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Tech Firms Defend Moving Jobs Overseas
bobcows writes "Yahoo is reporting about leading technology companies urging Congress and the Bush administration Wednesday not to impose new trade restrictions aimed at keeping U.S. jobs from moving overseas, where labor costs are lower. 'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday. 'The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers,' said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. 'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'"
Or above. Any problems with that? Same goes for Nike and their "sweatshops". No difference as far as I'm concerned.
As a stock holder in several tech companies, I appreciate them saving money and maximizing my return on the funds I saw fit to invest in them.
"We've found a way to line our pockets with more money, so why shouldn't we use cheap, hard to understand overseas techs? We're greedy, plain and simple."
Your job too, babe. Can't wait until we are ordering the latest HP Presario Tandoori Edition on Anandtech or FatWallet.com
Personally I think it's great that they're moving my job, hopefully to somewhere warm. Uh, I'm going with it, right?
Trade restrictions..
is this the American today ?
'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Why should people settle for less? Of course people are going to want more, basic human instinct. Do they think that people are just going to want to work for HP just because its HP? Sounds like Fiorina is very much in favour of a form of slave labour.
TheHustler
http://www.elmarko.org/ - Useless bilge
http://www.asylum-games.co.uk/ - Co-Founder
Well I'm a CS student about to graduate with my bachelors degree. I've found that the pay for the jobs out there hasn't decreased it's simply the number of jobs available has gone down the toilet. I used to think I would have a job straight out of college but now I'm a bit worried. There are more people applying for less and less jobs now. I've had several interviews but lost them due to a more experienced guy needing the job that before I might have had a good chance of landing. And realistically how can they expect people in America to work for less money when our cost of living is so high here?
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
Carly's totally right -- what makes a job yours by birthright? Compete like everyone else.
Neoprotectionist policies help a few people out in the short run, but hurt everyone in the long run by imposing unnecessary costs on products.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
I'm not american, so I can't comment on what the loss of jobs in my field their is going to do to me, but I think this kind of thing should be expected if anybody wants the global economy thing to really happen.
This could still be beneficial to the american economy, it just means that many of these out of work programmers should look into some of their own ideas and start companies around them, hiring out to the cheap labour overseas. That would probably benefit more people anyways.
Given how well HP has performed since the merger with Compaq, perhaps it would be in that company's best interest to outsource the CEO. I'm sure they could save a considerable sum vs. Carly's paycheck.
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If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
How long before shareholders demand that their companies outsource their CEO and other executives? It would be only fitting afterall, the problem isn't bad CEOs in America but finding bad CEOs that will work for minimum wage in the US.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S....
Well, isn't that kind of a fundamentally flawed problem? As a person pursuing a degree in higher education (dropping $100,000+ on said education) I don't feel like it would be worth it to work for minimum wage or less. I mean, isn't that really one of the points of college, so you don't have to work minimum wage?
In her comment, Carla Fiorina fails to understand basic economics. You can't talk about labor costs and only talk about wages. The cost of labor is the wages divided by the productivity. It is only true that lower wages reduce labor costs if productivity is constant. But productivity is much lower in developing countries because of poor infrastructure, corruption, market inefficiencies, and weaker educational systems. It is meaningless to talk about wages without talking about productivity.
The argument about moving jobs to hold down costs holds a lot more relevance when companies are struggling; when companies are doing very well, that argument becomes a rationalization for naked greed.
So it is now, "It's not that you are stupid, it's just that you asked for the right to have some bread and water for your family."
Sucks to be a working (wo)man, I guess.
Why on Earth would highly educated workers be willing work for minimum wage? Why on Earth should we force them to by allowing companies to outsource every job they possibly can to less developed economies?
Not that I like it, especially as an IT worker, but, hell, that's the nature of the beast. Our dirt cheap goods are possible because we "allowed" loads of manufacturing jobs to go to China. In the end all it really means is that we can't rest on our laurels. And that's probably a good thing.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
so locality will be the only commodity in the future. i can spend 6 years in school to become an engineer and earn 6 bucks an hour after i graduate, or i can go straight to mcdonalds and earn 8 bucks right off the street. 6 years later if they havent fired me, i'll be a shift manager making a hefty 9.50 and will be the source of fear and power for all the peons beneath me. muhwahahaaa
i dont care. 15 years from now if i'm making less cash than i am now and spending it with friends and family, i could care less. the internet is going to tear down and equalize all these partitions of money and popularity. newer innovations will keep certain wealth in the US, the rest will go elsewhere. face it, we have more stuff and now everyone else is going to catch up.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday.
Hmmm, I wonder if Carly would care that they can replace him for less than 1/10th his salary and probably do as good of a job.
Let's outsource the executive staff overseas first.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
either. I wonder how well HP would do if its U.S. sales totally dried up due to vindictive IT people taking business elsewhere? I also note HP better their high end on Itanium
I don't like to see the US Govt. legislating corporate policies...but, I don't mind them giving them incentive to shape said policy towards thing beneficial to US citzens.
But, c'mon....minimum wage for an educated person? I can't believe any US business would expect that.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Sorry I'm not willing to work for below minimum wage so you can buy a new ivory backscratcher.
'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday.
There were never any jobs that were America's God-given right, but the sentiment does make a nice dodge from the real issue at hand.
What these corporations seem to have forgot is that privelege goes hand in hand with responsiblity. They fight hard to continue to be treated by the government (and thus the nation, by extension) as a citizen with all the rights thereof. However, they forget that those rights come with responsiblity. They move jobs overseas, they keep their funds in offshore tax havens so they don't have to pay taxes, and then they want they want to be treated like legitimate tax-payers. Globalisation is a nice idea, but not when it only serves as a tool to cheat.
404 Error:
There's always Florida!
"The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S."
Did she actually say that? Being highly skilled and not being willing to work for below minimum wage is a *problem*? I'm speechless. I don't know what to say. My mouth is currently agape.
This is certainly not a company I would want to work for at any price, if this is how they think of their employees. She probably thinks her employees owe *her* money for hiring them!
Isn't against the law to be paid less than minimum wage??? Granted restaurants, etc., get away with it, but if the tips received don't exceed minimum wage when added to a wage, then the employer has to pay the difference to the worker. And these "highly educated workers" had to pay some money to goto school and need something more than minimum wage to pay off their college loans. Yeah, there are people overseas that work for less, but cost of living is also a little lower in those areas. I think anyone can see that trying to live, and by live I mean paying for a house, bus tickets, etc. not living comfortably, off of minimum wage is extremely difficult to do.
why should they support a bloated, overpriced labor market?
But they aren't outsourcing the bloated overpriced jobs. They are outsourcing the barely over minimum wage jobs.
As Scott Kirwin says add the end of the article it's all about greed. Saying there aren't enough well educated employees is a cop out. There aren't enough American workers that will work for peanuts. I will, but that still doesn't seem to help. Big companies said there where not enough qualified workers during the boom and brought foreign workers over by the plane load, now look where we are.
Then why am I in college? The reason people obtain higher education is so they won't have to work for minimum wage or less. What other impetus is there?
At my last job, our CIO gave a nice presentation to other company heads in the city. His said that there were a few things that were necessary to help employees with the transition. Paraphrasing, he said only two things:
Tell your employees not to panic.
Tell them to find something else to do.
I hope he shows more tact to his family when the stock holders vote his sorry ass out.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
So... as they eliminate tech jobs in the US, who is going to by products made by HP, Dell, or . I do not doubt the technical acuity of Indian workers, and obviously the problem isn't our schools, I am a Ph. D. student in Computer Science at a school in North Carolina where more than 60% of the other students are immigrants from China or India, or other Asian countries. The problem is the greedy CEOs. Maybe there needs to be legislation capping the compensation of executives. How many engineers could HP pay for Carly's salary?
. .
. . .
illegitimii non ingravare
It works like this. There is basically no job (other than service, like working at a store) that can't be done cheaper by people outside this country.
It is the governments job to make sure that jobs stay here. I don't think any job is an americans god given right but why does this lady expect an educated engineer to work for min wage? I can get a McJob for min wage. She is essentially saying that HPs workers don't matter to the company. They find no value in their skills.
I'm not trying to be paranoid here but eventually won't most jobs be shipped over seas to countries who with lower cost of living and governments who don't care. This doesn't sound good for our country.
Definition of Minumim Wage:
If they paid you anything less, it would be illegal.
Has anyone seen or heard of any Network Engineer/Admin/etc positions being moved overseas? So far in my company, and all of our clients' (very large investment banks, etc) companies, the IT staff seem to be pretty well insulated. I suppose you could have everyone VPN in and just hire one guy (could be the janitor's day job) to "unplug the left cable from the 5th rack...etc." I just don't see it happening in this industry segment. 'Course, I could just be hoping since that's the segment I'm plopped firmly in. On a side note, my company has moved almost our entire call center, customer support, and a few other functions to offices in India and a couple other undisclosed countries. I'm always torn when this sort of thing happens: As a stockholder I'm seeing increased portfolio value, as an employee I'm a bit worried, and as a customer I'm just sick of calling 1-800-SomeNumber and getting Abu.
"...The mice will see you now..."
'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S.'
Yes, says the person who gets paid probably hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to reap the rewards of the hard work done by "those greedy software programmers". Man that really burns me up.
If you pay minimum wage for a job to be done, you will get minimum wage quality.
Whether or not these jobs are "America's God-given right" is besides the point, Carly, you miserable bitch. Of course they aren't a "God-given right". Nothing is. The real question here is whether the U.S. will act in its own self-interest, or continue to throw its labor force into a low wage bidding war with the Third World.
'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co.
I wonder if she'll still feel the same way when all those overseas workers decide to form their own company and put her out of business with their cheaper products. When everything is outsourced, what is going to stop them from starting their own company without an American CEO?
Lets face it. If you're a multi-billion dollar corporation and you can get labor dirt cheap in another country wouldn't you do it? Yes there are plenty of qualified, educated American workers. So what? They work for $3/hour in India instead of $20/hour in America.
We need some kind of regulation to discourage these practices or our entire economy will go to shit. George Bush wants to help ILLEGAL immigrants out by letting them work? Because he is so compassionate?? Give me a fucking break. It is about exploiting people and getting cheap labor so the rich get richer.
People in the US always like it when they get the positive effects of globalization: cheaper products, good and cheap holiday locations and more revenue for US companies.
But when you get the "negative" side effects you always start to whine and scream around, e.g. when a German company buys a second rate car maker or some IT jobs are outsourced to India.
But, sorry, this is basically imperialistic egoism. People in other countries have - believe or not - the right to be happy and succesful, too. Especially if they are more competitive and innovative. You cannot always suck all reasources and revenues out of third world countries. Especially if these countries cease to be 3rd world countries and become first world countries. It is indeed not required that Gunjaraa the Indian with eight kids and 2 wives has to be jobless and live in a slum just that you can afford you second hummer.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
When I looked at the cost savings, however, I couldn't argue. My company saves literally $30 grand a year by routing calls to Asia. The quality of the service is slightly lower than a local call and I will always have closed minded customers who don't want to speak to someone with an Oriental accent. However, given that my customers are in-house employees, I don't have to "compete" with rival tech supports providers by providing non-Oriental accents. This means that the $30 grand I'd spend for a local call desk is not worth it to my employers.
At the end of the day, I truly believe that the cost competition is going to drive down salaries in the US or we're going to not have ANY money in IT or tech. After all, isn't less money better than no money?
I couldn't get yahoo to give up the goods, so I went to news.google and found basically the same AP article at the Seattle Times. My opinion is, if they have the same labor laws as the U.S. then and only then can companies which transact in the U.S. employ foreign workers. This "offshore outsourcing" or whatever euphemism the PR teams come up with is simply a means to undermine U.S. labor and the laws that protect it.
I went to the city because I wished to live without deliberation.
Go to college and become highly trained in a field caosts let's conservatively say 40000USD.
Now I should get 5.25USD/HR? Same as the kid witht the jet engine strapped to his back to move a leaf down the block... That's fair.
Carly, dearie, I hope they outsource your job or drop you to minimum wage real soon.
This
Take a look at the money being paid to Carly, then tell me again why any American should even consider buying HP ever again when she makes comments like that. An American company is paying her vast ammounts of American dollars, but when the economy's in the shitter, she ships jobs overseas. Good job. And no, I'm not American.
do not read this line twice.
However, she is implying that there is a God given right for big companies to make obscene profits and pay big bonuses to their executives.
> But, c'mon....minimum wage for an educated person? I can't believe any US business would expect that.....
They don't. That was the rep for the worker's group being snarky.
Share and Enjoy!
And of course people in the US don't want to work for minimum wage. I certainly can't afford to, and I doubt many other Slashdotters could either. With the price rent and other things going up and wages going down, it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet.
+5, Female
They have already done that many times and they will continue to do that. Usually, it happens when an ailing US company is taken over by a foreign company. Those foreign CEOs get paid much less than the US CEOs they replace.
Were going to start seeing new megacorps out of India soon. We've even setup their back offices for them. We trained their accountants, their technologist, and we even set up their R&D for them. They have their call centers taken care of, everything except the front office. Some of these companies are going to start refusing to renew contracts with our megacorps and are just going to start their own with their fully trained staffs. Their getting the back office profit, how much is left for a front office? Perhaps they'll turn around and outsource that to the originating corp?
On top of this, can someone please explain how sending good paying jobs out of this company is good for the economy? Competitive advantage doesn't mean anything if all the competition is doing it. The jobs that are replacing these are the low wage jobs in fields like retail that don't have things like health insurance.
No problem, just lower the cost of college to a few thousand a year, free health care, cut my rent, utilities, and food by more than half then provide me with public transportation that takes me from where I can afford to live to where I end up having to work. Do all of that THEN we can talk about dirt poor wages.
Funny how the executives never have a problem justifying their massive pay and perks.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
What value to the country does an 'industry' have if they send all the jobs away? Some tax bucks, sure, but a company with jobs is much more valuable to the country.
They have profited greatly from the American people, it's their responsibility to support them with jobs.
Simple as that.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Sure, outsourcing tech support to India is cheaper, but since when is cost the only market force. God forbid the anyone actually need tech support. Manny people I know are can't use tech support when they need it because they can't understand the accents on the other end of the phone. If hardware vendors want repeat customers, they're eventually going to have to bring it back stateside. Quality used to be a market force. Perhaps it will be again.
In order for a global economy to work, the trade between countries needs to be mutually beneficial. I'm not saying it needs to be a zero sum game, but when you're moving "good" jobs out your country and get nothing in return, it doesn't take a genius to see that something must be done. What about the low paying jobs lost to Mexico and China? Nobody really cares about those jobs.
This isn't a situation like the Industrial revolution where low skill operations were phased out of existance. We're talking about a brain drain. This is going to affect us many years later. Trouble is that everyone's so damn myopic about the effects, that if the government doesn't step in, we're going to low-bid ourselves right into a recession.
Why does an education entitle you to anything?, let alone a good paying job. Wake up, once education became accesable to all, a degree isn't a golden ticket to success anymore. Now you need a degree to compete for the opportunity.
Few people have anything to worry about with tech firms outsourcing. The kind of work that is often outsourced requires minimal skill and is often not work that Americans ought to be doing since we generally have more advanced skills.
Plus, if your company saves money by outsourcing projects, they have more money left to pay you to do something really cool.
Amazing magic tricks
So, scott... I presume you and Carly are highly educated workers. How about my offer of minimum wage?
I could rant here, but won't bother because we've all got the same story I'll bet. Along with thousands of dollars owed to education loans.
Memo to Corp. America from an American: Piss off. Go run along and play now. I hope your mother's milk goes sour.
C|N>K
i think outsourcing is just a short sighted answer to make a quick buck. if you continue to outsource the work who's going to buy your product? is hp going to sell computers in india? i'm sure all the CEO's that outsource are getting big bonuses for cutting cost.
All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost.
'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co.
Yeah, that includes YOUR job, too, bitch.
You Carlys a chick right? LOL ... and I don't remember her asking me if I'd take a pay cut to keep my job... the outsourcing ideas are coming from the top down, not the bottom up. So, when projects come up, management says outsource instead of looking locally.
HP is off my list of preferred laptops, babe!
to graduate after the dot bomb. A large contraction in the number of companies in the tech sector 3 years ago means more people chasing fewer jobs. Especially in the areas that were the centers of tech. Silicon Valley and Northern Virginia, where I live. I was unemployed for nine months, and I have 10 years experience. Bank account gone, credit card maxed, was a week from starting a job in construction when I got the job I have now. Doing Python on Windows, FreeBSD, and Linux.
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From the article:
A Commerce Department (news - web sites) report last month said increasing numbers of technology jobs are moving from the United States to Canada, India, Ireland, Israel, the Philippines and China..."
Half of the countries in that list are not going to give much of a saving in labor costs. But at least you don't have to demean yourself by peeing in a bottle to get the job...
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
This is the sort of asinine comment that will forever stick in my mind about HP. The last thing I want to do is buy a printer, scanner, digital camera or computer from a company that has this sort of self-centered, nut job running it.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Nor are highly educated workers willing to work for the (local) minimum wage or lower in places other than the U.S. It's just that the U.S. minimum wage provides a pretty good living in some parts of the world.
You know, painful as it is to those who pay the price, one can make the argument that this trend will, in the long run, help to minimize the economic disparities between the "developed" countries and the "third world." And that can't be bad for international security.
Indeed. If the US Government had a requirement to only purchase goods and services from US owned companies who hire only US citizens, this problem would be greatly reduced. I believe the government of India has a similar requirement. Exemptions can be made as required.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
This post is symptomatic of a larger problem.
Go on any job board or discussion about outsourcing and you'll see the trolls and out-of-work complaining about how Indians are "stealing" American jobs, either through H-1B visas or overseas outsourcing. This is a case of blaming the wrong people.
The Indians aren't "stealing" anything. American CEOs, with the willing complacence of their bought-and-paid for politicians, are giving them the jobs. Until last year, the H-1B visa caps were permitted to increase despite convincing evidence of a slowdown in the tech market. Outsourcing advocates have convinced American companies that lower hourly pay rates are the savior of their bottom lines.
Some jobs, especially call center work and manufacturing are gone and aren't coming back. Others may drift back and forth as industry discovers a balance.
It's a supply and demand thing. One thing that you might also want to to worry about is those "schools" churning out paper MCSEs month after month, advertising big $$$ and life on Easy Street by passing a few tests and getting a few certificates. In an already overcrowded tech market, these places are turning out tons of folks with overblown expectations. Once their dreams are crushed, who knows how cheap they'll be willing to work?
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
There are ten million unemployed right now. The average job (in my experience) lasts less than two years. People are unsatisfied with their jobs in massive numbers. Wages are stagnant if not falling rapidly.
I know zero people who are gainfully employed in a full time job paying a living wage. Zero.
Management absolutely forbids telecommuting, unless the employee works for another company.
Hiring is a subjective popularity contest with no accountability. Qualified people are passed over reguarly and often as a matter of policy.
Education is meaningless. Absolutely meaningless.
Once hired, most people find their jobs are gray, dispassionate drudgery where they are not allowed to open their mouths to say anything or to offer even a single new idea. This after being required to have decades of senior level experience and years upon years of advanced education (where, one assumes, they were also expected to keep their mouths shut).
Why not just sell it all, Mr. and Mrs. CEO? Just ship the whole fucking thing FedEx to elsewhere Inc.? It's not like you'll notice the total collapse of the economy from inside your Navigator or your half-million dollar townhouse. Just fuck over all your neighbors and cash those options. Everything will be just fine in time for the next backyard block party.
24/7 advertising. No job. No career. No credit. Basket full of crap at 28% interest. Get back on that fucking couch and keep your fucking mouth shut, consumer. This is the "corporate dream."
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Sheesh, after being out of a regular job for the better part of 3 years, (I've had 4 short-term IT contracts and I scrape enough together each month to keep it going but just barely.)
I'd jump at the chance for a minimum-wage job. I'm always left out because my resume puts me out of the running. End result? I find no job.
I decided last summer that I'd forget working in IT and just settle for whatever I could find. No luck so far, guess I'll have to stop using my resume and forget to mention my education. About the only job I haven't applied for is at the lcoal car wash.
d a v e
"Hmmm...upgrades."
While your sentiments run true, Carly's a her not a him...
Not knowing whom you're really talking about mars the impact of the statement, unfortunately.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
As a stockholder, you're the reason companies need to show growth and increased profits every single quarter after quarter.
Look what happens when a tech company like Intel misses their "expected" earnings by a single penny a share. If you're a CEO, what do you do? When the stock price is a second derivative of the company's income, there is no other choice but to minimize costs at every turn.
Stockholders and daytrading crowd are what makes everyone look short-term instead of long term, and now we're all going to pay for it. Good job.
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," Carly Fiorina
That's right Carly, so why don't you move all of HP to India or China? Oh, right, you want to take advantage of American laws, tax breaks, security and live your American executive lifestyle. But it is ok slash R&D spending and screw your engineering talent.
We'll see where HP is after a decade of firing/offshoring R&D and hiring more lawyers and bean counters. Carly sure understands what made HP into HP.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
I recall there've been problems like this before.
Remember, corporations, there is never anything wrong with how you treat your workers, there's just many things wrong with their willingness. They're faceless drones, and if they aren't 'willing'... replace them. I'm
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Is Carly saying that only minimum wage positions are being moved overseas? If so, she is lying through her teeth - easy to prove since her lips are moving.
On the contrary, the positions that will be left will be the minimum wage positions, but those will be taken by the 8 million illegal immigrants whom Bush wants to give green cards.
Maytag closes a plant in Illinois which pays its workers $15.00 per hour to build appliances. The plant will be moved to Mexico where the workers will be paid $1.00 per hour for the same job. Meanwhile back in Illinois, that town now has 20% unemployment. What new job are these people to find? Wal-mart? McDonalds?
And how much was the CEO payed?
I thought once you had earned that higher education, you were supposed to be worth more in the job market. Now, these clowns think that "highly educated workers" should be working for minimum wage or lower??? How the hell is a highly educated person supposed to pay off their school loans? Never mind the fact that minimum wage won't support a single person let alone a family.
Who are they trying to kid???
. . . In a strange manner of speaking, anyway. It seems to me that it is the West that put Eastern workers in a position to work for so cheap even for such skilled work. Ironically for us, though, it wasn't the average American technology/Engineering work that put them there; we just get the short end of the stick this time. It was all the rich bastards that have been rich for centuries and will continue to be rich because they get the benefit of cheap work out of the people their ancestors shafted. Magically nobody in this country bothers to do anything about--or maybe nobody even manages to see--the real problem: greed begetting more greed amongst this nation's "elite." Man, I'm starting to see wher Karl Marx was comming from. Sorry for sounding like a commie bastard . . .
`which fortune`
Here is the link to send Carly a friendly message about what you all think about her policies: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/email/fiorina/in dex.html
Burning Horizon (aka Mark Seelye)
Hmmm, I wonder if Carly would care that they can replace him for less than 1/10th his salary and probably do as good of a job.
Replace her, you mean. Check out this picture of Carly sizing up her breasts.
-kgj
-kgj
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
If you reduce her salary to $500,000 (ten times what a sacrificing $50K engineer might make), you can save 2290 well paying (50K) jobs.
For the life of me, can you imagine any CEO contributing as much to a company as 2290 rank and file workers? Unless they can literally print money, I have trouble imaging how an executive can make that kind of contribution compared to the employees they lead.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Getting a wide-ranging education, perhaps? Otherwise ITT Tech, or some other trade school would be Good Enough.
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You can't expect every nuance of an argument to be packed into a single statement quoted in a news article.
I'm sure Ms. Fiorina understands the issue at hand, and the fact is that even when taking productivity differences into account, many other countries are able to beat the US on costs. Where IT workers in the US can compete is in terms of innovation, proximity and working relationship with the user base which is driving development, and other qualitative factors.
In terms of cost, any productivity advantage the US worker has is vastly overwhelmed by the wage differences across different countries.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Let's not for get that the American consumer buys a crap load of their products now and in the past when they were just starting up. If you don't have jobs that pay well who the heck is going to buy your goods? The people who you're outsourcing to? Sure as hell isn't going to be India or China they pirate so much crap it's not even funny.
Many so-called US firms actually do most of their business in other countries. Why shouldn't most of their jobs be in other countries as well?
In fact, from the point of the rest of the world, this looks like a long overdue change of direction. For decades, companies like IBM, Ford, Apple, MacDonalds, WalMart, etc., have displaced domestic manufacturers and service industries in those other nations and only created low-end jobs in those nations. Skilled jobs, administration, and management have largely remained in the US and the US has received a disproportionate share of the benefits from those overseas business activities. It's about time that high-skilled and high-paying jobs associated with US-based multinationals also move out of the US.
"We have to lay off more people, because with even educated Americans all working for minimum wage, no one can afford our goods, so we have to lower costs. Incidentally, our Mumbay office has designed machines to replace you all. And themselves. Sure we're not going to be innovating or inventing anything new anymore, but since there is no demand for luxuries like printers anymore, we're moving into manufacturing bread anyhow, so we don't need smart people."
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
My old company outsourced my job to the US, so I followed it and now I'm surrounded by foreigners.
Socialism is evil according to the bible of capitalism, but this protectionist measures seem to imply that the actions of private companies need to be measured by the State. I don't really get it. If this is a Free Market, tech companies should be able to do whatever they want. So what, it's capitalism when you're rich, but socialism if the game ain't going your way?
:)
Be nice to me and don't hurt my karma.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The quote about what workers in the US cost reminds me of this article from Fast Company:
...
:)
http://fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
The article makes a believable case that WalMart is singlehandedly, drastically, speeding up the move of manufacturing jobs overseas. Towards the end, they have this quote:
'Ever-cheaper prices have consequences. Says Steve Dobbins, president of thread maker Carolina Mills: "We want clean air, clear water, good living conditions, the best health care in the world--yet we aren't willing to pay for anything manufactured under those restrictions."'
That's exactly what's going on here. 'Middle class' in the US costs a hell of a lot more than 'middle class' elsewhere, and if consumers here have a choice, they will buy the things that were not made under those expensive conditions. Of course, by making that choice, we push our own jobs overseas
I can't predict how this will end up, but it's going to be a trip finding out. What do you all think? I want to see I Am An Economist in the replies.
" > But, c'mon....minimum wage for an educated person? I can't believe any US business would expect that.....
They don't. That was the rep for the worker's group being snarky."
Oh, but they do...otherwise they wouldn't be moving these jobs overseas where they can pay LESS than minimum wage.
What?
" In lieu of laws prohibiting outsourcing IT overseas, I think I'd prefer seeing tax and other incentives given to companies to KEEP jobs here. Credits for hiring US citizen IN the US."
The proposed law is not a ban on outsourcing overseas, it is a taxation on those companies. Basically it would hurt those companies that already moved those jobs over there - HP and DELL to name a couple.
I agree minimum wage is a joke. Especially in California where anyone making less than 30k a year can barely make rent for a studio apt.
Even if they all suddenly would work for half the salary overnight, HP would have to reduce the price of their products too in order to ensure that people can afford to purchase them.
In other words, their percentage profit on an item would stay the same. The fact that educated workers can demand a higher salary in the US means that corporations can get away with providing more expensive goods. In many other countries, you'd never be able to sell something at US prices.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
This is not Carly speaking. Carly tried to make the point that HP wants better training for Americans, the implication being that Americans aren't trained well enough. (thus all the talk about funding for physical sciences, etc.)
Scott Kirwin is saying that that's false, that the problem is not that American workers aren't poorly trained, they just want higher wages than foreign workers.
Unclear article writing.
Welcome to the People's Republic of Slashdot.
Fiorina, or any other CEO, tries to hire the best people for the least amount of money.
Would you do the same? If so, you are a hypocrite, if not, you are a fool.
The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower
However there is no lack of CEOs willing to work for hundreds of times the entry level wage at their own companies.
An educated worker can barely live off of minimum wage, much less pay back the student loans required to get such an education. Asking them to work for minimum wage is not just insulting, it's morally reprehensible. These corporations should be boycotted, if a boycott large enough to affect them could be organized.
These companies are also eliminating the chance of a technical worker to climb the corporate ladder. They aren't going to promote an Indian worker to any job outside of India. So even more of the company's decisions will be made by people with commerce educations and not technical ones.
I hope that in the long run this kills these companies off. Of course, I also hope this doesn't continue for long enough for there to even be a long run.
HP, for example, has been in too much hurry moving white collar work abroad.
Where I work we have to deal with some accounting they have move to India. If there is something wrong with the invoices we send them it seems impossible to correct them. When we had to deal with local accounting (I live in a small country in Europe) they were only a phone call away.
For a nice date: Call strftime(3C)!
My first reaction is to say "so what".
But I would be in this situation if i kept on the same course, i was doing Java Programming, ICT.
I dropped out out college and started again but this time i went into the creative industries learning Art and Graphic Design. Now I have no problem since its not easy to export a creative talent unlike manual labour. Adapt or Die...
Jonathanjk.com
It's precisely the selfish profit-driven nature of our economy that allows this to happen. Few "educated" people gave a crap when factory jobs started leaving the country in droves. Now that it's happening to us (knowledge workers), it's suddenly a big deal.
As soon as Carly Fiorina outsources her own position overseas to someone just as well educated, but cheaper, then I'll be willing to view overseas outsourcing in a different light.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
She's got to be kidding:
"Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday. 'The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers,' said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. 'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'"
We (the highly educated unwilling to work for minimum wage) all got high education because a high school education would not get you a job that you can actually live on. Maybe even 20 years ago a high school education was enough for some jobs, but even trades require additional education - and then you can command a good living wage. Even in China - their wage may be our minimum wage, but with their lower cost of living it comes out to about equal to what we make most of the time. So what Ms. Fiorina the Oligarch should be preaching is lowering the cost of living in the US and then you won't need protectionism...but then she'd lose millions in assets so we know that won't happen.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
Bottom line is that out sourceing IT and other so called "knoledge workers" to over seas sites not only kills the job market, it also kills all future inovation since there's no point in going to school to learn engineering anymore. In addition it hurts the quality of the products being made. Even if the out sourcing site is another US company, outsorcing lowers quality and productivity in exchange for short term cost reduction. Period.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I,
Love this one:
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Barrett complained about federal agriculture subsidies he said were worth tens of billions of dollars while government investment in physical sciences was a relatively low $5 billion. "I can't understand why we continue to pour resources into the industries of the 19th century," Barrett said.
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I suppose Mr. Barrett would have us eating all those food surpluses that India and China are producing now-a-days.
He might get a rude awakening though if the US were suddenly dependent on India, etc. for food and they said, we're not shipping you any more food because we don't like your stand on XYZ issue.
If there is one thing that I'll certainly support is help for farmers. Hey, they put food on my table.
The last thing I'll be supporting in the future is govt. investment in high tech. Why should the US support high-tech when high-tech eggheads like Craig Barrett will just take those advances and give them to the Chinese.
I can do without a computer for a long time. I'd probably starve to death in about a month.
Talking about losing points with me, it's not even close....
Caution: Contents under pressure
Ok, I'll admit that the mini iPod was overpriced... but isnt deporting the man a little much?!
oh... wait....
To whom do these people pay there taxes? For example say the US imposes restrictions on these companies what's stopping them from shutting up and re-incorporating in over countries over time? The net result being a loss of tax revenue too.
I dont think you can really block outsourcing without restricting trade. I personally am for free trade (true free trade, not what we have now) but I think some countries that benefit from it and therefore pushed it are now stepping back now that job competition is starting to come into affect.
The US and others are just going to have to learn to better compete. For example whenever I look at an Asian electronics contract manufacturing facilities most boast how there raw materials and automated equipment come from Japan. Of course eventually the chinese and others will have there own manufacturing equipment but alsong as you keep innovating you will stay one step ahead of the game.
Of course I'm just talking about IT here and at the momentthis does n't apply to anything labour intensive, but having said that I can envisage Japan in 50 years time competing against China with robot automation instead of throwing people at the job.
I say, let them pay their way through the political process so they can outsource our jobs. Then they can pay people oversees, realize that to keep their productivity, they'll have to hire 20 programmers to do one's job, and then come begging back with more money.
These companies are not looking long term. First they tried customer support oversees and now they are trying programming. I've never seen a degree, Computer Programming. It is Computer SCIENCE, not Computer Copy/Paste. Thought and innovation is involved. You don't see R&D being outsourced very often, because it would be stupid. It requires smart people. As does Comp Sci (at least for real projects).
</rant>
This is particularly noticeable if you make the conscious choice NOT to buy things made in countries where workers have no rights.
In my personal experience of shopping this Christmas, I mostly bought things made in the U.S. and I payed a lot of money, sometimes 3 times the price for what that same item would have cost if made by a slave in China.
Also, it would be nice to have a true label that says where manufactuering occured. All too often we hear "made in USA" when in reality it was made in china, but boxed here. But I agree. I do not like the idea of laws to keep jobs here. I would suggest incentives to start up companies based here as well.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And actually you can move right on in to California now, since the retarded state gov is basically trying abolish all immigration law. Come on over!
Yeah, good point. Anyone can come work in our country.. hey, we'll even send you some of our jobs! But those same countries often will not welcome Americans at all themselves.
My loans would cost me my entire take-home pay at minimum wage in the US. Why the hell would anyone want to learn a field, spend thousands of dollars to do so, and then no be able to make enough to pay the costs of the education? Meanwhile, Carly, et al get paid millions of dollars to risk other people's money while they have the opportunity/skill to drive their companies into the ground. (Good CEO's are worth the money, but lots aren't and they get paid anyway.) Do they think that we should be willing to work for nothing but that they should not? The rules of economics work for everyone, yet the people who run these businesses think that people should be willing to make sacrifices for their extravagant incomes (extravagant because of the amount of money/unit of competence). Why do I want DRM when it costs more and gives control of my computer to others while giving me no benefits in terms of costs or features? Why do I want to work in a field when I can make more money by not learning anything and being a garbageman^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsanitation engineer? The same motives apply to everyone, yet some of the people who run companies seem to think that only they have the right (and desire) to behave in their self-interest.
The initial comments are correct - we don't have inherent rights to jobs - if someone can do it better and cheaper than us, they will get the job and we'll have to do something else. I simply have a problem with the PHB logic that the stated CEOs seem to labor under - that others should sacrifice their well-being for their benefit while they have no duty to do the same. I'm certain that if their logic were applied to their jobs (I'm pretty sure someone as competent as these CEO's could be hired from overseas at 10% of their pay), they would not be so quick to advocate sacrifice for the benefit of others.
Costs are driving outsourcing? How about wanting to make sure that ALL the money stays on the top? This is what completely amazes me in the world we live in, Joe Millionaire really believes that paying family providers a salary 1/100000th of his own is a COST.
Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not some hippie banging my Commie Drum here, but I wouldn't mind some honesty. When saying why you're outsourcing, simply tell what you are doing ...
1.) You are not outsourcing, you are laying off americans in a hope that every other company won't follow your lead (you still need people in america to buy your stuff right?)
2.) You are personally making the statement that you believe that it means more to have 3 yachts instead of 2, and the best way to get there is cheap labor.
3.) You believe that you are above 'regular' people in America, and would love to just keep screwing us all.
Well what's the problem with all of this? Think back into the history books for me a little bit here. At what point in America's history did we see an ever pressing economic turmoil because of extremely low cost labor? Was it, ohhh yes the bloodiest battle costing more American lives than any other war in our history?
Lets face it the Civil war was fought not to free the slaves, but in fact because the South was so rich because it legally could force people to work with no pay. This pissed off everyone else who HAD to pay their workers. Believe it or not some of the anger in the "Free North" was because they themselves weren't allowed to have slaves.
Getting a little bit off topic here, the point being is that this country was built on the backs of "Joe Average", who is in the lower to middle class. There's just one big problem with everything here, there are whole lot more "Joe Averages" than there are "Joe Millionaires" and you can only piss "Joe Average" off for so long before he and his buddies organize together.
So Mr Corperate Joe Millionaire, I implore you to please consider your actions and possibly not bite the true hand that feeds you, over and over and over and over again. "Joe Average" is collecting welare/unemployment because you believe he is not worthy. Lastly you can fight the government all you want, but remember there are more "Joe Averages" and if you keep pissing "Joe Average" o you may actually see democracy in action in which you as an American company will be spanked, because "Joe Average" also can vote.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
But if we outlaw outsourcing, only outlaws will outsource.
It's a supply and demand thing. One thing that you might also want to to worry about is those "schools" churning out paper MCSEs month after month, advertising big $$$ and life on Easy Street by passing a few tests and getting a few certificates. In an already overcrowded tech market, these places are turning out tons of folks with overblown expectations. Once their dreams are crushed, who knows how cheap they'll be willing to work?
To be fair, colleges and universities all over the US have been doing the same thing for at least 20 years. The degrees aren't high-tech; they are english, art history, etc. I'd love to have spent 4 or 5 years in school only to graduate and find that I can make more money as a waiter than in my "profession," assuming I could find a position.
Carly Fiorina never said workers should work for minimum wage. Quote from the article no one read: "The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers," said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. "The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools."
At least read the blurb, people.
The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers,' said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. 'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'"
Carly didn't even say the quote that everyone is somehow attributing to her.
(Not that that makes the quote or idea behind it any better, but c'mon. If she didn't say it, we can't all attack her.)
I think these execs are not considering the ramifications of the long term effect of moving jobs offshore. Or they choose to ignore it because it won't affect their "current" stock price.
If they keep shipping these jobs overseas, there will be no one who can purchase the products.
Eventually, the very same companies that shipped their jobs overseas will go bankrupt themselves.
HP/Intel/Dell aren't exactly making all their profits by selling their products to India or China.
Your mom always said, a PB&J is better than nothing, and God is nothing, is a PB&J better than God?
The quote followed Carly's in a very deceptive fashion. Very easy for speed-reading Slashdotters to misattribute.
==================
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Except that companies are laying off their bread and butter -- tech geeks who would buy the kind of stuff their company makes, and also people who make the right amount of money to create the demand for the products. If no one can buy anything, then the company will fail because nothing is selling. They're shooting themselves in the foot.
And then they whine and moan about it, like the RIAA is whining and moaning that no one is buying their stuff. Suddenly, it's our fault they're not making the fat profits they got used to while the economy was good.
Large companies are just making themselves extinct. In the case of the RIAA, it was because the product was so inferior that no one wanted it. In the case of HP and similar companies, it's because they stopped providing people the means to buy stuff.
And, of course, it's always our (the public's) fault.
i am a soviet space shuttle
This argument would be valid if decreased production costs actually translated into lower priced goods.
If Dell can have all their operations moved to India where their costs will be 1/10 of that it is now do you think that that shmancy new Laptop will sell for 1/10th the price?
How about 1/4? Or even half-off?
No, it is going into the CEO's pockets, and those of their lobbyists who they pay to fight daily in the Capital for their right to ever-increasing salaries and bonuses while their workers get laid off.
And they have won again...
When they attain final victory and all the domestic well paying US jobs are gone who will buy their goods?
We always hear how the US is the world's greatest consumer. Well, how will the consumer fare when his pockets are empty because the best job available is that of a greeter at WalMart?
It's precisely the selfish profit-driven nature of our economy that allows this to happen.
I think you mean every economy.
You hit the nail on the head. While jobs can freely flow between countries, workers cannot. I just paid all my debts (others are not so fortunate), so I would gladly move to India, make Indian level salary and live a middle class lifestyle. But I can't due to unfair labor market restrictions.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
"The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S."
Oh yeah, that's the problem.
