DISCLAIMER: I found the following article in another newsgroup, but I have not yet verified its accuracy.
Subject: Outsourcing yet another job

US Congress Votes to Outsource Presidency July 19, 2006

Washington, DC (AP) — Congress today announced that the office of President of the United States of America will be outsourced to India as of August 1, 2006.  The move is being made in order to save the President's $500,000 yearly salary, and also a record $521 trillion in deficit expenditures and related overhead the office has incurred during the last 5 years.

"We believe this is a wise move financially.  The cost savings should be significant," stated Congressman Thomas Reynolds (R-WA). "We cannot expect to remain competitive on the world stage with the current level of cash outlay," Reynolds noted.

Mr. Bush was informed by e-mail this morning of his termination. Preparations for the job move have been underway for some time. Gurvinder Singh of Indus Teleservices, Mumbai, India will be assuming the office of President as of August 1, 2006.

Mr. Singh was born in the United States while his Indian parents were vacationing at Niagara Falls, thus making him eligible for the position.  He will receive a salary of $320 (USD) a month but with no health coverage or other benefits.  It is believed that Mr. Singh will be able to handle his job responsibilities without a support staff.  Due to the time difference between the US and India, he will be working primarily at night, when few offices of the US Government will be open.

"Working nights will allow me to keep my day job at the Dell Computer call center," stated Mr. Singh in an exclusive interview.  "I am excited about this position.  I always hoped I would be President."

A Congressional spokesperson noted that while Mr. Singh may not be fully aware of all the issues involved in the office of President, this should not be a problem as President Bush was not familiar with the issues either.  Mr. Singh will rely upon a script tree that will enable him to respond effectively to most topics of concern.  Using these canned responses, he can address common concerns without having to understand the underlying issues at all.  "We know these scripting tools work," stated the spokesperson.  "President Bush has used them successfully for years."

Bush will receive health coverage, expenses, and salary until his final day of employment.  Following a two week waiting period, he will be eligible for $140 a week unemployment for 13 weeks. Unfortunately he will not be eligible for Medicaid, as his unemployment benefits will exceed the allowed limit.

Mr. Bush has been provided the outplacement services of Manpower, Inc.  to help him write a resume and prepare for his upcoming job transition.  According to Manpower, Mr. Bush may have difficulties in securing a new position due to limited practical work experience.  A Greeter position at Wal-Mart was suggested due to Bush's extensive experience shaking hands, as well as his goofy smile.

Not to disagree with you in any way...  that time is now, however...

...  except that the engineering is being done by Chinese, Indians and Russians...  not in the US or subject to US costs of living, and taxes driven by US government bloat, waste, and insider fraud.

Those engineers and scientists remain gainfully employed...  for peanuts...  the fondest dreams of US capitalism realized...  for a few milliseconds...

...  until it is realized that a starved to death consumer base doesn't buy anything...  then correction will only occur after the entire mess decimates itself...  never before that.

The world is run by the strongest breed of utter and complete idiots at any time...

These can be counted on to screw it up every time...  out of need to fulfill their own short term interests, regardless the sacrifice of others...

These as with virtually any rich landlord type, will sacrifice the life and well being of any tenant family that cannot pay the rent for a month or two...  for money not even vital to their own interests...  for money they don't even need, will put the family onto the street...  and that can be justified.  It is just that the fact remains...  human life is sacrificed without a thought.

The solution is to arrange ones life on a side road, away from direct influence of these forces.

Free Market Economics Does not Work, and they know it.  The free marketeers and there allies in government are simply carnivores without souls.  They are libertarians steeped in the art of Orwellian/Machiavellian double speak.

Just wait till the hideous evil spreads to the new found asian countries that fall under the iron grip of the free market, and are forced into accepting free market agreements with there neighbors, and are forced into agreements that flood there countries with illegals who have been forced into deeper poverty so that the free market libertarians can harvest their labors for fat profit.  Then we will hear wails over this from the asian countries that are riding high right now.

Can you imagine millions of poor Pakistani's flooding India, or millions of Chinese flooding India, or both.  Here is your preview of what will happen.

If you are dumb enough, gullable enough, or naive enough to think this will not happen, you will deserve what you get.  Its on the drawing board as we speak.  It will not be unwrapped till the timing is right.

(Immigrant surge is tied to the failure of NAFTA, Octavio Ruiz, 04/22/2006)

"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore.  We have to compete for jobs." — Carly Fiorina

Hey Carly, due to traitors like you, there are about 3 new I.T. job openings per month in the U.S.  Good luck competing with the millions of I.T. folk you help put out of work!

TV Evangelist:  "Send me all of your money...  then, magically, you will become rich!  Trust me!"

Globalist:  "Give away all of your factories, technologies, and jobs...  then, magically, your country will become an economic power-house!  Trust me!"

...  the election and the political rhetoric...  Obviously disappointed, but I am at peace.  The people have spoken.  They've gotten what they've wanted.  You can only do so much to save a country from itself.

I want to apologize for the statements I made about my Southern Ohio brethren. I know they didn't choose out of malice, but misinformation.  It's hard to see someone unintentionally hurting themselves, but the Republican political and propaganda machine is so strong, it's hard to overcome the brainwashing.

I feel very bad for those young kids who worked so hard to improve this country, only to see it go to naught...

I feel bad for those unemployed workers in Cuyahogo, Summit, Stark, and Mahoning Counties whose votes were cancelled out.  They will see a further hemorrhaging of their lives and opportunities during this administration.

I feel bad for those who are ill, since they will get no relief in this administration.

I feel bad for the educated folks that will get their jobs offshored soon as well.  They won't know what hit them.  This practice is encouraged by this administration, and huge layoffs are expected after the election.  Your American dream will become much harder to achieve.  Tell your kids to become electricians and plumbers instead of going to college.  Sounds wierd to say that, but true...

But you know, sometimes you just have to let people hit rock bottom before they come to their senses.  We've obviously not hit rock bottom yet, but I'm sure we will be there shortly.

God save America...  we need You more than ever!  All we can do now is pray!

