The real problem is that these people running American businesses truly
think
that they can hire these cheaper foreign workers and do just as well or even
better than with trained experienced American technical workers. If that is
so,
then why is it that when I call technical services for ____________ (fill in
the
blank) and get an obviously Indian worker, they are almost never able to
help
me with my problem. After repeated phone calls, by chance, I will happen to
get
someone who is obviously American who can solve my problem in a moment.
I have had this experience over and over again. Most recently with D-Link.
American companies are obviously letting go or not hiring qualified workers
(along with some who are not, of course) and then they are getting what they
pay
for at these wonderful low rates. Only, their customers are the ones who are
paying,
not the bean-counters.
    Tom Hula

Mark Wonsil wrote:
|| John Lee wrote:
||| This article from NYTimes.com
||| has been sent to you by [log in to unmask]
|||
|||
||| Interesting and it affects our industry
|| ...
|||
||| Op-Ed Contributor: Second Thoughts on Free Trade
|||
||| January 6, 2004
|||  By CHARLES SCHUMER and PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
|||
||
|| There's an Editorial in the WSJ today that seems to be a response to
|| Mr. Schumer and Mr. Roberts.  I can't post the whole piece but
|| here's some fair-use snippets:
||
|| We Are the World
||
|| By HARVEY GOLUB.  (Mr. Golub, retired chairman and CEO of American
|| Express, is currently chairman of TH Lee Putnam Ventures and
|| ClientLogic. He is also a senior adviser to Lazard and serves on the
|| boards of Campbell Soup and Dow Jones, publisher of this newspaper.)
||
|| One of the big issues shaping up for the 2004 election is
|| "globalization," or more specifically, why globalization is bad for
|| American workers. Almost every day there is an article or a speech
|| somewhere about the U.S. "jobless recovery." In many cases, they are
|| accompanied by expressions of concern about "exporting" jobs to
|| India, the negative trade balance with China, unfair trade practices
|| on the part of other countries, and the like. They normally include
|| suggestions that we need to do something -- usually couched in terms
|| of making these other countries adhere to U.S. rules and
|| regulations, but really aimed at making them less competitive. ...
|| U.S. businesses rightly seek ways of increasing their economic
|| flexibility, converting fixed costs to variable, and focusing more
|| on core strengths and capabilities. All of these efforts are geared
|| toward making U.S. companies economically competitive on a world
|| scale -- because they compete on a world scale and because customers
|| demand continuously lower costs. This has led to outsourcing
|| manufacturing, outsourcing services, outsourcing servicing and
|| outsourcing business processes. It has also led to a high level of
|| capital expenditures, a cleaner environment and huge increases in
|| productivity. Moreover, it has resulted in lower costs for
|| consumers, which in turn has helped the consumer engine drive the
|| U.S. economy for decades. These shifts have been enabled by low-cost
|| communications, computer technology and rising educational levels
|| around the world.
||
|| Almost all sensible economists and business people believe that this
|| is a generally wealth-enhancing transfer, and good for our nation
|| and the world. Many also believe that this is a good thing
|| generally, but that their industry or their company is different and
|| ought to be protected. Others, however, are concerned: Will the lost
|| jobs be replaced by others of equal or increased value? Will the
|| displaced workers find new jobs? Will these shifts result in a
|| hollowed out U.S. economy? Their policy prescriptions are to make it
|| harder for U.S. companies to move work where it can be done more
|| cheaply and/or with better quality, or to impose on foreign nations
|| our labor or environmental standards, which they believe would have
|| the same effect.
||
|| ...If a policy prescription for this "problem" is needed, and I'm
|| not sure one is, then wouldn't it be better to improve our
|| "product," so that businesses will choose to create jobs here
|| because the product is better, rather than them being forced to do
|| so?
||
|| ...
||
|| By all means strive for a fair trading system globally. But do
|| nothing at the governmental level aimed at creating barriers to the
|| mobility of capital or labor. To ensure that we maintain a
|| competitive advantage, we should adhere to the policies that have
|| worked for more than two centuries: Reduce the unnecessary
|| intrusiveness of government in the choices people make, improve the
|| effectiveness and reduce the costs of needed government services,
|| fundamentally eliminate governmental price controls, and restore
|| equity in our legal system.
||
|| Even with these actions, some jobs will move overseas. I certainly
|| hope so. Our policy goals ought to be to improve the environment for
|| growth. By remaining flexible, we will create more jobs here in
|| numbers large enough to require us to export even more jobs or to
|| import more people. Either way, both we and the rest of the world
|| benefit.
||
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