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
That's because they're illegal aliens from Mexico, and are probably illiterate in Spanish as well.
the "global market" didn't dictate any of this stuff in decades past. we had sane trade policies, and tariffs as needed. globalism and free trade is a sellout, the elites are selling out middle class americans. and illegal immigration is also part of that, providing a low wage pool of workers for service jobs.
since when did it become a "sin" for a restaurant to charge a price for a meal that was sufficient to provide wages for their legal workers? why is it that now in America, we feel that these business have some sort of inalienable right to illegal alien workers, so they can lower their wage costs?
even at $40, its enough to knock off a chunk from GDP.
Boeing engineers are unionized (outside of St. Louis) in the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA.)
What about supplying goods that people in India can't get anywhere else? Even if those goods are as basic as wheat? What you are saying is that we should take our ball and go home because some other country has a lower standard of living. Do you seriously think for one minute that they are going to say "Okay, see ya"? They'll be selling us stuff like crazy at lower prices. And while we sit over here and whine about jobs and outsourcing our citizens will be clamoring for their lower cost goods because our wages have gone down. Reality.
I worked in the defense industry, and you are correct about that.
Except that there were also those engineers that were technical standouts that became staff engineers and really drove the IR&D efforts. They also trained the young engineers.
I really get concerned about the defense industry. Only US citizens can get clearances, so the engineers have to be from the US.
If there are not many engineering jobs at non-defense companies, then I don't see many young US people going into engineering. If there are not many US engineers, then the defense industry does not have many to choose from. Less talent means less than stellar new weapons.
I just see other countries training the engineers and their countries are going to make the most leaps in technology and they will use it for the defense of their countries and not ours.
You bleeding socialist! Don't you know Marx favored free trade? [hoot]
Great phrase, and scary but plausible prediction.
And no one "owes" you their vote, voting in politicians who promise to keep taxes low. An unemployed or underemployed American wont care about taxes when they vote, so you have two choices down the road, employ more Americans(and not import cheap labor), or pay more taxes to take care of displaced American workers.
India is a parliamentary republic. They vote. As a matter of fact, they vote like crazy to restrict as many US goods, immigrants, etc. as possible from their markets, and slap big tariffs on the US goods that *do* get through. Then when anyone says *anything* about outsourcing, they whine like banshees.
I used to buy into that whole "race to the bottom" thing, but now I don't. I live in America, I have access to the latest in cheap technology, the internet, and universities.
Globalization means wrenching change, but it also means new markets for our goods (like, say, India). Maybe the glass isn't half empty. Maybe it's a "race to the top". Who can make the best coolest products for the least amount of money, in the most effecient manner? We're not dead yet.
that is changing. many of them are going home now (especially the Chinese). the only reason they came here is because the educational infrastructure doesn't exist in their countries. that is changing, they are building up in that area, and won't need US higher education after a while. the more engineers and scientists who work offshore, the larger the pool they have for some of those wokers to then take teaching positions - training their next generation in their own country.
give it time, the Chinese and the Indians know what they are doing. ask yourself this, if these tech industries are really "buggywhip", why is China and India so desperate to capture them? are they stupid?
Walk into the Voluntary Euthanasia Centers? Get genetically selected out at conception?
My engineer husband knows more than one engineer going to law school as well.
None of them have anything directly to do with the production of anything.
I drive a lot. It has not knocked one tiny iota off of my GDP. I have listened to the gurus for 30 years talk about oil as a barometer of the economy. It never has been and never will be unless it goes to about 200% of its real inflation based price. Right now, based on early 1970's prices it is cheaper on a real basis than it was 30 years ago. Oil is a trader's dream and an economist's fluffball.
India is a major exporter of agricultural products. We can't easily export goods to India because the Indians are heavily protectionist and put big tariffs on outside products (especially from the US.)
Why are they going home if they can only work for $7.00/hour? One cannot simultaneously claim that it's not worth getting an engineering degree because it's too expensive with respect to the prevailing wage for engineers overseas, and also claim that students are coming from overseas and getting their expensive degrees and then returning home. One or the other.
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