"Free Trade" (as in outsourcing) proponents - answer me this.

[UdoKier]

When a US company sends a job overseas, free traders claim it's great for America because the reduction in labor costs translates into a higher profit for the country.

My question is - if the job was kept in the US, the higher paid American employee would be making a decent living and consuming products of his own ccompany as well as others, while boosting revenues for the government with his tax dollars.

When his job is outsourced, in most cases, he's force to take a lower-paying job (if he's lucky enough to find one), he can no longer afford to buy any non-survival goods, he pays litttle or no taxes

So isn't the net effect of all this outsourcing bound to have a multiplier effect of

a) impoverishing the population of working people who would have been buying products and services from the companies doing the outsourcing?

b) the lower profits caused by depessed consumption caused by job losses put pressure on companies to outsource even MORE jobs.

Isn't this a vicious cycle that will eventually turn ourr country into Mexico?

I have yet to hear a single "free-trade" proponent explain how these policies will EVER translate into a better standard of living for the majority of working people in the US. At best it seems it will only serve to engorge the wallets of the executive and upper management classes.

And don't tell me about low prices. The only thing cheap these days is plastic junk from Wal-Mart. Food, energy, housing, ALL the things we actually NEED aregoing through the roof, and those of us with jobs have not seen improvement in wages.

Why do so many economists and laymen still buy into this garbage?

[Maple]

1. Free trade

is free trade. A separate issue from outsourcing.

Other countries get work done in the US, jobs go back and forth now, not just one way like they used to.

[UdoKier]

2. The defenders or offshoring ALWAYS couch it as a free trade issue.

Although I agree that doing so is dishonest. Jobs and human lives are not commodities to be sold to the lowest bidder (except in the twisted little world of the republiccan mind)

[Maple]

3. It's one part

of globalization, as is free trade. As are many other things...Kyoto, the UN and so on.

However, under capitalism...your system...the fastest way to improve the bottom line by increasing profits and raising productivity, is to have low cost labor.

It's cheaper to have things made in China. That is China's advantage right now...low cost labor. So they have become the world's factory. Same with India only on different items.

Eventually it'll be Africa, and then automation.

[Deja Q]

58. And while China and India are movin' on up, so is their need for oil.

You know, the substance whose quantities were purportedly overestimated and, worse, nobody seems to want to find a solution to our excessive usage of it? :scared:

[Maple]

64. True, but they are looking

for alternative fuels. Big SE Asian conference on it just weeks ago.

The US appears to be ignoring that option.

[goodhue]

4. Utility Maximization does not concern itself with Equity issues you raise.

You of course are completely correct in your insightful critique.
Economists generally focus on utility maximization & efficiency. More wealth created with less resources is the end unto itself.
The distributional or equity issues are secondary at best.

[pffarrell]

5. ...because it sounds like it SHOULD work...

...everybody getting everything at the lowest possible cost. But until the world is on a single currency and the same standard of living applies everywhere, poor countries wil always be able to undercut living wages in rich countries, and rich countries wll always be able to dump their unwanted goods on poor countries

[JuniorPlankton]

6. It's a complicated issue and free trade is different from outsourcing

But imagine this:

An American company decides not to outsource its 25% of (outsourcable)
jobs. The high paying jobs remain in the US and the company goes bust because it's not competitive. Then the other 75% of people are on the street. It is a gross oversimplification and is for illustration only.

[UdoKier]

7. That only happens when the competition are allowed to outsource by govt.

When everybody has to play by the same rules, the pressure to outsource is eliminated.

Aren't you the one oversimplifying? Acting as though outsourcing is a fait accompli?

It needs to be either banned, proscribed, or discouraged through tax penalties or requirements that they at least pay overseas employees the US minimum wage - IMHO.

[Maple]

8. If they have to pay

overseas workers the same money they do in the US, the advantage and benefit is gone.

So they'll simply automate sooner.

Either way, the job will be gone.

