of their nation as well.

I believe that the only way to limit the outsourcing of American jobs to overseas firms is to place a punitive tarriff on the importation of technical services. Make it so expensive to outsource the jobs, that companies think twice before they implement these "cost-saving" methods.

Write your Congressman. Make so much noise that they will have to listen. It's up to YOU.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply and insight.

I am not "prepared for America to completely shut its borders."

I believe in free trade with free peoples.

I am questioning the apparent universal all inclusive need to send everything offshore to reap the benefits of lower prices.

"It's for the children" was Hillary's all-purpose fool 'em trick. "It's for the consumers" has become businesses' cover for transferring technology to IMO an enemy, the chi-com tyrants.

[hedgetrimmer]

It is semantics a bit. But its important to remind people that the citizen is sovereign in our country, and that money that is given away doesn't come from the vast mass called government, but from individuals like you and me.

This also is where the "free traders" contradict themselves, because they like to yammer about not forcing them to pay higher prices so they must be allowed to purchase goods made by slave labor because after all they should be free to do so in the United States, but they never complain that forcing taxpayers to fund "capitalist" corporations is wrong.

[elfman2]

I don’t know anything more about OPIC other than what you tell me and what I see poking around their web site a little. You’re concerned that it’s a corporate welfare program to export jobs. It claims to be exporting capitalism and promoting US trade and 65 billion in exports. I don’t have a great deal of time for an investigation into it, but if you have something succinct and well sourced pointing to the more insidious nature of it, I’d be interested in reading it. Also, do you know the percent of outsourcing projects that were funded by their loan guarantees, and what those dollar amounts are?

[1rudeboy]

Then you can't read, or you can't reason. I'm not sure which.

My apologies. I assumed that someone could explain the "similarity between monopoly laws and import/export laws." Heck, at this stage I'd settle for someone to explain what an import/export law is.

So I reiterate, your response was off-topic.

[KC_Conspirator]

Uh, no. By that standard we would have no child labor laws.

[hedgetrimmer]

Every loan and loan guarantee that OPIC finances puts the U.S. taxpayer at risk. Today, nearly $25 billion is being risked in the name of the taxpayers of these corporate OPIC loans.
--THE OPIC ELIMINATION ACT (Senate - April 09, 1997)

Eleanor Holmes Norton, non-voting House delegate from Washington, DC, pointed out that "OPIC pays no taxes, pays no dividends, and two-thirds of its income comes from Treasury securities...." Concerning OPIC's negative impact on American jobs she cited the following figures: "Let me take four of the large OPIC users: Ford, minus 160,000 jobs here; Exxon, minus 83,000 jobs here; AT&T, minus 127,000 jobs here; General Electric, minus 185,000 jobs here." Certainly not all of these job losses can be attributed entirely to OPIC programs, but some surely can.

Other corporate fat cats benefiting from OPIC's loans and loan guarantees include DuPont, Coca Cola, Union Carbide, Motorola, Ford, McDonald's, US West, PepsiCo, and Citicorp. In 1995, while piling up a net income of $3.5 billion and making a major donation to the Council on Foreign Relations (a practice also followed by numerous other OPIC beneficiaries), Citicorp tapped OPIC for $342 million in investment insurance.

Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) correctly noted that OPIC's corporate recipients earn a private profit while any default involving OPIC-insured activity becomes a public obligation: "A private profit and a public loss -- that's socialism for the rich."
--Killing Corporate Welfare--by John F. McManus

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) provides direct loans, loan guarantees and investment insurance against currency inconvertibility, expropriation and political violence to corporations and others investing in developing and emerging markets. By transferring investment risks from private-sector corporations to taxpayers, this government agency, formally established in 1971, is a shining example of corporate welfare. OPIC should be abolished. This has been proposed in S. 519, H.R. 387, and H.R. 1171 by Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) and Rep. John Kasich (R-Ohio) respectively.

Creating jobs? Contrary to the claims of OPIC proponents, the program does not increase overall job creation. Rather, in a world of limited resources, OPIC merely channels money toward politically favored projects at the expense of job-creating investment opportunities elsewhere.

Promoting market reforms? Ironically, OPIC allegedly promotes privatization and other market reforms. In fact, the opposite is often true. When the federal government covers their losses, investors may be willing to plow money into countries with unsound economic policies - removing the pressure for domestic reforms - that they otherwise would not consider.

