A few interesting quotes from this article:

Robyn happily chirps, “Over the next decade, offshoring will knock millions of white-collar Americans and Europeans out of work, blowing a hole in the middle class from Los Angeles to London, from Boston to Berlin, from Toledo to Tokyo, from Austin to Amsterdam… Fat, rich and spoiled Westerners have for several generations been shielded from workplace competition with the world's most populous nations. ”

“Here's the extent of the good news for middle-class America: If history is any guide, just over a third of those who are laid off because of offshoring will quickly find a new job and be no worse off, according to consultants McKinsey & Co. Just over half will have to take pay cuts of at least 15%. A quarter of those laid off will take pay cuts of at least 30%. European workers are even in worse trouble: those who lose jobs there are only half as likely as Americans to find new jobs within six months, according to McKinsey.”

“Yet offshoring doesn't have to be all doom and gloom for Western countries. Economists say increased trade-globalization-however painful for those who lose their jobs because of it, always brings more wealth to the world as a whole. Offshoring is already a net gain for the U.S. and for the country where the jobs land. Every dollar of spending that U.S. companies transfer to India creates $1.46 in new wealth, according to McKinsey research. India keeps 33 cents of that gain, while the U.S. keeps $1.13 for every dollar spent on offshoring.
This means consumers in the West are big winners, too. Despite the pain felt by white-collar workers whose jobs are moved offshore, the jobs transfer will bring lower prices to the shores of the industrialized nations.”

This goes to show the inhumanity of the neocons - a full two-thirds of laid off workers will face long term unemployment and lower wages. But it is even worse than that. Every time you have mass unemployment you have bankruptcies, family break-ups, an increase in substance abuse, an increased risk for heart attacks and suicide. Simply put, unemployment ruins lives and worse, KILLS.

Most of the so-called increased wealth certainly won’t do to the work force, it will go to the greedy corporations that are outsourcing. And even if offshoring was beneficial, doesn’t Robin’s argument have a familiar ring to it? Isn’t it “the end justifies the means?” Isn’t it “Well, it’s OK to destroy the lives of these people because the majority benefit”? Isn’t this the same thinking as “Yes, Stalin is a brute, but give him credit, he industrialized Russia?” THE NEXT WAVE OF OFFSHORING shows once again how amoral and nihilistic the neocons are.

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Originally posted by Mandos:
. . . no solution should make one working class richer while making another poorer . . .

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I agree. Wealth should be spread around, but moving the poverty from one location to another doesn't solve anything; it is still poverty.

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Every dollar of spending that U.S. companies transfer to India creates $1.46 in new wealth, according to McKinsey research. India keeps 33 cents of that gain, while the U.S. keeps $1.13 for every dollar spent on offshoring.

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On an entirely related note, in the past decade or so, we have already faced tremendous dislocation because of technology. Everyone from telephone operators to secretaries to typewriter manufacturers have seen their jobs eliminated. My own choice for occupation about to become extinct is "check-out clerk".

Indians or Chinese may be willing to do jobs for a pittance but employees also face "competition" from lasers and computers that will work for next-to-nothing.

Cougyr, we know from this thread that the effects of outsourcing on the US labour market are extremely small. References to the Great Depression are misplaced.

Mandos, are you willing to argue that the standard of living a typical Indian or Chinese is equivalent to that of a typical American? Or that gains generated by a permanent doubling or tripling of ten (or any number greater than 1) poor country workers' incomes are outweighed by the possibility that a single rich-country worker might be temporarily inconvenienced by a three-month spell of unemployment? Those are pretty much the only arguments that would lead anyone to conclude that outsourcing jobs from the US to India/China is a bad thing.

The globalization that the neo-cons/neo-liberals are pursuing is on the terms of the trans-national corporations.

I have been hearing this "short term pain for long term gain" message from the ruling elites for at least the last 30 years. Any way you slice it, its pure bullshit.

I've never seen any CEO's at the local welfare office. They're not suffering any pain. Its always the ordinary Janes and Joes who do all the suffering.

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Rich-country redistribution issues can be dealt with by applying appropriately-designed policy instruments within rich countries. There's no reason why poor-country workers should have to pay that price.

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Well show me those "policy instruments" you speak of.

I recall during that during the 1980's debate on the original Canada/US FTA that one of the major mouthpieces speaking in favour of it was Professor John Crispo. But he kept acknowledging in all of his speaches and public appearances that "adjustment programmes" were needed.

When the mass lay-offs began, (within weeks of the signing of the deal), and unions were demanding adjustment programmes, John Crispo was nowhere to be found. In fact haven't heard a word out of him since...strange considering what a loudmouth he is.

