Obama and Outsourcing
I love listening to Obama. After a long time, a real orator is dominating the political coverage on television, and it’s an absolute treat.
But, one thing he keeps saying that I find confusing is that he will stop US jobs from going abroad.
How exactly is he going to do that? What policy would enable him to achieve this objective?
Any guesses?
Yes, stopping outsourcing would be inflationary and against free trade. Obama needs to think as if he is the world leader, not just america’s leader. Instead of stopping outsourcing, there should be more focus on good education for not just americans but people everywhere. It is in letting go, that one receives more. And when one can open one’s hands to let go of the stones, then only one can make space for diamonds.
Volunteer of Art of Living course http://www.artofliving.org
I’m also generally supportive of Obama, but his anti free-trade and anti globalization posture is a real concern and a turn-off.
Having said that, I find it hard to believe he would push for draconian anti-globalization policies. Instead, I think he’ll focus on longer term solutions to keeping jobs here, primarily via education reform and possibly some tax reform…. I hope!
Talk about the tail wagging the dog! Mr. Obama (and others in the Presidential fray) really ought to present their views on how they will stimulate the US economy and the job market, rather than stopping jobs from moving out of the country. We are in an election year and because I believe that Mr. Obama is a reasonably smart guy, I will give him the benefit-of-doubt on this one.
Regarding policies that will deter/impede the jobs movement to foreign countries, I think it could be a combination of rewards (like tax incentives) for the companies that help keep jobs here and reprimands (”outsourcing” penalty) for those who do not. The more intersting question to ask is “How does Mr. Obama propose that all this job movement will be monitored/tracked?” This type of attitude is just going to stifle growth and encourage companies to find creative ways of beating the system.
Obama is talking about tax incentives for hiring in America - I think that’s a great idea. I’d prefer not to have good jobs exported to the lowest bidder. Yes we do need better education, and Obama is for that as well, but we also need the jobs for those who graduate with those better educations.
BTW: with a name like Sramana Mitra I’m guessing you are a guest in this country? As a guest you may not be concerned about the plight of the American middle class but most American Citizens are.
Skeptictank - your last paragraph is stupid at best, and downright deplorable at worst. What makes you think that a name can determine if someone is a guest or not ? You must be thinking a name like Barack Obama must definitely also be a guest in this country, and perhaps the job of the President of the United States itself is being outsourced. Get yourself educated on who an “American” really is today..
Hari - I’m talking statistically. I’d guess that statistically speaking odds are that you’re a guest worker as well. Yeah, I’ll be voting for Barak. True, if I didn’t know his bio I’d wonder if he was born here based on his name… but I do know his bio. It’s still an open question as to whether or not the blogger here is an H1B, GreenCard, Naturalized Citizen or 2nd generation…
My point was simply that those of us who are citizens have some skin in the game. Guests can find it easy to criticize our lack of wanting good jobs exported (in the name of free trade) because in a few years they’ll be going back to their home country where they’ll hope that that US corporations send jobs their way… and I suspect they’ll also not want jobs eventually outsourced from their country.
I think you are focusing on the wrong issue. Whether I am a guest in the US or not is not the real issue. The real issue is whether free trade is a philosophy that America will continue to support, or not.
America has a lot of problems. After the baby-boomers, and to some extent generation X (my generation), the new generation - generation Y - is an affluenza generation. They don’t want to work as hard. They are not studying math and sciences that way especially China is doing. As a result, the jobs that require math and science expertise are at risk.
I think, over the next decade, the wage equation will normalize, especially for the math/science / engineering jobs. However, the American population may still not get the jobs back due to lack of trained resources, except by importing people on H1B visas.
If Obama wants to make a dent on keeping jobs in the US, he really needs to address the broader education and work-ethic issue. If he does that, a sustainable change can come about. If not, if free trade and globalization is checked artificially by imposing taxes, I think MNCs will find loop-holes in his tax laws, and figure out a way to preserve profits some other way, since in the end, they are slaves of their stock prices, and stock prices require earnings and profitability to perform.
Unless Obama wants to take that on as well, and create some sort of reform to change Wall Street as well.
In other words, Obama may be taking on - through his rhetoric - a proven economic model called Capitalism. I am not at all convinced that he has thought through the ramifications of this, and what this alternate economic model would be.
Communism and Socialism are both, in my opinion, disastrous economic models that create welfare economies. I hope America is not going in that direction, but listening to Obama, I do get a sense of wishy-washiness packaged in beautiful language and oratory.
