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by Eric Englund
The
consequences of publicly providing people gratis with services
which would be of fundamental personal and moral importance
if they had to provide them for themselves, are likely to
be far-reaching indeed. When the government imposes its
priorities it alters the balance of the choices which the
individual can make for himself…His sense of responsibility
for what he is not allowed to decide for himself is likely
to diminish, and it is possible that he will be less concerned
for his health and his children’s education than for his
amusements.
~
H.B. Acton
When
it comes to the emotionally-charged topic of outsourcing,
academicians, politicians, public school teachers, media-types
and other government worshipers are one-trick ponies (or more
accurately, one-phrase parrots). They continuously chant the
Marxist-tinted mantra that outsourcing is all about reducing
labor costs by exploiting laborers in third-world countries.
Reducing labor costs, undoubtedly, is a key factor behind
outsourcing; yet, there is more to this story and you will
not hear it from these government-worshipping folks as it
would be tantamount to admitting a miserable failure on the
part of the nanny state. Instead, obfuscation, name-calling,
and finger-pointing – at those "fat-cat capitalists"
– are the orders of the day.
The
terrible truth is public high schools are "producing"
graduates which manufacturers, hi-tech companies, and other
technical businesses do not want to hire – certainly,
there are exceptions. In fact, it is common for business owners
to hold a generally negative view of workers, including white
males, under 35 years old – after all public schools
are churning out hedonistic individuals with high self-esteem,
low skill levels, and no work ethic. Hence the poor product
"manufactured" by our public schools is a key factor
driving manufacturers, and technical businesses, overseas
in search of quality labor. Of course, this aspect of the
drive to outsource (i.e. a deteriorating labor pool) can be
traced back to nanny statism as enabled by the Sixteenth Amendment
and the Federal Reserve.
Poor
parenting, undeniably, is part of the equation as well. The
above-shown quote, from H.B. Acton, nicely summarizes how
the welfare state negatively affects parenting.
As
a surety bond underwriter, I have a wide variety of clients.
My clientele includes general builders, mechanical contractors,
electrical contractors, heavy engineering firms, steel erectors,
stainless steel fabricators, other specialty trades, and various
manufacturers. What I love about my job is that I deal directly
with a firm’s owners. Surety credit, on balance, can be essential
to a firm’s success and business owners take this credit relationship
quite seriously.
When
meeting with a client, I seek out a great deal of information
in order to assess the risks associated with the particular
client. In today’s marketplace, my customers are seeing significant
price inflation (and, thus, risk) in steel, copper wiring,
plumbing supplies, lumber, concrete, and oil-related products.
If a contractor or a manufacturer fails to lock in prices
of inputs, then profits can quickly evaporate. What I find
most disturbing, however, is the common complaint that the
quality of the labor pool is deteriorating.
My
clients doing business in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington
are acutely aware of the difficulty in finding skilled labor
amongst those who are under 35 years of age. When touring
building construction sites, the skilled laborers are typically
late baby-boomers. For example, while taking a job-site tour
with a client – who is the owner of a steel erection
company – I detected that not a single one of his field
employees was under 40. I passed along this observation to
my client and he shook his head in disappointment. He stated
something to the effect that "…America is becoming a
country of baristas and real estate salesmen…all soft jobs.
The ‘kids’ who come to work for me usually don’t last long
because they don’t want to work hard, they can’t do any math
in their heads and can’t even write a decent RFI." (An
RFI is a request for information). The "lack-of-skills-and-work-ethic"
complaint is a common theme I am hearing from the full spectrum
of contractors, fabricators, and manufacturers. One of my
customers, a tree-cutting contractor, summed it up perfectly
and stated: "I don’t run a babysitting service and that’s
why I typically hire guys my age or older." He’s 45.
Another
disturbing aspect of the deteriorating labor pool pertains
to drug use. A long-time client, based in Idaho, has a job-safety
program which includes drug testing for job applicants. Fully
one-third of applicants fail the drug test. Such failures
are disproportionately skewed towards laborers under 30 years
old. It is important to note this general building contractor
(which self-performs structural-concrete work) is not turning
away people who are merely applying for low-wage work. This
contractor pays top-dollar for skilled structural-concrete
workers.
