Gino Piroli – 4/11/05

This page was last updated on April 14, 2005.

Pope had special bond with region; Gino Piroli; Beaver County Times; April 11, 2005.

Despite the column’s title, it covered a couple of topics completely unrelated to the Pope.

Below is a critique of the relevant portions of the subject column.

“My good and learned friend Don Inman sent me some excerpts of a book written by New York Times reporter Thomas Friedman, ‘The World is Flat. A brief history of the 21st century.’

“This book points out that the optical fiber networks put the entire world on a level playing field and many Americans are having experiences with outsourcing of our electronic services. Friedman reports that this year, 400,000 Americans will have their tax returns done online by accountants in India, and there are 245,000 new call centers in that country that respond to 800 or other toll-free numbers for assistance.

“I’ve had experience in calling for assistance with my Dell computer. My nephew also had a computer problem and called the number for service on New Year’s Eve. After complimenting the operator on working on the holiday he was told that it wasn’t a big deal because New Year’s Eve in India was the day before.”

[RWC] Apparently the operator did a good job addressing the problem or I’m sure we would have heard about how Mr. Piroli’s nephew couldn’t understand the operator or the operator couldn’t fix the problem.

“Hundreds of Indian radiologists now read the X-rays of Americans electronically sent to them; McDonald’s has found it cheaper to have call centers in India or the Bahamas for their drive-in window orders.”

[RWC] I’m surprised Mr. Piroli mentioned McDonald’s. Since most of Mr. Piroli’s fellow travelers refer to McDonald’s jobs derisively, why would he care if the jobs went overseas?

“As the populations explode in China and India there are more younger people competing for these jobs that pay 1/50th the pay and no benefits than those in our country.

“Outsourcing is a growing national problem that continues to threaten jobs here.”

[RWC] Given my experience with “facts” from The New York Times and Mr. Piroli, I have no confidence in the veracity of the “facts” noted in this column.

Even if we assume the alleged facts in the column are correct, Mr. Piroli seems to believe outsourcing is all bad. Here are some points to consider.

Mr. Piroli seems to ignore that some services outsourced could be prohibitively expensive if attempted in the U.S. As a result, we may benefit from services that would otherwise be unavailable.

In some cases, outsourced services could be provided in the U.S., but the prices to consumers would be higher. Lower prices mean your paycheck goes further.