Letter: Outsourcing is dangerous trend

Monday, April 19, 2004 | 8:48 a.m.

A new and politically well-timed federal study says that outsourcing actually creates U.S. jobs. I am not an economist but I believe these people are smoking too much hemp.

Outsourcing middle-class technical and service jobs will not only displace many workers here, it will eventually lower our overall wage, living standard and technical competence.

Increased job competition, here and abroad, will force many displaced and other American workers to accept lower paying jobs, if they find any at all. Lower incomes and less consumer spending mean federal and state governments will incur a double whammy. Government will need to adjust for a personal income tax revenue reduction coupled with an increase in the number of citizens requiring government assistance.

American corporations that outsource off shore, while increasing short-term profits, will find that they have, over time, created and trained their own competition. Economists predict that a new paradigm in technology, like that of the PC, will evolve and change this equation. Let's hope they are right, but not by their usual metric of being correct only 33 percent of the time.

RICHARD RYCHTARIK