Obama riles high-tech exec over outsourcing

BULLETIN! EXTRA EXTRA !

Well Well ..... looks like something has hit the fan ! Right on subject, here's a bit of todays's news for your enjoyment.

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Ref: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/04/BUF817D164.DTL

"Carl Guardino usually comes across as an amenable, mild-mannered Silicon Valley executive. But not on Monday. Not when he watched President Obama promising to end overseas tax breaks for U.S. companies that "create a job in Bangalore, India, (rather than) one in Buffalo, N.Y." Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, angrily described Obama's language as "not only discouraging, but divisive." The president's implication that companies such as Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard merely "ship jobs overseas," and are being rewarded in the bargain, came as a shock to Guardino, who otherwise described the president as "brilliant and respected by so many in the tech sector who are counting on the administration as their ally." Indeed, Obama's proposal to limit U.S. companies' ability to defer paying U.S. taxes on offshore earnings does put Bay Area companies doing a lot of business overseas directly in the crosshairs. "It would adversely impact our ability to invest and grow our business in the (United States) and to compete against our foreign competitors," said a spokesman for Cisco. "

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Four questions:

1. Anyone out there with an opinion on foreign tax breaks for American corporatons?

2. Would it be bad for corporate America if offshore tax advantages were eliminated?

3. The article suggests that foreign investment tax breaks allows favorible competition with foreign corporations. Not sure what that really means... do you?

4. Am I missing something here? Given Guardino's quote "adversely impact our ability to invest and grow our business in the (United States)" What does this mean? We can't invest in the United States (and American jobs) unless we invest in offshore tax breaks?