And the problem with enviorment is the unwillingness of people to be happily sickened by pollutants. And the problem of Spam is people's unwillingness to spend the first hour of the day politely deleting it. And the problems of your personal finances are the unwillingness of store keepers to allow you take whatever you want for free.
Oh what a wonderful world it would be if all of us "unwashed masses" would just let the greedy take advantage of us in any way they can think of. But for such a world to exist, we can't simply be passive about it of course. No, we must study for years and years so that our poverty-wage skills are as profitable to the greedy as can be. Yes, let's all do that shall we?
Or, I suppose we could also demand that companies give us fair compensation for our efforts and skills, and that our government doesn't reward the ones that which will happily destroy the American economy and work force in order to temporarily boost their profits.
You know, if HP really wanted to prop up it's bottom line with foreign labour, I'm quite sure there's some highly skilled individual in India would be willing to work as their CEO for quite a bit less than the multi-million dollar compensation package Fiona currently gets. And if Fiona really believes that best thing for HP is to reduce labour costs through outsourcing, as opposed to simply boosting her own profits at the expense of anyone and everyone else; than no doubt she will be recommending that HP look overseas for cheaper company officers during HP's next corporate meeting. You will be doing that next, right Fiona? Right? Since off-shore labour makes so much sense for the welfare of your company, right?
Not the only place where India is not playing by the same rules we are. See my sig.
It's no damn wonder India can pay minimum wage for tech jobs, half the freakin' country is slaves and most of the other half is 'untouchables' forced to work for next to nothing.
Carly really needs to explain how she personally and HP feel about supporting slavery.
Not everyone can do the same things, some are blessed from birth with inherit capabilities, some work harder for them, some don't. So yes...your hard work (education) to attain skills that everyone else does not have DOES entitle you to better pay for your job...because is not something any 'joe' can do.
I'm not happy to see the blue collar jobs moved either....I think by putting our manufacturing outside our borders along with much of our intellectual work out there, will at some point become a national security danger. If other countries at some point get pissed at us...and cut off steel supplies (add whatever other industry here) to us...what will happen? WE don't have the manufacturing capabilities dues to shipping them overseas and across borders. Right now, we're worried about oil embargos? Well, wait till it is MUCH more than that that the world can threaten us with...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
She's bad because she's whipping the company into shape? Do you HP-Way loving fucks understand that the ONLY profitable division of Hewlet Packard is the frigging PRINTER division? Ever heard of a company called Dell? They're eating HP's lunch. HP won't survive unless it goes in the direction Carly is taking it.
Business was never meant to be warm and fuzzy.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
sometimes i like to think about how companies and ceos and money are kind of like back in the day, when you had a king, and a few lords, and a bunch of serfs or what have you. kingdoms are like companies. ceos are the kings, and then you have like the c[f,t,i]o who are like princes, or earls, or dukes or whatever, I never played D&D so i'm trying to remember history class. And then you have your serfs, the little dudes at the bottom doing all the work. i guess those are like employees.
so then you have all the serfs all together, and they all have to buy junk like... food and deers and arrows. so, they are the source of all the money dumplings, like gold nuggets, which are like a C-note. And then the CEO-kings go "ha ha ha thanks for the money dumpling, laddy".
K, but, what if those kings sent money dumplings to The Oriental Land of Panda-la. They pay King Chow for his serfs to make wicker baskets and... wheels, and other high tech. And then send it back with Magellan. And, the CEO-King fired all his serfs by telling some dragon to go eat em, and they're not in the picture. Cept, they are, and now they're eating tree bark cause they arent making wheels for his majesty.
So the wheels and baskets are coming back from panda-la and the CEO-King is like "dude.. this is sweeteth" and he has more gold dumplings than ever before, cause he doesnt have to pay his localites, and.. ugh, see, this is where my example falls apart, as it lacks both a cunning mix of logic, and sense. Actually, it might just be that it's veilded under a shroud of retardedness, but that's left to you, dear reader.
Maybe someone should correct my giant metaphor so that I can understand it for me...
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
In other words, you have to make a big investment in your education so you can have a piece of paper that no longer guarantees you that you will recoup the costs of that education, let alone bring a return on investment you can live on. Welcome to the new world.
If companies are restricted from hiring foreign workers, what's to stop a new company from forming in that country to take advantage of the labor and compete against US companies?
"The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers," said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. "The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools."
Granted, it's at the end of the article but still ....
Looking for a great online backup: Green Backup
Amreica has been getting good wages compared to the rest of the world for some time now. If this was truely a problem American companies would have trouble competing for some time now. As industries mature there is a natural tendancy for them to move to cheaper markets overseas, in the meantime we (the U.S.) will go on to create new oppurtunities and markets, this is nothing new. What interesting about the moving of tech jobs is that how quickly it's happening, but I believe that it is a favor of the week. Most of the "cost savings" will never materilize or will be negated by falling sales, and higher corporate management costs. Some of the more technical jobs will return. However most will be lost (esp. the call centers), but then again how many televisions are made in the U.S. (none, BTW)
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
How will the US gov pay the difference between $50/mo and $5k a month?
Where will this money come from? Wouldn't every company threaten to move their jobs offshore to get this money?
It may be true that overall the average math and science scores for the entire nations are higher, but it is not necessarily true that the math and science scores are higher for the high tech workers in China and India compared to those in the U.S.
This is an incorrect use of statistics. There is a reason that foriegn students come to U.S. colleges, and it is not to go to a worse school.
Fire us all and outsource our jobs to people working working for a few bucks / month. Then let's see who will buy your $1000+ computers, $300+ videocards, $10+ CDs and $20+ DVDs.
Shortsighted buffons.
it would save the rest of us quite a bit of headache.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Well had I had this man's ear while he was making this argument, I would politely scream at the top of my lungs that we're simply unable to work for "the minimum wage or lower" in the U.S. The cost of living in this country far outstrips many other places I've heard of.
The problem is that we are not playing by the same rules. See sig for details.
Fiorina claims our education system is one of the reasons they ship jobs overseas even though the same education system is where the people that built her company and the tech boom in general got their educations, and if it isn't our God given right to have a job...then I guess we can ship her job overseas as well....how much would HP save then?
Let me make my feelings clear, we are in a world of hurt when corporations make the decisions, just take a look at our government.
When will we finally do more than "protest"?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Too many investors don't look at the long term. They want instant gratification and "roll of the dice" situations. The fact that long term planning may result in far greater gains escapes them.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I haven't seen much talk about the obvious effects on US power. The outflow of tech jobs has two obvious effects. First, the tax base is reduced so that the country can afford less. Second, the nations the jobs move to will grow indigenous companies that increasingly create all the new innovations, leaving us in the dust.
Isn't it interesting that this is happening at the exact moment the current Administration has decided it can strut about acting like an undefeatable imperial power? I have seen some commentators who have speculated this power imbalance would only last perhaps twenty or thirty years. Garbage! With the continually increasing rate of knowledge accumulation, the fact that the center of that accumulation has moved out of the United States implies the imbalance will shift much, much sooner.
Just, of course, when we have managed to pretty well piss-off much of the rest of the world.
Parent should be marked insightful, not funny.
Executive compensation is way out of whack, and it's because the executive club takes care of itself. Boards of one company are filled with executives of other companies, and vice versa. It's a circle of people writing each other checks out of corporate accounts.
There's always the line of defense which is, "but we're critically important, and we're doing very difficult jobs." The same could be true of the IT personnel who have been outsourced. So therefore, the executives should be outsourced as well.
Imagine the millions each company could save if their executives were paid an Indian's King's Ransom, instead of an American's King's Ransom?
If the American execs want to keep their jobs, well heck, they can take a pay cut to be on par with their Indian counterparts, right?
The whole executive compensation issue wouldn't be so aggravating if all execs did a good job. But many suck. Many run their companies into the ground, resign when things get bad, get a parting gift of a few million, and then go become CxO at another company. Rinse repeat. Once an exec, always an exec, unless of course you're tied up in a federal country club.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
While Carly complains about the cost of labor, Dubya is trying to help out illegal aliens with his immigration plan, has anybody thought about who is going to pay for all of these high priced services and products?
And why should we listen to Carly, didn't she get a big bonus for merging with Compaq and layoff a large number of HP's workforce at the same time? I remember reading a comment that someone at HP said, something to the effect of "you can work here for free"! Maybe Carly should "work for free" and set the example for the rest of HP's workforce!
I am uninformed on this issue, but do you own a car? How about a big stereo in your living room to go by that nice new TV? how about some credit card debt? I am not making comments to you personally, please don't take it as that, but I think that if a person really wanted to live on a bit less money than the average in the united states, it can be done, and then that person can undercut the other prospective employees by enough to make it worthwhile to hire them. I also think that the job experience would be more than worthwhile enough for that person in the future, it would just take some sacrifices, and if that person didn't want to make sacrifices, well, tough luck for them
I'm not sure what the secret to success is, but the secret to failure lies in trying to please everyone -Bill Cosby
If your like me and a bit PO'd about this from the article.
Paragraph 4 from the yahoo article:
' "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday. "We have to compete for jobs." '
Feel free to send your thoughts too... HP's E-mail Carly page.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Yeah, that's right, capitalism is great and protectionism is bad. Unless its bad for business, in which case, we'll call it something else like "protecting intellectual property" or "national security" or even give it a *good* economic/management buzzword like "differential pricing" and conclude thats how markets most efficiently operate, and only terrorists and zealots and pirates and other people that aren't willing to go along with capitalism would disagree.
Well, I disagree. I think some protectionism IS worth it. I like my way of life, and I'm not willing to sacrifice it so the capitalist elite can get bigger bonuses or the pedantic economists can proclaim "more efficient markets".
"More efficient markets" sound great, but that perfect efficiency risks turning us all into faceless cogs of some huge machine, having to justify our every move and every need on the basis of its economic efficiency and benefit to the markets. Yuck.
Come on!! Minimum wage will not even cover my loans I had to take out to get my "highly educated" ass a job. Ok Scott Kirwin, I have an idea let's take away your big ass salary and exchange it for a minimum wage paycheck and see if you are not homeless within a week. Jackass!
*cragen
So you get screwed, but theres a guy in India whose happily working and the consumer just saved $20. Can someone explain why thats so wrong?
Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
Many other goods are produced offshore.
Levis has no US production.
You support companies who outsource their products to low cost countries.
Nobody complains when they get a deal on the product.
Well there is a bit of a difference. A factory worker doesn't have an education investment that helped him get to that career. He just showed up one day, they took a few minutes showing him how to do some repetitive job, and that was that. It also didn't help them get any sympathy when they were getting paid very large wages for a manual labor job that a monkey could do, and other people in other parts of the country were doing jobs that had the same skill level but only paid minimum wage.
When the overpaid factory jobs went elsewhere, it wasn't that hard (in theory) to retrain those workers for something else. In many cases I believe, those workers had other skills, but stayed with the factory jobs because they paid very well and were very stable. When they lost the jobs, they used their other skills to find other employment. If you're already skilled in assembling cars, how hard is it to learn how to do oil changes, and go to work at Jiffy Lube? Construction also is a manual labor job that doesn't require any education, and it pays very well too.
Tech jobs are different: they require years of education to become qualified for. Sure, help-desk operators don't have Master's degrees, but companies are also moving engineering jobs overseas. If you have a Master's degree in engineering, which probably took 5-6 years to achieve, along with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, you can't just retrain on a whim and get a different job.
Worse yet, just a few years ago all these same companies were whining about how there weren't enough engineers for them to hire. They yelled at the government to improve science and math education and encourage more kids to go to engineering school. Now that a bunch of people have gotten engineering degrees, they're being kicked out the door because these same companies found out they could outsource the work to 3rd-world countries for much less. Now these engineers are stuck with too much education to easily change jobs, and high student loans they still have to repay.
What I don't understand is why these stupid execs are still calling for better education in this country. What's the point if there's no jobs for the kids to go into because they've all been outsourced?
U.S. citizens wants it both ways. They want to market to the world as if there are no borders, yet they want all the jobs and profits in the U.S. Doesn't work that way, and if the U.S. governement tries to force it, head offices will end up elsewhere.
Welcome to the rest of the world, America.
Nice that the woman is honest, at least. And I really can't put more blaim on her than anyother large American companies upper eschelons. The blue collar folks have been putting up with this sort of crap since the 70's, though, so it is hardly a new trend.
When you buy an American made car, it is made in Mexico, most of the time. I think that Nissan is one of the few cars assembled in America, nice irony. American Express, has even asked a freind of mine, who does billing, if she wanted a "free" trip to india, to train nice young Indians to work on the phones. The poised this as a bonus for her productivity, but actually is them trying to con her into training her replacement.
Such is the way America goes. I'm all for trade restrictions, no matter how unPC that is to say in our ubercapitalist/globalist society. If some random developing country offers a good education, and cheaper service, let them develop their own companies, then let them compete in the global market.
BUT... Same as with GM leaving Michigan, it is partly the employees fault. If you keep on demanding more and more, wages benefits, whatnot, then you might as well excpect that they eventually will give up, and give the job to someone more humble in needs. If you expect, after leaving college, to receive a huge wage, huge benefits, options, and all the other perks, then then you are truly deluded as to our economy. You should be happier, in the long-run, to accept a job of modest wage and benefit, knowing that the market sucks, and their is a cheap pool of more grateful employees elsewhere.
Now here lies a real problem for these companies, as well. Right now they are alienating their consumers, and American support people, but more than make up for it in increased profitability. BUT... What happens when these new foreign, and cheap, employees also realize their worth? In a foreign studies class I took, we studied Malaysia. In said country, Intel is a LARGE employer, dependant on the cheap labor pool there. But as the Economy grows, the people start to expect more. They unionize, they demand benefits, they demand more rights, wages, a higher standard of living. They become more American, for the purposes of the company.
So either the companies leave, and crush the local economy they built, further alienating more people, or they are forced to bend to the will of their employees, making the whole point of moving pointless. But in the short term it is a great idea for making a shitload of money.
No answer here, except a no-brainer, 'greed sucks'. Sorry for the rant, I'm of rather harsh opinions on out-sourcing.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
What I hate is that these CEO's are calling on the US to not protect jobs, but try to move to India to get one of these jobs. They won't let you do it. Yahoo had an article a little while ago about an IT worker who said he would be glad to go to India and get a job, the Indian gov't denied him a visa. They're not letting you in so that they can protect their jobs.
"My enemies hate me. My allies hate me. I hate myself."
I was a manager at a company that excelled at "off-shoring" work overseas (to India, to be precise). The company I worked for would partner with fortune-500 type companies to move development overseas.
The sales pitch was this: It will save you a lot of money. Even if you have to triple the overseas staff.
The problem was never "finding people with the right education and experience". If our partners were only interested in doing the work in the US using US citizens, it wasn't a problem. It was just that the employees overseas were relatively VERY inexpensive - even if it took more than twice the number of people to do the work, tons of money was saved.
Reality was that we paid "off-shore developers" about 1/5th the amount of what we'd pay for a US citizen of similar experience. The folks I dealt with overseas were mostly very good. As with any workplace, there were some that weren't good.
Developing over a great distance, 9.5 hours out of synch, with a language barrier, and with very little face-to-face contact, can be an additional expense.
But if 80% costs savings became a 40% savings because things went poorly, we were still way ahead.
The next logical step is to start outsourcing MANAGEMENT.
No, it entitles you to nothing. An education simply makes you a more desireable and more valuble asset. But this is capitalism, and no matter how valuble you may be, in theory, it's the real money availible (or the lack of it) that will decide whether or not you get the pay you want. Let's face it, a lot of net admin and similar work could be learned via on the job training for someone with no college degree. The reason someone with a college degree get's more pay is because you are then expected to not need the on the job training and you are expected to produce a higher quality of work in less time. But in the end, if it's cheaper for the comapny to do OTJ training and give more time to solve a problem than it is to hire you, then you don't get the job. That's life, and no college degree will change that.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
2. CEOs are hiring people who can do the work for the least money. In some cases they get burned by that because it turns out that the outsourced workers are inferior. However, in those cases where somebody can do your job just as good as you for a fraction of the wage... Guess what? You were getting paid more than you were actually worth. C'est la vie.
3. The "paper MCSEs" are not going to be willing to work cheap. Most of them went chasing after the advertising of "big $$$" because they wanted to make a lot of cash, not because they love to work in IT. When it they discover that they more as a plummer than as a PC help desk worker, they will change jobs, and we will be right back to needing H1Bs to fill some of our jobs when the market picks up again.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Ok Carly,
:)
Lets start by outsourcing executives and board of directors to India. Think of the savings we could achieve !!!!
1 US CEO @ $6,000,000 plus perks
or
Indian Think Tank (6 PHD's) in India @ $ 300,000
With these kind of savings we could afford a few US IT folks
"Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it" Richard Feynman
This line of reasoning rings truest when one reflects back on economic data suggesting the Middle Class (a.k.a. The Realistic American Dream) is eroding away in the shadow of corporate greed. The American Corportate Dream has become one wherein 1% have control, money, and power, and the remainder are working for minimum wage, or are left praying government assistance programs come back en vogue to aid in their basic survival.
Should "barriers to entry" apply to success, or more importantly, comfortable (not extravagent) lifestyles? I don't need to be rich, but I'd like to at least be able to hold onto the hope that I, as a well-educated technology professional, will be able to at least provide for my family into the future without having to foresake my education, experience, and dignity by moving into unskilled labor positions due to the unavailability of positions in my field. If we cannot hold onto hope, how can we, in good conscience, continue to extol the virtues of education to the youth of America. "Yes, dear. You shouldn't quit school, you should go to college. We want you to be the best read, most informed pauper on the block when your chosen path is outsourced to those in more desperate circumstances, and that are prepared to do your job for less".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've found that the pay for the jobs out there hasn't decreased it's simply the number of jobs available has gone down the toilet.
This is interesting, because it seems to be in stark contrast to the comments in the story about U.S. workers being unwilling to work for less money. That suggests to me that there are still the same number of jobs in this country, only now they pay smaller salaries, and after some period of time the executives decided that U.S. workers were unwilling to accept those smaller salaries.
The thing is, as you pointed out, this is not what's happening. There are in fact fewer jobs available, and the salaries are the same (ie, not lower).
Perhaps a good summary of the article might be: "Well, we're doing the usual blind executive thing, making lots of decisions that we can't really justify to the public because our reasoning is shaky and unfounded. So please just leave us alone and give us the freedom to wreck the U.S. high-tech job market as we see fit. Thank you."
Which brings me back to my original question; do the losses of American jobs in the past equate to a doomed American IT industry? Perhaps not. Not to sound arrogant, but the demographics are now totally different. The jobs being lost now are jobs that normally require college degrees. College educated people are often more likely to not only vote, but to actually study the candidates before casting their vote. This power cannot be overlooked. College educated people are also more likely to invest in the stock market. As a shareholder, you have a voice. CEO's keep telling us jobs are leaving because "shareholders demand it" As shareholders, we can demand that greedy execs stop pushing jobs overseas. Your stock may drop a quarter of a point because of this, but hey, sacrifices need to be made!
The situation looks bad. Keep in mind the people we are fighting are the 1% that rule America: the bloated CxO with a congressman in his back pocket. Fortunately, our voices are being heard. This is a big issue this election year, and every day, we see a new news story about it. This is good. We cannot stop offshoring entirely. But I do believe that if we never let ourselves be silenced, we can prevent it from bankrupting any more American families.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
"When the overpaid factory jobs went elsewhere"
Overpaid by whose standards? Those jobs are now paying less than an dollar an hour.
Are YOU willing to live on $.75 an hour?
If not, shut up about being overpaid, because YOU are being overpaid by your own standard.
Ye gods. Are you all insane?
look for small to mid sized companys in health care (hospitals have lots of IT), finance, engineering and manufacturing. Very few jobs exist per se in software companies to start with. Small to mid-sized companies are the vast majority of jobs in the US as well (something like 2/3rds!). If you are in any way competent you can become the company guru and outsourcing is usually not an option for smaller companys (too expensive). Just be prepared to wear many hats.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform
Well, here is a free clue for you: If people don't have jobs, they are a lot less likely to buy your products.
You want a market for your product or service? Hire local workers! You want local people with no money to spend? Ship all those jobs far away.
If yours is the only company that is sending jobs overseas, it's great for you. But once every company starts doing it, it's bad for everyone.
Shop local -- your job depends on it!
Hire local -- your market depends on it!
It's also IT people thinking far too highly of themselves. Granted you got an education, but I've seen far too many IT people who could lose their job to a highschool kid get paid hundreds of thousands a year to do a simple job. The market won't bear that anymore.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Since college is not very cheap here, and most software/engineering companies want degree'd workers, you cannot afford college for a minimum wage job.
How many companies are checking or even care about the qualifications of the overseas people doing the work, or do they care?
So US industry is encouraging kids not to go to college, and they complain about the education level....
So how long before most of us cannot afford to buy the products we used to make, the standard of living goes up in India, and they end up outsourcing back to the now third-world USA???
I am now in line behing other engineers to qualify for McDonalds Manager trainee program.
I'm sure Governor "jobs jobs jobs" Arnold must just be thrilled with Carly's comments. It'll totally help the California economy to have our own citizens acting with such disloyalty.
I don't mean disloyalty to you or me, most of us on /. haven't even met Carly or her peers. I mean disloyalty to the state and/or country that needs her to act like a responsible citizen. Her actions or lack of them can impact the community. I think the most sadly amusing thing was yesterday's San Jose Mercury newspaper. On the same front page was Arnold at the top talking about how he's going to turn around the economy by job creation, and right below that was an article about 1,300 jobs at Gateway's (I think) support center going overseas.
Chase that money! That bigger profit margin! If anyone interferes, lobby to keep doing it with impunity! ...Although if you're lobbying now, why not lobby to make changes here so that jobs can stay here? I mean, if you're going to the effort, why not find a solution that helps your own country?
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Not everyone has the LUXURY of taking 4 years off of life to pursue education. Those *non-traditional* students that aren't racking up loans and are working themselves through school are heros, but they are not the students to use as the average example.
Todays univerisites are pumping out too many liberal arts degrees, which is fine if your degree in Psychology leads to your a profession in psychology, but does that same degree demand you get more money working a help desk with someone who didn't go to university? But you feel *entitled* to more money, that's fine, I invite your DEMAND it during the hiring process, I know plenty of guys that'll be there to pick up your scraps and will work damn hard once in the door.
I say all this being a college grad and having gone back twice for additional degrees. Although none of them are in the area I work in, I barely mention them on my resume and don't feel they entitle me to anything.
If Dell doesn't pass those price cuts on to consumers, Gateway will, and put Dell out of business. If Carly at HP decides to pocket those extra cost savings, she'll be out of a job and a company in two years.
If you pay any attention to the business press, you know that the PC companies run on absolutely razor-thin margins.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
What I love about this sort of 'unenlightened self-interest' from corporate types like this is that they don't appreciate the irony that if everyone starts outsourcing jobs, no one in the US will be able to afford the goods they produce!
Think about it. If no one in the US can afford their products, then they'll have to either drastically reduce prices, or they'll have to sell many more of them to people in countries like India, who they are paying many times less than they are paying US workers. Can they afford to keep 'US' prices in those countries? Not if they want to sell a lot of machines they can't. They totally miss the fact that well-paid American workers are their best customers and 'profit generators'!
That's what happens when you don't think about the economy as an ecosystem (which it is). And when you lack fundamental ethical thinking skills (i.e. what if everyone did what we did, and what responsibilities do we have to society). Being a responsible corporate citizen pays off, but it simply can't be seen in some corporate 'bottom line' spreadsheet, so most companies sadly ignore it. Make no mistake though, if most things in the US become automated and/or outsourced (which is the current trend), there will be a major crisis in this country.
Because there's still *lots* of opportunity, that's why!
IT's dirty little secret is that we're not very good at getting to business value from investements in technology.
Sure, we are able to turn a profit, but the vast majority of projects are death marches, or are only marginally as successful as we originally hoped. The real win is in figuring out how to use IT to make as many widgets as possible at the lowest overall cost. This includes hardware, software, and labor.
No one is *really* good at that. One thing that we're doing right now is saying, "well we're lousy at this, so if we throw cheaper labor at it, the costs go down." This is only a small part of the picture. If we figure out:
a) how to understand what our businesses actually need from IT systems? (No one ultimately cares about the new whiz-bang technology from XYZ corp, or OSS project ABC.)
b) How to translate those into system requirements
c) What is really needed to code those into a functional system, and
d) how to lead teams of geeks so that they can complete the geekwork efficiently
We will be able to clobber anyone in the world, no matter the inequities of labor costs between countries/economies. The challenge is that a,b,c, and especially d are extremely HARD to do.
In developed nations we have a better idea about how to accomplish this, but truth be told we're not very good at it, we're just not as bad at it as everyone else.
Going to college is a great thing. Learn technology, but also learn humanities and people skills. The latter ultimately determine your earning potential far more than sheer technical knowledge.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
BTW - God loves you and longs for relationship with you. If you want to know more, please email me.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
... A sliding scale minimum wage based on various cost of living factors and indexed to inflation could work pretty well. That would resolve the regional differences in housing, food, health care, and consumables while providing for a fair balance between exploiting overseas workers and fair trade economics. It would have to be recalculated on a regular basis, say yearly. But this is certainly better than enforcing a single minimum wage, unlivable in any major metropolitan area and much too high in the poorest rural areas of the world. JMO. --M
Maybe if we pay off the national debt, the government can afford to subsidize companies hiring U.S. works.
In other news: Leading free software developers urged Congress and the Bush administration Wednesday not to impose new trade restrictions aimed at keeping CEO, CIO, CFO, COO, CTO, CSO and other director and executive jobs from moving overseas, where executive labor costs are lower. 'There is no job that is Free America's God-given right anymore,' a leading free software developer said Wednesday. 'The problem is not a lack of highly educated CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, COOs, CTOs, CSOs, directors and other executives' said Gnu Hacker founder of the Free Software Association of America. 'The problem is a lack of highly educated CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, COOs, CTOs, CSOs and directors willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of the American executive business schools.'"
Perhaps people would be willing to receive a lower wage if we didn't have to pay $30,000 a year to get the education necessary to obtain said job.
I know I personally will have around $50,000 in student loans to pay off when I graduate, and would find it exceptionally difficult to pay off in an reasonable amount of time if I was only making $10,712 a year. ($5.15*40*52)
"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." - Democritus
Globalization is going to be a real bitch. Right now these corporations are riding the front of wave of change. At some point market forces will cause wages and the quality of life in the US to decrease. How many HP products will US workers be able to buy when that comes around? Not much. Then these corporations will feel the hurt. This is where US political, economic, and business leaders are failing the US. Someone is getting rich doing this, but that group is getting smaller and smaller.
Seems like ever time this issue comes up on Slashdot, people reply one of three ways.
1) "Screw you, you lazy bastards. It's Capitalism, compete or shut up. Just like I'm going to do as soon as I graduate from college with my CS degree. I can't wait!"
2) "Let's outsource the CEOs! nyuk nyuk" [about five or six times per thread, always ranked 5:Funny]
3) "Dammit, if they want to work for US tech companies, let 'em come here!"
None of these responses is an effective means of addressing the problem. The Western system of democratic capitalism has worked so far specifically because it harnesses capitalism to acheive wealth and social stability. Notice that I said "harness". Capitalism is a great tool, but left to its own devices it destroys the middle class.
Banning job exportation completely is stupid. The US will quickly lose its competitive edge in IT. Already we're seeing Indian companies churning out quality, high-margin software (such as Flexcube) that's making significant inroads into US markets. When the Chinese start getting warmed up, watch out.
Allowing the exporters free rein is also stupid. It will destroy the US IT industry, put millions out of work, and we'll lose critical mindshare (as all the bright kids who would've become engineers wind up as lawyers). And people with families and other responsibilities DON'T HAVE the resources or time to retrain, you knuckleheaded Objectivist brats. They'll drop out of the middle class and screw the rest of the economy, destroying jobs they might have otherwise tried to retrain for.
Really, what we need are measures to soften the blow of global capitalism. That's what governments are there for. We need controls (but not a ban) on job exports, perhaps a tax-credits-per-domestic-employee plan. We need federal retraining incentive program, giving out vouchers to unemployed people who can redeem them for tuition to get new job skills. And we can take a big chunk of the cash to do these things out of agribusiness subsidies. Fuck Monsanto, the US stopped being an agricultural economy about a hundred years ago. Let's keep our leadership role role where it really matters: in science and technology.
Perhaps we(american tech workers) should just not go into work for a couple of weeks. hey they don't need us anymore right, at least thats what they are claiming. I'd like to see them(CEOs/CFOs) writhe in pain as their whole infrastructure goes down the tubes. make them pay for their greed.
...have no problem finding work. This has been the worst tech contractions I've witnessed. I know a top grade programmer who has been unemployed for two years in the Boston area, and (I believe) primarily because he is nearing fifty. He doesn't think he'll ever work in tech again. He may be right... --M
Why hasn't anybody mentioned unions as an answer to all this? Seems we could really use them right now.
We could use them here, and they could use them in India. Unions with some kind of international perspective (instead of the nationalism of the AFL-CIO and others) are the only kinds of unions that can be effective in a globalized economy.
This is why we have to be concerned about the economic conditions of the third world, and need to support their right to organize. Our decent jobs are going to be much less likely to cross overseas and become sweatshop jobs if we give support to people in the third world who are trying to form unions.
If companies keep offshoring jobs in the US or expect everyone except upper management to work for minimum wage who is going to buy all their products? The richest 1 or 2 percent can only own so many computers. Along with the better paying jobs disappearing the disposable income to buy all these products are going to disappear too. Eventually no one will be able to afford anything except food and housing. Look at all the bills you have now that you didn't have twenty years ago. I now have a cable bill, two cell phone bills, and a DSL bill occuring monthly. I don't need these things but they add to my quality of life and I can afford them. If I was working for minimum wage those bills would amount to 25% of my income.
You all ran your salaries up way to far, lived outside your means, and suddenly, but bubble burst.
Look at history, the unions did the same thing. They started raising their salaries to a 'livable wage', then when companies went elsewhere to get the labor cheaper, they all started to whine to.
I knew far too many programmers that wanted to command +60K salaries that weren't worth crap. But because companies needed them, and didn't have a cheaper source, they had to pay it. Now, they have an alternative and are using it. Well boo hoo, don't cry in your lite beer too much.
It may surprise you, but Bill Gates and all the other CEOs didn't go into business to give you jobs. They went into business to make money. Get over yourselves, and if you want to be rich, do the same thing. Otherwise, settle for what other people are willing to pay, not what you think you are worth.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Only one of these is being acknowledged. Coprorations seem to have way too much control over government.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I work for a small company, and am very much in a position to influence the technology purchases in my company. Why don't we, the consumers, just stop buying from these companies? We were considering buying a number of HP switches, but after that comment from HP, the hell if we're going to do that! I'll look instead at companies who support U.S. products and U.S. labor.
We didn't buy Dell laptops for the same reason (that, and I've watched three Dell laptops owned by friends die from bad motherboards in the past few months).
I'm not trolling, but consider what Open Source does for a country like India or China.
It gives them a legal OS, a legal compiler, documentation, and support, all for free.
If Linux and Gnu (or some equivilent) didn't exist they'd be paying for licences, or pirating the software. Ok - quite a few would pirate the software, as most of Asia has been for the last 10 years.
But without competition from Linux, Microsoft might have put the licence-checker into their software alot sooner than they did with XP. Schools would have had to pay for licences (and paid for the more powerful hardware required to run a Microsoft OS).
This doesn't mean I think Linux is bad; I am in no way stating that we should keep India barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, so to speak. I just wanted to make the point that Gnu/Linux has played a huge role in training software developers in 3rd world countries.
Or am I wrong? Do they run Solaris, XP, 2000, or Mac OS X?
'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'
The problem seems more like a lack of corporate leadership that can't see past their own bottom lines.
Offshoring jobs (especially in manufacturing) has always seemed particularly nefarious to me... Somehow sacrificing your fellow Americans to save a few dollars doesn't seem quite right.
I can't wait until we start offshoring CEO positions for traditionally American operated companies.
You must be a Libertarian or quasi-Libertarian who has the wrong definition of greed. Greed is associated with excessiveness. Capatalism is based on want or desire for something better (i.e car, lifestyle) but not to the degree of excessiveness. Some people do excell and gain a great deal. This is still not greed. Unfortunately greed is a term that is based in ethical and moral philosophy. Most Libertarians eschew ethics and morals in business believing essentially in economic anarchy.
I find it best to define greed as having to lie, cheat or steal in a small way or a big way to gain your ends.
BTW, *weasel is a good name for you. You would probably take the coins off of a dead man's eyes for own ends.
2. CEOs are hiring people who can do the work for the least money. In some cases they get burned by that because it turns out that the outsourced workers are inferior. However, in those cases where somebody can do your job just as good as you for a fraction of the wage... Guess what? You were getting paid more than you were actually worth. C'est la vie.
If the cost of living in the US were the same as India, I'd be willing to be paid the same as an Indian software engineer. Guess what, it's significantly more expensive to live in the US.
I realize protectionism is not a viable long-term strategy. I don't want to steal the potential for economic development from nations transitioning to an advanced economy.
But here's the problem: we are growing production capacity without growing the markets to support them. Everyone would be getting rich and improving their quality of life in this equation if there was a demand from within India for IT work. There isn't one to speak of.
Without such markets to support the expanded production capacity, the benefits of globalization are realized only for corporations -- and they are short-lived. The net money going to workers drops as companies utilize cheaper labor. By shipping capital out of the country to foreign workers who will not inject it back into the corporations' native economy, that economy will suffer, people won't be able to afford services and the corporations will collapse.
The corporations are not really to blame. This is irresistable poison fruit. If they don't take it, they will starve long before their competitors die from the toxicity of the practice.
Protectionist measures are not a permanent solution, but they MUST be put back into place to slow the bleeding. They can slowly be relaxed as foreign markets expand and produce consumers to support their industries.
The hard truth is that there is no shortcut to developing a nation's economy. To do it right takes a slow process. Otherwise all you get is short term corporate enrichment, the establishment of unsustainable foreign labor markets, and the destruction of local economies and cultures.
The investors choose a management team to take care of their capital and run the company with a profit. If the management team is payed a flat salary, they have no incentive to make, say, 15% instead of 8% profit. Their incentive is to keep their jobs, theoretically by doing the minimum necessary. If, however, their compensation is tied to the performance of the company (through growth targets, stock options, etc), the executives have a personal financial interest in maximizing the value of the company, and thus (in theory) the share price.
I guess the big flaw in this is that no other member of the company is compensated the same way, while arguably an engineer has the same influence over the success or failure of the company, at least on a small scale. If it works for the executive, why not the front-line worker? The only answer I can think of is that there is no "procedure" for being a CEO. Everything that the company does is a calculated risk, and management requires a high degree of customization. Maybe without this compensation there'd be less incentive to take risks, while the last thing you want to tell your front-liners is to take risks. I'm not saying it's a good answer, but it is all I can think of. I'm open to other ideas. Thoughts?
IIRC HP has only posted 2 profitable qtrs since then. And the last QTR showed a pro forma profit but when posted under GAAP there was a net loss.
go to www.chipzilla.com and search the site for HP for a good review of the HPAQ follies.
To put it another way, CEO compensation has become a HUGE drag on stock holder value and the US economy....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
But you make a good point. Any protectionist measures we implement will eventually hit cost us ten-fold any benefit they grant us now.
Be careful! Bears shouldn't consume large furry dogs.
and it's only the beginning. :)
CodeTrap (www.codetrap.net)
Buried in the details: unlimited green cards.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
My dad was (for a time) a home improvement salesperson in the coalfields of rural WV. He said "I knew when I saw the driveways filled with Toyotas and Mazdas instead of more expensive Fords and Chevys that the WV coalminers were doomed to be out of work."
His point was that they were taking wages earned in the American economy and pumping the profits to another country where labor costs were lower.
Today American workers expect high pay (certainly even minimum wage is VERY high pay from a worldwide perspective) and great benefits, but we all want CD players made in China. We can't have it both ways.
If we want to keep our standard of living, we need to choose to pay more for American-made goods. I make a practice of looking for American made goods when I buy, but I know that I'm totally in the minority when I do so. I'll pay more to help sustain my standard of living. I'm hoping that someday soon others will figure that out and start doing the same.
I'm not really expecting that.
The good thing is that overseas manufacturing can be difficult because of lack of infrastructure, and overall productivity is pretty low, making our products more competetive in spite of different labor costs. This is changing and it will be interesting to see the landscape in 20 years....
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
[Remember records... they were vinyl (in earlier days, wax) discs approximately 2 to 2.5 times the diameter of CDs or DVDs in which data was stored as a physical groove on the edge of a track spiraling towards the center.]
Offshoring is a good thing. The "lost jobs" in IT are creating a pool of capital (in the form of labor) that will allow the next great step forward to be taken.
Industrialization could only occur on the scale it did if, thanks to increased efficiency in agriculture, millions of family farms went under, sending their labor capital to the cities to work in the factories.
The "information industries" (IT, law, medicine, finance, media, etc.) could only occur on the scale they have over the past 50 years if industrial employment declined (largely because of greater mechanization and also because of offshoring of production). The evidence can be seen by looking at Europe, where those nations that vigorously tried to protect their existing industrial wage bases (through guaranteed employment laws, massive subsidies, etc.) found themselves years behind the US in terms of the state of the "information industries".
Much like the slashdotters complaining about offshoring, the RIAA and MPAA complain about technological changes that, quite frankly, doom their current models, if not their existence themselves. And much like the RIAA/MPAA, these slashdotters are calling for the government to come in and preserve their business models that have brought them prosperity.
Yet these slashdotters, in general, decry the RIAA and MPAA, while failing to realize that they are doing exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons.
As far as I can tell, this indicates that these slashdotters are either:
What'll it be.
P.S.
Corporations can export the jobs, but we can't export ourselves.
The cost of living in India is a fraction of, say, San Francisco, so while the wages might be lower, the overall quality of living could be comparable. So unlike, say, moving a call center to Iowa, where an employee could theoretically relocate, it goes somewhere s/he can't follow.
Assuming this idles the former employee, this shifts the financial burden from the corporation (salary) to the government (unemployment, welfare). Sure, it helps the company's bottom line, but something's gotta give.
Corporations do not have a god-given right to profit, much less on the backs of the taxpayer and laid-off employees.
For whatever reason, Wal-Mart springs to mind...
y
I think you are misreading the quote - he is saying that highly educated workers shouldn't work for minimum wage; unfort, the context around the quote from the original article made it a bit more obvious.
...but now I won't.
... to become an undertaker. They ain't shipping that job overseas especially with all the obese people in the US today. I'm telling you Being an undertaker is going to be THE job for the next fifty years.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
I think one of the biggest problems with this scenario is something that people like Carly Fiorina and large companies don't see. Sending jobs overseas is a great short-term move to trim their expenses and boost the numbers. However, in moving jobs from North America, they are also unemploying the very people who spend money on their products. Eventually, I think this will catch up to them, but it will take time. What will happen when sales fall further due to the number of people who now cannot afford to buy the goods they sell?
Never look down your nose at others. Someday, someone is bound to see your boogers.
