OT Food for thought

I don't often find myself in agreement with Thomas Friedman and I'm
not sure if I'll end up agreeing with this column, but it did cause
me to think of outsourcing in a different way. This will be of little
consolation to those whose jobs have disappeared, but it is food for
thought.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/opinion/26FRIE.html

Also in today's Times, (scary **** this ;-), a front page article
on Max Cleland that could have been culled from the pages of roff,
well, with a little bit of editing and a whole lot of cleaning up. ;-)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/po...gn/26CLEL.html

--
Ken Fortenberry

On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 16:06:40 GMT, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

I don't often find myself in agreement with Thomas Friedman and I'm
not sure if I'll end up agreeing with this column, but it did cause
me to think of outsourcing in a different way. This will be of little
consolation to those whose jobs have disappeared, but it is food for
thought.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/opinion/26FRIE.html

FWIW, the US companies whose goods are used in Indian call centers
also outsource the development, production, support, etc,. of those
same goods to India, Asia, etc. So yeah, there is a US brand name on
the product, but it probably wasn't produced in the US. US companies
are, for the most part, managed for their investors not their
employees. Wall Street loves a layoff, but they love outsourcing even
more.
--
Charlie...

Ken Fortenberry wrote in news:jQo%
:

I don't often find myself in agreement with Thomas Friedman and I'm
not sure if I'll end up agreeing with this column, but it did cause
me to think of outsourcing in a different way. This will be of little
consolation to those whose jobs have disappeared, but it is food for
thought.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/opinion/26FRIE.html

Also in today's Times, (scary **** this ;-), a front page article
on Max Cleland that could have been culled from the pages of roff,
well, with a little bit of editing and a whole lot of cleaning up. ;-)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/po...gn/26CLEL.html


Ken--

I often find myself in agreement with Friedman (you might have noticed!),
but I think he's missing a little bit here.

His thoughts on US companies supporting international offices hold only
until Carrier and CocaCola move out of the US themselves, and of course
the issue of "net" jobs needs to be carefully calculated. If we're
losing high paid jobs to be replaced by a lesser number of blue collar
jobs, this isn't necessarily good.

I can agree with opinions widely expressed to the effect that
"something" will come along to replace those lost jobs. However, it
seems like when we're talking about something like people's ability to
feed their families, we should have a slightly better idea about what
that "something" is.

Maybe this wouldn't be a big issue if economies moved slowly, but today
technology is advancing things faster than economies can keep up. A
slightly protectionist attitude aimed towards slowing down labor shifts,
along with a steering-committee type plan regarding where our economy
should go, so long as there is a timetable for de-protection, might not
be the stupidest thing that the US could do.

Scott

From: Scott Seidman

However, it
seems like when we're talking about something like people's ability to
feed their families, we should have a slightly better idea about what
that "something" is.

Yes, indeed.

Maybe this wouldn't be a big issue if economies moved slowly, but today
technology is advancing things faster than economies can keep up.

A
slightly protectionist attitude aimed towards slowing down labor shifts,
along with a steering-committee type plan regarding where our economy
should go, so long as there is a timetable for de-protection, might not
be the stupidest thing that the US could do.

I agree. The horse is out of the barn, and we can't, (and maybe shouldn't),
stop it, but we do need some way to buy time and develop a strategy for the
future. It took about ten years before outsourcing really had a major impact on
manufacturing jobs, but it only took a very short time to impact call centers,
etc.

Another thing that worries me: I contually hear people from all over the
political spectrum fret over our dependence on foriegn oil....how about our
dependence on foriegn manufacturing?


George Adams

"All good fishermen stay young until they die, for fishing is the only dream of
youth that doth not grow stale with age."
---- J.W Muller

Thanks Ken

Interesting info........

Bill Kiene (in FL)

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote in message
m...
I don't often find myself in agreement with Thomas Friedman and I'm
not sure if I'll end up agreeing with this column, but it did cause
me to think of outsourcing in a different way. This will be of little
consolation to those whose jobs have disappeared, but it is food for
thought.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/opinion/26FRIE.html

Also in today's Times, (scary **** this ;-), a front page article
on Max Cleland that could have been culled from the pages of roff,
well, with a little bit of editing and a whole lot of cleaning up. ;-)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/po...gn/26CLEL.html

--
Ken Fortenberry

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote in message
m...
I don't often find myself in agreement with Thomas Friedman and I'm
not sure if I'll end up agreeing with this column, but it did cause
me to think of outsourcing in a different way. This will be of little
consolation to those whose jobs have disappeared, but it is food for
thought.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/opinion/26FRIE.html


--
Ken Fortenberry


Dateline 2012

In an expected move most large US corporations announced that they
were following the logical trend and outsourcing all of their
customers to Europe and Asia.

One source was quoted as saying:

"It's a dynamic new business model, since we offshored our jobs to
India and the Phillipines there aren't enough US consumers left that
can afford our products.

Fortunately, Europe protects their worker's jobs so they can still
purchase, and now that the incomes of the south and east Asians have
increased dramatically, due to Offshoring, we see tham as an exciting
new market."

ojunk (George Adams) wrote in message ...

