Outsourcing American Jobs

[JamesD]

I am always surprised that no one ever mentions that we have heard this before, and before that and before that! During my working years (~20), I think this has become a big issue 3 times. We were loosing all our jobs to Japan, Mexico, China, Vietnam… We always come out better. You would think people would remember all these scarry predictions presented time and time again!

Do to changing markets and military priorities I lost my job in the aerospace industry. I had to work like hell for several years (at lower pay) to be reasonably productive in a different industry. Now I am better off and happier than I would have ever been in aerospace.
Yeah this causes pain to some but by allowing competition and the resulting change we generate more oportunity!

 

[Galieo]

Doom and gloom may make headlines, but the US is also benefiting from the in-sourcing of jobs as well. Are they manufacturing, no, not usually–but more Toyotas are built here than there were 20 years ago. And the jobs that leave this country aren’t just manufacturing, they also include call centers/service centers and similar customer services. It’s complicated, but one thing that is certain, the US created globalism, but it doesn’t own it anymore. Certain segments of the US may complain about it, but back when the US was exporting its manufactured goods they weren’t too worried about their counterparts in the importing countries.

As Catholics I believe that our worldview cannot be so narrow to focus solely on the US. People in other countries need meaningful work as well. Yes, labor standards need to raise, which will raise the overhead costs of those goods, but first thing is first, people in other parts of the world need jobs! They need to be connected to the global market. I think we know what happens when a country is disconnected from the global market.

 

[phade]

I think vern humphry’s views on this subject are very dangerous and really has no grounding in reality. When he says things like the country can’t be taxed into prosperity I think he might do well to recall the very conservative view of Adam Smith (whom it might be recalled is the so-called father of modern economics and capitalism). That is to say, for Adam Smith the capitalist state is a wellfare state. Meaning the that in a kind of Madisonian way by virtue of their privledge the “opulent minority” would be noble and enlightened philosophers working for every spare second to make the world a better world for the general population, or in another formulation “private vices” would yield “public goods”. You might also want to recall that taxation in Europe is higher, and in general is thought to be to low by a about 60% of the population, yet the Euro is killing the dollar. So to say that taxation is hindering success in the U.S. really doesn’t seem to have a strong factual basis. Second, you might also recall another one of Adam Smith’s conservative views. That is, his remark that whenever you one see two buisness men talking they are most likely involved in a conspiracy against the population. In other words, regulation is a good thing. These last few years under Bush have brought in record numbers for the dollar value for corporate crime. What this means is that corporations are loosing record amounts of money in lawsuits not because of junk lawsuits but because of their own crimes. This fact really doesn’t seem to suggest that buisness suffers from too much regulation, unless you want to advocate the ridiculous view that the strictness of government regulation forces buisnesses to committ crimes in order to survive. The reality of the situation of out sourcing is that it is simply another method of class warfare that you use to beat down not just the “pampered western worker”, but workers everywhere. There are, however, at least three things about this we might call “good”. First, out sourcing does provide jobs to people that wouldn’t otherwise have them. Second, these jobs will improve the standard of living in these areas. Lastly, the pathetic wages that out sourced jobs provide their employees will eventually go up. To say that these things are unqualifiedly good is a rather cold and cynical view. By this I mean that I think workers should be paided justly for their work and not simply what corporations (a.k.a. illegitimate private tyrannies), can get away with by playing work forces against one another and the threat of capital flight.

 

[vern_humphrey]

phade:

I think vern humphry’s views on this subject are very dangerous and really has no grounding in reality. When he says things like the country can’t be taxed into prosperity I think he might do well to recall the very conservative view of Adam Smith (whom it might be recalled is the so-called father of modern economics and capitalism). That is to say, for Adam Smith the capitalist state is a wellfare state. .

Give us a cite where Adam Smith endorses the income tax.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[phade]

Adam Smith wrote this in his major work “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”.

“The subject of every State ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the State.”

I take it that this is a reference to what could be call an “income tax.”

 

[anjel13]

Vern,
In a lot of your responses you talk about how we need better education. I know this brings us to another issue, but what do you think we/the government should do in order to create a better educational system?

I know that in my county and state the funding for education has been cut dramatically in the last ten years. Teachers arn’t being paid enough and their health benefits have been reduced. Plus, the schools themselves rarely recieve the funding they need not to mention that a lot of the supplies needed are bought straight out of the teachers pockets.

