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BusinessWeek on Outsourcing
hotsauce writes "BusinessWeek has a couple of stories on the outsourcing of white collar jobs to India. One is a cover story on GE's fundamental research lab in Bangalore where scientists work on everything from the aerodynamics of turbines to plastics' molecular structure. The other is commentary on "America's worst-kept secret", and the effects of the upcoming elections on it."
I need to figure out a way to outsource my unemployment.
Yes, well cowboys and Indians never really got on did they?
Only jobs that gives a high revenue can be done by people with high salaries (US&EU for example).
When the price drops on, for example, software is has to be done by a lot cheaper labour.
There will not be many software engineering or consulting jobs in the US in ten years or so.
This can't be a surprise to anyone knowing what open source is all about.
I've already planned my exit strategy. I am getting out of information technology next year. There is just no future in the US. Either you work for a small company and risk getting laid off due to the lack of profit or you work for a Fortune 500 company and risk getting laid off for no reason other than some Gold Collar worker thought it was a good idea.
This will not stop until we have leadership in this country that actually seems to care. Until then, I am leaving IT professionally and making a career switch into one of my hobbies, which is something that cannot be outsourced to India.
The U.S. is heading straight towards becoming a land of a permanent serf class, a sort of neo-fascist aristocracy ruling body over a nation of paupers.
(* Too lazy to look up which century it was !)
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
I find this whole spitting and cursing quite funny. A few years ago we had people losing jobs in the manufacturing industry and all I heard from IT professionals was, "oh, why don't they up skill like us", well, here we are, and no longer are India and China the "T-Shirt" making haven of corporate America. Corporate America now see that these countries not only have cheaper labour but also, the people are just as qualified and just as many people "there" who can produce new and exciting ideas and products when given less R&D dollars.
What I find funny is when I hear people complain about this shift off shore. Its the old story, when your neighbour loses their job it is called a recession, when you lose your job it is called a depression.
Erotic uses a feather; Pornography uses the whole chicken
"India has always had brilliant, educated people," says tech-trend forecaster Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif. "Now Indians are taking the lead in colonizing cyberspace."
And with Americans busy colonizing Iraq, I am sure the Indians have a cakewalk colonizing cyberspace ...
Well, /. does not source 'new' news, it merely brings stories together in a mish-mash that is more-often-than-not revevant to the /. target audience.
/. is not a live feed from Reuters, if you want that then hire a Reuters machine, this sort of story on /. to sit back and think about, a week or even month here or there doesn't matter much.
Does it matter if this story is highlighted one week later than another? It is relevant but even this article doesn't bring some hot-off-the-press story, it is a sit back and think about it piece. The tech outsourcing trend, as mentioned in the article, goes well back to the 90s, so if an opinion piece is published now, or last month or next week, it is equally relevant as we're talking about long term trend.
To extend your argument would be to say "why didn't BusinessWeek come up with this idea sooner?", why not a month sooner if all the facts were still in place,or a month before that? Or, as this is not new information, just a collection of old information with some insight, why couldn't you have done it?
karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
i'm a second year studying software engineering ...
...
news like this scares me XD
though i don't see my future job as something that can be outsourced as easily as other IT jobs, but hey -- i didn't read the article so i don't know
What really kills me about outsourcing is that companies don't realize just how they are damaging their future in so many ways. I will give just two.
1) You lay someone off here in the U.S. as an example. Guess what, that is money that is not going to be used to buy products that most likely the parent company makes to some degree. Does someone in India buy dishwashers, tablesaw, etc. Not to be mean but not in the volume as here.
2) Tribal knowledge that is desperately needed to stay within a company for future development. That is all gone, and personally the quality that comes from an outsourced job is short of atrocious. That comes from watching quite a few projects at two different companies go completey down in flames.
Sorry, outsourcing is going to tear this economy in the U.S. to pieces. Quick short-term gain for a long-term failure!!!!
Well, it's not news in the original sense of the word, but it seems to be yet another example of the other kind of news, the institutional news. This means that something becomes news if an institution that's known to be a news source -- Slashdot, for example, or Google News (they also list(ed?) press releases as news) -- reports it as such. Being reported by such a source somehow makes a fact more true, more reliable (If it isn't on the news, it didn't happen, right?) See, for example, how people still feel the need to read about a car crash they witnessed. Or how several hundred people felt the need to read about Saddam Hussein's capture on Slashdot -- they probably wouldn't have believed it otherwise...
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
It seems that in the end, workers worldwide will end up being paid about the same. And it probably won't be much.
Does everything include nothing?
Funny how they never talk about outsourcing the CEOs or board members. You'd think you could get the most bang for the outsource by outsourcing the people whoe make the most, but do the least amount of the work.
The loss of jobs overseas isn't going to stop until someone makes a stand that having skilled Americans working will matter more than the bottom line of any company. Unfortunately, it's likely to get worse before it gets better.
Yes, it's true.
A country is the same as an individual and can only do one thing at a time.
Thanks for your insight.
When you and everyone else will pay more for locally produced goods then the Chinese crap at Walmart they'll change.
This is good news. It will drive wages up in India, wages down in the west, but make goods cheaper in the west. This way everybody profits. The only pain is short term shifts in employment patterns.
Eventually with the barriers to trade removed by advancing technology, the whole world can enjoy the same level of wealth.
North America has a hell of a large force of computer people out of work. And here's a tip-off to Business Week: While we're not working, we don't buy homes or cars or pay many taxes. Factor that one in.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I dont know why Slashdot is repeating this topic so very often.
I wonder if the editors of Slashdot are paranoid that their jobs may be sent overseas!
Slashdot is turning into a "bash your way to popularity" scheme, where they just ignite pent up anger among the foolish populace with a spark!
Slashdot sux!
I am from India and sometimes I cry when I think that my new Humvee and 7 bedroom house is paid for by unemployed, suffering Americans. But then I get over it. Hooray!!!
It turns out that the British have figured out they can outsource their legal people and have been for some time. Right now its just the low level people who do the real work but its starting to be higher levels. Soon if you call your attorney for business advice, you will be getting a call center in India.
This isn't a problem for routine advice because I'm convinced that the legal profession is much like early days of grunt coding, you have to be able to find stuff in books and make decisions based on that.
What will be interesting is that most congresscritters are lawyers and I'm curious to know what they will do about their profession being outsourced.
What strikes me in all of this is that we are talking about an essentially corporate phenomenon. Corporate entity producing proprietary intellectual property (IP) finds it has to lower the cost of producing it. Why? Well, IP is essentially becoming free due to pressure from free IP like open source software. This is really just the continued trend of IP's marginal value and cost toward 0.
So, where is money to be made? It's essentially in applying the now near 0 cost IP to people's actual business problems. That's where most OSS-based houses make their money.
2 ideas that spring to mind here:
One: What happens if this rush to off shore "skilled" starts to succeed? We (the US) is the largest consumer of products from around the world, but if skilled labor follows blue collar labor, the amount of people left to spend money on anything goes down. Even though moving that labor forces off shore will increase the purchasing power of the people in the country where the labor went to, their combined purchasing power and demand to purchase anything will not be anywhere close to what the same jobs in the US could produce (at least short to mid term). Judging by what happens to the world economy when the US economy suffers, just how much outsourcing is a good idea? When does it stop benefieting the companies and starts hurting them because they can't sell their products in a poor economic climate?
Two: In the US the commonly held belief is that if you want to get ahead, you get an education, and your hard work and academic achievement will be the keys to your success (Unlike India or China where there are relegious and other cultural pushes for education). If the people stop believing in that, and an education isn't seen as a step up, or providing an advantage less people will pursue it. In an information age isn't one of the most important factos in the labor pool is it's education and technical skill?
It's all about global competition - or so they say. I wonder what the ROI is long term. Since more and more companies are only looking ahead a quarter at a time, just to satisfy the wall street pundits, I bet the ROI is pretty good short term. So how do Western Europeon and American workers compete? Our salaries are higher, and our standard of living is higher. Eventually with enough investement and time India will be a developed nation and these differences will slowly dissapear. Jobs will also probably leak back to the US - but how long do we have to wait, and how do we survive?
In the end the US worker has to offer something that his/her indian counterpart can't. Language, proximity to the project, and superiour skill and/or inovation are just some advantages that people might leverage.
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
We want everything to be cheap. Extremely cheap. And even cheaper. As soon as a manufacturer starts demanding money for US-made quality people being to bitch about high prices and coporate greed. Nobody is paying a fucking dime more just because it's US-made. Why should we do ? Slave child-workers will to it cheaply in Tibet or Taiwan. Oh, and evil company outsources my job to India, these evil bastards, they are just in for the money, these bloodsuckers !
Take e.g. Apple. Saving US jobs by US goods in the US. But when they charge prices to substain these US jobs everybody whines about teh evil Steve Jobs. Just look at the frontpage and the "iPod battery costs money= TEH EVIL" stories. And this bigotry doesn't even rule Slashdot, it rules the whole country and makes it on the frontpages of NY Times and Newsweek.
Outsourcing justs means: we get what we pay for.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
All seeds for the future are consumed when found. Help.
Businessweek like other traditional media is not in the business of breaking "uncomfortable" stories. Did outsourcing start happening only in the past year? I do not think so. However, any reasoned analysis is first available to the Wall Street insiders, and then to the public when the gravity of the issue becomes too large to hide. Otherwise, such stories are found in many places, but only in as much detail as "Thumbs Up / Down type Conventional Wisdom" typically seen in many mainstream magazine.
As an American-born ethnic Bangalorean, this trend gives me mixed emotions. America been BERRY, BERRY good to me. On the other hand, it's nice to see my cousins not be poor. In fact, they act like they won the lottery.
Whereas India may be great for R&D, it is a one-trick pony for now -- Desk Jobs R Us. They have poor power, roads, water, and government. So their mechanical engineering is still stuck in the 1950's. America should switch over to that field -- robotics, materials research, etc. You'll have a much harder time outsourcing those.
The endgame of the IT revolution is just around the corner. Stop talking about how to get it back.
On the other hand, the U.S. actually has a tendency to fight wars quite often. It has a need for new materials and robotics. The current military has maxed out its use of IT for non-hierarchical combat, but that's still only good for surgical strikes. Once you get into occupational mode, the army reverts back to 1970's Vietnam. Reducing body bags in that mode requires new technologies.
So, in a way, the war in Iraq and the outsourcing trend are the perfect storm -- universities should be getting more research dollars to crank out relevant technologies for our soldiers in the field.
Many of us expect too much!
Last night I went to the company xmas party. The subject of Christmas bonuses came up. The average bonus was $2000. EVERYONE got a bonus. People complained: not big enough.
The company GAVE away an average of 2K to people just because... and people still complained ("I remember the 20K bonuses at dropdotbomb... this just does stack up" - an actual quote).
I am not saying the greedy CEO's and stockholders aren't to blame also - they are. But this kind of attitude just goes to show that many American works expect far more than they are worth.
If US companies want to combat outsourcing they have to start from the bottom - offer lower pay to incoming workers, and somehow get rid of the top heavy "older" workers (attrition, lay off, whatever) from the 90's.
The excesses of our recent past are smothering us!
A question: how fast are salaries rising in India? I am betting you won't see Indian companies buying the naming rights of football stadiums and offering half a years pay as a signing bonus.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
As a recent Ph.D. graduate in Chemical Engineering, this is nothing new. When I entered graduate school 10% of my fellow class mates were US citizens. Our finest graduate schools in the technical fields (engineering, physics, medicine) have been training foreign students for a long time now.
Global workers trained here are just as effective and talented as native US workers. The notion that US citizens are somehow more innovative is just that a notion. They get the same education what US citizens get. They are equally as qualified, and WILL work for lower salaries in their native contries. The real reason that US students aren't going into these fields is that they don't have the work ethic or the dedication for it. They would rather sell wireless phones for commision and make a quick buck than educate themselves for the future of our country.
In terms of solutions to this problem:
The answer in NOT legislation. This problem has to be solved by the US providing technical people where it is obvious that they are the best people for the job.
In terms of developing countries: In particular this is a great opportunity for India where they can bring about social change in their country. Well at least until some time down the road when we outsource their jobs to some other developing country.
Outsourcing to other geographical locations is not new and has happened to manufacturing, and it is happening with technology now.
May not be the best idea in the long run. As the dollar falls in value compared to foreign currencies, it will become less profitable to employ people elsewhere (India etc..) and those jobs will move back to the US.
All the worlds indeed a
A cannibal walked in to the cannibal resturant and was looking at the menu...
Windows Administrator $2
Windows Developer $2
Solaris Administrator $2
Indian Programmer $16
The cannibal asked the waiter, "Why is the Indian programmer so fucking much?"
The waiter replied, "You ever tried cleaning one of those things?"
Yeah, I should upgrade, but they should make a better page, too.
In particular this is a great opportunity for India where they can bring about social change in our country.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Economics is satisfying unlimited needs with limited resources. Even the US has limited resources. If it had infinite resources, you would be right. But, it doesn't.
If the money, people, and "human-attention" hours, that were spent on Iraq to make for a spectacular show on TV, and avenge someone's Daddy had been better used, it would have been helpful. How much helpful, that is now only a hypothetical question.
And frankly, your analogy of a individual is lame. If need be even an individual can multitask like a nation would do. But the questions is whether an individual/nation be better off doing something or multitasking with a major diversion on hand. I think unnecessary diversions are not helpful. But then, you may have a point. It does make one feel Big and Good after doing some heavy duty pounding.
So will it do any good, after you've been laid off and the bill collectors start calling from India, to refuse to talk to anyone with an Indian accent? ;-)
ESR, never shy of controversy, writes in his blog: Salaries are dropping. Time to celebrate! . He claims that the outsourcing trend will ultimately benefit Americans; that's just how the free market works. You may not agree with him but read it anyway for an alternate viewpoint.
Hmm. Theoretically, one of the substantive sources for the corpus of Indian law is common law, but how similar does it necessarily make them? And it's not as if common law American jurisdictions look to England or India very often...
Any Indian/American lawyers care to elaborate?
