Outsourcing Foes 'Less Than Thrilled' With Obama

[OhioChick]

Dec 9, 2008 09:45 AM


Many opponents of offshoring, the process by which IT and other jobs are shipped to low-cost countries like India, have blamed the GOP for supposedly selling out the American worker. But there's evidence that Team Obama won't act much differently.

The fact is, President-Elect Barack Obama's economic advisory board is stocked with major players from the tech world and other industries that rely heavily on outsourcing. It's all there in an interesting blog post this morning by Wall Street Journal reporter William Bulkeley.

Team members include former Treasury Secretary and Citigroup director Robert Rubin, Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) chairman Richard Parsons, and Xerox (NYSE: XRX) CEO Anne Mulcahy, not to mention Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffet. Collectively, these individuals have controlled or advised companies that have outsourced tens of thousands of U.S. jobs.

"We're less than thrilled" about Obama's picks, WashTech spokeswoman Priyanka Josh tells Bulkeley. WashTech, a Seattle-based chapter of the Communications Workers of America, has long fought against outsourcing by Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and other tech companies in the Northwest.

I find this all, at the very least, ironic. In numerous blogs I've tried to make the point that outsourcing, or globalization, or whatever you wish to call the Flat World phenomenon, is inevitable--and that IT pros in this country need to add business and management skills to their technical knowledge if they want to stay employed.

That doesn't mean I'm for outsourcing, or against it. It simply means that, after extensive reporting on the subject and speaking to thousands of tech workers, executives and vendors over the years, I'm convinced that there's no going back to IT isolationism. Fortran America, let's call it, is dead. That's because outsourcing is now an entrenched business practice at virtually every major U.S. company and billions have been invested in the creation of global supply and communications networks.

Still, some of my more polite critics have dismissed me as nothing more than a PR man for the GOP. Others have voiced opinions that are unprintable. And many predicted that the tide would turn as soon as Bush and Co. left office.

Can't say I blame them. Obama the campaigner mouthed predictable rhetoric about protecting American jobs and punishing companies that ship work offshore. But campaigning and governing are two different things, as the President-Elect is starting to realize.

This is hardly a time to put neophytes in control of the economy, and Obama, to his credit, now appears to be adding a pragmatic note to "Change We Can Believe In" and "Yes We Can." That note says, "Whoa, let's not go crazy here." His key leadership picks, which include experienced business executives who have decided outsourcing equals efficiency, reflect that temperance.

This may come as a disappointment to those who hoped that Obama's first 100 days would see application development centers in India and South America shuttered and IBM (NYSE: IBM) executives jailed for treason. But it's surely a relief to CIOs who feared lost access to low-cost IT talent at a time when revenue is drying up.

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/12/outsourcing_foe.html

:grr:

[blue97keet]

1. inevitable? Oh really?

To those that wish to describe the "outsourcing, or globalization, or whatever you wish to call the Flat World phenomenon" as inevitable--, let them explain why "globalization" requires aggressive contentious agenda pushing, and rules and tribunals and tons of legal mumbo jumbo, and invasive super government like the WTO, and bickering and rock throwing and rioting anytime there is a trade summit anywhere in the world. This is not like water running down hill. This is like towing an 18-wheeler up an icy mountain road with a Ford Escort.

[Skittles]

2. big surprise

[OhioChick]

3. If he shuns tech workers...

He'll never get their votes again in 4 years. He made promises....

[Skittles]

4. I don't think he gives a fuck about us

whenever he talks about those millions of jobs he's gonna create he never mentions keeping the ones we already HAVE here

[OhioChick]

6. It's pissing me off, too. n/t

[Deja Q]

13. Time will tell.

But he's not even in office yet.

[antigop]

5. Hell, we could have voted for sHillary and gotten the same result. n/t

[OhioChick]

7. No shit. So much for "Change."

More like the "same old, same old."

[Azlady]

8. Ohhhhhhhhhhh

I am so hoping this is wrong, those jobs need to come back to us, it was one of his promises to US!

[Skittles]

9. I WAS NOT A HILLARY SUPPORTER

is that your standard asshole response to any criticism of the saviour Obama?

[antigop]

11. Geez, please calm down. I NEVER supported sHIllary.

I made numerous posts about her support for outsourcing and increases in the h1-b visa cap.

I never supported the DLC and stated so many times on DU.

[Cha]

28. You say you weren't a Hillary supporter..

okay..then you were just everything anti-Obama. And, here you are, still bitter.

