For those of you who are not hoops fanatics, Tabuse is a 5-foot-9-inch reserve who plays for the Phoenix Suns. Tabuse also happens to be the first Japanese national to make the roster of a National Basketball Association club.
As a fellow 5-foot-9er, I'm pulling for the diminutive point guard, though it makes no difference whether Tabuse goes down in NBA annals as a bust or as the second coming of Michael Jordan. Either way, his arrival on the American scene--along with that of other overseas-born players--speaks volumes about how economic globalization is fast changing old assumptions about the way things ought to work.
"The way things ought to work"--that's one doozey of an anachronistic phrase. So much so that it should be sandwiched on a garage shelf between a pet rock and a "Happy Days" poster of The Fonz. In the friction-free nirvana of the Internet age, such grudging expressions of entitlement are supposed to be tres passe. But don't tell that to NBA journeymen, or you risk a knuckle sandwich. These folks are nervous and upset.
This doesn't qualify as a textbook example of offshore outsourcing. (If anything, it's an example of offshore insourcing!) But the raw emotion that explodes when "American" jobs get handed to foreign-born talent is familiar enough. I see it in the outpouring of e-mail I receive each time I write about the export of computer jobs.
Oddly enough, offshoring hardly figured in the presidential election. More folks appeared interested in the outcome of the Red Sox-Yankees playoff series than they were about the prospect of more software jobs moving to Bangalore, India. Of course, so much of the offshoring debate between the candidates was phony that you could excuse the electorate for not paying attention.
The Bush administration, which promotes itself as being friendly to free-traders, has long followed a fairly protectionist policy. And while John Kerry was keen on winning support from organized labor, he wasn't planning radical changes. To be sure, a Kerry administration would have expanded terms of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program to help workers displaced when their jobs got outsourced overseas--but hardly enough to qualify him as the second coming of Leon Trotsky.
However, while the political discussion was informed more by style than by substance, nobody who works in the computer business believes that this controversy has even remotely found a resolution. The underlying structural changes that first forced offshore outsourcing onto the national agenda still exist. The palpable fear and uncertainty you find among rank-and-file employees is worse than before. And true to form, nobody in a position of authority is treating the subject in a serious, systematic way.
Instead, we receive caricatures of positions. Maybe I shouldn't judge the hired help in the nation's capital so harshly. After all, the academic elites are of two minds--as is the technology industry, with senior management and its employees as divided as ever. (Red sweatshirts, blue sweatshirts, anyone?)
So what's the answer? I'm going to reverse the tables this time. What do you think needs to be done? Head to my offshoring blog, and chime in. No screeds, please. I'm going to package together the 25 best answers and send them to the white building at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. just before the inaugural ball.
In the meantime, the only sure thing is that the migration of U.S. technology jobs will increase--as will the din. Who knows? By the time this country figures out what it wants to do, Yuta Tabuse might even be a household name.
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Charles Cooper is CNET News.com's executive editor of commentary.
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I would like to see us restrict outsourcing by public companies only to democratic countries. We should also disallow them to outsource to any country for which the United Nations has condemned the government for human rights violations.
While I don?t like the idea of having my job outsourced, I would feel a lot better about it going to some place like India than China. I have seen programs on the Indians who have taken some of the good jobs from the U.S. Even though they make much less, the cost of living is less so they live in relative luxury. The same cannot be said for China, where workers are virtual slaves. We should not be trading with this country at all. It does indeed increase our standard of living by providing much lower cost goods, but we are, in my opinion, sacrificing those people for our own gain.
Nice feedback. But allow me to play devil's advocate. You talk about the responsibilities that go hand-in-hand with being a public company. But do you really think the courts would allow a law restricting what publicly traded corporations can do -- just because they are public? I'm not a constitutional scholar but I have big doubts about that.
Regards
I would like to see us restrict outsourcing by public companies only to democratic countries. We should also disallow them to outsource to any country for which the United Nations has condemned the government for human rights violations.
