Outsourcing of jobs: Good, depending on who you are. Bad, depending on who you are.

This was a poorly-worded question to begin with. Bad in what way? Good in what way? I don't really know what that means. "Nothing is good or evil, but thinking makes it so."

The problem is two-fold:

1) Unscrupulous business owners who take advantage of employees and/or consumers

2) Unproductive employees who feel entitled to a steady paycheck regardless of their productivity/expect a company to take care of them for life even when they don't work.

Reminder: Most business owners don't take advantage of people. Most employees don't mooch off the system.

Here's an excerpt from an article I wrote. It summarizes the evolution of the economic crisis as I see it today.

"Post-revolutionary America started as an agrarian society. Most people lived on homesteads and had basic knowledge and skills in many different trades—families practiced farming, husbandry, carpentry, and some blacksmithing. Most of what they used they made themselves. They were largely frugal and self-sufficient.

"As America passed into the industrial age specialization began to take on a narrower scope. The individual tasks of trades that could be effectively managed by a single person were further divvied up among multiple workers, particularly in factories. Productivity soared and profits followed.

"This ultra-specialization resulted in a surge of cheap labor and an expendable workforce. Workers were completely at the mercy of their employers, many of whom took full advantage of it as evidenced by the miserable working conditions, long work hours, and harsh treatment of employees that typified the early stages of the industrial revolution.

"Indignant over these abuses, thousands of workers began to look to organized labor as the solution. The myriad of reasons to want to unionize all had their root in job security—before the unions existed to speak out against employers was to risk losing one’s job to one of the dozens of people competing for it.

The unions, socialistic in nature, were a harsh graft onto capitalist America. They gave the illusion of job security for a time, but as they grew in size and power, backed by the Department of Labor, they began to constrict the companies they had latched onto. Today, many American companies such as General Motors report that their greatest expense is the pensions they pay to retired employees—a concession made by the company to the union. Productivity in the workplace also declined as the workforce, complacent in their supposed security, became sluggish and indifferent.

"As the cost of employees rose, employers began to move their factories overseas where labor was cheaper. The illusion of job security exploded as thousands of American workers watched their jobs follow the factories out of the country, leaving them behind unemployed and empty-handed."

A number of principles, if applied, would provide the solution to the problems:

1) Communities in which the members genuinely care about the well-being of each other will never worry about job security. There was a time in agrarian America when the whole community would turn out to help rebuild someone's house or barn if it burned down. When neighbors look out for each other there is no need for government to get involved, no need for socialist programs, company pensions, or 401(k)'s.

2) Individuals can increase their wealth by using their brains and skills to increase their productivity. Wealth is merely a reflection of value and productivity; it has always moved from those who consume to those who produce. Big corporations bring in so much more money because they produce so much more; it's a principle of scale. They create synergy and utilize the strengths of all their members. If you want to create more value, learn to leverage other people's time and money to create value.

3) Buy on value, not price. Literally the only reason big companies can get away with making poor products outsourced to other countries is because we, the consumers, let them. When we choose to buy their products because of a lower price we lose out on quality. If we don't buy, they don't sell, they don't get paid, and they go under. Rather than focusing on how to save money, we should focus on finding ways to produce more so that we can afford the higher-quality products.