Let us all now praise the globally competitive, brave new economy.
Many Americans are unhappy about globalization, but globalization gurus are unequally unhappy with those Americans, whom the globalizers see as Luddites who are fighting the inevitable. Apparently, there are iron historical laws which decree that Americans (except for globalizers, natch) must spend, say, $200,000 on undergraduate and graduate education, as a requirement to get a job waiting tables. I never knew that waiting tables was such a complex job. Live and learn.
I feel both sides’ pain. Really, I do. I feel the pain of a global outsourcing entrepreneur who can’t get a table at The Four Seasons, just as I feel the pain of a guy with a master’s degree in engineering who can’t get a job installing garage door openers. Economic dislocations are hell on everyone.
As even public school teachers have for years told us, “We live in a global economy.” That means that folks here in the First World must compete for the same jobs with people in places like India and China. As Peter Bendor-Samuel, the CEO of Everest Group, which specializes in outsourcing has written, he can hire an Indian in India for one-seventh the wages that an American worker gets in the U.S. (Just imagine when Bendor-Samuel starts to tap into the Red Chinese workforce!)
And so, if the multicultural educators and tenured libertarian economists who both (talk about strange bedfellows!) promote the global economy mean what they say, they’ll be willing to accept an 85.7 percent pay cut, as will all unions, TV news anchors, Congress and the President, heck, all the way up to George Clooney and Howard Stern. If Clooney balks, we can simply replace him with actor-screenwriter-director-agitators from Bollywood; we can replace Stern with a Red Chinese (English fluency not required), and we can outsource George W. Bush’s job to someone — anyone — in the United Arab Emirates.
I can just see some benighted reader saying, “But I can’t survive on 1/7th of my income!”
Fear not. You need merely tell your landlord or mortgage bank, utility company, grocer, doctor, lawyer, union, etc., that from now on, you’ll be paying one-seventh of what you used to pay. After all, globalization cuts both ways, no?
Bill Gates, who keeps telling young people to study engineering, surely has our best interests at heart. Gates wants America to have the world’s best-educated waitresses and installers of garage-door openers. And to show his good faith, I’m sure Gates won’t mind cutting the price of his software to First World consumers to one-seventh of its current price, which Michael Dell will surely also wish to do with his computers. And of course, America’s Overpriced, Private Universities will want to jump on the bandwagon, by cutting their tuition and fees by six-sevenths, and pledging to cut their charges each year from now on.
Let us all now praise the globally competitive, brave new economy.
Globalization should cut both ways even further. If Pfizer or Glaxo can hire foreign IT workers for 1/7th the cost, US citizens should be able to buy medication for 1/10th the cost from foreign countries. Unfortunatly, our politicians and our president won’t support that. Why? Because the big pharmaceutical companies spend billions on lobbyist that fund the political campaigns of our representatives.
If it helps corporate america (ie. offshoring), Washington says its good for the country. If it hurts corporate america (ie. importing drugs), Washington says its bad for the country.
It’s easy to see who runs this country…right?
Of course, pharmaceutical companies are not going to sink millions into R&D if there’s no return on investment with patents or if those patents are easily circumvented with foreign knockoffs which circumvent the patent on the market.
And while satirical, Stix’s absurd joshing about replacing George Clooney with a Bollywood actor shows the limits of outsourcing. You can outsource a lot of things for a cheaper price but lose the quality and sacrifice market share thereby.
Some companies refuse to or strongly limit outsourcing to India because customers do not like or do not trust non-native speakers of English to work with them through product troubleshooting.
BusinessWeek had an article a while back about “outsourcing” phone calls to stay-at-home moms and other workers in America who work from home via an Internet connection and a a telephone to do customer service.
The globalization issue is not going to go away. And the writer of the article is not too far off the mark. If we want help ourselves in this idea of globalization, then we need to change the American political system and that means we all have to get out of our homes and businesses and VOTE!! And vote for the person’s position on the issues, like globalization, and not just the party they claim to belong to. The two party political system in America are why we are so screwed up, both parties have sold our souls out and we let them. Heaven forbid if there is an independent out there who might actually represent their constituents instead of lobbyist!! People who do vote but vote along party lines have help contribute to this problem.
Let me carry this thought further, on average, only 25% to 33% of the available voting public votes in America’s federal elections consistently…think about it. We all need to vote in every election and I’m talking about not just the federal elections; I’m including the state and local elections also. Your state can, believe it or not, help secure foreign contracts for your local community!
Oh yes, I have heard the arguments that my vote does not count and how term limits will solve our woes…they are all just piss poor excuses for the average American to not get out and vote and get involved. Just pure good old American laziness is why we are outsourcing now…NAFTA is one example among a few that had we been more involved and understood what was going on could have capitalized on NAFTA for your own benefit. But we missed the boat, the current NAFTA language passed and only the Unions raised a fuss. And yes you my fellow non-voting, non-participating American helped make it possible! Thank you for your lack of effort!
To finish on the idea of foreign drugs and their costs, what do you think the reaction in Washington would be if all of the constituents for every House and Senate member stood up and said to Congress collectively that WE want the FDA to approve the sale of cheaper foreign drugs at our local pharmacies? And if we don’t get them, we are going to vote for someone else next election? I got $5 says most Congressmen/women would be ignoring the pharmaceutical lobbyists and re-writing the law the FDA answers to. Any takers…?? I thought so.
Then let everyone pay for the R & D. I am in no way interrested in subsidizing the cost of goods to every uneducated backwater on the planet. What happened to free market capitalism, anyway? If I can find the goods for less then I should be able to buy them, without government interference. Preventing U. S. citizens from purchasing cheaper drugs is the equivalent of subsidy and taxation. U. S. support of low cost of living in poor countries helps drive outsourcing. Essentially, we are being taxed by higher prices to send our jobs overseas.
“ha ha ha america”
http://festival.sundance.org/2006/watch/index.aspx
check it out. hope it pull sting from rectum…who smell fragrant monkey tail now?…,america just factor rounding error…ha ha ha
u know, i remember some pundits, years ago, comparing the moribund soviet union to pre ww1 austria hungary, a sprawling amalgamation of diverse nationalities unified under a bassackwards economic system. perhaps we are comparable to the spanish empire, who mined their vast conquests for precious minerals, failed to develop an economic system that would produce wealth without such resources, and squandered all of said wealth purchasing weapons and manufactured goods from the very economically advanced nations that eventually completely eclipsed and marginalized them…like us, they were a nation of arrogant, intransigent, kings and queens. with less than half the population of france, spain had 4 or 5 times the number of nobility as france (the very surname “hidalgo” meant a “minor noble”) and eventualy spain, as well as all of her possessions were flooded with titled mendicants, too proud to sully their own hands with grubby labor, contributing nothing to productive economy, obsessed with form over substance. in the modrn usa, we have no noble titles, thereby encouraging FAR MORE self styled kings and queens…thus the need for low paid hard working grunt immigrants as well as high paid, hard working technically trained immigrant intellects, since science and engineering has become way too time consuming and hard for our little princes and princesses…and look how we squander our “silver”, our industrial/manufacturing base, outsourcing it to wiser, harder working nations such as china…