Don't look now, but the outsourcing of labor to Mexico isn't all rosy for everyone. Unless American companies are able to reap the rewards of outsourcing in a sustainable manner, they will be forced to start moving processes and products back to U.S. soil. If and when they start increasing the environmental standards and other standards like health care and workers' rights, suddenly Mexico won't look like a bargain. Don't think those changes aren't coming in the ensuing decades.

I was the one saying that the exporting of jobs is not a bad thing, but it needs to be a long-term solution and I am still skeptical that in the long-run this plan will be any more cost-effective to American companies unless they are willing to change their cultures and structures to take advantage. Building up Mexico won't help the sustainability of cheap labor.

Yes, but isn't that exactly the "leveling of the playing field" so many are talking about? In other words, if it becomes more economical to return production to the US doesn't that indicate that a) conditions have improved for workers in Mexico, b) there really is elasticity in the system, c) not all jobs are going the other way as many anti-NAFTA people contend?

are people categorizing the loss of tech jobs (service calls, software development, etc) in a similar manner?

i can see how this might be a net postive for corporations in the short term...but in the long run you're losing a lot of white collar jobs (which are quite difficult to replace).

We have a right wing opinion page quoting a right wing think take to "prove" that NAFTA works? This is like Fidel Castro quoting Gramna to prove that his farm policies have been a smashing success. Not credible.

mike, everyone knows the Wall Street Journal is capitalist/business all the way, nothing ideologically "right wing" about it. The "right-wing" of Buchanan is adamantly anti-free trade and anti-immigration. Cato is libertarian - again, nothing right wing about it. There are "liberal" libertarians and "conservative" libertarians - all libertarian means is minimal government interference with whatever your libertarian preference tells you you least want interfered with.

This is no more addressing the merits than if I write off information JUST because it came from Chomsky, Zinn, Moore, or Indymedia, which I might very well do, but it doesn't make it logically correct.

Both the Journal and Cato are "conservative libertarian" on trade, so the point stands.

If Michael Moore wrote an article attacking NAFTA, and cited as proof a study by an anti-NAFTA liberal think tank, that would not be convincing.

This is not just preaching to the choir, it's the choir preaching to itself.

The new immigration policy statement by Bush is the other half of the nut-cracker on Americans.

The first half was the exporting of jobs; this half imports cheaper labor for the remaining jobs.

So where does that leave us?

Corporations and the owners of capital (including large stockholders) will continue to show larger profits, while most of the country waits for the crunch.

And there will be a major one in the reasonably near future unless the current policies are reversed.

Hal, they're already here doing the jobs no one else wants for wages no one else will work for. That's kind of the point.

Eric, note that under Bush's plan, formerly-undocumented workers would be legal, so now they would need to be paid minimum wage. And now the INS inspectors that currently look the other way will feel more comfortable surveying all of those farms along the border.

So look for the price of your fruits and veggies to go way up!

I'm amused to this at all, actually, since I remember when NAFTA passed, and I remember the conservative right screaming about a last-minute "betrayal" by Bob Dole to pass what at the time seemed to them to be a stunningly bad piece of legislation. Granted, this was Republican conservatives, not so much Libertarian conservatives, but it is amazing how much has changed in ten years.

I don't think the price of produce will be allowed to go "way up" - they will have to find some efficiencies and modernize and learn to function without what amounts to artificial price supports. But if the price of produce rising is what it takes to stem an immoral, exploitative, anti-American system no better than share cropping, then that's okay too. These are people who are forced to live as ghosts.

Eric: Hal, they're already here doing the jobs no one else wants for wages no one else will work for. That's kind of the point.

No, Eric, that's not the point.

The point is that the 535 multi-millionaires on Capitol Hill and those in the administration have sold out to big business, while waving the banners of "free trade" and "globalization" in the faces of the gullible.

NAFTA, for example, at first moved jobs into Mexico by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands. That didn't do US workers much good, but naive do-gooders seem to think that improving life for foreigners at our expense is a good thing.

But now it's Mexico's turn. In 1998, for example, Toyota spent $250 million building a new plant in Mexico. This year they boarded it up and fired everyone because they can get the work done cheaper in China.

The corporations and the rich, including our multi-millionaire "elected representatives", have no loyalty to any country - their loyalty is to their bank balances. They are the equivalent of the American "robber barons" of 100 years ago, except now they're raping the world.

But it is, as someone said, a "race to the bottom." We're already starting to feel the effects: nearly 9 million unemployed but with an additional 5 million unemployed-and-not-looking-for-work-anymore because they gave up; a $90K/year programming job given to a $6K/year worker in Bangalore while the US programmer can find only a $43K/ year job; household incomes dropping in the US; a huge multi-trillion dollar debt coming due thanks to a "bread-and-circuses" tax cut that ends up in the hands of the wealthy; etc.

"Globalization" and "free trade" have proven themselves to be, in practice, the equivalent of Communism - great in theory but failures in practice.

We're starting to pay for that failure.

Eric: mike, everyone knows the Wall Street Journal is capitalist/business all the way, nothing ideologically "right wing" about it.

