First off, I spotted this American Spectator story by Robert Stacy McCain on The Other McCain.

Excerpt:

California Democrat Rep. Jane Harman’s family business is laying off American workers – including engineering employees in California – and shifting jobs overseas.

A letter from the human resources director of one Harman company, obtained exclusively by The American Spectator, describes a “permanent” layoff of dozens of California workers that went into effect last week.

[…]Harman is the third-richest member of Congress, and her net worth increased last year $40 million, according to a study of Federal Election Commission records conducted by The Hill newspaper. Her husband, Sidney Harman, founded Harman International Industries, which was valued in 2007 at about $8 billion.

[…]By May 2009, the company had already slashed its U.S. workforce by 900 and expected to make more than a thousand more layoffs by mid-2010, according to a Saturday Evening Post article that noted: “[W]hile shutting down U.S. facilities, Harman was simultaneously opening factories in China and India, as well as massive multimedia outlets in Dubai and New Delhi.”

She’s a rich Democrat… and she is shipping American jobs overseas? Why???

Well, California is an anti-business state and it’s run by socialist Democrats who hate businesses and capitalism. (H/T ECM)

But what about other countries? Why do they ship jobs overseas?

Look what is happening in New Zealand with the new Hobbit movie. (H/T Anon)

Excerpt:

At least half a dozen countries, including Australia, are lobbying to win the right to film The Hobbit and Hollywood accountants are now doing the numbers of rival offers, the movie’s co-producer and co-writer Phillipa Boyens says.

The $US150 million Sir Peter Jackson blockbuster has been mired in an industrial dispute in recent weeks, following complaints from a group of international labour unions over poor on-set working conditions for actors.

Jackson, who strenuously denies the claims, has accused the Australian-based Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance of bullying to gain control over the production, which he says may be forced out of New Zealand.

Boyens told New Zealand’s National Radio’s Nine to Noon programme the movie was ready to begin filming in January but has now been thrown in turmoil by the actors’ boycott.

She said New Zealand Actors’ Equity seemed to believe the whole thing was a bluff.

“I am concerned over some of the statements made… by New Zealand Equity that there is still a misunderstanding on the seriousness of what is involved here and what is at stake,” she said.

“That is very real and that has put at risk the livelihood of countless thousand New Zealand industry workers,” she said.

Scotland, Ireland, Canada and Eastern European countries had entered the negotiations in a “feeding frenzy” inspired by the threat of union action.

And it’s not just left-wing anti-capitalist governments and unions that cause outsourcing and shipping jobs overseas.

It’s the uncertainty caused by massive spending, constant interventions, anti-business regulations, the appointment of radical anti-capitalists and judicial activists to positions of power.

Here’s a story from Reuters.

Excerpt:

Tough budget measures to keep its international bailout on track have helped prompt thousands of Romanian companies to relocate to neighboring Bulgaria, where lower taxes and more stable regulations offer an easier place to do business.

Bulgaria has corporate and income tax on profits of just 10 percent, compared with Romania’s 16 percent, and now also has lower value added tax after Bucharest hiked its rate as part of efforts to meet the conditions of a 20 billion euro EU/IMF bailout.

Sofia has also cut red tape and initial capital for setting up a company is now 2 levs ($1.39), compared with a previous 5,000 levs and 200 lei ($63.55) in Romania. It takes less than a week, almost half the time needed in Romania.

That may seem like small beer, but business people say the speed of the changes forced by the bailout and uncertainty over future cuts in Romania have encouraged them to move base.

Bulgarian authorities have not released precise data, but local media report up to 2,500 Romanian companies have set up there already and another two are registering daily in the border city of Ruse alone.

“Romanian legislation and taxation are changing from one day to another. So how can I have any guarantee, any certainty if I open a company here?” said 23-year-old Bogdan Popescu from Bucharest, who wants to open an online television business.

“I could as well wake up with a 40 percent income tax tomorrow (instead of 16 at present),” said Popescu, who plans to put his headquarters in Bulgaria. “The present fiscal legislation is in no way a stimulus.”

The two Balkan countries share a long border and though links can be complicated — only one bridge connects the states along a 470 kilometer (294 miles) stretch of the Danube — companies can set up a paper headquarters but still effectively run operations from Romania.

Both suffered deep and painful recession after 2008’s financial crisis, but while Romania is having to cut spending and raise taxes, Bulgaria previously ran large fiscal surpluses and has enough reserves to keep taxes low despite dwindling revenues.

Whenever government and their union supporters make life difficult for businesses, the businesses leave. Governments and unions ship jobs overseas. Governments and unions outsource jobs to other countries. Businesses just dance the the tune that governments and unions play. It’s no use complaining about big corporations and rich greedy executives. If you want a job then you promote the conditions that will attract businesses. Left-wing unions, left-wing political parties, left-wing news media and left-wing judges attack businesses, and that’s why unemployment goes higher.

And businesses know that massive government spending is going to require higher taxes or printing more money to that will devalue savings. They are not going to expand in banana republic economies like the United States until we vote a large enough number of Democrats out of all three branches of the federal government.

What I resent is when rich Democrats create the legal conditions that require companies to outsource and then complaining about outsourcing while engaging in outsourcing themselves. That’s hypocrisy.