The real shame of all this outsourcing, is that it is driven by our own greed. We all want to see the greatest return on our investments, retirement accounts, and savings, and this is how these companies accomplish that goal. They cut the jobs of the very people that are investing in the stock to begin with.
If you go back just one or two generations, the "Average" man did not own stock. It was just too expensive, and remained the realm of the wealthy (ruling class). They had so much money already, that it was OK for a company to return modest profits at times. Nobody had to jump ship on the stock market, simply because they already had so much money, that it just didn't matter. The rich could afford to endure a certain amount of losses, banking on the overall trends to balance things out. Therefore companies could be relaxed to some extent in the decisions they made regarding how they spent the company's revenues. Some quarters were just better than others. No big deal!
Then came the mutual fund . . . Everything changed drastically. Suddenly, there were sources of investment money that could topple a major company with one sale of it's stock. Before these mutual funds, no one man could make such a large difference in the financial condition of a company, regardless of how rich that one man was. But a mutual fund is managed by a small group who control the money of thousands of investors. So when they make a decision to sell, it can seriously hurt a company, regardless of how big they are.
This put huge pressure on the upper management of these companies to show significant profits all the time, not just when the market was favorable. The average guy thinks nothing of making drastic changes in his investments when they show even the slightest dip in performance. And the people who run those mutual funds know this. So they demand unrealistic performance from the companies that they invest the mutual fund's money in. And the companies have to respond with any strategy that will give the bean counters the numbers they need to publish for the earnings reports. And all of this goes on without you or me knowing anything about it. We just make knee jerk decisions when we decide who to invest our money with.
I don't know about you, but I ALWAYS choose to put my money in the best performing mutual funds. Only logical decision right? Or have I been guilty of perpetrating the very problem that necessitates this outsourcing behavior? I wonder if things wouldn't have been better leaving the "ruling class" to rule? Let's face it . . . They are raised in the Wall Street environment, and they are trained to make these decisions. They have the benefit of generations of experience behind them. Us little guys jumped in, put a LOT of money and power behind a select small group of marginally trained people, and now we are seeing the end result of our short sightedness.
The very rich are still the very rich, and the working class is still the working class. The only thing that has changed significantly, is that a LOT of us have lost our jobs to the very thing that we thought was going to make us rich. Our own greed has been our undoing. Less than one percent of any given population ever changes ranks in the financial standing.
The best that a working class person can do to become wealthy, is to make a multigenerational pact within the family unit. I watch the Eastern cultures do it all the time. The Patriarch and Matriarch handle the "Family" wealth. They see to the needs of the younger family members, who then become contributors to the "Family" wealth. They build the pool of family wealth over a long period of time, never touching the main pool of capital. Each family member continues to contribute (a percentage) to the pool. In due time, the family pool of wealth becomes substantial, and begins to pay enough dividends to more than offset the input made in the early years of the junior family members. At some point, there is enough to educate the children without undo hardship on the family. Further down the line, there will be enough income from investments to satisfy the needs of the family entirely. Beyond that, the entire family will eventually be truly wealthy. They then rise to the ruling class at some point. They have learned to harness the real power of the family unit, in a way that nature has done for as long as time itself. Bees, ants, church tithing and pack animals have done this sort of thing forever. It is quite simply known as the "Hive Mentality". It can and will work for humans too!
This can be started slowly. Just have each family member contribute 10% of their gross income. Never touch the principal, and only disperse 10% of the earnings once a year. The first few years it will only result in a piece of candy or a soda pop. But think of what the numbers will be by the time your great grandchildren are your age. They will likely get a fully paid college degree. In two more generations, each family member will be able to draw a stipend to live on. And so on, until your family has joined the ranks of the "Ruling Class"! At this point, nobody in your family will need to worry who has the jobs, they won't need them any more.
Just something to think about!