Why Money Chases Cheap Labor - The Outsourcing Phenomenon

[Thrasher Remailer]

By Theodore F. di Stefano
E-Commerce Times
02/03/06 7:00 AM PT

Outsourcing will continue. Think about this fact: The cost per month of health insurance for a U.S. worker in many cases exceeds the total monthly wages of a Chinese worker. It's obvious why companies are so anxious to outsource their products or services to other countries. They absolutely must do this to survive.

Has it occurred to you that more and more foreign-made products are sold in the U.S.? The fact is, it has become almost impossible to avoid purchasing products that are made in China, Japan, Taiwan or other Far Eastern countries.

Even when it comes to services rendered, many of those emanate from outside the U.S. You may think you are calling an American company asking for information on a product, but you may actually be connected with someone in a foreign country -- perhaps India or even Panama.


Lower Costs
What is going on here, and why do U.S. companies seem to be outsourcing so many jobs? The simple fact is that money chases cheap labor. Put differently, capital, the resource that fuels our industries, has to seek the lowest labor costs in order for companies to survive.

Needless to say, the first challenge for a business is to produce a quality product or render a quality service. The second challenge is to deliver such a product or service at the lowest possible cost.

This need to keep labor costs low is part of a very old capitalistic dynamic whereby a company is compelled to keep its costs down because consumers are demanding good products at cheap prices.

The exception to this is when there is some sort of monopolistic situation whereby the producer/seller of the product or service does not have to worry too much about pricing, because there is little likelihood that another company will come along and offer a similar product or service for less.

However, this type of situation is not very common. There is simply too much competition for customers; this fact alone prevents a company from ignoring its pricing structure.

A Look Back in Time
The cheapest labor for U.S. products and services over the last two hundred or so years has come from the southern United States. In recent decades, however, cheaper labor came from Far Eastern countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China. Additionally, in the last ten years, a great deal of inexpensive labor has come from India.

Actually, many people aren't yet aware of the extent to which the United States is outsourcing labor to India. A case in point that may be shocking to some is the fact that over 500,000 U.S. Federal Income Tax returns for 2005 will be put together in back offices in India. Yes, it's true that someone in India who doesn't even know your name might have substantially prepared your personal tax return. Why is this?

In the relentless search for cheap labor, U.S. businesses have come to realize that many things can be digitized -- for example, your personal tax return. Your CPA can e-mail all of your tax information to an outsourcing company somewhere in India. The CPA can then leave the office, go to dinner, enjoy the evening, and expect that the information that was e-mailed to India in the afternoon will come back first thing the next morning in the form of a completed tax return.

All the CPA has to do is review the return to be assured that nothing has been omitted or misstated and mail it to you with a bill for services rendered. Not bad!

This is possible because the data in your return, like so many other commercial activities, can be digitized, e-mailed, analyzed, processed and reassembled by a low-paid clerk in India. You get a perfectly acceptable tax return and your bill is quite reasonable. Everybody is happy except the U.S. workers who have been idled by such outsourcing.

Outsourcing will continue. Think about this fact: The cost per month of health insurance for a U.S. worker in many cases exceeds the total monthly wages of a Chinese worker. It's obvious why companies are so anxious to outsource their products or services to other countries. They absolutely must do this to survive.

Labor costs are a large part of the total costs of a company's products or services. Since they are such a major part of what makes up the selling price, these costs must absolutely be kept down in order for a company to survive.

This phenomenon of capital chasing cheap labor will not abate. It will only continue. My feeling is that eventually labor costs will start rising in some of the countries that are presently being used by us for outsourcing purposes, and we will then shift our outsourcing to other, less expensive countries.

In fact, I recently read that some Indian call center supervisors are demanding substantial raises from their U.S. employers or they will quit and go to work for other U.S. companies with operations in India. This recent increase in Indian labor costs is caused by the massive investment of American companies in India. A case in point is Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) , which just made a multi-billion dollar commitment to its Indian operations.

Where Are We Headed?
Since the inexorable march of outsourcing will continue, U.S. companies have to take a hard look at how the nation can compete going forward. America obviously cannot compete effectively with the labor costs of developing nations. Where competition is possible, however, is in the technology and science realm.

U.S. firms must continue to innovate and develop great products and services. In many cases, out of necessity, the actual manufacture or assembly of these products or services will be outsourced. But, by and large their creation can and should continue to take place in America.

To assure this flow of new products and services, it is critical to stress education in the sciences from an early age. This will guarantee staying at least a step ahead of the competition. Good luck!

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/48622.html

[Nospam]

Post by Thrasher Remailer
Outsourcing will continue. Think about this fact: The cost per month of
health insurance for a U.S. worker in many cases exceeds the total monthly
wages of a Chinese worker. It's obvious why companies are so anxious to
outsource their products or services to other countries. They absolutely
must do this to survive.

The outsourcing trend it is a clear example of a spiral of death US economy
is following it.

Yes, it is much cheaper for companies to outsource offshore. They fire
domestic workers and employ much cheaper in Asia. Well, the problem is
that their former workers are/(used to be) consumers for the businesses
which are actually the their consumers.

Let imagine a software company having a local Starbucks, a Pizza Hut and an
Italian restaurant as their customers for point of sale system. The
engineers working for the software company buy every morning a cafe from
starbucks, at lunch order a delivery from Pizza Hut and take their families
every next night to eat outside at the restaurant.
After their jobs are moved to India they won,t afford anymore to have this
expenses. The revenue for Starbucks, Hut and Italian are going down so they
will postpone the projected renewal of their POS they planned to do in 2
years. So, the software company is going to make on short run some nice
proffits but they will start to lose on the long run.

The owner of the company now gets 2 million/yr instead of 1 million.
But he is not going to increase his consumption of cafe, pizza or pasta
to compensate for the business his clients lost. What he will do, will
invest this extra money (and the 45000 tax cuts too). Where is he going to
invest them. Not at home, since with the same money invested offshore he
can hire 10 times that many programmers. He will invest them offshore will
grow and will eye the Starbucks, Hut and Restaurants from the town nearby.
The software company from that town in order to be able to survive have to
fire his workers too and move offshore. Again, the businesses from the town
nearby will lose some customers.


And the story will repeat over and over again. In 10 to 20 years the US
economy it is collapsing worst than in the Great Depression.

Of course competing companies are forced to offshore to survive,
but their survival at microeconomic level it is going to spell collapse of
US economy at macroeconomic level. That is. Globalization change everything
we know about how an economy is supposed to work.

Post by Thrasher Remailer
Has it occurred to you that more and more foreign-made products are sold
in the U.S.? The fact is, it has become almost impossible to avoid
purchasing products that are made in China, Japan, Taiwan or other Far
Eastern countries.

Yes it does. And everybody with a brain in his head also noticed the huge
trade deficit. And the experience from every single country who had
hyperinflation show us that the trade deficit as the result of a
disfunctional domestic economy it is ALWAYS one of the main causes of
hyperinflation.
"Nota Bene" !!!

Post by Thrasher Remailer
Lower Costs
What is going on here, and why do U.S. companies seem to be outsourcing
so many jobs? The simple fact is that money chases cheap labor. Put
differently, capital, the resource that fuels our industries, has to seek
the lowest labor costs in order for companies to survive.

Nope. They don't have. They are forced to by a disfunctional market rules.
That is: "Globalization change everything we know about how an economy
works". Keep this in mind.
The old rules we had for a closed domestic market does no longer apply into
the new global market. What was a constructive market force it become a
destructive one. Why ? Because the employee are the consumer. A poorer
employee it is a poorer consumer. A former employee it is .... a former
consumer at macroeconomic scale.

Post by Thrasher Remailer
However, this type of situation is not very common. There is simply too
much competition for customers; this fact alone prevents a company from
ignoring its pricing structure.

Correct. The problem is that cutting wages they are also cutting their own
consumer revenue. Into a closed economy if the employes saved some money he
had to invested them in the same economy he saved them from. By investing
them he created new jobs for the employees he fired before as the result of
automation or robotization. Not into the new global economy. The money
saved here are invested offshore, out of the economy from where the workers
were fired from. The fired workers won't find new jobs as the result of
investments. They are going to become lost consumers.

Post by Thrasher Remailer
Outsourcing will continue. Think about this fact: The cost per month of
health insurance for a U.S. worker in many cases exceeds the total monthly
wages of a Chinese worker. It's obvious why companies are so anxious to
outsource their products or services to other countries. They absolutely
must do this to survive.

Yes. And here is the place where a smart government have to come up with
a solution. Letting the market loose, as some primitive minded fanatic
radical right wingers like to it is going to insure his own destruction.

Post by Thrasher Remailer
This phenomenon of capital chasing cheap labor will not abate. It will
only continue. My feeling is that eventually labor costs will start rising
in some of the countries that are presently being used by us for
outsourcing purposes, and we will then shift our outsourcing to other,
less expensive countries.

Of course will start rising. That is elementary :-) The problem is that it
rise slower than the decline of labor cost (i.e. consumer disposable
income) here. And out there it is also much more population than here.
The result, they are NOT going to reach our level, it is us who are going to
reach their level. Well, it will be somewhere in the middle (for the math
purist), but in the middle much more toward them than us.

Post by Thrasher Remailer
Where Are We Headed?

Toward a depression and hyperinflation. The only way to prevent this will be
to balance the trade. And this imply exports. But exporting jobs does not
qualify as valid exports thou.

Post by Thrasher Remailer
Since the inexorable march of outsourcing will continue, U.S. companies
have to take a hard look at how the nation can compete going forward.
America obviously cannot compete effectively with the labor costs of
developing nations. Where competition is possible, however, is in the
technology and science realm.

I agree that the only way is science and technology. However, just don't
forget that 5 months ago China officially overpass US as the biggest
producer of high tech products. And we are declining.

But it is completely ridiculous to expect corporate America to do something
or even to care. Remember what I said: "Globalization change everything we
know about how an economy works".

Globalization bring a huge disconnect betwen micro economics and
macroeconomics. Companies now identify themself as self contained
multinational entities and not as American company. They does not care
anymore where they originated from or anything like that. Proffit at any
cost it is everything they have in mind. If an engineer or scientist in
Asia is willing to work for a lower wage than in US they will fire the US
worker and hire in Asia. Therefore, your expectations that:
"""
U.S. companies have to take a hard look at how the nation can compete
going forward.
"""
it is at least naive, and I use this term just to be polite.
The companies who still does qualify as "U.S. companies" are squished by the
multinationals and have any option offshore or die, while the
multinationals does not give a piece of dust to be called "U.S. companies".

Post by Thrasher Remailer
U.S. firms must continue to innovate and develop great products and
services. In many cases, out of necessity, the actual manufacture or
assembly of these products or services will be outsourced. But, by and
large their creation can and should continue to take place in America.

The problem for US is however very serious. To balance the trade deficit
and prevent hyperinflation we need to boost exports. To boost exports we
need to be able to produce things India and China can not, since if they
can they will do it cheaper than us. To be able to produce so cutting edge
products we need to heavily invest in research and development here at home.
But this is exactly what corporate America is NOT going to do !!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, the ONLY possibility for US economy to survive it is NOT in interest of
corporations, while what IT IS in corporate America interest is is against
the country. Remember: "Globalization change everything we know about how
an economy works".

Post by Thrasher Remailer
To assure this flow of new products and services, it is critical to stress
education in the sciences from an early age. This will guarantee staying
at least a step ahead of the competition. Good luck!

They follow ONLY the profit. This attitude, combined with decreasing wages
in US and a completely lack of job security in US already prompted US
students to run away of computer science in particular and engineering and
science in general. Some childish authors even cry like a baby about this
issue: http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/2491

while braindamaged politicians give senseless discourses to encourage kids
to pursue a career in math and science. This is just ridiculous. On the
computerworld blog a reader gave a real explanation about the situation:
"""
Anonymous wrote:
I have been in the field for over two decades, hold undergraduate and
graduate degrees in computer science, and can say without reservation that
corporations are reaping what they have sowed. Executive/upper management
has been downright mean over the last five years. They have treated their
technical personnel like chattel, pitting them against foreign labor that
is able to live like kings on one-fifth of the average American technical
salary. What executive management failed to realize is that most people who
are smart enough to earn a degree in computer science are more than smart
enough to earn an MBA or law degree. Furthermore, they did not factor in
the trickle-down effect; namely, people who are seeking to enter a
technical field usually seek the advice of current practitioners, most of
whom are telling these potential technical workers to steer clear of this
train wreck.
"""
============================================================================================
The only hope is then: THE GOVERNMENT.
And here (copy/paste from another thread) is the plan for a real solution:

"""
While reverting globalization may not be an option, there are options
to help US to cope with globalization.

One option is to roll back the idiotic tax cuts. Increase even a bit taxes
on dividends and capital gain AND add a national sale tax on non food
items. The huge amount of money collected can be used to provide universal
health care and national retirement, scholarship for university, extended
unemployment insurance provided with the condition to continue education.
Or for unemployed already having an advanced degree conditioned by working
in gov. financed research centers from where the new technologies developed
will be transfered to local small startups with gov. co-ownership.
By gov. co-ownership for a period of time, the gov. can mandate that the
startup won't offshore the new cutting edge technologies until they become
commodity.
That is. We have the possibility to push the stupid multinational
corporation exclusively in commodity business, while cutting edge
technology can be developed domestically by small companies with strong
gov. backing.

This is the only workable solution to cope with globalization.
Otherwise, US will become a third world country.
"""

[Robert Kolker]

Lower Costs What is going on here, and why do U.S. companies seem to
be outsourcing so many jobs? The simple fact is that money chases
cheap labor. Put differently, capital, the resource that fuels our
industries, has to seek the lowest labor costs in order for companies
to survive.

It is the law of supply and demand at work. Supply and demand govern the
behaviour of humans as surely as the laws of theormodynamics governm the
distribution of heat. So what is the big deal here? American workers
have priced themselve out of the market. This can be cured. Repeal the
mimimum wage laws and outlaw compulsory union membership. Wages will
drop and the work will come back to our shores. Why go overseas for
cheap labor when you can get it at home?

Bob Kolker

[Old Pif]

Post by Robert Kolker
Supply and demand govern the
behaviour of humans as surely as the laws of thermodynamics governs the
distribution of heat.

It is not entirely correct. Supply, demand and taxation govern the
behaviour of humans. And as far as outsourcing is concerned, the right
pragmatic taxation would mitigate if not solve the problem.

Here are simple rules:

Tax all import except for money which are allowed free.
Don't tax export except for money that are heavily taxed when exported.

Post by Robert Kolker
So what is the big deal here? American workers
have priced themselves out of the market. This can be cured. Repeal the
minimum wage laws and outlaw compulsory union membership. Wages will
drop and the work will come back to our shores. Why go overseas for
cheap labor when you can get it at home?

Amount of unionized workers is declining from year to year and now they
are not really an issue. In manufacturing nobody even janitors earns
anywhere close to the minimal wage. It is in Wall-Mart and McDonald's.
The wages are determined by the minimal expenses in the area which are
everywhere high because of monopolisation and the lack of competition
due to massive death of small and medium businesses. And this is
another receipt against outsourcing - don't support big corporations,
support small and medium businesses as they don't outsource.

Old Pif

[Straydog]

Post by Robert Kolker

Lower Costs What is going on here, and why do U.S. companies seem to
be outsourcing so many jobs? The simple fact is that money chases
cheap labor. Put differently, capital, the resource that fuels our
industries, has to seek the lowest labor costs in order for companies
to survive.

It is the law of supply and demand at work. Supply and demand govern the
behaviour of humans as surely as the laws of theormodynamics governm the
distribution of heat. So what is the big deal here? American workers have
priced themselve out of the market. This can be cured. Repeal the mimimum
wage laws and outlaw compulsory union membership. Wages will drop and the
work will come back to our shores. Why go overseas for cheap labor when you
can get it at home?
Bob Kolker

Some of this has already started to happen. Average wages have gone down
slightly in the last few years. Here is another relevant article:

---

March 6, 2006

A Nation Polarized Between Rich and Poor
America's Bleak Jobs Future
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

On February 20 Forbes.com told its readers with a straight face that
"the American job-generation machine rolls on. The economy will create
19 million new payroll jobs in the decade to 2014." Forbes took its
information from the 10-year jobs projections from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, US Department of Labor, released last December.

If the job growth of the past half-decade is a guide, the forecast of
19 million new jobs is optimistic, to say the least. According to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll jobs data, from January 2001 -
January 2006 the US economy created 1,054,000 net new private sector
jobs and 1,039,000 net new government jobs for a total five-year figure
of 2,093,000. How does the US Department of Labor get from 2 million
jobs in five years to 19 million in ten years?

I cannot answer that question.

However, the jobs record for the past five years tells a clear story.
The BLS payroll jobs data contradict the hype from business
organizations, such as the US Chamber of Commerce, and from "studies"
financed by outsourcing corporations that offshore jobs outsourcing is
good for America. Large corporations, which have individually dismissed
thousands of their US employees and replaced them with foreigners,
claim that jobs outsourcing allows them to save money that can be used
to hire more Americans. The corporations and the business organizations
are very successful in placing this disinformation in the media. The
lie is repeated everywhere and has become a mantra among no-think
economists and politicians. However, no sign of these jobs can be found
in the payroll jobs data. But there is abundant evidence of the lost
American jobs.

Information technology workers and computer software engineers have
been especially heavily hit by offshore jobs outsourcing. During the
past five years (Jan 01 - Jan 06), the information sector of the US
economy lost 645,000 jobs or 17.4% of its work force. Computer systems
design and related lost 116,000 jobs or 8.7% of its work force.
Clearly, jobs outsourcing is not creating jobs in computer engineering
and information technology. Indeed, jobs outsourcing is not even
creating jobs in related fields.

For the past five years US job growth was limited to these four areas:
education and health services, state and local government, leisure and
hospitality, financial services. There was no US job growth outside
these four areas of domestic nontradable services.

Oracle, for example, which has been handing out thousands of pink
slips, has recently announced two thousand more jobs being moved to
India. How is Oracle's move of US jobs to India creating jobs in the US
for waitresses and bartenders, hospital orderlies, state and local
government and credit agencies, the only areas of job growth?

Engineering jobs in general are in decline, because the manufacturing
sectors that employ engineers are in decline. During the last five
years, the US work force lost 1.2 million jobs in the manufacture of
machinery, computers, electronics, semiconductors, communication
equipment, electrical equipment, motor vehicles and transportation
equipment. The BLS payroll job numbers show a total of 70,000 jobs
created in all fields of architecture and engineering, including
clerical personal, over the past five years. That comes to a mere
14,000 jobs per year (including clerical workers). What is the annual
graduating class in engineering and architecture? How is there a
shortage of engineers when more graduate than can be employed?

