On Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced a new initiative to combat outsourcing. The so-called 'in-sourcing' initiative would push a series of policies that would create jobs in the United States, including inviting more foreign companies to invest in U.S. jobs. Some of the suggested policies include tax breaks for companies that create jobs in the U.S. and tax disincentives for companies that continue to engage in outsourcing.

The White House announcement was made in conjunction with an in-sourcing forum that brought 14 large and small U.S. companies to meet with President Obama and discuss what kinds of policies might work to encourage the generation of jobs here instead of abroad. The 14 were Ford, DuPont, Otis Elevator, Intel, Siemens, ThyssenKrupp, Rolls Royce, Master Lock, Lincolnton Furniture, GalaxE Solutions, AGS, KEEN, Chesapeake Bay Candle and NOVO 1.

Some of the companies involved in the forum called for deregulation and lower corporate tax rates. Another tactic, used successfully by GM, is to increase productivity by increasing the use of automation and paying workers less.

Rep. Tim Bishop is calling on the president to focus on call centers:

In a letter, Bishop urged the President to consider the "U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act," the bipartisan bill he sponsored to bar corporations that outsource U.S. call center jobs from receiving federal grants and loans, as a framework for Executive action to encourage the retention and growth of call center jobs in America.

Highlighting the fact that U.S-based call centers account for approximately three percent of jobs in the American workforce, Bishop wrote: "I hope your Administration will seriously consider the remedy my colleagues and I are confident will reduce the incidence of outsourcing by creating new incentives to insource call center jobs and provide a measure of stability and longevity to a sector of America’s workforce that needs our help as our economy continues to recover."

Bishop's "U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act," which is co-sponsored by Reps. Dave McKinley (R, WVA-1), Mike Michaud (D, ME-1), Mike Grimm (R, NY-13) and Gene Green (D, TX-29), would require the U.S. Department of Labor to track firms that move call center jobs overseas; the firms would then be ineligible for any direct or indirect federal loans or loan guarantees for five years. The provision is partially a response to the practice of companies taking millions in incentives from local taxpayers to open call centers in the U.S., only to off-shore their operations a short time later and leave local communities devastated and still paying the bill.

Bishop's bill also requires overseas call center employees to disclose their location to US consumers and gives customers the right to be transferred to a US-based call center upon request. The legislation has the full support of the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America.

The Communications Workers of America have already come out in favor of this bill. India and the Philippines, the recipients of many of the outsourced call center jobs, are lobbying against the bill.

Herman Cain, who has made job creation a signature issue, was on the board of Whirlpool when the company engaged in a pattern of layoffs, outsourcing and the cutting of retiree benefits, all while accepting government subsidies and paying little to no taxes. Cain has made it clear that he doesn't understand jobs and the economy and has surrounded himself with people who don't know more than he does, but the Whirlpool example goes beyond a lack of understanding into an assault on American workers.

http://www.outsaurus.com/2011/11/04/outsourced-whirlpool/

Between 2008 and 2010, Whirlpool paid no federal taxes, despite sales of over $18 billion. In 2010, the company reported an effective tax rate of -10.9 percent. And the company continued to lay workers off and outsource their jobs after receiving $19 million in stimulus funds.

Cain joined the Whirlpool board of directors in 1992 and received payment for his work there as late as 2010. His compensation from Whirlpool ranged from $166,000 to $190,000 a year.

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Outsourcing, as anyone who's ever had to manage a project staffed in another country will tell you, is rife with all kinds of pitfalls -- and it's almost never cheaper, no matter what Tom "The World Is Flat" Friedman would like you to believe. Boeing learned the hard way:

The 787 has more foreign-made content — 30% — than any other Boeing plane, according to the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, the union representing Boeing engineers. That compares with just over 5% in the company's workhorse 747 airliner.

Boeing's goal, it seems, was to convert its storied aircraft factory near Seattle to a mere assembly plant, bolting together modules designed and produced elsewhere as though from kits.

The drawbacks of this approach emerged early. Some of the pieces manufactured by far-flung suppliers didn't fit together. Some subcontractors couldn't meet their output quotas, creating huge production logjams when critical parts weren't available in the necessary sequence.

Rather than follow its old model of providing parts subcontractors with detailed blueprints created at home, Boeing gave suppliers less detailed specifications and required them to create their own blueprints.

Some then farmed out their engineering to their own subcontractors, Mike Bair, the former head of the 787 program, said at a meeting of business leaders in Washington state in 2007. That further reduced Boeing's ability to supervise design and manufacture. At least one major supplier didn't even have an engineering department when it won its contract, according to an analysis of the 787 by the European consortium Airbus, Boeing's top global competitor.

