Posted on 09/08/2004 3:36:00 PM PDT by Destro
Posted on Sun, Aug. 22, 2004
Business books: 'Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas'
"Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas," by Lou Dobbs (Warner Business Books, 208 pages, $19.95)
Look out, Silicon Valley! Bangalore, India, is gaining on you. Some folks in India even believe that their country's version of Silicon Valley has already surpassed its California counterpart as a center for high-tech employment.
In his new book, "Exporting America," CNN's Lou Dobbs shows how strongly that belief is held in India with a headline from the Jan. 6, 2004, issue of The Times of India: "Silicon Valley Falls to Bangalore."
The story under that headline, Dobbs writes, bragged that Bangalore has 150,000 information-technology engineers compared with 130,000 in Silicon Valley. Dobbs believes that that story can't be written off as merely nationalistic exaggeration.
"India is only one of the many countries benefiting from the exporting of American jobs. But it has also been one of the most aggressive in pursuing professional-level jobs, from medical technicians to software programs. American companies have been all too happy to answer India's siren call of educated English-speakers willing to work at some of the world's lowest wages," Dobbs writes.
General Electric's Capital International Services, Dobbs points out, was one of the pioneers of outsourcing domestic operations to India. The company, Dobbs writes, employs 1,300 at its four centers in India and says it saves about $400million annually by not having Americans do those jobs.
"The people there write software; they review invoices and insurance claims; they do market analysis. CIS also offers its services to other American companies looking for outsourced resources," Dobbs writes.
Although India lags behind other Asian countries in manufacturing, it has a leg up, according to Dobbs, in the service sector and is a magnet for some of America's highest-paying jobs.
"There are programmers all over the world, but the Indian Institutes of Technology (known as IITs) are turning out thousands of these programmers a year. They are men and women who are well-educated, speak impeccable English, and are thrilled to make $10,000 a year," Dobbs writes.
GE, as Dobbs makes clear in abundant detail, is only one of many companies outsourcing high-tech and professional jobs to India and other parts of the world where wage expectations are lower. Among the others spotlighted by Dobbs for outsourcing jobs to India, the Philippines, Romania, Ireland, Poland and other countries are IBM, SAS Institute, Intel, Microsoft, Perot Systems, Apple, Computer Associates, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and Sun Microsystems.
Early in the book Dobbs delivers a broadside against the general trend of shipping jobs offshore. He says it is undermining the American middle class, putting Americans out of work, forcing Americans to work harder and longer for less pay, devastating some communities and depriving governments at all levels of the tax revenue for upgrading public education and providing other essential goods and services.
Dobbs, whose views on shipping jobs offshore have been under continual attack by advocacy groups and consultants for multinational corporations, takes the view that corporations who send jobs offshore are firing their own customers, because American workers will eventually find themselves unable to purchase the goods and services being exported back to America by American companies.
"India can provide our software; China can provide our toys; Sri Lanka can make our clothes; Japan make our cars. But at some point we have to ask, what will we export? At what will Americans work? And for what kind of wages? No one I've asked in government, business or academia has been able to answer those questions," Dobbs writes.
- Cecil Johnson,
Knight Ridder Tribune
Dobbs needs a new life. This old one is nothing but a rerun after rerun.
This old one is nothing but a rerun after rerun.
But it just becomes more true each day. You haven't refuted his point. Check out GraniteStateConservative homepage here on FR. Remember "Rome wasn't burnt in a day".
He better watch out. His parent company AOL\TW ships many jobs over to India.
You can wag both ends of that dog. I worked my tush off from junior high through graduate school, and have already been laid off once due to offshoring and due to no fault of my own. (The entire office has since been closed.)
The next time it happens, there's about a 70% chance that I will go to some career that may pay much less, but have some job security associated with it. What kind of motivation do you think Americans have to go into these "serious knowledge labor" fields when they risk being tossed aside like garbage at 35 or 40 (or before), in favor of some kid in Bangalore who can work for $2.50/hr? No way would I encourage my kids to get a Comp Sci degree. If they're smart and industrious, let them go into a field where they can have a stable career until retirement.
We're rapidly turning into a society of teachers, lawyers, salesmen, and security guards -- fields you can't offshore. Notice something about those professions: none of them have anything directly do with the production of any sort of exportable goods.
Sorry, I don't fully buy in to your argument. Yeah, the NEA and the other useful idiots in education have attempted to wreck the whole system but there's still a lot of quality young people who could be trained properly to be very useful for any organization. Too many folks in this country have bought into the media created fantasy about our young men and women, the vast majority of whom are looking to be productive workers, parents and community leaders. The bottom line is the usual culprit.....pure greed and it's been the case since NAFTA, GATT, etc. and the rest of these alleged free trade agreements.
We've seen numerous products offshored to factories paying a fraction of what Americans used to make but as these products re-enter our retail markets, have the prices decreased because of the steep decline of production?....hell no they haven't! In fact, many products being made by virtual slave labor cost more than ever, including clothes, food, household goods, etc. It's nothing more than a massive hollowing out of our middle class and entire economy. So enjoy it while it lasts amigo because this whole charade will not last a whole lot longer. Oh yeah, I've owned a small business for over 20 yrs. and have hired nothing but Americans and I'll be around a lot longer than a lot of these offshore experts.
At 70¢ per hour (including benefits), no, you probably can't.
But these Indians are educating themselves at our universities. I think it has more to do with desire. The Indians are simply hungrier. Americans have grown fat and lazy, partially due to our success and partially due to socialism (notice we're not talking about the EU).
There is a socialist behind those beady little glasses. This guy is such an ECONOMIC GIRLIE-MAN!
LLS
You're absolutely right. It needed repeating. We are turning into a UK of about the 1970's.
At the rate we're going, in a couple of generations, this will cease to be a problem.
There won't be a US talent pool anymore.
I pay the US equivalent of about $7.69 an hour for 10 hours of work per day and I get motivated, dedicated and locally well-paid employees.
Dobbs is a liberal socialist.
That's a robotic response, and you failed to refute his position.
I think Dobbs is exactly correct on this.
List for me some other $35-40k/yr jobs which require a bachelor's degree in a difficult technical field. A high school teacher with seniority makes that much or more, but he also has job security and two months of time off in the summer. Nurses make around that, but the jobs can't be filled at that payscale and we have to import foreigners to fill in. Many nurses also only work 3-4 days per week.
At $35-40k, I'll gladly send my kids into some other field.
Read later.
And you're totally bewildered as to why American's can't support their families for the same amount of compensation.
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