Andy Grove Speaks out on Offshore Outsourcing

molarmass192 writes "Andy Grove, of Intel fame, "spoke out" at a recent technology summit in Washington about the current trend towards offshore outsourcing and how it's causing the US to slowly but surely lose its edge in the tech sector. He states plainly that the US government must step in to restore balance between the need for profits and the lure of offshore outsourcing. There are also pokes at the patent system and slow adoption of broadband internet access. An interesting insight into what's going on inside the heads of the US's tech leaders."

Comments

-1 Irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael is once again using slashdot as his personal platform to advance his own pet issues.

Where is the real news for nerds? What happened here?

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but me potentially losing my job because a more efficient route can be taken over seas effects me.

So I would consider an industry big wig defending American workers from American big business rape is "news for nerds".

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Do people speak slowly when they talk to you?

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[The Clockwork Troll]

I don't know about you, but me [sic] potentially losing my job because a more efficient route can be taken over seas [sic] effects [sic] me.

Probably a good thing. You probably have all sorts of things about yourself you could improve while unemployed.

So I would consider an industry big wig defending American workers from American big business rape is "news for nerds".

The only thing big on Andy Grove these days is his prostate.

And as far as big business, who commanded you to go forth and work for one?

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[mankey wanker]

>Michael is once again using slashdot as his personal platform to advance his own pet issues.

Just as you are doing now. I gather you see yourself as the opposition though.

Constantly moving jobs to ever cheaper locations is a no-win scenario. For one thing, there will always be somewhere cheaper -- one day Mexico is the place to manufacture, then it's various parts of Asia. Today software engineering is being done in India -- but wages are already rising and India looks a lot like the U.S. 2-3 years ago; tomorrow China might look cheaper. Eventually, and quite speedily, you burn down every bridge to cheaper labor. The marks have wised up and nobody wants to give the multi-nationals a free ride anymore.

For any economy to make gains workers must be able to afford the goods being sold. For the workers to be able to afford the goods they must make a wage that allows for the purchase of those goods.

Profit!

What we have today is a situation where people have spent time and money to earn degrees to gain employment that the U.S. has allowed to go offshore. People in many other countries do not have to hock their futures the way we americans often do just to make a decent day's pay. Of course, their labor is cheaper!

No I know some jerkweed is going to blather on about free market economics, but you know what? Free markets do not exist. They probably never did. I have no problem instituting laws that regulate corporate activities so that everyone can bring home the bacon.

But hear this well: I don't love corp. execs so much that I think they should be the only ones to profit from the unfair way things are set up.

FWIW, I do think there are real economic and security issues in having everything go offshore with hugely important technologies. The people of the U.S. shouldn't stand for it. Those are important issues that we should look at -- that said, I also don't mind letting my own self-interest speak my cause as above.

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

And as far as big business, who commanded you to go forth and work for one?

The market economy.

But seriously you think your little software development shops can't be outsourced!?

Newsflash guy, it doesn't matter if the developers are in the same city or on the other side of the planet. At 1/5th the cost "face time" is just a luxury that can and will be chopped when times get rough.

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[moebius_4d]

India looks a lot like the U.S. 2-3 years ago; tomorrow China might look cheaper

FYI, Indian companies already outsource to China, today. China, Eastern Europe/Russia, Vietnam, Mexico, etc. In fact, so called "daisy-chaining," where an Indian company gets a US contract due to its relationships and reputation, and promptly outsources it elsewhere, is the new buzzword. Computerworld calls this "a trend to watch."

You want to talk about China? The Sept 15 Computerworld had an article about outsourcing that profiled a number of different countries. Here's some fun quotes and facts about China:

• 400,000 IT professionals, growing 50,000 per year
• "China's universities could soon churn out a staggering 200,000 computer science graduates annually."
• "China is building no fewer than 10 universities right now to increase its supply of IT professionals."
• Chinese must pass a written English proficiency test to graduate college
• Average salary $5850/year, for programmers, $9000/year. For a 40-hour week, 50-week year, that's $4.50/hour folks.
• There's a nice anecdote about a Java/Apache/Linux project going to a Chinese outsourcing company because the cost savings was 40% ... compared to India. This in a business where Gartner is saying that outsourcing can provide cost savings "that run as high as 40%."
  
  

Get your raincoats, storm's coming.

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[letxa2000]

FYI, Indian companies already outsource to China, today. China, Eastern Europe/Russia, Vietnam, Mexico, etc.

I can't imagine India outsourcing to Mexico. I've seen two projects firsthand in MEXICO outsourced to India, and Mexicans DO earn more than Indians. So I'd be surprised to see India outsource to Mexico.

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[moebius_4d]

Yes, I'm sorry I was unclear. I jumped ahead to write all the China stuff. What that meant to say was that, that list of countries is cheaper than India, not that India is outsourcing to them. I've only read about India->China outsourcing.

As far as Mexicans earning more than Indians, that Computerworld I mentioned above says, India avg programmer salary $6400, Mexico $5150. Source, NeoIT Inc of San Ramon, CA. Maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong, I'm no expert. Just reporting what I read.

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[zpok]

This is a reaction to basically everybody complaining about outsoursing.

I'm sure you all drive a US car, your clothes are made in the US (like *really* made there, not just a label or screw fitted), as are your computers, your children's toys, your furniture, your kick-ass sportshoes and flufferalia.

You don't buy stuff manufactured by children, no sirry, of course not.

FWIW I think it's great some real work is getting outsourced instead of only the menial jobs! More power to them.

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[letxa2000]

As far as Mexicans earning more than Indians, that Computerworld I mentioned above says, India avg programmer salary $6400, Mexico $5150. Source, NeoIT Inc of San Ramon, CA. Maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong, I'm no expert. Just reporting what I read.

Ok, then you are forgiven because you had data you based your comment on. :) But I can tell you first-hand that NeoIT is wrong. Although I earn American rates and work primarily with Americn companies I've lived in Mexico for the last 8 years. The only software developers that earn $5150 a year would be those maybe right out of college or finishing college, or opting to work at a very low-paying firm. $10,000/year would be much more believable and $15,000/year would not be surprising.

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never heard of this ``daisy-chaining'' concept but this is exactly what we do. i work for an estonian (estonia is an country in eastern e) outsourcing company and we regularly outsource to the ukraine because it is cheaper. now we are investigating china, phillipines and vietnam as it is cheaper still.

Re:-1 Irrelevant

[mankey wanker]

Hey, we all have to buy from the supplies available. As often as possible I buy American, local to me, and in non-chain stores. I would not knowingly buy products from companies whose business practices are hurting others in the world.

FWIW, I think you don't know what you are talking about...some of us DO make socially responsible decisions with our dollars.

Global worker rights

[seriv]

I think the only solution to stopping offshore outsourceing is global worker rights. Profits should be second to workers.
-seriv

Re:Global worker rights

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah.

Turn blue, holding your breath.

The U.S. has re-modeled itself on an econoic and political model borrowed from Argentina in the '70's, and the rest of the world is charging along behind. E.U.? wants to be as big a Banana Republic as U.S. and China...

Re:Global worker rights

[DA-MAN]

You must have opted to take the "blue pill!"

Re:Global worker rights

[kfg]

With global worker rights then workers all over the world will have rights.

That would include those to whom the offshore work is going, who have right to. . .work.

You will also need monocultural global economy for it to work. You are perhaps thinking that that the reason jobs are going overseas is because workers are being exploited by being underpaid, i.e. being payed less than you are ( and thus being able to outbid you on your own job).

This is falacious reaoning. Most of these workers are taking the jobs because they are the best paying jobs available in their local economy where prices on life's necessities are quite divergent from our own. As are their ideas on just what constitutes a necessity.

Poor countries are not, I repeat not analogous to poor sections of rich countries and cannot be treated as such.

Paying someone $40/hr in a $1/hr local economy isn't treating those workers "fairly." It's totally destroying the local economny with runaway inflation, bringing misery to those that can't get those jobs, must pay $40/hr prices, but still make $1/hr. Revolutions have been fomented over much less.

The fact of the matter is that the rest of the world loves being thus "taken advantage of." You earn your $40/hr in a rich local economy that has become rich, at least in part, by taking advantage of poorer nations who now find themselves in a place to compete to get some of that back.

Your job will come back when all nations are equally rich, or all nations are equally poor, and thus share a common economy.

And you can't mandate that. It has to evolve. Or hundreds of millions will suffer. Even die.

You'll also find that most people who wish to protect American jobs think they can do it by opposing a global economy. I can't but feel that most of these people are fairly well off, always have been, have never lived extensively in a third world nation as a local would and thus generally being somewhat clueless as to how things really work, here or there.

Do you want to preserve American jobs and promote global worker's rights?

Go to Mexico. Build houses for the poor while earning a local wage for it.

You might learn something.

KFG

Re:Global worker rights

[seriv]

Yes, I may be thinking unrealistically, but I have hope for a better world, and without hope of that, what do we have except the bleak reality of the world. Excepting the world as it is only leads to the same problems, trying to think on how to improve the world only leads to a better one.
-Seriv

Re:Global worker rights

[jonabbey]

Absolutely correct, and rather frightening, actually.

Capitalism is about driving towards economic efficiency, and that means Walmart devouring everything in the American general retail market and countries with cheaper cost structures providing whatever labor they possibly can, to maximize corporate profits.

I'm starting to see a lot more pro-tariff proposals in reaction to this, but in the absence of that sort of trade policy, it seems inevitable that wages will eventually reach equilibrium, corrected for education and technological resources.

Which wouldn't be bad, but it suggests a dramatic reduction in the absolute standard of living in the United States.. or perhaps just a reduction in the rate of growth of standard of living. 21st century middle class Americans enjoy in many respects a far higher standard of living than the absolute richest did in the 19th.

There are things that could preserve our higher standard of living, though, potentially.. the biomedical industry might do it, if American companies can extract enough wealth from the rest of the world for a cure for AIDS or malaria or antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis or the cancers. The technology industry might do it, except we really are giving away the store when it comes to open source software..

Anyone know of any good science fiction or speculative non-fiction that deals in detail with what such a move towards economic equilibrium might look like in this country, say 20 years out?

Re:Global worker rights

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

What you are saying is wrong because the following flaw:

This is falacious reaoning. Most of these workers are taking the jobs because they are the best paying jobs available in their local economy...

Although it is true that these jobs in the developing countries are the best paying, that point is moot. Why? Because people will work, not just in those "high paying" jobs, but also in practically everything else. The crux of hte problem is that the majority of the workers in the world are underpaid and exploited. You can literally go to any one of a hundread countries and find workers to do WHATEVER you want.

That's why I find it interesting that capitalists are all in favour of a global (capitalist) economy. But they never explain what is going to happen. I claim that Western wages will have to be dragged down significantly but capitalists don't think so...

BTW, you are wrong in saying that you can't oppose a global economy. There is no such thing as a global economy. It is a bogus concept cooked up by neo-liberal economists. If free-trade agreements fail, that's the end of the global economy. Also, you will never truly have a global economy because countries will always value themselves--their sovereignty--more than a global economy. This isn't happening right now but it will once things get a little bit worse. How much do you want to bet that traditional conservatives (like Pat Buchanan, who are nationalists) will gain power at the expense of neoconservatives (who are mostly neo-liberal economists and are against US protectionism)?

RAM

Re:Global worker rights

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the only solution to stopping offshore outsourceing is global worker rights. Profits should be second to workers.

That's great but, well, that's communism and communists are bad and scary! (Even worse than muslims! Eek!)

Re:Global worker rights

[Frymaster]

even if the u.s. wanted to enact anti-outsourcing legislation, it can't. the provisions of the world trade organization and the soon-to-be-ratified multilateral agreement on investment explicitly prohibit this sort of legislation.

you should feel a bit miffed that an unelected international body can restrict what laws your locally-elected (or "kinda elected" in bush's case) can enact.

of course the u.s. gov't is not in favour of the outsourcing brain drain but at the cancun summit india and several other developing nations put the boots to that idea. the rationale being that so many of the wto's policies lock g77 nations into not-so-profitable primary or crude secondary industries at the expense of development, so it's only fair to take the opportunity to grab onto a sweet tertiary industry. makes sense for them, really.

my source for this is here.

Re:Global worker rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism is about driving towards economic efficiency, and that means Walmart devouring everything in the American general retail market and countries with cheaper cost structures providing whatever labor they possibly can, to maximize corporate profits.

Exactly, and that is also true of Microsoft and all the other monopoly controlled industries.

The end game of capitalism is either socialism or one giant corporate entity sucking the Earth dry.

It's your choice.

Re:Global worker rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Robot

Re:Global worker rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should I start a business just to benefit other people? Look, I agree that *some* companies need to be more willing to engage in profit sharing with their employees. However, there's more to running a company than paying workers....consider paying back venture capitalists for a start.

My opinion: the US government can only step in to INVITE workers from other countries. Suck the talent out of those other countries, period. Basically, an immigration policy that favors skilled people (e.g. sponsored by a US-based company) will reduce outsourcing. This doesn't directly effect US-based companies (don't tell the companies what to do, make them feel the burn on their own) and it prevents skilled workers from getting paid dirt in other countries. It does increase competition for US jobs, but that's better than losing out entirely.

This will make people in other countries angry. Oh well. They would (and are) doing the same thing...we (speaking as a US citizen) can't be nice all the time.

Re:Global worker rights

[ch-chuck]

Profits should be second to workers.

how do you pay workers if there are no profits? Do you expect people to work for nothing?? Nobody should prop up a failing industry making products nobody buys just because that's all the employees know how to do. Market demand and careers change, especially in the tech sector. We don't want something like the old Soviet Union workers sham where "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us".

Re:Global worker rights

[Anonymous Coward]

>how do you pay workers if there are no profits?

There has got to be a way to make business work on a more reasonable model than the one implied by "profit".

Take the huge amount of money the people at the top of a corporation get paid, and STOP paying them so much. Distribute the revenue on a more sensible curve.

Why does every business plan require perpetual growth? Why not something like a subsistence model?

Where is it written in stone that contemporary business strategies are the end of the science of corporate management?

Re:Global worker rights

[mabhatter654]

exactly, there have to be changes to the system. After all, 1 Million Dollars to an executive is 30 average american workers out of work! Average workers here only make mid 30's for pay. Many do make 50-60's...by working 55-70 hours a week!!!! that's slave labor hours!

They are purposefully sacerficing the domestic stability for easy money on wall street. This is the same thing as the 20's all over again, just different names.

Right now we're dealing with Deflation, and nobody wants to say it! People don't have any money! They are paying off Credit cards, getting out of debt [or bankrupt] and planning for worse. That means companies have to discount deeper and deeper just to move the stock on the shelves. Look at interest rates, The whole Fed % is a joke...and it always was. Greenspan's rate is really just a suggestion, only very desperate banks ever actually borrow that money at that rate. As the market proved, the actual market rate is actually LOWER than the Fed!!! Again, I ran accross an old newspaper remodeling, and we're getting back to 1950's business rates for profits and interest...only the "powers" don't want to admit that yet. Worse, they expect the Govt to let them take out their death throws on their employees, while at the same time those same employees are STILL making record productivity gains!

Re:Global worker rights

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

yes, i am a leftwing whiner

Bless you, my son!

Re:Global worker rights

[kfg]

If you can tell me the difference between the government owing the corporations and the corporations owning the government I'd like to hear it.

Then we'll take up what the possible difference between these states and fascism is. It isn't a pleasant subject.

You make one fundamental assumption that is false though. Capitalism and Corporatism are not the same thing. Free trade is the natural human state. Modern corporations are government contructs upheld at the point of a gun.

They are serfdom, not capitalism.

Capitalism is simply the right to mind your own business.

Corporatism invokes you to mind their business under the promise of the protection of the liege lord.

Note carefully the difference between the two.

Read Thoreau's "Life Without Principle" (in this case principle is used in the economic sense. We'd probably say capital instead).

On it's surface it seems to revile business in its every word, but this is misleading. Thoreau was actually a capitalist and businessman. Every rugged individualist is really. It simply goes with the territory. If you insist on being your own man you must, of necessity, take care of your own business. Or retire from the world, which is what Thoreau did not do.

It is, at its heart, one of the most stunning paens to capitalism every written.

You'll find it a refreshing alternative to Ayn Rand and much better literature, especially since it's only a handful of pages long but says more of real value.

KFG

Re:Global worker rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Big mistake there.

Every business man is a "rugged individualist"
until the point where they become the "top dog"
at which point they are clearly in favor of
government sponsored protectionism. One example
of where this is not the case would help bolster
your argument.

Please.

Re:Global worker rights

[kfg]

I would dearly love to answer you post, and have been thinking about how I might go about for a couple of hours now.

The best I've come up with is by writing a book on the subject.

I'm afraid it won't be done tonight.

I'll say I think you're right about Western wages though. Unless they are propped up for a bit at the point of a gun (heaven forbid, we'd never do anything like that) they are bound to fall.

They are artificial in the first place.

You can't take the wealth of the world and throw it in a landfill forever.

KFG

Re:Global worker rights

[kfg]

I already gave my example. Have you read it yet?

The short answer is that the rugged individualist, the one who minds his own business does not become top dog.

Perhaps you are confusing individualist with control freak.

Individualists are pretty much immune to such.

I personally know of dozens of examples but can't demonstrate them to you because these people are all busy minding their own business and thus have no publicly demonstrable face.

Thoreau is a notable example because he chose to make his business, in part, writing and lecturing about it. He also made pencils and was a surveyor.

He had no "employees."

By choice.

KFG

Re:Global worker rights

[1lus10n]

Your job will come back when all nations are equally rich, or all nations are equally poor, and thus share a common economy.

so basically americans are supposed to support other countries ? get a fucking grip pal. if india or russia or china cannot support themselves to_damn_bad its not an american issue to help by driving our economy into shit.

you can claim there is nothing that can be done to stop it, and thats also a load of bullshit, its going to be really amusing in the next few years to watch the unemployment rate skyrocket, and then the american public will demand action, and if the US gov't takes action by legislating outsourced labor who is going to stop it ? the WTO ? please, they need americans and their spend it all mentality more than americans need the WTO.

just give it a few more years until the stink from the bottom rises to the top.

and i would also point out that paying someone in mexico or india does NOT help the world economy unless they are paid enough to spend money on goods and services from other locations. which they are not.

this is the equivlant of improving your sight by going deaf.

Re:Global worker rights

[4ntifa]

Has it occured to you, that the way to economical equilibrium is long and hard and littered with dead bodies and toxic dumps?

Globalization is driven by corpotations, because they can benefit from it in the form of low wages and non-existent worker rights. Equillibrium would ruin that. Thus, corporations will do everything in their power to avoid that. And trust me, corporations wield more than enough power!

Even if capitalism was that magic silver bullet we've been led (or should I say "indoctrinated" or even "brainwashed"?) to believe, it will take a considerable time to reach equilibrium. That will be millions and millions of lives ruined by uncertainty, debt and unemployment.

I've been there: I've seen my dad out of work and felt the economical blow. And right now I'm scared to death because of outsourcing: I owe the bank big time for my apartment and my employer has allready started offshoring work and treating it's local employees as dead weight.
Most of you will get bitch-slapped by the oh-so-wonderful invisible hand of capitalism sooner or later. You are not special. You, too, are disposable.

Re:Global worker rights

[Anonymous Coward]

... and to state the bleeding obvious - labour is
a cost to be minimised in the capitalist world;
capitalism favours wealth creation through
investment at the expense of wealth creation through
toil - if you're unable to prosper in such a system
(ie, you are time-rich but wealth-poor) you're
screwed, for now; welcome to the brave new world.

Re:Global worker rights

[kfg]

Of course I'm disposable. I'm a middle aged man whose parents were disposed of and who has been disposed of himself on a number of occasions.

I knew I was disposable before I began to "play the game" in my early teens and never expected anything else.

I'm sorry if you had to learn that the hard way, but then most do I'm afraid.

There are no silver bullets, under any system. Learning to take care of yourself is your best option. I mean that literally. Learn as many skills as you can that can be applied to directly taking care of yourself; and learn as many skills as you can trade as an independent.

If you rely on the corporate welfare systems as a worker ant you will suffer the fate of all unneeded worker ants.

Learn to throw pots, fix bicycles, build cabinets and mow lawns. Don't go into debt for anything you can't pay with a month's "disposable" income.

Most of all get the hell out of the software industry. It's a house of cards.

I'm dead serious.

KFG

Re:Global worker rights

[Anonymous Coward]

wrong. yes we all need to servive. but this isn`t a "john lennon" world where we all can sing "imagine". it might sound warm and fuzzy but it won`t happen. when you speak global economy your really pushing for social engineers who want to create a world governemt or so-called-utopia.
your statements are still wrong never the less.
jobs lost do not return unless thier is something to replace them with. we could debate over cycles and trends shaped buy tech industry and science, but that isn`t the crux of the issue. like many people, including the /. geeks, they think the world is shaped buy man`s will and the sweat of his brow. wrong! man has nothing to do with it.

in order for me to prove this it takes a very different way of looking at things. first you have to want the truth more than what you believe is truth or what others claim to be true. second you have to see man for what he isn`t. man is not a god, if you were living in the days of rome this would cost you your life if you dared to speak it.
man cannot change himself or make himself better. that`s right, despite what a yogi, guru, shaman, and "other" spirtial guides will say... "man" cannot change "himself" of human nature. has man stopped killing? no! has man stopped his lust for what is not his? no! do people still steal? yes! do people still cheat and lie? yes! rape? murder? yes! and yes!. get the point? this statement is a clue to what i`m trying to say... " human nature does not change, for man does not learn from history he only repeats it".

money is not the answer to man`s problems nor will a global economy bring about a better world.
do you think bill gates is really happy with all that loot? hardly, he could have all the money in the world and he still wouldn`t be any better for it. too bad he hasn`t learned it yet. you won`t find the answer to man`s problems from man he doesn`t have the answer. the answer is in the Bible. but don`t take my word for it find out for yourself. but, you have to want the truth.

Re:Global worker rights

[NineNine]

What in the fuck does this ridiculous babble have to do with the parent post? Why doees it seem that no anti-capitalist can think for themselves, and instead just regurgitate meaningless crap that they've heard elsewhere? Hell, just tell me what this silly trip means and I'll be happy. "liege lord"?? What in the fuck are you talking about, kid?

Re:Global worker rights

[Anonymous Coward]

even if the u.s. wanted to enact anti-outsourcing legislation, it can't. the provisions of the world trade organization and the soon-to-be-ratified multilateral agreement on investment explicitly prohibit this sort of legislation.

Why not? Did they sign a treaty forbidding them from breaking treaties too now? Nothing's stopped them in the past.

Re:Global worker rights

[kfg]

The Fall of Rome

A Screenplay by KFG

Act 1: Scene 1

Fade in: The gates of Rome, circa 400.

The scene: A Roman citizen stands with the group of Centurians charged with guarding the gate, all of whom are actually of Germanic origin.

Zoom in. Tight shot on the citizen.

Roman Citizen: Barbarians at the gate? You got me out of bed to show me barbarians at the gate? Well I don't see any barbarians at the bloody gate! I'm going back to bed.

Zoom out.

Fin

And we do mean Fin.

Don't worry, you won't feel a thing. You're going to die in your sleep.

KFG

Re:Global worker rights

[kfg]

Well, for starters, I'm talking pro capitalism.

Everyone else is charging me with being a global economy capitalist tool.

Go figure.

KFG

Re:Global worker rights

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Of course, the US has no qualms about breaking treaties. The problem with WTO treaties though, is that there is a well-defined (and often used) mechanism for dealing with countries that violate them. ie, no one else trades with them in that particular market. Usually very effective!

Re:Global worker rights

[Azureash]

I have a better solution, only allow services/products to be sold in the United States that are produced in accordance with US environmental and occupational regulations (including paying workers at least comparable to our minimum wage.) With this approach there would be no need to enforce our laws in other countries, just put controls locally over American and international corporations. Let Nike employ children for 18 hour days or dump waste in the rivers, they just won't be able to sell their goods over here.

Given the amount of corporate cheating in the US (price fixing, industry agreements, shared lobbyists, etc.) it should be obvious that we don't have a free market, but rather a rigged race to the bottom. If corporations are allowed to continue to move work overseas to avoid government controls, jobs will continue to be lost. As unemployment (or underemployment) rises, who is going to have money to buy their goods and services???

Those of you who claim this will all balance out are right. Unfortunately, it will balance out at the bottom. US labor (skilled or otherwise) will be attractive to corporations when we are willing to work 18+ hour days with no job security or health benefits. Want to see the so-called "Free Market" in action? Check out the brutal competition in places like Thailand.

And to those of you who claim that we just need to "adapt" as we did to the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs - why don't you go ahead and name some jobs that are safe from eventual outsourcing. Corporations have proven that they are willing to outsource any position that is economically feasible. The only jobs that appear safe (at least in the short term) are service jobs. It's just too bad that a service economy can't support itself.

Wake up, the current situation is not natural or healthy. It's also not a case of one country over another, but rather the have's versus the have-not's. And don't flatter yourself, if you're don't own a 100 foot yacht (registered off-shore to avoid US taxes, of course) you're a have-not.

Re:Global worker rights

[ebh]

how do you pay workers if there are no profits?

It's not that there should be no profit. It's that the profit should be distributed fairly, not just handed to a few people at the top.

When I worked for Novell 10 years ago, a poster on the wall summed it up nicely:

Our Priorities

1. Customers first
2. Employees second
3. Shareholders third

Keep that in mind and it makes you think really hard before firing your current people in order to hire cheap labor somewhere else.

Re:Global worker rights

[NDPTAL85]

It doesn't matter if Western wages fall as long as the prices of goods fall even faster. And they are.

Re:Global worker rights

[0111 1110]

Most of all get the hell out of the software industry. It's a house of cards.
I'm dead serious

Well said. I believe property values are at least partially responsible for this. How can a worker who must pay $800/month in rent for even the smallest apartment compete with one who need only spend $30/month?

How can a worker who must pay at least $200,000 for a house and then at least $300/month in property taxes compete with one who can buy a house for $5000 and pay no property taxes?

Differences in other cost of living factors like food, water, and electricity are less important but can become significant in closely competing countries.

I guess the moral of this is that any country that wants to compete for this kind of thought-labor or cyber-laber had better start thinking about its cost of living inflation.

This issue is not one that workers in the building trades (for instance) are too worried about because their jobs cannot be shipped overseas. They are also often protected by union and licensing schemes which limit competition even *within* their own countries.

Of course their high wages are one of the reasons that housing is so expensive in such countries. So I see a circular pattern developing here. The bottom line is that, short of some Draconian labor legislation, those of us in high cost of living countries who would like at least some hope of not having to live in a tent deep in the woods somewhere or in a homeless shelter, had better start thinking about professions that do not face world competition, at least not in such a direct form.

Re:Global worker rights

[0111 1110]

I don't know what country you live in, but in my country the cost of housing has consistently increased (by at least 5%) every year for at least the past 14 years and is showing no signs of slowing down any time soon. How is cheap foreign labor going to help with this?

It may amuse some countries to see the citizens of most first world countries squatting in the streets because they can't afford a place to live on world wages, but I won't be too happy about it. Other than housing costs, however, I would tend to agree with your premise. Wages are always relative to what you can buy with them.

I haven't noticed this prices-falling-faster-than-wages phenomenon you refer to though. While the prices of some goods have fallen, mostly due to Chinese labor, the prices of most non-technological goods seem unaffected. I have not seen any drop in basic cost of living goods. If anything the cost of food, electricity, water etc have increased.

I don't know how much I'm going to enjoy my new $5 70" plasma HDTV television with Blueray DVD player (built by 10 year old kids in Port Moresby being paid in fishing hooks) while living in a tent on public land. Where am I going to plug it in?

Re:Global worker rights

[SerpentMage]

I actually agree with you on this. I would extend this and not just say the US, but Western Society (North America and Europe) in general has to change.

The problem we face is that India and China have so much capacity in terms of human resources that there is NOW WAY whatsoever to compete against them. Lets be very real here. Combined India and China has 2.75 billion people. Western Society has maybe 750 million? Sorry, but we do not stand a chance here.

Our best solution is to get gripes with it and move on....

Re:Global worker rights

[rnd()]

A corporation is simply a way that a bunch of rugged individualists may organize themselves economically.

Things like corporate taxation create a divergence between the interests of the individual stakeholders and the corporate entity, since the corporation may find itself partially in the business of avoiding taxes, etc., as well as the perception that the corporation is anything more than an agreement between individuals intended to formalize apects of an agreement about economic activity.

Another negative side-effect of corporate taxation is that government becomes addicted to the proceeds, and burocrats offer tax incentives in exchange for favors, etc. This is a process that is deeply hidden from the view of consumers and stakeholders.

Re:Global worker rights

[rnd()]

You haven't offered any proof that the majority of workers are underpaid and exploited.

Are the workers slaves? Are they being forced to work? If the answer is no, then they are not being exploited, they are merely securing for themselves the best employment out of all of the available options.

If a nation is unstable politically, few firms will want to invest in it for fear that their holdings will be nationalized or that war will break out. If a nation has a bunch of unskilled workers, firms may be hesitant to make the initial investment if they fear that protectionist trade policies abroad will make the market evaporate.

The key to moving in the direction of 100% free trade is in building an understanding among people (workers) that it always benefits them in the long run. Rather than pandering to unions, politicians should be inspiring people to obtain skills in new and growing industries.

Re:Global worker rights

[Best ID Ever!]

Other than housing costs, however, I would tend to agree with your premise. Wages are always relative to what you can buy with them.

Housing isn't some magical thing that is exempt from the laws of supply and demand. Prices will always reflect what people are willing and able to pay.

Re:Global worker rights

[0111 1110]

But the supply of housing is relatively fixed. It cannot (or at least does not) increase nearly as quickly as the demand. Population increases constantly, and the supply of housing doesn't seem to be keeping pace. You can't "manufacture" more land. Property values did dip once around 1990 or so, but it's been rising skyward ever since at an incredible rate. Real estate is considered one of the safest investments there is.

Re:Global worker rights

[akb]

First thanks for your comments. This is one of the best threads I've seen on /. for a long time.

That's why I find it interesting that capitalists are all in favour of a global (capitalist) economy. But they never explain what is going to happen. I claim that Western wages will have to be dragged down significantly but capitalists don't think so...

Actually capitalists don't get wages, their capital does their work for them. Wages are for those that don't have any ownership.

Capitalists have no national allegiance, so they don't care if wages go down in one place. They will set up shop in a nation temporarily if it means they can use it as a tool to gain power.

Re:Global worker rights

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Are the workers slaves? Are they being forced to work? If the answer is no, then they are not being exploited, they are merely securing for themselves the best employment out of all of the available options.

By your definition, there is no such thing as exploitation of workers! If workers work, they are not exploited; if they don't work, they are not workers.

Exploitation has to do with what people (or society) perceives are immoral or wrong. Just because someone works in a field doesn't mean they are not exploited. For example, prostitutes suffer great harm (not all of them of course). They are constantly beaten up, raped, and so forth. Nevertheless, they still do it. I am guessing YOU would NOT consider them to be exploited, while most people (including the prostitutes themselves) consider themsleves exploited.

The key to moving in the direction of 100% free trade is in building an understanding among people (workers) that it always benefits them in the long run.

I just love capitalists and their logic. Let me just say it once: what you are saying does not benefit THE worker, although it may benefit A worker. Try to figure out what that means...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Global worker rights

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I don't know how much I'm going to enjoy my new $5 70" plasma HDTV television with Blueray DVD player (built by 10 year old kids in Port Moresby being paid in fishing hooks) while living in a tent on public land.

If the capitalists have their way, they will privatize everything so you won't even find any land to live on. Besides, "homeless" people like you will likely be in jail, if not worse.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Global worker rights

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

It doesn't matter if Western wages fall as long as the prices of goods fall even faster. And they are.

Can you back that up? I don't think prices have fallen more than wages over the long term in any country in modern history (not counting periods of wars, revolutions, etc).

Without doing any research, I think price of goods don't really fall that much over a sizeable period of time. Certain goods may fall but many won't. For example, technology product costs may have decreased a lot but these are a small component of a person's cost of living. The main costs are housing, food, and energy (heating & gasoline). None of these ever decrease. I'm guessing that a 50% increase in housing costs will put thousands of people on the street, and a 50% increase in energy costs will bankrupt economies and start wars.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Global worker rights

[rnd()]

If someone is working as a prostitute, and he/she could be earning less money doing something with fewer risks, then he or she is choosing voluntarily to subject him/herself to risks in order to earn a higher wage.

As long as it's voluntary, there is nothing wrong with it. It's interesting that you bring up prostitution, a profession so "reprehensible" that it has been made illegal in a lot of places, but yet it still offers so much appeal to certain people that they willingly break the law in order to work in the industry. To some people, earning a higher wage is worth a great deal of risks. I include in this category people who work on skyscrapers, race car drivers, deep sea divers, etc. Are all of these people exploited just because their job is dangerous? Shouldn't people be able to choose a job that matches both their salary requirements and their risk tolerance?

I think that if people started realizing that protectionist trade policies are identical to a tax on everyone and a welfare check distributed to workers in a particular industry.

To make my views clear, I think that unions are a good thing, so long as membership isn't required. Unions help to organize workers into a unit that can engage in collective bargaining and can help to equalize the market power of firms and employees. When membership is required, however, those who would voluntarily do without union benefits in exchange for work (in the case of a strike) are left without that choice.

Sure, protectionist trade policies may benefit a handful of workers, but they're no different from giving that handful of workers immunity from prosecution for bank robbery, and then helping them stage a heist.

Non-free trade may benefit a few workers in a particular industry, however

Re:Global worker rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people have mentioned the National Security issues with outsourcing code development for the gov. and also this applies to private companies as well. Any situation where a foreigner could put a back door in software that might be used at an American Company, Their clients or the GOV or even just by normal American Citizens can be arguably stopped from being outsourced based on the fact that it's too much of a national security risk.

When it comes to national security , trade and business takes the back position.

If in deed anyone wanted to put restrictions on outsourcing. NO world organization or any body of what ever can tell us anything, because they don't have our best interest at heart.

I think its just foreigners trying to run and scramble to keep the US dollars rolling in that are posting this kind of fluff.
We can do what ever we see feasible when it comes to survival of our nation , our economy and our national security.

I mean who else can get away with retaliating against a completely seperate country for act committed by someone in another country. And wrap it all up in a neat little bundle called "The War on Terrorism."

You're talking about the UNITED STATES HERE.
It's obvious we can do what we want.

Free Trade

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't free in america.

Re:Free Trade

[ackthpt]

Yeah? Let's see how you like it when witty postings like yours can be sent in by a PhD from IIT and you have to stand in line to make your monthly posting on alt.angst because nobody is left to hear or care about your whining.

Re:Free Trade

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you are angry that people smarter than you got your job.

Re:Free Trade

[duffbeer703]

At least the IIT people are legitimate replacements for western workers.

Too many Indians get their "degrees" from diploma mills or by openly cheating. Their rates are so cheap that letting them learn on the job is still somewhat cost-effective.

Re:Free Trade

[Anonymous Coward]

Same story as always, america wants free unfettered access to everyone elses markets, and when the new competition kicks you in the face, you all cry like a bunch of punk assed bitches. "Oh the cars from japan are too cheap, why can't we compete, we only pay the JANITOR at Ford 47 bucks an hour, it just doesn't make sense".

All of these deals have a big plus side for the US, or else they would not be signed in the first place. Do not delude yourselves, do you really think that the US does ANYTHING just to be the good guy, please. It just sucks when the whores sometimes kick the pimps in the nuts. Grab an ice pack, there are a few more on the way.

I have read so many comment (here and elsewhere) about just "pulling out of the free trade agreements", guess what, it wouldn't bother the rest of us a bit...

Re:Free Trade

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on your definition of America ... for most people it's only North America. That said, doesn't Intel have a plant in Central America??

Re:Free Trade

[kikai suki]

Feedom is for corporations.

Re:Free Trade

[eliza_effect]

Is this a racist assumption or just xenophobia? I would be willing to bet that there are just as many Americans with diploma mill "qualifications." Living in the Bay Area, I assume I'm a bit more sensitive to this sort of talk than others might be, but just because it's so prevalent here, and it's terrible. If someone keeps their job, they're obviously doing something right. If they are as incompetant as you assume, they would most likely be fired rather quickly. If there's anything that's unfair about the situation, I'd say it's the fact that the offshore employees aren't getting due compensation.

Re:Free Trade

[Anonymous Coward]

How insightful, the poster of the parent is truly a god amongst men! Mod this genius up!

Re:Free Trade

[duffbeer703]

When you pay someone who risks deportation for quitting $35,000 for a job that typically pays $65-85k plus benefits, you can afford to expend more time training the employee.

Maybe my experience doesn't meet yours, but I have found that outsourced engineers have less experience and qualifications and much more difficulty communicating than the veteran employees that they replaced.

That's a sentiment that many people here share and is not Xenophobia or racism.

Re:Free Trade

[eliza_effect]

Maybe my experience doesn't meet yours, but I have found that outsourced engineers have less experience and qualifications and much more difficulty communicating than the veteran employees that they replaced. That's a sentiment that many people here share and is not Xenophobia or racism. You're totally correct, your experiences of underqualified, outsourced engineers isn't racism. Too many Indians get their "degrees" from diploma mills or by openly cheating. Assuming that an entire people from a geographic region are generally underqualified, or less skilled is however, racist and/or xenophobic.

Re:Free Trade

[mabhatter654]

Just realize that that "janitor" making "$47" per hour is really the only job left making steady wages over time. The few powerful unions are the only ones that actually KEPT up with inflation [generated by playing the stock market!] over the last 30 years. What you should be asking is why average American wages are 9-15 per hour. While the corps make record profits of ..Billions!

Like you said, the "deal" is that US corps, not citizens, are reaping the profits of "Free Trade" After all, they can shut out all their american workers, but still post record profits for the american & forign stockholders. What's not to like (for them)

Re:Free Trade

[Anonymous Coward]

According to an H1B IIT Grad former collegue (very sharp guy), you can buy a degree on the street over there and get an 'american' programming job (either local or H1B).

American HR departments are of course not equipped to check these degrees and the bodyshop firm doesn't really care as long as they can bill.

Obviously he wasn't particuarly happy about that situation because he was in competition with these phonys.

Re:Free Trade

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's not about people from India being underqualified, it's about a labor import system using H1B type visa that is being milked by mafia like organisations. They are skimping off thousands per import worker. The issue is pretty well documented as a cursory google would tell you. The impression we're left with is that the indian workers here are underqualified.

Then again they sometimes replace people who have 20 years or more of experience. It's hard not to be underqualified compared to them.

Wow.

[Sevn]

Good posting Michael. Even though you seem to have this band of traveling yoddelers that follow you around bitching about your posts, I appreciate this one. Anything having to do with job outsourcing is timely and topical as far as I'm concerned. Thanks.

Re:Wow.

[BroncoInCalifornia]

Interesting comments about the U.S. patent system slowing innovation!

"Grove also criticized the nation's overburdened patent system, which he said is causing an abundance of innovation-slowing litigation.

"He said that the inability of patent examiners to handle the workload has led to a backlog of important applications, but also less than thorough vetting of patents that perhaps should not be granted. "

Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

As an Indian, i'd like remind people: Almost all nobel awards in scientific fields went to Americans... The "threat" from India and China is wildly exaggerated.

Re:Seriously

[Drakon]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha ha
(mod parent funny, if you're willing to waste mod points on idiots who don't bother to sign in)

Re:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobel Prize = awarded to one person every year.

Outsourcing = millions of jobs lost every year.

Gee, what effects the average person more? Losing your job, or your country "losing" the Nobel Prize?

I'll take a million Nobel Prize losses over a lay off.

And P.S, the last Nobel Prize went to a Middle Eastern female lawyer.

Re:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to get your ass back to the stop-n-rob bitch.
Before WE go "British" on your fucking no
shower stinking brown shit skins.
You can be conquered.

Gandi, give that fucker a sandwich.

Re:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

The british know how to keep those darkies in line.

Re:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

cracker.. british got class. u got crass. and american asswipes dont even wash.

Interesting

[CooCooCaChoo]

People want lower prices, better pay and competition. Now these same people complain when they lose their job.

Re:Interesting

[NanoGator]

"People want lower prices, better pay and competition. Now these same people complain when they lose their job."

What's so interesting about that? It's not ironic, if that's what you're implying. It's kind of hard for businesses to sell products if the people who buy them are unemployed.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be willing to pay more, if it would do some good. But as things stand, paying more is just going to lead to more profits for the corporation involved.

This is a downward spiral, and I don't know what it is going to take to get out of it. The management of these companies are not looking at the long term survival of their businesses, the only thing that matters is the numbers at the end of the month, quarter or year.

Re:Interesting

[GoofyBoy]

What is interesting about that?

Can't we have lower prices, better pay, competition without losing our jobs?

Why not?

Re:Interesting

[mpechner]

We can't compete. That is the problem. They get $550/month in india.

Re:Interesting

[AvantLegion]

>> Can't we have lower prices, better pay, competition without losing our jobs?

Where exactly is the money going to come from?

Are you one of those people that gets surprised that the cost of goods goes up and college kids get laid off when the minimum wage gets hiked up?

Re:Interesting

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Can't we have lower prices, better pay, competition without losing our jobs?

Not under capitalism... Note: I'm speaking about the short-term (in the long-term it is possible for prices to be lowered while wages increase)

Why not?

Because competition will necessarily mean that wages are lowered to the minimum possible. So, as long as the VAST MAJORITY of the workers in the world are paid very little (i.e. less than $10/day), those will be the wages that are paid. The only reason wages are higher in the Western world is because of socialist, interventionist policies of the past. You remove all of those and the wages will plummet. For example, if you remove the minium wage in say USA, I am sure many companies will get away with paying a lot less.

The ultimate point in all this is, as Karl Marx once said, owners (capitalists) and workers (proletariat) have differing goals. The owners want to pay the LOWEST wages possible and make the employees work LONGER, while the employees want the HIGHEST wages and want to work LESS. This is a conflict that cannot be resolved under capitalism. As I mentioned before, socialist policies (like minimum wage, tariffs, subsidies, etc), along with nationalism, colonialism, and imperialism, are what kept wages high in the past.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Interesting

[laird]

Historically, before the minimum wage is raised companies make dramatic statements about how the government would force them to fire lots of workers, and then after the minimum wage is raised nothin happens (except that the workers with the crappiest jobs get paid a bit more).

Re:Interesting

[Brandybuck]

They get $550/month in india.

Today they do. But what about tomorrow? The current fad of offshoring is creating a huge demand for IT workers in India. Their wages go up. Soon they'll be making $60+K a year just like us. And then their bubble will burst just like ours, when the corps decide to outsource somewhere cheaper.

Re:Interesting

[kcbrown]

Today they do. But what about tomorrow? The current fad of offshoring is creating a huge demand for IT workers in India. Their wages go up.

And as soon as that happens to a sufficient degree, the corporations will just shift their demand for labor elsewhere, thus causing the Indian economy to drop. I doubt they'll get anywhere near $60+K/year before that happens.

Re:Interesting

[moebius_4d]

I see that you are one of the last surviving pure Marxists. Marx makes a good read, I'll grant you. But he's no more persuasive as an economic scientist that an old John Campbell editorial. Why? Because his theory makes assumptions and predictions, and the predictions haven't come true. Even if the reasoning looks very good, something is wrong. That something is the assumptions.

In particular Marx makes assumptions about human nature, both under capitalism and under his projected new order, that have been demonstrated to be false. And since economics is the study of human behavior in the aggregate, that pretty well sinks the ship.

As far as your notion that "this is a conflict that cannot be resolved under capitalism," well, of course, because for it to be "resolved" in the sense you appear to mean, at least one of the two sides would need to act against their own interests. As in, I want the bread for free and he wants all my money. The resolution we have is called a supply-demand curve, which is how a free market in anything sets prices.

But your notion that all thiese things can be fixed under socialism still lacks a working example anywhere in the world. Why? Because the same human nature that makes the owner of a factory act like he does, make the leader of the state factory council act like he does. One of them tries to increase production to make more money. The other tries to increase production to satisfy his superiors and to get a promotion. Once you put a human with human motives in charge, they act the same. At least the factory owner won't run without maintenance and ruin all his machine tools 20 years early, like the socialist will. By then, it'll be someone else problem, right? Tragedy of the commons.

Re:Interesting

[letxa2000]

Except prices up a little faster than they otherwise would, causing inflation to increase just a little more, causing every company in the country to be pressured to raise their employees' salaries just a little bit more to compensate for that added cost of living. No, a minor adjustment to the minimum wage every few years isn't going to cause the sky to fall, but obviously it has an effect.

Simply do a graph. If we plot the current minimum wage and number of people employed on the graph, then set an arbitrary minimum wage of $100/hr and the number of people employed we have our two extremes. There is a curve on the graph that connects those and, yes, increasing the minimum wage costs jobs. Otherwise we would just pass a $1000/hr minimum wage law and we could all retire after 2 or 3 years.

You can't legislate prosperity. The only thing a minimum wage can and should do is protect the absolute low-end of the workforce from gross exploitation. It's to avoid sweatshops. It is NOT to make sure that an employee at McDonald's can afford a car, a 27" color TV, cable, and still have money left over for a vacation in Cancun. Those that strive for such goods will have to educate themselves, work hard, get ahead, and start leapfrog into better jobs. The fact that McDonald's doesn't provide a sufficient income to live as well as most people want should be MOTIVATION for these people to better themselves.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

No word on CEO income or upper management. Or the other 500 things with have a more direct influence on inflation other then minimum wage. Fictional numbers (for the most part), extortion and a form of economic terrorism.

heh...

Re:Interesting

[twistedcubic]

Marx makes a good read, I'll grant you. But he's no more persuasive as an economic scientist that an old John Campbell editorial. Why? Because his theory makes assumptions and predictions, and the predictions haven't come true.

Are you kidding? The current state of global capitalism is exactly what Marx predicted. Your little strawman arguments/examples don't prove anything.

