American Graduates Finding Jobs In China

The title is actually a recent headline from the New York Times for an article discussing what some U.S. college graduates are doing faced with a dismal domestic jobs market. In fact, this might be a solution to America’s more-than-likely future jobless recovery and our growing inability to create worthwhile new jobs. The U.S. today has now fewer jobs than it did in 2001, and that doesn’t even include the minimum of 150,000 new ones needed each month just to keep up with population growth. Many of our young, and many of the underemployed and unemployed people of all ages should be encouraged to voluntarily relocate overseas (outsource themselves) just as many U.S. companies did with American jobs over the past two decades.

Interviews with Americans in China note that the cost of living is much lower than in the U.S. and their modest salaries permit them to live quite well in China – even with a limited knowledge of the language. Besides, after a year or two, one masters the native language when one is immersed in it 24/7. (One is similarly and quickly rendered a raving lunatic able to speak a rarified irrational double-talk after constantly listening to conservative talk radio and TV.) They admit that these Chinese jobs are not good stepping stones into future jobs back in the U.S.

Realistically speaking, the U.S. won’t be creating a sufficient number of jobs to employ more than 80% of Americans in the future so many Americans living abroad should not make plans to return to the U.S. permanently. On the bright side, China has 4 times the population of the U.S., so even designing a better toothbrush has great potential. In addition, China dominates the Asian markets with billions more people who are naturally tied to its economy, including Australia, where they speak some form of English. Thus there is a good future for Americans in China.

In fact, there may be a better future for many Americans in most foreign countries rather than remaining here. We may never see comprehensive healthcare reform in the U.S., but (1) most all other developed countries have universal healthcare or (2) typical medical expenses for all types of treatments in most developing foreign countries cost just a fraction of what they do here. (It is really amazing yet sad to hear many American conservatives criticize and demonize foreign healthcare systems from positions of complete ignorance.)

We should encourage our children and each other to learn at least one foreign language so we have some worthwhile choices and alternate futures. Foreign language instruction has been perennially an anathema for our public schools and they only make flimsy half-hearted efforts in select High Schools. Actually starting bi-lingual classes in all first and second grades would be far more effective and improve our children’s long-term economic prospects dramatically.

Complete domestic chaos has been avoided for decades in Mexico and Cuba by exporting millions of their citizens to the U.S. We might learn something from them. It would also be more economical for the U.S. to start exporting its citizens overseas with cash relocation packages. These efforts would remove many people from all types of governmental assistance programs, reduce the societal costs of educating their children, and limit the amount we would have to pay for their future Social Security and Medicare care. These outsourced Americans would likely live out their final years in countries that have much lower costs of living.

This large outsourcing program would immediately reduce our unemployment numbers and make those that remain much happier and willing to start spending again in the hope of ending this deep recession. We certainly would not require more governmental stimulus spending to get millions of people permanently back to work in the U.S., nor would the private sector have to grow that much to create new jobs. (Some large U.S. companies seem to prefer paying huge bonuses to underperforming top executives than bothering to employ more people domestically.)

The direct cost of offering several million family relocation packages would not strain the Federal Budget. The voluntary program would pay for itself in short order by reducing other long-term governmental expenditures (and thus annual Deficits and overall long-term Debt) in caring for these unlucky people that our economy can simply no longer support. The U.S. could also offer even bigger tax credits to private companies that outsource both their employees and their jobs overseas as a package deal. Business operating expenses would be slashed by only paying Americans enough to live comfortably abroad in countries with significantly lower costs of living. Their domestic alternative would be permanent unemployment and eventual homelessness.

Unfortunately today, many countries around the world are not that welcoming of permanent refugees; they prefer temporary tourists with money. This is where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would come in with her negotiating skills. Her new primary task would be to negotiate bilateral and multilateral treaties with a number of foreign countries to admit large numbers of Americans permanently. This would be America’s new jobs program for the 21st Century. Canada is one of the few countries with a very liberal and open immigration policy. However, with almost 11 months of winter, it takes a particularly hardy person to resettle there, even with the universal healthcare that fully covers frostbite. There are more Californians than Canadians.

The U.S. would not be outsourcing people with few skills. In fact, many would have college or graduate degrees. Many others have strong technical backgrounds from previous work in advanced factories that were shuttered back in the U.S. Besides a decent relocation package should keep them going for a year or so overseas to learn the local language and acclimate into the new society. And as part of these new foreign treaties, we would promise to export even more jobs from the U.S. to those countries accepting U.S. citizens. This could turn out to be a win-win-win-win situation for potentially everyone involved.

The U.S. has also successfully reduced its unemployment rate by incarcerating about 6 million Americans for a variety of State and Federal convictions, the highest aggregate and largest percentage of incarceration in the world except for China. However, most felons cannot get work after their releases so they end up back in prison. A significant percentage of people are serving long sentences for non-violent offenses. Currently we cannot lock up people simply because they are unemployed though studies indicate we do arrest and incarcerate much higher percentages of poor people and minorities than the rest of society. The entire U.S. prison system costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain at about $40,000 per year per prisoner being the national average. We could more economically outsource our unlucky, unemployed and unwanted people elsewhere on the planet. For a one-time family relocation package of around $40,000, many people might jump at the opportunity to move overseas.

Already there has been a significant increase in Americans relocating overseas as a result of this recession and the fact that many see this country in serious economic, political and social decline. These Americans fortunately have the funds to pay for their relocations. But most unemployed Americans simply do not have the financial means to cover these relocation expenses, and they cannot even travel within the U.S. to find work, so they remain and continue to put strains on our overall economy and governmental finances at the State and Federal levels. That is where a voluntary Federal foreign relocation assistance program would fill the gap.

No American family would be forced to leave. Only public funds would be made available to those willing to permanently relocate overseas during the next 2 to 5 years. It could even be sold as the patriotic thing to do, similar to how we view those who volunteer for military service. For those who fear the financial repercussions of abandoning their unpaid bills and underwater mortgages to likely foreclosures for a new life overseas, at least our 3 national credit reporting agencies do not operate outside the U.S. Some of the outsourced might even land jobs in India working for collections firms chasing after unemployed Americans who can’t pay their bills and who still refuse to move overseas to escape the impending long-term recession in the U.S.

Ni Hao China – Adios America.

Submitted 8/17/09 by Marc Pascal in Phoenix, AZ