Offshoring Trends Net Biotech Firms 444
Makarand writes "According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, BioTech, once considered to be
the next innovative sector to help offset the jobs losses from IT offshoring, is
showing
signs of riding an
offshoring wave of its own. Foreign governments with a national
priority to attract biotech businesses with highly trained research workers and new
research centers are the new forces to reckon with in preventing the
exodus of biotech
jobs. Drug developers are looking at ways to cut costs of drug development as Americans and their employers are starting to constantly worry about the high price of prescription drugs. The lower costs of clinical trials and the ease with which human subjects can be recruited for drug tests in other countries are making biotech jobs susceptible to offshoring."
Shocking! (Score:4, Interesting)
Businesses outsource, even tech ones, even biotech ones now.
Shocking.
Oh, and f1r57 p057!
Check the comments starting from the second one.. (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting discussion on offshoring (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
Is anyone else paying attention to the fact that India and China are actually making progress moving from third-world contries to first-world contries? If we think we're just going to keep haveing all the cool jobs while they sit around and make Star Wars figures for us then we are sadly mistaken. We _will_ eventually have to share our good fortune with the rest of the world and it looks like that sharing is going to start...... now.
Re:Shocking! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the one thing companies who use offshoring don't understand is that this whole movement, while saving them money, actually makes them less competitive.
Anyone with the know how to do a google search can outsource their projects incredibly cheaply. Even people who never would have had the ability to complete them on their own. So I don't think it's a far cry to assume that Joe Blow can get an idea, and compete with the big guys for a fraction of what it would have cost before.
We're already see
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
People complain about offshoring (Score:3, Interesting)
The point is they do the work for cheaper than most would, and you'll find the majority do it just as well as a local. I guess we wouldn't have this problem though if our culture wasn't so based around the evil that is money.
Re:People complain about offshoring (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:People complain about offshoring (Score:2, Interesting)
Executive Offshoring (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, the next trend will be moving those people's jobs overseas: Executive Offshoring [offshoreexecutive.com]. Yeah that site is (still) satire, but pointing it out to higher management might make them think again about offshoring ...
Re:People complain about offshoring (Score:3, Insightful)
Because.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Because.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Lower health regulations, safety regulations, and lower wage requirements are definite incentives to outsource, no matter who's outsourcing what where.
Capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, time and time again, history proves that growth around the world is a good thing. the more advanced these other countries get, the more markets we'll have.
Re:Capitalism (Score:3, Insightful)
people tend to love capitalism and the market system, right up until it start working against them
And against the planet as an ecosystem, also.
At a point the richest 5% will have to realize that one cannot eat money .
history proves that growth around the world is a good thing.
Well, i would like to see these proofs. The last 50 years certainly proove that economical growth is a myth, used to masquerade destruction, misery and inequality. Argentina, anyone ?
the people receiving out-sourced jobs prob
Re:Capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
If anything the last 50 years have proven that the following tools do not work in capitalism (and rightfully so!):
* Currency manipulation
* Massive overregulation
* Corruption
* Political instability / oppression
* Monopolies
Argentina was a posterboy for at least three of the four above. Argentina experienced MASSIVE RESESION.
is it better to take everyone deeper in the hole or should we not try to have everyone's standards go up ?
It is better to pull standards up. From my American perspective, that is what is going on. The US standard of living has not changed on the average and the standard of living in countries experiencing growth will go up.
Re:Capitalism (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Capitalism (Score:2)
The market should never "work against" a true capitalist. A true capitalist uses the expanding global market as a tool.
Re:Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
History has proven that having a strong middle class is a good thing.
I am not convinced that moving jobs to the country where workers can be most easily exploited helps creating a strong middle class anywhere. I wouldn't be surprised at all if globalisation, the way it is done today, only serves to increase the difference between the rich and the poor.
Just as an aside, who is off worse? The jobless former car industry worker in the US, or the guy in some third world country who's assembling the cars now, at way under minimum wage, without basic safety equipment, health coverage or a retirement plan?
The thing that made the US and European economies so rich is the big middle class, normal families earning a decent amount of money and SPENDING IT. If offshoring manages to make that go away, it won't be good for the economy anywhere...
Re:Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Or B, the US worker keeps his job and is happy. Meanwhile, instead of having a job at below the ->US- minimum wage building cars, a man in the third world has to depend on his children and wife working or begging in order to avoid going hungry. His children don't recieve an education to speak of, let alone thinking of college. Without an education, his children will never be "middle class".
Indian and Chinese programmers or auto workers who make far far less money than their US counter-parts are part of a growing middle class in their socities. Other factory workers have made the move from desperately poor to merely poor. A reason their salaries can be so low is that the rest of the labor in their countries is so cheap that they can live quite well on a relatively small amount of money - I'm thinking programmers here not textile workers.
Ah, but you saw that there is still rampant child labor that is offensive. 10 year-old girls working 12 hour days instead of going to school. Is that ideal? No. Is it better than them being sold in slavery / prostituation at the age of 13? You bet.
