True or false: Outsourcing of America's jobs is a form of class warfare

[brentspeak]

Poll question: True or false: Outsourcing of America's jobs is a form of class warfare

I say: yes.

[me b zola]

1. It absolutely is.

Thank you for asking.

[stirlingsliver]

2. Absolutely

The wealthy are screwing the wage earners.

Ultimately, the middle class will disappear.

Most of us will end up poor, while a few become wealthy.

[MADem]

3. It's not warfare. Warfare requires thought. It's quickie profit-taking by greedy assholes. NT

[stirlingsliver]

6. It's Still Warfare

Making a profit on the backs of workers is still class warfare.

[MADem]

11. Well, we can argue the definition all day. My definition differs--I regard warfare

as a deliberate attack that was planned, contemplated, and executed for the specific purpose of annhiliating one's opponent.

If the rich decided that they would offshore jobs in ORDER to destroy people, that would meet my definition.

But I don't think they are doing that.

I think they see easy money, they see massive profits, they see fewer onerous regulations...and they DON'T see ANY TAX CONSEQUENCES for offshoring. THAT's why they do it. Not to be "mean" to workers. Because they LIKE the CASH. The easy, peasy, hand-over-fist cash, accompanying substantially reduced overhead costs.

It's PROFIT. That's what drives them. Profit, not warfare.

[pscot]

24. What makes you think there's no planning behind it.

What do you think the National Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the Bilderbergers and all the right wing think tanks are up to? Forthe last 50years they've been pumping out anti-union,anti-worker propaganda, and devising new schemes to keep the lower orders intimidated and in line. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see something more than the dead hand of capital at work here.

[MADem]

33. Because it doesn't take planning for greedy people to "Monkey see, monkey do."

If you see someone develop a business model that increases their market share, their competitiveness, AND has the added bonus of soaring those profits into the "obscene" range, that's where you go.

It doesn't take a bunch of nefarious assholes to sit down in the secret dungeon of the Chamber of Commerce to "plan it out."

You're hungry, you eat. You're tired, you sleep.

You're a businessman, and a greedy, uncaring one at that, you maximize profit, because you are a slave to your bottom line.

The only way the US worker gets back INTO the equation is if you make it cost MORE to do business overseas--you tax them for their greedy ways. Then, and only then, they'll come home...

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

40. Comparing Chamber of Commerce with the basic need scenario,...

,..is a means of denying what has been and is happening on a global scale by global players.

Trickle down blame don't cut it, either.

I find the excuses and rationalizations for economic predatory practices revolting.

I will BUY none of them. Moreover, no one could ever convince me these people do not know what the hell they are doing. They plan every minutia to advantage themselves whether via magical accounting figures or flat out fraud.

[MADem]

51. If there were no profit, there would be no motivation.

But if you believe in secret societies of hand-rubbing, evilly laughing nefarious old white guys, then I suppose you can come up with other motivations.

FWIW, who's "excusing and rationalizing?"

Certainly, these businessmen may recognize the EFFECT of their actions. But the EFFECT and the REASONS for their taking their actions are two completely different things. Businessmen don't consider it THEIR ROLE to be socially responsible. The government can do that, they aver, if government feels like it. Or better still, there's always those Reaganesque bootstraps.

If there were no MONEY to be made, they wouldn't be offshoring just to "put the worker down, dude" or "to be MEAN, man" and that's some sense of what I am seeing here. First, and foremost, they look at the purse.

If government starts taxing them in onerous fashion for their offshoring ways, they'll come home again. They'll do business where they can make the MOST money from this large American market.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

31. Oh, hell yes, it IS DELIBERATE. The corporacrats make sure to place key players in places,....

,...like the IMF and World Bank.

Have you read, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"? Actually, there is quite a bit of documentation on how "multi-nationals" have made SURE their representatives are placed in HIGH places to usurp humanity every which way possible knowing damn well they are concentrating wealth and expanding poverty.

