Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 10:01:04 -0600 From: "Jon M. Powers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [IP] US firms that outsource are "Benedict Arnolds": Kerry To: Dave Farber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Mr. Farber --
One thing that I have not seen analyzed very much in the off-shoring discussions I have seen is the question of why there is so much excess labor capacity in the countries to which US jobs are being off-shored. Having excess labor capacity in these countries drives/keeps wages down, even the wages of so-called high-skill jobs.
I heard the economist Robert Pollin talk about this issue on the Progressive Radio.
(link http://www.progressive.org/radio/radioarc3.html)
He suggests that one of the root causes of excess labor in these other countries is the role of US, EU, and Japanese ag subsidies that artificially lower the price of ag products produced in and exported from these countries.
When a developing country goes the IMF/World Bank free trade route and opens up its agriculture markets, local farmers are not able to compete with the subsidized ag exports from the US and the EU. The local farmers driven off the land and migrate to urban areas where they add to the excess labor pool in those areas.
This not the result of a free market, but the result of unfair trade and the ag subsidies. We need to look at the overall effects of US/EU ag policy on free-trade/globalization.
Seems to me that the farmers in the developing countries would prefer to stay on the land and not migrate to urban areas where they add to the labor pool. This is probably why the developing countries are making US/EU subsidies more of an issue in the WTO talks.
It is obvious that US workers would prefer to keep their traditional jobs.
Lose-lose situation for everyone, except the welfare queens (US/EU ag industry).
I think any efforts to solve the off-shoring "problem" must address US/EU ag subsidies and their effects of driving people off the land in other countries.
Jon Powers
On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 08:39:50AM -0500, Dave Farber wrote:
>
> Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 10:58:42 +0530
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Suresh Ramasubramanian)
> Subject: US firms that outsource are "Benedict Arnolds": Kerry
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Organization: -ENOENT
>
> Well now, offshoring has become an election issue, a vote gathering
> soapbox. Imagine that.
>
> srs
>
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