The Battle for US Tech Jobs

[lilpup]

Now that outsourcing is moving higher up the economic pyramid people are finally waking up!

When all is said and done, America will likely rise again, but only if the lessons of a grinding recession are truly learned.
"The lessons are if you are a global company, it merely means you have no home to turn to and no countrymen to rally to your aid," observed Northwestern University's Brown.
"Americans aren't protectionists," he said. "Corporations are, and other countries are, which is why we have such huge trade imbalances -- but bottom-line, American workers aren't buying the bull anymore."

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/...obs-67128.html

[ccbatson]

Are the important people waking up? Organized labor and liberals levying corporate taxes at the state and federal level?

[EMG]

Here's how outsourcing works:

1) American auto company lays off its best employees and outsources their jobs to Asia.

2) Laid off employee struggles for a few years, then gets back on his feet in a new career, and buys a new automobile. Oh, and guess where it's made? That's right - Asia!

3) American auto company finds there are no more American customers willing to buy its products, and not enough Asians to be able to afford them either [[they're "cheap" labor, remember?).

4) American auto company falls into bankruptcy - and wonders how it ever happened! Meanwhile, former employee feels no pity whatsoever for former company or the golden-parachuted execs who ran it into the ground.

[Flanders]

Are the important people waking up? Organized labor and liberals levying corporate taxes at the state and federal level?

Deceptive statement masking the true conservative goal of reducing or better still, eliminating corporate taxation at the federal and state level, making the Bush tax cuts permanent, and increasing defense spending, thereby greatly increasing pressure on the government to eliminate or reduce spending on social services and infrastructure.

Taxes have little to do with corporations outsourcing and offshoring US jobs, and much to do with the cheap labor, lower operating costs, and the lack of strict safety, health and environmental regulations.

[oladub]

Flanders, One Federal agency, "The Overseas Private Investment Corporation [[OPIC) helps U.S. businesses invest overseas, fosters economic development in new and emerging markets, complements the private sector in managing risks associated with foreign direct investment, and supports U.S. foreign policy". OPIC, for instance, guarantees Buick engine plants in China so that if those plants were nationalized, OPIC would write a check to GM. Add government incentives for moving offshore to your list.

In the last week, I talked to someone in a GM credit card call center in the Philippines and a Kodak help line representative in Argentina. I'm guessing that I pay more just in phone taxes to call the next county, judging from my phone bill, than GM and Kodak pay for their phone connection 11,000 miles away. That is a manipulation of who is paying the taxes. It costs more for US taxpayers to support one American on unemployment or welfare than GM or Kodak saved by hiring someone in the Philippines.

[Flanders]

Flanders, One Federal agency, "The Overseas Private Investment Corporation [[OPIC) helps U.S. businesses invest overseas, fosters economic development in new and emerging markets, complements the private sector in managing risks associated with foreign direct investment, and supports U.S. foreign policy". OPIC, for instance, guarantees Buick engine plants in China so that if those plants were nationalized, OPIC would write a check to GM. Add government incentives for moving offshore to your list.

In the last week, I talked to someone in a GM credit card call center in the Philippines and a Kodak help line representative in Argentina. I'm guessing that I pay more just in phone taxes to call the next county, judging from my phone bill, than GM and Kodak pay for their phone connection 11,000 miles away. That is a manipulation of who is paying the taxes. It costs more for US taxpayers to support one American on unemployment or welfare than GM or Kodak saved by hiring someone in the Philippines.

If the government has sufficient funds to guarantee corporate investment offshore, which in itself is a form of socialist welfare, then it should have to support those former working taxpayers who become victims of offshoring and outsourcing. This also does not alter the fact that conservatives use the buzzword of "personal responsibility" as a means to justify cutting off government support to those who can no longer be or never were productive taxpaying members of society. Some of the more radical RWers believe that only those who own property and/or pay income taxes should be eligible to vote.

According to the OPIC website, there "officially" is no support available to those businesses who would use their fee-based services to close a US operation or reduce their labor force. I doubt if any of the Fortune 500 companies would have used OPIC support services which would prevent them from outsourcing and offshoring US jobs, but of course any future corporate growth and expansion as a result overseas would not be considered a reduction in force in the US.

[oladub]

I agree that eliminating all corporate welfare and subsidies should be a priority over wheedling inefficiencies out of personal welfare. OPIC not only guaranties overseas corporate investments, it subsidizes some direst loans to US companies that wish to deploy their wealth overseas. I came across Citicorp and US Bank, fortune 500 type companies, as being two of OPIC's recipients.

Both parties are in on this. Clinton began OPIC and put Senator Harkin's [[D-Iowa) wife in charge of OPIC. In 1995, all but three of twenty-seven of OPIC's recipient corporations donated to the Democratic Party. Bush left OPIC in place and OPIC has since expanded. OPIC should be eliminated as a government agency period. With unemployment as high as it is here, it makes no sense for the federal government to continue enabling US corporation to ship their capital overseas and/or import anything produced from their new foreign outposts.

[ccbatson]

Oladub...Why one or the other?? Welfare is destructive in all forms.