Free Republic

Global trade and American labor are creating a quandary for the Big Three auto makers. Facing intense price competition, they want to take advantage of the plunging cost of manufacturing in China. Yet their labor agreements at home make it hard to shift jobs overseas. Now the auto giants have hit upon an unusual strategy: Push their suppliers to do the outsourcing for them.

OUTSOURCING: A Brief Timeline   By 2005, 830,000 formerly American jobs will belong to foreign workers overseas, according to Forrester Research. And a study by two University of California economists identifies 14 million American workers whose future employment may be at risk by the practice of outsourcing. Proponents say outsourcing helps U.S.-owned companies remain competitive in the global marketplace, holds down consumer prices, and ultimately preserves American jobs by keeping companies afloat. Opponents say Americans risk being forced out of certain professions by foreign competition. They also warn that reliance on overseas technical talent will undermine American industry's research and...

Porn-surfing bank supremo Michael Soden was caught with his browser down last week by the very same staff he outsourced to HP at the start of his reign at the Bank of Ireland. Soden hit the headlines last year in Ireland when staff took industrial action in protest of the department's shift to Hewlett Packard. Staff were unhappy about the prospect of becoming HP employees, as they had enjoyed considerable perks at the Bank of Ireland: favourable mortgage and loan deals for instance. Now it seems that he has been forced to resign thanks to the very department which he...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA (search) ruled Monday that U.S. spacesuits on the international space station are unusable and ordered the crew to use Russian gear instead, adding considerable time and distance to a critical spacewalk next month.

Forrester Research has revised upwards its previous -- and controversial -- 2002 year end projection that 3.3 million high-tech and computer-related jobs will flee U.S. shores by 2015. In a new report, the company validates its figures, saying 3.4 million will leave by 2011, and offers more insight into near-term trends. By 2005, it says, an additional 240,000 jobs will have left the United States, bringing the total to a cumulative 830,000 positions lost in the near term. Since the first report surfaced, along with similar estimates by other consulting firms, the business environment has changed in the United...

The late economist Herb Stein used to say that when a trend was unsustainable, it usually would come to an end. It’s worthwhile considering this rare nugget of economic wisdom in the context of the US/China relationship. We could well be on the threshold of a very important growth inflexion point in both economies, the implications of which have clearly alarmed the markets over the past several weeks. So with apologies to Graham Greene, it behoves us to ask: is it truly the end of the affair between these two economic behemoths? The economic intertwining of the US and China...

No democracy please, we're shareholders   Apr 29th 2004 From The Economist print edition   Another proxy season, another gazillion wasted votes AMERICA is the world's most prominent democracy, and its most successful exponent of shareholder capitalism. But when it comes to shareholder democracy America has barely moved beyond the corporate equivalent of the rotten borough. American firms look democratic. During these past few weeks of the annual “proxy season”, shareholders have been electing board members and voting on resolutions listed on a firm's proxy statement. But given how little difference such votes can make, they might as well not...

HOUSTON Oil multinational Royal Dutch-Shell said yesterday that it was cutting 2800 jobs in its information technology (IT) division over three years, but insisted that the cutbacks were not related to the scandal over its reserves. Jobs in Britain, the Netherlands and the US, where Shell employs about 9300 people in IT, would be affected, with some work being outsourced to India and Malaysia. Shell hopes to save about 850m. Shell spokeswoman Lisa Givert said the move was part of an overall revamping of the IT operations, now concentrated in the UK, the Netherlands and the US, which had been...

South Asia   India doubting its US 'strategic partnership' By Sultan Shahin NEW DELHI - Clearing the way for close military ties, resumed sale of defense equipment and millions of dollars in direct economic assistance, United States President George W Bush has lifted the sanctions imposed against Pakistan following the bloodless military coup led by now-President General Pervez Musharraf in October 1999. The move comes a week after US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced in Islamabad that Pakistan's status was being elevated to that of a major non-NATO ally (MNNA). Sanctions related to Pakistan's nuclear tests in 1998...

<p>NEW DELHI -- India's economy grew a scorching 10.4% rate in the latest quarter, powered by a surge in farm output and a strong performance in the manufacturing sector.</p> <p>On the strength of the growth in the October-December quarter, the economy is almost certain to overshoot the government's forecast of 8.1% expansion for the fiscal year, which ends March 31.</p>

What do you do after you lose your job to outsourcing? One way to beat the creditors would be to make T-shirts with the message ‘I lost my job to India and all I got was this (lousy) T-shirt' and make oodles of money! Or, like Gus Grubba and his team of San Francisco software programmers you could put yourself up to the highest bidder on e-bay! ( BPO Wave Full coverage ) Go to ebay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3668406628) and you will find that Gus Grubba and his team of a dozen programmers offering their service. Here is your opportunity to hire...

