Lou Dobbs from CNN

[Jesse Torres]

Does anyone have an opinion on Lou Dobbs from CNN. I watch his show about three times per week. However, I am beginning to think that he is deliberately painting a bleak employment outlook for America. Rarely does he ever have positive employment information. Instead, he continuously rants on how offshoring is annihilating America in every conceivable way. Does anyone have the same feeling. Does Lou have some type of agenda? Or is Lou Dobbs simply stating facts?



Thanks,Here is Lou Dobbs' Web site link
[ October 07, 2004: Message edited by: Jesse Torres ]

[Jay Ashar]

Yes I had the same feeling. I used to watch him initially, not anymore. At my work place we actually used to joke about him during that time, he would always talk about how all jobs have moved to Bangalore, India and then he would go "now we take a short break and when we come back we will talk about outsourcing american jobs to Shanghai, China".

Give me a break, I know economy is not good, jobs are going oversees but I don't want to hear that every single day.

[Mike Gershman]

Lou Dobbs keeps harping on the "Outsourcing of America" because other news programs hardly mention it except as some inevitable process like the next ice age.

Lou's point is that the problem is made much worse by unguarded borders, visa abuse, tax breaks for US companies shipping good jobs off-shore, and open hiring of illegals for peanuts in preference to paying US citizens a living wage.
[ October 07, 2004: Message edited by: Mike Gershman ]

[Kripal Singh]

I think Lou Dobbs should Apologize!

here is the link which talks further about it
http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/articledesc.asp?cid=307340

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by Mike Gershman:
open hiring of illegals for peanuts in preference to paying US citizens a living wage.

[ October 07, 2004: Message edited by: Mike Gershman ]

I completely agree with you on that point!

I don�t believe in the myth of how illegal aliens only take jobs that Americans don�t want. That is simply a big lie. The truth is that companies want to pay sub par wages; consequently, legals aren�t even considered for these jobs.

[Homer Phillips]

Rarely does he ever have positive employment information.

The US economy needs to add 250K jobs a month for two years before he can say much good.

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by Homer Phillips:


The US economy needs to add 250K jobs a month for two years before he can say much good.

So you believe that Lou isn't painting a bleak picture? Instead, he is just telling the truth?

[Rashmi Banthia]

Apart from talking about India, China - he will talk about offshoring jobs to Argentina too. I think tonight.

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by Rashmi Banthia:
Apart from talking about India, China - he will talk about offshoring jobs to Argentina too. I think tonight.

Yes, he does report on the offshoring of US jobs to Latin America, Canada, Eastern Europe, India, Philippines, China, and other countries.

I am trying to gain a perspective on his reporting. I want to know if he is simply stating the facts or is he deliberately paiting a bleak outlook? The reason I ask is the following, apparently Lou has not yet mentioned a turn around in the IT employment sector. So I was wondering if he is hiding the facts or just reporting the truth?

I do enjoy the show; however, I hate having to watch constant bad news.

[frank davis]

Originally posted by Jesse Torres:


Lou has not yet mentioned a turn around in the IT employment sector. So I was wondering if he is hiding the facts or just reporting the truth?

I do enjoy the show; however, I hate having to watch constant bad news.

Do want lies or do you want bad news? That the basic choice for the programming profession in the past 4 years. I don't think there has been significant turn around in IT as far as application development. I want to hear good news as badly as anyone, but I've been hearing about turn arounds for past 2 years...

When people say IT employment is up, they may mean help desk personnel, desk top support, network admins, security, or many other things that don't affect us as application programmers.

Maybe someone has a link about any turn around in application development for US programmers? Besides Lou Dobbs, the news I hear still shows increasing pace of outshoring even if some companies are bringing the work back.

I don't think there is reason yet to say Lou is not being truthful. As mentioned in prior threads and in this thread, the US has lost so many IT jobs in the past several years the growth rate for programming jobs has been clearly negative (by US govt stats) to an extent that even if there was a fairly strong revovery it would have to last for more than several years for us just to break even in terms of not losing a net amount of jobs.
[ October 07, 2004: Message edited by: herb slocomb ]

[Mike Vo]

I think Lou Dobbs should Apologize!

