I know about outsourcing, but this is unbelievable

According to reports, Dell Computer Corporation is planning to move its entire manufacturing operation overseas in the next 18 months. What? It was not enough that they had to render their tech support and customer service user-impossible by sending them to India, but are now taking an entire American company and moving it away?

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Jonathan W. writes:

I have noticed that recently, a substantial number of inept customer service representatives that I speak to on the phone sound Hispanic. Being that many of them are probably affirmative action hires intended to stem the threat of Title VII and EEOC lawsuits, perhaps companies like Dell have decided that they’d rather pay a very small amount of money for incompetent Indian representatives than pay a lot of money for incompetent Hispanic representatives.

James P. writes:

Dell knows that Obama is going to tax the bejeezus out of them, is it really a surprise that they’re leaving? Any corporation that can leave, will leave. The only people who will be left behind are the poor suckers like Joe the Plumber who can’t relocate their business to India.

LA replies:

The two above comments, which came in within a minute of each other, together offer a chilling picture of possible imminent American decline under the power of leftism: forcing businesses to hire incompetents in the name of racial equality, plus imposing higher taxes on the productive and successful.

Rohan Swee writes:

I think we should, in the interests of clarity, avoid referring to “American” corporations. They are stateless entities whose interests coincide less and less with the interests of the nation and its citizens. At present they may promote the fiction that they are “American” companies, for the purpose of free-riding on what remains of the wealth, legal protections, and political stability of the U.S., to maintain access to public subsidy of their enterprises, and to delude the public with propaganda about “American competitiveness” while promoting policies that have nothing to do with the long-term prosperity, welfare, and competitiveness of the American nation, and that will in fact actively undermine those things.

It should be no surprise that Dell (or any “American” corporation) is transferring itself lock, stock, and barrel out of the country. The process has been going on for years. (One wonders how much of GM’s most recent gift from the American taxpayer was immediately invested in factories and training in China, in those “technologies of the future” that are allegedly going to provide endless job opportunities and good pay for America’s workers … as GM simultaneously laid off more engineers in the U.S.) Expect this trend to accelerate as the usefulness of Americans as consumers comes to an end, and companies transfer main operations to emerging, larger consumer markets. I can’t help but see the Bailout from Hell as the final stage in these vandals” progress. Having gotten away with gutting the nation’s productive capacities for their own profit, with no meaningful reaction, and replacing native workers at both high and low ends of the labor market via practices that should have aroused implacable opposition, the vandals rationally concluded they had a green light for the no-holds-barred final plundering of Chump Nation. (I wouldn’t be shocked if Dell lobbyists showed up in Congress looking to get their moving expenses covered. And I’m only half-joking about that.)

LA replies:

I would point out that while Dell now identifies itself as an international corporation it began in America and most of its manufacturing (though not of laptops) was in America. For the whole company to move abroad, including all its manufacturing, would be like GM or Ford moving its manufacturing abroad.

Ray G. from Dearborn writes:

I’m a 20-year computer programmer and have always had an affinity for Dell. But if they do move completely out of this nation it’s another symptom of globalism which is essentially as I see it, excessive trade. The obsessive search for cheaper and cheaper labor even at the expense of hollowing out our country of heavy industry and the technical industry. Not only have are our technical (computer and engineering) jobs been moving to Asia, but the computer programming field has been flooded with “guest workers” from India and China. They rarely go home, instead they game the system and use the temporary work visa to stay permanently and sponsor their large families of relatives to come join them in this country. Elderly parents often are signed up for what is called Supplemental Social Security—another welfare program. Once again, it’s the immigration.

On a side note, I heard the Peggy Noonan says in her column today that she’s gonna vote for “The One.” Laura Ingraham is trying to have her on The O’Reilly Factor tonight, which Ingraham is hosting. Laura and Peggy are old friends. Should be interesting.

LA replies:

I read the Noonan column. She’s very critical of McCain and Palin, but she doesn’t say she is going to vote for Obama. Her closing point is a plea for the freedom of conservatives to criticize the Republican party and its leaders. Her penultimate sentence sounds like a constant theme of VFR’s.

In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It’s no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.

I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.

At any rate, come and get me, copper.

However, given her criticism of NR for “shooing” Christopher Buckley when he announced his support for Obama (though I though he left the magazine, not that they pushed him out), she seems to be saying that conservatives should tolerate within their ranks, not just those who criticize Republicans, but those who actively support Democrats and leftists. If that’s her point, then she’s gone off the rails.

Gintas writes:

I have watched Boeing slowly move things out of the Puget Sound region. About 10 years ago I realized that Boeing executives would move the whole thing lock stock and barrel to China in a New York minute if they could. The crown Jewels of Boeing’s commercial airline engineering and manufacturing were the wings, designing and building them. This was well-known within Boeing when the company was run by engineers. But engineers don’t run it anymore. Guess who has the know-how for building them for the new 787 (called the 7E7 in this article)? Japan, where they are now made.

Boeing rejects such notions. “The idea that any single part of the plane is the golden key to an airplane is inaccurate,” said Lori Gunter, spokeswoman for the 7E7 program. Although Japanese suppliers will have access to detailed specifications related to 7E7 wings, the overall designs for the plane, Boeing’s first launch of a new model in more than a decade, will be drafted on in-house computers and controlled by Boeing engineers. The Japanese partners have signed legal documents pledging they will not duplicate or leak proprietary information, Gunter added. “We have learned that having the design and building [done] in the same place gains efficiency for the program,” she said.

The wing building is being done in Japan. The design and building is being done in the same place. Got that? That means the design is being done in Japan, too, although ostensibly under “Boeing control.” It’s efficient to get rid of American workers. You can see why Boeing moved corporate headquarters to Chicago. They don’t want to show their faces around here. I don’t blame them, I don’t even work for Boeing and I’d like a fair shot at them.

Thus, given the economy, the Boeing machinists are on strike (just look through the headlines), and even the Engineers’ union is making noises.

It’s a high-risk game of chicken. The machinists and engineers must destroy Boeing’s globalist offshoring leadership without destroying the company. If they don’t win this challenge their jobs are doomed anyway.

Gintas continues:

I’m not a Boeing employee, but I work for a software company and was on-site there for a couple of years. I know a number of Boeing employees of various stripes, the company’s engineering heart has been gutted and the whole workforce is demoralized. It used to be an engineering and manufacturing company, but now it’s just becoming another “systems integration” shell unit, where all the real engineering and manufacturing is done by others, and Boeing just does the final assembly.

Boeing leadership has been laying the groundwork for clearing themselves of American workers for a while. They hate the union, they hate the constant wrangling over contracts. They want to leave.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 17, 2008 10:00 AM | Send