Outsourcing labor is a serious danger to America's economy and needs to be dealt with.

Frithaes. There aren't nearly enough debates about outsourcing on this website and I thought I'd fix that. Outsourcing is a simple enough concept. If an American company outsources all but its top tier, say 10% of its workers, the managers and corporate leaders and whatnot, then all the money spent on its product either goes to the foreign workers or to that top tier. (And possibly the stock holders but I'll address that later.) The top tier (managers and the like) will give back to the country to some degree by buying more products and thusly funding more American companies. However, they make up only 10% of the workforce at our company so there's going to be less consumption of goods than there would have been if all of the workers at our company were in the US. (One family can only own so many refrigerators, for example.) The rest of the money spent on our company's goods go to the foreign workers. That money goes into a veritable black hole. Foreign workers don't buy American goods. So any money spent paying them is lost to the American economy. Let's say that our hypothetical company makes one billion dollars a year. And let's assume that our top 10% gets 70% of our company's profits. Obviously, that's really optimistic, but I suppose this situation needs a little optimism anyway. So those people get $700 million dollars a year, which they hopefully spend on American goods, and support America's economy. The remaining $300 million goes to foreign workers who buy locally. Therefore, for every year our company exists, the country as a whole loses $300 million. But the 10% of workers in the US split their $700 million and so are doing quite well for themselves. Their profits are up. They're happy. Now, let's say that our company started outsourcing last year. So up until last year, 90% of its workers were American citizens. Naturally, they were laid off when the company started outsourcing. Let's say our company employs a total of 100,000 workers. So now we have 90,000 American citizens without jobs. Naturally, most just find new jobs. A few don't. Now, our hypothetical company is very successful. Since foreign labor is so much cheaper, it can lower the prices of its product. Naturally, consumers tend to buy the cheapest product. So other, similar, companies either start outsourcing to keep up with its prices or get forced out of business (or possibly bought) by our company. Now, let's say that each of those companies lays off 90,000 workers too. Those workers now look for similar jobs at similar companies. But all have outsourced those jobs to keep up with our company. So those people either go back to school to educate themselves for a different job, or end up unemployed. Remember that the money normally paid to these workers is now either funneled into that top tier or has been paid to foreign labor, and is out of circulation in the American economy. This is important. Now, other companies see how well our company is doing for itself, and they start outsourcing too. And the similar jobs in the US are now competing with foreign labor. Since foreign labor is so cheap, they have to compete with those lowered wages. So those people get paid less, and therefore have less money to spend on American goods. We'll come back to this later. Meanwhile, the collective top tiers of these companies are all rich by now. So they can all afford to fund sympathetic political leaders. So even though unemployment rates are going up, and the country is losing money as a whole, they look the other way. At the same time the people who own stock in any of our companies are enjoying a bit of a boon as well. These companies are able to get much more profit by paying workers less, and naturally, when the company does well, the stockholders do well. But back to those unemployed Americans. Now they have to get an education to join that top 10%, or they have to work for significantly lowered wages. Obviously, there's only so much room in that top 10%, and many can't afford a better education anyway because they're working for such low wages and have a family to support. College can cost something like $30,000 a year, not to mention the problems involved with holding a job while getting an education. They can also invest in our rising stocks, but many are very reluctant to invest their income when they don't have any disposable income to lose. Meanwhile, our top 10% is filthy rich and the stockholders are enjoying a major boon. Life is good for them. And the economy's doing quite well because of the insane profits our companies are making. But wait. How could this happen? The economic health of the country is somehow distinct from that of the average person? Here's the kicker. American workers are either unemployed or have significantly lowered wages. At first, consumption is up. Goods are cheaper so they can still afford them. But eventually, they run out of money. And no one's going to buy that new SUV when they're broke. Consumption drops. Our company's top tier gets nervous. Americans can no longer afford their company's goods. They outsource more labor and lower prices even more. Consumption goes back up, Americans can afford to buy our company's goods again. But wait. Even more are unemployed now. And wages are down. After all, if someone's not willing to work for $7 an hour now, there are plenty of more desperate people lined up outside the building who'd be happy to replace them. Our company's top tier is still filthy rich. Now that even American wages are lower, they're making even more profit. Stockholders are still enjoying a major boon. Back to the American worker. Wages are way down. Unemployment is way up. All the money in our country is either being funneled to the top tier or is paid to foreign workers. No one can afford our company's goods any more. The top tier is in trouble. They've cut all the costs they can, and still no one will buy their goods. The company collapses. Stockholders lose everything they've invested. The country enters a depression. Average citizens are completely broke. So are stockholders. The top 10% of those companies is still rich, even though they're probably also unemployed by now. They've got massive amounts of money squirreled away. Life is still fairly good for them. Everyone else, on the other hand, is in some serious trouble. To make matters worse, all that money that was lost to our economy from paying those foreign workers is hurting us too. America just plain has less money to go around, even if we do rebuild our economy at this point. And a lot of the money we were paying to other countries for other countries was money we didn't have. Ever heard of the national debt? Obviously this is an extremely oversimplified scenario, but throw in a few more variables, like the raw materials we export to other countries and such, and you've still essentially got the path we're heading on. The key to our economy is keeping roughly the same amount of money in circulation. Ideally, we'd also be making more money by exporting goods to other countries. But the moment we start outsourcing, we're creating a situation where there's less money to go around. This wouldn't even be much of an issue if we exported goods to other countries, but we import far more than we export, driving up the national debt even more. So, why, you wonder, do we outsource? Because for that time before we crash our economy, that top 10% can make an obscene profit. And I'd be willing to argue that they know fully well what they're doing, but are just selfish enough to continue. Very few Americans ever look at things in the long run. So, I guess what I'm looking for is a defense for outsourcing, because I sure can't find one. I'll address some real-world examples of my hypothetical situations (Corporate giants, China buying our debt) in my next argument.