Keeping
the aforementioned Idaho contractor in mind, I had a most
enjoyable job-site visit pertaining to a new 5-story parking
garage this firm was building. Not surprisingly, the rebar
and concrete crews were made up of seasoned men, earning a
high wage, with few under 30 years of age. After the site
visit, we walked to a nice restaurant for lunch where the
wait-staff was comprised of personnel in their early-to-mid-twenties.
What a contrast from those working at the construction site,
yet par for the course.
Businessmen
do understand America’s public schools are wretched failures.
Most, nevertheless, have not connected all of the dots in
that our American republic has devolved into a social democracy.
It is social democracy that changes the character of a people
and always for the worse.
A
few weeks ago, I had a breakfast meeting with a retired general
contractor. Needless to say, I brought up the issue of the
deteriorating labor pool. He, interestingly enough, mentioned
how he had "…grown tired of having to baby-sit my crews."
What he stated next was something I had never heard from a
customer throughout my 20+ years in the surety industry. He
said the following: "Eric, we have too much democracy
in this country." I almost fell out of my chair. Our
conversation immediately grew deeper and it proved to be one
of the most stimulating discussions I have ever had with a
businessman. This entrepreneur had given much thought as to
how the ever-expanding nanny state has lead directly to the
diminishing quality of the American labor pool. Naturally,
I recommended that he purchase Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s masterpiece
Democracy: The God That Failed. He could hardly wait
to get home to order the book.
Dr.
Hoppe’s book, among many things, provides an in-depth study
as to the decivilizing nature of social democracy. Surely,
this retired businessman would agree with Dr. Hoppe’s statement
deducing nanny statism
…has
led to permanently rising taxes, debts, and public employment.
It has led to the destruction of the gold standard, unparalleled
paper-money inflation, and increased protectionism and migration
controls. Even the most fundamental private law provisions
have been perverted by an unabating flood of legislation
and regulation. Simultaneously, as regards civil society,
the institutions of marriage and family have been increasingly
weakened, the number of children has declined, and the rates
of divorce, illegitimacy, single parenthood, singledom,
and abortion have increased…In comparison to the nineteenth
century, the cognitive prowess of the political and intellectual
elites and the quality of public education have declined.
And the rates of crime, structural unemployment, welfare
dependency, parasitism, negligence, recklessness, incivility,
pyschopathy, and hedonism have increased.
One
could easily add "a declining work ethic and, hence,
a weakening labor pool" into the mix. Is there any wonder
why outsourcing is seen as vital to the survival of many American
businesses?
Without
the power to control the monetary system, and without the
power to redistribute wealth, government would find it quite
difficult to impose its priorities upon its citizens. In the
United States, however, two important events occurred in 1913.
First, the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified allowing the federal
government to levy income taxes. Secondly, the Federal Reserve
was established thereby wresting control over America’s monetary
system. When combining the printing press with the power to
levy income taxes, federal fantasies such as the New Deal,
the Great Society, and public education can be financed for
surprising lengths of time; thus fooling people into believing
the state is a miraculous entity by which everyone can live
at the expense of everyone else.
Alas,
the miracle of the nanny state is built upon a mirage whereby
a society can borrow its way into prosperity. The federal
government’s debts and liabilities now add up to about $50
trillion. Moreover, due to the monetary manipulations of the
Federal Reserve, Americans are lured into the false beliefs
that savings are bad for the economy and that borrowing and
spending lead to economic salvation. It is with this public-and-private-debt
orgy that an illusion is created in which we can live comfortably
by simply selling (to one another) real estate, stocks, bonds,
lattes, and massages; while the rest of the world toils to
manufacture products for our pleasure – isn’t it wonderful
having the world’s reserve currency. Of course, this chimera
is also being funded by capital built up by previous generations
– sadly, Americans are now consuming instead of producing
capital.
To
be sure, debt and monetary inflation are fueling the nanny-statism
bubble. With a welfare tab now standing at $50 trillion, it
is no wonder why soft jobs and leisure are preferred by younger
Americans. We have literally bred and "educated"
the work ethic out of our children. With social democracy
polluting and diluting America’s labor pool, businessmen are
seeking higher quality (and not just cheaper) labor pools.
Outsourcing is a logical and justifiable response to this
unfolding tragedy in the United States.
October
6, 2005
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