Angry cries of America's 'outsourced' middle class

The Arizona Republic ^ | 03.09.04 | E.J. Montini

[Beck_isright]

Among those who apparently didn't listen to the 43-year-old unemployed woman whose recorded message was posted online last week by The Republic were Arizona's Jon Kyl and John McCain, along with 24 of their Senate colleagues, all of them collecting fat government paychecks.

[Lael]

She's out of state; once a week doesn't work, and I'm just making ends meet. She knows she and the kids are always welcome here.

You know, it is REALLY pathetic that we are even having this conversation...and yes, it is resembling 1992...

"Jobs vanished at a rate and with a finality worse than in the Great Depression. Nearly 2 million disappeared in Manufacturing alone, and hundreds of thousands more than official figures ever acknowledged. there were layoffs, plant closures, and the flight of corporations and export of jobs abroad...."The average earnings in 1994 were some 15 percent less than two decades earlier." from "Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America" by Roger Morris pub. June 16, 1996.

I'll bet your friend would take the 1994 situation over what she has now!

This insanity has to STOP!!!

[TXBSAFH]

This issue will be big in this election. And you are right the in many cases college educated former white collar workers will start edging out the less educated for the available blue collar jobs.

[Shermy]

#450

Bump.

[Smogger]

huh?

You lost me a bit in your rambling diatribe.. How exactly I am defending the status quo? Look, my dad worked for a big company, and he got (bleep)ed. I know plenty of other people that work at large corporations and many of them have been (bleep)ed too. My reccommendation? Stay away from large soulless companies. If you disagree, maybe you could do so a little more succinctly, and we could have a converstation about it. ;-)

[Shermy]

I watch Dobbs whenever I can. He's the only one talking about outsourcing and illegal immigration. I love him! The Democrats are paying attention to Lou Dobbs and the Republicans aren't. The RATS will take the outsourcing material from the Lou Dobbs show and use it for campaign propaganda. Meanwhile the Republicans are asleep at the switch.

Kerry, a big pro free trader, gives awful and meaningless solutions. But that's all he has to do to differentiate himself from Bush. So he gets the votes, and keeps the big campaign contributions coming in.

I see plenty of Democrats on Dobbs show speaking out against outsourcing. With totally stupid socialist solutions but at least they are expressing the gripes of the electorate. And voters will vote accordingly since Republicans don't seem to give a flip

There's some like Gephardt who actually have a grip on the issue. Some, like Kerry, are out and out lying. Some, with their tax credit schemes, are just taxing the people again with corporate welfare subsidies.

[FrdmLvr]

alot of people starve here in the US

It's horrible, I can't get the images out of my mind...children with extended bellies and withered limbs lying half dead in the arms of their skeletal mothers, endless lines of people waiting in the scorching heat for a scoop of dried grain and a pail of water....oh, wait, U.S. starvation...I thought you were talking about, oh never mind.

[NCjim]

Mark for later

[Windsong]

"I was an IT manager"

Change fields. Retrain. Go back to college. There are tons of jobs for those that aren't insisting on making more than 40,000 a yr.

[Beck_isright]

"Change fields. Retrain. Go back to college. There are tons of jobs for those that aren't insisting on making more than 40,000 a yr."

I've never been an "IT manager" if you're addressing this to me. I've been a consultant in the field and did quite well in the 90's. But your point is so easy to shoot full of holes, it's not worth initiating a long discussion with you. Enjoy your grape flavor.

[Dialup Llama]

>Offshoring has a "trickle-down" effect on all parts of the organization that previously supported the offshored group. If you offshore your engineering department you'll also need to move the admin staff, human resource, shipping/receiving, first/second tier management, help desk, network administration, and on and on and on.

>I also alluded to a "trickle-up" type of effect that will cause positions like project managers and first/second tier managers to move closer to their new "offshore" team.

The final step is when the captive offshore operations center starts to realize that the hollowed-out US company serves no purpose. Why should the offshore center get paid on a fee for service basis when they could be tapping the US market directly without paying profits to the US parent?

