Importers of cheaper products that displace local jobs pay into a fund that pays one the original Danish wage, indefinitely. One can sign up to be retrained in a new field at state expense. eric.
________________________________ From: Jim Fernandes < Marlon, As implied by your response, obviously you are too short sighted to understand the negative effects of globalization. When you come back with your next response, please bring some "meat" with your arguments - don't just dismiss my post with a one liner (or two) :) . The suggestion that globalization is always beneficial to its participants at all levels - is not true. However, globalization is great, when competition between participants is executed on level playing field. For example, when one nation (Nation A) produces goods and then exports it to another nation (Nation B), it benefits both participants in this trade, provided at least three things happen: 1. Nation A produces its goods at "Market Prices" without government intervention to subsidize its production 2. There is no currency manipulation between the participants 2. Trade barriers are removed between the participants. This type of trade is beneficial to both participants because it brings efficiency into the system, thereby benefiting the consumer. I am absolutely OK with this. Examples of situations where globalization is bad - is in situations, where we have an employer in Nation A, that "bulk replaces" a portion of its workforce by employing cheap labor from Nation B. I would describe this type of activity as nothing short of being termed as legalized human trafficking. What these so called Indian software companies (or human traffickers) do, is to merely provide cheap "bodies" to their Western clients. For this reason, these companies are sometimes referred to as body shops. Most of the techies the Indian companies send to the West, are 20-something trained software professionals, who are often single and un-attached and who are then paid below market prices in their destination countries. This is nothing but a glorified exploitation of humans - a situation where the foreign employee is willing to work for low wages in the West, because of even lower wages in their respective home countries. The reason many young Indian professionals are able to survive on lower wages in the West is because, they live in cheap cramped quarters as room-mates - often 4 to 8 persons living in a one bedroom apartment. In order to cut cost even further, they often share everything from a car to utilities to groceries and essentially give up on every sense of privacy. Had the US government not tied these guys as "slaves" to their India based employers, by way of hooking up their employment status in the US to their work visas, they would have readily jumped to another employer for a few Yankee bucks more! For all its weakness, this type of "controlled" globalization of labor, may be considered as beneficial, if there is a real job opening (that does not replace a local), mainly because it supports local economies. In this situation, the host country gets to collect taxes on salaries paid to the foreign worker and it is expected that the worker, spends at least a small portion of his/her earnings in the local economy. In the RBC article I included in my post, some of the foreign workers are expected to replace the locals in Canada - not because the local employees are duds, but because the local workers cannot compete with the foreign workers on lower wages. The reason? One cannot live like "Ghattis" in the West - specially, if you have a spouse to support and kids to send to school. That brings me to the "meat" of the RBC article: In the article, it is argued that a few dozen RBC jobs in Canada would be off-shored to India. If the employment was terminated for "cause", nobody would have issues with it. But this is "Bulk Replacement". What exactly is its benefit to Canada or to the communities RBC serves in Canada, where the bank supposedly makes it money? Please don't come back with a pathetic argument and state that RBC has no social / shareholder responsibility in this matter. So please read on .... For starters, the Canadian government collect no taxes on jobs that go overseas. Secondly, the ghost employees are based in a foreign country - they are not in Canada to spend their earnings, where the money would have circulated to support its economy. Thirdly, the employees who are displaced in Canada may have to foreclose on their mortgages if they cannot find employment that pays comparable salary to support their mortgages. This in turn, would hurt a local Canadian bank or worse, possibly hurt RBC itself - if their own balance sheet is hurt - this would be considered irresponsible act towards their shareholders. Finally, imagine what would happen if every employer in Canada (or the US for argument's sake) did the same and replaced a substantial number of their workforce with foreigners! Now please explain to me, what is the positive impact of the above "globalization" situation? For kicks, let me ask you another simple question: What would your situation be, if your employer decided to fire you only to be replaced by a foreign worker for less than half your salary? I am sure, I can easily find plenty of people in India who can easily replace you in the US, for less than half of what you make. Then you might say, "I'd move on to another company". Well, guess what ... that second company decides to do the same thing to you - or worse, tells you, "Sorry Marlon, we have no job for you in the US, because we can find someone from India for less than half of what you ask". What would you do in this globalization scenario? Would you flip burgers in the US to support your lifestyle, or would you pack your "Potli" and run back to India? Jim Fernandes New York. * Disclaimer: I am not an economist --- On Tue, 4/9/13, marlon menezes <[email protected]> wrote: > From: marlon menezes <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Goanet] Is your job safe? > To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!" <[email protected]> > Date: Tuesday, April 9, 2013, 11:19 PM > What exactly is the problem here? If > industry can get cheaper, but equally good employees, it > should be able to do so. This is what globalization is all > about. If you wish to over pay for your products and > services, please do, but don't force your quaint ideas on > all of us. > Marlon