In the past ten years, American jobs screamed out of the United States at an accelerating rate of speed.  While American workers stood in unemployment lines, major corporations insourced, outsourced and offshored jobs to Third World countries.  Why?  They could obtain labor for $1.00 an hour and sometimes less. Capitalism knows no loyalty to man, beast or country.

At the high end, Congress offered hundreds of thousands of H-1B and L-1 visas that displaced 890,000 American high tech workers out of jobs while importing cheap labor from overseas.

To add insult to injury while displacing American workers — meatpacking, chicken processing, paving, construction, hotel, roofing, landscaping and other trade jobs were insourced to millions of illegal alien workers.

America's manufacturing base and ability to sell products to the world diminished with the rising power of corporations to control taxes, tariffs and commodities markets.  These huge corporations, run by American CEO's, took advantage of their American roots and benefits enjoyed in a First World country — while giving millions of jobs to people in other countries.  For what? Obscene profits!  It's why you hear of their $125 million annual paychecks.  They are the Ken Lays of Enron crowd who don't get caught.  Why not?  Because what they do is legal, but then again, they paid enough money into Political Action Committees and other organizations to make sure they gained tax breaks and other benefits from Congress.

It's a hell of a rich man's club, but it's turning America's Middle Class into the Working Poor Class.

Who are these giants?  You'd be surprised.  They are some of our most time-honored companies who built their empires on the backs of America's working class heroes.

According to Arianna Online, "Bank of America shouldn't be allowed to have 'America' in the name of the company."  One of America's largest banks eliminated 5,000 jobs while outsourcing 1,250 jobs to India.  It announced it would cut another 12,000 jobs in the next two years.  Employees were given severance pay on condition they train their replacement.

Affiliated Computer Services offers business processing technology — outsourced 1,300 jobs to India in the past three years.  They multiplied their profits by paying half the wage rate in a Third World country of 1.1 billion eager workers.

According to Arianna, "The company chairman is known as Darwin "Survival of the Richest" Deason."

General Electric built its empire on American soil.  However, it is known as the father of outsourcing.  It outsourced 12,000 jobs to people in India who perform at phones answering credit card inquires and give IT technical assistance while handling network security.  The three leading executives of GE make untold millions in salaries while American citizens stand in unemployment lines.

Halliburton, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney as its CEO, enjoys 45 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens.  Halliburton is helping reconstruct Iraq with $73 million in equipment and services.  The only caveat stems from working as a civilian employee with Halliburton in Iraq might find you with your head on a platter.  However, stockholders make millions.

The Bank of New York, run by Thomas "Pioneering the Loss of American Jobs" Reny, in March 2003, sent 250 computer software jobs to Mumbai where it already employed 670 workers.  It plans to open a software development center in the Philippines.

American Telephone and Telegraph, or what we used to call "Ma Bell" which is about as ALL-AMERICAN a company you could ever find-outsourced 500 customer service jobs to India in 2003 in addition to another 3,000 jobs outsourced before that date.

Dell Computers employs 3,000 Indians in Bangalore and Hyderabad, India.  Sprint cut 21,000 American jobs in 2001 through 2003 and sent those jobs to Third World countries.  American Flyer, the makers of the little red wagon we all pulled as kids, outsourced to China this year.  Maytag in Pennsylvania shut its plant while displacing 1,500 workers and set up shop in Mexico.

"Congress, the President and journalists sit around like outsourcing is some incurable disease and they cannot fix it," said Paul Streitz, an industry watchdog.  "It is not.  They say outsourcing is driven by the need for firms to stay "competitive."  But to stay competitive means lowering costs and raising profits for stockholders and key executives.  The additional savings are not passed on to customers.  No study has ever shown that those companies using outsourcing are charging lower prices.  A chief justification for this abomination."

If this trend is any indication, and it is, the best days of America's working class fade in the rearview mirror.  Americans compete with 1.3 billion Chinese and 1.1 billion Indians whose medium income teeters at $2,000.00 a year.  They will work for $5.00 a day whereas Americans must make at least $15.00 an hour to maintain a decent standard of living.

You have to ask who will have enough money to buy the goods and services those companies market when the American Middle Class slides down the tubes?  What's in store for Americans?

It means America's Middle Class races to the bottom of the 'standard of living' barrel as its jobs outsource, insource and offshore.  It means millions work from paycheck to paycheck with few benefits and no job security.  It means the American Dream drops from achievable for the vast majority in the past to a pipe dream for the new Working Poor Class.

Like millions of Americans who have lost their jobs, in early 2003 I suddenly found myself laid off.  My employer wasn't a giant, downsizing corporation but a small book publisher.  Two years earlier I'd had my photo in the business section of The New York Times, in a lead article lauding our company for exemplary "niche" publishing.  Even so, after more than a decade in various management positions, I was told, "You're a fixed cost that needs to be a variable cost."

I wasn't expecting it to be so difficult to find a new job, or to be such a jolt to my self-respect.  I missed seeing my name on a masthead and business card.  I missed seeing my colleagues, most of whom had also been fired.

I signed up for unemployment compensation, six months of weekly checks at a portion of my previous income, and came to feel an odd warmth for the synthesized voice on the automated claims line — a fatherly baritone that intoned seven questions about my work status which I'd answer by pressing 1 for yes or 9 for no.  Responding correctly would bring another check.

Meanwhile I scoured the job listings.  I threw myself wholeheartedly into applying for 19 jobs — 19 carefully worded cover letters and fine-tuned resumes with references from former employers and advisers.

Each time I sent out one of my neatly printed packets, I believed I'd be called for an interview, have a meeting of minds and be offered a great position.  The usual result was much different: I'd run as fast as I could and leap — into a cinder-block wall.

One evening at dinner, as my wife and daughter recounted the day's highlights, I realized that I had almost nothing to say.  I'd done the laundry, made soup, planted another garden bed...  but so what?  I was basically retired.  There was no way I was going to let myself be one of those laid-off men who squander hours watching TV.  Anyway, we don't have a TV.