I'm currently two years into a degree in CompSci, and I have no intention of switching, despite the grim job outlook. I have tried other jobs before, and I came to realize that IT is the only thing I will be happy doing. This is the problem with the whole "retrain" argument. When those factories workers in manufacturing lost their jobs, they were retraining and trading in a menial, low skill job that was basically about a paycheck. If they retrain, they get either another equally dull job, or maybe a more interesting one. That is good. If I have to retrain, I'm losing a career that I really wanted and would have enjoyed, and I go into what, business management (yuck)? Or trades? I think trades is a really secure field right now, but there are two problems: I have limited practical trades skills, and there are lots of guys who are the trades equivalent of geeks who were programming in junior high. You can't teach a 20 something carpenter to be a better programmer than a lifelong nerd, and neither can you teach a computer nerd to be a better carpenter than a trades nerd. I have tried working trades jobs, and there are guys my age who are at skill levels that I won't reach for 8 years! A retrained programmer cannot compete in trades. To some extent, I think retrained workers cannot compete very well in their new fields period. Again, compare the lifelong computer geek to 2 year technical school grad riding the IT goldrush; 2 years of training does not give you the necessary skills.
That's okay, when you go to gas that babie up, you will have to get your gas through us, we were still smart enough to "aquire" a few client oil exporting states with large reserves ahead of the global oil crunch when all you guys there also get your gas guzzlers too. The future of America is not about technology, but rather to be the world's gas station!
Perhaps India will enjoy the same evolution. Maybe in ten years well-engineered software, etc. from India will have the same esteem which we hold Japanese products. Every industrial toddler country entering the world of business has to find its feet. Japan did--so will India
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Yes, India might care more about cyberspace. But the US cares more about morale.
Guess who is going to have more benefits in the long run ?
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
And yet you lot still think LONDON is a COUNTRY.
Your education sucks shit. You have to buy it like everything else.
Your education sucks shit from the core.
How much money do you have invested in the stock market? Don't forget your 401k. How much of this is invested in companies that are offshoring? Why are you investing in a company that is doing its best to destroy your future?
How in the fuck did you manage this???
What, the recent version of Mozilla that come with rh9 was too stable for you so you ripped it out and went to the mozilla.org archive page?
Morale? Yeah right, you mean the moral that breaks international and human rights laws. Laughable blind nieve brainwashed flag licker.
You are moving jobs to countries with no minimum wage. Whenever someone talks about outsourcing, the meme should be "with no minimum wage". The goal being to leave an appropriately bad taste in your mouth, and the listeners ear.
Health and safety, standard of living, 40 hour workweek, these are things people have fought and died for. They are not inconvieniences to be skirted by shifting your work to the poorest countries in the world.
"I suck"
Yeah, but I think the next thing after the running robot is a burger flipping robot.
There you go.. yet another proof of an American dude losin his head and his ability to think coherently!
This is great Slashdot... start more flame wars!
Although the tech people I know that have been on the bench a while do eventually seem to fall into another tech job. But it's different. Contract work instead of perm and there's a lot more bench time between jobs.
Bank cash and keep your bills down when you're working. Maybe one of these days we'll have a story on /. about the worlds longest chain of wi-fi connected latte' carts.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Really ? In the Long Run? Economist John Maynard Keynes said In the long run ... we are all dead.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
There are so many Indians moving to the US? I mean if the jobs are going over there. I live in silicon valley, btw.
Another mistaken argument is that there is only a finite pool of labor in India and so an equilibrium will be reached soon. This won't happen. Because the current level of penetration of computers and internet connections in India is extremely low (e.g: 0.4% dialup and 0.02% broadband). As this situation improves, it greatly decrease the barrier to entering the IT workforce in India and will continue to bring in an army of new workers for years to come.
As with the open source revolution, the internet changed everything.
I hope you're having your dissertation edited professionally.
Is anyone else really hoping for a nuclear war between India and Packistan or is that just me. Bye Bye outsourcing if that happens. :-)
"...something becomes news if an institution that's known to be a news source...reports it as such"
All the more reason for the Slashdot Powers-That-Be to issue a bit of restraint!! This "tech jobs are being outsourced to (insert 3rd-world country)" ahem...story, is becoming the Elizabeth Smart of the industry. I come to Slashdot as much for which stories might be floated as for the commentary those stories elicit This is the sort of editorial decision I would expect some monolithic profit-driven bastard Knight Ridder pawn to regurgitate at the last minute as a ratings booster. C'mon people....
Sorry, I keep forgetting to add the tongue-in-cheek emoticon to the bottom of my posts...
it just needed to be said!
you're a mean one, Mr. Slashdot,
You really are a heel,
You're as cuddly as a cactus,
You're as charming as an eel, Mr. Slashdot.
You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel!
You're a monster, Mr. Slashdot,
Your heart's an empty hole,
Your brain is full of spiders,
You've got garlic in your soul, Mr. Slashdot.
I wouldn't touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!
You're a foul one, Mr. Slashdot,
You have termites in your smile.
You have all the tender sweetness
Of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Slashdot.
Given the choice between the two of you
I'd take the seasick crocodile!
You're a rotter, Mr. Slashdot,
You're the king of sinful sots,
Your heart's a dead tomato splotched
With moldy purple spots, Mr. Slashdot.
You're a three decker sauerkraut
and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!
You nauseate me, Mr. Slashdot,
With a nauseous super "naus",
You're a crooked dirty jockey
And you drive a crooked hoss, Mr. Slashdot.
Your soul is an appalling dump heap
Overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable
Mangled up in tangled up knots!
You're a foul one, Mr. Slashdot,
You're a nasty wasty skunk,
Your heart is full of unwashed socks,
Your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Slashdot.
The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote,
"Stink, stank, stunk!"
~
I worked for GE for well over a decade. I have dealt with the very people at GE-Wipro in Bangalore that this article glows about. My experience differs from that of the author.
In the beginning, the helpdesk was manned by GE employees, at the HQ of the business I worked in, in the US. Helpdesk is a hard position to keep staffed with quality people, for the reasons we all know. But, those pesky GE employees were _expensive_, so they walked the helpdesk out the door one day, and brought in an outside contractor known for doing helldesk outsourcing. And there was much rejoicing (at the VP level). Problem is, helpdesk quality fell drastically, as there was a crop of new people who didn't know the intricacies of the systems they were supposed to be supporting.
Soon, (coinciding, I suppose, with the end of the contract with Keane), it was noticed that the helpdesk was sucking. Rather than acknowledge the mistake, they decided to compound it. With great fanfare and jubilation, they were pleased to announce that the helldesk was being reworked. Oh, by the way, it's being run by a company called "Wipro" in Bangalore, India.
Initially, there were many problems. Eventually, it got worse. Helpdesk analysts who could not be understood by a western ear, utterly wrong advice, that sort of thing. One coworker of mine, having a bad battery (the Dell explode-o-cell model), called to get a new one. He was told to delete his hardware profiles and that would take care of it. Not just wrong, but damagingly wrong, and not even vaguely logical. Yeah, a battery is "hardware", but that's pushing it. The analysts would identify themselves as "Jim" and "Bob". Just this is insulting - as if we can't learn how to pronounce or recognize the name of someone from a different culture than ours? It's just a sign of not understanding the needs and/or culture of the clients.
A final note - the article seems to be holding this up as a glowing success. I think it's more than coincidence that GE stock has been consistantly underperforming the market for many years - since the day Jack Welch announced his replacement, in fact. GE was succeeding because of Welch, not because his replacement is sacrificing quality for cost, calling it a "Six Sigma quality initiative", and ignoring the failures that result.
Hopefully, business executives who read this article, will do a sanity check & see how GE is doing these days, before deciding to emulate a formerly glorious company's unproven CEO's failing strategy.
Speaking from experience with H-1B contactors and L-1s working in the U.S., the cost savings these companies seem to "realize" for I/T is not as rosy as one would think. Most managers that make these decisions can barely understand a balance sheet and an income statement, but they can certainly read a stock price. When outsourcing looks like an option, you have to look at all the hidden costs that lurk about doing it before you dive in.
Unlike unkilled and semi-skilled manufacturing jobs, where the tasks performed are route and routine, a lot of programming jobs require heavy amounts of cooperating and coordinating to get a successfull result. The proper analogy to draw with your client is that of the homebuilder/architect and the homebuyer. Although the programmers may be Mexican immigrants who work less than minimum wage and get paid cash under the table to send to their poor families in Guadalajara, these folks still need the same amount of (if not more) specific direction to build a home that will be fit for you and your family to live in. Translating back to I/T, you may be mired in many, many more meetings, buried in email, and endless phone calls with your overseas colleages just to keep the train on its tracks and moving in the right direction. Be careful what you outsource.
Ever heard the old addage "too much of anything is not a good thing?" Same principle here. A proper mix of outsourced labor and internal I/T staff can build successfull solutions with less cost than the tranditional MIS department (in less time is another story). Some jobs are perfectly suited to be outsourced, such as the DBA, data-warehouse specialists and some of the programming. The traditional PC helpdesk has also been successfully outsourced overseas, but you better hope that your callers can tolerate the Bombay accent on the other end of the phone.
Some jobs cannot be outsourced without expecting a downturn in quality or a corresponding increase in time spent doing your project, such as technical writing, quality assurance, project and program management and many other jobs that require intense amounts of personal and communication skills. Hardware, network and software installs should NEVER be done by outsourced personnel. You also want to keep the programmers who are working on the big things, such as architecture shifts and regulatory changes (e.g. HIPAA) on staff for the tight projects where you don't have the luxury of time on your side.
Outsourcing CAN be done, without firing your entire I/T staff, alienating everybody and stirring up bad blood. Find jobs for the folks who are being placed out or train them to do the jobs you aren't sending out of the company.
And even when you get to the state where you can do offshore and realize a gain, you still have to keep busy monitoring everything much more vigilantly. Outsourcing companies charge vastly different prices for the same tasks, and contracts don't span very long. There is also the question about what happens to your intellectual property when it's going out of your country's borders: if you are compromised from an overseas vendor you may be left with little or no recourse (which is why so many CEOs are lobbying Congress). The cost of securing a favorable contract with an overseas parter also adds to the cost, unless you are doing it through a U.S. firm (but don't think that those international legal firms' fees WON'T be passed down to YOU). I doubt that most PHBs will get outsourcing done right without paying a large sum of dough to outsourcing specialists (hmm maybe a new career option to layed off I/T workers?).
Where does this experience come from, you ask? Well, I was replaced by Indians several years ago, which then followed up with a massive layoff at the company I used to work for. They are paying less money for the labor, but since I left they have had more projects fail miserably than before. They may have let off with benes and pension plans, but they traded it in for huge sums of airline fees to sh
When they offshored the textiles jobs, I did not speak out because I wasn't a textile worker.
When they offshored the steel mills, I did not speak out because I didn't make steel...
This is where the American people should get off and pressure their politicians. In no way should the private medical, financial or demographic information of any US citizen be shipped out of US jurisdiction without their consent. As reported earlier on Slashdot there is no criminal recourse for anyone who wishes to misuse this data.
Work for the US governement as either a civil servant or contractor in a job requiring a US security clearance. No foreigners need apply.
Machining Magazine
d f
The China Conundrum: How the pursuit of free trade with China has compromised American Manufacturing
http://www.machiningmagazine.com/China.pdf
What are you doing about China: An open letter to Congress
http://www.machiningmagazine.com/ToughQuestions.p
Can Phil English fix free trade: Closing the loopholes in free trade
http://www.machiningmagazine.com/PhilEnglish.pdf
The New Military-Industrial Complex: Are we sacrificing our security on the Alter of Free Trade?
http://www.machiningmagazine.com/MIC.pdf
Higher education in the United States is damned expensive. What about those of us without well-off parents who are willing to pay the bills? It is expensive enough to get a bachelors degree, let alone a masters or Ph.D. Some of us were too busy working a full-time job just to pay the rent, eat, and pay for the car. I've had to pay my own way since I was 17.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I think most of Apple's manufacturing is outsourced to Taiwan, although of course they do their software in the US. But then, Microsoft's software operation is mainly done in the US also, as far as I am aware, although I'm sure Microsoft has some kind of operation in India.
Even Microsoft's general evilness has not got to the point where they have exported their software engineering to India. But then, they manufacture the X-box in Mexico, IIRC, but I have a dim recollection that they were going to move that to Asia as well.
My general take on this is that the "commodity" aspects of software development are being outsourced, as are the commodity parts of IT service, like basic call centre management, where people are mainly reading scripts from a screen. I'm sure that many of these people in India are capable of more, but I'm not sure how much US companies will trust people with higher end functions if they are not immediately under their supervision. For instance, Lehmann Brothers, a major investment bank, tried outsourcing its internal helpline to India, and brought it back, because it wasn't what they wanted.
The bottom line is that there will always be room for project management, and software design jobs in the homeland, but the grunt work will be offshore. Which means that there will be a high return on investment in skills development. Not just in programming, but in how those programmes are used.
That shit don't fly no mo'
As profits roll in for companies that outsource our jobs the least our government could do is tax that money and use it to reeducate the unemployed.
That's good and well, but having an educated labor force will only get you so far. India has, for the most part, a third-world infrastructure, and if global companies are going to seriously shift a lot of sites there, the roads, power, and communications systems are going to have to be modernized. That's going to cost someone money -- either through private investments, or through taxation. And since global corporations looking for cheap labor don't tend to want to pay for things like power distribution systems, this means the government is going to have to do it, which means increased taxes, which costs are going to rise for everyone, which means the labor force is going to become more expensive over time.
So, yeah, it's a nice cheap ride for now, but eventually the costs of modernization are going to catch up and level the playing field.
Can you give serious references in support that aren't from some crazy creationist (and/or communist) group?
Did their "best resources" do a good job of "improving their own country" when the Indian economy was terrible for decades of a socialist economy?
From what I've seen, the economists claim that India can use these changes go the same way as Japan and South Korea. Fewer poor is a good thing for humanity IMHO -- unless it destabilizes too much of the world economy.
Why are the large majority of the world's economists wrong? (-: As the creationists claim about the paleontologists -- they are idiots and/or in a conspiracy? :-)
(The present changes sucks only for us that are caught in an industrial shift. It was no fun to be a worker in early industrialization either.)