[drdigi420]

12. what about those of us that program the automation?

cant automate that

but you CAN outsource it

There is only ONE way that "free trade" will work, and that is to bring up the standard of, and cost of living in 3rd world countries

not gonna happen

[Maple]

18. Automation will reprogram itself

and until then, it will take very few to do it otherwise

[northzax]

48. Look at the history of 'outsourcing"

I can name, off the top of my head, several countries that once were the beneficiaries of US outsourcing who are now in the same position, as development caught up with them. There was a time when everything was made in Taiwan, remember (or maybe not) following WWII< Taiwan was a backwater, economically, staring as a source of cheap labour for the US Market, Taiwan became an economic power, and now employs workers elsewhere. Same, by the way, with Singapore, South Korea, Japan <a little different since it was already industrialised and needed rebuilding.> Now that capital is flowing to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Phillipines. The standard of living in Vietnam has tripled in the past decade. TRIPLED. It is already more expensive to employ Vietnamese workers than it was a decade ago. So the really easy jobs, the ones that are labour intensive and education-limited, are flowing to Pakistan. Look at India, once a source of cheap manual labour, now a source of inexpensive intellectual labour. You think India is worse off? there are more Indians with college degrees than there are Americans. There are more South Koreans with Ph.Ds in engineering than Americans. Yeah, they are certainly worse off.

Look at where the capital is flowing in Europe, South and East where things are cheaper. Spain is booming over the past decade, as capital follows cheap labour and resources. Now it's going to Portugal, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary.

In the 1950's, US policy makers whined about the loss of Jobs to Taiwan. Capital will always flow downhill, to cheaper resources, cheaper labour. every time.

The catch, of course, is to ensure, in some manner, that capital is not wholy exploitative of labour. We can no longer accept 19th century working conditions as a price of the industrial growth and improvement that this nation had in the 19th century. We can do better. And responsible outsourcing of jobs is, actually, part of that. We are no longer an industrial nation, we can't afford the product of our own labour. So we find someone else to do it.

a comparison, if you will. Frankly, I can't be bothered to iron my shirts. I hate it, and it is worth it, to me, to pay someone else to do that chore for me. That's outsourcing. It's a task I could do myself (along with making coffee in the morning, changing my oil, tuning up my bicycle, doing my taxes and managing my 401K. I can, and have, done all these things myself, but for the prices I find someone else to do them, I choose to outsource them, I can spend my time more valuably (to me) doing something else. Frankly, if changing my oil was 100 bucks, I'd do it myself, but for 19.95? Jiffy Lube can do it. If every shirt I took to the dry cleaners cost me $5, I wouldn't do it, but for 99cents? no problem. It's called capitalism.

Now what does this have to do with Global Outsourcing? it's the same thing, on a grander scale. It's cheaper for me to actually pay someone to change my oil than do it myself. And I go to the place that provides me the best service, for the most reasonable price. Not the cheapest, mind you, but not the most expensive. My mechanic is a union shop, that's worth a bit more to me than the place down the street that isn't. So I pay more. I patronise companies that treat their workers better, if I can. But I also will not pay double or triple the reasonable cost for something simply out of stubborness.

[Maple]

54. Agreed

We are all operating in different 'time zones' on this planet.

And I don't mean the 'time' you tell by looking at a clock.

We are all operating at different 'wave lengths' perhaps...maybe that makes it more understandable.

Of course we outsource everything we can. Everyday.

So does the world

[el_gato]

13. What do you mean "automate sooner"

You just throw that out there without any context at all.

These agreements have been a race to the bottom instead of any attempt at creating an equitable system. Take environmental controls for example. Are you saying that it's okay for an industry to move production to a poor country because the environmental safeguards are lower?

[Maple]

21. I'm sure you're aware

that most production will become totally automated. It's been discussed for years.

Cost was always the biggest deterrent...automation eventually pays for itself, but sticker-shock is nasty stuff..and as long as humans work cheaper, companies didn't make the move.