What I could see all around me were part-time jobs.  On top of more than 8 million unemployed people in the United States, at least 4 million people are working part-time, unable to find full-time positions.  They are without benefits or a contract, paid hourly instead of a salary, but they are working.  I resolved to take as many part-time jobs as I could find.  I ended up juggling as many as 11 at a time.  The experience has been fantastic.

I've found employment by writing (reviews for a metropolitan newspaper and essays for feature magazines); teaching (book-discussion series in public libraries, poetry programs for high-school students and presentations for Elderhostel); performing (with a dance troupe, and on stilts with a brass band); editing (for a forestry magazine and market-research firm as well as a book about the history of bridges); painting houses; plowing snow; researching a family history; doing carpentry; house-sitting, and playing a patient for medical students practicing interviews.  Knowing that I was trying to see how many jobs I could manage, my sister called one day to suggest sperm donation as a possibility — not an option I've yet explored.

To have so many jobs you need to be in the right place at the right time with the right equipment and clothes.  A friend peered into my car one morning and exclaimed, "You've got more bags than a mailman!"  Some days I've had four different jobs in 12 hours.

As our 10-year-old daughter was listening with an impish expression to the radio news, she said, "Hey, Dad, no wonder there's high unemployment — you have all the jobs."

Admittedly, I was better prepared than most people for such a predicament.  As a college graduate who has made my living for 20 years in the arts, I've worked in editorial offices but also (to make ends meet) in restaurants, on construction crews, as a puppeteer.  My wife and I live "off the grid" in a solar-electric house we built ourselves-no mortgage and a big vegetable garden — with health insurance from her teaching job.  Through 13 years of marriage we've carefully avoided debt, clearing our one credit card every month, paying off our cars quickly and keeping them running beyond 170,000 miles.

This balance feels precarious, but with no savings and no offers, I was ready to take drastic action.  And though I wasn't looking for this lesson, in the past year I've discovered how valuable humility can be.  Humility turns out to be quite different from humiliation, and the difference is largely up to you.

Who knows?  Maybe I'll never take another full-time job.  As a regular employee, you're at the mercy of someone else's decisions, which might well be impetuous or idiotic.  As a multiple part-timer, you're free, responsible for your own choices.

In the meantime, my short-term plan has me busy and upbeat, with plenty to recount over the dinner table.

The simple fact is that this has nothing to do with competition.  These new global competitors are nothing of the sort.  This, in fact as well as deed, is nothing more than about making money.  In this case, it is immoral because it is money made at the expense of another.

People are not machines.  They cannot be turned on and off at the turn of a whim.

It is pointless to debate competition with countries with economies that would not exist except for the US and US leadership in the world.  This is not about competition.  It is about rape.

It is about something that men of good conscious would never permit.

Your warning to those others who would try to silence you through attacks bespeaks the level of ignorance of the situation out there.  And the acceptance of dogma.  Their time will come and then your words will be remembered.

In Canada, we haven't been unaffected by the Offshoring situation whatsoever.  In fact, within a year of graduation ten years ago, I was climbing quickly up the ladder through hard work, dedication and a sincere passion for my job.  I recieved a minimum of 3 calls a week from headhunters begging me to consider bigger opportunities, as did my husband.

Not long after 9-11, my husband lost his job.  I had several very strong freelance clients who I had worked hard to establish loyal relations with, but this was seasonal in that there would be hot and dry periods when I would pick up a contract.  I could always count on a contract from a headhunter when the season was over.

I did this for 10 years, but after 9-11 everything changed.  Our phone stopped ringing.  My connections were dried out.  The headhunters weren't calling anymore. My husband started looking for work in bars and restaurants, and we were both taking any odd job we could find.

I was so thankful for my freelance contacts.  They seemed to come in right when we needed it the most, but in a two year period my husband both went from earning six figures a year working in Management IT positions to just below the poverty level.

We left Toronto and moved to a smaller city an hour away.  Our thinking was that our experience would be an edge out here...  but in a solid year we've found nothing.  One company hired me for an elaborate cover for a maternity leave, but nothing solid.  He now brews beer and wine at a local brew-your-own for minimum wage, and I have become involved in a family business in rubber goods manufacturing.

In the past year, my freelance contacts that I felt had strong bonds of loyalty were cut.  My last client confessed last week that he had found sourcing in India for $2.00 an hour...  quite a bit less than even the lowest number I could provide...  and I was already giving him work at a 50% discount.  Often times I didn't even make minimum wage completing his projects, but I did it to rough through the weather...  chalked it up to a learning experience.

With all the electoral debates in the U.S.A., I feel that most of us have been in the dark.  I had no idea this outsourcing issue had grown as big as it had.  I chalked it up to coincidence that most of my collegues had been out of work for almost 2 years, many of whom have done crazy things like start up tattoo shops. Most of us are in our mid-30's now, some in our 40's.  Going back to school with a family and financial obligations that we worked to achieve is just NOT an option.

We were in the dark, because we were never told where our jobs were going, or why.  Some of us thought we were dried up, became depressed.  It has been a horrible torture, particularly for people who spend tens of thousands on educations, and years gaining experience in a job they wanted to do until the age of retirement.

We were in the dark because for almost 2 years, nobody spoke about it.  It is a faux pas to speak of such things.  It is despicable practice to fire loyal workers, or not provide work for your fellow citizens because your trying to save a buck going for something less than legal minimum wage outside the laws of your own country.

Thank god it is coming to light.  I expect there will be an outcry of rage when most unemployed workers get over the shock we have been experiencing these past few months that this trite has been exposed.

The World Economy is far from perfect.  The fact that the American Dollar is like a treasure chest to some countries doesn't entitle them to thievery.  American sweat built that dollar, and now Americans are giving it away to greedy countries all too happy to take it?  It just doesn't make sense.  If countries like India are so smart, why not use their talent and build the next Microsoft?

Americans, and Canadians, and Britons, and every other country who's labor force is suffering this tragedy are the victims in this new kind of desparage.  I dare say anyone defending Offshoring in this forum is either a) someone in a 3rd World country protecting their new-found wealth, or b) some greedy conglomerate businessman trying to shave a few dollars off of their labor budget.