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Stop laying there on your collective asses and do something about it. Contact your congress critter in your home state and bitch until ledgislation so that state and federal contracts can't be giving to companies that outsource overseas.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
>I think /.ers are actually underestimating the threat from India.
Actually there are lots of factors I don't even think has been addressed here.
Next "miliary situation" involving India or any part of that world will bring about questions about the stability of that part of the world. There are nukes in that part of the world and they have a motive to use it.
Unions, they would love to gain more power. And the IT staff would love to gain the sort of power as the longshore men on the west coast just recently showed.
Slow backlash. Bad PR is just plain bad. On CNN Lou Dobbes show has a regular "outting" of companies that outsource.
Undercutting of India. China is one. Another is Eastern European countries are another. Indians are expensive compaired to these guys with the same amount of education/quality of work. Even Canada might be better in terms of culture/timezones/distance/language for the United States. And there still are the savings even without the difference in Canadian/US currency exchange.
Its a wild wild world out there.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Out of a population of 1 billion, 300 million = absolutely, wretchedly poor with barely enough to eat
300 million = low class, do menial jobs, earn wages just enough for two meals a day, probably send kids to govt. schools, but most probably make them work with them breaking stones, washing others' dishes, clothes, cars, etc.
250 to 300 million = middle class with cars, scooters, homes, and other "luxuries" of life.
Remaining = upper middle class to rich.
It is only the rich who can afford a Humvee, subject to govt. clearances and a 7 bedroom home.
For most others, it is either sleeping outside or in their 2-3 room home.
Please do not make fun of poverty or of poor people, whether in India or in USA.
President Bush and other coming presidential candidates should take the outsourcing issue more seriously.
It sounds very ridiculous that IT people in India becomes richer, but IT people in America becomes poorer because of the outsourcing issue.
Sir, you have said a very good point rather than a knee jerk cowboy reaction.
and having a PhD means you know what your doing? I hate to say it, but I've met enough Phd and Masters in science that didn't know jack shit about programming and even worse. They go down the wrong path of research, ending in a total disaster. A degree by no means improves the likelihood an employee will perform better than someone with an undergraduate degree. In fact, some of the brightest programmers that I've met, who consistently have great insight and break throughs aren't Phd. In fact none of the people who actually see through all the usual crap to come up with something unique only have bachelor's degree. The percentage of good/bad people is the same, regardless of the degree or industry. If you can't learn it on your own, don't bother. Most likely you'll just end up sucking at it and making other people's live hell.
I am posting from China and I can second this. /.ers consistly cite that can't be outsource to either China or India. With the rapid econemy growth in China and India and sliding econemy in the US, more of those perspective innovative workers may not choice to go to US after they graduate and instead of staying home. Same innovative jobs are done by the same group in much lower cost.
Foreigner born Chinese and Indian take home 36% doctoral degrees in the US (20% Chinese and 16% Indian) and work on those innovative jobs
India. Where child labor is the standard, abuse of women is considered normal, poaching endangered species is big business, pollution is rampant, and they are in a pissing match over nukes with their neighbor.
Give me a leader who illegally detains his own citizens and citizens from other countries, denies them legal representation, passes tax cuts for big businesses while cutting soldiers salaries, calls anyone who disagrees with him a traitor, lies to his people about going to war, tells the UN that he doesn't have to listen to them, invades other countries under false pretenses, makes deals with terrorists, had his business funded by the family of a terrorist, has protestors moved so that he doesn't have to see them, was put into office by the state his brother runs, and gave cushy ambassadorships to the people who actually did the counting in the election when he was put into office. That's really moral.
So what was the difference between Saddam and GW Bush again?
There are other, just as valid points of view that see this hot new offshore oursourcing trend with a more skeptical eye. It's true that globalization is inevitable, and that means there is simply more labor to compete for (at present) fewer jobs. But everything is'nt all wine and roses with offshore outsourcing -- the start-up costs aren't trivial, there are time and cultural differences to overcome, and even when all this is done, sometimes the results are not satisfactory: Dell, for example, recently relocated some call centers back to the US after a raft of complaints about poor service.
If India is really going to be competitive, a lot of things are going to have to be upgraded there -- just an educated labor pool is not enough, you're going to need major infrastructure improvements to sustain these sorts of activities. This isn't free, and over time the cost of relocating labor there is going to go up -- either in terms of problems, or in terms of actual money invested in telecommunications, power, etc.
There's no question that India is going to become a major IT player over time. But let's not make more of this than what it really is.
It's all very well outsourcing to India. But it's even cheaper to "outsource" to programs. For a long time "industrial" programmers wrote in deliberately crippled languages like C++, Java, VB and COBOL. Everything is labor-intensive in those languages. But I can make a good living while the code monkeys around me are losing their jobs because I "upskilled" to Lisp. I "outsource" the grunt-work development to programs I've written. And they churn out better code than the average indian workaday. Even work like localisation, I do with automated translation. It's cheaper to pay an Indian to do localisation than someone here. But it's even cheaper again to machine-translate and just pay someone here to check the translation (you always have to check the work of the Indians anyway...)
The only fly in the ointment is software patents, which protect dumb companies.
I think this is another bad assumption on the side of American. Yes, the country will need to modernization and goverment will have to spend. Typically, government spending will encourage domestic development even further. China has demostrated What an aggressive government spending can do for its econemy.
The other thing. Raising tax isn't the only way to pay for public construction. Raising foreigner debt is one way, BTO (Build to own) is another which cooperations paid for the construction, charge for it for a period of time and return that to the government.
If the government can be sure that these spending can simulate econemy which eventually increase its tax incoming to pay for the debt, it is unnecessary to raise tax now in order to pay for it.
Taiwan became big in semiconductor manufacturing because over the course of three decades of private and government research and experience they were able to become very good at it, producing high yields that made them competitive with US producers. It wasn't because of cheap labor. Taiwan's workers aren't that much cheaper than in the US, and Taiwan's per capita income is over 10X that of India.
Japan's car industry became big because of quality, not lower cost. The first incarnations of their vehicles decades ago were cheap crap, but they didn't get anywhere in the market. Their eventual success came from producing high-quality vehicles that were able to sell for MORE than US-made vehicles of equal size and engine power.
Steel workers in the US lost jobs not because of labor costs, which make up a very small portion of steel manufacturing, but because other countries were able to produce higher yields per ton of raw material.
However the current trend of outsourcing software development to India is a management fad in pursuit of cheap labor, for a type of work that does not lend itself to cheap labor en masse. The real savings really aren't that great -- you're lucky to save as much as 25%. The quality isn't very good, and there are many risks including budget overruns due to miscommunication, intellectual property and privacy infringement which are practically impossible to enforce in India (you're lucky if the courts will see your case in 10 years), and the costs of paying people to cleanup the junk that comes back.
If outsourcing brings real net savings, we'll see the benefits in other aspects of the economy, like cheaper goods and services and increased profits that boost the stock markets. However, there is a very real danger that it is likely to materialize as another "gold rush" like the dotcom boom, only that this time the corporations and investors are chasing after imaginary savings instead of imaginary profits. And when the reality hits and they can't deny it, there will be another economic meltdown.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
The analysts would identify themselves as "Jim" and "Bob". Just this is insulting - as if we can't learn how to pronounce or recognize the name of someone from a different culture than ours? It's just a sign of not understanding the needs and/or culture of the clients.
Speaking of that, one of the more popular activities these days for people doing a gap year or just looking for adventure abroad, is not just teaching English abroad, but accent coaching in places like India and China. To get them to speak English like Americans or Brits.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
I`ve already planned my exit strategy. I am getting out of information technology next year. There is just no future in the US. Either you work for a small company and risk getting laid off due to the lack of profit or you work for a Fortune 500 company and risk getting laid off for no reason other than some Gold Collar worker thought it was a good idea.
This will not stop until we have leadership in this country that actually seems to care. Until then, I am leaving IT professionally and making a career switch into one of my hobbies, which is something that cannot be outsourced to India.
The U.S. is heading straight towards becoming a land of a permanent serf class, a sort of neo-fascist aristocracy ruling body over a nation of paupers.
HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
I came across a fatuous sig on a post the other day saying "Socialism is Evil", liking to a page explaining why a free market is the best, that price is the only true indicator of market performance, and that socialism is fundamentally flawed.
Okay, ignoring the socialism angle. The free market is one of the holy trinity of US religion, and above mentiones article really brings this home. The US has been ramming free market economy, and globalisation down the throats of the rest of the world for years. In enforcing free-trade the World Trade organisation has making small businesses bankrupt in favour of big corporate economies of scale. We're forces to accept US GM foods that we don't want, because to label them GM is anti-competative.
Yet now, the US is feeling the effects of this. Jobs are dissappearing for economic reasons (it's cheaper). And all of a sudden people don't like it. Well, my heart bleeds for you. Taste your own medicine, and see how you like it. Smarts a bit doesnt it.
So I suggest it's time for the US to change it's ways. Only this time try giving a damn about the people you're trampling all over. Becasue sooner or later you're bound to be on the receiving end.
But, for now all I have to say is "Haha".
Open world borders so anyone can immigrate, and everyone is free.
Sure at first many people will move to the USA and Canada from Asia- creating some instability.
But there wouldn't be all this bullshit where people are much cheaper in other places. People would also get along much better, less fighting, less wars.
Though I live in a nice country, I really want to be able to live in a particular 3rd world country (but ironically immigration has its problems).
Don't you mean crypto-fascist aristocracy ruling body?
3000+ comments meta-modded. 0 mod points awarded.
Lesson for other meta-suckers: Don't believe the hype!
My parents never paid a cent of my tuition either -- and I didn't use financial aid or loans either -- I simply worked 20-30 hours a week when I was an undergrad and I paid for my education myself too. So what?
And as others have mentioned, graduate school (at least in the sciences) is free (well, I had to TA), so my parents didn't spend a cent on my doctorate either.
You must be new here :7 (god, I can't believe what I just said)
In the case of Slashdot, news is what the editors consider to be Slashdot material. That is, things that will produce lots of hits. SCO and outsourcing stories, for example, are guaranteed to have several hundred comments; of the top10 most active stories in the hall of fame, five are about "war on terror". Also, all the editors have their pet peeves -- Michael seems to have a problem with iPod's batteries and Taco will whine about spam whenever he can. I've heard that it used to be different in the old days, but i don't put much faith in these rumors...
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Did your sense of humor get outsourced?
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
In connection with the above, I wonder to what extent corporations deliberately release personal data to third parties via third countries, usually "partnership corporations," where this would be illegal in the home country.
And of course, the data subjects don't have a clue as to what is going on. Until they get screwed over in whatever way.
If any of you out there has any concrete information about this subject, please let me know (links, books, whatever).
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Second, recall little twenty year old quote on the US public education system:
"If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."
The US has reduced its public school system (with a few exceptions) to a public babysitting service.
Remaining = upper middle class to rich.
Only an American could confuse class with wealth. As an American it's extemely unlikely that you know anything about anywhere beyond your own borders so I must assume you're thinking that "India" is short for "Indiana", but on that basis, I think your comments are pretty much dead on.
It's even worse. Don't forget that we're still importing foreign labour, as well as sending work overseas. Plus as pointed out in the article. Our "core" knowledge is going overseas. If your "secret sauce" is overseas? Then of what need is there for the "core" company? The article also mention's only that it's more expensive here, but doesn't mention weither companies have pursued moving around in the US to cut costs. You know, the same suggestion that the "just move" crowd trots out for labour. There obviously is some place in the US that's cheaper than India that companies are moving to. Also the fact that Indians (and others) are well educated AND moving into the higher-level jobs, bodes ill for the "go to school", or "get retrained" crowd. Then last there's the "jobs that can't be outsourced". First as I pointed out above, what makes you think it will be filled by a US worker, when an "imported" worker will work for less, and be less "problamatic" than a US worker? Second is there enough "face to face" jobs to sustain the US?
If the Indians are so smart, why don't they start up their own companies ?
Yes, it was part selfishness. It was also part optimism. The general story used to sell these sorts of policie is the old: "some jobs will be lost, but in the long run we'll all gain-- all you have to do is retrain for a more cutting edge area."
It was easy enough to believe this was true when manufacturing jobs were going overseas. It was a terrible thing for the peope losing their job, but we sincerely believed that new opportunities would open up for those with a forward-thinking attitude, because we were Americans and that's the natural order of the world. You'll see many Slashdot posters taking that line even today-- comparing the current loss of jobs to the industrial revolution, etc., admonishing us all not to worry, we just have to wait for all the great new even-higher-level jobs that are due to us now that we've offshored those pesky coding duties to foreigners.
Problem is, it's increasingly difficult to see where these new opportunities are going to open up. In the past we had the advantage of a) having more natural resources (coal/steel/etc), and b) being one of the most educated countries in the world. But in a global economy, natural resources don't matter, and we're fast losing our advantage in education, now that India and China are producing thousands of brilliant students (with enough highly-educated people that GE can open a pure research lab over there). Note that India and China are smart enough to adopt national policy to educate their people, while America is allowing its educational system to go to the wolves.
So when this new opportunity comes along-- be it nanotech, biotech, whatever is next-- what insures that Americans won't lose it to foreigners? Unless it's something that by nature can only be done by US workers (and what would that be??), we're screwed. So I think the reason people are panicking now has something to do with the realization that there is nowhere to go from here-- that we've finally been pushed into the ceiling of our own capabilities, and the magical "retrain and retool" approach pro-globalization folks have advocated is not going to carry us when foreign workers can do the same and cost 1/50th as much to feed and house.
These days most of Sony's consumer grade merchandise is not made in Japan because the cost of labor there is too high. Most of Sony's consumer-grade products are as a result, overpriced for the junk that they really are.
He made his money on RedHat options. He can stick his opinion about low wages being great straight up his ass.
Anyone else find it interesting that /. is running more articles on outsourcing at precisely the same time its corporate parent, VA Software, is pushing SourceForge as a corporate outsourcing tool?
