Actually, my friend from the army found me one today, and it was free. It gave me much delight to call the Dell people and cancel my order. I fellt like screaming "stick your 15 bucks shipping u know where" but I didnt.

The debate here isnt wether Dell or whoever sucks, the debate is "is it wrong for big companies to outsource" as a way to cut costs and stay competitive?

Here is another thought:

If Dell decided to hire only Americans, and as a result, pay more for salaries, would this not force them to increase the price of their computers?
This in turn would make them less competitive, and now all of a sudden, nobody would be buying from them, therefor, all these higher priced jobs would result in layoffs anyway.

Am I wrong?

 

Nope, you’re right on the money. That is exactly what would happen. Dell would raise their prices, people would whine about it and say they ain’t buying chit from Dell and buy from someone else who is cheaper because some or most their labor is done overseas.

Is there some greed involved by upper management? You bet there is some, but the bottom line is Americans, those who buy products, have for the most part told manufactures LOAD and CLEAR to move as much labor overseas as possible.

Now I don’t for a minute try to put the entire blame on the American consumer because big business has some blame as well, but a good amount if not most the blame does indeed go to the American consumer in general…

 

You left out the stupid workers/managers that actually managed to get the job and get paid way more then their skills are worth.

 

Great post, Habibi. I really disagree, though. I mean, I do think it's good business, it's an excellent business move, and they certainly have the right to move their business overseas if it will save them money, because that's why they are in the business in the first place, to make money. But, it's also my right to not buy their products if I think that they are doing something that I don't agree with. I'm not asking for a boycott here, just saying that it is a personal boycott. I do think it's good business, but I also think it's a sell-out, and I think that to Dell, the American dollar is more important than the American person that is giving that dollar to them. I think that's `dirty pool`. When American companies stop making money off of Americans because we have all been laid off and we're broke, and the people in India don't get paid enough to buy a new computer, then they'll be hurting. I mean, it isn't that imminent of a threat for that to actually happen, but it's a precursor to that, and we might as well not start the ball rolling in that direction. So, for my money, I wouldn't give it to Dell, but I have heard that they lost a lot of sponsorship and they're moving at least two call centers back to the US from India before this summer, so that's a good thing. I just can't support a company that so blatantly doesn't care about the people it wants to suck dry. I mean, no company really does, but at least some of them try to hide it a little bit. That is why I feel like I feel about them.

 

Sure, the prices would go up, but it wouldn't be more than 10-15%. Did the prices of cars come down when they moved some of the factories from the US to Mexico? Nope. Think about it. Lets say they make 10% more profit by building and giving customer service in a 3rd world country. Multiply that by X amount of computers and you're talking some serious cash. It all comes down to greed. Does an executive 'need' to make 25 mil a year compared to 15 mil a year? It never used to be so widespread in this country. All these companies are doing is exploiting these workers in the 3rd world countries. They ARE NOT doing them a favor or they would be paying them a good wage. They are hurting us (US/Canada) and them (3rd world countries).

 

Right, Frank S, they are only heping themselves. Let's not forget that those jobs weren't always in India, they were moved to India.

 

Excellent response Frank. You hit the nail right on the head. What ever happened to fair market value when it comes to labor wages? Execs that make 20 mil, 10 mil, hell even 1 mil are in no way "worth" that amount. To make 10 or 100 times what your employees make is ridiculous and just down right GREEDY. When the elite upper class gets richer the lower class increases as the middle class shrinks (most of US). Not good for business, look at the Airlines as a case study. Shame, shame on them for slowly destroying the very economy they rely on as a backbone by moving jobs overseas.

 

Pickup man and everyone else who is taking the other side of the debate, I understand why you feel the way you do, and I really do agree with everything you say - I just have a hard time supporting it because to me it doesn't seem reasonable and fair.

What I mean is this:

Suppose Dell stayed loyal to the American people, and kept all their jobs in America.
Suppose they said, we won't change our prices, we will keep them the same, we will just agree to make a smaller profit.
Essentially the company would give a large share of the profits to it's employees as a way to keep them employed.

Sooner or later, if not Dell, then one of it's competitors will resort to the position of the lowest common denominator, and outsource their positions to a third world land.
I believe Dell takes the position of "If we don't do it, someone else will, so we might as well do it first"

I agree with you all that it's a chitty thing to do, and it does seem like a slap in the face to all Americans, but remember it works both ways.

Suppose you can buy a widget from Asia for $10, but the exact widget made in USA is $13. Honestly and truly, what % of Americans will buy the more expensive widget to help support their own country?

I'm confident almost everyone on this site would, but this site does not represent America.
Dell isn't doing anything different than Joe Blow who decided to buy the $10 widget made in Asia because it keeps more of his money in his pocket for other things.

Everything has a price, and while I find it inspirational to see people demand that Dell do the "right thing", remember they aren't doing anything different than the person who lives next door to you would do.

 

First, why did you buy a power cord from dell??

But whatever, when I ordered my dell, it was a fiasco. I got all the way up to the part where I hit submit my credit card info, and it turns out, in the middle of the day they decided to do web page matinence. So, being the patient person I was I called them up to order it, I dont remember much of the convo other then:

Hold on, let me see if I can contact the Dell Online Team

I about crapped my pants. I didnt not know dell had their own superhero team. That is still a running joke between me and my friends to this day.

About a 10 months after I got my dell I spilled some milk while working at my desk. Needless to say it stopped working for about a day. It came back on and worked for about a month then went down again. I called up dell and told them it stopped working all the sudden. They sent me a new mobo and processor. Score.

I dont have anything against dell, other then the fact their owner is some kinda anti-gun nut (so I hear), but I build my computers now.

31C

 

I understand, but I would walk past an a-hole selling hot dogs for 1 dollar each to buy one from a nice guy selling them at $1.50 each.

 

This was covered in the thread, but I will repeat it.

The computer was sent to me as a gift, it came from the middle east with a middle eastern power cord = I can't plug it in here.

So after an exhausting day of visiting every computer store in my city, I came up empty handed, they all said the same damn thing "that cord is proprietory to Dell, order it from them" (computer guys love to hear themselves say that word!)

So I was left with one sure place to order the cord from, that's right "Dell" It's a Dell pc, it made sense to order the cord from them. There was another place online, but they were out of stock.

So to answer your question, that is why I ordered from Dell.

Habibi

 

You give me a product made "Totally" in America, by Americans using all American parts and i will by it everytime. I know it will be made right and last longer than most of the overseas crap out there now. I know the pain of working for high paid CEO's presidents etc.. I worked for tyco until the a-hole was busted for having his finger in the till, parties, 3000 dollar toliet paper holder, 6,000 dog shaped Umbrella stands etc... they are way overpaid. By hiring someone who cares about the company and respects the average joe employee at half the cost could then pass on the savings to us and drum up my support even if i had to pay a little more each time.
I am an AMERICAN i work for an American company who cares for us average folks. We make use and ship everything with MADE IN AMERICA stickers on it!!!!.

Take away the jobs and we all suffer!!! thats the true bottom line.