Is the US going to have a huge amount of competition in nearly every industry? Yes we are. We're disadvanteged because we're so rich that it costs a lot to pay an American to do something. We've got the advantage in that a huge percentage of our people are college educated and we have a very very extensive university system that attracts some of the best minds from across the world. That our labor practices are barbaric by European standards gives us an advatage over them as capital spent here is at less risk. It helps to be able to fire people and ask them to work long days in a pinch.
I agree that a vibrant middle class is the key to success. I'm also nervous that offshoring competition creates a race to the bottom in labor standards. At the same time, Europe has been able to survive competition with the US for quite some time - albiet with 10% unemployment. If the US continues to work its ass off it'll be fine. But we'll need continued government investment in the right places to make that happen.
Re:Capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
Money isn't the alpha and omega. In the global scheme of things, it's just a means in the circulation of products and resources. No more, no less. What counts is how much stuff can your population buy, not how money do they earn.
Don't believe me? Some of the communist regimes tried fixing prices without regards to the salaries and production capacity. The only thing that resulted was a shortage of goods. There just was less stuff on the market than the people had money for.
So pay attention: it doesn't matter how much money your population earns, it matters how much goods can you sell them. That's all. The prices-to-salaries ratios will automatically adjust based on that.
And I fail to see how a worldwide increase in goods production is a bad thing. On the whole, the number of tons of consumer goods produced worldwide is raising. Someone has to buy those. Salaries will increase or prices will drop, but either way, someone will afford to buy more stuff out of their salary.
Why is that a bad thing?
Re:Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, so long as the government I pay with MY tax dollars does nothing whatsoever to aid the companies now operating in foreign countries, either with tax breaks, protectionism, or foreign trade treaties. Or with war, if that country decides to seize the nice, ripe foreign assets now sitting within its borders.
The way I see it, any corporation that 'off-shores' should have to take its chances with its new rulers. If the new rulers decide to do something to the company that the company doesn't like, tough fucking shit - the government that operates on MY tax dollars isn't going to get involved. If that company wanted protection, they should've stayed within the U.S., end of story.
So I don't have a problem with off-shoring, so long as the company in question doesn't benefit from a single penny of a single tax dollar I pay out during the year. And assuming that any tariffs levied against foreign products also apply to the goods manufactured by that company in foreign territory, since for all intents and purposes that company might as well be a foreign entity.
Max
Ok, no problem. (Score:3)
Or are you the kind of person that wants to have his cake and eat it, resell it, outsource it, etc...?
Re:Ok, no problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, why not? America doesn't owe the rest of the world a damned thing. Other countries are perfectly free to pass their own laws in that regard, if that's what they wish to do. But as an American, I'm not obliged to look out for the interest of any other nation or people. I can if I like, as an individual, but I'm not *obligated* to - nor is my government.
The government of America is for Americans, and no one else. It's that simple. If corporations wish to essentially become foreign entities by moving jobs and resources to foreign nations, then they should be treated as such. In fact, so far as I'm concerned they should simply move their entire operation to that nation, register as a corporation of that nation, and be treated as such by the American government. They deserve no handouts, no tax breaks, no protection under American law, and no benefit from American trade agreements with other nations.
Let's see how long those former American companies last when they're wholly Indian in both name and law. Let's see how well they do when they have to operate on the other side of a tariff barrier.
Max
Re:Ok, no problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
That would be nice. However, in practice it seems to me like the government is trying to serve the corporations instead of the Americans...
If the government really went to serving we, the people instead of corporations, that'd almost certainly be a good thing. Even for the economy, which depends on a strong middle class and lots of consumer spending. Remember, once the jobs are shipped offshore, there won't be either a strong middle class, or
Re:Capitalism (Score:4, Interesting)
Its actually more than equal distribution of wealth. When jobs go to those who are able to perform them most efficiently, the economy as a whole improves. Therefore, in the long run, America benefits from outsourcing. Of course, the narrow segment of the workforce whose jobs are being outsourced loses, but overall its beneficial.
I find it a little funny that slashdotters are real quick to point out that the RIAA doesn't want to adapt to the changing market realities and has thus become obsolete, whereas all that they themselves will do is to complain, rather than adapt to the situation.
Re:Capitalism (Score:2)
At this point, any job that can telecommute is a valid target for outsourcing. For example, companies are already outsourcing large sections of their HR, IT and Finance departments, hospitals are outsourcing large sections of their billing and radiology depts, and the manufacturing sector outsourced/offshored their factories years ago. This all leaves us with very little actual value-
And it's nothing new (Score:2)
Re:Capitalism (Score:2, Interesting)
The following sarcasm has been brought to you by the letter 'S'. I would like to see a nation, any nation, whose pop
Re:Capitalism (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Capitalism (Score:3, Insightful)
What is holding us back (and I suspect giving you your skewed view of us) is that in this country, the real power is in the hands of a few people. And those people are making bad decisions to fix short-term problems without really addressing the long-term ones, because hey, they won't have to deal with it then.
