Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas by Lou Dobbs
While you slept last night, someone in India may have read your recent X-ray.  By 2008, an estimated 500,000 financial services jobs in America will be shipped overseas.  Microsoft contributes $2 billion to India's economy with jobs.  HMOs, insurance companies, banks, and credit card companies are processing your medical and financial data with employees overseas - where no laws protect you against the sharing and releasing of personal information.

Now that the presidential election is over, we can't just sit back and wait another four years before getting involved again.  There are issues that need our attention all the time - such as the continuing problem of American companies who ship American jobs overseas. Lou Dobbs has tirelessly been exposing companies who ship jobs overseas on his television program - now he has written a book that is a call to arms against what he calls the assault on middle class Americans.

I am continuously stunned by the reaction of many people when I raise this subject.  Approximately half of the people I talk to give me the exact same response:  "Outsourcing?  Oh, companies have been doing that for years!".  It's actually a bit scary to hear so many people saying the same exact thing, as they turn around and trot off to their job as a computer programmer (hope you can type).  Where is this canned response coming from?  

The American worker is in clear danger.  What is more of a bread and butter issue of "family values" than communities and families enjoying good paying, secure jobs to support themselves and raise their families?  Isn't that what the American Dream is all about?

My job was outsourced once.  I found the whole concept truly frightening.  It wasn't comforting that someone could come along and deem my position overpaid with a whirlwind of charts and graphs to prove how they could do it cheaper and faster.  Now I agree there is a fine balance between a decision like that being good for business, i.e., good for the employee.  And I survived that career change.  However, my job was sent to a firm down the street, who really wanted me to work for them.

Unfortunately, the outsourcing that is done today is being sent across the world.  And they'd love for you to work for them, at about $1 an hour.  

There are arguments on both sides of the block about how outsourcing is good for America.  Some people argue that "low skilled" jobs are being sent overseas, and therefore will lift Americans up.  They will be forced to become more educated.  Unfortunately, you don't see companies who outsource willing to retain those workers, educate them, and put them back to work in a different position.  They are getting laid off.  Sure, they could go back to college, but how does the mortgage get paid in the meantime?  Further, it appears corporate greed may propel companies to start outsourcing  work done by professionals, such as paralegals and lawyers.  Do they suggest lawyers need to be more educated? 

Lou Dobb's critics always seem to go completely over the top about him - they have reviled him as everything from a traitor to a communist.  The fact that they can not even praise the man for his dedication to working Americans leaves me to question their motives.   And some suggest it is simply partisan politics.  This is not a partisan issue - Lou Dobbs admits some Republicans and Democrats alike seem perfectly willing to put corporate CEO interests above working Americans.

Exporting America is a disturbing book.  In fact, I had to stop reading it in the evening because I couldn't sleep.  But Lou Dobbs offers solutions - solutions that must be demanded by the working people of this country.   

I recently contacted my internet service provider's customer service with a service question. I was connected to a nice man in India.  He was very polite, but he had no idea how to help me.  The service was awful.  Why bother?  I'd rather wait 45 minutes on hold to speak to someone in America with a clue, than waste 10 minutes speaking with someone who was clearly unable to resolve my issue.   So I decided to do some research, and I left my provider, after 10 years, for a company committed to hiring right here in the US of A.  Boy, do I feel patriotic. 

About the Author: Lou Dobbs is the anchor and managing editor of CNN's Lou Dobb's Tonight.  The winner of nearly every major award for television journalism, he received the George Foster Peabody Award for his coverage of the 1987 stock market crash.  He lives in New York City, and despite reports of being a communist, is a lifelong Republican.
Exporting America