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On Fri, 29 Jul 2005, Kamal R. Prasad

I can prove false your sentence here by simply citing the actual fact that some 30 percent of companies who have offshored AND found the results unsatisfactory AND have cancelled the contracts or not renewed them. All of the companies I have read about who did this are still in business and have taken the work back and hired Americans instead.

In this

This is also false based on the following: when companies are up against a foreign source of product which is NOT a site for offshoring those companies production that markets in the USA. The vast set of examples include our whole electronics and camera industries which was decimated way way way before (at least 2-3 decades largescale offshoring jobs began in the late 1990s) in addition to subcontracting design (2000-2001) as well as production. Most of our failed industries have failed because foreign companies (think Japan) were allowed to market here. Now, you don't see much Japanese products because American brands names are competing with other American brand names by having made in China products with American brand name labels put on them. This is a fact. I have seen all of this in practically all of our stores.

It is also a fact that a large fraction of the companies who have done a lot of offshoring have done it NOT because they were in economic trouble BUT because they wanted to increase profits and stock price and cut expenses.

It is also a fact that a Chinese company (I forget its name) tried to gain direct access to our market (instead of going through a major American brand) and failed on its own. This was covered in a recent WSJ article. It also failed to acquire a major American brand--to give it an existing network--by buying the company and this failed, too. So far, Lenovo (buying the IBM PC division) is the only one that has succeeded.

You can sing your "Indian and offshoring is good for the USA" and I will continue to point out that its not the whole truth and you mislead yourself and others by denying the facts that go against your song.

And, don't forget the economists who are begining to soften their dogma about the value of globalization, too.

I am waiting for you to give me examples, cite sources, and prove what you say. I will say that your "it" (globalization) never happened in any way shape or form like what we are talking about WITHOUT THE INTERNET. All specializations in products and various trading partners going back thousands of years ago were situations of circumstances in those localities. Plants grew in one place that often did not grow in another, sea animals, potery, spices, shipbuilding, trade secrets (silkworm and china), and much else where special circumstances were necessary all argue against your "proven right over and over".

Offshoring makes cheaper ...at the expense of lowere wages and salaries for a greater fraction of the people. Remeber what Samuelson said? Remember the subbreastle of this article I recently quoted? ********************************* The following data are from Business Week, December 6, 2004 and from the article "Shaking up Trade Theory" by Aaron Bernstein on pages 116 to 120.

The subbreastle of the article is: "For decades economists have insisted that the U.S. wins from globalization. Now they are not so sure"

They quoted Paul Samuelson (MIT) as saying "Comparative advantage cannot be counted on to create...net gains greater than the net losses from trade" and I understand that. ******************************************************

The USA has produced many laws against exploitation and this includes anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws. We've produced a long list of anti-discrimination laws in the USA (discrimination by age, gender, religion, ethnic origin, etc). I think the next law we may have may be anti-economic exploitation of an exploitable clbutt.

Your own theory of comparative advantage ONLY allows for specialization that continues on a long to very long term time scale. You need to re-read all of your economics that you brag about. At no time in all of past history have a clbutt of a large number of countries really had some kind of "the same as" like you say. It has always been a "dominant" system surrounded by "submissive" systems. Think about it. Today's business talk is that Japan is not doing so good. 10-15 years ago, Japan wanted to tell the USA to get lost. Now, it is rather quiet but marketing to China (as long as that lasts). Europe has been in slow growth for at least two decades and our most capitalist-selfish companies think the answer for Europe is to treat their employees more harshly.

What will kill the USA is its own stupidity (economic, Debt Consolidation problems, and greedy-selfish BMOs) and you'd just better watch out that it doesn't hurt all those nice, upwardly mobile B'lorians you have.

It doesn't mean workers in countries

It depends on only one: money.

As we speak, companies are hiring both in India and in

There are lots of companies, non-US and non-Indian, that are hiring in non-US AND non-Indian countries.

As the economy improves, amt of work moved from US to India will

This is not only false but does not take into consideration the economic damage.

Conversely, when the tech sector

What a joke. Remember this:

************************************************ From "Processor.com" print edition, July 8, 2005, volume 27, number27,p.2 (it may be on their website, I have not checked)

IBM TO SEND 14,000 JOBS TO INDIA

"An internal memo from IBM disclosed plans to expand the company's workforce in India by 14,000. The memo surfaced shortly after IBM announced that it would be cutting 13,000 jobs in the United States and Europe. The move seems to highlight the trend for tech companies to offshore outsource to cut costs, a trend some experts fear could have a profound effect on wages and, therefore, eventually society as a whole. IBM refused to comment on the memo."

*********************************************************

Why because an FTA is signed? Its already happening without it.

This is a crazy sentence. I am on a mailing list where many US guys laid off from their programmer jobs (and are very mad) are actually monitoring english reporting on Indian websites. India is not only pushing for every penny of business it can get. Indians, as employees of Indian companies but stationed in the US, are very well organized and having nice parties for our politicians to make laws favorable for more h1bs, more visas, larger quotas, more contracts, and buing American companies so they can submit bids for contracts as a US company name, then farm the actual work back to India so they can under-bid real US companies owned by a US person. You just don't understand what your own people are doing.

Now that the genie is out of the bottle, putting it

Oh, there is some discussion going on about this. But, it all goes back to the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer. This, indeed, is in all of history. And, the fights are really between who has priviledges and who does not have priviledges.

But, it is a fact, too, that revolts have taken place in the past AND sometimes nice laws are created to fight the sufferings of peoples who have disadvantages forced on them.

I have nothing against India or Indians who want to improve their material well being; however, if it happens by taking dollars out of the pocket of a US person who is willing to work, is competant, and needs those dollars to live in the US and putting a fraction of those dollars into the pockets of Indians and the rest of those dollars into the pockets of the BMOs, then I will fight that.