← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Allen Torx
Thread ID: 13235 | Posts: 17 | Started: 2004-04-19
2004-04-19 08:43 | User Profile
---------------<<<>>>--------------- JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER by Rob Sanchez April 18, 2004 - No. 987 ---------------<<<>>>---------------
In summary, here is a few ways you can expect to lose your job:
1 - Your job will be outsourced to a foreign country.
Example: Michael Wolfson earned a good living as a computer programmer but was told last year that his position in the brokerage's Brooklyn office was being outsourced to India.
2 - You will be forced to train your replacement who will come here on H-1B/L-1 visas.
Example: Bear Stearns brought in groups of people (H-1B/L-1 visas) from Tata Consultancy Services, based in Bombay, and many programmers had to train the supervisors from India who were flown over to learn the computer systems - and then replace them.
3 - You will be replaced by a worker on a visa H-1B or L-1 but you will be spared the indignity of training them.
Example: Chester, 40, lost her $200,000-a-year position in August 2001 to a lower-paid colleague from India working here on a temporary visa.
4 - You will be downsized and you won't know where your job went.
Example: Six weeks ago, Paul Schwartz was told his computer programming job at the giant distributor of electronic components and computer products had been eliminated. He suspects the main frame projects he was working on have been transferred to India.
As we all know, President Bush thinks outsourcing is good for America, so we can't count on him if we want to have jobs that pay a living salary. Unfortunately Kerry isn't much better except that he acknowledges that outsourcing could be disruptive to Bush's campaign. Kerry's voting record in the Senate speaks for itself - he supports increasing H-1B visas and he voted for NAFTA and other Free Trade Agreements. Kerry proposes to make minor changes in the tax code but that won't be enough to stem the tide of jobs moving offshore. If Kerry was such a friend of the American worker then I think it's fair to ask why he hasn't done anything to help us in the Senate.
While the macroeconomics evolve, outsourcing is escalating as
a hot-button issue in the presidential campaign with President
George W. Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry sparring over
the long-term impact on the U.S. standard of living. Kerry on
Friday proposed tax changes to keep companies from moving jobs
overseas.
In a nutshell, the reason Kerry's mild reforms of the tax code won't stop offshoring is very simple - cheap labor. The cost savings companies are enjoying by exploiting cheap labor is so great they will just write off the tax loss as a business expense. Keep in mind that Kerry has totally avoided the topic of H-1B and L-1, so the workers in scenarios 2 and 3 will continue to lose their jobs to nonimmigrants under a Kerry presidency.
Still, there's no denying that cost savings are luring companies
to hire employees abroad. The average software engineer in India
made 267,000 rupees a year in salary and benefits in 2003, or
about $5,900, according to the National Association of Software
and Service Companies (NASSCOM), an Indian trade group. A senior
project manager earned 1.8 million rupees, or $40,000 per year.
That's just a fraction of the $78,790 the average U.S. software
engineer makes, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There is one consolation that can be offered to you as your job is offshored - it was a lousy grunt job anyway, so quit fretting about the past and go find one of those wonderful high-end jobs manufacturing jobs at McDonald's, or an exciting service job at Wal-Mart. Look at your job loss as an opportunity to get away from tedious grunt work like computer programming and engineering. By using the LCA Database you will see that Magma also likes to hire H-1Bs to do the grunt work in the U.S. and their salaries are very low.
"We only offshore grunt work in IT to India ... It's harder to
fill these jobs than people think," said Salvatore A. Magnone,
a partner in Marincorp, which has offices in Manhattan and New
Jersey. "We believe globalization is a positive development.
Only five to 10 percent of the people who lose their jobs to
outsourcing aren't immediately rehired by other companies."
Hillary Clinton is masquerading as a friend of American workers even though she is an ardent supporter of H-1B and outsourcing to India. Remember how she invited TATA into Buffalo to make it easier for them to replace New Yorkers with H-1Bs? Snow is a rabid supporter of offshoring and deserves criticism, but not by hypocrites such as Clinton.
Separately, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) blasted Treasury
Secretary John Snow for his praise of outsourcing in a
newspaper interview Monday. He said the movement of work
overseas was one aspect of international trade that
ultimately will benefit the United States.
