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Ziggy
08-09-2004, 09:39 AM
This is FOOD for THOUGHT!
Subject: Heinz Products
Shortly after reading the following e-mail content, I happened to
look at the label of a jar of Heinz sandwich slice pickles. Yep....
Made in Mexico" Check some of your Heinz products. "Sen. John Kerry
keeps talking about U.S. corporations leaving this country and
setting up
shop in foreign countries, taking thousands of jobs with them. He is
right, because that has happened. However, he is trying to blame it
on George W. Bush. As far as I know, Bush has not moved one factory
out of this country because he is not the owner of a single factory.
That cannot be said about Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz-Kerry.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Kerry's own 32 factories in
Europe and 18 in Asia and the Pacific. In addition, their company,
the Heinz Company, leases four factories in Europe and four in Asia.
Also, they own 27 factories in North America, some of which are in
Mexico an! d the Caribbean. 80% of Heinz products are made overseas.
I wonder how many hundreds of American workers lost their jobs when
these plants relocated in foreign countries. I also wonder if the
workers in Mexico and Asia are paid the same wages and benefits as
workers in the United States. Of course they're not. However, Kerry
demands that other companies that relocate should pay the same
benefits they did in the U.S. Why does he not demand this of the
Heinz Company, since he is married to the owner? If Kerry is
elected, will he and his wife close all those foreign factories and
bring all those jobs back to America? Of course they won't. They're
making millions off that cheap labor. Please e-mail to at least 5
people. Thank you and make your vote count.....

Essex502
08-09-2004, 10:12 AM
This is FOOD for THOUGHT!
Subject: Heinz Products
Shortly after reading the following e-mail content, I happened to
look at the label of a jar of Heinz sandwich slice pickles. Yep....
Made in Mexico" Check some of your Heinz products. "Sen. John Kerry
keeps talking about U.S. corporations leaving this country and
setting up
shop in foreign countries, taking thousands of jobs with them. He is
right, because that has happened. However, he is trying to blame it
on George W. Bush. As far as I know, Bush has not moved one factory
out of this country because he is not the owner of a single factory.
That cannot be said about Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz-Kerry.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Kerry's own 32 factories in
Europe and 18 in Asia and the Pacific. In addition, their company,
the Heinz Company, leases four factories in Europe and four in Asia.
Also, they own 27 factories in North America, some of which are in
Mexico an! d the Caribbean. 80% of Heinz products are made overseas.
I wonder how many hundreds of American workers lost their jobs when
these plants relocated in foreign countries. I also wonder if the
workers in Mexico and Asia are paid the same wages and benefits as
workers in the United States. Of course they're not. However, Kerry
demands that other companies that relocate should pay the same
benefits they did in the U.S. Why does he not demand this of the
Heinz Company, since he is married to the owner? If Kerry is
elected, will he and his wife close all those foreign factories and
bring all those jobs back to America? Of course they won't. They're
making millions off that cheap labor. Please e-mail to at least 5
people. Thank you and make your vote count.....
Ziggy...you should eat better before posting rubbish! :)
Turning down offers to seek election to her husband's Senate seat to take care of her sons, family and professional responsibilities, she became chairman of The Howard Heinz Endowment and the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Under her leadership, the Heinz foundations are widely known for developing innovative strategies to protect the environment, improve education and the lives of young children, reduce the cost of prescription drugs, promote the arts and help women achieve financial economic security. She established the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement in 1996 to educate women about pensions, savings, and retirement security.
Holder Shares Reported
JOHNSON, WILLIAM R. 564,671 19-May-04
JOHNSON, WILLIAM R 342,639 20-Jun-03
BERTASSO, MICHAEL J 107,884 1-Jun-04
JIMENEZ, JOSEPH 81,632 19-May-04
MILONE, MICHAEL D. 74,151 27-May-04
TOP INSTITUTIONAL HOLDERS
Holder Shares % Out
Barclays Bank Plc 14,412,489 4.09
State Street Corporation 10,021,143 2.85
Mellon Bank, N.A. 9,865,270 2.8
Franklin Resources, Inc 8,552,763 2.43
Capital Research and Management Company 42,021,500 11.93
Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 6,800,888 1.93
Harris Associates L.P. 5,043,264 1.43
Northern Trust Corporation 4,551,441 1.29
Massachusetts Financial Services Co - Other 4,328,348 1.23
Putnam Investment Management, LLC 4,251,597 1.21
__________________________________________________ ____
31.19%
TOP MUTUAL FUND HOLDERS
Holder Shares % Out
Washington Mutual Investors Fund 14,950,000 4.25
Investment Company of America 7,950,000 2.26
Income Fund of America Inc 6,745,000 1.92
Capital Income Builder, Inc. 5,645,000 1.60
Templeton Growth Fund, Inc. 5,200,000 1.48
American Mutual Fund Inc 3,500,000 0.99
Vanguard 500 Index Fund 3,176,040 0.90
American Balanced Fund 2,591,500 0.74
Putnam Fund For Growth and Income 2,361,650 0.67
Oakmark Fund 2,310,000 0.66
__________________________________________________ _____
15.47%
I don't see the name "she became chairman of The Howard Heinz Endowment and the Heinz Family Philanthropies." anywhere in the above list...Are you saying that there are "hidden owners" of HJ Heinz?

