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We are Subsidizing Our Own Demise

Published 10/10/08 Guest Comments - Print Article
E-mail - editor@economyincisis.org

Editor’s Note: The following reader’s comment was submitted to former Secretary of Treasury, Senator Paul Craig Roberts. Depicted in this e-mail is the story of how one employee refused to succumb to outsourcing for the benefit of his inept management. Every year thousands of Americans face similar fates as they fall prey to America’s outsourcing obsession. Reader's comments may not reflect the views or opinions of EconomyInCrisis.org. Further feedback is welcome and may be featured as a future reader comment of the week.

I'm a software engineer (computer programmer) living in Omaha, Nebraska and working for a telecommunications firm that is attempting to outsource all of our Information Technology work to India, the Philippines and elsewhere. I enjoy reading [Paul Craig Roberts’] articles on economics and politics because I think they really provide good insight and allow me to put my thoughts into words when discussing the problems of our economy and jobs.

I think I have survived outsourcing so far only because I have refused to train my replacements. Even under the threat of being fired and losing my severance, I have refused to do so unless the price was right. This has enraged my management, but I continually tell them I financed my own education and I will not subsidize their business and my competitors education. I think more American workers should do exactly what I have done and outsourcing would be less of a problem - but of course it would be labeled something "nasty" like "unionization."

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, most (not all) of my management (from my boss all the way up the chain) are essentially business school graduates who have produced nothing tangible in their entire lives. I'm sure they have allocated resources well at times and made some good business decisions - but also some very bad ones. They drive BMWs and Mercedes while I drive a Chrysler minivan. I have produced the software the company uses to fulfill DSL modems, and I respond to customer and market demands quickly as those demands arise. Without the software, their business would flounder, and I'm the only one who knows how to operate it. These business school grads who have produced nothing tangible and who exhibit traits of failure and attention deficit disorder were awarded massive bonuses when our business was successful. When my software was released they had a party and rewarded themselves for its success while I sat at my desk and kept the system running smoothly - and yes, there was no bonus added to my pay. Now they are content to send this knowledge and complex business process offshore - outside the reach of our American jurisdiction and all the protections it offers. As a result, someday we WILL fall victim to other nations who have better plans for themselves than we do.

My guess is that when a country like India has a disagreement with some foreign (or domestic) policy initiative we have, they will punish us hard for it. They will easily be able to do so as they will operate all the complex portions of our "brain" and they will cut off our control of our "muscles." We are a STUPID nation indeed.

Many of my IT peers at other companies have similar stories. There is something wrong with our economic system that rewards in this manner. I think the problem lies with rigid ideological ideas married with corruption - even perhaps created and financed over the years in academics by those financially interested in pushing self-rewarding ideology. Even in my own field of computer science there are "schools of thought" and "rules" regarding how things SHOULD be done - just like there are in economics. I count myself as a pragmatist in my own field - flexible enough to break/bend the occasional "rule" to get things done, but only if I see it is the right thing to do and it doesn't erode a solid foundation. I essentially despise the ideological and rigid theory in favor of pragmatism, caution and prudence.

I feel the fields of economics and politics have fallen victim to this theory and politicians and our corporate elite are sacrificing everything on the "alter of free trade." It has become a religion or faith that if questioned by one - one goes to "hell." I recommend you read (if you haven't already) a couple of books the philosopher of science, Karl Popper wrote: The Logic of Scientific Discovery and The Open Society and its Enemies vol. 1 & 2. He can best state the reasoning for moderation/pragmatism better than I can, and I hope this can help you communicate your concerns of our modern day political economy more successfully/convincingly to the hard-headed among us.

Click Here For Solutions To America's Economic Problems

Click here to contact your Representative in Congress.

Unless the above article is already copyrighted, this article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License, EIC grants permission to use this article in whole or in part provided attribution is given, preferably in the form of a link back to EconomyInCrisis.org.

