2/10 I've been seeing a lot in the news about outsourcing IT jobs
recently, but nobody ever brings up economic arguments about
how free trade benefits everyone. To me it seems like the best
thing for the US would be to allow outsourcing and use taxes
from increased corporate profits to help temporarily displaced
workers. Any thoughts on why all the outsourcing arguments are
emotional outbursts instead of rational economic arguments?
\_ It's money going into foreign economies, to be used there.
I don't know how increased corporate profits really leads to
increased tax intake... my impression is that any corp worth
its salt will create a shelter around the outsourced call center
so that the CC can report great profits without being taxed at
the US rate. Can somebody back me up or correct me?
\_ Actually no. For various reasons, foreign economies, esp.
those 3rd countries that you are worried about outsourcing to,
have a historical difficulty in keeping money in their own
country, and it is not getting any better. In fact this
is one reason driving them so hard to keep exporting and
getting sourced -- just to keep afloat, barely.
\_ Temporarily replaced until what? They get a burger flipping job?
But oh yeah even McDonald's was closing storefronts and laying off
people. What could be worse than getting laid off from McD's?
These are not American companies. They are vast multinational
corporations with no concern or regard for this or any other
country's people. Profit is God and it isn't being put back into
the economy in a useful way. How did HP eating Compaq, laying off
10's of thousands of Americans and moving their jobs to India help
Americans?
\_ Are you saying Carly Fiorina isn't American?
\_ I understand what CF owes to her kids. I understand
what she owes to her shareholders. I understand what
she owes to her neighbors and secretary and employees.
Can you explain to be what special duties she owes to
Americans? Does she have some special obligation also
to say white people? --psb
\_ Partha, you're an American. From this we can prove
\- how do you figure that? my point being if you
\- how do you figure that? my point is: if you
feel she/HP owe something to "all americans"
because they are "more like" americans, then
why doenst this apply to race? i would like you'
to argue why race and nationality should be
trated differently ... or fess up that they
are equally valid moral categories based on
which to treat people differently. --psb
\_ I would say that distinguishing CF from
the entity of HP dilutes the point. The
point is the corporation is operating in
this country. It reaps benefits from this
country and its stability. We should have
the balls to say "If you don't employ people
here, you should be paying higher taxes."
-scotsman
\_ So you're not an American? Then wtf are you
doing here then? Go back to your own country.
\_ He might be a permanent resident which
would mean that he isn't an American,
but he has every right to remain here
provided he does not commit a deportable
offense.
\_ Race: a function of genetics. Nationality:
a function of social grouping. I'd argue
that race is less important than nationality
on that basis, and that nationality is less
important than tribe, and that tribe is less
important than family. Depending on the
level of nurture/support you received from
those levels, you could conceivably swap
them around, with the exception of Race,
which may form the tenuous basis for initial
social interaction, but which does not
inform or impose social groups/interactions
on its own. Again, depending on the level
of support/nurture you receive, your loyalty
to the various levels in the hiearchy may
also vary. CF owes no moral duty to other
white people (or, for that matter, women);
she does owe a moral duty to America for
providing her with a socio-economic
environment conducive to satisfying her
corporate greed. As a captain of industry,
it is her duty to perpetuate the corporate
industrial model by providing jobs and
strenghtening the economy.
\_ You've contradicted yourself with
your own arguement. Sure, a CEO
*should* show loyalty to their nation.
However, their tribe, the tribe of
CEOs and other members of the plunderer
class holds far more loyalty from its
members than nations do from their
citizens. Which is why we need laws,
and which is why the world would be a
better place if the motd libertarians
would just fucking keel over and die.
\_ *shrug* I never argued that a person
should owe loyalty to their nation
over the loyalty owed to their tribe.
I simply argued that the duty to
Nation is more morally justifiable
than the duty to Race.
that not all Americans are white people. In addition,
Prince Charles is a white person. From this we can
prove that not all white people are Americans. Having
dispensed with the mythical relationship between being
white and being American, we can now move to the
specifics: CF is American and her kids are Americans.
Therefore, anything that CF does to increase her
bottom line benefits Americans, regardless of whether
she has some special duty to do so.
\_ Your sound like a classic Marxist-Leninist class warrior,
who believes wealth is redistributed rather than created.
I am not fond of Bush yet if it would be truly disastrous should
we replace him by a protectionist demagogue. Economy by
its very nature has ups and downs. Why didn't we complain when
the time was too good? Are we too spoiled to adapt and create?