“The real issue is whether free trade is a philosophy that America will continue to support, or not.”
The proof is in the pudding as they say. The results of our “free trade” policies haven’t been uniformly good - in many areas these policies have proven downright detrimental.
“America has a lot of problems.”
Indeed. From our foreign wars of aggression to our complete dependency on foreign oil, we’re up to our eyeballs with problems at this point - and most people in the US are only just starting to sense this. This is what happens when you try to build a world Empire instead of a stable Republic. This is what happens when the determination is made that we are mere “consumers” instead of Citizens.
“After the baby-boomers, and to some extent generation X (my generation), the new generation - generation Y - is an affluenza generation. They don’t want to work as hard. They are not studying math and sciences that way especially China is doing. As a result, the jobs that require math and science expertise are at risk.”
I’m also in Gen-X and from what I see the affluenza goes all the way back to the boomers… Yes, it probably grows in Gen-X and even more in Gen-Y, but it’s been there for quite some time. You have to go back to the children of the Great Depression to people who are relatively free of the affliction.
In regards to education and young people not being willing to work as hard to get an Engineering degree: yes, you are correct to some degree. However, if you are a reasonably bright 18 year old and your choices are to go into Engineering (with all the math & science) or to go into Law aren’t you going to do a cost-benefit analysis and quickly determine that you can make a hell of a lot more money in Law than in Engineering? And Law hasn’t been outsourced (yet - I suppose it’s possible) so it’s going to be a heck of a lot more stable as a profession. And in Law you actually become worth more as time goes on, while in Engineering your skills actually lose value over time if you’re not constantly upgrading them. So you see, it could be that in many cases our young people are just making a smart choice.
Now, of course, I know a lot of 20 somethings who aren’t doing much of anything at this point - though, there I go judging them by saying they’re “not doing much of anything”. They’re in a band (I live in the Portland - bands for us are like startups in silicon valley
or they’re doing art. It looks like an incredibly fun existence… but, I do wonder what a lot of these folks will be doing to get by in their 40s. Still, why are they like this? I think there’s a logical answer: they saw what their parents got for being good corporate employees and it wasn’t all that good. They decided that they didn’t want to live that kind of existence and (as someone who works for a corporation) I can see their point. They’d rather live than become some sort of corporate drone. They’ve got a bit of Thoreau in them and I’ve gotta say I tend to admire that.
I do know a lot of 20 somethings that are in a different camp but for the same reasons - to escape death by corporatism: they’re the ones starting little “shoestring” startups. Two or three of them will decide they’ve got a great idea for a web startup and they’ll take their macbooks and meet at a wifi equipped cafe and start coding. Sometimes they actually manage to make money. I also admire these folks as well for escaping the corporate world and doing so very creatively. BTW: Paul Graham is the prophet for these folks - you should read his latest essay entitled “You Weren’t meant to have a boss” http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html
It will really help you understand this group.
So, I’m not sure you can lump all of the Gen-Y folks together. That 2nd group I mention above is incredibly hardworking - it’s just that they view working for a corporation as being the lazy way out. And it’s not like the first group (let’s call them the artists) are lazy either, it’s more like they didn’t see the point of working for “The Man” after they saw their parents get screwed by “The Man”. They also don’t seem to value money or material things as much.
“Communism and Socialism are both, in my opinion, disastrous economic models that create welfare economies. “
Perhaps, but our current corporate capitalism isn’t working out either - essentially we’re on the road to fascism in the US (the corporations and the government working hand in glove) and we have been since the Reagan years. But the process has accelerated greatly under Bush. It’s time to get away from the deviant type of Corporatism that has developed in the US… if not we will arrive at a fully formed fascism.
You don’t have to look far to see the failure of our current brand of “Capitalism” - the current mortgage crisis is exhibit A. Many of the banking regulations put in place during the Great Depression have been repealed (like the Glass-Steagall Act which was repealed in 1999 under Clinton’s watch). Next thing you know we’ve got Bankers run amok. Now hundreds of $Billions (some say $Trillions) have been are are being lost. Greatest economic upheaval since the Great Depression. Funny thing is that the government and the Fed are bailing out these rich Bankers - privatize the gains and socialize the losses. So much for unregulated Capitalism - it always ends up this way.
SkepticTank - Your statistics are wrong this time. I am an American citizen, and my guess is so is Sramana. Notwithstanding that, my point is when you make assumptions of citizenship simply going by the name, you are only putting up a brilliant display of your ignorance.
