Lack of flexibility, perhaps, but exceeding your sales projections by so much you can't keep up and have to outsource from competitors could be a genius (or moronic if it backfires) marketing move....if Tesla power packs outperform ones purchased from competitors in an apples to apples comparison (but one designed to favor Tesla from the start because they are in Tesla cars, optimized for Tesla batteries), they end up selling exponentially more when the new factories catch up and make a surplus. Worth it if in 5 years competitors all start buying from him.

Odd, there are correct answers in other countries that are doing exponentially better that America.
Trump has no correct answer. FTFT

If it's a state issue, why are Trump and Devos trying to force them to open no matter what states say?

By no one you mean Trump. Fauchi knew, CDC officials knew, doctors knew, basically anyone with an average IQ knew. Only nobodies DIDN'T know, and you all are willfully ignorant, not honestly questioning professionals but obstinately backing an ignorant moron's dangerous and inconsistent "plan".

Dual shifts?! Are you fucking kidding? Your plan is make overworked underpaid teachers work twice as long, doubling their exposure and workload?! They'll walk week one.

Open to varying work south? Are you suggesting we outsource teaching to Mexicans? What?

Fuck you asshole, you said you work from home less than two weeks ago, or did you forget? Fucking liar.


Again, your plan is to let up to >5% of Americans die and 10% be permanently disabled....not to mention the insane medical costs, most not covered by insurance....all to avoid social distancing.

Your anti American sentiment is showing, your suggestions amount to 15 million dead Americans and 30 million more disabled is way better than wearing a mask and distancing. Only America's enemies would consider such a thing....comrade.

Big multinational corporations are responsible for outsourcing to China, but the Chinese companies do indeed do quite a bit of copying on their own. Any popular product is going to get copied by 50 others trying to make a living, it's a result of their legal system I guess.

Well, things are not as rosy as folks like Steven Pinker would like us to believe. As much as I dislike resorting to Hollywood for philosophical insights, True Detective was absolutely on point in this quote:

„Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It's catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he's effective in proportion to the amount of certainty he can project.“

Now, they were talking about a preacher. But I'd argue this applies to scapegoats as well. And if your arguments undermine the scapegoat, it starts losing its efficiency as a focal point of people's discontent.

Most of us have so much day-to-day shit to deal with that outsourcing the macro-shit to a boogeyman, any boogeyman, helps us get through the day without wanting to bash our head against the wall. Or bash someone else's head in, for that matter.

This doesn't excuse this level of self-delusion, but maybe it explains it to some degree. I'd say keep doing what I know you've been doing for many years: present your case in a respectful manner.

This is a good reminder that Trump's being inept and not taking the job seriously has real consequences. During the election people often argued "Don't worry, his advisors will be smart and capable for him." But some things can't be outsourced, and he's proven he's not one to seek out sensible advice anyway.

That was quite good.

But man, that 4th issue is a doozy. Learning that "hard work pays off" is difficult when it just really doesn't, at least not anymore. Massive income inequality, zero class mobility, and on and on. We feel like relatively easily replaceable cogs in a relatively pointless machine because WE ARE.

We hear lots of stories about people that manage to buy in, feel like they are doing something important and making a real impact, enjoy some period of good job satisfaction...

...and then all too often, they end up looking like saps when the company that they work for gets bought out by some massive faceless corporation that doesn't value their years of loyal service at all, at which point they get replaced by A) a robot, B) an outsourced sweatshop laborer in a 3rd world country that can be payed a fraction of the local rate, C) a younger and more compliant hire that will inevitably have a massive turnover rate, but who cares because there are plenty more where that came from, or D) the cokehead nephew of the new CEO that needs a job to keep him out of trouble, and hey, might as well keep things in the family, right?

Maybe I'm just a bitter, late Gen-X'er.

Outsource the US Presidency to Mexico? Yeah, I like it.

So basically you're not to blame if you contractually agree to a shitty service and then forget to maintain the conditions? There's a good reason I do my credit business through reputable establishments with reasonable T&C and interest rates rather than Bruce the leg breaker at the local fucking pub... Because Bruce is a cunt and his T&C are ass rape...

I have 55 days interest free on my platinum card and I've not spent a single cent in interest in about 16 years. Mostly cos my wife would kick my ass harder than the bank, but it's a matter of discipline rather than the bank being a pack of pricks. I agreed to the terms, I need to meet them.

There's probably a fair point to be made somewhere in there about usuary rates re: credit cards, but the airline bit is a fucking silly...

Budget airlines offer everything as a pay for after the ticket price service because people want cheap fairs. In some cases, it's actually cheaper to fly today than it was 30 years ago in the 80's... (http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/international-air-fares-at-30year-low-20160422-gocr1r.html)

Well, funny that, people don't want to pay for a premium product and they get a shitty one that nickel and dimes them to death to try and keep the margins up (aka "staying in business").

