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A Thoughtful Look at Indian Outsourcing
thefinite writes "This article needs to be read by anyone interested in the outsourcing of IT jobs to India, no matter your opinion of it. It dispels some rumors (for example, if Indian IT companies do such bad work, why are over half of Carnegie Mellon's highest-rated programming companies Indian?). It addresses all of the arguments. Perhaps most importantly, it adds faces to the problem. It not only tells us about the American programmers who are out of jobs, but also about the Indians who are getting them. In the end of it, this is what Free Trade is about: people. This article makes that clear."
This article is simply a sensational piece. It's intent is to say, "See? Look at all the smart programmers we found in India! Don't you feel ashamed of yourselves now?" At which point both sides of the argument will start shouting.
Do yourself a favor. Realize that there are smart people in India, and there are smart people in the US. Realize that the amount of outsourcing done is ineffective and will change, but some outsourcing works and will work.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I assume that some of them are bad, and some are good. Some of my friends have worked with outsourced code that was unbelievably bad; on the other hand, I've seen awful code in the US.
I think there's a bit of everything in that; some actual bad code, some poor communications, some just about everything.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
...but it's still a race to the bottom.
Just wait until the Indian programmers become too expensive and the jobs move to Elbonia. Can we expect a thoughtful article on how the greedy Indian programmers need to be nicer to the folks in Elbonia who are getting the jobs now.
It's all about the rich getting richer, nothing more.
BTW, First Post.
a lot of commentry compares the outsourcing of computing with the outsourcing of manufacturing in the seventies and eighties. This might seem as a logical progression of employment to cheaper regions however what happens to those people who lose their jobs and are still trying to pay for the college education which they required to get those jobs.
Irregardless of the angle placed upon the situation or the people involved, the "outsource-to-India" thing is affecting more than a few American jobs. This is a global problem.
Realistically, IT workers (non-management) need to consider their jobs redundant and over in five years. Make sure you've got skills that require onsite presence, like cabling.
The industry is just about finished, people, and it's getting worse. Give it a little longer and we'll see the likes of Sun vanish, HP is exiting the Unix market and the Linux bubble will eventually burst.
Can *you* make coffee?
I find it rather ironic that so many people in America, the land of capitalism, hate outsourcing so much. This is simple economics right out of Adam Smith. People in India can do the same things as people here in the States, and at a significantly lower price. Therefore, they get the jobs, and rightfully so. One good benefit for Americans is that this allows their employers to use that money elsewhere. And yeah, IT job salaries might fall, and some people might have find jobs outside the IT field. But for the most part Indians need these jobs much worse than we do. I'm willing to bet that as far as possessions go, the average unemployed computer geek is significanlty better off than the Indian worker who "stole" his job.
then why did you elected him to white house
but this article has to be extraordinary, as Michael didn't put even a single flamebait word at the end of the posting.
... ;-)
Now I go reading
That's one thing this is NOT about: free trade. Free trade is when an unemployed American computer scientist can go to India to get a job. Guess what? It's impossible for Americans to get work visas in India. Why? Because they are protectionist.
People need to realize that the exodus of jobs is a one-way ticket. Indians can come over here and work as programmers, but Americans can't go to India. This is really a story of the American worker getting shafted by the illusion of "free trade." So let's stop the propaganda and say what it really is.
... it's the white collar execs (and wannabe execs) here in Corporate America that we're mad at!
They get the nice fat promotions and bonuses, while our jobs go elsewhere. And we are the same people they praised just last year as invaluable assets to the company.
So what happened? They can't get rich pulling fancy accounting tricks, so this is what they've resorted to.
I seriously hope that I'm wrong when I predict that this whole thing will fail miserably (taking the off-shore jobs with it).
I have nothing again'st people making a living, but lets see how your tune changes when they start outsourcing journalist jobs...
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
This leaves the americans with the opportunities to open liquor stores!
As I was told by an Indian man at a liquor store once as I was reading a magazine... "this is not a library, you either buy or get out".
I picked it up in my wired mag yesterday and read it, am I worried? Somewhat, what am I doing? Re-inventing is the only way I can keep head above water.
Already at work the Indians have come, they've worked on one project here quite well. Even though we're hiring American programmers still, Indians are good for the ground level work.
My adaptation? My brain, nobody can stay a drone level coder, I have my double Bachelors in Computers/Human Resources and I'm putting it to work developing and maybe someday deploying my applications in service to my niche.
I'm also contemplating my graduate school options, law school or business school? As far as the Indians go, they won't be able to represent me in court (at least not yet). Management still has possibilities (somebody needs to tell the Indians what to code, or the Indians are merely competition then...).
In short people, FIGHT, FIGHT TO THE DEATH!! Heed the lessons of Bethlehem steel and suffer the consequences of what happens when you are lazy (look up Bethlehem steel on the web if you don't know what I'm talking about). Money is not about sitting on your but and doing nothing, never has, never will!
...in bed
This has nothing to do with corporations (little does): it is all about getting rid of unnecessary, artificial barriers put up by governments that prevent people who do the jobs better from doing their jobs.
Companies are free to outsource as they see fit. And workers who are out of work because of outsourcing are free to apply political pressure to stop the outsourcing. If you want to keep your job, get organised. Maybe free trade does not come in favour of the American middle class but rather the very rich. So fight it. It is not in your interests. Fight it. You have a weapon. Your vote.
and the one thing that I wanted to ask the author was about how the heck is every American supposed to be an innovator? He seems to go over this idea several times, but never really lays down an arguement for it. This article constantly talks about how Americans need to become innovators for the world, as this seems to be his idea of the evolution of a knowledge worker. This is you typical sensational type reporting that Wired likes to do, and only seems to share half the situation.
Shouldn't this be a semi-colon? Am I the only one that wanted to type about:people into Mozilla?
In the end, I do think it'll be a while before the "highest level" of IT (such as research labs) find comparable counterparts at that deep a discount. People who are worried about their job moving offshore should think about how they can do things that can't move as easily, perhaps by increasing their education (MS/PhD)...
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
I know the point of Slashdot is to collect and present stories of interest to technology oriented people, but is there really any need to print at least one story from each print edition of Wired, every single month without fail? I already have a wired subscription thanks! :-P
Could it just be that because of America's prosperity has created a "bubble" in the american labor market over the past decades?
Maybe all americans are simply overpaid and we're in for a BIG correction in the coming years?
Kinda scary.
Yes, outsourcing is a good thing. The jobs end up going to those individuals who are capable of doing a better job.
Yes, cheaper = better. If someone does the SAME job for a lower price, it is a much better deal.
off than the Indian worker who "stole" his job.
That is so funny. The Indians did not steal the jobs. Rather, the jobs were given away to the Indians by those who could not do them as well. If you refuse to compete with someone who does it better, you are giving away the job.
I've patented outsourcing jobs to India. If your company is doing that, please let me know, since a hefty license fee ($699 for a developer, $35 for embedded systems develop) will be charged.
As long as these companies are not shipping my private info overseas for processing, then I don't have a problem with it.
If companies do routinly ship this data without a customer's knowledge, THEN I HAVE A PROBLEM!!
The key word is not "better" but "cheaper", it happened with manufacturing jobs in the past 2 decades... it started happening with other jobs now. As long as executive positions are not being outsourced Corporate America could care less about who is doing the job, and the quality of it.
In some sense it is economic suicide, sure you produce cheaper goods, but those who are in this country to buy them are out of jobs. I.e. they have no money to buy those cheap goods, and the people who produced the goods are too underpayed to afford those goods. This is why MBA schools should be shut down once and for all, they have been produced miserable failures for the past 2 decades, a ton of greedy idiot savants who are unable to see the whole picture.
I could care less if Indian companies can do the same job better, or cheaper. If that was the case Indian corporations would rule the market, if there was indeed a perfect free economic system as the article sort of tried to hint.
I sure would hate to be him right now. Is he looking for a deathwish or something?
My genetically modified flower tells me that this Slashdot article is going to be a landmine!
(hides under cubicle)
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
Capitalism is a self-regulating system. The glut of money in the U.S. has resulted in us sending money and jobs overseas, distributing the wealth. It's nothing new.
------- "A true friend stabs you in the front." -Eliot
"Don't you think we're helping the US economy by doing the work here?" asks an exasperated Lalit Suryawanshi. It frees up Americans to do other things so the economy can grow, adds Jairam.
:)
-----
Maniar uncorks an aphorism that he doesn't realize I've heard 8,000 times before (in part because American white-collar workers have long said it to their blue-collar compadres) - and that I don't realize I'll hear several times again during my stay: "There's nothing permanent except change."
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The experience did more than capsize his work life. It battered his belief system. He's long espoused the virtues of free trade. He says that he supported Nafta and that for 12 years he's subscribed to The Economist, a hymnal in the free trade church. But now he's questioning core beliefs. "These are theories that have really not been tested and proven," he says. "We're using people's lives to do this experiment - to find out what happens."
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"Someday," Janish says, "another nation will take business from India." Perhaps China or the Philippines, which are already competing for IT work.
"When that happens, how will you respond?" I ask.
