I make every effort to avoid all the campaign crap. Neither candidate, nor their surrogates, will say anything important to private sector Americans. In spite of my efforts, I could not avoid this: July 12, 2012 Who's the Real Outsourcer: Romney or Obama? By Howard Richman & Raymond Richman http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/whos_the_real_outsourcer_romney_or_obama.html The drive to establish a global government is the Great Outsourcer. Both parties are guilty Democrats because they have long-been the force behind lowering living standards for private sector American workers through outsourcing Republicans because they outsourced for profit under policies Democrats created and control. Hussein and Socialists/Communists preach equal distribution of wealth while they go about implementing equal distribution of poverty. Socialists began in the 1930s when they realized that it was in their best interests to lower First World living standards rather than raise living standards in Third World countries. Outsourcing jobs and transferring entire industries to Third World countries accomplished two goals; 1) the foundation for a global welfare state funded by First World taxes; 2) the economic structure essential for global government. Outsourcing jobs and industries was accompanied by the dollars shrinking buying power. Inevitably, a much higher percentage of permanently unemployed became necessary. None of those policies did anything to reduce poverty, or improve lives, in any Third World country. Romney will no more change those fiscal policies than did Hussein. In fact, Romney is a lying sack of spit no different than Hussein. If you doubt me, dont ask him about repealing Hillarycare II because he knows he is on safe ground there. Ask him this question: Will you bailout a bank, foreign or domestic? He will either lie or refuse to answer. I am not a big fan of Abraham Lincoln, but he sure had Romneys number: Democrats should not become too smug because Romney is of the banking class. Hussein & Company bailed out banks and bankers faster than loan sharks collect vigorish. 4,000,000 jobs Democrats are incorrectly claiming the healthcare law will create four million jobs. They are incorrect because it will create a hell of a lot more than four million. Every one of those jobs will be a government job. Make no mistake about this. People who are paid tax dollars have government jobs, and thats not considering the tax dollars that will increase the salaries of people already in the healthcare industry; many of them in the SEIU like nurses. My point is this: Romney never refers to the 4,000,000 plus government jobs that SHOULD NOT BE CREATED when he says he will repeal Hillarycare II. He knows that repeal is up to Congress, and repeal is not a lead pipe cinch by any means. Instead, he spouts the usual economic double-talk. He even said he will close down some bureaucracies. The only thing conservatives enjoy more than hearing a politician putting the knock on bureaucracies is a politician who actually shuts one down. A close reading of what Romney says tells me that he intends to rearrange the deck chairs: US elections 2012: Mitt Romney ' will shut down several US government departments' By Peter Foster, Washington 6:50PM BST 16 Apr 2012 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...t-down-several-US-government-departments.html A tax dollar job by any name is still a government job. Be forewarned. When Romney talks about repealing Hillarycare II, everyone should be reminded that most Americans thought the SCOTUS would overturn the law. Those same Americans are now putting their trust in Congress the institution that passed the law to begin with. One finally comment about Romney. I certainly hope I made him look bad in this message because no matter how bad he is Hussein is a thousand times worse. Finally, media stooges sell everything the government does to private sector Americans and to the country. Lincoln nailed bankers to a tee, while Thomas Jefferson had the media pegged when Americans were still a free people: Should I bump into Mr. Jefferson in the next life my first question will be What do you think about television?
The impact of outsourcing on living standards is ambiguous. We know that it can be seen as a means to find further specialisation again according to comparative advantage. We also know that therefore winners can compensate losers such that everyone is made better off. Of course, right wingers in a country such as the US will deliberately restrict such redistribution effects. In general, however, we merely need unionisation and imperfect competition. See, for example, König and (2011, Does International Outsourcing Really Lower Workers' Income?, Journal of Labor Research, Vol. 32 Issue 1, pp. 21-39 ): "In our analysis we distinguished between two bargaining approaches, one where the firm and the union negotiate over the wage only, and a second, as discussed in the political debate, where the parties bargain over both the wage and a profit share. For the first case, we found that outsourcing has an ambiguous effect on the workers income, while in the second case, outsourcing to low cost countries will unambiguously increase the workers income" That's the trouble with the right wing. They go for cliché to feed some shallow need for righteousness crowing and simply forget about the economics involved!
Why would anybody expect Hussein to apologize for lying about Romney outsourcing jobs when he refuses to apologize for Hillarycare II?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W3V5usr0SQ&feature=player_embedded The man lies about everything when he should be doing Billy Eckstine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFVFkVyQGNQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFVFkVyQGNQ
Still no content. The whole thread is based on misinformation. Take this ridiculous remark: " Socialists began in the 1930s when they realized that it was in their best interests to lower First World living standards rather than raise living standards in Third World countries". Socialism and free trade (which includes capital mobility) has focused on very specific criteria: i.e. how it can be used to avoid the socialist calculation debate.