It spells out disaster for everyone involved.  The short-term gains may seem worth it, but within a decade I guarantee the jobs in India will be snatched away and given to the next lowest common denominator.  Indians would be smart to take a note from what has happened to the employment scene in the USA, Canada, Britain, etc...  and remember the old addage that, "you can never trust a cheater."  Economies will skyrocket in India.  People who are not part of the outsourcing market will be put to the streets.  When the jobs are gone those shiny new buildings will become ghost-towns, and a decade of young people's lives will be wasted and they too will be left jobless.

What is the solution?

Trade Embargos on Service Labour.  We aren't talking about a product here, we are talking about something that cannot be traced with a metal detector at border crossings.  We are talking about the very thing that allows countries to thrive...  ensuring that unemployment levels are low, and that people within your countries borders can contribute to the countries' growth, by building it, and buying into it.  You don't give money away to someone when your own home needs food you cannot provide, after all.

Companies caught cheating the Embargos should have massive fines placed upon them.  After all, if the point is to save money, why risk losing money?

Lately we are hearing many people call opposition to outsourcing as "protectionism" and defend outsourcing quoting from economic theories about the benefits of "comparative advantage."  All this is very sophisticated demagogy and let me explain why.

First of all "jobs" is not the same product category as "goods."  In world history exporting goods have a long history, but exporting jobs is a very recent event.  Nobody will argue that preventing spreading of trade secrets, sensitive military technology is "protectionism."  Nobody will argue that a country that prevents importing of dangerous environment threatening chemicals is a "protectionist country."  A country that prevents foreign nationals from working legally is also not a "protectionist" country.  And how about free trade of human organs, where the highest bidder has a right to buy any organ from any country?

So why is opposing exporting sensitive technology not "protectionism," why is opposing importing environment dangerous chemicals not "protectionism" but why is opposing of replacing American workers by cheap foreigners "protectionism?"

Outsourcing means forcing the local workforce to train their replacements in order to allow corporations to fire the more expensive domestic workers.  If foreign countries call opposition to outsourcing "protectionism," let's force them to sign an agreement that will make it legal in their country to force local workers to train foreign replacements.

"Comparative advantage" means that some countries/societies can produce better and/or cheaper products than others.  Supporters of outsourcing say: "History has confirmed that Adam Smith's theory of comparative advantage was remarkably prophetic.  Not only have scores and scores of countries thrived as they initially encountered global trade, but many others have crashed dramatically upon raising barriers to the same."

So what is "comparative advantage" of China and India and what is "comparative advantage" of the US?  What product can those countries produce better or cheaper than the US?  Answer — almost none, unless American corporations force American workers to teach Chinese and Indians how to make those products.  After American workers will teach them, then other countries have significant "comparative advantage."  "Comparative advantage" of China is that people of China are slaves of the communist dictatorship and are forced to work for any compensation that communists decide which serves the interests of the communist elite.  A free man cannot compete against a slave — a slave will always be cheaper and will always work harder.  Conclusion — American workers have no "comparative advantage" against Chinese workers.  What is "comparative advantage" of India?  Prices of basic food, rents are cheaper in India than in the US, so an Indian worker can survive on $200/month.  In many US cities just renting a studio costs $500/month. Conclusion — American workers have no "comparative advantage" against India.

Using cheap labor does not always mean that the product will become cheaper or better.  Look for example on Microsoft products: Microsoft virtually has no competition in the OS market — MS is outsourcing thousands of jobs to China and India, but Windows is not getting cheaper or better.  Each new version is more expensive and each version is an open book to hackers.

People all over the world have basically the same intelligence.  It does not matter if an engineer was born black, white or yellow — if he graduated from a decent school, he can perform his duty in the US, India or China.  The only difference is that in China he is forced to work for a salary dictated by the communist government, in India the cost of living is much cheaper than in the US.

Conclusion — American workers are too expensive and gradually will be replaced by foreign cheaper workers.  If work needs to be done in the US — foreigners will be brought into this country in order to replace expensive Americans.

So what are American workers good for?  The only "comparative advantage" of American workers is that they will vote for politicians that support replacing American workers by cheaper foreigners.  About 80% of them will vote for Bush or Kerry — both of them support replacing American workers by cheap foreigners.  I doubt Indian or Chinese will vote for politicians that support replacing the domestic workforce by cheaper foreigners.  So don't despair — Americans have "comparative advantage" after all.

If you've listened to Conservative Radio or Fox News lately then you already know the good news.  Jobs are aplenty!  In fact, according to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and President Bush, we are in the midst of a huge boom!  According to the spin, more than 650,000 American workers found employment in the last two months.  Mighty spectacular, wouldn't you say?

The problem with the numbers, however, is what's wrong with nearly every pronouncement from this administration.  It's clothed in a semblance of truth, but it disguises the real facts.  The truth is we have more educated, specialized, articulate, unemployed workers than ever in our history.  It doesn't consider The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 80,000 to 90,000 unemployed become ineligible for unemployment benefits every week and therefore, are no longer counted among the unemployed.

We're not told that we have lost over three-million industrial jobs since George Bush took office, nor are we told that since our "recovery" we have lost over a million manufacturing jobs or three-million private sector jobs.  The fact that the job "boom" was in low salaried temporary and retail positions were left out of the explanations for the "good news," or that none of the jobs were in high-paying trades and services.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, "employment rose substantially in several service-providing industries, construction continued to add jobs, and there was a noteworthy job gain in durable goods manufacturing."  The truth is there are more than 11-million unemployed citizens looking for work.

Excess trash is exactly how our corporate entities view our workforce.  Worse than trash is how our government has protected them.  So, here we are being told that we're in a boom economy when the opposite surrounds us.  What are we to do?

Another expert advises that the IT specialist keep changing jobs and learning new modalities.  I suggest, however, that this option is a misnomer, at best. Chances are once the employee leaves their job finding another will be an act in futility, particularly if they happen to be thirty-five or older.  Statistics prove that the older the programmer or engineer, the harder it will be to find employment.  According to the American University, it will take three more weeks for a laid-off programmer or engineer to find a job for each year of his/her age.

