Check it out! Asia Times: The rich world's disappearing jobs

[devilgrrl]

Hope this isn't a dupe...


Asia Times: The rich world's disappearing jobs

The rich world's disappearing jobs
By John Berthelsen and Indrajit Basu

If the North American Free Trade Act passes, "you will hear a giant sucking sound of jobs going south of the border". - H Ross Perot, 1992

In the developed world and particularly in the United States, the scope of jobs disappearing overseas is widening beyond all imagining, to professions that almost nobody expected to be hit, and with far higher incomes than anybody thought possible as globalization bonds with the law of unintended consequences.

The catalyst is the Internet. As instant communication becomes more ubiquitous, the developed world's white-collar professions, from CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing) to accounting to medicine to architecture to aircraft design to research and development to engineering to equity research and financial management to knowledge management to revenue-cycle management - a whole panorama of high-income employment - are inexorably going.

The impact on American and European society is inevitably going to be far more profound than almost anyone understands today. It is already responsible for major positive changes in the living standards of the middle class in other parts of the world.

The United States currently accounts for as much as 70 percent of the world's "outsourcing", as it is called, or sometimes offshoring. McKinsey & Co, the international consulting firm, projects that the flight of jobs offshore to developing countries will grow by 30-40 percent a year over the next five years. By the highest estimates, as many as a million jobs have disappeared overseas from the US job market since the current economic slowdown began in 2000 and could represent a major reason for the struggle the US economy is undergoing to right itself.

more: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EJ08Df03.html

[Maple]

1. Yes, globalization

will cause years of displacement until everything settles down in a new order.

Much like it did for blacksmiths, and buggy whip makers when the car was invented.

Or like it did for Ned Lud when weaving machines were invented.

Once in place though, it will bring new prosperity to everyone, just like it did in the last two switchovers...but EVERYone this time, not just rich countries.

[LiberalBushFan]

2. oh really?

Replacing regulated work environments with unregulated third-world sweatshops will bring prosperity to everyone? Please.

[Robin Hood]

3. Non sense.

As soon as India gets upity and forms Unions and demands rights and environmental protections, they will come and save the bitter third wolrd of the United States of America. Then all will be good again until we get upity etc...

This is ridiculous. I would rather tell these companies, that if they want to ship their jobs off shore, than they better be able to sell their crap offshore, cause they can't sell it here. We as a nation have too much to offer just to give it away like we have been.

[jpgray]

5. Your grasp of history is as powerfully obtuse as your grasp of economics

It won't bring prosperity to the average American. It also won't bring prosperity to the person who receives the outsourced job--witness the bad conditions in India for outsourced tech support people. It will bring prosperity to corporations. That prosperity will likely manifest itself by adding to the already 41,100% more a CEO in this country earns compared to his average employee. :) As I pointed out earlier, Europe has a much lower proportion, on the order of merely 2,400% or 1,800%. But I'm glad you think we should give jobs to countries where they have little standards for working conditions--it's our fault for wanting to remain healthy and earn a living wage, right? So people in this country whose job is outsourced are at fault for wanting basic health and safety standards? For wanting those things they should be denied their job, because oppressed peoples elsewhere who are willing to work without them? We shouldn't get either--that's what you mean? :)

The worst part is, since the cheap labor is good for profits, those countries have a vested interest in maintaining low labor standards. Great system you have there Maple!

[sweetheart]

9. a new republican order of mass poverty

what nonsense...

maple leaf, dropping off in the october frost i see... ;-)

The least common denominator in a labour free flight world is poverty and industrial slavery. You know like huge massive cubicle floors where call centre operators are crammed in "escaping poverty" in to slavery... keeping it all offshore in nation states where civil rights do not support much of a social contract, so the broken people accept the slavery deal much more readily than those uppity folk in western nations like uz... and a nice low tax government that will give those good business plantation owners lottsa freebies. Its all so empire and slave state ...

Maple is one of those mindless vichy democrats that sold the shop out long ago and sent the kids off to the labour camp with a comment like that ...it begs explanation how a free for all chicago business school "liberal" can claim any heritage in true liberalism. The bathwater is long gone with the baby. "free trade" totally discounts any social contract. Free capital and labour sloshing about the planet leaves us all reduced to poverty without fair-trade-enforcement and compliance.

Perhaps maple when you get laid off tomorrow and your partner does too, and you realize that you're unemployable within 10,000 miles of where you live... you'll grasp a new sort of economic feudalism ... that a serf might be ordered "denied food" within 100 miles of the villiage... similarly, eh? Uncomfortably, you suddenly discover that no amount of education or kudos will get you fair pay, so you and your spouse get to work at macdonalds and dennys in double shifts to pay the rent... and forget retirement, that is for bush administration members only... but hey, its not all bad, think of those macdonald employee free meals... you lucky sot.