Re:Interesting

[rollingcalf]

"We can't compete. That is the problem. They get $550/month in india."

Programmer salaries are just one part of the equation -- and in India the programmer salaries make up a minor part of it. Indian office real estate is no cheaper than in the US ... in fact, places like New Delhi and Mumbai are just as expensive as New York and Boston. In America they might spend 20% of your salary to give you a cubicle and its related infrastructure; in India they spend 200% of the programmer's salary for that. That's why the offshore firms charge in the region of $30-$40 per hour, which dwarves the $550/month salary the programmers get.

Re:Interesting

[moebius_4d]

Maybe you'd like to go into a bit more detail about what you mean. It's very well to say what you have, but it's quite unclear. You mean that the socialist revolution is already over? Or, you mean that capitalists continue to tread the inevitable cycle that Marx predicted? (The latter theory will have to explain things like free public schools and libraries, progressive income tax, etc. - things which Marx claims capitalism will not produce, and things he calls for in the Communist Manifesto).

And my example isn't a straw man at all. It's a simple fact. People complain about CEOs doing this and that terrible thing. Well, they don't have the power of the State behind them. I'd just as soon keep all this power spread out to as many hands as possible. Because history reveals human nature to have certain common traits, and it's a rare person who comes to power with a self-mastery that exceeds the power of our nature.

So, are you really willing to defend your assertion?

Re:Interesting

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I see that you are one of the last surviving pure Marxists. Marx makes a good read, I'll grant you.

I'm glad that you give Marx SOME credit :)

Because his theory makes assumptions and predictions, and the predictions haven't come true.

Modern economics, which is nothing more than capitalist economics, makes a lot of assumptions that aren't true either. As a matter of fact, modern economics is almost next to useless. So many of the assumptions are so wrong that you can't predict some of the key aspects of (capitalist) economics. Examples include inability to predict stock markets to any degree of accuracy (eg. prices are not what they are SUPPOSED to be), unable to explain certain recessions and deflations (eg. can't explain Japan; I also read that Milton Friedman, one of the Gods of capitalism, cannot seem to explain why Argentina is in the mess it is), inability to explain high compensation (eg. economists don't know why corporations pay large amounts to executives--I'm not making this up), etc. The (capitalist) economics that you worship is even worse than Marx's views. At least his views are 150 years old; yours are not even 50 years old and they are already false for the most part.

And since economics is the study of human behavior in the aggregate, that pretty well sinks the ship.

Since modern day economics is run by a bunch of fools and has very litle to do with SOCIAL SCIENCE, your comments are meaningless. For instance, modern-day economics does not price pollution or other environmental issues, it doesn't consider the impact on workers, etc.

As in, I want the bread for free and he wants all my money. The resolution we have is called a supply-demand curve, which is how a free market in anything sets prices.

The supply/demand curve is not a solution; it is simply a description of certain events. It is basic economics and have nothing to do with capitalism. A solution would involved ALTERING the supply/demand curves one way or another. In addition, the problem I mentioned has less to do with supply/demand and more to do with allocation of profits/benefits. For example, if the employees owned a corporation, it would solve SOME problems and would not impact the supply/demand stuff.

One of them tries to increase production to make more money. The other tries to increase production to satisfy his superiors and to get a promotion. Once you put a human with human motives in charge, they act the same.

There is a solution to that issue. Unfortunately, it wasn't achieved. What doomed Communism, along with totalitarian Stalinism, is that they never reached an egalitarian state. In other words, you HAD to have a society that was CLASSLESS. In practical terms, each person should have been paid similar wages (adjusting for a bunch of issues like transporation costs, difficulty, desirability, etc). The so-called Communists never got there. Instead of having an elistist society with many classes like capitalism, you ended up with two classes: Party members and non-Party members. You either belonged to the so-called Communist Party or you didn't. Those that did ended up receiving more benefits and power. This was the root problem with the Communism that were attempted. The Party members ended up abusing everyone except themselves. Hence, the so-called Communism wasn't egalitarian--a prerequisite for communism--and instead was an elistist system, no different than the capitalism, monarchy, or colonialism it tried to vanquish.

At least the factory owner won't run without maintenance and ruin all his machine tools 20 years early, like the socialist will. By then, it'll be someone else problem, right?

That is irrelevant and doesn't really mean much. Other people above have commented that this is true even under capitalism. I want to make another point. Capitalism still harms society but in the opposite of what you are saying. Under capitalism, people O

Re:Interesting

[sniggly]

His (Marx's) crisis & concentration theory seems to be in full effect. Also if you want to see a working example of socialism you wont find it but you will find an interesting balance between capitalism and socialism in pretty much every european country.

Marx is mostly bollox. Socialism is contrary to what I feel is optimal to human nature because it makes complaining whiners out of people. The happy workers paradise sounds like it would be the end of history and of evolution.

Re:Interesting

[mpechner]

They are scared. Some jobs are moving to China and former Soviet union. Even better inefficiencies. Catigorically the absolute worse programmers I have ever worked with are former russian nuclear physicists.

Re:Interesting

[bj8rn]

Under capitalism, people ONLY CARE about their OWN property

Whereas, in the case of socialism/communism, everything belongs to the state, therefore to nobody, so nobody cares about it (those who are in power don't care, as everything belongs to the people? I dunno, but they don't care, that's a fact.).

So, things like pollution and illegal waste disposal are FAR WORSE under capitalism.

No kidding? Have you been to Chernobyl lately? Or swimming in the Aral sea (should be renamed Arid, as there's not much of it left)? OK, maybe these examples are a bit too drastic, but there's no way that there's less pollution under communist rule. Reason - just the same as in the case of factories and other non-private property. Almost nobody cares about the environment.

<cynical> Socialism, in the form seen in the 20th century, would theoretically do the environment some good, too. I mean, it'd be just the right thing to use against overpopulation...</cynical>

Re:Interesting

[TopShelf]

In the big picture, however, it is only a small fraction of the workforce that is losing their jobs, while better pricing and competition benefit consumers as a whole. That's the same tired line that manufacturing workers have rolled out for decades, yet the US economy is still the strongest in the world...

Re:Interesting

[0111 1110]

Capitalism (market economics) really does work better than any other "system". In fact, strictly speaking, there really isn't anything else that could even be described as a "system". That's not to say that capitalism is all that great, but it's a hell of a lot better than the alternatives (no system at all). If you know of a better way, by all means share.

Wages are just another price, the price of what an employer (anyone who pays anyone to do anything) must pay to to obtain the services of another person. So, yes, in any economy (capitalist or not) everyone will try to get the most goods/services for the least amount of money. The supply of labor, especially unskilled labor, tends to be quite high mostly due to the inherent difficulties in setting up one's own business.

A minimum wage is just a form of price fixing, with all the same results that price fixing has on any good. Rent control is another example of this kind of simplistic economic thinking.

When the market price is lower than the fixed price, buyers will simply purchase less than they otherwise would. In the case of the price of labor, this just means that the government prices those few who might have sold their labor for less out of the market entirely. All you have to do to see this is to imagine what would happen if the minimum wage were raised to a much higher level. Obviously, employers would simply make do with fewer workers.

The reason the price of labor is so high in the US has nothing to do with price fixing. Labor is just another supply and demand based commodity. There are simply more jobs in the US per capita than in many other countries. There is no magic as to why the US, which like India, is just another ex-British colony, has done so well economically. Historically, it has been easier to start and run businesses in the US than elsewhere due to a relative lack of taxes and regulations.

The US historically (not so much anymore) had a very Laissez Faire approach to economics. In fact, the colonial British-Americans started a war precisely because they felt they were taxed and regulated too heavily.

The Marxist employee/employer conflict you speak of always occurs in any economy. It is the same conflict that any buyer/seller pair experiences. Haven't you ever haggled for anything?

Socialist policies are precisely the reason that most other countries have done so poorly, why they were playing catchup to the US for so many years. Do you think that socialist policies are the reason that the US is so rich, and, say, Uganda, is so poor? The US was a colony too. You don't see the US blaming the British for everything that goes wrong.

The reason is that it used to be relatively easy to start and run a business in the US. Of course, now the US is mostly living off the momentum of the past. Every year the government makes it more and more difficult for individuals to start and run their own businesses. Everyone will have more or less no choice but to be an employee of some mega-corporation with lobbyists who can afford to buy the right legislation.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

What an absolutely arrogant statement..

Ever heard of Alex Stepanov? The guy who invented STL? FYI: he's a Russian.

Re:Interesting

[AvantLegion]

The problem with minimum wage hikes is that it rapes small, local business.

People in their ivory towers of idealism do not recognize that there are millions of businesses that are NOT big brutes like a Microsoft or an IBM or any other big corporation. Many of these businesses operate on razor-thin profit margins. The idealists don't get that. Business is just built up in their mind as this monolithic entity that has all the money. Many businesses are far from that.

I've known small businessmen that have been forced to hike their prices because minimum wage hikes would quite simply force them into the red - and eventually out of business. And then those college kids are out of work, and must wait for another pizza place to come in and take that building and offer those jobs again.

IBM and Microsoft don't hire minimum wage workers. Hiking the minimum wage hurts the businesses that employ them. It's one thing to make minor adjustments every few years to keep minimum wage from becoming too low. However, the so-called "politicians for the people" hike minimum wage beyond that, like they're champions for the common man. They champion them right out of a job.

Re:Interesting

[voiceofthewhirlwind]

That's the same tired line that manufacturing workers have rolled out for decades, yet the US economy is still the strongest in the world...

So the efforts of the manufacturing workers to protect their jobs is good then, because we have a strong economy as a result?

Re:Interesting

[TopShelf]

Quite the contrary - the manufacturing workers were wrong (in terms of the overall economy). Lowered trade barriers have greatly boosted international trade and economic growth over the last two decades.

If you'd listened to the likes of Ross Perot back in 1992, however, you'd think that by now unemployment would be 20% or something after NAFTA. As it turns out, they were flat-out wrong.

Re:Interesting

[laird]

"People in their ivory towers of idealism do not recognize that there are millions of businesses that are NOT big brutes like a Microsoft or an IBM or any other big corporation. Many of these businesses operate on razor-thin profit margins."

Missed my point by a mile. While companies like to complain about the terrible impact of giving their cheapest workers a querter an hour raise, the reality is that companies pay people because they get work done. If the pizza place fires workers because they cost $3.20 a day more (the last minimum wage increase, in 1997, was 40 cents an hour), they'll lose sales because they won't be able to make or deliver as much pizza. So despite the predictions of doom before every minimum wage increase, business just raise their prices trivially, and keep all of their employees, because that's the only rational business strategy. Personally, I'm pretty happy if a pizza place charges 5 cents a pizza more, and gives it employees a better wage.

"It's one thing to make minor adjustments every few years to keep minimum wage from becoming too low." The actual value of the minimum wage has dropped dramatically since 1965. All of the actual data, as well as some nice graphics, are at http://qrc.depaul.edu/arogers/InstructorTemplate/A ctivities/Activity08.htm. It's a pretty good class exercise. Anyway, based on the data, the minimum wage would have to increase by almost $3 an hour to break even with the minimum wage in 1965. I assume, based on your statements, that you'd be supporting that?

I just wrote abou this in my LiveJournal:

[kaybi]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/kayfox/33472.html :

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/08/11/trainin g.replacements.ap/
US IT workers being assigned to training their Indian replacements.

http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2 002/08/26/daily56.html
Intel holds job fairs for "Redeployed" employess (continuing massive cuts in the US and massive hireing in India).

So, I guess Indians will be the next market for Intel processors, considering Intel is trying pretty hard on its part to leave nobody in the US that can afford them.

Well, that pretty much goes for the entire US economy, in this recession, workers are being laid off due to a lack of sales, creating a larger group of people that cannot afford their products, or even afford living.

How many times can executives say "its not my problem" until it is their problem?

Re:I just wrote abou this in my LiveJournal:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off.

Really.

Re:I just wrote abou this in my LiveJournal:

[Skyshadow]

Well, that pretty much goes for the entire US economy, in this recession, workers are being laid off due to a lack of sales, creating a larger group of people that cannot afford their products, or even afford living.

I made this arguement to a senior manager of mine a while ago -- we're a health insurance company, and I pointed out that if we were to spend a few million to lobby and get heavy tarrifs passed on outsourced labor, the number of new customers we'd gain/save in the next few years would *far* outweigh the money we save outsourcing our QA (and we don't save that much... We would save some money if it didn't need to be re-QA'ed in the States, but that ain't the way it works in reality).

He didn't get it. Why? Because he couldn't see past the next quarter's budget. Asshat.

Re:I just wrote abou this in my LiveJournal:

[kaybi]

My roomate was one of those laid off at Intel, it now takes 3 people at Intel's Aloha, Oregon Campus to do his job (Software QA Engineer). He is now having to work two minimum wage jobs (18 years experience, 7 at Intel, and thats all he can get) to afford living, and ironicly, he now makes just a hair shy of what he was making at Intel, and has less work hours than at Intel.

The Portland area economy is in the dumps, people cant get jobs because they are "overqualified," I would gladly work at Comcast Cable, but Im "overqualified" to man a phone for 8 hours a day and answer people's questons about cable TV.

Thankfully it looks like Ill be working at ACS (formerly Cyberrep) as either a Boost Mobile or Nextel rep.

- Kay

Re:I just wrote abou this in my LiveJournal:

[duffbeer703]

Unfortunately, this just isn't true.

Since Japan's economy hit the shitter a few years ago, China has replaced it as the key creditor of the United States.

China maintains a fixed and unrealistic exchange rate with the United States to maintain a favorable trading relationship. This policy will end someday, which makes investing in anything but factories in China a dangerous proposition. So Chinese industrialists buy US Treasury securities.

When you pass heavy trade tariffs and start a trade war that convinces foreign investors to sell US securities, the Feds will have to print money to cover it's obligations and you'd probaly see your insurance company nationalized or out of business.

Re:I just wrote abou this in my LiveJournal:

[gonz]

I pointed out that if we were to spend a few million to lobby and get heavy tarrifs passed on outsourced labor, the number of new customers we'd gain/save in the next few years would *far* outweigh the money we save outsourcing our QA

You could also lobby the government to make it illegal for other American companies to compete with you. But this line of thinking is very selfish and nearsighted. In the long run, if overseas labor can solve problems cheaper than American labor, this is great for America. It means our companies will have more money left over to spend on other things, their products will be cheaper, etc.

Think about it this way: Suppose a Mexican company suddenly was able to offer a proprietary cell phone service to Americans which cost only a few pennies an hour. This would be great! Not only could everyone talk as long as they want, phone bills would be cut down to almost nothing. If you were paying $50/month, then suddenly you would be $50 richer and could buy pizza or some other good instead.

The only problem is that (under the constraints of this contrived example) a vocal group of American employees in the cell phone industry would be out of jobs. Or, at the very least, they would be assigned to other departments to work on something else. There would be a transitionary period where these people might have to learn new skills, in the same way that typewriter operators and COBOL programmers lost their jobs when something better came along.

But wait! What if we put a 10000% tariff on the Mexican cell phone service? Then nobody could save money by using it, and the market would be frozen, thus saving American jobs from being "stolen" by those damn foreigners!

But... this line of thinking is very selfish and nearsighted.

-Gonz

Re:I just wrote abou this in my LiveJournal:

[Anonymous Coward]

You are only looking at the money. There is far more at stake. I find it esp. worrisome when QA is outsourced. It's the camel getting its nose under the tent. In order for QA to do its job it requires complete technical competency about the task at hand. That usually requires further outsourcing/training to bring the outsourced technologists up-to-speed on your technology. How long will that continue until you soon find yourself competing in the global marketplace with those whom you once trained. They are now not only doing your QA for your but are able to produce and sell your product more cheaply than you can. Bye bye business. Oh and good luck persuing an IP infringement civil case in a foreign court of law.
The US stands uniquely alone in its failure to indentify strategic economic vital interests and implement policies to protect their vitality. And I'm not just talking about protectionism, but investment in R&D, IP protection treaties, incentives for US businesses to keep US employees competitive, you name it....

Shocking

[Now15]

How dare countries outside America try to compete! It's so... un-American!

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure glad my grandparents weren't prisoner scumbags. Or was it just your grandmother? And your grandfather - let me guess - a prison guard rapist? What a lineage!!!

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not competition when one employee can earn a living on about 24% of the wages.

Re:Shocking

[Now15]

Don't complain just because another culture doesn't have your penchant for buying gas-guzzling SUVs and excesses of fat and sugar.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

You are severly brain damaged and should just kill yourself now.

Re:Shocking

[NanoGator]

"How dare countries outside America try to compete! It's so... un-American!"

The problem isn't the competition, it's the short-sighted decisions to use these companies. It may be cheaper to produce this stuff, but the people who make the tech stuff tend to be the people that buy the tech stuff. Can't do that if you don't have a job.

I have a piece of advice for you: When you're making comments like "How dare countries compete with America", 9 times out of 10 you are missing a huge chunk of information about what makes the problem a problem. Life is rarely that simple.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice troll. Really.

Re:Shocking

[Now15]

There's that superior American intellect for you.

Re:Shocking

[magores]

Actually.. It was pretty good. Good enough to have me nodding my head for a sec.

Re:Shocking

[Now15]

How typically American: no real appreciation of the wider world. What is the percentage of Americans that have travelled to a foreign country? Something like 2% last time I checked.

Re:Shocking

[darkov]

Yeah, the truth hurts, don't it.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehehe, your just jealous because we can buy and sell your ass anytime we want. Christ, I could hop on a plane tomorrow and come fuck your sister if I wanted to.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and what percentage of the people in america even have the money to travel to a foreign country, not many.

Re:Shocking

[Evil Adrian]

I don't drive an SUV, and I'm not overweight... blanket statements rule!

Re:Shocking

[AstroDrabb]

Not only that, Americans only represent 5% of the worlds population! Yet they expect to be treated as the majority and the only ones that matter. I guess that is because the USA has taken more then 50% of the worlds wealth. The only reason I can think of that 5% of the worlds population needs 50% of the worlds wealth is greed. Yes, I am a native born American and I served in the US Marines. I am saddened by the state that my nation has acheived. I wish that Americans had a broader view of the world and understood that the WORLD is MUCH larger then just America.

Re:Shocking

[Now15]

Glad you can see that. Now all you need to do is take your newfound enlightenment and translate it to "funny" posts about how Australians are all like Steve Irwin, or are all descended from petty thieves...

Re:Shocking

[Evil Adrian]

In order for a joke about Australia to be funny, Australia itself would have to be interesting.

(How am I doing?)

Re:Shocking

[Now15]

Take a city like Melbourne for example. A well-packed CBD surrounded by dozens of suburbs each containing more culture than all the Krispy Kremes and Starbucks in America combined.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Now tell me why I should appeciate the "wider world". You all hate me, just because I'm an American. Why would I want to travel to a place where I'm not wanted?

Re:Shocking

[Dhalka226]

The only reason I can think of that 5% of the worlds population needs 50% of the worlds wealth is greed.

Or how about... capitalism? Sure seems to have worked out for us only 5% folks, don't you think? How many non-capitalist economies can stand on their own two feet? And how can you criticize the ideas of capitalism when it is obviously the best economic system out there?

And who says we expect to be treated as the majority? We believe--rightly so--that the American government's first responsibility should be to us, the American citizens. Guess what? India's first responsibility should be to the Indian people, and Nigeria's first responsibility should be to the Nigerian people, and Syria's responsibility should be to the Syrian people, and so on and so forth. If we can lend a hand, great, but not by sacrificing our citizens.

But hey, buddy, if you want to give up your job because a third-world country pays their employees a barely-livable fraction of what they would receive for the same work here, go ahead. Just don't call that America's flaw. Me, I'll keep my job. But I suppose that is just the greed in me.

Re:Shocking

[roe1352]

The USA has not TAKEN more than 50% of the world's wealth, WE HAVE MADE IT. The US has generated most of the wealth in the world in the past 20 years. What do we (the greedy bastards) do with this wealth? We spread it to poorer countries by bying their products that are made at a cheaper price because most of our workers are being used in a more productive manner and making more money than their 3rd world counterparts.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

So what are you doing to change it? Oh, right. You're whining on Slashdot about how unfair everything is and how you wish that your fellow Americans could be as insightful as you.

Waaaaaaaaah.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do Americans need a wider view of the world, when most won't see any of it? Do you want to know what most Americans want? They want a roof over their heads, to be able to provide for themselves and their families, and maybe spend a little on the pleasures in life. If you want to know why Americans think they are the only ones that matter is because they are the only ones that matter, to them. Americans matter to me and American jobs matter to me. People in the other countries of the world should care about their own, not Americans. There is nothing wrong with this.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

What??? Did you miss the boycott anouncement. Have fun.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

The one that began in the late 80's and whose great secret lies in watching "thee" great things go unnoticed by the experts.

Re:Shocking

[ch-chuck]

only took about 15 seconds to find something contrary to that old stereotype

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the truth, it's a stereotype.

Re:Shocking

[Bull999999]

You honestly believe that increasing aid to countries like North Korea will really help its citizens?

"I served in the US Marines. I am saddened by the state that my nation has acheived."

And didn't it every cross your mind that perhapes US has the mightest military in the world because of the wealth? All those high tech weapons aren't cheap you know.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if anyone told you this, but The U.S. is made up of immagrants from every country in the world. A lot of these people keep many of their customs. So, if you want to talk about cultural diversity, look at any major U.S. city. That's where you will find it.

Re:Shocking

[darkov]

I think that it's statistically correct. A useful generalisation.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong, cars are still much more popular than SUVs in the U.S. So it is not statistically correct.

Re:Shocking

[Stalky]

I believe the wisecrack goes, "Q: How is Australia different from milk? A: After 200 years, milk would have developed a culture."

Re:Shocking

[mabhatter654]

The real issue is that it's Forign companies reaping the profits...remember, what's happened before was American companies sacerficing american jobs by moving the components out of the country. Now those foreign manufactures are bypassing the American corps altogether! They have poached the American tech [that the companies willingly gave up for cheap labor] and now can actually compete on the merits rather than just price...Look at Honda, Sony, Via for examples...The american corps are just about to get a taste of their own medicine!!

But should it be at OUR expense, or should we try to put a stop to the slash-n-burn here before they sell-off the country back to the Great Depression.

Re:Shocking

[evilviper]

I guess that is because the USA has taken more then 50%

Wealth is not a physical object. It doesn't have to be taken from one country to go to another. The fact the the US is the most successful country, doesn't prevent other countries from being extremely wealthly also.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

yea you are right. everything is horrible here.

life's secret to harmonial and enlightened existance is in other parts of the world.

why don't you tell me which country i can find that?

anxiously awaiting your answer.

Re:Shocking

[esanbock]

Yeah right, pal. Australia is one big bland POS. America is as different as New York, Utah, Florida, Chicago, Atlanta, Alabama and Alaska. There's not that kind of diversity anywhere else. Due to our immigration policy, we have more ethnicity and culture in New York than All of Australia since its beginnings as a make-shift prison.

Re:Shocking

[cowbutt]

Wealth is not a physical object. It doesn't have to be taken from one country to go to another. The fact the the US is the most successful country, doesn't prevent other countries from being extremely wealthly also.

Wealth is a physical object, at least partly. Wealth is derived from the combination of natural resources (land, mineral ores, oil, biomass) and human ingenuity. Whilst human ingenuity is (at least in theory) limitless, natural resources are not.

--

Re:Shocking

[4ntifa]

Wealth is not a physical object, but it's value is based on goods and services. Which, in turn, are very real, and often in a sense, limited. Americans and most westerners are very efficiently indoctrinated to the belief that wealth materializes out of thin air (provided that capitalists are given free reign). This simply isn't true. Sure, a large portion of the economy is just hot air (stock market speculations, futures etc), but money is still just a currency for trading very real goods and services.

The current economical world order is starting to resemble a house of cards. And when all this outsourcing and cost-cutting reaches a certain level, the middle-class won't have enough purchasing power to keep the system afloat...

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

> And how can you criticize the ideas of capitalism when it is obviously the best economic system out there?

If Nazis had won the war, you would be saying:

"And how can you criticize the ideas of National-Socialism when it is obviously the best political system out there?"

"We believe--rightly so--that the Reich government's first responsibility should be to us, the German citizens"

I could go for hours, but, to sum it up:

You are an asshole.

Re:Shocking

[evilviper]

Wealth is derived from the combination of natural resources (land, mineral ores, oil, biomass) and human ingenuity.

Japan, for one, is incredibly lacking in natural resources, but that didn't stop their incredible economic rise.

Re:Shocking

[cowbutt]

That doesn't contradict what I said.

What are musical instruments, cameras, consumer electronics and cars made from? Lots of ingenuity and a (relatively) small amount of natural resources.

Indeed, the CIA World Factbook says this of Japan - "among world's largest and technologically advanced producers of motor vehicles, electronic equipment, machine tools, steel and nonferrous metals, ships, chemicals; textiles, processed foods". All of those things require large doses of ingenuity.

Let's look at their imports: "machinery and equipment, fuels, foodstuffs, chemicals, textiles, raw materials". Those imports, plus their ingenuity produces wealth.

If they had indigenous supplies of those things, they wouldn't need to import them. But they'd still need them to produce wealth.

--

Re:Shocking

[Now15]

Nobody said anything about being not wanted -- quite the opposite! I see quite a few American tourists here in Sydney, and they're almost exclusively nice, polite people who are clearly enjoying seeing another part of the world.

The saying 'broaden your horizons' might be rhetorical gumph, but there is a granule of truth to it.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical American arrogance. Did you know that 50% of Australians were born overseas or have parent who were born overseas? Of course not, becuase only America has an immigration policy. There are a few other things that America has too: political correctness, lack of a social walfare, a rampant gun problem, endemic political corruption, and so on.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes GREED.

We BUILT this superpower nation that controls 50% of the world weatlh

AND WE INTEND TO KEEP IT THAT WAY

The only people that want a level playing ground are those that are not in a position of power.

Speak all you want of inequality and injustice in the world, of all the poorer people who suffer all around.

Did you ever stop to think that this is NOT an accident? Ever thing that this is merely a reflection of human nature and another sign that Darwin is right?

Organisms that are more fit for survival, either at the micro 'cell' level or macro level of counties, WILL end up being the winners.

Countries that cannot feed their people, cannot educate their people, or are limited by their physical environment will NOT be very successful.

Yes, India, China and other countries have been increasing their 'Darwin' score by educating their people, increasing their brain trust, enticing information work to their land. For this I applaud them. Any country that wants to survive needs to do so.

However, this does NOT mean that we will stand idly by and be passed by. No, we will take whatever steps necessary to remain top dog.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod Up!

Re:Shocking

[AstroDrabb]

Or how about... capitalism? Sure seems to have worked out for us only 5% folks, don't you think? How many non-capitalist economies can stand on their own two feet? And how can you criticize the ideas of capitalism when it is obviously the best economic system out there?

What are you taling about? Where did I criticize capitalism? I have no problem with capitalism for the most part. However, even capitalism if far from perfect. It is a system with one major goal, money. That driving factor is a double edged sword. While it can help fund innovatioin, it also creates monopolies and buys crooked politicians. I personally think the capitalism needs a bunch more checks and balances.

We believe--rightly so--that the American government's first responsibility should be to us, the American citizens.

Guess what, that has not been the case for a *long* time. The US governments first priority is to the large corporations with all the campaign contributions. Our system based on capitalism is quickly moving to a system based on corportism.

But hey, buddy, if you want to give up your job because a third-world country pays their employees a barely-livable fraction of what they would receive for the same work here, go ahead. Just don't call that America's flaw. Me, I'll keep my job. But I suppose that is just the greed in me.

You really like to try to turn an argument around don't you? I was saying that the American corporations are greedy and it is one of the driving factors of capitalism. I personally think it is sickening to take jobs away from Americans and send them overseas to save a few bucks. However, these same companies expect the American people to continue to fund them with our money by buying their products/services. This is why I BOYCOT companies that are doing this or companies that are abusing a monopoly such as MS. Someone should put together a list of all American companies that are sending American jobs overseas.

Re:Shocking

[AstroDrabb]

What do we (the greedy bastards) do with this wealth?

I didn't say that the American people as a whole are greedy. It is the corporations that are greedy. The whole driving factor of capitalism is greed for more wealth to reward shareholders.

We spread it to poorer countries by bying their products that are made at a cheaper price because most of our workers are being used in a more productive manner and making more money than their 3rd world counterparts.

Don't kid yourself. The process is highly political to make sure that plenty of the money is spent on American corporations. Don't you remember the little hissy fit MS had over the Tron OS? They paid the government to get involved to make sure that MS didn't go down and basically block the Tron OS. I guess that is true capitalism and letting the "market" decide?

Re:Shocking

[777333ddd]

I guess that is because the USA has taken more then 50% of the worlds wealth I think the word you meant to say as "created" instead of "taken".

Re:Shocking

[An Onerous Coward]

So your thesis is that capitalism is the sole factor determining America's success? All I can say is, "huh?"

The U.S. isn't a purely capitalistic enterprise, and never has been. Especially since the 1960s, there has been an unmistakable trend towards socialism. Government has a large say in how money gets spent, which channels wealth in different directions than a purely free-market system would.

This isn't a bad thing.

Capitalism has its limitations. Whenever one player within the system can profit by pushing the costs of his or her actions onto bystanders, capitalism fails. Stealing a car, for example, might net you $10,000 in wealth while depriving the owner of same. In the same way, if I can save myself the $500 it would cost to properly dispose of a toxic chemical by dumping it into a river that I don't drink out of, the $20,000 in increased medical bills to the families downriver will never come back on me. From the overall perspective, I've made myself $500 richer, but destroyed $19,500 in wealth in order to do it.

Capitalism also suffers a tendency towards monopolies, whose anti-competitive natures drive up costs, slow the rate at which products improve, and give individuals access to an unconscionable amount of wealth at the expense of the overall economay.

That's where regulation (both by government and private associations) enter into the picture. Yes, complying with regulation is burdensome, and some regulations are misguided and make no sense. But the point of every regulation is to close some perceived loophole in the purely free-market system, which could otherwise be exploited to the detriment of everyone not doing the exploiting.

It is possible for non-capitalistic societies to succeed. If I haven't convinced you that America is actually a good example of this, what about the heavily socialized countries like Sweden and Norway? Unlike the former Soviet Union (whose economy did "stand on its own two feet," though it wasn't exactly setting the dance floor on fire) they seem to be getting along pretty well even with their enormous tax rate.

Meanwhile, there is a substantial list of highly capitalistic countries that are chaotic messes. I'm not saying that capitalism is to blame for their troubles, but it's not a cure-all by any means.

Your post is little more than good old-fashioned flag-waving. America deserves the amount of wealth that it has because unique factors X, Y, and Z make it somehow superior to the rest of the world. Somehow the sheer "Americanness" of the American coder adds so much value to the code that they're worth more than ten Indian coders.

It may turn out that factors like communication, quality control, and intellectual property enforcement turn outsourcing into a devil's bargain. That's the hope that keeps me grinding through my CS program. But the "we have it so we must deserve it" attitude, coupled with the blind worship of an American economic system that turns too many of us into wage slaves while giving vast wealth to a small handful of us, frustrates me to no end.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW the quote in your sig is wrong. The actual quote is (from bartleby.com):

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Note essential and temporary. Very different from your incorrect version.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that this was modded to +5 is just another unfortunate example of "war-modding". Foreign moderators, this is not the purpose of the moderation system. If AstroDrabb had said this kind of thing about any other country he would have been modded down as a troll. I guess it gives you some comfort to think you can win this kind of war. You know you could never win any other.

The rest of the world can talk all they want about how they don't hate Americans. How they just hate the government. This kind of thing shows the falseness of that. This guy made a grossly exaggerated generalization that is no better than saying that the British are ugly, Australians are drunks, and the French are unfriendly snobs. It's no better than racism.

Human beings are individuals. There are cultural differences, but they are limited. I would bet that I have traveled as much as you. I have seen firsthand the prejudice against Americans. These kinds of stereotypes are as pervasive as they are wrong. Such stereotypes are always wrong. Face it folks: most human beings in the world are basically the same. Some of us look a bit different, but inside, we are not. Languages and cultures, which can be convincing to the more dim-witted among us, can obscure this basic fact.

Not that I am pleading for some kind of peace: some kind of "can't we all just get along". Far from it. In fact my fondest wish is for a gigantic nuclear war followed by a nuclear winter, which together with the radiation, destroys all life on this planet forever. Not that I have any great reason for this. I just think it would be kind of cool in a science-fictiony sort of way, and I wouldn't mind dying.

OTOH, the rest of you wimpy peaceniks with no suicidal death wish should start to wonder about these "facts" about citizens of a country in which you have obviously never lived.

Re:Shocking

[rnd()]

Uh... are you under the impression that there is only a fixed amount of wealth to go around? If so, that is a false assumption.

Re:Shocking

[rnd()]

Are you serious?

The things you mention are not parts of capitalism, but examples of fraud and crime committed by people everywhere, not just in America.

Corporations are just a way for a bunch of individuals to organize themselves economically. This economic organization is (at least for corporations that survive) profit oriented. Profit happens when someone sees an opportunity to fill a void that is being unfilled. The bonus to the individual who takes the risk or sees the opportunity is known as profit. It doesn't usually last long, since others enter the market and create competition.

As long as everybody plays by the rules (no fraud), then all corporations do is offer everyone else more options in terms of the goods and services they may buy and more employment options.

One can be in favor of lesses faire capitalism and still oppose fraud.

You are mistaken in your assertion that the trend toward socialism in the US has been productive. One can only imagine what life would be like if we didn't have all of the social welfare, subsidies to industry, a rediculously complicated tax code and matching burocracy to manage it, etc. There would be trillions more dollars available to people like you (wage slaves) to start your own business and create even more wealth. There is currently a big wedge in between investors and the recipients of start-up capital: It's called capital gains tax, and it means that your enterprise is automatically 20% less desirable to investors.

Obviously, some minimal taxation is necessary, but every dollar you pay to the government may or may not be allocated in the best possible way, since politicians are often pressured into deal making and favor-granting.

The problem of politicians giving handouts has nothing to do with the commonly villainized group (lobbyists) but everything to do with the lack of public scrutiny of the records of their public servants. The public doesn't really care, so these things happen. Campaign finance "reform" will only make contributions harder to track, which will make legislators more immune to informational campaigns showing how they were clearly bought by corporations.

Re:Shocking

[Lime Sky]

We believe . . . that the American government's first responsibility should be to us, the American citizens.

By analogy, many companies believe that their first responsibility is to their stockholders.

In this light, offshoring makes perfect sense.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

godwin's law...YOU LOSE IT!!!
commie...

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you are trying to say is "Americans Go Home, but leave your wallets here"?

Oh, Thank God!

[Skyshadow]

Thank God that someone out there with a little bit of cred is finally saying what we all who work in the industry have known for so long.

Now, how to stop it? I favor use of tariffs to force up the price of offshore workers (might be tough to enforce, but if a company *sells* in the US, which is where you want to sell if you want to make the big bucks, we have some influence; if they can keep the Big 3 in business, they can help us out, too).

My jerkoff company just shipped a huge section of its QA effort to India and laid off a lot of my friends -- the V-Pee had the audacity to send out something trying to twist this as being *good* for the employees... "Freeing us from routine or boring work".

Anyhow, I think that the *actual* costs of overseas labor are going to start getting serious press soon as well, so hopefully that'll discourage the flava-of-the-month pointy hairs from shipping our work overseas, but I want a backup plan in case....

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[darkov]

Now, how to stop it? I favor use of tariffs to force up the price of offshore workers

Nice idea, except that the US economy's success is predicated on open trade and open enterprise. Your attitude doesn't surprise me much. Free enterprise and trade is great until it effects you, and the average American has no qualms about being hypocritical when it serves.

The fact is that introducing tariffs will make the situation worse, not better. More industry will move offshore because the cost of doing business in the US will rise. Countries will retaliate with their own tariffs and the amount of business going to the US will fall.

The fact is that most IT jobs are commodities: system administration, building web pages, support, most programming (visual basic, etc) and the like can be done by anyone. The only solution is to innovate, become more efficient and smarter in how you do things.

I live in a country with a relatively small, export oriented economy. Reform and increasing exposure to international competition has made the economy more robust and efficient.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tariffs increase prices while reducing competition and consumer choice, damaging the economy in the long run. Economists knew this 100 years ago. But now competition challenges you, and you think you are different. Think about it this way: there once were textile workers in the US; the fact that this low paying jobs are now done elsewhere, allowed you (and your friends) to specialize in higher paying jobs.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Grey Fox LSU]

The fact is that introducing tariffs will make the situation worse, not better. It seems to be working pretty good for both China and Japan. Both countries the US has a trade deficiate.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[AstroDrabb]

Why don't the "big" CEO, CTO, CFO, etc. ship thier jobs over seas? That would save the company MUCH more then shipping a few QA salaried employees over seas. Greed and power, that is the state of most US companies and the US government. Remove the little man to "save" the company money and then give themselves a bonus for the effort.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[RabidOverYou]

Working pretty good ... Japan. Japan? Japan, with a 20 year recession?

Lemme guess: you heard in 1980 how Japan Inc was taking over the world, and haven't really been paying jack attention since.

This year, you heard the same thing about China, and you'll hold that tight to your breast for the next 20 years, come what may.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Radical Rad]

I heartily agree with you. Grove is saying what I have been thinking and saying for some time now. Corporations will go for the short term profits and fuck themselves in the long haul. They will do it for the same reasons that politicians do it. The CEO's know they won't be around when the bill collector can no longer be put off, so they will fuck the company they run for their own personal benefit; Make short term profits higher and get huge multi million dollar bonuses. Make short term profits higher and get an offer from a larger and more prestigious company. And just like politicians and the nations deficit, it will be someone else who has to do the painful things: raise taxes and cut entitlements and maybe face a recall for doing it. As Grove says, the U.S. government should not ignore this problem. It is the only entity which can put a stop to it because corporate America does not have the long term vision or the willpower.

Grove pointed to steel and microelectronics as historical precedents but there are others: textiles, televisions, and cars to name a few. Our leaders need to examine what we did before when we lost and try something different this time. The article also said, 'He [Grove] said he had detected no recognition of the problem from any of the presidential candidates.' There is one candidate who has recognized the problem. He brought it up at the democratic debate a few weeks ago. Dennis Kuncinich is the only candidate I have seen who doesn't just say what the latest polls seem to suggest. Check out his 10 key issues. Also note that he specifically offers a plan for the steel problem that Grove talked about. Want to know how he feels about any other issue? Look to the right column. It is all spelled out in black and white. I know we will end up with another Washington insider in the White House next term but the man we need there is the one who already understands the problems the industry leaders like Andy Grove are seeing and has already formulated a course of action.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, yeah. The guy in the article was an Intel engineer. That's not exactly a commodity. Neither are many of the jobs being outsourced. QA, programming, and sysadmin stuff take years to master to the level that the industry requires. It'll bite them in the ass soon enough when they see that 5 inexperienced guys working for peanuts can't get the same results as an experienced guy making a living US salary ($30K/year and above). I can't wait to see all the nasty consequences of all these managers' greed and impacience. It's gonna be a fucking depression like the early 1900's. Woohoo! :-(

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Ian Wolf]

Well, it pretty much works well for them because the US doesn't match their tariffs. While it may sound stupid that we would allow ourselves to trade like this the fact is any threat by the US to raise a tariff has always resulted in a counter-threat for them to raise theirs even more.

From what I've heard, trade negotiations with China are extremely frustrating. They flat out refuse to make any concessions because they know we need them more than they need us and unless something changes here, nothing is going to change.

The truth is raising tariffs here would be a disaster, because everyone from the EU to China views tariff increases by the US as a hostile act (in the context of a trade war). We need to fix a lot of our trade practices before we can even think about raising any tariffs.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[AvantLegion]

>> Countries will retaliate with their own tariffs

Many of these countries already have the high tariffs of their own, and that is part of the problem.

Free trade doesn't mean "get taken advantage of". If they're gonna tariff your goods and try to balance things so that you buy from them but can't sell to them, then the way I see it, you're free to counter such things.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

USA has a trade deficit with practically every country on earth! If foreigners stop investing in USA, or if the demand for US dollar (aka petrol dollar) falls, watch out... To make matters worse, USA also has a $6trillion debt so I'm not sure how that's going to be repaid...

No, I'm not against USA; I am, however, against capiatalism :)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Kuncinich is great. He was also one of only two (other being Dean) to speak against the Iraqi imperialist war. But the chance of Americans electing a progressive is the same as you being an alien. Ironically, Kuncinich is probably the one that will stick to his promises the closest, while others will lie and break all their promises. Yet he will be ignored...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[The_Steel_General]

Well, my impression was that Andy said:
"This could be an issue. I don't think I like it. I'm not smart enough to know for sure. Government will have to decide."

In a less cynical age, we might have replaced "Government" with "The People" but in this case it might come to the same thing: We have to decide how many dollars an hour in wage reductions $99 DVD players are worth.

And I don't think it's an easy question, either. If that DVD player was $199 , then I have to work about half a week more for it if I'm minimum wage, but only for half an day if I'm an average IT worker. If the price goes down 12% but my wages drop $1, am I better off? Will my children be better off? How about their children? Will it matter if I starve before they are born?

My understanding of economics says that when the questions get this complex then, yup, let the market decide. It might make mistakes, but it has a better chance of getting it right than the government does.

My understanding of theology says this is what folks used to do about most decisions, though: Yup, let God decide. He might make mistakes, but ...

I am rather impressed that Mr. Grove is smart enough to realize he's not smart enough to know the answer. In this discussion alone we have people saying

• Economy unification is going to happen, one way or another.
• The Market Will Take Care of Everything
• We absolutely DO need to save local jobs, and here are a number of actions we can/should/must do to enable it.

  To which I will add

• How do we know the jobs we are saving are ones we want or need? Maybe when all the SQL jobs are done in Bombay I'll realize that I'd much rather work for a rocket startup.
  and also
• When we don't like the results generated by existing markets, it's proper to have them changed so we do like them. Which doesn't guarantee that we really will like things any better afterwards...

It's not simple. We should try to figure the answer. I'm not sure what it is.

Which is plenty for me.

TSG

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Anonymous Coward]

Complete this sentence:

Buy, sell and *****.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[evilviper]

Nice idea, except that the US economy's success is predicated on open trade and open enterprise.

Heard of the trade deficit? The US is open, the other countries are closed.

How about minimum wage, health/safety standards, and unions? Since several other countries don't have these at all, it's not a problem exploiting workers. Here, we can't be exploited.

Also, the ones who are taking US jobs, and selling loads of cheap products into the US, are not the same countries that are buying many of our goods.

If there would at least be minimal standards, then at least it would be a fair competiton. The one thing you don't want is for consumers to settle these things themselves, or you'll see a Post WWII attitude, where the public will completely refuse to buy anything not made in America.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[ShonFerg]

I do think something needs to be done as well... simply eradicating tariffs causes wealth to flow in the direction of least resistance... ie to the places with the most horrible conditions and lowest pay. Raising them, however, is seen as threatening or unfair by the rest of the world.

Perhaps instead of negotiating piecemeal free-trade agreements with "trading blocks" we should create a comprehensive trade agreement that applied to all countries evenly... it would list all the regulations and rules that we have here in the USA and assign them all percentage points. Follow the same rule, get those percentage points knocked off your country's tariff. Don't? Well, you can still trade with us but your goods will cost a little more to keep the playing field even. We might also assign grades of some sort to different countries based on how well they comply so that consumers could tell that their Nike's were created under sweatshop conditions by the big F on them. I don't know how other countries would respond to such a move, but I don't think we can just allow them to undercut us by treating their people like dogs.

The only other option I could see would be to make it some sort of crime to knowingly sell products in the US that were created under especially horrible conditions, such as slave labor for example. Then retail outlets who helped support the supply chain would be fined.

Still, if tariffs get too high, they just force things underground and that can bring crime and corruption and still hurt the economy.

Another thing that might help the situation would be to define rules that govern the maximum percentage difference between the average labor salary and the average management salary. As companies have gotten bigger and bigger, the CEO's salaries have become massive percentages of the entire net income of the company. Most big companies can certainly afford to pay their people more, but it just ends up going to the management instead. At least this way the management would have to raise everyone's salary if they wanted a raise themselves.

Finally, I have always thought that forcing anyone who bought a stock on the stock market to hold onto it for a minimum of 6 months before they could trade it away would kill the entire "gambling" short term quarter to quarter hype-cycle of the stock market and bring it back more in line with the idea of making long-term investments in a company you believe in. With shareholders that were more interested in the long term viability of a company, layoffs, over-paid management, and off-shoring would surly be reduced considerably.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[darkov]

The one thing you don't want is for consumers to settle these things themselves, or you'll see a Post WWII attitude, where the public will completely refuse to buy anything not made in America.

Typical American. Have you considered that the rest of the world will get along fine without you? If Americans don't buy cheap overseas products, the cost of their own products will go up making them less competitive and the rest of the world will buy less.

The fact is most countries have open economies. The US has a deficit because they consume more than they produce. And the whole of the rest of the world doesn't exploit it's workers. The fact is that IT products and services had be produced more cheaply elsewhere.

The fact is that most Americans would rather keep their overpaid jobs than see poor countries get ahead. Just because it affects you you don't like it. But you probably didn't complain when you got high quality, cheap computer hardware on the same basis. And those countries (now successful and quite affluent) who produce that cheap hardware used to be in the same position that the underpaid, un-uniounised, low health/safety standard countries you're referring to are now. The only way things will get better is if they have a chance to compete.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Anonymous Coward]

My jerkoff company just shipped a huge section of its QA effort to India and laid off a lot of my friends -- the V-Pee had the audacity to send out something trying to twist this as being *good* for the employees... "Freeing us from routine or boring work".

Quality + Assurance - ahahahaah, to ahahahaha INDIA ahahahaha, you crazy yanks CRACK ME UP!

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[1lus10n]

Just because it affects you you don't like it.

i hate to break you the news but thats not an american specific thing, EVERY country has the EXACT same opinion on this topic.