I am not an American citizen, but that is entirely beside the point.
Can we discuss the policies, rather than this personal attack back and forth, please?
“Can we discuss the policies, rather than this personal attack back and forth, please?”
I thought I did discuss policies at length in my last post…
Going back to the first comment by Mohan:
“Yes, stopping outsourcing would be inflationary and against free trade.”
Real, inflation adjusted wages in the US are actually flat since 1998. They’re down since the 1970s - back when a family with only one breadwinner could easily afford to buy a home. Now it takes 2 breadwinners and they’d better both be making good money (and heaven help them if one of them loses a job).
The point is that we had the inflation in housing over the last 10 years with absolutely no corresponding inflation in wages. This led people to do imprudent things like borrow equity out of their houses in order to maintain their lifestyle (or in many cases to live a lifestyle that wasn’t sustainable). We could actually use some wage inflation in the US about now so people can catch up with expenses like housing. Is it going to happen? Not likely under the current policies. Perhaps an Obama administration could return us to policies which actually favor labor again. At this point I don’t see that as a bad thing unless the pendulum swings too far in that direction.
I have a few thoughts listening to you:
The assumption is that people have to own their homes. Most of the rest of the world does not operate on this assumption, yet, I have seen Americans (and immigrants in America) obsessed with the notion that they HAVE TO OWN a home.
THIS has led to the subprime crisis, much as you blame capitalism. Sure, some idiots were dangling credit in front of non-creditworthy consumers. But they were not forced to take credit?
There is a BIG problem with America’s value system, and that is DEBT IS ACCEPTABLE. This inability to live within ones means is a huge problem, which is now coming to bite the country in its ass. And this phenomenon is now being widely exported to the rest of world, along with rampant consumerism.
If Obama wants to address certain fundamentals, he should re-establish the value system that DEBT IS BAD. He should re-educate the culture on how to live within their means. And if that means you don’t own your home, so what? As long as you can rent, and you have a comfortable roof over your head, it’s fine. And from that basis, work hard, if you want more, build up an asset base which would allow you to own your own home.
Yes, there are problems in the capitalistic system, no question. The primary one of those is this instinct for trying to make a quick buck without producing anything. I am not at all disputing that the capitalistic system also needs to be “linted”. But it isn’t all bad, and without a better system in place, if we start messing with it, there may well be more harm than good.
My point is, we should not create a system where people expect to have the cake and eat it too. Life is full of trade-offs. Either you work hard, “make” money, build assets, afford luxuries. Or, you do other things, like play in bands, “live” as you call it, live modestly, have a good time, etc. I suspect, music doesn’t flow so freely in an empty stomach.
To the extent that Generation Y is gravitating towards entrepreneurship, working hard to build, to produce, etc. - it’s a great thing. To the extent that Generation Y is vegetating, we have a problem. This problem, as you rightly say, will manifest itself a bit later, in their mature age.
Entrepreneurship in rebellion against their parents’ corporate droning may be good, doing nothing cannot possibly be good.
Affluenza isn’t good. Entitlitis isn’t good.
And it isn’t good anywhere - not only not in America.
At the end of the day, a domestic producer - domestic consumer economy is one of the most sustainable models. But, as we have found out, no one country has all the resources. Thus, international trade is a necessity. In a way, for America, outsourcing has also emerged out of a necessity.
That necessity, from what I can tell, is going to become more acute due to young kids shunning the science and engineering professions. You think law will help? Legal Process Outsourcing is an emerging field that is going to be just as big a phenomenon as anything else.
Extrapolate, and perhaps we are going towards a world where Americans will need to shake off their provincial lethargy, and go seek work in other countries. What’s so wrong with that, anyway? The Indians and the Chinese have been immigrating to America for decades. May be, we will be going towards a reverse model.
Who knows?
My point is, stopping free-trade, somehow, doesn’t feel like the right solution to me. Socialism and Communism - most certainly not.
I am anxious to hear from Obama on what he really plans to do, and how he would do it. I want to know the economic ramifications of what an Obama presidency is likely to bring upon the world.
I just want Obama to stop treating his audience like intellectual adolescents, and start talking concrete.
“The assumption is that people have to own their homes. … THIS has led to the subprime crisis”
That was part of it, but it’s much more complex than that. Certainly greed was a factor on all sides (buyers, lenders, bankers, realtors, etc.). And this is no longer just a “subprime crisis”. Just saw a statistic the other day that said 43% of all foreclosures now are on Alt-A and prime loans. Almost 1/2 now. As the recession deepens and unemployment rises there will be more foreclosures in the prime space. Another part of the problem was that people overbought - they bought more house than they could afford and loose lending standards let them do that. The incentives were all wrong - mortgage brokers didn’t care if the loan was paid back, they only cared about the commission they were going to make on the loan.
