Well I must say that I agree with you here. Back when McDonnell Douglas still existed, we went from a company of about 135,000 employees to one of about 65,000 over a time span of few years and yet we still cranked out the same products at the same level of quality. We were just alot cheaper as a result. The fat hog got a lot skinnier.

My ex-wife works for the US Postal Service and if there's a better example of people with "entitlement mentality", I've never seen it.

I guess ultimately it pains me to see these things (outsourcing) taking place because it sends the message (to me at least) that we are becoming less and less competitive.

Mike

Don't hurt yourself making those logical leaps and jumping to conclusions.

I'm not sure where you're seeing this 'equal playing field.'

So when the quality does come, what good does it do for us? 5 to 10 years from now, when Indian programmers and s/w get really good, you think they're going to come knocking for all the guys that got laid off?

whole new countries of people wanting/needing/and able to afford our products.

"Our" products? What products? Since most of the manufacturing is in China and SE asia, WTF are we going to sell them? So we're going to have American "companies" having Chinese companies building widgets in China and then turn around and sell them in Asia?

Yeah - how long do you think that is going to last? Why would the Chinese even bother with the American middlemen, (and their useless CEO's making tens of millions a year doing what exactly?)

It's only a matter of time before the US is cut completely out of the cycle. The Indians, Chinese etc will be able to develop the product, make it, and market it without the American overhead.

Case in point: the HP division in which I work - OpenView. Several years ago, they moved 'grunt coding' offshore. Some went to Eastern Europe, some went to India. This was (supposedly) just the humdrum coding that "Americans didn't want to do" The actual design was done Stateside, as was the actual builds, testing, packaging (from the s/w perspective), and the more complicated development work. Then testing started moving over. Then builds. Then more coding. Then packaging. Product teams started being spread between India and US, purportedly so work could continue 24 hours a day. This week, they completely eliminated the stateside members of various product teams. Now the punchline - there are completely new products which are being developed completely offshore. The next logical step will be competing products created completely outside the grasp of HP, but by people trained by HP.

Did the JetSet execs see this coming? Probably. And they don't care; by that time they will have punched out with their 8-figure golden parachutes and stashed it all in an offshore account (kinda like Bush and Cheney did with Harken)

In the meantime, the Bush administration is going everything it can to make sure the American image is tarnished abroad.

Jeeze, we'll be like the French; there used to be an aura around French products, just because they came from France. Now it's a joke.

Corporate America set up the 3rd world to slit our own throats, in exchange for massive short-term profits. It's analagous to Reagan funding, arming and training the OBL and the Taliban to fight the Soviets in the 80's. Sure, they got a few licks in against the Russians, but look what happened once they took some iniative of their own.

Wow, Lendaddy's a Marxist - who knew?

LOL, yea that's the ticket:)

It all breaks down to this: "As long as it does not personally affect me adversely, it is OK."

Why do I see this idea so often in these threads?

And when has this ever been different? As a kid in the early 70s I saw two of my Dad's friends hosed by different companies right before retirement. One of them ended up hanging himself a couple years later. If you want to ensure that your family is taken care of then run your career as a business. Though I enjoy an ongoing great relationship with my current employer I have zero loyalty to them. In the end it's about me and my family and I refuse to put our future into the hands of Wall St.

Hey Bob......it affects me more than most, I make auto parts. Now what say you?

Reality is reality, *****ing isn't going to do me any good so I prefer to understand it.

len..

It has been said here in another thread how difficult it is to pry the keys away from most Americans. I would think that your business is safe because people will sacrifice other purchases to keep their cars running.

Also, it depends on what end of the economic spectrum you serve. THe low end or those with a higher degree of disposable income.

What is the solution to outsourcing? No blame game. What does the government do?

If we do address outsourcing with legislation or otherwise, should this also apply to outsourcing jobs to other states. The Southeastern US has many huge automotive manufacturing plants. The automotive companies have cheaper, non-union labor and also gain tax bennies from the state/local governments. Should we send these plants back north where it costs more to crank out the same product? After all, folks in Detroit lost jobs when the companies left town.

Some data points.