Of course, many new graduates take jobs opened by retirements. We would
have to know the retirement rates to get a solid handle on the fate of
new graduates. But it cannot be very pleasant, with declining
employment in the manufacturing sectors that employ engineers and a
minimum of 65,000 H-1B visas annually for foreigners plus an
indeterminate number of L-1 visas.

It is not only the Bush regime that bases its policies on lies. Not
content with outsourcing Americans' jobs, corporations want to fill the
remaining jobs in America with foreigners on work visas. Business
organizations lie about a shortage of engineers, scientists and even
nurses. Business organizations have successfully used pubic relations
firms and bought-and-paid-for "economic studies" to convince
policymakers that American business cannot function without H-1B visas
that permit the importation of indentured employees from abroad who are
paid less than the going US salaries. The so-called shortage is, in
fact, a replacement of American employees with foreign employees, with
the soon-to-be-discharged American employee first required to train his
replacement.

It is amazing to see free-market economists rush to the defense of H-1B
visas. The visas are nothing but a subsidy to US companies at the
expense of US citizens.

Keep in mind this subsidy to US corporations for employing foreign
workers in place of Americans as we examine the Labor Department's
projections of the ten fastest growing US occupations over the
2004-2014 decade.

All of the occupations with the largest projected employment growth (in
terms of the number of jobs) over the next decade are in nontradable
domestic services. The top ten sources of the most jobs in "superpower"
America are: retail salespersons, registered nurses, postsecondary
teachers, customer service representatives, janitors and cleaners,
waiters and waitresses, food preparation (includes fast food), home
health aides, nursing aides, orderlies and attendants, general and
operations managers. Note than none of this projected employment growth
will contribute one nickel toward producing goods and services that
could be exported to help close the massive US trade deficit. Note,
also, that few of these jobs classifications require a college
education.

Among the fastest growing occupations (in terms of rate of growth),
seven of the ten are in health care and social assistance. The three
remaining fields are: network systems and data analysis with 126,000
jobs projected or 12,600 per year; computer software engineering
applications with 222,000 jobs projected or 22,200 per year, and
computer software engineering systems software with 146,000 jobs
projected or 14,600 per year.

Assuming these projections are realized, how many of the computer
engineering and network systems jobs will go to Americans? Not many,
considering the 65,000 H-1B visas each year (650,000 over the decade)
and the loss during the past five years of 761,000 jobs in the
information sector and computer systems design and related.

Judging from its ten-year jobs projections, the US Department of Labor
does not expect to see any significant high-tech job growth in the US.
The knowledge jobs are being outsourced even more rapidly than the
manufacturing jobs were. The so-called "new economy" was just another
hoax perpetrated on the American people.

If offshore jobs outsourcing is good for US employment, why won't the
US Department of Commerce release the 200-page, $335,000 study of the
impact of the offshoring of US high-tech jobs? Republican political
appointees reduced the 200-page report to 12 pages of public relations
hype and refuse to allow the Technology Administration experts who
wrote the report to testify before Congress. Democrats on the House
Science Committee are unable to pry the study out of the hands of
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Obviously, the facts don't fit the
Bush regime's globalization hype.

The only thing America has left is finance, and now that is moving
abroad. On February 22 CNNMoney.com reported that America's large
financial institutions are moving "large portions of their investment
banking operations abroad." No longer limited to back-office work,
offshoring is now killing American jobs in research and analytic
operations, foreign exchange trades and highly complicated credit
derivatives contracts. Deal-making responsibility itself may eventually
move abroad. Deloitte Touche says that the financial services industry
will move 20 percent of its total costs base offshore by the end of
2010. As the costs are lower in India, that will represent more than 20
percent of the business. A job on Wall St is a declining option for
bright young persons with high stress tolerance.

The BLS payroll data that we have been examining tracks employment by
industry classification. This is not the same thing as occupational
classification. For example, companies in almost every industry and
area of business employ people in computer-related occupations. A
recent study from the Association for Computing Machinery claims:
"Despite all the publicity in the United States about jobs being lost
to India and China, the size of the IT employment market in the United
States today is higher than it was at the height of the dot.com boom.
Information technology appears as though it will be a
growth area at least for the coming decade."

We can check this claim by turning to the BLS Occupational Employment
Statistics. We will look at "computer and mathematical employment" and
"architecture and engineering employment."

Computer and mathematical employment includes such fields as "software
engineers applications," "software engineers systems software,"
"computer programers," "network systems and data communications," and
"mathematicians." Has this occupation been a source of job growth?

In November of 2000 this occupation employed 2,932,810 people. In
November of 2004 (the latest data available), this occupation employed
2,932,790, or 20 people fewer. Employment in this field has been
stagnant for the past four years.

During these four years, there have been employment shifts within the
various fields of this occupation. For example, employment of computer
programmers declined by 134,630, while employment of software engineers
applications rose by 65,080, and employment of software engineers
systems software rose by 59,600. (These shifts might merely reflect
change in job or occupation title from programmer to software
engineer.)

These figures do not tell us whether any gain in software engineering
jobs went to Americans. According to Professor Norm Matloff, in 2002
there were 463,000 computer-related H-1B visa holders in the US.
Similarly, the 134,630 lost computer programming jobs (if not merely a
job title change) may have been outsourced offshore to foreign
affiliates.

Architecture and engineering employment includes all the architecture
and engineering fields except software engineering. The total
employment of architects and engineers in the US declined by 120,700
between November 1999 and November 2004. Employment declined by 189,940
between November 2000 and November 2004, and by 103,390 between
November 2001 and November 2004.

There are variations among fields. Between November 2000 and November
2004, for example, US employment of electrical engineers fell by
15,280. Employment of computer hardware engineers rose by 15,990
(possibly these are job title reclassifications). Overall, however,
over 100,000 engineering jobs were lost. We do not know how many of the
lost jobs were outsourced offshore to foreign affiliates or how many of
any increase in computer hardware jobs went to foreign holders of H-1B
or L-1 visas.

Clearly, engineering and computer-related employment in the US has not
been growing, whether measured by industry or by occupation.
Moreover, with a half million or more foreigners in the US on work
visas, the overall employment numbers do not represent employment of
Americans. Perhaps what corporations and "studies" mean when they claim
offshore outsourcing increases US employment is that the contacts
companies make abroad allow them to bring in more foreigners on work
visas to displace their American employees.

American employees have been abandoned by American corporations and by
their representatives in Congress. America remains a land of
opportunity--but for foreigners--not for the native born. A country
whose work force is concentrated in domestic nontradable services has
no need for scientists and engineers and no need for universities.
Even the projected jobs in nursing and school teachers can be filled by
foreigners on H-1B visas.

In the US the myth has been firmly established that the jobs that the
US is outsourcing offshore are being replaced with better jobs.
There is no sign of these jobs in the payroll jobs data or in the
occupational statistics. Myself and others have pointed out that when a
country loses entry level jobs, it has no one to promote to senior
level jobs. We have also pointed out that when manufacturing leaves, so
does engineering, design, research and development, and innovation
itself.

On February 16 the New York Times reported on a new study presented to
the National Academies that concludes that outsourcing is climbing the
skills ladder. A survey of 200 multinational corporations representing
15 industries in the US and Europe found that 38 percent planned to
change substantially the worldwide distribution of their research and
development work, sending it to India and China. According to the New
York Times, "More companies in the survey said they planned to decrease
research and development employment in the United States and Europe
than planned to increase employment."

The study and discussion it provoked came to untenable remedies. Many
believe that a primary reason for the shift of R&D to India and China
is the erosion of scientific prowess in the US due to lack of math and
science proficiency of American students and their reluctance to pursue
careers in science and engineering. This belief begs the question why
students would chase after careers that are being outsourced abroad.

The main author of the study, Georgia Tech professor Marie Thursby,
believes that American science and engineering depend on having "an
environment that fosters the development of a high-quality work force
and productive collaboration between corporations and universities."
The Dean of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley,
thinks the answer is to recruit the top people in China and India and
bring them to Berkeley. No one seems to understand that research,
development, design, and innovation take place in countries where
things are made. The loss of manufacturing means ultimately the loss of
engineering and science. The newest plants embody the latest
technology. If these plants are abroad, that is where the cutting edge
resides.

The United States is the first country in history to destroy the
prospects and living standards of its labor force. It is amazing to
watch freedom-loving libertarians and free-market economists serve as
full time apologists for the dismantling of the ladders of upward
mobility that made the America of old an opportunity society.

America has begun a polarization into rich and poor. The resulting
political instability and social strife will be terrible.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the
Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street
Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He
is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at:
***@yahoo.com

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Straydog
Some of this has already started to happen. Average wages have gone down

Bingo! It is about time that Americans lost their fantastic notions of
entitlement. Neither the government, nor the sweating miserable wretches
of the third world owe us a living. We have to go get it for ourselves
and do whatever it takes. If it means earning less, then so be it. If
the price is right it will sell. That includes the price of labor, which
is just another commodity.

Bob Kolker

[Kamal R. Prasad]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Straydog
Some of this has already started to happen. Average wages have gone down

Bingo! It is about time that Americans lost their fantastic notions of
entitlement. Neither the government, nor the sweating miserable wretches
of the third world owe us a living. We have to go get it for ourselves

Save your adjectives for your own countrymen and be happy that no
matter how poor people might be in the 3rd world, they aren't wishing
you dead.

-kamal

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
Save your adjectives for your own countrymen and be happy that no
matter how poor people might be in the 3rd world, they aren't wishing
you dead.

And why should we give a shit about the third world?

Give a man a fish, and you have fed him for today.
Let him starve, and you can forget about him completely.

Bob Kolker

[Kamal R. Prasad]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
Save your adjectives for your own countrymen and be happy that no
matter how poor people might be in the 3rd world, they aren't wishing
you dead.

And why should we give a shit about the third world?

Maybe you shouldn't. But the fact that they aren't wishing you dead
means you have fewer enemies/protagonists to deal with.

Post by Robert Kolker
Give a man a fish, and you have fed him for today.
Let him starve, and you can forget about him completely.

I don't know (given your arrogance) if you have the means to understand
what I am saying -but think some americans do. In order for you to take
pity on folks in the 3rd world, you do need to own the source/fountain
of wealth on this planet. That isn't the case and the question of you
using your discretion to let people elsewhere live -does NOT arise.

regards
-kamal

[Straydog]

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
Save your adjectives for your own countrymen and be happy that no
matter how poor people might be in the 3rd world, they aren't wishing
you dead.

And why should we give a shit about the third world?

Maybe you shouldn't. But the fact that they aren't wishing you dead
means you have fewer enemies/protagonists to deal with.

Go read the archives, folks, Kamal has been making all kinds of remarks
that are _exclusively_ directed at everything in the US, despite the fact
that practically everywhere on earth, and going back thousands of years,
people have been doing the things that Kamal has accused (only) the US of
doing. And, without or with barely an acknowledgement that in India, there
are plenty of problems inside India that can be criticised.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Robert Kolker
Give a man a fish, and you have fed him for today.
Let him starve, and you can forget about him completely.

I don't know (given your arrogance) if you have the means to understand
what I am saying -but think some americans do. In order for you to take
pity on folks in the 3rd world, you do need to own the source/fountain
of wealth on this planet. That isn't the case and the question of you
using your discretion to let people elsewhere live -does NOT arise.

See here, folks, a blatant refusal to acknowledge the existence of IP,
that someone can own IP (patents and copyrights). A denial that the
majority of technical/scientific/engineering progress of the last ~100
years (including CS-IT and the internet) originated from the USA-Europe.
And a refusal to recognize that all of the first world (Euro-USA-Japan)
really does own the vast majority of the wealth on this planet. Another
failur on Kamal's part is to acknowledge that the flow of US dollars from
the US to Indian and China over the last decade has had an enormous
positive effect on the development in each of those two very populous
countries. Folks you can go into the archives of Kamal's statements over
the last year and find almost nothing positive from Kamal about the role
of the USA in the recent economic history of the world, lots of negatives
(lazy Americans, Americans consuming too much energy, Americans with the
greatest debt [as if no other country has any debt, let alone calculate
debt per capita], and Americans cost too much to hire). Oh, yes; you will
also find zero sympathy for hard-working Americans with technical tallent
whose job got stolen away from them and given to an Indian simply because
the US$-Indian Rupee exchange rate has an undervalued Indian currency just
like China pegs its currency to such a low value that everything made in
China is cheaper. Another trick of exchange rates. If exchange rates
became adjusted for real equivalence, the flow of US jobs to India would
stop in a flash.

Some people from the 3rd world have a lot of their own arrogance and an
excess of nationalism.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
regards
-kamal

[Robert Kolker]

let alone calculate debt per capita], and Americans cost too much to
hire). Oh, yes; you will also find zero sympathy for hard-working
Americans with technical tallent whose job got stolen away from them and

A job cannot be stolen because a job cannot be owned.

A job is the result of a contract between two parties: One selling the
labor the other buying. The Job is a relationship, not an asset than can
be owned.

Bob Kolker

[albertv]

Post by Robert Kolker

let alone calculate debt per capita], and Americans cost too much to
hire). Oh, yes; you will also find zero sympathy for hard-working
Americans with technical tallent whose job got stolen away from them and

A job cannot be stolen because a job cannot be owned.
A job is the result of a contract between two parties: One selling the
labor the other buying.

Corporate America owns both the Presidency & Legislature. Profits
can return without taxation. The American worker is being sold down the river.


The Job is a relationship, not an asset than can

Post by Robert Kolker
be owned.

So let's all work for peanuts including the executive and legislative
branches. For us to compete we need to reduce the cost of Infrastructure.

Post by Robert Kolker
Bob Kolker

[Simple Simon]

Post by albertv

Post by Robert Kolker

let alone calculate debt per capita], and Americans cost too much to
hire). Oh, yes; you will also find zero sympathy for hard-working
Americans with technical tallent whose job got stolen away from them and

A job cannot be stolen because a job cannot be owned.
A job is the result of a contract between two parties: One selling the
labor the other buying.

Corporate America owns both the Presidency & Legislature. Profits
can return without taxation. The American worker is being sold down the river.

Exactly right. The Jobs Creation Act of 2004 allowed US companies
holding profits overseas to repatriate those profits at a 10% rate,
provided they used the tax savings to increase jobs within the US.

The companies repatriated billions AND SIMULTANEOUSLY CUT US JOBS in
direct violation of the legislation they were using to get the low
tax rate. All upside: The legislation had no teeth.

[Straydog]

Post by Robert Kolker

let alone calculate debt per capita], and Americans cost too much to hire).
Oh, yes; you will also find zero sympathy for hard-working Americans with
technical tallent whose job got stolen away from them and

A job cannot be stolen because a job cannot be owned.
A job is the result of a contract between two parties: One selling the labor
the other buying. The Job is a relationship, not an asset than can be owned.

Anything that has value or produces value is an asset. One does not get
assets easily; one has to work to get assets or at least one has to invest
to get assets. One can own an asset, rent an asset, or posses an asset
(eg. cash). An asset can be in the form of real estate, abstract artifacts
that we call money, an annuity, or a job. Yes, the word "job" _can_
define a relationship between a person who gives money assets to another
person in exchange for service assets within an agreement between the two
individuals. Either side can break the agreement, at any time, regardless
of whether this makes the other side happy or not. If it makes the other
side unhappy, then the other side is very welcome, as far as I am
concerned, to say that his happiness has been stolen. Happiness (or at
least satisfaction) is a goal in all peaceful relationships between
peoples. In, for example, a marriage, a man may leave his wife in the
course of the pursuit of another woman. In many texts describing this
event, an interpretation could certainly be credibly presented, at least
in the context of psychological analysis of human behavior, that the
second woman _stole_ the husband away from the wife.

You are welcome to have your own interpretation of what a job is or is
not, but as long as modern society has an absolute _requirement_ that
people pay, with money, for their food, housing, and everything else
except air, sunlight, and free water at the public drinking fountain, then
all these people absolutely _need_ a job or they are a dependent or they
will die. If I am doing fine work at my job and my employer dumps me to
give the job that I just had to some other guy (taking away my happiness),
I have a right to know why and if I don't like the explanation (loss of
happiness), then I have a right to say my employer stole my job. It is
also a fact of life that most employers have an unfair advantage in
priviledge in terms of "contracts" with employees.

Post by Robert Kolker
Bob Kolker

[Kamal R. Prasad]

[snip]

Post by Straydog
You are welcome to have your own interpretation of what a job is or is
not, but as long as modern society has an absolute _requirement_ that
people pay, with money, for their food, housing, and everything else
except air, sunlight, and free water at the public drinking fountain, then
all these people absolutely _need_ a job or they are a dependent or they

The job of finding a job for every citizen regardless of whether
private equity finds it viable to retain them -lies with a taxpayer
funded govt. You could say that businesses that get run down [most do
over an avg of 30 yrs and 95% startups do over an avg of 5 yrs] are
being supported by taxpayer money in bankruptcy courts -so you need to
re-write laws with globalization in mind.

Post by Straydog
will die. If I am doing fine work at my job and my employer dumps me to
give the job that I just had to some other guy (taking away my happiness),
I have a right to know why and if I don't like the explanation (loss of
happiness), then I have a right to say my employer stole my job. It is

You have the right to know if were being removed for a genuine or
frivolous reason. If you ask a court if firing a worker coz a more
competitively priced worker is available elsewhere is genuine -you will
get the answer which if yes confirms my opinion that for-profit
companies don't owe citizens jobs and if it is no -then maybe employers
would be fools to start companies by raising(as in borrowing) working
capital.

Post by Straydog
also a fact of life that most employers have an unfair advantage in
priviledge in terms of "contracts" with employees.

You are free not to enter into a contract with the employer e.g I find
the H1b visa unfair in taking away my freedom and so I have explicitly
told employers I am NOT interested in working on an H1b visa. They
cannot do a thing about it -once I have decided that it is not in my
best interests to sing up for it.

regards
-kamal

[alexy]

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
You could say that businesses that get run down [most do
over an avg of 30 yrs and 95% startups do over an avg of 5 yrs] are
being supported by taxpayer money in bankruptcy courts

I don't see your point there. In what way does a company in bankruptcy
get funded by the taxpayers?

[Kamal R. Prasad]

Post by alexy

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
You could say that businesses that get run down [most do
over an avg of 30 yrs and 95% startups do over an avg of 5 yrs] are
being supported by taxpayer money in bankruptcy courts

I don't see your point there. In what way does a company in bankruptcy
get funded by the taxpayers?

The state provides some sort of protection/write-offs to
companies/owners that go bankrupt. So, a US citizen who declares
bankruptcy takes help from the govt in coming out of it -or am I wrong
on this one?

regards
-kamal

Post by alexy
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.

[alexy]

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by alexy

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
You could say that businesses that get run down [most do
over an avg of 30 yrs and 95% startups do over an avg of 5 yrs] are
being supported by taxpayer money in bankruptcy courts

I don't see your point there. In what way does a company in bankruptcy
get funded by the taxpayers?

