Who is to blame for outsourcing?

[TheFarseer]

This crap about Chrysler manufacturing a car in China got me thinking.

[Swamp Rat]

1. CEO politicians like Dickhead Cheney.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Once The Pols Legalize It, Corporations Have To Do It

As soon as one did it, the others had to follow to compete. The typical US consumer started making less, because their was less demand for US workers - so they now had no choice but to buy foreign-made goods.

Shame on the politicians - like Edwards and both Clintons - who pushed permanent 'free' trade with China. There could be no outcome other than a tremendous loss of jobs and lowering of wages.

[yes2truth]

3. Can't blame CEOs for acting on their greed

Congress has a duty to protect and advance the interests of ALL Americans -- including those that lack the clout that comes with large campaign donations to politicians and high-priced lobbyists.

[CitizenLeft]

8. yes you can, LOL

I knew the guy who actively initiated and promoted outsourcing with the large company I used to work for. He moved up from being an assistant programmer to the head of a whole department devoted to dissolving whole divisions of worker jobs. I thought he was a "nice guy." Turns out he was a heartless prick. People who were his friends lost their jobs, and he didn't bat an eye. Literally shrugged his shoulders and said, "oh well, sucks to be you." As long as he had his nice big house in suburbia - one he bought with the huge salary he was paid to implement outsourcing - his blood money - he didn't give a shit what happened to anybody else. Corporate America is infested with people like this. They find them out, and pay them well. They're like asshole-magnets. As long as there are companies that hold their employees to be expendable, there will be heartless pricks like this who don't even lose sleep over it. It's easy to blame the company, or Congress. But when you can put a face to the person who controls the lives of thousands of people, it's another story.

[Captain Angry]

4. When a consumer buys on price alone, costs will be cut.

Very very few companies are able to maintain a price level to maintain a quality level.

Everyone else will see the average global consumer buying the cheapest priced item. Some people will buy brand, but those brands have all outsourced to get a piece of the market for lowest price.

CEOs and corporations are supposed to return the highest profit possible, and one method is to lower costs.

Chrysler isn't making a car in China. Chery has been making cars in China for some time. Chrysler is going to buy them and paint the Chrysler logo on them. This is the logical extension of a company that won't do anything radical on their own. They have some of the nicer looking American vehicles, but I believe that most of those designs were from the German side when they were still part of Daimler.

[SoCalDem]

5. It's a chicken-egg issue

Greedy bosses wanted to eliminate unions and good paying jobs. Remember when "machines & robots" would "free" us all from mundane tedious jobs? Well the flip-side is that tedious & dull as those jobs may have been, they provided paychecks to people.

As labor-saving machines cut work forces and unions got busted to smithereens, it did not take greedy bosses long to figure out that they could save even more if they kept cutting out employees. And at some point, technology advances and pollution control regulations gave them an additional dilemma...upgrade/build new facilities or move where it's cheaper and there are no regulations..

Guess what they chose?

Once the jobs started leaving in mass quantities, it spilled over into every arena, and workers no longer had much choice at all.. Bosses hold all the face cards in this game. Some have literally life & death control over their employees via health care coverage, so of course employees give back and give back and give back.. they forego raises to keep the boss happy and to keep their jobs...and they can be gone in an instant if the boss gets a big enough offer to sell out and sell off..

Employees are cogs in a wheel..nothing more..

As wages decline & costs go up relentlessly, people MUST have cheaper & cheaper products to even FEEL middle class, so of course that only makes MORE companies look for outsourced(cheaper) labor..

It's an endless spiral...downward..

At this point, short of a total or near-total ban of imported goods, I don't see how we can ever re-create the self-sufficiency we once had in manufacturing.

We were all sold out for $2 plastic flip-flops & $10 knock-off jeans..

[The2ndWheel]

14. The whole system of production, exactly

It will consume Europe too, they're just able to keep the problem pushed into the future for now. When that population keeps aging, and they continue to have issues with integrating the immigrants that they'll need more and more(like America with Mexicans), then there will be some fun days of following the news.

As long as production is the primary purpose of existence, there really can't be any other outcome.

[natrat]

6. didn't outsourcing begin with our beloved bigdog's nafta? sarcasm

[MonkeyFunk]

7. No

[sam sarrha]

9. there are corporations that go door to door spinning /lying about/ the benefits of outsourcing.. but

china is unstable and on the verge of environmental collapse, the rivers will dry up cause the overgrazed the grasslands that collect and slowly distribute the water into the rivers..year round. that is not going to happen anymore as erosion destroys that ecosystem system. there will be massive famine and starvation. massive migrations to India and elsewhere// incursion of hundreds of chinese into india will result in nuclear war. and then we are all screwed

all the industries cut up and shipped in containers that brought cheap poisonious shit here takes our factories back to china in pieces.. they are not coming home.

[TheFarseer]

10. some of that I could agree with

but you lost me at "nuclear war"

Yes, the rat poison laced and lead based 'products' needs to stay in China.

[sam sarrha]

11. the rivers in China are doomed to dry up soon.. there WILL BE FAMINE, famine is when people move out

to where there is food and water or die.. the only place they can go is india after they fill up burma and the adjacent SE asian countries.. so when half a billion people or more go on the move what is going to stop them.

when the drought hits mexico are we going to machine gun them at the boarder.. 10 of millions of people from the southern americas will move north and we will be in our own starvation situation.. we cant take them in, and there will be a lot of canadians if the ocean currents stop and it freezes up canada.. when china goes into chaos where will be get shoes, coats, food, the machinery for farming food, the machines to make the tools we need to make the machines we sent them and cant get back.. do we even have functional steel mill anymore, or the foundries to deal with the steel

[treestar]

12. Immigration restrictions

We have to stop them from coming here so they can be employed over there.

[Sanctified]

13. Americans are too blame.

Everyone should make every attempt to buy local, not just in the USA but buy stuff made in your city and state. Americans should also be shopping local for services, keep your money in your community don't reward some giant chain in some other state or country who could care less if your city prospers or dies.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Capitalism.

The corporations need to be competitive to survive. If they don't keep growing they start dying. To do so, they must seek cheaper labor and resources to compete with the other corporations that are doing the same.

The politicians and public are, at best, bystanders to the holders of the real power in the world. At worst, they are the victims of the all-powerful corporations who are only trying to survive.