CIA report admits "Outsourcing" is a threat to middle class (what's left

[EVDebs]

of Western nations' middle classes that is).

See "The global outlook on outsourcing" by CNN's Lou Dobbs
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/28/world.outsourcing/index.html

""The report, from the Central Intelligence Agency's National Intelligence Council, is the first in its series to specifically mention outsourcing and to link it directly to the changing global landscape. The report also warns that outsourcing's growing role in globalization is detrimental to the middle classes in Western nations.""

Hey boys and girls, just like the CIA telling Bush & Co. that Saddam had no WMDs or ties to OBL, why.. the CIA is now telling the rightwingnuts that globalization and 'outsourcing' are killing jobs in this country ! No kidding ! And you know what ? Bush & Co. have already declared their undying support for the outsourcing of ANY kind of job, be it manufacturing OR service job, to further the goals of globalizing multinational corporations.

Prepare for the administrations disinformation campaign on this.

[Sandpiper]

1. It amazes me that Outsourcing has defenders on this board

The chief goal of outsourcing/globalization is to pit workers in different countries against one another in an effort to drive down wages world wide.

[sw04ca]

4. Well, it has it's uses...

...such as granting even our poor a lifestyle that their grandparents would have found unbelievable. Some outsourcing has worked very well for us.

However, it is undeniable that outsourcing absolutely threatens most of the middle class. The high-end manufacturing jobs are fleeing the country to Indonesia and China, while the tech sector, that was going to be the future of the post-industrial West, is moving quite comfortable into India. As it stands, our future is moving implacably towards a service economy, which is ultimately short-sighted on the part of the corporations that are outsourcing. After all, if Americans are all making Wal-Mart wages, who is going to buy the products they are manufacturing? At the low wages they pay in their new countries, the locals can't afford them. Europe's combination of unemployment and massive deficits will result in financial meltdown in the medium term. China is going to blow up unless it's financial system is massively reformed. About the only really stable economy out there is Japan, and even they would be hurt by reduced American and European consumerism.

It's a difficult question. Clearly, some outsourcing is essential. However, it seems that companies cannot be trusted to work in their long-term interests, as chief executives are becoming more and more concerned with the extremely short term.

However, like it or not, the Greatest Generation built a world that only lasted as long as they did. Like so many kingdoms of old, the heir is not what his father was, and under the stewardship of the Baby Boomers, the world they were born into is fading away into something else, something far less pleasant for most people. It's the way the world is going, and I don't think that it can really be resisted, no matter how much we'd like to. It's simply to big, even for 300 million Americans.

[leesa]

7. Of course...nothing could have been done differently. So what is this

lifestyle you find so amazing?? That we have electricity?

[EVDebs]

8. Our poor 'lifestyle' ? You mean the 'underclass' and the ones

living under bridges ? Yes, even our grandparents would find THAT unbelievable all right.

[sw04ca]

19. Well...

...they'd be amazed by the small numbers of the wretchedly poor, the cleanliness of the cities, and what not. But, I'm thinking more along the lines of the working poor, the people who scrape by.

Because things weren't that great for the working poor in the Edwardian world. And don't even get me started on the Victorian poor.

[EVDebs]

23. So your prescription is 'grow the underclass' in the US ? I think

being 'poor' in the US isn't something to be aspired toward...But you seem to think it's a good thing. Hmmmm.

More 'working poor' isn't a great idea IMHO.

Globalization is behind the immigration policies (basically leave the door open and bring the family, business won't check your legal status). It's artificially cheap to hire illegals and legal visa-holding 'shortterm' immigrants on H1Bs and L1s.

Check on some of the unreported costs of immigration at
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/checkup_datasheet.html
and you'll be amazed. This doesn't make the MSM because the corporate MSM doesn't want you to know and MSM benefits from that.

[sw04ca]

25. I didn't say that...

...I said that being poor in the US is a lot better in the 90s and naughts than being poor at any time before. Making more people poor won't help anything, but you have to recognize that they will still always be there, just as they always have been. And eliminating globalization won't help the existing poor. If anything, increased prices will lower their standard of living.