/. is not news for nerds, stuff that matters. It's news that pushes VA's agenda, stuff that matters to pushing SourceForge as a tool that will take jobs away from Americans.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/031208/85258_1.html
Exactly where is Michael's venom toward outsourcing now?
Let's face it, friends --
You missed the point as to why they introduce themselves as "Jim" and "Bob." It's not because you can't learn to pronounce Sushruth or Ramu, it's because the gold collars back here don't want their customers to know that they've outsourced jobs. They fear a backlash from consumers when it becomes widely known that SBC Global, a public utility, outsourced its help desk.
Next time, try asking "Bob" where he's from or where he's located. Used to be you'd get answers like Lincoln, Nebraska. Now you get, "We're not allowed to tell you where we are."
A sense of humor is not a value-adding asset. Therefore, it is more likely it was eliminated altogether.
Fundamental research is starting to be outsourced as well.
/ 10 /13/daily30.html
Well, not really. What is described in these articles is applied research. Fundamental research is still primarily the domain of the large research university. When you start seeing people working in India winning Nobel Prizes at rates competitive with people working in North America, that will be a sign that fundamental research is being done in India.
As this situation improves, it greatly decrease the barrier to entering the IT workforce in India and will continue to bring in an army of new workers for years to come
What we have now is an temporary imbalance because India's own economy cannot consume the talents of its own educated people to serve India. The fact that these people now stay in India to work rather than migrate to the US is a great thing for India. After a decade or so 10%/year economic growth India will start competing for the services of its own people. When that happens the cost advantage will disappear. We are already seeing Indian companies outsource or subcontract service sector jobs to lower cost countries.
This is exactly the same scenario that has happened with low value manfacturing. For a couple of decades offshore manufacturing of goods like athletic shoes has chased the lowest wage. As local economies grew when the manufacturing jobs were added to local economies the wage rates went up - along with education - higher value jobs moved in. Now there are no real low wage places left for manufacturing to move to, and it has become more cost effective to invest in automation and similar improvements. The result is that worldwide the number of manufacturing jobs is decreasing. The past few years China has been losing more manufacturing jobs at a higher rate than any other country because wages have gone up, and China has not modernized relative to the rest of the world making their unit costs uncompetitive.
http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2003
While these dislocations are very painful on a temporary basis, it is important to recognize that this is a temporary situation. Things equalize, and the jobs often do came back once the economics equilibrate. Most Japanese cars sold in the US are manufactured in the US, and in fact some are exported to Japan.
Fundamentally as worker productivity increases businesses will find it more and more attractive to hire people because their contribution to a company's profits is greater. Everywhere, on a global basis.
In all the talk about outsourcing to India, I keep wondering when CxO's and VP's will wake up to the fact that India and Pakistan both have *nukes* pointed at each other. It wouldn't take much for *another* military takeover of Pakistan to start a real war (extremists tend to not flinch at the possibility of killing lots of people).
Even without nukes, both countries have a large population they could throw at each other (India being more capable in this area).
Who in their right mind would invest heavily in such an immensely instable region? "We" are "over there" right now (Afganistan and Iraq) so business folks "feel good" about that area. When we leave (ok, *if* we leave) or if there's a big-ish skirmish between Pakistan "rebels" and/or Indian "rebels", we may just see all the jobs come running home.
Mind the gap...
I'm always surprised at how many /.ers love to whine about how terrible outsourcing is and that it makes everything worse. I'm working in a "developing country" (China) and managing for my company (European) outsourced productions. There are many problems which must be solved when outsourcing and if you don't monitor well enough then you will fail. Outsourcing mainly fails because someone doesn't think enough about it and falls for the "wow, 30% savings" trap. It's not a "we signed the contract, now where are the profits" situation.
I'm not saying that outsourcing is the cure-all as some people want to see it, but it certainly can work and then it can also provide good work to people in the home company. In our company most people are still employed and are doing the quality/project management now.
Outsourcing is an old topic (someone mentioned rightly the outsourcing that happened to the English textile sector in the 19th century). It cuts many people and they have to adjust to the new situation which is often painful.
But if the companies stop trying to be more efficient, then the US/European/Japanese economies can't compete with the new and upcoming ones (India/China). The only way to survive is to try and get higher on the skill ladder. This is true for the individual but also for an economy that wants to compete worldwide. You can't demand 5 times the price for something that can be had with the same or slightly less quality somewhere else.
Everyone wants his/her life to improve always but noone wants to accept changes to the current situation. This is not how it works.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/372 069.cms
.. burger flippers!
eat your heart out
The first BW article says that "neoIT, a consultant advising U.S. clients on how to set up shop in India, says it has been deluged by big companies that have been slow to move offshore." Only a few members of Congress want to make the transfer of jobs offshore an issue for the 2004 election. The general public is mostly ignoring the issue. The second BW article says that companies that haven't already offshored are seeing their stock price devalued because management is perceived as being inefficient by not cost cutting.
The only thing that will bring these jobs back is a major disruption to India's economy, such as an all out war with Pakistan, or that outsourcing the jobs is deemed a "risk to national security".
In another news to retailiate against the outsourcing backlash from US India has decided to ban US companies from selling cellphone equipment/chips/software in their market, which is expected to reach 100 million in next two years (another url says The user base is growing at about two million a month and is expected to cross 100 million by 2005.)(US market is about 110 million for comparison) and 500 million by the end of the decade. . Similar huge numbers are expected for PC and car markets. Also, they have decided to ban the cars companies like GM, ford and other US companies like Mcdonalds, Pepsi,coke and Hoolywod movies etc. from selling in India. The govt. of India said that the local people are losing jobs because of this trade.
P.S. in case you are clueless this story is made up. I just wanted to make a point that trade is benefitial to both US and India. So, it is stupid to put barriers against outsourcing/trade etc.
I said pretty much the same, but you said it better.
Don't forget that we're still importing labour as well. So it's a squeeze inside, and out. Throw in the "everything on credit" mentality and the boom could just as easily turn to a bust for the "one paycheck from the street" crowd.
the internet changed everything
Will Gore take the blame?
There are a great many 'businesses' thjat have lost the compeditive edge by failing to outsource. By that, I refer to American workers. They have to charge too much for their hours because they continue to pay for high cost office buildings and upper management.
Make yourself more compeditive. Outsource the management that produces your car, house, clothes and shoes to the third world. By paying a premium to rebranding importers, you make yourself uncompetitive. By paying excessive amounts to uncompetitive stockholders, you price yourself out of the market. Buy direct and pass the savings on to your customer (employer).
I can assure you, when enough people do that, corperate America will begin STRONGLY lobbying against outsourcing.
Of course, there will be political opposition from all sides. Pharmaceutical companies are outsourcing to India with full backing from the U.S. government. Notice how much trouble there is when the elderly try to keep pace by outsourcing their prescription supply to Canada.
Looking at the situation, it seems that the least economic workers at American companies are the executives, especially CEOs. They continue to recieve raises at a rate 10 times higher than the other employees, and recieve 'performance bonuses' even when the bottom line tanks. Perhaps the best ROI can be had by outsourcing the executive staff. I'll bet there are many intelligent and enterprising people in India who would gladly do the job for 1/100th of the usual ten million dollar a year salary.
That's a good idea! Note to Indian coder types: Start saving all the money you can so you can start your own company. Trust me, within five years your job will be outsourced to Haiti or Madagascar, because our multimillionaire CEOs have decided that paying you $4000/year USD is too large a burden on their wealthy shareholders.
Also, invest in your parent company. That way, when they drive up stock prices by announcing your outsourcing, you can cash in.*
Seriously, take advantage of this while you can. If these corporate types have so little loyalty to their own people, imagine how loyal they are to you.
[I wish there was a +1, Drunken, incoherent rant]
* Actually, this is bad advice. It's generally a bad idea to invest exclusively in the company that cuts you a paycheck. If things go bad, you take a double whammy because you're not only out of a job, your investments are in the toilet as well.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Walmart doesn't sell at a loss.
They sell with slim margins, they also get lower prices due to volume.
Their selling price in some cases is even lower then other companies purchase price from the distributer.
Think about selling at a loss, first what do you gain. Secondly how do you explain to the owners that you lost money by selling below cost?
There seems to be a pair of fronts pushing this unfortunate issue but we have made our own bed so now we are stuck sleeping in it. Wall Street, CEO's contracts, etc. have caused the clamor for increased profits, "> 10% profit growth in the following year...". Sounds familiar? I hear and read this type of hooey all the time because some million-dollar-boy has to say this to keep Wall Street from dumping their stock. In order for the million-dollar-boy to keep his job in an economy that has a real low growth or loss, the only thing that really easily controlled is the cost of labor. Raw materials are usually fixed and not easily changable but grunt labor is. So away goes the jobs offshore to where labor costs are insignificant and the education pool is far higher than here. Which takes me to our second point...our educational system is turning out really dumb graduates. Moore's Law can be applied to the demands of technology and the knowledge needed to understand and use it effectively but our higher education system sure isn't keeping up. Our high schools are turning out operational idiots. There was a time where a high school education meant that you could go on from there. Now it requires a Master's Degree or higher to get anywhere but that does not even guarantee that the person knows the subject that they are supposedly educated in. This is not going to be an easy fix unless there is a huge paradigm shift that states we have to re-educate our current workforce and the up-and-coming to compete in the global race of education that we so fail to compete in.
Dude, Apple's products are not made in the U.S.
I've been tracking an iPod that I just ordered through apple.com (only way to get it engraved), and FedEx shows its origination as Shanghai, China.
I bought a Powerbook 1 1/2 years ago, and that tracked from Asia as well, not the U.S.
I agree with your overall point, we do get what we pay for, but Apple shouldn't be the role model for how to keep production in this country when they've already been doing production overseas for a long time.
Actually your post makes a good point. How many times have we read "How dare they flood my profession, those "not doing it for the love" MSCE/HTML codemonkeys". And yet people don't have much of a choice. Starve, or work in a loveless but paying profession.
Quite frankly the silver lining in all this, is that most of the people with these attitudes will have their trial by fire, were all this nonsense is burned out of them, and they realize that life isn't as simple as they thought it was, and doesn't respond well to simplistic advice.
Are consulting firms like McKinsey & Co are touting the benefits of offshoring jobs overseas because the benefits are REAL or because they get paid big bucks helping executives plan the move overseas?
/end rant
Think about it...if you get paid millions to help companies move jobs offshore, wouldn't you be tempted to aggressively exaggerate the benefits while downplaying all the negatives too?
What negatives? How about US national security being jeopardized due to massive US deficit, consistently declining income tax revenues and inevitable budget cuts?
How the heck are we supposed to bomb other countries or sell weapons to allies if all we can afford to build are paper airplanes in 10 years?
And the filthy rich fucks who call anyone questioning their excessively greedy motives as unpatriotic will probably be the first to change their nationality or move to a mansion overseas when the shit hits the fan.
The rest of us will be left here, with no money to defend our once great country against royally pissed off foriegn countries we've "bullied" (in their minds) during our position as the world leader.
Doesn't anyone else see that offshoring most high tech jobs or destroying the income base of the American middle/upper-middle class will eventually fuck up our national security? Not having enough money for defense and relying on foreigners to build/design/patent our future weapons is fucking retarded and a clear threat to national security.
Doesn't anyone else see that people fucking with voting machines (modifying certified machines & selling them as still certified) should be put into the same prison as terrorists? It should be considered fucking treason!
Doesn't anyone else see the hypocrisy of touting "free trade & globalism" to justify offshoring jobs while at the same time outlawing American's right to purchase/import perscription drugs from Canada?
What the fuck? Is everyone else asleep or stupidly buying everything said by Fox News or simply glad to pocket the extra few thousand bucks in tax breaks to give a shit about what happens to our country in the coming years? The interest we'll be charged will be worse than any credit card company you fucktards! We'll end up with 75% tax rate in 10 years to make up for all this stupid ass crap if things keep going this way.
BTW, anyone know how much the economy is currently propped up by every $1 spent by the govt? $2, $3, $5, $10? (hint: it isn't 1:1 ratio) When our massive deficit spending comes to an end, what impact will it have on our economy for every $1 cut?
Why then do I support globalization? Because it is an inevitable fact of modern life - I believe in adjusting to the world around me instead of having unrealiatic expectations that the world will conform to my desires.
I believe that the key requirement for white collar workers in both the U.S. and in lower work cost areas like India is the willingness and enthusiasm for making education a life-long persuit. With certainty, many of us who have been blessed in the past with very high wages in the U.S. will feel some economic pain, but I believe that workers in the U.S. must adopt a mindset that includes a passion to compete dollar-for-dollar with workers anywhere in the world - this means constant education and an eagerness to really understand the business needs of employers and consulting customers. For the IT industry, this means that the focus must be on business needs over technology - that technology is a tool, and unless you are a university professor or work in a research lab, then business processes are as important as computer science.
It's been planned a long time ago. Those forgein students are flying in here on scholarships funded in part by US companies looking to move their operations offshore. They are doing it because dumb asses in Armani suits think it will be cheaper that way. It's why US manufacturing has been contracting for the last 30 years and why big companies have had no major technical hires for the last 20 years. Management seeks to thwart rising competition by owning it. That might sound good if you while you sit, retired, in your company owned New York condo or private plane with your billions of dollars worth of golden parachute comming in every year. It sound really stupid if you have any common sense.
It's suicide. The big dogs are turning off the lights here in the US and they think that they can keep the rest of the world paying them. It's not going to happen. When the industry and brainpower that makes it work have moved, the rest of the world will turn it's back on us because we won't have anything left to offer. OK, we will still have food, and that's a noble export, but the rest of the world will be able to match and surpass our productivity in time.
The answer it to compete. There's still enough of us who know how to get things done and those willing to learn to turn things around. The big consolidated companies are stupid and inefficient. This is why companies like Honda and Sony can dominate US markets, despite paying their own emplyees more than US companies do. The big dogs are relying on anti-competive laws, public ignorance and apathy to have their way. They can be defeated. Make things! Sell them! If the big dogs come to buy you out, make sure that it's a good deal for every one of your employees and stick it to them. It's not easy and it's getting harder all the time.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This situation will continue until minimum wage is the same (or eliminated) in all countries.
