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Nielsen Collects FL Tax Breaks, Then Outsources Jobs
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:48 PM
from the can-you-say-ta-ta dept.
from the can-you-say-ta-ta dept.
theodp writes "The poop is hitting the fan over tax breaks given to ratings giant Nielsen Co., which pocketed millions in Florida jobs-creation tax concessions but has turned around and dismissed hundreds of local workers after inking a $1.2B outsourcing deal with Tata Consultancy Services of Mumbai. Lou Dobbs is on the case. Lou may go even more ballistic once he sees the Nielsen-Tata pact, which assures Nielsen that OT worries are a thing of the past ('there shall be no additional charge for overtime work'), allows Nielsen to have unsatisfactory Tata hires replaced within 4 weeks of starting with no charge for the original or re-performed work, gives Nielsen up to 6 man-weeks of free labor when a Tata worker is replaced, and allows Nielsen to make 'any TCS Resource' disappear with no more than 5 days notice if their presence 'is not in the best interests of Nielsen.' Nielsen execs have launched a PR counter-attack, pledging not to bully 85 year-old ladies in future layoffs. In a Letter to the Citizens, Nielsen CEO David L. Calhoun explained that Tata won a 'rigorous competition' to get the job, failing to mention that Tata was also tapped by Nielsen EVP Mitchell Habib in his CIO roles at both GE and Citigroup."
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Hmmmm - interesting.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Has anyone done an audit of EVP Mitchell Habib's bank accounts and lifestyle????
It might be nothing, but then again, it might not....
Re:Hmmmm - interesting.. (Score:5, Funny)
I think it's time for one of those incredibly through audits.
They kind that includes a prostate cancer test.
Parent
Re:Hmmmm - interesting.. (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah. I hear those are computerized nowadays. They're all digital.
Parent
Re:Hmmmm - interesting.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Xaxa,
India is a fine country.
I work with many indians and they seem like decent guys. For a while they were all superbrains but now they are increasingly average guys.
I look forward to the indian economy coming on line and you guys making as much money as we do.
The current situation is getting a bit intolerable. If *American* executives want to take up to 80% of their labor and have it work in other countries, without the labor protections of american law, then they should have to go live in those other countries and be paid the wages of those countries. As a SHAREHOLDER, I do no see why I should pay an american executive 70 times as much as an indian executive.
America is temporarily over priced. In part because of those executives efforts in pumping wealth and jobs out of the country, that's going to fix itself violently pretty soon. Once america goes into a hard bear market and has 12%+ inflation, you are not going to find a lot of sympathy for companies shipping jobs away.
Companies used to be part of the social fabric. We gave them certain benefits and they gave society certain benefits. They have changed the contract- the executive class is now blatantly looting both the companies and society for wealth and even screwing over the shareholders.
I think you will see some severe changes in response to this over the next 4-8 years.
Parent
Re:Hmmmm - interesting.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if Nielson is chartered in Florida then the government could always pull the ultimate one-upmanship and apply the corporate death penalty. Most charters require that the company operate for the public good, if it can be determined that Nielson is no longer doing so then the state of Florida may be able to revoke the charter and have the company dissolved and the assets returned to the investors. I would LOVE to see this happen just once to one of these companies, it might make CxO's think long and hard about screwing over everyone else around them so they can make their millions in quarterly bonuses.
Parent
Re:Hmmmm - interesting.. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Hmmmm - interesting.. (Score:5, Informative)
I've consulted at two companies now, which I won't mention, which used Tata in order to outsource, and in both cases the people that "made the deal" were getting a "per-hour" arrangement with Tata.
If you've never contracted through a third party before...it's common to receive a few bucks an hour of the billable time any other contractor you recommend to your agent or third party. I've made a dollar-an-hour "finders fee" for recommending someone that was later picked up by the client for every hour they billed. This is much like the bonuses at companies that give you a taste if you recommend another employee to be hired.
At the companies that used Tata, the same system was at the top level too. The executive at the top level that made the deal also got a small percentage of every Tata resource that was utilized. Multiply that by several dozen resources or more, and you can imagine the incentive to move as many jobs to Tata as possible by this executive.