 

[Trelow]

anjel13:

Vern,
In a lot of your responses you talk about how we need better education. I know this brings us to another issue, but what do you think we/the government should do in order to create a better educational system?

I think the government needs to get their little grabby mitts completely out of it.

 

[vern_humphrey]

anjel13:

Vern,
In a lot of your responses you talk about how we need better education. I know this brings us to another issue, but what do you think we/the government should do in order to create a better educational system?.

There are three fundamental issues:

Accountability – schools must be held accountable for accomplishing the thing they were created to do. Various means of assistance should be provided to failing schools, but in the end ALL schools must be held accountable.

Distance Education – we can’t afford a German teacher, a French teacher, a Spanish teacher, a really qualified Physics teacher, and so on in the small schools in my district. We can produce internet-delivered, highly-interactive, proven courses to teach these things. (I used to develop such courses myself, and know what they can do.)

True Choice – allowing the customer to take his business elsewhere has improved virtually everything in the United States. We should establish a standard tuition and pay that to the school chosen by the parents – public, private, non-profit, for profit.

anjel13:

I know that in my county and state the funding for education has been cut dramatically in the last ten years. Teachers arn’t being paid enough and their health benefits have been reduced. Plus, the schools themselves rarely recieve the funding they need not to mention that a lot of the supplies needed are bought straight out of the teachers pockets.

In Arkansas, we spend about $6,200 per pupil. That’s not ALL we spend, because there are multiple cash streams, and it’s difficult to get it all accounted for.

In the commercial training industry (where I worked for years as a Program Manager), the Loaded Labor Rate runs about 100%. That means if I hire a professional to do a job, for every dollar I pay him or her, I have to get another 100% (or an extra dollar) from the customer. This extra money pays for overhead, administration, benefits, and so on.

Now imagine we set the tuition at $6,000 a year in Arkansas. And we average 20 students in a classroom. That classroom is generating $120,000 and we can afford to pay the teacher half that, $60,000 a year.

If we operated as a business, we’d soon see that leaving the classroom empty for a quarter of a year is bad business. Start school years every quarter, and increase your efficiency by a third.

Add distance education for those students who can work under less supervision, and increase your efficiency more.

You’d wind up with a system were you could afford to pay teachers an average salary of $100,000 a year – here in Arkansas, where the average per capita income is only $22,000 a year.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Trelow:

I think the government needs to get their little grabby mitts completely out of it.

We can’t go that far, because many families couldn’t pay for education out of their own pockets. And as I’ve pointed out, providing every child with a first-class education is a matter of national security.

But if we would simply set standards, and allow anyone meeting those standards to open a school, and allow the parents to choose the school they felt was best for their child, we’d go a long way to turning over control of the system to the person who should control it – the customer.

 

[Trelow]

vern humphrey:

We can’t go that far, because many families couldn’t pay for education out of their own pockets. And as I’ve pointed out, providing every child with a first-class education is a matter of national security.

But if we would simply set standards, and allow anyone meeting those standards to open a school, and allow the parents to choose the school they felt was best for their child, we’d go a long way to turning over control of the system to the person who should control it – the customer.

Agreed, but education should be resolved at the state level. There is no reason for the federal government to be involved.

If Johnny ain’t got no school books, then you can go down the street knock on your representative’s door and ask Vern why.

With the fed in control of everything it takes the power out of the parent’s hands. The federal congress has no accountability to parents, just the the highest bidder.

If your state has poor standards, move to one that has better standards. The good jobs will have to follow the intelligent workers, and so then will state revenue. Competition is always good.

We need to wipe the books and start over with the way our country was supposed to be.

:twocents:

 

[vern_humphrey]

Trelow:

Agreed, but education should be resolved at the state level. There is no reason for the federal government to be involved.

The Federal Government has three responsibilities:

1. To enforce the Constitution. The wide disparity between schools means some children’s civil rights are being violated – they’re not recieving equal protection under the law compared to kids in the best schools.
2. To provide resources and assistance. Clearly, a national system of internet-delivered computer courses would be cheaper if developed once, rather than 50 times, by each state.
3. National security – the failure of the education system threatens the viability of the nation.