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You seem to be one more "end justifies the means" types. No doubt you would have been pleased that Mussolini made the trains run on time, if this was 1935 and not 2005.

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I have been hearing this "short term pain for long term gain" message from the ruling elites for at least the last 30 years. Any way you slice it, its pure bullshit.

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If OC believes that there will be any "policy measures" enacted in order to soften the blow to workers, he's living in some other country than I am. Look at what Gordo's been doing here in BC for four years, merrily sawing away at every strand of the social safety net he can get his filthy mitts on. The dominant trend is toward punishing the unfortunate, not helping them. (And if God forbid the Harper Tories ever take Ottawa, brace yourself for full-scale Gordo-ism on a national scale.)

Add to this scenario, skyrocketing college and university tuition fees being in North America where commidifying higher education does nothing to improve access to the means to higher standards of living for workers. It almost seems as if North American's are being shelved in favour of workers in China and India where literacy rates are growing and producing four and five times the number of university and graduate students as we do in the far west. This is the USA and Canada where a war on unions and working poor has been waged since the 1980's and rates of infant mortality and child poverty are now some of the highest in the developed world.

We should not only be glad for developing countries like China and India where investment in job training and literacy are hallmarks of unprecedented economic growth rates of seven to ten percent, we should be demanding equal access to similar job training and higher education here for our own young people. If corporations are the ones influencing trade policies in their favour, then what about us ?. What about our ability to compete with India, China and European nations implementing socialized education and job training policies ?.

China is currently building twelve new MIT-style engineering universities. Yes they are introducing tuition fees, and those who do take out loans are expected to pay it back in one to two years. Conservative policies in New Zealand have the average student loans taking anywhere from 15 to 25 years for young people to pay back, realistically.

[ 10 April 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Would you both then be opposed to allowing new technology that makes some jobs obsolete? I noted some examples above. In all likelihood, the job of "grocery cashier" will not exist in a decade or two. Several hundred thousand people in North America will lose their jobs. They will be replaced by lasers and microchips. Is that bad?

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Oh here goes the old "buggy whip maker" argument. Have heard this one for the last 30 years too.

It really is rather tiring

Okay...if I've gotta do this again here we go.

I really don't give a rat's ass how many jobs are eliminated due to tech change and outsourcing provided that all of the conditions below are met:

1. Legislated adequate notice of lay-off

2. Legislated generous severance pay

3. Generous unemployment insurance benefits

4. A legislated right to generous income supported training and educational opportunities to enable workers to train for whatever new jobs become available.

5. Legislated financial incentives to permit older workers to retire early if they want/need to.

6. Legislated generous housing and transportation assistance to workers who have to move to obtain employment along with assistance to their spouses/significant others who may have to quit their jobs because one member of the partnership has to move to obtain work.

7. Legislated generous assistance to laid-off workers who want to start their own business or form a worker co-op.

Is LD derived from mediaevel times and just another divine plan that needs to be realized through collective human interactions ?. Who controls it all, and who sets out the rules, the WTO or World Bank and IMF ?. Will God be enacting his grand scheme for it all through Paul Worlfowitz and his corporate backers with the world's workers playing second fiddle to their self-interests and greed ?. We're told things like market liberalism is all for the benefit of workers around the world in feel good ways. "Trade is good", obviously sounds nice. The appeal that LD is in the best interest of society is common.

This line of argument could have been used in mediaeval times while explaining that the king, lords and pope were our direct connection to God. Their order was simply a reflection of the way it is in heaven and all that. They even proposed the idea for an invisible hand working mysteriously behind the scenes in maintaining balance and order in the grand economic scheme of things. For governments to intervene in the market place was blasphemy that could only end with economic gods raining down terrible wrath on all those involved and or struck down by lightening.

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Originally posted by redlion:
Cromwell wrote: "a single rich-country worker might be temporarily inconvenienced by a three-month spell of unemployment?"

The article in question, in contradistiction to your claims says that at least 7% of US white collar jobs will dissappear because of off shoring. That is a good deal more than "a single worker" - something in the neighborhood of several million at least.

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Originally posted by beluga2:
If they are thrown to the whims of the Merciless Almighty God of the Omnipotent Marketplace and left to sink or swim, then fuck yeah, it's bad. Sadly, that's just what's likely to happen under today's reigning ideology.

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Whoops, the second of those don't exist in most of Canada any more and were only available to a small number of people in any case. You can always borrow money (if you have a good credit rating), but you better hope that the job you are training for is still there in three or four years because if its not you are going to have a hell of a time paying back what you've borrowed.

"reasonably priced post-secondary education"

HA! Try "you'll be in debt up to your eyeballs" and see above.