I even saw a benefit by this. One of my clients that I was placed at had a large contract with the agency I went through. They "let me go" as a contractor during a time that they were cutting costs, but because the budget had already been sent to the agency, they continued to pay me to "work from home" and do virtually nothing just so the Director of the division could get his percentage cut.
One wonders what Nielson needs to outsource to Tata for anyway. Their internet and TV ratings divisions daya can be analyzed and OLAPed by any basic data analysis of the participating members...one wonders what they need to outsource. Pay them to watch the shows themselves?
Parent
Re:Hmmmm - interesting.. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you've never contracted through a third party before...it's common to receive a few bucks an hour of the billable time any other contractor you recommend to your agent or third party. I've made a dollar-an-hour "finders fee" for recommending someone that was later picked up by the client for every hour they billed. This is much like the bonuses at companies that give you a taste if you recommend another employee to be hired.
At the companies that used Tata, the same system was at the top level too. The executive at the top level that made the deal also got a small percentage of every Tata resource that was utilized. Multiply that by several dozen resources or more, and you can imagine the incentive to move as many jobs to Tata as possible by this executive.
Hmm, what does this sound like?
Bribery may also take the form of a secret commission, a profit made by an agent, in the course of his employment, without the knowledge of his principal. Euphemisms abound for this (commission, sweetener, back-kick etc.) Bribers and recipients of bribery are likewise numerous although bribers have one common denominator and that is the financial ability to bribe.
Examples of Illegal Bribes/Kickbacks
* A building contractor might kick back part of what he is paid to the government official responsible for selecting his company for the job.
* A pharmaceutical or medical device company might offer free training or other benefits to doctors who prescribe its drug.
* A benefit or pension provider might provide cash or another bonus to brokers who convince companies to choose their services over those of another provider.
So as long as it isn't secret, it's legal? Wow, if only the Mafia had figured that one out years ago!
Parent
My experience at Citigroup.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I was at Citigroup when Habib brought in Tata for a 2nd time. Initially, he brought them in for the credit card division. He was then promoted to CIO of North America and by then it was obvious to everyone that after what happened at GE and in our credit card division that there existed a quid pro quo arrangement between Habib and Tata. So there was no suprise when Tata was awarded the contract for all of North America, even though there was a 'competition' with at least 5 Indian outsourcing companies. I've got no idea if Habib thought that this move was really in the best interests of our company, I only know that he promptly left Citi for Nielsen right smack in the middle of all the resulting layoffs that he initiated. And anyone paying attention knew at the time that Tata and Nielsen would soon be working together, and every IT worker at Nielsen needed to get their resumes polished up in a big hurry.
Re:My experience at Citigroup.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, want a laugh?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&output=googleabout&btnG=Search+our+site&q=habib%20tata%20lawsuit [google.com]
Only 2270 hits on Google for habib+tata+lawsuit
Parent
Re:My experience at Citigroup.. (Score:5, Informative)
If that's your plan, then the zeroth thing you need to do is form a union. This kind of collective bargaining business doesn't work unless there's...a collective. Also, mob ties, to keep the collective in line.
Parent
Re:My experience at Citigroup.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Karma be damned. Do you honestly think you are inherently superior to the Indian companies, just because you are American? I've worked with a few Indians, and they were just as good as some of the Americans I've worked with. Articles like this never cease to piss me off, because they never fail to paint the Indians as a group of imbeciles who can't code their way out of a paper bag. Your post really does not help.
What country they come from is irrelevant. Nielsen is exploiting a tax credit and in my opinion that constitutes fraud.
Parent
Re:My experience at Citigroup.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:My experience at Citigroup.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Karma be damned. Do you honestly think you are inherently superior to the Indian companies, just because you are American?
These firms derive their characteristic competitive advantage from their ability to exploit their workforce in ways that would not be legal in the United States, and this is what most people object to with outsourcing. Nobody's "inherently superior".
Parent
Re:My experience at Citigroup.. (Score:5, Insightful)
so, the 'free market' is not good enough when you lose your job but it's just fine when a bunch of canadians or mexicans lose theirs ? Where was the outrage over the beef and timber tarrifs ?