The fact is most countries have open economies.

Not really. most countries dont even have industrialized economies, and for the FEW that do not many of the larger ones have open economies.

Typical American. Have you considered that the rest of the world will get along fine without you?

Wanna bet ? i know its all fashionable to bash the US and all but who is going to lead if not the US ? what other nation would spur the global economy the way the US does ? (the US has almost twice the spending per person than the second highest nation)

american (greedy) corporations would suffer. but the american populous wouldnt. the whole reason we got into this mess was the american corporations thinking they needed more customers, and hence pushing for leniency in trading with other countries. it worked. now its bitting them in the ass.

and just to emphasize my point: The US has a deficit because they consume more than they produce. and that money goes where ? to other countries you say ? ....

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post really made me laugh. You're a moron.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Anonymous Coward]

> the US has almost twice the spending per person
> than the second highest nation

And would this metric be measured in greenbacks,
perchance?

Foreign exchange devaluations will make the US
economy the world's bitch if ignorance like this
is allowed to prosper.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[AceM2]

Let me try.. Good response! You're definitely a moron.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[evilviper]

Since '1lus10n' covered most of these pretty well, I'll just comment on a few.

If Americans don't buy cheap overseas products, the cost of their own products will go up

Not true really. Economies of scale... The more customers American companies have, the lower their prices can be. And personally, I don't even want the cheap crap comming out of China, Taiwan, and Korea. Give me something that costs twice as much, that will last 5 times longer (typically the case).

The US has a deficit because they consume more than they produce.

That's just not true at all. By no stretch of the imagination is that a fact... Americans' quality of life has gone down over the decades. Before, one midle-class worker could support an entire family, and that was with expensive American products, not cheap foreign junk. The same products are still being bought (TVs, Cars, etc.) but most individuals' salaries just aren't large enough to sustain that anymore.

In other words, it's not that we are spending more, it's that we are making much less.

But you probably didn't complain when you got high quality, cheap computer hardware on the same basis.

I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly did complain. But what exactly could I do about it... It's not like I could have just bough the slightly more expensive American-made computer sitting next to it. Corporations are selling out everyone's futures.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[EzInKy]

Now, how to stop it? I favor use of tariffs to force up the price of offshore workers (might be tough to enforce, but if a company *sells* in the US, which is where you want to sell if you want to make the big bucks, we have some influence; if they can keep the Big 3 in business, they can help us out, too).

No, you aren't ever going to force the government to do any of the above particularly when it goes against the interests of big business. Better would be to go the route of physicians, engineers, nurses, etc and require professional licensing to work as a programmer. You can point out all the shoddy insecure software being sold and use that as your selling point.

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[prisoner]

If you're against capitalism, what are in favor of?

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I haven't made up my mind (I know, easy way out but that's not an excuse--I REALLY haven't made up my mind yet). I'm a cross between a socialist and an anarchist--if that even makes sense. The system that I like right now is called Parecon. Check it out.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Oh, Thank God!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't the "big" CEO, CTO, CFO, etc. ship thier jobs over seas? That would save the company MUCH more then shipping a few QA salaried employees over seas. Greed and power, that is the state of most US companies and the US government. Remove the little man to "save" the company money and then give themselves a bonus for the effort.

That's a matter entirely for the stockholders (ie owners) of a company to determine now, isn't it?

And if you don't own the stock, there ain't shit you can do about it, so get back to your cubicle, bitch-boy!

Regulation.

[FooAtWFU]

This is regulation. I thought regulation was bad for the Internet... and in any case, merely saying that the government should do "something" about it is inviting vague foolishness down on our heads to the detriment of business. Any "solution" implemented on a vague platform like that would probably be worse than the problem, and at best a marginal improvement.

Re:Regulation.

[release7]

Yeah, you're right, so long as citizens like you remain frozen with mistrust of the government.

We, meaning regular citizens, need to get involved in government, not live in fear of it. And that means a lot more than voting (though half of us registered voters don't even do that). This is a democracy, remember? You can work to affect change. But so long as we continue to just throw up our hands and chant "government is evil" over and over, you can bet the government we eventually end up with will be straight out of your worst nightmare.

Re:Regulation.

[Have Blue]

That's because there is no one solution to all problems. Not regulation, not the free market, not the Internet, not open source, not anything. Government regulation can help here, and it can help anywhere, as long as it's done intelligently. Same as anything else I mentioned.

Re:Regulation.

[jcr]

Government regulation can help here, and it can help anywhere, as long as it's done intelligently. ..and Tigers are cuddly, except for those freaking great teeth.

There's nothing here for government to help. Companies (and individuals, too) are perfectly within their rights to find the lowest price they can for the services they want.

Maybe they get a bargain, maybe they go with the low bidder who botches the job, maybe they spend more to get higher quality (maybe they get it, maybe they get ripped off.)

The point of it is, we have a better economy overall than countries where the government interferes even more than the US government does.

-jcr

A perverted form of capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

This country was founded on capitalism. The best of the best achieve, while the worst fail. Natural selection in the work place. Unfortunately, greed and endless loopholes in the law allow for these corporate monoliths to live the American dream by raping our own citizens. Right now the U.S gov't is the world leader, but how long can we stay a super power when everyone is unemployed because their company outsourced their position to lesser qualified, but cheaper foreign sources?

At the risk of sound racist, if this trend keeps up the only people who can get a job in the U.S will be Indians and Mexicans.

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[BJZQ8]

I feel the same way about capitalism to some extent...at the rate we are shipping things out to other countries, how long until HP, for instance, is a wholly-owned Indian or Chinese company? The thing I fear most about seeing vast swaths of our technology industry shipped to India is their instability with Pakistan. Wait until India, as the largest producer of technology items, gets a 100-kiloton fission device exploded over Bangalore. The workers and infrastructure are there, but the security is not, in my opinion...

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[Now15]

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
I thought slashdoteers abhorred Microsoft-esque tactics?

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

The risk is very real, but lets face it core "IP" of most tech companies still resides in the US. The outsourced services may be development teams, call centers, bodyshops(commodity coders) and whatelse there is.

Bangalore gets nuked, hell move the outsourcing to Phillipines or Estonia. Bottom dollar. No IP lost, maybe some projects have to be restarted, maybe some call center people have to be trained from scratch.

Until the world standard of living improves to the point where its not the cost of employees but quality of employees, work will continue to go overseas. India will suffer from outsourcing when Zambia and Papua New Guinea are the new outsourcing centers.

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[BJZQ8]

I suppose you're probably right to some extent...if Bangalore disappears (or is conquered by the Pakistanis) then many of these operations could be moved to some other semi-2nd-world country. but I see too many American companies becoming hollow administrative shells supporting massive overseas operations...all of which is designed to allow companies to undercut their competition on prices...but this is only contributing rampant deflation in the economy...which feeds the flames of job-exporting.

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

And the power of the bomb is shiva himself...
the operations will move to hyderabad. there will be places of worship built around the atom bomb crater. u can gather pieces of the coconuts as ppl break them at these temples.

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[SpacePunk]

It's not capitalism. It's corporatism. Those bastards wouldn't know what capitalism is if it jumped up and bit them where their nuts used to be, those dickless fuckheads.

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[SpacePunk]

If Pakistan did that to Bangalore; I wouldn't miss it in the least.

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

The N threat didnt start y'day
Its a fairly naive assumption - Ground realities in the subcontinent are so different than your perception(s) that you glean from the media here

So until then - dream on!!!

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[mabhatter654]

There is fear, but no Uncertainty or Doubt here. The facts are the same as trying to pay your bills by credit card. You can get ahead for a while, but eventually it crashes...hard. Perhaps the best solution might be to accelerate the problem. Maybe the Govt should start allowing non-infrastructure corps to fail and fail hard. Let's start with the airlines. They're in the thick of the "Big Market" works....let 'um crash, even if it means all of 'um! Even at cut-throat rates now I can't afford to fly, neither can most of those unemployeed...THE PEOPLE don't really need airplanes right now, only the corps! Same with lots of other things, banks, mutual funds, etc. let 'um wipe out...do what it takes to accelerate the process. The only way to really make the point to the Coperate Masters is to get the situation bad enough to hurt THEM! Like I've posted elsewhere, AVERAGE americans only live on 30k's per year! that's only about 3x minimum (less if you work lots of OT) It really can't get that much worse for AVERAGE workers.

Also, if you let the big corps crumble, innovation may suffer, but smaller companies will startup to pickup the work. They won't be as ruthlessly efficent, or able to "bet the farm" and will benifit the economy MORE than before. Corperate profits are NOT the economy. The economy is THE PEOPLE working! Even if it's for less profit, if everyone works, you have a strong economy!

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. Corporatism has more in common with feudal economies during Europe's middle ages than traditional capitalism. King at the top, some barons and dukes below him, a bunch of tradesmen here and there, and many serfs and peasants toiling out in the field. Sounds like your typical US Corporation, Inc.

It's good to be the King.
It sucks to be a serf.

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is rather doubtful that Pakistan has any warheads in the 100 kt range. The only tests they have done were of devices below 15 kt. Of course, China, Russia, and the US all have weapons in that range(and far above), although it is not likely that any of them would willingly offer any of them to Pakistan.

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[BJZQ8]

So if Pakistan and India go to war over Kashmir, neither will resort to nuclear weapons? What about under the circumstances of an Indian breakthrough that is rapidly advancing on the Pakistani capital? Can you rule out tactical use of nuclear weapons? Can you rule out strategic use of weapons after the initial tactical strikes? I am saying that India and Pakistan have both threatened each other with nuclear devastation...and are probably both thinking like the US and USSR thought in the 50's and 60's, that there is a "winnable" nuclear war. My perceptions are obviously from the American side of things...would you care to offer another side?

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

first strike by pakistan on mumbai. second strike by india - all major cities in pak will be history and so will be their nuclear sites and missile launch sites.

third strike by india - destroy what remains of pak army..

step four - walk into pakistan.

step five - unfurl tri-color in Islamabad and Lahore. Thump chests- castrate remaining men in pakistan.

step six - accept more outsourcing projects.

Re:A perverted form of capitalism

[BJZQ8]

There are 126 million people in Pakistan...would India's killing of a large proportion of them, probably eclipsing the death toll of World War II, make any difference to people looking to outsource? Well you're probably right, step 6 would probably go full speed ahead through the rubble.

Sounds right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't we contract all our spam from China?

Re:Sounds right...

[Anonymous Coward]

A Chinese man enters a bar to find a Black bartender. He says, "Hey nigger, give me a jigger."

The Bartender responds, "That's terrible! How would you like it if I said something like that to you? In fact, let's just switch places. You get behind the bar and I'll come in as a customer."

The Chinese man agrees and gets behind the bar. The Black man goes outside.

Upon reentering, he says, "Hey Chink, give me a drink."

To which the Chinese man answers, "Sorry, we don't serve niggers here."

I thought...

[ackthpt]

I thought Andy's job was now being done by a 16 year old name Haji in Bangalore.

Um... excuse me...

[Guppy06]

"Andy Grove, of Intel fame, "spoke out" at a recent technology summit in Washington about the current trend towards offshore outsourcing"

And where are Intel processors manufactured again? Or is it only a problem when it effects white collar workers?

Re:Um... excuse me...

[Anonymous Coward]

uhh... Intel processors are manufactured in the US (here).

Re:Um... excuse me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's why my processor box has Malaysia stamped all over it.

Fucktard.

Re:Um... excuse me...

[miratrix]

Most of Intel's fabs are located in USA (with couple outside, notably in Israel and Ireland). So techncially speaking, they are mostly made in US.

They are *packaged* and *tested* in Malaysia, Costa Rica, and other countries, but the actual core of the chips are manufactured in US.

Re:Um... excuse me...

[Jameth]

Uh, yeah, it's tested in Malaysia

Fucktard.

Re:Um... excuse me...

[Kurt Russell]

They are *packaged* and *tested* in Malaysia, Costa Rica, and other countries, but the actual core of the chips are manufactured in US.

Damn.. why don't they package and test in the US. I am
sure all of Flint Michigan or anywhere USA would
love those jobs.

Re:Um... excuse me...

[miratrix]

Before you say something like that, think it through - are you prepared to pay extra $50, $100 per CPU (or however much extra it'll cost Intel)?

You can't have it both ways.

Re:Um... excuse me...

[The Kow]

There's a reason that most of Intel's chips are manufactured in the US.

The US has regulations about exporting technology below .14 microns.

Otherwise I imagine Intel would be on the first boat out.

Re:Um... excuse me...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are full of it. .18 micron plants and larger are operating in the US, and the new Fab 24 being built in Ireland will be .065 micron as will the retrofitted Fab 12 in Arizona.

Re:Um... excuse me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel threatened to close the assembly test plant in Costa Rica unless they got their act together (gave them 2 years) and they pulled it off. Intel closed operations in Puerto Rico, after they did not compete. I'm sure they would open a plant in Flint if it was competitive.

Re:Um... excuse me...

[Dwindlehop]

Intel has fabs in Ireland, Albuquerque, and Oregon, among others.

but of course....

[Anonymous Coward]

all the jews in management care about is the almighty dollar.

Better close those Intel plants in Asia

[4front]

Hey Andy,

There's shite the US govt can do now. Maybe you should have thought about this when you go around starting Fab plants in Malaysia, China and India. Too bad your american employees cost you soo much compared to your asian employees but maybe you ought to transfer some us citizens to india and china and pay them asian wages (hmmm....I wonder if americans would like that?)

Re:Better close those Intel plants in Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

hi,
There are no Intel Fabs in Malaysia, China or India. speak with facts...

Re:Better close those Intel plants in Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

There are fabs in AZ (3), NM (2), OR (several), CA, MA, etc, two fabs in Israel (older technology), two in Ireland (older technology) with a newer one being built (F12 in Arizona will be retrofitted to the new 65nm technology, and the new F24 in Ireland will be built for it as well.) Thre are packaging and test sites in Malaysis, the Phillipines, and Costa Rica. There is no manufacturing activity in either China or India. There is some software work (compiler development, etc.) going on in both those countries, but no hardware.

Re:Better close those Intel plants in Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that foreigners are not allowed to work in India without a work visa? So that means a corp. has to go through the trouble of relocating you and dealing with the paperwork and stuff. Not gonna happen. And since you can't just up and go there youself (cause what's the point of going there if you're not sure you'll get a visa), you might as well just take a minimum wage job in the US -- if you can find one. It ain't as simple as you think!

Re:Better close those Intel plants in Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgot Colorado!

I'm not a crook"

[Anonymous Coward]

"An interesting insight into what's going on inside the heads of the US's tech leaders."

I'm sorry that would be singular "inside the head". The one's who got us into this whole mess, declined to be interviewed, siting "self-incrimmination" as the reason.

If there's any justice? Their ill gotten gains will turn to dust. And their companies will be viewed with the same attitude that one devotes to a boil on one's buttocks.

Big Yawn!!

[bayduv1n]

Same arguement as back in the 70's about the manufacturing industry.

The US will continue to be the most prosperous country on earth cause they just let evolution happen. Out with the old in with the new.

For individuals effected, it's certainly hard. For the country as a whole, just a bump on the road to something better.

Why should I buy something from you for $10, when I can buy it from someone else for $5. What are you, a COMMIE!!

Signed, "A Canuck working on an American contract".

Safeharbour Statement: "Long may your big jib draw!"

Re:Big Yawn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Out with the old in with the new.

The word is "disposable."

Re:Big Yawn!!

[seriv]

your right! I am sure your afraid my views on workers rights are going to come and eat your childern:-p
-Seriv

Re:Big Yawn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should I buy something from you for $10, when I can buy it from someone else for $5.

You get what you pay for.

Re:Big Yawn!!

[The Clockwork Troll]

The word is "disposable."

Only if the old cannot find a way to recycle themselves, in which case they are indeed just trash.

The lesson: don't become trash.

Re:Big Yawn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If what you made was twice as good, then yeah, I'd pay 10 bucks...otherwise I'll take the 5 dollar version with the same quality and features.

Re:Big Yawn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, for everything but tech support, offshore outsourcing tends to lead to a quality loss greater than the profit gained by switching in the first places. In many cases, they've just cancelled the offshore projects and re-hired the original consultants.

Re:Big Yawn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Same arguement as back in the 70's about the manufacturing industry.

Well I can tell you didn't work in the manufacturing industry then.

All the children of blue collar workers who nerded out enough to get a college degree are watching this in horror saying we know how this story ends and it ain't pretty.

The rich brats who think they are just entitled to automagically have a white collar job and cushy lifestyle think their way of life is invincible.

Everyone thinks they'll live forever when they are 21 and everyone thinks they will have work until their industry goes to the third world.

Just wait, once your job goes, then you'll see it our way...of course by then it will be too late but hey...

Re:Big Yawn!!

[letxa2000]

In many cases, they've just cancelled the offshore projects and re-hired the original consultants.

You're 100% right. I have seen overseas outsourcing in action twice. Both times it was a *MEXICAN* company outsourcing to India. Both times the project just dragged on, drained money, and honestly didn't produce results. In one case, what was supposed to be a $500k contract in 6 months dragged on for a year and a half and they doled out $2 million as the Indian company kept asking for more and more time, more and more money, etc.

Once you sink $500k into a project it's hard to write it off as a loss--so they just kept spending more and more money on it. Eventually, they just cancelled the Indian outsourcing, brought it back home to Mexico--and even had me (an American) on board as a consultant to help them!

Andy Grove says that all the telecomm infrastructure makes it as if a guy in India was in the next cubicle. That's the simplistic promise of outsourcing that tempts companies to do it. There may be some industries where it will work. Software development is NOT one of them.

I'm a software engineer and I'm NOT worried about outsourcing at all. Yes, we'll have some short-term pain as many companies experiment with it. But the two cases I've seen of MEXICAN companies trying to save a buck by outsourcing to India made it very clear that it just won't work long-term. I completely believe many jobs will be outsourced to India and China, but many (if not most) will bounce back to the U.S. after the 1-2 years it takes to realize it has failed.

Re:Big Yawn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

your right! I am sure your afraid my views on workers rights are going to come and eat your childern:-p

I guess it is my right but I don't understand what you mean about my afraid. Please elaborate.

Thanks

Re:Big Yawn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

In many cases, they've just cancelled the offshore projects and re-hired the original consultants.

Then hopefully at least those consultants will stop the incessant whining. It got tedious a long time ago.

Re:Big Yawn!!

[MidnightBrewer]

How does "just letting evolution happen" ensure the United States' continued success? The United States got to being where it is by being ruthless entrepeneurs - all of which, at some point or another, came from another country.

Powerful, rich countries have risen and dwindled. The US, too, will one day give way to another younger, more vital power. That's evolution for you. That doesn't mean we have to help things along in the meantime by offering our head on a plate.

Re:Big Yawn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that Canadians are the only ones who refer to Canadians as "canucks"? I've *never* heard anyone else use it. Americans didn't invent the word "yanks", and they almost never use it. The British did not invent the term "Brits", and they almost never use it. Australians invented a word for just about everyone else, but they don't often refer to themselves as "aussies".

So why do so many Canadians call themselves "canucks" when no one else ever does? Why don't you just admit that Canada is not considered important enough for any other country to invent a derogatory slur. So you have to invent your own. One that no one else uses. Pretty weird.

Re:Big Yawn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"A Canuck Working on an American contract".

Not a very convincing argument from a guy who works in a country where protectionist labor practices are the rule - not the exception. Try being an American working on a Canadian contract. You have to get a letter from the company trying to hire you stating that there are no qualified Canadians to fill the position. Try bringing a laptop computer from the U.S. into Canada if your not a citizen of Canada. You have to have a letter from your company stating that you will not sell the computer or any of it's software in Canada.

There are only three groups that take the position you are taking: 1) those people who profit from the demise of the United States as the major economic force in the world; 2) those who are independently wealthy and make their money investing in companies for a short term profit; 3) those who are un-informed about the magnitude of the off-shoring trend

Re:Big Yawn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there are a lot of outsourcing success stories. Also I know many firms who have branches in Russia/Ukraine/India and those firms survived just because of that cheap labor, otherwise they wouldn't go past 2001.

This from Intel?

[jbottero]

And, where does Intel make all their chips? All in the good old U. S. of A.? No....

Re:This from Intel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the Intel fabs are in Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, and Massachusetts... and Ireland and Israel. No fabs in Asia (only "assembly/test" sites). But only about a third of revenue comes from the U.S. More revenue comes from Asia than any other region... but the vast majority of the employees are in the U.S.

International view

[Now15]

I, for one, welcome our new American overlords.

...oh wait...

Re:International view

[Anonymous Coward]

It was funny the first 16,000 times.

Re:International view

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new American overlords.

...oh wait...

Yes, it happened quite some time ago. Pretty much wrapped up around 1989 with the fall of the Berlin wall.

Ironic...

[MisanthropicProggram]

that the places that big US corps are outsourcing software development are also the biggest software pirates - according to the "The Economist's Book of Figures for 2004"

China #2

India #22

As the IT mgt books say, "Don't outsource your strategic intellectual capital!". Unfortunately, most corps don't seem to think of this and they're outsourcing everything they can just to save a few bucks.

I saw an article a few months ago, I think CIO.com, that mentioned how United Technologies saved a whole $7 million (US) on their IT budget by sending some work over to India. I thought, "Wow! Seven million dollars US!". Then I looked. Their IT budget is over a billion dollars. So they saved a whole 0.7% by going overseas. In the meantime, their employees are demoralized for having seen their buddies lose their jobs and some poor bastard(s) have to stay in the middle of night to deal with people on the other side of the world, because if they don't - it's their ass too!

There I go again, ranting!

Re:Ironic...

[El]

Ironic that the places that big US corps are outsourcing software development are also the biggest software pirates

This is not a coincidence! Imagine how much cheaper software development can be if you don't have to pay several thousand dollars per seat for software tools! This is what the BSA is succeeding in doing - driving work to places where that have no enforcement. I'd like to see the figures -- exactly how many copies of Visual C++ have those hundreds of thousands of Indian software developers purchased, Mr. Gates?

Re:Ironic...

[HermanAB]

Nope, what the BSA is doing, is driving people to FLOSS eg Linux. Cool!

Re:Ironic...

[Zakabog]

0.7% of a shit load of money is still a shit load of money.

Re:Ironic...

[guesshyu]

It may be 7% off a total IT budget, but let's look at claimed vs. actuals. Indian IT Sector : 50% savings vs. onshore UT Claim : 20% savings vs. onshore. These are claims used to peddle a company's products or stock, so we can assume that they're overly optimistic. Add to this the fact that most outsourced projects fail or require rework, and we can guess that no savings are actually being accheived. But there are savings in this quarter, which is the only one that counts right now, sadly.

Re:Ironic...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a strong command of the Shit Load Calculus, my friend.

Re:Ironic...

[samantha]

That the US thinks of IP as if it were just like physical assets and thus fully property is one of the big reasons that the patent mess is destroying US software innovation and driving costs, including liability costs up for tech companies, especially start-ups. Personally I welcome anything, even if it means jobs locally, that breaks the back of software patents.

Re:Ironic...

[whereiswaldo]

I hardly call 7 million dollars a shit load of money, when you're talking about a billion dollar spend. With hundreds or thousands of employees, you can easily lose 7 million just to lost productivity due to low morale. Not to mention that thousands of people who lose their jobs won't be spending money which hurts the economy which further aggravates companies' bad situations.

Large scale offshore outsourcing is bad for the country. The government needs to step in and put limits on it, just as cars need to be made with a certain percentage of domestic parts of labour, so should it be in the tech industry.

Re:Ironic...

[El]

Desktops, yes. But most embedded development toolchains etc. are for-pay. Think about something like AutoCad; there simply are no free versions available, and the licenses cost upwards of $1000/year. Do you think Chinese and Indian companies actually pay for a license for every employee using it?

Eventually...

[NanoGator]

... time zones, demand, and communications barriers will make India less attractive to outsource to.

Re:Eventually...

[PCM2]

... time zones, demand, and communications barriers will make India less attractive to outsource to.

Only if they get complacent. So long as you can ship a task to coders in India at 5pm on a Friday night and have it on your desk like clockwork by Monday morning -- if not Sunday afternoon -- there will be a place for offshore development.

Re:Eventually...

[laird]

Actually (I've done some outsourcing) the time zones work out quite nicely. We had the team in india working on the software during their daytime (our night) and then they'd ship us a build to install and test in our daytime, so that we could log bug reports that they'd fix. The result was a 2x accelleration in software development. Required some management tricks to keep working smoothly, but worked like a champ for me.

Re:Eventually...

[forgoil]

But what happens when all the developers sit in India? When they say good bye to the American (and European) companies and start up their own? More than likely stealing everything they can from the original companies.

The more you outsource, the less you can bring back home...

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Grove wants his job to be easy. He wants government money and protection of his markets so he can deliver full value to his shareholders and the taxpayers can clean up the rest of the mess. Sounds like a potential crackwhore politician. Does Grove have ambitions in this area?

Interesting-Trade Deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the US trade deficit reinforces that. Someone in the US is buying all that stuff that comes in, despite the present economic situation. However the rest of the planet isn't buying as much (guess they don't like our stuff).

Now as far as the latter two (pay, competition). Who doesn't want that? The Indians want that. The Europeans want that. Why should the US be any different?

Re:Interesting-Trade Deficit

[DAldredge]

China and India have rather large tariffs on good produced outsite their countries. The USA doesn't.

That is one of the reason's free trade, isn't.

Re:Interesting-Trade Deficit

[nexex]

not to mention that China keeps their currency value tied to the US Dollar. so it really isnt free trade, its China leeching from the US.

Re:Interesting-Trade Deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

> guess they don't like our stuff

What does America actually export these days... apart from spam?

Re:Interesting-Trade Deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA... jobs!

Re:Interesting-Trade Deficit

[kikai suki]

Really, how about _cars_ and _steel_...especially "pick up/SUV" _trucks_?

Re:Interesting-Trade Deficit

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

What China is doing is EXACTLY the same philosophy that USA has been following. Namely, preaching free-trade on one hand and carrying out nationalist protectionist policies. The countries that did not follow the US-style of capitalism are the biggest losers (eg. Latin America).

China tying their currency is perfectly ok. This is coming from capitalists such as the IMF.

If you think USA isn't doing anything wrong (from a capitalist point of view), consider the fact that USA subsidizes like crazy. Certain agricultural sectors in USA would be all bankrupt if they weren't subsidized.

So, overall, China IS leeching from USA. But at the same time, USA is leeching from many other countries. In some sense, capitalism can best be characterized by one country leeching and exploiting another. Unfortunately, the big countries all dominate while the little ones are severly hurt.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Interesting-Trade Deficit

[DAldredge]

Those are just a few items. China and India have tariffs on MOST items coming from shores other than their own.

Re:Interesting-Trade Deficit

[kikai suki]

Yes, they are just a few but you should be smart enough to know the list isn't exhaustive.

Anyway, it is (should be, except for _u.s._ gunboat diplomacy) a free world so countries (should) have the right to put tariffs on anything they want.

I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[ozzee]

I'm currently unemployed and directly due to off-shoring. It sucks to be unemployed - trust me. However I think that it is really silly to put barriers in place.

No 1. You inevitably get what you pay for. After having lost my job, the company I worked for now has a team of people in asia and they cost far more than the team we had here in the valley and they have yet to deliver squat.

I think that these off-shore arrangements only work if you have a very strong cultural match between off-shore supplier and local organization or if it is managed very carefully. Very few US organizations are capable of pulling off such a feat and it is inevitable that most of these off-shoring relationships will result in huge craters.

The US tech recession is the result of the "perfect storm", a) Bubble pops, b) oversupply of skilled immigrants c) Oversupply of "cheap" skilled workers. So, a) the bubble popped and it's now starting to come out of recession, b) immigrant quotas have been curbed, and c) there is only so much you can outsource.

It will recover, just be prepared to hold out for a few more months (up to 12 months). Keep abreast of the skills you need with your spare time.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[GoofyBoy]

>just be prepared to hold out for a few more months (up to 12 months).

It always surprises me when people give dates to these sort of things.

I do hope you find a job soon, but people have been saying "next quarter will be better" for the last 2 years.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[nexex]

they cost far more than the team we had here in the valley and they have yet to deliver

if you dont work there, how do you know?

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[darkov]

I'm currently unemployed and directly due to off-shoring.

You're unemployed because you don't have skills that are in demand. Just because you have a skill doesn't mean that someone will give you a job. No-one owes you a job. Why don't you get some training in something that people want?

I've worked in the IT industry for near on 20 years and I've had lots of work when my skill has been in demand. Inevitably it drops off after a few years, so I learnt something else and got lots of work in that. It had nothing to do with off-shoring, it's just that the job market becomes saturated. Just because the saturation comes from overseas makes no difference, except that it gives people who want to blame others for their problems a readily identifiable group of people to point their finger at.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Evil Adrian]

How did you get a .us domain if you're a resident of Australia, mate?

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually, there will be no skills in the US or Europe that will be in demand, that's because it will be all outsourced in cheaper countries like India, the India will face similar problems because there will always be people willing to work for less, and that will just continue. And as long as that happens, wages will continue to fall, and of course, if you think the prices in the U.S. and Europe will fall as a result of the lower costs, you must be the most naive person on this planet.

Retooling will work until all skills are outsourced.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Anonymous Coward]

>>if you dont work there, how do you know?

You may have heard of these people called friends. They're great to talk to and share experiences and information with.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Yazheirx]

>just be prepared to hold out for a few more months (up to 12 months).

people have been saying "next quarter will be better" for the last 2 years.

I must agree with the 12 month post. I work in a multi-carrier shipping software company <shameless_plug>Best Way Technologies</shameless_plug> we have seen our leads increase by over 300% in the last quarter and our average sales cycle cut by more than half.

Most of the companies that are opening purchase orders for our products and services feel that the U.S. (and global) economy is improving and they want an edge when it does. This can only mean that some of the layed off tech workers will be able to find a job. Atleast if they improved there skills while they were looking.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[darkov]

if you think the prices in the U.S. and Europe will fall as a result of the lower costs, you must be the most naive person on this planet

Yeah, you're right. The only way to lower prices is to increase your costs. How could I have been so stupid!

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[wideBlueSkies]

Been working with an offshore team on a brand new project. These people are in Mumbai. It's my first time delegating work to an offshore team.

I swear to god, these guys are running a scam. The workers only get about 1/2 the work dont that I expect. I have a feeling that the developers are doing the work of more than 1 project at a time. So I suspect that they're working for my project about 1/2 the time, but billing me 100%.

I can't prove it. But I can't get these guys to get their productivity up. In a way it's bad becasue I need my project to be on time. But it's good because if this is a common practice over there, eventually someone higher up than me will figure it out and maybe, just maybe the offshoring will go away.

That would be cool.

wbs.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[darkov]

(a) Why are you so sure that I'm a resident of Australia?
(b) What has that got to do with the subject at hand?
(c) Did you know that a non-US resident can hold a .us domain if they do business in the US?

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Anonymous Coward]

You're unemployed because you don't have skills that are in demand.

Crock.

This entire method of selecting employees is about 80% of the problem: expecting people to know the exact details of the job before they are hired. It provides a ready excuse for anyone to be labeled "unskilled," and makes it impossible for anyone to rise above entry-level by virtue of their general experience... ...which is, naturally, the whole point as far as corrupt middle management is concerned.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[GoofyBoy]

>I have a feeling that the developers are doing the work of more than 1 project at a time.

Or they are less skilled than they say/you think. Actually, if I knew the client was as physically far away as possible without leaving the planet, I might try and rip off clients like this to maximize profits while I can.

What is my reputation to an industry half a world away? They know they are getting programmers on the cheap, what do they expect when they exploit my fine employees? How much pressure or motivation can you give over the phone? If its not enough, I wouldn't sweat a crying customer one bit, as long as I got paid.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[maugt]

They get half the work done that you expect? Count yourself lucky. My employer did a study on the productivity of our remote development team in Bangalore, and the most productive people in the valley were 4 times more productive than the most productive people in India. Of course, it was quietly hidden so as not to damage moral (not the the rank-and-file employees don't spend all day complaining about the poor state of affairs; unfortunately, those that have spoken up have quickly been seen to "pursue other opportunities"....)

The biggest problem is too many industry execs see software engineering (or whatever you want to call it, I don't particularly care) as a commodity that can be sent to the cheapest supplier. They unfortunately don't recognize talent.

Can't wait until the whole thing comes crashing down around them (a few more quarters....)

I say lets unionize and stick it to them!

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Paradise Pete]

You may have heard of these people called friends.

I had some of those once, but they kept asking to borrow money.
They cost too much, so I got rid of 'em. Now I get my friends from overseas.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only are you naive, but you also must be blind, because I also said "wages will continue to fall", as it eventually, the pay from the jobs wil be so low, might as well call it SLAVERY, but even though the Costs to the Multi-National Conglomerates will be much lower, that is because the rich have historically looked down on the poor.

My point is in the future there will be 2 Classes, the haves and the have nots, and the have nots, no matter where they live will be treated worse than dirt, and the haves will make sure that the haves nots will always "Have Not"

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[flyingrobots]

Unionization will only hurt our industry, i see the results of unionization all over the place in the blue collar world...it's not good for advancement and squashes talent Let them figure out that overseas is not helping their bottom line and we'll be ok...it'll just take some time.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[darkov]

You mean those ho "have" SUVs and those that do not? I know that you wrote "slavery" in bold and in capitals letters, and that makes your argument more right, but I have to ask: how did the US get into the position of being #1 in the first place? Slavery was abolished long ago but the process of commoditisation and downward pressure on prices and wages has gone on continuously. I mean, weren't transistors and computers an innovation? Didn't that innovation create the jobs in the first place and push down prices of manufactured and other goods? Those people didn't becomes slaves, they just got jobs that were more productive and better paid while their jobs went to poorer people.

Americans used to be real get-on-with-the-job, can-do people. Now they're just a bunch of whiners like you. You're a sad indictment of today's America.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[ch-chuck]

Just look at the chart - the tech laden NASDAQ sucked in 00, 01 and 02, but so far 03 is doing much better. Investors are coming back from their 3 year vacation, hopefully wiser from their bubble years, and employment wont be far behind.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[The Kow]

The IT industry for near on 20 years.. quite a claim.

I'm also curious what skills you've learned that tailed off after a few years only to learn another, over this 20-year span. I'm not sure that 'network security' or 'network administration with 10-15 years experience' is something that really tails off, per se'.

Nonetheless, it seems your 20 years of experience hasn't taught you that while nobody owes anyone else a job, people who have been outsourced owe nobody their platitude in accepting conditions as they are.

Employees have rights, as do corporations, and as such it is their obligation to themselves to pursue their interests as zealously as possible, just as a company would.

Funniest of all, though, how when a company complains about not being able to stay afloat, people tend to understand, but when a person can't pay the bills, there's always someone like you around to tell them how lazy and unflexible they are.

I'm sure deep down its because they're stubborn, judgemental people, who have no tolerance for those in situations other than their own, right?

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[laird]

"You're unemployed because you don't have skills that are in demand. Just because you have a skill doesn't mean that someone will give you a job. No-one owes you a job. Why don't you get some training in something that people want?"

This used to be true. But these days it's hard for a software engineer to get a job even if he's got the perfect skillset, simply because his cost of living makes him, by definition, far more expensive than someone offshore. The "problem" is that software is perfectly portable, so unlike, say, milk, there not much reason to prefer a local supplier. This means that while the local dairy only has to compete against the two other local dairies, software engineers have to compete against India, China, etc.

In the long run I try to be philosophical -- demand is driving wages up in India, etc., and wages in the US are dropping, so eventually it'll work itself out. But it's pretty painful in the "short run"...

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[darkov]

The IT industry for near on 20 years.. quite a claim.

Uh-ha. So you're insinuating I'm telling a lie? Why is it so challenging to accept that I've worked for 20 years in IT? They did have computers in 1983, you know.

You obviously haven't worked for very long in the industry, becuase it's obvious things go in and out of fashion. In the local industry database work is plentiful. Within that various front ends have come and gone and are being replaced by Java. Same with databases and report generators. I've taught myself any number of these as well as other programming languages. If you can do network security or network admin, doesn't mean that these jobs will be replaced or be changed by fashion and technology. And other people can do the same job just as well. You're not the only one who can learn some cryptic commands and get your head around some convoluted system. New participants push wages down.

But you're saying that you have a right to whinge about this. Fine. But it does you little good. The fact is no-one cares when a corporation dies, except maybe the employees, shareholders and creditors. Same with individuals jobs. I'm sure the average factory worker or janitor is crying his eyes our for the loss of fat IT paychecks.

I'm not saying anyone is lazy or inflexible, I'm making the point that if no-one wants to hire you that is your tough luck and that if you want money, get yourself a job that is available to you and pays. All your crapping on about poor destitue network administrators is entirely pointless.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[TiredGamer]

The PROBLEM here is that project managers like you are not going to survive situations like that (ie. failed/late projects). Once upper management has decided on a course that might save millions, it's now going to COST them millions to not do it. Suddenly they're not thinking "crap, there goes the savings of moving overseas"... they're thinking "holy shit, it'll cost us HOW MUCH to develop in the US?". That savings is no longer "savings"... it's now profits. Capital expenditures like "moving development to the US" are not feasible without stockholder backlash.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[darkov]

You've missed my point. Maybe I should have said: get a job that is available. If programming jobs are scarce, look for something else. retrain yourself or do some (people) networking and find out what the next big thing is. If you're bright, your success is in entirely in your hands.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[fermion]

I think there are a few flaws in your logic

First, this is not a recession in the tech market, it is a contraction. The US recession ended quite some time ago, and, assuming that no permanent damage has been to the economy by the greed of those who seek profit by any means necessary, we should expect the overall economy to be back up and running. The timing of this depends on how long it takes for the greedy people to satiate their desire for money and return control to more moderate leaders. However, we are have some expansion at present, and tech people with the proper skills are finding jobs.

Second, a company cannot simply terminate an out-sourcing agreement and expect to retain the original market share. A certain amount of transfer of knowledge, skills, and process much be shared during an outsourcing agreement, and those do not magically disappear from an outsourcing partner. We have seen this in many industries. Most major fashion houses now have very cheap lines to compete with former partners. There are a number of electrical and electronic component manufacturers that have had to dramatically cut prices to compete with former partners. And, of course, many major household brands have all but disappeared because the manufactures that once produce their goods not produce goods for Wal Mart, which has been transformed from a retail outlet for major brands to the major and successful competitors of those brands.

So, if we put these two things together it does not look good for the US tech worker. If a tech worker has been out of a job for a year, there are many workers who have been out of a job for less that a year to compete against. The outsourcing projects are probably going to remain in effect until the economy is released, which could be another year or so. In that time the outsourcing partners are going to be learning how to do technology without US partners, and become competitors as soon as the US partners release them from the contract. Add in the increased productivity from more efficient tools, and the fact that much of the tech force in late 90's to early 2000's were to build the internet infrastructure, which is now built, and do Y2K work, and one has little hope that any tech workers not employed in 2003 will ever really be needed.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[fmayhar]

Right. Sure. Whatever you say.

My real talent likes in software. I'm good at it. I'm not good at selling real estate, or designing missiles, or any of the other 10,000 things I could possibly get a job doing if I wanted to go back to school for another four years and start over from the bottom again.

My talents are in demand. People just like me are getting jobs left and right. The reason I can't compete with them is that it costs them a tiny fraction of what it costs me just to live.

"Get a job that is available." Right. You're a fool.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[darkov]

"Get a job that is available." Right. You're a fool.

So your strategy is to get a job that isn't available. Who's the fool again?

If you're so good, get a job. You're obviously not because you don't have one. Otherwise you're lazy or too proud if you won't try something different.

You're just another one of these whiners who want the government to wipe your arse. Rember, the US is not a socialist state. You should move somewhere where someone gives a damn.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[ozzee]

if you dont work there, how do you know?

An important customer of theirs called me yesterday and talked about it. They are so dead.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean those ho "have" SUVs and those that do not?No, I mean as in those who have their own transportation, and those who can't afford it, it doesn't matter if it's an SUV or not, There are people that are lucky to have public transportation; those having expensive food, and those that can't even afford 2 Meals/Dayfor a family of 2; also those having Healt Car, and those who can't afford it; Those who can afford a 20 Room Mansion, and those who can only afford a 2 room run down shack. Of course as the old saying goes "The Rich Get Rich and the poor get poorer"

" Didn't that innovation create the jobs in the first place and push down prices of manufactured and other goods?In this day and age, how can anyone become innovative, there is always a threat of being sued under by the Multi-National Conglomerates.

Of course, what is the sense of trying to debate with an idiodic Libertarian/Republican Dog-Eat-Dog/Survival of the fittest Troll. My guess is that you believe that only the rich should have anything and the poor should always be treated lower than dirt.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Anonymous Coward]

<sarcasm>Yeah, your right, let's do it you're way, let's abolish of minimum wage, Overtime pay, all social programs, OSHA, Public Education, Public Transporation, The FDA, The EPA and make this nation a true Dog-Eat-Dog/Survival of the fittest nation</sarcasm>.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Anonymous Coward]

Inevitably it drops off after a few years, so I learnt something else and got lots of work in that.

Bagging groceries? I've been trying to find some books on the subject, maybe take some courses on bag management etc. You gotta be prepared for the inevitable recessions. Unfortunately I don't think the local supermarkets are hiring natives over the age of 14 anymore. It's mostly English as a second language folks. Maybe when I show them my advanced degree they will be willing to hire me.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[HiThere]

If the good of the industry doesn't include the good of the workers, why should the workers care about it?

I'm not asserting that it doesn't, but you do seem to be postulating that it shouldn't. No, unionization isn't good for advancement. It tends to insure that seniority is more important. But that's a whole lot better than a system that considers making each employee disposeable more important.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[wideBlueSkies]

TG,

Thanks for that point of view. I'll keep it in mind. You're absolutely right about their perceptions of cost and savings.

I'll try to cover my ass the best I can if the offsourcers continue to not produce.

wbs.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Evil Adrian]

a) I dug up some information on you. It's not hard to do.
b) Does it matter? No -- I asked because I felt like it.
c) Yes, so what business do you have in the US? "something's not right..." is hardly business.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[darkov]

Wow. You looked up the whois information. Congratulations on your investigative skills. But that information is for the company. And obviously the website isn't active. If you must know, I sell software. Anyway I'm a citizen (or 'resident', in the official sense) of two countries and I also live in others from time to time. You'll need my IP address to figure out which, which is a bit harder to work out.

You know, I've never had a stalker take interest in me before. I quite flattered. Even though you seem rather creepy. But shouldn't you be spending your energy on finding a girlfriend or boyfriend. I know that's a probably a challenge for someone like you, I'm spoken for, unfortunately.

Re:I'm unemployed and I disagree with Grove

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since you didn't reply to My Post , I presume that either you agree with every point that I made, or you really don't know how to debate, except to take everything out of context.

Bah! government help = bad

[davejenkins]

Governemnt interference with the market is bad. Huge subsidies that distort thetrade in agricultural products is bad, and it is killing Africa (literally).

Tariffs or other protectionism would not work-- what would we do? demand that XX% of code is written in North America?

The software sector is simply waking up to something that has happened to every other sector: as the segment matures, labor becomes portable, and therefore companies will seek the cheapest labor possible. Trying to stop this only costs consumers, and-- perversely-- the very segment they are trying to protect via regulation compliance costs, taxes, and loss of overseas marketshare.

You want a job? innovate. Become efficient. Figure out howto make money by "exploiting" all that cheap Chinese labor yourself. Find something that those rising Chinese and Indian middle-class consumers want.

If you want action from the government, demand that they stop supporting 19th century industries and that they demand open trade with other countries. Protectionism is going back.

Let me voice my opinion in /. terminology: Protectionism is proprietary; free trade is free.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[DAldredge]

Damn, I didn't know that software dev/other IT fields were 19th century industries.

Thanks for letting me know!

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[davejenkins]

Damn, I didn't know that software dev/other IT fields were 19th century industries.

They`re not. I was referring to the industries that the Gov`t DOES subsidize: agriculture and steel, both 19th century industries.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Grove is being kind of hypocritical as well as Intel has chip packaging plants and possibly fabs all over the world.

I agree, market protectionism can only backfire. It screwed up the US steel trade, it will probably sink the US IT industry if carried out. Countries that we put up barriers against generally put up reciprocal barriers against the US.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[mpechner]

The problem is that we can't. As a US Citizen you can't get a work visa. Same for China. They do have protectionism. Turn around is fair play.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Brandybuck]

Governemnt interference with the market is bad.

I agree. I think the long term solution to this is to get the government out of the situation. What? The government is involved in outsourcing? Indirectly, yes.

If you take a look, you'll see that the only companies outsourcing skilled workers overseas are public corporations. Private companies are not. Corporations are artificial entities created by governments.

A private company is owned by individuals who have their own long term self-interest at heart. They want short term gains, but they won't take them at the expense of long term profitability. But corporations are run by individuals who only care for short term stock price changes. This creates a horribly skewed market sense. Corporate executives really don't care if they're squandering the company's future, so long as they look good next quarter.

Talk to any private business owner. Their workers are almost like family to them. They're only going to lay off employees for cause or if money is very tight. I've actually had some jobs where I made more money than the owner. But a corporation is owned by millions of disintered and unaccountable stockholders. There is no sense of family. Employees are resources at best, liabilities at worst.

Public corporations could still be formed without a government charter, but the owners are going to be much more cautious in doing so, because they'll still be liable without the current government absolutions that occur when a corporation is founded.

Of course, getting governments out of the corporation creation business isn't going to happen. But there is something we can do in the meantime. If you own stock you are a part owner in a company. Exercise your ownership rights. Make your voice heard. Your employees (also known as the management) have a job to maximize your investment, not to squander it on short term "stock price roulette".

In response to the parent post, I'm all for the free market. If the free market truly says that IT jobs should go to India, then so be it. But as long as corporations are artificial entities created by governments, it's not a free market.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[the_womble]

Andy Grove just demonstrates again something that has been known from the time of Adam Smith: businesses favour free trade, except for their own industry which needs protection for some reason.

