[mtrawls]

Originally Posted by HHSJosh

At the risk of moving this thread a bit off topic, I would simply like to know which of his ideas are "silly"?

I'm not quite sure if it is the science or the technology ... but both seem to be sligthly amusing at best

Yet at the same time, it's the drive for increased profit margins of this Capitolist society which as at the heart of all this "outsourcing" debate.

Yes, and debate is healthy. And in this debate, it is often riddled with emotions. People look at one thing, that they are out of a job. Sure, that's not good for them, but they have to deal with it. Another side is that goods are produced cheaper. Most people, if they had a choice, would prefer cheaper goods to recovering lost American jobs -- well, actually most people want both and don't like to think about it too much. But I digress, and this has been discussed in another thread.

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Once all the competition is wiped out, the king of the hill is awarded the satisfaction of a high investor payout, while the owners of the independant shops file for chapter 11.

Like I said, when people stop playing by the rules things go bad. If companies unfairly use their monopoly status, then this is surely not good. And if there is no competition for them, then they become complacent, which is not good (but also the problem of the utopian idea). Capitalism unguarded isn't perfect, sure ... even I admit that some control is needed (however slight). But it's the best we got.

I think FIRST is a step in the right direction in this sense- if enough students are touched by the conept of gracious professionalism, those students will take those ideas and fundamentals with them into the business world.

I agree with you here. Gracious professionalism is about the long run. Too many businesses are short sighted and look for increased profit margins in the short term, irrespective of what will eventually happen.

No one has the moral intellect to decide what's best for everyone. But as you yourself stated, the drive of a company is to cut costs to inrease profit, even if it means expending hard working employees in favor of cheaper labor. The facts show that outsourced labor is a fraction of the cost of local labor, and of very comperable quality. As everything in our capitolist society, the contract typically goes to the lowest bidder.

Are you assuming this is a bad thing?

I'd argue those organizations motivated around utopian goals have largely failed by being pushed around or bought out by the Big Guys through underhanded means.

Some, for sure. But let me give you an example of what I mean. Take the Red Cross; they train lifeguards as a non-profit organization and various swimming pools require red cross certification. Wonderful service; entierly necessary ... but the red cross was only motivated by utopian principles. (Which isn't a bad thing, i admit; but profit can sometimes be better.) There's a certain company in Florida that started training lifeguards as well, but they are a for-profit company. They follow up their training and do periodic suprise checks to make sure life-guards are paying attention, and also do many test drills of emergency situations. Also, they've innovated many techniques (which the red cross has duly copied). The moral? The red cross is great ... but many pools in Florida have started switching over to the for-profit company's lifeguards because they are better trained and stay on task, since they know they're going to be watched. Was the red cross doing a good thing? Yes -- but without competition, they were complacent to leave it at a good thing. Looking for a buck or two, this company managed to make it a better thing.

Remember, it's not just "the Big guys" that are capitalists ... most small businesses are motivated by profit too. And if they can innovate and provide a better service to the market for a better price, generally they will succeed. If not, what should we do? Help them out because their motives are pure? Even if it means more money out of our pocket -- money we probably have other uses for? A lot of people complain about the big guys and their buying power and what not ... but oddly enough, I haven't heard a single person complain about the lower prices they're paying! Oh, and all those "awful" "Robber barons" we learned about in history ... remember that they started out penniless.

But a debate about capitalism and monopolies probably isn't appropriate for this thread -- it would take many pages, I imagine. And I've procrastinated enough from my english paper (for now, anyways).