Forum Post: Serious Discussion on Outsourcing of Jobs

I noticed that a lot of you here want to stop outsourcing, and claim that the US economy was good before globalization, etc. etc.

For those of you who believe in this theory, I want to point out that the people getting the outsourced jobs are getting it because they're cheap labor, and earn a ridiculously low wage compared to the US. I'd say that we should outsource, but with a focus on developing that country, because right now corporations have an interest in keeping that cheap labor cheap - this way, they can keep making bigger profits, since the way the market is set up right now, profit is all that really matters.

Which means that cheap labors tend to stay cheap - aka the people will stay poor, and the country will stay a third world country.

But, if you allowed those countries to develop, their cost of living will increase and their labor won't be so cheap anymore - which means that jobs should come back to the US, since our labor cost won't be as expensive as theirs, and we help third world countries develop. A win-win situation, yes?

Keep in mind that we had a huge inflation here in the US thanks to the housing bubble, but we don't feel it because all the products we buy are manufactured in India or China, so the price of those imported products stayed low. Remember that, to the rest of the world, we are the 1% and they are the 99%. Help the poor countries develop!

How, you say? This one requires international cooperation, but SHUT DOWN ALL THE SECRECY BANKS IN THE WORLD (maybe set up an international tax rate or something, I don't know). Essentially, secrecy banks don't disclose who has an account and how much is in that account - which means that dictators and corporations in poor countries can hide their money there. It turns out that most third world countries aren't actually poor - all the wealth is simply concentrated in the dictator, and the dictator usually hide their money in secrecy banks (in Swiss banks, etc.). If you shut down those secrecy banks, dictators can no longer siphon off their peoples' wealth, and the people (if they set up a better government) can start focusing on developing their infrastructure (electricity, water, the basics), or whatever else it is that they need to do.

Keep in mind that those secrecy banks also allow corporations and banks to avoid taxes - the US loses ~$100 billion A YEAR to offshore secrecy tax haven banks. That money could be spent on helping people recover from the recession, or even cut taxes by that much money.

I say that this needs international cooperation, since if you just shut down all the secrecy banks in one country (say in the US), then the dictator/corporation/bank can just shift the money to another secrecy bank in another country, so all secrecy banks have to be shut down at once. This is a core issue in international politics, and I think that we should go for it.