If human wages keep going up...and outsourcing is no longer possible...total automation becomes cost effective.

[UdoKier]

14. If they automate - somebody has to make and maintain the machines.

I'm less afraid of automation than I am of the new slavery (outsourcing)

[Maple]

24. Automation can look after itself

pretty much.

I believe there is a car factory..Japan I think...with one human worker.

[smirkymonkey]

52. Yes, but if the market for product dries up

due to the fact that nobody in that market makes a decent living, and that most of those cannot afford anything but the most basic costs of living, then where does that leave them?

Ultimately, it will end in disaster for all. The cheap labor they are hiring to produce their goods can't afford them and those that have been displaced due to outsourcing can't afford them either. So who's buying all these cheaply made goods? These top heavy corporations are soon going to find that the house of cards they have built their business upon is going to collapse from under them.

It is not sustainable.

[Maple]

53. There are 6 billion people in the world

many of whom have decent jobs...the ones you scoff at...for the first time in their lives.

The market isn't about to dry up. It's booming in fact, and getting bigger by the day.

What is NOT sustainable is selling refrigerators..or other stuff...to Americans who already have tons of them and chuck them away like paper cups.

HUGE market out there. You're not it.

[smirkymonkey]

60. Yeah, and their being paid shit.

Not going to be able to fork over the prices that corporations are going to need to charge to stay profitable. How many foreign workers being paid $10/day are going to be able to afford the prices that were being charged for those goods previously?

You have a real chip on your shoulder about Americans, you seem to take pleasure in the fact that our jobs are being sent overseas.

[Maple]

65. Makes them rich in their society

where the cost of living is much lower than in yours.

Jobs are moving all over the world, and it's perfectly normal.

It never bothered you when you took work away from other countries, so don't attribute your motives to others now when they get a chance to move ahead.

[UdoKier]

17. "If they have to pay...the advantage and benefit is gone"

That's the idea.

[Maple]

28. But it won't solve the problem

The job will still be lost...whether a Chinese does it, or a robot.

[JuniorPlankton]

16. Clearly I am making a very simple example

However, these days you have to compete with global companies.
Even if you prohibit outsourcing in the US, there is always the rest of the world. So for you to stay competitive, the government will need to
subsidy not outsourcing, as opposed to just proscribing outsourcing.
It's a very different proposition.

[el_gato]

9. The very concept of economic efficiency is acutally social darwinism

Think about it. Economic efficiency is the maximum amount of profit delivery to the capital class, not the most efficient use of energy.
Thus when worker productivity goes up we never see a corresponding rise in wages. This intentional immiseration is a part of the process.
If you look back on the early history of colonization, the days of the East India Trading Company etc., you will see the process of intentional immiseration of native peoples. That immiseration was necessary for the restructuring of organic society into a society based on commodity production. We are living in a manufactured world.

People living an orgaic way of life in thier natural habitat would never choose a life of wage slavery. That is why they had to be impoverished first.

[Maple]

11. They already were impoverished

Benefits come with development too. Longer healthier lives with medical care, education, travel, decent housing, indoor plumbing...things people like and are willing to work for.

No one is a 'slave'. You can go live in the woods if you want.

[el_gato]

19. That is total bullshit, they were not already impoverished

Have you not studied history at all.

Cortez hello?

You can live in your dream world of global fascism if you want but facts are facts Maple.

Fact is the native people here in this country were healthy and prosperous before thier total immiseration by Europeans.

Here is a quote for you:


"They... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned. . . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features. . . They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. . . They would make fine servants. . . With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." Christopher Columbus

[Maple]

22. So go live in the woods

See how well off you are with no economic development.

See how well off they were? Whammo!

[el_gato]

26. Your simplistic reponses show the shallowness of your analysis

Maybe if you were actually interested in the facts you would behave differently.

[Maple]

30. No, I'm simplfying because this is

a simple chatsite.

