It’s not just manufacturing gone overseas

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/11/155430/commentary-this-column-was-made.html

Posted on Wednesday, July 11, 2012Modified Wednesday, July 11, 2012

This column was made in the USA

<snip>It’s not just manufacturing gone overseas. Cut-rate accountants abroad now do Americans’ income taxes, cheapo radiologists read their X-rays, bargain-priced architects draw plans for their new homes, low-paid loan officers ponder their mortgage applications. Manufacturing, medicine, the service industry — chunks of it have been outsourced. And now journalism.

But while you may be reading this column on an iPad assembled in southern China, I promise that the words were manufactured in South Florida. In 2004, I wrote what at the time I thought was an absurdist piece of satire, suggesting that I too had been outsourced. “A team of software engineers, call center operators, tax accountants and street urchins now assembles this column in Calcutta, cobbling together 20 inches of verbiage, checking the spelling, writing a headline and transmitting the product to Miami hours before deadline — a feat unobtainable under the old system. All this for a tenth of the cost of employing an aging American journalist. Without the mood swings.”

It was great fun, a fine joke, imagining South Florida politicians along with “gun nuts, cock fighters, gay bashers, no-helmet-by-God bikers, feral cat feeders, silk-suit lobbyists and others fond of e-mailing rather creative and contemptuous characterizations my way,” would actually be disparaging a collection of disinterested foreign laborers half a world away. snip

It’s like a modern variation of that famous Martin Niemöller lament from pre-World War II Germany. First they outsourced the factory jobs, and I didn’t speak out. Then they shipped out the service jobs and I didn’t speak out. Then the docs. And then they came for me.

[pscot]

1. I remember reading, back in the '90s

a comment by a software engineer from Massachusetts to the effect that factory workers losing jobs to offshoring was just tough shit. Proof that an EE degree is no guarantee of intelligence.

[hack89]

2. Depends how you look at manufacturing

Manufacturing as a part of our GDP is growing but American manufacturing is concentrated in high end capital goods and not consumer goods so it is not obvious to the average American. The big negative is that US factories are now highly automated and therefore there has been a big loss in jobs.

1. Still the champion.

Inspired by a column in Sunday's Boston Globe, Mark Perry put together this graph as a testament to America's global manufacturing strength. (It includes mining and utilities because it draws from a UN database that bundles together data for manufacturing, mining and utilities).

2. A shrinking footprint

Even though U.S. manufacturing has grown in absolute terms, other sectors of the economy have grown much faster. As a result, manufacturing represents a much smaller share of our economy than it did a few generations ago. This graph from Global Macro Monitor compares manufacturing's share of U.S. GDP to the share held by finance, insurance and real estate.

3. Millions of lost jobs

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing, even though the manufacturing sector is making more money. In other words, we have lots of really high-tech factories churning out fancy, complex stuff. But those factories just don't need that many employees. More than five million manufacturing jobs disappeared in the 10 years through December of last year — and most were already gone by the time the financial crisis hit.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/07/133561265/3-ways-of-looking-at-manufacturing-in-america

[FreeJoe]

11. I expect US manufacturing to increase during the next decade

Two factors will play into that. First, with the dramatic decrease in the price of natural gas, both energy and chemical feedstock prices will be relatively lower in the US than in the last decade. Second, manufacturing is becoming increasingly automated. That will make capital costs more important than labor costs, which should favor the US. The sad thing is that it won't help labor much because there will not be many new jobs for unskilled or semi-skilled factory workers.

Both automation and outsourcing are double edged swords. They lower the cost of goods, which benefits everyone. They also lower the demand for domestic employment, which hurts people selling their labor. I don't see a simple answer. Banning outsouring won't help. Production will move to the most cost efficient markets anyway.

[badtoworse]

14. Wait until the EPA and the Sierra Club are finished with coal

They'll turn their attention to natural gas and it won't be cheap anymore.

[Brickbat]

3. Now that white-collars get outsourced, maybe it'll get the attention it deserves.

Doubt it, though.

[mikeysnot]

4. Outsource the CEO's

Let them money saved trickle down to the workers who do the actual labor.

[badtoworse]

5. The bottom line is that we have to find a way to grow the private sector in the US.

We might disagree on the method, but I think we agree on the need.

PS: This is why I stayed with the electric power industry - you can't run an extension cord to India or China.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Staying with the electric power industry is not a panacea either

Because one of these days, if not already, even you will have a two tiered pay system where the new employees will be working for about half of what you are making right now.

And when that happens you are going to be depending on those new lower paid workers to negotiate a new contract to continue your pension and benefits which may be more than those workers are getting for actually working. And there is a good chance those lower paid workers are going to say screw those overpaid retirees and their pensions.

And then everything goes to hell. That is how it was done to us.

Don

[badtoworse]

12. What you've described has been ongoing for some time, mainly with pensions

Defined benefit plans are going away with 401k's taking their place. If you're in the plan, you stay in, but if you're new, you get the 401k. I haven't been in a defined benefit plan since 2000 when I left GPU, That is the only pension I qualified for and I started collecting it in 2005. Other than that and SS, it's 401k's for me and my wife. I get routinely flamed for saying that everyone needs to save, no matter how little they make. Your point about pension vulnerability illustrates that need as well as anything I can think of.

The electric power business is still a very good career option and I'm surprised more young people aren't entering it. It's not glamorous, but it is a steady job that is relatively insensitive to downturns in the economy. Go to the trade shows and you see a bunch of old, white guys running around. Where there is hair, it's gray or white. One of the industry's big concerns is brain drain - the people with the powerplant experience are retiring and there's not much of a next generation absorbing their knowledge and experience. It's the main reason I can still find work at 62. In fairness, there are a lot more young people entering the renewable sector, but it's questionable to me whether renewables can develop the technology needed to maintain a large part of the electric supply. If we do need to build any large, central station plants in the future it could be a problem - a lot of the guys that know how to do it will be playing golf, fishing or pushing up daisies.

[GarroHorus]

7. He left out Human Resources

After years of Human Resources being on the forefront of outsourcing other departments, HR is now high on the list for outsourcing.

Irony, thy name is corporate America.

[cascadiance]

8. And I HATE the automated phone voicemail systems they have now...

I had to deal with tons of being transfered to the wrong department, and a voicemail not understanding me saying my last name (to match it with a report I filed), even when I initially try to spell it out, which a human would immediately pick up. After a few attempts on these voicemail when it wouldn't be able to understand my one syllable last name, it finally asked me to spell it out (which I tried to do earlier when it wasn't expecting being spelled out) and then after spelling it out it finally funneled me through, and in some cases to the wrong number too. We need humans back to answer phones please!

Fortunately, the airlines found my baggage this morning, but yesterday when I couldn't get through to the airport of my connection's luggage department, I was beginning to wonder if I'd see my bag again then.

[ananda]

9. Ouch!

Boy that hurts to read that.

[Ghost of Huey Long]

10. JP Morgan gets paid to run the food stamp program and they outsourced that

I read somewhere on DU that the poster called the IRS and got confirmation they were speaking to someone in India.

[badtoworse]

13. Seriously? Our own IRS outsourcing to India?

Amazing!

[NNN0LHI]

16. Think I would need to see better evidence than an anonymous Internet posting to believe that one

Just saying ...



Don

[Zalatix]

15. HELLO, free traders, how is this good for America?

Hello? Anybody home?