"America?" he says. "I'll tell you about America. America is not all honey and roses the way they tell you. Truth is, 90 percent of the people there, you will find, they'll do the most stupid things, impulsive things. I know for a fact. At the same time, Americans are bighearted people, and the remaining 10 percent of them are smart. Bloody smart. That's why they rule the world."
[more inside]
posted by Naberius
on Jul 6, 2011 -
90 comments
How two American kids became big-time weapons traders - "Working with nothing but an Internet connection, a couple of cellphones and a steady supply of weed, the two friends — one with a few college credits, the other a high school dropout — had beaten out Fortune 500 giants like General Dynamics to score the huge arms contract. With a single deal, two stoners from Miami Beach had turned themselves into the least likely merchants of death in history." (
via; previously on
arms contractors)
posted by kliuless
on Mar 21, 2011 -
69 comments
The biggest mistake people make when talking about the outsourcing of U.S. jobs by U.S. companies is to treat it as a moral issue. Sure, it's immoral to abandon your loyal American workers in search of cheap labor overseas. But the real problem with outsourcing, if you don't think it through, is that it can wreck your business and cost you a bundle.
Case in point:
Boeing Co. and its 787 Dreamliner.
Boeing can't say it wasn't warned. As early as 2001, L.J. Hart-Smith, a Boeing senior technical fellow, produced a
prescient analysis projecting that
excessive outsourcing would raise Boeing's costs and steer profits to its subcontractors.
[previously]
posted by ennui.bz
on Feb 18, 2011 -
58 comments
Coming soon to a library near you,
outsourcing.
LSSI is now the 5th largest library services provider in the US. The ALA is surprisingly
neutral on this issue. "In general, there is no evidence that outsourcing per se has had a negative impact on library services and management. On the contrary, in the main outsourcing has been an effective managerial tool, and when used carefully and judiciously it has resulted in enhanced library services and improved library management. Instances where problems have arisen subsequent to decisions to outsource aspects of library operations and functions appear to be attributable to inadequate planning, poor contracting processes, or ineffective management of contracts."
posted by Xurando
on Sep 28, 2010 -
45 comments
Wombs for rent: "Anand's surrogate mothers, pioneers in the growing field of outsourced pregnancies, have given birth to roughly 40 babies. More than 50 women in this city are now pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Taiwan, Britain and beyond. The women earn more than many would make in 15 years."
posted by mr_crash_davis
on Dec 30, 2007 -
134 comments
Made in China. A look inside the world’s manufacturing center. Flash video slideshow of the port of Shenzhen (7:00 minutes with sound)
posted by srboisvert
on Jul 23, 2007 -
26 comments
The numbers are classified, the dollars are classified, but there's no doubt that the number of "
Green Badgers" are catching up to, and sometimes surpassing, that of "
Blue Badgers" in some of the US's most sensitive national security positions.
Bob Baer is talking about it.
Others have been, too. R.J. Hillhouse has been writing a blog for roughly six months now on the phenomenon:
The Spy Who Billed Me.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze
on Jul 8, 2007 -
17 comments
Keep Burberry British. The 150 years old
very british brand is now under a new management that decided to ...*surprise* move production to China closing Treorchy plant, firing 310 workers , despite a 25% increase in profits ! Celebrities from Prince Charles to Tom Jones are supporting the protest.
posted by elpapacito
on Jan 28, 2007 -
72 comments
The ultimate in outsourcing. Welcome to
India, where you can visit the Taj Mahal and get a new knee, all for under $10,000, airfare included. Of course, it's not just for Canadians whose health care system, while free, sometimes necessitates lengthy waits for important surgical procedures.
The uninsured in the US and other nations are a potential market as well. And there's potential for medical tourism destinations
in the US as well.
posted by greatgefilte
on Jun 17, 2006 -
38 comments
Choose your own adventure! You are the manufacturer of a premium product. Wal*Mart wants it. They want it cheap. Do you buckle to their demands and out-source, reduce the build quality, and make money on volume? Turn to page 67. Or do you keep your American employees, increase quality, and make money by targeting the higher-end market? Turn to page 28.
The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart.
posted by five fresh fish
on Jan 19, 2006 -
55 comments
Outsource Your Own Job! -- "Says a programmer on Slashdot.org who outsourced his job: "About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing." "
via BBspot.
posted by Space Coyote
on Aug 23, 2004 -
23 comments
Lou Dobbs, Call Your Office If Lou Dobbs, the fair-trade crusader, only knew about this one!
