Of course most folks who are actually working in IT could have told you this. I know a number of folks at companies who experienced several rounds of layoffs. They have survived the layoffs, but they are also currently doing the job of two to three employees now versus prior to the layoffs. Morale is low, pay has not kept up with the cost of living increases, the cost of health care or inflation. Productivity is still there, but burnout is likely in these individuals. Other people I know that did los
Disclaimer: I am an IT manager who sets up and runs IT groups in India. So I'm the "bad guy" I guess. 1. Outsourcing is not new. And the reaction by the IT industry is not new. The garment industry was outsourced, the steel industry, to a degree the automotive industry. It happens. The people directly impacted don't like it but as long as it make economic sense, outsourcing will happen. Adapt to survive and thrive.
2. Isolated protective measures to limit outsourcing will ultimately fail. If you put re
Well, one thing seems to be improving at least: the quality of discourse on offshoring.
I want to raise a counterpoint to your point 2:
2. Isolated protective measures to limit outsourcing will ultimately fail. If you put restrictions on US companies that increase their costs while overseas competitors have no such restrictions, US companies will be at a competitive disadvantage ultimately hurting their growth and their employees.
I'm not sure I agree with this, although I think that protective measures would have to be carefully thought out. What you are ignoring, is America is a HUGE consumer nation, and through this and other mechanisms has a tremendous impact on the strategies of other countries. I don't see the "we can't compete with other countries" as a valid argument. I have a hard enough time understanding the argument that I find it difficult to argue against. What's the competition? What's the metric for who's winning? Is it who's economy is biggest? I'd rather have a smooth and well functioning economy than a big one, but maybe I'm unusual...
Anyway, I see offshoring production (be it intelectual or labor oriented) as having 3 pretty significant problems.
1. Is ethical, since offshoring is basically the practice of maintaining a slave class, just not within the borders of own country. Okay, I'll grant you that's something of an overstatement in the case of India, where conditions seem to be improving as money flows there. But in the case of China, Malaysia, and other sweatshop countries where we get our cheap clothing from it holds quite true.
2. The second issue is, if you keep offshoring everything, what the hell are people in the U.S. going to do? You'll have a 2 class system, the wealthy and the service industry. The wealthy will enjoy a tremendous standard of living, which they can afford because goods (shipped in from mesa-slaver countries overseas) are insanely cheap, and so's labor, since no one can get a decent manufacturing job. And the service sector will be a kind of second class system.
I think anyone with open eyes can see this process taking place. Gated communities are, imo, a symptom of this.
3. Is tightly coupled to 2. I think it is desirable for a country to have many opportunities for its citizens. So if you are someone who enjoys manual labor, who enjoys intelectual labor, who enjoys servicing people, who enjoys producing art, you should be able to find a job doing what it is you love. This, more than just raw wealth, has a greater impact on overall happiness, but unfortunately does not get calculated into "standard of living" indices.
So I think some kinds of legislation to mitigate these points could be worked out. In broad strokes, what I think is needed is some kind of penalization on the flow of capitol to, and the flow of goods from, countries whos working conditions are poorer than ours. Hourly pay wouldn't be a good indicator, but pay as a ration of the cost of living in that country would work (yes, some thought would have to be put into this formula). More important, things like safe working conditions, sane work weeks, and espcially child welfare laws should rank heavily into the system. It wouldn't have to be a binary system where yes we trade, no we don't, rather a system that indexes how much we tax transactions to and fro, based on an index computed once or twice a year, based on compliance with a set of guidelines ideally provided through the U.N.
Not that it would fix everything, but it ought to help. Does anyone know of a good existing proposal out there?
I feel the need to disagree with your final point. Firstly, there has never been any point in history that these sorts of tariffs have worked. Any time they are applied, industries are less likely to do business with that country due to the relative instability of prices (see the recent Steel Tariffs debacle, or any very protectionist country like Iran). If a variable tariff is put on in some countries but not others (due to free trade areas such as the EU, non-adherance to the treaty, or whatever), those c
I rather suspect you didn't carefully read my post, since you just came out with the standard globalisation dogma, most of which had little relevance to the contents of my post.
It's unacceptable to make a claim like
Firstly, there has never been any point in history that these sorts of tariffs have worked.
without citing some thorough research. Being able to find an instance where tariffs fail is not the same as proving that tariffs never work. As an example, I've been working in Switzerland for the la
I apologise for not directing my response enough. To clarify my post, I certainly agree with your sentiment and would love a way for it to work, but do not feel that there is a way for it to work with the world still on such an unequal economic footing. There was a very good survey discussing this exact topic in the economist about 2 weeks ago, but as it is a survey it will not be put online for another month or two so I cannot link to it and the studies it cites (I dont have the issue to hand right now). I
That was well thought out and well written response. Thanks for the thought provoking comments.
We seem to differ on a couple of prime assumptions. You seem to take the assumption that tarrifs are always harmful as a given. History and politics are something I read and study as I think they are important things for a responsible citizen to understand, but my professional field (physics) takes up most of my concentration and leaves me precious little to investigate other fields in the depth I would like.
Tariffs work when you control your borders- and sink boats/blow up trucks that don't pay the tariff. We haven't done that for 150 years or more- and so our tariffs don't work.
Unless you are willing to use deadly force to enforce your laws, your laws are worth NOTHING.
