India, the outsourcing scapegoat

James K. Glassman, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and host of TechCentralStation.com writes in his article Don't make India the outsourcing scapegoat on Post-Gazette. According to him Sen. John Kerry is fond of calling CEOs who employ foreigners "Benedict Arnolds," after the despicable Revolutionary War turncoat, but there is lots of hipocracy involved in it.

Put hypocrisy aside. The traitors to American interests aren't CEOs seeking to boost profits that ultimately lead to more hiring at home. The real Benedict Arnolds are Kerry and his colleagues in Congress, such as Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Jon Corzine, D-N.J., who understand enough economics to know that outsourcing is trade and that trade -- as David Ricardo figured out 200 years ago and as Hillary's husband articulated in the 1990s -- benefits both parties.

He feels that India is unnecessarily made a target and the whole election campaign is biased against it without seeing the bigger picture.

Now, many Indians feel they are the scapegoats for America's cyclical economic downturn in what they see as a racist campaign. Isn't this the way trade works? "On the one hand you talk about opening up our markets. On the other, you want to ban ... outsourcing," said India's deputy prime minister.



In fact, the business processes (or BP) work that Indians do for companies worldwide is a "good thing," as Gregory Mankiw, head of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, had the temerity to say, like the little boy who couldn't help but speak the truth while his elders were telling lies. ("This simple restatement of the logic of liberal trade brought derision down on Mankiw's head," wrote The Economist. And from, among others, Corzine, the former CEO of Goldman, Sachs!)



As the BP sector waxes, India becomes a bigger market for "Dell personal computers, Cisco switches and Avaya telecommunications equipment," writes Rafiq Dossani of Stanford in Outlook, an Indian magazine.

Links:

Kerry Donors Include 'Benedict Arnolds

Globalisation, US and outsourcing —Rafiq dossani Martin kenney