"employment insurance"

Not everyone qualifies, only pays about 2/3 income replacement and runs out after a year.

"a myriad of other programs that encourage and facilitate everything from job hunting to skill development"

1. Name them. 2. Will the new jobs offer the same standard of living as the old jobs? How much time and expense will it take to get a worker to the point where they can earn as much as they did before? 3. Who pays?

"Job hunting and skill development" are all fine and good when you're young, but if you're 50 years old and have already invested the majority of your life in a career that has suddenly ceased to exist, its not much fun to start over.

"Other than... [the above]... that was a really great point."

Right back at ya!

[ 11 April 2005: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

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Other than government initiatives that facilitate access to student loans and grants, reasonably priced post-secondary education, employment insurance, and any of a myriad of other programs that encourage and facilitate everything from job hunting to skill development, that was a really great point.

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Oh we've got a Liberal in the crowd.

I suppose next you're going to tell us all about the Liberals so-called "Compassionate Care Leave" programme? You know...the one that is so bureaucratic and complicated that just about no-one qualifies? The one that tells folks that their brother or sister isn't a family member?

You're certainly free to disagree about the reasonable price of post-secondary education, but as someone who is in their 11th and final year of university funded almost entirely through scholarships and student loans and my own pitiful earnings, I'm probably not the right person to argue on your side. I guess it must have been the big old money tree in my back yard that allowed me to go to school for so long without a trust fund.

The problem is not thatIndia keeps 33 cents of that gain.

The problem isn't that the U.S. keeps $1.13 for every dollar spent on offshoring.

The problem is that the $0.13 kept by the US all goes into the pockets of the ubber-rich, and not only is the $0.13 not used to raise the boats of all citizens, but the whole offshoring issue is used to further intimidate local workers into doing the jobs that do reamin for even lower wages, thus that $0.13 extra profit is used to wring even more money out of the middle class and into the pockets of the rich.

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Originally posted by radiorahim:
Oh we've got a Liberal in the crowd.

I suppose next you're going to tell us all about the Liberals so-called "Compassionate Care Leave" programme? You know...the one that is so bureaucratic and complicated that just about no-one qualifies? The one that tells folks that their brother or sister isn't a family member?

Don't get me started

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
"employment insurance"

Not everyone qualifies, only pays about 2/3 income replacement and runs out after a year.

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Originally posted by radiorahim:

Oh here goes the old "buggy whip maker" argument. Have heard this one for the last 30 years too.

It really is rather tiring

Okay...if I've gotta do this again here we go.

I really don't give a rat's ass how many jobs are eliminated due to tech change and outsourcing provided that all of the conditions below are met:

1. Legislated adequate notice of lay-off

... and passim

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No one should oppose technological change since that is how economies ultimately grow. A better mousetrap is not zero sum.

Your list really concerns transfers from the beneficiaries of change to those who suffer - bearing in mind that the beneficiaries gain more than what anyone else loses.

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And, as far as what compassionate care leave has to do with the price of tea in Cleveland, I must admit that you stumped me.

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The "compassionate care leave" programme is funded out of the EI fund. It was a programme that the Liberals announced with great fanfare. How they were going to help families with seriously ill relatives take time off work to look after their loved ones.

But "the devil is in the details" as they say. And the fact of the matter is that the way the rules are written very few people qualify. There was major coverage of this in the Globe & Mail and on CBC Radio's "The House".

The Liberals are famous for announcing "lookee here...we done something" programmes that make it "look" like they're doing something when in fact they're doing little to nothing at all.

So if you expect this government to actually do anything meaningful for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed, you're dreaming in technicolour.

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IOW, your list really concerns transfers from rich to poor. And that is an issue that goes well beyond the structural change due to new trade or new technology.

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No this is a transfer of wealth from workers in the developed world to the corporate elites, with a few crumbs thrown to workers in the third world.

The outsourcing and tech change are not driven by any altruistic desire to raise third world living standards, they're being driven by a desire to cut costs.

[ 11 April 2005: Message edited by: radiorahim ]

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posted by Dr. Conway
More often than not it runs out in 6 months. The government was busy trumpeting how they boosted the income replacement to 55% (back in late 2000) from 50%, and it was announced with this big fanfare like we all were expected to bow and scrape before the almighty benevolent cheap bastards giving the unemployed slightly more of the money they put into the system.

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Wow! That's even worse than I thought.

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posted by Dex
as someone who is in their 11th and final year of university funded almost entirely through scholarships and student loans and my own pitiful earnings, I'm probably not the right person to argue on your side. I guess it must have been the big old money tree in my back yard that allowed me to go to school for so long without a trust fund.

