Post #148,272
3/24/04 6:20:39 PM
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Bills to stop outsourcing will hurt U.S. jobs
so says Amy RidenouR:
[...]
So slamming the door shut on U.S. companies that outsource some jobs overseas likely could prove the law of unintended consequences by spurring foreign governments to respond in kind. If Dodd and Co. looked at the big picture, they would understand that America's economic growth depends on expanding trade -- not shrinking it.
Can anybody give me an example of some companies outsourcing their jobs TO the USA?
A second bill moving through the Senate -- the Jobs for America Act -- also would have an adverse effect on the U.S. economy.
Sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the bill would require employers to notify about to be laid-off employees 90 days in advance instead of the current 60 if their jobs are being outsourced.
While this sounds like a humane requirement and is obviously great election-year politics, it would slow the ability of U.S. firms to respond quickly in the fiercely competitive global arena.
[NOTE: my emphasis added] How would giving an extra 30 days notice to employees about an upcoming layoff do what this woman says in the bolded statement above? [link|http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/wednesday/editorial_0416040a73ea615800d3.html?urcm=y|source] lincoln
"Windows XP has so many holes in its security that any reasonable user will conclude it was designed by the same German officer who created the prison compound in "Hogan's Heroes." - Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times
[link|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net|contact me]
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Post #148,274
3/24/04 6:22:54 PM
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I've been watching the debate in the Senate
It's worth money to see Ted get up and start bellowing with his big red Irish face. I love that guy now. I wish he was President.
The slime of the Repos has to be experienced first hand. Every fucker on the floor has a thousand dollar comb-over to match his motley.
-drl
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Post #148,292
3/24/04 7:10:48 PM
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Re: Bills to stop outsourcing will hurt U.S. jobs
Can anybody give me an example of some companies outsourcing their jobs TO the USA? There's a Honda factory in Ohio. They build Japanese cars there. For a Japanese company. And they employ American workers. -YendorMike
[link|http://www.hope-ride.org/|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
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Post #148,293
3/24/04 7:32:45 PM
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To sell to Americans
This type of "insourcing" is beneficial to both countries. Americans have jobs, customers get a top quality car. The Japanese buy Japanese made cars. Everyone is happy.
-drl
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Post #148,298
3/24/04 7:41:34 PM
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BUT...
Did any Japanese workers lose their jobs in Japan because Honda was now building cars in the US instead of in Japan? If so, then I would consider THAT to be outsourcing.
lincoln
"Windows XP has so many holes in its security that any reasonable user will conclude it was designed by the same German officer who created the prison compound in "Hogan's Heroes." - Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times
[link|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net|contact me]
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Post #148,299
3/24/04 7:45:28 PM
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Can you prove they didn't?
Once upon a time, all Hondas were built in Japan. By that token, as well as your line of reasoning, all future Hondas should therefore be built in Japan.
So, yes. Somewhere along the line, I'd wager better than even odds that a Japanese worker somewhere is missing his auto-building job because of that plant in Ohio.
-YendorMike, who is merely playing Devil's Advocate (for those who cannot tell.)
[link|http://www.hope-ride.org/|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
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Post #148,303
3/24/04 7:51:33 PM
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Re: Can you prove they didn't?
I very much doubt that many companies in Japan would settle for the kind of social irresponsibility we see here. There is a far shorter distance money-wise from window washer to CEO - the Japanese are obsessed with personal honor - and honor is a group concept. Unlike the US, Japan does not have an enormous trade deficit - the latter and outsourcing go hand in hand. The Japanese objective seems to be to preserve the corporate body - the American, to line the executive pocket.
I think this is a simple case that it is more profitable to *everyone* at Honda to make cars here to be sold here, without the shipping costs tacked on to inhibit sales.
-drl
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Post #148,799
3/26/04 1:32:39 PM
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I can't , and I don't think you can either
as far as proving whether Honda did offshore jobs to the US or whether they just expanded the company by opening a US mfg plant.
One thing for sure is the reason they opened it: to get around the "voluntary" limits that Japanese car makers placed on themselves during the Reagan administration to avoid getting slapped with a US govt limit on the number of cars they sent to the US. Remember when "we're all out of $5000 Corollas, but I have a whole bunch of loaded $8000 Camrys"?
lincoln
"Windows XP has so many holes in its security that any reasonable user will conclude it was designed by the same German officer who created the prison compound in "Hogan's Heroes." - Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times
[link|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net|contact me]
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Post #149,327
3/30/04 1:37:12 AM
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Silly quibbling, + Did Europe have a "voluntary" limit, too?
