colorado is rockin' for working on new legislation that would strip companies of their state contracts for sending jobs overseas.
Dem. senators Hanna and Phillips weigh in:
Hanna said she was shocked when workers for EDS, a Texas-based company that has a contract for computers for the state human services programs, recently told lawmakers it was sending technical support jobs to workers in India and Pakistan.
Hanna said her measure (Senate Bill 170) would require companies to keep workers assigned to state contracts in the United States.
"I know profits are important to companies, but we in Colorado need to do all we can to make sure people have jobs," Hanna said.
Phillips said IBM recently announced it was moving 900 jobs out of Louisville. His measure (Senate Bill 169) would bar companies that relocate 100 jobs or more outside the United States from doing business with the state for seven years.
wouldn't it be nice to have a thriving economy again? available jobs? customer service representatives who understand english, speak it fluently, and can be understood?
i'm all for keeping american jobs in america. worry about the local economy before you worry about the global one, please.
1. a reader left...
ReplyDeleteFriday, 30 January 2004 1:30 pm
Woo Hoo....your fans love Colorado!
mel
2. a reader left...
ReplyDeleteFriday, 30 January 2004 4:31 pm
i gotta disagree with you here. Of course it would be best to help american workers before we just let all those jobs go overseas. But the problem is that the forces driving those jobs there are really strong right now, much stronger than they've ever been in history, mostly due to communications technologies. The amount of money to be saved by 'offshoring' is immense. So, take the example of Colorado. One of two things can happen. Either the companies in Colorado all fail because they can't compete with companies located in other states who come in and under-bid, or they realize that they need to be competitive, so they continue moving their jobs overseas and just put up with getting no state funds. Either way, the Colorado worker still loses his job in the long run. So the person we were presumably trying to save actually gets hurt anyway.
In general, protectionist policies are the wrong idea. Regulation is always a drag on the economy, which is only a small problem when the economy is doing well, but when ours is bad and going through a recovery, its one of the worst things you can do. It could simply just pull us back into a depression. There are a lot of examples all over the place. France is a good one. We do not want an economy like the French one. French companies get tons of money from the government to keep jobs in France. Meanwhile, who are the least satisfied workforce in Europe? the French. The companies fail, or they need to scale back on their workforce, so they lay everyone off. What do they care? They get the money from the government so long as they don't hire workers overseas. They don't even have to produce anything. And I'm not even going to discuss Japan, where this situation is such a crisis that the government has started to referring to many huge Japanese corporations as 'zombies.'
All of this longwinded explanation just goes to say that, yes, it stinks that American workers are losing their jobs, but at this point it is sort of inevitable. There is a belt-tightening time coming for the US worker, and there are things we can do to make it easier, but the worst things we can do to make it harder are try to ignore it and try to stop it from happening.
Just my $.02
BabyTyrone
2. a reader left...
ReplyDeleteFriday, 30 January 2004 4:31 pm
i gotta disagree with you here. Of course it would be best to help american workers before we just let all those jobs go overseas. But the problem is that the forces driving those jobs there are really strong right now, much stronger than they've ever been in history, mostly due to communications technologies. The amount of money to be saved by 'offshoring' is immense. So, take the example of Colorado. One of two things can happen. Either the companies in Colorado all fail because they can't compete with companies located in other states who come in and under-bid, or they realize that they need to be competitive, so they continue moving their jobs overseas and just put up with getting no state funds. Either way, the Colorado worker still loses his job in the long run. So the person we were presumably trying to save actually gets hurt anyway.
In general, protectionist policies are the wrong idea. Regulation is always a drag on the economy, which is only a small problem when the economy is doing well, but when ours is bad and going through a recovery, its one of the worst things you can do. It could simply just pull us back into a depression. There are a lot of examples all over the place. France is a good one. We do not want an economy like the French one. French companies get tons of money from the government to keep jobs in France. Meanwhile, who are the least satisfied workforce in Europe? the French.
The companies fail, or they need to scale back on their workforce, so they lay everyone off. What do they care? They get the money from the government so long as they don't hire workers overseas. They don't even have to produce anything. And I'm not even going to discuss Japan, where this situation is such a crisis that the government has started to referring to many huge Japanese corporations as 'zombies.'
ReplyDeleteAll of this longwinded explanation just goes to say that, yes, it stinks that American workers are losing their jobs, but at this point it is sort of inevitable. There is a belt-tightening time coming for the US worker, and there are things we can do to make it easier, but the worst things we can do to make it harder are try to ignore it and try to stop it from happening.
Just my $.02
BabyTyrone