What we are seeing is "water running down hill". Eventually we will have a global economic "sea level". Some people will have no skills and live at "sea level". Most people will live at "about 750 feet". Some will live "on mountain tops".
The sooner we get to the new steady state the better as it will reduce anxiety globally.
"It's a reaction to ESR meddling with the jargon file and putting in that rubbish about a strong libertarian element in the geek crowd. We're reminding the world that when we say "I'm a libertarian..." we mean "Please government save my job, more trade barriers, more tariffs, more protectionism!"
As opposed to the loud D!OH from the other side when it's pointed out to them that other countries engage in protectionism too. You can critisize the policy all you want, but you look ignorant when you ignore the facts of the other side to push your own agenda.
Saddam has tortured and murdered tens of thousands of people. George W. Bush has not.
It only has power and force, however, if free software is defeated. Free software users welcome developers in other countries. Only closed source shops have to worry about the rest of it. With free software, everyone can know as much as they need to and anyone can compete. Those that don't adopt free software will soon find themselves at a great competitive disadvantage.
That said, the shift in basic industry and research is much more serious than people think. When the heavy idustry knowledge is moved, it's gone and has to be rebuilt from scratch. There's no substitute for doing things. Anyone can sit down at a computer, study souce code and fix IT problems. Only people who have run a steel factory, for example, can look at PIDs, proceedures and the like and judge them competently.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
How is this news?
Because it's affecting us every day. A significant percentage of Slashdot readers are out of work right now as a direct result of outsourcing. If you haven't noticed, you're damned lucky.
But dozens of America's biggest investors in India -- don't worry, I won't name names -- simply refused to talk.
Why the cop out? He needs to tell us what he learns. The little wink wink, nod nod to his advertisers and the people he interviewed satisfies neither them nor us.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Compensation committees are made of CEOs, so they just bid each others' prices up. It's essentially a collaboration between the fat-cats to raise their salaries. Those salaries are never going down...all the B.S. about stock options occurred after the government started taxing salaries over 1 million. Then they just gave themselves more stock options.
You folks ought to see this for what it is: class warfare. But of course we live in America, where anyone can become rich if they work hard enough, right?
You are right to ask this question. But many people on /. form opinions on the basis of such statements. Many don't read the articles linked, many don't bother to get correct information even if a website is clearly listed and so on.
For example, many slashdotters believe that foreigners are not allowed to work in India on the basis of the news that an Indian company didn't want to hire a foreigner.
It was refuted by many Indians but the statement continues to be floated around.
So it was quite likely that someone would have concluded from the parent post that the attempt at humour was actually an attempt to hide the pain caused by reckless and callous people in India partying at the cost of American tax-payers.
By drawing attention to the conditions in India, I wanted to emphasize that our conditions are much worse than yours, that's all.
And no, my sense of humour is not outsourced. But I don't have a job and savings are going to run out soon. And that does affect my sense of humour.
"I actually think capitolism is the way to go, but unless we get our act together and start inventing new technologies and exploiting them here, we are in for some rough times ahead."
I recommend we invent the Slashdot-autoposter. We'll be competitive in a global market, and the envy of the world. Plus it will be difficult to outsource this "new technology" to a foreign country because...well, they're not us.
I am so sick of hearing tech workers whine about loosing their jobs to outsourcing. Yes it is a problem. Yes it is unjust. Here's the travesty:
It's our own damn fault.
IT workers have allowed themselves to be pushed around by business owners because of their high wages/salaries. At the end of the day the result is ugly:
* Entire business units with at will contracts
* No established standards on who can do the work
* No use of worker leverage to get better working conditions.
Here are three solutions:
1) Get laws passed requiring foreign companies to be held to US standards for handling data. Restrict outsourcing only to nations willing to play by our rules - like HIPPAA, Fair Credit Reporting act etc.
2) Unionize. Get collective bargaining agreements that offer a level of protection against unfair labor practices and ensure fair working conditions (none of that emergency saturday meeting to test loyalty thing). Mass layoffs and other job actions become a little more difficult as workers have to be paid per the CBA rather than individually negotiated. CBAs also allow the union a say when outsourcing occurs. Unions aren't tough to start, either. Call the US NLRB for mor info.
3) Establish licensing requirments. Construction workers (who really aren't that far off from IT Contractors) have been very good at getting better wages, conditions, etc in a business where people are a dime a dozen and you can use foreign workers.
-- $G
unfortunately money and power make men drunk with greed and envy. Only in a utopian world would what you say come to pass. In our world someone will always get greedy and spoil it for the rest of us. Successful outsourcing will eventually make those foreign companies greedy and drive their wages up, which will drive those jobs back to the US once the monetary gap closes to the point where its not worth the international travel, timezone problems, or language barriers.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
You, sir, are a complete moron.
Really. They call themselves PhD's, but they are not the same as someone who has a PhD from Purdue, MIT, etc... Schools in third world countries do NOT educate with the same intensity as modern countries (US, UK, EU). Give me a Swiss/German/US PhD to an Indian/Pakistani "PhD" any day. 'Nuff said.
2. Class is an almost universally employed denominator in India that signifies a person's, actually, the family's amount of wealth.
For example, read the article http://fecolumnists.expressindia.com/full_column.p hp?content_id=23147
found by a hurried search.
If a hurried search doesn't satisfy you, kindly navigate to http://www.ncaer.org/, the home page of National Council of Applied Economic Research of India and peruse the publications therein.
If formation of conclusions based on tedious collation of data is beyond your ken, please google for "India+middle+class" and see the almost ubiquitous synonymity of middle class and reasonable wealth, even amongst economists.
Where does the outsourcing stop? It's interesting to contemplate the cost-benefits derived from outsourcing other knowledge base professions like legal services and medicine. It seems the only 'safe' professions to be in are the service sector, film and music, sports, education, governement and the military.
I did not protest when auto and chip fabrication went overseas because my job was not affected and I benefited by the lower prices. I don't see how programmers can argue that this job transfer is any different simply because it affects us personally.
And the argument about how short-sighted these companies are for moving projects offshore when eventually Americans won't be able to purchase the goods the business produces, assumes that the programmer population plays a major role in the market. How many programmers are there in the US anyway? Last figure I saw was 568,000 in 1996 with a prediction that the US would need 700,000 by 2006. But with a working population of 138.6 million we're just a tiny splat on the market windshield.
I like how the hard working motivated people in India are growing up accomplishing something, whereas the children of the fat empire get creationist theory in their broken-education-system school.
The school system in India might not be that great either, but I think they have a lot of children who are motivated enough to better themselves; they probably don't sit all day watching Ozzy and Dismissed, but instead learn something productive. The rich world has all the luxury, and we've become lazy because of it.
I remember how someone commented (in light of DMCA), that the next new technology might be created by a Chinese and his Indian friend, because children in USA would be restricted by law to learn anything. No such law is needed, we can see that children would rather look at Britney shaking her tits than at IC diagrams.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
In an information age isn't one of the most important factos in the labor pool is it's education and technical skill?
One misspelling, one grammar error, and one punctuation error in a sentence about education.
(And two incomplete sentences in the reply pointing it out.)
I wish I could moderate this +1 insightful. This is a great comment.
I am dismayed if you are actually receiving a Ph.D. in that field as your response is both specious and nonsensical.
Quality has never entered this equation - it is simple economics - corporations (and local and federal government) will continue to expand offshoring to that global spot which has the cheapest labor. It has expanded beyond manufacturing as global communications' systems have improved to the point they are today.
You are right about one thing, though: legislation isn't the answer as "our politicians" are owned by their coporate donors and are active in helping them offshore as many jobs as possible.
The only answer is the same one which took place in certain Latin American countries (and predictably so): the violent targeting and assassination of CEOs and senior management by the people. 'Nuff said!
Do you mean funneling the wealth to a smaller percentage of people and increasing the masses dependence on these people?
Are you saying that it is more important for BigCompany to make money than you? BigCompany needs the money more than you do, so it can invest the R&D dollars to improve our society, because you can't?
while it seems true that oursourcing and loss of jobs is here to stay for some period, there is at least one thing that's missing from the discussion over the near term/longer term: the us$ is under quite alot of pressure to devalue relative to other currencies. my favorite (bearish) economist, Stephen Roach (morgan stanley) sees at least another 22%. not that that solves the problem.
but face it guys: the world is - or should be - on track for greater equilibrium, which - in the u.s. - means a lower standard of living all around. get your big screen tv's now.
Two things that aren't really addressed here.
1. For the US market to adjust fully, there's going to have to be a real estate market crash.
2. Companies may be saving a lot by outsourcing to India, but it's not going to stay that way. After all, once the business is in place, and they become experenced, what do they need the US companies for? They will cut out the middle-man and sell direct to consumers.
3. What's with the DOW? It's 10k + again.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I am tired of derogatory comments about the Indian education being 3rd rate and all the developers in India and other 3rd world country being uneducated and cheap. Well guys - let me get this fact straight. Some of the Indian graduates I have met will give the best of the ./ters the run for your money. The world is shrinking now with cheap air travel , disappearing boundaries and internet. People in the 3rd world countries are fast catching up and in the process the western countries are fast losing their edge in the tech.
Last year the largest number of graduates in american universities were Indians. What makes you think that all these graduates stayed in US after their studies to take up a job, specially in this miserable economy. Of course a large share of these graduate students go back and work for companies like Sun, Oracle, General Electrics in Bangalore. And there is a large alumni of students from american universities working in these campuses for low wages - now can you still call them uneducated. I cannot quote the most accurate numbers but more than 2/3rd the Phds in American Universities were foreign nationals. more than 66% - do you really believe that all these guys were absorbed by the american workforce or they chose to stay here to get a job. Maybe not - and they form the core of these groups.
I know several graduates from MITs and Harvards and other esteemed univs at US, who decided to go back to India to take advangtage of the growth there. I have studied from Harvard myself and have a very well paying job here in Boston. I am looking for an opportunity to move back to India.
So the next time you guys think about the 3rd world and 3rd rate employees in India - just think twice. You may be talking about somebody like me who worked in US for several years studied at american universities and now works from India for a low Indian salary. Have some perspective -
--Tom
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
As someone who has been doing volunteer work against offshoring for over thirty years (and when I started protesting the offshoring of manufacturing jobs - I was still a computer scientist) I'd like to point out that you've missed the big picture - sort of!
The corps are offshoring any and all jobs they can - this isn't really about just the offshoring of programming jobs. And for the record - an extraordinary number of filmn, music and government jobs have already been offshored.
Next time you see an animated movie - or any other regular movies - check out the credits!
But more critically, they are offshoring the future of the majority of Americans.
I am tired of derogatory comments about the Indian education being 3rd rate and all the developers in India and other 3rd world country being uneducated and cheap. Well guys - let me get this fact straight. Some of the Indian graduates I have met will give the best of the ./ters the run for your money. The world is shrinking now with cheap air travel , disappearing boundaries and internet. People in the 3rd world countries are fast catching up and in the process the western countries are fast losing their edge in the tech.
Last year the largest number of graduates in american universities were Indians. What makes you think that all these graduates stayed in US after their studies to take up a job, specially in this miserable economy. Of course a large share of these graduate students go back and work for companies like Sun, Oracle, General Electrics in Bangalore. And there is a large alumni of students from american universities working in these campuses for low wages - now can you still call them uneducated. I cannot quote the most accurate numbers but more than 2/3rd the Phds in American Universities were foreign nationals. more than 66% - do you really believe that all these guys were absorbed by the american workforce or they chose to stay here to get a job. Maybe not - and they form the core of these groups.
I know several graduates from MITs and Harvards who decided to go back to India to take advangtage of the growth there. I have studied from Harvard and have a very well paying job here in Boston. I am actively looking for an opportunity to move back to India.
So the next time you guys think about the 3rd world and 3rd rate employees in India - just think twice. You would be talking about somebody like me who worked in US for several years studied at american universities and now works from India for a low Indian salary.
I think this is another bad assumption on the side of American.
The "assumption" that India will eventually become level in cost with the U.S. is based on history. Japan and Taiwan are good examples. It will happen to India. It may never be perfectly level, but it will be much closer than it is now.
The real reason that US students aren't going into these fields is that they don't have the work ethic or the dedication for it. They would rather sell wireless phones for commision and make a quick buck than educate themselves for the future of our country.
The reason people don't pursue degrees (especially advanced degrees) in science and engineering is becuase there is a low probability of landing a decent, stable career after graduating.
Lots of science and engineering grads graduate and end up waiting tables or working some other McJob. And spare me any "it's their own fault" line. There are less jobs then graduates. It's simple.
Why would anybody want to waste away 8 years of their life getting a Chemical Engineering Ph.D. when it will likely land them some post doc position for 25K a year. Hardly enough to cover their student loans. No thanks.
Don't you wish everybody did?
Just read this thread and the websites/links given at the top. That is where we need to take America. And then the friggin economy or outsourcing won't matter so much, and we can relax a bit and enjoy our lives:
b oa rd.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=920274
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/du
Please read the website pages I linked to at the top of the thread!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Sure we do have children. After all when we are dead, who is going to pay all the National Debt? Plug the Deficit ?
And who is going to finance our medicines while we are old and dying. Of course our children !
But you know what? Someday they are going to be dead too. Hopefully they will die wiser than us, so that their children can live a little better than what we afforded to our own.
Face the facts. Logic takes you only so far. Sometimes a little too far. Witness the prize that Rumsfeld was recently give for his "logical labyrinth."
I would prefer Keynes "rhetoric" anyday to Rumsfeld's logic. Thank you very much.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
the internet changed everything
... "Al Gore". Draw your own conclusions.
Thanks Al Gore! Hey wait, "Bangalore"
Actually, a lot of indians do start up their own companies. The obvious problem of-course is that it's difficult to start-up a company whose products are aimed solely for foreign markets. But that's kind of changing now. As India's infrastructure improves and provides the demand that's required to provide the ignition spark, we start seeing a lot of IITians going and starting their own companies. This has already started happening with companies that started by providing solutions to some domestic mill machinery manufacturer and are now right up there in the field of automation. To be very frank, lots of these outsourcing outfits are really not made of what are considered as "engineers" here. It's not uncommon to see ads in newspapers that say, "Unemployed ? Bright career prospects at call center !! No skills required !!". Of course, the offshore R&D centres that are run by companies do attract a lot of talent, but you won't see too many self respecting engineers working at outfits like Wipro !