Wake up, dude. Not only can you not live on minimum wage (even with two jobs), there is the added concern for college costs. Education cost money. It isn't like a blue collar job where you can get along on a high school diploma that's free to get. In order to get those white collar jobs, you need a diploma that will cost you on average some $80,000 from a decent school to get. That isn't free, you have to pay back loans. You can't do that on minimum wage. Now, I'm not saying it entitles you to a good paying job, but you shoudl get payed what your worth - and having a college education (notice I didn't say diploma - just because you have a diploma doesn't mean your educated) and working a job that requires such an eduication entitles you to a higher wage then someone just out of high school (which is probably the minimum wage standard). How many good doctors work for minimum wage?
You can't get by on minimum wage (that's single - forget having a family), you certianly can't pay school loans back on minimum wage, and you definitely can't send your kids to college on minimum wage. Someone with a college education that works for minimum wage insures that their children probably won't even make it to college. As it stands the system cannot support itself. The avergae us worker cannot compete against a guy who only makes $10,000 a year. And foregt this baloney about balancing out lifestyles and setting us eqaul to the rest of the world. You want to know how the rest of the world lives? Read "Nectar in a Sieve". That's where life styles are going to balance out. The way things are going, BladeRunner would end up looking like paradise. The reality would be more like the slums of south america or africa.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
You're right! How's this for a proposal?
You keep jobs in the US and we won't tax the living hell out of your fat executive compensation, Carly, you sack of dirt and that goes for all your fat-cat chums at HP.
"The problem with hiring executives in the USA is that they all expect huge salaries, golden parachutes, stock options, perks, etc. We can save so much money by outsourcing executive jobs to India, where they'd be thrilled to make the salary the average worker at McDonald's earns."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yup, I am a little biased here, and I am a little pissed off as well.
I went to school, and Got a degree in applied Science majoring in computer and telecommunications. Not because people were saying "IT is HOT" or anything like that, but computers are the things I love, so I just followed what I was good at doing.
I finished top of my class, fought a bitter 4 month battle to get into an IT dept of a big company, and studied my but off every night to get my Certifications.
It took me a little over a year to get my Windows 2000 MCSE. Yeah, I know there are places churning paper MCSE's out by the 100's but I worked my ass off and did it without anyone's help, so I am going to be proud of it. I used to work from 7am-6:30pm come home and study till 2am and get to bed at 2:30 and sleep till 5:30 and repeat.
(and not to mention being on call 24/7 while trying to study).
So now, I am two years out of school, Married, providing for my family and my new puppy with hopes to have a kid soon and get my family and life started.
My company lays me off because I cant work for as cheap as their tech support. I was laid off and three Germans actually came here. The company could pay for the housing and their wages and still hire three of them for one of me.
I only Made 22,000 a YEAR!!!!!!!!
So now what the hell am I going to do? I been unemployed for the last 6 months and there are no IT jobs within 70 miles of where I live. How many IT people along with me are probably going to be putting a Wal-Mart vest on!?
Once again we have an example of greedy corporate leadership, with bought and paid for greedy politicians, who in their haste to grab a few quick bux as fast as they can have lost sight of the real issue.
It's like killing the goose that lays golden eggs.
By sending the R and D overseas, we're actually sending the technology and paying others to learn how to innovate and create, while losing those abilities ourselves.
But the short sighted CEO's and the Prez and his gang don't care about the long term. All they care about is grabbing that little pile of money that's sitting in front of them right now.
Trade ware? Give me a break. The 3rd world has declared a trade war on the US a long time ago.
It's time we all woke up and smelled the stink that's brewing right under our noses.
As you sit there with your imported computer, you complain about those who purchase offshore products.
Funny isn't it.
Oh wait, it isn't funny, because now it is happening to you.
Be careful! Bears shouldn't consume large furry dogs.
But as a morale matter, I have to say I don't see anything wrong with what these execs are doing. They are paying as little as possible for what they want to buy, just as I do when I buy stuff and services. I don't see how it is morally better to hire an American for 80k rather than and Indian for 8K. Does the American deserve a job more than the Indian?
I lose if my job goes overseas, but the programmers who get my job win. Should my employeer care more about me than those programmers. It doesn't care about either of us, of course, only money. But assuming it SHOULD care, why should workers in the same country be first in line?
Not sure where you're talking about. In the US, unless your are waiting tables, you have a minimum wage you get. My reference was to say like auto manufacturers getting like over $20-$40/hr. for manual labor.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
These same companies crying "FREE MARKET" are the same companies being subsidized by the US government. And where does this government money come from? the taxpayers of course. And who are these people screwing over? the taxpayers of course.
Winfried Ruigrock and Rob Van Tulder, The Logic of International Restructuring, New York: Routledge, 1995. An excerpt (pp. 220-221): [O]ver the 1950s and 1960s, the Pentagon paid more than one-third of I.B.M.'s R&D budget. The Pentagon moreover acted as a "lead user" to I.B.M., providing the company with scale economies and vital feedback on how to improve its computers. In the 1950s, the Pentagon took care of half of I.B.M.'s revenues, enabling it to move abroad and flood foreign markets with competitively priced mainframe computers. Thus, I.B.M.'s defense contracts cross-subsidised its civilian activities at home and abroad, and helped it to establish a near monopoly position throughout most of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Along similar lines, all formerly and/or currently leading U.S. computers, semiconductors and electronics makers in the 1993 Fortune 100 have benefited tremendously from preferential defense contracts. . . . In this manner, Pentagon cost-plus contracts functioned as a de facto industrial policy.
David F. Noble, Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation, New York: Knopf, 1984. An excerpt (pp. 5, 7-8): [B]etween 1945 and 1968, the Department of Defense industrial system had supplied $44 billion of goods and services, exceeding the combined net sales of General Motors, General Electric, Du Pont, and U.S. Steel. . . . By 1964, 90 percent of the research and development for the aircraft industry was being underwritten by the government, particularly the Air Force. . . . In 1964, two-thirds of the research and development costs in the electrical equipment industry (e.g., those of G.E., Westinghouse, R.C.A., Raytheon, A.T.&T., Philco, I.B.M., Sperry Rand) were still paid for by the government.
Barrett complained about federal agriculture subsidies he said were worth tens of billions of dollars while government investment in physical sciences was a relatively low $5 billion. "I can't understand why we continue to pour resources into the industries of the 19th century," Barrett said.
Yeah, that whole eating thing is sooo 19th century.
-- Mojo Tooth : exploring our world as only an idiot can.
The Apocalypse couldn't come too soon.
--- Ban humanity.
You've mis-quoted Carly...
"The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S." was said by Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. And I think he was trying to be sarcastic.
The guy who said it works for an IT professional trade group. He is pro tech worker, not pro- tech company. The quote in the article comes after a line about how the tech industry wants the government to spend more education. The guy says that the problem isn't lack of education, it's that businesses are moving overseas not because of lack of education, but because they can pay workers less.
I have blog like everyone else
HP used to be a place that cared about it's people. And they cared about HP. Now that HP has changed, now that people are just commodities to be bought and sold, the best people will be out the door at the earliest opportunity.
A job is a partnership between an employer and a company. If one side tells the other, "I don't care if you stay or go," they can't expect the other side to care either.
HP is going downhill in the long-term. In the short-term, profits will be up and Carla will get her big bonuses. But the lack of investment in people will come back to haunt them. Fortunately for Carla, that will be 5-10 years out, long after she's disappeared with her $$$.
Every capitalist economy, yes...
Not all... not in monarchy (king is limited by territory), feudalism (primitive to engage in complex international relationships), communism (workers matter), socialism (profit not a big goal), anarchism (haven't been tried but unlikely to be very international), fascism (country/race/ethnicity above all), theocracy (too many religious limitations) ... I'm not saying all those systems are good but you can hardly claim that every economy is driven by profits. Only capitalism and its relatives (eg. merchantilism) are driven by profit.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,'
There is always two jobs that are too sacred to move overseas.
1. CEO
2. shareholder
When boards of directors and shareholders start asking whether they can get better value for their money by outsourcing management activities, then I'll believe that statement.
Shareholders, I think, are pretty much free to move to whichever nation taxes them least.
Meanwhile, most workers will live in a state of heightened anxiety, hoping that their skills are rare enough to prevent their function from being outsourced to where the lowest bid in the global labor market takes it...
Yes, it's inevitable, economically correct, and very good for people in low wage countries. But as someone in a high wage country with concomitant costs of living I can't help but be nervous. I'd prefer at least a stagnant standard of living to one that decreases to equilibrate with the rest of the world.
People thought the attrition of union power in the US over the past several decades tilted the balance in favor of labor buyers.
All of that is nothing compared to the changes from globalization of the labor market.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
If you actually take a look at the figures, it is the middle-class that actually pays the bulk of the taxes in the country. Wouldnt reducing their pay/exporting their jobs in some way reduce the amount of tax money that the country actually makes? Would you not think that the imputent slobs with their dirty inheritences (err umm bush?) and their campaign contributions (equally dirty if not more) realize this? No im not american. I happen to be Indian. But I agree with all the people here who seem drastically annoyed with the course of events. If its happenin to yuo today, it could happen to me tomorrow.
[quote]'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S."
[/quote]
Two points:
1: Just about the only place you can live while you're making only minumum wage is your parent's basement or a cardboard box.
2: You can't pay less than the minimum wage. Hence the term "minimum" before the "wage".
People spend a small fortune going to colleges and trade schools learning the skills necessary. It's insulting to expect that we should be happy with pay that is less than the average burger-flipper makes.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
Unless you think that Carly and the rest of them PREFER to speak to their managers via a translator...
Chicks dig my good /. karma.
Someone should remind Carly that American corporations don't have a God-given right to tax incentives (aka corporate welfare). The tech lobby should also stop demanding government protection for its "intellectual property" overseas.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
The following is an opinion commonly expressed on Slashdot, sometimes with more and sometimes less vitriol. Note that I am not accusing you of making this same statement, or anything like it.
However, when the shoe is on the other foot, geeks who've got those beautifully framed CIS degrees on their wall, are entitled to make money, and have a job, and it's very important for businesses to take a hit on the bottom line for their sake, or for the government to legislate some kind of program or incentive to keep their precious jobs safe.
You may work for somebody else, but you're still a "business." Your business model works something like this:
1. Get CIS degree
2. Market skills to a company for cash
3. Profit!!!
Well, sorry, your business model doesn't work anymore. Businesses have found they can get the same work or a reasonable facsimile thereof overseas for much, much less. Either your price is too high, or your services are insufficient. Now, some will come back and argue that programmers in India or wherever suck, and their code stinks, and it winds up taking more time and and and... So? Obviously it's making sense for the company, or else they wouldn't be doing it. Sounds like you need to change your business model.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Carly Fiorina betrayed the founders of HP and now she'd betraying the country that gave her not only the opportunity but the encouragement to become an uncontrolled greedhead.
She'll be the first one hanged when the revolution comes.
That said, it would've been a job working for a friend of mine, who makes decent money. But this is in the DC area, where the housing market looks the way the NASDAQ did three years ago...
Best Slashdot Co
"The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S."
Carly also added, "If it were up to me, corporations would just be allowed to drive around freely and gather up workers at our discretion and keep them in little camps where they could earn their way to freedom. I mean when you think about it they already pay so much for a college education and then only have work it off at minimum wage anyway, so the difference is negligible at best."
-- Don Carcharo
Bullshit. This comment is about agriculture subsidies, which are just good old fashioned protectionism in action. They are not required to ensure food is available at a reasonable price, just to make sure inefficient US producers can compete with imported products.
Henry Ford you're not.
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
"Xenophobic americans should, in large quantities, start immigrating in droves to countries that are cheaper to live in."
Well, I'd have NO problem moving to India! I don't care how much money I make, so long as I can do what I love (programming, etc) and live somewhat comfortably.
However, a previous story on slashdot pointed to a news article about how many Indian firms will not hire foreigners - ie. Americans. Yet, if US firms tried pulling that crap here, we'd have countries all over the world freaking out.
Since I haven't seen this written elsewhere, I'm sure that it's probably impossible - but here's my idea:
A US corporation can only remain a US country if a majority of its employees are US citizens. So if HP, etc. start employing Indians or Chinese, they should be forced to become either an Indian or Chinese company (and listed on their stock exchanges as well...)
I just think that if HP is using mostly non-US labor, then they shouldn't be listed as an American company.
Maybe I'll become an auto mechanic instead, I hear they're getting all computerized and stuff...
If someone offered me $5/hour to develop in order to keep my job, I'm supposed to say yes, otherwise I'm a spoiled american?
Puhleze, if In N Out ever pays more for their strict 40/hour per week vrs IT's 80 hour stress filled weeks/weekends, I'd just work for In n Out.
To be flexible enough to adapt to changing conditions is nontrivial. Most people spend $10,000-$100,000 on educations - while these allow a fair amount of flexibility, companies are hiring based on skills sets which require significant investments in specific areas. If pay is low, the costs of specialization (or of education in general) are never returned - thus there isn't an incentive for people here to work in fields requiring education if they aren't paid enough to cover its cost. Add to this the simultaneous cost of expanding competence in other fields requires taking resources from what you do now (the expectation of employees giving everything to their work is incompatible with the concept of job security by gaining competence and training in other fields) and you have problems that seem difficult to get around.
Unless the costs of education comes down a lot (and since it has gone up at or above inflation for what - 15 years running? - this is a set of problems that is likely to hurt a lot of people in the US. Since people can't move to take advantage of lower costs in most things (can't go to India to work, for example, even if you wanted to) and have reasons that make it hard to do so (family), the market isn't exactly free in the first place. I don't think protectionism is good (we are all in this together after all) but the immobility of people in the presence of job mobility is a problem for us that isn't easy to solve.
Low wages aren't compatible with high costs of working/living. People can't move to take advantage of lower costs, particularly in education. We can do better things that others can't do, but not everyone is an innovator - once the innovation is done, someone else can do it cheaper and the jobs go where they're cheaper. If innovation arises spontaneously in individual, this works, but usually innovation requires the knowledge to be able to see and do what needs to be done. When the costs to cultivate these abilities are too high, then you have no source for innovation - when you eat the seed corn, there won't be any food for next year. The ability to move jobs around (in the practical absence of mobility in people) means that we will eventually eat our seed corn. I don't know if protectionism is the best way to guard against this, but the market isn't exactly free, and it is likely to work against us.
Which companyies have the least amount of outsourced manufacturing and support? I'm currently in the market, and although I like their hardware, I'd prefer not to buy it from such an ungrateful company.
Anybody have ideas? I'm sure all major manufactures outsource a lot of their manufacturing and support, but there has to be one that is better than the rest.
This is part of the global fascism movement that is turning the whole world into a corporate slave state. The liberal/progressive way to approach the problem of world poverty and wealth creation is to lift up weaker states with workers' rights and environmental protections so that we can all grow on an equal playing field.
The fascist approach is to destroy or prevent any kind of human rights or environmental protections from being applied in poverty-stricken areas and then use those areas and their nearly slave labor to force down rights, wages, and protections in the US and other free nations so that we go on a race to the bottom.
Don't believe me? Look at the example we just set in Central America:
- Kill a million peasants who try to establish justice
- Sign free trade agreement
- PROFIT! Big time - by sending your jobs south.
Keep fighting for corporate power and watch yourself and fellow citizens become slaves. Your stock market gains won't protect you. Corporate profits are through the roof right now. Is your life any better for it?- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
/Me safely goes back to sleep, knowing that no "leader" will ever agree to the above clause for themselves.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
Lie #1: There is a shortage of skill tech workers.
Are they smoking crack?! What a terrible slap in the face to the many unemployed, highly skilled and experienced tech workers. Isn't the unemployment rate in Silicon Valley still around eight percent?
Lie #2: Sending jobs overseas is good for the everyone.
Nonsense. It is good for the investor class. There are winners and losers in every game and to claim otherwise is disingenuous. Outsourcing is bad for those who lose their jobs and must retrain for lower paying jobs. The notion that the current trends are good for everyone is absurd.
Lie #3: It will open up new markets for American products.
If everything is designed and manufactured overseas, how does this result in an increased in US exports? With nothing to export, the trade deficit will continue to increase even if new markets open up.
Lie # 4: The US economy and the world economy will benefit in the long run. This is not guaranteed, it is pure speculation. Speculation brought to you by the same folks that didn't predict the internet boom or it's bust. They have no crystal ball and it is possible that chasing cheap labor around the globe will be detrimental in the long run. The speed at which jobs are leaving is unprecedented, so any historical evidence to support this claim is not relevant. This is a grand experiment and no one knows what the final outcome will be.
Lie #5: Foreign labor is better educated and more skilled. US universities are not producing enough engineers.
Tell that to the recent grads unable to find a job. Foreign workers may have equal skill but not superior skills. Another slap in the face.
Moving jobs overseas to cheap labor markets will increase profits and stock values. Any other supposed benefits of this trend is pure speculation. So far none of the other benefits have been realized. Stock values have increased, but unemployment remains high and the trade deficit has grown.
Waaaaaay cheaper!
I work on the edge between IT and corporate/executive sphere and while I'm generally pro open markets,when they're fair. However it seems the upper executive class holds itself immune from market trends.
They don't recognize that they're eroding the middle class and thereby the market for their products...like those small town people across America that lost their manufacturing jobs because they started to shop Wal-Mart and eroded the market for the products their factories were making...
There's also that little picadillo of history that when people are out of work, they have a tendency to take a more critical look at their 'leaders'
Can we start the revolution yet?
STOP. You're being farmed.
My only concern is that I don't particularly want to switch industries 10 times in my career. I know, I could switch into biotech, but that will soon be moved overseas as well.
I predict that within 10 years, the only jobs that will pay well in the United States will be service jobs. I'm looking at Mortician and Accountant.
Why? Death and taxes. Baby boomers will start to die, and they'll always need to pay their taxes.
It's pretty easy to understand that companies want to save money on labor costs. They care little about the quality of the "cheaper replacements" until it affects them in some way. Taking Dell for example, moving all of their support to India or Pakistan definitely cost them a loss of faith and a great deal of their desireability. Someone in Dell knew long ago that the only thing that can set a PC seller apart from the rest is the quality of their service and support. That was their ONE selling point above all others. Then they go and send their selling point overseas and people quickly discovered they aren't getting what they expected or had grown accustomed to. Dell switched back pretty quickly though not totally... they haven't yet learned their lesson... it takes the individual public a bit longer to stop buying Dell than it does for companies like Chase to threaten to stop buying Dell.
In any case, it's easy to understand the short-sighted, 80's-minded CEOs out there trying to earn a quick billion before retiring and leaving their company in ruins, but there's a MUCH bigger picture that our government SHOULD be worried about.
Every dollar that is sent overseas to pay a foreign worker is another Dollar that never returns to the U.S. In mass quantity, these large companies are sending the GNP of this country away. (Maybe I'm not using appropriate terms but I'm too lazy to check myself on that...my point should be clear though.) If all the money circulating within the U.S. represents the value of the U.S. itself, then we're giving the country's wealth away at a pretty staggaring rate. THAT should be of great concern to the government.
For H1-Bs people could argue that they are living here and paying taxes... at least that SOMETHING for our economy even if it means one more American losing his job. But when sending the work that our teenagers and college students would ordinarily be doing overseas robbing our most precious resource of valuable work experience and training while growing up, taking billions of U.S. dollars out of circulation, increasing the unemployment rate in the U.S. by leaps and bounds is not only irresponsible, but will cause an ENORMOUS political backlash against lawmakers very very soon. We can't vote these rat-bastard CEOs out of office unless we buy stock, but we CAN vote the rat-bastard politicians out of office until we get people who WILL see to our nation's welfare!
I blame the CEOs for their greed, irresponsibility, lack of conscience and short-sightedness. Henry Ford, one of the first "Big Business" leaders out there saw that he was playing a big role in the growth and future of our economy. He also saw that if he could see to it that his employees and the neighboring communities could afford to BUY the products he is selling, then he's doing good business.
Are these CEOs so blind that they can't see they are destroying the very consumer base they hope to sell all these "lower-cost products and services" to? Mr CEO, I cannot use your products and services if I cannot have a job.
First to be more correct the only HIGHLY profitable division is the camera/printer division. The Big Box folks and the PC folks made profits last quarter, just nothing to write home to mom about. Of course that beats losing money any day.
:-)). Often they do this without training a replacement and after their opposite number here in the states has left/been laid off. This leaves the employer holding the bag, so buyer beware this model works only to a point... I wouldn't want to bet the business on it like some seem to want to do.
One issue no one talks about is retention of the workers that replace the US folks. People are brought here, trained and then sent back home overseas (otherwise their cost is not that much lower). All in all they're decent developers, I wouldn't mind having them on my team if they were here and some are truly excellent. However in many cases they jump ship to other jobs as soon as they get back overseas as the training greatly increases their worth (even they like bigger salaries
Pay foreigners US minumum wage!Or above. Any problems with that? Same goes for Nike and their "sweatshops". No difference as far as I'm concerned.
YES! and I said the same thing back in September
"How about equal pay around the world. Instead of the US giving out money to other countries, why don't we just pass a law saying that to do bussiness in the US you have to pay workers the same amount as you would a US employee.
It would stop jobs from going overseas and/or improve conditions in other countries."
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Now, I'm not saying it entitles you to a good paying job, but you shoudl get payed what your worth - and having a college education (notice I didn't say diploma - just because you have a diploma doesn't mean your educated) and working a job that requires such an eduication entitles you to a higher wage then someone just out of high school
I fully agree with you. People should be paid what they're worth. The problem is, what you ARE worth, and what you THINK you're worth, seem to be two completely different things. People with CIS degrees seem to think they're worth $50,000/year, when, in fact, according to the companies outsourcing their tech jobs to India, they're in fact worth something like $10,000/year. Either you need to lower your price, or increase your services.
Your education has nothing to do with how much your services are worth. Your services are worth whatever somebody is willing to pay you to perform them.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Except for the fact is is more than jobs. In IT, and I'm including pretty much anything technological) along with having that work and workforce HERE...you have continual innovation and invention that we can use to our benefit here in the US...and can sell to the rest of the world...this keeps us ahead in the game. When you export that out...what's left for us? We lose our edge....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I have a wife, 2 kids and a dog. I have a 15 years left on 20 year mortgage. I live in California. 20K (or however much they pay engineers in India) just doesn't cut it!
If you have a Master's degree in engineering, which probably took 5-6 years to achieve, along with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, you can't just retrain on a whim and get a different job.
I have a Master's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, which took about 5-6 years to get. I decided I didn't like where the tech sector was heading nor the general volitility involved with working for somebody else. I retrained myself to be a photographer instead and now own a photo studio. The problem is not that you can't retrain, but that you won't retrain.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Until last year, the H-1B visa caps were permitted to increase despite convincing evidence of a slowdown in the tech market.
Perhaps this was bad for American programmers, perhaps not. Job-wise, I'm more concerned with a recent trend of the brain drain reversing direction as many programmers return home to India.
The worst case scneario would be to pump the number of H-1Bs as high as it is and then to stop renewing them. My small company has a number of H-1bs working for us. It wasn't a policy or anything, it was just the result of hiring by networking. If they started to have to move back to India, what it would do is make it really easy for us to offshore our entire development effort. They'd be over there, a known quantity that knows our products and applicaiton areas.
I think anything that is good for keeping software development operations here in the US is probably a net gain for programmers that are US citizens.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yea, coming from an executive's mouth, no less. I'd like to see one of those scumbags live off of minimum wage!!
If I was to be paid minimum wage for what I do? I'd rather fold boxes at a factory. At least there, the stress would be less.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
What job in the U.S. pays less than a dollar an hour?
Are YOU willing to live on $.75 an hour?
I might be, if I lived in a country where the standard of living was such that $.75 US an hour was comfortable.
My future's determined by Thieves, thugs, and vermin -- The Offspring
The article talked a bunch about getting additional regulations to discourage jobs from moving offshore. The article only mentions two things. It has a typical quote from Dean that he would fix this if he was president, but doesn't say how. This is followed by a comment that Kerry wants to make call centers identify where they are located. I'm not sure what this would do - it seems widely known that call centers are generally run offshore, and you can usually figure this out by the fact that almost everyone you talk to has a foriegn accent. Besides, am I going to hand up on HP support (assuming I owned an HP) because their call center is in India?
Ending HB1 visas seems like an obvious thing (considering the glut of unemployed tech workers) but it's not mentioned in the article. I wouldn't be surprised if terrorism concerns had more to do with getting fewer H1's than the industry.
I don't think the government could make it illegal for companies to move call centers, and I'm not sure what else they could do to keep them in the US besides the usual tax incentives.
I have blog like everyone else
the problem isnt that we arent willing to work for minimum wage, the problem is that one cannot afford to LIVE on minimum wage here in the US.
myself and girlfriend live togethor and combined net about 35K a year...we barely make it after paying rent, car payment, insurance, bills, food, etc...
the history of the world
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...
Then
- let me create laws that allow my police to watch them and invade thier privacy at will
- let me legislate my companies to keep them from competing in the world market
- let me complain to all who listen about foreigners who will work for less than me
- let me proclaim I am the most powerful country in the world
- let me hide that over most of my population is obese, and unhealthy
oh wait.. I'm fat, I'm slow, and not any smarter than anyone else...(globally speaking). The rest of the herd is leaving me behind.. can't.. keep.. up...
CodeTrap (www.codetrap.net)
This is the other end of the stick that America used to beat the (third) world with.
In order to create the market for Boeing, McDonalds, etc. America pushed global economy down the world's throat.
Little she realized that it's coming back to bite her in the rear.
No, the problem REALLY is a lack of highly educated CEOs willing to work for minimum wage or lower in the US. We need to outsource our CEOs to India. 1-100 million (or billion in Microsoft's case) for a CEO is just way too ridiculous, and puts companies at risk. Just think of what Microsoft could do with that money (oh, wait, maybe don't think about that. scary!)
Who moved my sig?
Oh god, PLEASE FORGIVE US for cranking our collective asses through college, grad school, certification programs, and N years of on-the job experience - and then hoping to make more than minimum wage. If we wanted minimum wage, we could get a McJob and not have to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt for it.
With more and more pressure for every kid to go to college, our baseline competency level is rising. Nobody can see paying a college graduate will accept a minimum wage, so they outsource. At the same time, we are required to get paid less, accept loss of benefits, etc., just to have a job... and we're the lucky ones.
Logically, an overall raise in the level of education should be considered a good thing. But we are being run by an asinine, corrupt administration that is willing to go to extreme measures to satiate its greed (e.g., initiating a war just to siphon money to its sister companies). As a result, big businesses are getting away with murder. The Bush administration has repeatedly reduced limitations on big businesses, cut taxes for the ultra-rich (while placating us with a $300 check... yay!), and is now letting illegal immigrants take the jobs that "Americans don't want." All while trying to slip the media conglomeration bill into every proposal, including the war spending bill, so that they can also control what news we are allowed to hear.
All the laws are being geared to make big companies bigger, without regard to the worker. Why? I think that is obvious. It puts money in their pockets. We need to stop whining about the companies outsourcing jobs, and start enacting change against the administration that encourages it for its own profit.
The only "economic slump" we have experienced is a slight correction in the overshoot of the economy in the last few years. In that period, large companies (and especially their CEOs) have been posting record gains in the last five years. Even with the recent economic downturn, they are better off than they were five years ago - by a margin that is considered aggressive growth by any measure. Yet, it is not enough. They are worried that their $22 million bonus will be cut in half this year. Thus, they post stories about huge losses, hard times, and a bad economy. This makes us desperate enough to accept a pay half of what we're worth, with no benefits. Moreover, it makes us happy that we can even find a job.
And this gets easier and easier for them to do. Currently, America is owned by two oil companies, two and a half automobile companies, and a half a dozen defense contractors. Huge mergers (e.g., Compaq/HP, Time Warner/AOL, etc.) are putting the fate of our collective lives in the hands of a few greedy, ultra-rich, power-hungry bastards who will starve you to make another buck. At the same time, they are crushing the competition under their sheer inertia, and controlling national and international markets. They can make the economy whatever they want it to be. It just benefits them for it to be bad.
Jesus, this thing ended up being a manifesto. Sorry about the flame, this topic just rubs me the wrong way. What do you guys think? Am I just a reactionist conspiracy nut, or do we need to do something here?
There's a bias in many comments on this issue. There is the idea that ALL factory jobs are mindless and can be done by monkeys. This simply isn't true. While there obviously are assembly-line type jobs which are very simple, there are many factory jobs which do not require a college degree, but still require technical knowledge that comes largely from experience, and is not taught in a few minutes.
While my experience is not going to represent every factory, I have worked in a factory, on the floor. It really opened my eyes to a world which I had previously known only through stereotypes and the media.
They are being earned by these Indians due to the fact that the Indians can do the jobs better.
Doing a better a job? I don't think that's it. They might be doing just as good a job (and sometimes an inferior job -- so says my brother-in-law who had to fix their programming mistakes), but the working wage of $12,000 a year is why high tech jobs are being outsourced to Indian companies.
Dude, you said it. I live in central florida, and the cost of living here really is dirt cheap. I hate traveling somewhere else and going to a grocery store...everything is like 15% more expensive.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I totally agree! I was about to say the same thing when I saw your post. Send the execs overseas or cut their saleries. Carly and others have a holier than thou attitude and it needs addressing.
If you're a share holder stand up and speak!
If you're an employee prepare for the worst!
If your buying equipment consider another company!
And if your an American write your representatives!
I also agree with those who would like to see tax incentives for companies keeping jobs in America and conversely I would like to see Tax increases for paying salaries overseas to non U.S. citizens.
> American CEOs, with the willing complacence of their
> bought-and-paid for politicians, are giving them the
> jobs.
Exactly. Fiorina, for example is a Bush supporter, having given thousands of dollars to his campaign according to opensecrets.org. Then she's rewarded by the Bush Administration by raising H-1B caps and reducing restrictions of corporations to move more work offshore. So it doesn't surprise anyone when she flippantly suggests that Americans lose jobs to cheaper workers overseas.
Eventually, middle class jobs will be sent to countries like India, leaving America as the land of the millionaire heir (thanks to the Bush administration for getting rid of the estate tax), the millionaire CEOs, and millions of minimum-wage Walmart greeters.
Well, that's not fair; we'll also have illegal immigrants who get a 3-year work visas but are denied U.S. citizenship.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
One of Adam Smith's beliefs was it is in a business's best interest to promote the betterment of the locale in which it resides. This was true at one time. If you had a symbiotic relationship with a small town, it was not a good idea "lay waste" to the financial well-being of the inhabitants if you desired to stay in business for long.
These days, however, large corporations have absolutely zero connection to any town or city. If a city can no longer afford their product or service because no one has jobs, so what? There are thousands of other towns and cities they can deal with.
Take IBM, for example (because their ad is currently at the top of this page). In some locations, they are a major employer. They recently announced they are closing some offices and shipping the jobs over-seas. If they are that town's major employer, the local economy will be devistated. It has a rippling effect. At first the luxury businesses will feel the pinch (movies, restaurants, etc). Later, staple businesses such as supermarkets will be hurting. This does not concern IBM in any way since they only answer to the stockholders - most of whom don't look at the long term effects of these decisions, just at today's stock price.
The knee-jerk reaction is to implement protectionist laws. This typically results in a trade war and everyone ends up just as bad off as before - if not worse.
Workers can accept lower salaries, but when you are competing against a cost-of-living measured in pennies a day, you simply can't drop your salary that far and still be able to pay rent and buy food.
Personally, I think the world is in a transitional period between local and global economies. As places like India gain more jobs, the competition will heat up, raising the salaries. Eventually it will reach some kind of equilibrium. How long this will take is way beyond my amateurish guesses. It could be a few years or it could be decades. Or I could be completely clueless since economics is not a field I know anything about.
And yes, I'm looking for work.
-- Will program for bandwidth
That are experience the harsh reality of this new economy. I know a lot of people in different sectors that have lost their jobs recently. I happen to be a programmer, and I'm making 30% less in the year 2004 than I made 5 years ago! It's not fun. No one likes it, but it's just the way the economy has been. Although there is indication that the economy is turning around, which could help out everyone...not just techies.
That's exactly right. The call center jobs that are being outsourced do not require ANY math or science skills. Those people generally read from a script and as you answer their questions Yes or No they move to the next appropriate question. This means that the call center jobs are are going overseas are taking jobs away from the poorest Americans, the ones that can benefit from a near minimum wage job as a way to start building their life.
What WE (the real techies) need to worry about is the abundence of H1B programmers from India. Because of America's inflation (Don't believe Greenspan when he says there's no inflation. Look at the increase in the price of housing in the last 3 years and tell me that they're no inflation) it cost a LOT to live here. And besides, we are highly trained college educated engineers. We should get paid a reasonable living wage.
The other problem is that companies think that the cost of programmers is due to their wages. However, I havn't written code of any consequence in almost a year. I've been busy dealing with endless planning sessions, then design sessions, then project plan sessions, then project estimation sessions, then writing design documents, then writing test documents, then dealing with the vendors to make sure that THEY understand our design and how we will integrate our code. This goes on and on ad infinitum. When we eventually get around to writing the damn code we'll be done in about 3 months. But it's taken up a year of freaking paperwork and buracracy to get this project off the ground. I get paid the same if I write code or not. So how about getting the managament types to understand that if they didn't waste my time for a year then I'd be a lot more cost effective? But know, they think that the problem is that I get paid too much.
'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina
I really hope that there's video of her saying this! I think that between Bush's new immigration initiative and the offshoring of high skill jobs, the Republicans could be setting themselves up for a November surprise big time. None of the press seems to realize it just yet, but this whole jobs issue could be ready to explode. On the one hand, Bush wants to basically create a permanent class of low paid immigrant workers who will have no say in the politics and policies of this country. These people will help keep the bottom low. And if you think they will just be picking fruit, forget it. Once there is legal status for currently illegal immigrant workers, just watch them start moving up the skill chain courtesy of U.S. corporations wanting to lower the bottom at home as well as abroad. And on the other end higher skilled tech jobs will continue to move away, thus lowering the top. The corporations complain about American schools, but what is the point of good math and science if the jobs that need it go away simply because people elsewhere work for wages an American cannot hope to live on here?
If enough people wake up in time and see what is happening, Bush could be out in November in a landslide. I can see the adds now, Bush talking about welcoming millions of visiting workers then a cut to Carly about how no American has a God given right to a job! Put in some voice over about this being your country and having a God given right to the American dream, don't let Bush and traitorous corporations take it away from you! Images like this can speak volumes, and you can bet this year's election will be nasty with a lot of people wanting some payback for that Florida deal! It's just unbelievable that Bush is setting this trap for himself, it's almost too easy.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
I think credits for hiring US citizens are the ultimate solution. Companies make hiring and outsourcing decisions based on money. Give them more money to keep jobs here and they'll think twice before sending more overseas.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find this recent chatter on immigration reform scary? Supposedly they're using this reform for low paid jobs that illegal immigrants from Mexico take, but Americans don't want. Illegal immigrants would be given legal status if they can find a job here. But, what's to prevent companies from using that legislation on highly paid tech jobs? I can just picture a flood of illegal immigrants from India and China. The news media will stand there scratching their heads saying, "That's not what the legislation intended." And president Bush will be standing in the background laughing maniacally, knowing exactly this would happen.
I especially find that potential legislation especially disturbing now. Especially after this article states, "The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the US."
I'd like to see a "Supported in USA" label on the products too.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
From the New York Times :
In November, the last month with government figures available, unemployment in the former East Germany averaged 17.4 percent, more than double the 8.1 percent rate in the former West Germany. In the town of Forst, however, unemployment rose to 22.5 percent, up from 20.9 percent a year earlier.
So our unemployment the last time I checked was around 5% or so. In the former East Germany almost 1 out of every 4 people is unemployed.
I think things are going to get a lot worse for us before they get better. The only problem I have with this is that unlike Europe, we do not have the extensive social programs that they do and as a result we are going to bleed alot more than they do.
I have one kid in college and another who will be in college soon. I also paid 90% of the cost of my own college and graduate school education and half of the cost of my wifes college education.
I say all that to point out that I know what it costs to become highly educated in the US. It is ****FUCKING**** expensive.
No sane person will pay the price for an advanced education if the result of that advanced education is an income that is the same as what they can get from a MacJob. Therefore, no sane American student has *any* reason to *ever* study any technical field.
Stonewolf
I probably would have modded your post up if you would have stuck to just your main argument and not resorted to personal attacks.
You had valid points but your libertarian sterotyping and insult at the end casts a shadow of doubt on the credibility of your post.
Otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
I'm not a market fundamentalist (i.e. one who believes that market forces always magically coincide with the public interest) but if someone works hard all the way through college and gets a degree in something not very useful, like thermionic valve design, that does not automatically entitle him to a higher wage than the guy who left school at 16 and invested in the qualifications necessary to drive a truck carrying hazzardous goods.
If the market dictates that workers in a call centre earn more than a software engineer with a degree, why shouldn't they earn more? Supply and demand.
Interesting point you make about steel supplies. Only recently George Bush had to back down on his illegal steel tarriffs under threat from the European Union who were preparing to retaliate with tarriffs on goods produced in politically-sensitive American states. The USA's vulnerability is already here, and it's no bad thing. Bush was forced to behave himself, which was good for Europe, and good for America. Only a few special interests (the steel producers) got hurt.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
$10,000/yr? You MUST be kidding, right? That's as much as a burger flipper at McD's makes. $50K is not a lot of money, its freakin' middle class....ok, maybe closer to $40K, but, in that range at least.You can't really support a family on less than that.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actually it is you who doesn't know what a neoconservative is (why do I get the feeling you are one?). It is not just the left that uses that. The right uses it too. Consider the example of and Pat Buchanan (paleoconservative). Also, left-wing anti-war activists are REACTIONARY? lol Whatever! The bogus invasion of Iraq is more reactionary than any anti-war position.
Bush, Cheney, Powell, Wolfowitz, Rice, Rumsfeld... all life-long conservative Republicans.
Bush, Powell, and Rice are not neoconservatives. Bush is pretty much belongs to the Christian Right. However, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, et al are neoconservatives (along with a whole hoard of people at National Review and The Weekly Standard).
Oh, one more thing... Neoconservatives are a branch of the Republicans. So it doesn't matter what they were doing before. Most of them are ex-Trotskyites. If anything, most of the neoconservatives in power now are recycled Reganites.
Read this article for some information about the neoconservative family. Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Why in all hell would "highly educated workers" want to work for "minimum wage or less"? If the industry requires that, then I guess we won't have anyone in that industry here. I mean, I've spent many many thousands of dollars for my education, and continue to have to do so every year. And the technology industry wants me to (a) work at minimum wage; (b) break the law and work at under minimum wage. No thanks. Good luck with that. And we thought that the products going to market right now sucked!
Guess I'll go find another job that doesn't require any investment in time or education, like, perhaps, CEO of a technology company.
anti-war liberals
You have to have a real lack in morals to be pro-war. Warfare is something that should be avoided and not promoted. Are you pro-war? Is death and destruction your favorite flavor?
"Neo-con" means "newly conservatve."
No, it actually means "new conservative". Not new to conservative thought but rather a different breed of conservatism. The new conservative is more aggressive and backed generally by businesses and people with lots of $$$. Old conservatives were a more moral group who were more into things like family values, religion, and anti-abortion.
Neocons like Bush were originally labelled ultraconservatives but this was a bad label since they aspouse old conservative values but generally always follow a different route. Take for instance Bush's new imigrant worker plan which old school conservatives hate but companies love.
Oh come on. Outsourcing sucks, and it is detrimental to the IT sector, but it's not killing us. The thing is making it so hard to get an IT job is the thousands of people who scratched "refrigeration repair" off of their ITT Tech application and decided to take and "exciting career in information technology." -- The market is flooded with people who don't know anything about the fundamentals of computer science and were there for the gold rush.