And if the manager doing the hiring is younger than the applicant is, well, statistics indicate the chance of getting that job is close to nil.  Here's another statistic not bantered around: only 19% of computer science grads are still employed as computer programmers twenty years later.  Furthermore, if you are forty and an unemployed programmer lucky enough to find a job in your field, you can count on taking a cut in pay.

The statistics also don't reflect the multitude of workers who have given up finding employment in their trained profession.  Underemployment is a very real and serious condition in the United States.  So, too, is our minimum wage.  Back in 1967, a family of three could survive above poverty level on the minimum wage.  Not so today.  Currently, a full-time minimum wage earner can only sustain his or her family 84% of the poverty line for a family of three.  These are not teenagers, folks, these are the people in the grocery lines with you.  That is, if they can afford groceries.

So, what are we to do?  For one, we need to begin by replacing our legislators, representatives, and our country's leaders with truly concerned and compassionate representatives.  We need to demonstrate by our vote that we the people are in charge.  We need to send a loud and resounding message to anyone seeking political office or holding office that they work for us, the people.  We need to shun the deceptive political commercials and the spin weavers and use our own very perceptive minds.

It is time, my fellow American's that we make our voices heard, for if we don't, we could liken it to Pastor Martin Niemoeller's famous warning about the Nazi's. First, they came for the Manufacturer's, but I was not a Manufacturer so I did not speak out.  Then they came for the Service Jobs and the Tradesmen's, but I was neither, so I did not speak out.  Then they came for the IT Technicians, but I was not an IT Specialist so I did not speak out.  And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.  It is time, my fellow American's, or we, too, will be lamenting the jobs we lost and didn't speak out.

The U.S. has become a de facto oligarchy, per the second definition:

Merriam-Webster OnLine
1 : government by the few
2 : a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes;
     also : a group exercising such control
3 : an organization under oligarchic control

Money.

They now think that they have enough power to win their war on the middle class, and they may be right.

There's nothing safe about outsourcing, which allows terrorists in other countries to access confidental information on American customers.  Terrorists can commit identity theft of Americans, increasing the chances they get away with terrorist acts.  When you call HP support and someone from India takes the call, he/she will ask for your personal information.  What's to stop him/her from using that info to commit terrorist acts?

Programmers in India are more likely to write malicious code (or they can be incompetent and write buggy code) that shuts down vital systems in the USA. Worse, the code can kill Americans, for example the outsourced hospital software that makes it more likely for doctors and nurses to kill American patients (once again, I'll point out that over 100,000 Americans die each year from avoidable medical "mistakes," making 9/11 look like a drop in the ocean).

The safest software development is here in the USA, where we can monitor the workers and apply regulations that don't exist in India.

Outsourcing does NOT help the overall population in the outsourced countries. It actually makes the upper caste richer and increases suffering by the lower classes.  Most jobs in India are given to upper caste Hindus who don't need the money.  A few "middle class" people in India get jobs, but even they were already in the richest 10% of the country.

Because of her decisions, she'll soon be living in a COUNTRY where over 50% of the population has no opportunity to work: the USA!

The article Robotic Freedom states that robots and automation will turbocharge the concentration of wealth.  This article from the NY Times provides more evidence that this is exactly what is happening: We're More Productive.  Who Gets the Money?.

It states: "American workers have been remarkably productive in recent years, but they are getting fewer and fewer of the benefits of this increased productivity.  While the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, has been strong for some time now, ordinary workers have gotten little more than the back of the hand from employers who have pocketed an unprecedented share of the cash from this burst of economic growth."

"What is happening is nothing short of historic.  The American workers' share of the increase in national income since November 2001, the end of the last recession, is the lowest on record.  Employers took the money and ran.  This is extraordinary, but very few people are talking about it, which tells you something about the hold that corporate interests have on the national conversation."

The problem with this process, if it continues, is that wealth concentrates more and more until America starts to look like a Third World plutocracy.  See Robotic Freedom for details and a solution.

For numerous examples of this unprecedented concentration of wealth at work, click here.

Well today it is not Hurricane NAFTA but Hurricane FREE TRADE that is sucking the knowledge based jobs out of the United States to such exotic locals as China and India.  If history repeats itself and I believe it does, we will see the same thing that happened to manufacturing jobs happen to professional jobs. Jobs will continue to go overseas because CEOs, Economist and Politicians have discovered that the winds of Free Trade are inevitable and no economic or social structure can withstand the category 5 devastation that such a storm encompasses.

The US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) describes itself as a bipartisan political action committee promoting the interests of the Indian American community.  The Indian Express in a November 19, 2002 article describing USINPAC, Indian toehold in US political whirlpool, declared, "The American political process at one level is transparent and simple — you pay money, you get results...  A strong, well-organized lobby of Indian Americans can push for a clearer convergence of goals between the two countries, more than the jaded bureaucrats are prone to do."

According to Sanjay Puri, the Executive Director of USINPAC, "It is estimated that the Indian American community contributed more than $7 million in the 2000 Presidential Election...  With an Indian American community of nearly 2 million, we must make sure that we support candidates that best represent our interests and we also must make sure that each candidate knows that we expect to be well represented in an Administration that we will help elect." Puri said.

As an American citizen my question to Mr. Puri and USINPAC is what are these important issues and how much will they cost the American taxpayer?  Taking a look at the USINPAC website some of the issues USINPAC is promoting are to:

• Ask U.S. Congressmen to, "Oppose HR 2688, a bill introduced on July 9, 2003 by Representative Thomas Tancredo (R-CO).  This bill seeks to eliminate the H1-B visa program."
• Prevent any protectionist legislation on IT outsourcing at the Federal level.
  .    .    .    .    .
• Support for trade and the outsourcing of jobs.
  .    .    .    .    .

A similar story in the India Times stated that: "The Caucus, launched by Republican Senator John Cornyn and Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, includes Senate Majority Leader Republican Bill First and Senate Minority Leader Democrat Tom Daschle who vowed to do their best to bring the two democratic nations even closer.  Senator Cornyn said the Caucus had 32 members and added more are expected to join it soon - an impressive achievement in a chamber of 100 members.  A similar Caucus is already there in the much larger House of Representatives, which began with nine members and has grown to 185."