[EVDebs]

46. Since the poor will always be with us, your argument goes, we might

as well make a whole lot more of them 'since being poor in the US is a whole lot better ...' Stop and think about what you're saying. With unlimited immigration and visa programs like H1b and L1, already rife with fraud, we are increasing the ranks of the underclass and the poor. BASTA YA ! Enough ! Give the poor in the US a break rather than import poor from other countries to compete with our home-grown variety.

[mattclearing]

27. Just for the sake of extending a hand, I agree with you.

Now that I have my flame-proof suit on, I will say that outsourcing has its uses, and has made some worthwhile things possible.

Sadly, as you say, the greed of our business community has made the worst of it, and they are taking full control of our political system, making regulation that might mediate the greed factor all but impossible.

People here are annoyed that our wages are going to fall to make up an inability to compete internationally, but we have certainly increased wages elsewhere through outsourcing.

Many compare wages of globalized workers in other countries to wages here to make a point. However, they'd find that if they compared them to the wages paid those workers previously, they'd fared far better under their corporate management.

I think fighting for better labor standards internationally is something worth doing, and it's sad that we don't have the kind of leadership capable of that anymore.

More importantly, though, I think Democrats angry about globalization in general is kind of hypocritical. Set aside that corporations are using the phenomenon to benefit themselves in the short term.

The long-term effect of globalization is wage equality/comparability in the world.

Isn't that something you'd think Democrats and progressives would cheer?

[HughBeaumont]

32. Not when one middle class has to be destroyed to

benefit the others. Is that's what being suggested here?

Maybe you don't have a high cost of living to pay but we do. Maybe you like a society where you're immediately priced out of a career you love (or in most cases, the only thing someone's capable of doing) or you eventually have a whopping choice of eight things to do for a living (or starve), but we don't.

There isn't ANYTHING positive about offshoring for the American worker in the long term. It's an idea FOR the rich, BY the rich to BENEFIT the rich.

[mattclearing]

33. I live in Downtown DC. Needless to say, cost of living is high.

This is a typical view of someone who only cares about how something affects them.

I know that it will hurt western nations in the long term.

It will also help many people in third world countries.

It's kind of selfish to only think about how it affects Americans...we're not the only country on the planet.

And we are spectacularly spoiled by international standards.

So sorry, no pity for you. We can all do with a little less, myself included.

[HughBeaumont]

34. Oh fucking spare me. I'm not asking for pity, I'm asking for FAIRNESS.

Letting corporations have their way seventy-five fold will result in the devaluation of higher education and lowered wages. You tell me what Americans will do for a living while the high-tech positions leave. Don't think Joe Sixpack will be able to invent his way out of this one like he did 25 years ago when manufacturing started to leave for cheaper pastures.

And you'll be living with WAY less if corporations had their way. Don't be fooled by this "rising tide lifts all boats" stupidity.

If "spectacularly spoiled" means simple food, clothing and shelter, oh freaking well. The reason no one works for 20k a year here is because we CAN'T. Not unless you live in rural Arkansas.

I'm sorry if you view anti-offshorers as selfish, but we have families to feed and we cannot wait eight to ten years for the next whiz-bang technology to come into place to replace the ones leaving.

[mattclearing]

36. With all due respect, I appreciate where you're coming from.

I think I addressed the fact that corporations are taking full advantage earlier, and I certainly don't approve.

However, worldwide, this stands to help a lot of people who would be thrilled to live in rural Arkansas. I can't ignore that.

[sw04ca]

40. Your last point is interesting...

...and I think it can be answered, at least in regards for the Democratic Party, in that the Democratic Party has become very insular and status quo in recent years. Mondale and Dukakis tried to take some stands on things, and got burned down by the electorate, largely still in love with President Reagan. Clintonism really ended that, but Clintonism was incredibly destructive for the Democratic Party, costing them all of Congress. Clintonism only ever worked for Bill Clinton, and that was only because of his enormous personal charisma, something that none of the last six years of presidential nominees have had. Even the golden boy Howard Dean, much like Michael Moore, really only preaches to the converted, and has nothing to say to the gulf of popular opinion between the center of the Democratic Party and the left wing of the Republicans.