Ziggy
08-09-2004, 10:32 AM
Ketchup is about as far as it goes for me..... :D :D
I figured this statement/email would just be Political Fodder for all the hardcores as I am one individual who can't stand politics whatsoever.
To me Kerry just has a dishonest looking face and thats enough for me to make my choice.... ;) "W" might have the "deer in the headlight look" sometimes but he comes accross like a neighbor would with a beer in his hand.

BarryMac
08-09-2004, 10:38 AM
Ketchup is about as far as it goes for me..... :D :D
To me Kerry just has a dishonest looking face and thats enough for me to make my choice.... ;)
He has that long face that looks like a horse, maybe we should nickname him 'HorseHead'... :confused:
gjb

Krazy K
08-09-2004, 10:39 AM
Of the many plants and factories that they own overseas, how many were transplanted there?? Did they not just build the factories over there? I'm actually asking this...
I'm not much into politics but I'd vote Kerry over Bush anyday!

ROZ
08-09-2004, 10:40 AM
WHo cares about the friggen job count...Loose a cople jobs here,gain a few jobs there.... The unemployment rate is what has meaning....
BTW, Today's job rate is the same as Clinton's during his second election period....
One more thing... The value of my house increased 3 fold during this term. That's more than Clinton's 2 terms....

gnarley
08-09-2004, 11:56 AM
WHo cares about the friggen job count...Loose a cople jobs here,gain a few jobs there.... The unemployment rate is what has meaning....
BTW, Today's job rate is the same as Clinton's during his second election period....
One more thing... The value of my house increased 3 fold during this term. That's more than Clinton's 2 terms....
So if you lost your job that was sent overseas and had to take a job that paid 50% less because you couldn't find another one doing what you had done and couldn't sell your home since no one wanted it and you didn't have enough saved to move and start over you would then be ok with that? Maybe you could post what the net loss or gain of income is when comparing Clinton and Bush.
FYI, Unemployment rates only list people that are actually receiving benefits, not those whose benefits have run out and are still looking for suitable employment. So are you ready to go work at Wal-Mart and pay for your own healthcare?

eliminatedsprinter
08-09-2004, 12:18 PM
So if you lost your job that was sent overseas and had to take a job that paid 50% less because you couldn't find another one doing what you had done and couldn't sell your home since no one wanted it and you didn't have enough saved to move and start over you would then be ok with that? Maybe you could post what the net loss or gain of income is when comparing Clinton and Bush.
THe above trend was happeing under Clinton as well as Bush. The "Clinton Economy" sufferred from this as well. It just didn't get much attn because the stock market seemed to be doing well. The political fighting in our current election cycle is just bringing attn to what I once heard a clever M.D. Call "the accute awareness of a chronic problem".
It is kind of a sad irony, if you look at it objectively. Businesses flee the country to get away from high taxes, often useless restrictions, and arbitrary regulations, that have mostly been forced on them by Democrats and the Democrats blame the Republicians for not passing more regs etc to try to stop them. Go figure.

