# Most Americans oppose offshoring. We need to take action. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 1, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080 "2011-01-01T21:25:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 39
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/761 "2011-02-27T20:41:30Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Doesn’t matter that it’s the recession that has caused the unemployment, or that it was a housing bubble (a purely DOMESTIC issue) at the root of the problem, . . . Minor quibble: the housing bubble collapse in conjunction with the massive overinvestment in bundled, badly secured mortgages by international banks, (many backed by the small countries in which they were located), played a significant role in the world wide recession. (Nothing to do with offshoring, of course, unless some ignorant person decides that selling mortgags outside the country is “offshoring” the loans. 😛 ) ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/762 "2011-02-27T21:09:22Z")
True. I wasn’t getting into all that on an iPod, but it’s a good point and good quibble. -XT ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/763 "2011-02-28T00:47:12Z")
> [@Doctor](#): > > From the article you quote: > > \*\*\* “The bottom line:\*\* Newly created jobs tend to be lower-paying than those they replaced. That will constrain consumer spending and economic growth.” > > \*So, bringing back low paying jobs from China is going to help how? Your argument does not appear to make sense. Especially, as the same work will cost us more money, meaning the people in these low paying jobs won’t be able to afford buying more, but will probably be below the new poverty line (which will be a higher numbers as cost of living goes up). Is there some sort of magic I am missing here? The “magic” is that Le Jaq believes that some how all those low skill/high volume jobs are going to pay $15 an hour, full-time, with benefits. And then, because there are so many low skilled people earning $15 an hour, they’ll have lots of money to buy the now $1500 ipod. What he still doesn’t realize is that $18/hour will be the new poverty line, so those workers still won’t be able to afford an ipod. Meanwhile, the rest of us won’t be able to afford it either, becuase our wages won’t go up. Result is that so few people in the US will be able to afford an ipod the market dries up, and Apple Inc simply packs up and moves to the next largest market (mostly China at that point). And what’s with him/her/it dissing gardeners? ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2011, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/764 "2011-02-28T00:49:48Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > Emacknight shouldn’t you be out explaining to American workers how they should be happy with losing good paying jobs to offshoring and getting gardening work in return? > > Your problem is not so much that your piss poor arguments don’t hold water to my several pages of scrutiny. It’s that your piss poor arguments in favor of offshoring don’t hold up to anyone else’s scrutiny, either. > > Americans want their good paying jobs back and we’re rewarding politicians who listen to us. They also want a pony, some bread, a few circuses, lower taxes, and more government services. It’s call the _everything plan_ from T-Mobile. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2011, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/765 "2011-02-28T05:35:46Z")
> [@Doctor](#): > > From the article you quote: > > \*\*\* “The bottom line:\*\* Newly created jobs tend to be lower-paying than those they replaced. That will constrain consumer spending and economic growth.” > > \*So, bringing back low paying jobs from China is going to help how? Your argument does not appear to make sense. Especially, as the same work will cost us more money, meaning the people in these low paying jobs won’t be able to afford buying more, but will probably be below the new poverty line (which will be a higher numbers as cost of living goes up). Is there some sort of magic I am missing here? Uhm, when we had those manufacturing jobs in America, this was _not_ the case. Wages kept up with inflation and the American middle class was growing, unlike _the years leading up to this crisis_. We also did not have a perpetual employer’s market either. History in no way backs you on this. This is basic historical fact. Your claim that “the same work will cost us more money” is based on a one-dimensional argument that higher wages means more expensive products. You, like everyone else here, forgets the mitigating factor of American productivity. Everyone always runs away when the one-dimensional bullshit of “wages” is countered by the very real and proven advantage of productivity. Americans are the most productive workers in the world, or at least very close to it. (Depending on whether you go by total productivity or per hour productivity.) ARGH. These are basic facts that you guys cannot ever seem to grasp. BASIC truths about economics. Furthermore we also lost a huge number of middle-end tech jobs, which cannot be automated (how many computers out there write code and design websites without the help of humans?), and low-end customer support jobs which also cannot be automated (I want my C3PO NOW!!! 😃 ). Now we’re losing research and development jobs which ALSO cannot be automated. When these jobs stayed in America we were a lot better off than we are now. And I have explained this to you economic illiterati repeatedly: the housing bubble collapse was caused by YEARS of wages falling behind inflation, and the rampant use of consumer debt by America’s working class to make up the difference. If we hadn’t shipped those jobs overseas people would have had more money and they wouldn’t have had to resort to using their homes as ATMs to maintain their lifestyle. Damn, you guys can’t ever manage to think past the Cliff Notes talking points. But then this is the same forum where saying you support tariff exceptions for Japan, Canada and Europe is a “wholesale condemnation of offshoring”. Jesus, if all of you put your minds together you couldn’t navigate out of a wet paper bag. WTF… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2011, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/766 "2011-02-28T06:28:49Z")
