I've Had It With the Lies

In the words of Gautam Adhikari, a former executive editor of the Times of India, and currently a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute: "Although high-tech outsourcing unfortunately causes temporary disruptions in the jobs situation and keeps wages depressed in some skilled occupations, it also helps moderate inflation and thereby keeps prices low for the average American consumer.

Threats to the U.S. economy probably lie elsewhere--in ballooning and unprecedented budget deficits, in a dollar that is cascading in world markets, in creeping doubts abroad about its long-term financial credibility--and not in the shift of a few high-tech jobs abroad." Read more here.

These are quotes from a recent guest article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Adhikari is creating a smoke screen that is designed to cover the plot that American corporations and foreign governments are hatching to piece-by-piece move large parts of the Amnerican economy offshore. And sadly, Washington is going along with the plot--all in the name of globalization and what's right for the world. When was the last time anybody in Washington really gave a hoot about what's good for the world? Certainly not in the last four years.

My assessment is that the two sets of issues raised by Adhikari are not in fact separate issues. Instead, they are closely related. Business strategy and the macroeconomic environment are always related issues. The Bush economic strategy is not working. More time will not help, instead it will only make things worse. Don't be misled by those seeking to deflect attention away from the problems caused by offshore outsourcing and other contemporary business strategies. At the same time, the Democrats must find a real solution to the problem, and not just more rhetoric. Right now, the other side of the aisle is desparately struggling to find a better way.

The global economy is not an explanation or justification of anything. It is a simple reality that markets, businesses, government policy, and people transcend local and national borders. It is ludicrous to use it as an excuse for why companies are employing current business strategies to make themselves more profitable at the expense of American jobs.

A more sensible strategy would be for our businesses to cleanup the corruption and double dealing that goes on in the corporate world, stop lying to workers and citizens about the "give to get" strategy of economic development, and get with a real strategy that holds everyone everywhere to the same standard of an honest economic return.

Personally, I am tired of the lies and the cover-ups. If Americans want to help themselves and do the economic world a favor, let the markets be silent for one month. Stop listening to the TV and newspaper ads about sales, cut all discretionary spending. Put your money in the bank or under your bed. Our economy needs just this type of day of reckoning. Let American and foreign corporations alike know that the American consumer is going to exercise his/her right to not spend until some real solutions to our economic problems are put on the table.