02-29-2004, 01:17 AM
Came via email...
<b>The Prez Candidates need De Bono's hats</b>
William Mougayar in his blog "America needs a plan..."
http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.p...d=P2936_0_5_0_C
suggests a rational approach to the outsourcing dilemma . Hope some one in the White House reads it. I may venture, if the powers now residing in the Whitehouse, intend to do some thing, they must do it a bit differently this time.
The world trade till now has been a fine mess. Each nation has had its own motives and holy cows, and there has never been a holistic internationalist approach to speak of by those who saw themselves as world leaders in political & economic matters . Rational economics has applied to only to a small segment of the manufactured goods trade and has been totally absent in agriculture & services. One fine day WTO comes along, again was never intended to sort the jumble. Seems to be coping with the situation commendably, given the scope and complexity of the problems. The task made more difficult by the entrenched positions and a wholly self serving mindset of members, at times illogical to the extreme, and in contradiction to the past say.
The off shoring argument that America faces is just a sub-set of the right of nations and peoples to export services, via off-shoring or being present there physically, so the term "services mobility ". It is not there yet, but will soon be on the WTO agenda once the agriculture issues are sorted out.
The rest of the world justifiably has problems with a unilateralist approach as is being advocated by the presidential aspirants. The rest of us are how ever quick to realize that this could be well true of any other dominant power or power aspirant of the day. The ruling deity, despite the power to shape a common future has never really tried to be a thought leader in the international sense, finding innovative ways to growing the pie & sharing. In other words , tried a globally inclusive approach, be it politics or economics. Self interest based easy solutions that eventually lead to confrontation have always got the better of finding common interests and devising creative, out of the box solutions, and may be classified ad . an extension of what easily sells at home.
Though politics is not the discussion here, but those who profess politics do practice economics. And one may need to present some evidence on the mind set that rules. Some examples from the past. While the West concentrated it's energies on countering the Reds, the non-aligned movement was ignored if not ridiculed, but seems is stronger than ever and has even spawned the a formidable and contrarian trade G-20 (with China, India & Brazil the fastest growing economies as members) to the clubbish G-8.
Not to mention the Kyoto Protocol fiasco. China is all set to become the largest green house gas producer within 3 decades and India will surely follow in quick time. The effects , if the theory is true are already visible & will only aggravate . Indonesia, Brazil, & Pakistan are all large populations, and will surely throw in their might too in melting the polar caps. Seems we got to wait till inevitability forces us all to rationality
The lesser developed nations after decades of aid, free market advise & World Bank finally see a hope of improving the lot of their desperately poor billions via agriculture and services exports. Sixty percent of India is still rural with average land holding of less than a hectare. Has to no way out but to urbanize very soon, and urban unemployment already is tens of millions, under employment almost universal.
China is the real growth engine today accounting for more of the world growth pie than any one else. The growth sure is real this time around , but the problems it faces faced are growing rapidly too. The uninvited it seems have barged into the economic party and are making some splash. Do they face a temporary ejection?
As US grapples with off shoring job losses, Uncle Sam presses the world to let it's high charging lawyers, consultants and accountants to practice in their countries, who say they don't really need them. If one assumes that about 30% of the US IT industry revenues come from overseas , now one of the hardest hit by off-shoring, one can say the world has been supporting the industry ( and quite a few American jobs), for quite some time. Though the US may loose IT market share in percentage terms, the growing markets of China & India are sure to absorb more technology imports for quite some time to come. And there is proof that outsourcing is not a one way street, HP has recently won a $125m outsourcing deal from Bank of India & Ericsson a $250m contract from Bharti Telecom.
The prosperity brought about by off shoring in India & China will definitely add jobs in many unintended places. The US entertainment, hospitality, education and medical sectors are sure beneficiaries as Chinese & Indians can afford more of these. A lot of the jobs created should pay well too.
To accelerate the real benefits of the services revolution, labor mobility issues need to be tackled in good time We all must accept the idea of hosting more "visitor workers" as a necessity, inevitability and in enlightened self interest. As is the practice in the labor short Gulf countries for long .
And with some imagination the US may even be able to use the policy to turn the tables on the protagonists. Apart from teachers, professors, nurses and assorted PhDs there are quite a few worker types the US needs. Reasons, to improve the quality of life of it's citizens and keep more jobs in the US. One could even hypothesize a scenario where US may even be able to bring back some of those jobs lost a long forgotten time ago.