Essex502
08-09-2004, 12:18 PM
WHo cares about the friggen job count...Loose a cople jobs here,gain a few jobs there.... The unemployment rate is what has meaning....
BTW, Today's job rate is the same as Clinton's during his second election period....
One more thing... The value of my house increased 3 fold during this term. That's more than Clinton's 2 terms....
Unless something DRAMATICALLY turns around in the next coupla' months Bush will be the first Presendent since Harry Truman to have a net loss of jobs during his term. 1.2 MILLION to be exact.

Dave C
08-09-2004, 12:43 PM
actually the employment rates have 4 numbers: # in workforce, # unemployed, #employed, # not in workforce (see attached for explanation) dol (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm)
take this july vs. end of March 2004 for example:
in millions 1st quarter july
# in workforce 146,661 147,856
#employed 138,388 139,660
# unemployed 8,273 8,196
#not in workforce 75,695 75,565
while the # of unemployed barely went down, the actual number that enter the workforce AND FIND JOBS is 1.2 million.
but you hear on the evening news that only 77,000 found jobs.
ain't politics great!.

Dave C
08-09-2004, 12:51 PM
here is the 2/01 data (when GW took over) DOL (ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/news.release/History/empsit.03092001.news)
# in workforce 141,751
# employed 135,815
#unemployed 5,936
# not in workforce 69,275
compared to the current #'s the workforce grew by 6.1 mil, # employed went up 3.8 mil, #unemployed went up 2.2 mil. So there has been a net job increase of 1.5 mil.# not in workforce include retirees, etc.
here is a chart that shows while the # unemployed went up the unemployment rate went down under Bush.
DOL (ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.cpseea1.txt)

OGShocker
08-09-2004, 12:54 PM
I'm not much into politics but I'd vote Kerry over Bush anyday!
Kinda says it all. Educate yourself and you will see. A vote for Kerry will effect your boating life. Look at those who support this man.
As for Heinz-Kerry. She owns 3% of Heinz stock. She is in charge of the Heinz Foundation. She controls it's $500,000,000.00. She supports groups like the secretive Tides Foundation to the tune of more than $4 million over the years. The Tides Foundation, a “charity” established in 1976 by antiwar leftist activist Drummond Pike, distributes millions of dollars in grants every year to political organizations advocating far-Left causes. The Tides Foundation and its closely allied Tides Center, which was spun off from the Foundation in 1996 but run by Drummond Pike, distributed nearly $66 million in grants in 2002 alone. In all, Tides has distributed more than $300 million for the Left. These funds went to rabid antiwar demonstrators, anti-trade demonstrators, domestic Islamist organizations, pro-terrorists legal groups, environmentalists, abortion partisans, extremist homosexual activists and open borders advocates.
I don't give a rat's a$$ about Heinz factories around the World. I do give a damn about who might be standing the post in time of war.

eliminatedsprinter
08-09-2004, 01:06 PM
Of course it will efect our boating. He is supported by and beholding to all of the nut groups that want to get our a$$e$ off the waterways. I wouldn't want to imagine how the dept of the interior and the EPA would be run under the Babs S. and Whoopi G. types he would put in charge..

