In The News

Where Are the Jobs? The Harsh Truth about Outsourcing

Paul Craig Roberts March 15, 2004
As the US struggles to deal with the political and economic fallout from the outsourcing of high-tech and manufacturing jobs overseas, many analysts have come down on all sides of the debate. Will America benefit in the end? Does the theory of "comparative advantage" hold true? Can the US find a niche that will allow it to replace the jobs lost and reverse wage declines? The answer,...

Lingering Job Insecurity of Silicon Valley

Steve Lohr March 9, 2004
Despite the recent upsurge in business activity, skilled technology workers remain in weak demand in the US. Experienced and well-educated computer scientists and software engineers - many of whom boast PhDs - are falling victim to broad market forces that, until recently, have affected primarily blue-collar workers. "You have multiple effects going on: automation, outsourcing and business...

Outlook: Outsourcing America's Future

Jodie Allen March 8, 2004
Most economists - including American ones - argue that in the long run, outsourcing makes sense both for business and society. In this online discussion, Jodie Allen, Managing Editor of US News & World Report, challenges this long held economic assumption. While recognizing some of the positive aspects of outsourcing (e.g., cheaper consumer goods), she points to a recent US Labor Department...

Stop Intervening: Greenspan

March 4, 2004
In what many consider an unusual display of criticism, US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan claimed that Japan's currency market interventions – aimed at preventing the yen from falling against the dollar – will no longer be sustainable. The accumulation of dollar reserves must eventually end, he said, and argued that Japanese intervention has kept the dollar higher than it...

Can the ADB Resurrect Itself?

Pana Janviroj March 2, 2004
The Asian Development Bank (ADB), beset by poor results and politicization, needs to reform. It has been overshadowed by the World Bank and been mired by its own factional infighting, says this article in The Nation. Based originally in Manila, the ADB now plans to open a satellite office in Bangkok. This could be the change it needs. Far from inter-office rivalry, the satellite will help oversee...

Aussies Too Fire Broadside at Outsourcing

Kalinga Seneviratne March 1, 2004
For the last several weeks, US politics have been dominated by discussions about the shift of information-technology (IT) jobs to lower-wage nations. Now, Australians are joining in to register their protest. A new deal between American company IBM and Australian telecom giant Telstra threatens to move 450 Australian jobs to India, where IBM has said it will base the conglomerate's IT...

Making Profits Cannot Be an End in Itself

Lim Boon Heng February 27, 2004
In this Straits Times article, Singapore's union chief Lim Boon Heng reflects on the current crisis in the global corporate sector, and ponders about an alternative to the prevalent model of cut-throat capitalism. Instead of attacking the basic tenet of capitalism - profit making - he acknowledges that profit is important to society because “Without businesses, there will be no commerce,...