While I don?t like the idea of having my job outsourced, I would feel a lot better about it going to some place like India than China. I have seen programs on the Indians who have taken some of the good jobs from the U.S. Even though they make much less, the cost of living is less so they live in relative luxury. The same cannot be said for China, where workers are virtual slaves. We should not be trading with this country at all. It does indeed increase our standard of living by providing much lower cost goods, but we are, in my opinion, sacrificing those people for our own gain.
Nice feedback. But allow me to play devil's advocate. You talk about the responsibilities that go hand-in-hand with being a public company. But do you really think the courts would allow a law restricting what publicly traded corporations can do -- just because they are public? I'm not a constitutional scholar but I have big doubts about that.
Regards
My advice to the more intelligent among you; it is time to do a John Galt.
John Galt is alive and well. Unfortunately, our real life leaders seem to be just as oblivious to what's happening as Ayn Rand's fictional ones. Whether our society colapses as dramatically as the one in Atlas Shrugged depends on how blind all of us really are.
My advice to the more intelligent among you; it is time to do a John Galt.
John Galt is alive and well. Unfortunately, our real life leaders seem to be just as oblivious to what's happening as Ayn Rand's fictional ones. Whether our society colapses as dramatically as the one in Atlas Shrugged depends on how blind all of us really are.
It's obvious that the collective thinking at the national level by the US Governement is to back corporate interest. Why would we allow offhsoring of our tech skills, but make the US population pay for US only perscription drugs? The benefactor is obvious.
My only idea is what has been already covered. Make assistance available for those who need training for a career change. My take on it is people should get the assistance that is equal to their years in service in the IT industry. A 45 year-old programmer who has been employed for 23 years as a programmer should get more assistance than a 25 year-old programmer who has only worked 4 years in the industry. I'm not sure how that would get implemented, but it seems fair to me - if that is still an objective.
It's obvious that the collective thinking at the national level by the US Governement is to back corporate interest. Why would we allow offhsoring of our tech skills, but make the US population pay for US only perscription drugs? The benefactor is obvious.
My only idea is what has been already covered. Make assistance available for those who need training for a career change. My take on it is people should get the assistance that is equal to their years in service in the IT industry. A 45 year-old programmer who has been employed for 23 years as a programmer should get more assistance than a 25 year-old programmer who has only worked 4 years in the industry. I'm not sure how that would get implemented, but it seems fair to me - if that is still an objective.
To quote my post:
"As more and more jobs disappear off the low end of the scale, either due to outsourcing or due to automation, that means more and more resources available to devote to innovation. Less muscle power, more mind power. The more minds you have working on a problem, the better. So more minds working on innovation means more productivity gains, which in turn frees up even more people to work on innovation, and we're in a nice little virtuous circle where the standard of living keeps on increasing for everyone."
Yeah, it's starry-eyed and optimistic. But it's what's been happening for 100 years (how many people were farmers 100 years ago?), and it will continue to happen whether we like it or not. If the economy were a zero-sum game, where a job sent overseas is a job lost forever, it'd be different. But it's not.
Note - I'm not an economist, so this is a layman's take on things. Any resemblance to legitimate economic ideas is purely coincidental.
First technology companies can hardly maintain a large pool of innovators. At the end how many innovations can they invest in compared to their ability to bring them to market.
Second how much innovation can the market sustain. Not that many at the same time.
I would definitely agree to be part of this innovation pool but at the same time I'm aware that the pool size is not big enough to fit in all of us with bachelor/master degrees with or without experience.
I'm not sure that in this race towards optimal returm, I'd be willing to hang myself with the exact same rope that I bought. I'd say: Free trade is right but only in a level-palying field.
To quote my post:
"As more and more jobs disappear off the low end of the scale, either due to outsourcing or due to automation, that means more and more resources available to devote to innovation. Less muscle power, more mind power. The more minds you have working on a problem, the better. So more minds working on innovation means more productivity gains, which in turn frees up even more people to work on innovation, and we're in a nice little virtuous circle where the standard of living keeps on increasing for everyone."
Yeah, it's starry-eyed and optimistic. But it's what's been happening for 100 years (how many people were farmers 100 years ago?), and it will continue to happen whether we like it or not. If the economy were a zero-sum game, where a job sent overseas is a job lost forever, it'd be different. But it's not.