gnarley
08-09-2004, 01:09 PM
THe above trend was happeing under Clinton as well as Bush. The "Clinton Economy" sufferred from this as well. It just didn't get much attn because the stock market seemed to be doing well. The political fighting in our current election cycle is just bringing attn to what I once heard a clever M.D. Call "the accute awareness of a chronic problem".
It is kind of a sad irony, if you look at it objectively. Businesses flee the country to get away from high taxes, often useless restrictions, and arbitrary regulations, that have mostly been forced on them by Democrats and the Democrats blame the Republicians for not passing more regs etc to try to stop them. Go figure.
I know it was happening under Clinton as well. Bush senior is who signed the bill that allowed tax credits for companies that shipped jobs overseas? Am I mistaken? Jobs started going off shore due to this bill, does anyone remember it?

OGShocker
08-09-2004, 01:12 PM
I know it was happening under Clinton as well. Bush senior is who signed the bill that allowed tax credits for companies that shipped jobs overseas? Am I mistaken? Jobs started going off shore due to this bill, does anyone remember it?
Please remind me, how is this bad? :rolleyes:

gnarley
08-09-2004, 01:40 PM
Please remind me, how is this bad? :rolleyes:
It's not that it's bad for business, any business owner who didn't take every credit he/she would be crazy IMO. It's bad for society IMO as higher paying jobs leave, those with the highly skilled jobs need retraining to become re-employed and many times they can only find jobs that pay significantly less than what they made before or require the stay at home mom to go back to work and the kids come home to an empty home with less income than it had before and it keeps spiraling down.
Sure, other jobs are created but do they pay a similar total net income as compared to the jobs that went away? Don't get me wrong if I owned a company I would use every savings I could to make a profit if necessary, but would I sleep at night knowing that I could have kept my employees working by keeping jobs at home.
Isn't there more to it than just jobs? What about the trickle down effect on everyone? Maybe it dosen't effect you now but what if your choices came back to bite you because the product you made or sold is no longer affordable by those that had bought it?

Dave C
08-09-2004, 01:58 PM
The DOL just did a study that said net jobs lost overseas due to "outsourcing" is negligible, at best.

gnarley
08-09-2004, 02:02 PM
The DOL just did a study that said net jobs lost overseas due to "outsourcing" is negligible, at best.
Isn't the DOL the same outfit that keeps over estimating what the job growth is and grossly wrong each month? Even if they were correct what about net income to those who have been effected?

Essex502
08-09-2004, 02:19 PM
Isn't the DOL the same outfit that keeps over estimating what the job growth is and grossly wrong each month? Even if they were correct what about net income to those who have been effected?
Yep....and full of Bush appointees...
The 1.2 million job loss has been reported in many, many newspapers.

OGShocker
08-09-2004, 02:19 PM
It's not that it's bad for business, any business owner who didn't take every credit he/she would be crazy IMO.
So, you do not think shipping jobs off shore is a good idea but, if you were in business for yourself you too would ship jobs offshore?

gnarley
08-09-2004, 02:35 PM
So, you do not think shipping jobs off shore is a good idea but, if you were in business for yourself you too would ship jobs offshore?
I would really need to think about the reasons why I would. If I could compete with homegrown talent and goods, I would. If I couldn't I would do what was needed to stay competitive. That might mean moving the business to another state and off shoring if necessary. I guess there is no simple answer and it is a double edged sword but I would do what ever I could to keep jobs at home and live with my conscience.
I really think that off shoring has far deeper implications than any of us can ever imagine. It suits us for now but what will be the net effect in 30 to 50 years? Who will control the information that we used to own? What happens in a trade dipute and the country you are recieving goods from won't ship to you and you can't keep your contracts?