As other poseters have pointed out protectionism never works in the long term anyway.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[happyhamster]

Stick your free market bullshit up your stinking ass. Your fucking "free market" simply does not work for most people benefit, only for a few rich motherfuckers. But for the majority of normal people, we need a strong govenrnment to keep the rich pigs in check.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[GrayArea]

Jobs are fleeing to "India and a number of other countries" (I love Eddie Izzard, if you can't tell) because people can not move as easily as jobs can. This is not an inherent limitation; it's the way things have been left because of fear, ignorance and short-sightedness. You have to realize that the market for "places to live" is one of the least open markets; all countries limit movement of people across borders. Unfortunately, free trade necessitates free (as in free to move) labor if you don't want to deal with the results of skewed feedback loops.

The way things are now, jobs will shift away from US, resulting in domestic economy having to deal with all the job losses immediately, while the potential gain from increased demand by the newly formed middle class in developing countries will only start to have an effect in middle or long term. Meanwhile, we will all have to go through a painful adjustment period.

In the alternative fantasy world where we didn't have our heads up in our asses, we would open up the borders for people who can have jobs here (ooh, what a scary thing to do, I hear you say) and benefit from the stimulus to the domestic economy an influx of talented people can bring. Yes, it will become more crowded, but then the world is a crowded place. It's time we realize we can't have our cake and eat it too; if we want open world markets then we will have to open ours or our own jobs will desert us.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Anonymous Coward]

free market works for everybody if everybody is allowed to compete.

You certainly wouldn't have public servants doubling the average wage of the private sector like in canada (median (40,000) and low(0)).

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[gothicpoet]

Very bluntly put, but unfortunately generally historically accurate.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Best post.

I believe the same thing. L1 and H1B visas lock workers into a specific company while green cards and citizenship allow them to compete on equal terms.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[evilviper]

Figure out howto make money by "exploiting" all that cheap Chinese labor yourself.

Labor in 3rd world countries isn't just cheap, it's inhuman. Conditions are awful, the people are being exploited.

Hey, slave labor is outlawed in the USA, let's move our work to other countries where slave-labor is legal. Whoopie.

Personally, I see the problem as very simple, with a very simple solution... Tarriffs were made to protect us against these things. As technology has improved low-cost transportation, and internet access comes without tarriffs, the old low tarriffs have become outdated, and simply need to be increased to reflect the current day.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Bilibala]

free market doesn't and shouldn't mean exporting your business plan. It got to the stage that the corporation is exporting sensitive information without knowing, or simply to please their shareholders by saving a few bucks.

Most company's think IT is a cost-centre, and they can live without them, their business will run fine if someone else developes it. But the actual softwares contain the whole business flow, the intricacies and the exception rules which makes their business have that edge. Just imagine Coke needs a software system to calculate their magical formula, but outsources it to India!

The car, electronic manufacturers sure enough saved money by setting plants in China, Japan..etc to manufacture parts, thinking they'll never be smart enough to piece the whole thing together... All that's left that I can see is the brand name, I've used chinese branded DVD players that's half the price and more reliable then the US/Japan made ones... yeah right, open up trade, let people into the US, the next thing you'll be complaining is marketing and sales jobs disappearing in the US.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[axxackall]

Om your support I'd like to give one more example:

Since USSR has collapsed in 1991, the new Russiangovt team led by Eltsin afraid big social tensions and they have been keeping the former communist's practice to support agrecultural inustry. Over years govt experts tried to reduce the support in order to bring more competition to tha industry and within the decade the support was really reduced.

That brought more competiotin. Also it brought more investors to those sectors, investors who bought many former soviet agrecultural companies. Also it improved the competition and investment in the sectors consuming the industry product, processing it, packaging and bringin it to the end market of food stores.

I remember 12 years ago the civilization in a technological sense has been finished once you are driving out of any industrial city: roads, telephony - everything was almost the same as a century ago. The technology that industry used was on the same level. Now it's not really different then in big cities.

This is the perfect illustration that the goverment's protectionalism doesn't work. Sure the goverment should still regulate the envirnomental and and human safity. And of course nothing wrong when the goverment plays in the investment market by the same rules as private investors: buying some companies in order to safe them, restructure them and saling back to the publick market.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[ShonFerg]

Personally, I don't think you could be further off from the truth.

Without government over-site, our capitalist system would have merged into larger and larger companies, making goods so cheaply and efficiently that the barrier to entry in the market sector is insurmountable. Microsoft may be a horrible monopoly, but compared to the trusts that had cropped up before there were any anti-trust laws it's a small fry.

Another way the government intervenes is to change the interest rate because the problem with unchecked capitalism is that everything spirals up and up until it goes out of control and then crashes down just as far... the Fed tries to stabilize this a bit by changing interest rates and putting in rules that automatically will shut down the stock market and such and thus far has managed to avoid a crash of the magnitude of the one that happened in the 20's. Personally, though, I think the system of turning companies into a high-stakes Las Vegas-style gambling game is more at fault in this, but I digress.

As for off-shoring workers;

The problem with "free trade" is that each part of the world has a vastly different level of technical sophistication, political stability, and moralistic ideals. Therefore, companies in varying places around the world CAN'T compete fairly. A "free trade" system actually puts companies that pay a living wage, that deal with things like worker's comp and family medical leave, that believe in human rights and protecting the environment at a distinct and severe disadvantage compared to those who operate with near or full-fledged slave-labor.

Furthermore, the ONLY way there can actually be an advantage to putting manufacturing and labor further away from the intended market is when loser regulations give those companies advantages or if the resources to create something cannot be found locally. Otherwise, it would simply increase shipping costs and be more expensive. Looking at it from a macroscopic perspective, "free trade" actually wastes more resources than it frees up because it requires a lot more "middle work" to get things from point A to point B. So the end result is that wealth flows out of point B to point A and doesn't return... it simply re-locates wealth to those areas that have the very worst and most inhumane working conditions on earth.

Aside from that, the more we offshore our labor, the more we discourage our own citizens from educating themselves, thus further exacerbating the situation by actually lowering the achievement level, and thus value, of workers here.

I think free trade tries to say that the more developed civilizations should all give up everything they've worked for to improve the quality of life of their citizens so that the standard of living throughout the world drops to some sort of average... but that's not capitalism, it's communism. In a capitalist system, those groups who work the hardest and create the most gain the most wealth. Do you really want a world where political borders cease to matter and we all become barely-paid wage-slaves to omni-powerful corporations?

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Malcontent]

" Governemnt interference with the market is bad. Huge subsidies that distort thetrade in agricultural products is bad, and it is killing Africa (literally)."

Lets presume for one second that you are right. Bad for who? Does anybody in America really care that africans are dying? Maybe a few do but most don't give a shit. So if the US govt can make life better for the US citizens shouldn't it do it even if it means that Africans die? Who is the American govt working for anyway us or the africans. We kill iraqis to prevent american deaths why shouldn't we kill africans to make americans better off.

"If you want action from the government, demand that they stop supporting 19th century industries and that they demand open trade with other countries. "

It will never happen. Demand that farm subsidies stop and you will be hanged in the midwest. Demand that logging and mining subsidies stop and you will be hanged in the west. You know what the ultimate irony is? The only people that can demand an end to subsidies and still win elections are the democrats. Nobody in the west or midwest votes for them anyway. A republican on the other hand could never win on a platform of ending farm subsidies.

"Protectionism is proprietary; free trade is free."

There is no such thing as free trade. There has never been such a thing and there will never be such a thing. If three thousand years of human advancement has never once produced free trade then it's probably against human nature and will never come to fruition.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[unix1011]

I agree with most of what you said but I wonder if you (you seem to), or more importantly those reading your post realize the current situation.

Government interference with the market is bad.

True but our government only appears to support this policy when in fact they do everything possible to make sure this is not the case from our rigid control of the IMF, World Bank, and the WTO, to bailing out the airline industry. From what little I know of economics we are nothing close in reality to free trade or most of the efficiencies of free markets Adam Smith or your Intro to Economics textbook preached about. Some things like bread are as close to purely competitive as possible, but in many other arenas the United States passes laws to ensure an oligarchy ( A non price competitive industry where only a handful of players operate). This is why we are not likely to see changes in things like software patents, and the breaking up of certain monopoly operating system providers or the government pressure to use vendor neutral standards.

This could be for many reasons from protecting your friends business, to ensuring unnatural growth, to attempting to get the best deal for America; but on the most part it is the case.

If people want to keep a strong U.S. software industry we need to things like encourage domestic competition instead of hamper, increase eduction, and adopt new trends like open source UNIX like operating systems to increase productivity. Make the U.S. a place where new software tech is done first because we make it easy to innovate and have the best schools. Otherwise any successful tariffs or incentives will only shift the costs around and create another industry were trade rules are unequally applied.

Huge subsidies that distort the trade in agricultural products is bad, and it is killing Africa (literally).

To clarify for those who do not know what the U.S. does is subsidies African nations to produce cash crops making the farmers economic success tied to U.S. import value instead of producing food which they could put on a truck and go sell it. Is this what you are talking about?

For good measure we also steal there biodiversity by patenting gene sequences they have been using for hundreds of years.

Every one should read http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0971 394253/104-0559969-3167147?v=glance for a good look at things we do that really hurt other people in the world.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[gfody]

what would we do? demand that XX% of code is written in North America

what are you, retarded? we'd demand that you pay at least engineering minimum wage. if the indians are charging less than that then uncle sam steps in to collect the difference.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[rnd()]

He is right. Americans have every reason to want 100% free trade, out of purely selfish interests and with no concern for anyone overseas.

Free trade means cheaper prices for American consumers, and it creates an incentive for Americans to do what we do best, rather than things that other workers can do cheaper or better.

Subsidies are equivalent to hidden taxes on the goods that subsidized workers produce, and are effectively a price-support mechanism. Ironically, governments have learned that flat out price support mechanisms don't work, but they continue to insist on subsidies.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Khalid]

In fact this is all what H1B Visas is all about ! if these visas didn't exist, wages in the US IT sector would have grown even more during the Dot com boom, leading to inflation and then to recession in that Market.

Yes it's very hard to have free trade (ability for services and goods to flow from one country to another) without letting people move in the same way and this is why the EU (European Union) Thanks to the Maastrich treaty is different from the NAFTA. In the EU the job Market in one country is open to all the citizens of other EU countries, which tend to level or at leat limit distorsion in wages.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Khalid]

In fact this is the case for eveybody. Everyone likes free trade when he buys shoes or garnement made in low wages countries, but want a protection for the industry where he works.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[DAldredge]

Those industries are also vital to the National Security of the USA. It would not be in our best interests to lose them.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[glesga_kiss]

we need a strong govenrnment to keep the rich pigs in check

In capitalist America, the rich pigs are the government!!

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Anonymous Coward]

>The problem is that we can't. As a US Citizen you can't get a work
>visa. Same for China. They do have protectionism. Turn around is fair

Actually, thats part of the reason the USA is a lot richer right now. Just becouse they are doing something bad to their economy doesn't mean we have to. Even if it would be fair.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Anonymous Coward]

>Governemnt interference with the market is bad. Huge subsidies that distort thetrade in agricultural products is bad, and it is killing Africa (literally).

Africa is killing itself. Civil wars, AIDs/HIV, starvation of their own making ... essentially Africans being Africans (what with the average IQ being 60.) Most of them live near some of the most fertile land on Earth, but despite the best efforts of foreign powers, they still can't farm or raise livestock.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[fastdecade]

The software sector is simply waking up to something that has happened to every other sector: as the segment matures, labor becomes portable, and therefore companies will seek the cheapest labor possible.

Not *Every* other sector.

Car makers, phone jockeys, clothing manufacturers? Yes.

Lawyers, architects, doctors? No.

How companies perceive software development is the telling factor. Those who treat them as blue-collar workers who have to be fed specs, pizza, and pushed around a bit, have always suffered with late deadlines and crap software. They will get the same from India for half the price.

Companies who benefit from their software, use it to their strategic advantage, being capable of change and predictability --- will stick with local workers.

This is all long term. Short term, lots of instability.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Anonymous Coward]

> Let me voice my opinion in /. terminology:
> Protectionism is proprietary; free trade is
> free.

You cannot have free trade unless all partners
engage on level and *competitive* fields. IT
workers in the U.S. *cannot* engage in free
trade with people in India or China precisely
be cause there is no level playing field. Or
to put another way, IT workers who *want* to
engage in free trade and competition for jobs
with those in India or Chine *cannot* because
there is *no* free trade.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair enough.

I think a lot of people end up blaming foreign workers, or their countries but what it comes down to is the companies sending the labor offshore. I don't see a problem with this except that most companies are already getting huge tax breaks, and american workers pay taxes to the american government while foreign workers do not. I've always thought the companies themselves should be taxed somehow rather than the goods that are being produced. Per worker maybe?

And for good measure insert greedy/pompous american quote here, since that seems to be the trend.

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you?! a fuckn ignorant commie?!?!

oh wait...checking your posts,you are...

move out of your mom's basement and turn off the 'rage against the machine' dumbass, your dad is working overtime to give you a roof over your ungrateful head...

I can't wait til you fuckers get your own way and manage to starve everyone out of house and home...

read a fuckn history book,dumbass..

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[voiceofthewhirlwind]

Governemnt interference with the market is bad...

Assuming you have a job, are you willing to give it up right now in the name of free trade?

You want a job? innovate. Become efficient. Figure out howto make money...

If you don't have a job, how do you get more efficient at it? How do you innovate without the resources to support R&D? Isn't getting a job the conventional way of making money?

Re:Bah! government help = bad

[Politicus]

The EU requires a level of standards and practices of countries which are part of the EU. There is no problem with free trade among equals. The problem arises when trade is done between asymetric parties like the US and China. This is not free trade. It's simply wealth redistribution from those displaced workers to executive management since no company immediately drops prices as a result of having outsourced to China. When's the last time you heard a tech company declare dividends as a result of outsourcing overseas?

This is a problem with predominantly management driven capitalism. Unless, somebody can show me otherwise, I don't see owner driven capitalism doing this!

Now if they were REAL smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if they were REAL smart, these short-sighted companies would hire those that do software from those that do because they can and not care if they get paid for the effort at all. THIS is where they need to go, not india and china.

Re:Now if they were REAL smart

[msgregory@earthlink.]

You're right, they should outsource to....Fantasyland!

Too good pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if some people, those in the top, stop having so good pay that keeps increasing, then the rest would have something more. And no, it's not about communism, but about why high level jobs have got increases faster than the low ones, when tasks, resposability and accountability don't seem to have increased at the same pace. It would be nice to see those that fire be fired at the same ratio, for example, half work force out, half of the directives out with them, including chairmans.

Yeah, now that we all time to read slashdot

[yintercept]

Being unemployed means I have time to catch up on the news. Instead of all the articles about cool tech advances that I missed while working 12 hour days, everyone is hitting us with this depressing economic reality garbage.

For the most part outsourcing is a smart move for US tech firms. The International tech market is where the action is. So it is best for U.S. firms to be securing toe holds in the International market.

It is politically unpopular, but the big wage disparity between countries means US workers will probably have to accept pay cuts to stay competitive. Tant pis.

The only really boner move made in the last several years was that stupid HB??? bill that brought in then laid off a hundred thousand tech workers. I suspect that any regulation the government tries to pass will simply have chilling affects on U.S. companies to maintain an advantage, and won't really help the US workers.

Re:Yeah, now that we all time to read slashdot

[fingusernames]

We can only take wage cuts to a point. On top of our expensive social structures, paid through taxes/high insurance, we have fixed costs, in the form of rent/mortgages/loan obligations. If globalisation of skilled labor causes widespread wage deflation or stagnation, and if that starts hitting the ability of people to make their fixed payments, leading to a downward pressure on the value of fixed assets, we will have a shitstorm of pain in store.

Not to mention incentives to become educated. Unionized garbagemen are now making more than formally educated and experienced professionals. While that may be amusing, if the wage gap between professionals, under global competition, and service industry workers, gets smaller and smaller, it will be a tremendous dis-incentive to young people to go to school and take out massive loans.

These are some very serious concerns... we will all certainly be fine in the short term, this economic malaise will pass, but longer term the structural issues in global competition between the western world and the developing world are going to be, well, scarey.

Larry

Shocking-self-wounding.

[Anonymous Coward]

" How dare countries outside America try to compete! It's so... un-American!"

It's more like "How dare US companies compete against US consumers!" The other countries are just pawns in the whole game.

Re:Shocking-self-wounding.

[Anonymous Coward]

The other countries are just pawns in the whole game.

At last - some frankness from an American! Most other countries are pawns, like Afganastan and Iraq. Who cares in people die overseas, as long as it gets political milage at home.

Re:Shocking-self-wounding.

[kikai suki]

"The other countries are just pawns in the whole game." So are the "citizens"/"consumers" of the u.s.

I think outsourcing is good

[dyoo78]

There are two sides to the argument. On one end, there are those who advocate some type of regulation to deter offshore software development. Developers are losing jobs and that's a bad thing.

On the other end, there are those who think offshoring development is great. It allows those with little money to build cool products. It allows corporations to save money... yadi yada yada.

Let me just say this: developers who want us to stop offshoring are just asking us for more money for the same work.

Re:I think outsourcing is good

[quarkscat]

Just wait until the shareholders of American
industries moving abroad finally realize that
the corporate officers can be replaced far more
cheaply with Chinese or Indian executives.

Hey, Andy Grove. It's time to train your
replacement.

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) once said "The
American people deserve the government that
they have. The US Congress is the very best
legislature that money can buy."

Perhaps we should change the law, and out-
source our Congress to India, at 10% of what
they cost the US taxpayer right now ...

DMCA eh?

[JW Troll]

the USA should reconsider the software patents that have crippled American innovation for decades, and also the DMCA which has effectively denied Americans their fair use rights.

The end of an era

[DigitalSpyder]

It used to be skilled IT workers could get awesome pay, decent job perks and benefits. Now we're lucky to get half of the pay we would have five to ten years ago and that's not even counting inflation.

Now skilled IT staff are treated as little more than skilled mechanics. Worse still, because of the industry we work in, they can fob jobs off to other countries. Until recently I worked in Melbourne, Australia but now I live in L.A, USA. It's not just an American concern. It's a global concern. Telstra (Australia's largest telco) got sprung about six months ago because they were hiring programmers and support staff in India for one third of the price they'd be paying for workers in Australia. Worse still, Telstra is still majority owned by the government. Where was the Australian government through all this?

Everyone wonders why IT unemployment is up higher than any other industry (in Australia it's higher than 11% for IT, which is waaay beyond the unemployment figures being spouted elsewhere). This is why. It's because workers are not only easy to find, it's easier to outsource it to another country and replace 3 people for the one you just sacked!

Every citizen of every first world country (especially citizens who read sites like this one) should be concerned, because they have no way of knowing if their jobs will be next.

Nobody dismisses that other countries should be trying to compete. But nobody wants it to affect them or their country. Therein lies the problem: Businesses operate independant of countries. And it's issues like this that bring it to the forefront.

If a country instigates laws which work against a business they will move their business off shore. There is no moral compass guiding big business, which is why people must voice their concerns to the government to act as that compass.

If morality does not factor business decisions at some point then profits will drive the entire world into oblivion as they crash countless economies, burn up all our resources and pollute the planet until it is uninhabitable - all because of the bottom line.

Re:The end of an era

[codifus]

Totoally on point Digital Spyder. I remember how South Africa had hoards of US companies doing business there before Apratheid became infamous. It came even closer to home for me when the last comapny I worked for, an insurcance company, had their headquarters in freaking Bermuda. Why? Good vacation spot? No. Massive tax breaks.
I'd like to accelerate this "burn up" process.

CD

Re:The end of an era

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

If morality does not factor business decisions at some point then profits will drive the entire world into oblivion as they crash countless economies, burn up all our resources and pollute the planet until it is uninhabitable - all because of the bottom line.

That pretty much sums up the goal of capitalists...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:The end of an era

[michael_cain]

It used to be skilled IT workers could get awesome pay, decent job perks and benefits.

There are a lot of interesting microeconomic issues tied up in this situation. Awesome pay is generally the result of one of two situations: the person earning the pay is really worth it, or there is a shortage of whatever skills the person is providing. At least on a worldwide basis, there no longer seems to be any shortage of IT skills. In the US, the current employment situation would suggest that there's no shortage of IT skills (relative to the demand) within the country, either. I believe an argument could be made that many IT workers are, indeed, nothing more than "skilled mechanics".

As a point for discussion, the "really worth it" is about impact on the bottom line; and big impact usually means that there's a lot of leverage, in the sense that a program that saves ten cents per customer transaction is worth much more to a company that does 20 million transactions per month than it is to a company that does 100,000. The type of technology analysis that I did until recently simply is not worth as much to a small firm as it is to a large one; if your annual costs are $10M, I can't figure out any way to cut them by $100M. So the awesome compensation would be more typically earned by someone working at a very large company.

To the extent that job growth is generally driven by smaller businesses, the results should not be unexpected. At some points in time, average salaries decrease, as the big companies cut their staffs and those people go to work at smaller firms. The nature of the business can have a big impact as well. When I worked for an international holding company, our revenue per employee at the holding company was very large. When we were purchased by a larger company and the overseas ventures sold for cash, the revenue per employee at headquarters was reduced dramatically (and pressure to lay people off began immediately). It is interesting to note that for a large firm in the US today, it is easier to cut staffing levels by 20% than it is to cut pay levels by the same amount.

What's the matter with outsourcing?

[Via_Patrino]

As US needed more know how and money than the other countries.

The problem is that intel processors are more expensive than AMD, and in those "less rich" countries, more expensive enough to they don't buy it. So intel is losing market.

Capitalism and democracy are great and all...

[Now15]

...but these days, we are surrounded by hundreds of multinational corporations which operate as small dictatorships, and have the largest influence on our global leaders.

Okay, so maybe calling them dictatorships is a bit harsh, but where's the democracy? The right to purchase or avoid a product? Sure -- on an individual level -- but mass advertising basically wipes out a chance for "voting with your feet" to influence corporate policy.

Re:Capitalism and democracy are great and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try telling that to a libertarian/Republican Dog-Eat-Dog/Survival of the fittest idiot.

Re:Capitalism and democracy are great and all...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Pure capitalism and pure democracy are contradictory. You just cannot have democracy under capitalism. The reason is because capitalism is elitist. A select few (often less than 15%) of the population control a huge chunk of the corporations, markets, and property. If you had true democracy, the majority (which is poorer) would overthrow the minority that hoards the wealth. I predict that you will see this conflict happen in at least 20 countries within our lifetime (you can start by observing Argentina and Venezuela)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Capitalism and democracy are great and all...

[moebius_4d]

Thanks again for the view from the Marxist camp. Before you get carried away with these predictions, remember that Marx himself made similar ones about upheaval and worker's revolution in Europe that have conspicuously failed to materialize.

Ever played with the economic sim sugarscape? That will give you some real insight into how economic concentration occurs. But the reason why people don't just vote themselves everyone else's property is because we can now see exactly what happened in places where they tried that. People in the US want Bill Gates' property to be secure to him because they want their own property to be secure to themselves, and of course also because the high financial and social mobility suggests to them that they may soon be wealthy too.

Democracy, when restricted in it's "tyranny of the majority" by a social compact like the US Constitution, is a freedom- and human-dignity-enhancing system of governance. It happily coexists with capitalism.

Re:Capitalism and democracy are great and all...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Before you get carried away with these predictions, remember that Marx himself made similar ones about upheaval and worker's revolution in Europe that have conspicuously failed to materialize.

Actually there are several reasons it didn't materialize as soon as he predicted. However, I think it WILL happen.

People in the US want Bill Gates' property to be secure to him because they want their own property to be secure to themselves, and of course also because the high financial and social mobility suggests to them that they may soon be wealthy too.

Actually that is not the reason. Most Americans don't have much property, and they certainly don't need the government protecting it for them. If anything, a huge chunk of Americans are armed simply to protect themselves. The real reason it hasn't happened yet is because of the strong middle class. It is my view that a revolution will only happen if the middle class is weak or does not exist. In other words, if the middle class in USA lose their wealth and become working class, working poor, or poor, as it is happening in Argentina, it will happen.

Democracy, when restricted in it's "tyranny of the majority" by a social compact like the US Constitution, is a freedom- and human-dignity-enhancing system of governance. It happily coexists with capitalism.

The constitution is a piece of document. A great document but nevertheless a document. It can be manipulated by those in power. Two good examples are stripping of property from Japanese Americans during WWII (totally anti-capitalist and against the Constitution), and freeing slaves after the Civil War (slaves=property and freeing them is anti-capitalist and illegal according to the Constitution).

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Capitalism and democracy are great and all...

[bj8rn]

The constitution is a piece of document. A great document but nevertheless a document. It can be manipulated by those in power.

Example number three: Soviet Union had a very nice constitution. Very friendly. The problem was, that, like the other laws, it didn't have much power. Hence they called it the longest anecdote ever written.

It is my view that a revolution will only happen if the middle class is weak or does not exist.

Well, of course it won'y happen if people aren't poor. I mean, why fight if you don't have anything to fight for? But then again, what are you fighting for? (And, most importantly, what the hell is my problem? No idea...).

About these mythical classes. I tend to agree with Bourdieu who said, that classes are just constructs that don't exist in reality, although their "existence" is used as an argument in many cases. I remember this survey that was done here (here = Estonia) some years ago. It turned out that an awful lot of people (maybe even half of them, I don't remember the exact numbers) though they were middle class, although in reality were struggling to get by (it was not too long after the breakup of the SU).

Should the "middle class" in America lose their wealth, I don't think they will start a revolution. They didn't do it in 1930's, when Communists were much stronger, it's even less probable they would do it now.

Re:Capitalism and democracy are great and all...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Example number three: Soviet Union had a very nice constitution. Very friendly. The problem was, that, like the other laws, it didn't have much power.

That was precisely my point. RIGHT NOW, some person could take over USA and start altering all the laws. In addition, it must be noted that the legal system is a tool of the elite to begin with.

Well, of course it won'y happen if people aren't poor.

Capitalism will ALWAYS have classes since it is an elitist system. There must always be someone at the bottom to do the "dirty work". Otherwise, how would the wealthy elites live?

I remember this survey that was done here (here = Estonia) some years ago. It turned out that an awful lot of people (maybe even half of them, I don't remember the exact numbers) though they were middle class, although in reality were struggling to get by (it was not too long after the breakup of the SU).

First of all, what the people think is irrelevant. I could take a poll and ask people if they favour peace over war and 99% of the earth's population will say so, even the hawks would say that.

In addition, you don't seem to understand the concept of classes. It is a RELATIVE term. It is based on the standard of living (and hence cost of living) for each country or region. A POOR person in USA is 100x (if not more) richer than a middle class person in China. A homeless person in USA can stand on the street corner and get $5 in a few hours. This is the daily--or even weekly--salary in many other parts of the world.

Should the "middle class" in America lose their wealth, I don't think they will start a revolution. They didn't do it in 1930's, when Communists were much stronger, it's even less probable they would do it now.

You are wrong there. It nearly happened in the early 1900's (during the depression). The communists were so close to taking over. What stopped them was Rosevolt(sp?; I think it was him??) who actually initiated a whole bunch of socialist policies. Passing these policies is what stopped the collapse of the US system. In fact, modern day conservatives are angry and can't get over that fact. USA is not a socialist country and has never had any socialist ideals. But whatever little socialist ideals it does have, came from that period.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Capitalism and democracy are great and all...

[dvk]

That was precisely my point. RIGHT NOW, some person could take over USA and start altering all the laws.

Uhm... NO. To change the US Constitution, you need to go through a complicated process that no one person could affect to a great degree. Even more so since the society is 50-50 divided between left and right wing. The most influence anyone can have on US legal system are judges, and on the top level you have 9 of them. And the most they can do (admittedly, sometimes with major results :) is to say what laws are and are not constitutional. A LOT larger bodies of power (legislative branch) write those laws.

The difference between US consititution (or any other that works) and USSR one (which, unlike you, I have read - in russian - and witnessed at "work" first hand) is the minor concept known as "checks and balances". That is precisely what makes US constitution the *law* of the land and made USSR one the longest anecdote.

In addition, it must be noted that the legal system is a tool of the elite to begin with.

Quite wrong. First of all, elites started with no need for a legal system. Ooog the warlord only needs the biggest muscles and biggest club to rule, NOT legal system.
On the other hand, it was only legal systems that gave the NON-elites any sort of meaningful rights (see history of England and USA for examples).

That is not to say, of course, that the elites don't try to use the legal system as a tool for stying on top. But it's just another tool, among the others they used throughout history: brute force, religion, economics, etc... Like any tool it can be used for and against elite.

Capitalism will ALWAYS have classes since it is an elitist system. There must always be someone at the bottom to do the "dirty work". Otherwise, how would the wealthy elites live?

Oh, cut the bullcrap. Classes are NOT a property of capitalism. They are a property of any organized social system (I wouldn't even say "human collective" as the same holds true for ants/bees/etc..).

Whay do you think, "dirty work" was done by the elites in fUSSR? Or that Kim Chen Ir suffers from hunger like most of his slaves^H^H^H^H^H subjects?

Again, ANY system is an elitist system. The only difference between USR and USA is that in USSR, i had zero chance of being even close to the elite, no matter what i did. In USA, i have a pretty good fighting chance, and well on my road there, simply because i have brains and work very hard.

Dumb plinco armchair commies. Really would be nice if all of them could get one-way ticket to my hometown circa 1980, where you had to wait 2 hours in line to buy toilet paper (limit: 2 rolls per person), of course unless you were the elite.

-DVK

-- "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
- Ronald Reagan

Re:Capitalism and democracy are great and all...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I don't know why you are comparing USSR to USA. I never said USSR was better than USA. USSR was totalitarian and was horrible. It has nothing to do with what I support. The only aspect of USSR that I would compare is the ecnomics. Comparing the rest, like laws, politics, etc is pointless--USSR is not worthy of even consideration.

Uhm... NO. To change the US Constitution, you need to go through a complicated process that no one person could affect to a great degree. Even more so since the society is 50-50 divided between left and right wing.

Either you are a lawyer, or you are quite naiive. You are like every one of these ill-informed citizens who take the word of the govt. What you are saying is true but there is NO REASON why it cannot be changed. During "good times" what you are saying will be true: courts will behave properly, dictators won't have power, etc. HOWEVER, during "bad times", anything goes. Laws can be easily broken and changed to suit those in power. I will give you two good examples.

First example is Nazi Germany (especially before the war). Before the war, no one would have thought that Germany could become fascist and start carrying out genocide. As a matter of fact, it had one of the best legal systems in the WORLD. It had judges seperate from govt, had different branches of govt (kind of like USA), etc. But once the Nazis took over, they started rewriting all the rules. Very few people know this but many of the key actions of the Nazis (like stripping Jews of property, putting them in concentration camps, burning books, killing communists, etc) were LEGAL. Nazis did not break a single rule. Once you control the govt, you can start changing the laws. It's quite easy. Sure, USA has a lot of "checks and balances" but so does every other country. None of them mean anything during "bad times"--my second example shows why.

Even though USA has a constitution, it can be "ignored" during "bad times". The first point is freeing slaves after the Civil War. According to the US constitution, slaves were property (just like land or stone, or gold). The US constitution strongly protects individual property rights. AFter the Civil War, the slaverowners were forced to free their slaves even though that was against the Constitution. Don't get me wrong: I'm not a slave supporter! But this just shows how you can "sidestep" the Constitution whenver you want. Another situation was what happened with Japanese Americans during WWII. They were stripped of their property (only compensated well after WWII) and locked up in internment camps. Both of these actions are totally against US laws. Needless to say, they were ignored.

Don't ever worship the laws! They are written by the elites for the elites. The courts may seem independent, but they can always be manipulated (usually by stacking the Supreme Court with people who share you ideology). At worst, you can even threaten a judge's life to make them carry out something (hasn't happened in USA recently but very common in many parts of the world, including Italy).

The difference between US consititution (or any other that works) and USSR one (which, unlike you, I have read - in russian - and witnessed at "work" first hand) is the minor concept known as "checks and balances".

I don't know why you are brining USSR into this. USSR was a totalitarian government! None of its laws meant ANYTHING! It wouldn't surprise me if Stalin wrote 70% of them to suit himself. Under totalitarian regimes, courts, laws, and government are nothing more than an illusion. They are just there so that people could pretend they mattered, when in reality they didn't. In USSR, the KGB will snatch one when they wanted, and the courts will just let it happen.

It's too bad that a Soviet like you didn't realize that the whole notion of courts in USSR was bogus. All that mattered was what the Party said. The same thing applies to many parts of the world now. Courts and laws in countries like China, Kuwait, Sa

Either unionize or professionalize!

[bartash]

We could have tech workers form strong trade unions. OK so that one probably won't fly in the US.

The alternative is to have computing be a profession like lawyer-ing and doctor-ing. They have trade asociations that are so powerful they can't be ignored. To practice law or medecine you must be part of the profession. To what extent does this protect lawyers and medics from overseas outsourcing?

Re:Either unionize or professionalize!

[vegetablespork]

I think the fact that lawyers customarily argue cases in person (at trial) and that doctors can't operate over the Internet do more to protect them from overseas outsourcing than do their professional organizations :).

Re:Either unionize or professionalize!

[akuma(x86)]

Doctors can't easily be outsourced. Are you going to fly out a patient to India? Video conferencing probably won't cut it.

I think that a bigger threat to the medical professionals will be intelligent databases that are able to diagnose patients better than a doctor could. A doctor that makes a diagnosis is following some sort of standard decision tree that they all learn about in med school. A well trained database could theoretically do the same job. It could potentially be better than a human if it is updated constantly with real life case history and cutting edge reserach. A mere technician could guide the patient through a series of tests that the database suggests, eventually leading to a diagnosis and possible treatment suggestions. You'd still probably need human doctors to do the double check on the computer's findings. Surgeons are probably safe, until the robot overlords take over :)

Lawyers may not be so protected. Drawing up contracts and patents and the like seem like tasks that could easily be moved offshore.

Re:Either unionize or professionalize!

[sessamoid]

The alternative is to have computing be a profession like lawyer-ing and doctor-ing. They have trade asociations that are so powerful they can't be ignored. To practice law or medecine you must be part of the profession. To what extent does this protect lawyers and medics from overseas outsourcing?

It isn't unions or professional organizations that prevents lawyering and doctoring from going off-shore. It's the fact that to perform the duties necessary to those professions, you actually have to physically BE THERE.

In law, local variations in law make it such that it's utterly impossible for lawyers from other countries to just practice law in the US from far away. Plus, you actually have to show up to court sometimes.

In medicine, you actually have to talk to and physically examine the patient to perform most duties in medicine. Tele-medicine and such are interesting experiments, but there's only so much you can do from a 2-D TV quality image. You have to be able to put your hands on the patient, poke and prod, smell their breath, etc. You can't do that from the other end of a telephone line. Plus, again there are regional variations in the standard of care such that doctors from other countries won't be practicing in concordance with those customs. Diagnositic radiology, however, is one field that you can perform largely from afar, and some of those jobs are being outsourced to other countries via high-speed telecom lines (primarily for middle-of-the-night needs).

Re:Either unionize or professionalize!

[sessamoid]

I think that a bigger threat to the medical professionals will be intelligent databases that are able to diagnose patients better than a doctor could

While computer-diagnoses may one day do a better job than human doctors, that day ain't here yet, nor it is visibly on the horizon. Just the history of the patients current and prior problems requires a degree of insight that computers don't have. You also have to know about current disease epidemics, social issues involving their health, etc.

But the biggest thing preventing computers from replacing physicians is that you still actually have to lay hands on the patient and examine him. A computer isn't going to be able to tell just from a complaint of abdominal pain that the patient has a palpable tumor in the abdomen, or that the patient's shortness of breath is due to diabetic ketoacidosis that I can judge by the smell on the patient's breath the second he walks in the room. The level of sophistication in AI and sensor technology that such a machine would require is decades away at the very least. Even when it's possible, it won't be cost-effective for many decades after that. Despite the high salaries physicians get paid in America, we're far cheaper than any artificial intelligence alternative that is likely to be conceived during my lifetime.

Re:Either unionize or professionalize!

[akuma(x86)]

Yes, you would still need a human to do the diagnosis, but that human wouldn't have to go through the grueling years of med school. That person could be a technician studying a 2-3 year degree. The computer would tell the technician what diagnosis to perform (check for abdominal pain, then check eyes, then whatever else the computer comes up with). The key is of course in asking the right questions. The decision tree is vast and appropriate heuristics are needed to prune the tree down to manageable levels. Presumably, you learned all of the right questions in med school. I believe you could teach a computer the correct questions to ask. It would be a tremendous undertaking to build such a vast knowledge-based system, but in theory it is possible.

As for the patient history - that would be the greatest strength of the computer. The computer will remember everything about the patient's history if the data is recorded properly. Given this patient's history it can cross-reference potentially thousands of other similar case histories and do a great job of diagnosis. An ideal database would also have the current information on potentially millions of patients, as well as information on the current state of disease epidemics etc... I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow, but I believe it will happen - maybe in my lifetime or my children's lifetimes.

If the patient wants a real doctor he/she could pay more for one to get a second opinion.

Re:Either unionize or professionalize!

[sessamoid]

Well, you're also missing out that patients expect humans for doctors, and they need communication and somebody who actually cares. For patient education, you'll have to program the computer to recognize the patients socioeducational level and tailor that information to him as well.

AI has for years now promised all sorts of wonderful new improvements to life, but for the most part it's still very pie in the sky. They're pretty good at playing chess now though!

Physical exam isn't as simple as you seem to think it is. For the patient with non-specific abdominal pain, I wouldn't trust a "tech" with a 2 year degree. I trust me because I have years of knowing how different patients react to different types of pain and pressure on exam. If I'm befuddled I'll trust a surgeon with years of experience laying his hands on the patient before I'll trust a computer in my lifetime. Perhaps something useful will come about in your children's lifetime, but don't expect computers to be managing our illnesses when we're elderly.

All our ECG machines have built-in computer algorithms to give a "reading" when the ECG is printed. Even in this very computer-friendly task, I'd estimate it only gets perhaps 50% of the abnormals correct.

I do think computers are a useful adjunct to diagnosis and treatment however, and use them quite often.

Re:Either unionize or professionalize!

[terras]

Doctors and lawyers can be offshored, just as easily as IT and steel workers.

X-Rays are being shipped off to India for interpretation, and with the perfection of operating room robots, surgery won't require a skilled surgeon to be present.

Lawyers can move a lot of the back-office drudge work to wherever the labor is cheapest.

I hope that labor and immigration laws get opened up, such that anyone can compete, regardless of country, for work. Imagine a world of free agent IT workers.

Re:Either unionize or professionalize!

[cowscows]

Very good point. Architecture is a profession, yet American Architects have to compete globally. And I think that's a good thing in most ways. (although why any foreign architect would want to build a building here and deal with all of the extra nonsense and short-sightedness that Americans tend to view buildings through is a mystery to me). And also, the AIA, the professional organization, is fairly weak and probably does more harm than good.

But yeah, just an example to back up your post.

Oh...please stop them

[Pope Raymond Lama]

before it is too late.

I mean, English at least is a subset of the alphabet used in the majority of the occident. Currently almost every computer language is "english based" meaning the keywords are in English, or English based, and thus easy to learn to roman alphabet users.

However if this trend continue, maybe we soon will have Bali based languages, or wordt yet, 3000 characted Mandarim based computer language.

Re:Oh...please stop them

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it works in reverse unfortunately - more people will learn English, but not be able to speak it very well.

For instance, when I phoned Dell, I spoke to a guy who seemed to be speaking English, but I couldn't make out what he was saying at all because of a strong Far-Eastern accent. Consequently we had a very disjointed and frustrating phonecall.

And that's only the tech support side of things. I'd hate to imagine what happens when there are communications issues with more serious outsourced work such as programming. I mean, at the end of the day it may be cheaper labor, but I'd really like to talk to someone who understands what I'm saying - using computer jargon is bad enough, let alone having language difficulties on top of that.

Natural selection doesn't apply to humans.

[rsilvergun]

Humans have social structures which circumvent it. Things like inheritance, family ties, friendship, traditions, religion, etc., etc. Emotions and the ability to reason routinely prevent the best from suceeding while allowing the worst to prosper. That's one of the many failures of capitalism. A small group of people monopolizes wealth and power to the detriment of the rest; and they use social structures to hold onto that wealth and power inspite of anything Natural selection has to say on the subject.

Oh, and the people with power in the U.S. don't care about keeping America in power. They're global, meaning they operate on a global scale sans petty concerns like patriotism. Nationalism is just something to keep the rubes in line. That's the major failure of capitalism. Adam Smith assumed small shop owners who had a stake in their community, and who themselves suffered if the community went to hell. Now global capitalists just move away from their rotting comminities. The slums are exported to poor countries, and the rich live where they don't have to worry about the crime, violence and polution they're creating.

Re:Natural selection doesn't apply to humans.

[jpietrzak]

Ah, unfortunately, "natural selection" is a bit of a slippery concept; you can't actually say that inheritance, family ties, friendship, etc. is keeping the "best from succeeding". From an evolutionary perspective, if a given individual is selected over another due to interpersonal relationships rather than innate ability, then natural selection has applied!

In fact, I personally believe that the ability to maintain and support personal relationships is one of the most significant advantages of humans over other animals; there are many bright creatures in the world, but none have the ability we do to communicate with one another. We can exchange vast amounts of knowledge, ideas, and experiences between ourselves, and we've learned how to transmit this information great distances, broadcast it to many individuals, and record it for the future. Because of this, enormous groups of humans can work together to accomplish something that any single individual could not.

So yes, the ability to create, maintain, and take advantage of interpersonal relationships is extremely valuable selection-wise, possibly more valuable than any other innate ability...

Re:Natural selection doesn't apply to humans.

[fildo]

Yeah, I wonder how many of those you describe as "in power" wear american flags on their lapels and have "protect freedom" bumper stickers on their mercedes? Something to think about.

In the end these companies will lose buisness...

[Anonymous Coward]

As they continue to send their buisness offshore the comapnies that they basicly outsource to slowly gains the information about customers that the main company does.
Eventualy it will become cheaper just to have your workers and servers in forign lands while keeping yourself incorperated in the USA for some tax breaks and PR.
Problem is that these companies are quickly losing control over the information they collect and share with these companies.
Credit card information, social security numbers, and addresses is just a small list.
The main problem that these companies can not garentee that this information will be kept strictly confidential and thate these companies they outsource to have a decent privacy policy and practices. Quickly this will become a national security issue and suddenly these companies will find that many of their customers will find this arangement unacceptable.

So why is the government doing things to support off shore outsourcing?
Two reasons:
The first is to help big buisness save money. However the main reason is to try and stop IT from unionizing. If IT were to start forming a national union then it would compleatly distabalize the enitre intestries buisness and hiring practices. Big buisness has convinced the US government that if IT forms a union many large tech firms will be run out of buisness by off shore companies.

Government doesn't have to do anything

[melted]

Just let those outsourced projects fail (most of them do) and see those "bright minds" who came up with the idea of outsourcing getting fired without a severance package.

I've seen the results of several outsourced projects. These projects are so fucked up, it's unbelievable. This must have to do something with the management there, because I've seen some very impressive Indian developers over here in the US (not that many, either, but then I'm hard to impress) and I don't believe they can't find any good developers there. It's just that the results of the outsourced work are often unmaintainable piles of horrendously written spaghetti code.

I have yet to see one single exception from this.

Re:Government doesn't have to do anything

[Anonymous Coward]

No one seems to care about this stuff till it affects there business. Outsourching or whatever you want to call it has been goin on forever, in the name of saving a buck. Just look at all the other jobs that have went overseas in other industries. It seems kind of late to me to start crying now. Only way it will change is to elect new people to office that aren't already bought off. Whether you agree we me or not "outsourcing" has been a fact in america for a long long time.

Re:Government doesn't have to do anything

[eddy the lip]

I'm a web consultant based in Canada. Our clients tend to be organizations that outsource most of their IT, and we've seen an increase in overseas offshoring, primarily to India, in the last couple of years. Almost without exception the quality of work is awful. Projects are poorly planned and code is indecipherable.

I find it hard to believe that this is because there aren't any good Indian developers. The situation seems to be more reminiscent of the bubble days of the tech economy in North America, when companies were hiring anyone they could get their hands on, and trying to pass them off as savants when they were fresh out of some diploma factory. This wasn't the only reason for the massive collapse, but it seems likely it was a contributing factor.

I expect as the false economy of offshoring is slowly seen for what it is, as poor quality and project failure take their toll, that a similar thing will happen with the tech sectors of these nations. (Likely not as drastic, as there was a nasty combination of things that caused the bust over here).

There's money to be made off the pipe-dreams of starry-eyed PHBs, but there's a price to be paid for fueling their disappointment.

Re:Government doesn't have to do anything

[hikerhat]

I've never looked at outsourced code, but I doubt it is much worse than US code. I've seen a lot of US written code, and it is crap too. But it is good enough to get the job done. That is all companies want - good enough to get the short term job done. The code doesn't have to be good for that, and usually isn't. No matter where it is written. I think outsourced projects fail for management reasons, not technical reasons. It is damn hard to manage a 3rd party team on the other side of the world. Once good management is co-located with the developers I'm sure the quality of the products will improve. It will just take a little longer to outsource mid-level management because they are a little higher up the food chain. Look at other outsourced industries for an example. The factory managers don't live in the US and run the factory by telephone. Factory managers are hired where the factory is. For a lot less than a US factory forman costs too.

Re:Government doesn't have to do anything

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a company that has outsourced several projects to Russia in the past, which I now maintain. These Russian developers were quite obviously very capable, but the project looks to have been poorly planned and rushed in order to meet a deadline that was undoubtedly unrealistic to begin with. The result was code that was about 90% complete and, although it generally "works", it's buggy as hell. The maintenance costs, and the cost of adding features has become extremely high due to what I believe must have been a "get it done NOW and ship it" mentality. We now have a very poor view on outsourcing in general, but I don't think it has anything to do with the capability of these foreign developers necessarily.