A foreign aid substitute? In theory, OPIC may be a comparatively inexpensive alternative to foreign aid, but only because foreign aid has proven to be an extremely expensive failure. In practice, countries around the globe receive OPIC aid and foreign aid alike. The only workable foreign aid substitute is a reduction in U.S. trade

The skyrocketing number of commitments by OPIC in recent years involving extremely high risks, the prospect for more of the same and the lack of taxpayer protections in the event of a financial meltdown turn this government program into an accident waiting to happen.
--Capitol Comment 157 - The Case Against OPIC--By : John Tottie

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Enron, GE, Bechtel Claim US Insurance On India Project
Dow Jones Newswires

WASHINGTON -- Enron Corp. (ENE), General Electric Co. (GE) and Bechtel Corp. (X.BTL) have filed a total of nearly $200 million in insurance claims with the U.S. government for investment losses in India.

Since last week the three companies have individually filed applications with the Overseas Private Investment Corp. for "expropriation compensation" on their investments in Dabhol Power Co., OPIC spokesman Larry Spinelli said Thursday.

Dabhol Power is a $2.9 billion power plant and liquefied natural gas, or LNG, import terminal near Bombay in western India. It's considered the largest foreign direct investment in India's history.

"We obviously regard this as a very serious development," Spinelli said of the insurance claims. "And we are looking to the Indian government for constructive involvement to settle these issues."

OPIC is a government agency that finances U.S. companies' overseas investments through insurance and loans. In addition to OPIC financing, the U.S. government is owed $202.5 million for a loan the Export-Import Bank made to Dabhol Power.
...
http://www.wizardsofmoney.org/wiz9/OPIC.html

---

POWER FOR SALE
Huge Enron loans
expose taxpayers
Ex-Im Bank, OPIC backed 18 of firm's overseas projects to tune of $1.7 billion

---

By Paul Sperry
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com


WASHINGTON – Federal overseas economic-development agencies have financed or underwritten 18 Enron Corp. projects, exposing U.S. taxpayers to a total of more than $1.73 billion in potential liability, according to agency officials.

Enron, which recently filed for the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history, secured funding from the Clinton administration for nearly all of the risky foreign projects, WorldNetDaily has learned.
...
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26159


Losing America's Livelihood
The New American ^ | 1/26/04 | William Jasper
...
(8) Since 1999 our Government has provided more than $1,800,000,000 in financing and insurance for these foreign countries through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and our Government’s current exposure relative to these countries through our Export-Import Bank totals some $14,800,000,000, bringing the total subsidy of these countries by the United States to over $16,500,000,000.
(9) Many of these countries are not market-oriented, and hence their participation in United States-supported international finance regimes amounts to a direct subsidy by American taxpayers in the shrimping sector of their international competitors.
...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1071428/posts

There are other links, they have been posted many times on threads over the past year.

[PattonReincarnated]

>> My hope is that this outsourcing craze will run it's course. It's driven by upper management seeking a silver bullet solution to profitability. Offshore workers are good at executing, but not quite as good at innovative problem solving. I think it's a cultural thing - in the US, there's more encouragement to 'think outside the box'.

You got it exactly right. It should also be recognized that this outsourcing craze is mainly enjoyed by the largest of companies. And believe it or not, the largest of companies make up the minority of companies in America, as well as employing only a minority of workers. This means the vast majority of companies and employees are not affected by outsourcing. It seems significant because the media picks up on companies outsourcing. It's like when there is an earthquake in California. On TV you see devastation, collapsed buildings and highways. You get the impression that all of California has been devastated. In reality, it ends up being a very, very, very small part of the entire state.

I can speak from experience working in companies that have outsourced; they do not have nimble solutions to current business problems. In other words, I don't think outsourcing works. It's a matter of communication basically. Just like so many people on this thread have the inability to understand what capitalism is all about, and when everyone reads and writes the same language. Imagine what happens when you have some truly complicated business process that is being automated and developed via outsourcing. Communicating within a culture using the same language is difficult enough. Sending it overseas spells disaster. The per hour cost might be less, but once management finds that it takes longer to develop, and even longer to change course because of changing business conditions, they will discover that outsourcing is more expensive than developing at home. I'm not saying that all outsourcing can't work. I make no blanket statements there. But large and expensive projects simply won't work on an outsourcing basis.

