** black455**, Dog80, EVERYBODY!!
Could you give me some help, instead of just scaring the *#$% out of me?
Sam is trying, but he seems awfully confident that “things will all work out”, a view that has occasionally blown up in my face, no offense intended, Sam.
Um, this isn’t Sim Economics. The “labor” (i.e. the human beings who are working for the corporation and have put a good chunk of their very real lives into it) just doesn’t seamlessly flow into another line of work at the drop of a hat. Picking up new skills is not a feasible prospect for many people–they might be older, they might not have enough money for it, maybe they’re just not cut out for a more high-tech job in the first place. Also, there are some very real and very devastating mental affects as a result of downsizing/outsourcing/automation. Most people are not going to remain chipper when they lose their jobs. It’s not like the job is taken away and people are like “la di da, well I just lost my job but that’s okay because I can acquire new skills and get an even better job with them, yay globalization!” It’s more like “well, I lost my job, end of the line for me, time to lay down in this ditch and die.” And if you don’t think that my depiction of the mental attitude of displaced workers is accurate, take a trip to rural southwestern Pennsylvania.
There’s also the fact that a lot of people aren’t as gung-ho about working for a foreign corporation (or one, as black455 said, that is spread out among so many different physical places that it has no true homebase at all), and that attitude is going to show up in every facet of our work, at least until we all forget about our ties to our homes and all become citizens of the beige sludge that is the One World Economy. People work better when they see the ways in which their industry affects their own lives and communities. Don’t discount the human factor–“labor” is not some infinitely flexible resource that can flow at will. It’s millions of individual human beings. Frankly, I’m a little surprised that so-called conservatives are in favor of globalization, seeing as how it has such a collectivizing, identity-stripping effect on workers. But anything to save a few bucks, right?
Sorry man, but that’s how it is. Unless you’ve got a couple of million socked away in hedge funds that you’re not telling us about, it is far more likely that you, I, and Sam will be negatively affected by globalization than we will be positively affected.
The entire system is set up against us, and the only thing we can do is to work our asses off, try not to drink too much, and hope for the best.
Can I steal that?
Globalization or no, I would argue that you are far more likely to be better off acquiring more skills than not. Programming, something in the medical field, whatever.
The only guarantee in this life is that there are no guarantees. Nothing changes that. Some might tell you to keep your head down and hope things work out. I say, keep your head up and work smarter, not harder. Look at available careers that may suit you. Look at which of these have the widest range of options and prospects. It seems you have begun doing that already, and I say keep it up!
Which is worse, to fail to pursue an opportunity because some future job might be lost due to globalization (or any other reason), or to use the opportunity to improve your skills, get a job and lose it due to globalization? In the second case, at least you have those skills to build on. In most cases, including ill effects from globalization, the second option would appear to be the better one.
In my Human Anatomy section, there are several people who are in their 40s or even in their 50s who plan on pursuing nursing or other medical careers. The R.N. who supervised my mother’s recovery after surgery didn’t graduate until she was 46.
True as human beings we are at the mercy of circumstance, but not totally. There is so much more we can do for ourselves than going through our routine, laboring hard, and hoping things work out. In your case, I say the greater your set of skills, the more options you have, the more opportunities you are likely to be able to take advantage of, the better things are likely to work out for you.
I personally offer my confidence and support in any endeavor you wish to pursue.
Ok, my take, one by one:
1 - Specifically, to the software industry: most of those jobs simply aren’t coming back. I really don’t know, statistically, what the percentages are, but the simple fact of the matter is that original software work, where systems get built from scratch, aren’t going to happen much in the US, because this kind of work is the most easily outsourced. Writing code from specs is by far the easiest part of a programmer’s job. Testing and debugging and customization are all far far harder. That latter portion will remain, for the most part, at home, home being defined as wherever you live. Upon occasion, a small system will be written from scratch at home, but that will only be because it’s part of a far larger system written in Mumbai and Bangalore. I’m being specific to Mumbai and Bangalore because that’s where virtually all of this work will be done in the future. They in turn may outsource pieces to China or elsewhere, but for the most part, these cities are where this activity will take place. It’s cheaper there, and it’s in essence factory work, as what goes in are specs for a product, and what comes out is that product. That it’s software rather than a car is irrelevant, a la Sam Stone.
2 - This will begin to happen in other areas. Anything that can be broken down and done as a factory type process will be done overseas, like American tax returns done by Indian accountants from the specs provided by American CPA’s.
3 - What is being felt is that we are going through another period when the supply of labor has vastly increased, at a rate that dwarfs the amount of work for which there is a market. Quoting from an interview in this week’s Barron’s of a money manager named Ray Dalio:
…and India as well, of course. As to whether that bit about the world’s supply of labor quadrupling is accurate or not, who knows? All that matters is that the world’s supply of labor is vastly greater now than it was even 10 years ago, and that by simple application of the law of supply and demand, that means we’re in for a spell of depressed wages and benefits for the world’s workers. So Bosda is correct to feel the way he does. The supply/demand pendulum will swing back again, as it always does, but whether it will be in time to help Bosda or anyone else is unknowable.