Lincoln quibbles: as far as proving whether Honda did offshore jobs to the US or whether they just expanded the company by opening a US mfg plant. What's the fucking difference?!? Creating jobs elsewhere in stead of at home is a form of "outsourcing" too, AFAICS. Like, for instance, the Dell Call Center in India that's been in the news recently (because they brought parts of it back to Texas) -- would that have been OK if they'd *founded* it in India a few years earlier, before they ever had one in the US? (And, wouldn't that have turned the "bringing back" into "Evil Outsourcing" -- *to* the US?) One thing for sure is the reason they opened it: to get around the "voluntary" limits that Japanese car makers placed on themselves during the Reagan administration to avoid getting slapped with a US govt limit on the number of cars they sent to the US. So, if they imposed that limit on themselves just in order not to get "slapped with a US govt limit", isn't that exactly the same as if the HAD got "slapped with a US govt limit"? Any which way you slice it, it still amounts to Evil Americans thwarting free trade in order to get jobs outsourced TO America, it seems to me. But, just in case you don't agree(*): There is a Mercedes factory in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and there is BMW factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina. They build German cars there. For German companies. And they employ American workers. Had European car makers placed similar "voluntary" limits on themselves, or what? Maybe you need to climb down off that "us poor Americans, we're always the victims and never the beneficiaries of Evil Outsourcing" hobby-horse you've been prancing around on for years now. Remember when "we're all out of $5000 Corollas, but I have a whole bunch of loaded $8000 Camrys"? No, I don't, actually. But I bet that must still have been a better deal than the overpriced overweight Yank crap on sale at the time.
(*): i.e, if you want to make it even more blatantly obvious what a hypocrite you are on these issues.
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Your lies are of Microsoftian Scale and boring to boot. Your 'depression' may be the closest you ever come to recognizing truth: you have no 'inferiority complex', you are inferior - and something inside you recognizes this. - [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71575|Ashton Brown]
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Post #149,340
3/30/04 7:00:25 AM
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In short,
what Americans are seeing for the first time is the negative impact of our obsession with capitalism. I wonder how many Americans remember the great gains in every branch of government the Republicans made by claiming that, "Government ought to be run like a business" and "I'm pro-business"? Well, it is now. How do you suppose they like it?
For as long as any American can remember, we have been the beneficiaries of American Capitalist Global Exploitation. Now some of those evils are coming home to roost. And we Muricans don't like it.
bcnu,
Mikem
The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.
- Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
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Post #148,305
3/24/04 7:55:16 PM
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Latest cant
I've seen a lot of this over the last few days by the pro-corporation people. Not only are they going to use the "protectionist" label to attack anything getting in the way of corporations, but they are going to try and cut the existing US benefits and protections.
I saw somebody the other day saying that the best way to bring jobs back into the US would be to reduce the cost of US labor by removing environmental rules, job safety laws and such.
I do recognize there is a risk here of laws being passed to prevent outsourcing that end up hurting the US more then help it. But removing the laws that favor outsourcing obviously don't fall into that category. And I don't think laws that would require companies to give employees resonable notice before letting them go do either, and I would like to see that law made a general requirement for all buisness. I think requiring call centers to indicate where they are is silly, and would be unenforcable against the companies outside the US anyway, if the goal was really to make outsourcing call centers expensive then even a trivial tariff on international communications would be much more effective.
The one group of proposals I do think is dangerous are the ones that try to bar companies from getting US contracts or US grants if ship jobs overseas. The proposals I have seen so far are too harsh and to easly dodged through manipulation to be of any use. I do think the idea has some merit but it will require a carefully drafted law to work.
Jay
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Post #148,338
3/24/04 9:12:16 PM
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So you feel that companies that provide workers from
other countries to do the jobs such as call centers should compete equally for US gov contracts as american companies using american workers? That is why Davis Bacon should apply to ALL government contracts, not just construction.
thanx,
bill
In Bush\ufffds America, fighting terrorism abroad is used as a pretext for vanquishing civil liberties at home. David Podvin
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #148,398
3/24/04 11:06:11 PM
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DId not say that
I think it's obvious that US government contracts should primarly go to companies that employee US citizens for the contracted tasks. But I think trying to impose it as an absolute rule is a bad idea.
As for applying Davis Bacon rules to all US government contracts, that sounds like a good idea but I don't know enough about the law to be sure.
Jay
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Post #148,418
3/25/04 12:02:21 AM
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The way they should do it
is that if the company uses Foreign Workers, that those Foreign Workers should pass a security screening before they can be used on government projects. Native US Citizens should also pass a security screening to be fair.
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #148,323
3/24/04 8:34:18 PM
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Only way to combat this
is to write your own employment contract and have a golden parachute clause in it. Should you be terminated, fired, laid off, let go, for wahtever reason or no reason at all you get $1MUSD, if your job gets outsourced you get $2MUSD. ;) Learn from the Upper Management Executives they do this all the time.
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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