A more accurate title for this article might be “How Globalization, Outsourcing, Greed, and Ignorance Killed America,” but I decided on this abbreviated visual version. There are so many villains in this story that you cannot list them all. From government to business and everything in between, this is a great lesson for future generations about the dangers of allowing some of the least qualified people in the nation to run critical components. The list of heroes is as short as the list of villains is long.
The Long View
Thirty-five years ago, I was discussing the trends in outsourcing with my boss and how we could withstand the rising tide of consultants and CEOs who sought short-term profits to brag to analysts and their friends about their latest outsourcing conquest. My boss was a brilliant guy and mentor who had a way with words and quickly framed it this way.
“Never send any mission-critical work to a country where millions of people worship cows, monkeys, and rats; it will eventually come back to haunt you. Also, never give any mission-critical work to a country of atheists; they have no conscience, no sense of right and wrong.”
If he were alive today, we would sit down, have a beer, and scratch our heads about where it all went wrong. America’s corporations and our Government have risked our nation’s future at these very altars in the pursuit of profits and just plain stupidity.
Cream Does Not Always Rise to the Top
We lived through the 1990s and early 2000s, witnessing the Peter Principle in action: when promotion and opportunity fell into the wrong hands, the results were catastrophic. A valuable lesson is that the misguided actions of a few can destroy the lives of many, and now the whole nation. A lesson on how those with a planning horizon of ninety days can destroy a generation, maybe even a nation. In America, this is a problem; in Europe, it is a catastrophe.
The Ninety-Day Horizon
There is an excellent observation by Dispare.com and its demotivator cards highlighting the problem when the cream does not rise to the top, using mediocracy as a proxy.
Mediocracy
It Takes a Lot Less Time
And Most People Won’t Notice the Difference
Until It’s Too Late
This succinctly captures the problems of the past forty years with the Federal Government, Boards of Directors, shareholders, and CEOs. For at least four decades, “groupthink” from Washington to Wall Street has led us to a critical point in national security. The focus on quarterly analyst briefings has narrowed our planning horizon to no more than ninety days. I would contend that our corporate landscape has fallen victim to the “Peter Principle.” We now live in a corporate world where showmanship supersedes management skills, long-term profits, and corporate stability. Because our financial literacy is so low, the ability to talk a good game exceeds the ability and priority to do a good job for shareholders.
What can we say about Congress? Perhaps it has become the employer of last resort for failed attorneys and unemployable Ivy League graduates. We need say no more.
We all Outsource
I am not opposed to all outsourcing; we do it every day. If you decide to eat lunch out, have your oil changed, or buy a pair of jeans, you are outsourcing those activities to someone with more expertise or greater efficiency. These align with Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” concept, in which everyone benefits from increased productivity resulting from specialized labor. It is not that you cannot do these activities; you know your time is better spent where your skills align.
There is a critical difference in these activities and what we have seen in recent decades from corporate America. First, none of these activities is “Mission Critical” and therefore does not threaten your or your neighbor’s well-being. Second, these activities are performed within a geographic proximity where national sovereignty is not threatened. You are swapping your money for their labor without the friction of politics, international trade, or the depletion of the nation’s resources. Outsourcing to another American company keeps the skills and money in America.
The big myth that many CEOs will bite on is that outsourcing will allow us to “Focus on our core business.” This is one of the great consulting myths of the twenty-first century. Focusing on core business functions is a smoke screen for cost-cutting at the expense of national interests. Shareholders are too far removed from the everyday activities to challenge these issues and assumptions.
The big mistake of the past forty years has been the fallacious assumption that globalization would lead to shared values, shared benefits, and peace. This mistaken assumption is that if our enemies could see the benefits of capitalism, they would lay down their swords and pick up the plowshares of capitalism. These mistakes began with Nixon’s reopening of China and have continued uninterrupted through other Presidents until we reached President Trump. This is not a Democrat or Republican problem; it is an American problem. Today, we outsource a new 300,000 each year, undermining the desirability of STEM degrees for generations of our youth. This becomes a self-perpetuating problem: CEOs send jobs overseas, then complain about the lack of skilled workers at home, leading to more outsourcing.
In today’s world, all technology is “mission-critical.” A CEO who believes they can outsource their company’s core technology is playing the short game and will lose the long game. In reality, you cannot optimize your company’s operations by cobbling together a worldwide group of inexpensive (even if highly skilled) labor in third-world countries. They are cheap but have no genuine vested interest in your company beyond profit.
Focus on the East and West
Today’s news is filled with stories of conflicts with China over rare earth minerals, steel production, medicines, illicit drug raw materials, artificial intelligence, and other national security interests. Those leading our major corporations often have not cared who they dealt with, so long as the dealings produced short-term profits. Wall Street, CEOs, and Boards of Directors focus on China, atheist with a worldview we cannot comprehend. Their sense of right and wrong differs from ours, and it is unreconcilable on many fronts. Their planning time horizon spans centuries, whereas ours spans months. Our sense of right and wrong is tempered by morality; theirs intentionally lacks that element of control.
India is a whole different animal, literally. We speak a common language for commerce, English. But India is looking out for itself, and it flies under the radar for most American consumers. Washington beats the drum for our conflicts with China because the argument is straightforward and understandable. In my opinion, India is the real villain, but we need India to counterbalance our disputes with China. Indian politicians smile and say the right words while they have carefully and calculatingly undermined our technology and initiative with cheap labor.