I think that this can generally be right. But some tweaks to monetary policies and ending tax credits to companies who move overseas should be ended. of course, I'll also say that single payer healthcare, by bringing down costs would be a boon to businesses, and create more small businesses in the US.
No disagreement on both scores! In terms of outsourcing the real negative is the potential loss of core capability. Extra-market interference is therefore not warranted! And we shouldn't underestimate the gains available from the healthcare public good.
I'll point to shipbuilding as an example of this. It takes years of for a shipyard to hum along and produce ships efficiently and quickly. One thing this nation is seeing is because of the competition in newer shipbuilding nations, like South Korea. They get huge government subsidies, currency manipulation and the far cheaper health care system, and the result is American shipbuilding is barely hanging on. I have no problems meeting protectionism with our own protectionism. I'd like to make the Chinese, south Koreans, Japanese and others watch as the dollar devalues, we hit higher inflation targets, and push those other nations towards having to deal with even higher inflation, as their currency manipulation leaves them dealing with above moderate inflation then become a harder issue to balance against artificially lowering exports. So to keep the institutional skill of Americans to be able to build ships quickly in the case of war, I have argued for the Jones Act's provisions to keep ships being totally built in the US for the Navy and it's commercial fleet.
To Shanty: You appear to be very selective in determining which outsourcing harms Americans. I believe all of it harms the American people and the country. The Jones Act primarily says cargo going from one American port to another American port cannot go on foreign bottoms. Using small vessels and barges for transporting cargo between American ports does nothing for shipbuilding. See the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 and the Cargo Preference Act to understand what happened to America’s oceangoing vessels. Incidentally, I’ve been talking about the sorry state of America’s merchant fleet for years, although not so much on this board. I did mention it in #7 permalink in this thread: http://www.politicalforum.com/economics-trade/197918-wto-wacky-tabescent-obdurateness.html
Not quite what I'm referring to. The loss of core capability is about firm behaviour. Short term profit gains could hypothetically be associated with long term contracting problems (in terms of the 'theory of the firm' it becomes an issue on a par with the notion of 'hold-up' where imperfect contracting, made worse over geographical borders, can impinge on core supply needs). The loss of shipbuilding can often be explained within the standard comparative advantage framework (Note also that S Korea were able to use industrial policy to allow economic develop such that those comparative advantage opportunities could be exploited). We can make a distinction between economic efficiency criteria and more general concerns (such as maintaining skills required if there is a significant increase in uncertainty that harms worldwide supply). However, that will typically refer to more specific concerns (such as the nature of military procurement policy)
Pat Buchanan’s great analysis of outsourcing ends with this: Every UN-loving traitor in Washington understands it. They also understand that global government forces can continue their march to completion unnoticed, and unchallenged, while the media keeps Americans busy challenging one issue at a time. The public often hears senators who oppose one thing or another, but have you ever heard one member of Congress, one president, or one vice president warn the public about global government, or connect it to outsourcing? You can be sure you won’t hear it coming from a wannabe. Wannabes cannot be wannabes until they prove their loyalty to global government. If vetting loyalty to the United Nations was as lax as vetting presidential eligibility there would be a different field in this year’s race. Keep that in mind when Romney announces his running mate. The Chickens of Globalization Come Home to Roost Pat Buchanan July 20, 2012 Mitt Romney is today the beneficiary of some desperate counsel from alarmed Republicans on how to escape the snare in which he has found himself. Democrats are charging that Mitt was still chairman and CEO of Bain Capital between 1999 and 2002, when the company was advising some of America's premier outsourcers. The facts are in dispute. But the evidence seems on the side of the Romney camp -- that Mitt did not run Bain after he went off to fix the Salt Lake City Olympics. Yet the matter raises a larger question. What has the Republican Party got against outsourcing? Does not the party establishment preach the gospel of free trade? Did not the Republican Party come to the rescue of NAFTA and GATT when Bill Clinton cried for help in fighting off the wicked protectionists? Did not the GOP foreign and economic policy elite endorse entry into a World Trade Organization where we have no veto and one vote? The Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and National Association of Manufacturers, all GOP allies, proclaim the right of U.S. corporations to move production out of America -- to where taxes are lower, regulations lighter and labor cheaper. When has any GOP platform ever laid the wood on a U.S. corporate behemoth like GE, Boeing or Apple that moved production abroad? The GOP has long been a celebrant of the Global Economy and benefited mightily from the contributions of lobbyists and executives of companies that outsource. Under GOP-blessed rules of free trade, these corporations are able to shutter plants here, move to Latin America or Asia, and produce there. Now they have the right to bring their China-made goods back to the United States, duty-free, and fill the malls of America with those goods. As Republicans rightly argue, by cutting