Re:Capitalism (Score:2, Insightful)
The U.S. is in trouble. (Score:2)
Re:The U.S. is in trouble. (Score:2, Funny)
Khan!!!!!! (Score:2, Funny)
Don't panic (Score:3, Insightful)
Be elitist. The US can do R&D like no other. Yes, other coutries will try, and set up science parks which look just as pretty as US science parks. But it is not pretty science parks that make inventions, it is grade A researchers in an environment which stimulates innovation. Which crucuilly includes, in the US more than anywhere else, the freedom to be wrong.
Of course, yesterdays leading edge is todays mainstream. And therefore that which only the US could do yesterday, others can do today - and will, for less money. If you stop a US company outsourcing he things that can be done cheaply overseas, you will actually have a negative effect: a wholly overseas compay will outcompete them and put them nout of business.
But the US has a 100 year record of finding new things to do. In the old things, all the overseas contries are competing with each other: in the new, the US has the field to itself
Re:Don't panic (Score:5, Insightful)
You assume that to be the case. What if it isn't true?
The USA has many of the best researchers partly because you've been able to take the cream from other countries by offering higher salaries. What if that isn't the case in the future?
Re:Don't panic (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, software R&D is already being outsourced, since the level of technical competence in India or China is already good enough for what's needed.
It's only a matter of time before the rest follows.
The only thing to do, is to adapt (disclaimer: that's exactly what I'm doing now)
Re:Don't panic (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Don't panic (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Don't panic (Score:3, Funny)
Some Americans these days really have no idea how full of bullshit they are.
in the new, the US has the field to itself
You need to get out (of your country) more...
Re:Don't panic (Score:5, Interesting)
Is he wrong? No.
I am outside the country, and I will tell you this. The US has massive buisness and hightech advantages over the rest of the word. Stemming not only from America's relatively unique culture (yes, there is culture in the US), but also it's massivley agressive and competative buisness support industries; which I'm sorry but don't really exist out side the US.
Americans ARE allowed to fail, without massive pressure. This is something not found in places like Asia (also known for having the worlds highest suicide rates). Remember Failure is the single most important ingrediant in Success. If you do not take failure well, you will never be a winner in business.
Americans are HIGHLY individualistic, and have thick skins. They(we) don't get bent out of shape over personal failures, or insults. Note to Americans: Most other cultures do not take well to being 'teased'.
Americans are risk takers, in the extreme (go find me another country with a higher rate of gambling addiction).
Americans are work aholics; it's not tacky to ask an American what he/she does for a living, and in many cases even how much he/she makes. Americans define themselves by their work.
Americans are brash, loud, and arogant. All great ways to get noticed.
Americans have NO idea what the world is like outside their shores. It's a double edge sword. If Americans were poor they'd stay that way, but since their wealthy, the world tends to emulate them. Meaning they are always the leed dog.
Will it always be that way? Every dog has his day. But that day, is not today.
Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Offshoring doesn't carry that burden. Health care should be 100% unrelated to employer packages
Ironic
Re:Ironic (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ironic (Score:3, Interesting)
What would a government run program do to change that? Well, the markup would go away- the government wouldn't need to make a profit, it'd all come from the ge
Re:Ironic (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is precisely why the government will never be able to do anything more cheaply over the long term. There is no incentive to streamline. Costs are passed directly on to the consumer/taxpayer, who no longer has a choice in the matter.
Speaking as someone who wrote electronic insurance filing software for a number of years, I can tell you the US government is already a vast, inefficient bureaucracy when it comes to the relatively small involvement in healthcare it has today (the key word is "relatively"...)
Re:Ironic (Score:2)
You should first be ethical, and only after that worry about your little wallet.
And you're working in the insurance business to boot.
Re:Ironic (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice theory; doesn't hold up in practice. In practice, the insurance companies pay their executives enormous amounts of money (far, far more than any government official is paid) and rape their customers while whining about how they haaave to increase premiums because of the rising cost of health care
Speaking as someone who wrote electronic insurance filing software for a number of years, I can tell you the US government is already a vast, inefficient bureaucracy when it comes to the relatively small involvement in healthcare it has today (the key word is "relatively"...)
Speaking as someone who worked extensively in health care in both the public and private sectors for many years, I can tell you that at the patient care level, in terms of value per dollar, public and private health care come out about even.
Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
A plane costs a fortune to fly from point A to point B. If every ticket cost $100, no plane would fly anywhere ever. On the other hand, suppose we have a plane full of $1500 seats which has 5 seats left over. The plane is already making a profit - the extra weight of five more people might cost an extra $
Is this sick or is it just me? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anybody else finds this... well... horrible and sinister? So, just because consumers want a modicum of security -- and security means more expenses -- big pharma is outsourcing human testing?
As in, testing potentially dangerous new products on poor (non caucasian, perhaps?) people is sooooo much cheaper in [insert favourite country here]?