Boeing executives now admit that the company's aggressive outsourcing put it in partnership with suppliers that weren't up to the job. They say Boeing didn't recognize that sending so much work abroad would demand more intensive management from the home plant, not less.

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Perhaps if we purged the tax code of the numerous incentives to move jobs overseas (the latest was in the recent tax cut deal), it would be more likely to translate into jobs within shorter commuting distance than India:

Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn't anyone hiring?

Actually, many American companies are – just maybe not in your town. They're hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat.

More than half of the 15,000 people that Caterpillar Inc. has hired this year were outside the U.S. UPS is also hiring at a faster clip overseas. For both companies, sales in international markets are growing at least twice as fast as domestically.

The trend helps explain why unemployment remains high in the United States, edging up to 9.8 percent last month, even though companies are performing well: All but 4 percent of the top 500 U.S. corporations reported profits this year, and the stock market is close to its highest point since the 2008 financial meltdown.

But the jobs are going elsewhere. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, says American companies have created 1.4 million jobs overseas this year, compared with less than 1 million in the U.S. The additional 1.4 million jobs would have lowered the U.S. unemployment rate to 8.9 percent, says Robert Scott, the institute's senior international economist.

"There's a huge difference between what is good for American companies versus what is good for the American economy," says Scott.

Let's see what the Senate does with this after their lobbyists bring them to heel:

BANGALORE: American lawmakers plan to make it less attractive for the country’s multinational giants IBM and GE to expand their workforce in cheaper locations such as India by taxing their income from international markets, and encourage job creation by renewing several expired tax breaks for local R&D.

Last week, the House of Representatives approved the ‘American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act’ on a 215-204 vote, clearing the way for the US Senate to hold final discussions in June. At a time when the unemployment rates in the US are hovering around 9.9%, lawmakers are under tremendous pressure to act against the companies seen as creating jobs overseas even as they lay off workers in the country.

“In this legislation, which is job creating, it closes the loophole which has allowed businesses to ship jobs overseas. Can you believe that we have a tax policy that enables outsourcing? So, if you have one thing to say about this bill to your constituents, you can say that today, you voted to close the loophole to ship US jobs overseas and giving businesses a tax break to do so,” House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi told the lawmakers before the voting process started on Friday last week. “It is not right. It will be corrected today.”

The proposal, expected to cost nearly $112 billion, will be discussed by the Senate during week of June 7 after Congress’ Memorial Day recess.

However, India’s $60-billion outsourcing sector, which counts GE and Citigroup among its top customers, does not see any direct impact.

Remember a couple of decades ago, when they told us if we all re-trained for IT jobs, we'd always have work? [insert ironic laugh here...] And just to add insult to injury, exactly how much of our bailout money are they using to make our jobs go away?

BANGALORE: The second-biggest bank of the US, JP Morgan Chase, which acquired Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns recently, will increase its outsourcing to India by 25% this year to nearly $400 million. It will also manage the integration of the acquired companies from India to bring down the cost of integrating different information technology (IT) systems.

Right now, JP Morgan outsources $250-300 million worth of IT and back-office projects every year to Cognizant, TCS and Accenture, apart from to its own captive centre in Mumbai.

“JP Morgan CIO Guy Chiarello said last week that he will increase outsourcing to India, and will drive several integration projects from there,” a New York-based expert, familiar with JP Morgan’s outsourcing plans, told ET last week, on conditions of anonymity. A spokeswoman for JP Morgan India could not reply to an email query sent by ET on Friday, and the bank’s spokesperson in the US too did not reply.

“JP Morgan is one of the first banks in the US to have fleshed out its outsourcing strategy ever since the banking meltdown happened. Many others are still undecided about their IT spend,” said a senior official at one of the technology firms, who did not wish to be quoted.

See, I'm a little confused. Because for years, big companies like IBM have insisted there were so few talented IT workers in the U.S., they had to import them from India. And yet now we have so many, we can send them to India! Isn't that funny?

If I were a suspicious sort (and God knows, I'm not), I'd wonder if this isn't really a way to keep experienced American workers while artificially suppressing their wages. And of course, I'd also have to wonder: If you're offered one of these jobs and you decline, are you then ineligible to collect unemployment compensation? Because that already happens with big companies in the U.S.

Isn't this new personal responsibility thing fun? Who knew we'd get to see the world at company expense?

The climate is warm, there's no shortage of exotic food, and the cost of living is rock bottom. That's IBM (NYSE: IBM)'s pitch to the laid-off American workers it's offering to place in India. The catch: Wages in the country are pennies-on-the-dollar compared to U.S. salaries.