[Deja Q]

12. Assuming the worst case scenario is correct, will it matter?

Of course, we were all saying the same things if Bush won in 2000 and again in 2004.

I don't think the future can genuinely be predicted after a certain extent, and over-analyzing could be considered worse.

[OhioChick]

15. Sure it'll matter.

If Obama goes back on his word regarding the "outsourcing of jobs, etc.", many at my place of employment have already said that they'd vote Independent in the next Election.

Many already feel that the Democrats are no different than the Republicans.

We shall see....

[Deja Q]

10. I'm not expecting total protectionism,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=367x14396


but he has to see or at least tell the country how offshoring is going to put our economy to rights again.

A wait-and-see approach and, yes, right now the last thing needed is to make too many rapid changes without thought or input.

Trouble is, a nation of 300 managers? Forgive me, but:

:spray:

[OhioChick]

14. I call BS on the "skills shortage"

I know of many that have the knowledge and skills, yet were handed pink slips and replaced.

I agree with you on the manager issue....hell, I have 5 right now. It's ridiculous.

[Larkspur]

16. I was laid off last month and I can tell you that adding business and management skills

to your resume won't help get a new IT job. My company laid off managers too. My duties were taken over by a Patni contractor from India who is here on an H-1B visa. I don't blame him for this problem. I blame the corporate managerial culture that wants to drive workers to the bottom. The layoffs were about 1 thing -- bottom line savings. Most of us who were laid off last month had been there for 10 years or more. I was there just under 13 years. There did not seem to be much thought in how laying us off would affect the systems and/or environments we supported. We did get a decent severance package, but so far job prospects are non-existent for me.

[antigop]

18. Good luck to you, Larkspur. Hope you find something soon. n/t

[Azlady]

21. Hope you find something soon Larkspur -

I am trying to do all I can to keep my dream alive that an end in sight for the bleeding of our jobs. I agree it isn't about the person filling our positions that are H1b's/outsourced/visa workers, it is about the corporate all mighty bottom line. Arrggghhh

[blue97keet]

24. If anybody has direct knowledge of (Pfizer)

the replacement of American workers with H-1Bs at Pfizer in Connecticuit contact [e-mail]. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) wants to to another GAO study (despite the fact that other studies have been ignored)about the impact of the H-1B program rather than introduce any action on the issue.

[sledgehammer]

17. Yahoo to sack 1,500; hire in India

**********

SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo Inc will tell 1,500 employees on Wednesday they are losing their jobs, after announcing in October that layoffs would occur by year's end, a person familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

...

Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said in October Yahoo would be prepared to cut jobs and other expenses further in 2009 if the economy continued to deteriorate.

Yahoo will cut its workforce in high-cost markets and hire aggressively in lower-cost locales such as Eastern Europe, India and Southeast Asia, the company has said.

**********

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Yahoo_to_sack_1500_hire_in_India/articleshow/3816902.cms?TOI_latestnews

[acmavm]

19. I guess it's time to dump Yahoo.

[amandabeech]

20. I had serious doubts about Obama's commitment to American jobs right from the start.

As soon as Austan Goolsbee's name came out as an economic advisor, I thought that there was trouble.

I look at his current team, and see little hope for reductions in off shoring, H-1Bs and countering trade barriers overseas.

It's just going to be more of the same.

So frequently now, I just feel like my country and my party have left me, and all I want to do is to return to a home that's not there anymore.

Even my mom, who is even more patriotic than I, said recently that she wished her ancestors had stayed in Sweden. That's really, really surprising.

[AdHocSolver]

22. Outsourcing is killing the "real" economy. If not reversed, the US will become a banana republic.

When people are out of a job, they don't spend money. When people don't spend money (that they don't have), then to whom do these "brilliant" corporate executives think they are going to sell their imported Chinese crap or their imported Indian software? Martians?

There are two "economies". The "real" economy and the "fictional" economy.

The "real" economy is the one that consists of the exchange of goods and services. This includes manufacturing companies, department stores, supermarkets, medical clinics, and so forth.

The "fictional" economy plays with "imaginary numbers". This includes the stock market, the DOW, the Federal Reserve, and gambling casinos. Of the latter, the most honest of the group, that is, the least rigged, are the gambling casinos.