I agree. The horse is out of the barn, and we can't, (and maybe shouldn't),
stop it, but we do need some way to buy time and develop a strategy for the

Outsourcing is inherently an unsustainable mechanism. It only
benefits those who use it first. A good question to ask oneself
when deciding whether to do something or not is "what would
happen if everyone did it?".

Outsourcing assumes that those who produce the product cannot
afford to buy it. Or, put another way, it's goal is to pay wages
to build a product lower than it takes to make someone a consumer
of the product. If all jobs (i.e., wages) are outsourced to a
cheaper market, no one is left to buy the product. The whole thing
fails on the asymptote.

What's the alternative? Having goods produced in the market they
are intended for. Yes, that means everything would cost more. Some
things alot more. Yes, that means no KPOS 3wt (OBROFF). Yes, that
means we would all have to own less. But that wouldn't be a bad thing
for most of us...

I'm ready for flames. I understand the downsides of protectionism
and all that. All I'm saying (as I did for a different topic way
back when rw was touting a Linux stock) is we're in a Ponzi scheme.
We live at a standard that is unsustainable, as it is achieved through
unsustainable "optimizations". It _will_ fail eventually, the only
question is when. And I for one am starting to think sooner rather
than later...

Jon.

Outsourcing assumes that those who produce the product cannot
afford to buy it. Or, put another way, it's goal is to pay wages
to build a product lower than it takes to make someone a consumer
of the product.

There are two major reasons for the current outsourcing mania:

1. The "Wal-Mart" syndrome. As wages in the U.S. drop because the "real" jobs
are gone, prices of goods must be reduced so that the average consumer can
still afford to buy. This is accomplished by outsourcing and by economy of
scale. How much longer before Wal-Mart is the only store left.

2. Return on investments. The pressure is on corporate CEO's not only to show a
profit, but to maximize profits, basically to satisfy investors with short
attention spans who seek instant gratification from the stock market. Ever
notice how a stock climbs after a company announces a layoff?

Eventually this bubble, like the hi tech bubble is going to burst. When the
manufacturing jobs started going overseas, the word was that all was well, and
we would develop a "service economy". Now the service jobs are going too. The
momentum is such that it seems unlikely it can be stopped in the foreseeable
future, but it somehow has to be slowed down long enough to formulste a
strategy to keep work here, and that ain't gonna be easy. Try explaining to the
average consumer why the digital camera that used to cost $200 is now $600.



George Adams

"All good fishermen stay young until they die, for fishing is the only dream of
youth that doth not grow stale with age."
---- J.W Muller

"Jonathan Cook" wrote in message
m...
ojunk (George Adams) wrote in message
...

a lot of sensible stuff snipped

It _will_ fail eventually, the only
question is when. And I for one am starting to think sooner rather
than later...

Jon.

I couldn't agree more.. When Teva sandles moved to Indonesia, Teva's
averaged around 60 bucks a pair, and production costs at their Portland
facility were something like $13,000 per hour**, a few years after the move,
production costs had dropped to a couple of thousand an hour, and a pair of
sandle put you back $79.95.



** its been a while since i actually looked at these numbers, so if I got it
wrong somewhere, mea culpa.

"George Adams" wrote...
Outsourcing assumes that those who produce the product cannot
afford to buy it. Or, put another way, it's goal is to pay wages
to build a product lower than it takes to make someone a consumer
of the product.

There are two major reasons for the current outsourcing mania:

1. The "Wal-Mart" syndrome. As wages in the U.S. drop because the "real" jobs
are gone, prices of goods must be reduced so that the average consumer can
still afford to buy. This is accomplished by outsourcing and by economy of
scale. How much longer before Wal-Mart is the only store left.

2. Return on investments. The pressure is on corporate CEO's not only to show
a
profit, but to maximize profits, basically to satisfy investors with short
attention spans who seek instant gratification from the stock market. Ever
notice how a stock climbs after a company announces a layoff?

Eventually this bubble, like the hi tech bubble is going to burst. When the
manufacturing jobs started going overseas, the word was that all was well, and
we would develop a "service economy". Now the service jobs are going too. The
momentum is such that it seems unlikely it can be stopped in the foreseeable
future, but it somehow has to be slowed down long enough to formulste a
strategy to keep work here, and that ain't gonna be easy. Try explaining to
the
average consumer why the digital camera that used to cost $200 is now $600.

Just as a tangent, I just had an *awful* experience with obviously outsourced
support. The voice of the person on the other end (three separate phone calls)
was muffled, reverberated, and echo-chambered. Couple that with a heavy foreign
accent and I had to have the person repeat everything two or three times, then
they got mad at *me* for having to do that. If anyone is interested, the company
is TracFone.

My job revolves around giving quality support to our clients. If we, as
consumers, continue to put up with this low quality service we'll get what we
deserve - crap. I'd rather pay a bit more and get decent service than to pay a
little less for an outsourcer (new word?) to read me the same instructions three
times I just read on their website.

Two rants in one day. Do I win a prize?
--
TL,
Tim
http://css.sbcma.com/timj