[mmasters]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')rinceton economist Alan Blinder predicts that these choice jobs could be lost in a mere decade or two. We speak of computer programming, bookkeeping, graphic design and other careers once thought firmly planted in American soil. For perspective, 40 million is more than twice the total number of people now employed in manufacturing.

Blinder was taken aback when, sitting in at the business summit in Davos, Switzerland, he heard U.S. executives talk enthusiastically about all the professional jobs they could outsource to lower-wage countries. And he's a free trader.

What America can do to stop this is unclear, but it certainly doesn't have to speed up the process through a government program. We refer to the H-1B visa program, which allows educated foreigners to work in the United States, usually for three years. Many in Congress want to nearly double the number of H-1B visas, to 115,000 a year.

To the extent that the program helps talented foreign graduates of U.S. universities stay in this country while they await their green cards, it performs a useful service. But for many companies, the visa has become just a tool for transferring American jobs offshore.

Ron Hira has studied the dark side of the H-1B program. A professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, he notes that the top applicants for visas are outsourcing companies, such as Wipro Technologies of India and Bermuda-based Accenture.

The companies bring recruits in from, say, India to learn about American business. After three years here, the workers go home better able to interact with their U.S. customers.

In other cases, companies ask their U.S. employees to train H-1B workers who then replace them at lower pay. "This is euphemistically called, 'knowledge transfer,' " Hira says. "I call it, 'knowledge extraction.' "

More here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/o ... rop17.html

[Baldwin]

First they sent out the manufacturing....now service jobs will be outsourced....

How will people make a living?

[threadbear]

Americans will eventually be reduced to localizing their spending and boycotting anything made overseas. The formal economy will be composed of the 10 to 20% of the population who earn big bucks and it will remain global. Others will simply vacate it, revive an off the record black market economy that starves the tax man and offers them some recourse and employment. It won't be all bad.

[DesertBear2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'A')mericans will eventually be reduced to localizing their spending and boycotting anything made overseas.

[Baldwin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DesertBear2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'A')mericans will eventually be reduced to localizing their spending and boycotting anything made overseas.

[I_Like_Plants]

We may not have a choice. The US is just asking for a collapse, not that any of use who collectively carry the country on our backs have any choice.....

This is just plain the kind of shit that leads to revolution, always has, always will.

[The_Toecutter]

Collapse? Our own corporate-run government is simply going to keep pushing for more and more order to keep a leash on 'we the people'. Expect more surveillance, more taxes, more police, more limitations of free speech, more civil penalties, more stupid laws, and more wealth concentrated into the hands of the few.

It won't come crashing down until half of us or more are dead. TPTB want status quo, and will stop at nothing to have it.

[I_Like_Plants]

Toes, never ascribe to plotting what can be explained by sheer stupidity.

The gov't isn't a well-oiled machine in the US, it's a monster held together by spit and masking tape, barely holding on - that's why it growls so loud.

More spit and masking tape is being added to try to make it bigger and more powerful, but this is a classic example of diminishing returns.

Iraquis are kicking its ass with homemade bombs made of barely more than soup cans. They're running circles around its Centurions on a pair of sandals and a stomachful of hummous.

Americans will indeed only climb out of their SUVs when there's simply no gas to run them, and about half of us may well die out, but the rest of us, toughened, in our sandals and on a corn 'n' jerky breakfast, will find it easy and entertaining to kick the machine's ass.

[cynicalheretic]

If the dollar keeps going to the way it is going and with inflation being what it is, in 10 years, other countries will be shipping jobs over here.

[Newsseeker]

You know peakoil.com is not the place to find yourself cheered up all of a sudden. This is just another story to add to my doomer collection. It is a good thing being a doomer. Cornucopians deny the truth in order to feel good and doomers revel in it. Than god for doomers.

[mmasters]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'T')oes, never ascribe to plotting what can be explained by sheer stupidity.

The gov't isn't a well-oiled machine in the US, it's a monster held together by spit and masking tape, barely holding on - that's why it growls so loud.

More spit and masking tape is being added to try to make it bigger and more powerful, but this is a classic example of diminishing returns.

Iraquis are kicking its ass with homemade bombs made of barely more than soup cans. They're running circles around its Centurions on a pair of sandals and a stomachful of hummous.

Americans will indeed only climb out of their SUVs when there's simply no gas to run them, and about half of us may well die out, but the rest of us, toughened, in our sandals and on a corn 'n' jerky breakfast, will find it easy and entertaining to kick the machine's ass.

[jdumars]

He was on the NPR radio show, Day to Day debating this with some Indian economist who was saying that all this outsourcing is totally cool. I called into the show and they put me on! My "question" went something like this:

Me: Hi Tom, thanks for taking my call. It seems that globalization was predicated on the availability of cheap energy sources. How is all this going to proceed with oil at $60 a barrel? What about when it hits $100 a barrel? It doesn't seem to me that can be kept up..."

Tom: So, Alan. Is this going to slow down this exodus of jobs if oil is at a hundred dollars a barrel?

Alan: No, I don't see energy costs as a major component in this, or that they really have more than a 1% effect on it.

Other guest: Random off-topic comments....


So there you have it.

[mmasters]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', 'A')lan: No, I don't see energy costs as a major component in this, or that they really have more than a 1% effect on it.

[firestarter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mmasters', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', 'A')lan: No, I don't see energy costs as a major component in this, or that they really have more than a 1% effect on it.

[mmasters]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('firestarter', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mmasters', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', 'A')lan: No, I don't see energy costs as a major component in this, or that they really have more than a 1% effect on it.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mmasters', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('firestarter', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mmasters', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', 'A')lan: No, I don't see energy costs as a major component in this, or that they really have more than a 1% effect on it.

[Tyler_JC]

Some of the jobs being outsourced are jobs like call centers and graphic design, right?

Well, how much energy does it take to transport the products of a call center telemarketer or a graphic designer from India to Indiana?

Answer...not a whole lot.

Certainly the transport of farming equipment from China to Des Moines might be slowed down do to increases in transportation costs, but some of the light, low-skilled service jobs can be easily outsourced regardless of the cost of energy.

[Plantagenet]

Good point.

The internet allows service jobs to
farmed out to Chindia, and rising transportation costs will have little
or no effect.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DesertBear2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'A')mericans will eventually be reduced to localizing their spending and boycotting anything made overseas.

[jasonraymondson]

Talk about being flipped on your head. The US ecomy is officially so bad that europe will be outsourcing its work to the USA.

link

I can't imagine a bigger turn of events from the outsourcing of us business in the 90's to the in-sourcing of labor in the now.