Trelow:

If Johnny ain’t got no school books, then you can go down the street knock on your representative’s door and ask Vern why.

I ran for United States Congress, not a state office.

Trelow:

With the fed in control of everything it takes the power out of the parent’s hands. The federal congress has no accountability to parents, just the the highest bidder.

The parents have no power now – can the PTA hire and fire teachers, select school books, or set curriculum?

True Choice is the way to give parents power.

Trelow:

If your state has poor standards, move to one that has better standards. The good jobs will have to follow the intelligent workers, and so then will state revenue. Competition is always good…

As Catholics, we have an obligation to do more than seek our own self-interest. I have no children in school now – but I can’t abandon my responsibility to the poor childern in Lee and Phillips Counties, for example, where the adult illiteracy rates run over 40%.

I can’t shut my eyes to that.

Trelow:

We need to wipe the books and start over with the way our country was supposed to be.

:twocents:

And true choice is the way to do it.

 

[Brad]

vern humphrey:

When I was running for Congress, I was often asked, “How can we prevent jobs from being exported?”

The answer is, "Arkansas has an adult illiteracy rate of 22% – and some counties in this district have a rate over 40%. If you have a job that can be done by someone who can’t read or write, it will be done in China or Mexico.

"If we want to keep jobs in this country, we need three things:

1. A highly-educated workforce. We can’t compete with Mexico and China on wages. We must compete on technical abilities.
2. Lower taxes – we cannot tax ourselves into prosperity, but we can drive jobs overseas with high taxes.
3. Less pointless regulation. Regulation is a huge cost to business. Cut the regulation and make the United States a more competitive business location."

I agree.

This really is similar to the industrial boom around the turn of the 20th century.

As ways of doing business change, the people and countries that stay ahead of the game - producing more that is better and doing it faster - will reap the greatest benefit.

The United States must provide a better educational product to our youth that demands performance and reinforces to them that they are capable of such performance - the economy will not welfare people into high paying jobs for low skills and abilities - and it should not.

We must compete again - like we did in the 20th century. We cannot take for granted that we are a superpower - we must make it happen continuously and not expect others to do it for us.

 

[Trelow]

vern humphrey:

And true choice is the way to do it.

Amen.

 

[jlw]

Looks like everyone covered it all here. Vern, you are on target.

Just my two cents: It always makes me chuckle to see the same people (cough, liberals, cough) cry about how we are so selfish and “ignore” the third world, but also cry about how we are apparently so stupid to create industry and liveable wages in those same countries in a free-trade world marketplace.

 

[chicago]

“Undercutting” is a perjorative term. It colors the discussion which follows, and amounts to a pre-judgement.

While I view “undercutting” as more of an objective, rather than pejorative, term (describing here what a saavy business man who wants to get ahead of his competitor desires to do by reducing prices in the hope of gaining the others’ customers and maybe even running them out of the market); I do find it highly ironic that Vern here decries the use of “pejoratives”, then goes on to rail against things like “the victim cult” and “alcoholism” (as what he apparently thinks necessarily becomes of non-workaholics.)

I suppose he has just gone to illustrate how every argument has it’s own perspective and spin.

 

[chicago]

vern humphrey:

I invite people to watch “You’ve Got Mail” (with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.) This is about a big chain book store opening and the spunky operator of a little book store that is threatened. She gets friends together and pickets the big store, goes on TV, talks to the City Council and so on.

I ask people to analyze the strategies of the two stores. The big chain strategy is, “Give the customer what he wants. Provide a wide selection at a good price in a convivial atmosphere.”

The little store strategy is, “Screw the customer! Use the power of government to limit their choices, keep prices high and FORCE them to shop in my store.”

Nonsense! In fact, it may well be the big store which is using it’s muscle to FORCE (by your definition, since nobody is truly forcing the customer to shop at the little store if there is some sort of government intervention) their way and the customers’ hands.

Further, what the customer will take and be easily lured into isn’t always what is in the best ultimate interests of the customer, the industry, or the society as a whole. In fact, it may not even be what they find most desirable, but simply what they will accept under less than ideal circumstances.

Actually, the “small store” might well actually be adding more of real value to the community, in the bigger scheme of things.

Even the devil can often provide a more enticing “product” at a more attractive “price” in an alluring environment.