So, on one hand these big companies are making tons of dough off their rich consumers. Then, they refuse to sell certain drugs *cough cough* AIDS *cough cough* in poor countries (no enough profits to be made in Africa, mate!). Then, they put pressure on third-world countries (Brazil, India, etc) who decide to copy these products anyway.
Then , they simply outsource human testing, because "we big corporations have a God-given right to make even more profit ". Even if it means less security and more unemployed.
Is this sick or what?
Re:Is this sick or is it just me? (Score:2)
Then, they refuse to sell certain drugs *cough cough* AIDS *cough cough* in poor countries
You should get that cough seen to...
Re:Is this sick or is it just me? (Score:2, Informative)
I am down the road from a biotech firm. A lot of males, including myself, sign up whenever possible for the next avaliable drug trail. American drug companies pay a sizeable fortune.
The drugs are extensively tested on animals first, and then we try them being the first human test subjects. The last time i did it, i was placed in a lab for a day under observation and earned enough money to buy a round the world trip. Not bad for a days work. Y
Re:Is this sick or is it just me? (Score:2)
How long has this been going on for? A year? Five years? Ten?
That's the thing about long term side effects, they happen many years down the road. If 15 years after trying some drug people start spontaniously combusting or comming down with Parkinson's, how's that change your view of long term effects?
Cost of medical anything in the US (Score:3, Interesting)
Countries like Brazil have taken to producing drugs like tri-therapy drugs for AIDS without paying the license, to make them affordable for their population, as a matter of national emergency. Others, like India, have made an entire industry out of producing generic drugs.
These medicines are cheap, yes, but the cost is offset onto the newer meds, those that are still produced exclusively, or under license, that aren't in the public domain yet. That's why, when countries hurt the bottom line of pharmaceutical companies, said companies jack up the price of the top line.
Combine that with the cost of doing any sort of medical-related business in the US, due mainly to insurance costs, due in turn to ligitation-happy Americans, and you know why certain silly little pills can cost hundreds of dollars.
I'm not saying pharmaceutical labs aren't also part of their own problem (it's in great part their very greediness that made the generic knockoffs industry the huge success it is in the first place), but with their margins reduced all the time, it's not wonder they try to cut cost and practice off-shoring. And time has shown that it's not their sense of morals that will compel them to hire local workers...
"Maintenance drugs" (Score:3, Interesting)
- Why are there no drugs that cure AIDS?
Sure, there's several different treatments to hold the advance of the disease - "take this the rest of your life or die" drugs - but no "take this a couple of times and you're cured" drugs.
From a purelly economical perspective, the gains to be had in selling a drug to someone for the rest of his/her life are much greater than the ones to be had from selling a drug for a limited period.
I cannot avoid thinking that in commercial
international competition != offshoring (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this is sometimes hard for Americans to understand, but the US is not the only nation with advanced research and development. And just because the US likes to think of biotech and computers as "American" technologies industries, they have always been, and continue to be, international efforts.
Note, also, that European and Asian companies have been "off-shoring" to the US for decades: a lot of their R&D, marketing, and financial services have been located in the US.
Foreign governments with a national priority to attract biotech businesses with highly trained research workers and new research centers are the new forces to reckon with in preventing the exodus of biotech jobs.
After decades during which the US has siphoned off the best and brightest from all around the globe ("brain drain"), with high-paying jobs and a good standard of living, it is only natural that other nations are finally trying to do something about it. The real question is why this hasn't happened earlier. Maybe nations like Britain will finally pay their researchers a decent salary, and maybe nations like Japan will finally pay respect to their researchers.
Of course, the implications for the US are not so good: US R&D is based on highly-skilled immigrants. If that flow stops, it may temporarily create a little more demand for US workers, but it will primarily make the US overall far less competitive.
Re:international competition != offshoring (Score:2)
Most people, in most countries, are fairly ignorant. Sorry but it's true. True in the USA and true everywhere else.
Re:international competition != offshoring (Score:2)
So? I didn't make a general statement about "ignorance", I was talking about a specific attitude towards science and technology. People in some central African nation may generally not be very well educated, but I suspect most of them don't view their nation as the place where most of the technological innovation happens in the world. But that is the kind of attitude that many US politicia
Re:international competition != offshoring (Score:2)
Well, geez, thanks for the fucking newsflash. I know this is sometimes hard for foreigners to understand, given their tendency to believe every piece of shit generalization they ever hear about Americans, *but we already know this*. Our wake-up call came waaay back in the 1970's, courtesy of Japan, you schmuck. Y'know, those little guys in the Far East whose asses we kicke
Re:international competition != offshoring (Score:2)
Well, apparently the people who keep complaining about off-shoring and high-tech work moving to India and China don't know that, otherwise they would accept "off-shoring" as the inevitable consequence of globalization, a process, one might add that has been driven by US policie
We're over paid. (Score:4, Insightful)
China and India have very well educated, very intelligent engineers, scientists, developers and they can do as good a job, cheaper.