AT&T to Cut About 7,400 Jobs

and more to be announced.

[Jesse Torres]

Does anyone have numbers on any potential or possible turnaround in US hiring, specifically hiring in IT App Development?

The US Department of Labor is scheduled to release job numbers for September, this Friday. However, I read somewhere that over 110,000 people were laid-off in September alone. So any job gain will not yield a significant net gain.
[ October 07, 2004: Message edited by: Jesse Torres ]

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by Mike Vo:




AT&T to Cut About 7,400 Jobs

and more to be announced.

I agree with you, why should Lou apologize for telling the truth?

[Jesse Torres]

Interesting article's take on real causes of job perils.

[frank davis]

Originally posted by Jesse Torres:
Interesting article's take on real causes of job perils.

But this has little meaning for IT people.

[peter wooster]

Originally posted by Jesse Torres:
Interesting article's take on real causes of job perils.

Blaming the American jobs problem on "terror" is just an excuse to let the worst president in recent history off the hook, that excuse is "so 3 years ago".

The cost of health care in America and the 40 million people without any health insurance is just plain criminal, but it does help most other countries' job markets, where companies can set up shop and not have to worry about covering their employees health insurance, since state run health care exists.

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by peter wooster:


Blaming the American jobs problem on "terror" is just an excuse to let the worst president in recent history off the hook, that excuse is "so 3 years ago".

The cost of health care in America and the 40 million people without any health insurance is just plain criminal, but it does help most other countries' job markets, where companies can set up shop and not have to worry about covering their employees health insurance, since state run health care exists.

AMEN. I agree with you 100% Percent. I just thought that the article was interesting and deceptive.

Please elaborate on "w/o any health insurance is just plain criminal..."
[ October 07, 2004: Message edited by: Jesse Torres ]

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by herb slocomb:


But this has little meaning for IT people.

I meant that in general, this article tries to explain the real cause of job losses. I honestly believe that the article is eloquent, yet deceptive.
[ October 07, 2004: Message edited by: Jesse Torres ]

[Homer Phillips]

From the article and it's in other sources...

Studies show that the migration of U.S. jobs overseas is a tiny factor in weak employment growth. A Labor Department study of job losses in the first three months of the year found that only 2% went overseas. Other studies have put the figure closer to 1%.

What this fails to mention is that the 1 or 2 percent is concentrated in certain sectors of the economy, like IT application development. While it's just trivial in the macro economic sense, it's not if you are in the two percent.

I think it's closer to 45 million than than 40 million. That is the number of people without health insurance.

[peter wooster]

Originally posted by Jesse Torres:

AMEN. I agree with you 100% Percent. I just thought that the article was interesting and deceptive.

Please elaborate on "w/o any health insurance is just plain criminal..."

[ October 07, 2004: Message edited by: Jesse Torres ]

The article mentioned the negative affects of the American private health insurance scheme on job creation. See US Census - Health Insurance Coverage 2002 for recent stats.

[Billy Tsai]

I would think he is politically biased

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by Billy Tsai:
I would think he is politically biased

Please elaborore on your opinion.

[peter wooster]

Originally posted by Billy Tsai:
I would think he is politically biased

As far as I know everyone except my dog is "politically biased", and I'm not always sure about him.

[Derek Grey]

Originally posted by Jesse Torres:

I completely agree with you on that point!

I don�t believe in the myth of how illegal aliens only take jobs that Americans don�t want. That is simply a big lie. The truth is that companies want to pay sub par wages; consequently, legals aren�t even considered for these jobs.

illegal aliens ? ... are you talking about workers in the IT field or in the gas stations ? coz IT employed aliens are perfectly legal with work visas.