It IS planned. What's happening IS ON PURPOSE, with great calculation.

[MADem]

36. And why are they doing this? Because they're nefarious and like seeing people suffer?

They rub their hands together gleefully, and take sadistic delight?

Don't be silly. There's one reason, and one reason alone.

Profit.

If they made more MONEY by being socially responsible and worker-friendly, they'd be bending over backwards. You'd think they all were Santy Claus.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

54. Sociopathic predators rationalize others' suffering at their hands.

There is no "delight" because they figure oppressing others is the right thing to do in their own sick minds.

Get it, yet?

Or, is the serial murderer to be defended because s/he has the sole motive of POWER rather than killing or death on the top of his/her brain?

I would seriously enjoy you explaining your last sentence, though. It was,...interesting.

[MADem]

62. I don't buy your argument at all. I don't 'get it' because you haven't made a sale.

Even Sigmund said: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

These guys like making money. They like nice houses, fancy cars, and they like being the big cheese with a load of dough. They like the respect they get, the perks, the ability to trade in that wrinkled woman who bore them all those kids for the younger model with the angry tits, they like parading said younger model around so their friends look at them enviously, and perhaps they think that having STUFF and young women will keep death away. It doesn't work--youth doesn't rub off.

Beyond that, these fools don't think much. They don't have the capacity. They do one or two things well; run a business, and say, golf, or play tennis--and that's it for them. They aren't Renaissance Men--they're Merchants. But they're Merchants On Steroids in an international marketplace. If they could make the same money AND be nice to people, they'd do it. Because they're probably a bit insecure, and that money makes them feel better about themselves.

What I meant by my last comment was rather uninteresting, actually--it was fairly straightforward: If corporations were REWARDED (with LOWER taxes for example, cheaper lease costs for land upon which they build their factories here in the US) for being socially responsible, e.g.:

--Sustainable, eco-friendly production.

--Fair labor practices, good health plans, ergonomic workcenters, community involvement, that sort of thing.

--Self actualization of workforce, promotion from within...

Well, they'd be leaping all over each other to be Santy to their US workforce--because it would benefit their bottom line. If it became CHEAPER for them to be nice to their US workers rather than exploit overseas workers, if the bottom line was the same or better, they'd stay here. The US workforce, despite the crappy students being churned out of our schools as a result of that absurd NCLB, are still not THAT awful. It'll take another generation at least before they're total morons, and hopefully the Dems will turn that shit around.

That kind of shit needs to be LEGISLATED, though. It's not going to happen because the Nice Fairy taps these guys with her Magic Wand.

The reason they offshore is because there's PROFIT in it. If we taxed the fucking shit out of anything that was dragged in here from a nominally-US based company, they'd rethink their business model in a hurry. But they won't, because too many Republicans have stock in these outfits and like it the way it is--they'd never go for punitive tarriffs on that kind of stuff. And the easiest way, still, to make BIG MONEY is to do it on the backs of brown people far, far away, who make a buck or two a day.

[davekriss]

60. PROFIT is what drives all modern wars (nt)

[spoony]

10. I think Bush has definitively proven that war requires no thought

and that quickie profit-taking by greedy assholes can be the whole basis for warfare to boot.

[MADem]

Oh, he thought out the war. It's the "after party" he didn't think on. NT

[Mike03]

34. I agree 100%. It might PROVOKE class warfare, but the origin of outsourcing

is twofold: how to successfully compete with competitors who are also outsourcing, and simply the profit motive coupled with the desire to satisfy apoplectic shareholders. The worst these corporations can be accused of is being psychopaths who have no compassion for their employees. They are fixated on cost; the rest of the consequences, to them, are only side effects.

Bill Gates is not trying to provoke class warfare or declare war on impoverished middle class Americans. He sees MS has locked in a cost battle with other NASDAQ tech companies.

But the people who bear the pain of these decisions will not take it forever, and I doubt consumers will either.