Parent
Re:My experience at Citigroup.. (Score:5, Insightful)
May I know what are the ways these companies exploit their workers? For all I know, they pay their workers well, and people are happy to work in these companies.
To you, these companies may look as if they are paying their workers low wages, but the wages converted into Indian Rupee is a lot of money for someone in India. Somebody earning $1000 a month in India can maintain a standard of living above someone in US earning $4k-5k a month. So no, these companies are not exploiting anybody.
I live in Uruguay (another of the countries Tata outsources to), I work as a subcontractor for a very large US firm, and I earn less than U$ 1000 a month, so I'm VERY qualified to answer that :P .
Yes, U$ 1000 is a lot of money for someone in India (or Uruguay), but the "standard of living" stuff is relative. I can have food and housing that is probably equivalent or better than someone in the US making $4k, and I have a cook twice a week (!!!) but there are other costs that are international: I can't afford a car or gas or air travel, computers are costly and I can't afford a Laptop, forget about electronics or that LCD TV.. Plus, most of the imported stuff is taxed to death..
To be honest, most of what we can't afford is part of the "consumer culture" the US promotes, I can live happily without all of that, the one that stings the most is the car.
What I expect will eventually happen/what should happen should the "free market" be left to its own devices, is that the world's playing field will level off, and a professional will expect to earn about the same (adjusted for local cost of living) anywhere in the world. This serves neither the US (which will lose a lot of the buying power that enabled the "consumer culture") nor China (which would lose most of its competitive advantage of lower wages and would have to compete on quality and other intangibles - it will still probably be a little cheaper due to scale, but not massively so as it is now).
Of course, the market is not actually free, so the US will continue to hold back other countries with their one-sided trade agreements and patent and copyright monopolies, and China will continue to use their non-democratic government to hold back their people (I agree that no regulation would probably be a calamity if all the Chinese people had free reign to spend like they imagine US people do).
Oh, and I agree that those companies are not directly "exploiting" anybody in the sense that everybody entered into their agreements willingly, but they are using the loopholes created by their respective governments to bend market forces which would make these shenanigans impossible. (I think I came across as too strongly pro-market, I still think Government is needed unlike some extremists, but I think everybody can agree that governments are too big and often meddle too much where the best thing would have been to leave things alone - it seems all of this wouldn't have happened the same way had not the Floridan government given tax breaks to Nielsen)
Parent
Boy, that's some curious exploitation... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, yes it is exploitation.
You have a very curious version of exploitation. By that scale, you could complain about the midwest. On average the midwest has lower wages than the coasts, but proportionally lower living expenses as well.
By your comments, you seem to prefer that the worker in india NOT get that $1k/month job. Honestly enough, this is an educated Indian, so he's likely to get another job. Maybe one at $600/month. That means he can't afford as much to pay for other trinkets - and the collective effect is more people stay at the suckiest subsidence levels.
You can of course say that it isn't exploitation, but helping them by funneling money into their society. But the truth is, that as long as there is a huge salary difference for the same amount and type of job, there is exploitation going on.
In my mind, your exploitation = willing trade. We benefit, they benefit, we're both happy. Realistically speaking, this will also result in a downward push on our wages(I think we're lucky we've been merely stagnant), and an upward pressure on theirs. If you look at the mean/median for India and China, you'll find that their wages have been increasing at far above inflation. Which is to be expected. This will continue until China/India have modernized and pretty much eliminated the subsidence farmer class. If shipping costs remain high, that will relax the pressure to outsource jobs long before that, but by then they'll have enough internal economy to keep the process up.
And the grandparent was correct. These companies are employing workforce at below minimum wage salaries. Why are they allowed to sell products in the US?
Free trade laws, they're being paid well above minimum wage in their country, and the cost of living is such that paying them US minimum wage would be somewhat silly in that you'd have telemarketers and tech support people making more than the local doctors?
globalization is of net benefit to everyone. It's just that, as we were the top dogs, it's of the least benefit to us.
Parent
My outsourcing experience (Score:5, Informative)
2) 8 out of 10 could not code out of a paper bag, making obvious error that anybody having more than 1 week of experience should not do, and NEVER EVER testing what they produced before delivering (sometimes it did not even COMPILE).