Besides, other than psychological stress, do you know anyone
who is suffering horribly (homeless in People's park don't count
- they never did.)
\_ Why don't the homeless count? How about other poor people?
How about the guy who is raped nightly in prison?
\_ Well, it helped in that we can now buy computers for something
like $500 instead of $2000. More people own them now than ever
and are proficient in using them. Is losing those high-paid
R&D jobs worth it (ex DEC guys)? The answer is that it depends.
\_ This conversation is funny because you guys are all talking
about jobs which YOU hold that could be the target of such
outsourcing, and you're goofing off at work to talk about it.
Get back to work, drones.
\_ These responses are perfect examples of what I'm wondering about.
Imagine that everyone in the US can produce either 8 sodas
per day or 2 pizzas per day while people in India can
produce 1 soda per day or 4 pizzas per day. If people
in the US refuse to allow outsourcing then all Americans
must make do with s/8+p/2 <= 1 (where s is number of sodas and
p is number of pizzas). If we allow outsourcing
so that Indians specialize in pizzas and Americans specialize
in sodas which are traded 1-to-1 then Americans can have
s/8+p/4 <= 1. Thus Americans *benefit* (You can show that
Indians benefit too). The end result turns out the same
pretty much no matter what numbers you plug in. Essentially
everyone benefits by spending their labor on what they are
best at. Of course, this model ignores things like American
pizza maker's being put out of work when pizza making moves
to India. But the solution to that would seem to be to use
tax revenues to retrain them so that everyone is better off.-op
\_ Retrain them for what? These are American companies setting
up shop in other countries (basically international co's).
So the skill and knowhow are transferred, while labor, tax,
environmental etc. regulations are better for them and wages
are dirt cheap. Labor itself is a tradeable good, which
puts downward competitive pressure on labor standards. Without
protection, regular American workers can't be competitive with
other countries willing to have lower standards, as over time
the competitive advantage in skills narrows and disappears.
US still has the advantage in certain tech areas and research,
but that's not a broad employment area and corps can just use
that here with minimum investment in the economy.
\_ Retrain them for jobs in the medical profession for
example. We have a shortage of doctors in this country.
If another country can do something dirt cheap then why
not let them do it cheaply and spend our effort on higher
value products? The money saved by outsourcing to India
can be used to make our economy stronger by investing in
research, education, science, etc. Why not take the $70K
IT job and ship it to India for $20K and spend the $50K
on training the former IT worker to do something even
more productive like discovering a cure for cancer? -op
\_ White collar jobs being outsourced to India aren't being sent
there because Indians do it better, but because Indians will do
it for less. You really just explained why trade is good.
\_ I realize that, but this was simpler to show quickly.
Like I said, no matter how you set things up, free trade
usually benefits everyone. My point was that I can't
these good economic argument against outsourcing as long
as some provision is made for temporarily displaced
workers (e.g., retraining, education, unemployment). -op
\_ "free trade" does not benefit everyone. There are
winners and losers. Ask Detroit if they benefited
from the mad rush of manufacturing jobs overseas.
It benefits shareholders and CEOs. Probably overall
hurts the working and middle classes.
\_ I agree that Detroit is an example of what can go
wrong with free trade. But I fault our society and
government for not making the effort to retrain and
educate former auto workers for careers in better
professions. If they had done that, we would have
cheaper foreign cars and more prosperous workers.-op
\_ Our middle class was built on a robust manufacturing economy.
That economy was outsourced, causing massive upheavals of all
sorts and lots of Bad Stuff (c.f. 1970s, early '80s). It
was replaced by a service economy that now seems to be in
the early stages of being outsourced. What I'm wondering is
twofold: What are the consequences, economically and socially,
of another such upheaval, and what will replace the service
economy? Another way of putting the first part of the
question is, "Have you ever seen what happened to Detroit?"
Free trade definitely has its benefits, and I'm in favor of
it with some caveats, but keep in mind its a CHOICE, not
an inevitability, and I think it benefits some much more than
others.
\_ The borrow-from-the-Chinese economy.
\_ The middle/upper management economy.
\_ So do those of you who oppose IT outsourcing buy American? If
not, why is it OK for you to buy foreign cars, clothes, or
electronics but not OK for a company to offer cheaper service
by outsourcing IT jobs? I'm curious since a good response would
let me drive my Toyota, oppose outsourcing, and sleep well at night. |
http://csua.com/feed/