djackson 22568 (8/27/2012)
Hmm, you do seem optimistic, and I applaud that attitude.
I have to disagree with outsourcing leading to a net increase in jobs. Caterpillar and other manufacturers shed jobs and sent them overseas. Whether there are more jobs in China doesn't matter to me, the fact that a large numbers of Americans lost their jobs does, because I believe we should take care of our own first. Also, until the US economy improves, the world economy isn't going to, and that is hurting billions across the planet. US consumers drive the world economy more than any other country.
First - it is useful to keep the distinction between outsourcing and off-shoring. Just because something is outsourced does NOT mean it left the country. Conflating the two will lead to some VERY inaccurate conclusions.
Besides - those nubers aren't always easy to compute, since those statistics are often done over short cycles. As technology and/or product lines change, some operations shut down and others spin back up. The manufacturing aspects decreased, but electronics/ design teams increased. So a company like caterpillar might move its older line off-shore while redesigning the new products. So some jobs are lost, but what isn't always counted would be what jobs replaced them
Look at companies like Dupont with very long development cycles. They continuously destroy and build up design teams to handle specific aspects. If you look only at the layoff part (which is often what happens with those statistics), they look to be a hack-and-slash organization, but they are simply moving most folks from project to project (where the projects might actually be different corporate entities).
As to your first point, it is political today. Companies used to outsource jobs overseas simply because of smaller wage costs. Today they are outsourcing jobs due to environmental regulations being pushed by extremists claiming to "save the planet". If we want to save the planet, why are we moving jobs to countries that have almost NO environmental regulations? Even if we think it is good to have these regulations, we have to admit they are political by definition. I do think we need to treat our planet better, but I recognize that when companies are forced to close factories due to government regulations, that is a political decision that forced the business decision. I am sure there are still jobs being lost to greedy business leaders, but that is no longer the only cause.
But it's always been political. What used to be regulated via tariffs and trade embargoes now falls under EPA regs, or artifical constructs like NAFTA. Same game, just different tools in the game. That's been happening since the 1700's. At any point the only real differentiator is how skilled or corrupt the person in charge might happen to be.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?