Outsourcing

Friday Movie Night

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hot buttered popcorn

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!

This week, I found some original reports on worker displacement through insourcing from the 2003-2004 time frame. Insourcing is when corporations bring over cheaper labor via guest worker Visas and displace US workers. In other words, the jobs exist, US workers are simply swapped out for cheaper counter parts. I think to believe it, and get your head around this practice, you just plain have to see it.

This story rarely gets out but when you see the real people this is happening to, it makes the unbelievable real. It is real.

Shipping Costs and Offshore Outsourcing

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Recently an individual emailed me believing increased fuel costs would magically bring back his service job (engineering). Not so, I pointed out, for unlike manufacturing which requires raw materials, components, shipped around the globe per their ill advised and little analyzed global supply chain fuel and transportation costs, service jobs can be offshore outsourced with almost no supply chain costs whatsoever. And no, putting a toll booth on the Internet super highway is not the answer.

That said, for manufacturing there might be a silver lining to rising energy costs. According to the Wall Street Journal, High cost of shipping goods brings some jobs back to U.S., global supply chain costs are taking their toll:

What's Aiding the Terrorists Now? Outsourcing.

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With all the breaking stories exposing KBR's policies of corruption, abuse and fraud leading up to Tuesday's Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing on the misuse of taxpayer money in Iraq, the findings of KBR's gross mishandling of funds should come as no surprise. We already knew about KBR's use of a judicial loophole to avoid prosecution in an alleged rape case, and about their scheme to avoid paying taxes on employee salaries.

Indian Fish in American Waters

This is the name of a low-budget movie which is billed as a romantic comedy. I did not find it either romantic or funny.

The "romance" occurs between Naveen who comes to the NY-NJ area on an H-1B visa and an Indian-American woman who is the friend of Bobby, the guy who owns the body shop that is his "employer". The drama, romance and comedy - such as they are - result from the cultural divide between the FOB (fresh of the boat) and ABCD (American-Born Confused/Compassionate Desi).

I urge everyone to watch it (it is available on Netflix), if only to see the business practices of body shops that bring hordes of H-1B visa holders to these shores. On the very first day, Bobby tells Naveen the rules:

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