A company which makes a profit by divesting itself of assets (cost cutting), at some point, will shrink to nothing and cease to exist.

[Lael]

A company which makes a profit by divesting itself of assets (cost cutting), at some point, will shrink to nothing and cease to exist.

Just like Bell & Howell in the Photography business when their Japanese suppliers decided that Pentax didn't need an American company fronting for them!!!

[dennisw]

There's some like Gephardt who actually have a grip on the issue. Some, like Kerry, are out and out lying. Some, with their tax credit schemes, are just taxing the people again with corporate welfare subsidies.

Richard Gephardt was against phony "free trade" back in 1988 when he ran for president. He was slamming the Japs for their closed markets while they flooded us with autos and other imports. Was a key part of this platform. He moved away from this year by year for political expediency.

[american spirit]

Well said....I think you've nailed the essence of this ongoing battle with those who dont' even know they're advocating this marxist philosophy that's de-constructing this country as we know it.

[FITZ]

I'm only to page 10 --- I think there's about 49,990 more to sift through.

[_Jim]

"I.T." is a generic term

ONLY to those of you in the public, it is ...

Get over it - you didn't know the difference, you don't now want now to admit not knowing the difference, nor will you in the future make any such admission ..

To you, call centers, customer response centers, 'tech help' desks and organizations that actually do software development are all NOT differentiated in your mind BUT are all lumped in together one in a one-size fits all kind of consumerism-based view of the world called "IT" ...

AND it's not all as simple as your repeated attempts to simply say it is are.

Communications channel closed.

[_Jim]

.. the brother of the President of the most powerful nation ever in history ...

I honestly don't know what your current ramble has to do with the subject matter of this thread ...

[_Jim]

you are actually helping me make a point: if this offshoring ...

Tech help, order desks, customer response centers; are all expensive with the majority of cost being personnel.

Here in the US, we can't always find, recruit and employ the sharpest knives in the drawer to fill those positions; not ALL people are created equal, not ALL people can accurately fulfill the tasks assigned, not ALL people are equipped to do the same repetitive, somewhat mundane tasks day in and day out and remain civil and pleasant on the phone ... enter a someone, a group, a company - overseas - who offer to do those functions at a fraction of the cost - viola -

- a call center is opened in India ...

Basically, with a call center, you're employing people simply to act as the interface between a computer on one side of a dividing/demarcation line and a human being who has dialed a 'number' on the other.

REAL exciting work, work a 'monkey' (literally: a high functioning ape) could be trained to do ... to put it bluntly: it ain't rocket science they're required to do.

THIS stands in contrast to other positions of the company whose demands on individual talents and traits have a greater affect the profit and loss - the business, the future business, the new inventions, the actual production - of a company.

Now, can such divisions as 'customer help desks'/call centers be completely eliminated? We're getting DARN close as it is - made a collect call lately? Fully automated - INCLUDING voice recognition of info from the calling party ...

Do you see where this is headed?

EVEN Indian-outsourced 'call centers' isn't a business with a REAL promising or assured future ... but I don't think you guys, just steps above full-blown Luddites, even grasp that as the future ...

[_Jim]

I'm only to page 10 --- I think there's about 49,990 more to sift through.

You're too funny - poring through the NAFTA agreement to see how it affects tire recycling/tire scrounging!

(I've got a copy of the original NAFTA draft agreement around here somewhere too - on 5 1/4" single-sided floppies.)

[oceanview]

its going to be quite a long time before customer service can be totally replaced. you'll have to wait for a major sector of older, computer illiterate americans to die off before this can be done. my parents can't program a VCR, but they use credit cards and want to be able to speak to someone on the phone when there is a problem.

so for the next 15-20 years, those Indians need not worry about their jobs.

and what about the other jobs I listed. those are all going to be replaced by computers?

[oceanview]

are you developing automated software that will collect debts from people, cause that's going offshore also it seems:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1094928/posts

so how will this work _Jim, and automated system calls you up and starts yelling at you "pay your bills!".