Outsourcing of American Jobs to Mexico

The last thing we need is more government intervention. History has shown us time and time again that the interplay of supply and demand ultimately rule the market. People need to stop blaming governments and corporations for lax laws and began taking action by becoming educated consumers and a more skillful workforce. The Industrial Age has come and gone. People need to aim higher than a mindless and routine blue-collar job. American needs to do what historically it has done best--creating and innovating new services and new technologies. We need to adapt to the times and embrace the new Information Age.

When your in business, the only thing you worry about is how to survive and the only way you do that is by staying ahead of the pack. The only way you stay ahead is by producing the products cheaper, better, and faster than anyone else. Companies are now competing with companies from around the world. The Information Age has expanded the playing field and has created more jobs because technologies and expertise are being shared across borders with greater ease. The field is more competative and this is for the consumer. The CEOs of companies are not the only ones that benefit from outsourcing jobs. Americans in the end benefit in many different ways. 1) If you're a shareholder, more profits means more dividends in your investment account. 2) Lower costs usually translates into lower prices, which translates into more disposable income. 3) Since some companies reinvest the profits into their products, the consumer ends up with a higher quality product. In the end the consumer ends up with more money for their retirement, in their pocket, and with higher quality products.

Before we start comparing U.S. wages to Mexico wages, lets consider three very important factors--inflation, taxes, and overall cost of living. Having lived in Venezuela, I can attest that many commodities, transportation, and food are considerably cheaper than here in the states.

Before we blame goverments and corporations for their lax environmental policies. Once again, I say that the market rules and who is the market? You and me. Governments supossedly are there to protect the interests of its citizens and corporations survive on the sale of their products. So, before we blame others, we need to look deep within ourselves because consumers are the root of the problem. Many Americans live a life of excess. The American Dream that we hold so dearly is really crippling the environment. Instead of driving fuel-efficient vehicles, the majority of Americans are driving gas-guzzling SUVs clogging up the highways, emitting more gases into the atmosphere, creating more smog, and eventually creating a suffocating environment where its habitants have become prone to allergies and numerous other diseases. Our materialistic and individualistic thinking, which promotes growth at all costs, is sapping away the resources needed to survive. Our government is responding to that demand by trying to secure the 2nd biggest oil reserve in the world. It all comes down to supply and demand. As long as the demand exists, corporations will do whatever it takes meet it and governments will step in to protect it. Outsourcing of jobs to Mexico is just one of those tactics used by business to meet the demand. We need to stop pointing fingers and examine our own lifestyle. Ask yourself, are you part of the problem? Are you promoting the demand?

NAFTA does not control what individual companies pay or not pay their employees. It allows free trade between the US and Mexico. A yearly attrition rate of 7-14% is pretty good. Most companies would not complain about keeping 93-86% of their current employees-- particularly in production roles. Why can't these folks making 5 pesos/day not get a better job? (also,those above them, will always make more, that goes for anywhere one works.)

Undereducated people anywhere will suffer what might seem like unfair consequences. However, it is no different if they are making minimum wage in Akron, Ohio; they are still going to want to blame the government or the company they work for. Why should someone with no education, who decided to have 3-4 children and cannot afford to feed them, decide that they are owed anything?

Furthermore, coming to the US, is not going to make their lives better. There are plenty of people in Mexico, India, Africa, and any other "poor country" that are doing just fine. Being at a disadvantage due to lack of effort or just plain bad luck does not justify a governemnt "handout." What about those that work hard and make a decent living?

If socialism is the best alternative, look at our neighbors in Cuba and the ex-Soviet block. Socialist programs do not work. It makes people lazy and entitled. Not to mention it gives the governemnt too much power to do as it will. If you want to really cripple these mean companies, stop buying the products they make. The reason these companies go to cheap labor is to meet the demand for affordable products. Noone wants to pay $1,000.00 for cell phones or $400.00 for a pair of jeans.

Please, do not fall victim to the belief that paying higher wages alone will solve poor people's problems. How about insted of asking the government to force these companies to pay more, we ask the government to mandate proper family planning for those living below the poverty level? And how about making it illegal to drop out of high school? One will not cure cancer with really, really potent aspirin...we have to change our mentalilty so the next generation can properly re-endoctrinate itself and learn from the mistakes already in place, which seem to be duplicated generation after generation within the underpriveledged class...

As long as there is an international wage diferential for equivalent work, there will be an adjustment process. In the long term, wages will tend to equalize. The interest of humanity is that the wages equalize nearer the US level, not the Mexican level. Any legislation to stop or maintain the differential (stop migration of labor towards cheap capital or stop migration of capital towards cheap labor) will ultimately fail. We need long term stratagies to build up the Mexican wage in this century.

You are right about the explotation of the Mexican people in their own country, but as you mention this is also done in the US.
In regards to the NAFTA benefits, I believe that Mexico's benefits are very questionable. Who had been recipients of the benefits are the corrupted goberments from both sides of the border and the big corporations, most of them American or from other foreign countries in wich America has a partnership. The American population is irritated because some of them had believed the US goberment message that American economy is in bad shape because many jobs had move abroad, but the reality is that this current goberment had done nothing to improve the economy and create new jobs. Just think the enormous quantity of new jobs that could been created in the Amercian economy with all the expending in a stupid war.
Americans had been benefited from NAFTA as well as from the ilegal inmigrants every time they get afordable products and services paying pennies for the labor.