We keep hearing the argument, "When all the jobs have been offshored, who will buy the products?". Well, duh. The Chinese and Indians will. This means BTW that they are going to be large markets.
We're going to have to start competing on price and that basically means devaluation of the currency.
Re:We're over paid. (Score:2)
If they COULD afford those products, their labor wouldn't be cheap enough to compete. There have already been several stories about Indians who are concerned with their gradually increasing compensation. By their own estimate, in only a few years they'll be expensive enough that they're no longer appealing and Big Business wi
Re:We're over paid. (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't drag *everyone* down, it's dragging you down at the moment. The money flows in, their local market economy improves, eventually their costs go up and they have more difficulty competing on price alone. In the meantime, the money flows out of America, the economy becomes poorer and the value decreases.
There will be a levelling out, but expect it to take a while.
Re:We're over paid. (Score:2)
Well, since our beloved Reagan decided to trash Jimmy Carter's energy independce projects so many years ago, and nobody(including Clinton) decided to start it up again, devaluating the currency means oil prices skyrocket. That is why I think if Americans truly value their future, they will vote for Kerry, he plans to start R&D centers(in the US, GASP!). The Bush tax cut, embrace of free trade, and no
Re:We're over paid. (Score:2)
It's not really so much different than going to war against terrorists/dictators that the US funded and got into power a decade ago...
IMHO (Score:2, Interesting)
Who do we talk to? (Score:2)
This is a highly charged political issue now. So who is behind this issue on the side of the middle-class worker?
Who are the politicians who are against this get-richer-quicker crap that corporate america is selling us out with?
Re:Who do we talk to? (Score:2)
Companies are trying very hard to keep this offshoring thing quiet. Outside of the industries directly affected by it, most people never give it much thought, and few of them realize the impact.
Heck, think about it this way -- I just told you that
Re:Who do we talk to? (Score:2)
Will the confidential data be secure though? (Score:3, Interesting)
The absolute main security issue was customer data. Not that they would have fancied embezzlement or theft but this was looked upon far less serious then compromising customer data, period.
In the data centers (which you had to physically access in order to query real customer data, safe for the front office and also there it was very restricted what you could look at) you had to go through multiple layers of security and where not permitted to even remove a printout.
Computers where dismanteled and disks shredded, they where never for resale. This was applicable for every last computer from every last branch and office
Now, I agree shit happens. Probably in their case it started with outsourcing such a critical tasks to "ACMEs chep disk blanking operation" in order to save a few bucks. This is not really excusable, but it happens.
But what really gets my blood boiling are statements like the one from that PR bimbo, which are just utter bullshit.
Maybe she should apply for a job at Microsoft to sell "trustworthy computing".
Indian firms embrace biotechnology (Score:3, Insightful)
i guess the question it spawns is how much longer the west, and principally the US, can continue to maintain such a differential in standard of living vis-a-vis places like india. all other things being equal, and in the absence of no new earth-shatttering productivity gains, i don't think it will be long.
You've probably all seen this... (Score:2, Interesting)
I suspect ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Won't happen. (Score:2, Informative)
To practice law, you have to be a member of the bar of the state in which you want to practice. To be a member of the bar, you have to pass the bar exam and graduate from an accredited law school. To graduate from an accredited law school, you have to have spent a minimum of two full years attending law school (with few, minor, and expensive exceptions). Attending a law school means being in residence, regul
I'll probably get flamed for this... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's no wonder people go overseas...drugs are a LOT easier to produce there..
And yes, $10 million is usually the minimum amount of money needed to get APPROVAL to get a single drug into the marketplace in the US. Anyone else knows of a better way to sell a product that costs $10 million + production costs to produce BEFORE they see a profit?
Honestly, you have better luck with a Krispy Kreme donut.....
Re:I'll probably get flamed for this... (Score:2)
The myth of the benevolent pharma industry (Score:3, Informative)
Off the Charts: Pay, Profits and Spending by Drug Companies [actupny.org] [Act Up]
net income for the industry ran an average of ~20%, which is a great profit margin for any manufactured product.
Marketing, advertising, administration costs ran between 15% to 39% of expenses.
Research and development ran an average of ~15%.
Chart which illustrates this. [actupny.org] [Act Up]
The profit breakdown has been extensively reported elsewhere, as this is derived from SEC filings, and the mar
Outsourcing?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that some of the best minds are overseas, isn't it a tad arrogant to view it all as 'outsourcing'? In some cases, the US is probably buying overseas expertise, which is not available in the US? Consequently, the US is benefiting and learning from India (and others), not the other way around.
Beware the Ides of March (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem for the Empire was that it gradually outsourced everything to the provinces - the grain supply (Egypt), mining, other agriculture. Like the US it imported the most able provincials and gave them citizenship to encourage them to support the system. But eventually the focus of power moved to the provinces, Rome itself became decadent (who needed to earn a proper living?) Even most of the army was recruited abroad. And the Empire collapsed. The remains of the Empire that survived - in Byzantium - was a statist civilisation in which capitalism was rigorously controlled, based around many small artisans and companies of very limited size, in which the Government interfered in production, distribution and exchange. Sound like anywhere?