Scream
08-09-2004, 03:00 PM
Just a little input here...
I don't think I would classify Pickle Packers as a highly skilled position. Companies ship jobs offshore for one reason...MONEY. There's no hidden agenda, there's no secret initiative to displace the American family, it's just business.
I'll give you a simple down home example. Let's say that you have a business making widgets. They're nice widgets, but the market will bear only a small amount of money for your widgets. You do a cost analysis and find out that in order to successfully sell your widgets AND profit from it, you can only pay your average employee minimum wage. Keep in mind that minimum wage is a state of mind... Here in So Cal, minimum wage is $6.75 / hour, except in San Francisco, where the living wage is closer to $10.00/hour. Now this sounds bad, but remember there are many other considerations when paying an employee. Mandated healthcare costs money, the employers contribution to your income taxes (yes we have to pay the same amount you do to have the priviledge to keep you employed), mandated vacation time and mandatory breaks, and don't forget Workers Compensation Insurance, which has quintupled within the past few years...Add all this up and a minimum wage grunt making widgets actually ends up costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $9.00/hour.
Now...who the hell is going to bust thier ass making widgets for minimum wage? Nobody, that's who. So the mighty widget factory has to relocate to Mexico (or Pomona, Ca) in order to find enough cheap labor to make the product they started out making in the good ol US of A.
Where does that leave the American worker, well I think it leaves him or her free to persue a higher level of being, or even some sort of vocational training that will make them a desireable in the ever expanding tech sector.
We're not shipping brain surgery over seas, it's the crap jobs that nobody wants in the first place, or that have been so overpriced by organized labor that it no longer makes sense to keep them here...
Damn this subject makes me pissy...

eliminatedsprinter
08-09-2004, 03:13 PM
Just a little input here...
I don't think I would classify Pickle Packers as a highly skilled position. Companies ship jobs offshore for one reason...MONEY. There's no hidden agenda, there's no secret initiative to displace the American family, it's just business.
I'll give you a simple down home example. Let's say that you have a business making widgets. They're nice widgets, but the market will bear only a small amount of money for your widgets. You do a cost analysis and find out that in order to successfully sell your widgets AND profit from it, you can only pay your average employee minimum wage. Keep in mind that minimum wage is a state of mind... Here in So Cal, minimum wage is $6.75 / hour, except in San Francisco, where the living wage is closer to $10.00/hour. Now this sounds bad, but remember there are many other considerations when paying an employee. Mandated healthcare costs money, the employers contribution to your income taxes (yes we have to pay the same amount you do to have the priviledge to keep you employed), mandated vacation time and mandatory breaks, and don't forget Workers Compensation Insurance, which has quintupled within the past few years...Add all this up and a minimum wage grunt making widgets actually ends up costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $9.00/hour.
Now...who the hell is going to bust thier ass making widgets for minimum wage? Nobody, that's who. So the mighty widget factory has to relocate to Mexico (or Pomona, Ca) in order to find enough cheap labor to make the product they started out making in the good ol US of A.
Where does that leave the American worker, well I think it leaves him or her free to persue a higher level of being, or even some sort of vocational training that will make them a desireable in the ever expanding tech sector.
We're not shipping brain surgery over seas, it's the crap jobs that nobody wants in the first place, or that have been so overpriced by organized labor that it no longer makes sense to keep them here...
Damn this subject makes me pissy...
This is pretty true. And many of the jobs that are being insourced in from overseas are pretty good jobs in areas like automobile manufacturing and the pharm industry etc.

Dave C
08-09-2004, 03:25 PM
actually the data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. those are a bunch of nerdy statisticians. Not too political. everyone relys upon it, its non-partisan.
Wages are shown as an "average" which are upticking but I have not seen a breakdown.
I would agree that everything that comes out of washington is political in nature but why would you just summarily dismiss the data out of hand? This sampling has been done for decades. Do you have any data that contradicts it? it doesn't fit a preconceived notion?
To prove the political point, the 1.2 million job loss numbers claimed by the media comes from the same data. But they only want to report 1/2 the data which is to say jobs lost but not report jobs created.
Isn't the DOL the same outfit that keeps over estimating what the job growth is and grossly wrong each month? Even if they were correct what about net income to those who have been effected?
Also this statement shows how much you know about sampling. The data that is reported first is based upon smaller less reliable sampling. They always have to do a quarterly adjustments based upon better data. Moral of the story, long term trends are accurate but short term changes are less reliable.
but thats what politics is about. You get the data you like, I get the data I like and then we argue about it.

