Author Suggests Offshoring CEOs

October 16, 2003

Richard W. Samson, author of the forthcoming book The Human Edge (no publishing information available), provides a list of ten reasons why offshoring the CEO position makes sense. Among the reasons: costs saved, fewer layoffs required, and other tongue-in-cheek benefits.

Samson is the director of EraNova, an institute that promotes "mind extension" or the expansion of human potential through conventional and electronic means.

The list:
(10) Plenty of biz school grads in Pakistan, India, and China will gladly do the CEO thing for about $13,500 a year.
(9) Instead of laying off 346 underpaid people, you can save as much by laying off a single overpaid one.
(8) Until now only CEOs could play the layoff game. Now corporate boards can join the fun, since the only employee they can ax is the CEO.
(7) Since white-collar as well as blue-collar jobs are going overseas, the boss might as well be where all the workers are.
(6) American CEOs deserve the same life-changing help as everyone else: outplacement; career counseling; and skill training in growth areas like hospital work, fast-food service, and auto sales.
(5) If the nation's top 500 CEOs were all laid off, unemployment would go up only about 0.0056%, to 9,000,500.
(4) The new foreign CEOs will have tax equity with their workers, since neither will have to pay income taxes to Uncle Sam.
(3) Instead of supporting expensive vacation homes and yachts, you'd only have to support vacation yurts and sampans.
(2) Output per dollar cost will zoom as big CEO salaries are eliminated.
(1) CEOs will start bonding with regular people by sharing their experiences and lifestyles.