Under a program called Project Match, IBM will help workers laid off from domestic sites obtain travel and visa assistance for countries in which Big Blue has openings. Mostly that's developing markets like India, China, and Brazil.

"IBM has established Project Match to help you locate potential job opportunities in growth markets where your skills are in demand," IBM says in an internal notice on the initiative. "Should you accept a position in one of these countries, IBM offers financial assistance to offset moving costs, provides immigration support, such as visa assistance, and other support to help ease the transition of an international move."

The document states that the program is limited to "satisfactory performers who have been notified of separation from IBM U.S. or Canada and are willing to work on local terms and conditions." The latter indicates that workers will be paid according to prevailing norms in the countries to which they relocate. In many cases, that could be substantially less than what they earned in North America.

IBM has laid off more than 4,000 workers in the United States since the beginning of January, according to an employee group. The company has confirmed layoffs but won't comment on specific numbers.

After 30 long years of Reagan-inspired hatred of government services, we're seeing the policies come to their logical conclusion. Because we didn't so much cut the size of government as we outsourced it. Most people are oblivious to the fact that large numbers of government social services were simply contracted out to local non-profits because it meant towns, cities and states didn't have to pay for the additional benefits of a government employee to do that job.

And now, anyone in need of those services is screwed - because those agencies aren't getting paid:

SCO Family of Services, a nonprofit agency based on Long Island, started the year with a $25 million credit line at its bank, which it planned to use to pay its bills while awaiting government reimbursements and donations.

Now, after its bank has cut its credit line twice and withdrawn a promise to support a critical bond offering, the organization is worried about whether it can pay its employees this month.

“I spend a good part of my day every day just trying to manage cash flow,” said Johanna Richman, chief financial officer at SCO, which provides services to children with developmental disabilities.

SCO is one of hundreds of charities caught in the credit crunch as skittish banks reduce their lines of credit or cut them off entirely at a time when the need for their services is climbing sharply, nonprofit leaders say.

“While nonprofits are working feverishly to accommodate increased demand, they are facing severe financial constraints that are threatening their ability to go on, much less expand their services,” said Diana Aviv, president and chief executive of Independent Sector, a nonprofit trade association.

Almost three-quarters of nonprofits in the United States receive some type of government financing, according to new research by the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, and about half of those count on that aid for at least half of their budgets.

As a growing number of states delay payment, nonprofits must rely on lines of credit to help them get by. In Illinois, the state is running as much as 150 days late in making reimbursements, and California has told nonprofits to expect i.o.u.’s in lieu of payment starting next month.

Horses Mouth: The wingnut media and bloggers are in a lather because Democrats are accurately describing the Iraq 'report' as the work of the White House. Jurassicpork has more from behind the paywall...

All Spin Zone: The man who has taken on both Fox News and Wal-mart is determined to debunk the 9/11 myths surrounding Rudy

Scott Horton: US Attorneys scandal--Milwaukee

The Newshoggers: There's a war-crimes trial going on in Croatia which illustrates why BushCo refused to recognize the International Court.

unbossed: Outsourcing oversight in Iraq?

skippy the bush kangaroo: Our bumblin', stumblin' moron-in-chief is an embarrassment. The Raw Story has video...

Sadly, for the person that sent this report to me, what it all boil downs to is that the American Dream is fading, and most young people think it's out of reach for them.

Change To Win:

Economic conditions for workers are deteriorating so dramatically in the new American economy that an overwhelming majority, nearly 70 percent, now say that basic security - not opportunity - is their number one concern, according to a new survey released today. The finding is a stunning reflection of the anxiety, anger and demand for action rising in Working America in the global economy. Among the other key results of the poll of 800 non-supervisory workers:

• Nearly 80 percent of workers, both college and non-college alike, no longer believe the next generation will be better off. Nearly half think their children will be worse
• Nearly 80 percent of workers view multinational corporations as too powerful, and have driven down wages, eliminated health care and retirement security, and disregarded labor laws.
• Nearly 70 percent of workers feel that government doesn't take action to rein in greedy and unethical behavior by corporations and CEOs.

Full results are available on the Change to Win Web site.

The survey indicates workers see few opportunities for good jobs while they face the financial insecurity of rising health care costs, the elimination of pensions, the outsourcing of jobs, and wages falling behind living costs. But in addition to the concerns, it also showed that workers are remarkably united in their hopes, ideas, and solutions for the future on the critical issues of the workplace, a consensus that remains intact regardless of age, gender, geography, ethnicity, country of origin, and education.