Let's be friends :)

arty said:
Outsourcing is a real problem for all of us. Our borders are wide open and the jobs are going overseas. I had a problem with installing Norton Utilities last week. I couldn't get my computer running after the install, so I called Symantic. Guess who I spoke to? A guy in India who spent 46 minutes on the phone and could not help me (or speak much English). I figured out the fix in a few hours, but finally got the same advice from Symantic 5 days later by email.

India loves our current and future administration.

We are not solving our nation's problems by sending all of the good jobs overseas.
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First, sorry to Benarown for the rant. We obviously disagree on some key issues, but I got upset esp. at the comment re: "perceived threats". There are some real legitimate threats out there, and sometimes arming oneself is the only answer to that.

As for this quote above from Arty, I could not agree more. I intended to vote for GW all along, but Kerry missed a HUGE opportunity to tear GWB a new one on the third debate when he said that his solution for the outsourcing problem was more classes at the Community College! Can you believe that naive BS? 20 years ago I took the advice of everyone I knew and changed my blue collar job to a white collar one by going back to school. Since then I have invested over $30K in certifications and training and degrees, and have a decent job in the computer industry now. Now, at the age of almost 50, I'm supposed to go BACK to school to learn ANOTHER trade so that these cheap SOB's can pay 1/8th of my salary to Indians for the same work overseas? God that really sucks. Kerry (who is just as much in favor of outsourcing as the current administration) could have really torn up the President on this issue if he had gotten off the Iraq dead horse for a minute.

Yestersday I called my Citi bank card tech support and found they had moved to Bangalore India. The girl was polite but useless. I asked her again and again to tell my what my interest had been for the last period, and she just didn't understand the question. It's not as if these companies (including the one I work for) are not making $; they are making plenty. They are just not making as much as they could be by firing Americans and paying the 3rd world far less. Where does it end? Community college training for what? Flipping burgers as the new 21st Century job?

Regards,

Norm
 
This is such a tough issue. It's easy to say that the CEO's are just being greedy, but if you were one of them, what would you do? It really is better for business to outsource.

I guess America just needs to start recognizing the incredible shift that has taken place in our economy. We're no longer a major product exporter/manufacturer. We are more of a service economy. We innovate, improve, invent, and drive technology. Surely there are blue collar jobs somewhere in there. I don't know how, but there must be.

If not, then people just need to start gearing up for an almost entirely white-collar economy. IMHO, the only thing to blame is the globalization of the world's economy. Now that people in India CAN do the same jobs as us, then it DOES make business sense to employ them for less.

I'm not advocating outsourcing. I'm just saying that we can't simply blame business leaders. They're just being shrewd. As for the rest of us, we'll have to start being shrewd. We'll have to raise our kids on more of a white-collar track. I think that's America's economic future.

Tough realization, but I guess things change. No point griping about it. Just gotta adapt.
 
namaarie said:
...It's easy to say that the CEO's are just being greedy, but if you were one of them, what would you do?...
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I would be greedy, take full advantage of the Capitalist system, and enrich myself as much as I could at the expense of the nation and it's citizens. And, I would feel good about it because I would consider myself a member of a privileged class.

But since I'm not a greedy CEO, I advocate slaughtering them, confiscating their ill gotten riches, and eating their children.
 
Ben Arown-Awile said:
But since I'm not a greedy CEO, I advocate slaughtering them, confiscating their ill gotten riches, and eating their children.
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Gosh I only mentioned killing the hippy's and I got all jumped on. Oh well, life sucks.
 
Nobody I knew ever called them "Love-Ins". Must have been a media term, or maybe things were different down south in Griffith Park. Up here in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco they were really more like "Stone-Ins".
 
Looks like the infamous H.I. thread veer has struck again.
 
"Greedy CEOs"

Franklin? Edison? Ford? Wright? Bell? Chrysler? Certainly Rockefeller, yes?

Del (Del's Meats)? Jerry (Jerry's Tire Service)? Tony (Pizza Palace)? Mike (McCreary Rebuilders and Remodelers)?

Things are SO much better in the Peoples' Paradise -- that never, ever was.


I have been concerned with our economic situation since I was a High School debater. We went to a negative balance of trade in 1960. Two great themes appear in comments since: a) stop competing with foreign producers (tariffs; subsidies; "buy American"); b) compete better. (THe suggestion of "fairer" competition does not address the much, much lower wages overseas. Mexico lost 500,000 jobs to Asia in 2003.)

The first policy will not work by itself -- or at all --unless we are prepared to do without foreign finished goods and raw materials. (The Government estimates that, by value, will will import more FOOD than we export within the next four years.) That leaves only the second solution - competing better. That means, at the base, better education and training of our citizens.
 
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