I don't intend to post mass cost benefit analyses on it.

Or to discuss volumes of history, and debate the benefits of living in the woods.

We simply aren't living there anymore. Nor will we again.

And that's brought hardship at the same time it's brought about great benefits.

[el_gato]

31. You are simplifying because you want to ignore the ramifications

[Maple]

33. Ramifications and/or philosophy are irrelevant

Globalization has been occurring for years. You won't stop it.

Anymore than Ned Ludd stopped Industrialization.

[el_gato]

35. Pretending it is good for us won't make it so Maple

People need to know and understand what is happening and behave accordingly. They do not need your bed time stories. You are doing them a disservice.

[Maple]

40. No one has discussed if it's 'good for us'

Just as no one ever discussed if previous changes in the world were good for us. They simply happen...as this is.

And it's doing people a service to tell them so...so they don't waste time trying to hold back the tide, when they are facing a tsunami.

If you know a tsunami is coming...you can head for higher ground instead.

[the_outsider]

46. they do not simply happen

They are conscious human decisions with enermous costs and also huge profits for the decision-makers at stake. Convincing people to shut up because they are powerless to change these decisions is one of the most anti-democratic (demos=people) sentences I have seen on this site.

[Maple]

49. Yes, they happen

because a variety of events converge...no one wakes up one morning and says, 'lets have an Industrial Revolution'. A variety of things brought it to the point where industrialization happened...and in England, not a place it was thought likely to occur actually. China was ripe for it, but it didn't happen there. Not the right convergence of events.

It was only later we realized it was a revolution.

No one is asking anybody to 'shut up'

I said it's occurring...and will occur...no matter what you try to do about it.

King Canute couldn't hold back the tide either...hardly undemocratic. A tide occurs whether you vote on it or not.

Democracy is not a 'god'...and it is powerless against historical forces. You can't vote against hurricanes either, no matter how much you might want to.

[the_outsider]

56. Those events and their convergences are not cosmic connections

Transfer of wealth from India to Britain was vital to the Industrial Revolution. Without capital from India, British banks would have found it impossible to fund the modernization of England. Several civilizations - Indian, Chinese, Arabic - had been adding to world's scientific knowledge. Without that aggregate of scientific knowledge, there would be no industrial revolution. English patents in the textile industry relied on techniques perfected in the Indian subcontinent.

British viceroy in India said - "India is the pivot of our Empire ....but if we lose India the sun of our Empire will have set". Industrial revolution was fueled by unprecedented taxation of Indians. In the early 1800s imports of Indian cotton and silk goods faced duties of 70-80%. British imports faced duties of 2-4%! In the last half of 19th century, India's income fell by 50%. The country which Marco Polo referred to as the noblest and the richest in the world and which never saw any famine prior to British rule were completely ruined in 100-150 years of British rule and devastated by a series of man-made famines.

Most of the non-European culture was just not skilled in human massacre and was not familiar with the most modern murder machines.

It's fine if you don't let plunder, murder, military invasion bother you. It will save you a lot of pain.

[Maple]

66. I said nothing about 'cosmic connections'

I'm not into mysticism. Sorry.

The industrial revolution happened in England because of a convergence of events. China was ready for it, but it didn't happen there.

This is what has already happened in history...so our current 'moral' judgements on it are irrelevant.

I'd change a lot of events in history if I could...but I can't. Neither can you.

And whatever happened then..like it or not...will not change what's happening now.

[the_outsider]

72. but you are ignoring the military forces and unfair trade practices

that ensured that the profits out of industrial revolution were restricted to very few at the expense of a lot of others. And that history is being repeated again in India and I am sure in other countries in Africa and South America. I am more familiar with the ground reality in India. Thousands of farmers committed suicide in the last few years largely brought about by BJP government's surrender to IMF/GATT's trade policies in exchange of some foreign investments and jobs. Tech jobs and call center jobs are helping
a few thousand people and the cost of those policies are borne by millions of people in the villages. This is the troubling aspect of the "ineveitable march towards progress and development driven by unregulated global capitalism" picture you are painting -

<<http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/issues/shiva202.htm>> is a good starting point. zmag has a lot of good articles on it. BJP government was thrown out of power in the last election, so yes people can do something about it and they are trying.