Endless outsourcing may be capitalism, but what happens on the day when R&D is carried out abroad, manufacturing is all done abroad, the Internet, cheap broadcasting and cheaper film making has destroyed the US dominance in media, the US army is too small to control even a small dissident country (look at the problems posed by Iraq...we could kill everybody, but imagine the backlash), the rest of the world sees that the Emperor has no clothes, and the dollar collapses?
Live off intellectual property? Can you imagine the rest of the world agreeing to observe US patents which frequently would not get through the assessment stage in European countries?
At that point the super-rich will be sitting on piles of worthless dollars, and farming may look like the smart option again.
OK, it probably won't be that bad. But too much policy at the moment seems to be predicated on the idea that the US can control the rest of the world financially or militarily, and the example of Rome shows that unrestricted capitalism is likely to destroy the very factors that make that possible.
Re:Beware the Ides of March (Score:5, Interesting)
The midwest still produces, even with how unpopular farming is these days, enough food for all of the US. The US exports a lot of food. For many types of food, it is the largest exported in the world.
Also, the US has been, for a while, importing raw materials it could get at home. If the need arises, the US can plunder many reserved areas for resources. The US has an enormous amount of national parks which likely have useful minerals in them, but the US government prevents them from being accessed. In a case of necessity, we could rape our own country instead of the rest of the world.
I've always thought the US/Rome comparison very apt, although I never knew enough about Rome to explain it well. However, I suspect that the heart of Rome was not quite a resource rich as the US, which happens to be one of the more resource rich countries in the world (no, seriously, the land in the US is just great). An example of a country which really couldn't survive that is Japan, so it always needs to be much more careful. Japan has virtually no natural resources and relies entirely on staying ahead technologically. Although I haven't looked into it much, I suspect the same is true of mant European countries, as they are very densely populated.
Also, in regards to Iraq, that is perhaps not the best example of the US army at work. Iraq is not a war, Iraq is an occupation, which is significantly different. The 'war' in Iraq was trivial, and that is what the US is good at. Most other countries still realize that, if a full-blown war arises, the US army is a very scary thing to mess with.
Re:Beware the Ides of March (Score:3, Insightful)
They are more than self-sustaining. They have Canada and Mexico.
Unless either country wants to self-implode econmically they will continue to feed US with lots of goods. Its just too easy to trade with the US vs. China. (Existing relationships, cultural similarities, physical closeness, legal prescidents)
Would you like fries with that? (Score:2, Funny)
Haynes went on to describe the how offshoring would be used to save the company it's estimated millions per year. "A customer woul
There are only 2 safe industries in America (Score:2, Insightful)
Farming doesn't need much explanation. But like George Carlin says, the USA will always be the world leader in manufacture and export of Bullshit. Be it Hollywood bullshit, musical bullshit, or Madison Avenue bullshit, we are the supreme overlords.
All other industries are merely waiting in line to be outsourced.
The USA is hemorrhaging its own wealth.
Most people aren't asking the right question (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the right question is: what jobs can't be offshored? And the answer is damned few of them -- only those that truly require a physical presence.
And guess what? Technology reduces the number of jobs that require a physical presence. You think the fact that offshoring is happening right now is an accident? No, it's because we now have the communications technology to make it practical.
So the only question left is what all the extra competition is going to do. I think it's going to destroy the global economy, as corporations take the extra profit and distribute it to those who already have the most money: executive staff, board members, and investors.
In short, I think this will destroy what little middle class the world has left, and put us squarely back in the middle ages when people were either insanely rich or dirt poor.
In fact, because offshoring forces entire economies to compete with each other with the price of labor, and thus the standard of living, being the only variable, I think we'll start to see some countries start to use prison labor to compete. That'll definitely take us back to the dark ages.
It's not just offshoring (Score:2, Insightful)
Newsweek International recently ran a cover story on the subject, entitled The God Effect [msn.com]
The problem with outsourcing.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, from the safety of the upper class, and with most of your income being from investments, outsourcing looks great - all that cheap stuff available at Target, eh? But if you're 50, have two kids and a mortgage, and happen to, say, be an engineer for a telcom, hearing that your getting laid off "will be good for the American economy in the long run" isn't much solace.
Ok. (Score:2)
YOU'RE KIDDING!!
Why, that's UNBELIEVABLE!! Nobody EVER would have GUESSED!!
+1 obvious
Offshore tests don't necessarily apply (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea that all people are just as suited for testing drugs is very incorrect. For a drug trial to truly translate to an American population, it would have to be performed on a population with roughly the same ethnic mix and environment. It is not at all unusual for drugs and poisons to effect various populations differently.