You forget to point out that these aren't poor kids from poor countries. These are RICH kids from poor countries. They are being subsidized to study. They don't have to pay their own bills.
So please have pity on the American kids taking out loans and working two jobs to pay for their education. Heaven forbid they want to:
1) Pay off their loans.
2) Get practical domain level experience in industry.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
As an Indian.
Let me ask you a question. Why would your average Indian PhD rather live in the US than in India. Why do most of the Indians who come to the US rather stay HERE than go back?????
Yes, they are paid more here than in India. But at the same time, cost of living is far less in India, correct.
Why do so many people want to live in the United States. At the same time, why do they think Americans are so stupid and lazy?????
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
THANK YOU for highlighting a core cause of all this. Most Americans aren't interested in the math and sciences these days and the current trend with the administration is to squeeze funding out of the public American schools and pump that directly in the military programs and private companies like Lockheed and Raytheon. Recently I read a review about research jobs in the US military. Many senior scientists are retiring and they have an extreme shortage finding qualified American citizens as replacements. The question was raised who was going to develop the next gen. F-22 fighter plane? While the current administration loves to pour money blindly into current Pentagon programs, many of which under normal circumstances and budgets would have been axed for being too impractical and based on unproven technologies (exotic any damn nano-whatever technology or suits that gives our troops camouflage that renders them invisible in all environments). The sad fact is that politicians (esp. Republicans) enjoy blaming public schools for failing and keep trying to push the school voucher program to hold a high degree of accountability for our educational programs (Parents aren't helping much either these days when they take the blame out for their children's behavior on these poorly paid teachers. When its the parent's own failure to raise their own children).
It irks me when I here about Congress dropping the Pentagon's requirement to give an accounting balance of their spending. Before the Congress removed this requirement the Pentagon used to be unable to account for 4 Trillion dollars out 7 Trillion in their yearly transactions. Why is it that we turn a blind eye under such wasteful spending in the military-industrial-govt complex yet, bash the public school systems with very little funds and poorly paid teachers. Inside the Pentagon: Franklin "Chuck" Spinney story These children are the future of American minds who will be the engineers, programmers, scientists (with PhDs). Yet we squeeze the funding of education today for short term gains for private companies involved with the military complex, that lobbied heavily for these programs and where heavy contributers to our politicians. Point is that we are sacrificing our futures by not investing in education at the lowest levels today. Perhaps some of those American kids will take up programming or take up a research oriented science. Till then the trend will be that jobs like the ones in GE in be going to Russia, China, India and other countries that INVEST in public education and have strong math and science backgrounds. There are many poor people in South America and Africa too, but you won't see jobs heading out there or in the foreseeable future. Because they didn't invest in the education that requires their citizens to compete in a high tech world and for high end research jobs. Till then sit back and enjoy that Missile Defense Shield that will cost the American tax payers billions. Which could have been invested in to our schools and retraining for the recent unemployed. No, we won't do that because its not sexy enough when we make investments like that. Instead we're going with the advise of an imbecile Rumsfeld's "spiral" program of development of our weapons missile systems which don't require verification or enough tests to prove the system works. Translation: Blank check to the miltary-industrial-govt complex with no oversight or accountability. While our children funding for our schools is cut and teachers have to buy textbooks out of their own pockets for their students. Its a f#@king outrage and disgusts me that we allow this to happen in the country. Then blame other countries for taking our high tech jobs, when our own citizenary 'could' have provided those jobs with more investment in training and education. Till then sleep with the comfort that billions will be spent on a system that won't be protecting you and lining the coffers of private defense contractors, while our school system is allowed
You have a point there, most of the people that can afford the technical education in their countries are well above in terms of wealth.
As opposed to wasting money on unemployment insurance, and the other "costs" that those former "expensive, overpaid" Americans will bring forth (1)
Or were you under the impression that the world is consequence free? Greed costs everyone, but mostly the one's least able to defend themselves against it. Welcome to corporatism, rhymes with "new world order".
(1) Also you assume that sending the jobs overseas is really benefiting Americans in general, instead of the top 5% that are engaging in it.
India and China won't be able to progress at the speed of Japan or Taiwan. Japan was benefited greatly from its post war development with 100 or so of modernization. Taiwan benefit from the former ruling party KMT taking a large chunk of post-WWII China's wealth to a island of only 8 million people. And both countries benefit from a large and frendily export market namely US market to support their growth.
However, China and India combined has 1/3 of the world's population. US market, even the entire world market won't be able to support them the same kind of growth for Taiwan or Japan.
With the 9% growth econemy growth rate substained over the next 20 years, China may get a chance to pass Japan in 2025 in GDP. However, China will have 10 times the population of Japan so that's labor cost would still be much lower by then. India is probably further in the timeline to be able to reach that.
The leveling will be at the expense of sliding in the US combining with increasing in the India and China.
Out of a population of 1 billion, 300 million = absolutely, wretchedly poor with barely enough to eat
Only an American could confuse class with wealth. As an American it's extemely unlikely that you know anything about anywhere beyond your own borders so I must assume you're thinking that "India" is short for "Indiana", but on that basis, I think your comments are pretty much dead on.
As a citizen of Indiana, I can assure you that we don't have 1 billion citizens. I can also assure that virtually every Hoosier is well fed. In America, poor people are fat. It comes from democracy.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
I would be ok with you guys if you guys actually start writing quality code. 100% of the Indian guys I've worked with in the past have been 100% dissapointment. Sorry to say that but it's true. My friends and colleagues all share the same sentiment.
And why is a "yes" a "no", and a "no" a "yes", or maybe something else altogether? Why is it when Indians say, "Okay sure, I'll deliver that program/report/whatever by tomorrow", and when tomorrow comes, it becomes "Something came up, I'll deliver it the next day", and on and on.. and when you finally get the damned program/report/whatever in the end, it's a piece of shit? I honestly want to know.
And a friend of mine had to work with this Indian contractor who gets a higher pay than him, and guess what, Mr. Expert Contractor doesn't even know how to charge a laptop battery.
A lot of this off-shoring is being driven by the fear business consultants are instillling in their clients. Business consultants have to come up with the NEXT NEW THING or risk losing their clients. This year that happens to be "everyone is off-shoring, and you are screwed if you dont". Notice most of the off-shore scare stories are coming from business consultants like Forrester, Delloite-Touch, McKinsey, etc.
Consulting is mainly an idea industry. And there are lots of smart business guys in India and Asia. I waiting for the the last laugh when they outsource their own positions out of the country!!!!!
This is something all Indians would love to dream of...
Year : 2050
Place : Two Americans at IBM, USA.
Currency Conversion Rate: Rs.1 = $1000
Alex : Hi John, you didn't come yesterday to office?
John : Yeah, I was in Indian Embassy for stamping.
Alex: Oh really, what happened, I heard that nowadays it has become very strict.
John : Yeah, but I managed to get it.
Alex : How long it took to get it stamped?
John : Oh, it was nasty man, long queue. That's why it got delayed. I went there at 2 am itself and waited and returned by 4pm.
Alex : Really? In India, it is a matter of an hour to get stamped for USA.
John : Yeah, but that is because who in India will be interested in coming to USA man, their economy has been booming.
Alex : So, when are you leaving?
John : Anytime, after receiving my tickets from the client in India and you know, I will be getting a chance to fly Air- India. Sort of dream come true.
Alex : How long are you going to stay in India?
John : What do you mean by how long? I will be settled in India, my company has promised me that they will process my Hara Patta.
Alex : Really, lucky person man, it is very difficult to get a Hara Patta in India.
John : Yeah, that's why, I am planning to marry an Indian girl there.
Alex : But you can find lots of US girls in
Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
John : But, I prefer Indian girls because they are beautiful and cultured.
Alex : Where did you get the offer, Bangalore?
John : Yeah, salary is good there, but cost of living is quite high, it is Rs. 1000/- for a single room accommodation.
Alex : I see, that's too much for US people, Rs. 1/ = $ 1000/-. Oh God! What about in Hyderabad, Chennai & Mumbai?
John : No idea, but it is less than what we have in Bangalore. It is like the world headquarters of Software.
Alex : I heard, almost all the Indians are having one personal Robot for help.
John : You can get a BMW car for Rs. 5000/-, and a personal Robot for less than Rs. 7500/-. But my dream is to purchase Ambassador, which costs Rs.200000/-.
Alex : By the way, who is your client?
John : A pure Indian origin company, specializing in Embedded Software.
Alex : Oh, really, lucky to work in a pure Indian origin company. They are really intelligent and unlike American Body shoppers who have opened their Fly-by-night outfits in India. Indian companies pay you in full even when you are on bench. My friend Paul Allen, it seems, used his bench time to visit Bihar, the most livable place in India, probably world. There you have full freedom and no restrictions. You can do whatever you want! I wonder how that state has perfected that system.
John : Yeah man, you are right. I hope our America also follows their footsteps.
Alex : How are you going to cope with their language?
John : Why not? From my school days I have been learning Hindi as my first language here at New York.At the Consulate they proficiency in tested my Hindi and were quite impressed by my cent percent score in TOHIL (Test of Hindi as International Language).
Alex : So, you are going to have fun there.
John : Yeah, I will be traveling in the world's fastest train, world's largest theme park, and the famous Bollywood where you can see actors like, Vrithik(son of Hrithik), and all. Esselworld is also near to Bollywood.
Alex : You know, the Indian PM is scheduled to visit US next year, he may then relax the number of visas.
John : That's true. Last month, Narayanamurthy Jr. visited White House and donated Rs. 2000/- for infrastructure development at Silicon Valley and has promised more if we follow the model of Silicon City of Bangalore. Bill Gates also got a chance of meeting him. Very lucky person.
Alex : But, Indian government is planning to split Narayanamurthy Jr.'s Infosys & Sons.
John : He is a hard worker man like his father, he can build any number of Infosys like this. Every minute he is getting Rs. 1000/-. It seems, if you keep al
Your argument is good as far as it goes, but you make one crucial oversight: in global trade liberalization there will be winners and loser. In the long term it all evens out, but in the short term it is the role of government to implement public policies to help the losers. That means investing more in retraining, relocation and other programs to help affected workers and businesses.
Someone else has addressed the "paradox of thrift." Just look to Japan for an example of this. While many have correctly pointed the finger at their corrupt banking system, corporate cost cutting had at least as much to do with the collapse of their economy and the current bout of deflation.
If the US goes down this road and our economy implodes, a world that depends on American consumers as its engine of prosperity will suffer. That includes India and China.
I'm not an American citizen but I own a U.S.-based IT startup. I'm not from India or China.
Being just a fresh startup, we do not have employees yet, but I'll assure you that when we do start employing, we will employ highly qualified American citizens and residents, and not do some IT outsourcing to India. Two reasons:
1. I believe every company, whether in USA or another country, has a social responsibility for the people of that country.
2. I have worked with Indian colleagues before in the past (before my startup) and I have to say that I'm extremely disappointed with their work:
- Code that does not follow coding standards... check.
- Broken promises... check.
- Articulate incompetence... check.
- Lack of motivaton... check.
In the end it comes down to work ethic. Americans have a far better work ethic than so many Indians I've come across.
I am not American.
I talk funny, I walk funny, I code funny.
I put 'only' after every sentence only.
I have no leadership qualities. I do as I am told.
No, I am not confusing India with Indiana. I know that India is composed of all Carribean islands.
+ Management in corporate America used to be seeded with people
who were motivated to think, invent, and build.
- Management in corporate America today is mostly composed of people
who are primarily motivated by power.
We had a glut of people who wanted the glory and cash
but were not quite bright enough to actually invent anything.
So we built up the mangement class to give the personable yet
otherwise untallented, positions of power. The inventors thought this was great!
They got to spend all of their time in the labs and workshops.
Living for the moment of dicovery was suddenly unfashionable in
corporate America. After that, its all easy math. A labor market of billions,
or a labor market of millions? Not a hard choice when your only goal is
lining your pockets with cash.
We gave away the store. We call it a natural process of free markets,
but that is just to make ourselves feel better. The facts are; we built
the premier educational, scientific, and manufacturing
base in all of history. As we maximised consumer use we exported manufacturing
and made the items disposable. We raised taxes and tuitions to support
our university systems, and granted students from other countries full scholarships.
We returned the newly educated to high population low wage markets. This was not
accidental you know.
And now we pay untallented power-mongers millions a year to export millions
of jobs, and give them millions in severance when we discover they stole
millions from the till.
-- "It was as if the paint factories had decided to deal direct with the art galleries." - Thursday Next
Head-on dude!
I'm not sure I agree, but it definitely deserves more than an 0.
Leaders in US worker replacement haven't always fared especially well. The reason is that the MBA's and attorneys that are the figureheads of corporate America frequently don't properly figure in the real security risks involved here. For example, at least $3 Billion of the 12 Billion stolen from Enron's shareholders involved losses in India-which "coincidentally" was the source of the lion's share of the Enron IT staff.
Simply put: the US needs to export more goods and services (and not jobs) than it imports. Clearly we're failing at this. Check out Lou Dobb's reporting about this whole mess.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Outsourcing is taking your jobs away. People start talking about various crappy things - 1. Indian workers arent good enuf.
2. Indian companies dont pay their workers well.
3.Only americans lose because of globalization (never mind the returns coke,pepsi and similar companies get from indian markets and pay their share holders here in US)
4. americans are more moral than indians (LMAO!)...
take it easy people.. you are plain old racists.
1) You lay someone off here in the U.S. as an example. Guess what, that is money that is not going to be used to buy products that most likely the parent company makes to some degree. Does someone in India buy dishwashers, tablesaw, etc. Not to be mean but not in the volume as here.
There are people working despite outsourcing. Programmers and researchers arent the whole economy, if u didnt know already.