"I think you must have read Who Moved My Cheese?" Aparna says to my surprise.
amazing, they read American motivational books. btw, I recommend the book to you. very short book, you can read it in barnes and noble..
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For US workers, the path beyond services seems uncertain. But again, history provides a guide. Thirty years ago, another form of outsourcing hit the US service sector: the computer. That led to a swarm of soulless processing machines, promoted by management consultants and embraced by profit-obsessed executives gobbling jobs in a push for efficiency. If today's cry of the displaced is "They sent my job to India!" yesterday's was "I was replaced by a computer!"
Then, as now, the potential for disruption seemed infinite. Data crunching was just the start. Soon electronic brains would replace most of the accounting department, the typing pool, and the switchboard. After that, the thinking went, the modern corporation would apply the same technology to middle management, business analysis, and, ultimately, decisionmaking. If your job was emptying an inbox and filling an outbox, you were begging for someone to draw the I/O analogy - and act on it. Indeed, computer terminology is littered with traces of what were formerly jobs: printers, monitors, file managers; even computers themselves used to be people, not machines.
Computers have, of course, reshaped the workplace. But they have also proved remarkably effective at creating jobs. Bookkeepers of old, adding columns in ledgers, are today's financial analysts, wielding Excel and PowerPoint in boardroom strategy sessions. Secretaries have morphed into executive assistants, more aides-de-camp than stenographers. Typesetters have become designers. True, in many cases different people filled the new jobs, leaving millions painfully displaced, but over time the net effect was positive - for workers and employers alike.
If you've read this much, check out the article. I liked it...just remember to question everything you hear
Outsourcing isn't the magic arrow CEOs want it to be. This article doesn't really address anything important at all. Ratings are pretty meaningless. I know parts of companies that are rated at SEI Level 5, but produce some of the worst crap I've seen. They're rated well though, so they much be good.
Why doesn't someone write an article about all the times outsourcing has been tried before? How about what happened with Malaysia? How about the fact that the overhead involved in trying to manage people half-way around the world is higher than the amount they save by outsourcing? This isn't a new fad people. Sure, the people and the places change but the problems don't.
Things are different now than they were in the 80's I'll grant you, but no one seems to be drawing the comparisons. Health Care costs are rising in the US, thus possibly providing better savings when outsourcing now. However, it's not like this is a new concept and that the problems aren't well known. Let's see some hard questions asked and analysis done based on past experience!
KhyronThis article makes interesting advertising for outsourcing firms and raises some very valid points but hardly can be considered either objective or entirely factual. The article talks about the quality of Indian IT firms (and they do have some high quality professional firms). However, they fail to mention the many negative experiences U.S. firms have had with botched projects, poor service and support compounded by language issues despite claims that Indian English skills are adequate (albeit this is not true in every instance). One of the main issues offsetting these facts is that they work for a tenth of what their US counterparts do. Companies find it cost effective to allow them to make these mistakes and learn from them (which they seem to be doing). Outsourcing is a minefield that can lead to extraordinary success or disastrous failure. From an economic perspective the cost savings you reap from outsourcing you pay for in the long term (as a nation) by the erosion of your markets buying power. 3 Million consumers in your home market (making $70,000 dollars a year) are replaced by consumers in a market hostile to foreign competition making $8000 dollars a year (for the top tier anyway). Sooner or later America will realize this and legislation will be put into place to stop it. But in the meantime hang onto your seats
There are plenty of jobs for government agencies and firms that do a lot of contracting for the government (defense). Your average programming job for financial software or something equally mundane is going somewhere else.
Most of the menial programming jobs that can be modularized so to speak, are going away. Innovation and product specialty is here (for now at least)
Better IS cheaper. If you can get the same thing for less money, it is a much better deal.
it happened with manufacturing jobs in the past 2 decades
Yes. the Americans were fat and lazy and didn't bother to compete.
In some sense it is economic suicide
No, it's not.
but those who are in this country to buy them are out of jobs
Not true at all. Unemployment is down a little now compared to BEFORE the outsourcing boom.
Some of my good friends at uni are Indian (or at least British Indian), I have the greatest respect for their intelligence. However my experiences with Dell tech support (ie, Bangalore) left me with a negative impression of my outsourced asian counterparts. The reason for this was probably the training they had been given by Dell, to dispose of calls quickly and blame problems on the users. As with most slashdotters I only call technical support with problems I cannot fix myself (hardware). To be told that 'the system is working as specified' over and over again, (despite hardware interupts consuming 99% of my processor!) only annoyed me. Eventually it took the threat of legal action against Dell for my computer to be fixed. I don't believe it would have progressed this far had I been able to speak with someone local. Please understand I am not against outsourcing of jobs to India, only that big corporations exploit such workers to 'fob off' customers.
I guess things have quieted down now or perhaps we in the US have just lost interest. But there was a time where I am sure a few CEO's and CIO's had to be worried how long it would be before their big software project went up in a giant Pakistani mushroom cloud.
Do political situations, like the border skirmishes near Kashmir, ever get discussed when it comes to making these outsourcing decisions? If India was thrown into a state of turmoil due to an attack from Pakistan what would happen to outsourced projects? Or if India attacked Pakistan in a way that the US felt was too severe and sanctions were put into place against India, what would happen to these contracts?
'Same speed C but faster'
My unique dillema is as follows: :)) are going through since I am with them in it. I can also NOT go back to India because I want to keep the PR status (you have to be in US for 6 months to keep it valid). Sigh.
I am an Indian who has a "Permanent Resident" status. BUT, I am unemployed. I understand what the Pilgrim Americans (I cannot call them Native Americans
Somebody goes to an Indian outsourcing firm and asks them what they think about Indian outsourcing?
And then its supposed to be interesting and insightful when they say "Hey, this is really good for you guys, no really!"?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
This article makes interesting advertising for outsourcing firms and raises some very valid points but hardly can be considered either objective or entirely factual. The article talks about the quality of Indian IT firms (and they do have some high quality professional firms). However, they fail to mention the many negative experiences U.S. firms have had with botched projects, poor service and support compounded by language issues despite claims that Indian English skills are adequate (albeit this is not true in every instance). One of the main issues offsetting these facts is that they work for a tenth of what their US counterparts do. Companies find it cost effective to allow them to make these mistakes and learn from them (which they seem to be doing). Outsourcing is a minefield that can lead to extraordinary success or disastrous failure. From an economic perspective the cost savings you reap from outsourcing you pay for in the long term (as a nation) by the erosion of your markets buying power. 3 Million consumers in your home market (making $70,000 dollars a year) are replaced by consumers in a market hostile to foreign competition making $8000 dollars a year (for the top tier anyway). Sooner or later America will realize this and legislation will be put into place to stop it. But in the meantime hang onto your seats.
For all the people reading this (especially outside the UK and the US) and wondering why they've never heard about this city called "Mumbai"...
...it's just Bombay.
Thomas Miconi
I have no problem with a competetive atmosphere, however when it comes down to the question of my children or thiers, I choose mine. If I am to be the means by which my family succeeds in life, then to hell with them -- slap up restrictions on outsourcing and keep in within the borders.
If they don't like it, tough, they can come up with their own solutions like we have.
Well just today my company informed me that they will be cutting my salary in half. If I dont like it Im welcome to find a job somewhere else. The final comment is what ticked me off. "We can hire an offshore worker for 1/3 of what we pay you." I laughed. I worked with ALOT of offshore workers and they have yet to complete ANY tasks we assigned them.
That's not the point. This point is that Indian workers have the option of coming here and working. By law, it is illegal for Americans to get work visas related to IT in India.
So, here we are in the year 2004. America doesn't have enough IT jobs to support our own programmers. India's IT sector is booming. But guess what? American's are NOT allowed to travel to India to get a job.
This is not free trade. It's the raping of our nation.
If India is really about free trade then let US workers follow the jobs to India. Oddly, India has laws making it very difficult for gringos to move there, even as they push for more opportunities to come here.
This seems relevant, though perhaps less thoughtful:
Discovery
That's all this Indian Outsourcing thing is.
Are there really really good, really smart Indian programmers? Of course there are! But overall, on the average, outsourcing will end up biting most companies in the ass, in the long run. There are hidden costs to it, like the 11 hour time difference, language barriers, cultural differences (anecdotally, from many accounts, Indians tend not to raise questions, or think independently when a design sucks, etc.)
Worse yet, this will bite the US Software industry in the ass when we suffer from brain drain - when software engineering is no longer a sought after degree. Then the Indians will start their own companies, and eat our lunches.
Worse still - with the decimation of these high-paying jobs, comes an overall lowering of the standard of living here in the US. These companies got rich by selling to the richest market in the world - American consumers. By gutting their own customers, these companies are shooting themselves in the foot.
- - -
That said - the writing, in big letters, in crayon, is:
Investors should believe that a wise company outsources, because it's a move towards efficiency. It will eliminate those overpaid "web designers" that are sapping corporate profits. Companies are "cutting fat". It's perceived as a gutsy move.
Actually, it's the herd mentality. "Oh my god! IBM's outsourcing, they're going to KILL us unless we outsource too."