Re:Government doesn't have to do anything

[glesga_kiss]

Just let those outsourced projects fail (most of them do) and see those "bright minds" who came up with the idea of outsourcing getting fired without a severance package.

Are you still a student yourself? That's not my experience of the real working world. Only the peons get the chop for shoddy work.

Re:Government doesn't have to do anything

[guitarrista]

I think the trend toward offshore outsource
may be a sign that some contradictions in
US software development practices are finally
being resolve.

Just about every software development project
I've worked on over the last 20 years has been plagued with one or more managers who didn't
have a clue. The result has been lots of
wasted time and money. Precious little
software of lasting value was created.

But somehow such managers keep working when
their projects regularly fail. They've gotten
new budgets and repeated the unsatisfactory
process over and over. How is this possible?

Where has the money come from? How can the
software development industry continue to
function this way?

Maybe the trend toward offshore outsourcing
indicates that the well is finally beginning
to run dry.

I know that these offshore outsourced projects
are not going to be well managed either.

So maybe the industry practices will finally be
forced to change. It will be a relief!!

Re:Government doesn't have to do anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Just let those outsourced projects fail (most of them do) and see those "bright minds" who came up with the idea of outsourcing getting fired without a severance package.

Good thought but the flaw in your logic is that most IT development projets fail. I've seen many comments on this thread about how programming is easy and it's something that anyone can do. The problem is, programming IS NOT easy. To put together good software that actually performs the task it was designed to do effeciently and effectively can be incredibly difficult. From requirements analysis, to design, to development, to testing, to implementation takes a large amount of co-ordination, planning and skill.

The problem that was created from the Technology Boom was that there wasn't enough skilled labor to fill the need. So, the need was filled with people who were really unqualified to perform those roles. They had the most minimal training and essentially learned on the job. This became such the norm that programming is now viewed as something that can be done by anyone with minimal training and expertise. Look a most of the code out there, it is extremely poorly written, is unstable and requires constant maintence to make sure it functions.

This is not to say that people in other countries do not have the skill required to work in technology positions. However, GOOD programming requires a lot of skill and a lot of training. Corporations have simply lost sight of that fact.

Re:Government doesn't have to do anything

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with this whole-heartedly. The code I have seen come out of india is complete crap. The biggest problem I see is a complete and total lack vision. They don't know how to write clean, exensible, safe, secure, and robust code - further, as contractors they have no incentive to write such code. This is why I feel that we software engineers that truly know how to engineer software should institute professional licensing. This would put us where we belong - on the same level as doctors, lawyers, and other real engineers. The problem is, most programmers I know have about as much skill as I did in highschool: they can code and debug and figure out a clever way to get something to work. Most don't want to be shown a better way to do something. Strangly, I am very excited by the incredible failure we've been seeing in software to eliminate security exploits - hopefully with enough money being lost, customers will start demanding a change.

Re:Government doesn't have to do anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god for management. What would we do without them? They are the true geniuses of our world.

Outsourcing killing jobs in the US private sector.

[Anonymous Coward]

LINUX SUCKS. WEEEE-TARDS!
THIS IS THE GAYEST FORUM EVARRRRRR~~~~

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Ummm....

[Grave_Rose]

Hasn't the American Government already screwed it's citizens in the high-tech area already? Do you really need more of their intervention on your "behalf"? Correct me if I'm wrong (and I know you will ^_^) but isn't America supposed to be the Land of the Free? What's wrong with outsourcing? Maybe it's a good thing for the U.S.A. by *not* trying to stifle growing nations so the world can grow. Oh, wait... That's right... If that were to happen then the U.S.A. may not seem like the "SuperPower (C)" anymore. Can't loose the stranglehold on the world now, can they?

</SARCASM>

Gr@ve_Rose

Re:Ummm....

[mattite]

You insensitive clod.

Re:Ummm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, you are absolutely right which, is why you would be doing the same exact thing if it was happening to your job and in your country. NO ONE wants to be the underdog and unfortunately a world utopia is very far off, if it ever happens. I think every person has the right to fight for the share they think they are do. Its not hypocracy, its about survival. I want to have the best and I want the best for my kids, so screw you and all you 3rd worlders. If it means that I have to step on your dead body to feed my kids, so be it.

(Note: I was a third worlder too!)

Re:Ummm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Bladerunner is the current goal or maybe alien 1 or 2 or 3 or 4.

Delusional

[Now15]

Sure, much of the innovation in the tech sector still comes out of America... but anyone who thinks that the real power in the tech sector remains in America is just deluding themselves. Consider all the brands based in Japan. All of the manufacturing in Korea and Taiwan...

disingenuous

[Wansu]

Intel has been one of the worst offenders. Have a look at http://www.faceintel.com/

Re:disingenuous

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and no. The problem is...

1) Intel is behold'n to its shareholders.

2) Its shareholders dont' want to hear a damned thing about issues further out than 1 year max, and are really focused on the next quarter.

Now the longer term death of Intel to China's Dragon chip (as an example) means exactly ZERO to the Wall Street Freaks to whom Intel must answer each and every quarter. The freaks will trade day-to-day and ultimately leave the retirement investing types holding the dead Intel bag, as now, as always, quarter by quarter.

It is the Government's role to express the will of The People, when economic behaviors run counter to the common good. Intel cannot compete with AMD if both of them are not subject to the same rules. In today's economic world, NO company can afford to set any long term goal above a short term priority, without some super-visory power (Government) setting that goal into the playing field.

So, yes, Intel is doing what "we" require of it. And, they are saying it is "bad", but they must continue to do it until "we" change the rules under which they play.

Outsourcing is bad, but regulation != answer

[joshrulzz]

I think we (at least those of us in the US) can all agree that outsourcing is a bad thing.

But regulation is worse.

The solution here is an economic one. Companies who try to save money up front by moving over seas will eventually experience real economic disincintive to stay there.

We have heard posts on /. talking about good code experience from foreign firms, and we have heard the bad. Instead of speaking to that, I will focus on the area of customer service. It is not exactly IT, but it _is_ an area in which I have experience. I just left a part time sales position with a major US supplier of home computers. Nearly every day I fielded a mis-directed call from customer looking for customer or technical support. In most instances(60-70%), the customer was reluctant to leave the phone beacause I was the first person they had spoken to who could speak english well enough that the customer could communicate with. Some of the stories I heard (but had no way to verify myself) of customer experiences in our tech, etc.. lines were horrendous. Whether exaggerate or not, when a large portion of yoru customer base decides that dealing with your support is more trouble than it is worth, they tend to move to other companies. I am sure you are familiar with the standard catechism of how people value good service, so I will stop there.

In the end, I forsee that a combination fo cultural/language barriers and customer (internal or external to an org) will be the catalyst that reverses the shift to foreign outsourcing.

Hi! I failed history.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Governemnt interference with the market is bad. "

Blanket statement-hope you enjoy your USDA inspected meats?

"Huge subsidies that distort thetrade in agricultural products is bad, and it is killing Africa (literally)."

Hope you enjoy your low cost food, because it's not happening because farming has been outsourced.

Africas problems are partially their own, as well as the rest of the world.

"Tariffs or other protectionism would not work-- what would we do? demand that XX% of code is written in North America?"

It does when your trying to grow an embryonic industry, or combatting a deliberatly created imbalance.

"The software sector is simply waking up to something that has happened to every other sector: as the segment matures, labor becomes portable, and therefore companies will seek the cheapest labor possible. Trying to stop this only costs consumers, and-- perversely-- the very segment they are trying to protect via regulation compliance costs, taxes, and loss of overseas marketshare."

Labour in this case isn't portable. Companies are.
In the slide to the bottom the consumer will be hurt. Government barriers or not. The bottom line is the bottom line, and you're not in the picture.

"You want a job? innovate. Become efficient. Figure out howto make money by "exploiting" all that cheap Chinese labor yourself. Find something that those rising Chinese and Indian middle-class consumers want."

We already are. And I can't believe you're an advocate for economic slavery, and people exploitation.

"If you want action from the government, demand that they stop supporting 19th century industries and that they demand open trade with other countries. Protectionism is going back."

As long as the trade is among equal, or near equals. That's were your argument falls down.

"Let me voice my opinion in /. terminology: Protectionism is proprietary; free trade is free."

There;'s no such thing as free trade. Go study your history.

Bah

[Anonymous Coward]

US Citizens can't help it that they cost so much.

We need cars for transportation. Public transit is a joke in most areas and we'd most likely get mugged if we walked everywhere. Our cops only ticket people and arrest druggies. They have no obligation to save people.

We are forced by law in most states to have automotive insurance on our cars. A lot of tech workers are in the 18-30 age range and male which means higher premiums.

We need health insurance "just incase". Medical bills easily run into the tens of thousands. We have an endless cycle of increasing premiums due to our endless supply of lawyers. Doctors require more money so they can get every family member a nice big SUV and also pay malpractice insurance.

Our houses are overpriced and anything built after 1970 doesn't have the craftmanship to warrant the high prices.

We'd be happy to cost less, but we can't help it short of a revolution.

What we should do is start outsourcing our lawyer service needs to India. Just think about it. All we would need is two video cameras, two televisions, and Video over IP. It'd be substantially cheaper and the lawyers would suffer with us. They might finally fight against outsourcing.

Bring on...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Libertarian/Republican Dog-Eat-Dog/Survival of the fittest trolls.

India

[Anonymous Coward]

Works of Karl Marx 1853
The Future Results of British Rule in India

Written: on July 22, 1853
Source: MECW Volume 12, p. 217;
First published: in the New-York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853; reprinted in the New-York Semi-Weekly Tribune, No. 856, August 9, 1853.
Signed: Karl Marx
London, Friday, July 22, 1853

I propose in this letter to conclude my observations on India.

How came it that English supremacy was established in India? The paramount power of the Great Mogul was broken by the Mogul Viceroys. The power of the Viceroys was broken by the Mahrattas. The power of the Mahrattas was broken by the Afghans, and while all were struggling against all, the Briton rushed in and was enabled to subdue them all. A country not only divided between Mahommedan and Hindoo, but between tribe and tribe, between caste and caste; a society whose framework was based on a sort of equilibrium, resulting from a. general repulsion and constitutional exclusiveness between all its members. Such a country and such a society, were they not the predestined prey of conquest? If we knew nothing of the past history of Hindostan, would there not be the one great and incontestable fact, that even at this moment India is held in English thraldom by an Indian army maintained at the cost of India? India, then, could not escape the fate of being conquered, and the whole of her past history, if it be anything, is the history of the successive conquests she has undergone. Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history, is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society. The question, therefore, is not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Briton.

England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia.

Arabs, Turks, Tartars, Moguls, who had successively overrun India, soon became Hindooized, the barbarian conquerors being, by an eternal law of history, conquered themselves by the superior civilization of their subjects. The British were the first conquerors superior, and therefore, inaccessible to Hindoo civilization. They destroyed it by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native industry, and by levelling all that was great and elevated in the native society. The historic pages of their rule in India report hardly anything beyond that destruction. The work of regeneration hardly transpires through a heap of ruins. Nevertheless it has begun.

The political unity of India, more consolidated, and extending farther than it ever did under the Great Moguls, was the first condition of its regeneration. That unity, imposed by the British sword, will now be strengthened and perpetuated by the electric telegraph. The native army, organized and trained by the British drill-sergeant, was the sine qua non of Indian self-emancipation, and of India ceasing to be the prey of the first foreign intruder. The free press, introduced for the first time into Asiatic society,

and managed principally by the common offspring of Hindoos and Europeans, is a new and powerful agent of reconstruction. The Zemindari and Ryotwar themselves, abominable as they are, involve two distinct forms of private property in land -- the great desideratum of Asiatic society. From the Indian natives, reluctantly and sparingly educated at Calcutta, under English superintendence, a fresh class is springing up, endowed with the requirements for government and imbued with European science. Steam has brought India into regular and rapid communication with Europe, has connected its chief ports with those of the whole south-eastern ocean, and has revindicated it from the isolated position which was the prime law of its stagnatio

Outsourcing a result of open source.

[duffbeer703]

Ever wonder why all the sudden third-world shitholes are becoming technological power houses?

One of the big reasons is the proliferation of "Free" software.

Twenty years ago, a university in India or Pakistan would have a tough time gathering the cash to have IBM or Sun come in and deliver computer systems & software.

Today, anybody can run Linux and use gcc, vi, emacs, etc on new & cheap or secondhand & cheaper hardware. So now every smart kid with the resources to attend a university in India is in that university studying an IT-related field.

Richard Stallman and other "Free" software advocates like to talk about how freedom allows any software developer to do whatever he wants. When you are a US programmer making US$80,000/year to twiddle bits, you should be afraid of allowing "any" programmer learning how to do what you do.

Re:Outsourcing a result of open source.

[Kurt Russell]

One of the big reasons is the proliferation of "Free" software

So that explains this.

Re:Outsourcing a result of open source.

[duffbeer703]

Yeah, it does.

They need to build expertise over there in MS product.

In the US, Microsoft has been incredibly successful in developing a sales channel of large & small consulting firms and VARs that pimp MS product and MS product only. They are trying to bring that strategy to India as well.

Re:Outsourcing a result of open source.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's BS.

The reason outsourcing is becoming bigger is because Americans would rather sit on their fat asses and watch TV instead of learn. The work ethic overseas is much better than it is domestically. Americans are becoming more dumb and "domesticated" in terms of being aggressive. The fact that it's cheaper is another major factor, but it's well known in tech circles that on average, most programmers are better than their domestic counterparts. You can't hold up the leaders of the open source industry in the states as contrary evidence. Those people are true pioneers, but they're the exception to the rule. If you want to see what an average programmer in the US calls innovation, look to Microsoft.

Re:Outsourcing a result of open source.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your open-source "pioneers" are busy re-inventing the wheel. How many open source kernels are out there now?

Bash Microsoft all you want, but MS is the company that pulled computing away from "data processing" geeks and computer rooms and on to office desks and small business.

Unix is in the sorry state that it is today because arrogant vendors like Novell, Sun & HP were busy laughing at inferior Microsoft fileservers while they pimped $30,000 workstations & overpriced LAN software.

Job glass half empty, and leaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll tell you the same thing I told the last time this came up.

Lots of people of working age+small number of total jobs=whole lot of pain.

We can play musical chairs all we want, but the fact still remains that the U.S. AS A TOTAL needs enough jobs to remain viable as a country.

There's a lot of jobs that are NOT coming back, period, and pretending otherwise will do no one any good.

Re:Job glass half empty, and leaks.

[darkov]

Nice theory, except that jobs can also be created. I'm not sure where you got the idea that there is a fixed number of jobs in your economy. And here's another little known secret: jobs are created by overseas markets. That's right! Those evil foreigners who take your jobs suddenly have money to buy US products and services (if they're attractively priced and of good quality) creating more US jobs! Amazing, this global economy thing.

The fact is that overseas cheap labour has the capacity to make the US more productive and more successful. But, just like when computers and automation took jobs from previous generations, there is some pain before the gain.

Re:Job glass half empty, and leaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

" Nice theory, except that jobs can also be created. I'm not sure where you got the idea that there is a fixed number of jobs in your economy. "

I didn't say they were fixed. The equation still holds as long as there's a significent inequality.

"Those evil foreigners who take your jobs suddenly have money to buy US products and services (if they're attractively priced and of good quality) creating more US jobs! "

There's three assumptions on your part. They may have more money than before, but that's not the same as having enough to buy the goods they are producing.

Second that doesn't mean that it will create more US jobs, just because it's a US company they're buying from. It could be an insular economic relationship instead.

Your third assumption is that there government goesn't interfere in any way with this circular path i.e. taxing consumer goods highly, or any other kind of legal legislation.

Fourth you're assuming that in the countries that this is happening in that all boats are being helped equally. Go to any of the countries and you'll still find lots of abject poverty.

Fifth it's the duty of every countries government to pursue the interest of it's citizens. That applies to every country on the planet, and down through history.

"The fact is that overseas cheap labour has the capacity to make the US more productive and more successful. But, just like when computers and automation took jobs from previous generations, there is some pain before the gain."

Are you willing to live in a cardboard box, and eat out of dumpsters, so you can spite your face?

Your "fact" isn't the same "fact" that we're presently discussing. If your going to do apples, then make certain your using the same kind of apple.

Re:Job glass half empty, and leaks.

[starman97]

That assumes anything is actually MADE in the US anymore...
Very few consumer products are anymore.
Now if you're talking about Britney Spears CD's, well maybe the content is from here, but the physical product is still made overseas.

The US is becoming a service economy, and even the services are being supplied by import labor.

Re:Job glass half empty, and leaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. You seem to be forgetting that our unemployment rate is only around 6%. 6% is a hell of a lot better than most of europe, and it isn't even historically bad for the United States!

Things we need to fix:

[Brian Stretch]

1) The tax code. It's too expensive to comply with the tens of thousands of pages of federal tax regs. Copy the Russians and pass a flat income tax. This does wonders for compliance too: it's just not worth dodging the lower rate, especially when the government is now able to do a helluva lot more audits. Cuts corruption big-time as well.

2) Lawyers. We're feeding trial lawyers when we should be feeding engineers. Everything from the SCO idiocy to suing McDonald's because some maroon burned themself spilling hot coffee on their lap. We're running doctors out of business with ridiculous lawsuits. Not sure precisely what to do here, but capping "pain and suffering" damages would be a good start. "Loser pays" is worth considering, at least in a limited way (it's too easy to shake down small businesses with the threat of litigation expenses right now).

3) Education. School choice. The thousands of Detroit government school teachers who marched on Lansing, shutting down the Detroit Public School System for that day in the process, are a clear-cut argument in favor of school choice. Let parents find the best schools for their kids. It's clear that the top-down approach we've been using at what laughably passes for "education reform" isn't working.

4) Pass a federal law banning the granting of telecommunications (telephone, cable TV, Internet) monopolies. Yes, this is pulling rank and keeping the takings clause from kicking in will get interesting, but it'd go a long way towards bringing competitors into the high-speed Internet market. I want my fiber-to-the-home 100Mbps Ethernet and HDTV over multicast IP, dammit!

That's a good start. From there, we'll have to ride things out until India and China get closer to our standard of living (halfway would be good enough), if their governments can manage not to screw that up. That's a big if, but at least China has Taiwan and Hong Kong to teach them. On the bright side for us, a hefty chunk of the brightest Indians and Chinese live over here :-).

Re:Things we need to fix:

[silversky]

If I had mod points I would mod you up. BTW, other things the gov should do:

Better security. No terrorist supporter should be runing a country.

Clear energy strategy aimed at more nuclear plants and fusion research. BTW Clinton killed this last item 10 years ago.

Less stupid government regulation. A lot of stupid "green" policies should be thrown out. Freon and taking land for the sake of worms come to mind. Don't even start me about the kIdioto agreement.

Re:Things we need to fix:

[An Onerous Coward]

Some McNuggets about the Coffee Lawsuit. I agree with your general sentiments, but I really hate to see this lawsuit used to show how screwed up our legal system is. The case really resulted from a calculation on the part of McDonalds: make the coffee hotter, so they could purchase lower-quality beans, thereby earning more than enough to pay off the potential lawsuits.

Re:Things we need to fix:

[silversky]

I agree with your general sentiments, but I really hate to see this lawsuit used to show how screwed up our legal system is.
It's not the lawsuit as such but the insane punitive damages that were imposed. On top of that in no way McDonalds (which I never visit) is at fault for the accident - just for the burns. You just don't drink and drive. It's as simple as that. The court could have ordered them to change the temperature in one of the previous cases but instead the trial lawers kept raking the company. This is wrong with the US system - punishment for NOT breaking any law, postfactum made up claims. It doesn't matter how much money Mcdonalds have, what's next - sueing makers of coffee-machines because they produce hot coffee? Coffee comes out hot - weather you like it or not.

Re:Things we need to fix:

[Brandybuck]

Amen brother! Unfortunately, the government will probably go the protectionist route and screw things up even further.

Re:Things we need to fix:

[Comatose51]

1. That would only benefit the wealthy and not those who've already lost their jobs. You will see the income disparity go up the roof very quickly. I don't see how this will help us at all. Lower taxes isn't what's attracting these companies overseas. It's the large pool of trained personnel who are willing to work for less. On the contrary, I think we should spend more money on our education system. The flat tax would only take money away from this and other social benefits which we need to help keep our work force educated.

2. The McDonald case is highly exaggerated and people who are familar with the law knows that it's not as ridiculous as the media made it sound. First, the coffee did not NEED to be so hot. The coffee that was serve was in fact so hot that it was painful to hold. Second the punitive damage reward was proportional to McDonald's size. It did what it was supposed to do and that is to punish them. Check out the Ford Pinto cases to see why this is necesary. Of course, one can debate who should receive the punitive damages.

3. Parents always had choices. Wealthy parents have always sent their kids off to private schools. The voucher system would only hurt the poor and the middle class as it will take money away from the public schools but not give enough for them to actually go to a good private school. Have you checked tuitions lately for good private schools? Yes there are cheap private schools but they're usually worse than public.

4. No comments.

Re:Things we need to fix:

[Bull999999]

You have some good points but...

1. There were people who proposed flat tax but was shut down becaue aruged that it is "pro rich".

2. Tort reforms has been shut down as well because they argued that it is "pro rich/big business".

4. The problem with that is that who ever laid the fiber optic cabel to your are will end up having monoply your area. You can force them to share their lines with small start ups, but that it would kill their incentive to lay the line in the first place.

Re:Things we need to fix:

[catfood]

The bracket-rate system is the simplest part of our tax regulations. Going to a flat rate, or a flat rate with a big personal exemption, would do very little to simplify the US tax system. The complex part is defining "income," which in accounting terms is an inherently slippery subject for anyone who doesn't live on straight salary or wages.

Say I own some rental property. Is the rent I collect all income? That's not reasonable, I have associated expenses. Is all my rent net of expenses to be considered income? That's not reasonable either, I had to acquire the building too. Do I take out the cost of the building in the year I buy it? That's ridiculous, it would give me a massive negative income that year. Do I depreciate the building over time? That makes more sense, but what's the useful lifetime of the building? Current tax laws account for this--sometimes clumsily, but still so.

I own stocks and mutual funds. Are my dividends all income? Probably. What about the increase in the value of my holdings? In economic terms, in balance-sheet terms, hell yes that's income. But if I have to pay taxes on it I'm out some cash flow that I don't have because I'm still holding the securities. So current tax law cuts me a break, as it lets me delay paying taxes on capital gains until I sell, which isn't ideal either because I'm lumping all my income into that one year...

I own an unincorporated business. Are all of my sales income? Of course not, they should be offset by cost of goods and expenses. Is my new computer an expense or a capital investment? Depends on how long I'm keeping it and a dozen other factors.

"Flat tax" is such a simplistic idea. The federal income tax isn't complicated because it has a few brackets, nor because of "loopholes" per se, but because an accurate picture of "income" is so hard to figure in all but the most trivial cases.

Re:Things we need to fix:

[michael_cain]

There were people who proposed flat tax but was shut down becaue aruged that it is "pro rich".

Okay, for purposes of discussion, let's have a simple-but-not-flat tax. First, admit that Social Security accounting is a fraud, it's a pay-as-you-go system, and we're going to unify all of the federal taxes on income. Second, no more social engineering, everyone pays taxes on all their income, regardless of source and regardless of what they spend it on. I'm not really in favor of that, since I would like to encourage people to save and to get an education, but it's a slippery slope. Third, we'll have three tax brackets, indexed for inflation. I'll suggest that the first $20,000 is tax free. No income tax on the money required for living at a subsistence level. From $20,000 to $200,000, you pay 20%. Everything over $200,000, you pay 40%.

I actually have no idea if those figures would be revenue-neutral or not, but I'm sure that they could be with some adjustments. This scheme is not pro-rich, since it's much less regressive than the current scheme is -- the working poor currently pay a 15% rate starting with the first dollar they earn due to SS and Medicare. Half of that is hidden -- the employer pays half of your SS and Medicare "for you" and it doesn't show on the check stub. I don't see where the rich have much to complain about -- when a CEO gets paid $100M for running a company into the ground, he/she still keeps 60%. How many yachts do you really need?

To the extent that the brackets have to move down or the percentages go up, at least it makes it transparent to everyone just what their total tax bill to the federal government is. It also makes clear the SS fraud that has been perpetrated; when the future payments are estimated and it is obvious that the bracket rates will have to increase to 30% and 60%, everyone will know what's going on.

Oh, and I'd like to see borrowing against unrealized asset gains that is not reinvested (the basic tax avoidance scheme of the uber-wealthy) declared to be income and taxed.

Re:Things we need to fix:

[0111 1110]

I'll suggest that the first $20,000 is tax free. No income tax on the money required for living at a subsistence level.

I certainly love this idea. Just don't exempt social security/medicaire from this. That can be a very large percentage of a low paid (subsistence) worker's salary. It would be interesting to see how this would be portrayed as helping the rich. I suppose they would argue that rich corporations could get away with paying their employees less (ignoring market factors of course) because employees wouldn't have to earn as much to survive.

It has always been interesting (and depressing) to watch low paid workers vote themselves tax increases all the time. I guess they must be thinking in terms of increasing taxes on the rich and not on themselves.

Re:Things we need to fix:

[An Onerous Coward]

Did you read the article? Obviously not, so I'll summarize. The "insane punitive damages" amounted to approximately two days worth of coffee sales for McCorp. McDonalds has a policy of serving their coffee at 180 degrees, 20 degrees hotter than any of the other stores the prosecution looked at. And the victim only sued after McDonalds refused to pay a few hundred worth of medical bills. Finally, the 2.7M you saw in the headlines was reduced to less than a half-million on appeal.

You also make quite an absurd argument. If McDonalds keeps getting raped by evil trial lawyers every time somebody spills coffee on themselves, why would they need a judicial order to turn the temperature down? It's fully within their power to turn it down voluntarily. The reason they don't is simple: They think that they're making more money by selling a liquid that can cause third degree burns in seven seconds, even taking the lawsuits into account.

Oh, and for the record: Your spelling and grammar both suck, and you are a corporate shill.

A targeted tax in the right place...

[LostCluster]

Here's a way to shut down overseas call centers quickly...

Place a tax on outbound international toll free calls of about 50 cents per minute. So much for the cost savings...

Re:A targeted tax in the right place...

[CaptBubba]

Solution: number points to US call center, which then sends calls overseas using VOIP.

Cheaper than an international call. So much for stopping the outsourcing.

Re:A targeted tax in the right place...

[LostCluster]

Tax VoIP systems that connect to the PTSN... :)

Re:A targeted tax in the right place...

[vegetablespork]

Soution: Regulate VOIP. Make VOIP overseas a criminal offense (homeland security and all that). I, of course, don't advocate either scenario.

Re:A targeted tax in the right place...

[The Kow]

psst.. VoIP.

That about sums it up

[Anonymous Coward]

... the other thing to note is that we live in a democratic capitalisim; it is a ballence of forces, one man one vote / one dollar one vote. The key to integrety is ballence between these ssytems, ie, do not let one-dollar-one-vote bleed over into one-man-one-vote. Unfortunately, if the people with the dollars control what gets voted on... well, you don't really have a democracy; what you have is a doppelganger -- the appearance of democracy whlts you really only have pure capitalism. Adam Smith clearly stated that capitalism exists only in competitive markets... otherwise what do you have? facism. So, there we have it. Not only has the doppelganger replaced democracy, but, it is also replaced capitalism; we think we have the old high-integrety system of the past -- but reality is, we have facism...

price

[netbornmusic]

That's not only about the corporations getting more profits, but also about their products being cheap. If those products were made in the US, they'd be much more expensive, hence there would be less sales, the whole industry wouldn't be developing so fast, and finally even more unemployment. Just a dark side of high-level living.

Is it me, or is HP/Compaq cast as Judas this...

[Anonymous Coward]

time around.

This seems like an old rerun of Gillian's Island.

it's inevitable--what's the alternative?

[penguin7of9]

Think about it--what's the alternative? China and India are getting ever more educated. Do you think two billion people are going to do sweat shop labor forever? They are smart, young, and the media are showing them the kind of wealth they can attain. They want nice jobs and they are going to get them.

The US was incredibly lucky and advantaged for about 50 years following WWII. There is no way that kind of disparity and advantage can continue, even if the US were continuing its strong initial investment in research and technology.

Re:it's inevitable--what's the alternative?

[Anonymous Coward]

We held off those unwashed savages for a millenia. Time to fight the good fight.

Re:it's inevitable--what's the alternative?

[Brandybuck]

But the workers in India and China are working for US and European corporations. Somehow I don't think that's best for them in the long run. India and China should be creating their own jobs if they want healthy economies.

The US wasn't lucky or advantaged. Instead the US had a freer market (relatively speaking) than the "unlucky and disadvantaged" nations. Luck is finding a wonderful opportunity, but luck isn't what created that opportunity.

Re:it's inevitable--what's the alternative?

[penguin7of9]

But the workers in India and China are working for US and European corporations.

There are few "US" or "European" corporations--they are all transnationals. And they do bring international working conditions and practices to other nations, which may not be a bad thing.

The US wasn't lucky or advantaged. Instead the US had a freer market (relatively speaking) than the "unlucky and disadvantaged" nations. Luck is finding a wonderful opportunity, but luck isn't what created that opportunity.

Sure it was luck. You seem to subscribe to the notion that the US has some magical formula of laws and markets that, if some nation adopts it, they, too, will become as wealthy as the US. I think that's completely naive. The way US markets look today is as much a consequence of other factors that brought wealth to the US in the first place as the other way around.

And I think the US will discover that first hand, as it has to compete with lean, mean, young nations like India and China. In fact, that's what this discussion is about: if US style markets guaranteed dominance and wealth, we wouldn't even be talking about this.

Re:it's inevitable--what's the alternative?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those "unwashed masses" were the seat of civilization for millenia before the US was even discovered by Europeans. Much of European science, philosophy, and religion comes from there.

And what "we" are you talking about anyway? The US hasn't been doing much "holding off" of anybody until the 20th century. And until the 20th century, the US was largely a nation of cow herders and farmers (not without its charms, but let's not get carried away). Talk about "unwashed masses".

Re:it's inevitable--what's the alternative?

[fingusernames]

To pick a nit, most corporations are not trans-nationals. Mine (as in the one I own) operates in just two states. The word "corporation" does not mean mega-business. The vast majority of coporations in the US at least have fewer than five employees. "Corporation" seems to have become a dirty word to so many. I personally though would not operate my business as anything else, there are too many advantages to being incorporated.

Larry

Re:it's inevitable--what's the alternative?

[Brandybuck]

There are few "US" or "European" corporations--they are all transnationals.

But they're all run by Americans and Europeans and headquartered in North America and Europe. The stockholders life in the US and Europe. Profits from Asia are siphoned out to investors in the western hemispere. It's corporate colonialism.

if US style markets guaranteed dominance and wealth, we wouldn't even be talking about this.

The current US style markets are largely broken, and why we're losing our economic dominance. But I was speaking of "freer markets". The US doesn't have have, and really never had, a true free market. But it has been relatively freer than those in many other nations. This isn't a US thing. Europe and Australia also have markets relatively freer than most other nations.

Look for totalitarian states and you will find abysmal economies. Look for strong socialistic countries and you will find better, but still poor economies. Your strong economies are found in nations with moderate to light socialism. In other words, where the government doesn't try to manage all aspects of the market.

India has moved from strong socialist to a moderate socialist nation, and its economy is improving accordingly. China threw off totalitarian rule and its now poised to become an economic powerhouse for the rest of the century if it can stay that way.

Re:it's inevitable--what's the alternative?

[penguin7of9]

The US doesn't have have, and really never had, a true free market.

Quite right. And the US attained its greatest strength was when its markets were actually less free than they are now.

Look for totalitarian states and you will find abysmal economies. Look for strong socialistic countries and you will find better, but still poor economies. Your strong economies are found in nations with moderate to light socialism. In other words, where the government doesn't try to manage all aspects of the market.

Quite true again. But in order to get such markets and such a society, a lot of things need to come together. For the US to be able to do this, a lot of factors had to come together.

But it has been relatively freer than those in many other nations. This isn't a US thing. Europe and Australia also have markets relatively freer than most other nations.

And as I was saying, I think the US is finding out that merely having a "freer" market is not sufficient.

Blame the victim, and her handmaidens.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Everyone wonders why IT unemployment is up higher than any other industry (in Australia it's higher than 11% for IT, which is waaay beyond the unemployment figures being spouted elsewhere). This is why. It's because workers are not only easy to find, it's easier to outsource it to another country and replace 3 people for the one you just sacked!"

Actually this statement raises an interesting question. If (as some /. posters will have you believe) government interference, and (it's the victims fault) is the root cause. Then it stands to reason that were we see this "destablization", the reasons are likewise the same. If however they aren't and "destabilization" is still present. Then all the "/."'s are wrong.

So what does the rest of the planet say?

If there was actually a choice of software

[QuantumG]

We could encourage people to buy products that are locally made, but as we consider choice to be something that is only present in other markets, we've got no-one to blame but ourselves.

Pending job loss

[Tekoneiric]

I'm being laid off around the end of next month. While I'm not directly loosing my job to someone in another country, my job being moved is a direct result of other jobs from where I work being moved to other countries. The parent company decided that it wanted to reduce it's "geographic footprint". This is the same company that bought out the company I work for. In the year 2001, the site employed around 2000 people in the DFW area. Now there are less than 300 and in two months, it'll be down to just a handful of security guards and corporate people finishing up the site closure.

It's sad to see so many of my friends be scattered to the winds. It's equally sad to see the vast network in the building be dismantled. All this to satisfy some corporate bean counters. The company I do support for and many others along with their customers will have to accept a lower quality support for a period of time because it will take the techs at other sites months or longer to come up to speed. Many of us there have worked with the company for years and know the products we support inside and out. In some cases, we're the only people in the country that does support those products.

Some people hoped to be hired directly by the companies they supported but many chose to move to the outsource companies other sites. The people working there couldn't approach the companies directly due to non-competition agreements. No one protested the move because the upper level management had rumored the place to death till everyone was happy to see it go to avoid the stress. It can be quite stressful working in a nearly empty building where so many of your friends had worked before. Everyone was also bought off by a performance based bonus. Which could be canceled if people decided to protest.

subject title

[gmajor]

Quoth Michael: from the learn-to-speak-indian dept

Indians don't speak Indian.

Re:subject title

[Ozric]

There are like 30 something mother-tongues in India. Most speak English some also speak Hindi in addition to their own mother-tongue. And trust me .... they can not understand or talk to people from other places in India.

Re:subject title

[Anonymous Coward]

Quoth Michael: from the learn-to-speak-indian dept

Indians don't speak Indian.

Obviously you do not speak for dictionary.com.

Re:subject title

[Anonymous Coward]

Indians don't speak Indian.

And you, sir, don't speak English.

Re:subject title

[doktor-hladnjak]

Apparently, my Indian and Pakistani friends tell me that this is often a source of social awkwardness when first meeting somebody from the subcontinent. They often just start speaking in English until they can figure out if they speak their language or Hindi/Urdu.

In general, people from northern India and Pakistan use their native Indo-European language (Punjabi or Hindi or Urdu for example) at the very beginning of school, then soon learn Hindi (or the Urdu variant in Pakistan), and then learn English. In the south, students start with their Dravidian native language (ie, Tamil) and then learn English (no Hindi or other common language).

Dravidian and Indo-European languages are not related and are not mutually intelligable, which has made English really the only widely-spoken language across all of India.

Universities (at least for technical fields) overwhelmingly use English as the language of instruction. Many students also do all of high school in English too.

Re:subject title

[Anonymous Coward]

Woo hoo! Chalk another win up for the americans. They use English because WE KICK ASS! WOOT!

Re:subject title

[Monkey]

Good god, don't they teach you guys anything in school? Indians speak English predominantly because the British colonized most of the sub-continent beginning in 1757 until India's partitioning and independence in 1947.

Re:subject title

[WhaDaYaKnow]

Obviously you do not speak for dictionary.com.

Hehe, that's kind of funny because they say:

1. A native or inhabitant of India or of the East Indies.

2.a A member of any of the Native American peoples except the Eskimos, Aleuts, and Inuits.
2.b Any of the languages of these peoples.

At first glance you'd wonder, since a lot of people in India speak English, does that mean that Indian == English then?

But no, if you read closer 2.b probably only applies to 2.a. In which case the original poster was right. It doesn't say that people from India speak Indian, it says Native Americans speak Indian.

Anyways, I'm no expert on the subject...

Grove is such a hyporcrite!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why Grove is saying this while his buddy Berrit is telling his own employee at Intel that it's global economy deal with it!

A friend of mine told me that someone asked during a depeartment meeting about jobs being cut in US while Intel is hiring big time in India. The answer he got was this is a global economy, we are going to where the talent and where the future market is going to be. So deal with it.

Berret even went on saying that given that 80% of growth is in Asia, but the majority of Intel workforce is in US (70%). He wants to make sure that the work force is evenly distributed where the market growth is.

Now Grove is saying the opposit of his buddy Berret is saying? Grove should look at what his own company is doing first before he lectures about this subject. What a hypocrite.

I can't out-compete people for 1/10 my wages

[cats-paw]

If I hear another stupid fucking comment about how I have to innovate and work smarter to out-perform my Indian and Chinese counterparts I'm going to scream.

It's not about being innovative. It's about being cheap.

I can't compete with 3 people who are just as smart as I am and work for 1/10 my wages. And I'm not so fucking arrogant as to think that I am in the top .001% of the world's population in IQ.

So I guess that means I should just work at the Gap for a living right (if I'm lucky) ?

The only answer is a rebalancing of the capital flow. The standard of living in this country country will fall, and it will fall, while it goes up in other countries.

That's fine with me. A higher standard of living for those in less developed countries is a good thing (there is an environmental cost but that's a nother discussion).

What I object to is MY government helping the process along by the ridiculous visa system, and by providing incentives for companies to move overseas. I also seriously object to the fucking hypocritical CEO's (like CRAIG BARRET OF INTEL AND TJ ROGERS OF CYPRESS) claiming they can't find the right people when really what they mean is they can't find the right people and pay them what they want.

Everybody loves capitalism until it works against them.

Let them send my job overseas, just don't use MY fucking tax dollars to help them.

The dipsticks who claim they're just going to out-compete the millions of educated people in other countries obviously have secure jobs.

There is no such things as free trade.

Think about it.

Re:I can't out-compete people for 1/10 my wages

[Nazadus]

I'm 20 years old, and work as a solo IT Tech for a small company.
It's not that I'm unwilling to work for 1/10 of my wage, it's that I _cant_ work for that.
How much does a car cost? Insurance (I'm under 25, and my insurance is around $300 on a perfect record)? Living costs?
I'm a teen, I can't afford to do jack-diddly-squat. This out-sourcing is seriously screwing me over. Teens already have it hard enough getting loans, going to college, and getting job becuase they lack experiance, but now if they don't work for under minimum wage, well then, they are asking for too much.
Innovate? Hmm, who will I get to fund me for this? I'm not a compnay, I'm not a teenage, no one will lend me money. Work flippin burgers you say? That won't ever get me anywhere, beucase it's not IT experiance and if I don't bend to the burger flipping hours (becuase of my college schedule) I'm fired. Work or quit school? Hmm, No money==no place to live.. hmm. Ok, lets quit school, perhaps I could learn from books and get certified. But wait, what about the experiance? I've been in this position becuase, except that I said screw the burger flipping and rolled the dice on another job. I got paid $6.50 when the previous guy made $12.00. I feel screwed over, but I guess that's how it is. I recall an article off of MSN a long time ago called "College for suckers" and it talked about how other countries pay for thier people to have education, here you get in debt. Becusae of that debt you need the money. It's not a "want" for money as much as it is the "need" for money.

Re:I can't out-compete people for 1/10 my wages

[fingusernames]

You are spot on regarding standard of living. This is something people must understand. We in the "Western" world are in for a rough ride. We have prospered greatly for many years, and we have built a social structure on that prosperity. We have a very high standard of living. Our educational systems and transparent economies have fostered our wealth. However, other nations are learning, are becoming just as well educated, are reforming their legal and economic systems, and they will be far better positioned to compete with us on an equal footing in the skills department. With falling costs of transport, and dramatically falling costs of communication, as we all know it doesn't matter where you are for many jobs.

The thing is, we have this huge built-in cost that we, as individuals, cannot overcome. We have far higher real-estate costs, fixed living expenses. We have high taxation, government entitlements, economic and environmental regulations, health care for our aging (and soon to be non-tax-paying) populations, and so on. These are expenses that most developing nations do not have. Workers in western society can only compete to a point on price, before the wealth we have stored in fixed assets (homes, real estate, investments, so on) have to take a hit.

The problem will get only worse... many have a belief that a new, unforeseen industry will pop up to employ not only those who are displaced by foreign competition in "old" industries, but also all the new workers entering the economy each and every month. Yet, with the advances in foreign skills, communication and transportation continuing, there is no reason that the incubation period of a new industry will be long enough to create many long-term jobs in the United States, other than in service sectors.

The solution will be, as you said, a re-balancing. The standard of living, expressed in real money, must fall in the western nations. The EU attempts to fight this through the UN and treaties on global environmental/labor/human rights standards and so on, which we in the US ironically often fight on principle. In reality, we cannot compel the developing world to voluntarily raise the costs of their labor and products; they do, and will, resist. The solution will be painful for us, as we have nowhere to go but down. The rest of the world has nowhere to go but up. We will have to get used to no longer being the dominant wealthy societies, better educated, better able to demand high wages and high social/governmental benefits. Developing nations will become more expensive as their populations demand more of the "benefits" we have, yet they will be starting with, essentially, blank slates, while we have decades, even centuries, of built-up high costs and expectations to overcome. Hopefully rising costs overseas will be expressed in "Internet time." We will all see.

Larry

US could lose a $2 trillion opportunity: Nasscom

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out this article in rediff.com

What if China stops exporting to the U.S. ?

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of products are made in China. What will the US do if China decides to stop exporting to the US? I know that most plastics are made in China. If they stopped exporting from their plastics plants then we would no longer be able to buy laptops, cell phones, etc. It would take years to recreate the capacity in the US to reproduce this stuff. It would be ugly.

Re:What if China stops exporting to the U.S. ?

[michael_cain]

What will the US do if China decides to stop exporting to the US?

What will China do if the US decides to stop importing from China? While China currently runs a large trade surplus with the US (OTOO $100B per year, I believe), they do not run a trade surplus with the world as a whole. IIW, they are spending those dollars on goods and services, they're just not buying them from the US. What happens to their growing economy if the US quits funding the expansion? Think in terms of serious economic crash...

Re:What if China stops exporting to the U.S. ?

[Anonymous Coward]

probably not by much... by current estimates, china's GDP is expected to surpass that of the US by 2041. that isn't such a long time, twenty-eight years.

you're obviously underestimating the chinese economy... even if the US does affect chinese GDP growth by 50%, it would still be an economic success story. no doubt about that, US or no US.

Re:What if China stops exporting to the U.S. ?

[tuomoks]

They would wait and after that to negotiate a better deal.

Re:What if China stops exporting to the U.S. ?

[michael_cain]

38 years. Of course, making 40-year forecasts in economics is a pretty difficult job.

From the Economist's most recent World in Figures, the US GDP is a little more than five times the size of China's. If they outgrow the US by 4-5% per year (that is, if the US economy is growing at 3% per year, China has to grow at 7-8%) for the next 40 years, they would indeed catch up. IIRC, on a historical basis, 5% per year sustained growth is considered a spectacular accomplishment. 8% per year for 40 years may be possible, but seems unlikely. If they only outgrow the US by 2% per year over that 40 years (5% to 3%), their GDP would still be only half that of the US.

One of the big economic problems facing the US, Japan and western Europe is the rapid aging of their populations. China's current population is much younger, but by means of fairly draconian laws, they have stabilized its growth. As a result, in less than that 40 years, they will face the same problems of trying to support a large and rapidly growing population of elderly people. I happen to think this is one of the most fascinating economic problems around: medical and general sanitation improvements have greatly extended the lifespan; current cultural mores tend towards the position that the elderly should not have to work, and indeed many of the elderly are not capable of working due to physical or mental infirmities; can the remaining workers be productive enough to support the elderly, and how do you manage the redistribution of income?

I'm not saying that China can't do it, nor that China isn't going to be the world's economic powerhouse in 40 years. My original post was meant to point out that, at this point in time, the Chinese economy is much more dependent on continued exports to the US than the US is dependent on those imports.

You are an idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

China pegs the renminbi to the US dollar to keep the currency stable. While a stable currency is good for the economy, it's not contrary to free trade. Hong Kong has a currency board that fixes the HK$ to a basket of currencies - is this unfree trade?

Yes, it might be good for China to let the RMB rise in value, as the yen did in the 1980s, but this has positive and negative consequences for both economies. Don't assume that an undervalued RMB is just favorable to China.

US not losing tech edge.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, the companies are still in the US.

Do you get what you pay for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every item I've ever seen (Oracle Forms and Reports, mostly) that was produced by Indian software contractors overseas or H1Bs here at home is really, REALLY low-quality stuff. The standards of quality for interface design are particularly horrible (probably due to cultural differences).

It doesn't help that Oracle's "Developer 2000" IDE is of absolutely piss-poor quality, of course. But come on... teal backgrounds with gray textboxes? Horribly aligned and badly sized user controls? Made-up words scattered about on the Forms? ("updation" comes to mind) PL/SQL code indented at various whims, with ZERO comments?

They're really nice guys and all, but man... it's almost painful to work with them sometimes.

Here's an idea

[mc6809e]

Stop beating down bright, but anxious boys in school. Let them do what they love instead of forcing some idea of "social adjustment on them". Allow them more time for science and engineering. Devote less time to "teaching" them how to bullshit their way to a 6 page term paper about nothing. Give them less Ritalin.