The state provides some sort of protection/write-offs to
companies/owners that go bankrupt. So, a US citizen who declares
bankruptcy takes help from the govt in coming out of it -or am I wrong
on this one?

AFAIK, no taxpayer money (except for maintenance of the judicial
system, etc.). As I understand it, bankruptcy is about protection from
creditors in a reorganization, or orderly disposal of assets in a
liquidation.

[Straydog]

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
[snip]

Post by Straydog
You are welcome to have your own interpretation of what a job is or is
not, but as long as modern society has an absolute _requirement_ that
people pay, with money, for their food, housing, and everything else
except air, sunlight, and free water at the public drinking fountain, then
all these people absolutely _need_ a job or they are a dependent or they

The job of finding a job for every citizen regardless of whether
private equity finds it viable to retain them -lies with a taxpayer
funded govt.

That is subject to debate but in fact we have had in our media
many discussions over the last decades that the most valid reason to keep
spending money on military programs is that it creates and/or maintains
jobs. I would rather place emphasis on _society_ (sum of people, private,
and public entities) to promote the creation and maintenance of jobs.

You could say that businesses that get run down [most do

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
over an avg of 30 yrs and 95% startups do over an avg of 5 yrs] are
being supported by taxpayer money in bankruptcy courts

Bankruptcy is about one of two things: liquidation (get remaining asetts
converted to cash for creditors) or protection from creditors to give time
for reorganization. How do you think taxpayer money "supports" failing
companies?

-so you need to

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
re-write laws with globalization in mind.

This is already being done by IMF, WTO, etc., etc., for whatever outcome
may eventually be reached, and for whatever benefits, pains, agony,
losses, gains are going to come out.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
will die. If I am doing fine work at my job and my employer dumps me to
give the job that I just had to some other guy (taking away my happiness),
I have a right to know why and if I don't like the explanation (loss of
happiness), then I have a right to say my employer stole my job. It is

You have the right to know if were being removed for a genuine or
frivolous reason.

Oh, my gosh, I'm going to have a heart attack. Am I seeing that Kamal
thinks that employees have some _rights_?

If you ask a court if firing a worker coz a more

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
competitively priced worker is available elsewhere is genuine -you will
get the answer which if yes confirms my opinion that for-profit
companies don't owe citizens jobs and if it is no -then maybe employers
would be fools to start companies by raising(as in borrowing) working
capital.

Why don't we have a court where we can get the court to decide that the
exchange rate is where the problem is. And, then, an Indian human being
will really cost just as much as a human being in the USA, and that will
cut into your 8%/year growth rate.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
also a fact of life that most employers have an unfair advantage in
priviledge in terms of "contracts" with employees.

You are free not to enter into a contract with the employer e.g I find
the H1b visa unfair in taking away my freedom and so I have explicitly
told employers I am NOT interested in working on an H1b visa.

Fine. So quit calling it _slavery_ when in reality it is properly called
_exploitation_. We have no _slavery_ in the USA (except for illegal
Mexicans and trafficked human beings that are really locked up behind
chains, locked doors, etc., at night, and are paid in dirt.)

They

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
cannot do a thing about it -once I have decided that it is not in my
best interests to sing up for it.

Everyone is "free" to do anything they want as long as they are willing to
pay the consequences if that thing is illegal, etc.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
regards
-kamal

[Kamal R. Prasad]

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
[snip]

Post by Straydog
You are welcome to have your own interpretation of what a job is or is
not, but as long as modern society has an absolute _requirement_ that
people pay, with money, for their food, housing, and everything else
except air, sunlight, and free water at the public drinking fountain, then
all these people absolutely _need_ a job or they are a dependent or they

The job of finding a job for every citizen regardless of whether
private equity finds it viable to retain them -lies with a taxpayer
funded govt.

That is subject to debate but in fact we have had in our media
many discussions over the last decades that the most valid reason to keep
spending money on military programs is that it creates and/or maintains
jobs. I would rather place emphasis on _society_ (sum of people, private,
and public entities) to promote the creation and maintenance of jobs.

ywah -I know you would like that. But do you understand that the
fountain of wealth doesn't exist to provide you with all the good
things in life?

Post by Straydog
You could say that businesses that get run down [most do

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
over an avg of 30 yrs and 95% startups do over an avg of 5 yrs] are
being supported by taxpayer money in bankruptcy courts

Bankruptcy is about one of two things: liquidation (get remaining asetts
converted to cash for creditors) or protection from creditors to give time
for reorganization. How do you think taxpayer money "supports" failing
companies?

it supports a cleanup or a bailiout after the company has fully failed.
LTCM (long term capital management) was a hedge fund that failed -and
the US govt supported it -lest it lead a to a cataclysmic (BMJ did I
spell it right?) collapse of the stock market.

Post by Straydog
-so you need to

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
re-write laws with globalization in mind.

This is already being done by IMF, WTO, etc., etc., for whatever outcome
may eventually be reached, and for whatever benefits, pains, agony,
losses, gains are going to come out.

maybe you misunderstood my suggestion.

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
will die. If I am doing fine work at my job and my employer dumps me to
give the job that I just had to some other guy (taking away my happiness),
I have a right to know why and if I don't like the explanation (loss of
happiness), then I have a right to say my employer stole my job. It is

You have the right to know if were being removed for a genuine or
frivolous reason.

Oh, my gosh, I'm going to have a heart attack. Am I seeing that Kamal
thinks that employees have some _rights_?

Hope you do -coz bandwidth utilization by garbage posts will come down
drastically if you do.

Post by Straydog
If you ask a court if firing a worker coz a more

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
competitively priced worker is available elsewhere is genuine -you will
get the answer which if yes confirms my opinion that for-profit
companies don't owe citizens jobs and if it is no -then maybe employers
would be fools to start companies by raising(as in borrowing) working
capital.

Why don't we have a court where we can get the court to decide that the
exchange rate is where the problem is. And, then, an Indian human being

You don't need a court to decide that. Just administer a truth drug &
ask the US treassury dept and they will tell you that their strong
dollar policy coupled with numerous other manipulations [eg by the
chinese central bank] have made the US workforce incompetitive.

Post by Straydog
will really cost just as much as a human being in the USA, and that will
cut into your 8%/year growth rate.

It will cut into exports that contribute to the 8% growth -but it will
enable/finance greater imports and consequently employ more individuals
within the country for goods to be consumed by Indians themselves.
There is nothing intractable about becoming a consumer who will replace
the american consumer.

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
also a fact of life that most employers have an unfair advantage in
priviledge in terms of "contracts" with employees.

You are free not to enter into a contract with the employer e.g I find
the H1b visa unfair in taking away my freedom and so I have explicitly
told employers I am NOT interested in working on an H1b visa.

Fine. So quit calling it _slavery_ when in reality it is properly called
_exploitation_.

No -it is slavery which is why I don't want to fall in the trap of
getting enslaved. Its a lot easier to stay out of it than to get an
H1b, buy non-transportable assets and then decide to quit by doing a
garage sale/write-off. Most of those H1bs queuing up for green cards
are doing so to save themselves from financial loss -and not because
their home country has no oppurtunities. That financial loss is an
economic handcuff.

Post by Straydog
We have no _slavery_ in the USA (except for illegal
Mexicans and trafficked human beings that are really locked up behind
chains, locked doors, etc., at night, and are paid in dirt.)

Slavery is when the civic rights of an individual are curbed by the law
-and if you ask any damn fool. he will tell you that work permit (or
any visa) holders don't have the same rights as citizens,

Post by Straydog
They

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
cannot do a thing about it -once I have decided that it is not in my
best interests to sing up for it.

Everyone is "free" to do anything they want as long as they are willing to
pay the consequences if that thing is illegal, etc.

If you understand where I am coming from, "legal" is defined by
politicians who get paid to create legislation that serves a business
purpose. Even the idea of an "illegal immigrant" is a man-made
definition based on a rule of thumb by a majority of citizens -who want
the benefits these newcomes bring without giving them the same rights
they have - for frivolous reasons.

regards
-kamal

[Straydog]

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
[snip]

Post by Straydog
You are welcome to have your own interpretation of what a job is or is
not, but as long as modern society has an absolute _requirement_ that
people pay, with money, for their food, housing, and everything else
except air, sunlight, and free water at the public drinking fountain, then
all these people absolutely _need_ a job or they are a dependent or they

The job of finding a job for every citizen regardless of whether
private equity finds it viable to retain them -lies with a taxpayer
funded govt.

That is subject to debate but in fact we have had in our media
many discussions over the last decades that the most valid reason to keep
spending money on military programs is that it creates and/or maintains
jobs. I would rather place emphasis on _society_ (sum of people, private,
and public entities) to promote the creation and maintenance of jobs.

ywah -I know you would like that. But do you understand that the
fountain of wealth doesn't exist to provide you with all the good
things in life?

In primitive hunterer-gatherer societies (something you kinda wished on
us, going back to farming on an individual basis, but it ain't practical),
there is no wealth except for the whole landscape with animals and plants
to be hunted and gathered and so you have to explain what you mean by
"...the fountain of wealth doesn't exist...." Now, the US$ I expect is
going to be around, we're going to get more of it, and the rest of the
world is going to build itself up on it. This has been happening for
decades now. What is your problem with that?

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
You could say that businesses that get run down [most do

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
over an avg of 30 yrs and 95% startups do over an avg of 5 yrs] are
being supported by taxpayer money in bankruptcy courts

Bankruptcy is about one of two things: liquidation (get remaining asetts
converted to cash for creditors) or protection from creditors to give time
for reorganization. How do you think taxpayer money "supports" failing
companies?

it supports a cleanup or a bailiout after the company has fully failed.
LTCM (long term capital management) was a hedge fund that failed -and
the US govt supported it -lest it lead a to a cataclysmic (BMJ did I
spell it right?) collapse of the stock market.

I think very little taxpayer money went into LTCM bailout. What they did
(I think the Fed) was organize a "shotgun marriage" whereby stronger
related institutions "merged" their assetts and liabilities with LTCM so
that LTCM did not have to go into liquidation. I don't know but maybe
their name was changed and probably some top officers. When you go into
liquidation, its not good. Its better to reschedule debt and payments. Its
better in the long run. You will like this better: better to pay a slave a
little money so he or she can buy his freedom in years because it gives
the slave some incentive to behave nice. There was a lot of this in
ancient times. What good is a conquored enemy if you have your soldiers
just kill them. The secret, Kamal, to modern society is to make
_exploited_ people _feel_ like they are free but they really are not.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
-so you need to

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
re-write laws with globalization in mind.

This is already being done by IMF, WTO, etc., etc., for whatever outcome
may eventually be reached, and for whatever benefits, pains, agony,
losses, gains are going to come out.

maybe you misunderstood my suggestion.

I'm telling you what is going on rather than our speculative dreams which
will never come into existence. There will never be a perfect society.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
will die. If I am doing fine work at my job and my employer dumps me to
give the job that I just had to some other guy (taking away my happiness),
I have a right to know why and if I don't like the explanation (loss of
happiness), then I have a right to say my employer stole my job. It is

You have the right to know if were being removed for a genuine or
frivolous reason.

Oh, my gosh, I'm going to have a heart attack. Am I seeing that Kamal
thinks that employees have some _rights_?

Hope you do -coz bandwidth utilization by garbage posts will come down
drastically if you do.

Nah, I like the high bandwidth garbage. Its better than the garbage on TV
that they call "commercials" that tell you if you give THEM money, it will
make you happy. Lots of people like this game. It makes rich people richer
and poor people poorer and the poor people don't know what is happening to
them.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
If you ask a court if firing a worker coz a more

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
competitively priced worker is available elsewhere is genuine -you will
get the answer which if yes confirms my opinion that for-profit
companies don't owe citizens jobs and if it is no -then maybe employers
would be fools to start companies by raising(as in borrowing) working
capital.

Why don't we have a court where we can get the court to decide that the
exchange rate is where the problem is. And, then, an Indian human being

You don't need a court to decide that. Just administer a truth drug &
ask the US treassury dept and they will tell you that their strong
dollar policy

What about the pegged china currency? What about the non-fully convertible
Rupee? Don't you go do your finger-pointing again or I will crank up what
you call garbage. You make garbage and I'll make counter-garbage.

coupled with numerous other manipulations [eg by the

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
chinese central bank] have made the US workforce incompetitive.

Post by Straydog
will really cost just as much as a human being in the USA, and that will
cut into your 8%/year growth rate.

It will cut into exports that contribute to the 8% growth -but it will
enable/finance greater imports and consequently employ more individuals
within the country for goods to be consumed by Indians themselves.
There is nothing intractable about becoming a consumer who will replace
the american consumer.

All with stolen jobs, stolen IP & software, and tricked money.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
also a fact of life that most employers have an unfair advantage in
priviledge in terms of "contracts" with employees.

You are free not to enter into a contract with the employer e.g I find
the H1b visa unfair in taking away my freedom and so I have explicitly
told employers I am NOT interested in working on an H1b visa.

Fine. So quit calling it _slavery_ when in reality it is properly called
_exploitation_.

No -it is slavery which is why I don't want to fall in the trap of
getting enslaved.

You can always walk away from this slavery, but child slaves in your
Indian rug factories cannot walk away from their slavery.

Its a lot easier to stay out of it than to get an

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
H1b,

Fine, you go tell all your Indian friends about this.

buy non-transportable assets and then decide to quit by doing a

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
garage sale/write-off. Most of those H1bs queuing up for green cards
are doing so to save themselves from financial loss -and not because
their home country has no oppurtunities. That financial loss is an
economic handcuff.

Yeah, its the old story about landlords. Even in ancient times, the serfs
and peasants were "slaves" and the barrons were rich.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
We have no _slavery_ in the USA (except for illegal
Mexicans and trafficked human beings that are really locked up behind
chains, locked doors, etc., at night, and are paid in dirt.)

Slavery is when the civic rights of an individual are curbed by the law

And, you, all along were saying "you can't legislate what private equity
does" and here, just above, you are citing "the law"!

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
-and if you ask any damn fool. he will tell you that work permit (or
any visa) holders don't have the same rights as citizens,

We have lots of Americans who know what is going on and we complain about
this too.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
They

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
cannot do a thing about it -once I have decided that it is not in my
best interests to sing up for it.

Everyone is "free" to do anything they want as long as they are willing to
pay the consequences if that thing is illegal, etc.

If you understand where I am coming from, "legal" is defined by
politicians who get paid

and, lobbied...

to create legislation that serves a business

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
purpose.

Really? Sounds like what I've bee trying to explain to your for a year.

Even the idea of an "illegal immigrant" is a man-made

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
definition based on a rule of thumb by a majority of citizens

Nah, a majority of businesses. A majority of our citizens, in the polls,
don't want more immigration.

-who want

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
the benefits these newcomes bring without giving them the same rights
they have - for frivolous reasons.

How about your Dalits?

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
regards
-kamal

[Kamal R. Prasad]

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
[snip]

Post by Straydog
You are welcome to have your own interpretation of what a job is or is
not, but as long as modern society has an absolute _requirement_ that
people pay, with money, for their food, housing, and everything else
except air, sunlight, and free water at the public drinking fountain, then
all these people absolutely _need_ a job or they are a dependent or they

The job of finding a job for every citizen regardless of whether
private equity finds it viable to retain them -lies with a taxpayer
funded govt.

That is subject to debate but in fact we have had in our media
many discussions over the last decades that the most valid reason to keep
spending money on military programs is that it creates and/or maintains
jobs. I would rather place emphasis on _society_ (sum of people, private,
and public entities) to promote the creation and maintenance of jobs.

ywah -I know you would like that. But do you understand that the
fountain of wealth doesn't exist to provide you with all the good
things in life?

In primitive hunterer-gatherer societies (something you kinda wished on
us, going back to farming on an individual basis, but it ain't practical),
there is no wealth except for the whole landscape with animals and plants
to be hunted and gathered and so you have to explain what you mean by
"...the fountain of wealth doesn't exist...." Now, the US$ I expect is
going to be around, we're going to get more of it, and the rest of the
world is going to build itself up on it. This has been happening for

There are no tradeable goods/services in lieu of the money your govt
prints (Fort Knox has gold -but that amount will not suffice to meet
any requireements). The world doesn't need paper annotated by the US
mint to build itself up. Every note issued by the US mint and handed to
exporters is a token of debt. It isn't them living off your money -it
is you living off their goods/services. In order for the world to be a
parasite on you, you do need a fountain of wealth located somewhere
within your country.

Post by Straydog
decades now. What is your problem with that?

I do not have much of a problem -except that I don't think this will
continue for long, and I seriously don't think a country of 300 million
normal people deserves this kind of purchasing power.

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
You could say that businesses that get run down [most do

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
over an avg of 30 yrs and 95% startups do over an avg of 5 yrs] are
being supported by taxpayer money in bankruptcy courts

Bankruptcy is about one of two things: liquidation (get remaining asetts
converted to cash for creditors) or protection from creditors to give time
for reorganization. How do you think taxpayer money "supports" failing
companies?

it supports a cleanup or a bailiout after the company has fully failed.
LTCM (long term capital management) was a hedge fund that failed -and
the US govt supported it -lest it lead a to a cataclysmic (BMJ did I
spell it right?) collapse of the stock market.

I think very little taxpayer money went into LTCM bailout. What they did
(I think the Fed) was organize a "shotgun marriage" whereby stronger
related institutions "merged" their assetts and liabilities with LTCM so
that LTCM did not have to go into liquidation. I don't know but maybe
their name was changed and probably some top officers. When you go into
liquidation, its not good. Its better to reschedule debt and payments. Its
better in the long run. You will like this better: better to pay a slave a
little money so he or she can buy his freedom in years because it gives
the slave some incentive to behave nice. There was a lot of this in
ancient times. What good is a conquored enemy if you have your soldiers
just kill them. The secret, Kamal, to modern society is to make
_exploited_ people _feel_ like they are free but they really are not.

but slavery is not practised throughout the world. You may point to
child slaves in India -but that is a kind of illegal employment which
their parents enter into -saying you can get my kid to work for the
next 10 yrs for you -give me some money in advance and take care of his
food/shelter. As long as there is poverty., such practices will
continue to exist -not because their parents are mean or because the
law is constructed to encourage slavery but because of the gravity of
the situation. In contrast, your country is so filthy rich and you
still cannot live without slavery. Even the populace looks down on them
as slaves.

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
-so you need to

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
re-write laws with globalization in mind.

This is already being done by IMF, WTO, etc., etc., for whatever outcome
may eventually be reached, and for whatever benefits, pains, agony,
losses, gains are going to come out.

maybe you misunderstood my suggestion.

I'm telling you what is going on rather than our speculative dreams which
will never come into existence. There will never be a perfect society.