But mainly - it's a movement designed to lure investment dollars back to the Tech Industry. It's basically hype. Companies who outsource are selling stock. Not products and services. This is their motivation, their drive. And it's very much a herd mentality. Among investors, AND corporations. They may be heading off a cliff. They may be heading to the slaughterhouse. Or perhaps greener pastures. But make no mistake. The Outsourcing Movement is NOT a drive to offer better service, or find better talent, or even save real money. It's a drive to LOOK like they are.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
This is a total canard. The number of Indian programmers here on H1B is a tiny tiny fraction of the number of jobs that are being outsourced to Indian workers living in India.
A couple of points to ponder;
(1) Being a software engineer just out of university - i'm currently working at a major bank which has it's own Indian software development wing. Quite a few large Australian companies do this and have already gotten rid of 'small' amounts of in-house developers.
(2) This 'outsourcing' phenomenon is very cyclical in nature, and India happens to be the flavour of the month - in a decade it'll probably be some other developing country.
(3) To best protect yourself from this is too be helpful in other areas of the business. Become more involved in the 'business end' of the company, looking at bettering processes, even start training people.
(4) Not everything can be outsourced, focus on continuous self improvement in *ALL* areas of your working life and you shouldn't have anything to worry about.
I've been out of work and interviewing. Every company I interviewed with has opening because they're bringing their outsorced projects back.
Granted, it's not 6 figures like 5 years ago, but it's still nice.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The problem is not so much job outsourcing as it is dollar exportation. When our already embattled middle class collapses, those businesses which made money through such cost-cutting strategies as outsourcing will discover they have no one left to sell to. I say this as a staunch antiprotectionist.
An indian programmer might be able to live on $11,000 a year, but she won't be buying any GM products, either.
2... ???
3 convergence!!
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
In the end of it, this is what Free Trade is about: people. This article makes that clear." .05 seconds of warning before a redundancy. I'm not knocking India or other outsourcing locations, but too many companies fail to recognize home grown quality and talent.
If it were about free trade, I could freely follow my outsourced job to wherever it is sent. If it were about free trade, no immigration restrictions would prevent me from living in an economy where a car isn't required, middle class people have houskeepers and homes don't average $150,000. If it were about people, then the 40 year old U.S. worker might get more than 0-7 days of vacation for the first decade of their employment, a bit of flexibility to live a life and raise a family and more than
outsource congress outsource Bush outsource CEOs
It's all about people!
--followed my job...
The cloud over all this is that once these kinds of jobs leave, few return. While I can't help but feel regret for those who believed they were entitled to pool tables and arcade games at work, I've never had it like that. I go to work, and I work, I don't play games or disapper for long breaks. I even put in 16-18 hour days for a while, thanks to the over-eager administration where I once worked (just before they outsourced us), because I felt some commitment to doing a job well. I was paid a pittance for it, while the tech boom fattened a lot of salaries.
It's all come back down to earth, however, when you compare $11K to $50K, it still looks like a bargain. As an employer/customer it's a bit harder for them to attend your meetings, however and you end up with some other logistical issues, but if you can accept them then you're go. Maybe keep a couple local analysts on your clock to work with them.
The bare facts are, every job everyone does in the USA can be done cheaper somewhere else. Heck, I find apples at Costco from NZ or Chile, how can that be? (Actually these probably come back on freighters that would otherwise be dead-heading, so it can be cost effective to transport, but the apple still has to be grown, picked and packed.) At what point are americans not redundant? I mean, besides being fat-cat execs who collect massive compensation before the accounting fraud is finally found out and they've squirreled all the geld away.
The US, like it or not, is actually heading back towards a feudal society. Peasants which pay to rent the appartment or work the land and royalty, which owns everything.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wow, what an incredible article. Allow me to summarize it, in an analogy:
I'd like to introduce you to Juan. A healthy, though very lean, eight year old boy, the rigors of his life have not yet beaten him down. His bright eyes still have a glint of boyish exuberance in them, and he still has all ten of his fingers.
Juan works in a Nike factory in Costa Rica. He has since turning four, and will most likely work there for the rest of his life. He makes 22 cents per week, not a great amount of money but decent for the area in which he lives. With a small supplemental farm, his family can feed itself between Juan's, his parents', and his seven remaining siblings' income from Nike. He spends his spare time doing odd jobs, saving up to one day buy a pair of the shoes he helps make.
Now, meet Joe. Joe lives in San Diego, California. This annoyingly whiney middle aged dead-beat dad used to work for Nike, until his plant relocated to Costa Rica. Joe spends his days begging for spare change, and protesting at WTO conferences against the loss of American jobs.
Juan does his job every bit as well as Joe used to, except that he doesn't complain constantly, doesn't demand unionization or health benefits, and doesn't even go to the bathroom during his 14-hour shifts.
So, dear readers, please see that Juan doesn't hate you, and that globalization means good things, for everybody.
"High touch." That means *social skills*. In short, gentlemen, the age when undersocialized folk such as ourselves could command high salaries is gone. We're going to be the manufacturing workers of the future...unemployed and lacking the skills to move ahead. In their case, it was a college education; in ours, meeting and greeting.
People with Aspergers, etc. are going to be unemployable in the new economy, which is a pity given the increasing rates of autism. I don't think most of the tech geeks will adapt to service jobs very well.
I actually just made a similar comment in another thread. But, my company (I'm a founding partner) has tried the outsourcing thing. We outsourced a relatively simple C++ project to a group in Pakistan. Sure, they were cheaper than anyone domestically had bid, but they also couldn't ever make it work. We completely threw out their "solution" and I ended up writing it myself.
I think that most (not all) companies outsourcing overseas for cost reasons will find out that they only get what they pay for.
The reason that India has a disproportionate number of SEI CMM level 5 companies is that with ridiculously cheap labor you can afford to create a Potempkin process on top of the rampant hacking.
Having worked with two Level 5 organizations, one level 4, and several level 3, I can assure you it's just expensive window dressing. Motorola foisted this fraud on the world in order to keep their Malcolm Baldridge award (they were told they had find something similiar to their six sigma program, but for software). The way you get to levels 2 through 5 is to fire the internal assessors (yes, they self assess folks), until their replacements tell you what you want to hear (Ye Gads, you're a level 3 organization!).
Unfortunately, the cost of generating the useless paper for the audit trail costs as much as generating the actual software, so they farmed out the work to their internal offshore software factories (at first in India, but now, wherever hords of programmers are cheap).
The vast majority of Indian job shops are also self assessed, and comically so (I've been told by some directors of SE that they are SEI CMM 3.5). The real problem is that the CMM has never been objectively validated. You hear wonderful claims by the SEPGs, and CMM - but their jobs depend on it, so fudging is expected. The proof is in the pudding, and when times got tough at Motorola, the CMM and Six Sigma specialists were the first to go. There's now grumbling about what to do with Global Software Group (their internal offshore outsourceing groups). Cheap is still no deal if it don't work.
Maybe this whole trend could be the impetus for starting some sort of IT/programmers union (or something in that vein). I know this would be a monumental task, but it would definitely change things.
Small business teams are nimble enough to get the job done. Large business has to outsource because it is so bloated it cannot function in a creative way. I am convinced that big business development is capable of maintenence and only maintenence. Since they have to outsource to survive, they weigh the costs and sending it to a well managed code farm in india seems like the cheaper solution. I believe that a well managed code farm in india can do the work of roughly 1 capable developer working in a small shop in america, and it costs about the same as well. The truth is organized and manufacturing oriented shops cannot possibly put out worthwile stuff because they are not afforded the luxury of creativity. Long live the indie strip mall dev shops!
That is all.
IBM announced that they would be outsourcing 3000 positions overseas. Partly as a result of the money they'll be saving, they plan on hiring 4500 more positions in the US.
Why can't people understand that outsourcing helps companies grow productivity, rather than just cutting costs? The more outsourcing that's done, the more jobs will be available.
How must I compete, Mensa? Lower my standard of living to $11,000 per year?
Why not find a job you can do better? If you are demanding $40,000 per year for something someone can do as well for $11,000, it does not take a Mensa genius to tell that you are in the WRONG field.
This "do a better job, loser" garbage gets old
It is nothing but true. Otherwise, jops have no real meaning, and the job mentioned above is nothing but busy-work. A giveaway. Welfare.
This has nothing to do with "better". It has to do with the fact that there are 5-some billion people on this planet so they can keep moving from country to country paying the lowest possible wages to get what they want.
That IS all about better. The better deal is better. Just like you can walk all over and get that loaf of bread for $.69 somewhere even though one store has it for $2.29. There is nothing wrong with getting the best deal in trades of goods and services.
They being the rich
This has nothing to do with the rich. This benefits the working class, mostly. The government gets out of the way of employers that want to hire them.... even if the employer or employee is "foreign".
It has nothing to do with our effort or skill level.
It has everything to do with the lack of it. If you want to be paid 4 times as much as that Indian programmer, you'd better be prepared to do 4 times the work.