The "real" economy is in trouble, not because of the stock market, nor the DOW, nor the games being played by the Fed. The real economy is in trouble because of the offshoring of jobs and the fact that this country imports most of its goods and services. This has created huge trade deficits and fuels the federal deficit (foreign workers don't pay U.S. income taxes).

The corporate executives, like the idiots who run the American auto companies, "live" in the fictional economy. They know how to manipulate the companies that they control to make themselves rich beyond avarice. They are stupid when it comes to macroeconomics.

While a single company can come out ahead by using cheap foreign labor to increase profits, when a majority of companies use the same strategy, they wind up impoverishing their potential U.S. customers. GM's solution to this dilemma is to build factories in China and Brazil and to create markets in those countries to sell cars there.

GM's Buick factory in China is doing very well in selling cars to a new Chinese middle class and making profits for GM. The bailout they are seeking from U.S. taxpayers (while there are still some Americans working and paying taxes) is to subsidize building factories in China and Brazil.

The coming U.S. depression is going to occur, NOT because of problems in the stock market, but because of the loss of jobs in the U.S. due primarily to the outsourcing of jobs and the enormous trade and government deficits created by the loss of jobs. An economic depression is simply when people stop exchanging goods and services.

If Obama is serious about healing the economy, then he should make it a priority to reverse the policies and practices of the last 25 years that made it profitable and easy to offshore jobs. This means "renegotiating" NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and all of the other corporate cartel agreements that make offshoring fun and profitable.

Obama must also remake the Federal Reserve to serve the entire economy, not to just be a profit machine for a handful of aristocrats. The government must also rewrite the tax code to close loopholes that allow corporations and the wealthy to avoid paying taxes. Laws such as Glass-Steagall must be reinstituted to prevent the kind of speculation we experienced with the mortgage markets.

Finally, applicable laws must be rewritten to make it harder for corporations to import cheap labor that take American jobs.

In short, Obama has to make changes that will make it much more difficult for corporations to play the kind of confidence games on the American people that brought us the economic collapse. A healthy American economy with Americans having good paying jobs (these goals go together) must take precedence over maximizing corporate profits.

[ixion]

23. well said...

:applause:

We have to return to making things (including software) right here. Bringing off-shored jobs back is the one thing we can do right now that will help the economy. Throwing money at the problem in the form of handouts, er, "bailouts" will only make matters worse.

We need localized manufacturing, farming and technology industries, the sooner the better.

[OhioChick]

27. Great Post, AdHocSolver!

You hit the nail on the head with all that you said! :thumbsup:

[Locrian]

25. more free market leg humping BULLSHIT

And for gods sake the world is not freaking FLAT! It's round, as in "what goes a-round comes a-round! :)


Go HERE for a real expose on what Globalism means:

The World is Flat? by Ronald Aronica and Mtetwa Ramdoo
http://www.mkpress.com/Flat/

"Globalization is the greatest reorganization of the world since the Industrial Revolution." Aronica and Ramdoo assert that, "The world isn't flat as a result of globalization, it's tilted in favor of unfettered global corporations that exploit cheap labor in China, Indian and beyond. Today's global corporations go to the ends of the earth to employ factory workers for 20 cents an hour and PhDs in science and technology for $20,000 a year."

I think Bill Moyers' recent talk (January, 2007) was especially telling, "Then there's the social cost of free trade. For over a decade, free trade has hovered over the political system like a biblical commandment striking down anything: trade unions, the environment, indigenous rights, even the constitutional standing of our own laws passed by our elected representative that gets in the way of unbridled greed. The broader negative consequences of this agenda, increasingly well-documented by scholars, gets virtually no attention in the dominant media. Instead of reality, we get optimistic, multicultural scenarios of coordinated global growth. And instead of substantive debate we get a stark formulated choice between free trade to help the world and gloomy-sounding protectionism that will set everyone back."

[AdHocSolver]

26. The irony is that "free trade" does not exist. Trade is controlled by corporate cartel agreements.

Again, the corporate monopolies have redefined economic terms to confuse the public.

The term "free trade" implies that NO sellers and NO buyers in a given market can control and manipulate either the supply or demand, and therefore prices, within a given market.

The oil cartels, OPEC, NAFTA, the IMF, the World Bank, and the Federal Reserve, among others, preclude the existence of free markets and free trade. All corporate activity is designed to prevent competition and hence PREVENT free markets and free trade.

Only the public's ignorance of basic economics allows them to get away with this economic fraud.

For informational purposes, I have a degree in economics.