[msongs]

4. true or false: you reject the lower prices some outsouring allows? nt

[brentspeak]

7. What "lower prices"?

[Dora]

12. True or false

When manufacturers "offshored" their manufacturing overseas, they compensated the American public's loss of jobs by lowering their prices on manufactured goods sold.

True? Or false?

[MADem]

13. Woah!! Paging Doctor Freud!!! "OUTSOURING" -- that sums it up!! nt

[fasttense]

22. Outsourcing may allow for some lower prices but.....

when wages drop as a direct result and only poorly paid service sector McJobs remain, who can afford even the lower prices?

[Mike03]

37. The Luxury of Rejecting Low Prices

Because I've been very lucky, I don't have to buy products at their cheapest; but it would be really rude of me to condemn people who are barely making ends meet for shopping at WalMart. I'm not arrogant or judgmental enough to do that.

I think people do the best they can within the parameters of their wages and levels of awareness. Americans are not the most aware people in the world, but they are about to experience a financial crunch the likes of which they've not experienced in generations.

[Deja Q]

38. That excuse is so 1980; it'd be obvious to Helen Keller the results have not been lower costs.

Why else is a computer software product, which was once $200 per license and somewhat buggy, now $400 per license and far, far more buggy than it ever was in the past? Never mind the spelling...

[Mike03]

41. People who don't pay attention will challenge your premise

that prices are lower. They don't understand how much worse inflation would be were it not for outsourcing and importing from the most reckless, abusive, exploitative and unregulated economies.

Anyway, the American Holiday is coming to an end.

[Deja Q]

47. Well, the only way to educate is to teach. Please expand on your commentary.

I'll listen, but the one thing I wouldn't be keen on is any extemporizing on your part... :D

[Iris]

59. true.

[Breeze54]

5. After two jobs hitting the overseas road?

HELL YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:grr:

[Annces]

8. Greed - when the parasite kills the host

the parasite perishes too. The system is not sustainable.

[Mike03]

42. We ARE the parasite; China, Japan, UK and India are the hosts. NT

[SteelPenguin]

9. other, though mostly no

It is and it isn't. It's more a case by case basis. When you move a profitable factory to mexico to make it more profitable because you don't have to deal with a union, it's not so much class warfare but corporate selfishness. Selfish Corporatism? Something along those lines. Class warfare implies an intention at hurting one class or another, while this could care less about people and just cares about numbers.

It has the same results, but a different motivation.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

14. I respectfully disagree. When motivation is greed, the consequences are obvious.

Economic oppression, ON PURPOSE, is a war on every economic class except the most wealthy.

Maybe, the most wealthy who engage in predator profiteering would like to think they are merely greedy and amoral but I would no more allow them to get away with that rationalization than I would the rationalizations of a con man ripping off the elderly.

[SteelPenguin]

19. but it's not economic oppression on purpose

They're just moving numbers around to get the most profit. There's no annimosity. It's the culture of greed. If you want to call that Class Warfare, then we're having a semantic argument, and we can just potato potatoe. My point is that they're not doing it intentionally to hurt people, and the real problem of class warfare is with corporations which put the bottom line ahead of their employees when they're already profitable.

Like say a company already making a good profit, takes away dental coverage and increases the health deductable to 2500 a year for each employee in order to make a bigger profit, which is demanded by the stockholders, or they'll lose their jobs. Is it class warfare? Only to the extent that a capitalist system is inherently one that is always actively engaged in class warfare. Business is about profit.

Heck it occurs within this country. Companies will move from the northeast or rust belt to the southwest lured by tax incentives. Is it class warfare to lay off 10,000 workers in Toledo, and hire 10,000 more at the same wage in Tuscon? Or is it just Capitalism.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

23. Knowing the outcome makes it ON PURPOSE. It's not like co.s don't know they are oppressing.

Obviously, they do not CARE about how they oppress anyone other than the wealthiest among them.

