Originally published October 23 2003
Offshoring is a natural component of global free trade
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Local legislators love to shout "free trade" as they erect trade barriers to garner votes at home. The latest anti-trade theme is the idea that the United States should protect its workers by somehow forcing companies to avoid outsourcing services to other countries.
Regardless of the economic consequences of offshoring, which is worthy of another discussion altogether, the idea that U.S. companies would be barred or perhaps even criminalized for hiring the services of overseas workers is so out of touch with the modern global economy that it can only be accurately called Dark Ages Economics.
To succeed in the global marketplace, a nation -- and its workers -- need to be uplifted, not blockaded behind artificial trade barriers. In other words, U.S. workers need to compete, and they need to offer skills and abilities that employers can't find in India, China, Russia or other offshore destinations.
From the get-go, U.S. citizens already have a major advantage: they speak English, and they speak it without the heavy Hindi accent. You may recall that Dell recently closed its Indian technical support office. It wasn't that the Indian workers weren't skilled enough, it was that U.S. customers couldn't understand what they were saying!
Any legislative move towards penalizing U.S. companies for hiring overseas workers would be the first step in a long, downward spiral in the global competitiveness of U.S. companies. It would hurt companies, hurt the national economy and ultimately hurt workers by encouraging them to be less than competitive.
Encouragingly, the Department of Commerce apparently agrees with this view. Anything other than full-out free trade is nothing less than the path to economic protectionism, which only leads to local impoverishment.
Recommended reading: Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, which overturns the myths of protectionism, spending your way to prosperity, and other common economic fallacies.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Despite the growing backlash over shipping American
IT jobs to less-expensive overseas firms, the practice is necessary to
help U.S. companies remain competitive, said a Department of Commerce
representative here on Tuesday.
The comments, which came during a panel discussion hosted by the
Information Technology Association of America, provided a look at how
the Bush administration would handle future legislation aimed at curbing
offshore outsourcing, or "offshoring."
"Companies need to be competitive, strong and growing -- at the end of
the day, these are the most important issues."
A similar Forrester report notes that, by 2015, $136 billion in wages
will shift to overseas workers who are willing to accept far lower
salaries than U.S. workers.
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml