Tom Penney wrote: > On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 11:18, Richard Hoffbeck wrote: > >>Sam MacDonald wrote: > > >>>These big companies spend money like it's water. They don't want to >>>pay people in this country a fair wage so they send the jobs to other >>>countries. But it's just fine for them to spend $50m on a company to >>>get control of it. >>> >> >>Get use to it. In a world with unrestricted capital flows, global wages >>get equalized. >> >>--rick > > > Absolutely! As it should be. If a job can get done for less it helps > everybody. It Helps IBM be competitive. It helps the consumer pay less > for higher quality. It helps the people overseas raise their wage closer > to where it should be. It helps people like Sam to move on to a > occupation worthy of his wage. > Only as long as: A) it does indeed raise global wages, and B) there are still people who can afford the good/service. The problem with global outsourcing as practiced is it breaks Henry Ford's dictum that the people producing a good should be able to afford it. For all the wrong he may have done, he got that right, and got rich in the process. The gotcha with the current model runs as follows: 1) Mattel manufactures toys more cheaply in China, gains market share 2) other toy makers follow suit. Few/no jobs left making toys in US 3) clothing makers follow suit. 4) shoemakers follow 5) carmakers follow 6) computer makers follow 7) computer software makers follow 8) every other manufacturing business follows (to be competitive) The overseas workers aren't paid enough to buy the product, so the only market is America and Europe. OK, now what are the American people doing to earn the money to buy all these manufactured goods? What jobs _cannot_ be outsourced overseas? Healthcare? Lawyers? Who can afford a doctor or lawyer when they don't have a job? Those jobs go away too. Service jobs go away with the money. If people can't afford the service, they do without. The jobs that are left usually don't pay a living wage. I mean, a cheap apartment in the bad part of town could be had for what? $400/mo? _assuming_ that your job is within walking distance (most aren't, that is why rent is so cheap there) $0 for car/bus, you still have to pay $100/mo for food, $35 for phone (a real requirement these days), $25/mo for electricity/heat, $30/mo for clothes (laundry still has to be done), $20/mo(average) for health care. Sitting at $610/mo. These are lowball numbers in general, and I know that you can cut your rent by having a live-in-thief, um I mean roommate. But even at that, you would be just scraping by at minimum wage. Assuming nothing bad happens. My calculations indicate that you would need to make $4.50/hr to just barely get by as above, no reserves. and I have made some really generous assumptions. Minimum wage is $5.15/hr. People aren't buying new stuff at all at $5.15/hr, they are scraping by and stealing each other's laundry. There is no market there. > Argue for unions, argue that IBM is immoral and evil for sending jobs > overseas all you like, I don't buy it. > I would argue that they are stupid for sending jobs overseas, it undermines their own market. > I really don't mean this personally Sam, we are sorry IBM outsourced > your job to another county, but the sooner you can accept that people > and companies will ALWAYS take the cheapest solution the happier you > will be. You'll never convince me or the corporate world to spend more > to complete a job solely because it's the right thing to do. All they > are doing is paying people the wage they are asking for. There is > nothing wrong with that. What is right for you is not necessarily right > for everyone. > _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list