I build business applications for a large media company. I would say at this point I spend roughly 20% of my time actually coding. At least 40% is dedicated to analysis and design. The other 40% is split between testing and deployment (including user training etc...). All of the requirments as well as much of the design springs from one on one contact, meetings and interviews with the people who are actually going to use these systems. Dealing with users one on one gives you a tremendous insight into their business process and I don't think you can do that long distance. Now, to be fair let's say all coding can be moved overseas with no quality loss. This is a best case senario, but lets say it is true. If you outsourced some of this stuff you could save some money on that 20%, and maybe more if you were willing to try design overseas as well. I think doing that would greatly increase risk, but lets say that is viable as well. So overall, lets say 40% of the process can be moved overseas. Lets also presume an 50% savings for doing this over in house talent. That leads to a savings of at most 20% on the entire project. A 20% savings seems pretty good at first, expect when you consider that someone like me both gathers requirments and implements them. There is a zero percent loss of information between me and me. If you move the coder overseas and keep requirments local, no matter how detailed you make requirments the loss will be much greater. Furthermore I currently make specifications without full details of implementation of everything. I don't need to make a how-to document because I will be implementing this. This means to send requirments overseas, you need to send something far more detailed then you would use internally. Lets say this adds 50% to the requirments phase. That brings your savings down to 10%. Now lets look at the time difference. A bug found ion the morning will not be fixed until the next day due to time-zone issues. I'd say that will add another 50% onto the testing phase. Now your savings is gone, and you don't have people in house who really understand your system. I don't think offshore coders are any better or worse then US ones, but I can't see how they can be viable for small-medium size projects without actually being here. And that given that all my assumptions were very generous in their favor. I think the people jumping on the bandwagon for big savings are going to be very disappointed in the next 2-3 years.
In the end of it, this is what Free Trade is about: people. This article makes that clear.
From first-hand eye witness reports, its mainly
about corporations from rich 1st world countries
extracting cheap labour and resources from poor
3rd world countries.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
I feel the problem with coding going out to India is similar to NAFTA and American factory works not to long ago- it's being used by large American companies to build goods off of cheap labor. Free trade is great if both countries, as a whole, are benefiting from the trade. But what's going on here is India is simply the new factory, and it's not really building its own infrastructure- it's building ours. And really, only a small portion it's population is really reaping the benefits. Look at the standard of living, homelessness, etc. of the average Indian. And what will happen if America stops outsourcing labor to India? They don't even come close to a self-sustaining economy based on technology.
" I know parts of companies that are rated at SEI Level 5, but produce some of the worst crap I've seen."
My dog eats food and produces shit. He does it consistenly, and he has a whole process he follows. Hell, it might be SEI level 7 based on how well that process works.
But its still shit.
A big draw to outsourcing in India is the high quality of the graduates from the Indian Institute of Technology (or institutes, rather, as they have several campuses). I've heard that this is quite possibly the best CS school on the planet, is harder to get into that any of the top schools in the US or Europe, and has by far the most challenging curriculum. Most of the tech companies in India are led by people schooled at IIT, as are a large number of companies in the US and elsewhere in the world.
It's amazing that IIT is not a household name like MIT and Harvard.
If unemployment is not down, then it is at the same level, if not a little lower, than it was during the years before the outsourcing boom.
It shows that the claim that "free and fair trade costs Americans jobs" is a lie.
Ah, here goes this same old debate again.
/. blame MBAs and greedy CEOs for the offshoring quagmire. Remember that management's job is to look out for the interests of their shareholders first and foremost.
Interesting that many on
Latest word is that offshoring could become a political football. Astute technologists could make a difference here. If Senator Billy Bob is convinced stopping the migration of jobs to other countries will get him more votes, he'll make sure the tax code rewards companies that keep jobs here. Reducing the corporate tax burden, thus increasing profitability, means more money for CEO bonuses.
Unfortunately, a lot of us in technology think government is bad and should keep its hands off. One need only look at the debate over Internet taxation. We are staunchly on the side of keeping the government out, a.k.a. laissez faire. (Yes, yes, I know it's a different issue, but there is a thread between the two.)
Finally, some career advice. Position yourself for the future. The gap between "developer" and "business/systems analyst" is not that great, but the future job prospects are significant. No matter where the code monkeys live, somebody smart has to spec it out.
It happens in Europe as well. I live in the Czech Republic, and this story would be about my dsl provider. Forget that ADSL here is slow, unreliable and expensive($55 for 512/128), which is mostly because of our monopolistic telecom. Anyway, my connection didn't work the day it was installed, so I called tech support. After a minute or so of music the support guy finally answered in...Slovakian! Not even Czech with an accent. Of course, the languages are quite similar, but understanding them is just as hard, or probably even harder then an Indian guy. After calling them a few more times(the problem wasn't solved), it turned out that all of them were Slovak. What I don't yet know is if their support center is located in Slovakia, or here.
Its along the same lines as claiming somebody who can't stop drinking has a "disease", or that kids who fidget have a disease.
Its a way of taking away personal responsibility, but more importantly, it allows the drug companies to sell drugs to combat a disease.
Don't let the politicians fool you. People *are* stupid.
But aside from all first-worlders handing over everything we own to the 3rd world, is there another way to do this? To distribute the wealth.
Outsourcing is not "giving anything away". It is a fair trade for quantities of equal value. How is the wealth distributed this way? By decisions individuals make when they trade with each other. This is the best way (as opposed to the fascist/socialist solution, in which elites make the economic decisions).
It's mild, I realize, but the cover picture bugs the shit out of me. Combining the (mildly concerning) sexualization, (mildly concerning) appropriation of cultural symbols, and (mildly concerning) sensationalism of "kiss your cubicle goodbye", this cover seems inappropriate to me.
I realize I may be more sensitive to these things than y'all who aren't candy-assed liberals, but... it bugs me. If this sort of sexualized picture was used for some non-sensationalistic purpose, like selling cars, I might not mind. If this sort of sensationalistic copy were on some photograph that were not sexual or did not appropriate "exotic" cultural symbols it might not bother me either.
The way it stands, I tore the cover off of my magazine when it was delivered and briefly considered cancelling my (charter) subscription. (All the while thinking "After all those years of mediocrity from Wired, this is what is going to make me cancel?")
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
See,
most of the jobs that are moving out of the country are the type of jobs that are high profile. And therefor we hear a lot about it.
Typically, it is programming projects that require teams of 20 or 30 people (maybe) and that lasts for a year or longer.
But many programmers are employed where proximity is important and where the primary product isn't the software itself. Maybe it is a small financial institution or maybe a factory which needs a few programmers to build in house systems.
Sure, it sucks when HP, Sun and others move their big and fun projects to India, but many jobs will remain here, because it isn't cost effective to move them to India.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
That's one thing this is NOT about: free trade. Free trade is when an unemployed American computer scientist can go to India to get a job. Guess what? It's impossible for Americans to get work visas in India.
Guess what? Life's not fair. And Free Trade isn't fair either. No, you can't go over to India to get your job back. Somehow I doubt that you would if you could, but it doesn't matter anyway because you can't. Because that not what free trade is about, and that's why free trade is a good thing.
People are different. Countries are different. Cultures are different. It's foolish to expect them to all operate in the same way. Americans, as a society, have decided that we want a particular standard of living, a particular level of workplace safety, and lots of other things that make us very different that the people who live over in India. And so, because of the choices we've made here, and the choices they've made there, they can do a job for 1/10th the cost of us.
And that's what you get when you allow people to choose: Inequality. When people are free to make choices about how they want to live thier lives, different people will inevitably make different choices, and create differences that create some advantages and some disadvantages.
Trying to create a system (especially an economic system) in which people are equal will always lead to a system in which people are not free. And I'll take a free system over an equal system any day.
It's great that they have jobs over in India, but I'd rather them stay here and keep our society functioning as best as possible. Isn't this why we started tariffs and such? Shouldn't something similar be applied to outsourcing? If we automate away and outsource all the lower level jobs, then the economy will bust, since noone but higher up management and lawyers will have any money to keep buying products.
This outsourcing madness is just a prelude to most IT people being outsourced by increasing levels of software automation.
That will happen far, far before wages rise to American levels in India.
I'd call it the longest article I've read on outsourcing but it really didn't say much. Today's story on front of WSJ about the lives of Indian call center workers was really much more interesting and informative.
But what I'd like to see is some thoughtful writing on what programmers and other workers whose jobs will be outsourced over the next few years can do to help themselves. Protests and legislation are one thing, and not an unimportant one, but they're not enough. The articles that I'v read take a very rosy view of creative destruction and the new better jobs that will arise here as these jobs are lost. I'd like to see some thoughful, not wishful, ideas on just what those might be.
Perhaps there are none. In that case we will have outsourced our most valuable jobs and soon nothing will be left to do here, outside of making more reality tv shows perhaps, and we'll decline quickly. Or maybe the security threat of moving such important work outside of US will prove to be real and people will reconsider the wisdom of outsourcing. Obviously history has a way of playing tricks with what people expect.
In my view, sad to say, outsourcing will continue, new and better jobs will not be created here, and we'll all be a little too late in realizing it. Hope I'm wrong.
-1 offtopic. Retarded moderators.
>Free trade relies on the idea of comparative advantage, that one place is inherently better at doing something than another.
What economists mean by "comparative advantage" is a deeper and more surprising idea.
Even if you are the worst country in the world at every single economic activity, it turns out you still benefit from free trade.
