alphac2005
Well-Known Member
Part of the big picture is missing here, though. The world has a massive population and if countries such as India can deal with their multitude of inept states and Modi is able to push through many of his reforms, the country doesn't need to be an outsourcing farm. The same goes for China as both countries long-term economic success is in their populations being consumers and not focusing on creating goods or providing services to Western countries, but having successful economies internally and having them being self-sustaining with their massive populations.
Stating the following is a cheap shot: "To justify your position, you'd need to successfully argue that the Californian is somehow entitled to that job while the Indian is not."
That's not the point of what many are saying and see my aforementioned comments.
Outsourcing is about one thing: MONEY. Period. It's about profiteering. As @PhotoDave219 stated, companies should help serve their local communities. You speak of that being a naive notion in the 21st century. The problem is that if those mechanisms collapse, it furthers the complete corporate takeover of this country and most major industrial age countries.
As for manufacturing, take clothing. We've gone from producing 70% of our own clothing in the States to less than 2% in two decades. We now get cheap garbage clothing made by nothing short of slave labor from Vietnam, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc. That wasn't done to help America, it was done to help Wall St. I'm fortunate that I can afford to buy clothing that is of high quality, which lasts a long time, and actually costs me less in the long-term, but it's becoming more difficult every year to find good quality products and there is a limit to what I'm willing to spend. We're basically stuck between a $10 shirt or a $100 one and very little quality difference in-between.
If you ask most Americans, they'd say that we manufacture next to nothing. It's actually not the case at all. The U.S. manufactures the greatest number of high-tech and high end technology components in the world, but these products require virtually no human labor. So, what we manufacture is basically done by machines and everything else is done by third world employees. A flip argument would be that these people get lifted out of third world status, but the reality is that most are paid a pittance and are virtual property of their factories.
It's all about money and that should be clear to all.
