CorpGovMedia tippy toes around the outsourcing of America

[cryofan]

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"Corporate America's Silent Partner: India
Businesses are off-shoring more and more white-collar jobs there, though you won't hear them talk about it much in an election year. "
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comment: Gee, I wonder why? Maybe they are afraid we might elect someone whose lips are not glued to CEO butts

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Yet it's still very hard to get these companies to talk in the U.S. about the increasingly important role India is playing in their business models. For BusinessWeek's Dec. 8 cover story, "The Rise of India," only a few BW 1,000 corporations were brave enough to grant on-the-record interviews about their R&D and back-office operations. They included General Electric (GE ), Intel (INTC ), and Cummins (CMI ).
....


Corporate America won't be able to stay silent forever, though. Globalization of white-collar work is an irreversible mega-trend that's only starting to hit full force. The massive facilities being built in India under the radar screen will soon be blindingly obvious. More important, the economic payoff of off-shoring business processes and a portion of R&D can be so enormous that even reluctant corporations will have little choice but to follow suit to stay competitive. If a major info-tech, insurance, telecom, or banking company doesn't disclose any back-office center in India, Wall Street will soon start asking, "Why not?"
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comment: THey have to get a little TINA (There Is No Alternative) propaganda in there, dontcha know....


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LOBBYING CONGRESS. I suspect companies will be more open about white-collar off-shoring not long after next year's U.S. Presidential election. By then, foment in Washington for protectionist policies will likely abate. If, on the other hand, the economy falters and the political backlash intensifies beyond 2004, Congress might introduce legislation to curtail off-shoring.
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comment: Translation: once CorpGovMedia makes sure a lackey is in the White House, the Rape of America begins in earnest....

The rest is here:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2003/nf20031215_8942_db046.htm

[david_vincent]

1. The Indian middle class

is bigger than the entire U.S. population, and has been for several years.
So their middle class is growing quickly - guess what's happening to ours?

[Deja Q]

10. Target, Wal-mart, the supermarket, Petco, et al

Retail stores.

They always seem to be hiring, these big retail stores...

They also use pshycological profile tests and run them through a computer to determine who the bad people are, even though the people trying to get the jobs may just be eccentric and otherwise damn useful.

And as I've never been able to pass these tests, I see my future life as being homeless at best, dead worst. And I refuse to be homeless.

[pasadenaboy]

2. You have to hand it to Lou Dobbs

even though he is a conservative, he mentions this every night and lists the companies who are outsourcing jobs. Even though I think he is wrong on the issues, I respect him.

[PackedForPerth]

3. Free trade...

Free trade is what this is all about. When you get free trade prices of commodities and services asymptotically approach a world average. Is anybody surprised? You can build a big wall around your special little part of the world and watch while your economy stagnates and the rest of the world passes you by. China and India played this game for years before they got smart. If we try protectionism we'll stagnate just like they did. :)

[cryofan]

4. many of the EU countries are protectionist as hell....

...and their average citizens have it better than our average citizen....

Oh, but wait, they don't have as many billionaires and millionaires as us, so therefore America is so much greater than they are....

[PackedForPerth]

5. yes...

many of the EU countries are protectionist as hell....

...and their economies are stagnating...

[Jim Sagle]

6. Free trade ain't nuthin' but shit.

[cryofan]

7. You are missing the point

of course, the EU social democracies' economies are not as dynamic (or whatever) as America's economy. However, the economy is not the most important thing when it comes to quality of life. The lives of the citizens of most EU countries (or at least half of them) do not depend as heavily on the vagaries of the economy as do our own.

There is really only so much I can say; you will have to do your own research, such as reading these URLs:

http://www.american-pictures.com/english/racism/articles/welfare.htm


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Economics/AmericanProsperityMyth.html

http://www.geocities.com/kew1788/SocialDemocracy.htm
http://www.geocities.com/kew1788/TakeBackNation.htm

http://maxspeak.org/gm/archives/00000791.html

http://geocities.com/aufheben2/stc_intro

http://faculty.insead.fr/fatas/econ/Articles/Chasing%20the%20Leader.htm

http://post.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2001papers/HIER1933.pdf

http://www.mylinuxisp.com/~cryofan/

[PackedForPerth]

9. sure thing...

However, the economy is not the most important thing when it comes to quality of life. The lives of the citizens of most EU countries (or at least half of them) do not depend as heavily on the vagaries of the economy as do our own.

Well, if you're already well entrenched in a job you're okay in Europe. The problem is that if you're not, you're screwed. Nobody wants to create permanent positions, and this includes EU ministries, because of the parasitic cost of financing them. A young French friend of mine works in EU headquarters in and around the offices that Chris Patten keeps. He makes $700/month and has a firm job until the end of March. That sucks. That's also the EU through and through. I'm trying to talk him into emigrating to the US. Not meeting much resistance, either. :(

Another 39 year old friend of mine in Munich was just able to afford to get married a few years ago. No kids yet, if ever. His wife's parents are established and are helping the "young couple" finance a flat so that they can move out of the dripping, moldy basement apartment they presently have.

Pretending that the European "social democracies" are models for America is a suicical stance for any American political movement to make. All that has to happen is for the media to go in and show what is really going on and you wind up looking like a dimwit. It's like holding up the Canadian medical delivery system as a model for US practice. It isn't working nearly well enough for anyone to emulate.

When you talk about "quality of life" in the EU you're talking about people who have latched onto a permanent position and held on for dear life for 20+ years. That's people my age (mid-50's) or older. It sucks for the young.

[Myra]

8. The US economy ain't doin' too good, in spite of bogus numbers

Do you think the US unemployment number accurately reflect the US
unemployment rate? I'm pretty sure they don't; they're lower
than the real unemployment rate, counting people who have fallen
off of unemployment etc.

In addition, the US unemployment numbers routinely omit
the large percentage of poor people who are convicted of felonies,
fairly or unfairly, and/or in prison. This tends to eliminate
huge numbers of African Americans, and it's clearly a strategy
of the right wingers to exclude a large block of, traditionally
Dem, votes.

Tho' it's not a fashionable subject for the mainstream media
to mention, and not a fashionable subject for most Dem
pols to take on, I would imagine that if the number of unemployed
was calculated to include the invisible group victimized by our
corrupt and racist criminal justice system, our numbers would
be much closer to Europe's.