Posted on 03/17/2004 6:48:09 PM PST by MannyP
Powell Reassures India on Technology Jobs By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: March 17, 2004
EW DELHI, March 16 — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, encountering the other side of a tempestuous debate in the United States, sought to assure Indians on Tuesday that the Bush administration would not try to halt the outsourcing of high-technology jobs to their country.
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In discussions with Indian leaders and college students, Mr. Powell found that the issue of the transfer of American jobs to India by leading technology companies was as emotional in India as in the United States.
But whereas American politicians have deplored the loss of such jobs, it was clear that the anxiety in India focuses on threats by some members of Congress to try to stop the transfer by legislation.
Responding to a questioner in a session with students who asked if he supported or opposed outsourcing, Mr. Powell said: "Outsourcing is a natural effect of the global economic system and the rise of the Internet and broadband communications. You're not going to eliminate outsourcing; but, at the same time, when you outsource jobs it becomes a political issue in anybody's country."
Mr. Powell told the students what he had said to reporters earlier in the day after a meeting with Foreign Minister Yaswant Sinha: an appropriate American response to outsourcing was to press India to open up to imports of American investments, goods and services.
He said one purpose of his trip was to explain to India that because outsourcing had created a political problem in the United States, India could help by lowering its trade barriers. He said he was making that request, not as a condition for the United States allowing outsourcing to continue, but because it was in India's interest to be more open.
In February, Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, stirred a political outcry when he called the outsourcing of jobs a long-term "plus" for the economy. While Mr. Powell said Tuesday that "it is the reality of 21st century economics that these kinds of dislocations will take place," he was quick to add that the Bush administration would work to train people for new jobs.
In Washington, the White House endorsed Mr. Powell's comments.
"The secretary made clear in his remarks that we are concerned when Americans lose jobs, and we are focused on creating jobs for American workers, and the best way to do that is to open markets around the world, including in India," said Claire Buchan, a spokeswoman for the White House.
But David Wade, a spokesman for Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said Mr. Powell's comments demonstrated how the Bush administration has "failed to fight for American workers."
Why not? They are probably still laughing at him. Like we are really going to see India open its markets with this group in the White House.
You are right, my friend.
You are right, my friend.
I don't play games when all the rules are fixed against me.
You're a flippin idiot.
Our "trade policies" throw the American worker under the bus, and ya know what @$$hole? They vote.
You got that wrong - should be assets. They then make money and BUY our assets.
Computer Science enrollments at MIT are down by 33% this years. When asked, potential students said that they were looking into careers in finance and law. And they are right. They would be fools to go into a field where they have to compete with countries that can turn out more engineers than our entire population and that work for 10 bucks an hour!
Innovation in high tech comes from design and engineering.The country that has that pool will do the innovating
China now requires US technology companoies to set up R & D centers in China in order to enter into the countries market place, and they require that they "partner" with a local firm to do direct technology transfer. We are in effect creating a competitor.
Our only advantage is our current lead, one that is eroding fast. The solution is to put pressure on these technology companies to create technology that automates out the inefficiencies that causes them to outsourceing the first place, and India and China will just have to take their lumps and develope their own technology. That is really how we got this technology in the first place because we limited its export and kept the R & D at home! This will never happen if they can just off shore those inefficiencies. Eventually (and I mean in 5 to 10 years) they will match us and go beyond us. What we are doing is transfering wealth.
It is the most absurd Orwellian doublespeak to say that exporting highly skilled and highly paid jobs to the third world will create good jobs. It is just the opposite, and if you would get your "free trade" religion out of your eyes you would see that.
And when we hear from High tech companies that we should invest more taxpayer's money in research what they mean is they want more free research that they will just ship overseas to commercialize. At what point does this partice cease to become an investment in the national interest and become industrial serfdom?
Global economic integration results in global political integration. Economic Globalism is a precursor to Global Socialism for it destroys the the economic security and freedoms of the middle classes and thereby destroys the national state.
And our business and political elites know this. That is just the point:They know this and they do not care for they see themselves as part of a emerging international aristocracy and not first and foremost loyal citizens of the the United State of America. They may be right about their personal decisions but those decisions will render your children serfs for they will not be in that select group, they will be their servants.
It is just nonsense to say that you are going to make engineering a menial jobs in this country and then expect to have "control of innovation." you can lower peoples' wages here but you are not going to lower the price of real estate. And the social cost in crime and substance abuse as we descend into third world status will be devastating. And national defense> forget about it. It will be the Chinese and the Indians that are the world powers. We will be pushed back to a role much like England has today.
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