Tuesday, March 04, 2008
India's calling
Our parent company's vaunted CEO could potentially make $25,000,000.00/year before options, taxes, etc, should the company meet certain predefined benchmarks for performance over the next several years. If the average NMR employee makes $30,000/year, and I do not know the actual figure, but $30k seems plausible, then they are earning approximately 1/833 of the CEO's annual salary. Such a ratio seems absolutely absurd, but it is entirely reasonable, given the realities of salary structure in this country. So it only seems logical that the chief executive should be expected to do the work of 833 employees, right? We can infer from this salary discrepancy that the man is 833 times as important to the business as the average employee, so the impact of laying off 4,000 employees should have been reduced a bit. Surprisingly, he and his staff do not seem capable of meeting those performance expectations, despite earning nearly enough to cover most of the lost employees' salaries between them. Their answer? Indian outsourcing.
Indians do American jobs better than Americans. They have better skillsets, better work ethics, and are better equipped to function as the backbones of American commerce. That is what we are being told here and it is interesting, given the failures other companies like Dell and Conseco have experienced in outsourcing. Still, the attitude that Indians are better suited for work in American companies than Americans persists. So we have what amounts to a resident pimp putting a large number of cheap hoes on the proverbial street. Supposedly, they will do the work of Americans better than the Americans already doing said work for less money. Needless to say, the natives have been hard to convince. To understand the mentality that makes such a situation reasonable, I think one needs to divorce one's self from any sense of brotherhood or connection with one's countrymen. You must not look at the people being laid off as Americans, or even as humans. They must become nothing more than dollar values making up a portion of the final payroll figures. Taking such a view dehumanizes them. These are not people with hopes, aspirations, families, bills, and careers, they are obstacles to profit and shareholder gratification. Which is to say, they are obstacles to bonuses, stock options, and another home or that next Bentley.
Americans have become second class citizens in their own country, being replaced by greedy MBA's who have more in common with Genghis Khan than they do George Washington. The worst part, or the best part, depending on how you look at things, is that we allowed this to happen. In fact, we brought it on ourselves. We are willing slaves to a materialistic cult called Consumerism. We have become a country of consumers, rather than producers, and we have allowed major corporations, ideologues, and corrupt politicians to convince us that consumerism is the answer. We have chosen to believe that happiness and fulfillment can be bought, and that profits are more important than decency or morality. We have come to believe that Indians can in fact do our jobs better than we can. We have become the antithesis of the American dream and we have done so willingly. As we careen toward what will very likely be a very deep recession, American politicians tell people who can no longer afford their homes that spending a $300 or $600, government payoff, financed by money borrowed from China, will somehow right the ship. No matter what the problem, if every American does their civic duty and buys more useless shit that will eventually end up piled in their closet or a landfill, the economy will right itself, balance will be restored, and all will be well.
We stand on the verge of the biggest housing foreclosure crisis in decades, with the possibility that other financial institutions playing Russian roulette with the sub-prime market might collapse, and Uncle Sam is telling us to go out and buy a new iPod. Layoffs are as much a part of the American dream as apple pie, which wasn't American to begin with, and Uncle Sam's solution is for each of us to go buy something, anything. That'll fix this little burp that's coming, don't you worry. Don't you feel better now? I know I do.
Labels: business
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