You know it's sort of funny, before I got into politics, I always thought that the U.S. Senate and House were supposed to represent the U.S. of A. not India. It sure seems like politics is all about special interest, money and influence instead of what is the right thing to do for the United States and the American citizen.

Maybe this election the American voters need to remind some Senators and Representatives that we might want to outsource their jobs to India and pay someone in New Delhi or Banglore $5,000 dollars apiece to legislate for the United States.  Calculating the savings comes out to about $15,200,000 and $66,880,000 for the Senate and House respectively.  Combining these we get an annualized savings of $82,080,000.

On second thought though I bet we could save even more by outsourcing Congress to China?  If all we care about is the bottom line and saving money why not?

Someone has to take the jobs that, as President Bush (news — web sites) and others say, "Americans don't want."  There appear to be a large number of these jobs.  In fact, it seems that our fastest-growing business segment is the creation of more and more jobs that Americans don't want.  Often, American companies will lay people off, only to train newcomers to replace them.

Here is how the real scam works.  You are a programmer at one of the big IT or computer companies.  You're 55 and nearing a retirement plateau; in fact, you're a liability.  You're making, say, $80,000 as a program designer.  You have various responsibilities.  The company eliminates your position in the process of downsizing.

To be fair to you, it creates a new position, Associate Program Designer, that pays $35,000 a year.  Its responsibilities coincidentally match those of your old job.  You can take this job, doing what you did before but at a huge cut in pay, or look elsewhere.  If the latter, it's apparent that this new job is one that "Americans don't want."  The company can then hire a "body shop" to drop in a foreign H-1B or L1 visa holder, who will not be quite as good but will work for a lot less.

This is a bait-and-switch scheme that is designed to screw older and more experienced workers out of their retirement benefits, plain and simple.  This sort of thing, unfortunately, is nothing new to corporate America: Every time I write about it, I get hundreds of e-mails from people who have been abused by such practices.

More horrendous still is the sudden emergence of offshoring, whereby we send the money as well as the jobs overseas, mostly to India, where labor is even cheaper.  The proponents of offshoring have a rumored $100 million PR budget; anyone who speaks out against this trend is bombarded by hate mail.  Just mentioning the problem here will result in numerous requests to my editors that I be fired.  Few of the senders will be traceable.

The sinister nature of offshoring jobs has corrupted the highest levels of our nation.  Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites), for example, is directly involved with one of the big body shops, Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services.  Bush is actively promoting the replacement of American workers.  Colin Powell (news — web sites) recently promised India that the administration would continue to promote offshoring.  Which country does he represent, anyway?

In an economic argument that is floating around, people cook numbers to show that every job lost to offshoring is a ridiculously large net benefit to the U.S. economy; we are making money on the deal.  One math genius claimed that although we export around $10 billion in outsourcing fees, the economy somehow recovers over $300 billion in savings.  It's a bonanza.  Taking this logic to an extreme, if we offshored all American jobs and nobody here worked, we'd be filthy rich.  Let's just do that!  Where do I get my check?

I hear all the time that coders in India are cheaper and better.  What makes them better?  Have there been some blockbuster Indian software programs that I somehow missed?  Maybe they are good at patching spaghetti code or doing well-defined C++ modules, but who knows?  You'd think that some killer apps would have come out of India by now, as they have from Europe, the U.S., Japan, and even Russia.

Even more irksome than this notion of "better" is the fact that companies are trying to hide their offshoring operations, a deceptive practice at best.  Help desks, bill collectors, and telemarketers are in India.  All the AT&T staffers I have talked to seem to be in India, but ask them where they are and they won't say.  They are trained to fake American accents.  They say their name is Bill or Dave or Patty; it is clearly not.  They never tell you where they are, because Americans don't like having their American Express records (yes, AmEx uses India) in Bangalore, where our privacy laws aren't in force.

One company told my wife that its reps don't say where they are from because of terrorism.  Terrorism?  My wife is going to fly to Bangalore?  We are lied to by the companies we do business with; plain dishonesty is at work here.

Although I appreciate some aspects of globalization, I can't excuse the cavalier attitude toward fellow Americans that we see among large corporations who benefit from the free-enterprise system and American infrastructure.  It will come back to haunt them all.

A starting point is to realize there are solutions to the outsourcing problem that America now faces.  The passivity being shown by the President and Congress is of their own making, not for the lack of ways to deal with the problem. Consider these.

1.  Require companies that off-source any personal data of U.S. citizens to get their signed consent.  This would include shifting abroad any medical or insurance data, tax preparation, investment or stock information, educational records, etc.  In all cases, companies would be required to get the consumer's written consent.

2.  Require that all publicly held companies inform the public through their quarterly filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission:

• The portion of the corporate assets investment in each nation where the company operates.
• The type of work performed in each of those facilities.
• The number of employees in each foreign nation and their general characteristic, such as manufacturing worker, executive, research and development.
• Future plans to shift operations to other nations and the specific nature of what will be shifted.
• Identify what part of the work shifted outside the United States is financed by U.S. government.
• Identify what part of the work shifted outside the United States is to satisfy local of domestic U.S. markets.

3.  Impose an equalizing tariff on outsourced service work.  If the average wage for a graduate level software engineer in the United States is $40 dollar per hour and that of a comparable worker in India is $10, then impose a $30 dollar equalizing tariff on the Indian's work brought into the United States.  As India's wages rise, the U.S. tariff can be correspondingly lowered. One of our stated trade goals is to raise living standards elsewhere.  This will do it.

4.  Require that any work shifted overseas be done by people meeting the professional qualifications required in the United States and be so certified.  A radiologist working in India thereby would be expected to meet the U.S. standards and hold U.S. certification.  So would an accountant or any other of the regulated professions.  This requirement would assure that U.S. consumers get top quality work and no scams.

