The Power Team

I've never been big on religion, I believe in a higher power I'm just not sure what exactly that higher power is. I feel like people who very religious do nothing but try to push their beliefs on other people. This article just proved for me to be right. The power team goes to schools trying to push their beliefts on kids by showing them strength. It isn't God who gave them the strength to force those handcuffs off, it was the weights they lift. I also have heard before that out of all the scams, religious ones are the most successful. The article was kind of sickening and can cause a lot of problems in the classroom because of everyones different beliefs. In the end I enjoyed reading it but it did make me angry because I have always felt people who truly believe in God and religion just push it on to others instead of letting them form their own opinions.

nakeddddd

I loved ready this, mainly because it told a story about a young boys life. It is always interesting to read about things people go through it kind of helps people relate to eachother. Anyway when I was younger I used to obsessively touch things not as much as the young boy in "Naked" but sometimes I would feel the need to retouch things. It was sad when his mother mad excuses up as to why he had these obsessions. The most interesting part was probably when he spoke about those cancer sticks. It made complete sense as to why he turned to cigarettes. This way his mouth and hands were occupied so he didn't feel the need to touch and lick everything. I always wondered why people started smoking. We aren't born addicted to them so why put ourselves in that situation? Maybe everyone who smokes has or has had the problem the boy had in this story.

5th blog post

The specific question I want to answer is, is outsourcing beneficial or not? The more I research though, the more I conclude that I probably won't be able to answer that because everyone has a different opinion so the purpose of my research paper is to give an overview of outsourcing coming from both sides of the issue and allowing my readers to determine their own opinion.
Possible thesis statement: Outsourcing in a simple way can be defined as, contracting American jobs to foreign countries. Is this good for America or in the long run will it hurt America and its citizens?
After researching this topic, I still have the same opinion I started with which is I don't agree with it. America is where I live, my family lives and my future family will live therefore I want jobs to be readily available. Outsourcing takes job from the United States because when companies move to underdeveloped countries they can pay their employees less which saves them money. I feel that the companies that outsource already make enough money and are just being greedy. They claim it benefits underdeveloped countries because it provides jobs for them but in the end I feel everyone in the United States should look out for each other so we can eventually come out of the recession and be the strongest country. Taking jobs from the American people won’t help us succeed in doing this but rather make the unemployment rate go up. Some argue that outsourcing is positive because it allows products to be cheaper. For me my argument will always be, without a job how is one supposed to buy products? Some sources I have found are, an article in Time Magazine, a book titled, Outsourcing America: What's behind Our National Crisis and How We Can Reclaim American Jobs. Another book, Offshoring IT: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

4 annotated sources

Unknown. "The Global Scramble for Cheap Labor." Time. The Time Inc. Magazine Company, 21 Sept. 1970. Web. 21 Feb. 2011.

           

            This article spoke about workers and consumers in developed countries benefit from cheap labor in underdeveloped countries. It makes the prices of goods cheaper and most economists predict it will increase productivity and income in developed nations. The article also argues that this not only offers jobs to people in underdeveloped countries but also helps them acquire skills that they could not get from home-owned industries.

           

            Otterman, Sharon. "TRADE: Outsourcing Jobs." Council on Foreign Affairs (2004). Web. 2 Mar. 2011. <http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/trade-outsourcing-jobs/p7749>.

            Otterman speaks about moving U.S. businesses to lower-wage countries to cut operating costs, also known as outsourcing. She states outsourcing leads to layoffs for thousands of U.S. workers, but most economists argue it will eventually strengthen the U.S. economy. Otterman also states that although outsourcing hurts the U.S. and its citizens it saves companies 30-70% in costs. Many people and economists blame outsourcing for the way our economy is today. Outsourcing not only takes jobs from the U.S. it also prevents new ones from being made. On the other hand Otterman also made the point to say outsourcing is just another form of free trade which increases wealth in the economy. Outsourcing ultimately allows companies to manufacture goods at a cheaper cost which makes the products cheaper when they come to the U.S.

Hira, Ron, and Anil Hira. Outsourcing America: What's behind Our National Crisis and How We Can Reclaim American Jobs. New York: American Management Association, 2005. Print.

This book had a lot of helpful information ranging from the potential impacts of outsourcing to what we can do about outsourcing. What I found to be the most helpful was when the author Ron Hira spoke about the affects it has on our country. He raised the point that outsourcing is not just a trend but is a major part of the changes we see in our economy. Outsourcing determines how we run our economy and determines our standard of living. Many politicians will argue that outsourcing is just a form of cheap trade when really it forces U.S. workers to compete for their jobs. The author also argues that it is not a fair competition because foreign workers can afford to be paid less because their cost of living is lower. Hira also looked at a bigger picture on outsourcing. He made the point that although outsourcing allows us to have cheaper products here overall it takes away our jobs. When people don’t have jobs they don’t have money to buy those goods, provide retirement savings to banks or pension funds to invest in new companies.

Blunden, Bill. Offshoring IT: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2004. Print.

I liked this book because it spoke about why outsourcing can be beneficial. The author, Bill Blunden speaks about why outsourcing is not only bad like most Americans see it, but good. I found this would be helpful for me in my research because I want to talk about outsourcing from the companies’ point of view and the U.S. citizen’s point of view. Blunden, like most of the authors I have used in my research argued that the motivation for outsourcing is cost savings. Why would a company want to pay an American software employee $61,000 a year when you can pay a worker in India a fraction of the cost? On the other hand he argues that it is a security risk, one big risk being sending confidential information overseas is at greater risk of being exposed. One other thing he brought up that I found interesting was, the money that is being saved can be used for research and development. The more research the more the companies can innovate and improve. He also made the point that outsourcing produces an increase in demand for goods and services in the U.S., because outsourcing requires telecommunication equipment, computers, etc.

laugh tracks..hmm

This was probably one of my favorite articles this year. Laugh tracks is one of those things that I am exposed to nearly everyday and never even noticed they were there. Now that they were brought to my attention I don't know what to think. Hollywood is great but fake, we all know that what we see on T.V. most of the time is fake so I'm not too surprised that laugh tracks are used. The author of this article is so against them but I don't quite understand why. People who are producing these T.V. shows are out to make money just like most people are and when people find things funny they tend to like them more; the more people find their T.V. show funny the better the ratings and more money. I don't think laugh tracks determines for us what we find funny but maybe pushes us to laugh-there is nothing wrong with laughter. The best part of the article though was when he spoke about going to Germany. The more I thought about it the more I realized people in America do laugh at unecessary things but why?

Research topic

I decided to do my research paper on large corporations and companies moving their factories to poorer countries. I want to look into if it is beneficial for these less fortunate countries, since these factories do give them jobs. Or is it horrible because they are overworked and underpaid? I want to look into what the workers have to go through and what they are getting paid. Since I am a safety science major I think this subject will tie into that as well since we learn about workers comp. Do the people in these countries get workers comp? Health insurance? Medical leave? In America we get all of these because it is the law, is it the law over there or are they being shorted?

first time for everything

 

Minnick, Wanda D., and Jn K. Wachter. "Integrating Environmental into SH&E." The Educator: 1-27.

 

This article focused on environmental aspects specific to today’s safety professional. The main focus of the article was safety professional’s duties in the environment will continue to be in two major areas: on-site hazardous waste management and environmental hazard communications. The article also spoke about hazardous materials and waste management. How to properly dispose of hazardous materials and what is considered a hazardous material. Another key point was energy and environmental design going "Green" and how it would benefit companies.