Hillary Clinton has no idea what reality American workers are facing. She is fortunate that the voters in upstate New York are clueless about the reality of her sellout to Tata, because if they ever find out she will be out of a job.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, responding to remarks by a top
U.S. official that outsourcing can be good for the economy,
said the Bush administration isn't facing reality _ at least
reality in upstate New York.
"I don't know what reality the Bush administration is living
in," said Clinton. "But it's certainly not the reality I
represent, from one end of New York to the other."
Three recent articles from Newsday are copied below. Enjoy!
[url]http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bz-jobs0328,0,4730158,print.story?col[/url] l=ny-top-headlines
Outsourcing Outcry: How your job may go abroad
BY JAMES T. MADORE AND PRADNYA JOSHI Staff Writer
The Bank of New York plans to send 250 technology jobs from Manhattan and elsewhere in the country to India.
The accounting firm Marcum & Kliegman LLP, with offices in Woodbury and Manhattan, is experimenting with having income tax returns prepared overseas.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. began firing about 1,000 employees last fall at its credit-card operations in Hicksville, sending some of the work to Vancouver. It also has created dozens of junior stock analyst jobs in Bombay.
The Reuters news service is hiring six journalists to write about U.S. companies from Bangalore, India, while it shifts computer jobs from Hauppauge to Bangkok.
From finance to technology, accounting to media, dozens of New York-area businesses are sending work overseas, joining the controversial trend called outsourcing. And local workers, who got used to seeing manufacturing jobs depart for lower-wage countries such as China and the Philippines, now are alarmed to see the same thing happen to higher-paying, white-collar positions. While there are no hard local numbers, about 300,000 jobs nationwide have been lost since 2000, according to Forrester Research Inc.
For 20 years, Michael Wolfson earned a good living as a computer programmer, most recently at financial powerhouse Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. Now, as he hunts for a job, he's refurbishing computers in the basement of his Baldwin home and selling them on eBay.
Wolfson, 43, was told last year that his position in the brokerage's Brooklyn office was being outsourced to India.
Forced to train workers
Bear Stearns then brought in groups of people from Tata Consultancy Services, based in Bombay, and many programmers had to train the supervisors from India who were flown over to learn the computer systems.
"People left there with very bad tastes in their mouth," Wolfson said. Laid off in December, he is thinking of becoming a public school teacher.
After years of being counseled to seek jobs that provided higher pay for higher skills, many workers fear those opportunities are evaporating for good.
The list of vulnerable occupations has grown as the pace of outsourcing has accelerated and now affects a broad spectrum including radiology, paralegal, journalism and government services. For example, the subcontractor hired by New York State to run the food stamp program is having questions from the poor answered by telephone operators in Mexico and India.
Some experts see benefits being derived from outsourcing. Exporting routinized jobs such as programming can lower costs for companies and give them the cash to invest in higher-skilled, more innovative jobs in the United States.
While the macroeconomics evolve, outsourcing is escalating as a hot-button issue in the presidential campaign with President George W. Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry sparring over the long-term impact on the U.S. standard of living. Kerry on Friday proposed tax changes to keep companies from moving jobs overseas.
In the New York area, outsourcing opponents argue that if the exporting of jobs doesn't stop, the economy's mainstay of financial services, accounting, computer software and business services could follow the once bustling manufacturing sector into near extinction.
Job lost to worker on a visa
Toni Chester, a computer programmer in Manhattan who blames outsourcing for the dearth of permanent jobs with benefits, said, "I cannot afford to live here on what they pay programmers in India and that's where all the jobs in my profession are going."
Chester, 40, lost her $200,000-a-year position in August 2001 to a lower-paid colleague from India working here on a temporary visa. The single mother of a teenage son, Chester spent more than a year largely unemployed until landing a contract job.
"For tech people like myself, when you take away our jobs it's an ego deflator; we're really lost," she said. "I love spending 14 to 15 hours a day writing code." She added, "I cannot find a job. What's wrong with me? Why won't American companies hire Americans?"
Similar comments are being heard by employment counselors and staffing agencies throughout the region.
"Everybody is talking about it when you go to an IT [information technology] event, which wasn't the case last year," said Barbara Viola, president of Viotech Solutions Inc., a staffing firm based in Farmingdale. "People are very concerned. This is in our backyard and affecting our companies," she said.
