the myth of American supremacy 4476

BO L.

Why? So the product can be inferior? So he can pay more for labour, thereby overcharging his customers for the product, and hence sell less of it?

The US has been practicing precisely what Indian IT companies are now doing for many many years, despite its purported dedication to "freedom". In the 1880s and 1890s, Americans tried to invade Japan because the Japanese gave the US the middle finger and told them that they weren't going to trade with them. (And 60 years later, when the war was virtually over anyway, the Americans used the ultimate weapons of mbutt destruction on the Japanese ...)

Since then, what have we had? General Motors, Ford and Chrysler selling all over the world. Who builds those products? Who performed those services until recently? American electrical supplies, American computer companies, American technology, American fast food, taking over the world. Does the rest of the world complain that the Big Mac should be designed in Venezuela if it's going to be eaten there? Where would you be if they did?

And today, American companies are going outside the US to do their manufacturing and services because other countries have better workers who aren't as lazy and who aren't as expensive. There was no hue and cry when Nike started getting its sewing done in sweatshops in Thailand. There was no hue and cry (to the same extent) when GM started manufacturing its hubcaps in South America, or when Union Carbide hired thousands of children to turn taps at its factory in Bhopal. But sudddenly, when you realise that these so-called inferior countries are taking over your service industries, too, because you're inferior there too, you get peeed off. Good. Start competing on quality rather than on the basis of protection. Finally, the playing field is level.

Try this. From tomorrow onwards, only buy things that aren't outsourced. Make sure every part of your car is manufactured by an American in the US. Make sure every piece of food you buy in the supermarket comes from the US. Make sure that your whole house is US made and manufactured, right down to the steel which is in your plumbing to the wood that makes your furniture. See how much you can afford to subsidise the inefficient American worker.

Also, realise that whenever the US enters a Free Trade deal with a country, it still manages to screw that country. (See how much better off the US is with NAFTA than Canada and Mexico are.) Also realise that the US is the one country that's happy enough to sell things under free trade agreements, but refuses to buy things without subsidising home-grown products, which means that your fruit and dairy are still more expensive than they could be. Despite outsourcing, you're *still* getting a good deal, and the US is still cheating on the rules it wants to use only to its advantage.

And then, maybe, you'll come to the realisation that you've had it too good for too long and that if you want to survive in a global environment you need to get hard and start working. There are people in other parts of the world who are smarter, harder-working, and more technically adept than you are who are getting paid less than you. You are not getting paid more as a birthright. Your stupidity has been subsidised. As companies are waking up, you need to fight to survive, like the rest of the world has been doing for ages. No-one is handed success on a silver spoon in the real world. It's only in a country that believes WMDs exist that they have been.

Don't get me wrong: I'm no fan of outsourcing. India is entirely capable of coming up with its own products which will be ten times as good as the overpriced crap churned out by US companies, and it shames me somewhat that the only way Indian companies can get around US barriers to entry is by profiting from outsourcing. But be that as it may, I'm glad that American companies themselves are realising that Indian people are smarter, that Indian customer service representatives are brighter and more polite, and that Indian products are capable of being as good, as compared with anything produced in the US.

The real world is catching up with you useless wastrels. Deal with it.

Aditya