[nolabels]

10. As a person that works in transportation, I can tell we have reached

the end already, Peak oil is here and moving shit all over the globe to chase cheap labor is starting to bite every country in the ass. Many people are hip to what these folks are trying to do and are throwing wrenches in the machinery so others can run ahead and stop these machines that. The biggest thing we have now is a revolution in communications and its getting better all the time.

Much of the rest of the world has also been getting poorer by the day. The World bankers have it the worst, because there is going to be a big failure of banks soon (they have mostly run out of people to steal from). They have been staving of the failure for some time now, and it’s just a matter of time for they run out gimmicks and places to bury the bad debts

[JHB]

13. Remind us what weaving-machine owners did for Ned Lud...

...to make sure he could feed his family and keep a roof over their heads during the years until things "settled down"?

Not a damn thing! THAT is the main problem.

Supposedly flexibility and updating your skill base will be essential in the "new economy", yet its getting harder and more expensive for people to actually do that. And what does it do to democratic government when a few superstars have the leverage to boost their pay to astronomical levels, while everyone just below the cut has to scramble for crumbs?

It's a mistake to look at the Luddites as simply anti-technological fanatics. They were a symptom of major labor issues that were not being addressed.

Will those issues be addressed any better this time around? So far the answer seems to be "hell no".

[Mairead]

21. Here's what the weaving-machine owners did in Northumberland

I'm a four-loom weaver as many a one knows
I've nowt to eat and I've worn out my clothes
My clogs are outbroken and stockings I've none
You'd scarce give me tuppence for all I've got on

Old Billy O't Bent he kept telling me long
We might have better times if I'd nobbut hold my tongue
Well I've holden my tongue till I've near lost my breath
And I feel in my heart that I'll soon clem to death

I'm a four-loom weaver as many a one knows
I've nowt to eat and I've worn out my clothes
Old Billy's all reet, but he never were clem't
And he never picked ower in his life

We held on for six weeks, thought each day was oor last
We've tarried and shifted till now we're quite fast
We lived upon nettles while nettles were good
And Waterloo porridge was the best of our food

I'm a four-loom weaver as many a one knows
I've nowt to eat and I've worn out my clothes
My clogs are both broken, no looms to weave on
And I've woven myself tae t'far end.

(This song comes from the early days of industrialisation, the years immediately after Waterloo which, for most people who had spent their lives becoming skilled craftspeople, were years of economic hardship, low wages and high prices. The wealthy, of course, did very well. Weavers worked --when they could get work-- a fifteen-hour day for ten shillings a week if they were fortunate, four shillings if not; they were reduced to living on oatmeal and potatoes, onion porridge and watered milk, and hungry women roamed the moors looking for nettles to cook.)

[radwriter0555]

18. I agree with that 100%. I'm HOPING the order will turn back to the

community, so that people provide services and goods to each other. I was screeched at for saying this some time ago, but this globalization of work and labor is a natural order of business, trade and commerce.

It'll be all right. Those who will benefit most are the ones who stop keening, whining and caterwalling, and find their niche within in it. The ones who get left behind and stand by and allow themselves to be a victim can only blame themselves.

[skeptic9]

20. Maple--Your economic analysis is only PARTIALLY sound

Sure, the Econ 101 analysis of the "Edgeworth Box" shows that in a world of two econimic agents, there will be gains from trade to both sides in a wide variety of situations.But we live in a world of billions more than two economic agents. Sure, when the US trades with the rest of the world, US GDP most likely will rise in the long run, and foreign GDP most likely will go up too.

But there's no guarantee that the gains from trade will be distributed widely, eiher here or there. And, since we do not live under all-powerful socialism here in the US, and nobody else in the world lives under complete socialism either, you are just plain wrong when you say "EVERYONE" profits from international trade. The crowd backing Dubya may gain more than the collective losses to millions of workers who are continually displaced by globalization. But that's no consolation to the workers.

[mhr]

4. So What Are The Displaced Workers Supposed To Do

In the meantime?

We all can't work at Walmart nor does it make sense for us to do so.

I have two college degrees. Are you saying that I should go back to manual labor at my seasoned age? This is not an option physically.

I guess what you are saying is that I should just resign myself to death and not bother anyone.

[juajen]

6. If you feel this way,

I hope you are planning to vote DENNIS KUCINICH in the primaries. He is the only candidate that wants to repeal NAFTA. I love Bill Clinton, but putting this into place without serious safeguards was a big mistake. Of course, if he had, I guess * would have destroyed that initiative as he has so many others.