3) after years of saying "everything is fine" management finally admitted they did not get from outsourcing the benefit they waited for (hint : it costs them 2 millions more in operation instead of the waited 10 millions money spare)
4) that was not an isolated case, the problem is that just like in the boom of the internet bubble anybody was calling themselves coder when in reality they had no idea on really developping software. The result was that there were a lot of people could not code out of paper bag in my own country either. I think the same is happening locally in India where the one which can code get better paid job / develop stuff,whereas the cheap guy which NEED to learn is put out to outsourcing departement.
I am sure there are many case where outsourcing was successful (who knows maybe a majority), but after seeing my firm declaring it was a success to the outside world, and only after 4 years admitting internally it was failed for the main objective, I begin to suspect many of the success touted by consulting firm are not that successful in reality.
Parent
Re:My experience at Citigroup.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience, Indian programmers tend to be excellent coders, who know the corner-cases of language specs and behavior better than most Americans, but they are very weak in the area of 'design'. I'm used to being tossed a paper napkin (if I'm lucky) and told to create a system. The Indian coders I've worked with fare poorly in that kind of situation, and need a fairly detailed design, that they can then implement quite well (assuming the design and requirements are not crap). This is not a racist statement, different cultures and different education systems, produce different strengths and weaknesses, go figure.
Parent
Just Deserts (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what happens when a apathetic populace lets fascism or corporatism slide. Florida is well used to letting megacorps and others who let their money talk for them get their way. Accordingly, they're the first to be taken advantage of.
Florida's not the only one, certainly. The attitude of letting money talk is endemic all over the country. It's over the entire country. Corporations want cheap labor and will do what it takes to get it. They'd prefer slave labor, but compared to Americans, Indians are cheap enough to make the bottom line look good. Human rights mean NOTHING to them.
Unless the American people stop this, it's going to get worse. WE allowed this to happen. WE allow companies like Neilsen and Citigroup to take advantage of us like this. Accordingly, WE get reamed.
Re:Just Deserts (Score:5, Insightful)
There, corrected that for you.
Free market forces, along with the incentives in capitalism, says that the labour market shifts to where the labour is cheap. I thought Americans were fans of the free market?
(FWIW, I'm not a fan of the free market, and I'm not American)
Parent
Re:Just Deserts (Score:5, Insightful)
Free market forces, along with the incentives in capitalism, says that the labour market shifts to where the labour is cheap. I thought Americans were fans of the free market?
How do tax subsidies make for "a free market?"
Parent
Re:Just Deserts (Score:4, Insightful)
More than half the time someone brings up "free market", they have no idea what they are talking about. A great deal of the time it's projecting an idealized version of what the market is supposed to be in their own heads, like the poster above you.
A free market is an unregulated market, with no government subsidies, bailouts, handouts, or funding, where the customers ultimately are responsible for the successes or failures for business based on whether they patronize them.
If this does not work, then democracy does not work, as it'll fail just as hard or harder for the precise same reasons--apathy, ignorance, malice, or what have you. Of course, market capitalism doesn't really make decisions for you, it simply allows more or less avenues and possibilities for you to enjoy or pursue, while government steps in and forces you to do something (or not do something) at the threat of punishment.
You probably knew that--that was aimed moreso at other people than you.
Parent
"Unregulated market" is an oxymoron (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry but there is no such thing as an unregulated market, "the market" is a system and by definition a system has rules. The 'free' part in 'free market' does not mean free from interference/change/rules, in fact the "free" part is a reference to a rule of the market that says everyone is free to participate in the market. Without rules to determine who owns what and who can/can't use force to uphold the rules, the 'market' part of "free market" is meaningless.
Some things work well under your definition of the "free market" but some such as transport and health don't. After all there is a vast difference between running an airport/hospital and swapping home grown vegtables with the neighbours. I'm not suggesting you personally adhrere to a rigid ideology, but to assume regulation and government interference is always a bad thing is to deny the importance of things as trans-US railroads, the Panama canal, the moon landings, equal pay for women & blacks, etc.
Parent
Re:Just Deserts (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this is an oversimplification. Many Americans (particularly Republicans and Libertarians) are fans of the "free market" (as in pretty much 100% unrestricted and unregulated), some other Americans are for "fair market" instead (although what is "fair" is subject to debate). Then there are those in between.