Some may not like to hear this but boys are the primary source of young engineers and right now, public education is taking a big dump on them.

I have several friends in the industry that are good engineers, but without degrees. Public education pushed them away. They are the kind of people I'm talking about. What's a PHB going to do when he compares them with someone from another country that has his degree?

There's some other stuff here:

The War Against Boys

Re:Here's an idea

[dbCooper0]

Well said - thanks. I agree.

Re:Here's an idea

[Ohreally_factor]

I agree with the spirit of what you said, but I think that "bullshiting your way to a 6 page term paper about nothing helped your writing and spelling skills. Compare your comment to the vast majority of /. comments and you'll see there was some utility. Perhaps the ideal method would be to teach boys (and girls) to write about subjects they care about.

Re:Here's an idea

[esanbock]

Actually, I'm hoping for the opposite. I'm hoping that less people go into engineering because there is an oversupply of labor in the IT industry (blame L-1 and H-1B). If people finally understand that getting a CS degree is a stupid thing to do then maybe I'll be able to do the job I love 10 years from now.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you understand? Men aren't real human beings.

They are merely sperm donors with wallets.

If you think any differnetly, look at how men are treated in divorce court. It is morally right that those men will pay for those chidlren they aren't allowed to see.

Denying men human rights is acceptible and morally correct in order to address the centuries of evil men have perpetuated on the world. We need a final solution to the white-male heterosexual problem.

Vote Hillary!

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Women make a better workers: complain less, can endure more, and are paid less.
Since industrialization started more and more women go to work. And now big business invest in women to have more suitable workers.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Our education system is designed to deal with the center of the bell curve. Engineers and Scientists (at least those with any talent) fall on the far end of the bell curve. Any attempt to force them to learn according to the needs of the center of the curve is doomed to failure, frustration, humiliation, confusion and self-hatred on the part of the student AND the educators. All of the truly talented individuals that I have met in my life either dropped out of high-school AND/OR college (for these reasons) or went to a highly privledged private school where personal attention (read custom education) was possible.

Perhaps we should form a secret society or something? ;-)

The Myth of the Efficient American Worker...

[Anonymous Coward]

Strikes Again.

Free trade sure sucks when you can't compete.

Fortunately for Americans, your government is
quick to put in place protectionist measures,
even while punishing any other countries that
rely on the World Bank for doing so themselves.

Hypocrisy is good for the economy, I guess.

You get what u pay for

[mendred]

If u pay peanuts u get only monkeys. Corporates don't realise that. They are so focussed on cutting costs that they don't realise the implications of their actions.

Here in India the average programmer is underpaid and overworked. The companies make profits by cutting the wages and using despicable tactics like hiring trainees and not confirming them for like 3 to 4 years and paying them salaries that amount to less than 100$ a month while forcing work that sometimes involves 48 to 72 hour shifts at a trot. Now some of these trainees are fresh college graduates who don't even know what a pointer is but dutifully repeat that java is C++ without pointers. Anyway even if a trainee is the best at some point the quality of work will drop because the programmer stops enjoying his work, and plus the reward for work here is more work, hardly any pay increases or promotions.

The managers here well they think only short term, that is the next pay check. There is very little focus on quality, even in some so called CMM Level 5 companies. The only focus is to make deliveries on schedule, and wait for the bug report, probab;y inspired by m$.

Actaully its not usually not so bad:) but such extreme cases do exist.

Then the american bosses are also absolute imbeciles. They make demands like i want it delivered yesterday. Very few ppl here have the guts to tell them 'if u want it delivered yesterday then u should have asked for it day before yesterday'. Everyone licks the white man's ass because that's where the cash comes from.

This is a cycle in progress . There is a severe imbalance. It will correct itself over time, as india progresses because more and more ppl will start demanding better wages and as the economy starts becoming more like what the united states used to be like, i guess we will see our companies outsource. Its already happening in BPO, where companies prefer to hire Europeans or japanese as they compete directly with indians in terms of wages an they are willing to stay in india and work our schedules.

America is going through a downswing. The trouble is u guys are stuck in a rut just like in the great depression. You need a strong Leader at this time to pull u through and inspire people and not go off to war against terrorists. At least we have Kalam as president and while he is a figure head we consider him to be a great man. And well Vajpayee he may be an old foggy at times, but he was a freedom fighter and a statesman,and he is still very clever. So u see we have belief in our leaders and more importantly we respect them.

In contrast however the american sentiment is not very flattering towards Bush.

What can u do to correct this? Frankly speaking I think the rot began a few years back itself, with all these corporate scandals. That's the trouble with pure capitalism it tends to go into extremes. You need some amount of regulation by the govt. but too much of that also ruins things. There has to be a balance a semi socialist semi capitalist thingummy and me thinks india has done pretty well. We have not grown like china but our growth is steady.

However there are downsides as well India still has a lot of poor ppl .There is enough grain rotting in storage that can be used to feed them. Corruption still is rampant though these days the supreme court seems to be flexing its muscles .but overall there seems to be optimism in the air, a promise of better things to come.

Re:You get what u pay for

[mc6809e]

America is going through a downswing. The trouble is u guys are stuck in a rut just like in the great depression. You need a strong Leader at this time to pull u through and inspire people and not go off to war against terrorists. At least we have Kalam as president and while he is a figure head we consider him to be a great man. And well Vajpayee he may be an old foggy at times, but he was a freedom fighter and a statesman,and he is still very clever. So u see we have belief in our leaders and more importantly we respect them.

In contrast however the american sentiment is not very flattering towards Bush.

Bah. We don't need leaders. We lead ourselves. That's what America is about - freedom to control your own destiny.

When America pulls out of this it will be because we led ourselves out. We don't need some savior. So what if Bush is mediocre? Big deal.

It's just that kind of attitude that keeps us from dictatorship. It's that kind of attitude that allows us to do things like start our our businesses. We don't need "big brother" to tell us what to do and how to do it.

You go ahead and look to Vajpayee and Kalam. Keep looking. Look so much you miss the opportunities that we see.

Re:You get what u pay for

[Compuser]

This is the same Vajpayee who buys subs and air
carriers just to posture in front of his people
rather than build roads and infrastructure? And
is this the same Salam who claims that your
missile defence system is the greatest achievement
ever (initial claim was since Bose, revised to ever)?
Hmm, these guys may not be sooo bad and I am happy
for you being happy with them but they are hardly
people to look up to. Certainly in the US these
people would catch a lot more flak than Bush.

Re:You get what u pay for

[HermanAB]

American Freedom??? Just today, Bush promissed a clampdown on American travel to Cuba - a little island in the Caribean. There is a looooong list of countries that Americans may not travel to and may not do business with. You are bluffing yourself if you think that you are free. You are just as free as your slaves were 150 years ago...

Re:You get what u pay for

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we say FDR? If it wasn't for him we wouldn't have been ready for World War 2 and then where would we be now?

I'm sorry, but when the economy is bad tax cuts are NOT the answer--well not tax cuts to corporate types who will never let it trickle down because they're too worried about the 9 digit salaries.

Re:You get what u pay for

[mc6809e]

Can we say FDR? If it wasn't for him we wouldn't have been ready for World War 2 and then where would we be now?

FDR made the situation much worse for us. He took a recession and turned it into a 10 year depression and a war that claimed 500,000 Americans. Great guy.

I'm sorry, but when the economy is bad tax cuts are NOT the answer--well not tax cuts to corporate types who will never let it trickle down because they're too worried about the 9 digit salaries.

Tax cuts (without spending cuts) shift the burden of financing government from people currently working to those with savings to invest. During a recession, that is a good thing. Now you don't want that to go on too long of course, but in the short term, it works.

In the long term, you'd like to make government more efficient so you can also spend less.

As far as corporate types never letting it trickle down, what do you think they'll do? Stuff that money in a matress?

Personally, I think I have a better chance of getting that money from them than I do getting it from the government.

Re:You get what u pay for

[doktor-hladnjak]

Well, here's the loooong list: Lybia and Cuba. US Passports are not valid for travel to Lybia, but my impression was that is a Lybian (not US) regulation. For Cuba, Americans are supposed to get permission from the US gov't, which will be granted for most valid purposes (visiting family, journalism, academic research, official business). Technically, you can go without that permission, so long as somebody else pays for your entire travel there. The actual ban is not on travel, but on US citizens engaging in any sort of commercial transactions in Cuba. If you get caught spending money in Cuba without permission, there are criminal penalties when you return to the US.

There are a lot of countries (about 17 or so last time I checked), where Americans are strongly encouraged not to go, but they are not banned from doing so. Yes, you can go to North Korea or Iran or Afghanistan and the US gov't won't do anything to stop you. Those countries grant visas to Americans.

So ya, one country which does not allow Americans to enter and one the US gov't restricts (not bans) its citizens to visit. That's a pretty long list.

As for trade, here is the list of countries which have US economic sanctions: Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Liberia (diamonds only), Lybia, North Korea, Sudan, western Balkans (only transactions with violent groups), Zimbabwe. Out of the ~150 countries in the world this is not a loooong list.

Re:You get what u pay for

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen brother! Couldnt agree with you more!

Re:You get what u pay for

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but he's always flapping his lips about Cuba clampdowns. I always get a good laugh. It's a lot of hot air. OFAC doesn't have a budget to prosecute tourists, and no one except Bush wants it to happen. So nothing happens.

Re:You get what u pay for

[sjames]

Apparently, that's close enough to what happens. While income (adjusted for inflation) is trending down for most, top execs have seen a few hundred percent improvement (also adjusted for inflation). This is especially true when you count million dollar performance bonuses even when the company is going down the tubes.

If you want a strong economy, the people at the BOTTOM have to feel confident that they can spend their paycheck today and not be without tomorrow. With the mass layoffs and climbing unemployment, their confidence isn't very strong right now.

Calling the Kettle Black

[mpechner]

I know a director at intel that was told he gets to keep his job if he fires 500 american engineers and sends the jobs all offshore. He has to replace his 500 inefficient american workers with 1500-2000 indian and chinese programmers. All this to save what Intel hopes is 20%.

Isn't that special 500 US engineers on unemployment to save 20%.

Re:Calling the Kettle Black

[Anonymous Coward]

The last time I looked Intel wasn't a charity, dickwad.

Re:Calling the Kettle Black

[mpechner]

dickwad? Your about 17, right? That was the last time I heard someone outside some teen flick say that.

Re:Calling the Kettle Black

[Anonymous Coward]

At least he didn't call you a "retard". That would mean he's only about 13.

Race to the bottom.

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommend you read this, and yes it addresses some of the arguments pro-globalist use.

Once you read that, then grab something up to date, to cover the missing time period i.e.dot.bomb, and 9/11.

Offshore means "ON SEA". Not in other countries.

[teapot]

offshore
adj 1: (of winds) coming from the land; "offshore winds" [ant: inshore]
2: at some distance from the shore; "offshore oil reserves";
"an offshore island"
adv : away from shore; away from land; "cruising three miles
offshore" [ant: onshore]

Except...

[Anonymous Coward]

The number one trait of business in the last
10 years has been the systematic downsizing
of staff and payroll costs.

Businesses in the USA expect other business
in the USA to pay the consumers enough to buy
their products. As soon as oversea's business
is competing against them directly they all of
a sudden start to cry about job losses, as if
they give a shit.

Boo fucking Hoo!

Enethical business is your problem,
not outsourcing.

Talk to your 'government' about that one.

Re:Except...

[NanoGator]

"Enethical business is your problem, not outsourcing."

The problem is you can't really do much about general unethical practices. What you can do is identify the worst cases of them and fight it.

The sad fact is...

[DigitalSpyder]

From a purely business perspective, lets says you need to outsource a software development project and have two good choices - a strong US company of 20 skilled IT workers or an Indian company of 60 equally skilled IT workers (using the 3:1 ratio I spouted off earlier).

Assuming all things are equal apart from the workforce size, it only makes sense to pick the Indian company every time. You cannot fault the decision makers for picking what logically and financially makes sense.

You can however, make them accountable for actions which are detrimental to the country that they make their base of operations out of, or do the most business with. Which is where the government should be stepping in.

We cannot rely on business to make morally correct decisions for the benefit of the people. That's (meant to be) the governments job. Thats why we elect these people - to make decisions on behalf of the people in the first place.

So write to your senators, trade unions and lobby groups. Complain long and loud. Nobody will listen unless the cacophony of voices is too loud to ignore.

You havent seen Japan recently...Re:Oh, Thank God!

[voss]

Massive bank failures...10 years of economic stagnation.

Fabian Socialism at work

[Anonymous Coward]

The end goal, for those who haven't been paying attention to the very public agenda of the elites, is to lower the American/European standard of living, while bringing up the standard of living in the Third World. Eventually, we will all be more or less equally poor...except for the elites themselves, of course.

Welcome to the New World Order.

It won't be demand...

[brodin]

The population of India is so large that they could absorb ALL the IT jobs in the U.S. and still have people left over...

Re:It won't be demand...

[NanoGator]

"The population of India is so large that they could absorb ALL the IT jobs in the U.S. and still have people left over..."

I suppose that's possible. Though not everybody in India is going to want to be a programmer, I do see your point.

YES! They're flying patients to INDIA for surgery!

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctors can't easily be outsourced. Are you going to fly out a patient to India? Video conferencing probably won't cut it.

Not so fast! HMOs are beginning to realize that it's cheaper to fly you to India for surgery than it is for you to get surgery here!

Radiologists are already getting hosed. It used to be that going into radiology was a license to print money. Now they just send a TIFF of your guts to India and get diagnoses emailed back from ten different guys.

(Moderator posting anonymously)

Mod Parent Up

[madMingusMax]

This is the most intelligent response I've read yet. Very well-worded.

Re:RMS and FSF guilty as charged

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh???

M$ prices are lower, their product is better, 89% M$ FUD has come to an end, 10,000 of IT/programmers are providing services to small businesses, small businesses aren't getting the M$ squeeze....all because of freedom software.

All with 3.1% of the desktop market and 27% of the web server market...

RMS deserves a thank-you not a ditto...

Anyone want 1/2 of a software giant's campus??

[Anonymous Coward]

BMC Software is selling half of the office space in the Houston campus since it laid off 1/4 of the USA and Europe workers and replaced half of that with India people.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/busines s/ 2148424

And the VP said that India would free up the US workers to do interesting work.

Capitalism works

[DaveAtFraud]

It generally takes management a round or two of outsourcing to find out what it can and what it cannot do. My employer outsourced some development to India and we ended up re-writing it after it was initially released.

Don't get me wrong. The software the Indian company developed did *EXACTLY* what we asked them to develop. Unfortunately, it had all the earmarks of code developed by a bunch of amatures. That is, the code was not easily modified and was not flexible and extensible. Like it or not, a lot of "software engineering expertise" comes from developing an understanding of how to manage a bunch of people developing something that is initially strictly an idea and that only is expressed as a bunch of source code in the end. This ability is not trivial and generally only comes the hard way: learning from your mistakes.

The lesson we learned is that outsourcing critical development is a short term fix but not a long tern strategy. We also heard that the price of new development is going up as the company we contracted with has gotten more experience (translation has learned from their past efforts).

Put these trends together:

1) As external developers gain experience, their price goes up.

2) Any time you outsource you face an inflexible development process since the contractor has to contain their costs which means they develop exactly what you (the client) asked for or the contractor charges the client for any requirements changes.

3) Any time there is a language barrier, the risk of misunderstandings goes up. As language differences becomes less of an issue, item one kicks in.

Based on these observations, outsourcing overseas will initially trend toward a way to develop extremely well defined applications. Management will *slowly* learn that anything else will be such a crap shoot that only someone desperate (SCO comes to mind) will run the risks associated with outsourcing anything innovative. As the overseas outsouring companies gain experience and expertise they will raise their rates *because they can*.

Equilbrium will be reached at some point as long as the market is allowed to operate. In the mean time, PHBs will continue to outsource critical development tasks until they get fired for the failures If you don't like the insecurity, go to work for a defense contractor who can only hire U.S. citizens becuase they need people who can get a security clearance.

Re:Capitalism works

[Anonymous Coward]

Your arguments would be quite cogent if the
costs of overseas development were not
orders of maginitude out of proportion.

You cannot hope to compete with this in the
long run.

Hypocracy? PR? Honesty?

[LionKimbro]

I used to agree, but now I'm not so sure.

I don't know that business owners really control their business as much as we imagine they do.

For one thing, when businesses get really really big and complex, I suppose the left hand doesn't know what the right hands doing, and the business "owners" don't really know what it's doing either. It just sort of runs, but they don't really know how.

Maybe, theoretically, they could issue an order down, like "Hey, only package your chips over here," right? But could it actually work? Maybe not! Maybe that'd cause all these huge social uphevals.

Maybe businesses, once formed, are like parts of a gigantic organic system. You might not be able to just suddenly uproot a major artery, and move it somewhere else, without having major effects on yourself, your environment, and whatever else plays a part (who really knows what, right?).

So, I don't know. Is it really hypocracy? Maybe powerful people aren't really as powerful as we imagine them to be?

I've read some things by some very wealthy people. I can't understand it all. But some of these people seem to me to be pretty sincerely interested in doing what's right.

Now, granted, the vast majority of these people seem pretty skanky to me. Enron? Right? I suspect that most big business is like that.

But when I read about people who really seem to be trying to do good, like O'Rielly, I just don't think it's a PR thing. I think these people are serious.

I don't know; Maybe someone who knows better can reply to me.

Re:Hypocracy? PR? Honesty?

[rnd()]

People often appear to have good intentions. In the case of protectionist trade policy, the good intentions end up having harmful effects. For a detailed (but very accessible) explanation of this concept, see the book Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman. Friedman won a Nobel prize for his innovative and brilliant work in economics.

Now for my brief sentiments on the issue:

It all comes down to efficient allocation of capital. When capital is allocated inefficiently (to a worker who costs more to do the same work) we all suffer. It is easy to point to the job held by the worker and to praise the subsidy for creating employment, but the invisible consequences are much more severe and hard to measure: In order to pay for the subsidy, all of us had to pay higher taxes. Those taxes went to the industry to which the subsidy was given. You and I might not have spent those dollars in that industry if the decision had been up to us. Therefore, the subsidized industry continues to be nursed along while other industries that we would have spent those tax dollars on voluntarily are left with a capital shortage, causing them to be unable to grow, and creating a scarcity of their products, which leads to higher prices. So, while we paid more in taxes, we also end up paying more for other things that we want. Why? So that we can keep an industry on domestic soil that someone somewhere else has figured out how to do more efficiently. We are effectively providing workers in that industry with welfare and ZERO incentive to read the newspaper (or Slashdot) and learn about what other industries may offer opportunities. All along, we could have purchased the subsidized goods from workers overseas, allowing the economies of those nations to obtain the capital needed to create increased competition, higher quality, and even lower prices.

This is one of the issues that politicians really have the nation hoodwinked on. The politicians' hearts are in the wrong place since they only want votes, and it's easy to buy them with subsidies.

As for people like Andy Grove, he has definite interests in the issue, since his company is based in the US. There are dozens of other Andy Groves around the world who will make better chips if we allow capital to flow to them, where it may be most efficiently used.

Re:Hypocracy? PR? Honesty?

[Khalid]

This is a very intersting analysis, the only thing I am not sure about is this :

As for people like Andy Grove, he has definite interests in the issue, since his company is based in the US. There are dozens of other Andy Groves around the world who will make better chips if we allow capital to flow to them, where it may be most efficiently used.

I am not sure that many people in the world are able to create Intel like chips because of Intellectual propriety and America knows this. This is the reason why it has inserted such drastic clauses in International treaties and this is why the patent issue is very important too.

Re:Hypocracy? PR? Honesty?

[rnd()]

If AMD can survive, then there is room for others internationally. Right now margins in the chip industry are (I believe) fairly small. They are only likely to get smaller as chips become more and more of a commodity. Intel still makes most of its money selling chips that are less analogous to a commodity product but more analgous to a botique product. As the tide turns toward increasing commoditization, it will also reduce the liklihood that patentable advantages will determine who rules the market. Instead, pure production efficiency will determine which companies lead and which follow.

outsourcing not a level playing field

[wilsynet]

I'm not against outsourcing of jobs to the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany or Sweden. Principally then, I'm not against the outsourcing of jobs to India or China -- except that the playing field is far from level.

I believe that one of the reasons that labour is significantly cheaper in India is because the socioeconomic system is vastly different. India has government sanctioned bonded child workers. And whenever you can introduce virtual slaves into an economy, you can dramatically drive down the price of everything else.

Bonded child labour? Slaves? In India?

Yes:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/11/22/60II/mai n71386.shtml

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/India3.htm

http://www.anti-slavery.org/global/india/

The argument that we should be more efficient, smarter, better, more competitive against our foreign counterparts -- that's just a red herring until more fundamental human rights issues are addressed.

I'll consider outsourcing to another country economically fair and ethically legitimate when that country meets some minimum (I admit this to be somewhat fuzzy) world standard of human rights.

Re:outsourcing not a level playing field

[Anonymous Coward]

Human rights is just another armtwisting tactic used when nothing else is available. US has the highest human rights abuse. No where in the world death sentence is given (that too instant execution) for stupidity and failure to obey "orders" given by halfwits - they are called cops in the US. No where in the world, people are freely allowed to carry guns and use them as they wish on their properties. Its absolute stupidity - lives of people carry no value when they step on ur property. Is that humanitarian outlook? absolutely not.

Those slaves u talk about, I am sure are treated better than this. They LIVE and arent killed for stepping out of the line drawn by some arbitrary moron.

Re:outsourcing not a level playing field

[wilsynet]

I think you're missing the point: General Motors can't call the cops and force you to go back to work and they can't chain you to the assembly line. The handcuffs are figurative (and sometimes golden) rather than literal.

Re:outsourcing not a level playing field

[yora]

Slavery is illegal in India. And although there are cases of slavery being brought out, it is clearly on it's way out.

It is not something that has been eradicated fully even from the US. You have high tech slaves in the form of H1B workers who are kept at a low wage and made to work long hours because of the pecularities of the H1B visa. And then there are frequent reports of sweat shops operating in the US with what is in effect slave labour.

You don't need to bash India as a country that promotes slavery. Even the US does the same thing. In fact in the US the government even helps slavery with the H1B program, while in India there is no such equavalent that is abused in this manner! What makes the US so different from India in this regard? Is it that most of the people who are slave labours in the US are illegal immigrants, while in India they are locals?

Thats the odd thing about Global Free Trade.

[zymano]

We will be at their mercy.

Food shortage in Africa and if we don't make the wheat then what ?

Bad stuff happens.

Have the Chinese and their billions do all the labor then what ?

What jobs are in this country ?

We all have to then setup factories in China .

China invades Taiwan .

Then what ?

We all lose our jobs and fucks us all in the head.

I am not interested in 10 cent shoes .

I would like to keep jobs in this country.

Where would we be if we exported all of our Auto , aircraft and entertainment jobs to China ?
If we did , I don't believe there are other industries taking their place.

We would be 3rd world.

Re:Thats the odd thing about Global Free Trade.

[esanbock]

Except that things tend to even themselves out. Software will come back to this country, but only after we're all making $8.5/hr writing C++

Re:Thats the odd thing about Global Free Trade.

[Anonymous Coward]

You, my friend, are an optimist. Try more like $8.50 a day.

Finally - a recommendation that makes sense...

[khenson]

Unions are crap. Socialism at its worst and, IMO, what is killing (has killed?) America's ability to compete on a world stage. Auto industry, steel industry, electronics, etc.

But the idea of a professional association business model is one I have espoused for some time now.

The problem? I recently attended a meeting of IT professionals in my area. I grabbed a stack of business cards, donned my Hugo Boss suit, threw on my Ferragamo's, silk tie, haircut, shave, etc. and went to the meeting.

What do you think I saw there? Khaki shorts, jeans, unkempt beards, fat & overweight slobs. It was a circus and people had the gall to ask me "if I was going to a funeral".

There is an incredible amount of attention to detail, knowledge and intelligence required to perform the duties we perform and we deserve to have that attibute recognized. Call it a Maslo thing but people have a hard time seeing through to our brilliance when we look like - well - nerds.

Each and every one of us is a reflection of our industry, this includes the 15 year old script kiddie to the 50 year old Mainframe Geezer and, most importantly, this includes
YOU. Doctors and Lawyers (Read : Professionals) don't downtalk each other and if they do it's considered unprofessional. They present a unified front of academic solidarity. In short - they act professional. They dress the part. Do clothes make you smarter? No... but they make you appear more professional. We don't need to be running around like that idiot in the Washington state march on Microsoft event (covered by the press) in an Obi-Wan-Kenobi outfit. What a fool. The press covered this event and he presented an image of the IT industry. Quite simply - we looked like idiots.

So, if you'd like to be taken seriously GROW UP!! Ditch the nose ring, the eye ring, the lip ring, get a haircut, wash your hair, throw out the tshirts with PGP code all over it, slather your face with some Oxy5 (and wash it occasionally), get a treadmill (and use it) so you can shed a few hundred pounds, clean your teeth, laugh without snorting, untape the glasses (or better yet look into LASIK) and, in general - clean up your act.

Ditch the Linux/Microsoft war and the Linux(Debian)/Linux(Suse)/Linux(RedHat)/Linux(Mand rake)/Linux(Insert_Distro_Here) war and start acting professional.

Other things we can do: start making certain software implementations require certifications (general or specific). Develop an Engineer Certification (not branded to a specific company) and rally around it. Develop a Coding certification - and rally around it. Virus package solutions that are serious must be Engineered/Implemented by certified professionals or you simply can't buy the software. If enough of us rally to this cause it will become a standard because we make the standard with our daily recommendations to the customers that pay us. Security installations - same certification requirements. This software packages that play ball with us - we recommend and we buy. Is that fair? Probably not - but Doctors and Lawyers don't play fair and they make a hell of a lot more money than we do and their jobs are not going overseas. If a doctor comes to America from another country then they have to acquire a license here in America before they can practice. We can do that too. Lawyers and Doctors have effectively said: "We don't really care how you did it where you come from. Over here, for right or wrong, we do it our way - and so will you - or you won't work here."

Doctors and Lawyers protected their profession long ago by establishing this system. Our industry is still young and the future lies with all of us. What will we be like in 50 years, 100?

Think about it...

Re:Finally - a recommendation that makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

hmmm... just thought about it. and you are an idiot. Yes that is right its our clothes that is causeing companies to outsource. Oh no is it personal hygien? have you ever worked next to a Indian database admin? You can smell him a mile away.

Re:Finally - a recommendation that makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong. There is the real management perception that American Programmers are overpaid prima donnas who get their undies wadded if they don't get free beer on Fridays and would crucify their mothers over some technical point.

Meanwhile Indian Programmers are <apu>Yes, Of Course, Absolutely. Whatever you say. Right Away.</apu> (even while the ship is sinking fast).

The long term downside of the dotcom boom is that a huge portion of the American tech labor pool saw the good times and are now unemployable as corporate wageslaves.

Re:Finally - a recommendation that makes sense...

[boudie]

Thanks for the laugh.

It's not just the USA

[theolein]

Western Europe has the same problem to a certain extent but not as badly as the USA. The reason not so many European IT jobs have gone to India and China is partly because of the language barrier. There are tens of millions of Indians and Chinese who can speak English but almost none who speak German, French, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch etc. (I assume some Spanish and Portuguese IT has gone to South America) This doesn't prevent IT companies trying to outsource call centres to Germany from Switzerland for example (although the language spoken in Switzerland is a dialect of German that Germans don't understand).

Apart from this a fair amount of manufacturing, production (and coding) has been flowing towards Eastern Europe as those countries join the EU. The EU hopes that it will somehow balance itself out in that very large companies in Western Europe will have branches in Eastern Europe and that that way cash will flow backwards as well.

I think one thing that can really stay local in the IT world (and this applies to the US as well) is for people to start their own small companies specialising in other small companies in other sectors in the local economy. Programmes such as Tax or local business oriented stuff as well as doing consulting and support on a small scale are a good answer.

Another answer is to start a local company that adresses the problems that the people's previous companies cause by outsourcing coding to people who have low QA and communication skills in the local language.

As an example, let's take, for example a certain Desktop publishing layout software from a company in Denver Colorado. This company's product has had a virtual monopoly in DTP for more than 13 years. About three or four years ago, IIRC, that company (use your brains as to who that is) outsourced the entire software development to India. About six months to a year later, Indian developers from this company started popping up in developer mailing lists asking really basic C/C++ questions and acting very arrogant when they didn't get immediate answers. Aparently those Indian developers were so bad (relatively speaking, probably more a management problem) that it took them almost three years to port that DTP programme to Mac OSX, where it finally turned up a few months ago.

That would have been and was an opportunity for competitors to step in and develop alternatives.

Think about it. Tarifs and high import taxes will not solve anything in the long run, as the USA is no longer in the position to be able to simply dictate economic terms to the EU, India or China (or SE Asia to an extent), and if such measures are taken, sonner or later they'll reply in kind, and then you truly will be f**ked.

Re:It's not just the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

That would have been and was an opportunity for competitors to step in and develop alternatives.

Umm, they did. It's called InDesign, and it ROCKS!

Re:It's not just the USA

[SmackCrackandPot]

I don't know which country you are living in, but in the UK, outsourcing is a major concern in the IT industry, with over 44,000 contractors unemployed. If you do the arithmetic, you will figure out that is a loss of at least 750 million pounds/year in income tax/VAT.

The biggest fear now is that the outsourcing will spread from the IT industry and call centres to financial jobs such as accountancy and stockbroking. I'd recommend you visit the following sites:

Prescott enters outsourcing furore

The Sunday Times also had an article:

Where is your job going?

And a discussion group for UK contractors who are trying to fight the IR35 legislation Shout99

These should provide a more detailed snapshot of the current state of the IT industry.

Re:It's not just the USA

[theolein]

I'm in Switzerland. Isn't English one of the problems that I mentioned, perhaps?

Re:It's not just the USA

[yora]

As an example, let's take, for example a certain Desktop publishing layout software from a company in Denver Colorado. This company's product has had a virtual monopoly in DTP for more than 13 years. About three or four years ago, IIRC, that company (use your brains as to who that is) outsourced the entire software development to India. About six months to a year later, Indian developers from this company started popping up in developer mailing lists asking really basic C/C++ questions and acting very arrogant when they didn't get immediate answers. Aparently those Indian developers were so bad (relatively speaking, probably more a management problem) that it took them almost three years to port that DTP programme to Mac OSX, where it finally turned up a few months ago.

It is intresting that you bring up the issue of Quark (the company from Denver!!). They are known as a bad company even by Indian IT standards. Most of the problems that Quark face is mainly because of 2 factors. They have real bad HR policies and they are located in a city (Chandigarh) which has very few IT companies. Together this makes for a combination that makes it nearly impossible for them to hire and then retain good quality talent. It is no surprise that they got coders who don't even know basic C/C++!

I have had a few friends work at Quark, and all of them left the company within one year. Most of them didn't know about the really bad HR practices that Quark had followed before they joined.

Quark is right now known as a company where you go if you are out of a job and need to get a big company's name in the resume. Getting into quark india is a joke. If you really wan't to work for a DTP company, then come to India and work for Quark.

Quark is probably the worst example of what can happen if you outsource to India. I am sure that if they followed similar practices in the US, they would be with no developers right now.

A typical Indian developer working at one of the bigger outsourcing firms would definitely be better than one working at Quark! It is surprising how one bad american company can give such a bad impression of Indian developers. I have worked with developers from around the world, and have met all types of them. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys. If you pay peanuts and try to save big time by hiring cheap indian programmers you only get stupid code monkeys.

Re:It's not just the USA

[yora]

Well here is an actual comment from a friend of mine who used to be an employee of Quark india (the company in denver!!)

man Quark is left with assholes, and they need more assholes.. if u r good there is no space for u

Re:It's not just the USA

[SmackCrackandPot]

From the following quote I got the impression you didn't know about England.
The reason not so many European IT jobs.
The last time I checked, the UK was part of Europe - as much as some of our MP's would like to think differently :)

Typical American Mentality

[rips123]

It is no wonder that the rest of the world is coming to resent the arrogance and flamboyance of the American culture. This article is the most one-sided ("American") piece of tripe I've read this week.

I live in a country other than the U.S.A and for the past decade or so, if I've wanted to work on the cutting-edge in computers, I would have to move to the US to do so. How would you, as American's, like to be told that you must move to India to work on the latest technologies? Or maybe that starting up a company in your own country is pointless because you need to be in Korea or Taiwan to organise meetings with manufacturers?

Do American's even realise the degree to which their patriotic tendencies negatively affect other (poorer) nations? You are in a position of power and all you seem to care about is securing that power. Helping other nations and "global trade" seem to be conditional on the fact that dominance be maintained.

It has been a long time coming and I for one am *extremely* happy that the rest of the world gets a cut of the pie.

Re:Typical American Mentality

[Zip In The Wire]

If, the wages were higher than my home country I'd LOVE to move to another country.

Re:Typical American Mentality

[TheRaven64]

How are you comparing wages? Don't forget that although they may be lower in absolute terms lower prices may make them much higher in absolute terms. Living in Wales, for example, my disposable income is around the same as it would be if I had a job paying twice as much in London. On top of that, my journey into work is a 10-minute walk through the park and my office is on the sea front.

Here in Wales, we are actually seeing jobs being outsourced from India coming back, since the Welsh Development Agency (WDA) is providing additional funding to technology-based companies to expand, and reduce the nation's dependency on sheep farming as a source of income. The infrastructure is such that I have two choices with regard to broadband (ADSL or Cable), with the WDA providing funding to a project which aims to cover the entire country in WiFi.

You would have to offer me a large salary increase to persuade me to move away from here, to offset the other benefits (low costs, beautiful scenery etc.) Perhaps you should consider these things as well as the wages when you look at other countries, or even locations in the same country, as potential places of employment. Then again, perhaps you already live somewhere nice, and if so then I wish you luck in hanging onto your job.

It's all the democrates fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine somebody could explain it but why would they want to. Every criticism is written off as a political agenda anyways and it would be suicide.

A little more gas on the fire isn't going to hurt things any more then it is already right? Mmmm... marshmellows.

special treatment???

[tonythejuice]

Where were all you protectionist people when we lost our blue collar jobs to overseas? Look, you had your 10 years of insanely high wages --- and now you're obselete. Deal with it and stop your whining. If americans want to earn ridiculously high wages again to buy expensive luxruies, americans have to produce something that the rest of the world is interested in buying. So stop waiting for "employers" to hand you easy jobs and medical insurance. You're all smart people -- if you think employers should be handing out the 100,000$ salaries to IT folks again, YOU try starting a new company that can afford it. Best of luck. I'm movng to India.

But Intel is a big outsourcer

[CatGrep]

Me thinks Mr. Grove is speaking out of both sides of his mouth... or perhaps he's starting to see the light. I've done contract software development at Intel in the past. In the last year or so there have been no contracts at Intel available. Recently I asked one of the people I was contracting for if he had any more contracts coming up and his reply was: "We'd really like to hire you, but right now we can't unless you're in India". And then he went on to relate how every couple of weeks there is a companywide email going out about some new outsourcing project in India/China and he said this was very worrisome.

"Outsourcing" will kill the global economy...

[kcbrown]

Bear with me a minute and I think you'll understand my point.

Ask yourself this: from the point of view of a corporation, what's the most desirable worker? The answer is: someone whom you can get away with paying just enough that he can barely provide a minimal existence for himself.

The problem with outsourcing isn't merely that it's possible. The problem is that it's now possible for corporations to shift demand for labor more quickly than the economic differences between countries can be adjusted to compensate.

Normally we'd expect the economy of whichever country happens to be "graced" with corporate demand for labor to grow, for the standard of living to rise, and for the wages of people in that economy to rise along with it. The problem is that as soon as that happens, corporations will shift their demand for labor to some other country that doesn't have that problem. When that happens, what do you think will happen to the economy of the country they just left? Bingo: it's slide downhill. Just like it has here in the U.S.

Corporations are now in a position to find and hire their perfect candidate, because they can shift their demand for labor fast enough to take advantage of the hysteresis in the economic system.

But as if that weren't bad enough, consider this: the very people that ultimately are these corporations' customers (either directly or indirectly, the latter happening as a result of being a customer of a corporation that in turn is itself a customer) are the very people who are losing their jobs. The current U.S. economy is running on credit -- that's what happens during a recession. But if the U.S. economy doesn't turn around then the creditors will start to demand payment and the flow of credit will stop. And at that point, those people will stop spending money for anything other than the bare essentials. The U.S. economy will thus collapse (making the Great Depression look like a boom period in comparison).

Worse, when people stop buying (as they must once their credit runs out), the corporations they buy from stop bringing in money. What happens then? Those corporations lay off people, thus causing the economy to spiral down even steeper.

The only people who can afford to buy anything are the people who are paid more than a subsistence wage. Yet the ability of corporations to move their demand for labor more quickly than economies can adjust guarantees that, in the end, the only people who are making more than a subsistence wage are the people who own those corporations. And the people who don't have jobs won't be making any money at all. The global average wage will thus be at most equal to that necessary for subsistence.

Now apply those same economic principles everywhere, and you'll see that, given the ability of corporations to shift demand faster than economies can adjust, the average wage will be at or below the subsistence level as long as the global supply of labor is larger than the demand for labor.

Technology actually makes this worse. The reason is that technology tends to eliminate the need for people to perform tasks. "Great! That just means they'll be free to do something else!" you may argue. That's true -- for some of them. Historically people have found ways to be more productive in sufficient numbers to more than offset this effect, but that is by accident only. There's absolutely nothing that says that there will always be some new thing for everyone who finds themselves out of a job to do that will give them more than a subsistence wage, if that.

And the reason all this is true comes down to one simple fact: in the global economy where there is no "outside", the buying power of money is a conserved quantity because money is ultimately a direct measure of expended human labor, and the supply of human labor changes only as the population does.

Re:"Outsourcing" will kill the global economy...

[Anonymous Coward]

your keyboard and monitor are probably made in Taiwan/China. Isn't that outsourcing? Isn't that going to kill the global economy?

Re:"Outsourcing" will kill the global economy...

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, right. so the very thing that's brought affluence to the US will cause it's downfall, because it affects your job. wake up and smell the coffee...

Re:"Outsourcing" will kill the global economy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your driving an imported car, wearing imported sneakers and buying imported computer parts doesn't kill the global economy...It's just when people do the same to something that directly affects you, it kills the global economy.

getting in the way of free market once again!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to use Uncle Sam to protect your ass. I'm an unemployed US software developer. I don't know how the IT downturn has affected me yet cuz I've yet to look for jobby. But when I do and things might get tough, I will not blame some hard working cash strapped Indian. Libertarians like me are just cool people.

What he said...

[fmayhar]

As it happens, I recently wrote a short bit about this. It's pretty relevant here. I go a bit further than Grove, though:

Ah, so the "economy" actually "gained" some 57,000 jobs last month. Well, not so much gained as failed to lose , really. (Links via skippy the bush kangaroo; thanks, skippy.) The pain is no less than it was in August and we're all a month closer to the end of unemployment compensation. I note, though, that software engineering jobs in Bangalore are booming. And the boom is not just in Bangalore, either. I guess all these jobs the United States is exporting have been a real windfall for those guys. I have worked with folks from Bangalore and other parts of India, many of whom are undoubtedly benefiting from this situation. Those of us here in the States, though, are left high and dry.

You know, I have no particular desire to learn a new career when my current career is still in strong demand. Just not here, where companies actually have to pay their employees something reasonable. In India, they pay a fraction of the wage they would have to pay here, making for a situation in which an American cannot compete. Personally, I think there is a simple and potentially very effective legislative solution: Force companies based in the United States to pay their overseas workers on the same wage scale as their American workers. Not only would this eliminate the inequity of outsourcing jobs overseas, it would also provide legal weapons against abuses like the Nike sweatshops in southeast Asia.

Oh, and to those who claim that there will be "new jobs" to replace the old ones: That is simply not true. With the caliber of people in places like India and China, you can successfully outsource pretty much any high-tech job. These people are just as good at what they do as we are. Many (if not most) of them went to school here! But their cost of living is a fraction of ours and they can prosper on a salary that would put many of us on the street.

Meanwhile, a whole lot of us are watching our diminishing bank accounts and wondering just what we are going to have to do to get a job.

weak american bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

You little american sisies, whinning about other people taking your jobs. There is a great expression for this in the Hip/Hop/Rap world. It might now apply that well but you guys need to stop the "hatein'" , don't whine at the free market. It's the best thing out there. you still got the best piece of the pie so far with a huge lead. If you want to use your "player hating" protectionist weak ass policies then you will raise weak and feeble minds. It's already happening.

Re:weak american bastards

[dbCooper0]

Bugger off.

Something new ??

[tuomoks]

As long as people want and support this kind of business - what's wrong in that ? Country, pride and life style is totally separated of business, please don't mix them. It is very narrow minded. Instead compete and vote - if your CEO or whatever makes 1000+ times what you do and makes these decisions moving work(force) around, think if she/he is worth of that ( to whom? ) - really ? Amazing - sometimes that's is the case but it's not the rule and they couldn't do that for long without you, Mr. Good Corporate Citizen ! Skilled ( educated,experienced, not trained! ) people will always have it better all over the world and the corporations will find them in free world where ever they are living. Don't want a free world - sorry, you loose!

Andy Grove is a TRAITOR!

[Anonymous Coward]

He is a native of Hungary. Outsorcing helps Hungarian people, Andy Grove should be happy about it!

He should remember that once you are a Hungarian you are ALWAYS a Hungarian!

Re:Andy Grove is a TRAITOR!

[Anonymous Coward]

Andy Grove has no problem outsourcing jobs to Israel to benefit his fellow Jews. But when the jobs go to India or China he feels its such a terrible thing. The man is not worried about the prosperity of his fellow Americans but rather his ability to control the industry.

Re:Andy Grove is a TRAITOR!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Andy Grove has no problem outsourcing jobs to Israel to benefit his fellow Jews. But when the jobs go to India or China he feels its such a terrible thing. The man is not worried about the prosperity of his fellow Americans but rather his ability to control the industry.

Andy Grove is a jew? Good to know when I decide not to buy another Intel product.

Re:Andy Grove is a TRAITOR!

[Anonymous Coward]

This link has more info on Andy Grove and Intel

http://www.webreviews.com/9711/inside_intel.html

As I said, Andy is willing to throw American jobs to Israel but now when they go to countries like India and China suddenly it is a problem.

Re:citizen worker power

[Anonymous Coward]

Have lived well in a rich country and poor in a rich country, I'd ... see that my gv'mnt piled bodies at the border to ensure my fellow citizens ( and I ) live well. That's a gv'mnts job #1, and why we keep well_oiled Remingtons in the closet, but don't shoot the bastards ... yet ...

Re:citizen worker power

[kfg]

I can see why you post as an AC.

Please note that the bodies piled at the border will be citizens of your country, not some other's.

Then, once the bodies are there, how does your "gv'mnt" get its goods out to foreign markets?

Your recipe isn't one for domestic wealth, it's one for complete destruction. America's wealth depends entirely on it's foreign trade and always has, right from day one.

Tobacco, lumber and cheap labor went out. Manufactured goods came in.

America has never supported itself and is in less of a position now to do so than every before in its history.

So go ahead. Build your gulag. But be prepared to have to pedal a bike to work in the fields . . . and to power the single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling of your shack.

KFG

Outsourcing is not the cause of the problem

[Alex Belits]

...balance between the need for profits and the lure of offshore outsourcing.

I guess, this is the case when "interpreting" is closer to the truth than the actual speech -- the only "balance" that can be achieved is between desire to outsource for greater profits and outsourcing for greater profits, nothing else can be taken into account.

Instead of trying to throw more hay along the railroad to mitigate the trainwrecks, it's better to prevent them in the first place. There is no "free market" mechanism that makes outsourcing (that involves additional logistics) cheaper than domestic production, the only mechanisms that cause this are ones that come from international trade being screwed up through the use of dollar as international currency. I have mentioned this before, and it's still the same -- US exploited its ability to issue and throw dollars abroad for the last half a century. If it's not clear yet, I hope, it's easy to see: if when some Chinese or Indian (or Saudi) makes a product, then automatically some American bank/company/government/group-of-rich-people gets from Federal Reserve some "free" newly-issued money sufficient to buy it (after all, the amount of money corresponds to the amount of products), something in this system is extremely screwy, and it encourages companies to throw money abroad until the countries outside US are paved with dollars (by then, obviously minted/printed in China). It's economy that is based on a single historical accident, a loophole, and unless a real, stable base will be placed under it before it will collapse, the companies will just milk it until everyone, inside or outside US (of course, with the exception of various oligarchies), will be sucked dry.

It's a reality that people are more or less the same everywhere, and that the activity that is at most 40-50 years old, and does not heavily depend on traditions other than general knowledge of math and physics, can be equally performed by people of any nation, in any place on Earth. Americans expected that by some miracle they will always have an advantage, and, not surprisingly, miracle didn't happen. People who repeat again and again that the quality of foreign engineers is worse, probably didn't look recently enough, what is already outsourced. Of course, first thing that was outsourced was cheap, trivial shit, that any monkey can make. This is not because foreigners have inferior intellect and better tolerance for grunt work, it's because this kind of work is the most predictable, and therefore imposes less risks, less difficulty with evaluation and quality control, and allows for low but stable profit margins. However companies quickly discovered that the nature of all work, unless it's a kind of "service" that (for now) requires personal presence in front of the customer, does not fundamentally depend on the location or nationality of the worker once the the worker overcame the language barrier -- be it car assembly, microchips production, writing in VB, sophisticated applications programming, Linux kernel development, financial planning, writing movie scripts, or development of new concepts in philosophy. And they act accordingly, taking this into account, and trying to exploit "free money"/"products osmosis" mentioned above in all those areas. They, as opposed to you, are well aware of financial mechanisms even if no one there admits that what they are doing amounts to trivial scams based around currency.

Mod Parent Up - Informative

[maysonl]

my 2 cent's worth

The problem is....