As far as wages go ... in order to get that work visa the employee/employer must prove to the gov. that they are paying the min. required wage ... this whole process is known as Labor Certification Application (LCA) and the min wages can be found at www.flcdatacenter.com

After choosing the position and the county you live in the result will show you if the position you lost was due to wage or not.

Now if the wage is set at 40K per annum and you are asking for 60K then you should re-think because its not important in the market if you are skilled in competitive technologies ... its more about the supply-demand equation.

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by San Tiruvan:



illegal aliens ? ... are you talking about workers in the IT field or in the gas stations ? coz IT employed aliens are perfectly legal with work visas.

As far as wages go ... in order to get that work visa the employee/employer must prove to the gov. that they are paying the min. required wage ... this whole process is known as Labor Certification Application (LCA) and the min wages can be found at www.flcdatacenter.com

After choosing the position and the county you live in the result will show you if the position you lost was due to wage or not.

Now if the wage is set at 40K per annum and you are asking for 60K then you should re-think because its not important in the market if you are skilled in competitive technologies ... its more about the supply-demand equation.

I was referring to illegal aliens working in labor jobs.

[Homer Phillips]

Lou has company Last Job Count.

[Tim Holloway]

Originally posted by Jesse Torres:
Interesting article's take on real causes of job perils.

This is a relay of a USAToday article. Since it makes such a deal of the productivity improvements that are commonly cited for the overall anemia of the job market, it might be interesting to read this as well.

Dobbs has an agenda, but I think Alan Greenspan's Alzheimer's medications must be interfering with his judgement. His "soft patch" in the economy seems to be bigger than predicted.

Speaking of agendas, I noticed that CBS News is still carrying its "Working Wounded" section.

I got a good laugh out of the local paper running a column on the upbeat economy. It was wrapped on 3 sides by articles about the various large layoffs recently announced (including the AT&T one).

I, of course, am completely Fair And Balanced[tm]

[peter wooster]

Actually, young American males without jobs don't have to worry too much, George has a solution for them. A new Draft?. If you come back intact, you'll have 2 years experience and lots of great contacts.

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by peter wooster:
Actually, young American males without jobs don't have to worry too much, George has a solution for them. A new Draft?. If you come back intact, you'll have 2 years experience and lots of great contacts.

You said it, "If you come back intact."

[Tim Holloway]

That predates the 2nd B/K debate where Dubya said, in effect, to read his lips: no draft.

At the moment, the "backdoor draft" is sufficient. A lot of people who signed up for "2 weekends a month" have discovered that there was some fine print in that contract.

The draft thing is mostly an anti-Bush campaign ploy. There's this thing called "Vietnam" that would have to be laid to rest before any serious revival of the draft could occur.

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by Tim Holloway:
That predates the 2nd B/K debate where Dubya said, in effect, to read his lips: no draft.

At the moment, the "backdoor draft" is sufficient. A lot of people who signed up for "2 weekends a month" have discovered that there was some fine print in that contract.

The draft thing is mostly an anti-Bush campaign ploy. There's this thing called "Vietnam" that would have to be laid to rest before any serious revival of the draft could occur.

I think that it is 1 weekend per month + 3 week training per year.
Yes it is time to put Vietnam to rest. However before doing so, we have to learn from our mistakes. In other words our past should be used as guidance towards our future.

[frank davis]

Originally posted by Jesse Torres:


In other words our past should be used as guidance towards our future.

To some this would mean an unthinking knee jerk reaction to avoid any and all military involvement abroad. To others it means we should have finished the job and that lack of commitment was the biggest mistake. From military history we learn that generals are always 'fighting the last war', and most often to their own detriment, in that case, history is exactly what should not be guiding us...

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by herb slocomb:


To some this would mean an unthinking knee jerk reaction to avoid any and all military involvement abroad. To others it means we should have finished the job and that lack of commitment was the biggest mistake. From military history we learn that generals are always 'fighting the last war', and most often to their own detriment, in that case, history is exactly what should not be guiding us...

