We hear all the time how horrible outsourcing is for America. After all, it takes jobs from hard working Americans and gives them to some unknown person in Asia who probably doesn't even speak any English. Additionally, so many American made products are now being produced overseas. I mean, what about our beloved Little Red Wagon? No longer will they be made in America, but now they are a product of Chinese labor. As if this were not bad enough, many of our patriotic products are also made abroad. What about those American flag that are stamped "Made in China?" Surely, we should not giving a foreign country the opportunity to manufacture a product that is to important to our country. OK, well we still have our American classics such as Levi's Jeans and Etch a Sketch's, right? Oh yeah, they are also now made in Asia. Maybe we should also have Asia make our apple pies while they are at it.

But, hold on a minute. Maybe this outsourcing is not such a terrible thing after all. For instance, this is not a one-way street. We also can benefit from some forms of outsourcing. For instance, German auto giants Mercedes and BMW have chosen to relocate some of their manufacturing to the United States (in Alabama and South Carolina). Maybe this is not such a terrible thing after all. But the main difference with this is that the automobiles manufactured in American stay in America. They are no shipped back to Germany and the rest of Europe. These automakers must have decided it is cheaper to move some of their engineers and equipment to America rather than to export all of their automobiles.

However, we have some products that are made from American components that are assembles abroad. Can it really be cheaper to sent the materials over seas, have some foreign factory workers assemble the materials, and re-import the final product? It must be, because this is done every day. So, the question arises as to how much less they are paying these international workers? In the example of the Etch A Sketch, American workers made about $9 per hour while the Chinese workers made $0.24 per hour (Link). It is easy to see how tempting it would be for a company to take advantage if this cheap labor. On top of that, many of these international employees are happy to work at all. These factory jobs are usually much better than what they would be doing otherwise.

My eventual career goal involves environmental degradation and policy. I think it would be rather difficult that someone in an office around the world would be able to perform a job the same way as a local person would. Environmental concerns span the globe which means that there will always be a site to be researched or a plant or animal that needs saving. I imagine that maybe some parts of that job could be done remotely, but the physical observation and collection of data needs to be done by someone who is actually at the location.