For what it’s worth, here is a chart showing how average income has been going down since 1914, that’s as far back as the chart and I assume that’s when everything was great. > **[Average Income in the United States — Visualizing Economics](https://www.visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2006/08/15/average-income-in-the-united-states/)** > > Updated with 2006 data:  Average Income in the United States (1913-2006) Here is a graph of average income (1913-2004) that I have been working on for a while. I am trying to incorporate into the graph economic and world events that would have... And by going down I mean, wages have been doing up, until the dot-com bubble burst, but I guess that’s because of offshoring. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2011, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/767 "2011-02-28T06:30:26Z")
And if you go here you can see inflation rates [http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?data\_tool=latest\_numbers&series\_id=CUUR0000SA0&output\_view=pct\_12mths](http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=CUUR0000SA0&output_view=pct_12mths) ---
**Author:** ![TravisFromOR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cc9497/32.png) [@TravisFromOR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TravisFromOR)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2011, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/768 "2011-02-28T06:36:21Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > For what it’s worth, here is a chart showing how average income has been going down since 1914, that’s as far back as the chart and I assume that’s when everything was great. > [Average Income in the United States — Visualizing Economics](http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2006/08/15/average-income-in-the-united-states/#) > > And by going down I mean, wages have been doing up, until the dot-com bubble burst, but I guess that’s because of offshoring. Bah! You can use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true… ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/769 "2011-02-28T17:59:15Z")
Emacknight you’ve never held a job a day in your life, much less owned a business. You should get back to telling us how the unemployed are going to take a vacation in Spain when they’re earning ZERO DOLLARS A FUCKING MONTH. At least when you were spreading that bullshit you were entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/770 "2011-02-28T20:50:51Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > Emacknight you’ve never held a job a day in your life, much less owned a business. How exactly did you arrive at this conclusion? The same way you decided I was a trust fund baby, I imagine. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/771 "2011-02-28T21:40:27Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > Emacknight you’ve never held a job a day in your life, much less owned a business. > > You should get back to telling us how the unemployed are going to take a vacation in Spain when they’re earning ZERO DOLLARS A FUCKING MONTH. At least when you were spreading that bullshit you were entertaining. And you should stop reading my posts if you have me on ignore. Also, you should look up the definition of “unemployed” so that you can finally realize it does not mean “earning ZERO DOLLARS A FUCKING MONTH.” The truest sign of intellectual dishonesty is someone that is willing to point at a statistical figure like unemployment and bitch about what part of the number is “forgotten,” as if to imply the number should be 5million hire. But then refuse to acknowledge those the number includes but shouldn’t, which would make the number lower. You didn’t it again with inflation and the CPI. You’re arguing from this position that, “offshoring provides no benefits for working class Americans.” But you’ve been proven wrong on that over and over. It has benefits, it also has disadvantages. Just as tariffs have benefits and disadvantages. Before enacting massive policy changes, I would hope that at least someone at the Department of Tariffs looks at the pros vs cons of each. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/772 "2011-03-02T09:00:07Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#): > > How exactly did you arrive at this conclusion? The same way you decided I was a trust fund baby, I imagine. You’re out of touch with society and reality in a way that is unique to people who have never earned an honest living. You even talk like out of touch elitists, despite having shown absolutely nothing that justifies it. Your one-dimensional arguments are of the type of teleprompter boilerplate that you’d expect from trust fund babies and basement dwellers. Start from there and it’s easy to tell what you’ll say next. You’re not original. You’re not innovative. You sure as _hell_ cannot think for yourself. You know what’s so sad about you? At least back in the day propagandists who whored themselves out to the rich got paid for it. You do this for free. You’re an unpaid shill. It really, really _sucks_ to be you. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/773 "2011-03-02T11:18:22Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > You’re out of touch with society and reality in a way that is unique to people who have never earned an honest living. You even talk like out of touch elitists, despite having shown absolutely nothing that justifies it. Your one-dimensional arguments are of the type of teleprompter boilerplate that you’d expect from trust fund babies and basement dwellers. Start from there and it’s easy to tell what you’ll say next. You’re not original. You’re not innovative. You sure as _hell_ cannot think for yourself. > > You know what’s so sad about you? At least back in the day propagandists who whored themselves out to the rich got paid for it. You do this for free. You’re an unpaid shill. It really, really _sucks_ to be you. Trust fund babies dwelling in a basement? Did you seriously just suggest that someone is either a trust fund baby OR dwelling in a basement? Are those two groups that overlapping? Dude, you’re so lame you’re either really tall or really short. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/774 "2011-03-02T15:35:47Z")