Dave C
08-09-2004, 03:54 PM
are you guys kidding or what?
where do the "many, many newspapers" get their data? THE BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
The ol newspapers report the unemployment rate as 5.5%, right?..... BLS again.
I know a 1/2 truth is still technically the truth.
Yep....and full of Bush appointees...
The 1.2 million job loss has been reported in many, many newspapers.

gnarley
08-09-2004, 04:26 PM
We're not shipping brain surgery over seas, it's the crap jobs that nobody wants in the first place, or that have been so overpriced by organized labor that it no longer makes sense to keep them here...
Damn this subject makes me pissy...
Scream your wrong, sorry, and the rest of you guys, I understand how they get their numbers and how they are adjusted after they get the adjusted facts. I also understand widgets, pickle pickers and the theory behind them.
What I am talking about are high level jobs. Companies have also begun exporting other business processes, including customer service, bill payment, human resources, accounting and graphic design. Technicians working in the Indian cities Bangalore and Hyderabad no longer just write software programs. They may also be setting up the 401(k) withholding on your paycheck, designing your next Powerpoint presentation, or reading your X-ray film for your local hospital for 75% less than one would get paid here. Can I tell you where to find that info, YES (http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/business/5311487.htm?1c). I have read it and saw it on a news program.

Dave C
08-09-2004, 04:27 PM
I know you guys don't care but here is one more. Look at the historical unemployment rate, second to last column.
Look up the term "natural rate of unemployment" and look at this chart. (hint, most economists think less than 5% is "not natural")
Keep in mind the current unemployment rate is 5.5%.
Just put this in a little perspective for a minute.
historical (http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat1.pdf)

Dave C
08-09-2004, 04:30 PM
gnarley,
link doesnt work, copy & paste?
I don't disagree that some jobs go overseas. My wife's company does it.
But this issue smacks of election year politics. Too much anecdotal evidence to actually draw a conclusion one way or the other.
making policy upon anecdotal evidence is bad policy.