At any rate, back on topic, a large number of Democrats have adopted Newt Gingrich's isolationist ideals from the late-90s. I'm of the opinion that some people like to talk the 'global citizen' talk, but not walk the walk, since the inevitable result of wage equality in the world is not them being raised to our level, but us descending to theirs. Just as Stalin was for 'Revolution in one country', so are the Democrats for 'Progressivism in one country'. This is a reasonable stance, but one must remember that standards of living will not be what they were in the golden years of 1998-2001, since a lot of those standards were built on falling prices based on the outsourcing of labor.

As for the 'globalist progressives', who actually do believe in global wage equality and a global standard of living, these are idealistic pipe dreams, especially in the way that they are concieved. We cannot build paradise on earth in the forseeable future with 6 billion people, no matter how educated they are or how democratic their society. Maybe with a half billion or so, but even then, paradise can only be maintained by totalitarian government.

[mattclearing]

42. My point is that globalization rolls the ball in that direction.

And I think ultimately that is something worth working for.

Agriculture hasn't completely eradicated hunting and gathering either, but it has come pretty close.

Ultimately, globalization offers an opportunity to vastly improve the quality of life of the population that has been left behind by the Industrial Revolution...in fact, one might look at it as a continuation of that revolution...people have simply decided to look overseas for their workers, thus spreading industrialism elsewhere.

I still think it is a good thing long term, but it really would be nice to rein in the corporations a bit.

[sw04ca]

44. A good thing for the peoples...

...left behind by the industrial revolution, but a death sentence to the Western Democracies.

[mattclearing]

45. I don't buy that.

Curbing consumption and costs and actually producing something of intrinsic value doesn't necessarily equal death sentence.

Our current economic system is unsustainable. Everyone here agrees on this. The question is how to get to sustainability.

Eventually, we have to either accept that we are an Empire and rule like tyrants, or scale back and play the role of global citizen.

The Democratic Party seems pretty split on this fundamental question.

On edit, most of us seem to agree that conquering the world seems like a pretty lame strategy...

[EVDebs]

5. Nobody's going to be able to afford whatever gets produced in the long run

It's like driving a car and at the same time draining the engine of oil. The US is about 1/3rd of the world's GDP. World GDP is around $33 trillion annual, US GDP around $11 trillion annual. Two-thirds of US GDP is consumption. And no way does the thrid world's consumption make up for that lost by outsourcing from the first world. They're dreaming if they do think they can make it up !

If you take into effect the rest of the Western world's 'outsourced' jobs, you realize -- like Germany's Schroeder -- that outsourcing isn't such a good thing after all !

Schröder calls outsourcing 'Unpatriotic' in March 2004. George W. Bush thinks outsourcing is just great.

[HughBeaumont]

10. I can't either. Jesus.

I can't believe ANYone would defend the destruction of one middle class to enhance another's, and the supposed beneficiaries aren't really coming out on top so much. All they're promoting is a plutocracy, drastically lowered wages and living standards, the wholesale dilution and eventual uselessness of even graduate education, environmental and economic collapse and the discouragement of free enterprise and invention.

[mhr]

16. In Short - Outsourcing = Global Labor Arbitrage

eom

[paineinthearse]

38. From the lead post, I do not get that sense at all

in fact I get the contrary. I've known Debs from another board for a long time and he is definately not a friend of offshoring (note I did not use 'outsourcing') / globalization.

When you say "It amazes me that Outsourcing has defenders on this board", who are you implicating?

[Sandpiper]

48. I'm not implicating the poster

The subject matter just reminded of a recent thread here at DU in defense of outsourcing.

[Quakerfriend]

2. I can't believe the gen'l public isn't squaking loudly

over this one!! It makes my blood boil every time I hear anyone even try to defend this!

I can't help but think that this will eventually lead to riots!!

[w4rma]

14. They are. It has. Big media ignores. (nt)

[mhr]

28. I've Got My Baseball Bat - Let Me Know Where The Guillotines Are Set Up

I'm tired of eating cake and I think some wealthy heads need to roll!

Unemployed 57 months now!

[indepat]

3. What's mostly left are the relative few owning 90+% of the wealth and

the poor who will not be able to afford health care. Gee, ain't the neocon (PNAC) vision some kind of great democracy or what?

