Some days you can turn on "Morning Joe" and just conclude there's no connection between our so-called grand political debate and the real slow drip-drip-drip that is killing the American economy -- and our kids' future in the process. Some days the slow drip is from gasoline:
Sunoco Inc., the Philadelphia-based oil company, says it's paying EquaTerra Inc., a Houston consulting firm, to recommend whether Sunoco should "outsource" information technology, accounting, personnel, and procurement jobs from its Center City headquarters, home to 750 of Sunoco's 10,000 employees.
"We have hired EquaTerra to advise us as we explore potentially outsourcing some functions," Sunoco spokesman Thomas Golembeski told me yesterday. Workers learned Friday of the possible job moves. EquaTerra didn't return calls for comment late yesterday.
Sunoco expects EquaTerra to report later this year on which jobs could be profitably outsourced to cheap labor markets in Asia or elsewhere. If Sunoco decides to outsource these jobs, it will seek proposals from contractors, Golembeski said.
First of all...uh, Sunoco, could you please explain to me what you've been doing with the wads of extra cash that I've been forced to dole out at your service stations these last few years? Surely you didn't lose that much on those discount cards from the Acme. And so now this is your gratitude for sevcral years of record profits -- inflicting a hurting on the Philadelphia economy, and not just the people who'll lose their office jobs in Center City but the guy who sold them coffee in the morning, and, yes, the service station owner who use to fuel up their morning commute to a job that's about to disappear forever.
Second of all, isn't this the real problem in America today, and one that no one in Washington -- or anywhere else -- has a clue on how to solve? Free-market solutions? Give me a break -- this is the free market in action. There's not a Republican tax break in the world that would stop Sunoco from shipping those jobs to India or China or wherever, given the huge disparity in wages. We could shut off the Internet -- we did pay for this microphone, after all -- and go back to a non-flat-world economy like we had in the prosperous 1950s, but that seems counterproductive and unpractical, doesn't it. I still think the best alternative would be to invest both more and more wisely in education as well as infrastructure -- what China is doing,
But the inevitable return of conservatives to power, at least until they screw things up for the fourth time in my lifetime, is probably going to lead to a new world order of ill-targeted austerity (money for tanks instead of classrooms) that will destroy my children's future in the name of saving it. God bless America.
"I still think the best alternative would be to invest both more and more wisely in education as well as infrastructure -- what China is doing," Will, you really are a moron. Where is your proof that China is investing more wisely in either? They are simply inflating their own bubble. You complain about the low wages in China in one sentence then want to emulate them in the next. Truly brilliant.— RG
Comment removed.- Lets see what the government runs/has run. Medicare-broke, SS-broke, Amtrak-broke, USPS-broke, Fannie and Freddie-broke, public education system-crumbling. Yet Will's solution is simply involve the government even more.— RG
It's "Marxist Rant Tuesday" here at Attytood.— jmc- ARGGGGGHHH! Another big, bad oil company rant. Will, you really ought to read Friedman's "The World Is Flat." If you have already read it, then you failed to learn anything from it.— pj katauskas
- "If you have already read it, then you failed to learn anything from it." Friedman's a moron. He's now running around saying he wishes we were China, because the government is basically one party and can push through legislation w/o opposition.— RG
- Ah yes, it's taxes of course. Chinese population doesn't pay tax? It has nothing to do with the profit at whatever cost of American business in the name of shareholders. Slowly driving all of labor out of the US in the name of profit. How long do you think the increasinlgy educated workers of these nations will be content to just perform the labor and pass the profits to American CEO's and shareholders?— gee1971
- I don't agree with Friedman's politics generally, but he's definitely not a moron. That book was a real eye-opener about what's happened and is happening to global trade and its effect on us. Head in the sand approach won't work. Nor will name-calling at messengers like Friedman.— pj katauskas
- Still waiting for the first commenter with a positive idea for how to keep jobs like this in the United States. I'll have to start calling you guys "The Commenters of No."— will
- "That book was a real eye-opener about what's happened and is happening to global trade and its effect on us." Krugman won a Nobel for his work on trade, yet the economics he pushes in the NYT is pure idiocy. Friedman's a statist who beleives government is the solution to most of our problems.— RG
- "Still waiting for the first commenter with a positive idea for how to keep jobs like this in the United States." You assume that this is the governments job. Past that, you immediately dismiss stuff such as eliminating the min wage, reducing costs of employment by decoupling insurance from employment, reducing payroll taxes etc.— RG
- RG, it's not necessarily government's job -- it would be best of the private sector were creating new ones to replace jobs that were lost, which is what we saw in the late 1990s. Do you expect that to happen soon. The minimum wage thing is at least debatable but the insurance thing would probably deepen the recession (unless you support single payer :-) ) and reducing payroll taxes -- I thought everyone here was freaking out about deficits?— will
- Comment removed.
- "it would be best of the private sector were creating new ones to replace jobs that were lost, which is what we saw in the late 1990s." And ou don't think there's a certain level of regime uncertainty thats stoppign them from doing so? Past the issue of consumer and biz deleveraging, the current admin is talking about adding health care costs, imposing carbon rationing, and reforming the financial industry. Who in their right mind is going to hire until all this potential legislation is sorted out? "and reducing payroll taxes -- I thought everyone here was freaking out about deficits?" We're going to have to cut spending across the board, no sacred programs, that includes defense and entitlements.— RG
- Comment removed.
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
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