Just because they do not CARE does not mean they are not oppressing KNOWINGLY, WILLFULLY and ON PURPOSE.

As previously posted, I no more excuse the rationalizations of economic predators than I would any predator. Even the con man ripping off Gramma rationalizes how she's just a weak link in the human race and lives in the world of "capitalism".

[stirlingsliver]

15. Huh?

"When you move a profitable factory to mexico to make it more profitable because you don't have to deal with a union, it's not so much class warfare but corporate selfishness. Selfish Corporatism? Something along those lines. Class warfare implies an intention at hurting one class or another, while this could care less about people and just cares about numbers."

Moving a profitable factory to Mexico to make it more profitable because you don't have to deal with a union DOES imply an intention to hurt another class -- the class of wage earners who lose their jobs when the factory moves to Mexico. The corporation that moves a profitable factory to Mexico so it doesn't have to deal with a union could care less about people and just cares about number$$$$.

[DangerDave921]

16. OR . . .

One could say that the poor Mexicans who now have jobs are doing better economically, so the corporations are actually helping those people. Don't you want Mexicans to have good jobs?

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

20. Corporations seek slave labor. That's a war on all classes other than the wealthiest.

True? :shrug:

[DangerDave921]

25. Stretch

I don't think that's fair to say that corps seek slave labor. They want cheap labor, of course, but I don't think that equates with slavery. And if Nike, for example, pays three times the going rate of pay in a foreign country, is Nike oppressing the people by paying that?

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

30. Yeah, right. $2/day ain't "slave labor". Oh, I know, next will be the 3rd world country thingy,...

,...the corporate predators throw out (oh, they are so much better off). ANY THING to justify economic oppression comes from the mouths of the criminals who advantage themselves ANY WAY POSSIBLE of human labor and resources.

btw when throwing out the "x corp pays 3X the going rate" thingy be sure to include what x corp returns TO that country, how the World Bank bankrupts that country and IMF taxes that country and its people.

What is and has been happening is a war, an oppressive economic war against human beings and it is being done ON PURPOSE, planned to minute detail exactly how much can be drained from the human race.

[Breeze54]

32. "if Nike, for example, pays three times the going rate of pay in a foreign country"...you are NUTS!

They pack jack shit to 'them foreign workers'!! :grr:

With no protection either and 18 hour days!!

Protections and good pay, my ass!

snip-->

http://www.faireconomy.org/press/2004/EE2004_pr.html

The outsourcing of service jobs to low-wage countries has further widened the pay gap
between workers and their bosses. Currently, the pay gap between U.S. CEOs and American
call center workers is 400:1, while

the gap between U.S. CEOs and Indian call center workers is 3,348 : 1

That's 3,348 : 1 And you call that fair wages???? :wtf:

[fasttense]

29. But the whole freaking reason the corporation moved the job was to get cheap labor.

Do you really, honestly believe that an outsourced job earns above the going rate? Do you think they pay a decent wage or a wage that is just enough?

The corporation is never going to pay a penny more than they have to for outsourced labor. They obviously consider cheap labor much more important than a stable economy in the US. So the wages they pay for labor in Mexico is barely enough to survive. It is the lowest they can get away with. The Mexican worker can find low paying jobs without a problem. Like we can find minimum wage jobs easily enough here in the US. It is not helping the Mexican any, no more than it is helping a US worker on minimum wage. The corporation has only provided more very low paying jobs. That is why NAFTA lowered the average national wage and did not increase it.

[SteelPenguin]

17. No, I disagree

It implies that the number crunchers care about money only. They don't care about the workers. They just don't. It's all numbers. The workers are numbers. The widgets they make are numbers. The salaries are numbers. THey crunch them and come up with more numbers, and the one with the highest number wins.

They're not doing it to hurt anyone. People don't get hurt by calculators.

The problem isn't that the president of a company hates the workers, as you mention. He just cares about the numbers. That's not class warfare, that's a completely different problem.