US global military cops and unfair trade and patent practices are ensuring that fruits of globalization and trade are enjoyed by very few corporations. I am not sure if you are denying that fact or saying that it's acceptable. If it's the first, you need to read up a lot. If it's the second, well, we just have a different view of the world.

[el_gato]

29. I called you on your bullshit lies and then you change the subject

Go work in a sweatshop Maple.

[Maple]

32. Excuse me?

Go cool off somewhere.

I haven't changed any subject. I attempted to answer the questions.

[el_gato]

38. You said they were already immiserated which is not true

Society in India was destroyed by so-called free trade. Read your history. This mass immiseration led to the great famines of the years 1870-1900, in which many millions of people were reduced to skin and bones and revaged by disease. Do you believe this type of destruction is justifiable?

[Maple]

41. I said they were already in poverty

as compared to what we have today.

Societies that don't move forward get trampled on.

We don't always get to choose. Just leaving the cave door was dangerous.

[the_outsider]

45. they may be in poverty as compared to what "you" have today

they were not in poverty as compared to what they have today. India was a very affluent country before the Brits ravaged it and no they were not cave-dwellers. India has been trading (yes, free-trade is not an European or American invention) with Far East for thousands of years. That's the reason why Columbus was so desperate to find India and named native Americans "Indians" who were no cave dwellers either.

Who are you or some military leader or some global corporation is to define what progress is or to decide how everyone should live and to enforce those decisions by killing people. If industrial revolution had happened without slavery and colonization, if modern globalization and neo-liberalization were not propped up by the dual threat of military invasion and economic sanctions, then your "cave-dwellers getting trampled by the inevitable march of progress" arguments would have been more palatable.

[Maple]

50. They did not move forward

They stagnated.

They were overtaken.

Shit happens.

Has done all throughout history.

[the_outsider]

59. Yes, it's just shit

you do come across as a very compassionate person.

[Maple]

67. My compassion or yours

and a buck twenty five will buy you a cup of coffee.

[the_outsider]

10. outsourcing and free trade are two separate issues

though it's true that outsourcing-proponents often try to blur the difference between free trading and free flow of labor/job. The argument often used in favor of outsourcing goes like this -

in a robust capitalist economy such as the one we have or we claim to have, jobs that are outsourced will eventually be replaced by better-paying higher-end jobs and it will be a win-win situation for everyone involved. Everyone in the world sort of moves up the economy food chain. The short-term reduction in consumption by workers who lost jobs is compensated by an increase in consumption
in parts of the world where new jobs are created and in the long-run US economy creates new jobs in new sectors and everyone keeps their GDP growth intact and lives happily ever after ...

It's definitely a very simplistic argument and will cause major human pain and suffering in a perfect world, not to mention in the very-far-from-ideal world we inhabit where power and wealth are extremely concentrated.

As you correctly pointed out, most outsourcing is solely driven by the executives' need to meet shareholders' demands. To keep their fat bonuses, stock grants and rolodex going, they have to meet quarterly EPS numbers. Since the economy has not really been growing much in the last few years, growing top line revenues was hard. Improving bottom line was much easier. That motivation coupled with the changes that enable outsourcing (cheap international calls, global broadband internet, reduced political control over the activity of corporations) drove the recent boom in outsourcing.

[Maple]

15. Eventually it WILL all work out

and yes, it will cause tremendous displacement during the change-over stage we're going through.

But just like you'd never convince Ned Ludd that the industrial age would produce more jobs than ever seen in history before, Ned only knew that he lost HIS job, so he complained. It's still hard to convince some people today that this change is also for the better.