Some of the companies include:
GreenPoint Financial Corp. The Manhattan-based bank, which recently was acquired by North Fork Bank, exported some of its mortgage and customer service operations in 2002 to Bangalore. The move produced "significant" savings and improved service, executives said, but about 150 employees in Lake Success and Columbus, Ga., were thrown out of work.
Bank of New York. The Manhattan-based bank hopes to reduce expenses by shifting about 250 computer-software jobs at several U.S. offices, including some in the metro area, to Bombay, where it already employs 670. "It makes sense to build up our operation there," said spokesman R. Jeep Bryant.
The New York Times Co. The publisher has turned to outsourcing for computer software on selected projects. Spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said, "We have, from time to time, worked with outside systems contractors that have operations in Canada, India and Pakistan. ... We have not downsized our work force or limited the growth of it in favor of offshore talent."
Major accounting firms also are taking steps toward outsourcing.
"Most firms aren't disclosing to their clients that they are outsourcing," said Alan E. Weiner, senior tax partner at Holtz Rubenstein & Co. LLP, with offices in Melville and Manhattan.
Worry about identity theft
Weiner began exploring overseas preparation of income tax returns after he was approached by three outsourcing firms over two days in November 2002. But he ultimately nixed the idea because he feared clients' personal financial information would fall into the hands of criminals. "We tested the system and it worked, but I just couldn't get past the identity theft concerns I have," Weiner said.
Marcum & Kliegman accountants are currently testing the waters in India. The results have been mixed so far.
Managing Partner Jeffrey M. Weiner -- no relation to Holtz Rubenstein's Weiner -- said he was frustrated by the 10 1/2-hour time difference, which hampers communications. He also doubted whether tax returns could be completed overseas.
"Outsourcing seems to work well on a data entry and key punch level but I don't know if it's ideal for a complicated tax return," Weiner said.
Still, there's no denying that cost savings are luring companies to hire employees abroad. The average software engineer in India made 267,000 rupees a year in salary and benefits in 2003, or about $5,900, according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), an Indian trade group. A senior project manager earned 1.8 million rupees, or $40,000 per year.
That's just a fraction of the $78,790 the average U.S. software engineer makes, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Indian tech worker salaries may be low by U.S. standards but they are significantly higher than the wages of the average worker as well as salaries for most other professional jobs. The average Indian makes 1,727 rupees a month, or $460 a year, according to the India Watch Foundation. But the wages, benefits and perks for an average employee of the automaker Maruti Udyog Ltd., for example, totals 24,000 rupees a month, or about $6,400 a year, India Watch reported.
American layoffs, particularly those affecting technology, office and professional workers, set against the backdrop of anemic job creation has fueled a growing debate over outsourcing. Cambridge-based Forrester Research predicted the number of U.S. jobs bound for low-wage countries would approach 600,000 by next year and 3.3 million in 2015.
However, little hard data exist with federal and state agencies admitting they don't know how many jobs are leaving the country or where they are going.
In an attempt to measure the potential impact, Ashok Deo Bardhan and Cynthia A. Kroll of the University of California, Berkeley, devised rough estimates for nine cities using occupational employment statistics.
For New York City, which was defined as the five boroughs plus Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, the researchers found 512,759 jobs or 12.64 percent of employment was in white-collar and service occupations "at-risk" to outsourcing.
Nearly 60 percent of the positions involve data entry, computer operations, administrative support and other office work, the researchers said. Many required skills that could be distilled down into a routine.
Such studies were described as alarmist and unrealistic by some corporate executives and industry trade groups.
They argued outsourcing represents a tiny fraction of total U.S. employment. For example, there are an estimated 813,500 software and technology workers in India today, according to NASSCOM. That's less than 8 percent of the 10.3 million technology professionals employed in the United States.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis released a report this month that found the United States had a trade surplus of $53.64 billion in 2003 when it came to white-collar service work.
Other benefits are listed
Executives at some area companies said their overseas projects had less to do with cutting costs than with improving security, workers' skills and turnaround time.
Three years ago, Verizon Communications Inc. opened its only offshore data center in India to lessen its dependence on outside consultants, said spokesman John Bonomo. Verizon has about 500 employees in southern India, out of the company's technology work force of 7,100.
"By having that [Indian center], we have a real, 24-hour process for on time-sensitive jobs," Bonomo said.
Other businesses such as Computer Associates International Inc. say they have invested in foreign locations because that's where their customers are.