The current state of affairs is however that the prevailing position amongst those in power (which is the only thing that counts in the long run) is that "free market" is a cure-all wonder solution to all economic problems and those individuals are ramming through "reform" after "reform" to that end. Those for the "fair market" are resisting any way they can (read: "feebly").
The situation is of course not restricted to America, as the same kind of forces are at play all over the world. It is the eternal battle between those who are, despite of their many protestations, sociopaths (i.e. see only themselves as the center of the Universe and all others as mere objects, to be used as tools, abused and discarded when broken, since the Universe exists solely for the benefit of its "center") and those who see themselves as a part of a bigger whole and who wish for that whole and themselves to exist in mutually-beneficial harmony where no one is left to fend desperately for himself alone and where well being of the group's members takes precedence over rapidity of accumulation of possessions. There are even those who schizophrenically attempt to have the cake and eat it too, i.e. they believe that if only the entire world was arranged with unlimited and unbound personal greed as its sole Holy Purpose, then somehow (by means magical and divine) the society would end up being the inclusive, mutually-beneficial "got your back pal" arrangement sought by the second group.
Parent
Re:Just Deserts (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet calling all Libertarians 'hate-filled, poor-loathing' is fair-minded and liberal? I've always been amused by people who manage to reveal their hypocrisy in the space of one single sentence.
Parent
Re:Just Deserts (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone in America will eventually be too poor to buy anything, forcing these corporations to target the countries they outsourced to, chasing the money. This will make room for new pioneers in American business & the cycle will start all over again.
I hope I live to see when this situation repeats itself driving corporations to the moon.
Parent
BAD MODS! (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent is not a troll. He's just telling the truth. When an Indian man always hires the same Indian company to do his work for 3 different American firms, it's ethnic/racial favoritism plain and simple.
Parent
Re:Just Deserts (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Just Deserts (Score:4, Insightful)
BUT i don't think employment should be elevated to a human right. doing so only dilutes the term and makes real human rights seem less legitimate.
and here is why it's not a human right - someone employing you isn't something you need to survive, you can easily go work for yourself if you don't like what's being offered, or you can move onto the next 100000 jobs out there.
far too many issues get taken up as a rights crusade.
Parent
Re:Just Deserts (Score:4, Interesting)
We have labor shortages? There might be labour shortages on your side of the pond, but we certainly don't have any labor shortages over here.
"Low" unemployment rates be damned. I know a quite a few smart college-educated people who are making minimum wage. And they're the lucky ones.
Parent
Re:Just Deserts (Score:4, Interesting)
Come live in Ohio. :-)
I'll concede the market is probably a bit tighter in other places.
With respect to your PHP candidates, either they're unemployed or are getting offers around $75/hr. I'm willing to be the former, but who knows. $75/hr might not get you very far if you're in California.
Parent
Not what H1B Visas are for (Score:5, Interesting)
I was under the impression that H1B-type visas were for skilled workers of which there was a shortage in the US. It goes against the entire purpose of the program to say 'We can't find people to fill these positions domestically, we have to import them.', and when these are jobs that are only available because the Americans currently doing them are being fired. This sounds less like a job for the Oldsmar city council and more like a job for Congress, to address this complete abuse of the visa program. Sounds like everyone should call their Congressperson and ask them to inquire with the INS about just how and why these visas were granted and continue to be granted to Tata Consultancy.
A Policy Suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
No private company should ever receive special tax breaks or subsidies for any reason. Instead, just lower business taxes so everyone has a chance to profit equally. Then these sorts of things wouldn't happen. It would also radically reduce the cope for corruption.
(The only necessary exception I can see to this rule is for National Security-specific products and research, since protection the citizenry is the primary function of government, and in many cases (nuclear weapons development comes to mind) that nature of the product produce precludes recoupment if R&D costs in the private sector.)
You won't get money out of politics until you get politics out of money.
This just in.... (Score:4, Funny)
In other news: ratings indicate that television shows with a strong patriotic theme experiencing a marked decline in popularity.
Back to you Rob.
