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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."
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.
Work for the US governement as either a civil servant or contractor in a job requiring a US security clearance. No foreigners need apply.
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.
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."
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.
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?
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?
Jeepers!!! Are you ever out of the loop!????
A little bit of research (try checking out the layoff reports published by some newspapers around the country - than triple that number as those reports come from strictly voluntarily-supplied data) will quickly show the millions (my last estimate was 9 million) of jobs offshored (across the spectrum from most technical to clerical). All the jobs the corps can be offshored will indeed be offshored.
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times ran a three part series on the "Wal-Mart Effect" -- namely the outsourcing of jobs to China and other countries.
Last year, the traffic to my local Wal-Mart (at the end of the street my neighborhood intersects with) was so bad I couldn't get out of my neighborhood starting from about Dec 15th on.
This year, after they published the story, it's clear sailing all the way out to the freeway.
I think people are starting to see what globalization is all about -- screwing the little guy. It's one thing to lose jobs because of mechanization and automation: that's real productivity gain. But it's another to force people to work for less and less because you can find somebody even more desperate for work elsewhere. That's how Hollywood operates. For all their liberalism and supposed concern, the fact of the matter is that minimum wage earners at McDonald's are treated better than the sharks in the studios treat their low-level employees, who all too often are expected to work obscene hours -- and do so without complaint because of the very long line of people willing to take that same job.
Dog is my co-pilot.
What really kills me about outsourcing is that companies don't realize just how they are damaging their future in so many ways.
They realize it, they just DON'T CARE.
See damaging the company is different than damagine THEMSELVES. As long as they get their millions, they don't give a shit.
1) Gut a company.
2) Make Millions.
3) Move on
4) Goto step 1.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
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 -
What does "nigger rich" mean? Are you a racist?
This is an American expression from the past racist days, yes, but the previous writer used it in reference to a false sense of wealth engendered by current American automobile marketing practices.
The origin of the expression is the still-continuing practice of offering deals to undereducated working-class minorities that seem spectacular at first but turn out to be financial disasters later. At the time that these expressions were used in the USA, the better-educated white majority was expected to be aware enough not make such mistakes. Using these 'Jim Crow' expressions in the current politically-correct environment serves to give the writer the ability to extraordinaryly accentuate a point at the cost of being labeled a 'backward racist' by his audience.
For example, in the case referred to by the writer, a car company will make a giant bloated Sport Utility Vehicle from an old truck design for $15,000. Then they will market it people with misleading television satuation ads for $30,000 - $35,000. People are offered $4000 cash back immediately and no interest payments for a year.
What happens is that people buy these things to get the cash now and the low payments for a year. Then they find that the vehicle depreciates at a much faster rate than the payment schedule for the vehicle.
In a few years they have a giant gas-guzzler that is worth $18,000 in trade but for which they still owe $26,000. When it starts to break down, they get stuck with huge repair bills. If they go to trade it in, they find they must pay the difference between the cost and the current worth with a loan with very-high interest rates.
I believe that this is what the writer means by "n****r rich".
Americans are a bit too quick to dump their colorful but nasty expressions, and a bit too slow to dump the underlining racist attitudes that created them. But they are nowhere near a racist as they were only a generation ago.
US trade wasn't historically particularly "free". Until the 1940's, tarriffs were pretty high(in the 1800's, tarriffs were the main source of Federal revenue). From the 40's till the 60's, the US had a rather unusual situation in that it was the only highly developed country with an intact infrastructure. Since then, things have been going downhill-according to one Harvard study, the disposable income of a 2 income family today in the US is less than that of a 1 income family 30 years ago.