The software giant derived 42 percent of its revenue last year outside this country and thus maintains 50 development centers around the globe. However, the U.S. head count still represents 60 percent of the 4,700-person research and development staff.
At CA, chief technology officer Yogesh Gupta said each project is parceled out among development teams in various countries based on their respective expertise.
Other companies are using offshore employees for less-critical needs.
J.P. Morgan Chase's investment banking division last year announced the creation of 50 junior analyst jobs in India to support its research departments here and in Britain. Spokesman Brian Marchiony said the new positions, which represent about 5 percent of the total employment in equity research, were established to boost productivity.
Such tasks often are considered "grunt work" by Americans and Indians, alike, said Alok Aggarwal, co-founder of Evalueserve Inc., which provides outsourcing services to stock brokerages, banks and consulting firms. It currently employs more than 250 people in India. "Even there, it [the work] won't be the most attractive job," he said.
Still, businesses looking to outsource such as Reuters Group don't anticipate any problems in luring top talent. As part of an experiment, the financial news and information company expects to hire a half dozen journalists in India to write brief reports about earnings and other developments at 3,000 U.S. public companies -- a service it doesn't now provide customers.
Separately, Reuters has moved 150 jobs out of 500 at an operations center in Hauppauge to Manhattan, London and elsewhere; 40 or so went to Bangkok. It also expects to shed some of the 100 positions at a Lake Success data center and send them to India as part of a multiyear cost-cutting program.
"We already had decided to move the majority of our data operations to Bangalore and we thought there was some synergy to putting several reporters there," said spokesman Kyle Arteaga. "These are supplemental journalists, they don't displace any journalism jobs that we have," he said.
The outsourcing move, believed to be the first among news organizations, has alarmed the Newspaper Guild/Communications Workers of America, which represents 500 Reuters employees.
Peter Szekely, a reporter and union chairman, said, "The jobs logically ought to be in New York because that's where we do the bulk of our reporting on U.S. companies. How far is this outsourcing going to go?"
Some current and former employees of Arrow Electronics Inc. in Melville are asking similar questions.
Six weeks ago, Paul Schwartz was told his computer programming job at the giant distributor of electronic components and computer products had been eliminated. He suspects the main frame projects he was working on have been transferred to India.
Schwartz, 59, began searching for a new job only hours after being terminated on Feb. 12, along with about 50 other workers. He wants to find something, preferably in main-frame programming. At Arrow for nearly nine years, he had earned $80,000 a year. "I did a lot of work and received a lot of commendations ... and the bottom line is I'm out on the street," he said.
Outsourcer discovers new business opportunity
Electronic Hardware Corp., a seller of instrument knobs, has parlayed its experience of moving production operations from Farmingdale to China during the 1990s into a new consulting business, International Smart Sourcing Inc.
Outsourcing enabled the company to return to profitability last year, and executives predicted that revenues from consulting contracts would top $10 million by 2006, surpassing knob sales. "You have a chance to save the business and lose the manufacturing or lose everything," said president Dave Hale. "We chose to save our business and then recognized what we had learned was something of value that was a business unto itself."
International Smart Sourcing, also based in Farmingdale, has helped about 40 medium-sized manufacturers in the past three years to move their production operations to China. "I don't think we will replace those 50 manufacturing jobs that went out the door," Hale said, standing in the once-busy factory on Route 110. "But we will replace 25 with jobs that pay double the wages of the ones that were lost."
Such comments infuriate workers such as Chester, the displaced computer programmer in Manhattan. As interim leader of the New York City chapter of the Rescue American Jobs Foundation, she attended the first demonstration of her life in January. "I'm worried about what is happening to workers like myself and will it happen to my son's generation. I want him to have options like we did," Chester said. She also admitted that she might move overseas once her 16-year-old son is in college -- because that's where jobs in her industry are growing.
2004-04-19 09:40 | User Profile
On a recent trip home to Wisconsin, I discussed offshoring with my siblings, all of whom are professionals on one stripe or another. They all agree that globalization is a bad thing (at least the way we're going about it), they're very concerned that we've lost control of our southern border and Mexicans are underbidding their kids (who count on day work jobs to put them through school) and driving up health care and educational costs without paying much in taxes. They're upset about the war in Iraq, and don't trust what the government is telling them about it. They're worried about their retirements and wonder whether Social Security will be there for them. And so on and so forth.