Well earning Arabs & Singaporeans have access to Indian & Philippine maids, while the better earning Americans & Europeans have do without them. How nice would it be find the home cleaned, children minded and food cooked by a 24 hour live-in help who would be grateful to receive a $1000 for it all . After all, the more educated programmers from Bangalore who are stealing the jobs earn much less, and have to pay rent and food. Even the lowly Chinese & Indians have much better access to a variety of domestic help, compared to the Americans .
If the concept of a "visitor worker" earning less than US minimum wage ( but still a lot more than what they earn in home countries) is accepted and visas liberalized, a lot of low paying , tedious jobs that Americans don't want to do any more and so lie vacant i.e. household help, workers in mom & pop stores and restaurants etc. will be filled up, improving the quality of life for Americans, saving many a small businesses and help alleviate unemployment in the supplier countries.
Till such time the "visitor worker" is seen as a sound economic and racially non threatening proposition , it may be foolish to talk about extending the idea to bring back to America jobs takes as gone for ever. This may require opening up of a small percentage of the jobs that face competitive pressures be filled by the lesser paid contractual visitor workers to keep services like airlines flying & the big manufacturing from crossing over to Mexico wholesale, or whole plants being dismantled and reassembled in India & China. If not for the barely alive terminally suffering corporation, it could be tried for the chapter 11 candidates and the long defunct big steel and ship-building as a start . The only people who may have a real quarrel with this approach would logically be the Koreans, Chinese & Indians who basically stole them quite a few years ago. But then stories of getting swamped by imaginary armies of immigrants are hard to tackle for the politicians, and the unions must do their act too.
If the idea of a visitor worker is not sound , practical, or both then US could do the reverse, send your prisoners to be locked up here, the old to spend their last days in a balmy Goa, and open up cheap campuses for your students where the dollar goes 5 times farther . Daily help is cheap and so are doctors, nurses, teachers and professors . It would lighten the deficits and the money could be put to better use if the politician may. We will be grateful for the jobs and our government usually puts the surplus $s earned right back into US treasuries, if that is any consolation.
<b>The Prez Candidates need De Bono's hats</b>
William Mougayar in his blog "America needs a plan..."
http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.p...d=P2936_0_5_0_C
suggests a rational approach to the outsourcing dilemma . Hope some one in the White House reads it. I may venture, if the powers now residing in the Whitehouse, intend to do some thing, they must do it a bit differently this time.
The world trade till now has been a fine mess. Each nation has had its own motives and holy cows, and there has never been a holistic internationalist approach to speak of by those who saw themselves as world leaders in political & economic matters . Rational economics has applied to only to a small segment of the manufactured goods trade and has been totally absent in agriculture & services. One fine day WTO comes along, again was never intended to sort the jumble. Seems to be coping with the situation commendably, given the scope and complexity of the problems. The task made more difficult by the entrenched positions and a wholly self serving mindset of members, at times illogical to the extreme, and in contradiction to the past say.
The off shoring argument that America faces is just a sub-set of the right of nations and peoples to export services, via off-shoring or being present there physically, so the term "services mobility ". It is not there yet, but will soon be on the WTO agenda once the agriculture issues are sorted out.
The rest of the world justifiably has problems with a unilateralist approach as is being advocated by the presidential aspirants. The rest of us are how ever quick to realize that this could be well true of any other dominant power or power aspirant of the day. The ruling deity, despite the power to shape a common future has never really tried to be a thought leader in the international sense, finding innovative ways to growing the pie & sharing. In other words , tried a globally inclusive approach, be it politics or economics. Self interest based easy solutions that eventually lead to confrontation have always got the better of finding common interests and devising creative, out of the box solutions, and may be classified ad . an extension of what easily sells at home.
Though politics is not the discussion here, but those who profess politics do practice economics. And one may need to present some evidence on the mind set that rules. Some examples from the past. While the West concentrated it's energies on countering the Reds, the non-aligned movement was ignored if not ridiculed, but seems is stronger than ever and has even spawned the a formidable and contrarian trade G-20 (with China, India & Brazil the fastest growing economies as members) to the clubbish G-8.