Ah, but P.T. Barnum would love it! What people won’t sell out their lives over for a mere 30 pieces of silver.

 

[vern_humphrey]

chicago:

While I view “undercutting” as more of an objective, rather than pejorative, term (describing here what a saavy business man who wants to get ahead of his competitor desires to do by reducing prices in the hope of gaining the others’ customers and maybe even running them out of the market).

;

Why not just say, “out-competing?” Because MOST people who use the word "undercutting mean it in a perjorative sense.

chicago:

I do find it highly ironic that Vern here decries the use of “pejoratives”, then goes on to rail against things like “the victim cult” and “alcoholism” .

Give me a better term. The Victim Cult is presented by those who tell under-achievers that their situation is due to the fact that someone else is victimizing them. Many studies have shown that it works to diminish the ability of such people to face and overcome adversity.

Alcoholism is a medical fact – not a perjorative.

(as what he apparently thinks necessarily becomes of non-workaholics.).

Would you agree that’s a cheap shot?

If you want to tell the rest of us what one of us “apparently thinks” you should at least wear a turban and gaze into a chrystal ball while you do it.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

 

[vern_humphrey]

chicago:

Nonsense! In fact, it may well be the big store which is using it’s muscle to FORCE (by your definition, since nobody is truly forcing the customer to shop at the little store if there is some sort of government intervention) their way and the customers’ hands…

Ah, yes. We’re all mere automatons, incapable of making decisions for ourselves. We are victims of some massive plot, and can do nothing about it.

Tell me – do you see yourself like that, helpless and deluded into shopping where you shouldn’t shop, buying what you shouldn’t buy?

 

[AmyS]

one thing I have found interesting is my Uncle is really into the “buy American” thing. He gives my family a hard time because we have Toyotas… He will only buy Pontiac. I reasearch everything before I buy it… where it is made is one thing I research… Both of my Toyotas and my parents where made in the USA… My uncle’s cars where made in Mexico. It happens. My husband works for a pretty big company, K&N Filters that prides itself on being made in the USA, its competition is made in Mexico… We have a lot of big name companies moving their main factories to the city I work in because the land is cheaper for Southern California… Mattle is one of the Companies, Khols is another. It seems to me that you can’t judge a book by its cover in some of these things… I kind of feel like at least somebody is benefiting.

 

[chicago]

;

Why not just say, “out-competing?” Because MOST people who use the word "undercutting mean it in a perjorative sense.

Because I like to call a spade a spade. We Chicagoans are like that. “Polite” terms just don’y have the same realistic punch. We’re street wise kids who don’t need to hide behind the “unmentionables”.

And, after all, even “out-competing” carries, as I noted before, it’s own spin.

Give me a better term. The Victim Cult is presented by those who tell under-achievers that their situation is due to the fact that someone else is victimizing them. Many studies have shown that it works to diminish the ability of such people to face and overcome adversity.

Well, you are the one who is dismissing everything as “The Victim Cult”. I haven’t. I am speaking merely about the inate justice due to workers and the proper valuing of work. Simple Cathoic moral principles, that’s all. Now, if you have a problem with such due to your American Calvinistic “Protestant Work Ethic” ideology, well that’s your problem.

Alcoholism is a medical fact – not a perjorative.

Would you agree that’s a cheap shot?

Ah, but now you are contradicting yourself. For before you did not speak about it in the sense of people struggling with a disorder. For those persons could be anybody. Rather, you used the term in a pejorative way, so as to suggest that if someone doesn’t conform to the Calvinistic work ethic, that they will be little more than lazy street bums. You, further, dismissingly stereotyped those who are in the streets as there because they don’t work and have alcohol problems… and made off like they are the main ones who do; without any consideration that it may well be the workaholics, themselves, who happen to have the same sort of addictive personality traits that leads to alcoholism. Have you never heard the saying (or experienced the type of person who does), “Work Hard, Drink Hard”? Heck, Fr. Corapi only ended up in the street after living the “fast life”, along with it’s drug and alcohol abuse, because of what his “productive earnings” enabled him to do.

Therefore, if there was a “cheap shot” taken here, it most certainly was on your part, not mine.

Again, I am simply looking for the balance which reasonable Catholic principles about the nature of man, work, leisure offers. A worthy endeavor on a Catholic apologetical message board, I think!