5.  Prohibit outsourcing contracts going to those nations that deny the U.S. and other nations the right to operate in the same manner in their home market.  India, for example, refuses to admit skilled foreign workers or outsourcing.  If our role is to provide leadership and non-discrimination on trade matters, this step is essential.

6.  Require the U.S. Department of Labor to report monthly on the number of jobs or job equivalent outsourced, the average U.S. wages paid in that particular labor classification, and to where the jobs are going.

7.  Outsource the work of the Council of Economic Advisors to some firm that can provide the accurate numbers needed by U.S. policy makers.

Other suggestions

8.  Increase enforcement of tax laws on foreign companies operating in the United States.  Today, foreign affiliates pay far less than U.S. companies in the identical lines of business operating here.  They are cheating, but for foreign policy reasons the IRS is held back.

9.  Strongly enforce U.S. antitrust legislation on foreign firms operating in the United States.  Cartels have an unfair, illegal advantage.  When in America, do as the Americans do.

10.  Enforce existing U.S. trade agreements.  This Administration has filed only seven unfair trade claims at the World Trade Organization.  Of these, five deal with ag products.  Not one single intellectual property case has been filed, though American inventors, writers, artists and companies are being stolen blind in places such as India, China and Russia.  Nor has the Administration filed a single unfair trade practice against China at the WTO.

11.  Use the 421 provision of the U.S.-China WTO Accession agreement that allows the United States to unilaterally impose quotas on those goods Chinese imports that have surged in an annual period.  Surging is usually defined at growth over 7.5 percent.  So far, the International Trade Commission has recommended imposition of 421 surge controls on three different products whose imports from China have surged.  In all three cases, President Bush as vetoed the ITC's recommendations.  Surges of Chinese imports such be banned as per the contract the United States has with China.

12.  Re-impose the pay-as-you-go rules the Congress abandoned in 2002. Any tax decrease must have a corresponding cut in expenditures.  Any increase in expenditures must have a corresponding increase in revenues or cut in other programs.

13.  Set a date certain by which the overall U.S. trade deficit will be balanced.  Take steps either to increase U.S. exports or decrease foreign imports to meet those annual goals.  Increase or decrease tariffs and quotas accordingly annually.

14.  Devise a U.S./Canada/Mexico compact by which the economy of Mexico is sufficiently developed to stop the need for its people to immigrate illegally into the United States.  Give Mexico a preferential treatment over China, Europe and other nations, so that work and investment can go there. Establish tight border enforcement so that the illegal immigration is impossible under this new pact.

15.  Create an incentive based program for existing illegal immigrants to return to their native country, including adequate personal documentation to ensure they can be identified if they do return illegally.

No inflation???

Here's how much more (or less) we're paying for some selected items.

Info primarily from the BLS:

5-Year Price Increase, Average Annual Change, in that order:

Now,if we take the 'L' from BLS, we then have BS, which is really what we are being told with the government released COL info.  The COL figures are generally the more trustworthy numbers from the bureau of liars.

Spamless, you're entitled to your opinion.  It's a valid counterpoint.  I just think you're wrong, statistically speaking.  I hold that the quantity of effective and ethical headhunters is so low that they are a horrible bet (time wasting, manipulative, and distracting) for most candidates with more than 7-10 years of experience.

I personally think that most technology recruiters are unethical and incompetent.

Also, you're making a mistake by ASSuming that I or others have no experience upon which to base a judgement of recruiters.  I do have a very long history of using recruiters, going back 22 years.  As well as over 10 years of consulting experience.

To buttress the anti-recruiter vents: that most experienced IT people don't have a high regard for recruiters, so the preponderance of bad experiences tends to indicate that as a group recruiters don't serve candidate's needs adequately. Where there's smoke, in this instance, there is some fire.

I recall as a green (<3 years out of school) engineer that I thought recruiters were the "answer" to my job search issues and that I was best off working through them.  As I made new job searches in later years, I found that they seemed less and less interested in helping and more and more interested in playing games and doing stupid sh*t like misrepresenting jobs and misrepresenting their own intentions.  At age 40+ and 20+ years of experience I have found that recruiters acted like they were doing me a favor talking to me, even when they had nothing going.  I have simultaneously found that I am much better off batting for myself with companies.

But this makes sense in the following context.  Recruiters prefer younger candidates who are naive, can be controlled, and who lack negotiating skills. It's easy to railroad a naive kid into a position that isn't in his best interests to make a quick buck.  As you become older and more exerienced, your desirability in the eyes of recruiters diminishes.

Lastly: making sales is fast becoming a core competency for most professionals. IE: sell yourself or "die."  When you use a recruiter, you are "outsourcing" a core competency that you should be developing, to an outsider who is generally untrustworthy.

So, using a middleman who NEVER has your interests at heart is the kiss of death.

But, manage your career as you see fit.  I believe that advice to consider using recruiters is counterproductive to most professional's interests.

Tony, I don't necessarily agree that broker/middleman == crook.  I can see a valid role in the ecosystem for someone that helps sellers find buyers.  That's what Ebay does.

Functionally: a recruiter or agency is similar to an always-on collection point for resumes and candidate information, like a SMTP server on the internet that sits there all the time receiving inbound email.  Periodically, a client company "polls" the agency for certain requirements that the agency has buffered — just like you check your email with Outlook once in a while, but you're not interested in staying personally connected to the internet 24x7.  It's just specialization of functions.

However, what has happened, especially in IT, is that experienced, degreed professionals with substantial track records are demeaned to the level of temp janitorial help, while the agencies smirk about their power over the marketplace and generally misrepresent their stated intentions (bullshit like trolling for your references without any intention to place you).

I don't have any use for agencies in the IT business because most agencies lie. The IT agency business badly needs a cleanup because IT agencies have a much lower moral stature than real estate brokers, while RE agencies are much more numerous than IT agencies.

IE: if realtors were as dishonest as a group as information technology recruiters, everyone would sell their house on their own.  Which is not the case.

The biggest yard sale in American history is taking place.  Unfortunately, it's America and everything American is being sold at rock bottom prices.  Everyone wants in on the action; corporations, our government, political representatives of both houses, the elite and anyone who thinks they can make a fast buck gambling with our children's' future.

