President Obama doesn’t know what “outsourcing” means:
Obama responded thus: “Yesterday, his advisers tried to clear this up by telling us that there was a difference between ‘outsourcing’ and ‘offshoring.’ Seriously. You can’t make that up.”
And indeed you wouldn’t have to make it up, because it is a real thing: different words with different meanings. . . “Outsourcing” happens when a firm contracts out its non-core functions to other vendors, e.g., a hotel decides to hire a cleaning service rather than keep maids on the hotel payroll.
By the way, here’s Merriam-Webster’s definition (note the complete absence of any international connotation):
outsource : to procure (as some goods or services needed by a business or organization) under contract with an outside supplier
What’s most striking here is the aggressive nature of Obama’s ignorance. Not only is he apparently unaware that outsourcing need not be foreign, he actually mocks the notion.
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