Race to the bottom
I have a confession to make. My father helps outsource jobs to low-cost countries, and given my political sensibilities, visits home can get quite interesting. I often wonder whether offshoring advocates (such as my father) would be as likely to support this growing trend if their own jobs were threatened. The answer is: of course not. Many Americans have long taken comfort in the fact that their jobs were unlikely to be outsourced. From 2000 to 2005, more than 3 million manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas while skilled labor has remained relatively unscathed. Indeed, by many accounts, free trade has benefited college educated individuals while hurting everyone else. It has increased wages for those with a four-year university degree by about 3 percent and lowered wages for all other workers by about 4 percent. But if the financial crisis has taught us anything, it’s that greed drives capitalism. Corporations are increasingly moving jobs overseas in a bid to exploit cheap labor, scant regulations and tax loopholes. No one is safe anymore, including us journalists.
