OUTSOURCING/OFFSHORING

In this cartoon drawn by Matson for the St Louis Post in July 2012 we can see Mitt Romney, a republican politician and candidate to the 2012 presidential election, standing in the middle of a desert island representing the Cayman Islands'tax haven, with a big trunk full of money to bury, with his name on it (he is offshoring his own money). In the background we can see two other tax havens: Bermuda and Switzerland. On the left side there is a boat called "Believin'in America" and, sitting on it and looking at him with admiration, Romney's grandchildren , according to their speech bubble. Romney explains to them why outsourcing and why offshoring and his grandchildren say "You are so smart!" "You should be president!"
The cartoon criticizes a thorough hypocrisy, because Romney himself said several times during his campaign that he would protect american jobs and capital while his own company,  Bain Capital, invested in businesses that were pioneers in ousourcing jobs, and was funded with money placed in Panama for example. Here he is seen as a master of offshoring and outsourcig, and what is bitterly ironic, appart the that he is admired for doing that, is that his boat is called believin' in America, an idea completely imcompatible with what he really does for America.




This simple cartoon from the website geek & poke was created in 2008. It is divided into three boxes where can see two office men talking about an upcoming new offshoring. first the man oo the left explains that they have to move country because their workers wanted even more that the thousands of  jobs the company created, then the man on the right asks why, so he is answered that, surprisingly,  they wanted to get paid, "unbelievable".
 It is again a very bitter humour. The reason why western companies make their products in foreign countries is because those countries have no workers'rights whatsoever, to spend much less money on wages. So if workers legitimately want their money they aren't useful anymore, but they are not supposed to ask for money in the first place. What the cartoon shows is another case of hypocrisy: companies justify their action saying that they are developing poor counries, but what actually happens is they shamelessly exploit local people.


These two cartoons tackle an issue very much related with the otion of spaces and exchanges. There are real spaces involved in outsourcing and offshoring: the company's country of origin, the destination countries for the outsourced working functions and the tax havens are some of them, and these two activities are all about exchanges. there is an economical exchange with tax havens and the country that hosts the outsourced function, a physical exchange of products that were made in one country and are sent back to be sold in the country where the company originally comes from, an exchange of knowledge when the new workers are trained...
Offshoring and outsoucing are a characteristic exchange in the increasingly big space of the globalised world.