[UdoKier]

20. This is nothing like the industrial revolution.

It's a lot more like an investor and CEO class trying to move us back to the gilded age by destroying what little security American workers today have.

IE - the workes displaced by outsourcing and forced to work two jobs for half the previous pay are that much less likely to be able to put in the time to learn about issues and vote in an informed way. much less have any kind of organization to represent their needs.

Are you a democrat? If so, why?

[Maple]

36. The Industrial Revolution

was a step up from the Agricultural Age.

But it also ended in 1956 when white collar workers outnumbered blue collar ones for the first time. There has been a gradual changeover since then. Now people are beginning to notice that we are in the Information Age.

It is a massive changeover in the way people live and work...just like the Industrial age was.

All of this was predicted years ago by Alvin Toffler...including the accompanying 'future shock'

The idea is to move up now to information age jobs...that can't be reproduced by robots...or cheaper workers ...on the factory floor.

Jobs requiring new technology and specialized knowledge...not just manufacturing.

I don't recall saying it would be easy...just that it's occuring

[el_gato]

23. It will work out for the Elite, that is all

You have always been a big time apologist for the global oligarchy but that will never change the fact that millions upon millions of people died in India, Brazil, China, and Indonesia back during the years from 1870 to 1910 due to these policies you advocate. Mass famine was the result of turning these countries into export based economies. You are an apologist to death and destruction for the benefit of the corporate elite.

[Maple]

42. Did you think you were in Eden perchance?

This is the real world...and people have died by the millions from all kinds of things.

The world changes all the time. Or did you think it would stay the way it was the day you were born, for the next thousand years?

It is not the result of some master plot by any global oligarchy, or corporate elite.

Human society evolves. Evolution isn't always pleasant, but it happens anyway.

[smirkymonkey]

61. You sound like a typical neo-con.

Only the strong deserve to survive.

[Maple]

68. Actually I'm a liberal

and I'm simply telling you what is happening, and what will happen.

I'm sorry if you think I should be crying over simple facts.

[UdoKier]

55. It will work out for the elite.

because it always does work out for the elite. They always see to it. Why do you think our nominee is a Kerry and not a Wellstone?

[pffarrell]

25. How do you know it will work out?

The first pre-requisite of any economic system is that it looks after the people within the system. If you send the jobs away, where does that leave the local people? And though maybe computer programmers in India do get 'travel' and all those other benefits, sweatshop workers don't. The fact is the main ones benefitting are coporations and the big shareholders. ps the industrial age produced one hell of a lot of misery, and caused massive unemployment.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Maple]

43. That's not what economic systems do

That's not what history does either.

The Industrial age also produced the biggest amount of jobs the world had ever seen. Massive explosion of money and expansion and new inventions and so on. Made today's world possible.

Of course it wasn't all good...nothing ever is.

Fire can cook your food, or it can burn down your house.

Your choice.

You just can't 'uninvent' fire trying to solve the problems.

You can't 'uninvent' globalization either.

[the_outsider]

37. Unfortunately capitalizing WILL will not make it happen

The growth and wealth Europe (and consequently US) enjoyed during the industrial revolution and aftermath came at the expense of colonies in Asia and Africa. Before colonization started, GDP of both India and China individually was higher than Europe and USA as we know it today was not born. Colonial history was a history of inhuman torture and plunder of wealth by a few militarily mighty European countries over the rest of the world. Same here in US with the annihilation of native Americans and exploitation of slaves from Africa. The tragic history of human losses and suffering is never documented. Yes, it works, but the question has always been "for whom"?

[el_gato]

39. You are right on!

[el_gato]

34. A Book Suggestion: Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis

This book is a good example of the degradation caused by the so called "free trade" that was imposed upon India during the late 1800's by the British and Dutch.

[Maple]

44. You can complain about it all you want

You can rail and demonstrate, and sign petitions, and even snark at me over it.

But that isn't going to stop it.

I didn't cause it, I can't end it...more to the point, neither can any of you.