And they admit that both parties are up to their necks in all those issues.
"Okay," I say. "There was on candidate who has been speaking out forcefully on all of those issues - Pat Buchanan. Why didn't you vote for him in 2000?"
And this is where it gets weird. They avert their eyes in embarassment at the very thought. They say, "but . . . but. . . everybody knows Pat Buchanan is . . . " Splutter splutter.
It's obvious what's going on. They've been conditioned by the televitz to react as if voting for PJB is only for the lowest status whites. They look at me (who's making more money than any of them) and their internal computers just churn and churn.
I pointed out to them that their position is obviously illogical. Most of them are pro-life (although one sister is a I'm-personally-against it- but Catholic) and that the only explanation is that they've been brainwashed into reacting in this way, and I think that maybe I've planted a seed. Maybe. I certainly did with my brother, who is now reading Shahak.
The televitz has us all in a Vulcan mindmeld.
Walter
2004-04-22 22:20 | User Profile
Don't underestimate the power of television and social conditioning. Recently, I mentioned outsourcing to one of the programmers I work with, and he looked at me like I was speaking another language. He had never heard of outsourcing. Like most people, as long as he has access to beer, chips, a piece of ass, and an SUV, he's never going to look past his nose. Those of us who know what's going on are an indescribably tiny minority in this country.
2004-04-22 22:37 | User Profile
Protectionism is simply another form of welfare. It is welfare for those whose jobs can be done overseas. Like all forms of welfare, it causes economic miscalculations that reduce overall economic growth--not merely globally, but also nationally.
There are many arguments for welfare, of course. But it seems to me that reducing welfare is better for whites in America than increasing it. Welfare causes dependency upon the state, which in a democracy is inevitable twisted to support the interests of the parasite class over the able middle-class.
Moreover, we should be willing to compete, to prove ourselves strong, smarter, and more efficient than the Indians, the Chinese, et al. Given our mix of genetic, cultural, and economic capital, I believe we will. We don't need protectionism to maintain high white employment rates at globally-preeminent wages.
Also, it is not clear that protectionism will work. See 'Who Benefits From Free Trade, and How' at [url]http://www.mises.org/fullarticle.asp?control=1429[/url]
For a wider discussion of job losses, see 'The Bogeyman of Lost Jobs' at [url]http://www.mises.org/fullarticle.asp?control=1439[/url]
2004-04-23 01:43 | User Profile
WY: excellent post. My family thinks much as I do, but they are ingrained into the GOP. It's like rooting for a new football team - who does that? Who changes team allegiance at 40? It's silly, but the analogy works.
Dark: Think reality here. The USA can't have outsourcing b/c the jobs going bye-bye are mostly held by whites. "Well then let's overcome it!" Yeah, in this political system? There are quotas for darkies, leadership positions reserved for jews, and for the rest of us...fight amongst yourself for scraps.
This is not a true "free market".
J
2004-04-23 01:58 | User Profile
jay - you said it right, there aint no such thing as a "fair market". the negroes and other non-Whites have had preferential treatment for decades now, all on the back of the White taxpayer.
as for outsourcing, these are not jobs making underwear or widgets, the jobs going overseas now are financial services, medical billing, software development , engineering, research and development...get the picture ?! so you say, well we will just have to figure out how to move on to the next level, beyond these types of jobs. question is, do we really want kumar or hopsing building the internal workings of our economy and infrastructure ?
ive read tons of documents for and against, and i see more that is bad than is good. America First, screw the rest!
2004-04-23 02:03 | User Profile
It is also white consumers who gain from lower prices and increased capital. These factors in turn aid all workers, and whites the most, because of our combinations of wealth, numbers, and talent.
I appreciate your point that the fact that we don't live in a free-market might give some license to protectionist views. Of course, we could simply act like blacks, feminists, gays, Latinos, farmers, big corporations, et al, and scramble for a piece of that big pie we all apparently own together.... This is thinking fit for cavemen. If the problem is a lack of a free market, the answer is getting more of one. If you want more employment for whites, cut social security, medicare, education spending, farm subsidies, affirmative action programs, etc.
Try to get a little piece of protectionist pie isn't going to save us. In the end, it makes white nationalist look like latter-day victimologists. If we are to prevail, we have to convince the forces of capital that we are on their side, and they should be on ours. Given our ability to be motivated to work when race and family can honored and furthered, and given our talents, this is the natural alliance we must seek.
