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>
> The "view with alarm" crowd also notices only the
> job shifts from here to
> there, while oblivious to other job shifts from
> there to here. For instance,
> they never mention the manufacturing jobs that
> Nissan, Toyota, and BMW
> "offshored" *to* the United States in recent years.
>
So, the "view through rose-colored glasses" crowd,
also known as the "I got mine" crowd, finds this news
so thrilling they're ready to give up being tech
writers to go be vehicle plant assembly line workers?
Those incoming jobs that you're touting pay less than
the TW and engineering and management jobs that are
being offshored. And fewer of them have been created
than the number of previously American jobs that have
been offshored during the same time. And the pace of
jobs *leaving* this country is increasing. Net result
is a loss for this country and its people.
>
> Yep. The refrain hasn't really changed since before
> Ned Ludd and the boys
> smashed the power looms in Britain's textile plants.
> "We're losing our jobs
> to <pick one: machines / robots / those damn
> furriners>! If this doesn't
> stop, we'll all be <pick one: dead / begging in the
> streets / flipping
> burgers>!"
>
And in fact a large number of English workers did die
or had to resort to begging because of being thrown
out of work with no alternatives. Read history.
And in fact, a large number of Americans are losing
their jobs and their savings and having to take work
that pays a LOT less than what they used to get, or
being unable to find any work at all. Read the papers.
People who favor offshoring keep telling us that it
will somehow benefit us all in the long run. Well, how
long will that run be? When will regular people below
the CEO level start seeing the benefits of offshoring?
And how many people will lose everything they once had
by that time?
>
> This "Offshoring Tracker" is co-sponsored by the
> CWA. If that union had its
> way, your long-distance calls would still be placed
> through an operator and
> would cost you three or four dollars a minute.
>
Guilt by association, eh? Are you claiming that the
figures on the tracker must be considered fraudulent
because of who sponsors the web site? If you want to
accuse the people who put the tracker on the web of
foisting disinformation on the public, then do so
openly, instead of posting innuendoes.
I also, in my earlier post on this thread, expressed
skepticism on the accuracy of the numbers. But I did
so based on rational concern about the difficulties of
gathering information, rather than on an unfounded
assumption of bad motives on the part of the CWA.
>
> In the short run, every such change "hurts" someone.
>
Yes. And I would like to find some way to mitigate the
hurt. And I would like our government to try to find
some way to mitigate the damage being done by
offshoring, instead of being a meat puppet for big
business.
It amazes me that nobody in this discussion has ever
asked me or any of the anti-offshoring posters what
they really want. It's pretty easy to tell what the
pro crowd thinks. They always post "it's got to be
this way" or "it's the march of history and there's no
sense standing in its way" or simiar cut-and-dried
absolute no-two-ways-about-it messages. And they
apparently always assume that the antis have a similar
inflexible absolutist frame of mind. Instead of trying
to filter others' words through your own frame of
reference and then responding to what you would have
posted if you were on the other side, why don't you
ask what the antis really want? Are you afraid of
reading something that may put a crack in your
viewpoint?
I realize that attempts to turn back the clock are
futile. That isn't what I'm suggesting. What I want
done about offshoring is to find a way to make it
possible for companies to get the benefits of cost
reduction without impoverishing Americans. There must
be some ways in which companies can cut their costs
enough and boost profits enough without throwing
employees out the door. But we'll never find them as
long as people like you keep insisting that offshoring
must keep right on rolling over us and there's no
point in even thinking about any other possibilities.
Tell us, do you think there is some *good* reason to
refuse to even think that there may be alternatives?
>
> The conflict between those of us who embrace such
> changes and those who view
> them with alarm
>
What I view with alarm is the fact that people can't
find good jobs, and the fallout from that. The city I
live in is curtailing essential services. The sales
tax revenues are way down because there are so many
people out of work, or working at jobs that pay much
less than they used to get. The largest employers in
town are now running at about 70% of the number of
employees they used to have, in part because a large
number of the jobs that used to be here have been
offshored. If offshoring is beneficial to our local
economy, I'll be cursed if I can see it. It offshoring
is going to benefit the economy in the long run, that
long run dern well better hurry up and get here before
the city has to close the hospital.
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