IT outsourcing
To hear the mainstream liberal media and the Democrats
tell the story, when President took office, he ordered
every corporation in America to send their jobs overseas,
something never they had never done before.

Of course, this is ridiculous. In various forms,
outsourcing has been going on for many years, under
both Democratic and Republican presidents. The United States
has been losing manufacturing jobs to workers in
other countries since at least the 70s, when our
automotive and steel industries became much
less competitive.

The difference was that in those cases, the jobs went
not only to foreign workers, but those workers were
employed by foreign companies, not by American
companies.

By sending certain kinds of jobs to low-wage countries,
American companies are actually pre-empting their
competition and helping to keep American companies
stronger in the world economy. This is their reward.

Lots of outsourcing took place under President
Clinton. I read that one local St Louis bank
had all their Y2K work done by Indian programmers
and I'm sure they were not alone, locally or
nationally or internationally.

I've heard that 480,000 jobs went overseas in Clinton's
last year in office. I can't vouch for that precise
number, but I'm sure that whatever the exact
figure, MANY jobs were outsourced that year -- as
part of a trend that predated Clinton as well as
President Bush.

So President Bush just happens to be in office when
scared American workers are getting more media
attention, not coincidentally because the media
wants to find fault with the president any way they
can to get John Kerry elected. As though he has
any power to stop outsourcing.

The simple truth is that, right or wrong, outsourcing
is going to continue.

1. It's possible. Thanks to low-cost data transfer
through the Internet and the lowered cost of
telephone calls, it is now economically profitable
for American companies to hire Indians (who are
educated in English) to answer the phone.

If laws are passed against it, I guarantee you that
many companies will find ways around it, and
probably that will be even less beneficial
to American workers.

Because the hard economic fact of life is, businesses
hire and keep only employees they need. They won't
hire anybody they don't need just because laws
regarding outsourcing are passed. If they don't need
you, they won't hire you, no matter who's president.

2. There is a HUGE gap between the average American
standard of living and that of the rest of the
world.

America's poor people live better than Europe's
middle class.

The poor of Third World countries live in conditions
that most Americans can only imagine, and won't
think about.

I've seen REAL poverty, and it doesn't exist in the U.S.

(By the way, you liberal whining guilt-trippers,
don't even think of lecturing to me about
poor people in America. I've worked in the inner city
of St Louis for over 25 years, as well as walked
through the Hood selling cable TV and, until several
years ago, I lived in the Hood. For every person
on welfare you know, I know 10,000 -- and I've
quizzed them on their income, resources, household
expenses, spending etc., been inside their homes
and seen them and heard their stories while riding
the bus with them.)

If most Americans knew what I knew, there'd be a
taxpayer revolt to end all taxpayer revolts and
when the smoke cleared there would not be one
liberal Democrat left holding an elected office.
But that's another article for another blog . . . :)

I've also been to India and several other poor countries in
Asia. I've been in wood houses under thatched roofs
and urban and rural huts. I'm under no illusion that desperate folks
living 20 people under one rusty corrugated iron
roof on a handful of rice a day are going to let
fat Americans who think the world would
stop if they worked over 40 hours a week, keep them
from earning a living once they become more
educated and hip to computers.

This applies not only to India but South America,
Africa etc.

If you think you can stop at least some of the
several billion people in this world living on
the edge of starvation from going for a piece
of the American pie -- rots of ruck, you'll need it.

Most of them don't have the geographical
advantage Mexicans do, so they're not able to
cross our physical border -- but they can and
increasingly will make use of modern technology
to take advantage of opportunities online. I'm
only surprised that more teenagers in developing
countries are not signing up for various
affiliate programs.

Techies in IT are now suffering from conditions
they made possible and ignored until it started
affecting them. Next.

best,
Rick Stooker, author
Secrets of Changing to a Computer Career
- posted by RickStooker @ 5:24 AM