What can be done in the meantime is for the U.S. government to tax our woefully undertaxed large businesses and wealthy folks for the things that need to get done but aren’t going to get done because the profit is either small or nonexistent, these being things like a better education and better healthcare for the poor and middle class. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen any time soon, though. While in an ideal world the surplus of labor freed up from profit-making activities would get put to work making things better for the society at large, part of the problem with the pendulum having swung so far in the direction of capital and away from labor is that capital can effectively lobby to prevent any such thing from happening. Thus, the repeal of the inheritance tax and sharply lower taxes for the rich, precisely at the wrong time, here in the U.S. Over in Europe they have to deal with the euro, an invention of the exact same class that makes it possible for them to blackmail the Eurozone governments into submission. Some small rebellion against this has recently taken place, but I’m not, so far, sanguine about the outcome. The European elite is frothing at the mouth and baring its canines about the Italian Northern League, which is where most of the wealth creation in Italy takes place, telling the truth about the euro. But these are small businessmen, so regardless of their contribution to the Italian economy, they are properly despised by the capital elite and their bureaucratic bootlicks in Brussels.
Oh, and if you chrinic cough is due to Histoplasmosis, then their should be no problem working in many medical positions. Histoplasmosis isn’t catching.
Whether or not you would experience discrimintory hiring practices based on your percieved healt… well, I suggest asking a nurse.
This is a scary premise, IMO, despite the attempts of some apologists to paint it otherwise.
Sam is right that “things will all work out” – for the corporations, the governments, and the folks in power. For ordinary schlubs like you and me, however, either we “adapt” (which means: migrate your family to a third-world nation, live like you’re from a third-world nation, or turn your own country into a third-world nation), or we should expect nothing more than a stern tsk-tsk from the elitist masters in their ivory towers.
“Fighting Ignorance Since 1973”
“It’s Taking Longer Than We Thought”
Too right that statement if the general ignorance of both economics and trade demonstrated in this thread is any indications…especially when you consider the myriad threads on this subject that have been in GD. I’m sorry for you Sam, but if you (and others in countless threads) can’t convince these guys my own feeble skills won’t be up to the task on this. I’ll just say that my eyes were rolling so much from some of the posts in this thread that I need to go see the doctor tomorrow.
To answer the OP:
No one can predict, but I seriously doubt it will effect you at all. The number of actual jobs being lost overseas is insignificant compared to the total number of jobs out there…even in the tech field which seems to me to be making something of a recovery after the dot com bust. Sam has already explained better than me that ‘globalization’ wasn’t the downfall of the tech industry post bust. Go back and re-read it.
What can you do? Keep your skill sets up. Keep a close eye on your industry and see what skill sets and languages are more in demand…and orient yourself that way. I’m more an infrastructure engineer than a systems/programmer type so I’ll just say what I have been doing. I was mostly a CISCO guy during the whole 90’s thing…I was very vendor specific. After the bust when I lost my job (not to outsourcing but because my company went tits up) I started to look more closely at the industry and other product lines/vendors. In addition I went from being a one trick pony (router/switch configuration infrastructure engineer) to becoming more of a jack of all trades type (branched out to systems, security, even parallel products like monitoring security systems, etc). Find out what folks who are hiring WANT…and do that. I also cheated somewhat and formed my own IT company, something you might not be able to do. But I’ll tell you that before that I managed to get quite a bit of work as a consultant when I branched out my skills.
I’m sorry about the health problems and the age thing. I’m mid 40’s myself, so it was tough for me also to retool my skills to remain competetive. The key though is…remain competetive and you won’t ever have a problem finding work. There will ALWAYS be (well, in our lifetimes anyway) work for skilled programmers in the US. Hell, I still know some guys who program in some very archaic languages that are considered ‘dead’ these days…because there is still a need. Keep your skills up and you won’t have a problem. Let them slip or become a one trick pony in an industry that is constantly changing and life could be rough for you.
-XT
I still go with hand-waving, Sam. As I said, you’re arguing from theory whereas I (not necessarily a ‘death to globalization’ type) am arguing from the practicum.
Again, is it likely that soi disant globalization will, in the long term (in some cases a VERY long term), benefit all of humanity by raising standards of living for the poorest among us. Well and good.
I also deeply believe that there will be significant dislocations (again, a notably cold-blooded word) for the individuals caught up in larger events. These will include slipping into poverty, depression, stress on families, and in the most extreme cases death. From an individual position globalization leads to the stress that Bosda is showing in the OP…which is both understandable and, I believe, somewhat common.