You can look at plenty of markets where cheap, shit products are now the standard because people either won't or can't pay for quality ones. It's the entire reason why many industries outsource to foreign wage slaves and why cheap Chinese shit shows up everywhere as well known and reliable brands go out of business.

Yes, the US certainly has a problem with a lack of oversight on various industries which allows them to get away with a lot, but the customer/end user has to take some responsibility as well.

Damn, sorry to hear that. I could go off on a frothing at the mouth rant at how bad it was, what we went through. To save money our original company, a nationwide US health insurance company, outsourced us right at merit raise time (nice touch, a-holes) to an off-shore company that would probably only ever meet expectations running an assembly line operation for building PCs.

They were out of their league taking over level 1 and 2 operations for a large company, which was already working through the pains of merging with other companies they had acquired. Instead of inspiring the legacy workers to stick around to make the transition work, their attitude was we were lucky the host company insisted we get first crack to reapply for "our" jobs. Like it was all one big assembly line and we could be easily replaced with someone with an A+ cert for $11\hr. The equivalent of pulling up to a storefront and having IT landscapers jump in the back of a pickup truck to work that day. Might work for an assembly line but not for a complex embedded IT infrastructure with 1001 local support quirks. They were completely clueless.

Add insult to injury, their internal processes were so bad, over the course of a year they asked us continually to remind them of the phone# of the iPhone they gave us and the serial# of the laptop they gave us. At least half a dozen times, it was fucking absurd. And when we were offered an incentive to help reduce the ticket log backup, they mailed unsigned money orders to fictional home addresses they had on record for us. With the stamp on the wrong part of the envelope for those lucky enough to receive their unsigned money orders. You had the option of mailing the money order back to get it signed (good luck getting it back) or committing a felony to get the money you legally earned, by not using the first option. Took me 7 months to finally get my money order, who knows where they originally mailed it. Their indifference during this whole mess was staggering, you had to badger management and HR like they were a deadbeat drunk brother-in-law who owes you money.

And they kept putting off the review\raise process until they finally offered us 50 cents an hour for the highest performers. I gave my notice the next day.

Sorry for the rant, it was such a colossal failure on all fronts, except no doubt for the amount the host company saved on IT during that time. But of course nobody is interested in capturing the countless hours of downtime and lost productivity introduced by these IT cost "savings". Last I heard they were putting the contract back out to bid before the scheduled end of the current contract, which doesn't surprise me. What a freaking waste.

I hope you find work soon, Ant.

"job security"? We got outsourced to some offshore low-bidder whose call center was apparently staffed by AOL dial up veterans. The very first all-hands telecom was hosted by some guy on the other side of the planet, who actually spent 30 minutes reading off names instead of using some modern technology to capture attendance. I'm glad I got out of that racket.

*ban
Outsourcing Digest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ket-g4KuAyo

Suppress not every kind of economic activity, but the kind of activity that employs people at or near minimum wage.

Minimum wage is not paid by magic, it has to be paid by an employer. If he has to pay too much for labor he will quit (or look for creative solutions in order not to employ people - like robots, illegal immigrants, not paying taxes/insurance, outsourcing, some other form of cheating).

The 30 or 100 USD examples are just to show that there does have to be a sane upper limit. What is that limit? Experts argue, areas differ. Why set a federal limit?

The economy has of course added jobs under Obama but you really can't talk about the unemployment rate (% unemployed of those actively looking for work) without factoring in the participation rate (% of in the labor force working or looking for work out of the population) which has been dropping since 2000 in the US.

This is not explained by baby boom retirees as even if you take a narrow 25-54 measure you see the same decline. China's acceptance into the WTO ('95) is often talked about as a turning point as it was in some ways an abrupt green light to many companies that opened up a huge labor pool and a led to an influx of outsourcing. I would argue the US government among many others has done a poor job of retraining manufacturing workers and financially supporting them to be mobile to find work elsewhere.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS11300060

The sad thing, it won't make a lick of difference.

I listen to ppl in Aus bemoaning the loss of a local manufacturing industry and other jobs because everything is getting outsourced to cheaper China or India. But they won't spend an extra cent than they have to to buy the quality product and support locals.

We are victims of our own making. If a person bullies you, you either stand up to them, ask for help, or allow it/run away from it. We sate our desire for freedom by purchasing more things we don't need, filling our lives with junk that doesn't make us happy, but distracts us momentarily from the state we are in. We don't take responsibility for allowing the rich, the corps, the gov running over us and taking away our rights. We complain on the internet but won't take to the streets, and feel like we've made a difference even as we get soaked as the hurricane blows our piss back in our face.

We are the problem. The US was founded on the grass roots movement against British imperialism. I'm an Australian and I understand that. It's not until US citizens get that and actually decide to do something about it that anything will change.

And when nothing changes and we're slaves to the corporate machine with no recourse, we'll blame everything but ourselves.