“There is a BIG problem with America’s value system, and that is DEBT IS ACCEPTABLE. This inability to live within ones means is a huge problem, which is now coming to bite the country in its ass.”
Amen. You’re preaching to the choir here - my house has been paid off for several years now and I’ve been driving the same car for almost 20 years now - no debt. But I’m an endangered species in America
“If Obama wants to address certain fundamentals, he should re-establish the value system that DEBT IS BAD. He should re-educate the culture on how to live within their means.”
I have come to believe that the only thing that’s going to teach America that debt is bad and to live within it’s means is another Great Depression. People who lived through the Depression learned these lessons for the rest of their lives.
“Either you work hard, “make†money, build assets, afford luxuries. Or, you do other things, like play in bands, “live†as you call it, live modestly, …
To the extent that Generation Y is vegetating, we have a problem.”
I sense that there is “affluenza” fatigue in our culture. In China and India you’ll find the majority of young people are probably optimistic about their standard of living rising. In the US, however, a large percentage of young people will not have a higher standard of living that their parents and they realize it. This is the first generation in a very long time where that has happened in America. The pessimism among members of the 20-something generation is somewhat understandable in that context.
The artist types I see are living a simple lifestyle - they often live in community houses and share rent between many people. They get their clothes from 2nd hand shops and they often don’t own cars - that could be a Portland thing since biking and public transit are big here. They don’t see much need to collect “stuff” - they like to travel light.
I suspect that in India and China they’ll have a generation like our Gen-Y in about 30 years or so. It almost seems like a natural outcome.
“I suspect, music doesn’t flow so freely in an empty stomach.”
Actually, I think we generally get better art from people who are not well off.
“Extrapolate, and perhaps we are going towards a world where Americans will need to shake off their provincial lethargy, and go seek work in other countries. What’s so wrong with that, anyway?”
Hey, I wouldn’t mind working in Europe for a few years. Where do I sign up?
“My point is, stopping free-trade, somehow, doesn’t feel like the right solution to me.”
Who’s talking about stopping free-trade? Certain aspects of it need to be moderated. We need fair trade.
And we need to ensure that we’re not actually incentivising outsourcing.
In your previous question you asked why Americans don’t move overseas to find jobs - problem is, I don’t think there are many other countries out there where it’s as easy to get a work visa as it is in the US. Would I be able to go to India or China and work as a programmer? Would they let me?
“I just want Obama to stop treating his audience like intellectual adolescents, and start talking concrete.”
The guy’s written books. He has more concrete stuff online. The media is probably as much to blame as anything - they can only work with 30second sound bites. How often do you see concrete from Hillary or McCain?
I think the most important thing Obama brings to the table is the fact that an Obama presidency would improve the view of America in the rest of the world. That and the fact that he can bridge several racial, cultural and religious divides. Oh, and being able to string together several coherent sentences doesn’t hurt either, especially given how badly our current president is at that
I think both India and China would welcome middle and upper management in IT with open arms right now. They have a total crisis going on, with really bad managers running the shows. And I suspect, yes, they will also welcome you as a programmer.
And that’s why, at least in India, we have this “buying and selling people” phenomenon going on. It’s because no one can come up with anything better than financial incentives.
Regarding communism: Whenever I read Marx’s Communist Manifesto (1848) I’m struck by how contemporary it seems. Marx’s prescriptions may have been off, but his diagnoses often seem to be right on target:
“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left no other nexus between people than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned out the most heavenly ecstacies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation.
The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.”
Sounds like he’s quite conflicted: he’s criticising free trade (as exploitation) but he’s also praising globalization to some extent in that last paragraph.
Check it out, it’s not a long read. It’s amazing how much of his criticisms are still problems.
Personally, I don’t believe Capitalism is the end-all, be-all: it gets stuck in too many local minima. Especially not the type of capitalism we have now - corporate capitalism. I tend to like Chesterton’s Distributism which was conceived as a third way between Socialism and rapacious Capitalism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
Chesterton said about Distributism: “Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.”
Sounds inconsistent, to me. Logic and consistency are keys to a system that can withstand the test of time. Marxism and Distributism don’t seem to have that character … or does it?
