The problem of outsourcing: what should be done?

[gunkulator]

Sorry, Ned. CMM quality levels are usually bogus.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

dont worry. you dont agree with bush, you agree with bush's advisors. bush doesnt have a clue of what hes talking about.

[sprucemoose3311]

Outsourcing is here until the transnational corporate system fails.

the student store at my college (in the so called liberal bay area) was found to be selling hats made by children in bangladesh who were being paid 7cents a day working 14hrs./7 days and unpaid overtime, sleeping next to the sewing machine they worked and, and only being fed rice, etc...

the price of hats droppped 5 dollars, no one cared anymore

[Shi Huangdi]

I also have friends who have done work in the tech sector; they tell me there are usually severe problems in outsourcing code writing to India, they tend to produce poor quality code and it costs quite a bit to fix up their poor work. I believe Rah has posted about similiar experiences in his office.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ned


So Kid, Kerry is not going to introduce protectionism? I most of the people here think that he will.

I don't know. It depends how fast conditions change during the next term. By the middle or end of his term he may raise trade barriers if there is pressure on him. Of course, Bush will do the same thing if he is elected.

[Shi Huangdi]

"Which mass unemployment are you talking about? The 5.6% (or whatever it is)? Ain't a big deal."

Bear in mind that figure doesn't include the mass of discouraged workers, who if included reveal a much more troubling picture.

"In actuality, productivity is MUCH more than half of the equation. Many jobs today are being outsourced because Indian IT workers are just as productive, IF NOT MORE! You can see it in the US. Indian workers immigrate to the US and outperform Americans. India is building a powerhouse of young engineers and tech-heads. It only makes sense that tech companies are outsourcing there"

Well for one Imran, you have a coordiantion failure here. New people aren't going to be attracted to engineering and tech jobs if the sector is being eaten up by foreign competition and the market is declining. But moreover, Asia has a different culture then we do, one that obsesss over studying, where studying goes on for 12 hours a day and are rediculously overworked, where suicide rates go up because of the extreme amount of stress involved. Boshko or MtG can tell you about that education system there. Americans are overworked already and I don't want us to get to the level of paucity of leisure that Asia has.

[Ned]

I listened to the debates and it seemed to me that all the Democrats, save Lieberman, were promising some form of "fair trade," which means protectionism. I remember that Gephardt was criticizing the others for joining the protectionist bandwagon late because he had always opposed NAFTA.

Well still, Kerry has changed his position before. He may well have taken a "fair trade" position during the debates and now may have taken a "free trade" position in the general election. His supporters don't seem to notice these things. "Anybody but Bush!" and all that.

[Az]

Azazel, what you propose is in essence a tarriff that is inversely proportional to the labor costs to make it in foreign lands.

How does a customs agent make a determination on widget he sees in front of him what the person making the widget was paid?

That's not what I am proposing. labour costs will NOT have to be as high as they are in the US, but the factories there will have to meet certain criteria. It's in no way linear.

[Ned]

Azazel, I am just trying to figure out your enforcement mechansim.

For example, would it make any difference who owns the business that makes the widget that is being sold to the United States or Israel? If the company is owned by a local entity and not by Israel or by United States, would they too be subject to some kind of tax or tarriff?

[Ned]

Shi, how are you going to stop the Asians from competing?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

fair trade is such a load of crap. fair for whom? i guess that means that now we're all gonna have to pay more for basic products, just for the sake of highly organized, unproductive, american workers.

[Ned]

Lawrence, you nailed it. There is a basic difference between the parties. One is pro business, believing the health of businesses inherently produces higher wages and more employment. The other is pro labor, believing that business grow money on trees to pay workers more for less.

The majority here on Apolyton seem to back labor and John Kerry.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Ned
So now your are going to make distinctions based upon kind of industry?

Yes, because these are the typical outsourced industries. Why would we be discussing others?

[Ned]

Mr. Baggins,This whole argument then is completely disingenuous as jobs of all kinds had been moving out of the United States and the industrialized world to second and third-world countries for decades due to cost considerations. Why do only certain American's deserve protection? Why would you protect back-office clerks and not steelworkers. Why would you protect programmers and not printed circuit board assembly workers? Why would you protect computer support personnel and not computer assemblers?

[Ned]

It also makes my blood boil that the pro-Kerry types seem to assert that businesses are evil because they do everything possible to reduce costs in order to compete. This is trash and everybody knows it.