What happens is that your trading partners, though they do everything better than you, are better at some things than at others. Their best move is to concentrate on their specialties and trade with you for whatever you're least worst at. They'll buy from you even though they could do better themselves, because they get more for their resources investing in their own specialties.
For popular audiences this gets summarized as "should Michael Jordan mow his own lawn?". He's strong, fast, coordinated and disciplined. He can mow a lawn faster and better than whoever he hires. But Michael Jordan's basketball playing is better than Michael Jordan's lawn mowing. That's his comparative advantage. As a result he plays basketball instead of spending the time mowing his lawn, and pays an inferior lawn-mowing person so he can specialize.
None of which is any comfort to a homeless technology worker.
Unions would definitely change things. If IT workers were able to unionize, that would eliminate almost all domestic IT jobs. It would make the offshore option that much more attractive. What's that you say? Not allow companies to offshore? OK, they'll just pack up and move the entire company, and the U.S. will completely lose its tech industry. Sorry, that's not the way I want things to be, but that's exactly how it would work if IT workers unionized.
The salary of the Indian programmer vs. my salary has absolutely nothing to do with skill level
That's idiotic. It has everything to do with it. If you want to be paid FOUR TIMES the real value of the job, your skills had better be so much better!
there's nothing I can do aside from spending more money and retooling for another job that will also get outsourced eventually and on and on and on
Cry me a river. Just find a job you can do the best. Not everything will be outsourced. On the contrary: unemployment in the U.S. has held steady while outsourcing has increased. Maybe you should go on the welfare roles and laze on the hammock for a while. Anything's better than whining piteously when some dirty foreigner does a job better than you.
But, really, there is a much more important issue that doesn't seem to be getting airtime. As a software developer, I have no problem with India or any other country doing my job. However, claiming that this is all just "capitalism at work" and developers should just "suck it up" is a specious argument, at best. I pay taxes to support the government, which in turn supports the citizens and corporations here in the US (I'm not interested in addressing whether this is the proper function of govt., that's just how it is right now). These corporations are taking those government granted favors (in the form of subsidies, tax breaks, trade favors, patent and copyright protections, use of infrasturcture resources such as highways, etc etc etc ) and hiring people overseas. Now, if MS or IBM wants to move their headquarters over to India, fine, so be it. But I truly believe it's a crock to take advantage of the pro-business US laws, excellent infrastructure, a competent policing force, and all the other services that developed under our system of capitalism, and then not supporting the community that supports you. I'm not talking handouts or redistribution of wealth, I'm talking about the long-term consequences of this sort of policy. Yes, US software developers cost more, but the cost of that worker is factoring in a lot of "unseen" advantages that are granted to companies founded here.
The environment that allowed MS and IBM and all the rest to grow and prosper is unique to the United States. These companies would have never happened if they had started in India.
An interesting bias to articles like these is that the author is not threatened with the problem. I'm waiting for the time when journalists are outsourced...I think the tone of the articles will change.
And, just like all the other jobs, I think journalism can be outsourced. Just some things to consider:
* Photographers submit their photos digitally
* Columnists and reports submit their stories electronically.
* No need to work through the night anymore - it's daytime in India when it's night here.
The only real problem is understanding American culture enough to report on it and covering stories remotely.
Right here.
Try going to India and getting a job. Several Americans have, and have been turned away.
"We are not cheap, we simply better"? Excuse me, but as bad as average CS student in States is, i would pretty much get this one, over same average bod from India. I mean hello - there is no way country with lack of developed education system in CS field can produce vast amount of qualified people in such a short time. And i had my share of working with indian programmers both in US and in outsourced form - unfortunately i am yet to find one that would be able to do work at any decent level. Its not about racism or anything. Its simply fact about lack of proper education. People who one day worked in butcher store and then deciding that they could code after going through couple weeks of training - are not good choice, even though they are cheap.
I know that many countries have excellent educational institutions, but it is true that there are plenty of foreign students in American universities. I see nothing wrong with that, per se. If they themselves are paying their tuition, or even if their socialist governments are paying their tuition for them, I don't see that any real harm is being done -- as long as American taxpayers aren't funding any of the cost of their tuition.
Now, many colleges in the U.S. have other sources of income aside from what they collect in tuition: namely, private contributions, government grants funding various research programs, and in the case of state schools, direct compensation via tax dollars. How a private school uses its private donations is up to them, and ultimately their donors; but when we are talking about government money, I think it's a very different issue.
The question is, if a foreigner comes to college in the United States, is he or she paying their way? Perhaps, a part of the cost of what they enjoy at university -- if you could do a kind of per-student cost accounting -- is funded by the American taxpayer. Just as an out-of-state student (say, a New Yorker attending a state school in Florida) pays a higher tuition than an in-state student, I would think an "out-of-country" student should pay an even higher tuition.
It's no secret that many foreign students are involved in government funded research projects. What other government monies find their way to foreign students -- directly or indirectly? When they then take this education and go back to their native country with it, and then compete with Americans on the open market, I ask, as an American taxpayer, what have we done to ourselves?
I'm only hoping -- for real -- that I have this all wrong, but I worry I don't. If tax dollars are undermining our industries, this is as great a mistake as the Romans allowing barbarians to serve in the Roman army. (Please, I'm not calling foreigners "barbarians" as some kind of slur. Use "Germanic peoples" if it pleases you.) These Roman trained barbarians then contributed to Rome's fall.
As far as I'm concerned, universities should be open and foreign students welcomed; but Americans should not have money taken out of their pockets for some kind of foreign job-works program, the result of which is to put Americans through a self-financed "economic dislocation."
Does anybody have any better insight into this?
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
It is all about the rich getting richer.
Companies don't care where the human resources are, as long as they are cheaper. If they could get people in Mexico to work for $1 a day programming, they'd move development offices there. This is how our economy is, now.
It saddens me to think that American companies no longer care about the american people. And that our government turns a blind eye to this just accentuates that feeling.
Free trade... um... sure... if by that you mean free to trade our jobs for cheap (albeit highly skilled) foreign labor. Not trying to flame bait I just get sick of the term "free trade" - it's such a blatantly propagandistic euphemism. Know what I mean?
Anyway its' funny 'cause up until the 1870's corporations didn't have the right even to move out of state let alone the country. See "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights" for an interesting account of the history of how corporations overcame such pesky encumberances.
But you've written a truely insightful comment. And this is coming from a guy who is +50 on the Karma thing.
I know insightful. This is insightful.
I think companies also like using it as a threat; kinda like the boogie man. "Johnny, if you ask for a raise, I'm sending your job to India"
Cripes. I've got the assume the stupid indians come here because only 1 in 50 seems to have enough brains to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Fucking cows are cows! Not your dead grandmother.
And they're delicious!
Here.
I just trained my replacements. All 12 of them came over on visas for 6 months so I could train them. Some of my co-workers applied for positions in India which they were very qualified for (all within the same company) and cannot get permission to work in india. They are protectionist.
So don't fall back on a stupid saying like FAIK (or a derivitive) when you don't know what you are talking about. It is a one way street, but fortunatly, the eastern europe guys are dishing it out too.
Last one to the bottom is a rotten egg!
The journalist keeps on comparing the shift of employment in various sectors e.g. farming, factory work, in the past in order to mitigate the worries about outsourcing in the present day. However, no sane person wants to spend their life working on a farm, or production line - it`s very,very, hard work. Most of us aspire to a middle class lifestyle. The problem with outsourcing is that directly destroys _middle_ _class_ jobs - that really is worrying for the average person.
It was also interesting to hear the Indian employees sound rather overconfident about the free market and their own prospects. India has had a rather protectionist attitude towards trade in the past - if you think the U.S. is moaning about the effects of outsourcing just wait until Indian jobs start moving elsewhere.
They say what goes around comes around so I wait with relish for the expertise of CEOs, journalists, lawyers, accountants to be outsourced to India as well - I bet that will get a _lot_ more publicity than a few I.T. jobs.
I went to CMU. A great number of the CS and engineering students are from India and other Asian countries, and they take their American-trained skills back to their countries with them. I'm hardly surprised that India, with 5 times the US population, and who sends its best scholars to the US for college, has half of the best tech firms.
The Wired article is a pathetic string of anecdotes with too few token statistics relevant to the argument: "is it okay to outsource all these jobs?" Here's another anecdote:
My friends are going into debt eating ramen with one of the best educations in the world.
InstantCrisis
Oh brother, here we go again. First of all, it's not a Free Trade issue
It is all about free trade (the outsourcing issue).
a competent policing force, and all the other services that developed under our system of capitalism, and then not supporting the community that supports you
Hiring you if you do the job better is support. However, if they hire you and pay you 4 times as much as someone who can do the job just as well in India, that is a giveaway. Welfare.
Yes, US software developers cost more, but the cost of that worker is factoring in a lot of "unseen" advantages that are granted to companies founded here
You blew your case apart when you called a tax break a "Favor". Sorry, when the government robs you a little less blind, it is not a "Favor".
The environment that allowed MS and IBM and all the rest to grow and prosper is unique to the United States. These companies would have never happened if they had started in India
And they would have never happened if they had to pay workers 4 times the value of the work, as you would like to see happen. The companies succeeded because they avoided mistakes like paying much more than the real value of things.