I know this for a fact because I did the same thing. I dropped out of college and went right to work. There were two other people in the class I took that were technically competent, all of the others were people who didn't know what they wanted to to, and were looking for a direction. They had seen all of the stories on the news about people in the ".com" industry making lots more money than they did, and decided they wanted some for themselves.
The only thing that really differentiated me was the fact that knew what the class taught going in - I figured I needed a certification to get the first job and I'd be fine after that. The only reason why I am still employed, and happily employed, is that I had a background going in. I started using unix when I was thirteen or so, back in the days before browser, when small furry animals ruled the internet and usenet was still clean.
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
A degree in something useful gives you a 10-15 year timeframe in which to sell your skills and raise capital.
The capital you raise will fund your next degree (if you want to try again). Or it'll fund investments in the Next Big Thing if you don't.
I enjoyed fiddling with computers in high school. My university degree got me into the computing field as a full-time job. It's been a good career. Already, half my skills are obsolete. I give myself another 10 years, tops, before I'm unemployable in this field.
Right now, if you enjoy reverse-engineering and assembly-language work, and you're still in high school, you should probably be looking at biology. DNA and proteins are to life what microcode and assembly language are to computers.
I'm of the belief that computational biology may very well be the Next Big Thing, whether in terms of producing life-enhancing medications, reducing pesticide use, or possibly advancing nanotech by using engineered lifeforms as nanoassemblers. Hacking genes is no different in principle (and no less intrinsically fun) than reverse-engineering object code to bypass some bogus copy protection or DRM scheme.
I'm too old (and too lazy) to go back to college and do a 4-year life sciences degree. But I'm keeping a very close eye on developments in the sector, and on what companies are building the most interesting technology, with an eye to investing in some of them.
There are six billion people on this planet. They can all do labor. The vast majority of those six billion people are utterly worthless - they will contribute no new ideas, nor will they create any net value in their lifetimes. They're worthless food tubes, consuming food and excreting a thousand more food tubes for every worthwhile human they create.
There are a few hundred million people who are somewhat worth keeping around. I'm one of those. I'll contribute no new ideas to science, philosophy or the arts, but I've been able to turn brainpower into capital for my employers for long enough I have some capital to invest during my leisure years.
Finally, there are a few hundred thousand people with new and exciting ideas. They're worthy of my capital. And they shall receive it. Because I get a great return on my investment - both in absolute dollar terms, and because I get a kick out of seeing cash turned into new and exciting technologies (or even just pretty pictures and good music).
Send the jobs overseas and let the food tubes starve. I'll invest in the companies that are doing the outsourcing. And in the new industries my capital creates for the few hundred thousand people on the planet who are doing something worthwhile. Bring on the triumph of capital over labor!
And her idea of fixing the company was to move it away from x86, in the enterprise, while buying more PCs. I thought they should have sold or scrapped the PC and enterprise lines (perhaps offering the services business as an sweetener to the buyer) cut costs and retrenched around the printer business, while working what ever is going to be the next big thing.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Fiorina is really showing HP's strategy in maintaining Stock Market Value, for the short-term only and that is disasterous for the long-term US Economy and even World Economies at large.
This approach is assinine and will result in a greater gap between economic classes.
If they want to have talented workers within the US earn less money than the cost of living has to drop below the cost of earning and thus making the value of the dollar stronger and be able to purchase more goods & services.
It is outrageous that a gallon of milk approaches US $4 or more. Basic necessities are skyrocketing and outsourcing more IT jobs to foreign nationals or overseas to East Asia/India is going to only raise the cost of milk and other basic necessities because people are not going to have the money to purchase them, thus volume decreases and we know that the profit margins for industries don't like to lower themselves, thus leaving the demand for the same GDP and ultimately leaving the Stock Market once more in the gutter.
Where the hell do Corporations from Pharmaceuticals, IT, Auto and Insurance industries get off in thinking people are going to continue being able to afford housing let alone all this excess?
The US Government should say, "Fine Fiorina we'll keep the outsourcing the same but we'll drop the exchange rates 10:1 between India and the US and see just how many jobs you want to draw from then."
Imagine the exchange rate dropping from something ol say 30:1 to 3:1. What a shock for India suddenly not getting all those jobs.
A married man has two kids. His wife stays home to take care of them. Working 40 hours a week, for minimum wage ($5.15) earns him $10,712 before the government takes it's cut. That leaves him $7,532 below the poverty line in america. He takes a night job, 30 more hours a week, earning him an additional $8,034. Putting him just $502 above the poverty line. Of course, all that money is before taxes. Why should a schooled man, a college educated man, put himself through 70 hours of work a week, just to be slightly above poverty.
Of course any company wants to save money, but they should not justify that by saying Americans should work for less money, that is bullsh!t.
My rantings, only longer and with better spelling..
First, if you don't believe that tech jobs (especially programming jobs) are becoming commoditized, please look at the IDE you're using, where it came from, and where the logical future is. IDEs, application servers, workflow products, etc. are all becoming more automated and more intelligent on their own. Just like many blue-collar jobs have gone over the last 50 years. There will still be some need for "experts" to perform maintenance/specialized work but eventually button pushing drones will be able to write the programs you may (and I, currently,) write.
Second, nationalist job protectionism seems to assume a fixed supply of jobs (if someone else does my job, i won't have one to do anymore). This may be true for a specific type of job but, in most cases, the "years of education" should allow you to be a bit more adaptable as well as make you overqualified for the commoditized version of your job.
Third, this feeds, in my mind, into a personal, instinctual quest for efficiency. If you want it from the corporate perspective - call it 'cheaper' - but that's what it is only because the world is not even in terms of wealth levels (if you expect these to even out while nations are not trading freely in both goods and jobs, i think you're crazy.). Get the work/goods where it's most efficient. Maybe from the corporate perspective my job is cheaper in India and even though it takes longer to be done over there, they net more. Once (and clearly this could be a long time) wage levels even out, my job could come back to me if it's really more efficiently performed by me. Maybe it goes to yet another country where the labor is cheap. Who knows? In the meantime, it is my job to adapt. Find a different job (again, this isn't an issue unless you believe the number and types of available jobs are fixed - which I don't).
Don't forget that less jobs means less money in the US. HP is putting people out of work who would be buying their consumer products. Long term results? Less consumer products more focused on business.
Solutions?
a. Bitch (we are good at that but it does nothing)
b. Buy stock. (Long term plan since it takes $ and time to build up a portfolio)
c. Start you own biz like an enterprising lady I hired who picks up my dog's poop once a week for $20. Takes about 20 minutes. How many yards can you do in a day? Hire more people. Overhead would be new rubber shoes, plastic bags and shovels. $$$$ There isn't any ?????? in that formula.
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
it is likely that the trade association's spokesman's comment was sarcastic (he understands that people who spend their time in learning a technical field want to be paid) - I missed it. The point above however (CEO are hypocritical to expect workers to make unreasonably low salaries for work with high educational requirements) is still valid, IMO.
I just finished a great book called The Soul of Capitalism that covers this topic in detail. A key part of its thesis is that the concentration of wealth at the top makes the market less efficient, not more. It's well worth the read, even for the hard core social darwinists in the audience.
India is a socialist nation. It has far tougher labour laws than US, which is more of a capitalist nation.
You have been brainwashed by US (and possibly Indian) government propaganda. India is not socialist and it certainly does NOT have stronger labour laws than USA!!! USA is more capitalist but due to the worker movements in the 20's to 60's, US worker laws are FAR better...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Just a slight change in the lettering...
And their slogan will change from "invent" to "In Bangalore".
Up until the Nixon administration the US was on average breaking even on farm subsidies. The program used to be based on loans to the farmers instead of direct grants. This helped the farmers along and ended up costing the government nothing The loan colateral was the farmers grain which if they couldn't pay back (mainly because the price of grain was too low due to too much grain being produced) then the government took and stored until it could be sold back at a higher price (like when there wasn't as much grain on the market.) The program wound up costing taxpayer's almost nothing, kept the farmers realitively well off, and the price of grain realitively steady.
The direct subsidies we pay for now cost us billions a year in direct payments to farmers and winds up forcing farmers out of business due to low grain prices (and the fact that most of the money goes to to larger corporate farms).
There are now no price controls at all. If the price of grain drops too low the farmers dump the grain for the lowest price, which cuts into the profits of anyone trying to sell unprocessed grain. The only way to make money in the food industry now it to sell giant portions or value add the stuff to make junk food.
The subsidy program doesn't feed you any more than any IT program would. All it does it hurt farmers and waste taxpayer's money.
Did you have a mortgage or any kids? It's not just 25 years olds who are getting screwed.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
I would suggest incentives to start up companies based here as well.
Incentives from whom? The taxpaying citizens??? That's just blackmail (which we're already doing, anyway.) "Give us your money or we'll create these jobs in India."
Too many of my tax dollars are already winding up in the pockets of democracy-distorting CEOs. Incentive are just another word for corporate welfare. I would way rather my tax dollars be spent on poor people or health care than given to people who are already richer than me.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
1. Make something that people would demand.
2. Sell it.
3. Profit.
The key is step 1. It could be high tech, it could be gardening supplies, whatever. We simply people to come up with these ideas and the business acument to see the demand.
A more aggressive national educational system would help. There's 260 million people in the US so there's gotta be some revolutionary ideas between them to bump up the GDP some more.
Otherwise, everyone's gonna have to do what I did - leave the US to work... Or keep borrowing money like the government is doing.
The same was said of manufacturing jobs. "It's more than just jobs! That's the real products of America! Steel and automobiles and textiles and and and... If you export that, what will be left for us?" The problem is, for the most part, tech jobs these days are the same thing. There's not much "innovation." Tell me, when you're designing a database system for a company, how much are you really "innovating?"
"Well, I came up with the schema!" -- sure, but the "innovation" was the relational database model, innovated some twenty years ago.
"Well, I coded it!" -- sure, but did you write mySQL? Did you "innovate" that? No, you're just using it.
Fact of the matter is, your high-tech "skill" of database design is not much different that the skill of an autoworker installing the drivetrain on a Buick. These days, it's easy to learn, and repetative. That's not innovation.
Thankfully, most of the real innovation is still right here. New standards, protocols, specifications, fabrication techniques, etc, are still being developed right here in the U.S. We still make the tools. You just can't get paid near so much for merely using the tools anymore.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Oh, you damn Europeans and your common sense!
Reasons for higher education:
:>
1. Prevent a flood of new employees from entering the market immediately after returning from defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan...
2. Self betterment and personal fulfillment...
3. Place for rich kids to go and join a fraternity and meat other rich kids before they take over the family business...
4. Have an extended adolescence because your WW II Vet. parents want to provide you the best in life.
or, the most common (if you haven't noticed, reasons 1-4 haven't applied in 30 years, but those were the ORIGINAL reasons for higher education)...
5. Get sent to have an extended adolescents by your boomer parents because they enjoyed having free sex and lots of drugs in college... provided of course that the drinking age is 21, sex use is limited, and the school shuts down parties and drug use...
Seriously, there is LITTLE to know reason for 50% of the country to be attending higher education. Many jobs/career paths do NOT require a liberal arts education. Most office jobs require a 2-year vocational program and the careers should only last 10-15 years while the efficiencies of automation make it unreasonable.
I mean, the motivation for educating yourself is for you internally. Corporate America doesn't exist to provide you with a job, they exist to provide returns to their shareholders... creating jobs is a nice side effect.
Look, do what you want, but don't expect HP to owe you something.
Get an education for self betterment or because YOU believe that it will help you career wise. However, there is no guaranteed each path with cushy jobs... at least not anymore.
Alex
"Americans don't want to live in squaler. Because they want a decent life, we've been forced to look elseswhere. When Americans are ready to live in mud huts, we'll bring there jobs back." said an HP spokeperson, shorltly befor heading off in her limosine.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Because ther are few people that wrap themselves on national flags whne it comes to business.
If most people consider the service good enough then ther is no problem for the provider.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Exactly. Companies realize they can get the same work for $10,000. So, that's what the tech job you want $50,000 for is worth. Obviously, you need to find another job.
It's kind of like natural selection. Those that survive adapt to suit the world. Those that insist the world adapt to suit them do not survive.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
You don't live in my coutry. Lot's of good programmer s do less than that and at India may be less. And I'm talking about experienced, educated, trained people. Or at least those that stayed and didn't leave to USA or Europe for a better living.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Because it was the employees they are replacing that got them where they are in the first place. Capitalism does not equal fuedalism where the lords own you and discards you at will. This screw everyone but me atitude is an extreme view of capitalism. Just as pure socialism doesn't work, neither does pure captilsm. Without checks and balances, greed and corruption can destroy a captalist economy. Just as easy as corruption and lack of incentive to work, destroys a pure socialist economy. If an employee has over 15 years with a company and has given his time and talents to make that company successful, is it right to toss him out on his can and replace him with an immigrant who will cost less? If that's true, is it wrong for the employee to buy a gun and shoot the competition? Both are extremes, and right now we have been allowing too much of one of the extremes.
Yes, it stucks that companies are constantly outsourcing jobs. Not only because it takes jobs away from people living in the states, but it also generally turns out to be a shitty experience. Offshore tech support blows, offshore engineering is tough, especially when it's not 100% offshore. Still, there's no reason that companies shouldn't be allowed to do it.
SO...
What do we as Americans living in the US do? Eventually so many jobs and entire industries will be moved offshore, that there will be few jobs for us to do. Even as new jobs and industries are created, they too will eventually move offshore. Does this mean we should all strive to be executive staff? Is there a way that Americans will be able to continue working? Even working for minimum wage wont cut it...because we'd soon no longer be able to consume the products we're building in the first place. Is there a solution that will allow Americans to continue to work, continue to consume, and continue to live our ways of life?
The people who are driving the move to a global economy are large public corporations. The people who believe they will see the biggest short-term gain by using global labor are corporate executives. Their goal is cut costs, increasing their profits and raking in more money for themselves. It's as simple as that.
Part of the problem is these same executives also have the most influence over American politics, which is why trade organizations like the WTO help US corporations, help some foreign governments, and hurt the average citizen (lack of adjusted minimum wage per country, no requirement to respect civil rights in China, etc.). The reason WTO meetings about public policy are held in private is because if the public heard what our politicians were setting up there would be much larger riots and some of these officials would not get re-elected.
So it's not about what you or I want. The global economy is about what the upper class in America wants.
Developers: We can use your help.
'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
tuition
n 1: a fee paid for instruction (especially for higher education); "tuition and room and board were more than $25,000"
How the hell is that a problem? Are you trying to tell us we spent a small fortune and years in debt paying off tuition costs working on a CS degree to get a job for 'minimum wage or lower'?!
Here's an idea, why don't we all work at fast food joints and live in our parent's basement for the next 30 years. You think the US economy is in a slump now, I wonder how it would be affected then?
"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women." - Conan
Systems tend towards some kind of equilibrium. Before global capitalism, America was a somewhat closed system. The cost of goods and the cost of labor was more or less in check. Over time, laws were introduced and investments were made to gradually improve our standard of living. Environmental standards improved our neighborhoods, investment in infrastructure was great, schools were well-funded (although people in some states might not agree with this), and worker safety laws have continuously improved for a century.
These standard of living improvements come at a cost. Our system supports it because we have been a closed system gradually improving itself over the course of a century.
Under global capitalism, we are suddenly thrown into competition with countries that do not have anywhere near the standard of living we do. Workers have fewer rights, which are expensive, healthcare and benefits are not shouldered by the employer, infrastructure is older, more dangerous, and more polluting, and the threat of lawsuits is very low. As a result, the entire cost of living and earning power of workers in those countries is vastly less.
As a system, capitalism will seek equilibrium. My guess is, the global economy will force us Americans to lower our standard of living and our earning power, and it will increase the standard of living of poorer countries. The middle class in America will probably continue to shrink, as middle class workers find jobs paying less and less. Wealthy Americans who own companies (or large stock in companies) will be the only ones Americans who really benefit from a global economy.
The article mentions Canada as one of the countries that jobs are being "offshored" to. Canada is not off shore, and Canadian labor costs are not cheaper than the US. But if jobs are really being sent to Canada, then as a Canadian, I no longer find this offshoring nearly as troubling as I did before. :)
Jobs being shifted overseas is nothing new, most electronics manufacturing is not done in US after the 80s.
This is the same cycle as before, US innovates... boom cycle... market saturates... recession... the rest of the world catches up in expertise... jobs are shipped to cut costs. Next area for development biotech!
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Labor costs are only a part of this problem. Time consuption is a bigger problem.
I know several folks who rave about the quality of the work being done for our company overseas (India and China). At the same time, however, the company asks the foreign coders to do a job, and then leaves them to it.
Contrast that with how American workers are hounded all day long. Emails that have to be answered right now. IM. Endless meetings about nothing. Daily or weekly status reports. Conference calls. Daily production support. Human Resources online training sessions, demos, sales calls...the list of distractions goes on and on.
So the irony is that American companies, IMNSHO, are one of the biggest factors driving up the costs of development in the US.
Add to this the percieved need for more "Administrators" to do what programmers did themselves not 5 years ago, and the cost goes even higher.
If American companies instead hired a small group of empowered programmers, gave them a specific task and delivery date, and let them work day in and day out on their code, undistracted, you'd get quality stuff done in English, from people you know, during business hours.
Coders do not "manufacture" code any more than lawyers "manufacture" contracts.
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
How about a sliding scale minimum wage based on... oh, wait, you are asking for "whatever the market will bear".
> resolve the regional differences in housing, food, health care, and consumables while providing for a fair balance between exploiting overseas workers and fair trade economics.
Regional differences in housing, food, healthcare, and consumables - those are all priced by an open market. I can measure them. Walk to real estate agent, farmers' market, doctors' office, and general store. Write down prices.
Buy what the hell those last couple of things and how do you propose to measure them? Who gets to define "fair"? (And why would you trust them to define "fair" the way you'd define "fair" and not some other way?)
> . It would have to be recalculated on a regular basis, say yearly.
Why not just use a free market for labor?" I don't have to "recalculate" my housing, food, health care, and consumable costs "yearly". I can look at the prices as recalculated by supply and demand in my geographical region (or any other place on Earth with a free market) 24/7, 365 days a year.
> But this is certainly better than enforcing a single minimum wage, unlivable in any major metropolitan area and much too high in the poorest rural areas of the world.
Absolutely right! (We're in violent agreement here ;-) My only question to you is "if annually recalculating a sliding scale minimum wage based on variables that are priced in a free market" is a good thing, why not go the rest of the way?
Abolish minimum wage laws entirely and recalculate the minimum wage for a job daily, based on whatever the employer is willing to pay and the employee is willing to accept?
We price houses, eggs, aspirin, and clothing that way. Works pretty good. Why not jobs?
You've hit the nail on the head. Our cost of living is too high. This is ultimately because our standard of living it too high relative to the rest of the world. This is unsustainable. Our society must wane in a globalized society to decrease the spread between our standard of living and the rest of the worlds. Our entire society is a standard of living bubble. It would be nice to be able to pull the rest of the world up to our level, but it is not. Luckily, as our economy outsources itself into the toilet, we will be bringing the rest of the world up closer to where we are. China is already undergoing a huge jump in quality of life (at least as determined by a materialistic, consumer society). In time, the gap will narrow and we will be less and they will be more than they were previously.
I like lots of people. That doesn't mean I go carting them around the galaxy with me. --Dr. Who
The problem with this and all other exporting of jobs is the "race to the bottom" effect. Developed nations have stricter regulations on things like employee rights, environmental protection, minimum wage, corporate taxes to pay for social programs etc. Many less developed countries have fewer or no such restrictions. This makes it far more attractive for companies to move jobs overseas. So what do we have to do in response? Cut corporate tax (and social programs), remove regulations that protect employees, and so on, or else lose the jobs. So what you get is the nations of the world competing to provide the least protections for their citizens and the most power for corporations.
The WTO and friends provide a corporate bill of rights around the world, but there is no world wide minimum wage or minimum health care benefit to balance it out. Even an economist will tell you that while capitalism is wonderful, it cannot efficiently provide some things, and there need to be government regulations in place to keep it in check. We have turned the beast loose in places where few such regulations exist, and it's causing havoc. Here in B.C., our premier has been cutting social programs left and right, and everybody is really mad about it, but it's a tough problem. The programs are necessary, but without cutting the taxes that pay for them, or chipping away at workers' rights, we cannot attract foreign capital or even keep our capital from moving out. So he looks like an asshole (and maybe is), but could anyone else have done better under the current conditions?
Throughout literature, classics such as those from Dostoevsky, these two words were used to describe sort of, how, a wealthy man of leisure deserves to live this way.
Well... It's hard to explain. But it's all we (well to do third, 4th, plus generation Americans) to fall back on.
Well, this providence isn't just for the men of leisure.
Here's why I deserve my job, even though someone in India is willing to do it for 1/2.
200+ years ago, one of my forefather shed his freaken blood so that I, not and Indian, could live this life.
Throughout my lineage, there have been men that fought and died for this country, not India.
They turn in their graves when jobs go to another country.
In a way, it is a divine gift. Do I deserve it? It's not for me to decide. It was given to me, regarless.
I'm doing the same for my children by sending them to the best private school I can afford. I drive around in a cheap heap of metal. I take a bag lunch to work every day. My kids are going to have it good because of this my supposed suffering.
HP gets taxbreaks. Who pays for those breaks? the Amercan taxpayer. It may not be a God given right, but it sure as hell has been bought and paid for by Americans.
Then there is the issue that in order to 'compete' we would have to get mapid about 2 bucks an hour. try living on 2 bucks an hour in America. Of course, by shipping out American jobs, the lower the tax base of America. In the end, it just pulls america quality of living down to India's standards.
The problem is with people wanting to become rich in the market in a stupidly shortperiod of time. So when you make a Billion dollar profit it's not enough.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But has anyone ever thought to ask Ms. Fiorina just what an HP printer, or cartridge refill costs in India or China??? And why the cost isn't the same here and there??? Or any company for that matter... Coke, Pepsi, etc... That's the real issue... Same as it is for drug companies and people getting their prescriptions filled in Canada or Mexico....
Two reasons. 1. median household income and 2. market system.
1. If the average American makes $20,000 per year, he can afford a $40 ink cartridge. If the average in country X makes $3,000 per year, he can NOT afford a $40 ink cartridge - but he can probably afford a $4 cartridge.
2. The market system (you learned this in econ 101). The value of an item is what someone is willing to pay for it. When you bought your printer, I'm sure you noticed the price of refills. You obviously agreed to that price because you bought that printer. There are different printers at different price points (for their refills). Please shop accordingly. In addition, there are DIY kits where you can refill the cardridge yourself at reduced cost.
The point being - if you don't like the cost of the refill, no one twisted your arm to buy that printer. If you bought the printer without first checking the price of refills, then it's your own fault for being an ignorant consumer.
Just my two cents.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
If I could get away with paying you less, I would.
-Chris Rock
I will never buy an HP or Compaq product ever again.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
While the name, neocon, was originally derived from the "newly conservative", it has since become a term to describe the policital philisophy that started with those who immigrated from the "left" into the "conservative" during the early 1980's. (Immigrated is probably the best term, since its a group of people who went from attacking liberals from the left to attacking liberals from the right.) It is generally used by both "reactionary knee-jerk anti-war liberals" and "the neocons" and their supporters to describe both their grouping and their positions. One doesn't have to be new to the conservative side of the debate to describe him or her self as a "neocon".
Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld have all in the past self identified themseleves as "neocons" as have many other officals and advisors to this administration. Are you saying these people don't know their own positions?
Well, I pretty sure Carly Fiorina (chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., for those that didn't pay attention to the article) works for that. I mean, really, this comment couldn't possibly be coming from someone in a high paying job - lead by example, and whatnot.
RagManX
"However most will be lost (esp. the call centers), but then again how many televisions are made in the U.S. (none, BTW)"
Actually, Thompson makes RCA televisions in Circleville, OH.
I'm no economist but if I recall correctly, the true definition of a free market includes not only the free movement of capital (ie. companies are free to seek out the cheapest labour and build their factories there) but also the free movement of labour (ie. workers are free to move to wherever they can get the highest wages).
If that is correct, it becomes clear what the real problem is - the "globalization" and "free markets" that are currently being promoted are not being implemented correctly and are causing all kinds of problems.
Consider the implications of the current implementation of "free markets":
(a) Big business gets to take advantage of low cost labour thereby enabling them to either sell their goods cheaper or increase their profits (guess which one most of them are choosing).
(b) Workers are not allowed to seek out higher wages in participating countries, keeping their wages low.
For example, lets imagine there was a true free market in effect between the US and India. Initially, the IT labour in India is cheaper so US companies start outsourcing there. US IT pros, seeing their jobs starting to move to India start working for less in order to keep their jobs.
On the other side of the ocean, Indian IT professionals see that US IT professionals get paid more than they do so they start migrating to the US in search of the higher wages (they are automatically granted work visas due to the free movement of labour).
Big business, seeing all of their cheap Indian IT pros starting to move to the US start to increase wages in India (where there factories/offices are) in order to discourage Indians from leaving.
After awhile, an equilibrium should establish itself between the two countries at an optimum wage rate due to the increase in competition created by the addition of the Indian IT pros.
Obviously, in the current form of "free markets" this cannot happen and hence the reason for all those WTO, "anti-globalization" protests. The current form is effectively a way for rich people to get richer, poor people to stay poor, and the elimination of the middle class (the majority of which will join the ranks of the poor).
Thanks a lot America!! *Raises middle finger in direction of White House*
in my politically-unaffiliated opinion:
'greed' is a subjective term that we use only when describing the economic behavior of others. being subjective, it's general usage is so broad that it's useless.
but 'greed' as webster defines it is not wrong. which is what I was trying to point out.
if a person performs an illegal, immoral, or unethical act in the name of greed - it is that particular implementation that is wrong, the person who performed it that is wrong; not 'greed'.
outsourcing is a perfectly legal business practice and can be done in an ethical and moral way.
Deriding and dismissing a perfectly legal business practice and all who apply it simply because of the illegal, unethical, or immoral implementations of others is wrong.
I do not advocate business without ethics and morals. But neither do I judge a legal practice 'wrong', just because improper implementations can be made.
Calling outsourcing immoral or unethical altogether is akin to damning the personal video recorder and all who use it. Yes, it can be used illegaly and immorally. but substantial legitimate applications also exist. One must judge the individual use, not the tool.
BTW: the ad hominem is unnecessary. people who believe I'm a monster already had that impression from my original post. and your opinion of me was all too clear.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Or they live in a country where cost of living is far, far lower.
We (the USA) are now experiencing a new era in our society. I refer to it as "Cannibalistic Capitalism." Company profits can't get any higher via production, so we elminate jobs (or reduce the costs of employment). This results in high unemployment but companies are still doing well with increased profits. Thus, eating our own economy to fuel our economy.
This coupled with the much higher costs of living (housing, utilities, food, and etc.), high credit debt, and Bush want to bring in immigrants to fill American jobs (im-sourcing) leads me to believe that some serious social engineering is at work.
Corporate America wants us to be endentured slaves. Never getting out of debt because of our low paying jobs. "The company" wants our undying devotion because it's the only job we could get to live. It's their way or starvation.
Wake up America!
Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.
as near as I can tell, the IT sector CEOs are wanting to sell their products to developing countries. After all, that is where the growth is going forward. But as you might expect, those countries have their own internal economic realities and do NOT have Java programmers making $80K/yr (or truck drivers making $50k/yr) to buy those US goods. So what Intel, HP, etc want to do is manufacture at a cost this is *exactly* in line with the purchasing power of developing nations. They really do want to sell computers for $99 in Pakistan and they'll even take a small loss to do it, but they cannot make such a box using US labor or know-how at any phase of the process. So it is not exactly greed that motives them...it is growth potential in the third world.
:) . So enjoy the knowledge that we've lifted the bell of the world and given it a hard smack, and it will ring for years to come. With luck and quick reactions most everyone in the dumps today will be riding high on yet another tsunami of innovation in a few years, with the rest of the world shaking their heads at those "crazy damned Americans". Don't forget that "H|P" used to be the initials of the names of a couple of guys working on a dream in their spare time in a garage (and yes I've even seen it). Maybe a few of us will be the Hewletts and Packards of the future.
My advice is this; get OUT of any part of the IT business that involves retail, including component design, software programming, product marketing, and support. All that is lost, and will never come back. Services and consulting remain good but limited, and there is always the Next Big Thing (tm) whatever that turns out to be.
Think of it this way. America innovates (we invented most of this technology, or developed it) then America profits richly for a few decades (yes we have) while the rest of the world tries to understand what the foosh we're so excited about (but they get over that quickly) then things become commoditized (as they must) and we lose monopoly control (which is probably a good thing). Then there is a certain suffering and retrospection, then we innovate again. Repeat as needed until the world is a better place to live. What is critical to our leadership role is that Americans NOT become either complacent, or discouraged, or bitter. This is our part, we've played our part well, and in generally the world thinks Americans are brilliant (if egotistical
As the East Indians always say; "do the needful."
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
The U.S. Federal government should adopt a policy of only purchasing from companies that don't outsource abroad. Companies would have to weigh saving money on outsourcing againt losing the revenue of the single largest customer in the world.
This approach has worked on the car industry. California, with its huge markets, imposes strict pollution standards, and the carmakers adopt the measures nationwide because they can't allow themselves to be shut out of the California market.
The President needs to call up HP and tell her that if she ships jobs overseas, HP has lost him and his company, the U.S. federal government, as a customer. It's sort of like if you or I did it, but he's much more likely to get higher up on the customer-support chain. Maybe he'll even get to speak to a manager. Wouldn't it be funny if his call was fielded from India!
It would really be funny when he gave all his business to a company that keeps jobs at home. Then Carly could compete for a job. I think that she makes more than minimum wage. Is she worth it?
evanchik.net
OK, so let me get this straight. To guard against "ultimately higher unemployment" we should be firing the local employees and moving the jobs overseas... :-/
I don't still get it. Well anyway, I'm sure that all the people who just lost thier jobs will sleep much better now that knowing that by being unemployed they are doing thier part to combat unemployment.
--
Simon
Decrease production costs most certainly translates into lower priced goods. If they didn't, we would be paying $20,000 for a computer and taking out jumbo mortgages for a car. If Dell doesn't lower their price, somebody else will and Dell won't be playing much longer.
Margins on computer equipment and electronics hover around 1%. That means if you drop $1000 on a new Dell or HP computer, about $10 of that goes to line the pockets of those "greedy" corporate fatcats. I also read that the average $15,000 car nets carmakers around $250 profit. With margins that slim, you have to cut costs wherever you can or you will not survive. This has nothing to do with greed, it's only about survival.
I'm not happy to see the blue collar jobs moved either
Actually, it's bad that IT jobs are moving, but it's nothing in terms of national significance to the fact that the toolmaking jobs are going overseas. These aren't blue collar jobs, but highly skilled craft jobs.
What this means is that specialized jigs, molds and equipment used to set up production lines for other things will no longer be available locally. If you have an idea for a better mousetrap, you'll be sending prototypes back in forth by international shipping while your competitor in south China will be going across town.
The point is this: it's all very good for the world economy, but it's very bad for the US economy. Even if our wages fall, the know-how to make things -- hardware or software, will be gone. It will take years to get things back.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If the cost of living in the US were the same as India, I'd be willing to be paid the same as an Indian software engineer. Guess what, it's significantly more expensive to live in the US.
Nonsense. The cost of living in the US is actually less than that of India. People in the US are just used to better lifestyles than those in India.
Rental prices in Bangalore are about $600/month, not very different from many places in the United States. And in Bangalore you generally have to pay a housing deposit of up to 10 months rent! If you want an equivalent lifestyle to that which you're used to in the United States, you're not going to pay less, in fact, you're probably going to pay more.
This is a really bad time to be graduating from college with a degree in CS or IT. There's a huge humber of unemployed *experienced* workers going after everything from the senior to entry level positions. Jobs that were once mainly left to recent college grads are being snatched up by industry veterans. Add onto this the outsourcing of IT workers to India and China, shrinking the job market that's already flooded with workers.
What makes matters worse is that the people who went into college in IT and CS majors with dreams of money when dot-coms were in their prime, are just starting to graduate, so you have an abnormally high number of graduates the past year or so, adding more workers to the already large pool of shrinking jobs. Those who have no or little real-world experience are the ones who are going to hurt the most for all of this.
I love being told by people hiring for entry level positions that I need more experience to be hired. How does one gain job experience if you need experience to get said job? A nice catch-22
Do these people also realize that by sending the jobs overseas they're also reducing the market here?
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Carly Fiorina says that there is a lack of educated people willing to work for "minimum wage or less" here in the USA. I have no doubt that this is true. But I think that her Directors should explore going to India for their management team. Surely there is an equal lack of supply of upper-level management people willing to work for minimum wage... or less.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
And this distiction is important because...?
tion
That's right. India is a third world, with less safety, environmental & health protection. Corruption there is rampant.
It is changing, they'll be at our level some day, but by then another cheaper third world cess pool will provide a cheaper revenue source for companies.
Companies will not stop until every country has first world safeguards for their citizens.
Then there's the aspect of outsourcing your technology. Many companies that outsourced in the 90's (Openwave for example) now face competitors who arose after their outsourced employees joined Openwave's competitors.
Outsourcing is a short-term solution to cutting costs. It's a race to the bottom in many ways. Especially regarding bringing down U.S. standard of living in order to bring up India's standard of living.
This, my friends, is the truth, you can quote me freely.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
I'm a programmer in the US and here's my take.
If the code can be written overseas, then it should be. I don't want to do code-monkey work. If the work can be described in detail, with full requirements worked out before the coding starts, and there's so little communication needed that you can deal with sending an email and getting a response the next day, then it probably SHOULD be outsourced.
I don't know many projects that work like that.
Where I work, the nontechnical management can't make the medium level technical decisions needed to come up with a full requirements document. They rely on the programmers to come up with ideas and sanity check what comes down to them. When there's a fire to be put out, it needs to be put out immediately.
This kind of work doesn't go overseas because it can't.
If companies outsource the wrong kind of work, they won't last long. They simply won't be able to respond to market conditions.
A friend of mine were driving along when we were seeing a bunch of Mexicans doing road construction. Somehow the topic of illegal immigrants came up and his comment was "let them have the jobs doing road construction and whatnot. If they don't do it, then YOU have to." I thought about that for a second, nodded, and we drove on. That's how I feel about code that can be sent overseas -- I don't want to do it, so by all means, let someone else do it.
There's a lot of tech people out there that just like sucking down tech job $$ and stare at a computer screen and do data-entry level programming. These people should fear for their jobs.
You have a very narrow definition of profit, then.
Now, admittedly, in US currency that's ca. $6500-$7500. But consider: Rent around Bangalore is 6,000 Rupees per month. That's $131 dollars a month. A good computer in India costs 30,000 Rupees or $656.31.
These are not people at the poverty level. They are self-respecting middle-class IT workers. America's cost of living (which drives the computation of minimum wage) doesn't apply.
Sigmentation fault - core dumped
My ass. Please feel free to respond linking to all the $6.00/hr programming jobs on Monster or anywhere else.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Personally, I'd like all these execs to take a paycut to improve the bottom line.
Au contraire. Most Libertarians are highly ethical in their business dealings.
A look at what happened to scuzzballs like those running Enron, Worldcon, and Arthur Andersen tells us that lying isn't merely wrong, it's bad for business.
We're not honest in our business dealings because we like being nice to our fellow man. We're honest in our business dealings because we have a damn good reason to be.
There are people with whom I would accept a handshake as a binding contract. I own shares in a company owned by one of those people. When I deal with those people, I treat my handshake as binding on me as anything I buy.
Motto of the London Stock Exchange for over two centuries: Dictum Meum Pactum - Literally, Word is Bond.
From a UK perspective it is also a major concern for outsorcing to india. A bigger concern for me is the IT market being flooded with Australians, Kiwi's and south africans not to mention 16 other european states comming into the EU which allows them to legitimately work in the UK under cutting what your willing to work for. If you look for a contract they are now asking for MCSE, CCNA and the kitchen sink for a 3rd of what they where paying 3 years ago.... its getting rediculous like my spelling.... Although I can be accused of the same attitude of the CEO's as I trained for my MCSE in South Africa (before you say paperbased techy I am a veteran but getting fed up of being ask for the "sorry the course did not cover that" certificate).... Reason for going abroad was that I was paying for it myself so 9k as opposed to 4K. All I can say to the matter is specialise in an area that cannot be achieved by a honours degree graduate earning 10pence a minute, watching country specific soap's to gain a regionalistic accent so knowone realises they are not phoning from this, your country. Responses on a postcard...
Ok, I did a little research and came up with this link about American made televisions. ATTA (According To The Article) the last one was made in 1995.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
http://www.brook.edu/comm/events/20040107.htm
A full transcript is available in PDF format.
Interesting Brookings Institute forum on Global Trade. Some talking heads are finally saying what we've been saying around the water cooler for years. Funny how these educated economists have been slow on the uptake.
Interesting quote from Paul Craig Roberts:
"When I talk to them, they know more about it than any of my economists friends, no matter how distinguished they are. And the reason they know more about it is they spend a great deal of time searching for an occupation that can't be wiped out underneath them. And they are having great difficulty in finding one."
Ok, so you may or may not get to work for that big name engineering corporation, but that doesn't mean work doesn't exist for decent pay.
There are still a large number of industries that have yet to catch up to the rest in terms of technology. It seems natural to me that as the engineering bubble bursts a bit, we'll just migrate to those other industries that either can't afford to go offshore or that just haven't setup for it yet. So, instead of working for HP, Dell, or Sun, you might be working for Ma and Pa's house of fabrics or Jo Blo's delivery service. Perhaps they have the money right now and are looking to improve their systems.
I personally so far have never had any problems finding work, but maybe that's because I have no interest in the big companies anyway.
Now, I'm certainly not excusing the attitudes of some CEOs, but that's another issue. They're basically making rational decisions in an irrational, greed driven system.
The statement was "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore."
How about the Prez of HP? Can that job be outsourced too? Might be far more cost effective.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
Actually... the far right almost always supports Republicans, the far left almost always support democrats, and the "middle-class" determines the election... when they vote. I'll almost always vote Republican because they protect my interests better, and it sounds like your interests are better protected by Democrats. Both parties will spend between now and election day pandering to the middle of the road voters, while simultaneously trying to not agravate their respective bases too much.
Obviously you and I can respectfully disagree, but let's not obfuscate and say that the middle class are smart because they voted our way, the other way, or whatever. The middle class votes just like we all do, "What's in it for me."
"...The mice will see you now..."
Ideas don't generally come from the clear blue sky...they usually are built upon something else a person is familiar with. If no IT jobs are here for a person to live off of and stay in the environment where he can see a need to invent something...it will be lost.
That's the basic argument I'm making...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
maybe there is someone in India who would make a cheaper CEO for HP too. How about that?
BC
And if they have to pay unskilled Americans more than they're worth, then consumers worldwide will have to pay more for their products. The market for HP's goods is competitive enough that they're not gouging on margin. It's simply the fact that increased labor costs increase prices for us all. And that's NOT the right thing to do.
Would you also be in favor of paying $1000 more/car (and other steel-intensive products) to support the dying American steel industry? It ends up costing approximately 5x as much to "keep" these American jobs as they pay. In other words, the tariffs in place to keep a $60,000 steelmaking job cost consumers $300,000 in total. Great idea, huh?
