<<http://zeitblog.zeitgeist.com/archives/000155.html>>
Lay off the Kool-aid Tom... Tom Friedman, the Pulitzer prize winning Op-Ed page columnist for the New York Times used to be such a smart guy. I think all the thin air he's been breathing with all that travel he does has given him brain-damage. Seriously. For the last several months off and on, he's been "addressing" the question of out-sourcing, or in its new politically-correct(?) moniker: "off-shoring." Friedman, and other know-nothing apologists for the thieves who steal from the US treasury and US Taxpayers, yet take advantage of US military and economic protection that makes outsourcing profitable , prattle on and on about how outsourcing is a natural result of free trade, and that Americans will just have to retrain themselves for higher-skill jobs in order to compete and just "let these jobs go" because others can do them "better" and "cheaper." In his latest gem, he ends brown-nosing to the supply-siders like this: What am I saying here? That it's more important for young Indians to have jobs than Americans? Never. But I am saying that there is more to outsourcing than just economics. There's also geopolitics. It is inevitable in a networked world that our economy is going to shed certain low-wage, low-prestige jobs. To the extent that they go to places like India or Pakistan — where they are viewed as high-wage, high-prestige jobs — we make not only a more prosperous world, but a safer world for our own 20-year-olds. Wow... who knew that electrical engineering jobs, biopharma jobs, software development jobs, accounting jobs, radiology jobs -- all of which were done here by people with advanced degrees; people who, with the sweat of their creativity, built the the US high-technology economy -- and all the others that are endlessly flowing to (mainly) India, China and Russia they were really doing "low paid, low prestige jobs!!!" Gee, I'll have to let my unemployed friends, many of whom have PhD's know that they were really just low-wage, low-prestige slackers. They sure were suckers to spend all those years in school, huh? I guess it must be tough to be a very rich, well respected author who has no actual understanding of economics, or trade, or what it takes to run a business, or be part of a community. You really drank all the kool-aid, didn't ya' Tom..? Amazing. Tom, go back home to Minnesota with your millions and retire. Pretty please? You're not doing anyone any good... you just don't get it, do you? There ARE no other skills Americans can train themselves for. Why bother? There is no bottom to the bottom any more. Outsourcing/Off-shoring is not about skill -- it's only about cost. As soon as a skill becomes valuable enough to command a salary that impacts some CEOs bonus, it will be outsourced. Let's repeat that: Outsourcing/Off-shoring is not about skill -- it's only about cost. No amount of hard work, no amount of skill, no amount of creativity will save a single US job when a company decides that they can pay an Indian worker $25/day or a Chinese worker $2.00/day with no benefits, and get the US taxpayer to foot the bill for guarantying the world trade mechanisms (read: the $450B+++ in military force-projection, economic and diplomatic infrastructure) that allow them to do it. You see, its not about the skills, its only about the money. Community be damned. Country be damned. Real people living real lives who built this economy be damned. All that's important is that CEOs milk their companies and the taxpayer. Or, wasn't that obvious enough...? I've been a software developer since the late 1970s when I was running my own business in high-school. I was a VP in technology on Wall St. for many years, and even helped jump-start this whole Internet thing by putting JPMorgan & Co. on the Internet back in early 1991 -- JPMorgan was the very first bank in the world on the Internet -- and helping to fund the development of a little program called Mosaic (which later became Netscape). I've run my own consulting business. I am the founder of a start-up. God help me. I am 41, I've got 25 years in this business and I know lots and lots and lots of people. I have never seen such pessimism from so many smart, smart people before. Why are they so blue? Its simple: They know that no matter how hard they work, no matter how many degrees they have, no matter how much have contributed/created in the past, and no matter how much they are capable of creating in the future -- it doesn't matter one bit. They're all toast. Because you see, its not about training, or capability, or creativity, or past contributions, or future potential... its only about cost. And there's no way they can win. Ask any employer who's fired their IT people. they'll tell you: It doesn't matter what their American staff was capable of creating or achieving. They just don't want Americans, no matter what. Its all about a race to the bottom; a race to see who can get away with paying the least. With about 3 Billion people in the world willing to work for pennies, and with selfish, greedy, thoughtless corporate thugs willing to put the shaft to Americans and others who made our high-technology world possible, there's no possible way for American (or other) workers to survive. There's just no competing with essentially free labor. Let's see India, China, or Russia belly up to the bar and pay their fair share of the hundreds-of-billions of dollars per year being stolen from the US Taxpayer to make outsourcing possible. Lets see these companies pay pack the treasury for the tax-base they are killing off which is robbing the US of its ability to meet its own needs. Then, and ONLY THEN will it be possible to discuss the economic merits of outsourcing. We'll see that happen about the same time we find all those WMDs in Iraq. In the meantime, you made your money Tom, stop rubbing our noses in it. Please shut up and go away. Please? Oh, Tom, one more thing: on your way out, why don't you take a trip to offer your condolences to the family of Kevin Flanagan, a Bank of America computer programmer who shot himself in the office parking lot in April 2003 after being laid off from his job. Flanagan was forced to train his replacement from India as a condition for even receiving a severance package before he was fired. I suppose he was just another one of your "low prestige, low wage" types, huh? In fact, you should use all of those frequent flier miles you've accrued for a lot of such trips... this is a scenario we're seeing a lot more of thanks to people like you. Seeing the Forest chimes in: <<http://seetheforest.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_seetheforest_archive.html#10 7808906903660428>> I don't think the job loss situation is about "trade" at all. I think the use of the terms "trade" and "free trade" are clever ways to distract from the real problem. "Trade" sounds great, OF COURSE we should "trade" with others. Duh! But the arguments I have heard promoting sending jobs offshore are pretty much the same argument as those for getting rid of the minimum wage, for not having unions, for workers keeping quiet, doing what they're told and being grateful that they have food and shelter at all. As I wrote the other day in Trade, Jobs and the Ongoing Struggle, "Show me where the current trade arguments are different from the minimum wage arguments? They argue that raising (or even having) a minimum wage keeps the poor from getting jobs. And they argue that asking trade partners to protect workers rights and safety and pay higher wages keeps THEIR poor from getting jobs." I think this is about the moneyed interests -- corporations in this case -- being able to make use of global unemployment to drive down not just wages and benefits (costs) but also the power of workers. This is about the struggle between labor and capital that has been going on and will go on. Since they started shipping jobs to Mexico they have been able to substantially weaken the unions and by weakening the unions they have weakened the power of the Democratic coalition (with some help from Ralph). It seems that the question, Who is our economy FOR, anyway? gets more and more relevant every day. ---- Shrub 04: Don't Switch Horsemen Mid-Apocalypse _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