Let’s get one thing straight: I believe globalization to be, in its essentials, a foreign aid program for the poorer populations. By opening our markets to the wider labor force we in the US are sacrificing some of our own standard of living and security while providing improved S-O-L and security for those less fortunate. Phrased that way it’s one of the better approaches I’ve heard of.
But if that’s the case extraordinary measures should be in place to deal with the inevitable dislocations.
Couple of real-world examples from my own life…just for you guys.
(quotes approximate)
In short, I see governments far more concerned with their paper citizens than their meat citizens. The humans are considered replacable at all levels (corporate AND governmental) and the corporate citizens are valued beyond their worth.
This offends me on some deep moral level (though, admittedly, not enough to turn it down…in fact I go in with both hands out). I believe that the meat citizens should be the priority for government rather than the corporate citizens. Not to the point of runaway protectionism…but government should have it’s eye on the protection of those for whom the tides of history are against.
If only because those people can vote.
Pish posh.
We’ve outlined substantive problems with the way that globalization is currently being implemented, and received in return:
[ol]
[li]Irrelevant canards conflating two different issues,[/li][li]USA-Today style textbook hypothetical situations that completely ignore any possible problems caused by the difference between theory and practice,[/li][li]a healthy dollop of Horation Alger, and[/li][li]condescending pronouncements that we’re somehow ignorant of basic economics.[/li][/ol]
I must confess that I’m growing a little weary of #4.
We’re throwing the term “globalization” around pretty loosely here, but if it means generally open trade between countries, then you’re fighting a losing battle if you want to resist it. The OP does ask a very important question: what does it mean for the individual?
The answer is both simple and complex. You need to focus on the up and coming industries. That’s the simple part. The hard part is figuring out which ones those are. If any of us knew for sure, we’d be dumping all our investment money in those industries. No matter how much we wish it were otherwise, there are no guaranteed paths to success.
Free trade can devastate whole industries, but I have yet to see a “fix” for that problem that doesn’t make things even worse. If you hamstring companies and prevent them from utilizing cheaper labor markets overseas, you just make those companies uncompetative in the world market. If we prevented companies from importing good from China or from accessing cheaper labor there, companies in other countries will simply take their place. All those Chinese workers aren’t going to head back to communal farm work just because the US alters its trade policy.
Again, I think you’re missing the point, John (and Sam, et al).
You’re counting on human being to be rational creatures, capable of coping with the wider issues of economics and dislocation is a thoughtful, meaningful, and effective way.
And my best guess is fewer than 10% are capable of doing that. The rest will attempt it to varying degrees with varying levels of success and failure. And it’s those people we have to look out for. There must be structures in place to help them along. Not just unemployment or retraining money (for which there’ll never be enough) but other structures in cheap safe housing, in some sort of make-work or public work (work-fare, for all of me…I’m not a fan of handouts but street sweeping or tree-planting or somesuch useful tasks) for those who have trouble adapting or for those who are too old to make the retraining cost-effective.
What I keep hearing from the other side of the argument here is simply a variation on ‘adapt or die’. And that’s not how an ethical government or society should behave.
If you can’t understand that outsourcing is the same thing as Sams black box scenerio (or the analogy between outsourcing and industries becoming outmoded or outdated) in the real terms of job loss and its effect on the US economy, then really, there isn’t any point in continueing the debate from my perspective…its too basic. Maybe Sam will keep beating his head on this, but I’m tired of these threads and the endless ignorance on it. Its sort of like the endless WMD debates…eventually folks just got tired of repeatedly saying ‘there are no WMD in Iraq’, despite every breathless pronouncement that we’d found some. Note: I’m not claiming I was one of those folks, but I certainly did see their frustration, and retrospectively I sympathize with them as, well, they were right.
Frankly they are trying to make things understandable to those (such as yourself) who just aren’t getting it. I agree its wasted effort obviously, as you appearently don’t even get the basics…just looking at your first point.
Your intellect is truely dizzying.
Well, I don’t know if everyone’s ignorance of basic econoics is equal…some are greater than others as in all these threads. As to being condescending…well, I think eventually the frustration just reaches such a level that it comes out. Eventually the level of ignorance of basic economics and trade dynamics of globalization, with random hijacks about how marxism is really great and capitalism is bad or how wonderful the European model economy is…and the occational rjung drive by.
For myself I’m just going to kick back and watch as Sam tries once again to explain that from a historical perspective the US should be stronger from globalization while he gets overwhelmingly sniped at from guys who know what they are talking about but just have a different world view to…well, guys like you. It will be informative but in the end futile. I’m sure victory will be declared for the anti-globalization/anti-capitalism crowd around page 5. For a preview of how the debate will go, see the pit thread on the question of whether or not this boards skews left…and the hijack that starts around page 5 IIRC.