India has a 4 times the population as the US. Only the middle class population in india is almost as much as the entire US population. When they can make stuff as cheap as Indian middle class can buy it, then the fact that US is the only consumer driven market will be history.
2) Tribal knowledge that is desperately needed to stay within a company for future development. That is all gone, and personally the quality that comes from an outsourced job is short of atrocious. That comes from watching quite a few projects at two different companies go completey down in flames.
Sure.. most of the fortune 500 companies are multinationals - not just US based. So, they dont care as long as they have a reliable pool of people somewhere in the world.
Calling all outsourced projects trash is racist. US coders arent much better than people from other nations - who ever says otherwise is merely acting blind.
Funny, I work at a major university and know plenty of Phd's in physics, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, mathematics, and computing sciences that are one step away from "Ding! would you like fries with that?"...
I wouldn't have a problem with doing a graduate degree, but with the darwinian job market you can find your over-specialized self out on the street in no time. Where's the ROI?
Oh yes, material sciences and nano-tech are all the rage for the next five years.. better get into that.
-A few years later-
Oh, well, we don't do nanotech or material sciences as they've been outsourced, and it seems as though you're 40 years old now, so I think you'd better retrain into a community college chemistry prof, or possibly a manager at Chipotle's. Anybody over 40 can't effectively innovate, you know.
You make an excellent point: Indians are eduacted HERE; in the US. Sure seems like we still have something worthwhile to sell to the rest of the planet. On a sidenote, if Indian education isn't 2nd rate, then why do the mojority come here? Educate your own people so I don't have to spend $100,000 to send my son to a tech school in ten years.
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
When I say "best", I'm referring to the greatest opportunity, not the highest paid or prestigious. If a man gets laid off 4 years before his retirement, then he should be able to use the credits towards almost any education.
This sounds very protectionist in flavour, but it's the exact opposite. When workers put their heart & soul into making a company great, then they should have some ownership in it. Because of their labour, the company now has the option of starting a new factory overseas. There is a lot of momentum in the company which was generated by the workers. Investors should be forced to factor this concept in their investment decisions.
Corporations shouldn't be allowed to exist. Their existence alone makes it too easy to do what they do. But then again, I don't understand corporate law. So, I can't really say that.
testing out my trending skills
You make an excellent point: Indians are eduacted HERE; in the US. Sure seems like we still have something worthwhile to sell to the rest of the planet. On a sidenote, if Indian education isn't 2nd rate, then why do the mojority come here? Educate your own people so I don't have to spend $100,000 to send my son to a tech school in ten years. oops, there's my US education at work: majority.
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
I think people are starting to see what globalization is all about -- screwing the little guy.
I find your definition of "little guy" offensive.
To me, the little guy in the scenario is not the American who may have to pick a less fancy second car, but the Indian who can finally afford food and maybe even some kind of education and health care for his kids. He is also the biggest winner of the story.
The only way I can make sense of the quote above is if you don't consider Indians "people" or "guys".
As an indication of just how long, when I entered the university in 1973, over 50% of the physics grad students were Chinese, not one of my calculus section leaders could speak English, and at least 30% of the engineering grad students were from overseas. This has clearly been going on for longer than most of us think.
However, I see this as progress - education is a good thing because it raises the economic status of people the world over. And if someone discovers a cure for cancer or a usable fusion energy source, I don't care where they were born or where they were educated.
GROSSE POINTE, MI--As part of the ongoing trend toward replacing U.S. workers with foreign labor, the marital duties of United Carborundum CEO Howard Reinhardt have been outsourced to his Mexican groundskeeper, industry sources revealed Monday.
"It was time for a change," said Reinhardt's wife Melanie, who has been married to the CEO for 17 years and has conducted her sexual business almost exclusively with him since 1984. "While I was generally satisfied with the level of servicing that I received under Howard, it was my feeling that a younger, more aggressive hand on the tiller might bring some new ideas into play. No matter how mutually satisfying the old deal was, its time had passed."
Read on...
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
So how would McDonalds exporting low end jobs to India in your ficticious story help Americans out of work.
Point is: For the everyday guy, all that makes 0 difference whatsoever.
Your argument is self negating: getting rid of the programmers who "know" the product is happening anyway - they are being replaced with Indians.
And then the company will die.
Some companies will wake up before this happens, and manage to retain people that know something.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Some historical background.
When India became independent, socialism was the hip ideology that seemed to be the obvious way of the future. So India closed its borders to trade and built a planned economy. The resulting vast poverty was, in hindsight, an inevitable consequence.
Meanwhile, the US stubbornly stuck to a free enterprise system, and very free trade. Not coincidentally, it became the by far richest and most powerful country in the history of world.
Now India is opening up its economy a bit, and some of its people are starting to make a bit of a nicer living. And this causes Americans to complain bitterly about their supposed poverty and pain, and demand the same policies that made India the economic basket case it is.
Funny stuff.
For some reason everyone thinks they're an expert on economics. Proud science nerds have no problem spouting off theories disproven centuries ago in a field they have never studied. It's as if the astronomy debate was dominated by the competing astrology and ptolemyian factions, with the science based astronomers futilely trying to point out the data from their telescopes and space probes to the scorn of a distrustful public.
In a few months the traffic to the Wal-Mart will be back. You see not too many people have the strength of both wallet and character to resist Wal-Mart's obscenely low prices for long. And there's nothing wrong with the way Hollywood studios treat people. If the workers don't like it then they can go work somewhere else. No one puts a gun to a person's head for work in the fucking entertainment industry.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
All this talk about everything being cheap outside of the United States says to me that we should let the US Dollar fall even more. Let it go down to $10 a Euro or $1 a rupee and the next thing you know, it won't be so cheap to buy overseas labor.
This is my sig.
Bull$h!t.
I spent two months in India earlier this year.
McDonalds is already there, Pepsi is bigger than Coke.
Indians tend to drive European and Asian cars because the are smaller and more fuel-efficient than US car.
If anything US mobile phone makers would be at a disadvantage because almost the entire rest of the world uses GSM while the US does not. (Rest of the world has much better mobile phone reliability too).
People who are able to do a higher quality job.
Most people envy the stupid and lazy. We'd like not to have to think or work.
you poor thing.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Volume + SPEED of selling stuff counts. Walmart gets a few months of credit from their suppliers. More often than not, they've sold their merchandise before even paying for it. Thus, they get to hold other peoples money for investments in stores, or more stuff, in the mean time. Who needs to issue bonds? Just push more volume... Pretty sweet deal if you can swing it...
Such a huge cognitive dissonance between the /. crowd and the Indians in India....
Igniting India's mind
Our lives are about to become *very* interesting. Thank you very much for everything in the last century, Americans : we Indians and chineses willl take it from here.
US is *so* 1999.......
..or apply for Indian welfare.
With the 9% growth econemy growth rate substained over the next 20 years, China may get a chance to pass Japan in 2025 in GDP.
China already has a higher GDP (adjusted for PPP) than Japan: China's $5.7 trillion vs Japan's $3.55 trillion.
Of course, its GDP per capita is MUCH lower and maybe that's what you were talking about (although I doubt it would match Japan's even in 2025--if China can increase its GDP per capita to the present Japan levels (7x more), it would be one of the biggest economic accomplishments in the HISTORY of the world (I don't think it will though: 7x increase in GDP per capita will likely require a revolution and the implementation of a totally new system that humans don't know about)).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
However this place was an elite institution. There is a wide spread in the levels of Indian universities. The goverment wants to concentrate the money in the places where they make a difference, so some of the poorer universities cannot afford to buy the right journals. This means that they cannot keep up to date. The access to internet (and specificly www.arxiv.org) is a great help, but it is still difficult to do proper research if you do not get to go to conferences and talk to a wide range of fellow researchers.
My conclusion is that the current pool of able research labor big yet limited. The spread of internet cannot create an instant increase increase of this pool.
I wish India the best of luck :)
Regarding the movement of jobs, I think it will be very different on a national scale.
If Rubbermaid closes up shop in Wooster, OH, the unemployed people of Wooster eventually move elsewhere, to where the jobs are.
If India's IT sector is booming, and the programmers there are enjoying as nice a lifestyle as programmers in the US, due to a difference in economic scales, it doesn't mean jack to a US programmer -- we can't move to India to take advantage of the jobs.
If the entire country gets "offshored" in some way, shape, or form, it's not like we'll roll up the sidewalks and move on. It's probably going to be a prolonged depression/deflation, and I bet it will even include violent revolution if it drags out for more than a couple of years.
Think of all the people that just refinanced their houses, only to be told that not only will they have to take a job for minimum wage in the service sector (because all high-priced labor goes overseas), but that $200k mortgage they have is now more like $2 million because the value of a dollar has just been cut by 90%.
Not a pretty sight.
Sure, it happened in textiles a while ago. The big difference is that it doesn't take much skill to operate a textile loom. The people displaced back then moved somewhere else, and got a job for similar pay in another industry with about 2 weeks of training. Sucked to be them, but it didn't suck too much.
Imagine that you get laid off, and there is no possible job left in your profession. You want to switch to another profession, but every other profession requires you to go back to school for 2-4 years, and when you get out, you'll have to start at the bottom of the ladder and work yourself back up.
Easy, you say. Sure, if you're not 40 with a family. But how would you like to pay $80k for another degree, plus years of work at the lowest pay grade? And the threat of that new profession moving overseas is right around the corner.
And even that assumes that you'll even get hired at 45 -- but who wants a 45-year old entry level employee when there are 20-year olds out there willing to put in 80 hour weeks for next to nothing?
We are all being played for suckers. In the 20th century, the fight was generally US corporations vs. foreign corporations. Our corporations were strong, smart, and we could be more innovative than a factory in Japan and win the fight.
Now our corporations are selling us out. If a factory in the US comes up with a revolutionary new way to do something, resulting in a 50% drop in costs, the global corporation says "Great! We'll implement that in China and save 90%!"
The battle is now the corporation vs. the workers.
As a worker, it's pretty hard to win when no one is on your side.
So how would McDonalds exporting low end jobs to India in your ficticious story help Americans out of work.
McD Job is a high paying job in india.. besides, their food is *much* costlier than avg indian roadside food. Mcd's keeps the profits and it benifits its share holders here in the US and elsewhere in the world.
is there any source of information on offshore outsourcing? since this is still really a consumer driven market knowninw who is doing such a thing would certainly give many of us an informed decision on where we should spend our money.
You may want to read the P.S.
Breakfast served all day!
>Just look at the frontpage and the "iPod battery costs money= TEH >EVIL" stories. And this bigotry doesn't even rule Slashdot, it rules >the whole country and makes it on the frontpages of NY Times and >Newsweek.
Ipod battery, not made in US
Not very relevant eh ?
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
One thing that really annoyed me with the outsourcing of blue collar jobs was the unions.
I recall reading story after story about the unions dragging their heels trying to stop the inevitable. What they should have done was to say "Sure, it's great that the US is improving the quality of life worldwide, we'd like to help" lobby the politicians to implement legislation that a certain percentage of those jobs have to be unionized. Any politician that doesn't support the idea would be labeled as a creep who only cares for big money and not the people.
Aside from that, it'd be a big help if the US had an actual real president. I'm ashamed to think there was a time when I thought republicans might be the good guys.
Faster we get rid of the republicans the better, alas, we the sheep of the united states want someone to tell us how great we are, how proud we outta be, how "moral" we are by voting republican, and, we fall for it.
A whole lot of other work is needed to really open trade. Here are a few:
Inventing a nearly free source of electric power to manufacture goods and transport them.
How to find a "best fit" supplier when surfing through a directory of thousands of choices.
How to guarentee 100% that the RIGHT goods are received when payment is sent.
Learning what is universally valuable yet can be easily customized to specifications unique to the customer.
Ah yes, and folks getting along better. A foolish exchange of nukes between Pakistan and India could alter reality quickly.
Now here is a counterpoint for you to consider -- groups like Gartner and McKinsey are estimating that by 2010 the same "ruthlessly efficient" Internet removes the competitive advantage of outsourcing to India, Poland, or the Phillipines. BTW, their prediction is based on the Internet being in **everyone's** house.
So the real question is what will the the companies of the world do as they learn that they can produce products of equal cost and quality almost anywhere? Even more importantly, what will the WORKERS like you and I do once we all comprehend the same applies to our jobs?
Zappy5000
Pentagon Still Can't Pass an Audit
"The report, released last week, found that of $6.9 trillion in accounting entries, only $2.6 trillion could be fully documented and $2.3 trillion in accounting entries "[were] not supported by adequate audit trails or sufficient evidence to determine their validity." Information on the remaining $2 trillion in entries arrived too late and could not be examined, but it is reasonable to assume that the $2.3 trillion in undocumented entries -- representing one-third of all entries -- is a conservative figure."
I'm going to say it again. No one is going to listen. This post is going to stay at 0 forever.
Please try to imagine the power of a technical professionals union. The union would have system administrators, technical support personel, software engineers, R&D engineers -- all of us. We could bring the corporations DIRECTLY to their knees. This is an EXTREMELY skilled craft we work in.
PLEASE please please wake up.
Population of USA 290,342,554 (July 2003 est.)
Therefore we would need to spend ~ 9 times as much to equal in dollar amounts what the Canadians spend. Perhaps even more since their cost of living is lower than ours
As for numbers that we supposedly spend 3 times on education as we do on the military, please download form i1040gi.pdf from the IRS.gov website. Look at page 76, you'll find...
20 % total to (2). National defense, veterans, and foreign affairs: About 17% of outlays were to equip, modernize, and pay our armed forces and to fund other national defense activities; about 2% were for veterans benefits and services; and about 1% were for international activities, including military and economic assistance to foreign countries and the maintenance of U.S. embassies abroad.
10% total to (3) Physical, human, and community development: These outlays were for agriculture; natural resources; environment; transportation; aid for elementary and secondary education and direct assistance to college students; job training; deposit insurance, commerce and housing credit, and community development; and space, energy, and general science programs.
RTFA.
While the congress critter can certainly do something to make you think something is being done (not!), it is the Wall St. critter who is actually driving this by rewading companies that outsource and punishing thoise that don't.