"Does anyone know of a good existing proposal out there?"
William Grieder's "One World, Ready or Not" proposes something very much like this towards the end of the book. It's about ten years old, but he was already seeing these trends very clearly. It's a long book, but you sound like the sort of person who would find it absolutely gripping.
I'm looking forward to reading this book [amazon.com] by the same author.
Anyhow, I think it would be very much worth your time to read.
Good points, parent. I think the best first step is to get rid of the federal reserve banking system. Fiat currencies (paper money) are the direct cause of massive trade imbalances between the United States and the rest of the world.
See my other post in this thread [slashdot.org], and the posts I link to too.
Consider that the only reason Chinese goods are still cheap is because they've pegged their currency to the U.S. dollar at a fixed ratio. In a free market currency system, as the trade imbalance with China grew, the
Promptness is its own reward, if one lives by the clock instead of the sword.
In more trouble than most realize... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Outsourcing is not new. And the reaction by the IT industry is not new. The garment industry was outsourced, the steel industry, to a degree the automotive industry. It happens. The people directly impacted don't like it but as long as it make economic sense, outsourcing will happen. Adapt to survive and thrive.
2. Isolated protective measures to limit outsourcing will ultimately fail. If you put re
Re:In more trouble than most realize... (Score:2)
I want to raise a counterpoint to your point 2: 2. Isolated protective measures to limit outsourcing will ultimately fail. If you put restrictions on US companies that increase their costs while overseas competitors have no such restrictions, US companies will be at a competitive disadvantage ultimately hurting their growth and their employees. I'm not sure I agree with this, although I think that protective measures would have to be carefully thought out. What you are ignoring, is America is a HUGE consumer nation, and through this and other mechanisms has a tremendous impact on the strategies of other countries. I don't see the "we can't compete with other countries" as a valid argument. I have a hard enough time understanding the argument that I find it difficult to argue against. What's the competition? What's the metric for who's winning? Is it who's economy is biggest? I'd rather have a smooth and well functioning economy than a big one, but maybe I'm unusual...
Anyway, I see offshoring production (be it intelectual or labor oriented) as having 3 pretty significant problems.
1. Is ethical, since offshoring is basically the practice of maintaining a slave class, just not within the borders of own country. Okay, I'll grant you that's something of an overstatement in the case of India, where conditions seem to be improving as money flows there. But in the case of China, Malaysia, and other sweatshop countries where we get our cheap clothing from it holds quite true.
2. The second issue is, if you keep offshoring everything, what the hell are people in the U.S. going to do? You'll have a 2 class system, the wealthy and the service industry. The wealthy will enjoy a tremendous standard of living, which they can afford because goods (shipped in from mesa-slaver countries overseas) are insanely cheap, and so's labor, since no one can get a decent manufacturing job. And the service sector will be a kind of second class system.
I think anyone with open eyes can see this process taking place. Gated communities are, imo, a symptom of this.
3. Is tightly coupled to 2. I think it is desirable for a country to have many opportunities for its citizens. So if you are someone who enjoys manual labor, who enjoys intelectual labor, who enjoys servicing people, who enjoys producing art, you should be able to find a job doing what it is you love. This, more than just raw wealth, has a greater impact on overall happiness, but unfortunately does not get calculated into "standard of living" indices.
So I think some kinds of legislation to mitigate these points could be worked out. In broad strokes, what I think is needed is some kind of penalization on the flow of capitol to, and the flow of goods from, countries whos working conditions are poorer than ours. Hourly pay wouldn't be a good indicator, but pay as a ration of the cost of living in that country would work (yes, some thought would have to be put into this formula). More important, things like safe working conditions, sane work weeks, and espcially child welfare laws should rank heavily into the system. It wouldn't have to be a binary system where yes we trade, no we don't, rather a system that indexes how much we tax transactions to and fro, based on an index computed once or twice a year, based on compliance with a set of guidelines ideally provided through the U.N.
Not that it would fix everything, but it ought to help. Does anyone know of a good existing proposal out there?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's unacceptable to make a claim like
without citing some thorough research. Being able to find an instance where tariffs fail is not the same as proving that tariffs never work. As an example, I've been working in Switzerland for the la
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We seem to differ on a couple of prime assumptions. You seem to take the assumption that tarrifs are always harmful as a given. History and politics are something I read and study as I think they are important things for a responsible citizen to understand, but my professional field (physics) takes up most of my concentration and leaves me precious little to investigate other fields in the depth I would like.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you are willing to use deadly force to enforce your laws, your laws are worth NOTHING.
Re: (Score:2)
William Grieder's "One World, Ready or Not" proposes something very much like this towards the end of the book. It's about ten years old, but he was already seeing these trends very clearly. It's a long book, but you sound like the sort of person who would find it absolutely gripping.
I'm looking forward to reading this book [amazon.com] by the same author.
Anyhow, I think it would be very much worth your time to read.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the best first step is to get rid of the federal reserve banking system. Fiat currencies (paper money) are the direct cause of massive trade imbalances between the United States and the rest of the world.
See my other post in this thread [slashdot.org], and the posts I link to too.
Consider that the only reason Chinese goods are still cheap is because they've pegged their currency to the U.S. dollar at a fixed ratio. In a free market currency system, as the trade imbalance with China grew, the