The editor of Gov. Mike Easley’s favorite magazine, Mark Arend of Site Selection, says “It’s OK to Outsource.” Easley’s favorite press release pastime is to trumpet North Carolina’s “No. 1 business climate” ranking from Site Selection, an economic development rag whose depth extends only to the level of measuring business deals purely on their speculative size in jobs and “dollar impact.”
Here’s what Arend says about outsourcing, in part:
Keener business minds see offshoring or outsourcing for what it is ? a cost management tool involving one of most corporations’ largest expenses: labor. Investors punish corporations that don’t manage such expenses by withdrawing capital and leaving them to wither on the vine, dry up and blow away. In fact, that scenario is worse than outsourcing, because the whole company evaporates.
Look at it this way: To buy into the condemnation of corporate outsourcing, one must be of the mindset that the Industrial Revolution is still here, rather than the Technological Revolution, and the loss of any industrial jobs means that the United States is no longer competitive.
Not that Arend’s editorial is anything deep, but it certainly debunks Easley’s second-favorite pastime: Blaming President Bush for the loss of North Carolina jobs due to outsourcing.