A few months ago, activists and journalists were blasting the U.S. for plans to buy only branded drugs, made by companies like Merck, to treat patients in poor countries under the president's $15 billion AIDS relief program[...] The result is that the way has been paved for U.S. taxpayers to spend billions to buy drugs made in India that are copies of medicines invented in the United States
posted by Postroad
on Jul 14, 2004 -
34 comments
Outsourcing comes to Iraq. Interesting article from the WP (login req'd, get one
here) about workers from countries such as India and South Korea, subcontracted by American companies, notably the ever-infamous Halliburtun. Effectively turned into indentured servants, these workers not only endure work conditions that American workers would never tolerate, but they do it in a war zone.
"Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said contractors' use of multiple layers of subcontracts makes it difficult for the U.S. government to ensure the fair treatment of the workers it effectively employs."
posted by mkultra
on Jul 1, 2004 -
2 comments
Saudization is the process of hiring Saudi Arabian nationals to join the Saudi workforce and is an interesting counterpoint to the US phenomena of outsourcing. The goal of Saudization is to discourage reliance on foreign workers as well as to combat domestic unemployment, which is worsened by the rapidly swelling ranks of restive, undereducated youth. Unfortunately it's not as easy to put into practice as
it
sounds.
posted by rks404
on Apr 19, 2004 -
3 comments
Say goodbye to more jobs? This is an interesting research report from the Gartner Group on the future of banking, money and economic transition. One of the participants at a conference that Gartner cites is Bernard Leitaer, who is
interviewed here. Leitaer is the author of the book
The Future of Money. He argues " the malaise Japan has suffered since the early 1990s reflects an economic challenge the whole developed world has begun to face. Today, European and U.S. factories, too, suffer from overcapacity. The vaunted productivity growth spurred by the digital revolution has raised the economy’s stall speed. If the natural growth rate of the U.S. economy has risen to 4% annually, anything less than that rate will cause firms to trim capacity. A firm’s revenue growth often must come at the expense of competitors as well as its own profits because companies have trouble raising prices. In response, companies cut costs any way they can, usually by laying off employees and squeezing suppliers, which causes further layoffs. For developed countries, the
safety valves that limited damage during contractions in manufacturing may not work. In past recessions, laid-off factory workers in the Great Lakes states, for example, could migrate to the growing Sun Belt to find new jobs. In the present transition, areas with job growth may lie overseas." The long heralded rise of the information economy, the death of distance and the rise of
the
global knowledge workers is paradigm shift that our
goverment leader's seem ill equiped to handle.
posted by thedailygrowl
on Mar 16, 2004 -
36 comments
Tom Friedman, well meaning NYT columnnist lunkhead, gets job outsourced In a stunning development, Tom Friedman - until recently the famous NYT op-ed columnist who has
downplayed the outsourcing of American jobs, finds his
job has been outsourced due to an egregious factual error concerning T-shirts.
"[ BANGALORE, India ] I am delighted to write to you today as the new foreign-affairs columnist for the New York Times . My name is Tam Veeraraghavan. Ah, you say, you've never heard of Tam Veeraraghavan, but the name sounds vaguely Indian. Well, I am an Indian. I live in Bangalore. And I'm now the pundit you read in this newspaper. Now some of you might think that I'm an example of how outsourcing is hurting American workers. Well let me introduce you to Yamini Narayanan, an Indian-born 35-year-old with a Ph.D. in economics....."
posted by troutfishing
on Mar 11, 2004 -
41 comments
Wal-Mart as Leviathan. "The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?"
posted by the fire you left me
on Nov 14, 2003 -
31 comments
10% of American tech sector jobs will move offshore by the end of the year.
Cyber-Marx (1999):
"... globalisation has given some knowledge workers, largely male, largely white, associated with high tech, finance, communication and information an exceptional importance. Concentrated in the technopoles that form the hubs of "global webs," these constitute a layer of privileged labour on whose loyalty capital can largely rely. But analysis that sees "symbolic analysts" as the crucial actors in globalisation does not grasp the speed with which capital turfs yuppies from the lifeboat when cheaper replacements can be found. Even symbolic analysts feel the blast of globalisation, as North American computer programmers are undercut by Lithuanian or Indian competition, and architects, engineers and professors discover that those who can telecommute can always be teleterminated by cheaper services uploaded from anywhere on the planet.
True? What effect will this trend have on the digerati as a class, do you think?
posted by hairyeyeball
on Aug 7, 2003 -
30 comments
The New Global Job Shift. The next round of globalization is sending upscale jobs offshore. They include basic research, chip design, engineering--even financial analysis.
posted by Ty Webb
on Jan 31, 2003 -
50 comments
