Outsourcing is a Symptom

Crooks and Liars today posted an article on J.P. Morgan outsourcing. I particularly enjoyed the comments of one person, a native of India, who said,

"Someone once told me that when the Europeans get bored they start a revolution, when the Americans get bored they go shopping. I think you guys went shopping for far too long."

To which I say, "right on." Why in the world aren't we Americans more pissed off? The problem with outsourcing, in my view, are the laws that allow the "private sector" to do as they please. This line of thinking is a problem because there is nothing "private" about this sector. Corporations are formed using public laws and regulated by various levels of government. When these "private" companies, incorporated under U.S. laws, move jobs out of the country, we end up paying for it. We pay for unemployment benefits for these folks, and a list of other costs. After all, when someone loses a job that gets moved offshore, it's not like that person is dead!

There's nothing "private" about their advertising - and, most important, their lobbying.

We all bear the direct and indirect costs for any outsourcing by a company in the "private sector." We ask nothing from these fictional corporate "persons" who gain a long list of rights as corporations but too few of the responsibilities of citizenship.