Thread: Outsourcing is NOT wrong or evil. It is vital and necessary!

"Outsourcing" has become such a dirty word that it's hard to believe there could actually be something called the International Assn. of Outsourcing Professionals. What next? The Society of Professional Child Molesters?

The IAOP's modest claim is that it is "the leading professional association for organizations and individuals involved in transforming the world of business through outsourcing, offshoring and shared services." The group promotes a list of the 100 "best" outsourcing companies, and even has an annual "Miss Outsourcing" beauty pageant. (That last item's a joke. The rest is all true.)

In the presidential campaign, President Obama is trying to paint Mitt Romney as an incorrigible outsourcer, as if it were obvious why this is so terrible. Maybe it seems obvious: People lose their jobs when companies transfer parts of their operations overseas. But most economists believe in the theory of free trade, which holds that a nation cannot prosper by denying its citizens the benefit of cheap foreign labor.

It's a hard sell because the victims are concentrated and easy to identify, while the benefit is diffused through the whole economy. That's why so many politicians pay obeisance to free trade in the abstract but oppose it in the particular.

Obama decries Romney's practice of outsourcing as if he thinks that all outsourcing is wrong, even if it can't or shouldn't be made illegal. Obama proposes a heavy dinner of grants, subsidies and tax credits to discourage outsourcing and encourage "insourcing" — bringing jobs from abroad back to America — all of which are bad ideas. Among other reasons, one nation's insourcing is another nation's outsourcing, and retaliation can quickly lead to a trade war in which everybody loses.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,7010163.story

Many, Many economic studies have been done and they all have unanimously shown that the advantages of free trade and outsourcing far outweigh the negative aspects. All of them show that for every job outsourced, another one opens up in another industry or goegraphical location within the USA. Liberals (and some libertarians) need to get off this obsession with protectionism. We can either innovate, educate, adapt and overcome, or our economy dies. It really is that simple. There is so much ignorance regarding outsourcing that it just boggles my mind.

There is no conspiracy to destroy American jobs out of greed.

Libertarians are asking for protectionism? I haven't heard that. Seems to me they're quite against it.

Anyway yes outsourcing is a good thing. If another country can make toasters for 1/10th the price we can here why not buy our toasters from there? People need to face the reality that unskilled labor is a shrinking field. You're pretty much looking at service industry, resource collection, government work, or a skilled job at this point. Of course there will always be nitch industries like Fenders, firearms, and other items, but honestly if something can be made for less somewhere else then why not? What's wrong with having cheaper products that are available to more people? Why should a toaster cost $100 instead of $10 just so we can make it here?

foreign outsourcing of American jobs would be fine IF it were taxed like other imports and exports, otherwise Americans can no compete, the playing field needs to be level

Foreign outsourcing = (less jobs, less spending, less taxes collected)

too much of anything is bad for you, and America has too much foreign outsourcing


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Originally Posted by FreshAir

foreign outsourcing of American jobs would be fine IF it were taxed like other imports and exports, otherwise Americans can no compete, the playing field needs to be level

So we should tax the toaster until it costs the same as it would for a US company to make and sell them? Why? Personally I prefer to be able to afford things.

I wonder what happens if everybody outsources? Including the poor people, I mean. If huge corporations can outsource and move operations to other countries, and that's a good thing, then if all the workers in America were to outsource and move their operations (along with their physical selves) to other countries, that would be a good thing, too, wouldn't it?

Originally Posted by Daybreaker

I wonder what happens if everybody outsources? Including the poor people, I mean. If huge corporations can outsource and move operations to other countries, and that's a good thing, then if all the workers in America were to outsource and move their operations (along with their physical selves) to other countries, that would be a good thing, too, wouldn't it?

Absurd analogy.

Why can't people realize that outsourcing companies like Wal-mart lift the quality of life of poor people by allowing them to purchase and own items that they normally wouldn't be able too without it?

Originally Posted by Daybreaker

I wonder what happens if everybody outsources? Including the poor people, I mean. If huge corporations can outsource and move operations to other countries, and that's a good thing, then if all the workers in America were to outsource and move their operations (along with their physical selves) to other countries, that would be a good thing, too, wouldn't it?

I don't want to eek out a living and only be able to afford a grass hut to sleep in.

Originally Posted by FreshAir

foreign outsourcing of American jobs would be fine IF it were taxed like other imports and exports, otherwise Americans can no compete, the playing field needs to be level

Foreign outsourcing = (less jobs, less spending, less taxes collected)

too much of anything is bad for you, and America has too much foreign outsourcing


.

Outsourcing doesn't mean less jobs, less spending, or less taxes. Outsourcing is simply an increase in production efficiency. In an ancient tribal village of 100 farmers somewhere, someone invented the plow. This innovation vastly increased farming efficiency, but the direct result of it was 90 unemployed farmers. Inevitably, some tribal leader would have wanted to ban the plow because the direct result was 90 unemployed farmers. Today, we call those tribal leaders Democrats.

like the plow, outsourcing is nothing but an increase in efficiency. The short-sighted will always see it as bad (90 farmers are out of jobs! ). The far-sighted will always see it as good (same amount of food, 90 more free hands to develop tools, art, science, philosophy, education, language, medicine...)

Originally Posted by Slyhunter

I don't want to eek out a living and only be able to afford a grass hut to sleep in.

Then have an education or a marketable trade skill. I don't want to pay unnecessarily high prices for consumer goods.

Originally Posted by Troianii

Outsourcing doesn't mean less jobs, less spending, or less taxes. Outsourcing is simply an increase in production efficiency. In an ancient tribal village of 100 farmers somewhere, someone invented the plow. This innovation vastly increased farming efficiency, but the direct result of it was 90 unemployed farmers. Inevitably, some tribal leader would have wanted to ban the plow because the direct result was 90 unemployed farmers. Today, we call those tribal leaders Democrats.

like the plow, outsourcing is nothing but an increase in efficiency. The short-sighted will always see it as bad (90 farmers are out of jobs! ). The far-sighted will always see it as good (same amount of food, 90 more free hands to develop tools, art, science, philosophy, education, language, medicine...)

My current GF's father is the CEO of a large manufacturer with its operations in Asia and he laughs at all this election year rhetoric. He says our economies are so intertwined between Asia and the West now that disentangling ourselves in such a stupid way by enacting tariffs and taxes, etc would be disastrous for both regions and discounts it all as wasted breath for the stupid masses. Hell I'm going to be outsourcing myself in a few months. He has contacts with the best oral surgeons in Asia and has set me up with a deal to go over and have some dental work done for 1/3rd the price here in America and all from American trained docs. Outsourcing rocks!

Nothing but election year hot air.