Don't tell me American coders are willing to go and work in India now. It's pure bullshit and if you were in a logical debate, it would probably matter and show that the Indian government is protectionist, but in reality, it plain simply doesnt matter.
The real debate is within America. Do we live in a global society or do we stay within? Especially coz we were the ones who made it so popular in the first place? That's the question America needs to ask itself.
This sig is empty.
(1) Dont hate Indians. They are competing with you on the job market. However its still a US firm choosing them over you.
(2) If the Govt would only force US companies from using Cayman Islands as a Tax Haven, we would save in one year atleast tens of billions. And as far as I am concerned, thats more evil than Outsourcing.
(3) India will be more affected when the Outsourcing mania ends. It has currently three times the amount of programmers and all of them would not be able to find a job when the outsourcing bubble bursts.
(4) Outsourcing to India is just like Dotcom was to Silicon Valley. Both are bubbles which should burst
(5) As the author of the article mentioned, Indian firms has a fascination towards Quality Certifications. However this affinity to process could prove to be irritating to US firms who demand change.
(6) 90% of the team who worked for me from India quit and moved to a bigger firm since the last project. Which means the market is definitely in a state of flux. US firms will definitely note this trend and wont be pleased when key people leave without qualms in the middle of the project.
(7) Indians prefer job stability over anything else. Also, they tend to view Bigger firms as better employers and a better fit over smaller firms offering an environment to work on better projects.
Rapid Nirvana
He uses correct punctuation and proper grammar.
As long as Chancellor Adolf Bush keeps planting money trees in the offices of C_Os, there will be no incentive to change. I am not against the Indian programmers, they are simply accepting what is being offered. What I am against is the CEO of HP offering her opinions on outsourcing while she is laughing all of the way to the bank to collect her $115M annual salary. What we need is to return to bi-lateral trade. Cancel NAFTA. Cancel WTO. Just because American dollars are going to these Indian workers doesn't mean they aren't being exploited, as well. Require basic workers rights overseas and you will see outsourcing plummet.
Here is an article on how outsourcing is not as bad or severe as people
claim.
Objectively, don't you think India and China need more, good jobs than
America? Also, you must admit that having a more advanced trading partner benefits
everyone! The article articulates in numbers how trade with india has increased more than jobs have been lost.
Also, isn't the point of robust competition that you need to be better than competitors? Shouldn't we be focused on finding competitive advantages rather than lamenting job losses?
Frankly I'm annoyed that programmers that should have good educations are making the same complaints that factory workers make with automation or immigration.
Automation makes our cars and TVs cheaper, so more people can have them. Immigration helps keep down the prices of farm goods. Outsourcing is just another way for a company to save a buck, which, in some way, will help the system. Whether through higher incomes for the rest of the company, higher tax revenues, greater dividends, or cheaper products, there are a multitude of ways in which every aspect of free trade helps EVERYONE.
Selfish people in any industry shouldn't ruin it for the rest of us. They shouldn't encourage politicians to restrict the natural order of the market. They should work hard, learn new skills, and stay competitive. This simple formula is the exact reason why America is a super-power!
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
They're probably more effective workers too, being devoid of western egos.
Flamebait.
that springs to mind right now is:
Its not the Indians who are doing the jobs for less you should worry about, its the government who allows this brain drain to occur. Regardless of what you thunk about the CTOs or the management of the 'real world' right now, they are only taking advantage of what they are being offered.
Lets make it plain and simple for those that can't read or wright:
Cheaper labor, and easier 'responsibility pointy over there thingy' culture.
This will bite them in the ass, and this generation of CEO/CTO will die along with the management articles they read. I'm from the UK and I've been living in mainland Europe for about five years, and over here you don't really see (doesn't mean it isn't happening, just its not so in your face) the mass out-sourcing the US is currently facing. I have to ask - what is it that makes the US so ripe for exploitation like this? Overinflated salaries for information technology workers?
I don't have a fantastic income, I work hard, and we don't oversell products just because we know 'dave' who I used to work with who now works in sales, and could do with the hit.
Sorry guys, but we kinda brought this on ourselves by flooding the knowledge pool within the subject, and making that knowledge easily transferable.
And you know what? I love it. Because its about time we kicked the 'landed in IT with a philosophy degree' people out, and brought it back to the people in IT who think that 'just for fun, I re-blew the ROMS on my wireless access point, so that my new custom WAP in the CAR can upload its performance data when I get home'.
I mean, our subject is SO overloading with marketing and crap. Just once, I want to see:
" Here comes the science bit..... "
The Flight to India
The jobs Britain stole from the Asian subcontinent 300 years ago are now returning. Is this a good thing or a bad one?
If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of your work involves a computer or a telephone, don't expect to have a job in five years' time. Almost every large company which relies upon remote transactions is starting to dump its workers and hire a cheaper labour force overseas. All those concerned about economic justice and the distribution of wealth at home should despair. All those concerned about global justice and the distribution of wealth around the world should rejoice. As we are, by and large, the same people, we have a problem.
Britain's industrialisation was secured by destroying the manufacturing capacity of India. In 1699, the British government banned the import of woollen cloth from Ireland, and in 1700 the import of cotton cloth (or calico) from India.1 Both products were forbidden because they were superior to our own. As the industrial revolution was built on the textiles industry, we could not have achieved our global economic dominance if we had let them in. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, India was forced to supply raw materials to Britain's manufacturers, but forbidden to produce competing finished products.2 We are rich because the Indians are poor.
Now the jobs we stole 300 years ago are returning to India. Last week the Guardian revealed that the National Rail Enquiries service is likely to move to Bangalore, in south-west India. Two days later, the HSBC bank announced that it is cutting 4000 customer service jobs in Britain, and shifting them to Asia. BT, British Airways, Lloyds TSB, Prudential, Standard Chartered, Norwich Union, BUPA, Reuters, Abbey National and Powergen have already begun to move their call centres to India. The British workers at the end of the line are approaching the end of the line.
There is a profound historical irony here. Indian workers can outcompete British workers today because Britain smashed their ability to compete in the past. Having destroyed India's own industries, the East India Company and the colonial authorities obliged its people to speak our language, adopt our working practices and surrender their labour to multinational corporations. Workers in call centres in Germany and Holland are less vulnerable than ours, as Germany and Holland were less successful colonists, with the result that fewer people in the poor world now speak their languages.
The impact on British workers will be devastating. Service jobs of the kind now being exported were supposed to make up for the loss of employment in the manufacturing industries which disappeared overseas in the 1980s and 1990s. The government handed out grants for cybersweatshops in places whose industrial workforce had been crushed by the closure of mines, shipyards and steelworks. But the companies running the call centres appear to have been testing their systems at government expense before exporting them somewhere cheaper.
It is not hard to see why almost all of them have chosen India. The wages of workers in the service and technology industries there are roughly one tenth of those of workers in the same sectors over here. Standards of education are high, and almost all educated Indians speak English. While British workers will take call centre jobs only when they have no choice, Indian workers see them as glamorous.3 One technical support company in Bangalore recently advertised 800 jobs. It received 87,000 applications.4 British call centres moving to India can choose the most charming, patient, biddable, intelligent workers the labour market has to offer.
There is nothing new about multinational corporations forcing workers in distant parts of the world to undercut each o
The ability for businesses to move jobs without the ability of workers to move with them is economically unhealthy and dangerous. What we have now is a situation in which businesses can move formerly high-education/high-paying jobs to high-education/low-paying countries that do not honor the ability of foreign workers to follow said jobs. For the US this is bad all-the-way around because, ultimately, it represents a movement of capital out of the US to other countries.
Do you realize we give tax breaks to the big companies
Tax breaks are not something "We give". A tax break means that the government merely robs someone a little less. It is not a gift.
Since they are NOT hiring more Americans we are shipping these tax dollars off to other countries.
This is not true in the case of tax breaks. This money is in fact 100% the property of the company.
Since they are NOT hiring more americans then the unemployment rate can not be going down
Yet it is. Other companies hire employees in different sectors to make up for it.
To give you an example my company just layed off 30K. They then hired 40K offshore. Thats 30K less jobs in America
There was probably a reason for this. Such as, the workers in that country did the job better. However, for every story like this, there are countless others where new hiring makes up for it.
They plan to do the same for another 20K in the next few months. If you took basic math you would relize that that is a decrease in jobs.
Your case only works if you count companies that fire. Of course, you ignore the ones hiring, as that makes your case look bad.
So, in my view, at the end of the day, outsourcing is only going to impact the bottom line a certain amount. There are certain costs which can't be shipped overseas. American businesses are generally coming to the end of the line when it comes to cost cutting exercises. The real focus now is on increasing the top line. Will moving jobs to India be good for the top line? That's a far more difficult proposition to support, given a simple lack of evidence.
Given all of this, what I'm yet to see is a sound theory of global economic equilibrium. Market forces are pushing jobs to India today. Tomorrow, will that force increase or decrease? What is impacting it? Inflation, for sure is one, but it seems a particularly thorny issue. What about the cost of education in America? Alan Greenspan can sit around and say the jobs will be replaced all he likes, but without some formal and concrete evidence, I'm not impressed. If there's anything I've learned in Data Warehousing, the past is rarely and dangerously an indicator of the future.
