Bad Business

So it’s been a rather depressing week here at TI Corporate HQ, for me at least. They announced Tuesday that they will be shutting down the entire DLP manufacturing test area (DMA/T), leaving 75+ people out of work, and transferring another 130+ people to other facilities. Why? They are moving the test operations overseas to Taiwan and Malaysia (no surprise there). More on that later.

While the loss of 75 people doesn’t seem like a lot for a big corporation like Texas Instruments, it’s yet another cruel example of corporate greed. Thankfully my job won’t be effected (at least not short term), since I’m on the R&D side of the fence. But it still hits me hard seeing people, especially my friends, loose their jobs. Worse, loosing their jobs, too foreign countries.

This is a growing and alarming trend that corporations are going these days. Yes, I understand that it’s a business, and a company is in business to make money, but that wasn’t the case here. Our division has been very profitable the last few years. No, the real reason was greed. They saw an opportunity to increase profits, and they went for it. Kudos to them and the upper management that will reap huge profits from this move. On paper, it makes perfect sense. Why not? They’re not the ones loosing their jobs.

The problem lies in the future. You see while moves like this may help companies in the short term, you can’t keep sending jobs out of the country and not expect it to negatively affect our economy. You keep laying off people, and forcing them into retirement or to take lower paying jobs, and no one will be able to buy your products. Certainly not $1500 TV’s.

As a country, we already import twice the amount of products we export. We import produce, dry foods, beef, oil, electronics, and automobiles to name but a few. All of which we are fully able to produce for ourselves. You factor in the hundred’s of thousands (maybe even millions) of jobs being outsourced to other countries (and more everyday), and the amount of illegal immigrants flooding into our country, and you got a recipe for disaster. And don’t get me started on how our country gives away millions and millions of dollars a year of free education to foreigners, when our own children are being turned away.

Pretty soon our only commodity to the world will be Entertainment. In a country where you have the likes of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Michael Vick and Paris Hilton, making millions of dollars and getting away with murder (literally), it makes me sick to my stomach.

Middle class will soon be a thing of the past. I don’t care how you try to spin it… its simply bad business.

~Michael