"Go figure," is what Byron says in the post today about Dinesh Dalmia, a man who is under a five year ban from the Indian capital markets for his hinky deeds in that part of the world, but who is leading a group of investors that are trying to buy up market share of U.S. call centers so they can ship jobs offshore to places like India where they pay each person around 4k per year. Even after they ban telemarketing, the call center biz will keep booming, because if your Dell breaks, which it always will (just like your Ford), you'll need to call India for customer service, right?
Byron puts his hands up in disgust at the regulators, who appear to ignore everything unless it relates to a call back on the resumes they have been shopping around since they started as a G-8. He says "Go figure," because no public figure seems to have the balls to say anything about the sucking sound that American jobs make as they are shipped off shore to far away places with more and more farmilar sounding names that welcome the work and the capital that flies into their broke ass, hinky little Pottervilles with their Company stores that take back what they give as the company keeps the difference.
Of couse, the company keeps the difference, and passes the savings on to the American consumer, right? The question is, the American consumer of what? Who gets the savings-- not the American consumer of that product or service, that's for sure. Maybe the American consumer of that company's bonds, or maybe its stock (that's a big "maybe," as in, if the brain trust of recently minted MBA professional three card Monties on wall street agree that the company makes sense, even if all this agreement means that its shares get, remain and continue on to stay wildly overvalued like a 12 dollar toothbrush, or a 40 dollar hamburger).
Or, more typically, it's a small group of investors who have access to such buyouts and rollups might get the "savings," as well as, the staff of the new company store taht bought up the jobs and FedExed the whole deal over seas; while the family man or woman at the Sears, or the Target, or the BJ's gets ASSED OUT from all this wonderful savings. Hell no, he or she gets a dime off, and is happy because they might make the mortgage payment, if they cut back on the brewskies enough to make ends meet this month, again. That's business, right? That's why Carnagie built all those libraries, right? Enlightening the masses all those years, so they can do the math and rip out the tax base from the town that raised them up when they move the factory floor to Peru. Fine young Americans, who shot spit balls like me when the nice lady made us listen while the brown noser read Luke 6:4 aloud that week in sunday school.
Oh, maybe American buyers get a dime off, as wages to make the thing or to provide the service are cut by 80 percent when these jobs are packed up and sent off to some steamy country where they walk in bare feet to work, while the jack assed american consumer has to put on the 125 dollar basket ball shoes they can wear on their jobless day, made and shipped from these same places for 3 dollars. Surely anything that can be sent overseas via a the telephone lines will be going overseas via the telephone lines in the coming years, which will free America's labor force up to do more important, more highly skilled jobs which will improve the world's lot, right? Just think how many American porn stars there are out there ready to entertain the world on demand, who are currently disguised as working stiffs trapped in American call centers.
Again, who gets the savings? Well, let me tell you about the wedding I went to once on the Long Island Sound, where the father of the bride made his living with ties that he manufactured this way. It was 18 courses, and about $4,000 per head. They said the ties only cost .80 cents to make and ship, at the time. The answer was, I got the savings, at that wedding.
USA Flags
And its not just call centers, sneaker companies or tie manufacturers. Now that they are moving white collar jobs too, the media has sounded the alarm. It was okay when unskilled jobs moved down to Mexico for years and years; and Clinton jammed NAFTA into the family budget. But now that the bright one with the good grades who went to the right school, and learned the firm handshake is ASSED OUT too; well, here come Peter Jennins, the high school drop out who hosts your nightly news on ABC, as if he gives a shit. This guy has the education of Merv Griffin; what's he care about American lining up for college when the Return on Tuition falls through the floor. They, there will always be fabulious high paying jobs in pornography, numbers, drugs, loan sharking, and of couse Law Enforcement, right?
"At the end of the day.... [this labor force arbitrage] creates value all over;" that's what the guy told Jennings to cap off his story. We think it really really really creates value in his bank account and with his stock options. We are bearish on this hinky little Name-that- tune, labor game, where the leaders and the Monties of the country that can pimp its labor force for the lowest cost wins. We think the value creation they speak about is a bullshit story, one that bandits tell themselves until it sounds true and the voters buy in. Furthermore, we think it horse shit that these Monties are liberating freeing up or even trying to guide the work forces of industrialized nations to do something better with there time and effort (the non renewable resource called their life's work). We think they might be freeing up the labor forces to play game boy, watch stupid movies, bounce their heads to angry eM & eM songs and supersize their french fries while they wait to get paid to stay home and fix up their overpriced real estate.
"At the end of the day" ... it looks like each day the jungles out there are looking better and better than the jungle we see here "on shore".
Hinky 11:41 AM
