printThat’s our First Lady, Mrs. Michelle Obama. “Almost immediately after arriving at the university [of Mumbai’s] library, she kicked off her flats and joined in a game of vocabulary-building hopscotch with the 8- to 13-year-old orphans and runaways who receive English-language instruction from Make a Difference volunteers,” reports CBC.
“I love dancing. Oh that was fun!’ Mrs. Obama said after they danced to the theme song from the Bollywood movie ‘Rang de Basanti.'”
A grass skirt and a pail of water on her head would have completed Mrs. Obama’s regal regalia. (What horrid “music” she’s bumping and grinding to.)
It’s interesting that these kids are receiving English-language instruction. Hardly something Michelle would be fighting for back at home. She’d be the “English as a Second Language ‘Program” advocate.
Meanwhile, Michelle’s less earthy husband is talking a good game against outsourcing, and doing what he does best: central planning, promising tax breaks to companies that create jobs in America.
Strange: the president visits India, which is outsourcing central, only to tell his put-upon hosts that he wants to discourage their bread-and-butter industry.
Obama would do better to ponder the following: In the U.S., companies endure endless, punishing, government-imposed regulations, which make doing business and staying competitive increasingly difficult. Foreign investors in China and India are not subject to more than 180 federal labor laws; to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an IRS and an EPA; or to a work force where merit is marred by affirmative action. To the cost of the assorted alphabet soup of regulatory agencies a corporation must pay off in the U.S., add exorbitant corporate taxes and expenses like workers compensation insurance … as well as the cost of a government rape known as Social Security.
Factored into the wage price the corporation pays are, thus, large government-imposed costs. The company’s before-tax wage package must offset the cost of the income-tax burden as well as the cost of Social Security. Without the onerous government taxes, this American employee would cost the firm 30 to 40 percent less.
Consider that the annual Social Security burden alone on an American high-tech employee, borne by the employer, is the equivalent of the annual salary of a high-tech worker living well in India—and the logic of outsourcing is self-evident!
Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and author of the book “Outsourcing America,” knows how corporate America works. Via the WaPo:
“They have successfully built a business model where not only do they offshore large numbers of jobs, but the fraction that remain in the U.S. are filled by lower-paid foreign guest workers … They are often also forced to train their foreign replacements.”
This is indeed the model. You have to be at the top of your game to retain viable employment as an engineer in the US.
Sorry Ilana but Indian labor law is far, far worse than the American counterpart. There is an automatic unionization (or at least “arbitration”) requirement once a firm hits 100 employees. In many states, once you hit 100 employees, you need the permission of the state government to fire someone. Also, on average it takes years to shut down a business and sell its assets. It takes many months or a year to start a business. [Do you know how many employees an American firm must have after which affirmative action laws apply? 15! Worse than in South Africa!]
However, i believe your overall point is correct : that the Fed Guv massively inflates labor costs to US employers forcing them to outsource overseas.
Wow Mercer! You just hit a bucket full of nails on their collective heads. Great observation of the situation. Now instead of going to work this morning I just want to go home, assume the fetal position under the bed and suck my thumb. Anyway, you’re right as usual. Good work.