Note - I'm not an economist, so this is a layman's take on things. Any resemblance to legitimate economic ideas is purely coincidental.
First technology companies can hardly maintain a large pool of innovators. At the end how many innovations can they invest in compared to their ability to bring them to market.
Second how much innovation can the market sustain. Not that many at the same time.
I would definitely agree to be part of this innovation pool but at the same time I'm aware that the pool size is not big enough to fit in all of us with bachelor/master degrees with or without experience.
I'm not sure that in this race towards optimal returm, I'd be willing to hang myself with the exact same rope that I bought. I'd say: Free trade is right but only in a level-palying field.
The economy is global, and there is no avoiding it. The problem is not outsourcing. The problem is that the price of labor fell suddenly and dramatically. Attacking outsourcing will be bad for American companies and will ultimately raise the cost of American products.. including exports. We will not be able to compete with the rest of the world if we put ourselves at a disadvantage by adopting the emotional and irrational "ban outsourcing" philosophy.
The economy is global, and there is no avoiding it. The problem is not outsourcing. The problem is that the price of labor fell suddenly and dramatically. Attacking outsourcing will be bad for American companies and will ultimately raise the cost of American products.. including exports. We will not be able to compete with the rest of the world if we put ourselves at a disadvantage by adopting the emotional and irrational "ban outsourcing" philosophy.
If you?re serious about soliciting thought-provoking suggestions, then I would propose you engage your readers for longer than a week on your blog and get the other C-Net contributors/editors involved in a discussion with the readers, providing the reader with enough feedback so as to actually provoke the readers to offer more than parroted dogma.
If you?re serious about soliciting thought-provoking suggestions, then I would propose you engage your readers for longer than a week on your blog and get the other C-Net contributors/editors involved in a discussion with the readers, providing the reader with enough feedback so as to actually provoke the readers to offer more than parroted dogma.
The positives that can be had from outsourcing include a more competitive market, and better education. If the United States is interested in keeping jobs stateside, we must first be able to supply an adequate work force that is properly trained and educated. If enough people get scared that their children won't have jobs as a result of outsourcing, they will do their best to insure of that better education for their children.
Regarding the improved market conditions that happen as a result, the government should never regulate how people buy and sell products. The consumer does a good enough job of that on their own. If consumers are willing to pay a premium for products made domestically, the market will reflect that. If there is enough demand for domestic products, more companies might start bringing jobs back to the states. But if price is the only concern, one must expect outsourcing to continue until we as a nation can become more competitive overall.
What we do NOT have is an adequate work force that is properly trained, educated, and able to make a decent living on $10k a year.
The positives that can be had from outsourcing include a more competitive market, and better education. If the United States is interested in keeping jobs stateside, we must first be able to supply an adequate work force that is properly trained and educated. If enough people get scared that their children won't have jobs as a result of outsourcing, they will do their best to insure of that better education for their children.
Regarding the improved market conditions that happen as a result, the government should never regulate how people buy and sell products. The consumer does a good enough job of that on their own. If consumers are willing to pay a premium for products made domestically, the market will reflect that. If there is enough demand for domestic products, more companies might start bringing jobs back to the states. But if price is the only concern, one must expect outsourcing to continue until we as a nation can become more competitive overall.
What we do NOT have is an adequate work force that is properly trained, educated, and able to make a decent living on $10k a year.
I'd like to respond to a few comments here. The gist of one is that outsourcing is an inevitable market reaction to the opportunity to cut costs, and that any attempt to manage the market is unnatural and doomed to failure. But markets are always managed to an extent by government, in favor of its businesses and citizens. It used to be that U.S. citizens and business had interests in common: more demand meant more work for U.S. workers. But our economy is no longer a closed system, and our corporations no longer ?American.? They hire the cheapest labor they can find, anywhere on earth, and still get to sell their products to U.S. consumers. When people in government say that outsourcing is good for America, they mean it?s good for their corporate contributors.
