Articles about the movie and outsourcing.

[Lakshmi Jagannathan]

Check my reference to the movie in my blog in the Oregonian (a Portland, Oregon newspaper) - Outsourced Part 1
blog.oregonlive.com/oregonianopinion/the_oregonians_community_write/lakshmi_jagannathan/

[Joy Babu]

I read your articles. About Outsourcing, I do not thinkwe can blame employers or anyone. It is the way the system works - we believe in capital markets and that is why we are where we are. Free-flow of capital. I am sympathetic to people losing their jobs, but it is the system in here that created the job. No system is perfect - but capitalism turns out to better than any other system. Without reason or motivations, we, humans will not work that extra effort. There will always be difference in wages and salaries in the world - US could be more expensive than India for programmers, China could be cheaper than India etc. And employers, where it is a big corporation or small shop, will always leverage that wage differential. You are in business for profit-making and not for generating employment - that system proved to be a failure under communism. I agree with you - only way you can beat the outsourcing is - through education, be wanted in the market place. Anything that becomes commoditized will be outsourced. Even now good programming jobs in US pays good. Look at Micrososft, Google etc.. They employ the best & talented, anywhere in the Universe. True there is no place for mediocres. Then, if you want big corporations to keep jobs in US, then government has to pay incentives. But, then it is your tax money that is going for someone else to keep employed in a place he likes? Why? There are other still jobs - why do I have to pay for that? I do not mind my tax money going for education - which I believe is the only way to survive in the job market.

[Lakshmi Jagannathan]

Hey, thanks for reading my blog. I appreciate your comments, you make very good points.
My position is everyone has the right to agitate for what's best for them - businesses for profit, foreign workers to compete for jobs, the American worker to complain about losing jobs, and liberals to worry about the underprivileged.
I also think capitalism is healthy - look what happened after liberalization in India. But it's also important to worry about the working classes. For example, in the U.S. we enjoy many benefits thanks to liberals - for example, removing the pre-existing clause for getting employee health insurance, better minimum wage, humane conditions for workers. If we didn't have that, than we would go back to the middle ages, when the rich were powerful and the poor were exploited.
Even in India, despite the booming economy, it is still ranked low in areas like global hunger and there are issues like farmer suicides.

[Joy Babu]

You bring forward some good points and I go back & forth between a lot of positions - I do not myself or anyone unless they researched the whole topic can say what is better. Outsourcing was here in US for a long time - we used immigrant labors in agriculture. There was not this much outcry at that time. Now 140K Wall street analyst jobs are done in India for less than one-third rate. But, why do these people make that much money when teachers, firemen, and law-enforcemnet make less than half their salary.

I listened to Tom Friedman when he was talking about his book:"The World is Flat." And, he commented about Wal-Mart. A lot of people criticize the company. But, he said you have to look from different dimensions: if you look from a stock-holder perspective (dimension), you'll like the company's practices and the compnay. Maximizing the profit for the stock holders.

But, I agree wiith you - liberals and civil rights actvists have done a lot of good things - not denying that fact. Bill Clinton does raise the minimum wage - and nothing happened to the economy, we were in budget surplus at that time. What I have seen is people taking positions before listening, getting the facts, understanding & analysing - the age of media,

I do not remember the exact date, I was watching CNN, they were car bombs killing people and wounding US soldiers and others. In the same news, CNN had five person coverage discussion panel about Paris Hilton's DUI. People losing jobs, economy in huge deficit, and look at the media.

I think what is more worrisome than outsourcing jobs is outsoutcing your thinking. When that happens democracy fails. People take positions based on what O'Riley or Noam Chomsky or Rush Limbaugh or Lou Dobs says. I do not know whether being fair to employees is just - liberalism; it is the right thing to do. If liberals are for it - I am a liberal. But, women in other parts of the world, especially Middle East, the way they are being treated and none of the liberals are not doing anything or even talking about it, I do not understand. We have checks & balances in the system in this country - look at Micrsoft; even if they want to acquire a company, they have to go through a lot of regulatory requirements. Being rich does not mean that you are exploting or you exploited others. You can do a lot of good with the money you made. Look at Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, George Soros, Wall Street billionaire who made money throgh financial derivatives. No matter what we have to respect & recognize their achievement. We need to make money to distribute money.

I agree with you about India - the growth is not uniformly distributed. But, it is better than before - not solved all the problems. Or, I would even go one step futher, India have to deal later with the raising consumerism. Look at the cars - India does not have the infrastructure roads for that. What India should have done is privatization of trains - see what happened to air travel.

Hunger & farmers' suicides - I would say is lack of commitment from Indian leadership. I also read stories about famers' commiting suicides because of their inability to pay loan back

[Joy Babu]

There is an article on NY Times dated Feb:14, 2007 -Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge? by Patricia Cohen. I thought that mrrors some of your writings It is an interesting article

[Lakshmi Jagannathan]

Thanks, I'll read it. btw, Train systems all over the world are heavily subsidized by the Government. This is why the Amtrak is so inadequate in the US. My dad was a railway officer in the Indian Railways, and I think the system just needs more support. You can see my piece on Trains in my blog. Congress approved more funding for trains last year.

[Joy Babu]

I read that article - I do not know all about subsidies - how they work or allocated. I agree - it is great idea - less poluution, traffic congestion etc. And, also investing in can help generate jobs - I wonder why none of the politicains / parties are taking this is an action item? Due to the nature of the work I do, I travel a lot throughout the country. I was amazed by subway in New York, Washington DC, Virginia and Atlanta. More could be done - if like health insurance or outsourcing issue, people are made aware of the benefits. I think editorial articles like you are doing defintely helps. Thanks for keeping us all reminded about this forgotten mass transition system and also about the fate of Amtrak - waiting for government assistance because of massive capital expenditure in the beginning

[RickyMartin]

Thank you very much for such a nice article!! About outsourcing, I don't think we can blame employers or anyone.When it comes to outsourcing, there is no doubt about the fact that the most beneficial advantage is the ability to reduce costs by outsourcing tasks and projects when appropriate.Outsourcing can really be beneficial for a number of reasons. Some companies enjoy benefits such as reduced labor costs, larger workforces, access to industry experts and increased flexibility through outsourcing. However, despite the obvious advantages to outsourcing there are some situations when outsourcing is not a good idea..... To read more please click at
Outsourcing UK jobs


Ricky Martin

[Lakshmi Jagannathan]

Thanks for reading my article and commenting on it. I agree with you from an employer's perspective. However, I also think the govt should take action where needed to ensure employment. Particularly, as recent events have shown in the US, a free market needs regulation. Of course, in this regard the the disastrous consequences of financial scams we have seen are far more significant than the dangers of outsourcing.