-XT
I’m not against those ideas in principle, but they have to limitted in scope, otherwise they’ll hollow out our economy faster than you can say “outsourcing”. In any wealfare program, you have to ensure that motivation to work in the “real” economy is much stronger than going on the dole. People certainly are rational enough to figure out how to game the system if they can get a free ride.
(Yeah, I know I just said I wasn’t going to get involved…oh well)
I would say more that ‘we’ are counting on folks doing what is in their best interest, not on them being ‘rational’. Folks HAVE dealt with ‘wider issues of economics and dislocation’ before after all, so we have a model for that, no? Again, as a whole society will come out ahead. Individually folks may be completely fucked over by the system. Reality that. What we, as a society DO about those unfortunates who get fucked over is up to how we deal with such problems. If you want to say that we should do more for those who are dislocated by changes in our economy, then thats fine by me. But in order to halt such dislocations is to become stagnate. There are quite a few historical models for that path as well.
But what do you base that 10% figure on? After all, there are plenty of models for such dislocations in the US we can use. In fact, most recently the US has gone from a manufacturing based economy to a services oriented society. Plenty of manufacturing jobs were shipped off to other nations. And yet…we are at between 5-6% unemployment. Why is that?
As to your question about structure, this gets into what society should DO about such dislocations. Social safety net and all that. Myself, I’m enough of a realist to know that such a safety net is a good thing. Its where you set the bar for it that would probably be the debate.
In the end though, nations themselves need to be able to adapt…or die. Individuals need to also. If you can’t or won’t adapt, then perhaps an ‘ethical’ government or societ will make some provision for assistance, and perhaps thats a good thing. But nations who WON’T adapt and change because they don’t want all those nasty dislocations that come from changing economics and technology will basically die. Open trade (which really is what ‘globalization’ means) vs protectionism. We have historic models for that as well.
-XT
Anybody here familiar with Thomas Friedman’s latest work, “The World in Flat”? (NoPretentiousName, you’ll be glad to learn that Mr. Friedman has studied economics, just like you). You’ll be glad to learn that Friedman’s quite frank about the effect that globalization is having/will have on American society (and others): if you are rich, it’s working tremendously to your advantage. If you’r a working guy you’re screwed. Because as has been pointed out, capital is quite flexible and liquid and can go across borders very easily. Human beings, not being so liquid and portable, are gonna be screwed senseless by the new economy.
Sadly, Friedman’s solution for the New Economy is the usual free-market ideologue’s cry of “More training! We must train these people so they can have better jobs!”
In short, Friedman’s very good at defining the problem, but very poor at finding solutions for the working man, because like most free market types he doesn’t identify with them at all and doesn’t really care what happens to them. He says he does, but I don’t believe him. And Mr. Friedman isn’t the only free market advocate I don’t believe, either.
I read his interview in Wired where he discusses it. I think you are mischaracterizing his position (i.e. if you are rich you are good, if you are a ‘work guy’ (whatever THAT means) you are screwed), but I suppose you can filter it as you like. Its interesting that you mention the World is Flat as making your case for anti-globalization…when thats just about the opposite of what he’s getting at.
-XT
I feel guilty for leaving Sam to fight this fight alone, but I am a lazy SOB and the Red Sox are on so all is as it has to be.
I would ask what the alternative to globalization is. I understand that black, rjung et al. think it is a bad thing, but what do they propose we do to combat it? If our hypothetical T-shirt factory in West Virginia cannot compete with a Cambodian manufacturer what is the proper response of policymakers? I really don’t want to condescend here, but it does seem like there is very little understanding of economics behind the arguments of those who are against globalization.
I would welcome an injection of something other than the assertion that people are hurt when industries are shipped overseas, processes are automated, or technologies become obsolete. Believe it or not free marketers will stipulate that point. People are hurt and they need to be helped. We just don’t see a better system out there that hurts no one, and think that keeping a free market betters the nation and increases the mean standard of living.
As a side note I think that the workforce of the future will be forced to be much more mobile than my generation, or my parent’s generation was. I came to this belief after I spent several years in northern New Hampshire. I knew a man who was an excellent home builder and carpenter. He was born and raised in New Hampshire. He was chronically unemployed and even when he had a job it was non-unionized spot work. Three hours away in Massachusetts there was a housing boom and a healthy economy. If he had been willing to move he could have been fully employed and making 40-50k (this was in the early nineties). In my business today you see people moving to Florida and California to follow the market for their services.
Apologies for the rambling, but I would like to hear some other visions of what we could do other than embrace free markets.
So, what’s the solution to the “problem” of globalization?
Making an claim that Friedman doesn’t care about people is simply an ad hominem. You don’t know anything about the man. And frankly, you can care about people all you want, but if you propose policies that don’t work, you’re not helping them any.