It's time to knock it off (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, call me protectionist, and queue all the rebuttals, but it's time to just knock this offshoring stuff off. I honestly think it should be made illegal at this point. Banned. For good.
We are gutting good jobs from our economy at a time when we truly can't afford it. We are watching CEOs and other greedy executives make off with literally millions of dollars by making these decisions that take food off the table for countless US families. The people who lose their jobs to crap like this then cannot buy goods and services in America. Guess what that does to the economy? But hey, those CEOs have their mansions and BMWs! They definitely have the mansions and BMWs!
My cell phone company uses an offshore support center. Recently, I spent 50 minutes trying to get two simple questions answered about my calling plan. The rep would "put me on hold while my issue was researched". We're talking REAL EASY questions, but they weren't addressed on the website (which was probably also offshored). This experience, by the way, has happened repeatedly with this provider's customer service. Note that my cell provider didn't lose anything - I'm locked into my plan, just like most other people who suffer from the cellphone cartels. They saved money by offshoring. But I lost 50 minutes of my life, because some bean counting boogerface decided to get himself a big bonus with his "cost saving offshoring" plan. I wish I could have spoken to someone in the US - someone who would then have money to buy stuff here, and who would have answered my question in perhaps only 10 minutes. I am a consultant who is paid by the hour. Should I bill my provider for the extra 40 minutes?
Some people think that offshoring will just raise the level of jobs we have here, and make more room for higher-level salaries. BULL! Where is the evidence? Sure, a select few get to play project manager or supervisor or offshore liaison, and the rest get to go home and wonder what to do with skills they have spent years honing. By the way, I know this might surprise some of you, but NOT EVERYONE wants to be a manager. Some people here would love to have those call center jobs (or those programming jobs, or whatever). Trust me, some people would really like to have them, especially now.
Darn it! Companies that made their fortunes on US ingenuity turn their backs on the US for a quick buck, and we continue to allow it to happen. It makes me sick and enough is enough. We are stupid, especially in the face of growing trade deficits, to send good jobs somewhere else. Wait, we peons are not stupid, it's the bigwig decision makers who AREN'T ACTUALLY HURT by the decisions. We should stop them. Congress should stop them. Which would be easy, if Congress wasn't attached to them at their wallet.
By the way, I have nothing against the folks in other nations to which we offshore this work. They are doing what I would be doing in their shoes - making their best play for these attractive jobs. If you walk up and hand someone an opportunity, you can't blame them for taking it. It's not their fault. It's OUR FAULT!
Not wanting to see our own economy gutted is not the same as being protectionist. This offshoring thing was a bad idea, ill-conceived and unethically promoted. Worse, it's been shamelessly allowed by our do-nothing Congress, and even condoned by brainwashed people who drink the "it'll free us up for more high-level jobs" kool-aid. If you run a business in the US, run it in the US. Employ people here. Between inexpensive overseas goods, offshoring of services, and oil, we seem absolutely hellbent to send every bit of value we can somewhere other than here. ENOUGH!!!
Admittedly, I need to relax a bit. My typing fingers hurt.
how would you ban it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you propose banning or highly taxing all imported goods? Even just sticking to software, that'd have a lot of consequences. For example, Ubisoft is a large French videogame company, with additional offices in Canada, which sells a lot of games to the American market (as well as elsewhere). Would you support protectionist measures that aimed to increase the market share of EA at the expense of Ubisoft? If not, how do you distinguish this case?
Parent
Ok, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Does that mean we also kick out everyone who has offshored to the US? When someone like, say, Toyota, wants to open up a plant in the US (who has 5 currently) do we tell them to fuck off because we are against offshoring? Or are we hypocrites about it and we are ok with offhsoring so long as the jobs come here. If that's the case, why should foreign countries allow that? Why not mirror image our policies against us?
Also how do you define it? Is it only offshoring when a US company moves jobs overseas? How about if they just stop producing something themselves and instead buy it from a foreign vendor? How about imports in general (where something is designed and produced in another country)? What about US companies that are owned by foreign conglomerates (like Blizzard, who is owned by Vevendi Universal)?
