CHCH News - Outsourcing

Seems like one of the big issues with the liberals these days is the horror of outsourcing, and the subsequent loss of jobs throughout the United States that results from such. I guess the libs are redefining the meaning of the word, or they’re totally out of touch with what’s going on around them. When a job that was previously done in the United States is moved overseas, it’s exporting, not outsourcing.

I guess my problem is that no one wants to think any more, so a political party will assign an arbitrary meaning to a buzzword, sell it to the public, and no one will bother to notice that what’s being said doesn’t match what’s going on. See, outsourcing is something that goes on all the time.

Ford Motor Company doesn’t make tires. It’s easier to outsource tire manufacture to folks that do it for a living, and just buy the finished product to put on Ford cars. General Motors doesn’t make stereos. It’s a lot easier to outsource that job to a company that does make them, and just buy the finished product.

In fact, in a sense, most of us have outsourced a job or two at one time or another. If you send clothing to the cleaners, order pizza for dinner, and get an oil change done at Wal-Mart, you’re in trouble with the liberals, cause you’ve just outsourced your laundry, your cooking, and your routine auto maintenance!

Now I have a problem with sending jobs overseas that we can do here in the United States, but I see the blame there as being big enough to spread around. Corporations want to make a profit. So, if they can get something integral to their product line done overseas at a cheaper price, they’re gonna do it. That way, they can sell their product at the same price as, or cheaper than, their competition, and still make more money doing so. It’s a cold hard fact of life that corporations are in business to make a profit. If they don’t, they go bust, and a lot of people get put out of work, both overseas and in the United States.

So let’s give the big corporations some of the “blame” for exporting jobs overseas. After all, if it weren’t for their “greed”, their desire to make money, their sick hunger for operating in the black, they wouldn’t be exporting those jobs.

Unions want more money for their members, more benefits, better retirement, etc.. So, when contract negotiation time comes around, they look for the most they can get out of the company for the union rank and file. That extra money has to come from somewhere, so the “evil” corporation has a choice between cutting their profit margin and looking for ways to save money in other directions. Enter exporting jobs overseas.

Consumers want quality products at a cheap price. Guess what? The corporations want to make a profit to stay in business, and the employees want regular pay raises and benefits. So the driving force behind the economy, the consumer, helps to push those jobs overseas. Problem is, Joe Consumer is usually an employee of EvilCorp, Inc. and Joe could find that, in an effort to sell him what he wants while maintaining a profit margin and meeting payroll, EvilCorp has to export Joe’s job to Sahib in India.

There’s a connection here, but no one wants to face it. As long as corporations need to make a profit, employees need to get pay raises, and consumers want the best quality at the cheapest price, jobs will either be exported or automated. And, of course, politicians look for simple solutions. But is there one?

Do we throw money at the problem? One way to keep the prices cheap while keeping jobs in the U. S. would be for the Government to subsidize corporations that keep their jobs on American soil, and keep their employees. American. Problem is, that takes tax dollars. So we could end up with the employees of large corporations paying taxes to the government to pay for their own jobs. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then, nothing much that the government does these days makes a lot of sense.

Another way to throw money at the problem would be to tax corporations that move jobs overseas at a higher rate. Of course, that would serve to drive a lot of corporations out of business, ending up with fewer choices for Joe Consumer, as well as higher prices for those fewer choices.

How about ordering corporations not to export jobs? Somehow, this idea seems to stifle competition, too. See, a lot of corporations would end up going out of business, once they went into the red side of the ledger. End result? Fewer choices, higher prices. In any case, it ends up with a larger, more unwieldy government, getting more and more involved in the everyday life of the people it is supposed to serve.

Now there is one thing the government can do. The government can make it clear that items bought by the government from private suppliers would have to be manufactured in the United States by Americans. Anything else would be unwarranted interference in private businesses. At any rate, the government outsources all the time. Check out where those black berets were manufactured that the Army wears now. If you don’t know, the answer might surprise you.

The bottom line is this. There is no easy answer, no simple solution to the fact that jobs are exported from the United States. Any candidate, from either party, that tries to tell you that there is a simple solution is a liar. And, dear reader, if you believe there is a simple solution, I recommend that you take your medication when the nice nurse comes round, and go back to coloring the pretty donkeys and elephants in your coloring book.

Copyright 9/6/04
Dave Hoffman

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