The following story is not just about outsourcing, China or the US situation. As author Steve Denning writes, it’s been happening in Germany and elsewhere in Europe too, and it’s pretty clear Australia is in the same boat.
This article does a very good job of painting the more complete picture that’s necessary to understand that’s actually going on, and why. The individual decisions appeared to make sense, at the time – however they created serious problems later: the US now can’t innovate on certain things (such as solar panels) because they no longer have either the research skills or the manufacturing capability for the components – they’ve long moved overseas, or just been outsourced. Gone.
That’s something Upstarta cares a lot about: actions have consequences, and we don’t want to “create monsters”.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/
“An economist is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Old joke based on Oscar Wilde’s quip about a cynic.
I recently noted how conventional cost accounting inexorably focuses executives’ attention on increasing short-term profits by cutting costs. The same thing happens in economics. […]