As for my comments on free trade - that has everything to do with ownership and exercise of one's freedoms. If the owners of companies want to allow management to outsource - it's there call, not the government. Often times you can learn just as much from failure as you can from success. I believe in this case, companies are going to learn from failure rather quickly - if given the opportunity to fail. The lesson learned - use American workers, because they are better educated, more innovative, and tons more productive than any other worker in the world.

[Texasforever]

There is no such thing as an "American Job". There are only jobs that are owned by the employer to fill as he sees fit.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Offshore workers are good at executing, but not quite as good at innovative problem solving.

You may be interested in this article that supports your statement. The author I believe taught / teaches at Harvard and knows education in both countries. The Tribune, December 1, 2003, Chandigarh, India

"Competitive exam mania, It's the quality of education that suffers," by Pratap Bhanu Mehta

On criticizing the "competitive exam mania" the author opines, "It is not surprising that even distinguished institutions like the IIMs and the IITs , with all the wealth of talent they receive, are not able to define their respective fields of knowledge; they are recognised as reliable suppliers of particular types of students, but not as sites of innovation."

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20031201/edit.htm

[BiffWondercat]

But it is ok for China and other nations to peg their currency to our dollar so that they can always underbid us?
Is this free trade? I think not. Their currencies should me made to float like ours is. We should refuse to trade with nations who fix their currency!

[Protagoras]

Huh?

[Protagoras]

Not guaranteed by the Constitution, but the world is a dynamic place.

In other words, you made it up. You have made up rights in your own mind which do not exist elsewhere. That is not unique, people have been pretending all sorts of crazy things from the beginning of time. NO SUCH RIGHT EXISTS, NOW, OR EVER BEFORE, IT'S ONLY IN YOUR MIND.

Think about that.

I have thought about it, and I thought your goofy predictions were goofy, like all those of the same ilk which proceeded it.

[Protagoras]

Sounds to me like he still meant promote the general welfare, just not to superceed any other clauses or limitations?

You hear what you want to hear. The quote proves your position untenable.

[Protagoras]

Fear sells to the cowardly.

[BiffWondercat]

If corporations should not be taxed, neither should small-business or the self employed as that is all past on to the customer as well. Now if we can just cut the fed budget down to about 750 billion it could just work....

[Don Joe]

People who want the "freedom" to destroy their own country should relocate -- either to another country, or to prison.

So, anybody who disagrees with you should leave the country or go to prison.

No, I never said that. I said that those who want to use their "freedom" to destroy their own country should leave, or go to prison. Do you have a problem with that? I mean, hey, it is the law of the land, after all.

I bet you don't get along with real human beings very well, do you?

On the contrary. Real human beings don't go trying to put words in my mouth, to then argue with me over things I never said. Real human beings don't go erecting strawmen to knock down.

[kiki p]

It's only a violation of our anti-trust laws if AcmeCorp. uses its monopoly status to keep other companies from competing (for example, by selling its mousetrap below its cost of production so as to drive a competitor bankrupt).

How does this make sense? If I want to sell fast food hamburgers, does McDonalds have to raise their prices to give me a break? If they sell below their cost, won't that naturally run them out of business eventually?

[EGPWS]

Don't get me wrong, I believe in free trade. I believe in Capitalism. But I also believe that corporate executives should have a responsibility to serve the interests of their nation as well.

Who could take you wrong by your posting?

Of course Corporate executives take an interest in their country, and they do it freely with their trade. Their interests in "free trade" wouldn't exist without our country's free enterprise system, so what is it that you are requesting of our corporate executives? Pander to your concerns and give up their free enterprise attitude to a central Government political society?

Are there 'Rats in our midst that perhaps don't see themselves as such?

[elfman2]

I sincerely thank you for giving me this although I’m very skeptical of it. For the moment, I only have an opportunity to skim in, but I’ll read through it more thoroughly and post back to you.

The reason I’m skeptical is that what you’ve given me is without a doubt one sided. It’s clearly not an attempt to put OPIC in perspective, but an attempt to cherry pick features from it that support the authors thesis. Furthermore, phrase like ”Other corporate fat cats benefiting from OPIC's loans and loan guarantees include” is not indicative of an attempt at reasonable analysis. It’s an appeal to anger, and perhaps the paranoid nature of a percent of our 300 million populous. I’ve seen a lot of conspiracies inspired by this over the last 5 years here.

Nevertheless, I’ll read through it and more over the next few days and post back.