Even though I have no intention of voting for Mitt Romney in this election, it looks like I have to defend him again.
President Obama's reelection campaign is trying to stir up economic illiterates by accusing him of being in charge of Bain Capital when some of the firms it dealt with outsourced jobs. That is to say, they are accusing him of giving jobs to foreigners when he should be reserving them for privileged Americans.
Romney's response was to say that he diverting all of his attention to running the Salt Lake City Olympics at the time and was CEO in name only, and the bickering is about how accurate that telling of events is.
What both sides are taking for granted is that outsourcing is some kind of scandal.
The American left seems to love foreigners when they want to move here and work, or stay in their place of birth, but the moment they try trade with us they become the enemy. The American right is different; they seem to dislike foreigners across the board.
Is there any trace of a legitimate scandal here? The only room for criticism I can see is that Romney is denying he was responsible for outsourcing, and if it turns out he is, the lie is the scandal, not the outsourcing. That's a pretty tall order, especially from people who are willing to overlook President Obama's Fast and Furious scandal.
Romney is accused of trying to cover up his role in giving jobs to foreigners. Obama is accused of trying to cover up his role in killing foreigners. Even if it's true, I have trouble seeing why he's the one I should be upset with.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Outsourcing is not a scandal
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people are always upset when they speak with people from India or elsewhere, saying they are taking our jobs. What, for some reason, is not understood is that there would be no jobs in america if it weren't for the others taking those jobs. Most, if not all, companies would much prefer to have all of its workers live and work in America, however it is not financially viable. in order to keep at least some jobs in america, some must be outsourced. It is much cheaper to pay someone 300 dollars total a month than 1600 and more a year plus benefits. If Americans want to bring jobs back to America, we need to scale back our demands for benefits and learn to live with less money
ReplyDeleteJoel
Joel, lowering our standard of living is a poor strategy. Americans have done a great job of competing in things like manufacturing by inventing machines to make existing workers more productive.
ReplyDeleteSome jobs, like running a cash register, have not made efficiency gains. Most of those jobs are tethered to the work site and can't be outsourced but answering the telephone can, and so it has. That's reality, and we should be glad we are able to hire poor people in other nations to work these jobs for us.