That “artisan” society they are talking about - getting rid of mass production and focusing on small businesses only - at this stage of the game, this is downright impractical.
I do believe that a vibrant small business ecosystem is vital to the health of any economy, hence to whatever extent we’re seeing greates uptake in entrepreneurial efforts - is very welcome.
But the death of the corporation is not about to happen, and I don’t think it should. The ability of a Billion dollar enterprise to “carry” a large base of employees is enormous, and hence its impact on the global economy is also humongous.
Another alternate system of thought could be, let’s figure out how to double or triple the number of billion dollar enterprises around the world, and that would really help economies and development. That would be the opposite thesis of distributism, and it is a thesis that is also being studied at major academic institutions.
Entrepreneurship is hard. Very few entrepreneurs survive. Most of the fat belly of any economy is dependent on other people offering them jobs. Thus, if you take away the corporations, this fat belly is going to collapse.
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This is an outstanding thread of discussion. I’ve learned a lot.
One step we can take to restore economic balance is to insist on fair trade, e.g., following consistent safety and environmental standards. If a country is free to sell us food containing ground-up plastic and products coated with lead paint, of course their products will cost a fraction of our domestic products. With fair trade, we stand a better chance of keeping manufacturing jobs.
For “intellectual” jobs, the points about the need to study and work hard are well taken. Engineering can be a hard but rewarding career. As noted above, Law can also be hard but appears to have longer “legs” and more resistance to outsourcing.
Some thoughts from a longtime Democrat here, veteran watcher (sometime participant) in many campaigns going back to Carter 1980.
1) BHO doesn’t care. Obama probably hasn’t the faintest idea what if anything his admin should do re. outsourcing. Of all the Democratic candidates I’ve seen over the last few decades, Obama is probably the least concerned with bread-and-butter economics issues like trade, inflation, industrial policy etc.
2) BHO doesn’t know. Where Obama does dabble in economics, his views are a muddle. Speaking to the party’s left-wing base, he’s against free trade. But when he’s with an upscale, educated, elite audience, he winks and nudges and gives the strong impression that this is just a primary campaign ploy and that he’s safely in the free-trade camp along with the party’s modernist, yuppie, DLC wing– see his adviser Goolsbee’s comments to the Canadian press re NAFTA for an explicit example of this coy positioning.
3) Even if Obama did care about trade, and were in fact as opposed to it as his primary-campaign rhetoric suggests, it’s unlikely that he would spend political capital to get anti-outsourcing legislation passed on Capitol Hill. The issue is too small, too diffuse, and too arcane to have legs in today’s America. It wouldn’t deliver a single district.
Bottom line: of the candidates’ campaign priorities, this issue is near the bottom of the list.
If you want to see industries that will be hugely affected by a left-lib Democratic administration, I’d focus on private for-profit insurance and pharma (short) and agribusiness/biofuels and alternative energy (long). Wherever ex-DNC Chair and Global Crossing investor Terry McAuliffe has his money parked is where I want to put my money.
Tom,
I think the pharma/ healthcare reforms are long overdue, so that’s okay.
What I am saying is that Obama really turns me off with his anti-free trade rhetoric, and even though I like his oratory, his lack of intellectual rigor is continuously eroding my liking of the guy.
Sramana
Thanks for the great posts above.
I especially liked the post by Sramana regarding American’s sense of “entitlement” and comfort with high debt levels.
It is the same in New Zealand.
The ecomony of our day was created when a choice was made by business between cheap labor or high automation. Cheap labor was decided mostly because our industrial base was not metric. Now we have placed our economic base at risk(middle class) by allowing the market forces to run their own course. Balance will be hard to return to because we are so far down this really bad road. Resources are out of balance, both in distribution and use. Free markets are great if managed correctly, but we have thirty five years of no management at all to correct, and in that time imbedded forces with their own self interest have grown and will oppose any change for their own self interest to the direct detriment of our country and the world in general.
Look folks, there is no free trade. If it would ever be a really free market it will create monopolies. That is what we see now. Corporations got stronger than Law. There is less competition in America, less quality products. People losing jobs and they can’t pay for expensive quality products, so they have to buy cheap low quality. They are forced to train foriegn workers that takes thier jobs. Corporations care only about thier profits, not about workers, even not about customers anymore. That’s actually why there was a set of laws in America (antitrust law for example) to prevent corporation from hurting people’s interests. And now we, Americans, are forced into the market that hurts our economy. Why should we continue? Why should we develope other countries at our expense?