Politicians motivated by the pursuit of votes and a constant supply of cheap labor are tripping over themselves in a nauseating display to give illegal aliens driver's licenses, free K-12 education, in-state college tuition and free health care.  They are willing to give privileges to foreign nationals who are here illegally while our own citizens go begging.  Try 18 million unemployed Americans!

American corporations bleed jobs to India, China, Mexico and Bangladesh faster than a meat packing plant renders beef cows on the slaughter line, and just as callously.  American companies showing no loyalty to this nation will outsource or off-shore jobs or services they know can be made or done cheaper in foreign countries, where billions struggle for a living.  Lou Dobbs lists on his web site 350 American companies that are "either sending American jobs overseas or choosing to employ cheap overseas labor instead of American workers."

The bizarre is becoming the norm.  American software engineers are laid off to make way for cheaper H-1B and L-1 visa holders from India and elsewhere.  Adding insult to injury, Americans must train their replacements with the threat of losing their severance pay if they decline.

If that's not enough to make you weep, unscrupulous American companies that are hooked on cheap illegal alien labor like crack addicts are squeezing the American middle class even harder.  The law of supply and demand, or one of the simple concepts we learned in kindergarten, goes something like this: Lots of illegal aliens ready to work for nothing drive down the wages of Americans trying to earn a living wage.  Here's the material point: Why pay someone $15 an hour when you can get it done for $6 or $3 or $.50 an hour.  The mantra of the open borders lobby is, "Illegals are doing the jobs Americans won't do."  No, they are doing the jobs Americans won't do for slave wages.  Pay any American a decent wage and you will find willing workers.  How did anything get done in this country before it was invaded?  Have Americans sat idly by for the last 400 or so odd years and built the greatest nation the world has ever seen by being lazy? To find the answer, one must look at mercenary company policies that maximize profits by outsourcing American jobs and utilizing cheap illegal alien labor here at home.  The elites and big business are getting rich by balancing their books on the backs of everyday Americans.  Who pays for the social services for the millions of illegals?  Who suffers the costs of high crime rates and the influx of infectious disease due to our wide open and unscreened borders that our government refuses to close?  You do!  Not the elites who live in gated communities and send their children to exclusive private schools.  Middle Americans can't insulate themselves from the reality of their own destruction.

The latest insult to our intelligence is the President's guest worker amnesty scheme that will "match any willing worker to any willing employer."  America can now become a "giant low wage employment agency" to the world.  Envision billions of the world's poor competing for and further undercutting American wages. Clearly the middle class is under attack by our smiling politicians, both Republicans and Democrats alike.

Our country is being stolen from us bit by bit, piece by piece, every minute of every day.  We are returning to feudalism, controlled by the Lords of Industry, who will rule over the Global nation with an iron fist.  Thom Hartmann, best selling author states, "Only a return to liberal economic policies — a return to 'We The People' again setting and enforcing the rules of the game of business — will reverse this dangerous trend.  We've done it before, with tariffs, anti-trust legislation, and worker protections ranging from enforcing the rights of organized labor (RICO) to restricting American companies' access to cheap foreign labor through visas and tariffs.  The result was the production of something never before seen in history: a strong and vibrant middle class."

Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Merchants have no country.  The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gain."

I don't mind the fact that technology is increasing productivity.  The big problem is the fact that governments aren't able to or don't want to create an economic system which provides for full employment.

How can you create full employment?  If government could take away the power from the banks to print money and then print it themselves, this would make the economy grow much faster.  The current fiat money system guarantees that almost everyone will always be in perpetual debt.

Free trade with third world countries is basically economic suicide.  A free trade system between the US, Canada, Western Europe and Australia works fine because these countries have similar social structures (labor and environmental protection laws, advanced infrastructure).

I would propose that all first world nations refuse to trade with third world countries unless they adopt a minimum wage policy.  If Indian companies won't pay their programmers salaries that are similar to the ones in the US, then they don't get to sell their goods or services to the US market.  Simple as that.  This type of system created a lot of economic prosperity during the post-WW2 years. In order for the US automakers to be able to have access to the Canadian market, they were required to open manufacturing plants in Ontario (this is called the Auto Pact).  Yes, it goes completely against the concept of globalization and pure free trade, but it created a lot of jobs for Canada.

I lurk this newsgroup, and I notice that some of you are saying, "I'm a Republican voter, and I don't believe in socialism, but..."  There's no need to provide apologetics, here.  The Republican voters in the US have been betrayed with the GOP's endorsement of offshoring and now the proposed amnesty guest worker bill.  Your political party has been hijacked by the globalization mentality; basically, the Republican propagandists want to make you feel that you're an "evil socialist" if you don't support unrestricted free trade.  I can search the internet and come up with quotes from conservatives that are against globalization as well.  You Republican voters probably can't stomach voting for a Democrat, and I suppose that the Ds are a little more pro-labor than the Rs but they are traitors too.  John Kerry is only giving lip service to the anti-offshoring sentiment that is brewing right now.  He will betray US workers just like Bush when he's elected.

We've often heard our economy described as a Consumer Economy.  Americans have heard it so often we think of ourselves — not as citizens, but as consumers. Corporations and our government sell us the biggest crock since Hitler's Big Lie.  We buy into it by setting aside our common sense.

How do we abide by this charade?  Don't think about the future for your children and believe everything you hear on television that fits the paradigm of your political leanings.

A majority of Americans haven't yet figured it out.  It's not surprising since we are bombarded daily with propaganda promoting various aspects of The Big Lie. The invisible hand of capitalism is no longer invisible.  It is slapping us around like rag dolls.

If you are a Republican, you think the Democrats are doing the slapping.  If you are a Democrat, you think it's the Republicans.

Politicians — Democrats and Republicans are the puppets.  The puppet masters are the corporations acting in concert through trade associations and lobbyists.  For the next few minutes, take off your political party hats and examine some facets of The Big Lie.

Lie #1. Loss of manufacturing jobs is a good thing.  We've exported manufacturing to the point that we have no manufacturing left.  The last remnants of manufacturing — the tool shops are closing thei