[jjtss]

6. These are ......

the things that revolutions are made of.

[Jacobin]

9. A direct hit

Bingo.

It's getting very close to being time for one of those.

[Disturbed]

13. Rethugs and the wealthy elite have always had...

disdain for the Middle Class. Their goal is to destroy the MC and make them the Working Poor without any Soc. Security, Health Care or Unions. The goal of the Oligarchy is to return America back to the 1890's economic model. The New Deal was a Sociolist Revolution according to the rabid Right Wing.

Here is their agenda.



"The most important implication of all this is that large segments of the domestic and world population are no longer seen as worth worrying about. On one level, this is just racism and classism. But there’s more than that going on. In the past, capitalism was optimistic and assumed that it would keep expanding, which provided the basis for a “corporate liberalism” that saw everyone in the world as a potential consumer and/or laborer - and therefore having some potential worth. But the new reactionaries see the future as much more of a zero-sum game. Partly, this is an expression of their incredible greed and corruption - their incessant efforts to rip off wealth for themselves and their narrow sets of cronies.

In any case, the result is that most of Africa, large swaths of Latin America and Asia, and significant parts of the domestic US population have been simply written off -individuals who may arise from the trodden mass are welcome as junior partners, but there is no concern at all for the general well being of these sectors beyond token PR and the limited need to keep local elites from causing too much anti-American trouble on the world stage.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0613-02.htm

[Ms_Mary]

31. But we can have HSA's and our own SS accounts in our new onwership society

Naturally, they won't mean shit because we won't have any money to fund HSA's or to pay for better insurance because our jobs will pay low wages and eventually, the outsourcing will cause the economy to go bust and those privatized retirement accounts will be empty. Ownership society = owning all the problems they created.

[indepat]

41. Think you've just exposed the big lie for what it is: this nation will be

in the toilet forevermore should the PNAC vision be mostly or fully implemented. I'm so glad I'm not young anymore.

[Gyre]

11. The criminal class is expanding

because there aren't the resources for a middle-class this large due to Bush economic policies like this one (encouraging outsourcing). Why * continues to be strong with the very people he's fucking is a strong piece of evidence pointing to their collective stupidity and cowardice (too fearful to run against the rest of the peer herd which loves Rush).

Gyre

[lyonn]

12. Sending my billings from India, etc.

doesn't make me feel secure. Someone spoke of IRS stuff being outsourced, true?

[w4rma]

15. True.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1083774/posts
Apologies for the link to FreeRepublic. Many of the Freepers hate this outsourcing as much as DUers.

[lyonn]

18. Now that's scary stuff

and the freepers were even quoting Kerry.

[Melynn]

37. If Freepers & DU people agree what does that tell you

That maybe outsourcing is wrong? You think?

The only people in favor of outsourcing are CEO's of big corporations and their lackeys who can save a few bucks by outsourcing.

My guess is that the Bush administration response to this report will be to fire some more C.I.A. people.

[David Zephyr]

17. Thanks for bringing this story to the DU, EVDebs.

:thumbsup:

[Al-CIAda]

20. Worker jobs and rights are issues the Dems should POUND

Creating jobs, training, schooling, etc. should be a TOP priority in the agenda,
Secure this issue second only to Social Security and health care.

Expose the bastard corporatists for who they are. Traitors.

[jdots]

21. when does the C.I.A. get outsorced ?

we pay them too much and there are people elsewhere who will work for lower wages.
The frightening thing is that the neocons love private armys,police forces and anything that will work cheaper with no benifits.

[Azathoth]

22. Timely revelations like this must be why we pay the CIA the big bucks

Next thing you know, they'll claim North Korea has WMDs and Saddam didn't. :eyes:

[earth mom]

24. Outsourcing is one of my pet peeves

I can't even express how pissed off this makes me! What's most frustrating about it is that these are jobs that people in this country went to college for; if it continues the way it has soon most of those degrees will be worthless! :mad:

[mhr]

26. Unemployed 57 Months - Refugee From High-Tech

Two college degrees - BSEE, MBA
15+ years of professional work experience
Veteran - Honorably discharged Naval Officer
Commercial Pilot

Cannot find enough work to pay the bills.

