Thread: The Bush Administration Jobs Policy

That cartoon tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! Did any of you see 20/20 last night and John Stossel's interview with Lou Dobbs? Stossel says that "outsourcing American jobs is bad" is nothing but A MYTH! I was so infuriated with him that I am sending him an email letting him know what a traitor he is! Below is part of what he said:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=448934&page=2
No. 4 — MYTH: Outsourcing Is Bad for American Workers


We've been hearing a lot lately about how American workers are suffering because companies are "outsourcing" their jobs to other countries. During the presidential campaign, both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., told voters they were concerned about keeping jobs here at home. And CNN anchor Lou Dobbs has made complaints about outsourcing a running theme of his nightly news program.






Dobbs' new book, "Exporting America," says the government should limit free trade and immediately outlaw outsourcing of government contracts.



"Just because of cheap labor, we're destroying our middle class. That is just stupid," Dobbs said, adding, "Being stupid is un-American."



Wait a second. It's restricting outsourcing that would be un-American and stupid.



You may not like it that someone in India takes your customer service call, but outsourcing helps the middle class by bringing lower prices and faster service. Take E-Loan, for example. It gives customers a choice of whether to get their loan paperwork processed in America in 12 days or in India in 10 days. An incredible 87 percent of customers in the United States choose the faster loan processing offered by sending their paperwork to India.



And look at clothing — lots of it is made abroad these days — and Lou Dobbs sees that as a terrible thing. "This country cannot even clothe itself. Ninety-six percent of our apparel is imported," he said.



But that's OK. We have more choices for less money. The Labor Department's price index for clothing has been going down and down over the past decade.



But still, what about all those American workers who lose their jobs to people overseas? We asked the AFL-CIO labor federation for some of their best examples of outsourcing and the first people they referred us to were Shirley and Ronnie Barnard. They both lost their jobs when a Levi's plant in Powell, Tenn., closed down two years ago and moved production to Mexico.



The Barnards say keeping their heads above water has been a struggle. Shirley told us about her frustrations, saying, "You've done something for 20 years, got up, went to work every day, and then all of a sudden you don't have any place to go and nobody needs you anymore."


Tough Business Realities


Bill Portelli, who runs the California-based company Collabnet, says outsourcing has helped him keep his company alive in the United States. He has hired programmers in India who are paid less than half what he would have to pay American programmers. "It doesn't cheat Americans out of jobs. If I hadn't hired the people in India, I would have had to lay people off," he said.



He didn't end up laying any Americans off as a result of outsourcing, because outsourcing saved Collabnet so much money the company was able to expand in America. "Basically I've created jobs in America. I built better products, created jobs, been able to raise salaries," Portelli said.



A Dartmouth study found that outsourcers actually create jobs in America at a faster rate than companies that don't outsource. The same study found that companies that outsourced abroad ended up hiring twice as many workers at home.



Allowing outsourcing creates opportunity. It's easy to see the pain of the workers who are laid off; it's harder to see the benefits of free trade, because those benefits aren't news.



It's true that in the last four years, America has lost more than 1 million jobs, but those were years when we had a recession. Look at the big picture. Since 1992, America has lost 361 million jobs, but during that same time we also gained 380 million jobs. Millions more than we lost.



That should be hopeful for people like Shirley and Ronnie Barnard. While it's true that they had to dig into savings and still worry about their long-term security, last year Shirley Barnard eventually found a new job as a secretary. The new position pays more than her old job at Levi's, and the Levi's work was harder — hot, noisy and physically difficult. She says that her new job is much easier.



Her husband and some other former co-workers are still looking for work, but she told us some of her former Levi's colleagues are now working in better jobs than they had before. "Some of them have got, really got excellent jobs that they would never have even left Levi's for if the plant hadn't closed," she said.



And what happened to that Levi's plant? It's now being converted to a college. There will be new jobs for faculty and administrative staff, and right now there are construction jobs for workers building the new campus. This won't be talked about on the evening news, but these jobs are a product of outsourcing too.



Still, people like Lou Dobbs talk about the outsourcing crisis. However, in reality outsourcing is not a crisis. The crisis will only come if we try to stop it.

Did any of you see 20/20 last night and John Stossel's interview with Lou Dobbs?

Some discussion of it over here, rebellady:

https://www.alipac.us/ftopict-17021.html