What I meant is that we should learn from past mistakes so that we don't have to repeat them. In essence we should understand the historical mistake, learn from it, and move towards the future.

[Allan Bond]

Sounds like a lot of people are having a hard time adjusting to the fact that the job market during the Internet Bubble was not sustainable. Most of the jobs lost after the bubble burst were lost not because the employees weren't hard working or didn't have a decent product, but because the market was oversaturated.

In August 2002 (when I was out of work) it was almost impossible to find any employers looking for developers. I was fortunately able to find a job eventually. Just recently, I've started looking around again and the number of responses to resume postings alone has increased probably about 20 times more than what it was like in August 02. So, from my perspective, things look really good and I think things are moving in the right direction.

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by Allan Bond:
Sounds like a lot of people are having a hard time adjusting to the fact that the job market during the Internet Bubble was not sustainable. Most of the jobs lost after the bubble burst were lost not because the employees weren't hard working or didn't have a decent product, but because the market was oversaturated.

In August 2002 (when I was out of work) it was almost impossible to find any employers looking for developers. I was fortunately able to find a job eventually. Just recently, I've started looking around again and the number of responses to resume postings alone has increased probably about 20 times more than what it was like in August 02. So, from my perspective, things look really good and I think things are moving in the right direction.

Why isn't such good news being reported on Lou Dobbs' CNN show? If indeed the employment market is slightly moving in the right direction, why isn't it being shown on his show?

[frank davis]

Originally posted by Jesse Torres:


Why isn't such good news being reported on Lou Dobbs' CNN show? If indeed the employment market is slightly moving in the right direction, why isn't it being shown on his show?

The big picture answer is that the overall trend dwarfs any short term flucuations in the opposite direction.

The nitpicking detail answer is that job posting do not always equal jobs. Many times "job postings" are simply a method for recruiters to collect fresh resumes. Many times the same job position is advertised many times by many different recruitment firms. The only thing we know for certain is that there has been negative job growth the past few years for programmers. If the media starts hyping every little twist and turn in the job market we lose sight of the big picture. The big picture is that programming jobs are declining.

If you want to feel good about any temporary upticks in the job market that is OK and legitmate if it motivates and encourages you in your job search. Remember, my overall pessimism doesn't have to apply to you specifically. There are people out there getting jobs and it could be you next.

[Jesse Torres]

Generally speaking, 96,000 jobs were created in USA during September. However, 110,000 jobs were lost. Why is the media only reporting the 96,000 new jobs and not the 110,000 jobs that were lost? Would it be more accurate to report a net job loss for September?

Thanks,

[frank davis]

Originally posted by Jesse Torres:
Generally speaking, 96,000 jobs were created in USA during September. However, 110,000 jobs were lost. Why is the media only reporting the 96,000 new jobs and not the 110,000 jobs that were lost? Would it be more accurate to report a net job loss for September?

Thanks,

I don't have the sources for that information so can offer only speculation. Maybe the two statistics are measured differently so that it would be inappropriate to compare them in the manner suggested. Perhaps one set of statistics doesn't consider self-employed, temporary, or contractual workers, etc and the other does... One thing that is certain in the past weeks is that CBS and ABC are incredibly biased against the current President and if these figures could have been credibly applied in the manner suggested to make him look bad then they would have reported it...

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by herb slocomb:


One thing that is certain in the past weeks is that CBS and ABC are incredibly biased against the current President and if these figures could have been credibly applied in the manner suggested to make him look bad then they would have reported it...

How so have ABC and CBS exhibited bias?

[frank davis]

Originally posted by Jesse Torres:


How so have ABC and CBS exhibited bias?

CBS embraced the fake Bush National Guard memos without exhibiting the normal professional standards of journalism. ABC had an internal memo last week that was leaked where they had a policy to hold Kerry to a lower standard of scruntiny (drudgereport.com had reported this). A local radio host reported that coverage of Bush vs Kerry by ABC showed that ABC commented negatively on Bush about 80% of the time vs about 17% on Kerry.