I deal with a few outsourcing companies directly on a daily basis (2 in India, 1 in Israel). The largest problem I have with these companies is not quality or quanity of work, but rather the sheer delay. If a problem arises at 3PM on Tuesday, it *might* be fixed by 3PM Weds. The coordination of 3 continents to get anything done is just too difficult. This is a problem that will always plague overseas outsourcing - until they start working on US time anyway.
Kristopher
My new employer is in the process of taking back control of an application that was designed by a US based consulting company, and implemented somewhere in India.
Our judgement is that their development process is out of control, producing divergent results in response to bug fixes.
The consulting company also insisted on using the Rational suite of applications - but their use cases, test plans & schema documents are not even in revision control! [let alone as part of UML models]
Caution: Do not stare into laser with remaining eye.
Then she says, "I'd like to know where you go from knowledge."
To wisdom.
This article talks about how some legal services are being outsourced to India. It is very small scale right now, but everything starts out small. It has some lawyers quite concerned that their expensive hourly jobs are being done by Indian lawyers for much less.
How many loggers while you're at it? Face it--the fantasy world of overpaid IT jobs is gone forever. You have a skill that is basically fungible in today's world, and can be purchased at a lower price than would sustain or satisfy you. What IT people have been failing to understand for years now is that technology expertise is not as valuable a skill as it was once perceived. In fact, a lot of technology work is drudgery on the order of rivetting and lever-pulling. Too bad for those who were counting on making $300,000 a year. Time to reinvent yourself. The steelworkers did it. The loggers did it. Now it's your turn.
Before the current outsource mania. My company had several projects done by Consultant firms in India. All of them pretty much considered raging failures. This I get mostly from friends in the company, though I witnessed the result of one of these projects first hand and it was a complete failure. Mind you this is not routine IT, but building telecom applications. Do I blame poor indian coders. Not at all. All the Indians who have come to work at our company seem very bright and motivated. They get the job done. The problem was trying to manage projects that continents away, with time zones out of sync and communications barriers (regardless of the english proficiency). This is my first point. You have to be very carefull with how critical and how easy to manage the outsourced project is. So I agree with the article. There are lots of talented Indian programmers. But that doesn't stop the outsourcing from often being a debacle. My next point is how do you develop your real technology managers (who understand the technology) and architects if you are farming out the lower level work. System Architects don't spring from Universities IMO, it takes some years in the trenches working on the systems to get the needed knowledge. Furthering of this point. The USA is already lagging on graduating scientists and engineers. It will certainly not encourage more graduates when it is ousourcing their potential work to India. Technology now unimportant in the USA. So this will be a nation of MBA's?
Because if you had a family, you'd NEVER go for what you just posted, even if you simply multiplied x each person. Once you have a kid, things change quite a bit. Your economics are also a bit skewed as far as internet/transportation costs. You're saying that a year's worth of bus service equals one month of internet. I don't know anywhere in the US that you can get a year's worth of bus for 50 bucks. Factor in the time it takes to get to work on public transportation. Again, once you have a kid, your priorities would be different.
if Indian IT companies do such bad work, why are over half of Carnegie Mellon's highest-rated programming companies Indian?
Superriority via numbers? There's 1.1 Billion of 'em. For every skilled american programmer, statistically, they've got 4 people of the same intellect.
~Will
sig?
The thing that is stupid about companies trying to save money on health care costs by outsourcing, is that by doing that, it actually drives health care costs UP for the employees who are still on it. I've always read that a big reason for our double digit health care increases is because there are so many uninsured people out there. All these uninsured people end up waiting til the last minute to get help, and then when they do, it's invariably an expensive emergency. So, when American companies lay off mass numbers of people, or cut people's benefits to let them fend for themselves, it's a short term fix and I would imagine screws the pooch in terms of affordable health care for all.
from the article:
...
> He's long espoused the virtues of free trade.
> He says that he supported Nafta and that for 12
> years he's subscribed to The Economist, a
> hymnal in the free trade church. But now he's
> questioning core beliefs.
now, i'm not saying that he was wrong and
now he's right, or viceversa, but i want to say this:
next time around, think more carefully before
putting your "faith" in something
giampy
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
I love how they say "hey look, these guys are smart and good".
You know what I spent today doing? The first half the day was fixing and identifying the bugs that our onshore, out-sourced workers scratched their heads at. The second half consisted of re-writing the documenation originally assigned to them - but the end product was so pathetic I had to go through and re-write it.
While I realize that I haven't necessarily come into contact with every outsourced worker, my experience with them has been that while they are competent programmers, they adapt very poorly and do not perform well unless their hands are held. I work for a Fortune 100... nay, probably a Fortune 100 (one of the largest banks in the U.S.) and all I've seen is that the work does live up to the "outsourcing is good" hype. While they excel at simple tasks, anything requiring either learning new things or coming up with "outside the box" solutions, out oursourced workers simply don't have the ability.
I wouldn't say this is some weird racial disability, all of our onshore guys are bright and extremely polite individuals, who I would be good friends with outside of the work enviornment, but I would lay this on their training. They learn the syntax of their programming language, and enough english to get by, but to say they do the job well is a lie.
"An indian programmer might be able to live on $11,000 a year, but she won't be buying any GM products, either."
She? She? Since when were girls programers? To my knowledge the tech/engineering/hard-science fields are manned almost entirely by men. Are you a feminist? Are you glad that our women have been corrupted beyond repair during the last 30 years? Are you happy that they are all going to hell in a handbasket while being lead by the "great womyn" of our century to their eternal death?
Encrypted IRC: SSH to port 20 on cat2.ath.cx and choose server 2
No doubt my rant will get lost in the ocean of other rants, but anyway...
One of my co-workers is an Indian in the US on an H1B visa. I have no problems with that. The problem is that he is probably one of the dumbest people I have ever worked with. He always messes up, kills our production environment, etc. I know there are very intelligent Indian folks out there. I went to high school with some, and one of them is one of my best friends. Unfortunately I don't work with one of these intelligent folks. I just wish people outside of IT would be more aware of the fact that no matter where you go, there will be people of varying quality. Some good, some bad...
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
If George Bush does such a bad job, why did he get elected?
Under capitalism, the rich only own the wealth they have created/earned. Does not bother me. I'm not jealous or greedy.
Except that in the process the rich are turning into the mega rich
No, free trade brings prosperity to all. Except for the overpaid and lazy and those caught in the "labour market bubble" (i.e. union thugs) where the wage has gone into the stratosphere.
The main opposition to free trade comes from those who are "statist" politically. The Pat Buchanan's and the Ralph Nader's. They lament individuals making economic decisions that are supposed to only be the perogative of government elites.
Want to buy a Japanese car just because it is better? Can't do that. Buchanan wants to make that decision for you.
Smart people will win... Period...
I'm smart. I invested in the India stock market. The growth potential is too huge. Sure China has high growth. But they don't educate like India does.
What will happen... You can look at the whole "Cheaper Drugs in Canada" issue. As more and more Americans buy their drugs up there, the more and more the Canadian system will be strained. Prices up there will increase, and Canadians will be chanting "Blame America"...
The efficient market theory is a law, when you see it in the long term. Indian programmers will become
more and more expensive as other countries in the world more aggresively follow suit and hire them
for a little more cash. Consider the strenght of the Euro...
Also, India growing economy will start to demand more of its own Programming output. Bollywood is already a huge consumer of India IT. It probably tripled its demand last year for IT to help production.
The smart people know that "Education is Everything".
A country with a good education system is where to put your money. I'm betting on India and the U.S.
Yet, in the midst of all of this, what exactly is happening here? According to this Wired article a new middle class of Indian programmers is arising, and they are producing quality work (again according to the same article half of that, of the 70 or so companies in the world that have earned a Level 5 distinction [highest distinction possible], half are from India).
So who is benefitting? A handful of Indian programmers. US corporations with better and cheaper software. And US citizens who use these US corporations because the savings is passed on to the customer (please save me the ignorant response that corporations will pocket the savings because corporations are in a constant battle for clients, and the best way to win more clients is to offer comparable services at a cheaper price).
Who is losing? A handful of American programmers who are unemployed due to outsourcing. But this is only temporary, eventually American programmers will either find a employment, or a new profession. Or perhaps even go into business for themselves as another slashdot article mentioned today.
Stack the benefits against costs and you can clearly see the world gains from globalization and capitalism.
Aside: Yes, it is concievable, that someday the expected wages for a programmer in India becomes unprofitable (in the economic sense of the word, not accountant sense) for US corporations and will take their business to some other nation, say Albania. But the cycle will repeat itself, and now the same benefits that were given to Indian programmers will be given to citizens of other third-world nations. Slowly, but inevitably, raising the overall wealth of all nations that participate in capitalism and free-enterprise.
I don't particularly want to live in a craphole country lined with shanty slums.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Short term views instead of long term views
I forgot about the HTML formatting stringing everything together. Again in plain text.