Oh jeez, well what do ya know. Emacknight runs a “free iPods and trips to Spain for the unemployed” business. His whole argument is little more than an advertisement for this scam. :smack: Don’t worry, unemployed people! The jobs are coming. They might not pay anything close to what you were earning before but in Emackland who cares! Put down your name and SSN and you’ll get a free iPod! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/775 "2011-03-02T22:30:06Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > Oh jeez, well what do ya know. Emacknight runs a “free iPods and trips to Spain for the unemployed” business. His whole argument is little more than an advertisement for this scam. :smack: > > Don’t worry, unemployed people! The jobs are coming. They might not pay anything close to what you were earning before but in Emackland who cares! Put down your name and SSN and you’ll get a free iPod! 😛 No, I sell home and auto insurance, at a company that happily employs anyone that needs a job, you know, out of the goodness of my heart. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/776 "2011-03-03T04:43:31Z")
Emack. Put the keyboard down. Learn the difference between global labor arbitrage and comparative advantage. Yes I know those are big words and the first term is something you probably never learned in Rote Memorization 101 at Trailer Park U. Google it. I know you hate wikipedia so I’ll quote it just to get on your nerves. Especially since they’re not wrong. > [@](#): > > [Global labor arbitrage - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_labor_arbitrage) > > Often, a prosperous nation (such as the United States) will remove its barriers to international trade, integrating its labor market with those of nations with a lower cost of labor (such as India, China, and Mexico), resulting in a shifting of jobs from the prosperous nation to the developing one. The end result is an increase in the supply of labor relative to the demand for labor, which means a decrease in the price point (wages, standard of living) where supply and demand curves intersect. This means that some of the workers in the lower cost of labor country integrate into the global economy and their wages and standard of living may rise slightly. According to supporters of international trade, highly skilled laborers, especially college-educated white collar workers (such as computer programmers and IT workers), in the prosperous nation develop new products, services, and markets due to the freeing of their time from mundane activities and they create new opportunities for wealth creation. In reality, however, people in wealthy countries do not possess a monopoly on innovation and knowledge-based college-education-requiring jobs can also be performed for lower wages in other countries, so many of those jobs, such as computer programming and information technology, have also been offshored or may be filled by foreigners on work visas (such as the H-1B or L-1). That’s a hell of a lot closer to what offshoring is, than comparative advantage. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/777 "2011-03-03T05:24:05Z")
[Supply and Demand](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand) [Tariff](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff) Wiki is full of all sorts of good information, but you have to actually read the links. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/778 "2011-03-03T16:22:41Z")
From a classic textbook: > [@](#): > > Trade is, in some ways, a form of technology. When a country exports wheat and imports textiles, it is as if it had invented a form of technology for turning wheat into textiles. _A country that eliminates trade restrictions will, therefore, experience the same kind of economic growth that would occur after a major technological advance._" Companies will always have a need for cheap labor for repetitive, data transmission-intensive work. Costs are lower, but so is productivity, so companies always look at the trade-off - as such, companies will _also_ always have a need for specialized, high-end labor. If you don’t think companies look at more than just cost, let me ask you this: Next time you need an operation done, and that operation would cost you $10,000 at a US hospital, why, I’ll do it for half price! I don’t know anything about medicine, but hey, it’s cheap right? :rolleyes: The answer to solving some of the temporary problems of offshoring isn’t to try and slow the convoy down to the speed of the slowest boat - which is what your solution results in: 1. Raise tariffs! 2. Raise wages! 3. ? 4. Win! Why in the world would we want to try and keep all the low-paying, manual jobs here? No, the answer is to ensure we’re constantly creating enough supply of competitive, high-end workers and nurturing the business environment that supports the growth and development of companies that need such work. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/779 "2011-03-05T16:24:33Z")
Hey idiots have you been watching the news? The jobs we’re getting now are a bunch of low paying crap. Whatever happened to that mighty innovation economy we were supposed to have? Whoops. The reality is no economy can ever really make that many innovation jobs. When you ship manufacturing out of the country your economy goes into permanent _decline_. ---
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080/780 "2011-03-05T23:18:02Z")
You really don’t get the concept of comparative advantage, do you? Tips for using “the news” as a cite, tho’. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080.md?page=38) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-americans-oppose-offshoring-we-need-to-take-action/566080.md?page=40)