This is not a simple issue. We are well past the days where something was made by one guy and sold in one town. Global trade is incredibly complex. So if you are anti-globalism first you need to decide what precisely it is you are against. What things are ok and what aren't and at what levels (by levels I mean is it ok for something to happen inter state but not inter nationally). Once you've done that, you need to look and see what the consequences of that are. There is no action without cost. Make sure you understand what the downsides (direct and indirect) of such a thing would be, don't pretend like it's all roses.
Finally, doesn't it seem a bit supremest to tell everyone else "Well we got ours, we aren't going to help you get yours,"? I mean you seem to be all down on the rich in the US hording wealth, but yet you seem to be suggesting the US as a whole should do the same thing.
This isn't a simple issue, and thus if you think a simple solution works, you are probably wrong. I'm not saying what is going on now is right, I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying that you need to take the time to understand the whole picture. It isn't a simple case of jobs leaving the US, it is a complex case of trade becoming more and more global and more intertwined.
Parent
Re:It's time to knock it off (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't ban it. Let the market work. Make it expensive, and it will stop. This is something the government should be doing: add taxes and tariffs to things that are harmful and cause problems for society; give tax breaks to things that are helpful and do good things for society. That was the reason they gave the tax breaks in this case, but maybe the government dropped the ball here by not getting a solid agreement in writing (I don't know, maybe they have one, and the poo will hit the fan soon, I didn't RTFA, because I'm not new here).
Unfortunately, the government doesn't step in this way as often as it should, or it interferes in the wrong ways, giving tax breaks to companies that aren't doing anything to benefit the public, because the CEO of the company is good friends with a member of Congress, or whatever. That sucks.
Parent
Re:It's time to knock it off (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, call me protectionist, and queue all the rebuttals, but it's time to just knock this offshoring stuff off. I honestly think it should be made illegal at this point. Banned. For good.
The rebuttal is trivial actually, there are 6 billion people in the world and 300 million Americans. 6 billion will almost always innovate and progress better than 300 million, and protectionism goes both ways. In other words in 50 years the US would be a backwards nation running on outdated technology and subject to, for example, disease the rest of the world had cured decades ago. The same argument then extends to natural resources or rather their lack of for certain resources (ie: diamonds from Africa, oil from the middle east and so on). Remember that if you ban outsourcing then you need to logically ban foreign companies that outsource (unfair competition) so you essentially need to close off the US from the rest of the world.
We are gutting good jobs from our economy at a time when we truly can't afford it.
Sure we can afford it, we're in a mild recession at worst and are generally doing quite well.
We are watching CEOs and other greedy executives make off with literally millions of dollars by making these decisions that take food off the table for countless US families. The people who lose their jobs to crap like this then cannot buy goods and services in America. Guess what that does to the economy? But hey, those CEOs have their mansions and BMWs! They definitely have the mansions and BMWs!
What about the poor Indian who'd be ecstatic if they could eat as much as a homeless person in the US? Are their lives worth less than that american family you mention?
My cell phone company uses an offshore support center. Recently, I spent 50 minutes trying to get two simple questions answered about my calling plan. .... This experience, by the way, has happened repeatedly with this provider's customer service. Note that my cell provider didn't lose anything - I'm locked into my plan, just like most other people who suffer from the cellphone cartels.
You're not locked into anything, you CHOSE to get yoruself locked into it because you're greedy. You and only you chose to take the cheaper option to save some bucks instead of considering the long term problems. I, for example, am paying more for my dsl access than my neighbor but unlike him I made sure beforehand that my provider isn't a stingy ass pos company.
I wish I could have spoken to someone in the US - someone who would then have money to buy stuff here, and who would have answered my question in perhaps only 10 minutes.
Why do you assume that they'd be as stupid as you and buy products from their own obviously stingy and inferior company?
Some people here would love to have those call center jobs (or those programming jobs, or whatever). Trust me, some people would really like to have them, especially now.
I doubt anyone would want a call center job unless they were masochistic or desperate beyond measure.
Darn it! Companies that made their fortunes on US ingenuity turn their backs on the US for a quick buck, and we continue to allow it to happen. It makes me sick and enough is enough. We are stupid, especially in the face of growing trade deficits, to send good jobs somewhere else. Wait, we peons are not stupid, it's the bigwig decision makers who AREN'T ACTUALLY HURT by the decisions. We should stop them. Congress should stop them. Which would be easy, if Congress wasn't attached to them at their wallet.