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Dex wrote
"Nice straw man. OC's claim wasn't that only one single domestic worker would be affected, it was that the lives of ten people in the 3rd world would be dramatically improved at the inconvenience of every one domestic worker."

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If this were actually the case it might not be so bad, but the truth is that while the live of 10 3rd world people might be improved, that one domestic worker in reality doesn't translate into a real person who is out of work for a couple of months, it really translates into one long term unemployed worjer and a bunch of extra profits in the corporations pocket.

The lie comes in when they use statistics of GDP, and productivity averages to smooth over the ugly truth of the real person with the "coloured glasses truth" of increased DSP and productivity.

[ 11 April 2005: Message edited by: Oliver Cromwell ]

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Originally posted by redlion:
Cromwell wrote: "a single rich-country worker might be temporarily inconvenienced by a three-month spell of unemployment?"

The article in question, in contradistiction to your claims says that at least 7% of US white collar jobs will dissappear because of off shoring. That is a good deal more than "a single worker" - something in the neighborhood of several million at least. Furthermore - if you read the quotes I gave - most of these people will suffer long term unemployment, furthermore such long term dislocation, kills, as I have pointed out. You seem to be one more "end justifies the means" types. No doubt you would have been pleased that Mussolini made the trains run on time, if this was 1935 and not 2005.

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I'm guessing that you didn't read that other thread I linked to. Ordinarily, I'd patiently explain what I said there all over again, but after reading those last two sentences, I've decided that you can do your own homework.

[ 11 April 2005: Message edited by: Oliver Cromwell ]

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Originally posted by No Yards:
The problem is not that offshoring creates $1.46 in new wealth for every dollar spent.

The problem is not thatIndia keeps 33 cents of that gain.

The problem isn't that the U.S. keeps $1.13 for every dollar spent on offshoring.

The problem is that the $0.13 kept by the US all goes into the pockets of the ubber-rich, and not only is the $0.13 not used to raise the boats of all citizens, but the whole offshoring issue is used to further intimidate local workers into doing the jobs that do reamin for even lower wages, thus that $0.13 extra profit is used to wring even more money out of the middle class and into the pockets of the rich.

Under the current American regime, Americans standard of living is falling when you eliminate the top 2% or so of the GDP hoarders.

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Bingo.

I'm not an economist, I just keep my eyes peeled for trends in the population. I said 20 years ago to no one in particular that for markets to continue to expand at ever increasing Wall Street expectations, that the only feasable solution was the so-called "American standard of living" would have to sacrificed.

And it was.

I'm old enough to remember when we actually made things down here other than cars. I grew up in a steelmaking area -- they make precious little steel there anymore. I KNEW people who lost those jobs - and never got another one even reasonable close in pay and benefits. I can remember the TV commercials where Zenith made a big deal out of making their TVs in the US - not anymore.

Once those labor markets were opened to the capitalist class there was NO WAY the American worker could compete with those wages and everybody knew it.

I cannot prove anything, but I believe it to be true - this was planned decades ago.

You don't have to shed any tears for the industrial heartland of North America if you don't want to. You can say that if the Great God of Capitalism and profits waves his "imaginary hand" over the region I grew up in and says its just not right that people who make steel or machine tools or cars should make a wage that allows them to live decently, that's OK. But I saw these people. They were my relatives, ny friends, my neighbors. Many of them lost parts or all of their pensions. They weren't spoiled, overfed, overpaid lazy people - I knew a few that lost fingers in the factories in Cleveland's flats. They held up their part of the bargain - theyt made their owners and stockholders rich. And then they got screwed in sight of retirement.

So please talk all the economics you want and explain to me how these people needed to be sacrificed on the altar of greed so the rich could get richer all over the world. I don't care to really hear it. I can sympathize with Indians and Chinese and whatever. But I don't know them, they weren't the people whose kids I grew up with.

When capital clashes with people, I'll take people every time.

For my money what Arthur Jensen told Howard Beale in the movie Network back in 1976 were still the truest words every spoken on economics in public and remain so.

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Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal -- that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and A T & T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war and famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

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Originally posted by No Yards:
The problem is not that offshoring creates $1.46 in new wealth for every dollar spent.

The problem is not thatIndia keeps 33 cents of that gain.

The problem isn't that the U.S. keeps $1.13 for every dollar spent on offshoring.

The problem is that the $0.13 kept by the US all goes into the pockets of the ubber-rich, and not only is the $0.13 not used to raise the boats of all citizens, but the whole offshoring issue is used to further intimidate local workers into doing the jobs that do reamin for even lower wages, thus that $0.13 extra profit is used to wring even more money out of the middle class and into the pockets of the rich.

Under the current American regime, Americans standard of living is falling when you eliminate the top 2% or so of the GDP hoarders.

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