An example of this is PCBs. The original tests on PCBs back in the 50s and 60s were performed on an Indian (as in from India) population. They found a fairly high risk of cancer and that is why we started working to reduce and eventually nearly eliminate PCB usage in America. Interestingly, later tests on other ethnic groups found that ethnic groups of European and African descendency demonstrated virtually no cancer response to PCBs. Indians were the worst with other Oriental groups showing decreased, but still present cancer responses. The cancer response amongst the Japanese was the least of the Oriental groups, though still present. This in no way says that we shouldn't have reduced our usage of PCBs since there are people of Oriental descendency in our society, but it does demonstrate that medical tests do not always translate even at a gross level from one group to another. If we had never tested PCBs on people of Oriental origin, we wouldn't have banned them.
In many ways, there is a more disconcerting flip side to this that has been largely ignored by the so-called "medical science" (I put that in quotes because they ignore so many factors, it is hard to say that they are a legitimate science). The flip side is that because we ignore ethnic origin and many "how they live their life" type factors of the people involved in tests and we don't work hard to identify the factors that cause failure in a drug for the typically small percentage that do have adverse effects with many otherwise beneficial drugs, we are very likely missing out on many drugs that might be very beneficial. Biology is not blind to these factors and we shouldn't be either if we truly want to call it or make it a science.
The genetic sciences are probably the answer. Eventually, we should see a process evolve of prescribing drugs according to genetic tests that determine precisely how a particular individual will respond. At that point in time, they can hide the ethnic factor by talking about the gene that interferes with the test instead of the ethnic groups that typically have that gene.
And is only going to get worst.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lemme explain: where was the first human clonning achieved? US? UK? Germany? Nope, South Korea [lifesite.net]
In a recent survey by the BBC [bbc.co.uk], South Korea was found to be one of the countries less concerned with religion.
In the meantime in the US there are people trying to ban steem cell research, granting legal rights to fetuses as human beings and doing all what they can to ban teaching evolutionary theory (cornerstone to work in any biological related discipline. Spare me the creationist bullshit, scientists use evolutionary theory as a matter of fact in fields as diverse as microbiology and genetically engineered crops.).
China and India just have to catch up to the level of sophistication of South Korean scientists and research instirutions, but if the US does not do anything to get rid of its ayatollahs from the political map, lack of action will have a direct effect in US people level of life.
What's next? (Score:3, Interesting)
There really aren't too many jobs left that haven't to some degree been offshored. Even the "consumer" position is well on its way with many companies trying hard to penetrate what will soon be the ultimate consumer market, China. They are up to 70 million low middle-class type consumers already and are projected to pass the US in consumption around 15 years from now.
Essentially, I think we've lost the game. It is time to figure out why we lost and see if we can't rebuild. Personally, I believe it is because we commoditized education. By turning our education system into a mass production system aimed mostly toward rote learning of technical skills and largely suppressing the thinking and critical problem solving side of education, we created something that isn't special and is easy to copy. Just send your people over and have at least some of them come back with the knowledge and the textbooks and in a few decades, you can steal almost everything we have. In essence, we have destroyed the diversity and concentrated the methods used within the system. Thus, what was a wonderfully diverse thing that couldn't be copied, became a defined system that can.
My answer will never happen without some major upheaval. I would want the system to be transformed back to one that focuses on the individual and targets the studies towards expanding that individual's potential in whatever fashion is appropriate to their inate capabilities and desires in life. Instead of imposing a template of what each and every person should learn and become, encourage and develop individuality not in social beliefs, but in knowledge and skills. Build craftsmen, not robots.
Again, where is the part it is good for us? (Score:4, Interesting)
Many of the posters are self assured to the point of smuggness, arrogance, and condescension.
I haven't seen any facts from them or other people who support offshoring.
Anyone who has had a decent education knows that what academia knows is not always as solid as academia would like everyone to think.
Add to that Economics is not a hard science and that there is disagreement among economists as to the value of outsourcing.
Where are the jobs?
How will outsourcing create jobs for Americans?
Will enough jobs be created for Americans?
Will the assumed forthcoming jobs come before a large number of people experience economic ruin?
Will the assumed forthcoming jobs be quality jobs that people can support famlies on and enjoy doing?
Will the assumed forthcoming jobs stimulate students to study subjects that will keep America competitive?
How....will outsourcing generate these jobs?
So far I haven't even seen attempts at these answers from anyone. At the most you some smugness with a statement that pretty much boils down to
"Don't, worry it will work out".
Most people would not accept that answer from a mechanic when they hear loud clanking noises from their car without a detailed explanation.
Yet, many people are willing to accept that answer for their careers and the future of their country.
I don't get a sense that these people are stupid.
Maybe the whole thing stresses people out so much they just assume what rich people tell us and what other people parrot is the truth to free themselves from having to worry about it.
Maybe it is just the high school football rivalarly mentality of party loyalty in American politics that leads to people parroting all of this stuff without finding answers to those questions.
Where's the beef?
