No job is US's god-given anymore: HP chief

Economic Times of India ^ | February 14, 2004

[sarcasm]

ping

[Prodigal Son]

“The upshot? He's assailed from both sides of the aisle in Congress".

LOL, now that's one way of looking at it I guess.

[Cacique]

Iyt's time to resurect a prophetic old thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/777526/posts

[kuma]

How is out-sourcing customer service innovative? Please I really want to know the answer to this question. Thus far this is mainly what they have outsourced right?

[The Duke]

“There is no job that is America’s god-given anymore,”

What Carly has yet to learn, and what America has yet to re-discover (but may very well soon) is that politics is simply violence in slow motion.

It is not whether a job is an American's "God given" right that is to consider, but rather when, through legislation, Americans place their collective foot on the throat of Carly's company and extract the jobs (or cold hard cash) on which they insist.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Makes you think about the hidden meaning of "The South will Rise Again."

[HiTech RedNeck]

And more of that money circulates at home.

[Indie]

Alan Mulally, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group gave a speech before The News Tribune editorial board that sounded like a paraphrasing of '60s college leftist radicals demands combined with a touch of manic word salad. Not all of it will be repeated here. His main points were:

"---Boeing can't act like British colonialists extracting wealth from other countries and exporting it all back home."

"...the United States has no divine right to our standard of living,"

SOUNDS JUST LIKE CARLY DON'T IT?? THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS OLD THREAD. GENIUS.

[HiTech RedNeck]

US President George W Bush, the daily noted, sought to limit the political fallout on Thursday, saying, "We need to act to make sure there are more jobs at home and people are more likely to retain a job."

Keeping more cash at home will help, Mr. President.

[A. Pole]

"...the United States has no divine right to our standard of living,"

So as the divine rights of the kings were overthrown in the name of the people, now the divine rights of the people will be overthrown in the name of the owners of the capital. Very wise indeed!

[joesnuffy]

Carly Fiorina, the HP chairman, shocked critics of outsourcing recently by saying: “There is no job that is America’s god-given anymore,”

I guess it isnt Carly Fiorina's "God given right" to expect anything for HP either...tax breaks....or Americans purchasing HP products...

[Balto_Boy]

That strategy was pursued in the Eighties and the Nineties, creating more than 35 million new jobs and producing the longest period of economic expansion in American history, including a whole new IT sector, where jobs pay, on average, 75 per cent higher than other jobs, she said.

Weren't a lot of those IT jobs created by Y2K? We saw what happened to those jobs after 2000 arrived.

[LS]

No job ever was. That's why in the Declaration Jefferson said you only have a right to the "pursuit" of happiness, not happiness. And certainly government doesn't owe you happiness.

The best thing we could do to "keep jobs in America" would be:

1) Have meaningful tort reform. Make it possible for companies to take risks and be inventive.

2) Lower all EPA and other environmental regulations that suck more than $100 BILLION out of the U.S. business coffers each year. That would employ a hell of a lot of people.

3) Privatize health care and get it back in a "for pay" system so that businesses don't have to pay 35% MORE for each employee on top of the salary.

4) End all "social security contributions" and privatize Social Security so that an employee costs an American business less.

There are many other reforms that would dramatically reduce the cost on American businesses to employ people---and these are exactly the costs that do not exist in India or Mexico. Until we get rid of these government drags on hiring, there will be a continued "exporting" of job.

[txzman]

I have a good answer for HP after using their printers for 15+ years...

I bought a new color laser 2500N and had a part fail (fuser kit) after 3 months. It took me 45 days to get a replacement due to national backorder, even after complaining to 'Executive Customer Care' in Palo Alto.

Guess where the kits are made? Guess who controls the manufacturing cycles? Guess who won't be buying another HP printer?

[MissAmericanPie]

If the USofA stopped importing entirely, the entire worlds economy would collapse. We need to use this weapon while we have it, or the US will become the worlds only third world economy.

They say it isn't time for isolationism, given where we are in biblical history it is time for isolationism.

[Lael]

I guess it isnt Carly Fiorina's "God given right" to expect anything for HP either...tax breaks....or Americans purchasing HP products...

Speaking of Carly, does anyone know HER "G-d given right" Perks and Parachutes???

I'll listen to Steve Jobs [the $1.00 a year Apple CEO] before I'll take the word of the Mighty One who drove Lucent into the ground!!!

[TheFrog]

Re:"There are many other reforms that would dramatically reduce the cost on American businesses to employ people---and these are exactly the costs that do not exist in India or Mexico. Until we get rid of these government drags on hiring, there will be a continued "exporting" of job." Even if the United States enacted every change you suggested jobs will still leave. This trend is going to continue until the world wide economy has leveled. Simple ECO101. Given the current cost of living in the US jobs will have to leave. The company I work for informed a bunch of EEs this last week. Those jobs are headed to China with more engineering jobs to follow. The salaries of their replacements is about one tenth of the 40,000 we paid starting engineers. Engineers in China do not have to repay a fifty to hundred thousand dollar student loan, their housing costs are a pittance compared to ours, and few if any of them will ever own an automobile. Americans only invest in companies whose stock price rises or pays a good dividend. So the boards make that happen by reducing the cost of labor. Like I said ECO101.

[Oatka]

I have yet to hear any CEO or government official explain why, in a consumer-based economy, it is a good idea to cut the consumers' buying power.

[LS]

Well, if you know econ 101, then you know that's not true---that American employers will, and have, paid more for highly skilled workers here than for cheaper, but less skilled, workers elsewhere. There is a threshhold. We have obviously crossed it, but the U.S. has NEVER, EVER, had lower wages than any other place in the world. Our land abundance meant that industry always substituted capital/tech for labor, and that labor was scarce, and thus more highly paid.

Oh, you can get data on faux "high wage" union-type jobs in France, but that's why they have an unemployment rate of 8-11%. So it's not a given that until Mexicans make $50,000 a year we will export jobs. It's never worked that way in our history. But there is a tipping point, where the returns to capital are sufficiently high to employ lower skilled, less-talented or less educated people because the costs of hiring Americans are simply too high.