the cost of production by moving it abroad, companies can offer lower prices for those goods here at home. Soaring profits from those higher sales mean higher stock prices and dividends, not to mention seven- and eight-figure salaries for the corporate magicians who work such miracles. But as Milton Friedman observed, "There is no such thing as a free lunch." And though Milton was its champion, free trade is no free lunch. While there are winners from free trade, there are also losers. First among them are high-wage U.S. factory workers whose plants are closed when production moves abroad. Next are factory workers who lose their jobs when foreign-made goods fill up the malls and the companies they work for, companies that stayed in the U.S.A., go under. Was it a free lunch for the 6 million who lost manufacturing jobs in the last decade when 50,000 U.S. factories disappeared? Has it been a free lunch for the American worker who has not seen a pay raise in four decades? And what of the nation? For decades, America has been de-industrializing, with manufacturing shrinking as a share of gross domestic product to 11 percent, from over 30 percent in 1950. Not since before the Civil War have we been so dependent on foreign goods for the necessities of our national life, including the national defense. Our independence is a thing of yesterday. This was the predicted and inevitable fruit of globalization. Is this good for America? Perhaps if one is a believing globalist. Then, whatever the result of globalization, whoever the winners and losers, that is what is best, for a globalized world is the best of all worlds. This, of course, is not patriotism talking, or the voice of wisdom born of experience. It is a recitation from the globalist catchism. When the history of American decline is written, the historians will zero in on a choice the nation made, when the interests of Middle America collided with those of Corporate America. Decades ago, America's great companies, having saturated the U.S. market, wanted to go out and capture the world's markets. Free to move production out of the U.S.A., they wanted to be able to bring their products back to the United States, duty-free. Make them there; sell them here. And if the U.S. companies were to be allowed to produce and to sell in foreign countries, those countries wanted the right to dump their goods in the U.S.A. And here is where the national interest and the interests of Corporate America diverged. Here is where what was good for the boardroom elite collided with what was best for Middle America. And this conflict could not be reconciled. The party had to choose. And the party chose K Street over Main Street. Free trade, the Kennedy Round of trade negotiations, the Uruguay Round, the Doha Round, NAFTA, GATT, the WTO – what they all produced is a Magna Carta of the transnational corporation, which looks longingly to the end of nation-states and the arrival of world government. Did the Republican songbirds of globalization not understand this? http://townhall.com/columnists/patb..._chickens_of_globalization_come_home_to_roost
What a load of guff! Multilateralism merely reduces the severity of influence costs on government, ensuring a discipline that further accentuates individualism. Aspects that typically won't be enjoyed by the right wing
Nancy Pelosi said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2U_-iIjwRTw She didn’t say how many of those jobs would be outsourced. I wonder if Romney will jump on this?: Worries grow as healthcare firms send jobs overseas Some healthcare companies are starting to shift clinical services and decision-making on medical care overseas, primarily to India and the Philippines. By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times July 25, 2012, 5:00 a.m. WASHINGTON — After years of shipping data-processing, accounting and other back-office work abroad, some healthcare companies are starting to shift clinical services and decision-making on medical care overseas, primarily to India and the Philippines. Some of the jobs being sent abroad include so-called pre-service nursing, where nurses at insurance firms, for example, help assess patient needs and determine treatment methods. Outsourcing such tasks goes beyond earlier steps by healthcare firms to farm out reading of X-rays and other diagnostic tests to health professionals overseas. Those previous efforts were often done out of necessity, to meet overnight demands, for instance. But the latest outsourcing, which have contributed to the loss of hundreds of domestic health jobs, is done for financial reasons. And the outsourcing of nursing functions, in particular, may be the most novel — and possibly the most risky — of the jobs being shifted. At the forefront of the trend is WellPoint Inc., one of the nation's largest health insurers and owner of Anthem Blue Cross, California's biggest for-profit medical insurer. In 2010, WellPoint formed a separate business unit, Radiant Services, aimed at advancing outsourcing and other cost-saving strategies. WellPoint has eliminated hundreds of jobs in the U.S. over the last 18 months as it has moved jobs overseas, a company spokeswoman acknowledged. The spokeswoman, Kristin Binns, said WellPoint's shifting of clinical jobs overseas was a small part of the outsourcing and being done through Radiant because it has the technical expertise and can ensure compliance with laws. Nursing organizations, however, were cautious. "It's obviously a very disturbing trend," said Chuck Idelson, a spokesman for the California Nurses Assn. "There are serious questions if you're talking about utilization reviews … and making recommendations on procedures." Nursing experts said there also may be licensing issues as states generally require certification for those practicing and dispensing health information. Current and former Radiant executives declined to comment or weren't available. It's not clear how many other U.S. healthcare firms have contracted with Radiant or other outsourcing specialists, but industry experts said companies were increasingly looking at more healthcare tasks that could be outsourced globally as they face greater cost pressures and sweeping changes in how they do business. Aetna Inc.has an arrangement with EXL Service, a U.S.