[Anonymous Coward]

with the TCPIP stack, the moment we unwrite the tcpip stack, the outsourcing flow can be stopped. forever...

Mod parent up

[Animats]

This is one of the better descriptions of the problem, and well above the level of what one usually sees in the major media.

There are some things I'd argue about here, but the key line is "There's absolutely nothing that says that there will always be some new thing for everyone who finds themselves out of a job to do that will give them more than a subsistence wage, if that."

The state where most of the population is making a sustinance wage is stable. Most of the third world is stuck in that mode. The third world has been losing ground for years. For a while, it looked like countries could export their way out of third world status. It worked for Japan. But it doesn't work any more. The "Asian tigers" have all tanked.

At some point, we may have to back off from free trade between countries with widely disparite wage rates. What we may need is a system of import duties which, rather than being designed to protect industries, is designed to compensate for differences in wage rages. I'd suggest that such a system be designed to recover half the wage difference as import duties. Thus, the developed world has to be twice as efficient as the third world to compete. This prevents overprotection of inefficient industries. But countries with very low wage rates lose half their advantage.

What about employers in low-wage countries who pay high wages? They should get a break on import duties. But, to make this enforceable, the employer shouldn't be able to make that claim. Only their employee's union, if any, should be able to claim that the employer is paying high wages. Non-union? No tax break.

Andras Grof

[kinyobi]

Andy Grove "offshore outsourced" himself as he fled communist Hungary for US in 1956.

USA didn't take...

[DigiShaman]

America CREATED wealth. Get a fucking clue. Wealth is not a limited resource. If it was, civilization wouldn't have grown beyond that of hunting and gathering like primates.

Re:USA didn't take...

[Now15]

> Wealth is not a limited resource.

Wealth is relative. Resources are limited. Americans are turning the world's resources into American wealth far faster than any other country, and at an unquestionably unsustainable rate.

Re:USA didn't take...

[DigiShaman]

At the bottom of the resource food-chain is energy. We get our oil from the middle east because the sell it to us. If they are in need of it that badly, they would be using it themselves and cut us off compleatly. Besides, once oil runs out, there is always wind and solar energy to draw on... By the way, oil is nothing more then stored solar energy. So resources are NOT limited. Once you have energy, just about anything in need can be synthisized through it.

Simple logic

[saikou]

Frankly, I am surprised nobody brought this up yet. All of the government, military and national security projects have to be done in the US, period. For some reason people don't seem to be concerned, that stuff that army uses gets made in China or India. Parts of the databases and other projects get to be indirectly outsourced. Do they know who built the server they're going to run it? Did they check every employee of their foreign affiliate to make sure there is no link to terrorism, no time bombs, phone home beakons? Did each and every part got inspected? I doubt it.
Is the certification comprehensive enough to spot parts of the "phone home" subsystem that only works when used with another product? Say evil developer in foreign country installs one piece in Windows 2003 Server, and another in Backup Controller System, which, when combined, results in periodical attempts to contact some external server? I know it sounds paranoid, but I always thought that military and government have to be.

And as soon as all of those nice and lucrative contracts will start to vanish from companies, involved in outsourcing in any way, the tax dollars spent on those systems will remain here, rather than increase trade balance gap.
You want foreign workers, bring them here, let them work.

Get over it, folks....

[2Bits]

It's a losing battle trying to stop outsourcing of hi-tech jobs. What's the difference between outsourcing programming jobs and outsourcing textile manufacturing jobs? None, zip, nada. There's no difference.

For those business people, it just make business sense. Whether this is right or wrong, it all depends on where you live. You are in a place where the jobs are gone, that may be wrong. OTOH, if you are in a place where the jobs have just moved to, that might be right (I said "might", not all jobs are good, I don't want those polluting industries in my backyard, even if they pay the same salary as in the US).

As usual, people will complain and moan when outsourcing starts to affect their beloved industries. And they start to propose legislation or subsidies (not necessary monetary) to stop it, while happily ignoring history and forgetting the fact they used to support outsourcing of other low-tech industries before.

Now, people have basically settled with the fact that textile and apparel jobs won't be back to North America (US & Canada) anymore, except some very specialized ones.

But 15 years, people were still fighting that really hard (some are still fighting to keep those jobs, mind you), using all means possible, including legilsation, subsidies, import quota, etc. Not surprisingly, none of these works, and it costs North America dearly. When I took my management and economics classes, I've read 3 independent studies which all concluded the same thing: it costs between $240K to $300K per year to keep one job in the apparel industry in North America. It would be much cheaper to give $50K per year to each apparel industry worker to go home and sit there and do nothing, and I'm sure they would be much happier too, as $50K/year is double of the average salary of the worker at that time.

(I'm too lazy to go searching for those studies, but google will certainly help you.)

And then, the steel industries, and the automobile industry, and then software industry. So, what are you gonna do? Trade barrier is not a solution.

It's getting long and I'm not going to discuss about why we need free trade (yes, free without those stupid barriers!). If you want to know, go to read the history of what happened before the last world war, which led to the war eventually.

only thing shocking is a moron like yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

can use a PC. We consume 50% or whatever amount of the world's wealth because we created it. We are the nation that showed the world how to industrialize, discovered electricity, invented the internet, computers, big corporations, affordable cars, etc. There wasn't a big pile of gold lying around and America came and stole it from the rest of the world like you seem to think. The rest of the world has historically had excessive regulations, taxes, and structures that make doing business in each nation very tuff. Our founding fathers had the foresight to create a nation with limited government and limit regulations that helped grow our businesses and create our wealth. Unfortunately the liberals and some republicans in congress are taking that advantage away from us and so companies are looking overseas to get at the cheaper labor, less regulation, lower taxes, and lower threat of litigation.

Re:only thing shocking is a moron like yourself

[mccalli]

Oh dear. Oh deary-deary me. Let's start shall we?

• We are the nation that showed the world how to industrialize
  That would be Britain, in the Industrial Revolution.
• discovered electricity
  That would be Germany. Georg Von Kleist, to be precise.
• invented the internet
  A winner! Yes, America devised the internet. Not the web though, the commercially successful part. That would be Switzerland, CERN to be precise.
• computers
  Britain
• big corporations
  Britain. Who's tea do you think you were rioting against?
  
• affordable cars
  Yes, America did the affordable cars thing and did it well.

Not a good ratio for you, is it? And by 'you' I mean 'you, the poster', not America. America has done many things and I'm by no means anti it, in fact I'm usually inclined to be pro it (just dump Bush. Please.). The parent's point that certain individual Americans need to get out more is definitely valid. You would be one of those.

Cheers,
Ian (British)

Re:only thing shocking is a moron like yourself

[mccalli]

>>big corporations
>Britain

Actually, thinking about this I might replace it with Italy, or more accurately the Italian city states that existed at the time. I believe they were the first of the large banking houses.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:only thing shocking is a moron like yourself

[glesga_kiss]

thinking about this I might replace it with Italy

Well, there is the Catholic church, one of the most profitable organizations ever. How does the quote go:

"They built the church and then the pub, and finally the school, for there was no profit in that"

Re:only thing shocking is a moron like yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you aren't under the ridiculous illusion that the British are any better. The only major difference is that the British actually know how to speak English (which you chaps and blokes invented after all).

Yes, you invented computers, the industrial revolution and many other things. Very impressive. But what have you done for us lately?

Britain has always lagged behind the US in an economic sense precisely because of its socialist tendencies. Of course, if it hadn't been for that difference we'd probably still be a colony of yours.

In these scenarios I always like to think in terms of which countries could be blown off the face of the earth without the world noticing too much.

Obviously countries like Japan, Taiwan (and some nearby Asian countries), Germany, the US, and the UK would not be on that list. France, Canada, and, maybe Italy and Spain might also be included on the non-nuke list. The rest of the world would be virtually back to the stone age without us.

Re:only thing shocking is a moron like yourself

[NoOneInParticular]

Although they were first, it's just banking and private enterprise in Italy. As far as I know (but hey, I'm Dutch), the first 'modern' corporation was the Dutch East-Indies Company, complete with public stocks and stock market. Not uncharactaristically for a corporation, this company's line of business was sail to what's now Indonesia, plant a small army, kill a few natives, and subsequently 'buy' spices.

Re:only thing shocking is a moron like yourself

[mccalli]

I hope you aren't under the ridiculous illusion that the British are any better.

Missed the point of the post. Nationalism is certainly not what I was talking about. That was the point - that a narrow, nationalist view gets you nowhere.

Cheers,
Ian

Zardoz!

[Anonymous Coward]

Zed: We've all been used and reused...
Friend: ...and abused...
Arthur: ...and amused!

A book

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know of any good science fiction or speculative non-fiction that deals in detail with what such a move towards economic equilibrium might look like in this country, say 20 years out?

Sorry. But I do know a book detailing the opposite, although, well. Read it yourself. Rand, Ayn: Atlas Shrugged.

Re:A book

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware that Atlas Shrugged is a work of fiction?

Re:A book

[jonabbey]

Ah, yes, the Randite hero, bravely proving himself the superior man in the face of the sea of incapable beggers demanding alms.

You do understand that that's not what's at issue here? The question is what do you do when globally competitive labor is so cheap as to make it impossible to maintain the status quo standard of living through the sweat of one's brow?

Re:A book

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah.. The answer would be protecting yourself through trade barriers and tolls/taxes. When that fail, you either have an alternative, or you plunge into a rather steep downhill of reduction of living standards.
But if you paid any attention to global economics and natural resources you would know that this is in the end the ultimate fate. In order to keep it at bay, the only choice would be to go to war and divide up the spills afterwards.
We cannot all live like we do today, if the economies of larger parts of Asia should rise to a "western" standard (in living especially).
Whichever way you look at it, the future is a quite different place than today. (If you ask me, i would assume it would rather be a matter of more global poverty, where the spills of wealth will be more divided upon fewer induviduals in more countries than today).

Actual costs of overseas labor

[Ardias]

Anyhow, I think that the *actual* costs of overseas labor are going to start getting serious press soon as well, so hopefully that'll discourage the flava-of-the-month pointy hairs from shipping our work overseas, but I want a backup plan in case....

Outsource companies in India talk about how they cost only 20% of what US-based companies pay for software development. But, actual costs are closer to 80%. If anybody in your company starts talking about outsourcing, give them some hints from somebody who has been to India, and seen what it is like: Think Twice, and Don't Do It!

It takes a while to bring the Indian developers up to speed on the problem domain. It is one thing to know how to make software, but another to know how to make software to solve specific problems. It can take a year or more to transfer that knowledge for complex projects. So, during that time, US-Corp is paying for both its own developers, and the over seas developers. And they have to pay to bring those people over here or over there for training.

Many outsource companies have been known to get contracts to write software, and then go out and hire a dozen people. (Of course, they said up front to potential customers that they had the skills and resources.) I have met many really smart software designers and coders from India, but I have also met many whose only experience is that they read a book called: "Teach Yourself VB in 21 Days!" When you hire somebody for your own company, you can ask tough interview questions to determine the person's skill level. But, when you outsource to anywhere, even in the US, you might not get a chance to learn the skill level of whoever touches the source code. Sure, the company might let you talk to their smartest guys, but you won't know who is writing your source code the next day.

Will you ever get a chance to bring the code home? Maybe. Maybe not. Check your contract with the outsource company before you sign it. Even if they do share the source code with you, they may not want you to touch it yourself. Doing that can invalidate the contract and you have to pay their fees for breaking the contract. And too many PHB's think there is no need to bring the code home, if it can all be done over there. Try talking to a PHB who says: "All we need is the product, not any source code."

In many parts of India, basic utility infrastructure is just not up to American standards. This includes somewhat modern cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad where a lot of software is made. When I was in India, the power just simply went out occasionally. Sections of the city lost power for a few minutes or few hours. People got used to it.

One US corporate executive (won't say who) went over there to interview several companies for offshore software development. The lights went out 4 times during the first hour of the interview. The hosts politely explained that they have battery backups and use laptops with spare batteries. Needless to say, the exec was just not impressed. There was no deal.

I was riding in a taxi (one of those cute little "Amby" cars) and got stopped in one of those traffic jams that occur every few minutes. (Nobody obeys traffic rules consistently there, so traffic jams are just part of the overall experience.) People got used to it. Well, while waiting, I asked the driver about this unfinished bridge that partly crossed the highway. It looked like a highway entrance ramp where the lower part was about 10 feet up, then went for 50 feet, and the upper end just ended in an abrupt dropoff. No road connected to it, although if you extended it, the lower end would intersect the street eventually. It had been there a few years, with graffiti and chipped concrete. Was definately not new construction that had temporarily stopped.

The taxi driver said the city wanted to relieve traffic jams, and decided to make connection from this street over to another street a couple of kilometers away. The connection would be raised t

We can make everything locally.. why don't we?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to innovate if someone else uses it against me.

I don't want to exploit labor.

I just want some stable long term non-abusive work for food and shelter.

It's not just the Americans that lose

[EmbeddedJanitor]

This whole mess is nothing new. In many ways this is the same as what has happened in the past with the primary sector (imported raw materials that competed with the domestic coal, oil, agricultural producst) and the the manufactring sector (those Nikes from Mexico etc).

I live in New Zealand and work (embedded firmware etc) for a company owned by an American corporation. My salary + overheads are a third of what it costs to put an American behind a desk to do the same job. OK, we're not talking complete sweatshop, but the basic principle is there.

It is easy to say that the American engineer is getting screwed becasue he can't get a job. In many ways, the NZ economy is also getting screwed (at least in the short term) because my skills are going into building the American corporation rather than some New Zealand company.

In reality I think we're only seeing the thin end of the wedge. Countries like China, India etc have the potential to become stronger and stronger. As these countries get upskilled in all areas (manufacturing and engineering), the value added that comes from America is diminished. What's left for the American corporation to do? Marketing. How long before marketing etc also get commoditised and go offshore along with service organisations (tech support etc which already have)? Eventually there are likely to be full Chinese etc corporations with the capability to do everything better and cheaper. Where to then?

Bottom line: American corporations are so driven by quarter-by-quarter profits that they do not invest in the future. This will fail not only those corporations, but the economy on which they're based.

Re:It's not just the Americans that lose

[Malcontent]

"My salary + overheads are a third of what it costs to put an American behind a desk to do the same job."

The NZ dollar is about 60% of the US dollar and I can't imagine that the overhead in Auckland or Wellington is that much less then any large city in the US so how do you figure 1/3rd?

BTW I would cut off my left arm if I could immigrate to NZ and work for 60% of what I am getting now. It's almost impossible to get NZ citizenship if you are older and don't have a degree though.

Re:It's not just the Americans that lose

[easter1916]

Who says he gets the same number of NZ dollars as you get of the US kind? It's quite possible he costs close to a third of what you cost as an employee.

Re:It's not just the Americans that lose

[Anonymous Coward]

Rubbish - only qualification to enter NZ is $... The whole place is overun with imports who have $ (not a racist comment - just reality).

The main problem NZ has is same as Australia - luddite government - they still belive sheep/cow/trees/food is the saviour and that IT/technology/Biotech etc is crap and or the confusing stuff of nerds..... when they wake up they might start to retain some tech people....

Re:It's not just the Americans that lose

[zitsky]

OK, first don't compare New Zealand with Australia. ;-) (Kiwi's lose their easy going nature and get really ticked off when you do that.) They are two completely different countries with different problems and policies. That's like comparing the US with Canada. We both speak English, we both are former colonies of England, but our govenments and society are vastly different.

The New Zealand government has known for years about the problem of emmigration and has tried to create incentives to keep many of the younger people with college degrees from leaving the country to work elsewhere. Eventually some come back but many do not. However, there is an active IT industry in New Zealand, and I've met and worked with programmers and system admins in their 20's and 30's who chose to stay and contribute to the New Zealand economy. New Zealand is still famous for having more sheep than people, but the governement knows that promoting only tourism, wool and the excellent local wine industry is not enough to maintain the economy.

I am not a Kiwi, just a US citizen who's been there twice, with another trip planned in a few months.

Re:It's not just the Americans that lose

[davew2040]

Developers in these countries work cheap because they're typically not very good. It's also a typical management mishap to not understand the complexity of developing decent software.

As they get more income and thus more wealth, they'll overall be able to build strong educational systems, and thus have a strong base of skilled workers.

Do you think they'll want to work cheap anymore? I doubt it.

As for China... I don't foresee that country becoming a hotbed of top-tier technological innovation or production. It's not a place where original thought is valued.

Re:It's not just the Americans that lose

[0111 1110]

That's like comparing the US with Canada. We both speak English, we both are former colonies of England, but our govenments and society are vastly different.

I have lived in both Canada and the US, and, culturally there is almost no difference. In fact I was surprised at how truly similar both cultures really were. And I was living in Quebec!

If there is any difference, aside from buying over the internet being much easier (and cheaper) in the US, it is in the attitude that they are not bound to the US, that they are a truly separate culture. They may believe this. But I don't think most of the ones who do have really spent much time living in the US. Living in a place and just visiting it are not the same thing.

Certainly the Francophones in Quebec are a bit different. The tend to speak French with an almost American sounding accent (which I always found comic), and tend to try to be a bit more "European" in some ways.

Re:It's not just the Americans that lose

[EmbeddedJanitor]

"Developers in these countries work cheap because they're typically not very good."

Keep thinking like that and you will get wiped out. I cost approx a third of an equivalent US employee, yet I hold around nine or so US patents, have won international awards and various other things.

I recently had dealings with a company in India that does a damn good job of building and fixing gcc etc tools. Thes folk are "world class".

These people will work cheap because there is an army of them looking for a job. and mostly they have lower personal expenses. It takes a lot less than a US salary to make one of these guys very happy and motivated.

Hello? Wake up!

[Anonymous Coward]

You currently have a massive budget deficit. You are effectively living with money loaned to you by other countries.

USA Today article.

Re:Hello? Wake up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, we just captured a huge strategic oil supply with money loaned by other countries.

Re:Hello? Wake up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Swapping bits of green paper for fridges seems like
a pretty good deal to me - if you own the printing
press.

Countries financing the giant ponzi scheme that is
the US economy would do well to look at the impact
of foreign exchange devaluations on the 30 year
yield of such transactions.

One big global country

[axxackall]

US goverment already thinks of itself as a global goverment:

• it ignores International Crime Court thinking that US court is enough;
• it invades other countries ignoring what other world leaders are saying;
• it blocks whenever possible UN work and all UN Security Council resolutions;
• it makes a pressure on Australian and Asian goverments when they decide to abandon Microsoft;
• it ignores global environmental efforts (Kyoto) saying that US will come with their own solution on their own;

OK. Fine. If it's global then let it be global. Including protecting globally the human AND political rights. And of course sharing globally the right to vote for US president (Invade Iraq? Let them come to US elections then!). Basically, distributing the US Constitution globally as well (it's not perfect, but better than 99% of local laws outside of US anyway).

Most of the good Indian developers are in the US

[rollingcalf]

The good Indian developers are already in the US or Europe or Australia, that's why most of those still in India are only capable of producing crap.

Ruining the capital assets

[crucini]

At least the factory owner won't run without maintenance and ruin all his machine tools 20 years early, like the socialist will. By then, it'll be someone else problem, right?

Actually, that behavior is very characteristic of real-world capitalism. Anyone who's worked in corporate America for a few years can tell horror stories of management wilfully ignoring the long-term issues for immediate gain. And using the phrase "factory owner" is a bit misleading. Factories worth calling factories are generally owned by corporations. That means the decision-makers are not much different from Soviet bureaucrats.

When public utilities are privatized, the result is frequently the lack of maintenance you described. Here in the US we have many efficiently-run public utilities. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, a public utility, has done much better than its competitor, Southern California Edison, a private utility.

I remember reading of a public electric utility in England that was sold to an American company. The company immediately started laying off maintenance workers and boasted of their "efficiency improvement." Predictably, they were soon experiencing outages.

Capitalist or socialist enterprises can succeed or fail, depending largely on the people running them. But some kind of disease is quickening within capitalism these days, some combination of twisting, evasion, fraudulent lobbying and lawsuits, willingness to sacrifice all truth and ethics for profit. I think western capitalism is approaching the toxicity of Stalinist communism.

Re:Ruining the capital assets

[moebius_4d]

I've spent enough time in the corporate world to agree that many people have exactly that view - make it shine while I'm here and apres moi, le deluge. That's basically my point - people are enough alike that we can't reasonably expect spontaneous good behavior to break out simple because we "reject private property" or something. What will actually happen is the kind of bureaucratic warlordism we saw in the warsaw pact.

As far as your public/private discussion, I can only reiterate that I'd expect workers, managers, etc. to react the same in either case to similar incentives and punishments. The one problem with public utilities and other subsidized interests is the distortion in allocation they cause, but perhaps sometimes it's a desirable distortion. So there are plenty of good examples of privatization, and horror stories too.

One and only solution

[daviskw]

Outsource management activities. For all most managers know about what is actually happening inside their companies they might as well be in India or China.

The beautiful thing about outsourcing management is that any idiot thinks they can manage and most who manage are as interchangable as vacuum cleaners.

Witness the use of Copellas who went form Compaq to MCI, two companies that essentially produce two completely different product with completely different customers.

Why would any shareholder allow some inexperience yahoo a shot at their company when they wouldn't take their car to their plumber to get it fixed?

Genuis

[tmuller]

It only took someone to which everyone will listen to for this to be "heard".

It amazes me everday when people go blindly to work, not realizing that in 5-6 years, they will not have a job because SAHIB in India works for 1/10th the cost and has 1/16th of the cost of living that we do here in the states.

Another thing that really drives me nuts, we have all these workers for which companies need to have from OUTSIDE the U.S. because the labor force here doesn't have enough skilled people to do the work. This is complete and udder BS.

There are alot of non-U.S citizens working here because our GOVERNMENT let them because corporations WHINED about it. Now, we have like 7-8 percent Unemployment. Take out all the non-U.S workers, and we have NO UNEMPLOYMENT!!!!! Amazing how that works, eh?

Re:Genuis

[tmuller]

Oh, yeah, I forgot.

To correct this mistake, we should NOT allow patents to be granted to ANY company that has work done OUTSIDE the U.S. Any involvement with workers not of U.S. citizenship inside the U.S. will result in forfet of any patents applied for. Or better yet, make these companies pay a PENALTY for using non-U.S workers.

Yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I could buy a boat and go there myself if I liked. No-one would question why I was buying the boat in the first place...

The freedom to do anything, including ignoring inconvenient laws, is inherently American. Ask anyone here how fast they drive on the roads.

Re:Yes, but...

[gfody]

Ask anyone here how fast they drive on the roads

thats for sure.. on the highways in CA your either going 0-10mph or 80-100mph (usually 0-10 unless your driving at 1-3am)

School choice != vouchers

[rollingcalf]

"3. Parents always had choices. Wealthy parents have always sent their kids off to private schools. The voucher system would only hurt the poor and the middle class as it will take money away from the public schools but not give enough for them to actually go to a good private school."

Other countries implement school choice without vouchers. Instead, the public schools have the prospective students apply for entry, looking at various criteria which may include entrance tests, interviews, and transcripts from previous schools -- just like you do when you apply to college. Sure, if a kid isn't too bright s/he'll end up being forced into one of the schools that nobody else wants to go to, but at least it's based primarily on merit instead of the wealth of their parents, and it's better than being forced to go to a crappy school just because you live on the same street as it. It also raises the overall quality of just about all the schools, because students compete to get into the best schools and schools compete to attract the best students.

I predict

[melted]

People will soon start to getting medical services offshore. I went to my dentist last week to get an estimate on how much it will cost me to get 2 implants installed and the guy quoted me $5.5K. It's $5.5K for two tiny incisions in my mouth and 40 minutes of drilling my jawbone and stitching (then I have to shell out $2K more for the actual crowns). The same shit done in Russia (INCLUDING the roundtrip) would cost me $2600. Everything is the same, implants, equipment, medications - everything but the doctor's appetite for my money.

I'm actively looking for something closer than Russia (where I'm from myself) though. I'll take a good look at Canada or have this stuff done in another state. I just feel a significant disproportion in incomes. I make $20 an hour, and this guy makes $5.5K an hour.

I DID work there and was laid off!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work in the IT dept. at Andy's old company. It was pretty brutally slashed, with jobs going to India. These layoffs were "hidden" from local communities to lessen the impact of panic from realtors and govt. officials from a loss of home price values and taxes. Hospitals in the area were unaware of the cutbacks, when they came in based on Intel growth. I'm not saying they're owed growth, but steps were taken to minimize exposure of layoffs to the community, and it was hidden from total company employee numbers by hiring going on overseas.

I also know people who were being asked to train their replacements overseas, and once completed, were to lay off people in the hundreds.

The fact remains that while Andy is "Torn" between stopping it and retaining shareholder value, nobody really cares as long as a profit is shown and stocks go up. Questions were asked of his successor at campus meetings about this, and he danced his way out of saying that jobs were flowing overseas... but it was obvious. Mr. Barrett recently came out and blatantly stated that Intel is expanding heavily overseas in efforts to cut costs.

Again, stocks are rising... who really cares?

I'm employed now, but during this wave of layoffs, approx. half targeted were longtime employees who were presumably making the most money.

I don't have much animosity personally towards Intel. They drive their people really hard, and this will come back to bite them as the economy improves and good people leave in droves. I personally am glad to be free of the hard-driving tactics of work there. And I've met people who were dying to be laid off just so they could retain unemployment benefits - which they're not eligible for if they ask to quit. In this economy, there's little for them to turn to right now.

But the time will come.... They'll bail.

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Make it illegal to pay any offshore developer less than a what an equivalent developer in the U.S would get paid.
That way, the vast majority of workers hired would be from the U.S. and the only offsore developers hired would be those which are truly needed -- which is what H1B and similar programs were originally intended for.
And, of course, stiff penalties/fines for head-hunters who play games with making up skillsets to weed out perfectly qualified U.S. workers to hire offshore workers who don't even meet those skillsets themselves.

Open Source and easy to understand code

[Zip In The Wire]

The Open Source promoters don't realize that, when they give away their code, they are giving away themselves. If people have your code, they don't need you. Sorry, but its true. Not only are you giving away your work directly, you are giving away the knowledge it took you months or years to acquire. People stydying your code are able to avoid the long learning curve you put in. If you are working at a company, making your code friendly (good variable names, lots of comments) you are just making it easier for the company to get rid of you. I know someone will say, "If I was your manager I'd fire you". and that's exactly the point. It's the managers who are outsourcing all this stuff. Sure they'd love to get rid of all the people who DEVELOPED this industry and turn it over to cheap grunts in 3rd world nations. I am an American who has to manage a team of Russians in Russia (no choice my company ordered me to do it). The code is uniformly bad and most of it is simply downloading various pieces of open source and adpating it to our use. Half of the code needs to be rewritten not once, but several times. Suits like dollar values, they are certain. They don't know the price they are paying in missed deadlines and bad quality. Those items are not as quantifiable.People whine and complain about even the best software so it's hard to see whether quality really matters or not. If you want to stop this glut of low paid grunts from taking your jobs, stop giving away your code as "open source" and stop making yourself EASY to get rid of. It's simple.I guess people in the US and Northern Europe have had it easy for so long they have forgotten some simple lessons in basic survival.

"Where is the profit?"

[alizard]

Here's an article excerpt that goes against the conventional wisdom...

The bitter end of outsourcing
9/25/2003 5:00:00 PM - There comes a limit to what you can farm out

by Shane Schick

Cost savings? What cost savings?

At every Conference Board of Canada event, it is customary that the chair offers a recap of each day's presentations the following morning. On Day 2 of this week's Business Process Outsourcing event those responsibilities fell to Blake Hanna, a partner with Accenture in Toronto, who tried to whittle down a series of presentations into a few bullet points. When he was finished he asked the audience if any key issues hadn't been addressed so far. A hand went up.

"I didn't get the impression anyone was saving any money," one guy said.

This was a great comment, because it went straight to the heart of why many people had probably registered for this conference. The best response came from one of the previous day's presenters, Scotia Group vice-president of strategic sourcing Linda Tuck Chapman, who said many enterprises say they expect cost savings of 30 per cent or more from outsourcing. "I don't know where these comments come from," she said. "Sometimes we've managed to see savings of 10 per cent or a little bit more, but it's usually been much more about the value (outsourcing) brings to the company."
------------ end quote

If you aren't a PHM, you should know that hourly rate isn't the only cost involved in outsourcing. It may not even be the most important. Infrastructure costs. Remember, part of why it's cheaper is that the infrastructure isn't all there. Third World phone lines. Electricity that works sometimes. How big are your outsourcer's generators? Oversight costs. Costs of analyzing your processes well enough to allow exporting them.

Plus, if you didn't adequately spec what you're paying for, for any reason, you're hosed when you get the products back, there may not have been money to do it right but there will be money to do it over. Or the company dies right there.

So why do this? Part of it is... PHMs look at labor costs and don't look any further. Part is... if one is planning to cook the books to reflect a profit that really isn't there, if you can talk about savings from outsourcing, people won't look too hard for further explanations.

Re:"Where is the profit?"

[Zip In The Wire]

If this is true then there will be a shakeout coming. That shakeout being, those companies that outsourced will have failed products due to

1) Failed deadlines
2) Low quality

That will be the definitive test of outsourcing.

Re:"Where is the profit?"

[kellererik]

Don't forget that PHBs will never admit that somethings didn't work out they authorized in the first place. I know of a company where everybody complains about messy code, but nobody dares to inform the CEO because it was his idea to outsource to India.

my 2 cents

you forgot the worst case

[alizard]

Where everything works, outsource enough core business processes and the vendor is going to wonder sooner or later, just what value the US-based management who is increasingly no longer in touch with the end users is adding to the company products now made in India or China. And wonder why they don't provide this value themselves and keep all the profits, not just markup on hourly rates.

I am indeed expecting a shakeout. However, I don't expect the jobs to return to America as a result, I'm expecting most companies either to go terminal or go completely overseas.

Re:you forgot the worst case

[Zip In The Wire]

I forgot some even worse data. Some of our code was leaked out and got into the public domain. My superiors didn't care. However, there isn't much anyone can do legally to out-of-country producers. Here are some things that can happen. 1) Remote producer fails to produce but takes the money. Good luck chasing someone down in India. This happened to us in Russia. 2) Remote producer uses your code to create a product of their own. Some code produced overseas doesn't suffer this, like, the printer management programs that come with various printers. They are tied to the printer, the market is glutted with printer software so releasing their own version just isn't worth it. 3) Code gets released to public domain through untrustworthy or "socialistic" programmers working for overseas producer. 4) Overseas producer becomes indespensable because their code is so bad only the original programmers can decode it. Then they jack up their rates making the relationship less profitable than using local talent. Part of the problem is that a lot of software isn't special or revolutionary. It is just like plastic, made-in-china trinkets. People who sell hardware always have to include a little app to go along with their hardware. That kind of stuff you don't worry about trade secrets getting out so it's ok to outsource it.

USA IT Dominance a Govt. Plot

[maysonl]

It's amazing how many contributor's to this discussion don't seem to realize that the USA's current dominance in the computer/semiconductor/IT industry is to a very large extent the result of government action. Without the federal government's funding and forcing the development of the technology, computer hardware and software would be much less well developed than they are, and the EU would probably host much more of the industry.

Mayson (who wrote his first programs back in '63 on a NASA computer (well, actually I wrote them on a coding pad, but they ran on the 7094)).

A new type of tarriff

[Baron_Yam]

We absolutely should not try to block the flow of jobs to other countries as a general rule. I LIKE a global economy - the more we're all tied together, the better, I think.

However, I believe in equal pay for equal work, and outsourcing to India and China doesn't do that. We're taking advantage of lower standards of living. We can't just pay more without disrupting the hell out of their economies (which would be fairly evil of us, I think). We need a tarriff placed on foriegn labour designed to compensate for differences in standards of living - an American company manufacturing goods for sale to Americans should have to support the American standard of living.

By sending labour of ANY sort overseas, but expecting to sell back home, companies are behaving like citizens who don't pay their taxes - they are expecting to reap the benefits of the home economy without paying their fair share to support it.

Move to India? Hmm...

[Mr.Spaz]

Reading these comments has given me an idea. I should learn Hindi and then move to India and offer my services as management to American companies looking to establish outsourced ventures there. As a dual-language non-native I'd have at least a couple of advantages:

First; I'd be able to easily communicate with my American-based masters and effectively (if not gracefully) communicate with my Indian subordinates. Knowing how to handle myself with American-style corporate etiquette would be quite the edge.

Second; as a non-native, I would not be bound by India's archaic caste system, bypassing the troubles that arise from having to staff a facility by castes. I would, in effect, be a "vertical" management layer able to deal with any employee as necessary, regardless of their caste (I'd have to forgo any extra-curricular socializing if I did this however. Indians are still very bound by the caste system, and while they may listen to me at work because I'm the boss, they would not associate with me elsewhere if I interact with other castes).

Finally, even if I asked for only 1/2 of what your typical project manager makes here in the U.S., I'd still be making more than I do in my current job. Additionally, the cost of living in India is purportedly dirt cheap. I could live like a king and still have some money to put away. I've never been to India, but I can't imagine it being too far away from China as far as standards of living are concerned. If that's the case then I know I can find suitable accomodations.

The only snag I see in the plan is that India might have a problem with allowing me to work as an IT/S manager there. If I can pass that hurdle though, then this just might be a plan!

Re:Move to India? Hmm...

[akb]

You seem to have British syndrome, the belief that you are inherently superior to those brown people who will be blessed to have you as their overlord. India does not lack competent IT people. The competition there is intense, particularly in IT but in all of life as well because of the poverty. Most Indians work harder than most Americans can imagine.

Re:Move to India? Hmm...

[samantha]

I would be tempted to move to India for a different reason, actually for several reasons. But the most germane is that it should be possible to start an on-shore software company in India at far lower costs than in the US even with outsourcing in the US based case. Some significant largely Open Source projects should also be doable if done in India, China or Russia with relatively cheap engineers.

Re:Move to India? Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps most Americans work harder than most Indians imagine. The lazy American and hard working Indian are both stereotypes. There are plenty of IT types who log 60-70 hours a week. I have personally worked 80 hours a week, although not for long. Just because we are higher paid does not make us lazy.

Re:Move to India? Hmm...

[akb]

I've been to India and I assure you that you are wrong. The competition for jobs pales anything the US has seen since the Depression. The competition to get into Harvard pales next to the competition to get into IIT.

This is due to the extreme poverty and tremendous population density. There's virtually no social safety net so if you want to survive you will have to work very hard.

It is certainly true that Americans work longer hours than Europeans because American companies seem more adept at making their workers insecure and securing worker productivity gains for corporate fat cats. But I think this motivation is not comparable to that provided by poverty.

Re:Move to India? Hmm...

[Mr.Spaz]

No, it's nothing like that at all, I assure you. It's more of an idea on how I could follow the work to wherever it's off to. In the early 90's it was Silicon Valley, and you had to be a shark to survive. Now it's India. I was contemplating on what I could bring to the table if I wanted to try and follow the jobs there. And I don't doubt that they have plenty of competent IT people; I'm looking at management positions with the unique angle of being the go-between for two different business cultures that are also separated by a significant geographical gap.

I speak mainly from the experience of a friend of mine who still works in a big-corporate software firm and is the US-based manager of their Indian tech support center. He had to learn Indian business culture as he went, but now that he's familiar with both US and Indian business philosophies his responsibilities (and compensation) have greatly expanded.

Re:Offshore means "ON SEA". Not in other countries

[Tough Love]

2: at some distance from the shore; "offshore oil reserves";

Most Americans don't know that there is land west of California or east of New York.

Re:Move to India? Hmm...(Build Harem)

[Zip In The Wire]

And don't forget to register as a Muslim. If you do, you can have FIVE WIVES. (Don't bring your wife if you are already married. Should be no problem as most American women are squeamish and don't like smelly foreigners anyway). Get some of those nubile, 13 year old wenches that the parents can't afford and build your own Harem!!!! How sweet it is!

Free market for goods, no free market for labor

[rollingcalf]

Countries like India and China can provide technology services cheap not because they produce more efficiently per se, but because labor costs in those countries are artificially held down as a result of the labor supply not being able to cross borders with the same legal freedom as the work products of the labor supply. If Indian programmers and technologists had the freedom to work in developed parts of the world like Europe, Japan, and the USA, there is no way the Indian employers would be able to hold down salaries to $500/month.

Re:Free market for goods, no free market for labor

[TheSync]

Indeed, labor price differentials across borders are mich higher than goods price differentials. Liberalizing world labor flows would bring far more global wealth increase than just liberalizing world trade flows.

The Temporary Movement of Natural Persons (TMNP) is a mechanism to provide some liberalizing of labor flows by allowing guest workers into countries temporailly. There is a TMNP bill with Mexico, the Border Security and Immigration Improvement Act, introduced by Senator McCain and Congressmen Kolbe and Flake.

Indian's don't speak Indian

[Zip In The Wire]

Well, even if they did that wouldn't be a problem become Indian is a Native American Language :)

Re:citizen worker power

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Posts like these makes me think there is still sense in the world.

Re:Offshore means "ON SEA". Not in other countries

[Anonymous Coward]

English major, huh?

Talk to a linguist. Currently, offshore with regard to jobs means any job filled by workers not in the company's home nation.

HINT: Language evolves.

did he mention AMD and how intel is mediocre

[Anonymous Coward]

and how he's causing US to lose edge in technology by making sure his co's mediocre products prevail over vastly superior competition by using anti-competitive and unethical tactics ?

I guess not.

Medicine already seeing "in-sourcing"

[swb]

For various reasons I've been to the "urgent care" clinic a few times in the past couple of years. Usually it was because the ailment was too trivial to deal with the appointment/timeoff process with my regular doctor.

Each time I've been there, I've been treated by a doctor who was foreign born and in one case, had been in the US less than a year (I asked). One doctor was from Egypt and the other was from Romania. Both appeared to be what I'd call "awkwardly competant" -- they treated my ailments, but their whole interaction with me was really odd. It wasn't exactly confidence inspiring, and was markedly different from the experience I've had with foreign doctors when I've been at the University Hospital.

Anyway, this urgent care clinic is part of a corporation, and urgent care medicine is a lot of schlock work (colds, cuts, burns, etc) at bad hours that a lot of doctors don't like to do...for less than a 'normal' salary of $150-200k.

So why not start a program of importing doctors from overseas? And I think that's exactly what they've done. And it wouldn't surprise me with the cost pressure on the medical system in the US if this didn't become a lot more common, with the lower end of the medical practice getting filled with foreign doctors.

Re:Medicine already seeing "in-sourcing"

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, except for emergencies, patients go to doctors they like and feel comfortable with. Would you want to pay more money for an american doctor if you had a choice? When dealing with our own health, most people aren't cheap.

Unlike the Wal-mart consumer nation we have created.

Re:Medicine already seeing "in-sourcing"

[swb]

People aren't cheap, but they're also not footing the bill. Given a choice between a $1500 emergency room visit paid for out of pocket, and a $15 urgent care visit paid for almost exclusively by their insurance, which do you think they'll choose?

Corporate hypocracy

[swb]

The biggest aspect of corporate hypocracy is the continuation of import barriers in the US due to "unfair trade practices".

If its so fucking cheap to send my job to $developing_nation, at least give me the benefit of buying whatever I want from overseas and not having to have it tarrifed to infinity. If they can do my job as good and cheaper, they certainly can provide goods better and cheaper.

And I'm also curious where the downward pressure on executive salary and benefits packages is? Sure, clear out 100 IT workers whose gross cost is maybe $12 million, but make sure the top 5 exectives clear $100 million in salary and bonuses and other perks?

There really is a "capitalism for the worker, socialism for management" mentality.

Memo to Andy Grove:

[inode_buddha]

Why is it the Government's job to "...restore balance between the need for profits and the lure of offshore outsourcing"? Those sound like business issues, not governance issues.

FWIW, I don't see a very fine line between profit-taking and being obscene gluttons - it's more like a mile-wide gulf.

"Become more efficient"? You're kidding, right?

[fmaxwell]

The fact is that most IT jobs are commodities: system administration, building web pages, support, most programming (visual basic, etc) and the like can be done by anyone. The only solution is to innovate, become more efficient and smarter in how you do things.

In India, $6,000(U.S) per year is good pay for an experienced software engineer. Office space leases for about $25 per square foot per year in Northern Virginia -- home of many high-tech companies on the east coast. That means that it probably costs more to lease the space (cubicle, lab space, common areas, etc.) needed for a U.S. software engineer than to pay an Indian software engineer for a year.

When a company can get labor for less than the cost to provide you a cubicle, it does you no good to "become more efficient and smarter in how you do things." You can be as efficient, and smart as you like, but you simply aren't going to out-produce the ten or more off-shore workers that could be paid for what you cost your company.

Such "work smarter" bullspeak might make the speaker feel better and like he has some control over the situation, but it's got little to do with economic reality in this marketplace.

Bad economic assumptions

[swb]

You're assuming that the Mexicans would price their cell service so much lower than the Americans that it would provide a meaningful savings differential. This wouldn't happen.

The Mexicans would price their service only marginally lower than American service, but the margin would be negligible, and would not provide meaningful economic benefit to the rest of the economy.

Furthermore, presuming their service was priced low enough to steal signficant customers, the American companies would likely end up merging or consolidating to cut costs and gain economies of scale to remain competitive.

Even if the Mexican service was constantly priced low enough to ultimately take all the subscribers and drive the American companies out of business, as soon as the Mexicans had no competition they would have every incentive to raise prices, since there's no alternative (technology or vendor), and the market has already determined people are willing to pay the original, pre-Mexican service pricing for cell phones.

In the end, you lose some or all of the American jobs, and the savings to consumers is to small to have any meaningful effect on the rest of the economy.

Re:Bad economic assumptions

[axlrosen]

Well, the price discount would probably be somewhere in between, not huge but not negligible either. If it were negligible nobody would switch. And yes, the American companies would find some way to lower their prices and compete, that's exactly the original poster's point. That's good for consumers.

As far as no competition goes, that's why we have anti-trust laws, or to take the analogy further, you'd assume that other Mexican companies would step in to provide more competition.

Re:Bad economic assumptions

[gonz]

The Mexicans would price their service only marginally lower than American service, but the margin would be negligible, and would not provide meaningful economic benefit to the rest of the economy.

If this were true, then it would also apply to overseas consulting labor. The reason it doesn't is that "the Mexicans" are not a single company, but a group of companies who are also in competition with each other. Firms that priced their service marginally lower than American prices would lose their business to other Mexican firms who could and would sell for less.

Furthermore, presuming their service was priced low enough to steal signficant customers, the American companies would likely end up merging or consolidating to cut costs and gain economies of scale to remain competitive.

In the contrived example, the Mexicans are supposed to have a unique resource that American firms cannot compete with (e.g. employees who are happy to solder circuit boards for $0.01 / hr).

Returning to reality, I do agree that it's bad for American firms to make naive decisions such as outsourcing work to incompetent foreign consultants. Maybe there are some things government could do to discourage this; however, historically government has proved to be even less judicious than the firms themselves. (Which is not surprising, since government is motivated primarily by forces that have very little to do with the welfare of a corporation's profitability.)

On the other hand, if the foreign consultants are providing genuine savings, than this can only be beneficial in the long run. The American employees simply need to adapt to the changing market, and focus instead on areas where they do have an advantage. Unless you have your head in the sand and are unable to learn new skills, there is always work to be done, especially in a good economy. And when you have a big "America" box with 1 cell phone flowing in for each penny flowing out, that is a good economy. :-)

-Gonz

Wall Street Journal article profit assumption

[swb]

...on this subject had a quote from some McKinsey study that said 2/3rds of the savings flow back to the US in the form of cheaper goods and "fatter corporate profits which would be used for innvoate businesses in the US."

Why is it the assumption that fatter corporate profits means anything for anyone but corporate executives? Even if they develop innovative new businesses, these businesses almost always are strutured around a small number of high paying marketing and management jobs, and a large number of low-paying jobs. ...which is really the worst trend; economically, a smaller and smaller number of people gain more and more benefit by squeezing a larger and larger number of people.

software is a cost center?

[oogoody]

That's how management sees it. It doesn't see
software as a core competency or something that
can be use as an advantage to get more customers.

Re:"Become more efficient"? You're kidding, right?

[darkov]

Such "work smarter" bullspeak might make the speaker feel better and like he has some control over the situation, but it's got little to do with economic reality in this marketplace.

I love how every reply to pro-free trade posts on this subject have some sort of ad-hominem attack within. It speaks loudly about what most people feel about this topic: Gimmie mine and fuck every one else.

You think that working smarter and more efficient means competing on price? This is why your jobs are going overseas. You have no clue how to respond to the challenge. You have no imagination or creativity and your ability only extends to what you've done a thousand times before.

It's pretty simple: No-one want's to buy what you're offering "in this market place". You have to offer something different or qualitatively better. This "bullspeak" is called "logic" and is pretty inescapable.

the cost of regulation

[GoldenBB]

When figuring the cost "savings" of outsourcing, you have to include all the ancillary expenses such as insurance, worker's comp (a big issue in California right now), environmental laws, and a horde of other regulations. I don't understand how more government regulation can fix a problem that is being caused by government regulation.

the perfect storm has yet to arrive

[GoldenBB]

When you consider what is going to happen when the costs of social security and mediscare rise in response to the coming wave of retirements, your "perfect storm" looks like a dust devil. I've read reports that estimate an income tax increase of 95% and a social security tax increase of 65% on all workers. I can't afford anything *now*, I don't see how I will be able to live when the government starts confiscating somewhere around 80% of my income.

Speaking of perfect storms, if you consider the monetary policy of the US, which is inflate, inflate, inflate, then consider how much the government spends on say *making war*, and how impossible it will be for the Pentagon statists to accept a budget cut of somewhere around $100B, you can quickly see that America is headed over a cliff. Unless there is a sea change away from statism and greedy welfare/warfare state politics, it's over. It's only a matter of time because you can't beat mathematics.

My conclusion: This great experiment in liberty is almost finished.

