Did you know the Pentagon has issued 161,711 waivers to avoid buying American? That it has cost us 620,000 manufacturing jobs and $53.5 billion dollars since 2007? So says a new report from the House of Representatives Buy American Caucus Chair, Chris Murphy.
Today, Congressman Chris Murphy, Chair of the House Buy American Caucus, was joined by local manufacturers and advocates for American manufacturing to unveil a report showing that federal policies of the Department of Defense are costing as many as 620,000 American manufacturing jobs. By issuing over 161,000 waivers to the Buy American Act, the Department of Defense has sent $53.5 billion to overseas contractors since 2007.
How in God's name could the Pentagon do this, considering the United States has a massive jobs crisis and that is, after all, U.S. taxpayer money. First, the Buy American act allows exceptions.
The Buy American Act, which has governed federal procurement since 1933, is full of loopholes and exceptions that allow billions of dollars to flow out of the country each year. Two of the biggest loopholes allow for waivers for any product that is to be used overseas, or for products in which the Department of Defense finds that there are no domestic suppliers.
But wait for it, the DoD is claiming there are no domestic suppliers when in fact there are. Some American Business are screaming political bloody murder as loud as they can about the Pentagon snub too.
Did you know China has a five year plan? They do and it's a doozy according to a U.S. – China Economic and Security Review Commission. Yup, China has a strategy in play and it's on Indigenous Innovation and Technology Transfers, and Outsourcing. From the opening statement:
Since 1953, the Communist Party of China has used a series of five-year plans to guide China’s economic and social development. In its newly-adopted 12th Five-Year Plan China makes clear that it hopes to move up the manufacturing value chain by making explicit mention of Strategic Emerging Industries, which the Chinese government would like to see dominated by Chinese firms. These industries are: New-generation information technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, advanced materials, alternative-fuel cars, energy conservation and environmental protection, alternative energy, and biotechnology. China’s goal is to take the Strategic Emerging Industries from a current combined share of 3% of Chinese GDP to 8% by 2015 and 15% by 2020.
Anyone name America's 5 year plan? Beyond destroying the U.S. middle class and American workforce, can anyone even think of one? China, on the other hand, is methodically going about dominating a host of advanced technology industries and capturing our jobs in that process.
The BEA is finally giving us some interesting data in this BEA economic release, Summary Estimates for Multinational Companies: Employment, Sales, and Capital Expenditures for 2009. Their statistics show U.S. multinationals fired more Americans than those abroad during this recession, even while some of these companies were bailed out by U.S. taxpayers. Additionally, these same corporations clearly have been offshore outsourcing jobs over the last decade.
Maybe it's because he has the queen of offshore outsourcing, Diana Farrell on his National Economics Council. Regardless, President Obama is wrong. India is indeed a poacher of U.S. jobs. How else do you think their offshore outsourcing industry is $50 billion a year, with 60% of that coming from the U.S. representing 1.32 million U.S. jobs lost.
Right now we have 17 million college graduates working as waitresses and sales clerks. We just saw in this 60 Minutes report PhDs, Masters degrees, people with advanced skills, grateful to get a part-time job at Target. We have 11 U.S. industries not employing Americans, U.S. workers, but where most workers are offshore or brought in as cheap labor.
India’s top tech firms, along with Nasscom, are lobbying harder on Capitol Hill and are set to launch a public campaign on hiring more local staff in the US as political rhetoric against offshoring of IT and back office jobs reaches an all-time high ahead of the US November elections.
Hiring Americans is not what they will do in reality. Instead they will contract or hire a few token Americans to point to as evidence they are not committing global labor arbitrage. Labor arbitrage, or squeezing workers for profits, is the entire business model of these Indian body shops.
These same offshorers are buying our elections and controlling our Congress.
Bangalore-based Wipro spent $33,000 as lobbying costs in Q2 this year in the US. Chennai-based Cognizant has spent a whopping $320,000 in lobbying this year.
Now guess which party is completely in their pockets? Republicans.
Some of the intense lobbying and other initiatives are already bearing fruit. Last month senate Republicans defeated a bill aimed at taxing American multinationals moving services and manufacturing jobs to cheaper overseas locations such as China and India.
Our Congress sucks. I think all will agree with this statement. That said, is there anyone, anyone at all who is a working stiff in the United States, be they conservative, liberal, green, purple, red, blue who thinks it's a great idea to give tax rebates to corporations when they offshore outsource their job? Do you think it's just swank when you must train your cheap labor replacement before being fired? Do you think about increasing corporate profits by using cheap labor when you cannot pay your mortgage because your job was offshore outsourced?
I didn't think so.
No one who works for a living in the United States thinks offshore outsourcing our jobs is a great idea. Yet our Congress, once again, blocked the bill that would help curtail offshore outsourcing. The block was all of the Republican Senators plus these Democrats:
Warner (D-VA)
Tester (D-MT)
Nelson (D-NE)
Baucus (D-MT)
Joe Lieberman, now an independent, owned by multinational corporations, acting as a U.S. Chamber of Commerce, demanding their cheap India and China labor, also voted against the bill.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
You may not connect airline safety with globalization, labor arbitrage and offshore outsourcing, but....they are. The more corporations squeeze the more workers are less skilled and the more corners are cut. Why do a good job when the only thing a corporations sees is a $ sign tattooed on your forehead? Even worse how can one do a good job when corporations won't pay for the training and conditions required to do so?
You see the headlines, you see the cheers. Don't you know the recession is over! Graphs, statistics, tables abound. People argue over margin of error, data points, and debate the great mystery of increased unemployment statistics, then quickly dismiss them as a lagging economic indicator.
But you, down on the ground with the rest of us, say hell no, all of my friends are broke, I can't find a job, I'm in debt, this talk of recovery is bullshit!
You might very well be right and the problem is current statistics appear not to be capturing the true state of GDP, Productivity and thus jobs (in the United States).
That it has cost us 620,000 manufacturing jobs and $53.5 billion dollars since 2007? So says a new report from the 
Did you know China has a 
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
Anyone else wondering how a President, who just received a red tidal wave that was a 
In a backdrop of election 2010, we have more spin. NASSCOM, the India offshore outsourcing industry is starting a 
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
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