I.e., it is just an unintended (sic) consequence of the good ol' fashioned sport of making money.
So stop bitchin' about capitalism, buy yourself some stock in the companies that outsouce, short those that don't, and profit!
cheers- raga
It's called the Point of Self Sufficiency and also relates to Efficient Goods manufacture vs Inefficient Goods
You REALLY sound like a nice, young, brash, idealistic INEXPERIENCED UNWISE YOUNG (again I say YOUNG) WHITE MALE.
There is sense here, you just have never been shown it yet, so it's not your fault that you're ignorant. Now you know, or at least have a clue, so go forth and educate yourself on these issues. Really.
you're just plain WRONG. Show me the FACTS where Indians receiving higher ed degrees were subsidized by taxpayers. Cmon, show those facts.....I'm waiting...
I've known quite a few international students (you know, the folks that you're blanket-insulting) and NOT A ONE was financed by the gov't, unless you mean THEIR OWN LOCAL govt, BACK HOME that is
fucking moron
Good post, for the most part accurate across the board, regardless of belief. China is who we should watch (more specifically, their floating currency)
NT, just good to know (and spread that knowledge) that unemp. figures are very ...well....flexible, depending on "who" is putting them forth, i.e. the recent (Bush administration) figures about unemp. FUDGED a lot of #'s simply by making MANY unemployed suddenly "self employed"
Look it up people
Also, they have decided to ban the cars companies like GM, ford and other US companies like Mcdonalds, Pepsi,coke and Hoolywod movies etc. from selling in India.
I think that is a misrepresentation of the facts. GM and Ford can and do sell cars in India. In fact the #1 selling model is made by Suzuki(?). McD/KFC are the places where the "in crowd" hang out as they sip their Pepsi. No company is "banned" from doing business in India. No company is, however, allowed to take 100% of their profits out of the country; they have to reinvest some fraction thereof (51%?) back into India. I believe that the banking/finance/insurance sectors are still "closed" though.
(I had read this a while ago. Could some one please elaborate on the current rules?)
cheers- raga
Man, grow up. I'm not for outsourcing, nor any form of protectionism (remember, that protects the INEFFICIENT industries of a locale), but you sound like a child (at least a young Tyler Durden).
Understand that some of what you say may be true, but not for the reasons that you state, nor headed for the goals you predict. Seriously, people are quite greedy, but not that destructive. It's just that the system we have in place (capitalism, mainly free market) RELIES on these types of work/labor flow, so it CAN'T be stopped without massive UNNATURAL intervention. FYI, look into how much it costs to support/subsidize those "few" jobs in the textile industry we still have....seriously dude, it costs 10x more to keep them here than either the salaries of the people involved (added together) or damn near the revenue their produced products even bring in JUST TO KEEP THEM EMPLOYED. Look into it, I'm right
I'm thinking of the Euro as you say that...one ..."combined" economy, or at least "common" economy & currency...nice, if not unsettling in it's initial launch.
Also, they have decided to ban the cars companies like GM, ford and other US companies like Mcdonalds, Pepsi,coke and Hoolywod movies etc. from selling in India
Stop this FUD. FM, Ford, McDonalds, Pepsi, Coke and a zillion other multinationals exist in India and are welcomed by the government. No one is losing jobs in India because of these companies - people are GETTING jobs. Please use an idiocy filter before you post.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Over the years the U.S. has also shown that it is quite able at selectively banning imports of various sorts for all sorts of reasons. U.S. consumers currently pay 2-3 times the world price for sugar because of imports constraints - and this mostly benefits a select handful number of U.S. growers (hate to call them 'farmers' since it is usually big corporate farms that are involved ...). Ulimately the big losers are the U.S. consumers who are in effect subsidizing a small number of U.S. producers.
This is true of most trade constraints - ultimately any artifical barrier to trade end up highly warping the local economy with only a select few really benefiting.
The real problem with increasing international trade, including off-shore white collar jobs, is that it introduces change and subsequently a great deal of uncertainly - employees worry about losing their jobs, and more importantly, being able to find an equivalent paying one. While the benefits from trade are widespread (lower prices for all sorts of services and products) but diffuse - the impacts of lost jobs are more focused and therefore readily apparent. Governments have done a poor job of assisting employees adjust to a changing economy.
Before you recommend some idealistic alternative, please note that most new things fails and the failure mode for those attempts usually involves millions of dead.
Go ahead and experiment, but I'll move if it is close to where I live!
Sadly, I don't think it is possible to do full simulations of societies because those simulations would need to simulate the behaviour of computers that e.g. the financial markets use to decide on their behaviour. And, as I noted, experiments aren't fun...
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
... and then fuck up so completely that is not funny. But hey, it was as an AC, so I guess you did it for the laugh value.
What the hell does this have to do with Open Source?
Outsourcing is a commrcial decision made by commericial, mostly closed source, software companies or by companies doing software development in-house.
Your FUDish attempt to imply that somehow Open Source is reponsible for economic pressures (of which OS is just one of many factors) that make companies outsource jobs to cheaper places is frankly laughable but wirthy of pointing out, either for the trolling value or for the sheer stupidity of such utterance.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I need shoes.
The best ones cost 200 bucks.
The chinese ones cost 20.
I need them now.
You do the math.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Once upon a time Japanese (and the Korean) stuff was deemed to be the cheapest and crapiest stuff around.
Now for high tech gadgetery these places are second to none and quality of some of these companies (Sony comes to mind) is the standard against which others are measured.
Fomr all those cheap $50 VCRs one or two brands will be good enough in order to justify the risk.
Look at DVD players, not they are given away as promotional tokens when you buy something else. Just 3 years ago the cheapest one was in the region of 300 or 400.
Cheapest is eventually good enough, not necessarily better, but good enough.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
People will get tired of cheap uniformity. If she can provide clothes with an advantage over the cheap imports (nicer, make to measure, etc) for reasonbale prices she may get on with that.
I believe that in rich countries the only way forward is taking capitalism to its final consequences: you become the company, you are in the world all for yourself.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As one who participated in the H1B effort of last fall, I can tell you something: The Congresscritters DO listen to us. They HAVE TO, if they want to KEEP THEIR JOBS!
.... I hope you are retraining and get used to the nuisance of real capitalism, not the rosy version you have lived for far too long.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Most people do not R.T.F.A., but now we have a new breed that have an imaginary monoloogue on their heads and come to post it in /. without reading the posts.
Weird.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... but in the hope to keep them on the US and deriving riches for the University or Private companies sponsoring research in the process.
So do not try to make a good deal for both partslook as a onesided one in which only one part benefitted, this could not be further from the truth.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Had other countries have any incentivies to open up the ease towards competition would have not caught so many people by surprise.
You mention one important point, education, specially in the fields of biotech.
Well, with your President banning research because it does not fit his irrational beliefs about abortion, and with people still discussing if the US education system should teach evolution (or give any thought to creationism in a science course) you are digging your own grave.
Contrast that against countries in which abortion has been a family planning tool and you know that the US is at a huge disadvantage in the biotech field to start with (I am not intending to start a pro-choice flame fest, the fact is that research is being stopped in one place while most probably it will go on unstopped in another. These decision will have economical and social implications, that is all).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Join with 20 buddies and start a company.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The thing about fudging unemployment numbers is the people who are unemployed still know it. Furthermore, they've got nothing better to do than complain, and can spend all kinds of time standing in front of news crews doing so. It sounds like a very dumb strategy.
Wal-mart does sell at a loss by passing the loss to the manufacturers and suppliers.
They do so by waving a "golden opportunity" to the naive. They negotiate unfavorable terms, that the mfgs/suppliers would not accept from others with the promise that "you're with Wal-mart now" - e.g. - things will get brighter after you re-tool your operation and take a loss in supplying us at first. They do this for all the no-name goods (which is most of the store). Then when the mfg/supplier gets smart, they get dropped...and there will always be another naive one in line to take their place.
So you're technically right when you say Wal-mart doesn't sell at a loss, but they do use their power to make sure that others do. It's a bit like stealing things and selling them on E-Bay, just a more sophisticated way of doing it.
One could also blame the mfg/supp for being so easily tempted by the apple being waved in front of their face...
"It isn't necessary to completely suppress the news; it is sufficient to delay the news until it no longer matters." - N
I don't know about that. Follow the link in the original and goto the forumns page. Read some of the posts there, especially the ones dealing with they way they treat girl children. There is some very passionate posts there. I think vile and evil might be to strong words but I have a definite problem with any of my money going there after reading those posts.
Yes, I have researched the posts there. While they are bias to the extream what is said can be confirmed from third party sources. There is some very serious problems there.
Three articles no proof.
Gasoline, Walmart states they don't sell below cost, othres accuse them of doing so. It is in court, but not proven.
There is a claim their distribution costs is less.
Note they say "below our cost" not below general market cost.
Toys, industry analyst says they sell 17 dollar barbies for 14 dollars, that is likely the market price, not the cost.
Teamsters against Walmart, isn't that obvious? Walmart is not unionized (yet)
It is a brutal fact that white-collar jobs in the U.S. are being outsourced. Why don't we just start our own companies and forget about all the old corporations? They don't think twice about the damage they are doing to the U.S. economy, so why should we worry about them? We don't need them. Boycott their products and do your own thing. That's what I'd advise.
I wonder if anyone else has realized that IT workers are basically the newest members of the Blue Collar community? We've been way overpaid in the past, but now it's just time to accept the fact that the bottom line is what matters in business. Right or wrong, money dictates everything. That's why people shop and Walmart, and that's why companies move IT jobs offshore.
These formerly grossly overpaid IT jobs, despite using "brain" power instead of "physical" power, are slowly sliding onto the blue-collar scale of pay. It's a bitter pill for many "intellectuals" or "nerds" to swallow since their mental superiority should make them special and worth more. But--our IT jobs all fit into a larger puzzle of employment and society, and really are just common labor like anything else.
IMHO, the only thing stopping IT workers from EFFECTIVELY unionizing is the mere stigma that unionizing is "bad," "lower class," "blue collar." Time for IT to grow a set of balls and leverage the power of numbers and unionize.
No replys yet? Can anyone help? I need examples with code.
Hear, hear!
Why the cost of living in USA (or any First World country) is expensive and why you can not bring it down? I am not American and I have been there only once in my life for only a week, so I don't know much about life in the USA. But I suppose that if the unemployment is high and people stop spending for fear of being layoff, then nobody buys and the prices must go down. What is stopping prices from going down? What components of the average american's cost of life are not getting cheaper? I would guess medical services and real state, but soon or later those two will be cheaper, or I am wrong?
In that moment, I suppose that the cost of living and the salaries would get in line with the rest of the world, and any advantage of cheap labor would be lesser.
I forgot to add again:
As I have also written -- most experiments that test new ideas fail. Without a very good exit strategy back to the best society type we have yet achieved (a modern west capitalistic democracy), millions of people would probably die the next time, too...
But please test new ways of building a society! Just not close to where I (or my relatives) live.
(Since I still have a small hope of an answer that argues against my position -- and not against a straw man on some field placed on Mars -- I ignored the insults.)
Your writings show the signs of a dishonest debate:
1. You repeatedly refuse to answer my central points (or do straw mans by arguing against 19th century (or African?!?!) versions of the west, which I clearly stated I didn't intend) -- and instead pour vitriol on side issues, most of which are made non-relevant by the central point. The vitriol (e.g. declaring the other's political home and attacking that -- without any background!!) are normally used by nonserious debaters to get a rise out of the other side so they forget the central issues.
2. According to your argument it is always wrong to kick out a dictator since you count the costs to displace a dictator without subtracting the costs of him remaining (numbers murdered per year, lack of freedom, number of tortured, the lowered tendency for the world's generals to kick over their governments, etc). 1/2 a year (with active guerillas!) is a long time to build a democracy from zero?!?! 40 countries on the planet with more oppression, more military aggression, etc, etc than Iraq?!?! (name 20...) You're just not intellectually honest. I don't say your theses are wrong (that is a longer argument), but that your arguments are trivially dishonest.
3. I could keep on with examples of dishonest arguments like in 2 (e.g. get an Amnesty link to jailed dissidents in China and compare the reasons they are there with your (and NY Times') criticism of US policy -- since you argue that there is really no difference China/USA!), but that would make it easier for you to discuss other points instead of either my original point or what I want to discuss in this meta discussion.
(OK, I will give you something to argue about instead of discussing my main point: :-)
Your thesis regarding Iran has a flaw -- it won't be a religious dictatorship for much longer. The majority of their population hates their priests and the longer they are kept down, the more they'll hate the religion when they at last get rid of them. USA probably lets them stew for a while without influences. (-: Now if we could cure the bible belt, too...
Also, for the record -- I'm undecided if I think the Iraq invasion is a good thing. It depends on how USA succeeds in rebuilding the country and avoiding a civil war; sadly, it doesn't look good. I doubt if the use of resources is a net benefit for the world, but it might be good for the people of Iraq.)
(I removed a discussion on my own position (not conservative in any country I know of, but I guess you were just insulting to get a rise out of me) -- if you really care I can post it.)
The reason I do this meta-debate thing, is that I have a question: Why be dishonest?!
If I can't argue for something I think is true, I read up on the subject. Either I change my opinion or I learn new aspects. Realistically, all mine (and everyone else's!) opinions are more or less wrong. What you can do is update your opinions to be more correct. It's no big deal, I've changed opinions dozens to hundreds of times -- and it will happen as many times in the future.
I think that you need your opinions to "win" so much for emotional reasons that you are certain that -- given enough information and arguments -- you will win any discussion. So if you behave non-seriously when your arguments fail, it is OK because you know you're correct, just don't have all data?
But please inform me:
If you're not so sick that you have no introspection, how do you think when you argue side issues that the most important arguments make irrelevant -- or spouts arguments that literally means that it is always wrong to kick out a dictator (you literally argued that 3-4 years of murdered by the dictator is too high a cost for liberation!!).
(The charitable attitude would be to assume that you're used to argue with people of certain opinions and after a while, the next one that sound similar is exactly like that. I've done that, myself! The problem is I've had the same experience I have with you with lots of lefties, so it's hardly so simple.)
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )