Monday, July 31, 2006

Down To Business: Offshore Infighting

Rob Preston wrote an interesting article in Informationweek dated July 17, 2006

The bottom line is that we already waived goodbye to a million service jobs to foreign countries and that between 3 million and as many as 42 million service jobs are heading offshore. This is in addition to the millions of manufacturing jobs lost offshore already and the millions heading offshore.

The smaller number is quoted from a President Clinton progressive, Robert D. Atkinson of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation and the larger number from Princeton University's Alan Blinder, renowned economist and former advisor to President Clinton.

Pressure also increases for American citizens and legal immigrants when tens of millions of illegal aliens are encouraged to enter America and enter the workforce.

Every American and legal immigrant is facing downward pressure of wages and benefits because now everyone is subject to wide open "free trade". Every American and legal immigrant is on a banana peel with the potential loss of their job if they have one at any time to some else offshore or to an illegal alien in America.

Businesses see their competitors gaining lower cost advantage by adopting these policies must compete so they must do it too. It is a giant snowball running down a huge slope gaining momentum and size rapidly.

Not everyone can adopt to the new economy. Thousands of dollars and many years were invested in the American jobs. Many people who were able to find jobs in their field have been surprised several times by being fired due to outsourcing and having to start another jobsearch in the same year.

Many people are older workers who do not have the time or money to retrain at a trade school or university. Businesses and all government do not offer much and what they offer is token and useless. They never include living expenses to pay for food, shelter, clothing, health, or anything else for their families.

Most of the people I know have spent down their retirement funds and cashed in on the equity of their homes. Many people take jobs out of their fields just to pay the bills and work either a lot of overtime or have second or third jobs. Maybe that is the reason why there are not many demonstrations.

I don't think last summers reconstruction of the severe hurricane damage is going well for various reasons, but remember when Bush and Congress initially tried to bring in contractors of foreign labor to do much of the work. The public outcry was terrific and now their is some attempt to bring in local labor to do the work.

Many people think they have safe jobs. Boy, are you wrong. Temporary workers are already being brought into America to teach your children, fill your prescriptions, nurse your family, write articles for newspapers, magazines, TV, and the Internet. Many law and accounting firms outsource work overseas. Haven't you talked to customer service people offshore? Remember, once your job is on that slope it is moving very fast away from you.

There are jobs that would be so easy to ship overseas or to contract immigrants to perform the work such as at least half of the jobs Americans and legal immigrants are performing today for American federal, state, and local government. President Bush and Congress and State and local American government officials are contracting overseas for goods and services with your tax dollars big time.

Your personal information is everywhere in the world right now including your resume, your health records, your credit information, social security number, your biography, and many more things.

American military security is vastly diminished each year because American industry is not protected at all. America used to be the gold standard for many things and now is a former shadow of itself. During World War II, America produced 52% of the world's GDP, fighting wars on two continents and assisting our allies and later our past enemies. Today, our American government imports too many items including equipment overseas. Look at our auto and truck assembly and parts fabrication and steel production facilities today which have terribly declined and force us to import so much steel and other metals, design, fabrication and assembly from overseas.

George Bush and Congress are weakening our security and will eventually force America to use nuclear weapons.

If you have been hit with all those computer bugs, you have not seen anything. The military of China and Korea and other countries are working on plagues to disrupt all computer systems in America. What would you do if your ATM was not working for months. How about if your records were tampered showing you did not pay your bills or owed more than you really did. How about if your hospital's computer systems were all out - it happened many times in America already. What about ordering and receiving for you personally or the stores that you shop became all confused and necessities were not available due to computer sabotage? What if your phone or power supply company could not service you or your home? What if your employer or anyone else could not pay you for months? What if America had no transportation or hotel reservation system that worked?

America computer code used to be written almost exclusively by Americans. Probably as much as a quarter of the code in business, government, and your home is written overseas and increasing rapidly. Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, and IBM have outsources billion of dollars worth of programming work overseas to work on the operating systems and other software that they market. Foreign vendors of major computer software systems such as Germany's SAP are installed in the majority of America's Fortune 1,000 companies today. I'd estimate almost all of America's businesses with sales of more than $25 million have at least experimented with foreign software and overseas outsourcing.

Remember, once on the slippery slope the snowball increase in velocity and size. It is time to fight the battle for American jobs and security now.

Below are more articles about outsourcing you may find interesting:
http://informationweek.com/outsourcing/