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Monday, October 06, 2003

 

An argument for outsourcing | CNET News.com  

An argument for outsourcing | CNET News.com: "An argument for outsourcing
October 6, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
By Gordon Brooks




We've all heard about technology outsourcing, or 'offshoring,' as some have started to call it. It's been one of the biggest technology topics this summer.
The image the term immediately brings to some minds is of information technology workers being laid off. That's where most thoughts about outsourcing begin and end--with the idea of it being all about U.S. jobs versus foreign jobs. But there is much more to it than that. This becomes visible as you take a step back and look at the larger issues.
Of course, it's tough to tell people who have just lost their jobs to 'take a step back' and look at the situation from the macroeconomic level. Layoffs are never easy for anyone.
However, it is also a mistake for a government to place limits on outsourcing or ban it. Sure, by limiting outsourcing, you may protect some jobs in the short term, but that would end up doing more harm than good. "






I'm still having a hard time dealing with this item. It's that full of crap.

AND, it made me so angry with CNET.Com for running it in their 'Perpsective' section of the newsletter. Perspective is sometimes defined as "The ability to perceive things in their actual interrelations or comparative importance". This is obviously NOT the definition pursued by CNET in presenting the above-mentioned article by Mr. Gordon Brooks of E5 Systems (of Waltham, MA).

I suppose that one could argue that it's more like "Subjective evaluation of relative significance", since Mr. Brooks seems bent on telling the thousands of American support personnel who have lost their jobs due to off-shoring that they'll all have better, higher-paying jobs "eventually". Isn't that sweet? Mr. Brooks thinks that the fact that these jobs have disappeared off-shore will make better jobs happen here. Huh? That's like saying to the victims of a brakin "Don't worry, the fact that your belongings have disappeared will make better ones show up, eventually.". I'm sure that such drivel is as much consolation to those suffering the immediate loss (in today's high-unemployment economy) as Mr. Brooks sugary assertions are to the unemployed workers.

The onlt thing that keeps the whole article in 'perspective' is the FACT that E5 Systems is NOT a company "application provider that has software manufacturing centers in the United States, China and India", as published by CNET. No, instead, it's a company devoted to, and making money from, off-shoring American jobs to sweat shops in India and China.

In my book, that makes Mr. Brooks a self-serving s.o.b. who has dedicated his life to making it possible for American firms to drop their relatively expensive American workers for cheap off-shore labor. I'm sure he would have felt right at home in the Reagan administration, explaining Trickle-Down Economics to the poor saps who lost jobs by the hundreds of thousands under Mr. Reagan's "leadership". Sorry, Mr. Reagan. I realize that you're no longer able to refute this argument personally, but, having lived throught it, I can tell a fact from a wish any day of the week and twice on what used to be my payday.

I might have let this whole opinion-disguised-as-an-article go with a few well-chosen words, if not for the totally clueless way that it was published by CNET in a "newsletter". Frankly, I doubt very much if anyone with an IQ over that of an icecube would call this article 'news'.


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