[earth mom]

29. I'm sorry to hear that! It is beyond unfair! Hope you find work soon! nt

[mattclearing]

35. Actually, college education is over-marketed these days.

Simply put, more people are told to go to college to qualify for jobs than there are jobs for people who went to college.

People were told that if they went to college they could have the nice car with the picket fence, and the American dream thing.

Turns out a too many people signed up.

[Ms_Mary]

30. Imagine that.

[paineinthearse]

39. Time out for definitions.

"Outsourcing" means a job that produces a good or service leaves company A and being provided by company B. B may be in the same building, across town, across the country or out of the country.

"Offshoring" or "offshore outsourcing" is whena job that produces a good or service leaves company A and goes to a foreign country.

Please try to differentiate and do not use "outsource" when the job goes offshore.

[googly]

43. Outsourcing of US jobs started in the 50's when someone went

out and bought a Volkswagen. Then we started buying Toyotas and Sony
TV's. Every time these foreign made products were purchased, some poor
worker in a US factory lost his/her job.

What I don't understand is there was no hue and cry about outsourcing
for all these years. We kept on buying foreign goods. I guess it was
blue collar workers losing their jobs and those guys are not your
typical computer geeks. The union membership kept dropping, not cuz
the democratic congress passed some union busting laws, but mainly
because the jobs were simply being exported.

Now that India is taking away white collar jobs we are hearing all
kinds of bitching and moaning on the internet. And those bitching are
still buying everything from clothes to DVD players made in foreign
countries, but keep on bitching.

Not withstanding that 99% of outsourced white collar jobs are low
level jobs, such as clerical work, basic computer programming, etc.

Just stop bitching unless you buy 100% US made everything.

[EVDebs]

47. There was a trade balance and US trade policies and tax policies

were in economic equilibrium. Everything is out of balance now.

[googly]

49. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at your response cuz...

All the trade IMBALANCE is with manufactured imports and oil.
WE have a huge imbalance with China and OPEC.

We have no trade imbalance with India, Russia & Poland.
So where is the problem with outsourcing of white collar jobs
there?

[EVDebs]

50. Googly, Cry because you were talking about the '50s remember

and NOW there is a HUGE imbalance in the current accounts and budget deficits. And yes, we DO have trade imbalance with India ... please read "Race To The Bottom" by Alan Tonelson. Also, read

"Alan Larson, US under secretary of state (economic-business) said, "The imbalance in our trading relationship continues to expand and India's trade surplus with US has more than tripled in the last decade and is likely to top $10 billion this year".

"US peeved over India's trade surplus"
http://www.rediff.com/money/2004/sep/16us.htm

So there goes the 'we have no trade imbalance with India' portion of your argument.

[googly]

52. Thanks for the heads up, I had not come across trade imbalance with India

I feel very strongly that all trade imbalances must be
addressed, first by negotiating import quotas and absence of
tariffs on US exports, and finally by import restrictions.

The $50 Billion trade imbalance with China is hurting the
US dollar, US jobs and US businesses.

[EVDebs]

53. In addressing any trade imbalances world standards have been

lowered while US standards are defacto and dejure raised through US environmental and labor protections. Foriegners see weaknesses and exploit them, even if their own people get hurt. "Race to the Bottom" by Alan Tonelson shows that Asian savings rates are really artificial; some of these approach 30% (while US savings rate is under 2%). It turns out that Asian countries governments take most of those 'enforced savings' out of the pay of the workers in order to invest most of that money into creating more business parks that then require more offshoring by Western economies...Vicious cycle, that can only end in a disastrous 'readjustment' soon.

The CIA knows all of this. But just as with stovepiping with WMDs, it allows things to go horribly wrong 'and for all the right reasons'.

[DemocracyInaction]

51. If the middle class cannot pay for the upgraded life of the poor which

they are subsidizing right now, then all will be in a place that will make Edwardian and Victorian poor look prosperous. "Our poor ain't that bad" because they are living off the taxes of the middle class (rich don't 'do' taxes). Sorry, but if the middle goes, the poor will have a richer life in the black hole of Calcutta than here in the US of A. You forgot who pays the bills in this country..........

[ElsewheresDaughter]

54. outsourcing is a threat to our National Security too!