It is possible to change laws so that US registered corporations do not
receive special benefits simply because they are US registered.

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
will die. If I am doing fine work at my job and my employer dumps me to
give the job that I just had to some other guy (taking away my happiness),
I have a right to know why and if I don't like the explanation (loss of
happiness), then I have a right to say my employer stole my job. It is

You have the right to know if were being removed for a genuine or
frivolous reason.

Oh, my gosh, I'm going to have a heart attack. Am I seeing that Kamal
thinks that employees have some _rights_?

Hope you do -coz bandwidth utilization by garbage posts will come down
drastically if you do.

Nah, I like the high bandwidth garbage. Its better than the garbage on TV
that they call "commercials" that tell you if you give THEM money, it will
make you happy. Lots of people like this game. It makes rich people richer
and poor people poorer and the poor people don't know what is happening to
them.

then maybe you can write 2 sets of posts-1 for the general audience and
one for those not interested in rhetoric.

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
If you ask a court if firing a worker coz a more

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
competitively priced worker is available elsewhere is genuine -you will
get the answer which if yes confirms my opinion that for-profit
companies don't owe citizens jobs and if it is no -then maybe employers
would be fools to start companies by raising(as in borrowing) working
capital.

Why don't we have a court where we can get the court to decide that the
exchange rate is where the problem is. And, then, an Indian human being

You don't need a court to decide that. Just administer a truth drug &
ask the US treassury dept and they will tell you that their strong
dollar policy

What about the pegged china currency?

I did mention other manipulators. Look at this link which refers to the
strong dollar policy of the US govt.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/15/news/international/dollar_yuan.reut/index.htm

Post by Straydog
What about the non-fully convertible Rupee? Don't you go do your finger-pointing

It is not a case of currency manipulation. The lack of full
convertibility prevents Indian citizens from exchanging their Rupees
for dollars [but makes no difference to companies importing/exporting
stuff & certainly no difference to the exchange rate]. They are allowed
to exchange/hold upto $25000 currently and additional for things like
education, medical treatment etc.. Our country is driven by a greater
amount of consumer spending because of which the RBI has these
restrictions.

Post by Straydog
coupled with numerous other manipulations [eg by the

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
chinese central bank] have made the US workforce incompetitive.

Post by Straydog
will really cost just as much as a human being in the USA, and that will
cut into your 8%/year growth rate.

It will cut into exports that contribute to the 8% growth -but it will
enable/finance greater imports and consequently employ more individuals
within the country for goods to be consumed by Indians themselves.
There is nothing intractable about becoming a consumer who will replace
the american consumer.

All with stolen jobs, stolen IP & software, and tricked money.

No -americans have neither the fountain of wealth nor special abilities
to create tech stuff which others can't create. Where there is
investment, new technology can be created. If it didn't happen till
now, it is for reasons besides stunted brains on this side of the
fence.

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
also a fact of life that most employers have an unfair advantage in
priviledge in terms of "contracts" with employees.

You are free not to enter into a contract with the employer e.g I find
the H1b visa unfair in taking away my freedom and so I have explicitly
told employers I am NOT interested in working on an H1b visa.

Fine. So quit calling it _slavery_ when in reality it is properly called
_exploitation_.

No -it is slavery which is why I don't want to fall in the trap of
getting enslaved.

You can always walk away from this slavery, but child slaves in your
Indian rug factories cannot walk away from their slavery.

they can -the law needs to be enforced. But the reason why they ended
up as slaves is because of poverty -not because of legislation.

Post by Straydog
Its a lot easier to stay out of it than to get an

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
H1b,

Fine, you go tell all your Indian friends about this.

sure I will.

Post by Straydog
buy non-transportable assets and then decide to quit by doing a

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
garage sale/write-off. Most of those H1bs queuing up for green cards
are doing so to save themselves from financial loss -and not because
their home country has no oppurtunities. That financial loss is an
economic handcuff.

Yeah, its the old story about landlords. Even in ancient times, the serfs
and peasants were "slaves" and the barrons were rich.

They were bound by employment [or the lack of it]. All of the
restrictions entailed in the H1b/F1/L1/... visas are there to complete
the job that the terms of employment wouldn't. The folks who pay for
these laws to be enacted or visa numbers to be increased don't do it
for fun. They are doing it because it gets them something in return.

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
We have no _slavery_ in the USA (except for illegal
Mexicans and trafficked human beings that are really locked up behind
chains, locked doors, etc., at night, and are paid in dirt.)

Slavery is when the civic rights of an individual are curbed by the law

And, you, all along were saying "you can't legislate what private equity
does" and here, just above, you are citing "the law"!

Civic rights cannot be violated by private equity. Private equity
decides whom to hire and for how long. Civic rights of an individual
allow him to seek employment at terms suitable to him/her without
running into trouble with the law. If Frist were to have his way, every
illegal will be a felon and employers will be able to call the police
and say "this slave isn't doing a good job -so arrest him and beat him
up properly".

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
-and if you ask any damn fool. he will tell you that work permit (or
any visa) holders don't have the same rights as citizens,

We have lots of Americans who know what is going on and we complain about
this too.

They are complaining because businesses are not (adequately) passing
the benefits of slavery to them. The reason why they are talking of
doing this & that to illegals -but not of preventing employers of these
illegals from hiring them is because only on hiring them -can one get
the benefits of slavery. If you make it illegal for employers to hire
them -you won't even need a fence.

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
They

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
cannot do a thing about it -once I have decided that it is not in my
best interests to sing up for it.

Everyone is "free" to do anything they want as long as they are willing to
pay the consequences if that thing is illegal, etc.

If you understand where I am coming from, "legal" is defined by
politicians who get paid

and, lobbied...
to create legislation that serves a business

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
purpose.

Really? Sounds like what I've bee trying to explain to your for a year.

didn't I tell you that legislation can be bought in the US?

Post by Straydog
Even the idea of an "illegal immigrant" is a man-made

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
definition based on a rule of thumb by a majority of citizens

Nah, a majority of businesses. A majority of our citizens, in the polls,
don't want more immigration.

they dont want to legalize their presence but they don't want them to
stop working in the US. If they stop working, you will neither be
inconvenienced by their presence nor benefit from the cheap labour they
provide.

Post by Straydog
-who want

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
the benefits these newcomes bring without giving them the same rights
they have - for frivolous reasons.

How about your Dalits?

another change of topic coz you cannot deal with the facts.

regards
-kamal

[Straydog]

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
[snip]

Post by Straydog
You are welcome to have your own interpretation of what a job is or is
not, but as long as modern society has an absolute _requirement_ that
people pay, with money, for their food, housing, and everything else
except air, sunlight, and free water at the public drinking fountain, then
all these people absolutely _need_ a job or they are a dependent or they

The job of finding a job for every citizen regardless of whether
private equity finds it viable to retain them -lies with a taxpayer
funded govt.

That is subject to debate but in fact we have had in our media
many discussions over the last decades that the most valid reason to keep
spending money on military programs is that it creates and/or maintains
jobs. I would rather place emphasis on _society_ (sum of people, private,
and public entities) to promote the creation and maintenance of jobs.

ywah -I know you would like that. But do you understand that the
fountain of wealth doesn't exist to provide you with all the good
things in life?

In primitive hunterer-gatherer societies (something you kinda wished on
us, going back to farming on an individual basis, but it ain't practical),
there is no wealth except for the whole landscape with animals and plants
to be hunted and gathered and so you have to explain what you mean by
"...the fountain of wealth doesn't exist...." Now, the US$ I expect is
going to be around, we're going to get more of it, and the rest of the
world is going to build itself up on it. This has been happening for

There are no tradeable goods/services in lieu of the money your govt
prints (Fort Knox has gold -but that amount will not suffice to meet
any requireements).

You continue to speak of things about which you know nothing. The
Economist (I hope you know that periodical) publishes in the back pages of
every issue lots of financial data. In the April 29, 2006 issue (just two
weeks ago) on page 101, is a bar graph showing (title of bar graph) "Trade
in commercial services" with an asterisk which says "Transport, travel,
commmunications, financial and other services" and under the title it says
"Top exporters, 2005, $bn" and guess who is at the top? The USA, exported
$350 billion in services. The next highest exporter is Britain with $180
bil. There were 13 more countries listed (Germany, France, Japan, Italy,
Spain, China [with $80 bil], Netherlands, _India_ [your country with $65
bil in services], and the rest with Canada ending at $50 bil). The source
was given as the WTO.

The world doesn't need paper annotated by the US

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
mint to build itself up. Every note issued by the US mint and handed to
exporters is a token of debt.

Debt as a percentage of GDP is in quite a few countries. In another issue
of The Economist, the country with the highest debt as a percentage of
GDP, IIRC (I am not going to look up the issue for your benefit), was
Iceland at 18%. There were two or three other European countries with debt
as percentage of GDP greater than the USA and quite frankly I am sure that
if that bar graph put up the statistics for more than the few countries it
listed, then there would be a lot of countries with debt.

This is ALL part of your obsession and focus on nothing but anti-US
sentiment when for most of the rest of the developed world it is a normal
thing.

It isn't them living off your money -it

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
is you living off their goods/services.

And, you think all the recent growth in India, China, south east Asia, all
comes out of thin air? Actually, I would say they are living off our money
and we are living off their goods/services, but they are beneftiing more
Because they are growing faster than we are.

In order for the world to be a

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
parasite on you, you do need a fountain of wealth located somewhere
within your country.

It seems like _you_ are the only one who is complaining, up and down and
back and forth, about the USA. I've read and read over the last year most
of your rants and corrected your mistakes and lack of knowledge and you
are like a broken machine that makes noise instead of product.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
decades now. What is your problem with that?

I do not have much of a problem -except that I don't think this will
continue for long, and I seriously don't think a country of 300 million
normal people deserves this kind of purchasing power.

Fine, it will collapse some day and if it is soon, then millions of people
in your country will lose their jobs (or do you think the money will come
out of thin air) and don't tell me your country has no big problems of its
own!

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
You could say that businesses that get run down [most do

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
over an avg of 30 yrs and 95% startups do over an avg of 5 yrs] are
being supported by taxpayer money in bankruptcy courts

Bankruptcy is about one of two things: liquidation (get remaining asetts
converted to cash for creditors) or protection from creditors to give time
for reorganization. How do you think taxpayer money "supports" failing
companies?

it supports a cleanup or a bailiout after the company has fully failed.
LTCM (long term capital management) was a hedge fund that failed -and
the US govt supported it -lest it lead a to a cataclysmic (BMJ did I
spell it right?) collapse of the stock market.

I think very little taxpayer money went into LTCM bailout. What they did
(I think the Fed) was organize a "shotgun marriage" whereby stronger
related institutions "merged" their assetts and liabilities with LTCM so
that LTCM did not have to go into liquidation. I don't know but maybe
their name was changed and probably some top officers. When you go into
liquidation, its not good. Its better to reschedule debt and payments. Its
better in the long run. You will like this better: better to pay a slave a
little money so he or she can buy his freedom in years because it gives
the slave some incentive to behave nice. There was a lot of this in
ancient times. What good is a conquored enemy if you have your soldiers
just kill them. The secret, Kamal, to modern society is to make
_exploited_ people _feel_ like they are free but they really are not.

but slavery is not practised throughout the world.

You came up with the "bailout" of LTCM and you understood the process
incorrectly. If you want to complain about taxpayers being robbed, then
you should be thinking about how corporations fudge their taxes with big
accounting firms such as Andersen, KPMG, etc, and fraudulent corporate
practices such as Enron. Now you want to change the subject.

Slavery is in other parts of the world in addition to India. Go and google
it if you want more information. I have a book on slavery. Yes, its more
common in poor countries.

You may point to

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
child slaves in India -but that is a kind of illegal employment which
their parents enter into -saying you can get my kid to work for the
next 10 yrs for you -give me some money in advance and take care of his
food/shelter. As long as there is poverty., such practices will
continue to exist -not because their parents are mean or because the
law is constructed to encourage slavery but because of the gravity of
the situation. In contrast, your country is so filthy rich and you
still cannot live without slavery. Even the populace looks down on them
as slaves.

Rich have always looked down on poor. Between countries, in countries. As
far as I am concerned, don't blame the US for India's problems. Maybe in
another 100 years your country will be like the first world and there will
be less poverty, less Dalits, etc.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
-so you need to

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
re-write laws with globalization in mind.

This is already being done by IMF, WTO, etc., etc., for whatever outcome
may eventually be reached, and for whatever benefits, pains, agony,
losses, gains are going to come out.

maybe you misunderstood my suggestion.

I'm telling you what is going on rather than our speculative dreams which
will never come into existence. There will never be a perfect society.

It is possible to change laws so that US registered corporations do not
receive special benefits simply because they are US registered.

Fine. It takes more than laws. It takes enforcement and resources.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
will die. If I am doing fine work at my job and my employer dumps me to
give the job that I just had to some other guy (taking away my happiness),
I have a right to know why and if I don't like the explanation (loss of
happiness), then I have a right to say my employer stole my job. It is

You have the right to know if were being removed for a genuine or
frivolous reason.

Oh, my gosh, I'm going to have a heart attack. Am I seeing that Kamal
thinks that employees have some _rights_?

Hope you do -coz bandwidth utilization by garbage posts will come down
drastically if you do.

Nah, I like the high bandwidth garbage. Its better than the garbage on TV
that they call "commercials" that tell you if you give THEM money, it will
make you happy. Lots of people like this game. It makes rich people richer
and poor people poorer and the poor people don't know what is happening to
them.

then maybe you can write 2 sets of posts-1 for the general audience and
one for those not interested in rhetoric.

Why, that is two times the work.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
If you ask a court if firing a worker coz a more

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
competitively priced worker is available elsewhere is genuine -you will
get the answer which if yes confirms my opinion that for-profit
companies don't owe citizens jobs and if it is no -then maybe employers
would be fools to start companies by raising(as in borrowing) working
capital.

Why don't we have a court where we can get the court to decide that the
exchange rate is where the problem is. And, then, an Indian human being

You don't need a court to decide that. Just administer a truth drug &
ask the US treassury dept and they will tell you that their strong
dollar policy

What about the pegged china currency?

I did mention other manipulators. Look at this link which refers to the
strong dollar policy of the US govt.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/15/news/international/dollar_yuan.reut/index.htm

Post by Straydog
What about the non-fully convertible Rupee? Don't you go do your finger-pointing

It is not a case of currency manipulation. The lack of full
convertibility prevents Indian citizens from exchanging their Rupees
for dollars [but makes no difference to companies importing/exporting
stuff & certainly no difference to the exchange rate].

And, that keeps India cheap wrt the USA, so it favors the flow of exports
out of India and the flow of money into India. You should love this.

They are allowed

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
to exchange/hold upto $25000 currently and additional for things like
education, medical treatment etc.. Our country is driven by a greater
amount of consumer spending because of which the RBI has these
restrictions.

Post by Straydog
coupled with numerous other manipulations [eg by the

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
chinese central bank] have made the US workforce incompetitive.

Post by Straydog
will really cost just as much as a human being in the USA, and that will
cut into your 8%/year growth rate.

It will cut into exports that contribute to the 8% growth -but it will
enable/finance greater imports and consequently employ more individuals
within the country for goods to be consumed by Indians themselves.
There is nothing intractable about becoming a consumer who will replace
the american consumer.

All with stolen jobs, stolen IP & software, and tricked money.

No -americans have neither the fountain of wealth

Someday the data on the export of goods out of the USA will come up in The
Economist. We actually do export (mostly industrial) material products and
make a profit doing it. Its just not as much as consumer products imported.
I just don't know why you keep saying we have no "fountain of wealth" when
it is accepted by almost all countries in the world that we are.

nor special abilities

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
to create tech stuff which others can't create.

This is another one of your continual refusals to face reality.

Where there is

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
investment, new technology can be created. If it didn't happen till
now, it is for reasons besides stunted brains on this side of the
fence.

Who developed the atomic bomb? atomic energy? computers and software?
electronics?

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
also a fact of life that most employers have an unfair advantage in
priviledge in terms of "contracts" with employees.

You are free not to enter into a contract with the employer e.g I find
the H1b visa unfair in taking away my freedom and so I have explicitly
told employers I am NOT interested in working on an H1b visa.

Fine. So quit calling it _slavery_ when in reality it is properly called
_exploitation_.

No -it is slavery which is why I don't want to fall in the trap of
getting enslaved.

You can always walk away from this slavery, but child slaves in your
Indian rug factories cannot walk away from their slavery.

they can

Then why are they locked up at night? Its in the books, on the WWW.

-the law needs to be enforced. But the reason why they ended

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
up as slaves is because of poverty -not because of legislation.

But they _are_ slaves. Your country. Because of lack of enforcement of
laws (if you really have any laws).

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
Its a lot easier to stay out of it than to get an

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
H1b,

Fine, you go tell all your Indian friends about this.

sure I will.

Good.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
buy non-transportable assets and then decide to quit by doing a

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
garage sale/write-off. Most of those H1bs queuing up for green cards
are doing so to save themselves from financial loss -and not because
their home country has no oppurtunities. That financial loss is an
economic handcuff.

Yeah, its the old story about landlords. Even in ancient times, the serfs
and peasants were "slaves" and the barrons were rich.

They were bound by employment [or the lack of it]. All of the
restrictions entailed in the H1b/F1/L1/... visas are there to complete
the job that the terms of employment wouldn't. The folks who pay for
these laws to be enacted or visa numbers to be increased don't do it
for fun. They are doing it because it gets them something in return.

Greed and selfishness will, I am affraid, always be in human society. The
rich will always feel they deserve to become more rich and the money has
to come from the less rich.

If the rich print money for themselves, it is called counterfiet.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
We have no _slavery_ in the USA (except for illegal
Mexicans and trafficked human beings that are really locked up behind
chains, locked doors, etc., at night, and are paid in dirt.)

Slavery is when the civic rights of an individual are curbed by the law

And, you, all along were saying "you can't legislate what private equity
does" and here, just above, you are citing "the law"!

Civic rights cannot be violated by private equity.

Yeah, if the police never find out, or they are paid off with bribes. It
even happens in the USA.

Private equity

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
decides whom to hire and for how long. Civic rights of an individual
allow him to seek employment at terms suitable to him/her without
running into trouble with the law. If Frist were to have his way, every
illegal will be a felon and employers will be able to call the police
and say "this slave isn't doing a good job -so arrest him and beat him
up properly".

I will leave this for someone else to argue with you about.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
-and if you ask any damn fool. he will tell you that work permit (or
any visa) holders don't have the same rights as citizens,

We have lots of Americans who know what is going on and we complain about
this too.

They are complaining because businesses are not (adequately) passing
the benefits of slavery to them. The reason why they are talking of
doing this & that to illegals -but not of preventing employers of these
illegals from hiring them is because only on hiring them -can one get
the benefits of slavery. If you make it illegal for employers to hire
them -you won't even need a fence.