Re:the perfect storm has yet to arrive

[john_shadows]

Nice try - they take 70% of people's income in Sweden, and they have a 4.5% unemployment rate, and Universal health coverage. The problem is that we don't tax enough in this country - especially on the rich, whose income should be clipped at a 60% rate. The top marginal rate was 70% in the 60's, and we used the money to build infrastructure, and middle-class wages rose during this period. The problem is not retirees - it's the greed of the f***ing rich in this country - including Andy Grove.

Re:the perfect storm has yet to arrive

[ponxx]

How much tax i'm willing to pay depends critically on what i get in return. In sweden, if i'm well-informed, you get:

- free healthcare
- generous pensions
- good schools / day care for kids
- *free* universities
- good law-enforcement
- "social peace"
- good roads
- clean cities ......

all that is worth a lot of money! Everyone whinges about the cost of health insurance in Europe, but private health insurance in the US is much more expensive! And for the most part, the employers foot part of the bill, just like on the other side of the pond...

Anyway, if the state delivers most of what i need to live, i'm quite happy for it to take a healthy chunk out of my income (even 70% if i have a good income).

On the other hand, if i have to have my own insurance for health, unemployment, pension, life, pay for college for the kids etc. etc. i might not be willing to pay more than about 20% tax in total... if you add up all the other stuff, you'll quickly approach the swedish figures again!

Speak out all you want...

[Awptimus Prime]

Speak out all you want, but the fact is, our current administration isn't focused enough on issues here in the USA to take any action what-so-ever.

It appears we are too concerned with making the rest of the world love us right now. You know, the whole liberation of Iraq, and all.

Re:Speak out all you want...

[dentar]

...make the rest of the world LOVE us?

I think they're having the exact OPPOSITE effect.

Oh wait, you were being sarcastic. Didn't have my sarcasm filter on.. ah.. that's better...

Re:Speak out all you want...

[rdean400]

The previous administration, under which the H-1B and other programs started their upward curve, wasn't any better.

Don't be political about this. The only things the politicians (Democrat, Republican, or otherwise) are in it for is the money and power.

Out sourcing is jobs-neutral

[2901]

So Americans wants $2billion worth of IT services. Well, the world doesn't owe America a living. If Americans want $2billion worth of IT services they are going to have to work for it. Either they can do it themselves, or they can do other work, making jet planes, medicines, semiconductors, cars, etc, to the earn the $2billion and buy the IT services from abroad. There is $2billion work of work to be done in America either way.

Ah, but what if outsourcing saves money? What if Americans do $2billion worth of other work, but get to buy their IT services for $1billion? Well, they get to keep the other $1billion, all those jet planes, medicines, etc stay in the USA. Getting stuff cheap makes you better off!

Bastiat explained all this very nicely 150 years ago, but human ignorance is invincible.

Children who have been born into the caste of software developer are forbidden by religious law from taking other employment, so have only a life time of destitution to look forward to. I guess out sourcing sucks for them.

Re:Out sourcing is jobs-neutral

[Anonymous Coward]

It's too bad that "other employment" requires 4 to 6 more years of obscenely expensive and full time university classes. At least in the US, when you choose a profession, it's for life. Not many people can afford to go back to school.

The only jobs that are available without a degree require lots of cleaning or customer service skills. Which are not always learnable.

Not that anyone owes anyone a job. But suicide is always a good second choice. Make sure you pick the right horse the first time around.

Re:"Become more efficient"? You're kidding, right?

[fmaxwell]

I love how every reply to pro-free trade posts on this subject have some sort of ad-hominem attack within.

Learn what the term "ad hominem" means before using it. An ad hominem attack is one in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the person presenting the claim or argument. I did not dismiss the argument and, instead, answered it with facts, figures, and logic. I never suggested that it be ignored because of some irrelevent fact about its author and I challenge you to defend your accusation that I did.

And, yes, I am against unrestrained free trade. It doesn't work. Example: We put laws in place to protect the environment and U.S. firms move manufacturing jobs to other countries where pollution laws are lax or non-existent. When people as smart as Andy Grove are saying that something has to be done, that should give you a clue.

It speaks loudly about what most people feel about this topic: Gimmie mine and fuck every one else.

Correct. I want to put food on my table, pay my mortgage, have a nice car, boat, lifestyle, and eventually, retirement. Fuck the guy in India who wants my job. You capitalist bastards think companies should only be concerned with maximizing profits but that workers who are only concerned about maximizing their wages are somehow evil. Explain that logic to me.

You think that working smarter and more efficient means competing on price?

"Working smarter and more efficient(ly)" means getting the job done faster and/or for a lower cost. That's the whole concept behind efficiency.

This is why your jobs are going overseas. You have no clue how to respond to the challenge. You have no imagination or creativity and your ability only extends to what you've done a thousand times before.

Try putting some meat behind that argument. Just what is the typical software engineer supposed to do that will make up for a 20/1 cost ratio between himself and his Indian counterparts? What about the guy who answers tech support calls for HP inkjet printers? How is he supposed to use "imagination or creativity" to keep his job when someone in India will do it for a fraction of the price? How is the guy who assembles computers for Dell supposed to make it worthwhile for Dell to keep him employed rather than sending the assembly work overseas? Is he supposed to assemble 20 systems in the same time that his overseas counterpart assembles one?

Stop making vague insults and stick to debating the issues.

You're about halfway there.

[Anonymous Coward]

But a corporation is owned by millions of disintered and unaccountable stockholders. There is no sense of family. Employees are resources at best, liabilities at worst...

In response to the parent post, I'm all for the free market. If the free market truly says that IT jobs should go to India, then so be it. But as long as corporations are artificial entities created by governments, it's not a free market.

This hatred of corporations never ceases to amaze me. As you have indicated, a corporation is just a way of instantiating a business model, but there are myriad such instantiations:

C-Corporation, stock with voting privileges
C-Corporation, stock with or without voting privileges
S-Corporation
Limited Liability Company
Partnership
Sole Proprietorship under Fictitious Business Name
Self Employed under Own Name

and probably about a gazillion others I don't know about. Why people choose to hate C-Corporations is beyond me, especially when they can go down to their local Charles Schwab dealership and become owners of those very same C-Corporations in all of about 5 minutes.

Two things about these big corporations, however: Yes, many of them treat their employees very, very badly. Or, perhaps I should say: Many of them treat loose cannons very, very badly. The employees who keep their mouths shut and do as they are told are generally treated very well. But if you're a loose cannon, you don't want to spend your life as an employee anyway [employment being a polite euphemism for slavery] - you want to get out and start your own company.

The other thing about these large C-Corporations is that many of them are very poorly managed, and are doomed to disappear within a generation or so. If you examine the corporations that were listed on the NYSE at the turn of the last century, you will find that only one or two [General Electric, and I believe the remnants of Standard Oil] are still extant in any recognizable form. The rest have disappeared into thin air.

You need look no further than our own industry for barometers: DEC, once the industry's second largest player [as recently as maybe 1980-1985] was subsumed into Compaq, which in turn was subsumed into Hewlett-Packard. Motorola, the bellweather of the American high-tech industry [as recently as maybe 1990], made disastrous bets on the Iridium satellite infrastructure, and on analog [not digital] cell phone technology, and now appears poised to disappear from the face of the earth. Dittoes to Global Crossing, Qwest, Sun, AT&T/Lucent/Avaya, Northern Telecom/Nortel, SGI, Novell, Be, Commodore, Word Perfect/Corel, and a whole host of companies too numerous to mention.

As we speak, Microsoft is the C-Corporation that everyone loves to hate, but, in time, Gates and Ballmer will fade from the scene, and they will be replaced by a committee of career bureaucrats who will likely drive that great company into oblivion. Just look at what happened to Intel with the Itanic debacle - their flagship product was designed by committee [50% Intel & 50% HP], which meant that its specs evolved to offend no one, rather than evolving to do that which a product must do to survive in a free market: please enough customers to justify its existence. The project went years and possibly billions of dollars over budget, and the result is a chip that no one wants to design a C++-compiler for, much less an operating system or a server architecture. If tiny AMD plays their cards right, they could eat Intel for lunch in the 64-bit arena.

My advice: If you see one of these C-Corporations out-sourcing the guts of their business, it tends to imply that they were never adding any value in the first place, and my advice would be: Sell, Sell, Sell! Or, if you're a gambler: Short, Short, Short!

If a company really is adding value, they will do just about anything to hold onto their talent.

Re:I THINK THAT MICHAEL IS A PENIS-LICKER!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with this post.

Massive wage inflation in India and China

[Moderation abuser]

At the moment the IT sector in India is going through massive wage inflation, it's worthwhile outsourcing on a cost basis at the moment but in 3-5 years it's not going to be nearly as cut and dried.

The wage inflation strengthens the local economy, pushes up local demand, pushes up costs and strenghtens the currency, this will dramatically reduce the cost differential with western countries.

The Indian offshoring companies like Infosys are already desperately trying to move upmarket into business consultancy. The same will be true in China as well.

Course, the market's now much larger, more competitive, developers are never going to earn what they have till now and America is going to have to start getting used to treating developing countries like China and India on a more equal basis.

You mention HP

[DAldredge]

They are a good example of why people hate big corps.
They are in the process of laying off 1000's to increase profits, yet they can afford to spend 70,000,000 USD on two new Gulfstream 5's to fly their exec around in.

No American Need Apply

[redwoodtree]

See this article and related comments on how your idea does not apparently pan out right now. But I'm sure you're not alone.

Re:No American Need Apply

[Anonymous Coward]

You apparently did not read the related comments in that article because you missed the point.

Re:"Become more efficient"? You're kidding, right?

[darkov]

Learn what the term "ad hominem" means before using it.

Sorry, you can't make up your own definitions for words to support your argument. Ad hominem is an attack on the speaker instead of the argument. Literally it means "against the man".

The rest of your reply just reinforces the points I made. You still don't get it. I fear for America's future if you represent its youth.

Mod parent up, right on the money

[jasonbowen]

So when a lot of jobs are moved overseas to people making half what Americans make, who is buying all the items that keep the economy here going? I can't believe Washington is that short sighted as well as the multinationals. You don't increase your potential market buy shrinking the available purchasers unless you really do plan to have the top 1% be the economy.

Explain this to me ...

[openbear]

"FYI, Indian companies already outsource to China, today. China, Eastern Europe/Russia, Vietnam, Mexico, etc. In fact, so called "daisy-chaining," where an Indian company gets a US contract due to its relationships and reputation, and promptly outsources it elsewhere, is the new buzzword. Computerworld calls this 'a trend to watch.'"

Why is "daisy-chaining" happening? If a company outsources to an Indian company and they know that it is going to be outsourced yet again, then why would the original company not just go directly to the company that does the work? Cut out the middle man?

Also, the threat of piracy is real. The company I work for used a "reputable" Indian company to build one of our products. When we turned over our source to Sun to pass the "100% Java" certification (this was a few years ago) guess what we found out ... the product that they built for us was a "mangled" version of Jakarta and included "stolen" code from a competitors product (that they also built).

Re:Explain this to me ...

[guesshyu]

Why? Because Indians are now too expensive, so the Tier 1 company has every incentive to get the work done (and I use that term loosely :-) some place cheaper and pocket the difference.

If you know and accept that the Indian outsourcer is going to decide who will work on your project, why would you object to an additional tier of contracting? Programmers are interchangeable parts, y'know. :)

A recent Dilbert had The Company outsourcing a call center to itself through multiple tiers of subcontractors. I bet this really happened somewhere, like a lot of S.A.'s strip ideas.

Outsourcing companies will get bypassed

[Anonymous Coward]

When a company outsources it work to a 3rd party, they risk getting bypassed in the process. Once you open up that can of worms you place your company into the middle-man position. Who likes middle-men? It is very likely that the middle-man will eventually be replaced in a way that benefits everyone but them.

Think!

Re:citizen worker power

[NDPTAL85]

American hasn't ever supported itself? With the exception of Oil what is it we actually NEED instead of prefer to get from other countries?

Its not food. We make enough of that for ourselves.
Its not chips, we just like to pay other countries to make them for less.
What exactly do we not make ourselves that we really NEED to continue functioning as a nation?

Listen here cockface

[NDPTAL85]

The shareholders own the company. The fact that such a poster was allowed to be posted in the workplace suggests they were either asleep at the wheel or didn't care. But make no mistake, if you don't own something then you can't put the people who DO own it last. Thats just plain retarded.

If you want to put customers and employees first thats fine. Just found your own business and do it with your own money.

Re:Listen here cockface

[ebh]

Yeah, it was such a retarded way of thinking that Novell was wildly successful, dominating their market for a decade. How STUPID they must all have been. Thank you for warning the rest of the business world not to make that mistake.

What do you think, that the primary shareholders were all uninvolved VCs like some sock-puppet startup? Upper management were the largest shareholders, so they were putting their money where their collective mouth was.

Analysis of Offshoring versus H-1B/L-1 Workers

[reporter]

There are only 4 combinations of possibilities concerning the issue of foreign labor. Below are the 4 combinations.

1. no offshoring and no H-1B/L-1 employment
2. no offshoring and H-1B/L-1 employment
3. offshoring and no H-1B/L-1 employment
4. offshoring and H-1B/L-1 employment

To eliminate some combinations that are impossible, we first consider whether we can eliminate offshoring. Offshoring occurs from the moment that Americans engage in trade with any foreign country. For example, if we buy apples grown in Thailand, then we are engaging in offshoring because the foreign labor grew those apples. Can we eliminate foreign trade? No.

The stickier question is whether offshoring eliminates jobs. According to the "The misery of manufacturing", "The Economist" says, "No." The USA is a big market, and manufacturers locate engineering and design centers in the market in which they have a significant presence. For example, Hyundai is now building a factory and design center in the USA, according to "Speed Kills" by "Forbes".

Therefore, we cannot eliminate offshoring, and it is neither bad nor good. It is neutral. We are left with only option #3 (offshoring and no H-1B/L-1 employment) and option #4 (offshoring and H-1B/L-1 employment).

Can we eliminate H-1B/L-1 employment? Absolutely yes. Since companies can offshore their R&D work, they can build an R&D center in India and hire all the engineers that they claim to need. Each engineer hired in India will cost only 1/10 of the cost of an H-1B/L-1 engineer.

Supporters of H-1B/L-1 employment say that an Indian employed as an H-1B worker in the USA will spend his $100,000 salary in the USA, thus creating more jobs. That observation is bogus. If the Indian wants to work for an American company, he should go back to India to work at $5,000 at the American site in Bangalore. The American company will then save $95,000. That money does not simply sit idly in the bank. The American company will re-invest that $95,000 into the domestic facilities and hire an American citizen.

Furthermore, when Hyundai sets up its design center in the USA, the Indian will be in India, and the jobs at the design center will go to American citizens.

In short, option #3 (offshoring but no H-1B/L-1 employment) is the best scenario. In fact, offshoring defeats the strongest bogus argument supporting H-1B/L-1 employment. When a company like Google says that it absolutely needs to hire H-1B/L-1 workers because Americans are not good enough, then we say, "Fine. Set up shop overseas. There is plenty of labor there."

Please read "H-1B Myths". Contact your representative in Washington and tell them to terminate the H-1B/L-1 program. Do not wait for the person sitting at the next computer terminal to do your civic duty. Move your ass. Do the your job.

... from the desk of the reporter

Re:Analysis of Offshoring versus H-1B/L-1 Workers

[kootch]

wow.

Achievements are many

[mendred]

What are u talking about?? Haven't u heard about the new national highway system that's being implemented? Irs already mostly functional in the south and it really is a big improvement.

And kalam well his achievements are more in indias space program rather than just defence. And if u think that he is merely concerned abput defence expenditure i suggest u read his book about his vision for india 2020. That man is a legend here and nearly unanimously respected by all.

Actually i once met him when i was 11 years old and i remember he was very patient and answered all my questions very seriously. I still remember the explanation he gave for the concept of the hypercraft a space shuttle like spacecraft but which would instead collect oxygen from the atmosphere as it climbed rather than carry it in liquid form. I mean imagine an important man like that actually taking the time to answer a 11 year old's questions, something which u would not normally see.

The govt. receives a lot of flak here u should justread our papers. I can't remember the last time they were actually praised for something (probably for Cancun i think). But their achievements are many, (though their goof ups are pretty bad),only thing they have poor PR (Prime example u hear about our defence expenditure but stuff like roads and infrastructure building hardly gets a mention in any foriegn newspaper let alone indian).

But very importantly they pulled india out of a very bad time. There was instability in the govt. the economy was in dumps general pessimism. Nobody talks about that now. They just take the current stability and economic growth for granted. And the amazing thing is they are actually the most secular govt. till date despite all the issues that have occurred. The only trouble is they wind up getting more bad press than good, because they simply have no concept of PR.

So u see i politely disagree with ur statement that they are hardly ppl to look up too. The fact is that these two are one of the few who really seem to care about the country rather than just filling up their pockets like many others are doing. In fact the BJP is in power only because of Vajpayee. I doubt if anybody would vote for them without him. He is doing a fantastic job in a very diffcult position where there is pressure from all those fanatics and so called secularists.
And frankly speaking With two hostile countries on either side (with one receiving US military aid and the other stealing it) we can't help it we have to spend on defence. WE have lost territory in the past and on betrayal of a trust. In turn I really don't see why the united states should think it is their prime right to spend on defence while other countries should concentrate on development. Lavez votre linge au famille first and don't be hypocritical.

We are a resilient ppl and we are doing pretty well thank u inspite of all the predictions of ur world Bank and IMF. And both the indian press and the american press complement each other well they have only bad things to report about the other country. If u believed half the things our press writes u would start believing that america has gone back to the dark ages or something. In contrast ppl staying there tell me yes there are problems but ppl there are learning to face it and not just look outside at something like terrorism for an excuse to hide from it. That's why i mentioned strong leaders. That's why I respect clinton ; come on he turned ur economy completely around from the mess it was in. If u didn't need leaders u wouldn't have a democracy u will have an anarchy instead.

So don't just believe all that u read in the presses. There has been a lot of trouble yes but after a long time there is hope that we would again become what we once were a very long time ago.

Like i said the ppl we are discussing have not just talked they have delivered concrete results and no not just in defence R&D. But there is a lot to be done, but i think this govt. is doing just fine, and deserves some credit and definitely not so much criticism.

The many faces of Carly.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are a good example of why people hate big corps.

They are in the process of laying off 1000's to increase profits, yet they can afford to spend 70,000,000 USD on two new Gulfstream 5's to fly their exec around in.

And I would counter that you have provided prima facie evidence that HPQ is an extraordinarily poorly managed company which is about to go the way of the dinosaurs.

If you think Carly's a great business talent, then purchase HPQ stock. If, on the other hand, you think she's a shrill, idiotic twit, then SHORT, SHORT, SHORT!!!

PS: Yeah, it's no fun to be an employee stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially when that rock is a management team that doesn't know its ass from a whole in the ground. But, on the other hand, at some point you've got to be responsible for living your own life [or give up on freedom altogether and throw your lot in with the socialists and the tyranny they're peddling]. If you think the ship's gonna sink, then get out while the getting is good.

Offshoring can be good

[TheSync]

You can read about Robert Reich's views on offshoring, and he is definately not a Republican.

The US faces a massive current account deficit with the rest of the world. There are three solutions. #1 is to start a massive global trade war, just like before the Great Depression. #2 is to devalue the dollar, leading to massive US inflation.

The third solution is to recognize that some industry will grow in India and China, and that people there will finally be able to afford more American products. 40 million Chinese now have $1000 or more per year to spend on home remnnovation, hello Home Depot China!

commodities

[simpl3x]

this is correct. innovation and great service is what drives business growth. businesses become commodified otherwise. many in this country seem to think that a job is a guaranteed right. or that a good local economy is guaranteed. this takes continual effort. but, what many economies are doing other than using tariffs, is to finance infrastructure and invest in its citizens.

next time you turn down the local school board for a rate increase, or would rather have that tax cut (ooh $300!) so that you can charge the future, remember your job. think globally, act locally!

no idea

[Anonymous Coward]

the technology advance cannot be
dictated by the goverment.

innovation cannot be "bought" but
it can be hindered.

cutting edge is cutting edge and
not "buy-able".

outsourcing is to save money not to
make money. investors and share-holder
now-a-days want to save money not
MAKE money. sorry.

all this outsourcing is "saving" money,
but it's not really continuing. it's another
"lets just keep the status quo".
keep the market like it is, but save
money. -> no growth in 5 years because
no innovation?

the goverment is not creating a
innovation friendly atmosphere because
they plain and simple have no idea.

it's not like in syndicate wars where
you just give the science lab a ton
of money and they'll eventually "invent"
the laser gun.

"oh dear, where did all those pretty fountains go?"

and sending children to AFRICA for boarding school

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to submit these two essays, but I guess they were rejected [and they'll certainly never see the light of day now that King Andy has made his little pronouncement]:

An anonymous reader writes "Alan Gore [no, not the inventor of the internet] and John Derbyshire have weighed in on outsourcing. They're both old-school big iron guys, and both exude a flair for classical libertarianism, but even they see the writing on the wall. Gore imagines a September 11, 2011, during the second Hillary Rodham administration, when all our outsourced systems suddenly say, 'You've been 0wn3d!' Derbyshire, on the other hand, is reacting to a bizarre phenomenon that's here already: African-American parents sending their children to boarding schools in AFRICA, because it's cheaper than sending them to day school here in America. Derb asks, 'Feel the ground shifting under your feet? If you don't, you soon will.'"

Not to worry...

[Trickster Coyote]

In 20 years Indian tech companies will be outsourcing work to cheap American labour.

Re:Not to worry...

[Anonymous Coward]

But what are we going to eat until then. I, for one, welcome our...

Re:"Become more efficient"? You're kidding, right?

[fmaxwell]

Sorry, you can't make up your own definitions for words to support your argument.

No, you can't, but you tried to. Now read the definition on the Nizkor Project web page:

[excerpt] An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. Therefore A's claim is false.

So, it's exactly as I stated and was not, in any way shape or form, descriptive of how I debated. So my challenge to you still stands unanswered: I never suggested that [the other poster's argument] be ignored because of some irrelevent fact about its author and I challenge you to defend your accusation that I did.

Literally it means "against the man".

There is a difference between literal meaning and a translation of Latin. Tyrannosaurus Rex is from the Greek words meaning "tyrant" and "lizard" and the Latin word for "king." But the a Tyrannosaurus Rex is a dinosaur, not a 'tyrant lizard king'.

The rest of your reply just reinforces the points I made.

Bullshit. It did a superb job of refuting your unsubstantiated claims and poking holes in your arguments. You're just too much of an intellectual coward to debate the points and instead sink to personal attacks when you are in over your intellectual depth. See below. (Note: The preceeding was not an ad hominem attack as I did not assert that any of your claims or arguments were wrong because of your intellectual cowardice.)

You still don't get it. I fear for America's future if you represent its youth.

Then you can fear for its 42 year old software engineers with over two decades of professional experience, too, because I am one of them. But since my views are in line with those of Andy Grove, the co-founder and Chairman of Intel, I'm in pretty good company. Maybe it's you who have the distorted views.

Additional questions and points that I made which you owe answers (yes, "owe" -- it's a debate, not a schoolyard brawl):

1. And, yes, I am against unrestrained free trade. It doesn't work. Example: We put laws in place to protect the environment and U.S. firms move manufacturing jobs to other countries where pollution laws are lax or non-existent.

2. You capitalist bastards think companies should only be concerned with maximizing profits but that workers who are only concerned about maximizing their wages are somehow evil. Explain that logic to me.

3. "Working smarter and more efficient(ly)" means getting the job done faster and/or for a lower cost. That's the whole concept behind efficiency.

4. Just what is the typical software engineer supposed to do that will make up for a 20/1 cost ratio between himself and his Indian counterparts?

5. What about the guy who answers tech support calls for HP inkjet printers? How is he supposed to use "imagination or creativity" to keep his job when someone in India will do it for a fraction of the price?

6. How is the guy who assembles computers for Dell supposed to make it worthwhile for Dell to keep him employed rather than sending the assembly work overseas? Is he supposed to assemble 20 systems in the same time that his overseas counterpart assembles one?

Note that the above debate points are numbered to make it harder for you to duck them again. So either answer or concede each one.

Don't think so...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've not had huge amounts of dealings with companies who outsourced to India, but in the few cases I've seen inside of that, *no one* over there was using FSF/GNU stuff. It was all pirated copies of MS, Oracle, CF and other software. In fact, there was one time when I got a misdirected email from one of the offshore people we were trying to work with who stated that if they had to pay full price for all their software for each project they could not compete. I don't believe that entirely, but it would make things look *much* less attractive for many mid-level companies who are looking at offshore stuff as some sort of long-term saviour.

We need to see America as jointly owned property

[Cryofan]

We need to develop the proper perspective--America is our jointly owned pproperty. If we have jobs here, that is due to the fact that we have some business advantages, just as any well-situated business does well because it may have a good location, or have an attractive or impressive appearance. So, too, does America have jobs because of some competitive advantage. So these jobs are part of the benefits of being an American citizen, where a citizen is a part-owner of America.

The problem is that we have been bullied and brainwashed into giving up those rights--the unholy collusion the investor class, the media, and the govt has taken away these citizen-owned benefits.

Another benefit of America that we are letting slip through our fingers is the ability we have to control business by virtue of the attractiveness of the huge, easily accessible marketplace we offer. Where else in the world is such a conglomeration of consumer buying power found? We are the 800 lb gorilla of the business world. We can virtually do as we please when it comes to making multinational corporations do our bidding. OF COURSE we can force them to give US the jobs instead of sending them overseas. No one says no to an 800 lb gorilla. But instead we have allowed to investor/management class to cripple us...

the perfect storm has yet to arrive..Independence.

[Anonymous Coward]

"On the other hand, if i have to have my own insurance for health, unemployment, pension, life, pay for college for the kids etc. etc. i might not be willing to pay more than about 20% tax in total... if you add up all the other stuff, you'll quickly approach the swedish figures again!"

Well I've always believed that a persons fate should be in their own hands. If a person could use pre-tax dollars to fund on their own, things like education, healthcare, retirement, etc[1]? Then that would overall be a good thing, because people could tailor all the above to their own needs. Not the needs of an average group of people. It would also lead to less overall abuse, because people could see were their money is going. We would have much smaller social programs because only the truely needy would be on them. It would also encourage people to be more independent, and more educated about events that could affect their bottom line (pretty much everything). Absenteeism is a lousy birth control method, and doesn't work great for a citizentry that been advised to be forever diligent in keeping their freedoms.

[1] One could extend this further. The citizen gets taxed, but they tell the government were to spend it. That hopefully would encourage greater citizen involvement in the affairs of government (every citizens duty).

Not Just Overseas Outsourcing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just overseas outsourcing that's the
problem. It's just as much U.S. "outsourcing"
via H-1B and L-1 visas. Every single H-1B and
L-1 visa should be revoked and their holders
given 60 days to leave the country. If we did
that there wouldn't be any U.S *citizens* that
are out of work. There is absolutely no reason
what-so-ever for anyone to be in this country
on one of the visas.

Learning from Italy

[__aadkms7016]

The US can learn a lot by understanding the Italian model of success. Using the conventional measures of the cost of doing business in a country, Italy does not look so good. But yet, many Italian companies do a thriving export business, with at least product design happening in the country. The espresso machine in your Starbucks was designed in Italy, Vespa scooters, clothing, etc.

What all these products have in common is that they embody Italian culture in their design, in a way people notice, and in a way that would not survive outsouring the design elsewhere. Good corporate branding plays a role, but the mega-brand of Italy -- romance, style, talent -- is what closes the sale.

Re:Offshore means "ON SEA". Not in other countries

[Anonymous Coward]

Off the shores of the company's native country, smart guy.

Well, if he won't answer, I will.

[the gnat]

1. And, yes, I am against unrestrained free trade. It doesn't work. Example: We put laws in place to protect the environment and U.S. firms move manufacturing jobs to other countries where pollution laws are lax or non-existent.

I agree with this part. This is why organizations such as the WTO are important, because they can (in theory) help to insure uniform standards.

2. You capitalist bastards think companies should only be concerned with maximizing profits but that workers who are only concerned about maximizing their wages are somehow evil. Explain that logic to me.

Well, I tend to agree with the person you're replying to, and this doesn't describe my beliefs (or his, I suspect) at all. I do not think companies should only be concerned with maximizing profits; however, I do not feel that companies owe me or society anything (beyond a certain minimum of reasonable behavior, which goes back to point 1). What I object to is employees (or companies; it goes both ways in the US, and both are deplorable) who expect to keep their jobs under any circumstances, and expect the government to keep them employed. Like the steelworkers who pushed for a disasterous tariff rather than face the facts and modernize their industry.

By the way, if you're really a 42-year-old engineer with 2 decades of experience, your income is probably in the top few percent of American households, so stop whining about capitalism. I'd prefer to have my hard work and skill determine my salary, not the government.

4. Just what is the typical software engineer supposed to do that will make up for a 20/1 cost ratio between himself and his Indian counterparts?

[etc.]

In all cases, nothing. Tough shit. Find another job, retrain if necessary. Just because you've trained for a job in the technology industry does not mean that the technology industry automatically owes you a job. Alternately, settle for a lower standard of living, and accept a job with a salary more in line with what the rest of the world makes. Better yet, stop whining to the government, and organize a boycott of companies that outsource extensively. I'll join that, very enthusiastically.

Re:Well, if he won't answer, I will.

[fmaxwell]

I do not think companies should only be concerned with maximizing profits

What you think companies should be concerned with has little bearing on what they are concerned with. Publically held companies care about profits above all else. That's Andy Grove's point: The government has to step in to do something in the interest of society.

What I object to is employees (or companies; it goes both ways in the US, and both are deplorable) who expect to keep their jobs under any circumstances, and expect the government to keep them employed.

All I want is a level playing field. I'd literally have to live in a refrigerator box under a bridge to survive on what a well-paid Indian tech worker makes. I shouldn't have to do that so that some seven figure CEO can get a bigger paycheck.

By the way, if you're really a 42-year-old engineer with 2 decades of experience, your income is probably in the top few percent of American households, so stop whining about capitalism. I'd prefer to have my hard work and skill determine my salary, not the government.

So my salary is handsome now. I'm not blind. I see what's going on around me and, frankly, I don't want to wait until my job is the next one on the chopping block. Your hard work and skill don't determine your salary anymore. That's the problem. You could have worked your ass off and kept your skills cutting edge, but if your company can hire ten outsourced Indian programmers for what they pay you, your days are probably numbered.

Tough shit. Find another job, retrain if necessary.

In what field? What industry is ready to absorb tens of millions of workers who have lost their jobs to outsourcing? You act like there is an infinite number of jobs. There aren't. If 3COM outsources 3,000 tech workers, 3,000 jobs don't magically appear in some other industry to replace the ones that were lost.

Alternately, settle for a lower standard of living, and accept a job with a salary more in line with what the rest of the world makes.

And live in a refrigerator box under a bridge. You ignore the cost of living. Most Americans pay more in rent/mortgage than workers in other countries make in a year.

Better yet, stop whining to the government,

I'm not "whining to the government" any more than Andy Grove is. I'm discussing inequities that I believe will lead to a much lower standard of living throughout the U.S. coupled with a long-term economic downturn affecting everything from pothole repair to life expectancies.

and organize a boycott of companies that outsource extensively. I'll join that, very enthusiastically.

Some of the legislation I would propose:

1. Drastically higher unemployment insurance premiums for companies that lay off U.S. workers to outsource.

2. Require that companies notify consumers when their calls are being transferred overseas and to inform them of the country to which the calls are being transferred. That will go a long way towards stopping the training in deception that now takes place where overseas workers are taught about U.S. slang, current events, given fake U.S. sounding names, etc.

3. Require that U.S. firms follow OSHA and EPA regulations for all overseas facilities.

4. Government procurement rules that favor U.S. firms who do not outsource.

5. Require disclosure of outsourcing. If I buy a 10/100 8-port router, there should be a sticker on the box indicating the country where it was designed, manufactured (that already exists), and where customer support is handled (at the time the product was shipped). It's kind of hard to boycott companies that outsource extensively if they hide their outsourcing from the public.

I'll thank our "business leaders" for this one...

[davew2040]

I'm completely shocked that the people-in-command who are opting to outsource seem to expect strong company loyalty out of employees at the lowest levels of the chain, but are in effect showing an utter lack of loyalty in return. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to think that these "captains of industry" are totally oblivious to their own hypocrisy. However, it's something that people over the last 10 or 20 years might have seen coming, watching corporations develop a marked tendency towards hiring business school graduates to fill leadership positions rather than attempting to promote from within. Anyone who's *met* business majors on the university campus probably knows that money is frequently the be-all-end-all for these folks, and everything else that happens to lead to money is a peripheral concern. When they get hired into some company, they *don't care* what the product of the company is, and they typically don't care about the type of customer buying it. To them, it's an academic exercise in maximizing profits and minimizing costs, all other ethical or human factors be damned. This is the mentality that allows CEO's to be traded like baseball cards between companies, and it should be no surprise that these people would be willing to run a company into the ground if it means improving their portfolio in some roundabout way.

The interesting thing about these guys who'll outsource every possible outsourceable job type is that their jobs will be the last to go. Their salaries will remain high until the company goes flounders and goes under. Given that the economic foundations of the United States seem to follow this general model nowadays, eventually the entire economy will follow suit. People with technical aspirations will have moved elsewhere. All the real money will be made in other countries. And these bigwigs will be at the helm until there are NO MORE companies existing to employ them, having singlehandedly done the most damage to the nation as a whole, while somehow maintaining the highest levels of job security and income.

Grove is full of it

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an intel employee. I am training my offshore replacements. I accept that they can offer maintainence for the code I wrote for less than a janitor over here, but to hear grove complain!

You had to LOOK IT UP??

[gilgongo]

Holy Jesus and Mary God - you had to look up the word "offshore"???

Now I *know* that eduacation in the United States is truly dead.

You poor, poor fools.

Re:Offshore means "ON SEA". Not in other countries

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only does language evolve, but every industry has its own set of lingo.

Re:citizen worker power

[Anonymous Coward]

cheap foreign labour which is NOT made in Amerika

chinese to build railroads
mexicand for the farm
indians for the information super highway
philipinos for sex and call centres...

list goes on and on and on

This is a serious problem.

[ninejaguar]

"An Indiana state senator is drafting legislation that would restrict the ability of public agencies in the state to outsource IT work to foreign countries or to use vendors whose staff in the United States consists largely of visa workers.

Jeff Drozda, a Republican from the Indiana district of Westfield, says he was "outraged" when he found out that a state agency charged with job creation in Indiana had outsourced work to Tata Consultancy Services of India. Drozda says Tata, which was hired by the state's Department of Workforce Development, has a long track record of replacing American high-tech workers with lower-paid L-1 visa immigrants.

Drozda also said it's particularly outrageous that the Indiana Department of Workforce Development has tapped an offshore firm, given that its mission is to "create 200,000 new high-wage, high-skill jobs" in Indiana. He hopes to introduce a bill to the Indiana Senate by Oct. 20. "

from - http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j html?articleID=15202049

= 9J =

Re:YES! They're flying patients to INDIA for surge

[catherder_finleyd]

>> Radiologists are already getting hosed. It used to be that going into radiology was a license to print money. Now they just send a TIFF of your guts to India and get diagnoses emailed back from ten different guys.

The Radiologists need to get together with their Lawyers. It's "Practicing Medicine w/o a License", which is illegal in most states!

Re:We need to see America as jointly owned propert

[Anonymous Coward]

Software is hard enough when everyone speaks english and they are in the same room. Learn to communicate and you don't need to worry about ESL programmers taking your job.

Already been published!

[Cryofan]

I am a published writer, shithead.

MOD PARENT UP INSIGHTFUL

[Corpus_Callosum]

For one thing, when businesses get really really big and complex, I suppose the left hand doesn't know what the right hands doing, and the business "owners" don't really know what it's doing either. It just sort of runs, but they don't really know how.

Maybe, theoretically, they could issue an order down, like "Hey, only package your chips over here," right? But could it actually work? Maybe not! Maybe that'd cause all these huge social uphevals.

Maybe businesses, once formed, are like parts of a gigantic organic system. You might not be able to just suddenly uproot a major artery, and move it somewhere else, without having major effects on yourself, your environment, and whatever else plays a part (who really knows what, right?).

So, I don't know. Is it really hypocracy? Maybe powerful people aren't really as powerful as we imagine them to be?

You show extremely uncommon insight in these observations. Large corporations in fact act very much like complex organisms. Much like a fractal, individuals make up groups and teams and those combine in other, complex ways to create projects, goals, working groups, divisions, etc... Eventually there is a gestault that forms which is the dynamic organism (corporation) itself.

Executives tend not to understand day-to-day operations and are certainly scared to send down orders that may affect time-tables and the bottom line. In a sense, executives are often rendered helpless to impose such broad orders as "keep all work in the states". When they do such stupid things (and this works both ways, btw - ordering outsourcing does the same thing), the results can be catastrophic and usually are.

An interesting affect of this meta-organsims stuff is that individuals (any) generally CANNOT effectively force change in issues such as outsource or don't outsorce, but other meta-organisms (such as governments) in fact CAN. By placing tarrifs and other economic pressures on the bottom line, government regulations put adaptive, organizational pressure on corporations. The result is that the corporations adapt by naturally optimizing around the new regulatory landscape and the goals of the regulations often end up being achieved.

So wether you agree or don't agree with the idea of regulating such things, there is reason to believe that they are in fact natural and neccessary controls by high-order organisms (such as the state we live in).

I applaud the previous poster's point of view and insight. But, of course, we may both just have the same curious form of dementia ;-)

Nature of education

[2901]

I shouldn't have made light of the serverity of this issue. Having a University education swept out from under you is a big deal.

But here's the problem. Imagine that the p53 gene stuff leads to a successful recombinant DNA therapy for half of cancers. They get cured like curing infections with antibiotics. So half the nations oncologists are out of work.

If you don't like that example, consider tort law reform. Outlawing champerty is possible, we haven't had it in the UK since medieval times. Outlawing it in the US would put half the lawyers out of work

Stuff like this really happens. What became of all the vets who cared for the horses and other draught animals? A profession massacred by the mechanisation of transport. Look at jazz and big band music in the 50's. Along come the 60's and rock and roll. The whole second tier of jazz and swing musicians had their livelihoods wiped out in under a decade. That was a change of taste, a quite separate issue from the impact of recording on live music or films on theatre.

Closer to home, check out a WWII bomb aimer. There was a whole industry of mechanical controls, controlling everything from washing machines to automated machine tools with elaborate mechanical mechanisms. The micro-processor took the food off a lot of mechanical engineers plates. Go back to university and spend four years learning electrical engineering. Closer still, try getting a job designing analogue electronics. Sure analogue is fundamental. There will always be some jobs there, but it must have really sucked to live through the transition to digitise, signal process,DAC.

Which brings me to my subject line, the nature of education. Ones elders have seen it all before and know that University is for growing intellectually and developing transferable skills. Suppose the Andy Groves of this world succeeded and something was done. Suppose that laws protected skilled people from having their jobs whipped out from under them. Then the nature of university education would change. Instead of acquiring transferable skills, one would go to be trained in job specific skills. As narrow as possible, the better to secure your job-for-life.

To an extent that has already happened. You go to university to train to be an accountant and make a living exploiting loop holes in GAAP. If the basis of US accounting were changed from following the rules, to the British model of "true and fair", if the thick rule book on lease accounting were replace by the single sentence "all uncancelable obligations must be capitalised", years of obscenely expensive full time university classes would go up in smoke.

Investing in narrow technical education is a business venture. You may lose your investment.

Speak out about offshoring @ talktothecamera.com

[jquinlan]

Sending our jobs offshore and bringing in guest workers on visas is making a tremendous negative impact on the job market in the United States. It doesn't just affect tech workers any more. Teachers, pharmacists, engineers, truck drivers, pharmacists, call centers, etc.

If you live in the State of Missouri and call a 1-800 number to check on your food stamps or welfare benefits, you will be connected to India since the state outsourced their welfare call center. Unemployment is so high in Indiana, they needed to upgrade their computer system. In October this year, they awarded the 15.2 million dollar contract to an Indian company instead of putting Americans in the U.S. to work.

Put your concerns, rage, disagreement, etc. to video tape and send it to me. For details go to http://www.talktothecamera.com

Better yet, host a talktothecamera event in your city.

Indian companies outsource to Mauritius too

[ron_ivi]

http://news.com.com/2030-1011_3-5086029.html

Re:-1 Irrelevant - FWIW sorry

[zpok]

FWIW I was stupid enough to aim my respons at "all complainers". Which inevitably means I'll insult some of you - and some of you undeserved. I apologise.

It was an emotional response. The short of it is supposed to go something like this:

we (as in we as consumers) never mind if stuff becomes horribly cheap due to outsourcing of labor.

But now predictably it starts happening in the brain-department.

And the amount of bull you suddenly get from the same people who happily wear nike's and buy barbies without a second thought is incredible.

But this has happened time and again, in all industries. Steel, shipping (as in boats), textiles, plastics, ... you name it. And hundreds of thousands of people were laid off. We called it progress - which it probably is in the long run. All depends on your definition of the word progress.

I'm not sure it's a good thing. There are many many sides to consider. One of them is that partly this outsourcing does improve some countries and their people, so it's not all bad everywhere. And stuff gets cheaper, which is nice in a sort of narrowminded way.

So lacking an overall opinion I can only say am glad for the Indians who can get value from their education. One of the other reasons of outsourcing is better project stability. A few years back programmers were happily hopping from one job to another. This of course damaged the projects they were working on. This job hopping is -still- not so popular in India.

Exploited workers

[Anonymous Coward]

"The crux of hte problem is that the majority of the workers in the world are underpaid and exploited."

This is primarily true of workers under socialism. In capitalism, the tendency is to pay the workers the exact value of the work (the system automatically discourages overpay or underpay).

The free trade of goods and services is never exploitation.
"That's why I find it interesting that capitalists are all in favour of a global (capitalist) economy."

No, we are in favor of people being able to make decisions and work to their mutual benefit without greedy governments getting a cut or harassing them just because these decisions might involve trading with foreigners.

"You can literally go to any one of a hundread countries and find workers to do WHATEVER you want"

A couple of the worst examples being mainland China and the Vietnams, both of which are very socialist, both of which have a big sweatshop problem.

" claim that Western wages will have to be dragged down significantly but capitalists don't think so... "

What is the big deal? If a foreigner can do the job better, let them.

" It is a bogus concept cooked up by neo-liberal economists."

Liberals tend to oppose free trade actually. That is where most of the demand for "protectionism" comes from.

"How much do you want to bet that traditional conservatives (like Pat Buchanan, who are nationalists"

Buchanan and Nader are united in their sometimes racist contempt of foreigners who sometimes dare to work better than Americans....

"neoconservatives (who are mostly neo-liberal economists and are against US protectionism)? "

You are contradicting. The neoconservatives are anti-liberal, not neo-liberal.

Buchanan will not gain power. At least in the united states, people are quite happy with being able to make more of their own economic decisions: there is no demand to turn back the clock and close the borders.

Competition = wages at real value

[Anonymous Coward]

"Because competition will necessarily mean that wages are lowered to the minimum possible"

A more accurate way is to say that the wages come closer to the real value of the work. They will not go lower than a certain level if the workers want the wages higher.

"The only reason wages are higher in the Western world is because of socialist, interventionist policies of the past"

No, socialism makes wages a lot lower than they would be. Americans, for example, are badly overtaxed. If the taxes were cut a lot, wages would shoot up as people would not be exploited by the government as much.

"For example, if you remove the minium wage in say USA , I am sure many companies will get away with paying a lot less"

The government-mandated "minimum wage" should indeed be abolished. Yes, some companies would pay less, since that is what these jobs are worth. They'd also hire a lot more people: the only real effect the "minimum wage" has is to force companies to fire workers and cut benefits in order to pay the wage amount that some politician pulled out of thin air.

"The ultimate point in all this is, as Karl Marx once said, owners (capitalists) and workers (proletariat) have differing goals"

There you go with the silly divisions. The overwhelming majority of capitalists work, so they are workers.

"The owners want to pay the LOWEST wages possible and make the employees work LONGER, while the employees want the HIGHEST wages and want to work LESS. "

D'uh! That is the way it should be. Let the groups work it out themselves. It is just like if you want to get something at a store and it costs too much: try another store.

"This is a conflict that cannot be resolved under capitalism"

It is resolved in the best way possible.

Pure capitalism works with pure democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Pure capitalism and pure democracy are contradictory"

The work well together. "Pure democracy" just means that the government is purely democratic. It does not necessarily mean that this democratic government is fascist/totalitarian/socialist and thus controls the economy negating capitalism.

"You just cannot have democracy under capitalism"

Actually, in the real world, democracy works better alongside capitalism than alongside socialism. The reason is that once the elites take over the economy (socialism) it is just a small step to have dictatorial control over politics as well.

"A select few (often less than 15%) of the population control a huge chunk of the corporations, markets, and property"

These 15% you refer to only control the property they created, bought, or earned. This is not elitist. It is much more elitist to have government meddle in this: "you have worked too hard and earned too much. You must submit to me!"

" If you had true democracy, the majority (which is poorer) would overthrow the minority that hoards the wealth"

One problem with democracy is that it is not enough. You must have provisions to protect people's basic rights from "democracy" voting them away. Someone said at its worst, democracy is two wolves voting to eat the sheep. What you describe is a greedy mob using "democracy" to steal from others.

"I predict that you will see this conflict happen in at least 20 countries within our lifetime (you can start by observing Argentina and Venezuela)"

Venezuela has a fascist dictator who is robbing from the poor and rich while accumulating power. I thought you did not like Stalinism. Chavez, who openly praises genocidal Stalinists, will be overthrown within a year.

questions for Andy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo, Andy, whatup, dog?! You gonna put your money where your mouth is and spend some money on worker re-training or what?! You gonna lay off fewer U.S. workers now?! You gonna call for more gubmint spending on math and science education in the U.S.?! Talk to me, g!!