[QUOTE=jay]WY: excellent post. My family thinks much as I do, but they are ingrained into the GOP. It's like rooting for a new football team - who does that? Who changes team allegiance at 40? It's silly, but the analogy works.
Dark: Think reality here. The USA can't have outsourcing b/c the jobs going bye-bye are mostly held by whites. "Well then let's overcome it!" Yeah, in this political system? There are quotas for darkies, leadership positions reserved for jews, and for the rest of us...fight amongst yourself for scraps.
This is not a true "free market".
J[/QUOTE]
2004-04-23 15:23 | User Profile
darkstar,
Jay is right. Offshore outsourcing is affecting some of our best talent, because nearly all of the people who are losing jobs are highly skilled Whites. Some of our best people are flipping burgers and stocking shelves at Wal Mart, so some brown in India who doesn't want to work to build up his own country can have a job while the CEOs of American-based multinational companies can line their pockets. You're dreaming if you think the cost savings from outsourcing will be passed on to White consumers -- those profits will be used to buy convertibles, tailored Italian suits, million dollar mansions, and wine cellars -- while working middle and working class Whites get shoved aside by Mexicans, negroes, and Jews.
2004-04-23 15:26 | User Profile
darkstar,
What are some examples of high-paying quality jobs that will be created for Whites as a result of offshore outsourcing? As a proponent of "free" trade, I'm sure you won't have any trouble going beyond Libertarian platitudes and coming up with realistic examples, right?
2004-04-23 17:35 | User Profile
I am sorry you confuses 'ignorant muttering' with 'ideas,' and 'ideas' with 'platitudes.'
If you understood anything about free market principles, you would see that it foolish to ask what jobs or products will defintely be created in the future. If I knew these kind of things, I would be making billions selling my information to investment firms instead of performing my current, somewhat less lucrative duties.
This knee-jerk response of 'non realism' whenever free market ideas are propounded is just as pitiful as labelling any sane immigration proposal as 'racist,' any healthy view of sexuality as 'bigoted,' and any openness to religion as 'ignorant.'
2004-04-23 22:47 | User Profile
American policy MUST be protectionist and isolationist. Globalism and big capitalism have wrecked American culture.
[edited slightly]
2004-04-23 23:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=darkstar]I am sorry you confuses 'ignorant muttering' with 'ideas,' and 'ideas' with 'platitudes.'
If you understood anything about free market principles, you would see that it foolish to ask what jobs or products will defintely be created in the future. If I knew these kind of things, I would be making billions selling my information to investment firms instead of performing my current, somewhat less lucrative duties.
This knee-jerk response of 'non realism' whenever free market ideas are propounded is just as pitiful as labelling any sane immigration proposal as 'racist,' any healthy view of sexuality as 'bigoted,' and any openness to religion as 'ignorant.'[/QUOTE]
Translation: I can't provide a single example of a quality job that will be created for White Americans as a result of "free trade."
Thanks for confirming the bankruptcy of libertarian economics.
2004-04-24 15:10 | User Profile
Darkstar:
I know a few things about free trade economics, and indeed have spent most of my adult life toiling in the corporate stables.
I think we must admit that [URL=http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20030805-084100-3722r.htm]Paul Craig Roberts [/URL] had it right.
Adam Smith taught that free trade is a good thing based on the assumption that labor and capital were basically stationery. The calculus has changed, and our thinking must change accordingly.
Anyway, I urge you to read the PCG article, and let's discuss.
Walter
2004-04-24 17:34 | User Profile
Bastiat dealt with this kind of limited, 'it aint' really unless I can see it thinking'--BACK IN 1850!
'That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen' [url]http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html[/url]
[QUOTE=Valley Forge]Translation: I can't provide a single example of a quality job that will be created for White Americans as a result of "free trade."
Thanks for confirming the bankruptcy of libertarian economics.[/QUOTE]
2004-04-24 17:43 | User Profile
Yes, PCR had an interesting article. As it happens, the first link I posted to Mises was a response to PCR's article.
Adam Smith is not the be-all-and-end-all of free market thinking. Oddly enough, there have been substantial improvements in economic thinking since his time, as is witnesses by the Austrian economics movement. Their accounts of free trade do not refer to immobility of captil goods, which is an irrelevant requirement in making the case for free trade (as the Mises article points out).