[idgiehkt]

18. it's class warfare on a global scale

in the corporate world certain workforces, such as those in germany and france, are referred to(and whined about) as 'rigid' or some such adjective I can't remember, and corporations exploit workforces in countries that have the least organization and legal protections.

edited because I posted this in the wrong place.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

28. Yup. I've thought, seriously, about going back to my "homeland", Norway.

I believe the corporacrats call the Scandinavian nations that have a fabulous quality of life and more equal economic balance as "protectionists" and "isolationists", even "socialists".

:rofl:

The corporacrats call ANY country where there is some semblance of economic balance "socialist" or "communist"! Oh, but, China is just wonderful.

[idgiehkt]

61. yes and they refer to 'breaking down'

those workforces or forcing them out of their rigidity and one way to do bring this about is out-sourcing.

It is hard to conceive of these things as 'class warfare' until people realize that overclasses in each nation are in cohoots with each other (ex: the Bushes and the al Sauds) to maintain the status quo, they have the power/money/troops to do so, it's at basis what Smedley Butler wrote "War is a Racket" about.

[OhioChick]

21. Yes....

But I think that most here already know my opinion on outsourcing.:mad:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. Americans May Bemoan Free Trade but Cheap is Still King - Le Monde

http://watchingamerica.com/lemonde0000161.shtml

George W. Bush begins his interview with the Wall Street Journal on October 12 by referring to the American public's disaffection with neoconservative ideology. " We have lost sight of what it means to be a nation willing to be aggressive in the world, and spread freedom or deal with disease," he regretfully observed. But he devoted the greater part of the interview to discussing trade issues. He is "concerned", he says, with the growing "protectionism" of the United States.

Mr. Bush rightly establishes a link between the evolution of American public opinion against the war in Iraq and its economic state of mind. In a nation where outbreaks of isolationism periodically appear, it would have been surprising if the Iraqi quagmire and the incapacity to diplomatically resolve the Iranian "nuclear threat" didn’t also lead to questions on other levels.

"I know," Mr. Bush said during a speech in Miami - also on October 12 - " many of our citizens feel uneasy about competition, and they worry that trade will cost jobs .". But he called on the workers to "adapt" and "remain confident," because "free trade will help our economy grow." But this kind of speech is finding an ever shrinking audience.

In a country where the consumer is king, while concerns over "threats" from China or elsewhere may flourish, they still take a backseat to the search for the lowest price. In Niagara Falls, the cheap souvenirs are "Made in China." As for investments, the Chinese group Citic has declared its interest in buying shares in Bear Stearns, America's fifth largest investment bank and the most severely affected by the recent credit crisis. Bear Stearns is looking to sell 20 percent of its capital.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

35. Sure, because it's so freakin' hard to stretch our damn dollar. The corporatist cycle,...

,...of predator-imposed survival works that way. They were doing it abroad and now they are doing at home.

They are doing it ON PURPOSE!

[Mike03]

45. You are right, in my opinion, but it's no surprise many people

don't want to accept this. We have been partying for a few decades by borrowing tremendous sums from other nations,and that has kept our interest rates and gas prices low, comparted to other nations. But now that it is obvious that the U.S. dollar is worthless, the party is over.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

55. All politics is local.

It's really as simple as the average consumer paying $1.50 for a pair of socks made in Guatemala or $2.50 for a pair made in North Carolina.

Waving the flag and spouting off platitudes about the "American Worker" isn't going to change human nature.

[Rex]

27. Depends

[Disturbed]

39. Outsourcing, Insourcing, Re-location of Mfg. of Multi-Corps.

For many years all of these have been rewarded by the US Govt. & Congress.

Do we need to ask why?

[Rex]

43. Well yes, those are the people who get the money to run political campaigns.

I don't believe all of it is cronyism. Some things are bound to go global where cutthroat capitalism is the rule of the land. Exceptions to the rule.