If you are not working through no fault of your own you should consider whether or not the president should be working after this January.
Steve
Re:Again, where is the part it is good for us? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because of outsourcing and many other effects of the overpriced dollar and that totally out-of-whack trade balance of the US, American wages and the dollar will drop heavily. You'll go back to a more normal standard of living. Then you'll get back the jobs.
I've put a lot of thought into this (Score:3, Interesting)
1. It is a market externality. Lou Dobbs had someone write about this. Basically, it is when a company can get all the benefit with only partial cost from a decision. Take a chemical company that drops waste into the local river. It causes cancer downstream. However, in a purely capatilistic market this is a good thing for the company. Why? Becuase they can get the drop in cost without having to pay for the treatment of the people downstream who get cancer. They get all the benefits of lowered costs without any of the bad side-effects of the decision. That is why we have legislation: to deal with such situations.
2. Education - The free marketers have made one invalid assumption. They assume that since these lower paying and less demanding jobs are going overseas, we'll be able to train for higher level ones. But one look at our schools compared to those of other countries and it becomes obvious that will not be the case. Our school system is horrid. How will it train these new knowledge workers with a education system like ours? It won't. It will go to countries that have better education systems. So we'll reduce the number of low paying jobs, thereby reducing the number of people who can afford to better educate their children, while investing in the education of people elsewhere. Smart move. Make everyone else's population smarter than yours and then expect good jobs to come here.
3. Monopolies, the buying out of america, etc - Under this stands healthcare and standard of living. We are paying far more than the services we pay for are worth. Now, we'll get a bunch of capitalist showing up and saying that: the market determines worth. Not anymore. What determines worth is how effeciently a company can abuse the market and its regulations to its own benefit. You have monopolies in health care. An intellectual policy that is completely out of control. Tax shelters and greed that corrupts. Our government is no longer owned by the people, it is owned by political parties that live off of us like parasites and are in the pockets of industry. The government has grown to a size that is ridiculous. The ancient romans payed about 7% taxes total. When you figure in indirect taxes, we pay about 50% taxes. We take out what are effectively loans to pay for tax cuts so that we can buy chinese imports - stimulating the chinese economy but not helping ours out much at all. We have gone from wanting to live well to wanting to live like gluttons. Corporate accountability has disappeared.
So biotech going overseas is really inevitable. We are losing our innovative advantage by the day. Our education gets worse. Our bueracray gets larger and more ineffective. We are being betrayed by our industry and our leaders. So let's continue to complain. It won't help. Our congressman who understand don't listen and those are few compared to those who simply don't understand what is going on. Biotech and every industry will continue to go elsewhere as long as there is somewhere where else where they can more easily take advantage of the system. Money has become a goal rather than a means. We no longer have any grasp of what personal security once was. We are apprehensive for good reason. Can anyone see how this leads to a better future? I can't. I can see how a few people will be a lot richer but I don't see how we'll be better off.
We need to think about what we want and how we'll get it. We can't afford to blindly trust captialism anymore. Especially when capitalism is full of ppl who will cheat every chance they get. We need to find out what we want and how to work for it rather than to mindlessly try to uphold the status quo cause all things must change.
Re:Prescription Drugs in the USA (Score:4, Informative)
One particular case is thyroid hormone replacement therapy, where it is generally accepted practice to not switch product, whether it be generic->label (synthroid) or label->generic. Doing so requires recalibrating your thyroid hormone levels...
Many times, patients want the label drug...
Doctors tend to leave the decision of what drug to actually fulfill the prescription with to the pharmacist...
Some health insurance plans have acceptable formularies that only include generics where possible or policies that pharmacists must provide generic instead of label, where possible.
Re:Prescription Drugs in the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's more the case that doctors, faced with a bewildering choice of new drugs to keep up with every single year, end up prescribing the drug that they're most familiar with. This ends up usually being the drug that they're given the most free samples of.
As far as HMOs are concerned, they have a list of drugs and their generic equivalents, and if you use the brand name, you'd better have a damn good reason for doing so.
The only people getting funding from drug companies are researchers, and clinical test sites. For regular folks (ie, doctors, interns, etc.) they get a lot of swag and free drug samples (as well as seminars, etc.), but they're not supposed to get cash.
Frankly, high drug costs (at the counter, not high development costs) leading to offshoring is a red herring. The trend toward offshoring has to do more with escaping regulatory hurdles which prevent certain types of research (stem cells, anyone?), the lousy payoff in domestic drug research, and the rise of very competitive research and testing labs overseas.
Same in Europe (Score:2)
Re:Capitalism:Get used to it (Score:3, Interesting)
People at the tops of these companies are *always* posturing to go somewhere else, and don't plan to be wherever they are currently at for the long haul. With that in mind, short term extreme gain (even up to 3 to 5 years can be called short-term) makes them look really good to those that would move them, and few think about the really long term viability of the strategy (10, 20 years down the line).
The huge flaw I see in the outsourcing trend is that development costs are spent in