That's simply not true.

Not only is the Wall Street Journal right wing, it's extreme right-wing (neoconservative). That's where Max Boot came from, and they constantly run editorials by the likes of Richard Perle, David Frum, James Woolsey and others of the same stripe.


The editors consistently push the neo agenda.

Hal, I am astonished you take such a bleak, extreme, narrow, and classist view of America, its political system, and the inevitable interconnectivity of the WORLD economic system. You can't run and hide anymore in economics than you can in politics - you can't pull up your drawbridge and fill the moat with serpents. We were forced into an acceptance of reality 10 years ago with NAFTA, and that reality has improved the world, North American, AND American economies. You cannot separate politics, immigration, import/export and international investment from these discussions - there is absolutely no choice but to see the big picture or you see no picture at all. I can't imagine what curved path led you to buy into union/Gephart/Perot protectionism, but it is a backward looking view that is as impossible as it is ill-advised.

i see the illegal immigrant issue as separate from the outsourcing of tech jobs.

eric's right in that the workers doing all of our fruit/veggie picking are forced to live like ghosts..while we look the other way.

on the other hand, the outsourcing issue will have drastic repercussions. i've seen this framed as a 'net good' for business and our society...which really, i just can't figure out.

Eric: you mis-state my position, in fact say I hold positions I don't, attach labels to argue, and simply throw out opinions and "beliefs" with no facts. The substance in your post is hard to find, so let me say this:

Theoretically, NAFTA and globalization could have been "wonderful for the world and humanity", as many seem to think.

However, those many seem to have stopped thinking and don't look at the reality of what globablization in practice has actually achieved and what it is doing to this country and the world.

As I said, it's a nice theory but a failure in execution and we're paying the price.

Joseph Stiglitz, who has been intimately involved in globalization and has won the Nobel Prize in Economics, has written a book called "Globaliztion and Its Discontents."

Read it, then we'll talk some more.

Mark, I personally feel the loss of tech jobs keenly - it has affected friends and immediate family, but there are never any guarantees that any one sector of the economy - even skilled white collar - will remain as is. There is no stasis. There are always new opportunities opening up and old ones closing down. So now people in India have figured out how to do jobs that Americans got used to doing for a lower wage - how is this different from any other outsourcing over the last 100 years? Why should any company be told it can't maximize its profits by reducing labor costs?

I agree that much of this is a shell game and is shortsighted, but if it is, then the shortsighted companies will suffer in the marketplace and those that aren't will be rewarded.

A dynamic economy like America's is never going to sit still - it's the responsiblity of the individual to stay ahead of the curve. There needs to be, and is, a safety net so that people's lives aren't destroyed in the process - that's what unemployment insurance, training programs, etc are all about.

I see the overall economy like the platforms laid down on top of the tar when they excavated the LaBrea Tar Pits: each platform slowly sinks down into the muck and must be replaced with a new platform, and the process is repeated. You have to keep stepping onto the new platform or you go down.

oh, i wasn't arguing for laws against this sort of thing...but i have seen the effects first hand and it's pretty ugly.

No Hal, I think I have a good grasp of what you have said and have not mischaracterized it in any way. Since there are always experts on either side of any debate, the real question is why you are predisposed to go to Stiglitz when there are a much larger number of equally-awarded economists who argue in favor of free trade, NAFTA, etc.

Might I point out the obvious: open borders are essential to civilization, which is in part why al-Quada attacked us--to force Western societies to close up in fear.

The question is whether NAFTA is really serving that goal, or whether powerful interest groups are openly (no conspiracies) using it as a cover to entrench themselves. Any disinterested analysis points to the latter.

As with Iraq, Eric has a tendency to buy the official rhetorical line without looking at the underlying dynamics. It leads to a very superficial analysis.

I am unaware of an "official" line on either: the administration, congress, the NY Times, Republican party, Democratic party, WTO - what's official? None of these are close to monolithic. I take the line that makes the most sense to me, even if it happens to coincide with some element of the "official" view. Often the simplest explanation IS the closest to reality. How superficial is it to automatically suspect and reject EVERYTHING attached to the supposed "establishment" - how jejune to to buy into the myth of the supremacy of the perpetual revolution.

Sorry, I have to get back to the sugar-cutting brigade at the People's Collective.

don't hurt yourself, please, and don't agree if they say anything about "reeducation"

Are you kidding? I RUN the re-education program.

cool....here's a test...

i'm a software engineer...i've been programming for twenty years.

i've just been replaced by three programmers in bangalore.

what should i train for?

;-)

I can't imagine the need for American software engineers with 20 years experience ever disappearing - you might have to change companies, or move, or start your own company, but there always be a need for those skills.

i hope so...because i personally know of at least four or five with that level of experience who are currently out on the street.

"because i personally know of at least four or five with that level of experience who are currently out on the street."

Me too.

I suppose they could all start their own companies, as Eric suggested.

They could, for instance, arrange Bon Voyage parties for jobs, set up Welcome Wagons for newly-amnestied illegals, or join the new "service economy" in some other productive way instead of just whining.