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Article Comments From Readers

guest says "Training you replacements...." on 10/14/08
You are in a unique position, because only you know the application you are working on. Goog for you! If they fired you, who would run it? You have leverage. Most of us don't. Most developers work together on the same project or work on similar projects. If they refuse to train their replacements, they will get fired without receiving their severance package, and the remaining workers will be told that the sam thing will happen to them if they refuse.

guest says "Amazing" on 10/10/08
Boy, there is something to be said about clarity and simplicity. And the feeling that when you read certain things you just know they're right. What insight! I think this person is brilliant and this could be a new way to organize the workforce without letting the big guys know we're actually unionizing ourselves. It has become clear to me, a person not an economist (whatever that term may be) that absolutely none of the media pundits, our legislators, or the greedy evil bastards have even an inkling of what is gong on. I heard a wonderful economist today, Ravi Batra (author of Greenspan's fraud, who also spoke in eloquent and simple terms. He alluded to the fact that none of the people who are claiming to know how to "rescue" us has ever known what it is like to be a true laborer. They live n their world of derviatives, stock markets. this markets, that markets and forget about how an economy works: through the LABOR market!! Is it that complicated? We have business sections in every major newspaper, tons of business channels, etc. -- have you seen a labor section lately? Mr. Batra laid out the simple economic theory that labor and productivity create supply and wages create demand -- with wages that have stagnated while the richest 400 Americans have acumulated about $600 billion in the last eight years, and productivity increasing -- well.......less demand, more supply, bubbles, etc. It's not rocket science. Re-price the mortgages at present market value, make everything transparent, impose tariffs and protect labor from being exported along with our manufacturing base, use government money to create jobs to fix our infrastructure, a la, FDR, and enact universal healthcare immediately. Any "wall street" ballout should only include lending institutions where we get an equity stake. Thank you so much for your brilliant essay -- you have inspired me on a day when inspiration has been nowhere to be found.

guest says "Training Your Replacements" on 10/10/08
The writer raises some interesting points that cut to many issues of a modern, global economy as well as the world
of IT.

I have also trained my own replacements in India.

I commend the writer for taking a stand and refusing to perform all of the duties he was asked to do. Presumably
he was prepared to suffer the consequences of not doing this. He is exercising a fundamental right when doing that.

I have also had managers like he describes. I was often asked to move into managerial ranks but refused because
I knew I would be building more skills doing the nuts and bolts work of software development. I thought of myself as
appropriating the skills necessary to one day put that kind of manager out of business. I believed that managerial skills
were less useful than the ability to do the detailed work of development, although they are still very important.

I have a different take than the writer regarding training. I believe one of the most important skills in the software industry
is the ability to communicate complex concepts to other people. It is also extremely important to be on the receiving end
of training and to constantly be learning more and improving one's skills. So I was extremely happy to travel to India
to train my replacements. I believe that at this point in history there is an almost infinite amount of software to be
written. An engineer can multiply his productivity if he can train others to do what he does.

I believe that in the future other countries will be "insourcing" their work to American developers. Our wages will
be relatively lower due to a debased dollar. We will have many inherent hidden assets - years of in depth experience
performing and managing this complex work, for example. Another advantage is the all of our software tools and learning
resources are in English and not in Chinese or Spanish, for example.

I also think that outsourcing is very overrated. I think in the future there will be even more advantages to having
developers close by.

My recommendation to the writer is that he stop working for others. He should start his own product company or
consulting company and learn to train other practitioners in the skills he has.

The technical world is a fast-changing one. I don't think anyone can succeed if they are not open to change.

guest says "All wealth comes from labor" on 10/10/08
We workers have the power the wealthy control. Should we go fishing for a week or two, things might change for the better.

guest says "Strike!" on 10/10/08
Americans need to organize and stop working indefinitely until the present government (including congress) passes laws that gives us our country back. The workers stopped working in Poland and brought down the communist government there, and we can do the same here. We can stop working until the government gives us our nation back, and kicks the big corporations (WTO, NAFTA, etc) out of Washington. These corporations depend of us (the cattle) to make them rich by going ever deeper into debt. These corporations are currently making OUR laws that we have to live by like it or not, and we need to stop them so we can make laws that fairly represent working Americans as a whole. Until we do that, the United States is doomed to economic (and social) catastrophe.