Interesting, yet you continue to buy services from companies that engage in these behaviors. It seems you're want lots of things as long as you don't have to spend a penny more as a result. Typical.
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I wish they'd outsource the board (Score:5, Insightful)
How about saving some real money and outsourcing the board of directors.
Mod parent Up, please (Score:4, Insightful)
This is more insightful than may seem on the surface.
Due to a history of mega-mergers, there is less and less competition among this class of corporate actor: executives and directors. Meanwhile they increase competition to insane levels among the working class, such that we 'compete' with people who could never show up at a rally outside the employer's offices and who have scant civil and labor rights to begin with (and perhaps even less in a trans-continental employment situation).
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Re:I wish they'd outsource the board (Score:4, Interesting)
It can only last for so long. Once the people in India/China realize they don't need their American overlords anymore, they will spin off their own companies to directly compete, take the talent with them, and once they grow large enough, they will have their own board of directors. I am certain this is already happening, but would love to hear about some examples.
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What Job is Safe? (Score:4, Interesting)
The US invested mightily and fostered the genius it took to create it's amazing economy. India did not, they can do that now if they want. They will catch up eventually, but why on Earth would you help your competition? Maybe it's not about America, maybe it's about greed which, contrary to neo-con oversimplified-theory-so-the-senator-from-Nebraska-can-understand-it isn't always good.
I bet India has some very very bright people. Probably bright enough to be CIO or CEO of a major company. Probably bright enough to be a lobbyist. Oh right, CEO's are unique individuals with rare qualities that only their buddy CEO's at the club can recognize and set the compensation for.
So anyway, H1-B visas for lobbyists and CEO's. And tax this wanker's bonus back because lynching is apparently forbidden or something.
On the other hand Lou Dobbs scares me. I dunno, like a xenophobic populist or something.
The way Tata use people (Score:4, Informative)
Tata will have agreed to the terms to get the business. Nielsen may well be disappointed at the actual execution. A seemingly common trend within Indian outsourcing companies seems to be the eagerness in which they will pitch for work without considering the implications of the requirement. I worked on a project a couple of years ago where one of the biggest Indian consultancies had undercut a major IT services company by 30% to get the contract, but then found that they needed hardware and expertise with it to get the job done, and consequently hired the IT services company to provide it. The attitude to manpower was also interesting: if for example they needed an Oracle DBA, the manager would call the HR department in Bangalore and say 'find me someone with Oracle on their CV', and someone would step off the plane a couple of days later. If they proved not to be up to scratch (quite rare, as most of the staff were at least good at one thing), they would be back on the plane fairly quickly. I don't think Nielsen will be losing out having such a clause in their contract, and Tata certainly don't see it as losing out, just the way they and the other major Indian consultancies run their business.
Re:This Is Not News For Nerds (Score:4, Informative)
How the fuck news about the Nielsen company make the front page here? They don't do techy things, make techy things or relate to tech at all.
You're quite mistaken. Their business extends well beyond TV ratings.
A friend of mine manages a team of developers there. I'm sure interested in what's going on.
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Re:This Is Not News For Nerds (Score:4, Informative)
How the fuck news about the Nielsen company make the front page here?
They don't do techy things, make techy things or relate to tech at all.
You mean like http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/ [nielsen-netratings.com] ?
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Re:People in India (Score:4, Insightful)
So are you willing to give up your job and your ability to feed yourself and your family so that more Indians can feed their family? If not, you've got no business saying that.
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Re:People in India (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, I agree that India needs the jobs. So do we. But if there is to be real competition, then open your borders. And at this time, I say that we really should change our policies to match the countries that we deal with. The west has pretty open borders WRT business. Yes, there are still barriors there. But shortly, EU will throw up tariffs based on pollution as well as openness to trade. Before that time, America will have changed our attitude WRT to CO2 emissions (new president), as well to jobs.
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Re:People in India (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't have a problem with them taking whatever job than can get. I do have a problem with American companies screwing over American workers. If this keeps up, no one will be able to afford the products or services of these companies, so they're basically trying to put themselves out of business.
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