[sadiesworld]

47. I think fewer and fewer are drinking the kool-aid.

And once Kerry is elected, the right will scream just as loudly as the left about lost jobs.

I see alot of historical comparisons being made here, but how does the internet factor into the "inevitability" argument? Is it possible that worldwide communication w/o the elite media filter might just throw a spanner in the globalists' plans?

(Unfortunately, I have dinner to cook and cannot stick around for the INEVITABLE response from a certain poster-lol)

[Maple]

51. Kool aid is a political meme

It has nothing whatever to do with historical forces.

Indeed in most of the world, the word and the concept is meaningless.

Why would other people in the world turn down globalization?

[the_outsider]

57. because the balance of power is very skewed

and most countries have very little bargaining power and leverage against US military complex and IMF-GATT regulations.

[Maple]

69. Other countries have a lot of bargaining power

and are using it.

Why do you think you are having so many problems in the world?

The rest of us are getting along fine

[the_outsider]

73. What's your definition of "us" and "them"?

Something similar to *'s ? This link is a good primer on "us" or "them" (from your perspective) -

http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/issues/shiva202.htm

[w4rma]

62. Hucksters sell this garbage because there is alot of money to be made in

selling it. ALOT of money to be made in selling it.

[Maple]

70. There is money to be made in everything

That's capitalism for ya.

The system you promote everywhere as the ideal.

[The Straight Story]

63. My Guess is

We bring up the standard of living elsewhere, so that more people can afford things we make. They buy more from us which creates more jobs here since we have a broader market for our goods.

We help them, they help us. I have heard many say we need to spread the wealth we accumulated on the backs of near slave labor in other countries, that we need to do more to help third world countries - this is one way of doing that.

The dynamics of it are (supposed to) go something like this:
A company here which employs 10,000 people outsources 3000 jobs to another country. The company saves money which it will use to re-invest in R&D, or some other area, which creates jobs here in higher paying fields. This leads to a better product, which creates a broader market. The jobs here go back up over time, as do the ones in the new markets created when they gave jobs to people elsewhere. The stockholders make money, the company does, other companies which are based here now have more customers elsewhere, ups/fed ex/et al pick up more jobs to service the demands out of country, and so on and so forth.

This all takes time. But the idea is that once other countries are doing better we will see a net increase. Sucks for the people now getting shafted, but big business and repubs don't care about the people trampled in the short term because they have theirs.

And they may well be right, over the long term it just might make it better here for us. And if they are right it is all the more reason people need to vote democrat. The dems want to help the little guy - and will look out for their interests as well as the interest of the companies that give them jobs in the first place. The little guy loses his job - well we need to make sure that he gets something in the deal as well, and not just the share holders and executives - or people later in the future who might benefit from it all.

the little guy is the one who makes the biggest sacrifice - and it is he/she we need to thank and help out to insure they get something out of the deal. You have a mortage and the company outsources so that in the future all benefit (and short term they do) - then we pay it for them and provide them food and such. After all, the execs got paid for doing something which helps them, and they see outsourcing helping us all in the long term - so why not 'pay' the guy getting a pink slip?

the problems I see with the whole thing as presented as we ask some to sacrifice and get nothing for it, we tell them in the long run it helps america. Well, we damn well better make sure we return the favor NOW to the people we are asking to lose their income. Tax the companies, raise general taxes, and make companies which outsource pay a certain percent out to those who lost their jobs so they have a residual income - outsourcing them was an investment after all to them.

I'll buy the idea that it helps in the way they say - but they damn well better compensate the people they lay off and pay them for the next 10yrs something in residuals since they are, in my view, investors. Otherwise what we are expecting is that the people getting laid off are paying for the long term benefits of us all and getting nothing but the shaft in return. Wrong all the way around.

Repubs make me sick...

[Maple]

71. Well.....

It's your system after all. You promote it everywhere, all the time, to everybody. Occasionally it's bound to bite you in the ass ya know.