I have a better idea. People whose jobs are no longer needed, or whose jobs can be done equally well be the barely educated, can retrain.
If enough people like you ran the world, we'd still be making textiles by hand on wooden looms, because mechanization cost jobs to the textile industry. This is a natural if painful, but necessary part of the labor cycle.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
"Abolish minimum wage laws entirely and recalculate the minimum wage for a job daily, based on whatever the employer is willing to pay and the employee is willing to accept"
We don't do this because there's an unequal relationship between employers and employees. Without there being a law to restrain their behavior, employers would push salaries for "commodity" jobs down to as low as the most desparate person. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a society where people can work a hard, full-time job and starve. We also don't let employers (legally) lock their employees into buildings so that they burn to death if there's a fire, or (legally) remove safety elements on industrial equipment because it marginally improves prodictivity while risking employee dismemberment or death. Companies are motivated by maximizing profit -- it's the government's job to balance the scales back towards the citizens.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
The problem is, the biggest market for the products these Indian engineers are producing is back here in the US. If the workforce here isn't making enough money to but the products produced there, then we both end up out of a job. American rapaciousness is the engine that drives the world economy. If we stop consuming at the levels we have been, indeed if our consumption does not continually grow, the world may be plunged into another global depression.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
I'm not an economist, and I don't play one on TV. Maybe someone can help me out here:
I keep hearing "global economy" being bandied about. It seems to me that all we have so far is a global workforce, and that U.S. workers are being penalized for the higher value of their (our) currency vs. other currencies. Until we have true global economy, and not local economies competing on a global scale, U.S. *jobs* will always bleed out of the country.
There's been discussion lately about China "unfairly" pegging their currency to a fixed exchange rate vs. the USD; the decline of the dollar vs. the Euro...
So who's driving this boat? Where are we going and how do we get there? Is there such a thing as a global economy where workers can be judged by skill rather than compensation, or am I doomed to constantly "adapt" because my currency makes me overpriced?
But this is certainly better than enforcing a single minimum wage, unlivable in any major metropolitan area and much too high in the poorest rural areas of the world.
True, but that argument is used equally well right here in the United States. The descrepancy between the cheapest and most expensive places to live domestically is about as much as the descrepancy between here and abroad.
Yes, the minimum wage needs to be equalized if you're going to have fair trade between the two countries, but it makes just as much sense to lower the minimum wage here as to raise it there. There are many places in the United States where you can live off minimum wage. Especially if you are willing to do away with so many of the conveniences which Americans deem to be necessities. Live in a house with your extended family, don't eat at resturants, abandon your cable television with 10 thousand channels of crap, make long distance phone calls sparingly, get rid of your cell phone, turn off the air conditioner.
Gee, it seems there isn't really such a big "cost of living" difference after all.
Quote "'The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers,' said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. 'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S...."
Is this guy retarded? I mean is he REALLY serious about this comment? People spend THOUSANDS of AMERICAN dollars getting a good education. Now it's wrong to want to make a decent wage after all the blood, sweat, and tears? GIVE ME A BREAK!
Well Scott, let's see how much you make? Do you wanna work for minimum wage OR LESS???!!
I don't think so.
Very funny scotty... Now please beam down my PANTS!
So, instead of paying them, say $0.10 per bushel, you pay, say $0.30 per thousand lines of code...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I think I'd prefer seeing tax and other incentives given to companies to KEEP jobs here. Credits for hiring US citizen IN the US.
There's no way government incentives can make up for what companies save by going overseas. $20K a year for an IT engineer? Vs $100K? So, the government's going to pay $80K for each worker, every year?
Such incentives would likely go to companies that weren't planning to move overseas anyway.
Better to insist on trade agreements that set minimum requirements for wages, time off, health & safety, retirement, environmental protection, etc. Workers in China and India will still be cheaper to hire, but at least we won't be competing based on who is willing to give up basic rights.
And this is why I don't believe in "globalization". Americans cannot compete with countries whose economies are less developed than ours in terms of price. Companies are cutting off their legs to feed their faces. American corporation are RESPONSIBLE for the current economic situation, and now that they've grown fat off the land, they want to cut us out because they can outsource to a third-world country? A country where our salaries CANNOT EVER be competitive without a complete and utter CRASH of our economy?
I'm not sure how you can possibly believe this is a good thing.
--- I'm going sane in a crazy world.
'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore'
Nor is being a rape-and-plunder greed-bag a God-Given Right. We can vote in protectionism, tossing out H-1B's, etc. Piss enough US geeks off, you will see all kinds of God Given Rights, Carly. When capitalism failed in the 1930's, sweeping changes were made. It can happen again.
Table-ized A.I.
Are you paying off loans or something?
Because if you aren't and have no childern/dependents then you really need to look where the money is going and figure out what is a "want" and a "need".
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Hire Americans.
How about instead of passing a law that says no exporting jobs overseas, we pass a law that says executive compensation cannot exceed X times the lowest paid employee's salary.
:-b
I could be off my nut, but I think I recall hearing once that Japan had something to this effect where X=10. Think about that one. If the janitor is making $5/hour (or about $10,000 per year), the CEO can't make more than $50/hour (about $100,000 per year). It makes for a great incentive for the greedy CEO to "take care" of his troops - because in doing so he enables himself to take care of himself. You want to make $1,000,000 per annum as a CEO? Great! It means your janitor has to make $100,000... how do you intend to justify THAT to your board of directors? It won't bring other folks' salaries up, but it WILL bring executive salaries WAY down. And believe me, if executive salaries drop from $10,000,000 to $1,000,000... well... $9,000,000 can pay for a LOT of jobs at $50,000 a pop (in fact, it can pay for 180 of them).
And FWIW, include "temps'" hourly salaries in the calculation as well. No company of a CEO and a million temps.
--AC
An education, degree, etc, will never entitle anyone to a well-paying job. The problem with your logic is that you assume that by putting in time and effort for a degree that you must be worth more money. However, you fail to think about the potential that there are many more people, other than yourself, that have degrees and training in the same field.
We know that after the dot-com bust there was a smaller number of companies requiring your skills and training. The side effect is that there are more people with your skills and training out looking for jobs, and expecting their old salaries.
Now, if there are so many of these people, and very little demand, it is likely that the market-clearing price for labor will drop (ie, wages). If there are significant numbers of people willing to work, then this price will drop significantly.
Furthermore, because these companies can effectively ferret out workers from overseas, you have to take into account even more people helping to push the overall expected salary down. It may be a decent wage overseas, and seen as crappy here, but that is in general how the prices are going to work. Regardless of a degree, education, etc.
If you can find a way to make yourself desireable again, to the point that a lot of companies need people like you, but there are few to be had, you can expect the wage you get to be higher than someone who isn't in high demand.
Go re-invent yourself, and perhaps find a better paying job.
I entered the IT field in 1986 after fifteen years of doing blue collar in warehouses and manufacturing plants. With nothing but a high school diploma I started out as a computer operator on the night shift printing reports and doing backups on a IBM System 3. I now earn a six figure income writing software, not as a consultant, but as a plain ole employee. During that time I had only had one period of unemployement (6 months). I ran into more than my share of companies that would terminate the interview as soon as they found out I had no college, but that was their loss. I am not saying that everyone can or should take this route but to claim that you must have a degree is false.
We price houses, eggs, aspirin, and clothing that way. Works pretty good. Why not jobs?
I hope you're kidding. If a grocer arbitrarily decides to charge $40 for a dozen eggs, there's another grocer just down the block I can buy eggs from instead. Even if jobs were that readily available, eggs don't require any retraining, don't have to fill out W-4s and I-9s, don't get health insurance, etc.
People are not commodities.
She suggests that there aren't enough educated people willing to work for minimum wage. I'm glad I don't work for this biatch! People go to college to avoid minimum wage jobs, they learn how to produce quality software, how to write effective documentation, how to manage people etc and they pay dearly for it. Those people should be willing to work for minimum wage? Thanks, but no thanks. What she is saying is that college is a waste of time and that means that the future quality of software coming out of HP is going to be painfully shitty.
I just love how capitalists always love to bring (social) Darwinism into it :(
Get real man... there is no such thing as natural selection...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
It is too late now to get a response but...
I am an IT student my dad is a truck driver. Obviously, he is pro union because it helped him. I saw first hand what unionized companies paid their workers and the benefits they received. I also saw the quality of worker that they were able to hire. Now, Unions have all but been destroyed in the area where we live so now there are no benefits and he is paid almost nothing. The majority of truck drivers are younger people now that have little experience and many accidents compared to the few unionized companies left. The Unionized companies make just as much money as the others but being more productive and safer on the road.
I know many tech workers do not want to think about unions because of the negative connotations that the media and the government put on them but they do well for ordinary people that do not have a say. White-collar workers are these people. They are sitting there slaving at their desks for more and more hours a day while their salaries and benefits are slowly being stripped. Entire departments are laid off yet somehow the company still expects to get the work done. CEOs and the other higher ups are making grotesque amounts of money compared to the average salary while many are running their companies into the ground. If you do not want to use the traditional unions for whatever reason - we should start new ones. White-collar workers need to stand up to greedy CEOs and even greedier boards and take the middle class back.
If you think for a second that your company is trying to keep you around you are horribly mistaken. They are doing everything they can to get rid of you and hire somebody who is paid less. Do you want to know why? Even if they run their company into the ground by hiring unskilled workers, it does not matter because they will have gotten their bonuses and left the company before the shit really hits the fan.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
Its about more then managing costs and maitaining profits........its about increasing profits.
They are paying foriegn wages, but asking for American prices.
Steve
Watch what the current administration does to protect the number of jobs for Americans in IT from American IT companies. If they do nothing, or make a symbolic gesture with no teeth I will vote for someone else. I see no reason to give someone his job back when he will not protect mine. Steve
I don't think sweatshops activists actually demand US companies to pay US minimum wage. Every country has different standard. Minimum wage in US is much higher than what graduates get in many places. It would be unrealistic to make such demand. What they want is a "livable wage", presumably higher than the sweatshop wages but does not tie to US minimum wage.
True, as far as it goes.
But if people don't like your product because it's supported in India by clueless people who cannot speak comprehensible English, then they won't buy it again.
Thus, bad business.
Make sense?
D
The cost of labor is far less for executives in foreign countries.
Actually it's not so much profit but rather... valuing profits OVER everything else. Clearly, money is valuable under ANY system. It is even valuable to a theocrat (just ask a priest). However, the systems I mentioned value other things ABOVE profit. Capitalism, on the other hand, values profit over everything else...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co. " ;)
Ahh but Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Tax cut via Dubbya....... That is God Given....
Or at least buy a guy who thinks God put him their...... "...Bush said to James Robinson: 'I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen... I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.' "
Ehhh.... These folks crack me up....
Julius Caesar - Act I, Scene i: "What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!"
Is there a organization that lobbies government for the interests of US IT Workers?
Hey, ITPAA, that won't work. He's got his own private jet, and you'll still have to deal with Macs on your networks. Sheesh.
You know what?
Yeah, sure, let's count on busy to keep jobs from moving overseas....when they can stay here and be filled by an illegal immigrant!
It seems as though TPTB don't really believe that.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Most of us are engineers with degrees (or at least I'm guessing). How many of you would (if you could go back in time) persue a different career now? I know I would.
I'm tired of lay offs and perpetual job hunting. Maybe it's my location, but still.
There is no such thing as 'Made in XXX' anymore. A product could have hundreads of components made in different countries. How do you label it then? Where is your PC made (if the video card comes from Taiwan, hard drive from USA, operating system from USA, floppy drive from Malaysia, etc)?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Carly's totally right -- what makes a job yours by birthright? Compete like everyone else.
If they can have access to OUR jobs, then give me access to THEIR cost of living
Fair competition? Okay, then let me go work in India or China or other places with a lower cost of living without THEIR protectionism keeping me out. India's position is hypocritical. They are one of the most socialist democracies around. As soon as competition starts eating away at their citizens' jobs, then will lock things up tighter than Carly's bra.
Table-ized A.I.
If my full-time job doesn't offer me enough money to feed myself, why would I work at it for eight hours a day?
If it got that bad, why couldn't I move to the middle of East Buttfuck, Montana and grow my own damn food for free in a little garden outside my double-wide, and have 8 extra hours a day to do whatever the hell I wanted?
Heck, I could just play Evercrack 24/7 in order to eBay the game's ph4t l3wt for a living.
> We also don't let employers (legally) lock their employees into buildings so that they burn to death if there's a fire, or (legally) remove safety elements on industrial equipment because it marginally improves prodictivity while risking employee dismemberment or death.
And I'm actually OK with some (most) workplace safety regs. But wage and price controls are bad economics. Minimum wage laws are unnecessary because no employer offering less than a subsistence wage will get any job applicants, because nobody, however desperate, would have any reason to apply for such a job.
If they can get quality labor for cheaper elsewhere, why should they support a bloated, overpriced labor market?
Because that's The HP Way.
That's from David Packard, the friggen co-founder of Hewlett Packard, in the book "The HP Way" which was given to all employees (when I worked there, anyway). I doubt Fiorina even read it, though.
OK Carly, I don't have a problem competing for a job. I thought I already did that, that's why I got hired.... I'll use call centers as an example since they are so commonly outsourced. Thousands of call center people are not "competing" for jobs, they're being turned out because someone is willing to do it CHEAPER. The call centers in India and the Phillipines aren't being held to the same levels of quality that the US call centers were 10 years ago, and part of that is that US call centers aren't being held to that either. Performance is based on how many calls are taken, not cases solved. Who cares if no customer gets an answer, we talked to more of them this month than ever before! I don't mind competing for a job, I think I'm competent enough in the job I do to stay employed. But when you want to pick the low bidder, and find they are performing at a ratio equivalent to the pay difference, don't say I didn't tell you so. How many stories have been posted about companies pulling back operations because of customer complaints? I'm NOT saying that all the Indian call center employees are idiots either. It's very difficult to replace a knowledgable person who understands a product and can support it, with someone who's just learned about it and uses online tools to troubleshoot. It's also difficult for a frustrated consumer to deal with language barriers on top of their problem. My experience with outsourced software projects has been dismal as well. It's hard enough to take code and comments from someone who understands english and our culture, going offshore just amplifies the problem. Like I said: I don't mind competing for a job, but lets compete based on something I can control, and the cost of living in the US is a little bit beyond my control at this point.
True, but that argument is used equally well right here in the United States. The descrepancy between the cheapest and most expensive places to live domestically is about as much as the descrepancy between here and abroad.
That's certainly correct and worthy of consideration within rural areas of the United States as well. But in the major metropolitan areas the prevailing minimum wage simply doesn't come close to providing a bare minimum poverty subsistance. Which is why a minimum wage indexed to local cost of living and inflation might serve service industry and blue collar workers better than the current system. And implementing it across the board with our WTO and NAFTA trading partners would help create a level playing field for wages. That was the point I was trying to make.
[...]but it makes just as much sense to lower the minimum wage here as to raise it there.
The point is not to raise or lower the minimum wage in any one location, but to meet the original intent of the minimum wage by setting a survivable floor appropriate to local conditions. This intent was never met by the original minimum wage laws here in the US as many urban poor can attest. Of course, the poor in countries without any minimum wage protection suffer even worse.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Consider this. These companies that farm out their labor overseas are marketing their products to the same American demographic whose jobs are being cut. What kind of sense does that make? What ever happened to recompensation. Where did these American businesses get all their wealth anyway? Hiring American workers and selling to Americans. So, now that they want a little extra cash in their pockets, it's time to screw over the people that got them where they are. I am so sick of hearing "Lower your price or increase your services" or "Live within your means". This is the shit that spews forth from the rich, who themselves are NOT expected to live by the same rules. Just another case of "Do as I say, not as I do." It's a fucking shame that you need 15 college degrees & 80 years of experience in 62 different professions just to get a fucking job making $10,000 a year! Time to do some crime, just like the big boys!
"America's ability to create jobs in the future will depend on our ability to maintain leadership in information technology. This isn't only about jobs that we have lost, it is about the loss of future opportunities that will come up. It is a loss of the human capital, of the people who have done the jobs, and they know the stuff and they know the work and they are ready to take it to the next level. We are losing our future here, that is what the real issue is. We are losing our future. That's why, as President, I am the guy who is going to say, look, stop. Just stop it. We don't want to block people from other countries from making a living, but this is about corporations who are looking for cheaper labor. That is where you use tax laws to provide disincentives for these things. But, that is why you need to get out of the WTO, because you can't do that with the WTO in place. We are talking about the future of the American economy here and we'd better wake up."
Check out the full interview for more.
I'm willing to sell my skills for the prevailing market rate -- particularly since I have little choice! If that ends up being minimum wage -- which I truly doubt it will -- I'll either accept that or I'll see if I can find a better market. Welcome to the real world, AC.
should take their extra stock options and higher salaries, which with the legions of fired workers leads to gated communities, and live where they export the jobs to. there are numerous and obvious advantages for both them... and us... .
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
IOW, use US taxpayer money to supplement the income of US taxpayers. Where's the money going to come from?
True proof that money is a poor measure of societal value.
I don't disagree, but India's not a country considered a security threat to the US. I'm only specifically referring to those countries who the US considers a threat. Historically they tend to be countries with an oppressed population. Therefore outsourcing jobs to any country considered a threat to US security will not help improve that security. In fact, any country directly a threat to US security will not get many outsourcing jobs from US companies, which will further not help improve security.
Developers: We can use your help.
This is a wonderful example of an economy falling in a death spiral.
The good are cheaper over there so we'l buy from over there and lay off our expensive employees. That works fine for a while but eventually there are no more employees to get rid of and nobody to buy the stuff that we got for cheaper over there.
The employees have all had to take McJobs or, when they can't even find one of those, commit suicide Japanese-style.
While a rising tide lifts all boats, a falling one does exactly the opposite. As some pont the redistribution of wealth starts going the other way and becomes the redistribution of poverty.
I can just see the HMOs trying to talk the politicians into reducing the cost of health care by draging the old, the sick, the feeble or the just too slow to run away, out onto the ice and letting the bears eat them.
Its an ecologically responsible environmental policy and provides food for the wild-life.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I was consulting for a GE product factory in 1999 while working for one of the now mutated interactice consulting companies. The engagement lasted three months on site, and while there I PERSONALLY watched this process take place.
The first step was to bring in H1-B mainframe workers from India, estensibly for training purposes. These people were flown in from overseas, lodged by the product factory in question, and shuttled back and forth from their hotel.
Shortly after they had been "trained" enough to suit managements needs the existing American mainframe workers were laid off in progressive batches. I sat next to one of them who told me personally what was happening and how he didn't know how he was going pay the bills after his job was terminated later that week.
In the end I left with the Indian mainframe team in full control. They had been there longer than me (3+ months) and were slated to stay the full period of the visas before taking the work they had back overseas with them. I later learned that many of these companies actually shuffle foreign workers who are ALREADY TRAINED in and out of country to get skilled labor cheap locally.
And your telling me that foreign nationals with training and ZERO overhead or living expenses aren't stealing US jobs?!? I mean really, you ARE saying that in the face of OVERWHELMING DIRECT EVIDENCE to the contrary?
Dude you need to wake up and smell the home brewed coffee you'll be drinking after your job goes bye bye. But of course all the management types say "that'll never happen to me," right? Sadly none of them stop to think what will happen when these subcontractors and contractors in poor nations decide to forego the US middle-man and take their products and companies direct to the first world market (read a recent story in the times about the company that makes Ryobi's tools in China buying the name and business rights everywhere outside of Japan).
I am constantly amazed at both the naivete and idiocy of my fellow men. You cannot have fully open markets in a world with disparate income levels, costs, and social development. Even Keynes would have recognized this if he could see the world we live in now.
-rt
There's no reason you can't have a free market economy based on moral principles and fairness.
Of course there is. Moral priciples and "fairness" for one are extremely vague terms. My opinion of fair might be to lie and cheat and steal from others.. so long as they can afford to barely exist, while I might just desire to collect diamonds just for the fuck of it.
A: You.
Do you live in the US? Do you own stocks or mutual funds (maybe in your 401(k) or IRA)? If so, you own HP stock. An Intel. And Microsoft. Don't think you do? Better read that prospectus for the Index fund.
Corporate boards work for you. They represent your views in corporate governance.
CEO's work for the boards. They are accountable for geting the best possible return on investors money.
In order to do so, they will do shocking things like try to increase revenues while managing costs.
So as soon as YOU stop being so "greedy" about your investments, I'm sure boards won't care how well the CEO does.
Now there's an argument to be make here about short-term and long-term performance, blah blah, but the truth here is that if Carly or Craig or Steve don't deliver short-term results they get fired.
By you, ultimately. You Greedy Bastard.
Speaking as a leftist...
Unions are NOT the solution here. I support unions (on principle alone) but they won't do anything here. The reason is because unions are limited to certain regions (at best, just one country). So if you unionize, the company will have an EVEN GREATER incentive to move to another country. It will further accelerate the process.
What is required, in my view, is a WORLD WIDE union. This will ensure that standards are fixed everywhere and that workers are not adversely affected (because let's get this straight: outsourcing is nothing more than an attempt to subver worker rights). Unfortunately that is almost next to impossible (assuming you can get past the red-baiting by capitalists). Many poorer countries are kleptocracies, dictatorships, or somewhat totalitarian. Attempting to get worker rights in these countries requires you to stand in front of a fast approaching police on horseback (or at worst, a tank). Needless to say, very few humans will do something like that...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Basically all First world nations have the same high cost. Even if it differs, that is only slight, you are on the same range, you also have similar education, skills, laws and infrastructure.
Low cost countries are cheaper, up to 1000 times cheaper.
In between are countries that aren't on either scale, and they aren't very interesting for investment. If it isn't much cheaper, why go through all that trouble?
Abolish minimum wage laws entirely and recalculate the minimum wage for a job daily, based on whatever the employer is willing to pay and the employee is willing to accept?
Tackhead,
The problem here is that we fundamentally disagree on core principals, not economic theory. You and I both agree that local housing, food, and other prices are set by local markets. We both agree that a single minimum wage set without regard to local cost of living sets the stage for regional disparity even when both groups of people earn the same wage.
So the fundamental question I ask you is this: Do you consider it appropriate for the government to set an earnings floor so companies can't use employee gluts and other leverage to push wages down below what is survivable? Is it the job of government to regulate a living wage for its citizens? I think this regulation is appropriate. It appears you do not.
Cheers,
--Maynard
you can't live well here on 10k/year.
This problem is not my fault,
You know, there are less expensive places to live, hell, most of the continental US has to be cheaper than Silicon Valley. You claim, and rightly so, that you can't live there on 10k or even 50k per year, did you ever think that maybe it's time to pack it in and move somewhere cheaper? The not my fault line is a crock. Unless you're indentured to the land, and slavery was abolished many years ago, you're free to leave for greener pastures.
I'm looking at the same situation next june, I'd love to stay in Boulder but if it comes down to it, I may pack up and head back to NE Ohio, where the cost of living is feasable.
At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.
Alan Greenspan
Your comparison falls through, though: Steve Jobs' annual salary is $1.
>I know exactly where it's going,
Sorry if I sounded judgemental. I wasn't trying to be.
See if the server can be tax deductable.
The mortagage, car payments and pcdi(?) school are not going to be around forever. Well, the mortagage might feel like it will be.
>I'm in the midwest and can barely afford to live, I don't understand how people live in other areas.
Dont' feel bad, most people can't. And you don't even have childern yet or have a huge wedding/honeymoon.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
but then that is what I think. But I am sure others here will tell me different. I am not for protectionism. I see the failings of that. But I would like to see less tax-breaks going to companies who outsuorce.
A hand up and a foot on every chest...
1) CEO's get paid enough so that even if they are not competent, they still get paid money significant enough that the company's success or failure is irrelevant. There is no such thing as "rich enough not to want to succeed", but their willingness to accept failure is highest when the consequences belong to others.
2) In some cases (and most of the egregious ones, I think), CEO's get large amounts of bargain-priced stock options even if their company doesn't do well. As a result, the investments that are supposed to reward them for good performance reward them whether they are good or not, unless it's their own company, in which case it's all theirs. No risk and lots of money for CEOs leads to lots of bad ones.
The problem with executive compensation is that there is no risk - if they get paid whether or not they succeed, there is no real incentive to excel. While their workers are laid off for failures of those in positions of power, the ones who made the mistakes are paid as if they had succeeded. This short-circuits the control and incentives for CEO pay, and the justness of the system.
In order to get those white collar jobs, you need a diploma that will cost you on average some $80,000 from a decent school to get.
I don't know about other fields, but unless you are targeting cutting-edge research, an expensive school for an IT career is a waste of money. Most companies shun "high-fallutin' theory" anyhow. Go to a cheap state college.
Table-ized A.I.
That's not quite true. There are a lot more poor people than there are rich people, so the democratic party should win every election. Except the repubs are very good at conning the general public. They have a very organized propaganda machine, compared to the chaos in the democratic party.
The government protects individuals more than businesses, I'd say. If you're an individual, and you're completely screwed, there's welfare, government housing, food stamps, etc. I'm self-employed, and my business is a corporation with one employee (myself). If my corporation fails, the government won't bail it out.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
who the heck is, "Marcus Courtney of Seattle"?
I think the majority of people who were "educated" working white collar jobs did give a crap when factory jobs started leaving. Howver, when the blue collar jobs started going away there was a clear path out of that problem: education. Basically the theory was that if you lost your manufacturing job, you go to college, get your degree and get one of those better paying white collar jobs. We pass off the dirty, demanding, repetitive work to the reset of the world and move up the food chain.
The problem we face now is that there's no clear sense of where you go from here. Getting a college degree may not help you, and with the rising costs of college, it might actually hurt you in the long run. If you have to work at the Gap, do you really want to be paying off college loans too? So far, I've heard no good answer on what to do next.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Now that the shoe is on the other foot..the whole world looks different doesn't it? First off not just any monkey can be taught to workin a factory..get off your high horse college boy!!!!! Any job done well is hard to do...try sweeping the floor correctly and efficiently...You'd be amazed how much there is to such a mundane job. I'll agree...You spent years and alot of money to get your degree. But most workers spent many years doing the same thing day in and day out. Either way years were invested in a career. Yet..while I wirked and slaved, paid bills and worked..you partied and occasionally studied...but that's not the point, forgive the rant. The problem is that US companies live by a seperate set of rules than they expect thier customers to live by. They scream buy american, yet the outsource everything they can. While all the workers wages go down...the corporate execs and stockholders profits go up. Those that truly are risking little (read time invested in career, establishing a life somewhere, scrimping and saving to buy the product they produce) the executives see nothing morree than a bottom line and find ways to cut it. Until americans decide to revolt and punish such actions buy NOT buying crap from people that outsource our livelyhood...then nothing will change. FLG
Did you see my earlier reply to you?
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
> You've never seen Indian code, have you?
> Or reviewed Indian resumes? That's always good for a laugh at a hiring meeting.
Or talked to them on phone tech support. I have spoken to a few that were truly very bright, but more often than not, I might as well ask a brick.
"Don't make me angry. You won't like me when I am angry, Carly"
Table-ized A.I.
Move to a small town, and get a job as a plumber's apprentice. Problem solved.
You want the world to a place where you can live in an expensive place like Silicon Valley and have all the nice toys you want and a wonderful fairy tale life where generous companies pay you $60,000 for work you enjoy. The world is not like that, and, no, it's not your fault the world is not like that. It is your fault that you won't change your plan, or your expectations.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I've nothing constructive to add, but I had to say "Amen brother". The whining here reminds me of growing up in the rust belt seeing "Hungry? Eat your import" bumper stickers holding together rotted old ford trucks.
At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.
Alan Greenspan
But in the major metropolitan areas the prevailing minimum wage simply doesn't come close to providing a bare minimum poverty subsistance.
So don't live in a major metropolitan area. When I lost my job, I didn't move to New York City. I moved to Trenton, New Jersey.
Which is why a minimum wage indexed to local cost of living and inflation might serve service industry and blue collar workers better than the current system.
Well, I don't agree. I think if you can't afford to live where you live, you should move. Otherwise, I'd expect a big influx of people moving to the nicest areas of the country. It's not self-sustaining. I know I'd move to NYC if I could afford it. It's a great city, and I've known others who have lived there during the dot com boom and left after losing their jobs. But I can't move there. Not until I have more money, anyway.
The reason I'm not willing to work for minimum wage is because I can't AFFORD TO SURVIVE on minimum wage. Sure, move to BFE where you can, but wait, I can't actually afford to do that on, um, $6.75 per hour.
This sig no verb.
And if they are, they will very quickly learn that they get what they pay for with labor.
Quality is certainly a factor in price and any company with any sense would take this into account when choosing any part of production, including labor. Outsourcing programmers to India may be cost effective. Outsourcing tech support, which has to deal with large numbers of American English speaking customers may cost more than it saves.
Case in point: I do not buy the cheapest brand of gas for my car. Instead, I always buy name brand gas, even if it costs more. Why? Because I get better gas mileage off of the name brand stuff, making it a better total value. However, there are many things that I do buy off brand because they are a better value.
If companies are not factoring total value into the equation, then let them go extinct. Better companies will inevitably take their place.
Sort of.
Lots of developed coutries with "Big Companies" are all facing the same problem.
It's great for Company "XYZ" to move all posible jobs to the lowest bidder (offshore or wherever). But when EVERY company does this, well, that's a recession and good for NO company.
Lets face it, there are only so many things you can do: grow it, build it, research it, manage it, run it, do it and think of it. Only the last means you'll be busy (i.e. run your own business), not necessarily earn a crust.
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
Yes, this is a major reason for offshoring. The Tech industry as it relates to computers is mature to the point that you describe. Hardware features are becoming more and more standardized, software tools are maturing also, the market is not a frontier anymore as much as it is a defined pie with folks fighting over their wedge size. When that happens it becomes a pricing war. Enter cost reduction stratagies and the offshoring motivation.
.com bust.
Nothing will stop the outflow at this point. It will continue until equilibrium has been reached, and Americans will have to adjust - just like we adjusted/are adjusting to the
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
What about an "open standard" for running a company, with a list of 10 rules that must be followed to meet the standard (e.g. total compensation of CEO is not greater than 100x the average employee)? Then a company could publish whether it follows the standard or not. The rules would have to be picked with an eye towards pleasing the stockholder, not the socialist long-hair, of course. For example, I wouldn't add "Lowest paid worker makes more than 2x min wage" because the stockholder doesn't really care about that. I'd make something that virtually everyone, no matter how nutty their religion, can agree upon. Another example might be limitations on nepotism, or limitations on how many other company boards the members of the board can sit upon. Maybe laws about how the management team can change their own compensation? A no-brainer should be mandated changes in the auditing company after a certain number of years, but the current administration deams that to be uncompetitive.... So let's force the companies that we invest with to do it themselves.
Dollars vote.
I'd say the educational process has failed you big time if, in those 4-5 years, it never occured to you to go see what your degree would be worth.
I'd also be quite stunned to meet any English or History major who honestly expected to leave school and go make big bucks.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
The last people on earth to listen to (much less trust) regarding "what to do" with the lives and jobs of middle class Americans are the CEOs of the world's largest multi-national companies. These people care about the personal payoff for them, not much else.
Especially companies that have been firing US workers at a record pace. Extra especially CEOs such as Carly Fiorano who is known to be a technlogy illiterate beancounter whose only skill is to chop costs by chopping workers.
When USA CEOs move jobs offshore, the corporation is the only one that benefits. Profits go up as costs go down. The bulk of India's IT output goes to the US, it does not go to India. Similarly with China's industrial output. The only reason these countries get the big business from the USA is to increase profits of USA companies.
Corporate profits of US companies go mostly into various payoffs for CEOs, top management, and large institutional shareholders. For the many technology companies that do not pay dividends, there is no payoff for small shareholders.
It is no surprise that there are many US companies under investigation for conflicts of interest between shareholders and management.
So what happens when millions of middle class workers are fired from US companies and their jobs moved offshore?
As we have learned in other industries, once jobs are moved offshore, they never come back. A nation tends to lose entire industry segments. Witness the lack of manufacturing capability in the US today.
As the middle class shrinks, the economy will also shrink. However, having moved their production offshore, HP, Intel, and others can sacrifice the US middle class so that they can then sell products to the rapidly growing Indian and Chinese middle classes.
It is the US middle class worker, the biggest US taxpayer, that gets to support HP, Intel, and other USA corporations growing their profits and then ultimately this trusting middle class worker gets stabbed in the back.
As public companies on the US stock exchange, it is a major conflict of interest between shareholders (US people) and management (CEOs and their top lieutenants) to move jobs offshore.
It is my personal belief that any CEO of a US public company that offshores jobs should be fired immediately for conflict of interest and should be fully subject to criminal prosecution.
I make the distinction of a public company as shares have been sold to Americans under a set of promises and expectations. People invest in an American company to help build America, the lives of Americans, not just fill the pockets of a few greedy CEOs. By replacing US workers with foreign workers, the CEO of a US public corporation is in breach of contract with the shareholders.
Furthermore by breaching this contract, HP and other companies could be shown to be acting in "bad faith" versus the interests of their shareholders and the whole of America itself. The consequences of an American CEO breaking faith and betraying the people of America should be a long stay in prison.
The Cost of living in USA is NOT less than India. India's cost of living if far less. I'm not Indian and have never lived there but I am pretty sure my opinion is correct. Rent may seem high but how about everything else? Food, for example, is FAR cheaper over there. A bread costs $1 here and it probably costs 10cents over there. Public transportation costs $2 here while it might cost 50 cents there.
I agree with you that Americans are used to better lifestyle. However, that doesn't change the cost of living.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S.
No one in their right mind would expect a highly educated person to work for minimum wage or lower... that defeats the purpose of the education...
No the sissy fake piracy the RIAA is bitching about, Real Piracy. If the US Navy look away from this shipping cost would go up everytime another dvd player shipment got hijacked. This will lead to the price of imports increasing which will mean that we will have to start making stuff here again.
I love the smell of irony in the morning. Before breakfast, I actually sat down and wrote this letter to the editor:
Dear Editor,
I cannot, in all honesty, deny others in third-world nations the chance to compete for jobs with US workers. Outsourcing is a vital part of our tech industry future.
However I note no enthusiasm on the part of Silicon Valley companies to outsource their most expensive, and often least productive workers, their presidents, CEO's and senior management.
In fact it is these same people who are calling, not for more competitive replacements for their own jobs, but for more and cheaper engineers for their tech mills. Why is that, I wonder?
Regards,
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
It's amazing to me that in all these discussions and news articles about the offshore outsourcing trend, no one's raised concerns about the very serious problems that arise when trying to develop products with an offshore team. I think that these problems are so severe the model is destined to fail.
Has anyone else run into serious issues trying to effectively communicate product specification and work collaboratively across half the planet? I have. I don't think there will ever be a replacement for the efficiency with which a focused, communicative, and geographically coherent development team can execute.
Has anyone seen the Dilbert cartoon about outsourcing to Elbonia?
The biggest challenge faced when outsourcing any project is that of communication, and especially specification. Offshore outsourcing has two major strikes against it: 1) language barrier, and 2) time zones. You can't deny either of these.
When the hell is the tech biz community going to realize that it jest don't wurk?
I recently heard that universities in the UK were having a very difficult time retaining top professors due to limited financing. Apparently, many of them are moving to more afluent colleges overseas, especially to the US. Apparently, the funding per student for higher education in the UK has dropped significantly over the past 30-40 years or so.
EDIT: I meant nobody and not anybody
Jonathanjk.com
Seriously, am I the only one thinking that we're totally screwed?
It starts by moving all the junior jobs over there (my company does't hire juniors anymore but outsource "trivial" tasks instead), and in 5 years their juniors will have become cost-effective seniors and managers (and get much better things to do than trivial tasks), while here we'll have nobody to train and manage.
Pretty soon they wont be interested doing just outsourcing (which will have given them a lot of nice proprietary source code to look at) but will drive innovation and create cheaper competing products instead, so even America's CEOs will be out of jobs.
Except maybe for a few niche markets, like entertainment (video games, movie industry fx) or military contracts (good luck trying to get hired on those even if you're american born), I think software engineering as a profession is gonna die here (but Open Source is nice if you like software as a hobby though).
That's why I'm planning to get an MS in system administration, hair styling or pizza delivery (have you read "Snow Crash"?).
ok, sorry for the rant, let's code tight and hope I'm wrong (maybe in two years the cost of life in Bangalore will catch up with ours, or the opposite)
This has happened, over and over, in the U.S., and around the world. I think of my father, who (still) manages to manufacture embroidery in the U.S., but the entire industry has gone to Asia. Did we say that the US competitiveness in the world marketplace was going to go down the tubes because the textile industry went overseas? No.... We might have 75 years earlier, but innovation occured, and new technologies and industries arose.
Now, I know IT is different. But, we do have a tendency to pay very careful attention to what's in the rear view mirror, rather than focusing on what's ahead. Would a steel worker, or steel industry baron, for that matter, have ever predicted information technologies as being a driving force of the U.S. economy?
So, I agree with the poster who said that government's role is to soften the blow of global capitalism, not prevent it. If we had banned exportation, we might still be the world leader in lace, dress making, and steel, but would we have necessarily been the world leader in any other industry, and would that be better?
One caveat: I agree that the U.S. shoudl at least remain self-sufficient in certain areas, liek agriculture, so I have no problem with farm subsidies (in general, not for specific products like corn vs. another crop), especially when so much farm land is being developed into housing.
On a similar note....agribusiness might actually be the future. Without getting in to the whole GM crop issue, I still feel that there will come a time when pharmaceuticals will be grown, rather than manufactured. Whether or not you agree with this isn't the point, as much as we don't know what will be the industry of the future.
How did the U.S. survive after cotton/steel/textiles/etc etc etc went overseas? I hope you don't consider it too much of a cliche to point to a culture that (usually) fosters innovation, that (usually) values education (needs to put alot more money there at the moment, though), and, ultimately, lets those who can make money, make money. By the time an industry is at the huge corporate level, it has already played out, and it is only a matter of time when it goes overseas.
Be worried when education is cut, to save money for defense or for tax cuts (read: California). That is far far more shortsighted....the industries that allowed for uneducated entrepreneurs were exhausted al long time ago....
However, when the shoe is on the other foot, geeks who've got those beautifully framed CIS degrees on their wall, are entitled to make money, and have a job, and it's very important for businesses to take a hit on the bottom line for their sake, or for the government to legislate some kind of program or incentive to keep their precious jobs safe.
You said it! Tell it from the mountaintop!
Look, if all the blue collar jobs left, why do I see so many soccer Moms driving around in big freakin' SUVs, or so many scraggly guys dragging 40" plasma TVs out of Best Buy. Americans are not lacking for good paying jobs. Some people have to work for Nissan or Honda now, instead of GM or Ford, but there's no shortage of work.
Maybe if you're having problems finding work in the IT sector, it's because you have mediocre IT skills and only got a CIS degree because you heard it paid big bucks. If you think you're so good, start your own damned company. Then you too can outsource stuff to other countries and make a decent living at it.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
As Dr. Beyster, founder of SAIC said, "Those who contribute to the company should own it and that ownership should be commensurate to that contribution and performance as much as feasible."
Rent + water: $1030/mo
Electricty: ~$230/mo (hot mos); ~$60 (Cold mos)
Car Payment: $284/mo
Insurance (car/renters): $220/mo
Phone: $32/mo
Cell: $65/mo
Motorcycle: $174/mo
Cable: $50 (extended basic)
DSL: $65
Now..that's before food, gas or other essentials before anything left over for entertainment....