Then why do you still have child slavery in India and we do not?

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
They

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
cannot do a thing about it -once I have decided that it is not in my
best interests to sing up for it.

Everyone is "free" to do anything they want as long as they are willing to
pay the consequences if that thing is illegal, etc.

If you understand where I am coming from, "legal" is defined by
politicians who get paid

and, lobbied...
to create legislation that serves a business

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
purpose.

Really? Sounds like what I've bee trying to explain to your for a year.

didn't I tell you that legislation can be bought in the US?

Just like the Indian lobby gets favors, too. And, I cited two books on
this subject.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
Even the idea of an "illegal immigrant" is a man-made

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
definition based on a rule of thumb by a majority of citizens

Nah, a majority of businesses. A majority of our citizens, in the polls,
don't want more immigration.

they dont want to legalize their presence but they don't want them to
stop working in the US. If they stop working, you will neither be
inconvenienced by their presence nor benefit from the cheap labour they
provide.

Nah, they will have to pay the workers more money, so then the workers
will have more money to pay higher prices. It all evens out in the end.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
-who want

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
the benefits these newcomes bring without giving them the same rights
they have - for frivolous reasons.

How about your Dalits?

another change of topic coz you cannot deal with the facts.

Not at all, I just want to know when you will face the fact that India has
just as big problems as the USA, and for sure, India is poorer, too.

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
regards
-kamal

[alexy]

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
Bankruptcy is about one of two things: liquidation (get remaining asetts
converted to cash for creditors) or protection from creditors to give time
for reorganization. How do you think taxpayer money "supports" failing
companies?

it supports a cleanup or a bailiout after the company has fully failed.

Never heard of that provision of the bankruptcy statutes!

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
LTCM (long term capital management) was a hedge fund that failed -and
the US govt supported it -lest it lead a to a cataclysmic (BMJ did I
spell it right?) collapse of the stock market.

LOL! Why do you think they intervened, if, as you contend, bankruptcy
provides such taxpayer support? No, this is a [misguided in my bias
without knowing the facts] attempt by gov't to interfere with natural
market forces, similar to the bailout of Crysler. Bankruptcy is
nothing at all like this; it is a set of orderly rules for management
of a situation where an individual or other entity is not able to meet
its financial obligations.

[Kamal R. Prasad]

Post by alexy

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
Bankruptcy is about one of two things: liquidation (get remaining asetts
converted to cash for creditors) or protection from creditors to give time
for reorganization. How do you think taxpayer money "supports" failing
companies?

it supports a cleanup or a bailiout after the company has fully failed.

Never heard of that provision of the bankruptcy statutes!

What if the company owes the state some taxes and goes bankrupt?

Post by alexy

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
LTCM (long term capital management) was a hedge fund that failed -and
the US govt supported it -lest it lead a to a cataclysmic (BMJ did I
spell it right?) collapse of the stock market.

LOL! Why do you think they intervened, if, as you contend, bankruptcy
provides such taxpayer support? No, this is a [misguided in my bias
without knowing the facts] attempt by gov't to interfere with natural
market forces, similar to the bailout of Crysler. Bankruptcy is

Taxpayer money was used in the bailout -wasn't it?

Post by alexy
nothing at all like this; it is a set of orderly rules for management
of a situation where an individual or other entity is not able to meet
its financial obligations.

Fine. If companies are going to fire the bulk of their lard-ass
american workers and hire cheaper, harder-working foreigners despite
being US registered corporations -the least they can do is to disown
all benefits the registration provides by way of taxpayer money. That
IMO is fair-play and will compensate for a public relations damage.

regards
-kamal

Post by alexy
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.

[alexy]

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by alexy

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
Bankruptcy is about one of two things: liquidation (get remaining asetts
converted to cash for creditors) or protection from creditors to give time
for reorganization. How do you think taxpayer money "supports" failing
companies?

it supports a cleanup or a bailiout after the company has fully failed.

Never heard of that provision of the bankruptcy statutes!

What if the company owes the state some taxes and goes bankrupt?

Need to ask a bankruptcy attn'y that one -- or look it up. I don't
know the priority of tax liens in a bankruptcy. But is that your basis
that the government supports a cleanup of bailout after a company has
fully failed?

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by alexy

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
LTCM (long term capital management) was a hedge fund that failed -and
the US govt supported it -lest it lead a to a cataclysmic (BMJ did I
spell it right?) collapse of the stock market.

LOL! Why do you think they intervened, if, as you contend, bankruptcy
provides such taxpayer support? No, this is a [misguided in my bias
without knowing the facts] attempt by gov't to interfere with natural
market forces, similar to the bailout of Crysler. Bankruptcy is

Taxpayer money was used in the bailout -wasn't it?

I haven't read a lot about it, but it appears not. What I have read
indicated that the Fed came in _before_ failure, and strong-armed
banks to a deal that would support LTCM (which subsequently was
liquidate, BTW).

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by alexy
nothing at all like this; it is a set of orderly rules for management
of a situation where an individual or other entity is not able to meet
its financial obligations.

[Kamal R. Prasad]

Post by alexy

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by alexy

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by Straydog
Bankruptcy is about one of two things: liquidation (get remaining asetts
converted to cash for creditors) or protection from creditors to give time
for reorganization. How do you think taxpayer money "supports" failing
companies?

it supports a cleanup or a bailiout after the company has fully failed.

Never heard of that provision of the bankruptcy statutes!

What if the company owes the state some taxes and goes bankrupt?

Need to ask a bankruptcy attn'y that one -- or look it up. I don't
know the priority of tax liens in a bankruptcy. But is that your basis
that the government supports a cleanup of bailout after a company has
fully failed?

My point wasn't the specifics of bankruptcy procedures in the US -but
that in a globalized world, where neither workers nor consumers are
limited to a specific region -the rules that entitle companies
registered within a jurisdication of any taxpayer funded priveleges
need to be re-written NOT to assume that companies exist solely for the
benefit of the local economy i.e that they will hire workers locally
only.
If the US govt already does not provide any taxpayer funded
priveleges to US registered companies -then that is good news i.e. it
means nothing is broken in your system.

Post by alexy

Post by Kamal R. Prasad

Post by alexy

Post by Kamal R. Prasad
LTCM (long term capital management) was a hedge fund that failed -and
the US govt supported it -lest it lead a to a cataclysmic (BMJ did I
spell it right?) collapse of the stock market.

LOL! Why do you think they intervened, if, as you contend, bankruptcy
provides such taxpayer support? No, this is a [misguided in my bias
without knowing the facts] attempt by gov't to interfere with natural
market forces, similar to the bailout of Crysler. Bankruptcy is

Taxpayer money was used in the bailout -wasn't it?

I haven't read a lot about it, but it appears not. What I have read
indicated that the Fed came in _before_ failure, and strong-armed
banks to a deal that would support LTCM (which subsequently was
liquidate, BTW).

and that liquidation would have been borne by the govt to some extent.
Why will banks oblige the US Fed by taking over a junk asset -unless it
is being bankrolled in some form by the Fed(taxpayer)?

regards
-kamal

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Straydog
You are welcome to have your own interpretation of what a job is or is
not, but as long as modern society has an absolute _requirement_ that
people pay, with money, for their food, housing, and everything else
except air, sunlight, and free water at the public drinking fountain,
then all these people absolutely _need_ a job or they are a dependent or
they will die

Not true. Beggars manage to stay alive. So do dependent children to
young to have a job. Businesses are required to keep us alive, not jobs.
There can be businesses in which all particpiants are partners or share
holders. Their livelihood is not from a job.

You think that some one -owes you- employment? Are they your slave? Di
you really think that anyone has a -duty- to feed you? Keep in mind that
cuts both ways. Then someone can -demand- that you keep them alive. Some
ill smelling stranger could make that demand of you. Is that what you want?

Bob Kolker

[Straydog]

Post by Robert Kolker

You are welcome to have your own interpretation of what a job is or is not,
but as long as modern society has an absolute _requirement_ that people
pay, with money, for their food, housing, and everything else except air,
sunlight, and free water at the public drinking fountain, then all these
people absolutely _need_ a job or they are a dependent or they will die

Not true.

You are wrong. See below.

Post by Robert Kolker
Beggars manage to stay alive.

Beggars beg for money and food but prefer money. The only, infinitesimal,
population that can live without money in a modern society are guys like
the unabomber who lives in the woods, caught and ate wild animals,
berries, and literally lived a hunter-gatherer existence. In the USA, I
would guess that the number of hunterr-gatherers inside the border to be
in the single to double digets. The rest of the 300 mil either have a job,
unearned income (welfare fraud or inheritance), savings or dividend/interest,
etc), or are a dependent on someone with a job or income.

So do dependent children to young to

Post by Robert Kolker
have a job. Businesses are required to keep us alive, not jobs. There can be
businesses in which all particpiants are partners or share holders. Their
livelihood is not from a job.

This is pretty far from the issues, which you edited out and I'm not going
back to recover, that started my comments.

Post by Robert Kolker
You think that some one -owes you- employment?

You cannot live without money and money has to come from somewhere and it
is a fact that most of that money comes from a very small percent (single
digets) of the people and abstract organizations (eg. corporations) where
THEY have the vast majority of the power, priviledges, AND organization
and we, the mass underlings have almost NO power, NO priviledges, NO
organization, AND have most of the _risk_ placed on our backs so that when
business goes bad, the economy goes bad, or incompetant managers screw up,
THEY all keep their jobs and WE underlings take the hit.

Are they your slave? Di you

Post by Robert Kolker
really think that anyone has a -duty- to feed you?

Why do WE have a _duty_ to pay exactly, at every store or place of
business, what THEY say is what we must pay? Why do WE have a duty,
imposed by the absolute requirement that 99 % of what we do abosolutely
needs money?

Keep in mind that cuts

Post by Robert Kolker
both ways. Then someone can -demand- that you keep them alive.

Yeah, all the various governments, agencies, organizations that can impose
taxes (eg. real estate), fees (eg. fines, regulatory assessments), and
rules (eg covenants-restrictions on land, building codes, you can't sit on
private and sometimes public property without permission or fees, tons of
things) that is incurred on you even if you have no job or money.

Some ill

Post by Robert Kolker
smelling stranger could make that demand of you. Is that what you want?

Yeah, I listed just a few of them in my paragraph above. Now, I've given
lots of examples where THEY have set up a "system" whereby WE have a
_duty_ to pay THEM, and what do we get back? A nice bowl of ambience?

Post by Robert Kolker
Bob Kolker

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Straydog
Yeah, I listed just a few of them in my paragraph above. Now, I've given
lots of examples where THEY have set up a "system" whereby WE have a
_duty_ to pay THEM, and what do we get back? A nice bowl of ambience?

How about none of the above. Each one takes care of himself and his
family and the only transfer of funds is voluntary. The constutituion of
such an order would be simple:

What is your is yours and what is mine is mine.

No victims, no executioners. No one is compelled to give and no one is
permitted to demand anything forcibly. And if the lesser folk die, that
is just too damned bad.

Bob Kolker

[alexy]

Post by Straydog
Are they your slave? Di you

Post by Robert Kolker
really think that anyone has a -duty- to feed you?

Why do WE have a _duty_ to pay exactly, at every store or place of
business, what THEY say is what we must pay?

Nice support of Robert's point. The store my set a price below which
they will not sell you the item, just as you may set a price for your
labor, below which you will not work. No one has a duty to pay what
the store says for the item just as no one has a duty to hire you.

[Nospam]

Post by Robert Kolker
Not true. Beggars manage to stay alive.

So if Somalia model failed this is the new target libertarians want for
America, a country of unemployed beggers ?

No wonder the libertarians never get to sit in congress :-)

Unfortunate their ideas are a "inspirational source" for some weak minded
republicans, called neocons.

[Nospam]

Post by Robert Kolker
A job is the result of a contract between two parties: One selling the
labor the other buying. The Job is a relationship, not an asset than can
be owned.

How long corporations demand money for their products, there must always be
a way for the worker to get a job to pay for these products.

You want no job guarantee ? Perfect, then allow people to legally grab
whatever they want without any payment guarantee :-)

However, how long a company want to receive money for their products,
then people must have a way to guarantee some income, at least for the
things required to survive decently.

It is ONLY the pathological greed of primitive minded fanatic radical right
opposing this common sense conclusion, and possibly destroying our society
in process.

[d***@usa.net]

Post by Robert Kolker
And why should we give a shit about the third world?

Because they're cheaper than factory robots and their labor makes our
lives easier.

[Portman]

Post by d***@usa.net

Post by Robert Kolker
And why should we give a shit about the third world?

Because they're cheaper than factory robots and their labor makes our
lives easier.

Their labor has put many of us out of work and begging for jobs at Wal Mart,
you brain-dead sack of horseshit!

[Just Cocky]

Post by Portman

Post by d***@usa.net

Post by Robert Kolker
And why should we give a shit about the third world?

Because they're cheaper than factory robots and their labor makes our
lives easier.

Their labor has put many of us out of work

That's competition, man!

[d***@usa.net]

Post by Just Cocky

Post by Portman

Post by d***@usa.net

Post by Robert Kolker
And why should we give a shit about the third world?

Because they're cheaper than factory robots and their labor makes our
lives easier.

Their labor has put many of us out of work

That's competition, man!

Its not just competition, its also technological advance. The unskilled
factory work thats disapearing would be done by industrial automation
if not by chinese.

You can easily put everyone to work by banning all trade and outlawing
agricultural machinery. I wouldn't want to live in such a place.

What do you figure the world owes you?

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Portman
Their labor has put many of us out of work and begging for jobs at Wal Mart,
you brain-dead sack of horseshit!

That is because our wages are too high. If we lower wages, intresting
work would come back. Why do overseas for something you can get at home
and control more closely? It is simply a matter of wages. If American
labor was cheaper it would be more readily hired.

If you want to bring back prosperity and security lower wages and get
rid of government sponsored welfare programs for both corporations and
individuals. If that were done the entrepeneurs would be coming out of
the woodwork. If you unbuild it, they will come.

I refuse to believe that a country that could build a wessel that could
go to the moon (regardless of how ill considered a tax funded manned
space program is) can not perform at high levels technically. We have a
shitload of people with high technical and scientific skills ready to
work. If the wages were right they would be busy right now.

Bob Kolker

[Thomas Bartkus]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Portman
Their labor has put many of us out of work and begging for jobs at Wal Mart,
you brain-dead sack of horseshit!

That is because our wages are too high. If we lower wages, intresting
work would come back. Why do overseas for something you can get at home
and control more closely? It is simply a matter of wages. If American
labor was cheaper it would be more readily hired.
If you want to bring back prosperity and security lower wages and get
rid of government sponsored welfare programs for both corporations and
individuals. If that were done the entrepeneurs would be coming out of
the woodwork. If you unbuild it, they will come.
I refuse to believe that a country that could build a wessel that could
go to the moon (regardless of how ill considered a tax funded manned
space program is) can not perform at high levels technically. We have a
shitload of people with high technical and scientific skills ready to
work. If the wages were right they would be busy right now.

A wage ceiling perhaps!

We could help Americans get over it by having wage and salary caps. With
wage ceilings mandated by law, Amercans would either accept it or remain
jobless. Uppity engineers, for example, would have no delusions of leaving
an employment position for a bigger paycheck.

And we could set the ceiling low in order to maximize the economic benefit!
Say - 90% of what the average college graduate in Beijing makes for college
educated American citzens. Who says we can't compete? And with a prison
population as high as ours, we could export live human organs too! Why cede
all that economic activity to foreign countries.

Yeah! That's the ticket ;-)

"It is simply a matter of wages"
I don't know why I didn't think of that first ;-)
Thomas Bartkus

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Thomas Bartkus
A wage ceiling perhaps!

Repeal the minimum wage laws.

Post by Thomas Bartkus
We could help Americans get over it by having wage and salary caps. With
wage ceilings mandated by law, Amercans would either accept it or remain
jobless. Uppity engineers, for example, would have no delusions of leaving
an employment position for a bigger paycheck.

If someone is willing to pay, why prevent it?

We should let wage levels be set by supply and demand. The old fashioned
way.

Bob Kolker

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Thomas Bartkus
A wage ceiling perhaps!

Repeal the minimum wage laws.

Oops! I forget. Abolish or eliminate tax funded unemployment insurance.
If people did not have the dole they would quickly get of there asses
and find what work they could find, or start up their own businesses.

Bob Kolker

[Thomas Bartkus]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Thomas Bartkus
A wage ceiling perhaps!

Repeal the minimum wage laws.

Oops! I forget. Abolish or eliminate tax funded unemployment insurance.
If people did not have the dole they would quickly get of there asses
and find what work they could find, or start up their own businesses.
Bob Kolker

Okay.
How about abolishing corp.bankruptcy protection?
Maybe if Northwest Airlines and GM had to pay all their bills and
obligations, management wouldn't be so quick to make contracts they couldn't
keep, overpay (extravagently!) their executives while blowing off promised
pension obligations. If they didn't have gov. to hide behind, maybe they
would quickly get off their asses and engage in profitable business.

Or find jobs like the rest of us when they don't measure up to competing as
managers of a business in a free market.
Thomas Bartkus

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Thomas Bartkus
Okay.
How about abolishing corp.bankruptcy protection?

I concur. Corporate subsidy is worse than the welfare bum subsidy. I
would go so far as to eliminate limited libability firms. All the
stockholders should be ready to pony up on the losses and liabilities.

Bob Kolker

[Nospam]

Post by Robert Kolker
I concur. Corporate subsidy is worse than the welfare bum subsidy. I
would go so far as to eliminate limited libability firms. All the
stockholders should be ready to pony up on the losses and liabilities.

I am not so sure it will be a good idea. I assume will encourage people to
hoard money instead of investing.

From another point of view it may reduce the braindamaged speculations on
Wall Street, speculations which are as mater of fact the trigger for all
the regular recessions (GD excluded, that was special).

Can you start a thread in sci.econ with a clear proposal about this idea ?
I think it deserve a full debate in itself.

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Nospam

Post by Robert Kolker
I concur. Corporate subsidy is worse than the welfare bum subsidy. I
would go so far as to eliminate limited libability firms. All the
stockholders should be ready to pony up on the losses and liabilities.

I am not so sure it will be a good idea. I assume will encourage people to
hoard money instead of investing.

Hoarding money. You mean puting into a bank. Then the bank will invest it.

Money needs to be put to productive use. Its best productive use is the
creation of technology and tools to produce useful stuff for the rest of us.

Bob Kolker

[Nospam]

Post by Robert Kolker
Hoarding money. You mean puting into a bank. Then the bank will invest it.

If they invest it they will be liable so they will rather stay off.