In Taiwan, the young women who assemble notebook PCs are paid NT$25,000/USD$800/month. In Shenzen, China, the same young women are paid appx USD$200/month. This as of late 2003 when I was there. Naturally, the Taiwanese ladies are losing their jobs to the Shenzen ladies.

Now, the workers' riots in China have been by the most ill-paid, ill-used workers (e.g. sewing sweaters for piecework) and by the workers who have been passed over by economic growth (e.g. farmers, peasants). The textile workers may get some wage increases (from their current roughly $50/month), or they may lose their jobs to even lower-cost labor in Vietnam or the Phillipines. The farmers, don't know what happens to them.

But I'm not hearing of riots at the major electronics factories. Those workers (e.g. the Shenzen ladies mentioned above) are well-paid and work in good conditions, sort of a college campus atmosphere, live in dormitories with meals, medical care, etc. After 3-5 years, they can go home to the country with enough money to start a business. So, yes their wages will go up, but I don't see the pressure for a radical upward wage spiral. From USD$200/mo = USD$2,400/yr, do you really think wage inflation is going to bring their wages to a level where US workers can compete? In how many decades?

I wish I had your confidence that Chinese worker activism will bring their wages to first-world levels in the next decade or two. However, I don't see facts that support that confidence.

Thom and John and Joel
Interesting reading.

It reminds me of the fear that conservatives always had about liberals using foreign aid to do wealth distribution. Well, the wealthy have found an answer. This is wealth distribution via countries and the really wealthy aren't touched. It will raise the economic level for the 3rd world, likely to reduce terrorism according to some economists. It will lower the standard of living for most of us. It will cause rejection and some retaliatory measures by politicians, and probably boycotts of foreign products, short lived as personal greed always gets in the way. Some have always warned against a one world government but maybe its OK if it is run by "Wall St"?

Bob, the parts are made in China now my man. Trust me, it affects me much. I do MUCH less auto than I did 15 years ago, MUCH MUCH less.

Steve,

This isn't a program or plan....this is reality. You think you can legislate away competition? Legislate in exports and sheltered Corporation profits? WTF?

Joel,
I was just commenting on what I see for our future. Eventually this process will substantially lower our standard of living and we will have unemployment and perhaps emigration of our great grandchildren to overseas jobs.

Hey, len, what's going on at your work. Is that situation smoothed out, I'd guessing so since you haven't been posting about it.

Sorry this is totally OT, or maybe I should say OT^2, I just thought of it since you were mentioning your business.

if salaries "ebb and flow", does the cost of living do that too?

Excellent, my father has retired and it is just my brother and I. I'm here non-stop for a while, but I'm enjoying it. Thanks for asking though. I plan on giving a short write-up later.

Yes, but not in the way you would initially think. Things cost what they cost, but people get better at separating wants from needs. Wearing hand-me-downs and or buying your kid a used bike or your wife a used car instead of everything new and brand name. I know Iknow, the horror:rolleyes:

Len, you're not talking about a life "better than our parents." Isn't that the American way? And once we stop buying all this new stuff what happens to our economy? Oh yeah...it collapses since it is based almost entirely on consumer spending.

I fail to see how you are optimistic. I see 1929 all over again. But then again, maybe that will be "better" for us...

ni hao ma?

At the risk of blowing my libertarian standing, I'll agree with Thom here. :eek:

I've had a few projects transition over to China. They usually end up with them taking the intelectual property (as much as they can digest) and then falling hugely short on delivering what was agreed upon.

US corp's are getting hugely snookered. "Build in China" is like the "we offer stock options" red-herring of the early 90's . ..or the Alaska gold-rush of a century ago.

What I mean is; just as Microsoft made quite a few optioned millionares, a few companies have managed Chinese factories successfully.

On big picture stuff; China does not have a history/culture of getting along, and integrating into this world. They have been producing far more men than women (thru various "birth control" methods) and have a racist culture that would make a good-ol' boy blush.

nd now, they are ramping-up technology (not enough people so they need to automate). . . as Iran is ramping up their "energy needs" (not enough oil, so they need nukes)

la LA la LA la . . .we go skipping into this brave new world.