Money goes quite quickly. Now, granted, I guess I could do without broadband, and cable, but, at this point, its about the only entertainment I have...hell, hard to afford to save up for a date....and these days its easily $100+ a date. Dinner, drinks, movie...it gets expensive!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It is not a case of greed amoung tech workers in the US driving their jobs away. The cost of living differential between most parts of the US and say, most parts of India, is HUGE. An Indian worker can afford to work at a salary that is impossible for an American worker to live on, much less maintain competency and a decent lifestyle. There is something really screwy about massive layoffs of the very American techies who create/enabled/sustained much of the technology at the heart of their former companies. These workers get rewarded by not being able to work or contribute further to their fields and not being able to afford the very technology they helped create in the first place. This is a waste of people, of minds and reaping ashes for all the time and energy invested.
So, is the pattern that some bright and dedicated people create new technology, companies form to exploit the technology commercially, the companies find cheaper workers elsewhere to maintain/extend the tecnology thus driving their costs down, the original people all lose their jobs? Somehow, I am not sure exactly how, I think we should be able to come up with a much more sane and livable model than this.
I am no expert on economics, so i have a couple of questions:
Everyone talks about the leveling of the playing field, but they seem to focus on india's side going up, and almost never on the us's going down. i am talking about standard of living. what happens as the american standard of living declines (as the rest of the world rises)? they keep talking about new jobs being created "higher up the foodchain", but we can't all be CEOs, doctors, lawyers, etc. The American middle class is going to start having less money, because it will be going overseas. We'll have less, we'll spend less. Luckily everythings is now being made much more cheaply overseas, so things will cost less(right?). It seems that even real estate would suffer as people had less to pay for homes. Also, why go to college if it isn't going to help me get a job? I know a lot of this is a slippery slope, but I'd like to get the opinions of some of the economists out there...
The Cost of living in USA is NOT less than India. India's cost of living if far less.
Define cost of living.
I'm not Indian and have never lived there but I am pretty sure my opinion is correct.
LOL. Well, it's not an opinion. It's a fact.
Rent may seem high but how about everything else?
Rent is the vast majority of the cost of living.
Food, for example, is FAR cheaper over there.
Depends on what type of food, and where in the United States you live.
A bread costs $1 here and it probably costs 10cents over there.
You can make your own bread here for less than 10 cents. I've done it before. Homemade bread tastes better, and doesn't have all those nasty preservatives anyway.
Public transportation costs $2 here while it might cost 50 cents there.
Again, depends on the location. But transportation isn't really part of the cost of living. Use a bike, or a motorcycle. Both are very cheap for transportation.
I agree with you that Americans are used to better lifestyle. However, that doesn't change the cost of living.
You're going to have to define cost of living, then.
Including your own, Carly.
You keep putting out the same kind of PC equipment you have been, no one will buy it.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
So don't live in a major metropolitan area. When I lost my job, I didn't move to New York City. I moved to Trenton, New Jersey.
No disrespect, but I think you're confusing employability with base survivable wages. Suppose an minimum wage cost of living index sets New York city at $10.50/hour while setting Cincinnati, OH at $6.50 (just numbers I pulled out of my ass as an example). This wouldn't make New York any more livable than Cincinnati, nor would it push wages up across the board for all - it would simply set a sustainable floor.
Two points:
A) As for arguing that people should simply move if they can't afford to live in a location, what does a family do if their children are in school? What does a family do if one member is employed while another is not? I think you're extrapolating your personal experience in the dot.bomb bust with the vast majority of low wage poor familys. And further, you likely earned far more in your position than what any minimum wage earner could hope to expect. You had no expectation of continuing white collar employment.
B) As for the argument that this policy would promote an influx of people moving to the best cities, I argue that if this happened regional unemployment in those areas would increase to offset that effect. Just because a local minimum wage is meets survivability for the poor, doesn't mean that there are enough jobs to meet the entire regional population. I simply argue that what jobs are available ought to provide enough in wages so that the poor don't starve while working full time.
Cheers,
--Maynard
The US could require that a certain amount of the work stay within America. While this can be seen as limiting the performance of a company, it could also be seen as a preventative measure against the economy going to total shit. To keep it fair, put tariff's on imported items to keep everyone at the same competitive level.
The other approach is to bring India's economy and infrastructure level up to Americas (including costs.) Of course that will just mean that company's will look for other countries with cheap labor to handle the outsourced jobs. Maybe India and other countries will realize they could make big bucks on their own in America and cut out the middle man.
They (US) don't want restrictions that the underdeveloped countries (India and China) don't have to enact until their industry is as developed (and polluting) as the rest of the world's industrialized nations.
And to some extent that have a point. It's more or less a handicap. Then again... if the industry is moving to Mexico, India or wherever... does it really matter?
OK folks.
/. 'em and let them know our thoughts.
Time to get out the pens.... No, our Congress persons, and representatives all have e-mails ('specially since the mail scare!), so e-mail them your concerns. Lets
I noticed several posts which mentioned a "reward" for those companies who keep their high-tech jobs within our borders, and several wanting tarriffs or other obstacles for those companies moving their high-tech jobs overseas.
It seems to me that there is no such thing as a companies loyalty to their employees (and vice-versa) anymore. You are on your own to sink or swim.
Mobilize and be recognized. The middle of the road is no place to be now.
Luck
Wherever you go, there you are.
I don't like to see the US Govt. legislating corporate policies...but, I don't mind them giving them incentive to shape said policy towards thing beneficial to US citzens.
There is no "shaping". It's either legislating, or it isn't. (GWB's 'executive orders' aside).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Sorry, there's no way you're going to get me to believe that sweeping a floor takes any training. I've swept many floors, and I certainly didn't need to take a course on it. Most factory work may require some training, but certainly not on the order of years. I definitely wouldn't compare it to even a skilled trade.
Your accusations are unfounded too; I never partied in college, since I was in engineering school and had no time for it. Obviously you have no clue what it's like to get a serious education.
Americans aren't going to revolt until they're all out of work, and by then it'll be too late; the whole economy will just collapse like a house of cards. I suggest stocking up on nonperishable food, weapons, and ammunition.
There was a show on www.marketplace.org on Dec 9 2003 that talked about NAFTA. Seems all those manufacturing jobs which were supposed to go to Mexico have left Mexico and gone to China, and now are going to Vietnam.
According to the show, the Mexicans were being paid $300-$400 per month. These jobs were sent to China, were people make $100 per month and are now being sent to Vietnam where people are making $30/month. All numbers from marketplace and it's reporters and the people they spoke to in Mexico and China.
I don't think people realize how little people are being paid overseas. $0.50 per hour workers are being replaced with $0.17 per hour workers. Link to the show is in my journal.
These are manufacturing jobs, and there is a huge debate here if we should care about "them" as opposed to "us" the well educated - and I'm not going to add to that argument.
Further, it was suggested that the true nation of origin should be printed on the packaging. I think the wages should be printed, too.
Let's take it a step further. Minimum, maximum and averages wages should be available for all transactions. If MacDonald's pays minimum wage and In'n'Out across the street pays $8/hour, you as a consumer are making an informed choice when you choose one or the other. (Go read Fast Food Nation - workers at some chains are paid vastly more than others).
How much (if anything) are you willing to pay for, say, a motherboard made in the US? I'm not arguing that you *should* pay more, I'm just saying we should all have the information to make the choice.
Of course, companies would lie and subvert the system by averaging in workers in bizzare ways to inflate their average pay. Or they would just lie. Some mix of government and media investigation powers would be needed to give this any teeth. Probably people here would not like a new government agency to actually back this up. In a way, all you have to do is get foreign workers the information that they can contact the US agency and just tell us what they earn - and if the product is mislabeled, that company would be given warning that either label it correctly, or pay what you are saying you will pay. Thus some help would be forthcoming from the workers (perhaps laid off workers, or otherwise disgrunteled workers, but some fraction).
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
Fantastic link to the pens. Our next office order is coming from them without a doubt!
MORTAR COMBAT!
How do you know what my education is...No..I don't have the typical 4 year degree where i go live in a dorm etc...But..I am educated sir.
Tackhead, your theories about careers in computational biology or nanotechnology are seriously flawed - what makes you think those won't be offshored next.
Everyone needs to realize that this is NOT just about IT white collar jobs - it's ALL white collar jobs.
I'm not an English or history major, I'm a philosophy major. My employment goals for the future? I hope to start a recording studio. What's that got to do with philosophy? Not a damned thing. I'm going to school because I like it, not because I want big bucks.
I find it unfortunate that I'm one of a very few.
i love it when people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in base salary complain that the problem is that college graduates aren't willing to work for minimum wage.
If i wanted to work for minimum wage, i would have skipped college and gotten a lucrative job in the food services industry. By now, i could have been assistant manager.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Here are two questions for you.
Why arent these mgmt types outsourcing *their* jobs? I am sure we can find some C*O's in India and China who would do the same or better job, and lots cheaper. I would like for them to get a taste of their own medicine.
When you ship a job overseas, where does the salary go? Well, duh, overseas, with the job. So, there is less money here in the states to buy goods and services with. That money is in India or China or whereever buying Indian or Chinese or whatever goods and services. I cant see that having anything but a bad effect on our economy. And this, from our economic leaders ( who still seem to be enjoying large paychecks. ).
emt 377 emt 4
I never said I did; I can only tell that you have no clue what getting a college education is like because of your snide comment about partying and occassionally studying. Only someone who's never been through a serious college program like engineering or architecture, and has never known anyone who did, would say such an inane thing.
If you said that to some bimbo who got a business degree, I'd probably agree with you based on my experiences with business majors in college, but obviously someone on Slashdot complaining about the outsourcing of tech jobs isn't going to be a business major.
Better to insist on trade agreements that set minimum requirements for wages, time off, health & safety, retirement, environmental protection, etc. Workers in China and India will still be cheaper to hire, but at least we won't be competing based on who is willing to give up basic rights.
EXACTLY.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Lawyers, doctors, the police, nurses and college professors are also service jobs. They either are good jobs, -or- they should be good jobs because they are very important. Certainly some of what they do can be moved outside the US.
As IT workers, it is very easy for your jobs to be moved offshores. Far easier than rebuilding factories in foreign countries. But that also means it will be easy to move those jobs back if either US workers really are needed for them, or if some change in the law requires it.
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
I think the business model is still sound, it is the product that is all wrong: 1. Get a medical degree 2. Market skills to a company for cash 3. Profit!!! I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't support my family off of an offshore programmer's wage.
A car company can move its factories to Mexico and claim it's a free market. A toy company can outsource to a Chinese subcontractor and claim it's a free market. A major bank can incorporate in Bermuda to avoid taxes and claim it's a free market. We can buy HP Printers made in Mexico. We can buy shirts made in Bangladesh. We can purchase almost anything we want from many different countries BUT, heaven help the elderly who dare to buy their prescription drugs from a Canadian (Or Mexican) pharmacy. That's called un-American! And you think the pharmaceutical companies don't have a powerful lobby? Think again!
Maybe the answer to the question is looking at how India is subsidizing their college student's education, and actually... dare I say it.... slashing the costs of colleges in the US.
How can the US possibly compete in an environment when education costs are 30x more expensive... not to mention that all of the expenses of living in the US are 100x more expensive.
Maybe it's time to just slash the cost of housing/education/taxes by 90%. That would solve everyone's problems....
Yeah I'd really like to make $5.50 an hour trying to pay off $15k-$20K in student loans.
Insert funny smart-ass comment here.
...we can go backwards while they go forwards...in several years they can outsource to us and we can take the jobs back...
Exactly! Greed's been appropriated by the "let companies do anything they want - you have no rights" "Libertarian" Randroid crowd and twisted into a virtue that's supposedly at the core of the capitalist system. Its not. Capitalism is based on seeing a need and fulfilling it, and being rewarded for doing so. Not on greed. Greed kills capitalism and replaces it with consumerism, in which a few producers tell vast hordes of consumers what they want.
Frankly, I'm scared shitless, or at the very least disturbed. I was in graduate school for Computer Engineering for a year and decided it sucked. (And yes, it sucked far worse than the temp secretarial job I have now.) I've been talking to people on IRC and whatnot, and they're not too encouraging or helpful "Job market sucks." "Move." Well, what the hell are we supposed to do? There have to be jobs out there? Where are they?
That's certainly true. However, the point is that the market is just a mechanism for pricing goods and services. All markets are "created" in the sense that the participants have to agree (implicitly or explicitly) about the rules for exchange. Enron wouldn't have been able to trade energy contracts without the "deregulation" laws that made this possible. (The proposed terrorism futures exchange is another example.) There's nothing stopping us from changing the rules to benefit workers.
For example, say we decide that the natural environment belongs to the people and any company that harms the environment has to "pay the people back" through environmental damage taxes. This is a moral rule that we've added to the definition of the market. The company's profits decrease, and Adam Smith's invisible hand causes their stock price to drop. Polluting corporations now have an incentive to improve their ways. We could also give tax credits to companies who clean up the environment, improving their bottom line and stock price.
Likewise, we can make full, gainful employment a moral priority. If we define the market in those terms, we can use it to our advantage instead of watching while our labor force disintegrates before our eyes.
First of all, programming jobs are by far the minority in jobs being shipped overseas. We are talking about call center and blue collar workers who were lucky if they made $20-30K a year here. Second, when I think bloated I think about the executives who are sending these jobs overseas and pocketing million dollar bonuses for doing it. A $2 million bonus could buy you 30 blue collars even with benefits and taxes.
All taxes on corporations are hidden taxes on consumers. There's no such thing as a "tax break" for corporations, because ultimately they are not the ones who pay the corporate taxes in the first place.
What, you thought corporations would let taxes mean lower profits for their shareholders, rather than pass the cost on to the consumer? How naive.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
they seem to focus on india's side going up, and almost never on the us's going down.
Good point. I think this is a fact of life. The world economy will "level out" the standard of living across the globe, up and down. I live a cushy life in the USA, mostly due to good luck. I think it would be immoral for me to prevent other people (in India or wherever) from improving their standard of living. I think this leveling out will happen regardless of artificial tarifs or trade embargoes. It's just a matter of when. Let the interconnected global economy float everyone's boat.
cpeterso
We will have to become lawyers and upper management executives, everyone who can't will flip burgers at McDonalds or work at Walmart for minimum wage with no health care. Once that happens China and India take over all Mega corps and get rid off the costly litagation and over paid management.
It's simple economics, folks:
Supply and demand is an economic law.
Telecommuting means anyone anywhere can do software for anyone anywhere else.
Someone elsewhere is willing to do the work for less, and don't have to be anywhere in particular to do it, so customers/employers just hire whoever can do the job for less. Nothing wrong with that - just like you buying widget X from the cheapest source.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
And read it too.
If I pay someone $12K/y to flip burgers, paying another peon $1K/y looks pretty attractive. So I fire my $12K/y person and put up a "Help Wanted - Burgerflipper - Paying $0.50 an hour, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day" sign.
But if I earn $0/y, earning $1000/y for 8 hours a day ain't gonna help me enough. I can sit on a street corner and provide momentary flashes of emotional comfort to altruists who feel guilty about having jobs. This form of self-employment (commonly referred to as "begging") earns more than $0.50 per hour, so why would I flip burgers when there are better opportunities available to me?
And if I offered $24000/y, I'd probably have prospective burgerflippers lined up outside my door.
But somewhere between $0.50 ($1000/y) and $12.00 ($24000/y), there'll be a price where someone will decide that my burgers are worth flipping. That price is the price at which someone thinks they're getting a fair shake for flipping my burgers - or they wouldn't have signed up with me, preferring another employer, or going into some form of self-employment - be it begging or opening up their own damn burger stand. It's also the price that leaves me the most money left over after paying my flippers to open another burger shop down the street.
Markets aren't Gods. Markets are merely a means of determining a price at which commodities can be exchanged to the benefit of both buyer and seller. To be buzzword-compliant, markets are massively parallel, decentralized, P2P-based mechanisms for real-time price determination. A glance at the activity on the trading floor of the CBOE or any other open-outcry commodities market should provide more than adequate proof.
I'm not saying you're lazy. I'm saying, there are solutions, but you don't want to hear them. You're going to sit there, waiting and hoping that things get better.
Think about the pilgrims and the pioneers. When our ancestors decided they didn't like things where they were, they packed up everything and took enormous risks crossing oceans and hostile continents, with their entire family in tow. You're telling me it's just too scary to move out of silicon valley and into a small friendly town somewhere? It sounds like your situation is getting desperate. Well, desperate times call for desperate measures.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Why arent these mgmt types outsourcing *their* jobs?
They are.
They're creating large pools of trained, experienced people in foreign countries who, once they've obtained a bit of capital, are well-positioned to form their own companies and compete with their former employers.
Look at how much of the PC industry has outsourced itself to Asia, for example. A few years ago, it was just US companies building component factories in the far east to cut production costs. Next the US companies started buying components from Asian companies. Next the US companies started outsourcing entire products to Asian companies, from design through manufacturing. Now the US companies are increasingly finding themselves trying to compete with foreign products that are going head-to-head with their own.
The next step is what happened to Zenith.
Of course, this process will take a while, so the people doing it will retire with their millions before it becomes a serious problem.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
But the world is not a neatly packaged economically efficient engine.
For example, our trade deficit with China more than funds their defense budget. We effectively pay them to produce missles that they point at us, and to create governmental structures that imprison and torture their citizens without the benefit of due process.
If we look at countries with more open policies toward business and profits, the challenge is that the profits go to the companies not the workers directly.
I concur that people worldwide need our help. I choose to give to organizations that I know provide help and have relatively low overhead costs so that the maximum benefit goes to the people who need it.
I mean you no disrespect, but it seems a bit selfish to say that you buy the cheapest thing available (so that you get what you want) and view that as a charitable contribution to others. Perhaps this is more a reflection on our cultural viewpoint overall than it is a reflection on you personally.
So are you willing to:
a) try to live in the US on the median worldwide income, or
b) relocate so that your egalitarian view of wealth redistribution can allow you to live on what you could make in the developing world?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
When you watch Star Trek, do you see the characters whining and bitching about the unemployment brought about by the replicator? No, I see people living in Utopia where everything is dirt cheap. Yeah, it's just a TV show, but that economy really is a good thing that we should strive for, not something to fear. It's an ideal.
If the stuff you consume gets cheaper because someone across the world (or a robot (or a nanoreplicator)) can make it cheaper than you or your next door neighbor, revel with joy that your life is better than your ancestors' was. Globalization is a technological phenomenon and it's something that just wasn't possible a few thousand years ago when they couldn't transport or communicate easily over long distances. Be happy that you can buy a loaf of bread for the amount of money that you make in a few minutes, instead of breaking your back in the fields harvesting wheat. Be happy that you can buy the collossal computing power of Opteron made by some guys in Malaysia. Be happy that an automated "software wizard" or someone who didn't need $100k in training, is there to help you with tech support. Be happy that a job can be done in fewer hours with Python than C++.
Ah, but the catch is that we lose our jobs, to those other people or robots or processes. Oh no!! We have nothing to do with our time because life got too easy! Nobody wants us to work! The horror!
Am I the only one who sees how wonderful the big picture is?
All we have to worry about, are the expensive things in our lives that don't seem to be strongly tied to the cost of human effort (whether that's blue collar labor or manufacturing or IT). Land, water, energy... I guess "natural resources" sums it up. The scarcity of these are the economic problem that humanity faces. Don't worry about the devaluation of work.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I graduated with a CIS degree in May 2002. After all the bank mergers and call centers closing down locally, I could only find a job at a small locally owned company that had never had any MIS person. After spending four months chasing viruses and updating computers that hadn't seen a patch or virus definition update in five years, and implementing a VPN network between the branch offices and the home office that saved a ton of moeny, they decided "they couldn't afford to have a full time MIS person on staff." Oh, and I was working for $10/hr. I'm now a Realtor(R), and am much happier, that is, until I look at the $50,000 in student loans I still have to pay back.
but, hell, I'll throw in my 2 cents.
Without trying to sound arrogant, I would closely follow job sites such as monster.com, careerbuilder.com, and hotjobs.yahoo.com and see what is in demand. What skills are being asked for most often and seem to offer some nice pay?
Next, take a look at your current skillset and see how it compares to the offerings. You need to determine what you lack, and whether it's feasable to try and bridge the gap.
No disrespect, but I think you're confusing employability with base survivable wages.
OK, what's your definition of cost of living?
Suppose an minimum wage cost of living index sets New York city at $10.50/hour while setting Cincinnati, OH at $6.50 (just numbers I pulled out of my ass as an example). This wouldn't make New York any more livable than Cincinnati, nor would it push wages up across the board for all - it would simply set a sustainable floor.
It would make New York equally livable to Cincinatti. Of course that would make more people want to live in New York, which would cause rents in New York to go up, which would cause the minimum wage in New York to go up even more. The vicious cycle would probably never end, unless maybe if you set rent controls. Then it'd just be a dice roll whether or not you get to live in the greatest city in the world (yeah yeah, just my humble opinion).
Of course, all of this assumes by New York City you mean Manhattan. And even then, it assumes you don't include Harlem. So that goes back to what you're going to define as the cost of living. Should that be the minimum cost of living of anyone living there? Do you include the homeless? Or is it the average? Should the minimum wage in Beverly Hills, CA be $9000/hour? And how granular do you want to be? All of New York City, or is each borough separate? Do you include Harlem, or do you subdivide even the boroughs?
As for arguing that people should simply move if they can't afford to live in a location, what does a family do if their children are in school?
Move. They shouldn't have lived there in the first place.
What does a family do if one member is employed while another is not?
If they can't afford it, then they should move. And what does this have to do with minimum wage, anyway? If the employed family member is making minimum wage, surely they can get a job somewhere else making the same amount.
I think you're extrapolating your personal experience in the dot.bomb bust with the vast majority of low wage poor familys.
No. Not at all. The vast majority of low wage poor families were low wage poor families before they even had children. I'm extrapolating my ability to live on a very small amount of money to the vast majority of low wage poor families.
And further, you likely earned far more in your position than what any minimum wage earner could hope to expect.
If you average out what I made those two years over the many years I've lived off of it, it wouldn't come out to very much. I was only paying $230/month to share that three bedroom house with two others. It's easily affordable on minimum wage.
As for the argument that this policy would promote an influx of people moving to the best cities, I argue that if this happened regional unemployment in those areas would increase to offset that effect.
Well, I'm not sure about that, but there's limited space, so something would have to be used to decide who gets to live there and who doesn't.
I simply argue that what jobs are available ought to provide enough in wages so that the poor don't starve while working full time.
This isn't about people starving. This is about them having to move somewhere else.
The basic problem is programmers refuse to organize themselves. Programming simply is not a profession.
There are over 2,000,000 programmers in the U.S. However, in spite of record unemployment (surpassing not only the rate for professional workers but for all workers as well) and legislation (e.g. H-1B) designed move jobs overseas, programmers refuse to organize.
There are a few groups out there fighting for a programmer-friendly legislative agenda.
www.aea.org
www.programmersguildusa.com
Yet these groups (I belong to both) are tiny.
Worse yet, I see people say "Oh, they have a bad website" and all that nonsense. You have to run before you can walk. How come programmers don't say "Oh, I don't like your website but I'll join and help you make it better".
If you aren't a member of a group fighting for programmers, then your complaining is having no effect.
However,
Forget food. Housing is the kicker. You can't buy a house in Westchester, NY for less than $250,000. Meanwhile, my in-laws are retiring to a really nice house in central Florida for about $150,000 - what a difference.
'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday.
It's true, there isn't, and that includes Carly's job. I guess she'll have made enough money to retire once HP looses enough grounds to foreign competition to cause HP to drastically cut back or go out of business. Reality is it is. When enough R&D, management and manufacturing are sitting overseas, there'll be no need for the US company. Bye bye, HP.
This is an election year. Organize and threaten to vote Bush out unless he does something real to improve the situation here at home. For example, the US allows Indians to come into the US and work with H1B and L1 visas, but a US citizen can't go to India to get a job. Here's an idea, don't give visas to countries that do not reciprocate. Part of what we're seeing is a natural globalization that will continue throughout the 21st century, but let's make sure that US labor is competing on equal grounds. I'm not looking for a free meal, just an equal opportunity.
By the way, eventually, prices will rise overseas and labor will get expensive there as well. Human nature is what it is, and people will charge more for goods and housing, workers will want more amenities and conveniences, etc. Labor costs will go up overseas as well. This is a temporary situation, although I'm sure that the used car salesman who used to be a senior analyst doesn't find this comforting.
I was just using food as an example, but yeah, you're right. I'm getting ready to buy a new house this summer, and I'm finding wooded, two acre corner lots, 2200+ sq ft very nice, new homes for ~$150k. Not too shabby at all. Move to Florida :)
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday.
Including yours.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Oh boy, another self-proclaimed workforce darwinist. How banal.
Let me try to correct your boring thinking:
In real life, usually a nation looks out for its on interests over those of people in other nations. Now, extrapolate this to jobs - is it good for a nation (in this case, the US) to lose most of its high paying jobs, especially in technology, to other nations?
Of course not. Superior technology in the conumer and military domains is how this country has become great. Now, take into account the fact the the US is a _consumer_ nation. What does this mean, you ask? We can deal with tarrifs, tax penalties, etc... on foreign companies and on local companies that export jobs. We have a large enough consumer base. We don't _need_ them as much as they need us.
The whole "whoever will do it cheapest should win!" lobby is pretty idiotic.
In India probably this will get you a very nice house.
Depends on what part of India. In the United States, you could get a very nice house for this much, too.
In NYC you would be extremely lucky if you find a tiny roach infested smelly studio within an hour of commute in subway to your job for that money.
No one's forcing you to live in NYC. Yes, perhaps the most expensive city to live in the United States exceeds the most expensive city to live in India. But that's not what I'm talking about.
And no, you can't use bicycle to commute to work. It would take 2-3 hours at least.
Depends where you live, and where you work.
In India you would probably be able to buy half of the Bangalore.
You obviously know absolutely nothing about the cost of property in Bangalore.
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Loud, ignorant, well off, and Oh So Sure of everything, but most of all his own superiority. His possessions were all bought based on the sex appeal of the ads and the labels. His views are fashionably right wing radical, and what a surprise, anyone who tries to call him on them, he shouts down with more labels.
Shallow as a puddle. A fully paid-up subscriber to the "I'm not sick, old or weak, so FUCK YOU LOSER!!" tendency. Don't just blame, when you can BEAT, the victim.
As he gets older, he views all things as "winning" or "losing".
Does any of this sound familiar?
And time passes ... as it tends to do ... until one day, he IS old, sick or weak. And guess what? Nobody cares. Absolutely, fucking, nobody. Nobody will help, since they are either:
His family, at BEST, hate him (well at least it's a strong emotion), or as USUAL just roll their eyes and get back to the product catalog (sorry TV). Until it gets sold for food. More likely, his pretty partner clone, dumps him, and his kids throws rocks at his cardboard box.
His friends turn out to be "people who do and believe the same things", who feel, really, really, bad, for a period of time which depends on their own needs: ... WOW she's HOT !! Sorry, where were we? Oh yeah, ... that's sooo tough. Listen ... I have something ... something important to do, yeah! right now! Catch you later, dude.".
"Jeez! That's sooo tough man,
But they don't phone. They never phone.
And now for the real joke, (hear Lenny Bruce and HST, laughing here),
One day Frat Boy arrives at their shiny job, to find a leering, hideous, terrifying monster, grunting with savage joy, as it brutally fucks the still twitching corpses of his "colleagues", while ripping strips of their flesh out, with teeth like flick-knives.
A smug supervisor/manager/leader/executive stands beaming to one side, and announces:
"Ah! You're in time for the new employee orientation.
I would soooo like you to meet, Mr. Globalisation here. Together, I am sure we can achieve a proactive coalition of the willing!"
Mouth open in shock, eyes twitching between:
the Frat Boy's freezes when IT finally lifts ITS head from the, now unmoving, red splatter, spits out the wad of half-chewed flesh, focuses its little, piggy, red eyes, on HIM and bellows:
"YOU'RE NEXT !!!"
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(R)ule in Hell or (S)erve in Heaven [R]?
The CEOs of HP and Intel are trying to convince the American people that subsistence level wages are a good thing. They are, if you are the CEO of HP or Intel. If you are the CEO, you get paid millions of dollars when you reduce labor costs by offshoring jobs and bribing politicans to create all sorts of free trade laws. If you are a middle class worker in the US, you get to sacrifice your job and life for a CEO's mansions and "rich and famous" lifestyle.
US companies are using offshoring to inflate their short term profits. However, it is not something that will last. As more and more jobs are offshored, the consumption economy of the US will falter and start moving to the where the jobs were moved to -- India, China, etc.
Never mind that this relentless and amoral pursuit of profits causes global environmental devastation on a scale that was previously unimaginable -- global warming, poisoned oceans, mad cow, etc. It is no understatement to say that corporate greed is putting the lives of every human being at risk. Obviously if the planet, including man, is to survive and flourish, something must change.
Show me (as an American) how I can emigrate to India and help lower the American cost of doing business.
Protectionism is okay when it's a third world country, but not when you're the United States??
Somehow, that argument, a hoary one indeed, breaks down somewhere. If corporations don't pay taxes, then individuals don't either -- their employers do! And those employers don't pay taxes either -- the employers' customers do!
See? Regression into nonsense. As the American voters will find later in this decade, when corporations don't pay taxes, their taxes DO go up. And up. And up.
If if corporations can't stand being taxed, and pass on all taxes to their customers rather than take a hit on profit$, then we should pass some real laws regulating their greed.
Actually, it was fairly well-known among techies even at the time that there wasn't actually a job shortage. Companies were whining about that to get the government to raise the H1B limit, so they could bring in more workers from overseas and work them like slaves, then send them back when they became inconvenient. Now we see what they were really doing - they were training workforces in India so they could dump higher-paying American jobs (even H1Bs had minimum wages) entirely and get rid of those techies that kept changing the world.
Yes, that's right. The information revolution of the '90s scared executives. Expect to start seeing things backslide if they aren't reigned in. And so far, the only Presidentail candidates who've shown any inclination to reign them in are Dean and Kucinich.
So to all Americans... Vote Dean in '04, unless you want to spend the rest of your life asking vacationing businessmen "You want noodles with that?"
According to my Indian friends in graduate school, Indian engineers get a starting pay of 300,000-350,000 Rupees per year.
Now, admittedly, in US currency that's ca. $6500-$7500. But consider: Rent around Bangalore is 6,000 Rupees per month. That's $131 dollars a month. A good computer in India costs 30,000 Rupees or $656.31.
These are not people at the poverty level. They are self-respecting middle-class IT workers. America's cost of living (which drives the computation of minimum wage) doesn't apply.
Yes, yes, but the POINT, which I see you have missed, was that $6500 per annum is far below the minimum US wage, which by my calculations tops $10k/year. So in order to compete for these jobs an engineer with a masters degree would need to accept a wage lower than he possibly can get, much less afford.
I understand your point. I mean not only are Indian programmers not suffering, they live a lifestyle of which most Americans would be jealous. Hell, they have live in servants! Over here such extravagance is frowned upon severely. But this has nothing to do with whether US workers can compete on price.
I don't see anything about the cost of rent in Bangalore on their pages. I see a bunch of averages, but I already agree that the average American spends a lot more than the average Indian.
Keep the condo, get a cheaper car.
Lose the cable and read books.
Damn, that's one expensive phone plan!!!
Some states mandate that "domestic partners" are eligible for health coverage after a certain period of time. Your state may be one of them...
I'm with you sir. I was once in a situation much like your own, rent vs. mortgage... I wish you the best.
The quote about tech people working for less than minimum wage was not from Carly, it was some wannbe tech labor union guy. What HP and others (especially Intel) are saying is that the reason they are offshoring is because of the lack of skilled workers here in the US. They say they are looking at how American students score on math and science scores and find it to be a lot lower than how students in India, China, Russia, etc. score on similar tests. They want the US gov to put more money into high tech education. Intel's CEO points out how there are 3 times as much money spent on farm subsidies than on science education.
Now I'm not going to speculate on how truthful these folks are being in the "reasons" they supply as justification for offshoring. However, I do think they bring up a good point. If the average American students sucks at math and science, then how can they expect the average American tech worker to be any good at these things. Now sure, the top American students may score as high or higher than top students elsewhere, but one could argue that the future jobs of top students are not the type of jobs being offshored. Clearly the dot-com age produced a lot of "tech" workers who were woefully underqualified. Many of them are now out of work and blaming their situation on offshoring.
It is a fundamental problem in America that we do not value intelligence like other cultures do. We value success and fame, but we ridicule nerds and geeks. It was just a matter of time before this began to really hurt us, and I think offshoring is a logical consequence of our culture.
The Republican Party is the party of the wealthy businessman.
The Democratic Party is the party of the trial lawyers and the culturally elite.
Republican fat cats vs. Lexus Liberals. Take your pick.
Go ahead, join the lemmings in the rush to India. But if you're a Silicon Valley entrepreneur or venture capitalist still considering it, contemplate the over-the-cliff tale of Ishoni Networks See the complete article by following the link below: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/busines s/7659988.htm
And Earthlink is shipping 1300 jobs this month overseas:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5136120.html
Im in the tech industry in California and have seen offshoring first hand. Language barriers, IP rights, legal problems etc, crappy slow connections -- all have occured. I've also experienced professional/quality service (call center) -- shocking but it occured sometimes.
The question is -- do we:
a) whine about what Corporate America is doing?
b) Buy/support companies that stick with America?
c) Write/petition local/state/federal elected officials?
d) Pray.
e) All of the above?
Take action if you are concerned, do *something*. Either shop at companies like www.polartec.com, Mag-lite, www.delkin.com (one of the last USA-designed/made flash memory makers) or contribute to the export of jobs via Walmart/Amazon/Target/HP etc ad-naseum.
Good luck and God save us all.
Why would you want to move to India? Move to a smaller town in middle America where the cost of living is much, much lower, and open a business as a plubmer, or an auto mechanic or something.
/.'ers seem to think the sky is falling because their cushy tech jobs are getting exported. Well, there are plenty of jobs that are staying right here. I don't see the dentists up in arms because people are flying to India to get their teeth drilled. I don't see anybody shipping their cars over to Dehli to get the alternator fixed.
The point is,
The tech boom is over. It's not coming back. Move out of Silicon Valley, and rejoin the rest of the United States.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
If my full-time job doesn't offer me enough money to feed myself, why would I work at it for eight hours a day?
Because without it you'd starve to death instead of scraping out a sustinance diet of rice. Demanding better wages or getting a better job is right out, because the unemployment rate is enough that joe blow unemployed'll do any job for the same pay, and employers know this.
When it comes to access to pols corps get more respect than small businesses who get more respect than the average individual. Hence they get better response such as government bailouts, which I'm pretty sure you business wouldn't have qualified for due to insufficient lobbying power. Your business probably could have qualified for a federal grant, but a single mother of 2 working 37 hours a week (a common cut-off so companies don't have to give benefits) for 8 bucks an hour (37*8*52=$15,392) couldn't qualify for handouts. This is not to say that the small businessperson isn't often between a rock and a hard place, but let's face it if we all called our senator at the same time - BillG gets right through, you can get through to high-level flunky and I get to leave a message for a low-level flunky to get back to me sometime.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
Everyone just takes for granted that the current University system of education is the only way to enhance the job skills of the population. It seems to me, however, that for the cost involved, the rewards/results are increasingly at odds with this idea. The current system is geared for the demands of academics, and the upper class of the past. It's overly generalized, out of date, lengthy, and plain inefficient. Students are increasingly needing graduate degrees to make up for the diluted education they recieved as undergrads. Still, no one seems to complain. It's just taken as a fact of life that the only way to gain proficiency in a given field is via bachelors>masters>PhD. I propose change in two areas:
1)Roll the cost of education into Federal taxes (and health care for that matter) so that everyone has truly equal access at all levels (no exclusive property tax districts).
2)Evaluate the market to identify the skills needed for global competition, and focus secondary education on these areas, per job discipline.
Am I crazy?
OK. The aren't motivated by greed, but by the need for power. This is probably because of fear. My guess is that are particularly vile people who measure all others by their own nature, and thus won't trust anyone else with any power over them. Certainly many of them have proven repeatedly that they don't deserve to be entrusted with any power over anyone else.
Mind you, this is just speculation. But so is attributing their actions to greed. It's the actions that need to be judged, not the motives. The motives are indiscernables. The actions are merely hidden, or sometimes not.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Get some facts befor you post stupidity. Almost everything you said is false or irrelevant.
For example, a theoretical "shell" company (which has all its executives and its official buisiness in the US, and all its "real work" elsewhere, in Ethnikstan) could nevertheless get tax breaks for exporting goods if they sold to anyone other than the US; despite the fact that all their workers are supporting the Ethnikstanian economy rather than the US's.
The tax laws are structured so that a company registered in the US gets a tax break for selling to any non-US company (since they're selling American goods overseas and thus bringing foreign money into the US). But this means that if you develop software in India, and sell right back to India, you still get large tax breaks and corporate welfare for "bringing money into the US" or "supporting American workers," despite the fact that all the money is going straight to Indian workers (and Italian sports cars for the executives).
The tax laws in this area need to be fixed now. Of course, the current crop of politicians won't do anything; this is really good for the companies who are lining their pockets. The country needs real change, real soon. Of course, that's not about to happen, what with the brain-dead American voting populace and the fact that any politican, regardless of party, seems to be willing to bend over for corporate interests these days in return for a buck.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
And the ones who hang on barely surviving will riot and eventually kill all the people in the upper classes. Look at what happened during the French Revolution.
I used to work for quite large industries as steel and paper. :-D
There were some people who, despite the lack of formal education, had wages way bigger than lots of engineers on the same company. Why? they knew their jobs and the process as a whole so well that they can make it run smoothly and fix the problems quite fast so they worth a lot for the company.
There's one guy I remember that could tell what's wrong with the paper pulp just looking at and smelling it. The man was a damn walking lab
Scientia est Potentia
No. Because once the jobs go, the supply of new workers dries up, and the old workers either retrain to a new field, or just have their skill set become obsolete (of course, some will remain employed within a closely related field).
So it can be quite difficult to re-develop the skills that you have thrown away. Not quite as costly as it was to build them the first time, but not cheap, either.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You've just defined communism.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Yearly all public transport from where I live in the burbs to London (and transport there): 2500 GBP.
Price of a one bedroom apartment in a sos-so area in London: 200000 GBP.
Price of a house with 3 bedrooms, garden, garage close to town centre with cinemas, theatre. shopping center here in the wildernes: 200000 GBP.
To me it looks like the 2500/year is a worthwhile investment.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In terms of cost My Roommate's Brother(tm) who does a lot of obscure and classified work for, well, I don't think I can even say that, has done some interesting research.
According to the latest numbers *he* has access too, last year 4 out of 6 Offshored IT projects which reached maturity (were supposed to be "done") failed to produce a usable product despite being "finished" (and paid for) by the parties involved. Why he phrased it as 4 out of 6 instead of 2 out of 3 is a statistical mistery... 8-)
The one thing that offshoring *does* do is get the horse so far away from the driver that the necessary whiping cannot take place.
And so it was a "very expensive cost saving measure".
I could not, howerver, get him to give me a good X out of Y for unusable but finished domestically produced IT projects, so...
