Hey spirit. I know you think kerry don't lie but I think maybe he lied to you about that. :-)
Gee, look who's 'outsaucing'!
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2004 10:34:24 PM ]
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
John Kerry's financial fortunes may be linked to a ketchup empire, but in his political notebook, what's sauce for the goose isn't sauce for the gander. The Democratic Presidential nominee, who has been railing against outsourcing, is walking on a sticky wicket on the issue. There are outsourcing footprints all over Kerry's pristine all-American turf.
H J Heinz & Co, the family business of Kerry and his wife Teresa, has spread its ketchup operations across the world. Of the 79 factories that the food processor owns, 57 are overseas. Heinz makes ketchup, pizza crust, baby cereal and other edibles in such countries as Poland , Venezuela , Botswana , Thailand , and most of all, China and India .
That's not all. Campaign finance reports reviewed by the Congressional publication, The Hill, reveal that executives at 25 companies identified by CNN's Lou Dobbs as prime outsourcers have contributed more than $370,000 to Kerry's presidential campaign. Among them are executives of Citigroup (who contributed $68,250 to Kerry), Morgan Stanley (gave $38,000) and Goldman Sachs (gave $50,300).
Direct investments and trusts controlled by Kerry list assets of $124,026 to $636,000 in companies that outsource jobs, according to his financial disclosures. Trusts held by Teresa Heinz Kerry hold at least $8.5 million in outsourcing companies. Among them are General Electric, IBM and AIG which have big operations in India and China .
All this has led analysts to believe that Kerry's anti-outsourcing stand is just election season posturing. "Our view is that this is just a lot of political talk. Restrictive legislation will be limited, and the outsourcing trend will continue to be robust," Lehman Brothers analyst Louis Miscioscia wrote in a recent research note to investors.
Ashish Thadhani, an analyst with Brean Murray & Co in New York who tracks Indian outsourcing companies has also given a thumbs-up to firms such as Infosys, Wipro, and Cognizant, saying they are good bets for investors if their horizon looks beyond the current political debate.
Meanwhile, domestic critics have excoriated Kerry for his duplicity and doubletalk. If Kerry is true to his word, he would be bringing back Heinz operations to the US and create American jobs. By the same token, the nearly seven million US workers who are employed by foreign companies such as BMW, Toyota and Honda would also lose their jobs if these firms pulled out.
"I don't think Kerry should shut down the Heinz 57, but he might drop the rhetoric and talk about trade responsibly," says free market maven James Glassman, who has taken a public stand against the anti-outsourcers. "He should support not trade's contraction but its expansion, like George W Bush, Bill Clinton and every president since Herbert Hoover." It looks unlikely though that Kerry will pay attention to such advice till after the election.
Meanwhile, Bush continues to stick by the free trade principles despite facing pressure on the political and economic front. With the job growth lacklustre, it's a tough and risky act against an opposition determined to twist every dismal number to its advantage.
But supporters of free trade also argue that the administration has not been sufficiently aggressive in telling the American people about how lowered barriers have helped the economy over the last decade.
Bush, they say, needs to talk about the jobs and cost benefits free trade has brought to America |