Post by Robert Kolker
Money needs to be put to productive use. Its best productive use is the
creation of technology and tools to produce useful stuff for the rest of us.

But if you are an investor and the CEO you trusted is a scammer then you
know you are going to lose your house, so you rather stay off.

[albertv]

Post by Thomas Bartkus

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Thomas Bartkus
A wage ceiling perhaps!

Repeal the minimum wage laws.

Oops! I forget. Abolish or eliminate tax funded unemployment insurance.
If people did not have the dole they would quickly get of there asses
and find what work they could find, or start up their own businesses.
Bob Kolker

Okay.
How about abolishing corp.bankruptcy protection?

Great idea! If the workers should stand on his own feet, so should Corp
America. I wonder if Kolker would accept that?

Post by Thomas Bartkus
Maybe if Northwest Airlines and GM had to pay all their bills and
obligations, management wouldn't be so quick to make contracts they couldn't
keep, overpay (extravagently!) their executives while blowing off promised
pension obligations. If they didn't have gov. to hide behind, maybe they
would quickly get off their asses and engage in profitable business.
Or find jobs like the rest of us when they don't measure up to competing as
managers of a business in a free market.
Thomas Bartkus

[Robert Kolker]

Post by albertv
Great idea! If the workers should stand on his own feet, so should Corp
America. I wonder if Kolker would accept that?

I do. No breaks for corporations. In fact I want to see limited
liability eliminated. If a corporation incurrs a libaility it should be
collectable from the shareholders on a per share basis.

Also the management of a corporation should be criminally liable for any
fraud. The more principles of corporations that go to jail the more
honest they are likely to stay.

Bob Kolker

[Old Pif]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by albertv
Great idea! If the workers should stand on his own feet, so should Corp
America. I wonder if Kolker would accept that?

I do. No breaks for corporations. In fact I want to see limited
liability eliminated. If a corporation incurs a liability it should be
collectible from the shareholders on a per share basis.
Also the management of a corporation should be criminally liable for any
fraud. The more principles of corporations that go to jail the more
honest they are likely to stay.
Bob Kolker

If you look at corruption index:
http://www.icgg.org/corruption.cpi_2005_data.html
you immediately notice that the top (less corrupt countries, mostly
Scandinavians) are with flat (stagnant) economies, whereas those that
develop fast are at the bottom of the list.

This is an additional driving force for the outsourcing - it goes from
the less corrupt to more corrupt countries as it gives free hands to
the corporations. Bribes cost them less than litigation. The more your
constrain them the more they willing to relocate.

Under the current economic system you must maintain certain level of
corruption in the country otherwise they all go somewhere else.

[Straydog]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Thomas Bartkus
A wage ceiling perhaps!

Repeal the minimum wage laws.

Oops! I forget. Abolish or eliminate tax funded unemployment insurance. If
people did not have the dole they would quickly get of there asses and find
what work they could find, or start up their own businesses.

How about repealing obscene severance pay for useless ass CEOs. Or do you
think they are priviledged characters who deserve to be parasites
supported by ripped-off underlings?

Bob Kolker

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Straydog
How about repealing obscene severance pay for useless ass CEOs. Or do
you think they are priviledged characters who deserve to be parasites
supported by ripped-off underlings?

If a private firm wishes to reward an employee there should be no law
prohibiting it. CEO pay and such like is the business of the firm and
not the government.

If you are so determined to regulate the pay of corporate executives why
not advocate outright nationalisation of businesses. Ooops. The tried
that in Britain, didn't they. It did not work out so well.

Bob Kolker

[Nospam]

Post by Robert Kolker
If a private firm wishes to reward an employee there should be no law
prohibiting it. CEO pay and such like is the business of the firm and
not the government.

The big problem is that corporations does not have any social
responsability. We haver to change that.

Today the CEO is ONLY motivated to increase the ROI to shareholders at any
cost. We see that into the new environment brought upon us by globalization
this model is failing the society.

For example, if CEO fire all the workers from his company and move the
production offshore the ROI increase. But for the small town in which this
company was the only serious employer this spell disaster. Since there is
no corporate responsability the fact that the CEO destroyed lives of
thousands it is very good.

What we have to add it is add a tax on dividends and capital gain to
compensate for the corporate responsability. If the company is social
irresponsible the social responsability tax grow, if it is social
responsible for the community then the tax decrease.

The current system we have it is only motivated from historical reasons,
from when the capitalism evolved from feudalism. There is nothing
preventing us to change it in order to make it a good match for the society
of the future.

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Nospam

Post by Robert Kolker
If a private firm wishes to reward an employee there should be no law
prohibiting it. CEO pay and such like is the business of the firm and
not the government.

The big problem is that corporations does not have any social
responsability. We haver to change that.

How? By nationalizing it? And since when did the -government- have any
social responsibility. Governent is a legal pretext for theft and extortion.

Bob Kolker

[Nospam]

Post by Robert Kolker
How? By nationalizing it?

No, by imposing legislations.

Post by Robert Kolker
And since when did the -government- have any social responsibility.

From when some intelligent people will get rid of mentally insane neocons.

Post by Robert Kolker
Governent is a legal pretext for theft and extortion.

If they are right wingers yes. They will help corporations and rich lazy
asses to loot from the wealth created by working and middle class.

This is the reason radical right wingers like republicans and libertarians
must become the laughing stock of the populations for what they are:

Primitive mindless greedy barbarians with the brain less evolved that that
of a shark.

[Straydog]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Straydog
How about repealing obscene severance pay for useless ass CEOs. Or do you
think they are priviledged characters who deserve to be parasites supported
by ripped-off underlings?

If a private firm wishes to reward an employee there should be no law
prohibiting it. CEO pay and such like is the business of the firm and not the
government.

CEOs and BOD are in bed with each other, and rip off not only the rest of
the company, but the company's employees and customers and if you are in
favor of that, then it is you that favors the "corporate mindset" that
the rest of the world _owes_ the CEO special treatment, and salaries of
$100K to $200K per year to board members for doing nothing but sit on
their asses around a big table 2-4 times a year to hear the CEO blow hot
air & smoke. CEO pay is everyone's business since its the (US) CEOs who
are the biggest crooks these days.

Post by Robert Kolker
If you are so determined to regulate the pay of corporate executives

Just what is it in your head that makes you agree with the idea that these
guys can just operate as if the rest of the world (including the
employees) _owes_ the executives anything they ask for?

why not

Post by Robert Kolker
advocate outright nationalisation of businesses. Ooops. The tried that in
Britain, didn't they. It did not work out so well.

OK, wise guy, how come deregulation of the power industry did NOT save
customers the money that was promised to them (instead, the customers got
ripped off!!! [California, in case you forgot]). And, FERC discovered that
it was greed and selfishness on the part of the companies that manipulated
the generating facilities to "manufacture" accidentally on purpose a power
shortage so they could raise the rates. In my state, deregulation is
coming this year and the shit came out in the local media that
deregulation was designed to get power out from under regulation and in a
way that would make it impossible to get back, and we're looking at big
increases in electric bills. Oh, by the way, the newspapers also dug out
company data that showed they were already making plenty of profits under
regulation but the public statements by the companies made it sound like
they were going to the poorhouse.

You want to know the truth about corporations? Read below....

Post by Robert Kolker
Bob Kolker

-----------------------------
Quote (page 261):

"The Prevalence of Corporate Crime"

"As we saw earlier, Edwin Sutherland's classic
study led him to conclude that many corporations
violated the law with enough frequency to be termed
"habitual criminals"(68). Although statistics on
corporate violations are not collected on a regular
basis, there is a good deal of evidence to suggest
that Sutherland's conclusion is substantially
correct. Journalistic accounts of the extent of
corporate crime paint a bleak picture of morality
in the busines world. A 1980 _Fortune_ article, for
example, found the lawlessness of big companies
startling, noting that 11 percent of 1,043
corporations studied had committed "at least one
major delinquency (69)." _US News and World Report_
discovered that over half of the nation's twenty-
five largest corporations had recently been
involved in serious misbehavior (criminal or
civil), and that between 1971 and 1980 "2,690
corporations of all sizes were convicted of federal
criminal offenses. (70)" And, in 1985, disclosures
of organizational misconduct had become so common
that the _New York Times_ observed that "a
corporate crime wave appears to be exploding. (71)"

* * *

"Examining the behavior of 477 largest publicly
owned manufacturing corporations in the United
States, the study ranged over a great variety of
illegal behavior, including the failure to supply
information to government agencies, air and water
pollution, bribery, tax violations, unfair trade
practices such as price fixing, transgressing labor
laws, and violations of regulations concerning
consumer safety. Approximately 60 percent of the
corporations had at least one federal action
brought against them in the two-year period covered
by the study (1975-1976) -- a rate of lawlessness
exceeding that found by Sutherland (who analyzed
his sample over a forty-year period)."

Page 266:

"A knowing disregard for consumer health has also
been found in the pharmaceutical industry. Clinard
and Yeager's study of corporate crime over a two
year period found that each of the seventeen
pharmaceutical firms in their sample had one
offense, and two companies had over twenty
violations (102). Most disquieting, as M. David
Ermann points out, drug companies have a long
tradition of fabricating test data and of
concealing hazards that cause birth defects,
illness, and death (103)."

Page 269:

"The FBI's 'Greylord Operation' revealed massive
corruption in Chicago's Cook County court system,
ending in the indictment of nearly ninety judges,
lawyers, and court officials. An FBI sting in South
Carolina -- called 'Operation Lost Trust,' but
known locally as 'Bubbagate' -- ensnared ten
legislators taking bribes, and a similar operation
in Arizona -- called 'Azcam' -- resulted in
convictions or indictments of seventeen people,
including seven state legislators.(127)"


This is all from chapter 8: "Crime in High Places"
including in professions, government, with 5-6
pages of references, all from the book
"Criminology" 2nd Edition, by Gresham M. Sykes (U.
Va, affiliation) and Francis T. Cullen (U.
Cincinnati, affiliation), and under the general
editorship of Robert K. Merton (Columbia
University), Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992., 529
pages, incl. index.

[albertv]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Straydog
How about repealing obscene severance pay for useless ass CEOs. Or do
you think they are priviledged characters who deserve to be parasites
supported by ripped-off underlings?

If a private firm wishes to reward an employee there should be no law
prohibiting it. CEO pay and such like is the business of the firm and
not the government.

How about having the stock holders vote on that. Bet some deals would not
be so sweet if the stock has been going backward.

Post by Robert Kolker
If you are so determined to regulate the pay of corporate executives why
not advocate outright nationalisation of businesses. Ooops. The tried
that in Britain, didn't they. It did not work out so well.
Bob Kolker

[Straydog]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Straydog
How about repealing obscene severance pay for useless ass CEOs. Or do you
think they are priviledged characters who deserve to be parasites
supported by ripped-off underlings?

If a private firm wishes to reward an employee there should be no law
prohibiting it. CEO pay and such like is the business of the firm and not
the government.

How about having the stock holders vote on that. Bet some deals would not be
so sweet if the stock has been going backward.

Shareholders have almost zero power over robber-barron-ripoff-crook CEOs
and their thugs (the BOD). See this:

-------------------------

Here are two very recent articles in reputable periodicals showing
that shareholders basically do NOT run companies.....

Shareholders control very little in a corporation

Quote from _The Economist_, March 11, 2006, page 10:
title: "Ownership matters-But there are limits to shareholder power"

"For all the talk of America as the home of shareholder democracy, its
shareholders have remarkably little power.... For instance, proxy
resolutions about executive pay are 'precatory' [repeat: precatory]. In
plain english, that means that the board is free to ignore them even if
all shareholders vote against the directors. In theory, if shareholders
are unhappy about that, they can vote out the board; in practice, that is
extremely difficult. Very few board elections are contested, because of a
plethora of practical barriers. Further, shareholders votes against a
candidate are not counted--meaning that someone could be elected to a
board despite 99.9% of shareholders being oppesed. Last year lobbying by
bosses in effect killed a proposal to increase shareholder power in board
elections. This year's spate of proxy resolutions demanding majority
voting is evidence of shareholder fury at that, but most of them are
precatory, too."


From a major article in WSJ, April 4, 2006, page C1:
title: "Stock Activism's Latest Weapon--bylaw changes are a new tactic in
fighting corporate policies: targeting poison pill provisions"
by Mark Maremont and Erin White

First paragraph:

"For years, shareholder activists have tried to change American
corporations by proposing resolutions at annual meetings. Although many
have passed, they typically have taken the form of nonbinding advisory
resolutions, and directors often ignore them."

The article goes on to describe how new efforts by shareholders are being
aimed at changing bylaws of corporations instead of getting the boards to
do what they want. The article goes on to document the vast failure of
shareholder-initiated resolutions up to now:

"The number of binding proposals is tiny: Eighteen of 1,056 shareholder
proposals submitted last year were binding, according to Institutional
Shareholder Services, which advises professional investors on how to vote
their proxies. By the end of March, 10 of 890 submitted were binding."

"Bylaw-amendment proposals have limitations. One hurdle is state laws.
States typically spell out some changes shareholders can make to corporate
bylaws, particularly on procedural matters, but otherwise generally
empower boards to run companies as they see fit."

Another limitation is that at some companies a majority requires 80% of
shares voting to be voted in favor for resolutions to pass. Even in the
cases of getting bylaws changed, the article indicated that even this is
difficult. Shareholders do not run the companies, at least in the USA.

--end of articles----

Post by Robert Kolker
If you are so determined to regulate the pay of corporate executives why
not advocate outright nationalisation of businesses. Ooops. The tried that
in Britain, didn't they. It did not work out so well.
Bob Kolker

[Thomas Bartkus]

Post by albertv

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Straydog
How about repealing obscene severance pay for useless ass CEOs. Or do
you think they are priviledged characters who deserve to be parasites
supported by ripped-off underlings?

If a private firm wishes to reward an employee there should be no law
prohibiting it. CEO pay and such like is the business of the firm and
not the government.

How about having the stock holders vote on that. Bet some deals would not
be so sweet if the stock has been going backward.

The game is to prevent stockholders (owners!) from knowing the deal.

There is currently a shareholders lawsuit against the board of Hewlett
Packard to recover the $42 million additional windfall handed over to Carly
Fiorina to ease the pain of losing her job. The basic complaint being that
shareholders had no opportunity to object to a contract that included this
flood of cash this failed CEO was to receive if she failed to perform. The
complaint is that these terms were either not disclosed or so obfuscated as
to prevent a reasonably diligent investor from knowing.

We can't know how the courts will decide but it is hard to believe
shareholders would willingly and knowingly agree to a board awarding
contracts that include multi-million dollar bonuses as a reward for failure.
But whether shareholder were negligent, complacent, or victims of a swindle
as the lawsuit contends, it is certain that this kind of deal would never go
forward in the first place if shareholders were alert to what was going
down.

Thomas Bartkus

[Nospam]

Post by Straydog
How about repealing obscene severance pay for useless ass CEOs. Or do you
think they are priviledged characters who deserve to be parasites
supported by ripped-off underlings?

A better way will be to reduce the importance of capital and increase
the importance of labor.

Instead of:
- having all the money from a sale belonging to the company and they pay
wages to labor competing on free market to rent their workforce to the
company,
- we can have all the money belonging to the workers and the capital owners
will compete on the free market to rent their assets to the workers

This will also be free market economy, so I expect the libertarians to fully
support it :-)

[Straydog]

Post by Nospam

Post by Straydog
How about repealing obscene severance pay for useless ass CEOs. Or do you
think they are priviledged characters who deserve to be parasites
supported by ripped-off underlings?

A better way will be to reduce the importance of capital and increase
the importance of labor.
- having all the money from a sale belonging to the company and they pay
wages to labor competing on free market to rent their workforce to the
company,
- we can have all the money belonging to the workers and the capital owners
will compete on the free market to rent their assets to the workers
This will also be free market economy, so I expect the libertarians to fully
support it :-)

I think the only way is really to have some kind of _regulation_. You
can't have the government running everything, but you can't privatize
everything either (you'll get monopoly formation overnight, toll booths at
every intersection, coinboxes on all of our sidewalks, and the rich people
will hire lawyers to figure out how to charge you for the air you breath).

But, I would have more control delegated to PEOPLE through some kind of
voting system, and not an electronic-computer one, either because vote
fraud is much easier if you have a computer system. Have an issue, tell
the people to show up somewhere. In Washington DC, if you care for issue
X, come in person and stand one place for option 1, stand in another place
for option 2. Like back in ancient Greek days when they had something
closer to real democracy.

Computer voting systems can be hacked:

--------------------------------------------
Subject: Election Fraud Continues in the US


http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0813-29.htm
Election Fraud Continues in the US

Published on Saturday, August 13,2005 by CommonDreams.org

Election Fraud Continues in the US
New Data Shows Widespread Vote Manipulations in 2004

By Peter Phillips


In the fall of 2001, after an eight-month review of 175,000 Florida
ballots never counted in the 2000 election, an analysis by the
National Opinion Research Center confirmed that Al Gore actually won
Florida and should have been President. However, coverage of this
report was only a small blip in the corporate media as a much bigger
story dominated the news after September 11, 2001.

New research compiled by Dr. Dennis Loo with the University of Cal
Poly Pomona now shows that extensive manipulation of non-paper-trail
voting machines occurred in several states during the 2004 election.

The facts are as follows:

In 2004 Bush far exceeded the 85% of registered Florida Republican
votes that he got in 2000, receiving more than 100% of the registered
Republican votes in 47 out of 67 Florida counties, 200% of registered
Republicans in 15 counties, and over 300% of registered Republicans in
4 counties. Bush managed these remarkable outcomes despite the fact
that his share of the crossover votes by registered Democrats in
Florida did not increase over 2000, and he lost ground among
registered Independents, dropping 15 points. We also know that Bush
"won" Ohio by 51-48%, but statewide results were not matched by the
court-supervised hand count of the 147,400 absentee and provisional
ballots in which Kerry received 54.46% of the vote. In Cuyahoga
County, Ohio the number of recorded votes was more than 93,000 greater
than the number of registered voters.

More importantly national exit polls showed Kerry winning in 2004.
However, It was only in precincts where there were no paper trails on
the voting machines that the exit polls ended up being different from
the final count. According to Dr. Steve Freeman, a statistician at the
University of Pennsylvania, the odds are 250 million to one that the
exit polls were wrong by chance. In fact, where the exit polls
disagreed with the computerized outcomes the results always favored
Bush - another statistical impossibility. .

Dennis Loo writes, "A team at the University of California at
Berkeley, headed by sociology professor Michael Hout, found a highly
suspicious pattern in which Bush received 260,000 more votes in those
Florida precincts that used electronic voting machines than past
voting patterns would indicate compared to those precincts that used
optical scan read votes where past voting patterns held."