-based company with operations in Manila, to provide "targeted care-management support," spokeswoman Cynthia Michener said. Health Net Inc., which is laying off dozens of information technology and accounting workers whose jobs are being sent to India, said its outsourcing has generally been confined to administrative and IT functions. UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest health insurer, didn't respond to inquiries. Outsourcing jobs out of the country has become a hot issue in the presidential campaign: President Obama is pounding Republican challenger Mitt Romney for his private equity firm's involvement with companies that sent jobs abroad. Although such outsourcing has been going on for years, American manufacturers in recent years have brought some jobs back to the U.S. as labor costs have risen in China and elsewhere. Some experts argued that sending jobs abroad could help U.S. companies by enabling them to tap global talent and efficiencies, making them more profitable. When U.S. companies are stronger, the thinking goes, it creates more opportunities for American workers. Also, shifting operations to lower-wage countries can help consumers by holding down prices. Outsourcing jobs to places such as the Philippines can save U.S. healthcare firms 30% in labor costs, according to experts. But the practice remains controversial, especially with the U.S. unemployment rate hovering above 8%. Patient advocates worry about crucial decisions involving a patient's care being in the hands of foreign insurance adjusters. Analysts said there was another concern as well: patient privacy. Even something as straightforward as medical transcription can raise questions, said Uwe Reinhardt, a healthcare economist at Princeton University. Over the last year, Iowa Health System and hospitals in Utah and Washington state have joined other medical centers that have outsourced the transcribing of doctors' notes and other records. "Suppose I'm an AIDS patient," Reinhardt said. "That person in India would know — and [the information] could be valuable to someone.... For the U.S., there's nothing more personal than healthcare." Dr. Kaveh Safavi, head of the North American health practice for Accenture, a major consulting and outsourcing firm that has partnered with WellPoint's Radiant, said nearly all countries have laws for protecting patient privacy. And to safeguard patients' records, he said, healthcare companies store and maintain their records locally. As for outsourcing services that are more clinical in nature, he said, "People are looking at all the tasks that can safely and responsibly be moved. It's still an emerging market. We're still trying to understand the market's tolerance for it." In general, hospitals are moving more slowly than health insurers to send jobs overseas. But with financial pressures intensifying and the uptake of electronic record-keeping accelerating, analysts and industry people see more consolidation and outsourcing ahead. "When you have people's medical, billing and other records kept electronically, then it opens it up to establishing a call center virtually anywhere," said Steve Trossman, a Los Angeles spokesman for the Service Employees International Union, which represents hospital workers. "There is no longer a reason for it to be physically in the same place as the paper records." Moreover, the healthcare reform law could prod insurers to move more jobs to cheaper-wage countries. The new law requires companies to spend 80% to 85% of premiums on medical care, limiting the amount available for administrative expenses. Few have been as aggressive as WellPoint, which made a profit of $2.65 billion last year on revenue of $60.7 billion. WellPoint's total employment at the end of last year was 37,700, down from 40,500 two years earlier. In one of its recent efforts, WellPoint laid off pre-service nurses in Colorado and Nevada so the work could be done in Manila, according to a Labor Department filing by a WellPoint human resource manager in Denver. WellPoint spokeswoman Binns said none of the decisions that involve denial of procedures or treatment for patients are made overseas. Overall, Binns said, fewer than 2.5% of the 37,000 employees, or at most 925 workers, had lost jobs in the last 18 months as a result of work sent overseas. Only about 50 of those positions involved clinical management of care, she said. WellPoint's "sourcing strategies have enabled us to make our services more effective, accessible and affordable to our customers, while allowing us to expand our programs and maintain our service levels," she said. WellPoint's offshoring covers a wide range of departments and tasks involving claims, enrollment, billing, post-service clinical claims review, utilization management and pre-service nursing, according to filings made by company managers and state government officials. Both were helping secure federal trade-assistance benefits for WellPoint workers who have lost jobs because of outsourcing or import competition. Shannon Cunningham of Columbus, Ohio, who processed medical claims for WellPoint, was laid off last month after a colleague went to the Philippines to train people to do her job. Cunningham, 43, said she received eight weeks of severance pay. She and others working in medical claims earned $30,000 to $40,000 a year with health benefits, she said. "I know other countries need work," said Cunningham, a company employee for three years. But "I just felt like it wasn't fair. We're having a rough time too." don.lee@latimes.com http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-healthcare-offshore-20120725,0,5854713,full.story
Outsourcing of health services, such as medical secretary work, can certainly have negative effects on quality. Another reason to have a public system motivated by providing the public good
