Outsourcing. It’s an ugly word, isn’t it? I mean, you know, one
of those cobbled-together geeky kind of words that betrays the
Germanic roots of so much of our language
– Ich hat meine arbeite ausgesourcen!
Outsourcing. It’s an ugly word, isn’t it? I mean, you know, one of those cobbled-together geeky kind of words that betrays the Germanic roots of so much of our language – Ich hat meine arbeite ausgesourcen! It just doesn’t roll off the tongue; it lumbers forward and falls off like a brick. There ought to be a better way to express the thought.
The thought itself, however, is big stuff and bound to get much bigger as time goes by. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that this most unappealing word will decide the upcoming Presidential election. Outsourcing will be the hanging chad of 2004.
It’s become so prevalent that I know of a guy who had an architect design him a really nice custom home, then the contractor went and built it in India. The guy admits he got a great price, but the commute is ridiculous. Every morning 9,000 miles on the freeway, bumper to bumper all the way, then every evening 9,000 miles back in all that traffic from Sunnyvale to Rawalpindi. He’s not sure it’s worth it.
The Bush administration was chagrined to learn that instead of the 200,000 jobs per month it promised would be created, a paltry 21,000 appeared last month. They tried to put a brave face on it, and to be fair, 21,000 jobs is 21,000 more people working; the down side is that they were all hired by the Bush re-election campaign.
The problem, which may just be insoluble for ol’ George II, is that we currently have a president who in terms of economic policy is not pro-American. He’s pro-American business, which is not the same thing. See, if a corporation can lower its overhead by having its cars or washing machines or alarm clocks made by people getting paid a low wage, then they have bigger profits to share with the shareholders, and they have money with which to build more and bigger factories and thus employ more people.
Traditionally this has been considered a good thing in pure capitalist terms because traditionally pretty much everything stayed here; hence the old bromide “What’s good for General Motors is good for the USA.” American product, American shareholders, American workers.
But now that last component isn’t American any more; now the low wages are in Tiera del Fuego or South Molucca. The shareholders still benefit, so if you happen to have enough spare cash to invest in stock you might make money. But the expanded factories and more jobs are benefiting the Tiera del Fuegans and the South Moluccans; they don’t do diddly for us.
American companies say that if they don’t outsource the jobs they can’t be competitive in a global market. That may be true, but it is a fact of decreasing relevance to us, because whether they’re competitive or not makes no difference if neither one produces work for Americans. So I have an idea: if Dubya wants to show the average Joe Americans that he gives a rodent’s rear about them instead of just mollycoddling his rich business buddies, rather than giving out tax cuts he should hand out shares of stock in American-based multi-national corporations. Then it won’t matter if we have no jobs; we can just live on the dividends.
At last, a reason to agree with Bush’s economic adviser that “outsourcing is good for America.” Yes indeedy; don’t think of it as permanent unemployment, think of it as joining the leisure class.