[HughBeaumont]

44. An emphatic and unhesitant YES.

Let me just add . . . I find it VOMITOUS that people who call themselves "democrats" support job offshoring and free trade.

You support job offshoring, you aren't a democrat. End of story.

Destroying one middle class while attempting to lift another is predatory and unnecessary business only intended to line the pockets of upper management. You're taking money away from the wage earner here, which means less money going into the economy. Then they close plants, which kill a small town's tax base, thus continuing the cycle of wage stagnation. Management screws up - the worker pays. Each and every DAMNED TIME.

How many real life examples do people NEED? Read Lous Uchitelle's book The Disposable American. Read Screwed by Thomas Hartmann. Read The Myths of Free Trade by Sen Sherrod Brown. Take this Job and Ship It by Byron Dorgan. Are some people SERIOUSLY suggesting there's a positive side to American workers losing their jobs, their progress and often their livelihoods?

[OhioChick]

52. .....

"You support job offshoring, you aren't a democrat. End of story."

You're absolutely correct. :thumbsup:

[Mike03]

46. Corporations are to blame, but so are U.S. citizens who bought a lot of bullshit

they didn't need and couldn't afford--often on cheap credit. Because now those people can't afford to pay a fair price for the things they want that are produced in camps in India, China, etc... Thus, they have to be made cheap, by slave labor. Everyone says they don't buy products produced by slave labor, but how many truly do not?

Let's not be too hypocritical here.

[Deja Q]

48. I wonder how many people have to use credit cards for actual necessities...

That'd make a fun news article.

[Mike03]

50. Certainly many do

And my comments don't pertain to them.

In fact, most people go into debt as a result of something other than spurious or reckless spending.

But this housing implosion would not exist if most Americans used their heads when deciding whether to purchase something or not. It's emblematic of the way we feel about our consumptions, and it is part of the reason we waste more resources than any other population in the world, even more than China or India.

We need to face up to this, no matter what our political beliefs are.

We spend too much, expect too much from the earth, and use too much. And then we throw it away.

[Tyler Durden]

49. You needed an "OF COURSE, YOU FUCKING IDIOT" choice.

Anyone who believes differently is delusional. Outsourcing is done to make cheap products to sell HERE, not for trade.

[ChromeFoundry]

53. Hell Yes. n/t

[Quixote1818]

56. I don't think they give it that much thought

they are just looking to make the most money and they don't care who they hurt to do it.

[HughBeaumont]

57. Which makes it far worse than the implication of making it "personal".

The whole "nothing personal, just business" mantra is an example of cold bloodedness that they learn from Day 1 in MBA school. Love or Hate doesn't factor in what they see as "merely a cost of doing business", which is why I think you cannot even have the least bit of empathy and be powerful at the same time. It's a rare case that people can have both traits.

Either way, it still shouldn't be excused. At all. It's unnecessary, demoralizing and will actually COST the business and the economy money in the long term (decreased worker productivity due to low morale, turnover, bad publicity, returned projects/contracts, loss of tax base, loss of income, wage stagnation, etc).

[The2ndWheel]

58. They're not "America's" jobs

It's a global world. It's a global economy. If you want easy travel and global communication, you have to accept the down side as well. That's just how it works. We don't get to have everything.

It may be class warfare, but name a time when we won't have that in this current setup. As long as we have a "middle" class, by definition there must be an upper class, as well as a lower class. And yes, they're going to fight it out. We could have a classless society, but good luck with that.

Like I said, they're not America's jobs. They're not Indian or Chinese jobs either. They're just jobs. It makes no difference where they're done, because it's all about maximizing production. As long as we have cheap enough energy that is required to keep this ship at sea, we'll keep doing things this way(and if alternatives ever allow us to continue this way of life, get ready for more outsourcing). If that energy is no longer cheap enough, then overt slavery will make a comeback(there are 6.5+ billion of us, we're very cheap and expendable), because the job will have to get done.