economist Alan Blinder, offshoring expert

economist Alan Blinder, who does academic researching on the effects of offshore outsourcing on US economy.

oDesk

oDesk is a homeshoring marketplace in which anyone can randomly take free certification exams, then become an oDesk "provider" working on tasks in a variety of fields.

I did some brief browsing to see about this homeshoring category, since I suspect it may be "a winners take all" niche where 1 or a few leaders dominate & end up getting more of the volume. It appears that eLance leads in volume, & oDesk is growing fast. Other sites like guru exist, but seem to have less volume than these aformentioned 2 sites. oDesk seems to provide more statistics than eLance about average hourly rates by skill & country, etc.

If anyone has experience with any of these homeshoring sites, pls hit up the comments with your $0.02.

Warren Buffet's trade idea: Import Certificates

In reading Paul Craig Roberts' article Obama & Global Trade, I came across the best idea I ever heard in balancing the US Trade Deficit, from a Warren Buffet essay, which is based on Buffet's idea of Import Certificates.

The US has been in a trade deficit since 1971, with 100B+ annual deficits in most years since 1984. Not surprisingly, WOAT Bush has made the situation 2X worse, with the then record 2000 deficit of 379 B going to 700+ B in each of 2005-7.

Some smart dumb economists say a perpetual trade deficit is good. But I never got it, & some economists & non-economists with COMMON SENSE share my view. How can any economic entity be operating at a loss for 37 consecutive years?!

A family or individual cannot operate at a loss for more than a few years without wiping out their savings, going deep in debt, & having to declare bankruptcy

Even in the IT/dot-com boom circa 1999, startup companies could not operate at a loss for more than say 5 years without going bankrupt, or acquired by a competitor for a deep discount.

Fortune 500 companies can't lose money for more than a few quarters without massive layoffs & CEO/mgt team firings.

Other countries, like Argentina, are never allowed to do this. The US gets away with it, since the US Dollar is the global favorite reserve currency of our main exporters, such as China & the Arab Oil exporters like Saudi Arabia.

I would like the smart dumb economists to point out ANY example of ANY economic entity (person, company, or country) that operated at a loss for 37 consecutive years, in ALL OF WORLD HISTORY. I doubt it's ever happened!

I personally had thought that the US will eventually have to do 1 or more of the following problematic actions to balance the trade deficit:
1 use tariffs to make the US a primarily domestic economy.
Problem: the government has to pick & choose which products/industries to protect. The way the US political system in 2008 is dominated by special interests, there's a big chance this process will be corrupt, & far from optimal for the US economy.

2 pick a few high-tech industries, such as genomics, green energy equipment, nanotechnology, etc, that the US will try to be a global export leader in, & subsidize those heavily. These exports will balance out the imports.
Problem: It may be impossible to create enough exports from a few such industries, because the labor cost advantage of ChIndia, & ChIndia's increasing ability to innovate in high-tech itself.

3 Deflate the US Dollar to make US exports more competitive & US imports more costly
Problem: Obvious! This will cause serious inflation, & would be a hidden tax on most US Citizens, since most of us US citizens' assets are 100% in Dollar related assets such as a home, US stocks, & USDs themselves in CDs/money market accounts. Personally, I don't want my Dollars to be worth say 1/2 as much 5 years from now, they already have become significantly weaker during the WOAT Bush regime.

IMHO Buffet's idea of Import Certificates is superior to these & any other idea I've heard. The idea is
1 to import "stuff" (goods or services) in the US, you need to buy an Import Certificate
2 Import Certificates will be limited to the amount of exports, hence balancing the US trade deficit
3 US Exporters will be given Import Certificates equal to the amount of stuff they export, which they can sell in a liquid financial market like stocks

The effect will be that US Exporters will be encouraged, & US Importers will be discouraged.

Import Certificates will work like a tariff, however the "invisible hand of the free market" will decide which "stuff" gets tariffs.

Which jobs will come back the US? Clothing manufacturing or software engineering? The US Fed Gov will not decide it, the market will based on the marginal utility of having to pay X% of the cost of their stuff for Import Certificates.

I think 1 effect of this policy, would be to help the rural American economy. OK, you can't offshore the call center to India because you can't afford the Import Certificates. OTOH, you can't afford the labor cost of Atlanta or Dallas? Solution: put your call center in the economically devastated Flint, Michigan.

I really hope Obama gets elected, & brings in Buffet as Treasury secretary to implement the Import Certificate policy.

Pls give your take on Import Certificates, by hitting up the comments.

opinion - article on book "American Jobs Scam"

This is a book review, of 3 books about the American job market, on how we as Americans have gotten screwed, as employees, taxpayers, & stockholders.

Really interesting stuff, that puts the activities of Corporate America of the last few decades in perspective.

Summary quote: we've devolved from "owners' capitalism" to "managers' capitalism"

Exposing the Hypocrisy of PhDee Dee Dee free-trade stan economists

Exposing the Hypocrisy of PhDee Dee Dee free-trade stan economists

If I were President, I would keep habeus corpus that Gee Dubbz suspended, just for 1 day, to enact an edict that all PhDee Dee Dee economists have to work 1 year as an AC repair technician for PHB rich sales exec douches' private homes.

How ya like them free trade apples, ya hypocrital PhDouche!

Gone With The World

Peep this blog Gone With The World. It's written by a American guy with a BS in science degree, with a decade-long career in software engineering for business application software.

This guy is RIDICULOUSLY ON POINT! His INSIGHT IS SCARY. The TRUTH, LITERALLY.

Sorry for the uppercase "hype beasting", but it's warranted. This blogger writes about the American "knowledge worker" labor market, offshoring, the economy, education, the business world, etc.

If Paul Craig Roberts is like the veteran Andre Agassi-like commentator on these issues,

this blogger is a Novak Djokovic-like talented upstart.

This is the Golden Corral of Food For Thought. Eff getting a plate, get a few, & go back for 3rds!

opinion: Binder on offshoring

opinion by economist Dr Alan Binder on offshoring

article: low exec pay in China

article: low exec pay in China

Some Chinese CEOs of tech companies are making 60-200, much lower than US execs of similar companies.

So maybe we'll see some karmic offshoring of these traitorous American CEOs that have shafted their fellow Americans with offshoring.

We can only hope, that would be AWESOME!

Offshoring of local journalists

The 1st known example of offshored local journalism has happened, as a local news website for Pasadena, CA hired 2 journalists in India for 20.8K salary for the pair.

The story says that 1 of the journalists is a graduate of Cal-Berkeley. Assume that that journalist is even getting the majority of the pay, say 15K. There is no way that whoever funded that Berkeley graduate's education, say 80K+ cost, will ever get a ROI on that 15K- salary.

American journalists, never had job security or good pay anyways unless they became a big-name TV douche-bag like Katie Couric or Bill O'Reilly, and those lames are not real actual quality journalists anyways. However, American journalist opportunities are further ethered if they have dudes in India with American journalism degrees "taking their yobs" (c) redneck character on South Park.

Can our douche-bag politicians stop listening to PhDee economists, and put in incentives to hire Americans, and tarriffs/taxes to hiring offshored workers? Offshoring is somewhat inevitable, but damn can't we at least have laws that discourage offshoring. You douche politicians work for the AMERICAN PEOPLE, not MNCs or foreign nationals. Pls remember that.