Not to mention the Kyoto Protocol fiasco. China is all set to become the largest green house gas producer within 3 decades and India will surely follow in quick time. The effects , if the theory is true are already visible & will only aggravate . Indonesia, Brazil, & Pakistan are all large populations, and will surely throw in their might too in melting the polar caps. Seems we got to wait till inevitability forces us all to rationality
The lesser developed nations after decades of aid, free market advise & World Bank finally see a hope of improving the lot of their desperately poor billions via agriculture and services exports. Sixty percent of India is still rural with average land holding of less than a hectare. Has to no way out but to urbanize very soon, and urban unemployment already is tens of millions, under employment almost universal.
China is the real growth engine today accounting for more of the world growth pie than any one else. The growth sure is real this time around , but the problems it faces faced are growing rapidly too. The uninvited it seems have barged into the economic party and are making some splash. Do they face a temporary ejection?
As US grapples with off shoring job losses, Uncle Sam presses the world to let it's high charging lawyers, consultants and accountants to practice in their countries, who say they don't really need them. If one assumes that about 30% of the US IT industry revenues come from overseas , now one of the hardest hit by off-shoring, one can say the world has been supporting the industry ( and quite a few American jobs), for quite some time. Though the US may loose IT market share in percentage terms, the growing markets of China & India are sure to absorb more technology imports for quite some time to come. And there is proof that outsourcing is not a one way street, HP has recently won a $125m outsourcing deal from Bank of India & Ericsson a $250m contract from Bharti Telecom.
The prosperity brought about by off shoring in India & China will definitely add jobs in many unintended places. The US entertainment, hospitality, education and medical sectors are sure beneficiaries as Chinese & Indians can afford more of these. A lot of the jobs created should pay well too.
To accelerate the real benefits of the services revolution, labor mobility issues need to be tackled in good time We all must accept the idea of hosting more "visitor workers" as a necessity, inevitability and in enlightened self interest. As is the practice in the labor short Gulf countries for long .
And with some imagination the US may even be able to use the policy to turn the tables on the protagonists. Apart from teachers, professors, nurses and assorted PhDs there are quite a few worker types the US needs. Reasons, to improve the quality of life of it's citizens and keep more jobs in the US. One could even hypothesize a scenario where US may even be able to bring back some of those jobs lost a long forgotten time ago.
Well earning Arabs & Singaporeans have access to Indian & Philippine maids, while the better earning Americans & Europeans have do without them. How nice would it be find the home cleaned, children minded and food cooked by a 24 hour live-in help who would be grateful to receive a $1000 for it all . After all, the more educated programmers from Bangalore who are stealing the jobs earn much less, and have to pay rent and food. Even the lowly Chinese & Indians have much better access to a variety of domestic help, compared to the Americans .
If the concept of a "visitor worker" earning less than US minimum wage ( but still a lot more than what they earn in home countries) is accepted and visas liberalized, a lot of low paying , tedious jobs that Americans don't want to do any more and so lie vacant i.e. household help, workers in mom & pop stores and restaurants etc. will be filled up, improving the quality of life for Americans, saving many a small businesses and help alleviate unemployment in the supplier countries.
Till such time the "visitor worker" is seen as a sound economic and racially non threatening proposition , it may be foolish to talk about extending the idea to bring back to America jobs takes as gone for ever. This may require opening up of a small percentage of the jobs that face competitive pressures be filled by the lesser paid contractual visitor workers to keep services like airlines flying & the big manufacturing from crossing over to Mexico wholesale, or whole plants being dismantled and reassembled in India & China. If not for the barely alive terminally suffering corporation, it could be tried for the chapter 11 candidates and the long defunct big steel and ship-building as a start . The only people who may have a real quarrel with this approach would logically be the Koreans, Chinese & Indians who basically stole them quite a few years ago. But then stories of getting swamped by imaginary armies of immigrants are hard to tackle for the politicians, and the unions must do their act too.
If the idea of a visitor worker is not sound , practical, or both then US could do the reverse, send your prisoners to be locked up here, the old to spend their last days in a balmy Goa, and open up cheap campuses for your students where the dollar goes 5 times farther . Daily help is cheap and so are doctors, nurses, teachers and professors . It would lighten the deficits and the money could be put to better use if the politician may. We will be grateful for the jobs and our government usually puts the surplus $s earned right back into US treasuries, if that is any consolation.