There is now strong statistical evidence of widespread voting machine
manipulation occurring in US elections since 2000. Coverage of the
fraud has been reported in independent media and various websites. The
information is not secret. But it certainly seems to be a taboo
subject for the US corporate media.

Black Box Voting reported on March 9, 2005 that voting machines used
by over 30 million voters were easily hacked by relatively
unsophisticated programs and audits of the computers would not show
the changes. It is very possible that a small team of hackers could
have manipulated the 2004 and earlier elections in various locations
throughout the United States. Irregularities in the vote counts
certainly indicate that something beyond chance occurrences has been
happening in recent elections.

That a special interest group might try to cheat on an election in the
United States is nothing new. Historians tell us how local political
machines from both major parties have in the past used methods of
double counting, ballot box stuffing, poll taxes and registration
manipulation to affect elections. In the computer age, however,
election fraud can occur externally without local precinct
administrators having any awareness of the manipulations - and the
fraud can be extensive enough to change the outcome of an entire
national election.

There is little doubt key Democrats know that votes in 2004 and
earlier elections were stolen. The fact that few in Congress are
complaining about fraud is an indication of the totality to which both
parties accept the status quo of a money based elections system.
Neither party wants to further undermine public confidence in the
American "democratic" process (over 80 millions eligible voters
refused to vote in 2004). Instead we will likely see the quiet passing
of legislation that will correct the most blatant problems. Future
elections in the US will continue as an equal opportunity for both
parties to maintain a national democratic charade in which money
counts more than truth.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University
and Director of Project Censored. Dennis Loo's report "No Paper Trail
Left Behind: the Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election," can be
viewed at http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/voter_fraud.html

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Straydog
But, I would have more control delegated to PEOPLE through some kind of
voting system, and not an electronic-computer one, either because vote
fraud is much easier if you have a computer system. Have an issue, tell
the people to show up somewhere. In Washington DC, if you care for issue
X, come in person and stand one place for option 1, stand in another
place for option 2. Like back in ancient Greek days when they had
something closer to real democracy.

In Athens less than six thousand adult males had the vote and the right
to sit in the council. The rest were either slaves, women or non-voting
foreigners. Athenian Democracy is far overrated. Consider what they did
to Socrates because they did not like the way he thought.

You definitely do not want the Athenian model. It ran on slave labor.

Bob Kolker

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Nospam
A better way will be to reduce the importance of capital and increase
the importance of labor.

A false alternative. Both are required, particularly abstract brain
labor which is the basis of our technology. A thousand Proles with
calloused hands digging holes with shovels cannot match an earth moving
machine which can do what they do better in a tenth the time. Mental
labor is the most important form of labor in a modern economy. Strong
back labor can be replaced by machinery with few or no humans at the
controls.

When are you pinko stinko leftniks going to understand that the theory
of surplus value is bullshit.

Bob Kolker

[Nospam]

Post by Robert Kolker
A false alternative.

Nope, it is the correct one. The overstated importance of the capital it is
exclusively derived from historic reasons (evolution of capitalism from
feudalism) and due to the fact that the economic power (aka money)
influence political power (aka corruption).

Post by Robert Kolker
Both are required, particularly abstract brain
labor which is the basis of our technology.

BINGO !!!!!!!!!!!!

They why the libertarians refuse to acknowledge that ? Why then use the
fake theory of "free market" to loot wealth created by people with brain
power and divert it into the pockets of the idiots with to much capital ?
Why the company steal the invention and it does not stay with the inventor?
Why the capital owner have all the decision power and it is actually able to
make more money by preventing others to work ?

We have issues that need to be addressed and resolved.

Yes, the correct answer it is somewhere in the middle. Unfortunate, there
are a lot of idiots on the right wingers side trying to push everything on
the extreme right that even sometimes they forced the centrists to push
to much toward the left.

That is, if our society is going to dramatically slide toward a "too left"
then extreme rights idiots will be happy with the outcome. They are just to
mentally primitive to be negotiated with, to mentally insane to understand
the reality to greedy to do anything but rip & run.

[albertv]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Nospam
A better way will be to reduce the importance of capital and increase
the importance of labor.

A false alternative. Both are required, particularly abstract brain
labor which is the basis of our technology. A thousand Proles with
calloused hands digging holes with shovels cannot match an earth moving
machine which can do what they do better in a tenth the time. Mental
labor is the most important form of labor in a modern economy. Strong
back labor can be replaced by machinery with few or no humans at the
controls.
When are you pinko stinko leftniks going to understand that the theory
of surplus value is bullshit.
Bob Kolker

"Both are required, particularly abstract brain labor which is the basis of
our technology." I think Institutes of higher learning should patent
everything and including what their graduates take away from there for 5
years after. Patents should belong to those tax-payer funded institutions
and not to the professors that make the discoveries.

So anyone that is not a brain or is a brain but has not produced anything
of note should be shot, right. Kolker, I do not like your society.

[Robert Kolker]

Post by albertv
So anyone that is not a brain or is a brain but has not produced
anything of note should be shot, right. Kolker, I do not like your society.

Not shot. Merely allowed to starve.f

Bob Kolker

[Thomas Bartkus]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Thomas Bartkus
A wage ceiling perhaps!

Repeal the minimum wage laws.

You mean that utterly meaningless floor on wages that congress sets?
The wage rates that anyone nearly as intelligent as a bar of soap would
reject in favor of simply not working and taking welfare?

Repealing the minimum wage would accomplish nothing because it *is* nothing.
Can you show me anyone actually working *legally* at minimum wage? With all
being reported and taxes. Soc. Sec. witheld? Unless a substantial volume of
work is being done legally at the mandated minimum wage, how can it's repeal
have any affect?

BUT - I certainly have no objection! Go ahead and repeal it.

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Thomas Bartkus
We could help Americans get over it by having wage and salary caps.

With

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Thomas Bartkus
wage ceilings mandated by law, Amercans would either accept it or remain
jobless. Uppity engineers, for example, would have no delusions of leaving
an employment position for a bigger paycheck.

If someone is willing to pay, why prevent it?

Don't ask me! That was entirely a tongue in cheek reply.

Post by Robert Kolker
We should let wage levels be set by supply and demand. The old fashioned
way.

Indeed!
If we *had* anything resembling a free market, how could wages possibly be
too high?
Any more than the price of anything could be too high?

Impossible says -
Thomas Bartkus

[alexy]

Post by Thomas Bartkus
You mean that utterly meaningless floor on wages that congress sets?
The wage rates that anyone nearly as intelligent as a bar of soap would
reject in favor of simply not working and taking welfare?
Repealing the minimum wage would accomplish nothing because it *is* nothing.
Can you show me anyone actually working *legally* at minimum wage?
being reported and taxes. Soc. Sec. witheld?

Been to a restaurant or bought anything in a retail store lately? <g>

Post by Thomas Bartkus
With all Unless a substantial volume of
work is being done legally at the mandated minimum wage, how can it's repeal
have any affect?

Well, one possibility is bringing some of the underground economy with
below minimum wage jobs above ground.

[me]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Thomas Bartkus
A wage ceiling perhaps!

Repeal the minimum wage laws.

Post by Thomas Bartkus
We could help Americans get over it by having wage and salary caps. With
wage ceilings mandated by law, Amercans would either accept it or remain
jobless. Uppity engineers, for example, would have no delusions of
leaving an employment position for a bigger paycheck.

If someone is willing to pay, why prevent it?
We should let wage levels be set by supply and demand. The old fashioned
way.

Good idea. How about increasing the supply of physicians by inviting
immigrant physicians till supply is at 50% above demand? Once 1/3rd of
physicians are unemployed, health care should be more affordable for the
uninsured working stiff.

[Straydog]

from "The Week" May 19, 2006, page 9, a quote:

"More than half of chinese students who graduate from college this year
will be doomed to unemployment, the Labor Ministry said this week. The
number of grads has been steadily climbing in the past few years, even as
job creation slows. In the second half of this year, 4.1 million people
will finish university, but there are jobs for only 1.7 million of them.
India, another emerging giant, may soon face a similar shortage. 'The
outlines of an Asian employment crisis are already taking shape.' said
Ifzal Ali, cheif economist of the Asian Developement Bank/ 'Asia's succes
will sooner or later be eclipsed by the pressures of a huge reserve army
of unemployed.'"


---

another cite and source:

Subject: Jobless Indian Doctors Become Medical Transcriptionists


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1222753.cms
No job for doctors? Take an MT dose- The Economic Times

No job for doctors? Take an MT dose
LAXMI DEVI

INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 07, 2005 01:38:37 AM]

It seems that doctors are having a tough time in Bangalore. There has
been a growing number of doctors who are jobless. And their only
respite are the medical transcription (MT) companies that have
sprouted across Bangalore. And these doctors are working for a
pittance - sometimes as low as Rs 5,000 a month.

Vinay P Bhat, a 25-year-old dentist started his private practice in
Bangalore soon after completing his graduation. But his clinic didn't
do well and he had to look for a job to sustain. "Now, I take medicine
classes in Lake Systems, an MT company and simultaneously run my
private clinic," says Bhat who works in shifts for three to four hours
a day and earns Rs 10,000 a month.

At least Bhat is quite content with his teaching in the MT company.
But Debiprasad, a middle-class MBBS doctor, who works as a medical
transcriptionist, feels, "This job doesn't need doctors. A graduate in
any discipline can make it. To be a transcriptionist, an aspirant does
not require a medical degree; the primary skills required are good
listening and language aptitude and knowledge of medical terminology
." Debiprasad earns Rs 8,000 a month.

Nevertheless, today MT companies seem to be the only hope for jobless
doctors in Karnataka. The irony is rather than serving India's large
population; they are transcribing and assisting US doctors! Doctors
working in MT companies have to transcribe history and physical
reports, clinic notes, operative reports, consultation notes,
discharge summaries, psychiatric evaluations, x-ray and pathology
reports.

Many senior doctors opine that such plight is due to over-crowding in
medical and dental fields in the state. Those with a post-graduation
degree still have a future and can survive the competitive market. But
plain medical graduates have little chance of getting a decent job.
Manikantan completed his BDS last year and is now working for just Rs
5,000 a month. Says he, "After stepping into the field, I realised
what pittance doctors are paid compared to IT professionals." And
Sridevi who had dreams to be a dentist is now transcribing a US
doctor's reports in one of leading MT companies in Bangalore.

Suresh Nair, CEO and managing director of Health Scribe and president
of Indian Medical Transcription Industry Association (IMTIA) says,
"Most of the MT companies do hire doctors at small percentage. Like in
Health Scribe the first MT company to start in India has 80 doctors
out of 18,000 employees. Most doctors take up MT job because of the
money."

"The dental field is more saturated than the medical in Karnataka,"
explains J T Venkateshaiah, a senior doctor. The state has 42 dental
and 32 medical colleges, the highest in the country (see list below).
Bangalore itself has 10-12 dental colleges that churn out 700-800
dentists every year.

State Medical colleges Dental colleges

Andhra Pradesh 31 17
Assam 03 01
Bihar 08 07
Chandigarh 02 00
Chhattisgarh 02 04
Delhi 05 01
Goa 01 01
Gujarat 13 07
Haryana 03 09
Himachal Pradesh 02 05
Jammu & Kashmir 04 01
Jharkhand 03 00
Karnataka 32 42
Kerala 15 12
Madhya Pradesh 08 08
Maharashtra 39 22
Manipur 01 00
Orissa 04 03
Pondicherry 05 01
Punjab 06 11
Rajasthan 08 09
Sikkim 01 00
Tamil Nadu 22 16
Tripura 01 00
Uttar Pradesh 13 23
Uttaranchal 02 00
West Bengal 09 03

With the number of doctors and dentists burgeoning every year and job
avenues shrinking, these professionals are looking towards the MT
companies as saviours. Things are not easy though. "The `doctor' tag
will not help you while applying for MT job. It doesn't make any
difference if you are a doctor or not. Of course a doctor is familiar
with medical terminology, otherwise it purely depends on his/her
writing and hearing skills," says Vedashyam, a medical graduate, who
is undergoing MT training.

According to estimates, India has 300 MT companies and out which 30-40
are in Bangalore and the major players include Health Scribe,
Heartland and Focus DTS among others. The industry experts say that
Karnataka has the largest number of MT companies in India next only to
Andhra Pradesh. With the expected growth in the US medical
transcription industry to touch $77 bn by 2008, the Indian market is
slated to see a surge in the transcription-based companies. And the
way things are going the new set-ups may be manned by medical
practitioners.

[albertv]

Post by Straydog
"More than half of chinese students who graduate from college this year
will be doomed to unemployment, the Labor Ministry said this week. The
number of grads has been steadily climbing in the past few years, even
as job creation slows. In the second half of this year, 4.1 million
people will finish university, but there are jobs for only 1.7 million
of them. India, another emerging giant, may soon face a similar
shortage. 'The outlines of an Asian employment crisis are already taking
shape.' said Ifzal Ali, cheif economist of the Asian Developement Bank/
'Asia's succes will sooner or later be eclipsed by the pressures of a
huge reserve army of unemployed.'"

The cream rises to the top. With outsourcing of research labs in full swing
many more will find employment. Like you say these well educated can make
for a smarter Army. Compare that to the US Armed forces.

[Straydog]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Straydog
Some of this has already started to happen. Average wages have gone down

Bingo! It is about time that Americans lost their fantastic notions of
entitlement. Neither the government, nor the sweating miserable wretches of
the third world owe us a living. We have to go get it for ourselves and do
whatever it takes. If it means earning less, then so be it. If the price is
right it will sell. That includes the price of labor, which is just another
commodity.
Bob Kolker

Yeah, but I also want to see the CEOs take a hit, too.
---------------------------
Quotes:

"From 1999 to 2003, the five top dogs [yes, that's the term they used] at
each of the 1,500 largest publicly traded firms cumulatively took down
$122 billion in salary, bonus, and stock, compared with $68 billion from
1993 through 1997"

and

"In the period from 2001 to 2003, top-executives compensation amounted to
9.8% of the companies net income, almost double the 5% in 1993 to 1995.
That's money that otherwise would end up in shareholders' pockets."


from page C1, WSJ, Weds, Jan 11, 2006

title "Lavish Pay Puts a Bite on Profits"
by Jesse Eisinger
(name of the column: Long & Short)
----------------------

[Nospam]

Post by Straydog
Yeah, but I also want to see the CEOs take a hit, too.
---------------------------
"From 1999 to 2003, the five top dogs [yes, that's the term they used] at
each of the 1,500 largest publicly traded firms cumulatively took down
$122 billion in salary, bonus, and stock, compared with $68 billion from
1993 through 1997"
and
"In the period from 2001 to 2003, top-executives compensation amounted to
9.8% of the companies net income, almost double the 5% in 1993 to 1995.
That's money that otherwise would end up in shareholders' pockets."

This iswhy we need legislation to link the CEO's total compensations by the
average non managerial position total compensation. A maximum value will be
let say and 14 times.

That is. If your workers take home an 100k then the CEO can be allow to take
home an 1.4M. If he offshore the jobs and now his workers make only 10k
then he can be allowed to take home no more that 140k.

This legislation is mandatory to make corporations more responsible.

[Robert Kolker]

Post by Straydog
Yeah, but I also want to see the CEOs take a hit, too.

You want to do that at gun point? Remember a day will come when someone
else things you are too rich.

I have never missed a meal because corporte executives are overpayed.
You are just envious.

Bob Kolker

[Thomas Bartkus]

Post by Robert Kolker

Post by Straydog
Yeah, but I also want to see the CEOs take a hit, too.

You want to do that at gun point? Remember a day will come when someone
else things you are too rich.
I have never missed a meal because corporte executives are overpayed.
You are just envious.
Bob Kolker

Is that your standard?
Would it be okay by you if I pilfer from your earnings just so long as I
leave you with enough to eat?

What is overpaid?

IF a company is meeting it's obligations - debts, salaries, taxes, overhead
costs.
Then
The owners (stockholders?) of a company are free to pay a CEO, or anyone
else, whatever they wish - or whatever the board that represents them deems
appropriate.

Is that what is going on today?
Is that what happened at Enron?
Is that what happened when Carly Fiorina retired (ahem!) from HP with
her 46 mil severance package?

More generally, is it okay to pay 7, 8 and 9 digit salaries to a few favored
individuals while simultaneously blowing off obligations to others in a
bankruptcy - like promised pensions perhaps?

Inquiring minds want to know!
Thomas Bartkus

[Straydog]

Post by Straydog
Yeah, but I also want to see the CEOs take a hit, too.

You want to do that at gun point? Remember a day will come when someone else
things you are too rich.

I can cite reports where they pay at the underling level has been going
down at the same time pay at the overling level has been going up,
drastically. Yes, they are getting too rich and not earning their incomes.

I have never missed a meal because corporte executives are overpayed. You are
just envious.

Not at all. Bill Gates got his excess money by forming a monopoly. To me
that is putting a GUN to MY head. And, I'd rather have kept all those
cases of excess fees, costs, prices in my wallet instead of hand them over
to some overpaid, overpampered, overprotected, underperforming fatass
lardbutt.

Bob Kolker

[Phil Scott]

--
Phil Scott
Ideas are bullet proof.

Post by Robert Kolker

Lower Costs What is going on here, and why do U.S.
companies seem to
be outsourcing so many jobs? The simple fact is that money
chases
cheap labor. Put differently, capital, the resource that
fuels our
industries, has to seek the lowest labor costs in order for
companies
to survive.

It is the law of supply and demand at work. Supply and
demand govern the behaviour of humans as surely as the laws
of theormodynamics governm the distribution of heat. So what
is the big deal here? American workers have priced themselve
out of the market.

Lets ammend that statement to say high taxes as they
leverage though the economy to pay a non productive civil
servant class and to fund bogus wars, have driven taxes up so
high that wages have gone out of competitive ranges.

When the non productive in a culture begin to outnumber the
goods producing... the entire mess begins on the road south.

It is true that some are lazy too... it is not true that it is
smart for us to compete against deliberately starved chinese
labor... do we want to live that way? No.

Yet the problem remains, in a world economy it will get messy.








This can be cured. Repeal the

Post by Robert Kolker
mimimum wage laws and outlaw compulsory union membership.
Wages will drop and the work will come back to our shores.
Why go overseas for cheap labor when you can get it at home?

This works exceedingly well for the top 2% or so of a
population..some of those no doubt earned the privilage. many
dont.

When the top 2% does well and the rest do not, the nation
looses its middle class... the goods producing class...then
it looses empire... then it becomes a third rate nation.


This is not to say that unions run rampant are a solution
either... I am saying the working wage must afford a living
and some purchasing power or such an economy collapses.

thats how it is historically.

