Sunday, March 06, 2005

Unmade in America

Barry Lyon’s essay details the troubles with outsourcing and how it is affecting and how it will continue to affect America. Lyon sees many problems with the “Command and Control” model. One major issue that he continues to bring up in the article is how the United States is relying so heavily on other countries to do everything for us. Companies are outsourcing so many jobs that could be done in the U.S. just so they can be produced faster and cheaper, but that is not always the case. An article in The New York Times this week reveals that companies that outsource jobs don’t always save money.

Although people may believe that being able to produce things faster and cheaper is good for everyone involved, Lyon brings up a good point about the possibility of a shutdown in the production of goods. If something happens to go wrong in China and that is where a company's products are being made, then that company is then affected. Lyon believes that this leaves the entire global economy at risk for a global catastrophe. Chris and Alexis also mention this downside in their posts.

While reading this article, it was sometimes easy to fall into the thinking that if it is possible to produce a product in China cheaper than it is in the U.S., then why not do it? The foreign companies would bring, “better services, lower prices and more jobs.” Yes, it would produce more jobs, but not in the United States. Why would our government continue to let outsourcing continue at the costs of millions of American citizen’s jobs?

Some people do believe that outsourcing is the answer. Fox News lists many sites for outsourcing that accentuate the positives. I had no idea Fox News would see the good in outsourcing!

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