China is the “whipping boy,” and India is a more passive but real threat. China hollowed out our manufacturing, while India hollowed out our white collar jobs and career paths. China may be evil, India is insidious. What these two nations have known is that once outsourcing begins, it is a problem that feeds on itself. If a company outsources its programming and development overseas, college students see no opportunities and move into other fields. This creates a greater shortage of skilled technical labor, encouraging more outsourcing.
The Size of the India Problem
For decades, India has been a leading destination for technical outsourcing due to its highly educated, skilled, and cheap workforce. Our short-term profit-focused CEOs learned this, and it became clear to everyone the direction of globalization. While outsourcing to India for programming and professional technical jobs saved money, it had much more serious long-term implications.
Once American youth learned that there were fewer technical career paths, they saw no reason to acquire those skills. If my job can go overseas tomorrow, why waste my time pursuing a highly technical degree today? This is a problem that feeds itself as fewer people enter technical fields; the only alternative is to outsource more. For many companies, this is a one-way street. Once your technical jobs are gone, the technical people will be gone too. Trying to reassemble a team that can reshore your technical work becomes cost-prohibitive because you must spend years preparing to reshore the work, assuming you can find the staff.
When the outsourcing craze began, it was primarily about saving money on clerical and customer service jobs, but it soon migrated into “mission-critical” activities as CEOs pursued more profit. But when blindly pursuing profits without understanding national interest, bad things happen.
Today, companies in the United States outsource between $150 – $180 billion annually to India. That is the direct destruction of our workforce by an equal amount. This is so large that it accounts for a significant portion of India’s GDP. It supports 1.9 million jobs that could be available here in America. Indeed, we cannot bring this home tomorrow because we need training, but it would set us on the right path.
India, Friend or Foe
Decades ago, India might have been considered a friend, but not today. India is a founding member of the BRICS consortium, with a stated goal of undermining the dollar’s dominance in world trade. India has also shown its focus and undermined sanctions with Russia. They are directly profiting by purchasing Russian oil at a discount and reselling it on the open market. They are subsidizing the death the destruction in Ukraine at a time that we are working to bring the parties to the negotiating table.
India’s role in the international outsourcing ecosystem is not passive by any measure. It has aggressively positioned itself as the world’s technical outsourcing hub. India has systematically siphoned off U.S. intellectual capital and career opportunities. What began as cost-saving measures has morphed into a structural dependency that threatens America’s economic sovereignty. The loss of software engineers, the reliance on pharmaceuticals, and the reliance on defense components create vulnerabilities. India is not a friend; it is a foe.
India is also home to thousands of hackers, with little effort by authorities to curb their activities. Hackers and scam artists in India siphon billions of dollars from U. S. consumers. The FBI estimates that Indian scammers rob us of between $10 and $12 billion annually. This is only a fraction of India’s GDP, but to the victims, it is devastating.
Trying to Find a Solution
The 2025 Hire Act (Halting International Relocation of Employment Act of 2025) could set us on a more sustainable path for domestic technical jobs. When passed, it provided incentives for domestic hires and penalized outsourcing.
But President Trump and Congress need to be more consistent. President Trump is deporting illegal aliens and complaining about abuse of H1B visas on one day and then praising highly skilled foreign workers the next. This situation is untenable and must be clarified and stabilized.
But the big issue is waking up to the fact that India is not a friend, it is a foe, and needs to be treated as such.
Resources and Further Reading
25% Outsourcing Tax? Could this new US Bill destroy India’s outsourcing industry? By The Finance Story, thefinancestory.com, September 12, 2025.
41 Outsourcing Statistics 2025 (Global & US Data), By Naveen Kumar, DemandSage, demandsage.com, July 23, 2025.
56+ Outsourcing Statistics 2025: By Industry & Country, By Editorial Staff, Genius, joingenius.com, June 7, 2024.
Conversation with Robert M. Horton, Senior Vice President, SunTrust Bank, ~1990.
Globalization, Wikipedia, wikipedia.org, Last accessed October 14, 2025.
If HIRE Bill in US becomes reality, it will light a fire in Indian economy: Congress, By PTI, Deccan Herald, deccanherald.com, November 4, 2025.
Is US HIRE Act a bigger threat than hefty H1-B fee? Here’s how it could impact skilled Indian workers, By Shweta Kukreti, Hindustan Times, hindustantimes.com, November 10, 2025.
List of Top Countries for Outsourcing in 2025? 9 Global Leaders, By Ryan Thompson, Invensis, invensis.net, June 6, 2024.
Mediocracy – It takes a lot less time, and most people won’t notice the difference until it’s too late. Despair, Inc., despair.com, Last accessed October 24, 2025.,
Outsourcing Statistics 2024: In the US and Globally, By Editorial Staff, TeamSage, teamsage.io, ~2024.
Outsourcing Statistics by Country | Global Comparison, By Editorial Staff, InsigniaResources, insigniaresources.com, June 9, 2025.
Outsourcing Statistics By Country | Outsourcing Trends, By Editorial Staff, Aphelia, aphelia.co, February 5, 2024.
Proposed new US bill targets outsourcing, threatens India’s IT engine: GTRI, By ANI, Malaysia Sun, malaysiasun.com, November 14, 2025.
The Globalization And Offshoring Of U.S. Jobs Have Hit Americans Hard, By Jack Kelly, Forbes, forbes.com, October 24, 2024.
The HIRE Act 2025 Explained – Key Changes in U.S. Employment Law, By Staff, The EDU Law, theedulaw.com, October 2, 2o25.
The Peter Principle, by Dr. Laurence J. Peter, William Morrow and Company, Publisher, 1969.
