Walter In Denver

You didn't mention that Evan later went on to try to pass off his fantasy island as being the US. Do you know of any janitor making on the "order of $400,000 a year" in America?

I urge anybody to go to http://www.americanjoblog.com/ and read what's there.

He made up a fictional island where people make a lot more than Americans. You told him to "stick to the real world". He then spelled out that he was making an analogy that works in the real world. Then you banned him.

Do I need to connect the dots any further?

I happen to agree with you on this, but, well, it's just so often hell when people disagree with us, in general. Vapors often ensue.

I think that the major culture shock for the Radley Balko partisans (aka "Catotonics") occurred when they ran into people (often IT workers/software engineers) who discuss outsourcing from the perspective of actual experience rather than taking the highly theoretical views exeplified by Ghertner and McElroy.

"First we hang the economists!" Excepting only a few such as Paul Craig Roberts...

Matt Moore wrote: "He made up a fictional island where people make a lot more than Americans. You told him to "stick to the real world". He then spelled out that he was making an analogy that works in the real world. Then you banned him.

Do I need to connect the dots any further"

Pete Johnson is not the admin at the American JoBlog; I doubt Pete banned anyone. If you want to argue the validity of an analogy to make-believe, that's a different issue.

'Balko partisans' didn't know people could lose jobs to outsourcing? You really think that?

And yes, let's hang the economists. Phlebotomists and meteorologists, too. Not to mention those annoying molecular biologists.

It's as if we've just uncovered the last active chapter of the flat earth society.

"'Balko partisans' didn't know people could lose jobs to outsourcing? You really think that?"

Re-read what I actually said. It's a collision between people who have lived the reality of outsourcing with people who discuss it from a detached theoretical view.

"Flat-earth society?" Yes, I see it at the Agitator, Cato Institute and Club for Growth sites...

Right, Info Tech Guy! I don't know of anybody being banned from http://www.americanjoblog.com/ and it is not my blog site. I have never even met the folks who run it. I just post there because they, yourself, and the other regulars who post there are good Americans with loyalties to the United States of America.

One of the Cattlearchy posters got so frustrated over discovering that there were gaping holes in his fantasy theories that he couldn't explain and had to resort to some foul language. Do you suppose that's the one? I don't think even he was banned though.

The protectionist, seem to be so short sighted they are blind. Outsourcing labor creates a better economy in both countries (the country that outsourced and the country that receives the outsourced work).In America over the last 100 years we have moved from a manufacturing/farming country to an information/service country. The reason is because manufactured goods and food has become cheaper, freeing up the extra money for people to buy services that they otherwise would not be able to afford.
To put it even more basic. If I manufactured cars in America and each car cost me 50,000 to produce in part because of labor and I have 1000 employees who make 50,000 a year and the factory produces 1,000,000 cars a year. And I close down my American operation reopen in Korea and am able to manufacture the same care for 25,000 and my sales stay in America I have helped the American economy more than I have hurt it. Sure we lost 1000 jobs at 50,000 a year or (50,000,000 in the economy). However now 1,000,000 people who buy cars have an extra 25,000 in their pockets to spend on other things or 25,000,000,000 extra in the economy. The only thing is that the only ones we hear from are the 1,000 employees who lost their jobs. We don’t hear from the 1,000,000 who saved money on their cars and used that extra money to remodel their house, hire a person to mow their lawn instead of doing it themselves, going out to eat more often, take a vacation to Orlando, etc.

Severin: The U.S. is losing its information age jobs faster than you imagine. The jobs now being "created" in the U.S. and filled by Americans are mostly low-wage no benefit service sector jobs. The cost of goods and services is not falling like a rock because the work is now performed offshore by low wage workers of the developing world. Read some of Paul Craig Roberts' articles and grapple with observable reality. The U.S. has no "comparative advantage".

Matt:
You said: "He made up a fictional island where people make a lot more than Americans. You told him to "stick to the real world". He then spelled out that he was making an analogy that works in the real world. Then you banned him. Do I need to connect the dots any further?"

Here are some dots for you to connect:

Evan Williams Logic: I knew this guy once on Shabangodia who ate 5,000 doughnuts in one day. He died. Therefore doughnuts are poisonous.

I'm going back over the real world to post on http://www.americanjoblog.com/
If you want to comment on what I write, go there.