[mhr]

8. Dennis Is My Man!

Go Dennis Go!

[jpgray]

7. Maple says be patient! You only get screwed until the world is perfect!

It's a great plan--bound to work! Why, those countries will just become as good as ours, the corporations will then happily accept paying more and having good health and safety standards out of the goodness of their hearts! You be a good citizen, and take it in the ass until the whole world marketplace is perfectly stabilized!

(perhaps the most sarcastic post I've ever made here)

[retread]

11. Good One! You forgot to mention the part where they are

throwing flowers at our feet. Oh wait, wrong story. Sometimes I forget which fairy tale we're on.

[bpilgrim]

25. lol

ah... a more PERFECT union ;->

peace

[radwriter0555]

19. What did the weavers, smiths and farriers do?

They adapted, learned new trades. They progressed.

[Lars39]

22. But did they have to spend thousands of dollars they couldn't afford

in order to retrain themselves?

[Mairead]

23. They died, is what they did!

[izzie]

12. Very interesting and did we have this talk with the carriage trade?

My great great grandfather was in that busness my father was in the record/music box business. I think both are gone and the family goes on.You move with the times. Once you stand still some one steps on you and I guess we are getting stepped on. If no one can buy a car the price comes down so they can or they do not make them. I can sell painting for 100 some places but only 25 other places. You just learn to live with it.

[union_maid]

14. Changes in technology are not really comparable to this

The major change in technology that's driving our problems is that jobs are portable and can be outsourced. Carriage making ended an car manufacturing replaced it. Lots of upheaval there I'm sure. This, however is different. Jobs that still are being done, are not being done here, by Americans. They are not being replaced by other job, but rather have been sent away to be done more cheaply elsewhere. There's a huge world of difference.

[izzie]

16. I see your point and believe you are right.

It is like the Mex painting they bring in to the country and I have no way to counter that do I? They are 10 times as cheap and bigger in size and painted by groups and copied from painters in this country which are originals.Well I have known artist that have sold their originals and made money that way but this is a problem.Do not trade with them? Now I just do not know and will need to think more about this as I was thinking of it wrong.

[davekriss]

17. Yours is a key point

You make a key point that should not be lost in the debate. This is not an industrial revolution, an instance of creative destruction yielding new product and new markets that make all our lives better. It's just plain destruction. Destruction of the bargaining power of vast swaths of the lower and middle classes in first world economies. And this destruction is partly due to the acquiesance of these classes to the mythologies (propaganda) of capitalism.

Wherever the democratic will is withdrawn, corporations rush in to claim their stake. Privatize water, for f***'s sake, so some individual shareholders can skim profit from every sip you take! The corporate world is therefore only too willing to fund political candidates and consolidate a choir of media that say "government very bad ... we want you to keep your money ... what's good for <substitute favorite transnational> is good for America." And it labels anyone who disagrees a "terrorist".

The U.S., which represents 6% of the world's population, consumes about 30% of its resources. The vision of a rising standard of living outside the U.S. does smack of "economic justice" and "equality". But anyone thinking justice is what is happenning is living in a dream world. Insofar as the workers of the world compete on price alone (even high-tech jobs have now become commoditized), its a race to the bottom, a race to see which nation can impoverish its workforce fastest. And for the gain of the investor class. The gains to be had are not shared outside this class. Instead, they exclusively enjoy the fruits of lower worker wages. Just a shame that these cost reductions mean so much hardship for so many. But that's not their concern when "managing for shareholder value".

The only way out is expression of democratic will. Fair trade, not "free" trade. Policies that set the rules of the game that equalizes disparities in standard of living, workplace safety, and quality of life. What, product made in country "x" is made by workers under the age of 12? Who work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week? Impose an equalizing tariff, in this case punitive tariff, because that is not the kind of "economic justice" any of us should wish upon the world.

But, note, how the magistrates of capital have cleverly ceded soverignty over the years to NAFTA, the WTO, and other NGO organizations. Can't tariff in that manner, they'd say, NAFTA won't allow it. Unfair trade practice, ya know...

[Mairead]

24. And remember that 'individual shareholders' are NOT us!

The wealthiest 10% in the US own 85% of all shares no matter whether held directly or indirectly via, e.g., mutual funds. That means 85% of ALL corporate profit goes into the pockets of that wealthiest 10%.

We should keep that in mind: 85% of all corporate profit goes to the same hyperwealthy few.

[bushclipper]

15. One of them was my son's!