Sorry Sramana Mitra. But that is you who don’t understand economy and should educate yourself. If there is just a free trade without any regulation, big corporations turns into monopolies and that would be no good for everybody exept the owners of the corporations. That’s why in any country the free trade is always regulated. There are enviromental rules, there are antitrust rules, there are regulations on savety of the product and savety of the workers. We had pet’s food from China that poison our pets already. No keep your free trade for yorself. We don’t need such a free trade here in US.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/thornton/thornton20.html
all americans must read this excellent article on outsourcing and it underlines how important it is for american economy
Very interesting views from people from all walks of American life.As a non-american,I find it very engaging that common people in America are so involved and aggressive about their favoured politicians.However,as in India ,in America too ,the real test will begin when the elections have happened and the new government has been formed.
I see outsourcing as an opportunity than a threat and the whole world is a global village recent comment by Obama in tax incentive cut for US companies if they outsource doesnot affect the economy of other developing countries.
Thanks,
KSK
http://www.outsource2.net
What is free trade for? Is it for Corporations to keep bettering their QoQ or YoY profits on the same ruthless business-model (lacking innovation)? And what do these corporate give back to their employees (they prefer referring them as associates!)? Unruly expectations of more working hours, steeper targets to achieve, marginal incentives (mostly monetary), attaching ZERO importance to family/personal life… Isn’t this some form of communism - employees being referred as “Resources”!
I agree with Kat says-
“Corporations got stronger than Law.” - True
“Corporations care only about their profits, not about workers, even not about customers anymore.” - Completely True
I can’t see how IT outsourcing is helping India? most of these out-sourcing companies are not creating any intellectual property, not creating products, most of them in today’s market have no clue where their next “project” or “account” is coming from…There are no more IIT backed wiz kids who are really good in Math and Science (check out the IIT entrance exam cut-offs for the past 5 years)… the so-called “hard working engineers” from India are being “manufactured” for “the IT”! by setting up engineering colleges in every nook and corner of the country - ZERO emphasis on quality - cold chilling truth - kids being manufactured to work in “IT” where they wont have to use their brains but add up to “head-count” in some “IT” company…
I think of Obama as a very good orator. But if at all he is to become the next US president, he needs to set an example for others to follow… and create an environment, an economy which is sustainable, accommodative and treats its people as human beings.
BTW Sramana, your site doesn’t work (breaks-up the UI components) in Firefox or Google Chrome browser! plz fix it…
Amit, Corporations are one of the most powerful methods of job creation. Before you bash them, come up with an alternative that creates as many jobs as corporations do.
And what did Infosys and the entire It/ITES industry do for India? How about create 4 million well-paid jobs? How about, those 4 million jobs support 40 million or more people’s livelihood?
I am sorry, but this anti-corporation rhetoric is very shallow and off-putting. I certainly don’t subscribe to it.
Sorry if I gave an impression of being anti-corporate (I work in one too!). But you missed the point. Companies sustain through focus on finding ways to improve productivity, innovating new business strategies constantly. Evolving as the time passes. Look at Apple - it started by making computers and now it has iphones, ipods and many more… Plz don’t consider this as a harsh analogy that’s the first thing that came to my mind. But, my point is companies need to constantly find innovative ways to earn profit.
The IT in India started with a USP of low cost, good quality and many people. But now, competitors have evolved. American companies like Accenture and IBM are still the leaders. An American market slowdown and Indian IT companies suffer in profits. The reason is not only dollar fluctuation and order cancellations/delays. There is more to it. Indian IT needs to move up in value chain. Yes! employing 4 million people is a job-well-done but will the Indian IT companies be able to sustain these many people if market continues to remain the way it is say for another year or say more than that? Yes, we do have many engineering colleges, but what about the quality?
Focus needs to be shifted from old USPs to new ones (off course old ones are added bonus). Enter into product markets, build tools/frameworks - focus on quality not on quantity. Rising wages are a result of the competition amongst the companies. Competitors pay job-hoppers more when they have an immediate project opening or expect a big project in the pipeline (It is a do or die situation for the staffing department). We have a huge IT market here in India but, probably that doesn’t earn the companies the 1 is to 40 profit like in American market!
Barak Obama is not the person who will jeopardize the outsourcing festival for India. We are very well placed to do it our self. There is something amiss… don’t you think so?
Cheers,
Amit
[PS - Sorry for the browser remark. It is only in Chrome that the site is in disarray… :)]
I have discussed the Indian IT issues widely under the “Death Of Indian Outsourcing” series of articles.