MSNBC: "Giving Thanks for Offshoring"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Giving Thanks for Offshoring
America should stop fretting about exported jobs and take it as a wake-up call to invest in education and entrepreneurship
By Christopher Farrell
Updated: 11:00 p.m. ET Nov. 22, 2004

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6557431/

Ah, Thanksgiving. It's a day for giving thanks for family, friends, and food. It's also a good time to reflect on 2004 and think about what we're grateful for when it comes to the economy. (This is BusinessWeek Online, after all.) Record homeownership is on my list. So is an improving job market. Others: Corporate America's durable productivity gains, or New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer and his crusade against malfeasance in the financial-services industry.

Still, my No. 1 spot is reserved for the offshoring of skilled-service jobs by American corporations. Yes, you read that right. Americans should be deeply thankful for the emerging trend of American (and European) companies outsourcing software development and other skilled tasks to India, Ireland, the Philippines, and other developing-world havens.

Companies may have gone to India to save money on back-office operations, such as payroll, order fulfillment, and customer service. But they're continuing to do business with Indian high-tech companies because of the quality of the work being done. So, those jobs aren't coming back, and that means we have to create new ones here.

Offshoring is a result of three simultaneous and independent events at this juncture in economic history. First, education levels are rising throughout the developing world -- the payoff from decades of investment. Second, many developing nations have been liberalizing their economies, especially after the collapse of communism toward the end of the 1980s. Last is the information-technology revolution, which made it possible to link developed nations' companies with developing nations' workers -- and do it cheaply.

[hatrack]

1. What a steaming mass of Santorum

:puke:

[ladjf]

2. Fascist crap! Off shoring helps other locales and hurts

Americans.

[UL_Approved]

3. Prostitution

Pure and simple. Prostitution. Giving Bush a blowjob for the world to see.

[tmooses]

4. This guy has had the double Kool-Aid lobotomy

[Vincardog]

5. If cheap crap is what you pay for Cheap CRAP is what you get

I can get you a box of rocks to hold down that chair for 5 cents an hour. That is a lot cheaper than you can get Chinese prison labor not to do the job.

[lukasahero]

6. I suppose I should be grateful

that we are improving the economic and educational opportunities in the "developing world". Unfortunately as an IT worker lucky enough to have a job but not lucky enough to have overtime any more, I have to wonder what level of education those "new jobs" that'll be created for me will require - "Paper or plastic?" or perhaps "Do you want fries with that?"

F'in twit.

[bossfish]

7. Can't wait until I read an MSNBC column...

...by Sateesh Patel

[one_true_leroy]

11. Ironically, most the Indians i know

have a superior command of English, and use it very well.

[w4rma]

8. Should offshore Farrell's job. It's obvious that *anyone*, no matter what

country they live in, would do a better job at reporting and at a lower wage, too.

[meegbear]

12. Exactly!

Everbody who supports outsourcing don't have to worry about having their job outsourced.

[ibegurpard]

9. How nice

Easy to sanctimoniously lecture all of the people who have lost their jobs from the safe perch of stable employment.

[jayfish]

10. More Trickle-Down BS.

Get rid of all the good jobs so we can "supply" new jobs for tasks that don't even exist yet. Bra-fucking-vo. :toast:

Jay

[genieroze]

13. Up Yours MSNBC

[KharmaTrain]

14. Welcome To The Other Side...The Age Of Selfish

I know people who think like this, I deal with them all the time. Sadly, some of these started out as small business people like me, made a couple of bucks...or some inherited it from daddy, and only see dollars and cents not common sense.

We're a society that wants all the toys and for as cheap as we can get 'em. People will get outraged how American jobs have vanished yet will buy til they drop at a Wal-Mart or Best Buys or support the outsourcing through stock ownership...you only see the profits, never how the sausage is made.

The other other side is with the growing number of our jobs...especially skilled ones...that go to these countries, it will then create a change in their societies that will then mean higher wages and working conditions...this is what happened in Europe, then Japan, Korean and Taiwan...and the reason why the corporates are now on the next tier. When this happens then either the jobs come back here or will they have set up their next cheap labor havens in the former Soviet Republics?

My .02 for whomever cares...

[enki23]

15. ooh, a steaming pile of bullshit

more competition between labor pools is leading to lower labor costs for capitalists worldwide. those with the capital to take advantage are realizing real economic gains. those without, the vast majority, are living in a world where the average value of their contribution to society is in decline.

if the actual goal were to raise the value of labor worldwide, to lift up living standards around the globe, it would be best accomplished by increasing the global reach of labor. increasing the global reach of capital without corresponding increases in the reach of labor organizations to counter it, however, has exactly the opposite effect when you consider the world economy as a whole. this isn't fucking communist propaganda, it's just fucking supply and demand. and they fucking know it.