Phil Scott

Post by Robert Kolker
Bob Kolker

[Straydog]

The best short answer to this question is this:
-------------------------
The following quote is from Business Week, December 6, 2004
and from the article "Shaking up Trade Theory" by Aaron Bernstein
on pages 116 to 120. (The subtitle of the article is: "For decades
economists have insisted that the U.S. wins from globalization. Now they
are not so sure")

They quoted Paul Samuelson (MIT) as saying "Comparative advantage
cannot be counted on to create...net gains greater than the net
losses from trade"

------------------------

The issue of cheap labor, which will be attractive to the CEOs, first, and
second, anyone, in general, who wants to pay less, is that it takes
discretionary money out of one economy and puts it in another. Offshoring
to India, for example, has a high failure rate (see below).

Offshore outsourcing (i.e. BPO, especially to India)
has a high failure rate and is leading to a new pheonmenon:
backsourcing/backshoring, and the "H-1B swindle."

New revision: Companies hiring foreigners on H1b visas are
less interested in quality work and more interested in cheap labor (see
item #12 below).

(edition date: May 5, 2006)

FAQ:
QUESTION: How well is offshore outsourcing & BPO (especially to India)
really working?
ANSWER: Below are eleven different sources (1-11) and many comments,
summaries, and quotes that report that the failure rates are very high
and satisfaction is not very high, either. Especially in reference # 10,
it is clear that you don't get increased "productivity." Instead, when
the cost goes down, so does the quality of what comes out.

QUESTION: Instead of offshoring jobs to, for example, India, US companies
import foreign labor to the USA through a visa such as the H-1B which
requires that the employee work only for the company that sponsors that
visa and they justify this on a shortage of IT expertise in the USA. How
true is this picture?
ANSWER: Reference #12, below, is a source of information that H-1B
employers are more interested in cheap labor than quality service or
products.

QUESTION: Are there any anti-offshoring internet resources?
ANSWER: See at the very end of this file, one website. If you know of any
more, please send email to me or post to the newsgroups.

---------------------
12. The article "The H-1B Swindle" by Ephraim Schwartz, appearing in
Infoworld, October 31, 2005, page 12, has the subtitle "A new study
suggests that companies hire foreign workers for cheap labor, not skill."
The article goes on to say: "It appears there is hard evidence to prove
that employers are using the H-1B visa program to hire cheap labor; that
is, to pay substantially lower wages than the national average for
programming jobs (infoworld.com/3449)" The article goes into additional
detail and cites data sources such as BLS (infoworld.com/3450) and DOL's
H-1B website (infoworld.com/3451). Across the board, foreigners were being
paid less. As a general fact, companies have a financial incentive to
preferentially recruit foreigners because they know foreigners will accept
a job offer at a lower wage.
---------------------
11. A study show that outsourcing really does not save as claimed.
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/04/13/
outsourcing_saves_less_than_claimed/

(this reference was posted on a newsgroup in early 2006, and was not
checked)
--------------
10. Three more recent articles. First: the article "Don't Offload Big IT
Problems On Outsourcers" by Rob Preston (VP.Ed-in-cheif) as appeared in
Informationweek, April 10, 2006, page 88 (may be online at
informationweek.com). Second: the large article "How Do You Spell Relief?
O-U-T-S-O-U-R-C-I-N-G" by Bruce Boardman, appearing in Network Computing,
April 1, 2006, pages 30-36, and a third article in the same issue on pages
39-48.

So what do these three articles say? The first is a one page qualitative
review of several outsourcing failures and cites "Outsourcing Backlash"
(presumably at informationweek.com/650/50iuout.htm [I have not checked
it]) and explained that any problems people have at home become magnified
when they offshore/outsource (many references to India).

The second walks people through the "process" of outsourcing/offshoring
work, including a discussion of how to do this, but also has a sidebar on
page 36 which includes a summary of a Deloitte Consulting survey of 25
organizations (worth $1 trillion in market cap, and with 1 mil employees,
and spent $50 bil on operations outsourced) and the sidebar says things
like: one in four brought functions back in house after realizing they
could do the work better, cheaper themselves, 33% of outsourcing
relationships failed in one year while 50% didn't last five years, and 57%
paid extra for services they though were included in the original
contract.

The third article also helps the IT specialist by evaluating four data
center packages (from Savvis, EDS, Globix, and Infosys). There were a
number of tables with data. Bottom line results: Infosys was the cheapest,
EDS about three times more expensive, others midway; quality of results-
Savvis and EDS got A-, Globix got B+, and Infosys got a C. You get what
you pay for.
----------------
9. Courtesy of "indiabpoking" are the following reported negatives,
Date: 10 Apr 2006 15:36:37 -0700
From: indiaBPOking <***@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: alt.computer.consultants, alt.politics.economics,
alt.politics.bush, sci.research.careers, soc.culture.british
Subject: Outsourcing seen as source of innovation

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6059512.html

"An IDC and Capgemini survey of almost 300 executives attending IDC's
Outsourcing Forum East last week found that top reasons for deciding to
use Business Process Outsourcing in a corporate strategy include
reducing costs, driving innovation, and the ability to focus on core
competencies."

[but see below]

"Additional [negatives, failures, drawbacks] survey highlights include:"

"* More than one third (38.2 percent) of participants felt the biggest
downside to outsourcing is not getting the expected results, followed
by public/customer backlash (23.5 percent), and anxiety over loosing
control (20.6 percent)."

[note that 38.2 percent is much lower than other figures cited from
other sources farther down]

"* The three most important legal issues concerning BPO today according
to those surveyed were: governance procedures (33.8%), business
continuity (27.7 percent) and intellectual property rights (26.2
percent)."

--------------------------------
8. More complaints about India:

from the article "View from Asia-India won't fully benefit from the amazing
productivity of its companies unless it builds a better infrastructure for
business" by Tom Leander (Editor-in-Chief, CFO Asia). Appearing in "CFO"
magazine for April 2006, page 27 (may be at their website:
www.cfo.com/backissues).

Some quotes:

"... GE's CFO, Keith Sherin, told CFO Asia late last year that he finds India
frustrating. 'You get excited and nothing happens,' he says. Three years ago,
GE did about the same volume of business in both India and China. Today,
China is a $3 billion market for GE, triple that of India. So, it's no surprise
when Sherin sums up GE's Asian strategy by saying that 'China is number
one, two, and three for us'."

"His primary complaint is the lack of government support for infrastructure
improvements. Turn off any highway in India and you'll know what Sherin is
talking about."

"It may be unseemly to criticise a government that has to take care of so
many poor citizens for not building better roads to facilitate commerce, but
India's CFOs point out that infrastructure is a social-welfare issue. Sumant
Sinha, CFO of leading conglomerate Aditya Birla Group, says that he spends
more on capital expenditure every year than peer companies in other nations
might. How many of them, after all, must build their own power stations?"

"But its wishful thinking [despite all the positives of India] to conclude that
India's remarkable productivity will translate into a thriving internal market
any time soon. In the eyes of most U.S. finance chiefs, China remains
number one, two, and three."
---------------------------------------
7. Backshoring...the new buzzword

Feb 13, 2006 issue of Infoworld, pages 8 (Efraim Schwartz's column) and
page 4, (editor's);

Developer poaching and rapidly rising prices are causing US based
companies to start pulling jobs back to the USA. Read about it in the
periodical.
------------------------------------------------
6. Subject: Deloitte Report: outsource failure rates

From June, 2005, CFO magazine, page 19.
(it may be on their website, www.cfo.com/BackIssues)

Deloitte Consulting was said (by the CFO article) to have said "'In the
real world, outsourcing frequently fails to deliver its promise.' wrote
researchers who surveyed 25 companies with average revenues of $50
billion. The study reveals that 70 percent of its respondents have had
significantly negative experiences and are outsourcing business processes
and IT with increasing caution."

"...there is growning evidence that large comapnies are rethinking massive
outsourcing contracts. Big name defectors that have unwound at least part
of their arrangements include Conseco, Dell, Capital One, and Lehman
Brothers."

"A sure sign that outsourcing isn't working is the amount of renegotiation
surrounding the vendor agreements, sayd Deloitte senior strategy principal
Ken Landis. 'There wasn't a single participant in the study wohe contract
went to term,' he says. 'All of them had renegotiated prior to the
contract expiration date'"

"Companies are souring on outsourcing, the survey asserts, for the same
reason it has been criticised for years: failure to live up to
cost-reduction promises, risks to intellectual property, and
confidentiatlity, and lack of transparency."

The article states that, so far, 25% of the companies have brought
services back (now called backsourcing).
------------------------------------------------------
5. From Information Week, page 8, in the Nov 21, 2005 issue.

Sidebar: "48% of all companies will spend more money on BPO this year than
in 2004"

"55% of current BPO service delivery is conductend inside the USA"

"41% of companies are satisfied with their BPO services"

So, that sounds like 100 - 41= 59% are dissatisified with their BPO
services. And, there's going to be more BPO?

Says the source is IW, Managing Offshore, and Equa Terra study of 200 BPO
customers.
-------------------------------------------------
4. "Offshoring isn't such a sure thing"
by Lora Kolodny,
Inc. magazine, September, 2005, pages 22-24

Quotes:

"Companies are finding that sending IT work overseas can
be more trouble than it's worth, according to a new survey
from DiamondCluster International, a Chicago-based
management consultancy. The number of executives
surveyed who said they were pleased with their outsourced
IT vendors fell by 17 pecentage points versus the previous
year, marking the first decline since 2002. Moreover, early
termination of relationships between buyers and offshore
service providers spiked to 51%, which is double the rate of
2004."

In other words, half of all relationships are terminated
before their first contract period is up.

In view of this, a spokesman for the consulting firm says
that "...tech buyers will think twice about sending critical
services abroad--at least for now."
--------------------------------------------------
3. From "CFO" magazine, FALL 2005, special issue, pages
40-44. (may be on www.cfo.com/Backissues)

article: "Customer Disservice: Critics say the promised
savings from offshoring come at too steep a price, while
companies say very little at all"

by Norm Alster

some content and some quotes:

This article starts by saying that on a recent talk show
where people could call in with comments and questions, it
was discovered that virtually everyone in the USA does not
like foreign call center representatives.

"But the practice of outsourcing customer service to
offshore call centers is beginning to look like a classical
idea carried too far. Critics of the pracctice point to a
growing body of evidence that suggests faulty economics
and customer dissatisfaction are forcing a rethink of what
once seemed a no-brainer."

"'The economic benefits of outsourcing customer service
are grossly overstated' according to Niels Kjellerup, a senior
partner with Australian consulting firm Resource
International and editor of a Website devoted to call centers
(www.callcenters.com.au). Customer resistance, along with
data-security concerns and the unexpectedly high costs of
managing offshore call centers, offset and dilute their
promised economic benefits, says Kjellerup."

"There is already evidence that these factors have
combined to slow the offshore migration. Several large
firms, including Dell, credit-card giant Capital One, and
insurer Conseco, have shifted at least some customer-
support operations back to the United States."

Gartner's analyst, Robert Brown, says that the initial large
growth in offshoring is expected to be, in the future, much
much smaller.

"Companies with monopolistic or overwhelmingly dominant
market positions are more apt to risk customer alienation
where near-term savings can be realized."

"Alexa Bona, a Gartner analyst based in London, predicts
that during the next three years, up to 60 percent of
companies outsourcing customer-facing service will
encounter customer defections and hidden costs that will
either cancel or outweigh any perceived savings in such
arrangements."

"He [Chris Selland, at Covington Associates in Boston]says
executives at firms that have employed offshore call centers
keep telling him that 'it's harder, it takes more management
attention, and you have to be meticulous about the way you
structure the agreement.' As a result of all this unexpected
overhead, the projected savings from offshoring can swiftly
evaporate."

The article says there is huge turnover at Indian call
centers; it can be up to 70% per year. And, with the big
expansion, there have been recruiting wars in India and
escalating pay scales.

"Martha Rogers, a consultant and author of several books
on customer relationships, contends that the metrics
generally used to measure call-center performance are
flawed."

"Many companies that outsource customer service, in fact,
don't like talking about it, and more than a dozen turned
down requests for interviews. 'Companies are looking to do
everything they can to hide the fact that they are using off
shore call centers' says Selland. 'From a political standpoint
and a customer-acceptance standpoint, it is something they
are trying to downplay.' At some Asian centers, agents are
actually trained to conceal their real names and adopt
phoney American monikers, a practice that fools few and
can further inflame an already angry caller."

"One in three respondents in a British survey said they
would stop doing business with a bank that relocates its call
centers offshore. Another study, conducted in 2004,
reported that just 5 pecent of the British are satisfied with
offshore call centers. The Irish arm of Sweden's Tele2AG, a
telecommunications firm, recently switched its call center
operation out of India and back to Ireland, citing consumer
preference."

"In an unpublished data-theft case now under investigation,
a large U.S.-based technology multinational contracted with
a call center in India without knowing that that company in
turn subcontracted a portion of the work to firms outside
India, where employees of the subcontractor apparently
managed to penetrate the American company's information
database."

"...growing outsourcing industries in Eastern Europe and
Latin America have been targeted by criminals seeking
access to customer data. "

"'For companies that regard customer service as a key part
of future revenue growth, bringing such operations back to
domestic shores is the way to go,' says Kjellerup."
---------------------------------------------------
2. From _Information Week_, page 60, Dec 19/26 issue, 2005

A short article by Paul McDougall reporting that: "...companies
operating in India, including local ones such as Infosys
Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wipro Technologies,
spend a lot of time and energy time stealing each other's
employees--and that's quickly driving up salaries" and "'There's a
lot of employee turnover [in India], and we weren't interested in that,'
says Martin Mellon, director of development at applications vendor ASG
Software Solutions. The company chose Northern Ireland over India
for its offshore development work."
--------------------------------------------------
1. Subject: "Satisfaction Wanes for Offshoring"

On page 2 of the print issue of Processor.com for June 17, 2005, volume
27, number 24:

"According to consulting firm DiamondCluster International, the number of
buyers satisfied with the providers of their offshore outsourcing has
fallen from 79% to 62%. The firm's annual survey of IT outsourcing also
revealed that 51% of buyers are terminating their outsourcing
relationships earlier than scheduled."
=============================

An anti-offshoring website (excerpted from a 2006 newsgroup posting):

Subject: US IT Out Web Site (Anti-Offshore-Outsourcing) (fwd)
From: Vladimir Veytsel <***@verizon.net>
Newsgroups: alt.computer.consultants, alt.computer.consultants.ads

Link : http://it.davar.net or http://davar.net/IT
Name : US IT Out - USA Information Technology Outsourcing
Descr: Selection of anti-offshore-outsourcing quotes,
opinions, cartoons and links.
(On most part changes are uploaded at month end;
updated sections are marked by colored dates.)

About Short introduction that explains the purpose,
the origins, and the structure of the web site.

Advice Quotes that offer advice on what one can do
to oppose the offshore outsourcing.

Quotes Quotations selected mainly by the following criteria:
1. Random historic quotes (mostly by the US presidents).
2. All USA historic quotes (mostly by the US presidents).
3. Condensed viewpoints that are well taken.
4. Representative statements showing "who is who"
relative to the offshore outsourcing issue.

Opinions Opinions selected on most part from the
"alt.computer.consultants" news group. Just linking
to them would be clumsy and not quite reliable, and
could result in losing them if they were deleted from
the news group archives. A few opinions were selected
from the media, again for the sake of keeping them in
case they were deleted from the media site archives.

Books Short reviews of books that describe and analyze the
offshore outsourcing phenomenon, and related subjects.

Cartoons "One picture is worth thousand words" - especially if
it's a good cartoon. Treating a topic that is anything
but a fun with a smile (though a sad one) serves as a
healthy add-on to the mostly depressing content of this
web site.

IT Links Classified links to information about the offshore
outsourcing of information technology jobs by
USA-based companies.

USA Links Classified links to information about USA events
(some links here are related to offshore outsourcing).

World links Classified links to information about world events
(some links here are related to offshore outsourcing).

[Nospam]

Post by Straydog
The following quote is from Business Week, December 6, 2004
and from the article "Shaking up Trade Theory" by Aaron Bernstein
on pages 116 to 120. (The subtitle of the article is: "For decades
economists have insisted that the U.S. wins from globalization. Now they
are not so sure")

They were not sure in 2004. By now, everybody (except clinically insane
cases) are 100% sure about the fact that globalization does hurt US.

Unfortunate, we may not be able to stop it thou. Thanks to the monumental
stupidity of CEOs and other idiotic business people, US lost the position
of #1 producer of high technology and currently we import more high
technology than we actually export. If in this conditions we set up tarifs
we may get hurt by retaliation because almost everything we still produce
can be cheaper produced in China.

There arehowever solutions we can use to cope with globalization. We can
reduce the uncompetitive advantages a manufacturer offshore have over a
domestic one. And we can do things already implemented in most of the rest
of the world, so no retaliation can be possible. Like: universal
healthcare, retirement and university education financed from sale taxes
on all nonfood items. Also bigger welfare and longer unemployment insurance
financed as a tax on dividends/capital gain. A shorter and more flexible
working week will allow more times for people to put on their offhours home
businesses. Especially in IT we have the opportunity to have most of the
work done in independent consulting businesses instead of a large offshore
integrator in India. A progressive tax on corporate proffits can help to
compensate for the unfair advantages a large corporation have due to
quantity discounts and also can be used to tax out more money from
companies cutting jobs to increase proffits.

But first of all, we have to roll back the idiotic tax cuts implemented by
president Bush. Tax cuts designed in purpose to harm US economy by
encouraging offshoring.

[albertv]

Post by Straydog
-------------------------
The following quote is from Business Week, December 6, 2004
and from the article "Shaking up Trade Theory" by Aaron Bernstein
on pages 116 to 120. (The subtitle of the article is: "For decades
economists have insisted that the U.S. wins from globalization. Now they
are not so sure")

Classic, selling technique. Tell them they will win without solid reasoning
and it gets those free loaders any time. Kind of like NAFTA was going to be
a boon. Tell them it's a race to the bottom but someone else will loose

[Straydog]

Post by albertv

Post by Straydog
-------------------------
The following quote is from Business Week, December 6, 2004
and from the article "Shaking up Trade Theory" by Aaron Bernstein
on pages 116 to 120. (The subtitle of the article is: "For decades
economists have insisted that the U.S. wins from globalization. Now they
are not so sure")

Classic, selling technique. Tell them they will win without solid reasoning
and it gets those free loaders any time. Kind of like NAFTA was going to be a
boon. Tell them it's a race to the bottom but someone else will loose

NAFTA was a ripoff, too. I'm looking for the book review I saw in Business
Week about 2 years ago where NAFTA had nothing to do with free trade or
possible benefits to the USA. Instead, what NAFTA was all about was to
make Mexico safe for US corporations to go down there and make investments
(to, again, benefit the CEOs, mostly, off cheap labor) and do it in a
manner that made it impossible for Mexico to ever nationalize the
investments (like Mexico did much much earlier in the 1900s).