In short, nobody knows what *any* of these numbers mean nor what the costs or benefits really are in absolute numbers or dollar values.
So all things being equal, further away is worse. Sending money into another country is bad for the local economy. (Hence all of the rest of the world not wanting to send money to Redmond WA.)
The particularly vile intangables are, well, particularly vile. The cultural differences and their effects on the results can be legion. For instance the very-smart chineese woman who is writing our app in-house used this sickly and nausiating yellow-on-yellow color scheme "nobody likes." I know, however, that these are "prosperity colors" in her socalization.
A lot of making people happy is making a product that meets the local sensibilities.
You can't Offshore "local sensibilities" in any useful manner.
Costs will be paid, people will mess up. "Enron Happens" largely because it must. And the U.S. of A. is positioning itself to be The Premere Third World Country of the Next Millennium, Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, Amen...
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Credits for hiring US citizen IN the US.
I hope this doesn't sound trollish, but I thought I should mention that someone proposed this very idea last summer: "give a 10 percent tax cut to corporations that produce goods here and keep jobs at home." (Read more here.)
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
Have some fun and write carly fiorina to let "it" know what you think.
/ 20040107/ap_on_bi_ge/technology_jobs_5 article, as well as numerous other comments and decisions you have made in your tenure with HP, I wished to inform you that you have lost a customer. As a previous purchasor and owner of only several HP printers and CD devices, this may not be of great importance to you. However, I wished to take the time to remind you that you also have no "god given right" to the patronage of this U.S. citizen, and that my money will now be going to your competitors, perhaps even offshore competitors who will provide me with capability and quality comparable to or better than that found in HP products - with lower cost to myself. In addition, I will advise all I know to stay away from HP products while you are involved with the company in any capacity.
Here's my submission:
In response to your comments in this http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap
Because after all, you "have to compete" right?
Here's hoping your job is outsourced soon.
Where do you get your facts?
1. Before 9/11/2001 the U.S. was in a resession. The I.T. market sucked. Now Before JAN 2000 that was another matter, but it was starting to loose steam by March of 2000.
2. Your point about people in India willing to work for less money... Well companies don't EVER come to their I.T. staff and let them counter offer. They just outsource it and then when it fails, that CXO is gone (with a great package), and the company is stuck trying to bring it back in house or fight with a company that is in a different time zone and can't speak English. The real issue is the greed at the top. Why do you think the CEO of HP is so worried about this? Mabe she should look at her >1Million a year salary. Is she worth this? Heck, given what she has done with HP/Compaq is she worth anything?
I do hope that you realize that people that act like you will NEVER have any employee loyalty. Just the opposite in fact. Any person who worked for you could and should leave your company at the MOST critical time, and if they want to stay, then hold the company hostage forcing you to sign some life long contract with them; or just be a dick and not document anything, then just leave without any notice... I have seen a lot of small shops treat their employees like dirt, and you can bet that those companies will be the first to have serious trouble when the economy picks up. Those companies, and larger ones like HP and Oracle are the ones that love slave labor, and fear an economy that is good for their employees.
3. paper MCSE's willing to work cheap. Some will some will not. The U.S. does not and never will need H1Bs to do ANY JOB!!! There are skilled people here that will work for minimum wage! If a particular job requires a certain skillset then our government should be working with our education system to address that issue, NOT EVER going offshore to solve the problem. Again the only reason for this is slave labor. Greedy people love slave labor.
It will be interesting to see what Bush does on this issue. In my opinion it will be an election maker. I find it sad that the only people that are seriously complaining about not passing any bill is those who make well over a million a year. If they were so worried then mabe they should take a pay cut for their company.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
Many people here are confusing nationalism with corporate identity. At the level of multi-billion dollar corporations, there is no such thing as an "american" or "british" etc, entity. Carly F. may be an American citizen, but her loyalty is to HP (more precisely, to its board) which is a global company.
Americans are justifiably angry that their jobs are moving out of the U.S., what they dont realize is that this has been happening for years, by their beloved brand name companies. Company A opens factory in Singapore, moves out 7 years later to cheaper malaysia, moves again to still cheaper China, leaving a wake of environmental devastation and relatively high paid workers who studied hard to get job at said factory, who now arent fit for whats available to them.
Some posts here also imply that the US gains nothing by Globalization. This statement is shocking to non-americans, or to americans living abroad, since we see so much "American" stuff around us (e.g. disney stores in london, MacDonald's in Tokyo, holywood everywhere, Coca-Cola etc.).
Heads of Global corporations are equivalent to, if not actually more important and powerful than, heads of states. GM employees how many people? 100 thousand I think, HP has 30K or something close. Most countries are "worth" less (financialy--GDP) than these companies spend in a year. The combined GDP of all the countries of the middle east, excluding Israel, is equivalent to Spain, one of the worst economic performers of western Europe. And Microsoft made more money last year than Spain did.
Implied ethnic slurs only confuse the issue. This has nothing to do with India per se, or any particular country for that matter. Nobody on HP's board gives a rat's ass if you are an American worker, or living in Bangalore, or learning English in Malaysia so you can understand your new Amerian bosses when the factory opens. They care about the bottom line, short term gain.
If Americans voted for people with merrit instead of looks (question to a friend: "hey bob, why did you vote for GW?". Answer: "because he looks trustworthy"), if they voted them more often out of office based on their record (crazy incumbencies abound--20 years, 30 years of near morons are in office), things might be different. If the market rewarded companies for taking care of their workers, customers, etc, things might be different too.
When was the last time you, anybody in your family, or any of your friends asked yourselves where something you buy came from? I dont mean reading the label "hecho in Mexico", I mean really came from?
However, it will take a while -- years, maybe -- for it all to shake out. Salaries are "sticky", in that they fall more slowly than, say, the price of soybeans. This is because (a) some people quit tech entirely, slowing the rise in labor supply, (b) it takes a while to find that new job, even at a lower salary, and most importantly (c) your employer typically can't walk in and lower salaries of existing workers "to meet the market, heh heh".
There will be a painful and slow process, and it is not yet clear how many US software jobs will remain at the equilibrium point. Fasten your seatbelts, gentlemen, it's going to be a bumpy decade.
There will always be goods and services that you want, that you can't produce, that you will find somewhere else.
There will always be goods and services that you have that others want.
You can put as many obstacles to this reality as you want, you can wish for a rosy world in which these things do not happen.
Reality is that people trade, so I rather prefer that trade is fair and in as many directions as possible.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Ever hear of Open Source Software?
I'm talking about how to earn the $$. Would I still develop? Sure... I've contributed to many opensource projects, but if my employer thinks i should work for less then minumum wage (so they can earn their MILLIONS), I'd rather work at In and Out.
The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'"
if i'm a university graduate - hell, a masters/phd, i dont think i'll be willing to work for minimum wage or lower in the US. for those fresh grads still paying off debt from college, i truly, truly feel for you guys.
my blog
Indeed... most people working in these fields have PhDs. Those usually take 5 years or more to get in the US, sometimes less in other countries (where undergraduate education is more specialized).
Also, I know from personal experience that the computational biology field has had layoffs recently, as companies struggle to find a business model that actually makes money.
No one has really found it yet.
My personal employment system has been to be knowledgeable in more than one field, and to never turn down a chance to learn a new skill. This has allowed me to work in different specialties (all with in the computational biology/bioinformatics/bio-IT field), and although I have experienced the joy of being laid off, I did manage to find new employment before my financial situation got dire.
However, I recognize that people in other countries are just as smart and motivated as me, and that there is no guarantee that I won't eventually find myself without a job for longer than is comfortable. That's why I save my money now... because while the relocation of my kind of jobs may be personally painful, I can't bring myself to believe that I deserve the job simply because I happen to have been born in the US.
The IT industry was invented by individuals many of wqhich became tremendously rich and powerful, the current climate is mainly fostered by big corporations.
Absolutely, there is a big difference, but I think you are underestimating the little guy.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
New business plan:
:-)
1. Sell firearms and maps to the homes of the wealthy.
2. Profit!
Sweet.. I didn't even need the mystery second step. I think this one has potential.
Join Team Slashdot at Folding@Home
sure they do. otherwise carly's bitch ass would have outsourced her own job and reaped the savings by saving her shares .... after all its only based on money.
or is it ?
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
If you check out the (lazily not-linked) article I originally posted, it seems that many manufacturers themselves don't have a choice. Walmart owns 12% of the retail market in the US, period. They're often the same size as the next 9 accounts for a given manufacturer combined, (much like the US military compared to other militaries), and like the US, they get to write their own rules. That means they can tighten the screws until the manufacturer has no choice but to go overseas, or lose that single precious account to someone who will. If no one will, Walmart is big enough that they can do it themselves.
:)
The upshot is, the situation isn't controlled by that small number of people you mentioned -- it's controlled by the upper management of a single company. There's three or four people, I wish I had their names, who have a greater impact on every vital statistic of our economy than any person in the government. If they were smokestacks spewing fumes, it would be known as point-source pollution. As it is, they're capitalists pushing jobs overseas without care for the effect this has either here or there, and they represent point-source exploitation. Write that phrase down, I just coined it.
In environmentalism, point-source pollution is better than the other kind -- much easier to upgrade, fix and control. I almost think the same situation might apply with WalMart -- finding a way to apply pressure to those couple of people will be a great deal easier than applying pressure to, you know, the great general mishmash of the global economy. Let's get started, shall we?
I worked for MCI for three years doing 80+ hours a week; they only paid me for 37.5 hours per week to avoid having me on the books as a "full-time" employee. I sat down one day and figured out that what they were paying me divided by the average number of hours per week I worked was LESS THAN MINIMUM WAGE!
American companies simply do not want to pay people what they are worth and corporate execs are way OVERPAID for what they do, IMHO. If you doubt that, then start a business that has only executives and no employees. Your business won't go far.
I've often wondered about companies that don't have a clue. If you don't pay people a decent wage they won't have the money to buy your products (or anyone else's) beyond what they need to merely survive. If it's a choice between feeding your kids or buying a high-tech item most people will choose feeding their kids.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Governments globally should look at the profits each one of these companies makes in their country...
Then they look at the number of their country's citizens that company employs...
Then they do a simple sum and apply a business tax on those profits based simply on how much that company takes out of a country (profits) versus how much that company puts into the country (jobs).
Nothing to do with race, creed or colour - just simply a reminder to these companies that they are only as good and as profitable as their employees and that they have an obligation to put some of their wealth back into the countries where people have generated those profits.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
So it is the fault of the CEO of a given company that customers are too stupid or to lazy to put their money in products and services that are good value for money.
Specious logic that of yours.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
After working in the tech/IT sector from 97 thru summer 2000, I started college that fall, and graduated this past December with a BSCS, and I'm having a hell of a time finding a job (admittedly, I'm looking in Michigan). When I went in, only a few signs of a failing tech industry were present, and now that I'm out, it's been quite decimated. I take solace in that everything moves in cycles, and that the tech industry in Bangalore will implode in on itself someday too. That or a war between India and Pakistan could have companies running out fast (maybe even back to the US).
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
The more you tax corporations, the more you hide how much you are actually taxing the American people. A tax on truck fuel will raise the price of your salad, because it will cost more to ship the lettuce. You won't see it as a tax, but it will be you paying it.
Personally, I favor abolishing all taxes other than income tax. Everybody pays once for all the services government has to offer. Then, when the masses see that our government actually slurps up about 40% of our entire economy, we can have some long-overdue tax revolt. We rose up violently against King George for taxing us far less than our current government does.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Do you want US base multinationals? The workforce has to be multinational as well as the profits transfered to the US economy.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
WTF does this have to do with socialism. Common welfare has everything to do with democacy. Oh I forget, we have allowed the corperations to buy out our politicians and rights.
The thing is, as you pointed out, this is not what's happening. There are in fact fewer jobs available, and the salaries are the same (ie, not lower)
U.S. jobs growth seen rolling
... and furthermore
You are right about the cost changing depending on the location (California is clearly higher than say Washington State). You are also right in saying that rent is perhaps the #1 component of the cost.
... ok... looking for the cost of living is much harder than I thought...
:) )
I guess cost of living would be based on the consumer price index (CPI). CPI is basically the cost of a basket of goods. Let me see if I can find something
Here is what I found online. It isn't perfect. It doesn't include the cities we need and the conditions vary. Most of these are indexes so they are relative to some base location (usualy USA).
UN Retail Price Index for their employees
UN Retail Price Index (click on retail price index link on that page):
(as of June 2003)
USA (New York) = 100
USA (Washington, DC) = 91 (96 without housing)
India (New Delhi) = 73 (85 without housing)
This index is for UN employees and may not be reflective of true costs (since bureaucrats may have higher costs than native population eg. foreign language schools, extra security, etc).
Expat Forum The index on this page seems weird. Cost seems way too high for most countries but anyway...
USA=100
India = 93
FT Worldwide Cost of Living
Check it out.
(as of Sept 2001)
USA (New York)=101.88
USA (Washington)=101.63
India (New Delhi) = 82.08
(there are more US cities listed for the older date of Nov 2000)
Conclusion
I hate to say it but the conclusion is that everything is inconclusive right now. On average it seems New Delhi (which is NOT the IT capital) is around 7% to 27% cheaper than New York (not exactly known for IT). That 7% figure is unreliable IMO. So on average it seems to be around 20% cheaper. So someone in New Delhi will automatically have a 20% cost advantage. The figures are also a bit old so they are not necessarily reflective of the present (however the general trend should be valid).
If the figures are to be believed, I guess I was kind of wrong. I expected greater cost of living diffreences. Right now it is only 20% to 25%. I personally think the cost gap should be even greater. I think more research needs to be done to come up with a conclusive answer. It would also help if more recent figures with relevant cities are used. (Can someone else reading this and with free time do more research? Thanks
Anyway, I guess the question is: would you be willing to take a 25% pay cut? OR are you ok with the US government subsidizing IT workers by 25%?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
A doctor (for practical reasons) or a lawyer (because of only being licensed in one state or country) can not easily work "remotely" as programmers can (after being given specs). That's the main reason, not that programming "never became a profession".
We like our current prosperity relative to most of the rest of the world, and want to keep it. (Few people would disagree with that.) However, people that haven't moved past "zero sum" evaluations of economics look at a job being done in Bangalore that used to be done here, and can only see it as a bad thing. It means we are raising Bangalore up from desperate poverty at the expense of moving us away from massive luxury.
The way it really works could not be far from the truth. The success of America over the last 50 years has been built entirely on the fact that we have been aggressive about international trade. There's 2-4 televisions in every home in America today because a company in Japan found a way to make money building things with transistors, and we were not afraid to buy those "tiny" Sony radios. You can buy jeans for $15 at Old Navy because a guy who invented a new athletic shoe realized he could make Nike sneakers cheaper in Asia, and set a new trend for clothing manufacturers. Sure, RCA stopped making TV's, and Levi just closed their last American plant, but the benifits to the standard of living for every American far outweigh the fact that we don't have a few thousand workers soldering TV sets and stitching jeans.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
First, the "frog in boiling water" is an urban legend
Second, I think the best place to fix that business plan is at step 1. Don't get a CIS degree. Find something else useful to do, and you will make money at it. I don't see the auto mechanics screaming because people are shipping their cars to India to get them fixed. I don't see dentists up in arms because Americans are flying to Dehli for a root canal. The tech boom is over. It's not coming back. Deal with it. There are other aspects to the economy besides IT and manufacturing.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I was one of those people who could point at real, concrete acomplishments and say 'We made $xxx,xxx,xxx.xx because of my contribution.'
To be honest, unless you're a one man operation, rarely can one person point at something and say "We made N dollars because of me." Usually there's a sales guy involved, at least one other person producing profit, some guy handling finances, maybe someone doing secretarial work, someone ensuring that the computer you're using works and does what you want, etc.
The freelance artist, the indepedent contractor...these folks can say "We made N dollars because of me". Few employed folks can truthfully say this, though. The guy that sold the product to the customer wants to take credit, the guy that made the product wants to take credit, and the guy that designed the product wants to take credit. To say nothing of each guy's manager.
May we never see th
Holy crap, that sentence made no sense at all. Sorry. I was on a rant. Obviously, I meant to say something along the lines of "The way they see it could not be farther from the truth," or "The way it really works is just the opposite." My bad.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Ok, what's the alternative? Can you think of one with a) a real-world example country that b) isn't a dismal failure ?
But this is capitalism, and the free market, hard at work. I mean, it makes perfect sense. I'm a CEO, I have two potential employees. One, willing to work for $20 an hour, the other willing to work for $3 an hour. Hmmm, which would you choose? If the $3 dollar worker is inferior, then I'll hire 5 more $3 dollar workers, and I'll still be saving money. It's economics, suck it up.
Fortunately, capitalism has a great method of fighting this type of behavior. If Dell is using poor business practices, it's quite simple, don't give them money! It's the most powerful statement you as an individual can make!
Won't someone please tell these CEO's that they are making too much money, and they are the ones screwing over everyone else.
Just send them a nice note, instead of their paycheck:
You have enough.
Time to go home.
Have a nice day!
I'm guess that one thing that hasn't been realised by said capitalist, is that the highly skilled workforce they want to pay minimum wage can't afford to become highly skilled if the only reward is minimum wage - that is, of course if they REALLY wanted to keep jobs in the US in the first place...
Unfortunately, a 10 % tax cut isn't going to offset the lower salary costs with outsourcing -- not by a long shot.
They will be. It's entirely possible that our chowderheaded Congressdrones, by banning legitimate scientific research and turning a blind eye to creation "science" in order to get votes from the religious segment of the population, will effectively block an entire generation of American kids from their shot at being bioengineers.
But in answer to your question - when that happens, someone'll invent something else that's cool. Maybe it'll be superconductors. Fusion. (Hah, in 20 years maybe :) Buckytubes and space elevators.
As the other poster has replied to you - "However, I recognize that people in other countries are just as smart and motivated as me, and that there is no guarantee that I won't eventually find myself without a job for longer than is comfortable. That's why I save my money now... because while the relocation of my kind of jobs may be personally painful, I can't bring myself to believe that I deserve the job simply because I happen to have been born in the US."
Even if you aren't smart enough to invent the Next Big Thing (I'm certainly not), you can still use your brains to get the capital required to invest in the companies and people that do.
I would love to see this happen. Not that it ever will, but I can dream.
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
half the freakin' country is slaves Why the fuck is this modded Intresting when its nothing more than a Troll...jeez..its really sad that some people on slashdot have very little understanding of ground realities and indulge in needless flaming.
HP, Intel, Dell, IBM, etc.
1. Do you see any Linux companies doing this?
2. Why not?
Jobs don't need to move and people don't need to move. People just got to pull their heads out of their asses and take a look around. We're all capable of learning how to innovate and be creative.
Take a psychology class sometime. To be creative, happy and innovative depends on your environment.
I maintain these corporations are not providing an environment that promotes creativity and innovation. It is their fault and they will pay for their mistakes. Unfortunately because we trust in them so much so will everyone else.
I hate to say it but the conclusion is that everything is inconclusive right now. On average it seems New Delhi (which is NOT the IT capital) is around 7% to 27% cheaper than New York (not exactly known for IT). That 7% figure is unreliable IMO. So on average it seems to be around 20% cheaper.
Yeah, but what about the quality of life? How is the police service is New Delhi compared to NYC? How about the fire service? What about the public hospitals, etc. You're still comparing apples and oranges.
Anyway, I guess the question is: would you be willing to take a 25% pay cut?
I don't have a job.
OR are you ok with the US government subsidizing IT workers by 25%?
No, I'm not OK with that. Not at all. I'd say let the IT workers take a 25% pay cut. Hell, then maybe I could get a job.
Although I live in the UK, I work for an American company.
You are more than welcome to come and visit my office or any of the other offices in Europe and the States that I've visited. You will see for yourself a rich multiracial environment due to the fact that my company (like most European and US companies) employs people based on their abilities to do a job, not on their skin colour.
I am sure that when IT jobs are moved to India, people there are also employed on their skills and abilities because itt would be heartbreaking to learn that they employed anti-white bigots like you...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
An MCSE is false advertising anyway - you get to call yourself an engineer with a lot less than four years study, some work experience, and membership of a professional organisation made up exclusively of engineers.
I notice you overwhelmed us with a relentless barrage of facts refuting his claims...
And foregt this baloney about balancing out lifestyles and setting us eqaul to the rest of the world.
... and less.
... BOOM! Lookit all th' yuppies start squawkin'!
It's not baloney. We just have to tell all the asswipes with $300K homes that, so sorry, they're only worth $100K
Welcome to a Depression. You can fight it all you want, and put the CON in eCONomy for even more years, but eventually your beloved stock-certificate-that-looks-like-a-house just isn't going to sell anymore, and you will have to sit on it year after year, being hit in the jaw with property taxes. Then you'll slink and sneak down to the tax office and practically whore out your sister's mouth to get the guy to drop your home's assessed value. I watched it happen in Massachusetts in the 1990s. And I had no sympathy for those people then, and have even less now.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Do these companies not realize that doing this on a significant scale will create deflationary pressure that will in turn reduce the amount they can make in the US market? Their greed won't get them all that far.
I've often though a maximum wage, tied to the minimum wage, as some kind of multiplier would be a a good idea.
Say for example, the max you can earn a year is defined as 500x whatever a minimum wage earner gets, assuming 50 weeks at 40 hours a week. So at a current minimum of $5.15/hr, the max would be 5.15 million per year.
If CEOs want more than that, then they'd better get working on raising the minimum wage. That'd be a good incentive to improve everybody's lot, and not just line their own pockets.
... is it possible to outsource CEOs? I bet the CEOs doing the outsourcing (and getting paid at rates magnitudes higher than their workers) might have a change of attitude if this was the case.
Baby Boomer's public companies continue to send work overseas to make sure that their stock continues to climb.
Baby Boomer gets rich running the companies.
Baby Boomer puts money to pad his OFFSHORE bank account.
Baby Boomer running the company retires.
Baby Boomer lives happily ever after.
We get left with only a paddle and a sinking ship.
Oh, BTW don't forget about the oil.
The jobs won't "come back" they will move onto somewhere else that has cheaper labor, like China, Russia, Eastern Europe, etc.
Easy to say, but the difference between a good and bad CEO is the difference between doubling your stock price in 5 years vs. going bankrupt for many companies. The difference between a great and bad janitor is whether or not the paper towels are kept stocked.
But I do commend you for eschewing the typical /. hypocrisy, which means that outsourcing all jobs but "mine" is a good idea.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Back when kings ruled most of Europe, I imagine they had similar reasons why they had most of the wealth while the peasants toiled in the fields. The real reason, of course, was that they had the power to keep most of the wealth.
It's not so different today with these CEO's. Most of us technical types are also shareholders in lots of corporations, and I don't see a lot of us getting rich that way. What dividend is HP paying these days?
Spoken like an executive. Good CEO's can make a company but there are maybe only a couple dozen in the whole country. I am talking about the other ones. The VP, SVP, EVP, etc. that can be easily replaced by any of the dozens below him. I've seen it a million times. I spent several years as an auditor for a then big 6 firm and I met more CFO's and controllers than you could ever imagine. I can count on my hand the ones that deserved to be where they were and even they didn't deserve the fat bonuses they got.
I am totally lost on your last comment. I am saying that outsourcing is not a good thing for anybody. I thought it was you saying the opposite.
In the USA you need to buy American, since no-one else is going to. The USA needs to be more to the world than somewhere that films come from, since Hollywood pays almost nothing in tax, and a lot of productions are made overseas anyway. Shipping manufacturing then software jobs overseas and waiting for the next big thing does not sound like a good way to run an economy to me.
A global economy is the only way for a developing nation to substantially improve the standard of living. Any government that stands in the way of globalization will eventually face a revolt as the local populace realizes through TV, radio the Internet and the telephone that everyone else has a lot more stuff than they do.
Some governments have tried to reduce this effect by controlling the mass media, but that won't work forever. Mass media devices are so small that they can easily be smuggled anywhere, and "information wants to be free".
I totally agree with the grandparent post. Lost jobs are rough for the locals but necessary at a global level. The US lost a lot of manufacturing jobs in the 80's but bounced back with high-tech in the 90's. We'll find something else to do for the next decade.
Someone remind me what that old chestnut was about. It's been at least 6 months since I heard even the most idealistic environmental consultant (i.e. the missus) even bother to mention it.... _________ Wot's a sig?
Here's my biggest complaint about offshoring technical jobs: If you want a good software engineer, and you're in a place like Silicon Valley, you should have many friends and associates who can refer you to people who will do a great job, especially if you maintain contacts within the local universities. But when you outsource to India, you're trusting people there to do the same. I know there are a lot of highly talented people in India, but how do you know that those are the ones you're getting?
Yep, thats why I didn't buy a house during the great housing boom. $150,000 starter homes, ya right. New housing going up everywhere, but where are the jobs to go with it. It's going to get ugly.
Globalisation is a fact that won't go away, as long as we're all on the same planet.
What do you expect 1 billion Indians and 1.3 billion Chinese to do, go back to subsistence agriculture so we can live large?
To say they're being exploited is to twist the perspective, if they're happy to get the work at a wage that increases their standard of living. An offer that's freely made, freely accepted, and that both parties believe is to their benefit.
I believe that for India and China to grow and prosper is a huge benefit for the whole world. I don't support barriers to keep that from happening.
In group behavior: 'because they're evil/morons/sheep/crazy' is not 'insightful' it's 'oversimplified'
News for you and the AC with 50k: you could be comfortable on that in the Buffalo NY area with a house and cars in the suburbs. It all depends on what part of the country you live in.
C|N>K
So do something about it. Don't buy their (Intel Corp., IBM, Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard.) computers (or in Intel's case CPUs) computers. It's as simple as that.
And in general, tell your employers not to buy them, either. And tell your friends (and if you write IT articles, readers) to buy white box and where to get it locally.
Unless your company is in fact national or very large regional, there's no good reason not to buy white-box in any case unless your shop is running Mac... either from a cost, reliability, or service standpoint.
There are certain advantages to being able to take your computer right back to where you got it and say "FIX" if in warranty, and the shop goes out of business, standard parts (instead of proprietary surprises) mean the boxes can be fixed anywhere.
And let them know why.
Tech Public Policy stuff
No problem with getting nations to enforce US law, it isn't needed.
Tech Public Policy stuff
So, when you think about it, most US students now, instead of going into fields that create wealth, hope to go into fields where they will not create any wealth, they will simply move money, energy or materials around, like Enron. This is very bad. And if you follow the Republicans logic, this lack of skilled people, is only reason to move more jobs overseas. So it becomes an accelerating vicious circle very quickly.
Think about the long-term effects of this change. If the rank-and-file high-tech jobs move overseas (and this has already happened) the research jobs will as well (this is now happening) and sooner or later, probably sooner, there will be a crash and the net result will be a readjustment (in the form of a crash in the dollar's value) that will result in the US losing all of its wealth and becoming a sort of bannana republic - with many bitter, poor people and a few smiling billionaires. This outcome is becoming increasingly likely, unless we aggressively act to keep high-tech jobs here and make them pay well. All of them.
Otherwise, it's
>>>>>>Game Over.
"Cheaters never prosper"
Yeah, thats the old phrase. It sounds good and all. Then you discover that everyone running everything are cheaters.
I'm sure there are still plenty of these ultra-ethical folks running small and medium size business. However, the ivory towers are all inhabited by cut-throat slimeballs.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
However, the problem will take care of itself.
When a company outsources everything to India except management and profit-taking, how long will an outsourcer doing 95% of the work, who knows the end user the company no longer has to deal with, who does the R&D and makes the product... be content with just taking the money the outsourcing company is paying?
And how are outsourcers going to enforce non-compete contracts in courts with judges they can't buy because they don't know the territory?
However, while it'll be nice to see justice done, losing a good chunk of the Fortune 500 overseas won't help us a whole lot, we won't even get their tax money.
Just the bills from our insurance companies, banks, etc.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Would it be moral (or legal?) for a citizen of a Western country to visit a country where killing and raping was allowed, kill and rape people there, and then come back and say, I've done nothing wrong. IE they have visited another country to get around laws.
This is basically what is happening here. They are moving jobs to other countries to avoid laws and standards of the west.
Troll?
No way... this was funny.
I've seen a lot of thse kind of tables to support claims that living in 3rd World cities is more expensive than New York. But having lived in some of these places I find I can have a very nice lifestyle on about 10% of a Western budget. The problem is that they usually calculate costs of the exact same product -- so eg a steak dinner with a bottle of wine can be found quite cheaply in New York, but in a 3rd World city the only place you might find that dish is at a 5 star hotel, so it costs much more. But if you eat local food (not lower quality; generally higher) your costs are tiny. Also accommodation is usually rated from foreign enclaves at far higher than equivalently comfortable local-style places. But if you have children you may pay extremely high private school fees if you want them to learn in English -- that may be one cost diferential you don't want to compromise on.
Well Carly can kiss my ass. I'd like to see her reaction if someone tried to outsource her job to India. After all, if no job is America's god-given right anymore, then why not move the CEO position to India and save HP a few million bucks?
Yeah, the age discrimination in this field is simply unbelievable. I'm trying to get out by buying rental property in the hope that I can retire in my forties and go to grad school for something else. I wish you good luck in your new job, and hope that you won't have to go through that again. --M
Get a clue! The tech boom has nothing to do with the outsourcing that is occurring now. This is simply another version of profit-taking by excutives looking to pad their own pockets. There is no forward thinking involved. They see this as the anethema for bad planning and lack of strategy. As to going somewhere cheaper and learning a new trade. First, moving costs money, relearning a new trade cost money and time, and finally, most small places are small because there's no infrastructure, commerce, or resources to support a larger population. I left one of those small, cheap towns to go to the pacific northwest for work. My father was a mechanic all his life, was never able to retire because social security couldn't pay for all the medical bills (the direct result of his blue collar career), and died early as a result of it. I could have stayed and been a mechanic (or plumber) and followed a similarly sad path, but my father begged me to go to school and do better than he had (I paid for it myself - they had no money). Now I find that the career I struggled to build is being sucked away overseas, so some companies can make a better profit. It makes my blood boil.
The answer is already starting to happen. As the US $ devalues against other countries, the cost of overseas labour rises. If the value of the US $ halves, then the cost of overseas labour doubles. Basically by devaluing the US $, the cost of living relative to the rest of the world declines and the US can be more competative. If the US $ was brought to the level so that IT salarys in India matched those in the US, there would be little incentive for outsourcing. If an Indian IT worker is earning U$20 000 equivalent and an American worker is on U$50 000, halving the value of the US currency changes the picture to Indian worker on U$40 000 equivalent versus American worker unchanged at U$50 000 althought the US worker will have less INTERNATIONAL buying pawer than he used to have. Local good tend to stay the same price. So you food will probably not cost any more but your Asian made TV will cost about double. This would also halt export of manufacturing jobs and may even encourage onshoring of of previously offshored manufacturing jobs. For the sake of U$10 000 most companies will not outsource. So the answer is to encourage your politicians to keep lowering the value of the US $ and get your jobs back. This will create an even playing field and then it comes down to skills and abilities. I think it is a fair price to pay for peoples jobs and lives.... And for thase that say it would be easier to either penalise those co that outsource or reward those that dont outsource, how many loopholes do you think companies already use. You can't loophole a devaluation of currency. Bush or someone in his administration (perhaps Alan Greenspan) has made an excellent decision to allow the currency to devalue ad all Americans will benefit - except for the CEO's, CFO's etc because they buy overseas goods a lot more and invest overseas.
Carly Fiorina has a 7 figure salary, and you'd think she'd satisfied with it. No, apparently she'd also like to cripple the country's technological future. What is she, the Devil?
I would say that costs may be driving outsourcing, but it's our Republican overlords who are greedily allowing to happen. Typical shortsightedness. Short term profits over long term deterioration of our technical capabilities. I'm sure there are plenty of Democrats to blame as well. However, they're in the backseat, as it's a Republican show in the three branches. Sickening.
I doubt bin Laden could've come up with a better plan in crippling this country. In fact, if he had managed to do something similar, we would have cried terrorsim and gone to war. Now that we know it's our own politicians doing it to us, what do we call it, treason? It's sickening.
= 9J =
Well King George didn't exactly provide any value for taxation. The whole uprising was to defeat taxation without representation. We were paying an assload of money in taxes and getting nothing in return. No say in government policy, no military defense, nothing.
On the other hand, our taxation provides us with city and country roads, working sewage (ask mexicans where toilet paper goes- in the trash can), public utilities, jails and police protection...the list goes on. If the roads were full of holes, the cops were corrupt, the toilets wouldn't flush and nobody had electricity, AND a foreign power was exerting military control over us, we'd have a problem. Again.
"The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S."
Open the border to more work visas and naturalizations. Kinda hard for countries to go overseas for cheap labor when all the cheap labor comes here to the US. Businesses find cheaper workers, labor groups get more potential members as well as the satisfaction that these once-overseas workers are protected by US labor laws.
Or am I not being xenophobic enough?
Yeah, it's not a KKK meeting, but what they said is still true... just had to deal with one who believes that using "copy and paste" on a website and reusing the code automatically makes it his property. But if you want to know just how good outsourcing jobs is working, just ask Alienware, Intel or Dell... all of whom's ratings have gone down since the move. This practice is only helping the people at the top, not to companies themselves, the employees or people who use their products. Sorry, but that's just the truth of the matter.
Invest in the Chinese population...
Invest in the Indian popoulation...
Sure this is good for the Chinese and Indian poulations but who will buy the consumer products in the short term?
Carly, why can you see that you need to retain, sustain and maintain your markets?!!?
the money you seeek to increase your salary and your corporate dividends is in the US and the EU. without the influx of currency from those immedieate sources all immedeate incomesources will fall!!!
DUH!!!
When will we think in the long term?!?!?
oh, it hurts!!!
please, just help your neighbor to start!!!
have i ranted enough?
D
That's why we need to create conflict between the nations (Pakistan & India), sell arms to both sides and make lot's of money since they are both our allies, once they are close to war and all the companies no longer want to out-source to the volatile region (bringing our jobs back home), we can step in and be the mediator and look like the hero.....
if common sense was common, wouldn't everyone have it?
Regardless of what you think of capitalism and free trade and stuff, we still need to SERIOUSLY improve our schools. In a decade or so, India will have ~150 million college educate people, that's almost half our population! How are we supposed to compete against that?
[o]_O
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., introduced a bill in November requiring service representatives to disclose their physical location each time a customer calls to make a purchase, inquire about a transaction or ask for technical support. The proposal targets the increasingly popular decisions by companies to move their call centers overseas to capitalize on low labor costs.
I found this paragraph to be as interesting as the rest of the article. Can we please know who we are dealing with?
I use ATTWS. Their coverage is great. Their support was great. Their prices are higher than the other wireless services, but you get what you pay for.
Before DEC, every support call was handled efficiently and they tried to keep us happy. My sister told me it was a pleasure to talk to them., even when everything did not work out the way she hoped. The great support was one of the reasons to continue using the service.
She, I, and other friends have made several calls in the last few weeks. None of them were remotely close to making us happy; we were more upset after the call than before. Each time, the call was answered by a lady with an Indian accent. I do not KNOW that the calls are being routed to India; we all could have reached the same lady working in the US. I do know that instead of making us happy, she kept putting us on hold, then returned to tell us "The system does not allow for that." She told us information that contradicts the policies of the last 7 years. The big one was that switching between price levels within a plan requires contract extension. She told us that the levels listed on the web sites were not allowed to existing customers. She told us that the never-ending promotions for a given plan would be canceled if we switched price levels. Every tech before DEC told us contract extensions were only required when switching between the major plans, that they used the web site to look up the current price levels, and that promotions would only be lost if we switched major plans because the promotions are plan-specific.
She refused to tell me where she was located. She refused to tell me how long she had worked in this job. She refused to transfer me to a supervisor or anybody else.
She upset my sister enough that my sister will be changing carriers within weeks. (Thank you for number portability!)
ATTWS: Why did you replace your great support service with this customer-losing system? Are you trying to lose all your customers? Will you publicly declare you are changing it back really soon to keep us as customers?
If there was a law stating that they must identify their location, then I could at least know the support died because of offshoring. I will be in their American-staffed store tomorrow to see if the salespeople there can resolve our issues.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
I posted about this in that article. Jean-Marc only buys boxes because he is too small to economically make his own. Once he has the revenues to support his own box-making factory, he will have one.
Are you just trolling? Congrats, you made it to +4.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
As a Mac user, I've found that HP supports the platform only when it's convenient for them to do so. As a result, I've avoided buying any HP product for at least the past ten years. These latest comments from Ms. Fiorina mean I'll boycott HP for probably another ten years.
I learned from the coverage surrounding HP's acquisition of Compaq a few years back that the shareholders effectively had no say in the matter. It had all been fixed--the merger took place anyway. Boycotting them is probably the most that anyone can do. It's the only thing a greedy bitch like Fiorina would ever understand.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
Isn't good for the gander?
Where were you when American companies were making huge profits (and still are) by exporting products to every other country in the world? Exporting American culture, American food, clothes and lifestyles? When IBM, HP, Microsoft, Sun, Intel, AMD are selling their products all over the world and making a huge profit on it? Perhaps you took no part of the profits?
And now you want to whine when these companies want to make the products where they sell them?
Forgive me if I'm a little bitter, but Globalisation was forced on most of the world, when America could sell its products. Now that other countries have managed to get a foot-hold, suddenly Americans don't want to compete globally any more.
You used to win when you could sell your products everywhere, now that others are selling their products in America, you are not prepared to compete. Get a grip!
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
If you're feeling adventurous, move to British Columbia (that's in Canada :) and grow dope. It is a $6 billion/year industry here, and is B.C.'s largest cash crop. Penalties are few (it's still illegal to grow, mind you), and incredibly lucrative, thanks to the voracious U.S. market. There are awesome units you can hang in the closet of a room which will turn over a few grand every 6 weeks; a single dedicated room can easily haul in $80 000+. Get a job (programming jobs and tech support jobs are still available here) to supplement your growing income, and you're set ;)
Add in super-cheap health care, a comparable quality of life to the U.S. wealth-wise, and a mellow population (no kidding, given the above), and it's tough to go wrong - except for the weather. The U.S. has great weather, it must be said.
Troll?
No way... this was funny.
Actually, it was insightful. Dollarization (which is what would happen if the Indian government made 1 Rupee = 1 dollar) has been helpful in countries keen on fighting inflation.
Then again, it is not a panacaea, and is difficult to implement. I also am not so sure that India has an inflation problem, and their currency has been pretty stable (floating round 40RS/1$ for a damn long time now).
Part of me wants to agree with your "setting out for greener pastures" argument, but I'm not quite there. Maybe because it's not quite so simple as just packing up and moving on. Some people have roots that make just moving a bit more difficult. Besides, while it sounds like SV may be an extreme case, this is something that is happening everywhere. I'm from Phoenix, and lots of people move there every year because of lower cost of living, climate (they come for the nice winters, not really knowing what the summers are like...), lifestyle, whatever, but find it's a damn hard place to find a halfway decent paying job. I think that's part of the reason a lot of people don't stay long (although those that leave are still outnumbered by those who keep coming).
One thing that could be a definite sticking point though is the health insurance. It sounds like his wife has a pretty serious (and expensive) condition if she has to carry around an oxygen supply, and switching employers could leave them up the creek if they can't get coverage due to it being a pre-existing condition. Packing up could guarantee that they would be FAR worse off.
fuck you.
First of all, the Indian Govt. DOES NOT have such a requirement. I don't think there are any computers made in India.
