42-56 million American jobs subject to outsourcing

[Elwood P Dowd]

<snip>

At a Brookings Institution conference in Washington, D.C., in January 2004, I predicted that if the pace of jobs outsourcing and occupational destruction continued, the U.S. would be a third world country in 20 years. Despite my regular updates on the poor performance of U.S. job growth in the 21st century, economists have insisted that offshoring is a manifestation of free trade and can only have positive benefits overall for Americans.

Reality has contradicted the glib economists. The new high-tech knowledge jobs are being outsourced abroad even faster than the old manufacturing jobs. Establishment economists are beginning to see the light. Writing in Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006), Princeton economist and former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder concludes that economists who insist that offshore outsourcing is merely a routine extension of international trade are overlooking a major transformation with significant consequences. Blinder estimates that 42-56 million American service sector jobs are susceptible to offshore outsourcing.3 Whether all these jobs leave, U.S. salaries will be forced down by the willingness of foreigners to do the work for less.


http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts09302006.html

[bdamomma]

1. that report is not so hopeful is it?

[Elwood P Dowd]

3. You will not sleep well tonight if you read this entire article

Only delusional and brainwashed repukes would discount the facts here. BTW, Paul Craig Roberts was Under Secretary Of Treasure under Ronald Reagan.

[porphyrian]

2. Stocks always go up when lots of workers get fired.

The economists aren't entirely wrong, just inhuman.

[Warpy]

4. Anything that doesn't require face to face contact or

transportation can be outsourced. That's scary.

The insurance giants are even outsourcing health care, sending people to India, Thailand, and several other countries because the plane fare is cheaper than the "US surcharge." Only routine, emergency and geriatric care will be resistant to outsourcing. Clerical work and some specialties like radiology that can be done online have already started to depart.

Unless they can persuade banks to issue funny money (multiple credit cards) forever, there is no way this economy can be sustained for long.

A collapse in the consumer market is way overdue, forestalled by double digit inflation in paper values of housing. Those days are over and the credit card giants are starting to get a little nervous.

At some point they'll have to start asking themselves where they think their customers are going to come from. This is still the largest market in the world and the rest of the world isn't enough to sustain all those offshored industries.

[Elwood P Dowd]

8. Hard times are coming

"A collapse in the consumer market is way overdue, forestalled by double digit inflation in paper values of housing. Those days are over and the credit card giants are starting to get a little nervous."

That's one reason they passed the Bankruptcy Act. They know the shit is about to hit the fan.

[JHB]

5. I guess this means economist have figured out...

...that THEIR jobs can be "offshored" too.

[fasttense]

6. They should outsource all those news anchor jobs.

I think a nice British or Indian accent would be nice compared to the voice of the likes of Katie Curic and the idiotic Fox commentators.

[RB TexLa]

7. Oh let's call the waaambulance "damn those poor non anglos, if they aren't

coming here to destroy the culture, they are trying to better themselves with a job there, damn them."

[Elwood P Dowd]

9. So you support this?

Fire the American workers, move the factory overseas, pay children 6.5 cents an hour, and treat them worse than prison inmates. You sound like the republicans during the NAFTA debate. They were actually calling people who opposed NAFTA racists.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 24, 2006
12:20 PM


CONTACT: National Labor Committee
Charles Kernaghan of National Labor Committee,
212-242-3002

Child Labor Is Back: Children Again Sewing Clothing for Wal-Mart, Hanes and Other U.S. Companies


NEW YORK - October 24 - The following was released today by the National Labor Committee (NLC) on child labor:

An estimated 200 children, some 11 years old or even younger, are sewing clothing for Hanes, Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney and Puma at the Harvest Rich factory in Bangladesh.

The children report being routinely slapped and beaten, sometimes falling down from exhaustion, forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day, even some all-night, 19- to 20-hour shifts, often seven days a week, for wages as low as 6 and a half cents an hour. The wages are so wretchedly low that many of the child workers get up at 5 a.m. each morning to brush their teeth using just their finger and ashes from the fire, since they cannot afford a toothbrush or toothpaste.

The workers say that if they could earn just 36 cents an hour, they could climb out of misery and into poverty, where they could live with a modicum of decency.

In the month of September, the children had just one day off, and before clothing shipments had to leave for the U.S., the workers were often kept at the factory 95 to 110 hours a week. After being forced to work a grueling all-night 19- to 20-hour shift, from 8 a.m. to 3 or 4 a.m. the following day, the children sleep on the factory floor for two or three hours before being woken to start their next shift at 8 a.m. that same morning.

The child workers are beaten for falling behind in their production goal, making mistakes or taking too long in the bathroom (which is filthy, lacking even toilet paper, soap or towels).

In 1996, after Charles Kernaghan and the National Labor Committee revealed that Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line for Wal-Mart was being made by 12 and 13-year-olds in Honduras, the resulting scandal and publicity was enough to virtually wipe out child labor in garment factories around the world producing for export to the U.S.

Exactly a decade after the Kathie Lee Gifford scandal, children are again sewing clothing for Wal-Mart, Hanes and other U.S. companies," said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee. "Children belong in school, not locked in sweatshops. Wal-Mart, Hanes and the other companies owe these children, and must now provide them with stipends to replace their wages and cover all necessary expenses to send them back to school."

Corporate monitoring has again proved a miserable failure, as Harvard Rich was certified by the U.S. apparel industry's Worldwide Responsibly Apparel Production (WRAP) monitoring group. Not only did the U.S. companies fail to notice the child workers, the beatings, the excessive mandatory overtime, but also that not one single worker in Harvest Rich was paid the correct overtime pay legally due them. Any worker daring to ask for their proper wages, or that their most basic legal rights be respected, would immediately be attacked, beaten and fired.

"Right now, more than 100 children at the Harvest Rich factory are being threatened with firing," says Kernaghan. "It is time for the U.S. companies to act immediately, today, to guarantee that this does not happen and that the children are returned to school."

[RB TexLa]

11. It's been shut down hasn't it?

on edit: forget the last part no need to carry the conversation on.

[mnhtnbb]

10. The economic collapse of the US is not far off. It will not be pretty.

[earth mom]

12. How long before having a college degree is worthless?

People haven't cared so much that the working class has been getting the shaft or that unions have been getting busted right and left because they "have a college degree" LA TE DA! :eyes:

Now, the tsunami is about to really hit those "college degree" white collar jobs and suddenly the loss of jobs is a problem. :wtf:

Well, the truth of the matter is we should all care about every single job that has been downsized, outsourced, insourced or undercut in some way. Because this is a class war where the rich are planning on taking ALL decent paying jobs be they white or blue collar-since, frankly my dear, they could give a damn! Anything to maximize that bottom line! :puke:

So take note: We are all on the same damn sinking ship! :grr:

[Greyhound]

13. Bachelors degrees are already worthless.

But don't worry, I'm all the off-shoring and H-1(b)/L-1 displacement will stop before those that support this abomination lose their lives... :sarcasm: