I have stated that there have been thoughtful responses.

I have responded to some of those responses with follow up questions.

I have responed to those who have criticized the premise of the post.

I have responded those critical of me.

I have apologized after it was pointed out that I was being an unfair and unreasonable.

I clearly stated that I had preconcieved notions.

I stated that I had an agenda.

I gave the question most perplexing to me.

I went where the post lead.

I drew conclusions as have you.

.. hmm.. yep.

So.........

.. let's go get a beer, then? :thumbsup:

I remember John Kerry and other Democrats having a fit over businesses moving operations to locations with lower labor costs, as I have participated in discussion here many have taken a similar stance (among other issues related to business I find confusing) while being willing to do the same if they had to, or doing nothing and letting the business suffer, it is this type of question I seek an understanding of, there are others. I have not gained any insight into that question.

At this point I assume I will never get any understanding. The beer sounds good.

I think if you were to look more closely, Kerry and other Dems were talking about outsourcing and moving American manufacturing, technology and other jobs (like "help desks") to low cost foreign labor markets.

But we can have a beer while we wait for someone in India to answer the call :)

This is a much more specific question. It's what you should have started with...


From my point of view, I don't have a problem with outsourcing, as long as the people being hired are being treated well and paid an amount that is reasonable to local standards and laws.

Outsourcing to India and even China (aside from the trade balance issue), to a lesser degree, maybe yes. In Vietnam and Mynmar and other less developed economies which are increasingly popular locations for outsourcing, probably not.

If I were going to outsource, I'd do so to Mexico - possibly outside Mexico City. As I understand it, they are better trained, there is less outsourcing competition, and it's a lot cheaper for me to fly there to keep an eye on things. Just don't drink the water.

Aha! Something to discuss! Thanks for coughing up the real issue, ace. NOW we can talk.

I'm pretty torn about outsourcing. I'm not against companies doing it per se, and I certainly understand the business motivation to do it. But it sure is rough on the local economy, to say nothing of the workers. Exporting jobs (and therefore dollars) isn't good for the economy on a macro level--though I admit, I'm not an economist, and there's likely much about it I don't know or misunderstand.

On a worker level, I was a computer programmer during the time when a LOT of programming work was being shipped to India. This was before the callcenter boom moved a bunch of CS and inbound sales positions there too. It was like a nuclear bomb went off in the IT world--suddenly your job was on the chopping block and who was going to fill your seat was some telecommuting Indian making 1/3 your salary. Scary times.

I agree, but the Businessweek article specifically compares Sam's inefficient low paid worker (high number of employees) plan to Costco's high paid more efficient worker (lower number of employees) plan. If both companies adopted the worker-centric approach the result would be many thousands of Sam's workers being laid off (or never hired in the first place) in order to pay the remainder more. This would be great for those who had the higher paid more efficient jobs.

Businessweek (Wall Street) is not concerned with the numbers of employed but is more focused on how much those who are employed are contributing to the bottom lilne. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. The only downside is the 30,000 or so who would have to go out and also find worker-centric companies to work for.