Another comment repeats the idea that only menial jobs are sent overseas. I?m not sure which tech industry PR department started floating the idea that programming and engineering are ?menial,? but they?ve done a great job of whitewashing the fact that ?knowledge work? ? the kind of skilled jobs that innovation is built on ? is being shipped overseas, or given over to foreign consultancies that import cheap visa workers. Everyone knew 30 years ago that manufacturing jobs were going overseas. Moving up skilled work like programming was supposed to help us stay a step ahead, but it?s become obvious that skill and education can?t compete with the low wages paid overseas.
And finally, the idea that Americans are natural entrepreneurs ? who can let go of these skilled jobs and ride some new wave of invention to prosperity ? is a crock. Especially coming from the Bush administration and its corporate allies. They have done absolutely nothing to inspire a new wave of innovation, instead protecting the status quo in energy, stem cell research, media consolidation, etc.. If Bush had used the trauma of 9/11 to rally this country to escape the grip of Middle East oil and build energy-efficient, smog free cars and power plants as soon as possible, we might have something to look forward to: a whole new field of research, and a whole new market. Instead countries like China, which have to be energy efficient to grow, are taking the lead.
Now that my programming career has bit the dust, maybe I can get a job driving a truck in Iraq for Halliburton. Anybody know where I can buy some cheap body armor?
I'd like to respond to a few comments here. The gist of one is that outsourcing is an inevitable market reaction to the opportunity to cut costs, and that any attempt to manage the market is unnatural and doomed to failure. But markets are always managed to an extent by government, in favor of its businesses and citizens. It used to be that U.S. citizens and business had interests in common: more demand meant more work for U.S. workers. But our economy is no longer a closed system, and our corporations no longer ?American.? They hire the cheapest labor they can find, anywhere on earth, and still get to sell their products to U.S. consumers. When people in government say that outsourcing is good for America, they mean it?s good for their corporate contributors.
Another comment repeats the idea that only menial jobs are sent overseas. I?m not sure which tech industry PR department started floating the idea that programming and engineering are ?menial,? but they?ve done a great job of whitewashing the fact that ?knowledge work? ? the kind of skilled jobs that innovation is built on ? is being shipped overseas, or given over to foreign consultancies that import cheap visa workers. Everyone knew 30 years ago that manufacturing jobs were going overseas. Moving up skilled work like programming was supposed to help us stay a step ahead, but it?s become obvious that skill and education can?t compete with the low wages paid overseas.
And finally, the idea that Americans are natural entrepreneurs ? who can let go of these skilled jobs and ride some new wave of invention to prosperity ? is a crock. Especially coming from the Bush administration and its corporate allies. They have done absolutely nothing to inspire a new wave of innovation, instead protecting the status quo in energy, stem cell research, media consolidation, etc.. If Bush had used the trauma of 9/11 to rally this country to escape the grip of Middle East oil and build energy-efficient, smog free cars and power plants as soon as possible, we might have something to look forward to: a whole new field of research, and a whole new market. Instead countries like China, which have to be energy efficient to grow, are taking the lead.
Now that my programming career has bit the dust, maybe I can get a job driving a truck in Iraq for Halliburton. Anybody know where I can buy some cheap body armor?
With all of the money the US government throws at economic development and business assistance, there should be something left to help midsize US based manufacturers develop and execute Growth Plans. There are emerging models for how this process works and The Bush Administration should seek these and the organizations that have developed them out. If we don't do this, nothing will setm the tide of outsouring and our economy will look like a sea of malls and Burger King franchises.
- An Answer for US Companies re: Outsourcing
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by
November 12, 2004 11:13 AM PST
- US companies need to confront the brutal facts of the situation that each finds itself in, particularly focusing on profitable growth. We are strong on innovation and somewhat weak on the perspiration side of developing and executing growth plans.
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(58 Comments)With all of the money the US government throws at economic development and business assistance, there should be something left to help midsize US based manufacturers develop and execute Growth Plans. There are emerging models for how this process works and The Bush Administration should seek these and the organizations that have developed them out. If we don't do this, nothing will setm the tide of outsouring and our economy will look like a sea of malls and Burger King franchises.