Certainly, I agree that it is not a priori the case that most white people will be better off with a free market. All the economics can show is that there is no reason to believe that state intervention will increase the overall wealth of society. Thus it may very well be that only a few would benefit (massively) from a free market, while most of us become poorer. If this happens, one might demand the welfare of protectionism. One must be clear, though, that if one is willing to take this step lightly, one is surrending any kind of rational justification for denying non-whites access to white wealth and culture other than demanding that all accept the a priori 'whites are absolutely superior.' Given the rather limited audience for this kind of white supremacy, rhetorically the effect is just to give license to every interest group out there to eat up more white wealth and culture--something our political masters may very well find a favorable course of action.
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Darkstar:
I know a few things about free trade economics, and indeed have spent most of my adult life toiling in the corporate stables.
I think we must admit that [URL=http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20030805-084100-3722r.htm]Paul Craig Roberts [/URL] had it right.
Adam Smith taught that free trade is a good thing based on the assumption that labor and capital were basically stationery. The calculus has changed, and our thinking must change accordingly.
Anyway, I urge you to read the PCG article, and let's discuss.
Walter[/QUOTE]
2004-04-24 18:00 | User Profile
darkstar:
Once again, you don't seem to want to engage the substance of the objection to "free" trade in the current historical context. Specifically, where exactly are high skilled people going to work when..
...Retraining is not an answer, because almost the entire range of knowledge jobs can be outsourced. The Internet permits U.S. employers to hire people in India, China and the Philippines as stock analysts, accountants, researchers, designers, engineers, radiologists ââ¬â any occupation that doesn't require hands-on, face-to-face, local presence.
This is why no one who takes your position come up with examples of quality jobs that will be created for Americans as result of "free" trade -- the reason you can't give examples is because there aren't any.
2004-04-24 18:42 | User Profile
The reason one cannot predict what will happen under a free market is because what occurs is the result of billions of complex decisions whose end result is de facto not predictable; otherwise the prediction would be factored into the decions, thus changing the outcome.
You claim that everything 'can' be outsourced. Perhaps this is more or less true, but it is beside the point. The question is whether foreigners will always be able to provide services at a lower-price for the same-quality. Since they can do this in some case, you make the grand leap that all futures services will have this same fungibility. There is no reason to believe this claim. What you are committed to is the idea that foreigners will do everything as well as white Americans! Given our many historical and genetic differences, this is preposterous as sure or even likely prediction. It may be, but we are nowhere near a point where this is an idea worth taking so seriously that we abandon belief in white ability to adapt and compete without help from the welfare-state.
Now perhaps you feel otherwise, and are privy to different information about the changes in the economy than I am. There are certainly many intelligent protectionists out there, who have the best interests of white Americans in mind. But there is nothing more proven or 'realistic' about this view than is found in the applied libertarian position that state intervenion is not a useful course of action for anyone except perhaps the state-parasite class. Why could have some involved discussion of historical examples of how un-forseen jobs were created vs. allegedly changed conditions, but I am not sure how useful this will be, given the limited knowledge that anyone person can have about what going on in the economy.
Likewise, I don't mind too much if white nationalists advocate protectionism--I am happy simply to disagree--but to argue that is the only plausible or 'realistic' approach for a white nationalist to take is well-off the mark. There are any number of reason to oppose state intervention in the economy as a general rule, anti-freedom of association, gun control, and welfare laws being most salient as evidence here. Libertarian political theory, even of the sort that is both 'pure' and 'applied,' is a natural and fitting home for white nationalist sentiments, and this should be recognized.
[QUOTE=Valley Forge]darkstar:
Once again, you don't seem to want to engage the substance of the objection to "free" trade in the current historical context. Specifically, where exactly are high skilled people going to work when..
...Retraining is not an answer, because almost the entire range of knowledge jobs can be outsourced. The Internet permits U.S. employers to hire people in India, China and the Philippines as stock analysts, accountants, researchers, designers, engineers, radiologists ââ¬â any occupation that doesn't require hands-on, face-to-face, local presence.
This is why no one who takes your position come up with examples of quality jobs that will be created for Americans as result of "free" trade -- the reason you can't give examples is because there aren't any.[/QUOTE]