Prem Shankar Jha  In the last year or more, as the US and India have come palpably closer on political issues, they have found themselves increasingly on a collision course on economic ones. This became glaringly apparent when India spearheaded a group of 22 countries at the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun and prevented the imposition of new commitments to liberalise trade upon the developing countries till the industrialised nations had first honoured commitments made during the Uruguay Round to substantially lower their trade barriers on agricultural imports and reduce subsidies on exports. But since then the conflict has...

<p>A finance professor argues against placing blind faith in outsourcing. His views follow.</p> <p>The following is a guest column by Rory L. Terry, an associate professor of finance at Fort Hays State University.</p> <p>NEW YORK (CNN) -- A great deal of effort is being expended to convince us all that the outsourcing of jobs under the rubric of free trade is a good thing. I would like to discuss some of these arguments.</p>

Offshoring Goes on the OffensiveCost cutting is only the first benefit. Offshore companies can also deliver superior performance, even in highly skilled activities, and a better platform for entering new product markets.The McKinsey Quarterly, McKinsey & Co. March 17, 2004 The big news at this year's International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was all of the plasma televisions, digital music players, and other crossover gadgets that Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, and other computer giants are using to challenge consumer electronics stalwarts such as Philips, Samsung, and Sony. Behind the trade show buzz, however, lies a bigger story&mdash;one that goes...

<p>As if U.S. workers didn't have enough going against them. Turns out there really are provisions in the tax code that seem to encourage sending jobs offshore.</p> <p>I have to admit not believing the claim when I first heard Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry shout about it. So I thought either Mr. Kerry has trumped this thing up -- in which case there's a good story -- or there's one very wacky part to the tax code -- in which case, there's a better story.</p>

The originator of the free trade argument is David Ricardo, who lived from 1772 to 1823. You can read a brief biography at the link: Ricardo Here's an excerpt: At age twenty-seven, after reading Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Ricardo got excited about economics. He wrote his first economics article at age thirty-seven and then spent only fourteen years—his last ones—as a professional economist. The world has changed considerably since 1823. We have new technologies, new political and social paradigms, and entire new fields of science. Nevertheless, we ignore all of that and continue to use economic ideas from...

<p>BEIJING -- In a vast, empty field outside Beijing, Richard Chang is trying to build one of the world's most advanced semiconductor factories.</p> <p>On a recent visit, migrant workers in shabby clothes could be seen trundling around the construction site, hanging laundry outside dormitories made of gray concrete slabs. When the plant starts production later this year, engineers clad head-to-heel in protective suits will operate multimillion-dollar machines in dust-free "clean rooms," etching circuits onto silicon plates.</p>

Take a Stand Against the Madness; Stop the RIAA! The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is on a rampage, launching legal attacks against average Americans from coast to coast. Rather than working to create a rational, legal means by which its customers can take advantage of file-sharing technology and pay a fair price for the music they love, it has chosen to sue people like Brianna LaHara, a 12 year-old girl living in New York City public housing. Brianna, and hundreds of other music fans like her, are being forced to pay thousands of dollars they do not have...

A May Day ritual described as "beat up a white kid" resulted in delinquency charges of felonious assault, ethnic intimidation and aggravated riot filed Thurs day in Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court against 18 black and Hispanic youths from Cleveland. Twelve girls and six boys, ages 9 through 15, are accused of beating, kicking and choking a 13-year-old white girl at West 110th Street and Almira Avenue near Wilbur Wright Middle School on May 1. The victim was a student at Wilbur Wright, as were five of her assailants. Each of the at tackers received a 10-day suspension, a Cleveland school...

This evening, I was reading some of the older threads I've enjoyed on FR - along with some of the delightful discussions with other FReepers. It's easy to forget to say thank you - I'd like to take this opportunity to do so. Not only is this site a source of news and a bastion of conservatism, it's home to some of the finest people anywhere. It is a source of pleasure and enjoyment to many thousands. Mr. Robinson has, in fact, made the world a better and happier place. As the title says, Thank you, Mr. Robinson!