gnarley
08-09-2004, 04:38 PM
gnarley,
link doesnt work, copy & paste?
I don't disagree that some jobs go overseas. My wife's company does it.
But this issue smacks of election year politics. Too much anecdotal evidence to actually draw a conclusion one way or the other.
making policy upon anecdotal evidence is bad policy.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/business/5311487.htm?1c
For some reason the link does not work, though I found it doing a search. :confused:
I'll post the body.
Posted on Tue, Mar. 04, 2003
Service jobs flowing into India
By David Whelan
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
BERKELEY - According to conventional economic wisdom, China and other Asian countries have already become America's factory floor, as blue-collar jobs move from the high-wage United States to lower-wage nations overseas.
If current trends in globalization occur, India may well become America's back office.
Bay Area technology companies have long designed and stamped out chips in Taiwan and Singapore, manufactured computer monitors and motherboards in China and the Philippines, and hired Indian software engineers to write miles of code.
While these practices are continuing, companies have also begun exporting other business processes, including customer service, bill payment, human resources, accounting and graphic design. Technicians working in the Indian cities Bangalore and Hyderabad no longer just write software programs. They may also be setting up the 401(k) withholding on your paycheck, designing your next Powerpoint presentation, or reading your X-ray film.
Many Bay Area companies are on the forefront of this new form of trade, whether as entrepreneurs establishing these new businesses or as customers looking for ways to make their companies more efficient.
The increasing interconnectedness of the technology and back-office service economies across the Pacific will affect the Bay Area more than any other part of the country. That's because the region is the second-largest exporter in the country, after New York-New Jersey.
And Asia, which is growing faster than Europe and Latin America, is this region's largest trading partner, said Sean Randolph, the president of the Bay Area Economic Forum, which recently released a comprehensive report on how international trade affects the local economy. More than 80 percent of the Bay Area's exports are in technology.
Global trade is set to grow by an estimated 6 percent this year, after two middling years of growth, according to the report. And those numbers may not even capture technology and back-office services, which often fall below the radar of the International Monetary Fund and those government agencies that track trade volume.
Vivek Paul, the CEO of Bangalore-based Wipro Ltd., spoke Saturday at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business during a conference on Asian business that also featured a product fair. Paul's company, which has U.S. headquarters in Santa Clara, employs 7,000 workers in India who can be hired to answer phones at call centers, write new software, and fix broken software, and keep firewalls, servers and databases running smoothly, among many other jobs.
"When your phone rings during dinner, and it is a telemarketer, it may be coming from New Delhi, where it's 7 o'clock in the morning and everyone is enjoying their first cup of coffee," said Paul.
Paul's company grossed $637 million last year by tapping into the comparative advantage of India's inexpensive work force. Wipro's many clients include such blue chip Silicon Valley companies as Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems.
With India producing 350,000 engineering graduates a year -- more than the United States and about the same as China -- not only are technical workers there well-prepared for Wipro's IT-services work, but also, Paul said, hungrier than their American counterparts because of the intense competition created by a low standard of living and overpopulation.
If outsourcing services continue to be a formula for economic growth, India may just skip the industrial stage of economic development and move straight into a purely service-driven economy. Taking Wipro's business model to extreme lengths, every American executive may someday have a college-educated personal assistant working in India, said Paul.
Start-ups have already begun using Indian services. "Venture capitalists recommend them for smaller companies, because it makes dollars go further," said Murrali Rangarajan, an Indian entrepreneur who has often hired Indian software developers during his career as a CEO of the Silicon Valley companies Arula Systems and iLogistix, and as a manager for Ford Motor Co. and Digital Equipment.
What do these changes mean for American workers? "In some cases, they are low-end jobs, so they would have gone anyway," said Randolph, and thus follow the overseas migration of manufacturing jobs.
Not everyone is happy to see these jobs moving overseas. "I heard that there were airline reservationists and technical support in India," said Jim Gordon, an assistant to the vice president at the Communications Workers of America, in Sacramento. Gordon said that job movement of any kind is a concern to members of his union. "We've got a bill in the hopper at the legislature called 'Californian Jobs for Californians,'" Gordon said. "If you're a utility working in California, you ought to be employing Californians, not Missourians or Indians."
But there may also be positive ways to look at the changes. The efficiencies created by performing tasks for a fraction of their cost may increase local companies' profits, which would accrue here, resulting in more stable employment for Bay Area workers, said Randolph.
To take an even longer view, international trade could enrich India, China and the rest of Asia, and they will become not just major manufacturing and service platforms but major markets for American products and services, added Randolph.
Indeed, the Indian government recognizes how powerful the economic benefits of these companies can be to its own people. It has shown nothing but support for the outsourcing firms popping up all over the country, said Rad Sundar, the co-founder of Mastek-Majesco Software, an Indian software company with a U.S. subsidiary. Sundar said the government adopts a laissez faire attitude toward them because they are such an important source of jobs and American trade dollars.
The future may bring even more of a symbiotic trading relationship between the Bay Area and the Asian work force. Tony Moore, a private equity investor who previously served as the investment banking head of Goldman Sachs' Tokyo and Hong Kong offices, encouraged business students at Haas to think outside the confines of the technology industry when imagining future business opportunities.
"I wouldn't bet just on the PC to make money. I would think about energy, health care and food," he said. The opportunities, Moore suggested, are endless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Whelan is a general assignment business reporter. He can be reached at 925-943-8263 or dwhelan@cctimes.com.