Second of all, while there is a substantial amount of bonded labour - 'slavery', this has NOTHING to do with tech wages!! Sure there might be a bit of wage depression among the very poor, but definitely not massive.
Thirdly, the number of 'untouchables' is now quite small.
Your suggestion for getting rid of slavery and 'untouchability' is forcing the rest of developing India out of the Globabl economy? Not the best way I'm sure. And I'll bet you are happy buying products made by slaves in China (from a recent NYTimes article).
I'm sure you have the noblest intentions in pointing out these problems, but unless you provide a solution, you are merely flamebait.
And though you are not responsible, your fore-fathers in the USA did grow fat on the backs of African slaves. Please do consider the absolute poverty and misery that many third-world countries face. Globalisation is finally pulling India and the third-world out of this. Please don't try to stop this.
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
There is an old expression that says "you can't make the weak strong by making the strong weak." I believe it. It is necessary to bring those nations up without bringing ourselves down. Really necessary... poverty has to be tackled for sure. I don't know what the answer is, but we can't give it all away thinking that it is somehow fair. That would be some sort of messed up politically correct arguement.
Some folks argue that we let the blue collar jobs go overseas, so who cares about the tech workers? I can say most autoworkers are not stupid, but I haven't heard of many coming up with something that changes society... except maybe Henry Ford... but he was the only one I've heard of... and that was 100 years ago. Most changes come from exceptional people working with the advanced technology of their time, whether they were university educated or not. Which to me, makes the limited amount of people who are capable and willing to work in the more technical disciplines worth more money.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
The same was said of manufacturing jobs. "It's more than just jobs! That's the real products of America! Steel and automobiles and textiles and and and... If you export that, what will be left for us?" The problem is, for the most part, tech jobs these days are the same thing. There's not much "innovation." Tell me, when you're designing a database system for a company, how much are you really "innovating?"
Yes, and they were. Direct consequences of outsourced manufacturing jobs include increased child labour, inferior products, and more US citizens on the unemployment line. Cars from the 50s-70s last far longer than those from the 80s-90s. Likewise textiles are less durable than they once were.
"Well, I came up with the schema!" -- sure, but the "innovation" was the relational database model, innovated some twenty years ago.
"Well, I coded it!" -- sure, but did you write mySQL? Did you "innovate" that? No, you're just using it.
Well, maybe they wrote parts of MySQL, you don't know. There are certainly US Citizens working on that as well as on Oracle and other database products. They do come up with features and improve the products. Is there a single database product originally designed in any other country besides the US that is more popular than the US databases?
You have some points about grunt IT workers, but even they come up with innovative ways to solve problems. It's not all just grunt work. If it was, the PHBs could just hire janitors to paint by numbers. There is clearly something going on here besides that.
Fact of the matter is, your high-tech "skill" of database design is not much different that the skill of an autoworker installing the drivetrain on a Buick. These days, it's easy to learn, and repetative. That's not innovation.
Thankfully, most of the real innovation is still right here. New standards, protocols, specifications, fabrication techniques, etc, are still being developed right here in the U.S. We still make the tools. You just can't get paid near so much for merely using the tools anymore.
For now, the innovation is in the US. BUt how long before we have to copy foreign database makers instead of innovating just as we now copy foreign automakers (and still make inferior products, using inferior materials, manufactured by the cheapest labour possible from overseas).
senior management positions begin to be outsourced. BTW, can't we ship Carly's job overseas?
If corporations want to export jobs overseas, that's their priviledge. If people want to only buy from local companies, that's our priviledge. if corporations want to be community citizens, they will support the local community with local jobs. Mr. Ford realized this with the original assembly line and sold more cars than any other American auto manufacturer of the time. Maybe corporations need to relearn basic economics! If they export all the jobs, who will be able to buy their products locally? Not me! Would not want to anyway! Buy locally! Boycot companies with unacceptable business practices!
Lets face it the Civil war was fought not to free the slaves, but in fact because the South was so rich because it legally could force people to work with no pay
;-)
Actually the south was pretty fucking poor, which was why they revolted. Because of industrial mercantilism the South was forced to sell their goods (i.e. cotton, etc.) to the North for a pittance and sold back manufactured goods for signifigantly more. The South never manufactured their own goods because of their relatively agrarian economy, compared to the North as an industrial center.
The revolt was about the balance of money being in the North, not in the South...and the South was pissed
Of course, the North's ever-increasing tendencies towards abolitionism didn't help matters (ala the Missouri compromise).
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Sounds like a great idea. Maybe he'll have time to write more keynotes that way.
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
Maybe if companies used open source software like Linux, they could save enough money in licensing to keep some jobs. Maybe I'm wrong.
People who think we should cut back please choose something to close down...TV, Telephone, hospital...take your pick...because that's where the money goes....Which is fine as long as the money stays in our economic system. When it starts really flowing OUT, or the bottom can't buy stuff, then we'll see more problems.
Offtopic but the Moonites rule all. They are so vastly supierior that we should just outsource to them. We can't even comprehend what they would come up with. Your sig is from Aqua Teen Hunger Force right?
And here is the problem caused by globalization without a well thought-out and implemented plan -> 50k to a U.S. worker is equal to 10k for a 'foreign' worker due to exchange rate and lower cost of living. See the imbalance? Of course the foreign worker ( assuming similar productivity to U.S. worker ) will be hired by the U.S. employer instead of the U.S. worker - he costs way less!
Now, even if the foreign country opens its market up to U.S. employees, things will not even out because the U.S. workers will still be much more expensive to employee than ones native to it.
From what I pointed out above, it is evident that some way of leveling the playing field between countries must be created for the global economy to work. It needs to carefully planned and then carried out in such a way that all of the countries involved are given a fair shake. This is not a case of U.S. workers being greedy or having inflated expectations, this is a case of jumping off a building without thinking out "how am I going to get down safely?" first.
As a minimum, the U.S. should at least work out agreements with each company it agrees to open its job market to such that there is fair competition. The penalties of not doing so have already been hashed and rehashed by other posts.
I can't afford a sig!
How easy it's to make fun of those "code monkeys" "writing silly VB", or in your case, that simpleton data modeler... and be pretty much mistaken. While comparatively speaking there are certainly more challenging tasks in software development, it's by no means low-level monkey work you think anyone can do. To you it is (I hope) easy thing to do. But when most people can't even use their VCRs, you are seriously overestimating competency of general work force in quite specialized field.
Now, obviously there doesn't need to be MUCH innovation in there. But I would claim that designing new standards or protocols or especially specifications is often not significantly more demanding, for example. Implementing this is more likely to include innovations. Committees and working groups are full of mediocrities, who just follow up footsteps of others.
Having said that, I wouldn't really care employing someone whose only job was data modelling either... I do prefer wider skilled individuals; one task of which may be data modelling, but certainly not the only one.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
I went to ITT Tech unfortunately and got a worse education then I received in Elementary School. I atleast learned something in fifth grade. Unfortunately by the time I realized that the school was a completed and utter joke I was already in it for 15 grand and decided to finish it and actually have something to show for it. My whole class was in the same situation, we talked about it alot. Our TCP/IP class after midterms was started completed OVER. That's right, they decided that class was so bad that they would start it over from midterm to final. Anyway I'm getting a bit off topic, they made a TON of promises and misled me quite a bit. One was on getting a good education. I did not receive a half assed education. Infact I'm willing to say I received NO education. That I would be able to transfer my degree and continue it. The local school here(Boise State University, which is crap too) will NOT take it. I started working on a second degree and they won't transfer anything from ITT. Although my new degree is in history. I was shown ITT's statistics about how many people were employed after they graduated. I later found out these were junk too, they didn't seperate the people who already had jobs or got jobs outside their field. Infact out of the 9(I think, might be 11) students in the graduating class of the same course, only 2 of us didn't already have outside jobs. I was one of them. I was promised a lot of help in finding a job after I graduated with a low end pay of atleast $16 in most cases. This was one of the big reasons I went, they were goign to work hard to find me a job. The idea of finding me a job was taking articles from the Idaho Statesmen, Monster.com, Boisehelpwanted.com, etc and putting it into a packet and giving it to me. Luckily I found a job on my own after I found out how little help I was getting, a good job in the IT field luckily. They didn't even give two shits about my degree. ITT also claimed me as a success because of their program. I've gone a bit off topic but I hope someone out there considering ITT changes their mind.;) I don't know about all the other Technical schools, but this one was a waste of time.
Crap, why did all my paragraphs and everythign get reformatted? Sorry
Seriously, this is exactly it. I hate socialism. I hate the government. I hate being told what to do. And THAT is why I'm so resentful of global corporations subverting democracy--as time goes on, corporate boards of directors look more and more like Soviet Politburos. These guys need to realize--its not Socialism vs. Capitalism, its Democracy vs. Feudalism.
The US has always competed with foreign countries. Until recently, we have often won the fight.
Why is this? Well, an example of the old competition used to be GM against Toyota. This was good for everyone, because both companies had to innovate, both had to cut costs, both had to improve their product to survive. The world was a better place due to this competition, even though some US jobs were lost.
GM was always on the side of the US, and Toyota was always on the side of Japan, and vice-versa.
This same scenario took place in many industries, century upon century. In a limited sense, the world marketplace has always been global. Goods were shipped from England to the US colonies, and goods were shipped from the US colonies to England.
But the battle has now changed. It is no longer the US vs. another country. It is now a US corporation vs. the worker.
If someone in the US figures out a great way to make a car that is 90% cheaper, and we can finally compete with those guys in China, do you think the coropration says "great, you guys can now keep your jobs"? No. Do you know what the corporation does?
It moves that exact process to China, and saves even more money. And it makes you train the Chinese workers to boot.
We are in an unwinnable game. This isn't about the education system in the US, and this isn't about US workers being bad. This is about making the most money possible, even if it decimates society and wipes out the USA.
The enemy isn't the guy in the other country, nor is the enemy a foreign government. The enemy is now the corporation.
I don't think they're slave labor in any meaningfull way. Bad working conditions are not slavery, they're just part of working in a poor country, like the low pay and long hours.
Slavery is when you can buy and sell people and force them to work whether they want or not. The Chinese have something like that in their prison camp system, which may produce a few of the cheap stuff you see in your super market. And there is still black slavery in North Africa, but it doesn't affect trade. The vast majority of these jobs are offered to people on a fairly free labor market, just like in the west, and people take them since thery're the best they can get.
The uncomfortable fact is that no country has become rich without "sweat shops", excepting a few oil countries. You don't just do a quantum leap from total poverty to US minimium wage and working conditions with no intermediate steps. What seems like awful conditions to us is a big improvement to the starving and disease that came before it.
Refusing to trade with the poor until they become rich, and not allowing them to become rich they way we did, hurts both them and us. To us it mean that we'll have to pay more for some goods. But to them it often means death.
The Revolutionary War or the French Revolution seem more appropriate.
Guys back in England (CEOs) getting rich by overtaxing (laying off) the producers (Americans).
The producers get pissed, kick out the king, form a new company / country, and keep all the profits...
Or maybe that's what's going to happen to us when Indian and Chineese companies take the technology we've given them (or paid them to produce) and decide they don't need our management anymore. This is already happening in China.
The Chineese are even one step ahead of that though. They get money from selling us stuff only to come over here and invest in US Securities. So basically, they're loaning us the money to buy more stuff from them so that we'll owe them more money. Ingenious! They're going to OWN the US one day...
Yep. YOu are absolutely right. That's why I think the 25% figure is too low.
An example would be trying to own a car in a place where there aren't many cars. For example, typical mode of transportation in China is bicycle (it's changing though). Even professionals (like scientists, professors, businessmen, etc) bike to work. If a Western person tried to buy a car and maintain it, it would be more expensive relative to the rest of the population. In some other (even poorer) countries, cars are pretty much a luxury. Another example would be something like high-speed internet access. In some poor countries, high-speed internet is very expensive.
I think you are right about the 10% figure. I don't travel but tourists usually say that poorer countries are VERY CHEAP. It is not uncommon to find people spend just $250 for what it would cost $1000 for a trip back home.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
In the old days, we called it the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolution...
US worker: "Capitalism! Free market economy! Down with socialism! Only the lazy are jobless!"
*company outsources worker's job*
US worker: "Government intervention! Government intervention!"
Gormless fucking hypocrites.
"'The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers,' said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. 'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'"
Translation: 'The problem is that people who slave away anywhere from two to eight years of their lives in college actually have the unmitigated gall to expect to get paid a fair wage, as a return on their investment of time and money. We can't have that! Especially not when there's plenty of cheap slave labor overseas!!'
Exaggerating? Probably just a bit. But honestly, that's the impression I got from this creep in reading between the lines of his statement.
Am I wrong, or isn't the whole point of getting a degree, and lots of experience, motivation for employers to pay MORE than minimum wage? For that matter, how in the Multiverse can anyone even live at the poverty level on the standard minimum wage in this country?
Don't even get me started on the quality (or often the lack thereof) in U.S. schools. My local community college has cancelled their Electronics Technology program indefinitely. I count myself as incredibly fortunate that I got through all but four courses (two physics, two math) for my A.A.S. degree in the field, but what about the kids who just started into the program when it went under?
Scott Kirwin is, of course, entitled to his opinion. He also has my most cordial invitation to take said opinion, and implode at his earliest convenience.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Yeah, but what about the quality of life? How is the police service is New Delhi compared to NYC? How about the fire service? What about the public hospitals, etc. You're still comparing apples and oranges.
:( I don't have a job either :( Good luck with your job hunting. I have pretty much been unemployed since I graduated from school 3 years ago (however, I started a company with one of my friends within those three years--it failed :( ). Good luck with your job search...
The standard of living is far lower in many of those countries. But the thing is that employers don't care. They just look at base costs. The higher standard of living in USA (for example) accrues to YOU--not the corporation.
I don't have a job.
oh
No, I'm not OK with that. Not at all. I'd say let the IT workers take a 25% pay cut. Hell, then maybe I could get a job.
I think that 25% is kind of low. Those figures may be misleading. I think it should be more like 50%.... ok... I did more research. Screw the cost of living I described earlier (that's too inconclusive). I found better indicators. I actually managed to find actual wages in India. This should prove my point without any doubt.
Check out the following links:
Sr. Software Engineer / Developer / Programmer (India)
Sr. Software Engineer / Developer / Programmer (USA)
Sr. Software Engineer / Developer / Programmer (Canada)
Just to give an idea, let's compare:
(all US$; date unknown)
IT (computer,software)
India =10,464
China = 12,000
USA=75,000
Canada=50,000
C++
India=12,121
China=49,000*
USA=80,000
Canada=N/A
* Chinese numbers may not be precise since they have small samples (only 4 for the C++ case)
These are all senior positions and I am trusting the source. So if you look, you are paying around 20% of US wages in India and slightly more in China. So you need to take a 70% to 90% pay cut I would say. Can you do that? The answer is no. You would be far below the poverty line (I think the Canadian poverty line is somewhere around 20,000(?) and US should be similar). You can just barely manage to pay rent with a 12,000 salary!
As far as I'm concerned, there is NO WAY you can take a pay cut. You would have to SIGNIFICANTLY DECREASE your standard of living*. I think the "solution" of pay cuts just doesn't work. I think ALL jobs in wealthy countries will be threatened under capitalism. There just isn't any way someone living in a rich country can compete. It's not just manufacturing or the tech sector. It's pretty much everything.
(* There is another option and that is to devalue the US dollar. And I'm talking HUGE devaluation. Doing so could potentially collapse capitalism so capitalists probably won't contemplate that for a while)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
all they're getting from the US is a string of increasingly irrelevant management directives from people who no longer have to deal with silly things like end users and products, don't assume that there will be justice in the end for the CEOs who not only transferred labor out of the US, but destroyed the companies' value for the stockholders as the outsourcers decide to sell directly to the US public.
The CEOs who are doing this intend to have cashed out by the time their predatory practices destroy the companies they now working for.
Any CEO who's in power when things hit the fan will either be designated fall guys or will be the stupidest and greediest of the current crop, too dumb to know when to "GET OUT OF DODGE!!!", trying to stay just long enough to get one more round of stock options turned into real money.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Fine, they've done it through a lack of morality and through financial greed but even that is a step above doing it merely based on a person's skin colour.
Racism is wrong whether white people are giving it or receiving it, end of story.
If you've half a mind to join to be a racist, that's all you need...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Nerds can learn from this though. If we want to keep the jobs from disapearing, we must band together, start a lobby, and bribe the congresscriters to pass laws to stop this crap (or tax the shit out of companies that do it). Gun owners and doctors are a minority in American society, yet their lobbiests are the cream of the crop and they get what they what out of the government(seeing how guns are still legal and there is no free health care). As nerds we must quit pretending that someone else (or lord forbid "market forces") will solve the problem and unite for our common good. Sure the system is corrupt and it sucks, but if big corporations can use it to their advantage, so can we.
Open Source Sushi
So when there is no acceptable option, don't buy! Find a way to get what you need without buying 'the product'. If it's CPUs, maybe buy clones from a local assembler. If it's printers, that's a bit more dicey... but you could ask to repair an elder HP instead of buying a new unit 'made in china'. Repair brings the money to local hands again, and is environmentally friendly. A double-win! But don't just roll over and give up just because finding an option would require THOUGHT!!!
Did the people who coded MySQL also design the C programming language? Or in your analogy, did the guy who invented the drivetrain on the Buick also discover how to mine iron ore, smelt it down, then cast it?
Innovation _allways_ builds upon something else.
Ideally yes, but in practice, No, because "your" elected officials don't represent you, they represent the people who pay for their campaigns to convince you how to vote. Your only role in American democracy is to consume advertising and respond predictably.
Wow, two doses of reality in one thread.
Well that's it. That is an open declaration of malice toward the American technical worker. These ungrateful companies built on the backs of great nerds are being run by MBAs that treat the dealing of multimillion/billion dollar corporation as if it was something you randomly buy of the internet. They constantly shoot for the cheapest deal, blindly ignoring long term (like as in a year+, or "four quarters" as they call it). Come on, to get those kinds of jobs you must have taken a lot of economics. So you must know that the cheapest options aren't always the best ones because there is this thing called quality. Hell, even when I buy things online I usually use companies that I trust (even if they are a little more expensive) to make sure if something bad happens I won't just automatically get screwed. These executives know and they don't care. They are as greedy as can be -while already banking way too much money for what they do- and are willing to blindly sell out the long term prospects (and histories) of the companies they work for in order to make the stock go up the next quarter. And then to blatantly lie in order to avoid responsive legislation.
Countries that resort to protectionism end up hampering innovation and crippling their industries, which leads to lower economic growth and ultimately higher unemployment, said the Washington-based Computer Systems Policy Project, whose member companies include Intel Corp., IBM, Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard."
THIS IS A LIE!!! America was founded on protectionist legislation. For a large part of the countries history most of the government's funds came from tariffs and "protectionism." The United States became a world power after its civil war by stimulating and protecting (to the point of the whole "a corporation has the same rights as a person nonsense") its industries. At one point economists thought that a trade deficit would do the economy in. These MBA types would now want to say it's a good thing.
This is blatantly declaring to the techies that built these companies that we are now invincible to you and we wish to harm you. We don't care what you did for us, we like our shareholders better. And if you don't like it doesn't matter because we have" Washington-based Computer Systems Policy Project, whose member companies include Intel Corp., IBM, Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard, " an obviously big lobby group that pays a great deal to keep legislation from appearing that might save your jobs. Screw you, unless you ever want to buy something. In that case We Love You. (TM) Slimeballs.
American nerds have two options:
I know most nerds hate politics (cause its so dirty. uhhh) but as a group it is possible to use the system for your own purposes. In this case you need to get involved because the companies have declared an all out war on you job. Its you vs them. They have more money but nerds have one huge advantage. Nerds (can potentially) vote. If just enough money was raised to find out exactly how many Americas (techies and their families) could be affected by these hostile policies-at the potentially highest level- by a reputable statistics company then an letter campaign could be very effective (Dear
Open Source Sushi
Carly Fiorina had to pay for her hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus somehow. What better way than to get rid of the real workers?
Should there be a Law?
Or Bermuda
Should there be a Law?
Hogwash. I am a manager in an outsourcing company located in Shanghai, China. The employees here, have clean, well lighted cubicles, heat in the winter, and A/C in the summer. They have comfortable chairs, nice monitors and even ergometric keyboards. A typical programmer here makes about $300 per month, which may not sound like much, but it buys about ten times what it does in the US, so it is considered a good middle-class income.
Before I came here, I spent 12 years in Silicon Valley. The biggest difference in the working conditions here vs there is that programmers in Shanghai normally work a 40 hour week (family time is important here), not the 80 hours that is routinely expected in the Valley. In that sense, this is less like slave labor than what Americans put up with.
My company is not an exception. I have visited lots of other companies in and around Shanghai, and our working conditions are typical. The most striking difference to me is the lack of parking lots. Bicycles don't need much space.
BS - it's not about companies padding their pockets, it's about consumers not wanting to pay what they paid yesterday for the products they buy today.
Look at all the industries where the prices of products is increasing versus the industries where the prices of products is decreasing and you'll see that the outsourcing is going to the areas where the prices are going down...
Someone might say the prices are going down because of outsourcing (which would be the opposite of your argument that executives are padding their pockets) - I say they are going down because it's the only way to sell the darn product - which requires the labor component to go down in cost.
Darin
Hey People,
These actions have real consequence... not just to us but the entire world. The current behavior is ultimately unsustainable.
As businesses globalize, there is a tremendous differential between the rich folk (us Americans), and the poor folks (pick a third world country...) A few people, CxOs, and assorted business croanies (and the political lifeforms that support them), will get filthy rich as the wealth in America is pumped into the rest of the world. This is the nature of energy, heat, money, you name it... welcome to thermodynaics 101.
When Walmart hires a new person today, that person get's as a part of his new hire folder information on how to collect state and federal assistance, because you can't live on a Walmart salary, let alone support a family on it. That makes pumping your tax dollars into the hands of Walmart employees, part of Walmarts bottom line (and wallstreet thinks this is brilliant so you can expect to see this being repeats all over town at a business near you, soon.) So on a gross social level, Walmart is sucking the money out of the U.S. and sending it elsewhere. By using cheap foreign labor to manufacture products, Walmart pumps your dollars into it's coffers and then into the third world's. Eventually, the entire American culture is being serviced by multinational corporations (like Walmart, that have no particular allegiance to America, and have bought all the law they need to succeed), reaching a state of economic equilibrium, and the whole world is equally poor. Unfortunately for Walmart... nobody in America can now afford it's goods, and it suffers a quick and terrible financial collapse. This is not a problem, because a generation of company officers are sucking down rum drinks on privately owned islands in the carribean, and the fact that American has been impoverished by their greed, as a couple million employees are let go simultaneously causes less than a sad sigh to it's retiring governors.
People... we are stuck on a hampster wheel straight to hell, and if the global society doesn't wake up pretty damn soon... the ass you smell in the deepfryer may be your own. The only way to insure that we have any kind of future, is to demand that people have rights that corporations don't. That corporations be held responsible for the good and the bad that they do. That our government be disengaged from commerce, such that they can support trade, but not be influenced unduly by trade (in case you haven't been present to our Vice President and the contracts he's pushed through for Halliburton... now would be a good time to wake the H#ll up.) By the way, read Musulini's speeches on fascism, and the corporate state... tell me he doesn't sound like somebody straight out of Bush cabinet.
We will either develop a sane stratedgy involving the rest of the world... or;
* We will go through a new period of isolationism that will be totally stunning and
* Ultimately upset the entire world economy, then
* Build a new generation of tactical nukes, designed to bludgeon other countries into giving us whatever we want when we want it (notice anything about oil over the last couple years? notice Mr. Bush pushing to build a new generation of nukes that he can actually drop on people?) All we have to do is declare it terrorism, a threat to our security, then let the bombs fall...
The machine is busted, and we need to admit it. Stop it from going further south, and begin putting this beasty back on the tracks. In the meantime, we need to protect our best and brightest. These people can get visas. They can travel to other countries. If America keep screwing over it's most precious resource, it will gut itself, and it's future will indeed be bleak. That and enough with this business is God, and greed is good. There are plenty of things that come at too high a price, and our freedom, dignity, and posterity are just a few of them.
Genda Bendte
However, in the 19th century the Supreme Court gave corporations the legal protection of personhood
So corporations have the rights of person, but not the responsibilities of a person by definition
Does anyone else think that is wrong?
Steve
Someone always asks "Well, wouldn't you want to get a cheaper deal on the same thing if you could get it?...Its their right to do the same?"
Why apply the same ethical( or other ) expectations to corporations with vast resources and without the same legal responsibility as individual people?
Is there a religion somewhere that sets it as a moral law that corporations or obscenely rich people have the right to pursue profit regardless of consequences?
Is it in the constitution that corporations have the right to pursue profits at the expenese of the country?
Steve
Where do I advocate the collective ownership of property? You obviously don't even know what Communism is. There should be a version of Goodwin's law for right wingers.
If you want to lable it, it is deflation and public works but I wasn't proposing anything anyway. Just making a point.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
So if you loose the service industries and have no manufacturing industries, where are people going to learn the experience in order to come up with all this market leading technology?
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
On a tangent, I got into CS for the love of programming, but it's so flooded by people with dollar signs in their eyes it makes me sick. I don't want to work next to Timmy, whose parents made him take a CS major so he could support them in their old age, and who doesn't actually know shit about what he's doing. These are the people being hired though, because there are so goddamn many of them. I worked at CompUSA once, as a technician, and this fuckhead came in and tried to rile us up by saying "WHO WANTS TO MAKE SOME MONEY!!!!!!" Then he asked us each if we wanted to make money. I regret saying yes, because I hated that job, but I really didn't want to deal with his attitude. In any event, that anecdote exemplifies the type of person entering the IT workforce these days. There aren't enough genuinely interested programmers to compete with the droves of money-mongering fuckwits.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Gee doesn't this mean that Carly Fiorina's ability to build a big fortune on the backs of American and off-shore IT workes isn't god given either? Why can't we send the CEO's off-shore too? Won't lower salaries across the board mean better shareholder value? Oh, but wait. There won't be anyone left who has enough cash to buy stocks.
'The longing to be primitive is a disease of culture' George Santayana
;) I assure you, I'm nothing of the sort.
The VP, SVP, EVP, etc. that can be easily replaced by any of the dozens below him.
Could be, don't let me be the champion for incompetent middle management.
I am totally lost on your last comment. I am saying that outsourcing is not a good thing for anybody. I thought it was you saying the opposite.
I got tangented by the whole "instead of outsourcing, we can stop paying executives so much" thing.
But yeah, I'm in favor of outsourcing if it works for the company. I don't think companies are obligated to keep hiring Americans when there are better alternatives, for four reasons:
1) it's inefficient to artificially support anything (I don't believe in tariffs either),
2) it would give foreign companies that don't have to do so a huge advantage,
3) artificially increasing labor costs for businesses increases costs for consumers by an amazing amount, and
4) I generally don't like unfunded social mandates by governments on businesses who didn't create the social problems.
That said, I think a lot of this outsourcing is "flavor of the month" with companies trying to get something for free. I think they're doing too much of it, and some of it is doomed to failure (like tech support). But that'll all play out.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I have a better idea. You outsource 100 software jobs overseas, pay the government a $100 million tax surcharge every year! Know something Carly Fiorina; FUCK YOU, YOU CAPITALIST CUNT!!!!! To paraphrase Richard Mellon Sciafie. Carly at least proves that a woman can be a gigantic, clueless prick with the best of men, even Jack Welch. Screw all these useless CEO's. Outsource them first, say to Congo, or Sudan, maybe even Myanmar.
I'll bet I pay $30 bucks for that pen anyway. What I don't pay in wages, I pay in taxes to pay for the welfare or incarceration of those who could be making those $30 dollar pens. It's easy to say something is cheap when you pass on part of the real expense to someone else.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
[quote]'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday.[/quote]
There is no industry that is corporate America's $deity-given right anymore.
-Rich
The standard of living is far lower in many of those countries. But the thing is that employers don't care. They just look at base costs. The higher standard of living in USA (for example) accrues to YOU--not the corporation.
That's exactly my point. The majority of the difference in salary is due to Americans demanding a higher standard of living. It's not that stuff costs more here, it's that people want more here.
I actually managed to find actual wages in India. This should prove my point without any doubt.
Maybe it proves your point, but it says nothing about mine. Obviously average wages in India are lower than the USA. And certainly average IT wages in India are lower than the USA. That's why companies are hiring workers in India instead of here. But my point, which you can look at it you go up a few posts, is that this isn't due to a big difference in costs of living, it's due to Americans being used to better lifestyles than Indians. "The cost of living in the US is actually less than that of India (*). People in the US are just used to better lifestyles than those in India." (*) That part you dispute, and maybe I was incorrect, but I still don't think so. But as you saw it is a very small difference compared to the difference in salaries.
So you need to take a 70% to 90% pay cut I would say. Can you do that?
Sure. I've been living off no salary. I could do it. Would I want to? No. I'd just get a better job. Probably become a teacher, which I'm looking into anyway. Why should code monkies make more than teachers?
As far as I'm concerned, there is NO WAY you can take a pay cut. You would have to SIGNIFICANTLY DECREASE your standard of living*.
Did you even read my previous post? I've been living off less than $10K a year for years now. And I don't even have a family to share expenses with. Also, you have to realize that expenses wouldn't really drop all the way down. There's a lot of overhead costs which could be saved. Salaries for code monkies in the US would probably be closer to $20-30K.
I think ALL jobs in wealthy countries will be threatened under capitalism.
No, only low skilled jobs which are easily portable to other countries. Code monkey is one of the best examples. There's zero language barrier, and product transfer is virtually free over the internet. Plus code is especially hard to tax, due to its non-physical nature.
There are some things we can do, though. Require OSHA to be followed with foreign workers. Require the same benefits to be offered. Make sure companies are forced to pay unemployment benefits to the workers they lay off, until those workers are able to get a new job. I think you'll see the salaries start to come into line. But $75,000/year for being a code monkey? Sorry, those days are numbered.
That's really crappy. What they don't understand is that this really breeds an "Animal Farm" style "us vs. them" thing, where they get bonuses just because they vote them to each other. Whatever happened to performance compensation? Don't they understand that they can't get any respect when they don't take the same hit they pass on? Personally, I'd respect the hell out of a CEO who gave himself a pay cut.
I suspect it's because they can always find some index where their company beat the average this year. So they're always doing a good job. ;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
After collecting accolades from the liberal press (and lambasted by the conservative press, we do have both), he was in the audience for one of Clinton's state of the union addresses, etc. Became a local celebrity.
Well, of course what he did was absurd, and the company completely tanked.
It didn't "come out of bankruptcy," it basically got bought out by GE Capital, and there were a bunch of layoffs anyway because the company had to be restructured to make money back for the new ones.
Look, there is nothing wrong with treating your workers well, you SHOULD do that. But to put the company under (and their livelihoods) to get attention in the press... not too smart.
Look, I've missed plenty of payrolls (and made senior/junior partners do the same) to keep things going through hard times, every entreprenuer has. However, would I put everything at risk to pay people to not work? No, that's lunacy.
Alex
How do you manage to live off $10k? Where do you live? Do you live with your parents? Who pays rent? If you ARE living off $10k, you will turn into a capitalist slave--if you aren't one already. You will barely meet anything your whole life. I don't consider $10k to be sufficient to live off of. That's just barely above the poverty line .
No, only low skilled jobs which are easily portable to other countries.
What's to stop literally all other jobs (except those that require physical presence) from being lost? In any case, what exactly is a low skilled job? As far as I'm concerned, there is little difference between jobs. Why would only low skilled jobs move? Why can't someone else perform other jobs? Do you think Indians, Chinese, etc can't carry out skilled jobs?
There is no reason why a teacher cannot be outsourced. It is kind of difficult to do now because teachers are required to be in classrooms. However, it wouldn't surprise me if many classes are done through long-distance in the future. Once schools are privatized, watch out. (BTW, this is not to discourage you from becoming a teacher--just using an example).
I agree with you that programmers get paid too much. It is a view I have held for many years. I don't see why people get paid $50,000+ for routine maintenance, simple programming, etc. But that doesn't change my point.
Require OSHA to be followed with foreign workers.
I don't see how you are going to carry that out given that all trade agreements place business interests above workers. You already have difficulty enforcing worker regulations within one country. Doing it internationally is more difficult..
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
So what you are saying is that you want everything that makes life enjoyable to die... and for us to only concentrate on things that advance science or make money....
Look around the world. In maybe civilized countries people are considered young adults until 22-24... We have plenty of time to work.....
The more important point to consider.. Blue collar jobs could be shed because we could retry the people up in the food chain. Give them better education, and "easier" working conditions. But if we export our tech industry (or any industry) we have to ask what we are going to replace the jobs with? Do you want fries with that?
Right idea, wrong emphasis.
My post said that Jean-Marc outsources because he is too small.
Your response is about offshoring. The quote you posted never mentions offshoring. It does mention that the boxes are made in the Philippines, but that is an internal matter for the boxmaker, not something that should concern Jean-Marc, unless he wants to put "Made in USA" labels on the boxes.
The probable business strategy is:
1. Start making chocolates.
2. Make own boxes.
3. Get an order for 100 boxes for delivery tomorrow, so buy them because he does not have the resources to make them himself.
4. Business keeps growing.
5. Buying boxes at retail becomes too expensive, so contract with another company to get boxes.
6. Business keeps growing.
7. Need enough boxes that buying a box-making factory becomes economical.
I'm thinking the upkeep of a factory alone would negate any cost savings of making his own box.
He is already paying for the upkeep of a factory; it is built into the price of the boxes he buys. If he keeps growing, possibly expanding into other products, he will reach the size that vertically integrating the box-making becomes economical.
An alternative is that his company is bought by another company that already has the vertical integration, but wants to expand into chocolates, or just wants the goodwill associated with his brand.
The confusion between offshoring and outsourcing is discussed in my previous post. There is no reason to assume that he will build or buy his box-making factory in the US. There is no reason to assume that he will build or buy his box-making factory in the Philippines. That is a separate decision that will be evaluated when the time comes.
My point is that he is outsourcing because he is currently at the size where that is the best method for getting boxes. Whether he buys them from a US-owned or foreign-owned manufacturer and whether he cares about where the boxes are made depends on who has the best total price (including delivery to where he needs them) and whether he feels that his customers will care where his boxes are made.
Outsourcing is about the economics of size. Offshoring is about the economics of location. Confusing the terms reduces your options.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
Now that you mention it, I have. Use a USB cable and it becomes 100X harder.
It's not the only way to sell the product, but it is the only way the the industry has decided to sell the product. Constantly undercutting prices without regard to the cost related to production only perpetuates the problem. Being the lowest price may make your sale today, but it is not a sustainable path. Cutting and/or outsourcing your staff is only a short-term cost saving event. This year you cut your staff 40%, what are you going to do next year when your competitor drops his price and you have nothing to cut that won't affect your quality? For a company to focus on only making money to the detriment of all else is socially irresponsible. We may as well turn a blind eye to all of the exxon-valdese and 3mile islands in the world. What does it matter? It's just as irresponsible to fire a million workers in pursuit of the almighty buck, as it is to let a bunch of babys die from luekemia. It just doesn't play as well on the 6 o'clock news. Putting as many people out of work as everyone is speculating will create a huge impact on this country (if the last three years wasn't enough of an example, read on mcduff!) I recently read an article speculating a new tech boom based on retiring baby boomers and the standard 3% growth rate. The article estimated 100k+ jobs unfilled in 5 to 7 years. It was a cheery report, but if you dump 1 in 10 IT jobs overseas, where does that level out? Sadly, I believe we're in for a long slow recovery (if you can call it that) where those opening jobs are offset by offshoring and outsourcing to 3rd world resources. Why shouldn't those companies replace their retiring high-paid techies with cheap low cost flunkies? If there is no control put in place, that is exactly what they will do. The blind club of legislation is scary, but the corporate beast needs to be clubbed a few times to keep it in line! A little protectionism to keep jobs here is not going to break the big companies (heck, its common with other countries ), and may keep enough jobs here to prevent the US from become one more starving third-world on the scrap-heap. Grim
If the roads were full of holes, the cops were corrupt, the toilets wouldn't flush and nobody had electricity, AND a foreign power was exerting military control over us, we'd have a problem. Again.
Well, the roads suck in my home state, cops are corrupt in many cities, California was plagued by rolling blackouts last year... but at least it's domestic power exerting control over us via the PATRIOT act. So I guess you're right, no need for tax revolt. We are clearly getting our money's worth. 40 percent of the economy to keep the plumbing working. (Talk about flushing money down the toilet!) Where do I go to return the money I got from the Bush tax cut? I want to pay more! Weee!
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
For every one of you, there's somebody with 8.
Having 8 TV's in your home is freakish and weird, but then so is having none.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I would expect not, seeing as I'm not an employer. I'm a programmer, and I get paid what I get paid because I provide value to the company that they couldn't get from Bangalore. If somebody came a long who could do my job as well for less, I might be let go... but at the same time, if somebody came along offering me more for the same work, I would seriously consider leaving. It's called "at will" employment, and I would not have it any other way. If you don't like it, move to a communist nation where you are guaranteed a job regardless of whether you are worth it.
paper MCSE's willing to work cheap. Some will some will not. The U.S. does not and never will need H1Bs to do ANY JOB!!!
Spoken like somebody who doesn't know anyone who's tried to run a hotel. If you think you can find American-born citizens who are interested in cleaning up bathrooms and bedrooms for strangers at minimum wage, you are clearly some kind of nut.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I notice you overwhelmed us with a relentless barrage of facts refuting his claims... It's no damn wonder India can pay minimum wage for tech jobs Read this you fuckhead:: - Whats minimum wage in the US is a upper middle class wage in India. Stats: Average Salary of a entry level programmer in India is Rs 400,000 an year (8000$). With 8000$ you can rent yourself a house in an ultra urbane place ..get a decent car..live the same quality of life which a middle class person in the US would enjoy.
As an employee you are a commodity
Soup is good food
You made a good meal
Now how do you feel
To be shit out our ass
And thrown in the cold like a piece of trash
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
As if anyone remaining in the Bush administration has a good reputation to begin with.
You bring up Hotel work and I have to laugh... my family has worked in hotels and ran them. I feel VERY comfortable in saying that you do NOT need H1Bs. Next you will say that we need them for our fast food industry.... another myth...
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
Past tense... as in "back in the 70s"?
Find me two college kids who want to clean hotel rooms for minimum wage in all of Minnesota, and I will be impressed. Find enough to staff the hundreds of hotels just in the Minneapolis airport corridor, and you will have performed a miracle.
Those same kids can make ten bucks an hour (plus tips) pouring coffee at Caribou, and they know it. Why would anybody who can speak English well enough to hold a job like that want to clean toilets?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
After living in India for 6 monthes and recently visiting Hyderabad and Bangalore (India's biggest IT centers) I believe that the computer industry in India are far more crucial than the industry in the states. While unemployed IT workers in the states may have to lift boxes all day, the unemployed workers in india may be forced to beg on the streets and starve to death. The IT industry in India does more for poverty, starvation, and living conditions than the Red Cross. In comparison to the other cities of India the IT centers are like pollution and poverty free utopias. On top of that, India's schools ARE more competitive. The top tech school in India (IIT, Bombay) accepts 25 of its aplicants. So bassically my point is that while the American IT industry may help the economy, America is in little danger of losing thousands of lives to starvation.