Comments on: Why Do We Demonize Outsourcing?

By: Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:34:01 +0000

That post on GRS was one of the reasons I started my blog!

The negative comments about hiring a maid motivated me enough to spend this last weekend getting a blog started for everybody who didn’t freak out. I enjoy getting a great deal as much as the next person, but why get mean to someone just because they don’t want to do their own housework? I’m sure I’ll catch alot of crap when I really get into this, but I’m with you. Outsourcing isn’t evil, it’s normal.

If we make enough to support ourselves and save to support ourselves in the future (like 40%), why not splurge once in a while with the rest? I happily have biweekly maid service and a biweekly lawn service…I hate chores and lawn care and Jacquie and Alex needed the jobs…it’s a win-win in our opinions.

I also loved the follow-up post on GRS from J.D.’s wife.

By: tim1198

tim1198 — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:59:37 +0000

Chris:
I agree with your comparative advantage statement. Except when the comparative advantage is artificially created; such as some of the offshore manufacturing. In China, the average factory spits out black smoke in the middle of town 24×7. Every car and moped also spits out black smoke into the atmosphere. I was in Tianjin for 3 weeks and never saw the sun (due to the smog).

Factories in the U.S. have significant costs associated with OSHA and environmental safety standards. Add those costs into a factory in China or India, and the cost gap would close; although probably still would be less. We still have to work on our cost premiums associated with Unions and high cost of doing business to stay competitive.
tim

By: Financial Samurai

Financial Samurai — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:15:02 +0000

I enjoyed Erica’s post, and I’m impressed with her smugness (income, hiring, renting). She is milking her “I sold my company for $1million” very well so she can up sell on other stuff. It is the American way. It’s not the Samurai way, but to each their own.

Remind me never to brag or gloat on my site. Thanks!

By: David @ MBA briefs

David @ MBA briefs — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:40:50 +0000

Great article, and I’m on board with you 100%. I’m guilty of trying to do too much at home and work and end up feeling overwhelmed and stressed out. For some reason we have two schools of thought – those who buy into the 4-Day Work Week philosophy of outsourcing everything (I think the author pays people to go to the bathroom for him) and those who insist on outsourcing nothing. As you point out we already outsource plenty of activities, and it’s so commonplace now we don’t even consider it outsourcing. So if this is the case we should logically evaluate what we’re better of paying others to do and what we can do better for ourselves. I wrote a similar article a few weeks ago that’s a little more tongue in cheek than yours (You, Inc. – Know when to outsource)- I’d appreciate your feedback on my thoughts. Great article!

By: MLR

MLR — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:17:20 +0000

People seem to combine the principle of off-shoring into the word outsourcing. They are different.

So when a company says “We are outsourcing our IT department so that we can focus on our core competencies” people immediately see red and envision jobs being sent to India. That isn’t necessarily the case, they could just be outsourcing the IT work to a US company.

Interestingly enough, a lot of companies that off-shored jobs are bringing them back. They realized that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be… especially when you have to start worrying about contingency plans for millions upon millions of dollars of product because of a monsoon or earthquake that shut a city down for weeks.

By: Investor Junkie

Investor Junkie — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:41:32 +0000

@Darwin: You beat me to this post! Good follow up post. In general people need to understand trends (even if they don’t like them) and be ahead of the curve. I suspect the people with the negative comments, never owned a business, nor value their time.

Personally if this were my blog, I would remove the “Moron” poster as it doesn’t add any value to the conversation.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:50:59 +0000

I don’t know why, I have outsourced things that I can’t do and have had good success with it and it saved me time.