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Does Kerry Even Know What He’s Talking About Anymore?
By Matt Margolis | February 18, 2004
A big “oops” by the John Kerry campaign went virtually unnoticed by the mainstream media this week while Kerry was in Wisconsin.
Sen. John Kerry’s campaign in Wisconsin’s Democratic presidential primary has dumped a firm it hired to make automated phone calls to voters after learning the calls were routed through Canada, a spokesman for the state campaign says.
“We just didn’t want any part of it,” Bill Burton said Tuesday.
Kerry dumped Sound Media Group, Inc., a firm based in Irvine, Calif., which originated the calls but sent them to Wisconsin through a Canadian switchboard, Burton said.
He said the company had only done one evening of calls for the Kerry campaign.
Yeah, before the campaign got caught.
Bill Burton said they won’t use them again. Sure, it could be a simple mistake – but don’t think for a minute John Kerry wouldn’t be all over Bush if the same thing was discovered about his campaign. We’d all be hearing the cookie-cutter speech from Kerry talking about how bad outsourcing is. Of course, Kerry’s position is a reflection of his lack of understanding of basic economics.
Kerry certainly knows what sounds bad on the surface, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that his positions on many issues, including economic issues, are uneducated.
James K Glassman, of Tech Central Station, addressed the issue of outsourcing last week, he said “Another word for outsourcing is “trade” — an endeavor, as economists learned early on, that benefits both parties to the exchange
While trade can cause pain to some workers, lack of trade causes far more. Imagine if software firms did not search the world for the best labor at the best price. Consumers would pay more, and shareholders would have less to reinvest, which would mean fewer jobs for Americans.
Or imagine if Japan retaliated by taking its plants home. With 13,000 workers, Honda is the largest private employer in central Ohio. As for India, outsourcing helps lift a nation out of poverty and creates markets for U.S. goods and services. According to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute, of the $1.45 of value created from offshoring $1of U.S. labor cost, “the U.S. captures $1.12,” the foreign country 33 cents.
Economists understand this, but, often the public sees only the pain. For that reason, opinion leaders have a responsibility to discuss trade in an adult way.
If John Kerry wants to take a position on an issue – that’s fine, but he might want to actually know what he’s talking about before he criticizes his opponents about it. Each time I hear Kerry open his mouth I believe less and less that he has a full understanding of what he is telling his supporters.
Bruce Bartlett recently wrote about outsourcing:
No nation has ever gotten rich by forcing its citizens to pay more for domestic goods and services that could have been procured more cheaply abroad. Nations get rich by concentrating on doing the things they do best and letting others produce those things they can produce better and more cheaply. It is called the specialization of labor, and it is the foundation for economic growth.
Kerry will be able to wash his hands of this Canadian automated phone calls business. It’s too bad we didn’t get to see him squirm over it more.
Topics: General |
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February 19th, 2004 at 9:46 am
This is the saddest attempt I have ever seen to try and make something out of nothing. And I mean the saddest ever.
February 19th, 2004 at 12:26 pm
No, the AWOL b.s. is the saddest attempt of trying to make something out of nothing..
nice try though.
February 19th, 2004 at 3:46 pm
There is nothing wrong with outsourcing. Especially to Canada. It is too bad that everything has to be dumbed down for an average voter. Kerry should not have stopped outsourcing the phonecalls.
Outsourcing does have a bad side, though. As Bruce Barttlet said “Nations get rich by concentrating on doing the things they do best”. But Americans barely do anything better today: software and stock market analysis are done in India, clothing in China, semiconductors in Japan, electronics in Taiwan, cars in Corea. By outsourcing our key fields of expertise, we lost the edge of knowing “things we do best” as foreigners learned the business and cut out the middle-man who outsourced the work to them (Cringely).
As of today, the only areas of American supremacy are:
1. military invasion to snatch foreign resources,
2. banking to extort money through mortgages, loans, and credit cards.
The work is outsourced to places that do not have guaranteed minimal vages, health insurance, where girls are fired when they get pregnant, where child labor is employed. There would be really no reason to outsource if we removed all our worker’s protections. And it would bring us back some work ethics if most children had to work starting at age 9.
February 19th, 2004 at 3:57 pm
Outsourcing
There is nothing wrong with outsourcing. Especially outsourcing to Canada. It is too bad that everything has to be dumbed down for an average voter and that Kerry had to stop outsourcing to Canada phonecalls for his presidential campaign 2004….
February 19th, 2004 at 5:29 pm
The Bible says you should take the block out of your own eye before you comment about the splinter in someone else’s. AT least Kerry STOPPED going through Canada. Bush’s campaign call center operates out of India!
Here’s the link:
http://w114.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID34323
Now I know Bush supporters to give up overtime pay, support outsourcing and it’s even worse counterpart–illegal immigration–because Bush does. But just because Bush wants it is not good enough reason for me. Why is it routing through Canada is horrible when Kerry does it (at least he stopped) but outsourcing to Canada is so wonderful soley because it’s Bush?
February 19th, 2004 at 5:50 pm
nice try jay, that link is as bogus as your claim.
February 20th, 2004 at 12:37 pm
http://www.ibew.org/stories/03daily/0308/030805_Bush.htm
February 20th, 2004 at 12:54 pm
There’s another link. Or you can go on Worldnet yourself and search. You Bush supporters are going to have to learn that he does not have the power to control time and space the way you think he can.
February 22nd, 2004 at 3:24 pm
Jay, when did I say that?
February 24th, 2004 at 7:48 am
BWAHAHAHA! By the way the democrats endlessly whine and complain, I figured they were the ones who thought President Bush “controlled time and space” with the help of Carl Rove and his sinister Republican legions.