Info tech guy. I am sorry if you are in an occupation being outsourced. I know that it can be tough to learn new skills and you might feel resentful to the people in other countries whom you perceive as taking your job. But the fact is that if the US does not have a comparative advantage over other countries it is because of government interference, causing American companies so many headaches that they don’t want to do business or innovate here, not because of outsourcing. I have heard how soon everyone will be flipping burgers my whole life (31 years) when I was a kid it was because the Japanese were stealing all of our good auto-manufacturing jobs, then it was the Mexicans and NAFTA were going to still all of our jobs (giant sucking sound), now it is India stealing all of our good paying high tech jobs. Here is the truth if we still had all of those heavy industrial jobs here, we never would have had the human resources to develop the tech jobs we have. And if we had never moved away from our farming culture we would not have had the human resources to have the industrial revolution etc.What will the next big thing be? I don’t know, but when it comes I will take advantage of it. If you are really worried about your job, change fields. One of my closest friends was in the telecom industry (like me) and got tired of the insecurity, went back to school and now is an RN she will never be displaced.

Two good articles on this subject are:
Ten Myths about Jobs and Outsourcing
http://www.heritage.org/Research/TradeandForeignAid/wm467.cfm

and How can it be?
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams.html

Severin: I'm not resentful of foreign workers. And my situation is not one of blind "reaction" as you may seem to believe. The problems of outsourcing and importation of low wage guest workers arise from political decisions taken by politicians influenced by multinational corporations focused purely on maximising profits with no concern for the effects on our society. There really aren't new areas into which one may retrain for secure middle class employment. The example you give of nursing is already increasingly filled by guest workers. There are a number of articles on Indian web sites re. this. And, of course, many of us must work full-time and cannot go back to school full-time. An RN degree is a 4 yr commitment.

I think that most people are largely unaware of how widespread the outsourcing and use of guest workers really is. If a job can be performed via computer, that job is ripe for outsourcing. (Even Radley's job could be offshored to Bangalore.) Now that the global communications systems have become so advanced and developing nations produce so many educated low wage workers, there is no longer a "comparative advantage" enjoyed by developed nations. developing nations or citizens of these nations can and will do everything cheaper than workers in the developed world. (Even the most sophisticated R&D for emerging technologies is moving offshore.)

Eventually there will be a reckoning. Multinational corporations seem to imagine that they can continue to sell products and services in the developed world at high prices while making massive job cuts among workers in these same developed nations. Politicians seem to have a similar misconception, imagining that they can continue to collect increasing revenue from a shrinking middle class. It isn't at all unimaginable that we will experience a deflationary recession.

I really believe that you would find it valuable to read Paul Craig Roberts' articles on the subject of outsourcing and free trade. Two of them are available on the American Job blog.

Here are some comments from Paul Craig Roberts in the May 10 WSJ

From the perspective of trade theory and economic-development theory, it is hard to see the benefit to the country whose firms outsource. With domestic capital and technology reallocated to the employment of foreign labor, there is less to employ domestic labor. Either unemployment results or the remaining capital is spread more thinly with a decline in labor productivity and real incomes. As industries move offshore, suppliers are forced to follow. The domestic economy becomes a less-efficient place to produce as concentrations of skills are diluted by movement offshore.

If outsourcing were a limited phenomenon driven, for example, by domestic scarcity of a few specific skills, it is possible to imagine scenarios under which a country gains from outsourcing. But even here caution is appropriate. For example, if technology jobs are outsourced because of domestic supply constraints, the mechanism for expanding domestic supply is short-circuited. If a shortage of nurses is met by importing foreign nurses under a visa work program, domestic nursing schools are unlikely to increase their enrollments.

Outsourcing is a problem for the U.S. and First World in general, because all tradable goods production and service jobs can be outsourced. The higher the value added, the greater the incentive to outsource the work to India or China where enormous excess supplies of labor guarantee relatively low wages for years to come. Faith that new industries and occupations will rise to replace lost ones is problematical, because the same incentive will encourage replacement industries to be outsourced as well.

With excess supply overhanging Indian and Chinese labor markets, First World wages and salaries can fall swiftly and sharply long before Asian wages rise. The resulting declines in employment and/or real wages can bring political instability to First World countries.

Roberts is a former WSJ editor and Reagan admin official. He also has a doctorate in economics.

All right, well let’s say I agree with Mr. Roberts and outsourcing is bad and hurts our economy. What would the solution be? A law that says a company cannot outsource if they are headquartered in the US? That would be worse since then companies would be forced to fully relocate in order to remain competitive on a world basis. The companies that do stay would not be able to compete price wise from the foreign competition, this would cause pressure to the government to “equalize” this imbalance by raising tariffs and the result would be that all products that Americans purchase would see an increase in price, even if the overall pay per person is increased, the standard of living for the people would decline. There are plenty of countries that are very protectionist, North Vietnam, Africa, Argentina, etc. None of which we should strive to emulate. In fact if we want a better economy and more jobs we should end our current protectionist policies and repeal all tariffs.

Info Tech Guy,

I directly responded to the arguments of Mr. Roberts several months ago.