Before the current outsource mania. My company had several projects done by Consultant firms in India. All of them pretty much considered raging failures. This I get mostly from friends in the company, though I witnessed the result of one of these projects first hand and it was a complete failure. Mind you this is not routine IT, but building telecom applications.
Do I blame poor indian coders. Not at all. All the Indians who have come to work at our company seem very bright and motivated. They get the job done.
The problem was trying to manage projects that continents away, with time zones out of sync and communications barriers (regardless of the english proficiency).
This is my first point. You have to be very carefull with how critical and how easy to manage the outsourced project is.
So I agree with the article. There are lots of talented Indian programmers. But that doesn't stop the outsourcing from often being a debacle.
My next point is how do you develop your real technology managers (who understand the technology) and architects if you are farming out the lower level work. System Architects don't spring from Universities IMO, it takes some years in the trenches working on the systems to get the needed knowledge.
Furthering of this point. The USA is already lagging on graduating scientists and engineers. It will certainly not encourage more graduates when it is ousourcing their potential work to India.
Is Technology now unimportant in the USA? Will this be a nation of MBA's?
I liked this bit... So basically Indian people get rich off of american companies.
An $11,000 salary in India is about a $700,000 US salary (based on 2001 statistics -- http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/regional/reis/).
What a lot of american companies don't understand is that it pays to develop talent in house. What is going to happen when the management retires and there are no qualified people to manage the outsourcing of work because it has been outsourced so long? Pay an Indian $700,000 a year to come over here and manage the outsourcing?
Me, I look at Japanese companies to understand good business strategy. The Japanese seem to know how to invest their money for the long term.
As long as [our elected President] keeps planting money trees in the offices of C_Os
The Hitler comparisons get tiresome. If Bush is just like Hitler, then FDR is just like Hitler as well.
He's not planting money trees. Letting people earn their own money is not a giveaway.
What I am against is the CEO of HP offering her opinions on outsourcing while she is laughing all of the way to the bank to collect her $115M annual salary
That is the fascist in you showing. The CEO of HP has every right to express her opinions. Aside from that, she has the right to hire workers if the workers do the job better.
Just because American dollars are going to these Indian workers doesn't mean they aren't being exploited
No. The reason they are not being exploited is because they are being paid for the value of their work.
Require basic workers rights overseas and you will see outsourcing plummet.
No, you would not. Basic workers' rights cost little.
Besides, we should start at home. Most union members are forced to join unions against their will. Protect worker rights and make unions voluntary before we whine about other countries.
How the balls is this tagged for developers? Is there a scrap of technically interesting content left on this site? For God's sake, let's have some meat on these bones.
Will somebody mod the article post to -1, Flamebait?
In the end of it, this is what Free Trade is about: people.
Nonsense. Free Trade is about profit and nothing else. It is about allowing the free movement of goods and capital between countries so that corporate entities can maximize the returns to their investors.
As we have seen time and again, the free traders haven't the slightest interest in the well being of their own employees, much less the population of the country in which they operate.
Sadly in twenty or thirty years time North America will have lost most of it's manufacturing capacity. That's when countries like China or India will suddenly find themselves able to squeeze the US for every last nickle by jacking up the prices on items that can no longer be produced here.
Three Squirrels
Problem with india is that they do not have the same needs for programming as we do.
Simply because they are poorer and has less companies.
The solution is for india to develop and have its own needs. Everybody can be rich. (Although everybody cannot be richer than the other guy)
One specific about programming is that the jobs often only need to be done once for a common task. The biggest industry is custom applications and maintanance. That issue just becomes clearer when the market is larger. (you dont need 4 more windowses when the market quadroubles).
Lets create value for eachother Americans, Indians and Europeans and everybody else. Create value by creating something somebody else wants and have a need for.
Give it to the other guy for some good stuff he has done.
Grow crops, create more gloves, make more video-games =)
Wealth is nothing more than what we create. Lets create.
Guess what? Life's not fair. And Free Trade isn't fair eithet
Free trade is the most fair trade possible. With free trading, the individuals doing the trading decide what is fair. The alternative includes such things as socialism, in which elites force the terms of trading on all "for their own good", and it ends up being fair to few.
Maybe I misread your point, maybe we agree.
this is what Free Trade is about: people.
*bzzzt*
I'm sorry, the correct answer was "profit".
"GNU's not Unix....it's Linux" / Kami "kokamomi" Petersen
So let me get this straight, the low end of the American job market should do to the Mexicans since they are taking "jobs no American's will do", according to the President.
On the high end of the pay scale, Manufacturing and Skilled Labor, we should let all those jobs go to India, China, Singapore and anywhere else labor is cheap.
So that leaves the middle, where companies are currently not hiring and slashing middle management by the thousands.
Now, toss in skyrocketing energy prices. Natural Gas (up 25% from 2003), Gasoline ($1.60/gal). Follow that up with increased health insurance costs which have gone up another 50% or more in 2004 because employers have no incentive to absorb costs in a tight labor market.
What's the result? DEFLATION! Yes, that's right, that means prices will stagnate as the number of people with disposable income become fewer and fewer. If you kill off the USA economy (#1 economy on the planet) who will buy all products and services from out of the country. No Jobs = No Spending Power.
Until workers in other countries can afford to buy SUV's, computers, cars, homes, digital cameras, health care, Disney vacations, and daily food the lifestlye and quality of life of the American worker will continue to erode. We need to ditch Free-Trade before the world economy ends up in a ditch.
This is why MBA schools should be shut down once and for all, they have been produced miserable failures for the past 2 decades, a ton of greedy idiot savants who are unable to see the whole picture.
You know, nothing says Big Picture like performance tweaking an inline function!
Can the same argument be made about open(free)source software? US Companies DO compete with there free counterparts -- does this affect the value of these products which may trickle down to the salary of the programmers involved. For example if all software was made available for free and nobody was paid ($$) for it. There would be no paying IT jobs (at least a lot less). I dunno know. Just a thought. --- Another way to pose the question, If a company had the choice between hiring X employees to develop ABC or "outsourcing/ support / use/ " the work to the open source community for free (at least in $$), does this equate in anyway?, at some degree?
I find it hilarious that on IITs website they cant even spell correctly. Oh yeah its THE technical school in the world. My ass. Anyway I know a lot of indian and asian and chinese kids and yes in their culture more emphasis is placed on education and things like that but it doesnt make them more intelligent. It doesnt matter how hard you study or do your homework or whatever it matters how much intelligence you have. But trying hard in school does help.
When you said, "The bare facts are, every job everyone does in the USA can be done cheaper somewhere else" honestly, I laughed. Sure, you're right, they can be done somewhere else cheaper, unless they can't be done somewhere else at all. Think about work that must be done in the United States!
The article says, and I'm not quoting, something to the effect that 40% of all jobs in America were farming jobs a little over a hundred years ago. Now it is only consisting of 3%, did we outsource these jobs? No, we became more efficient at them, and it requires fewer and fewer to run a large farm. Think off all the manufacturers that produce the farm equipment and supplies that farmers use to become productive... The money is still there for the same people even if the same jobs aren't.
The article also says today, the great market of America is Information. Outsourcing is a big problem because of this. But, Farming went from 40% to 3% and 50 years ago, most of the US labor force worked in factories. Today, only about 14% is in manufacturing, but we still have the largest manufacturing economy in the world. As the article says, we just have to figure out what comes after information.
Before you comment on these things, read the damn article first. Or at least make an earnest effort to sound intelligent on the subject. Outsourcing isn't the end of the world, it only means we have to find the next things to do. (to be outsourced!)
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
Indian outsourcing is a wonderful thing. Why, if we had had Indian outsourcing all those years ago, Custer would never have been defeated!
Trickle down economics is bad for anyone who isn't making $100K+. Reagan proved that with trillion dollar deficits and high unemployment
Actually, Reagan cut taxes for almost all taxpayers. The vast majority of those who prospered made under $100K a year.
The left-wings answer to "trickle down" is shutting off the trickle.
The tax cuts worked very well: tax revenues actually increased. The problem was that that Reagan was too weak to veto lousy Democrat budgets packed with waste spending.
Hmmm, sounds like today. Good for the rich, bad for everyone else
It does not sound like then or today. Consider Bush's tax cuts for the middle class. All taxpayers received a fair and proportionate amount back. The vast majority were non-rich.
Sorry, we have to remember that "something that helps everyone including the rich" is does not mean "helps the rich only".
I read a recent article on slashdot about how American companies (GE was one large one named) were building large research centers in India. Filled with PhDs (engineers, chemists, biologists, et al.).
Shall we say... "When they offshored the programmers, I did not speak out because I was not a programmer."
However, I am a MS/PhD student in (non-computer) engineering. And reading that on slashdot scared the hell out of me. So I have a few more years and several $k left in my education.... and by then it will be in India? What's the motivation for U.S. students to go for the higher education (which used to be equated with higher pay) when that in the very near future may not be the case? I think we *all* should be very very concerned. Not just the programmers/IT's.
Bravo! I agree. If these asswipe CEO's want to "trim the fat" and "cut costs" and "get more value for their dollar" then start at the top. Lop of those CEO's who "earn" 6 and 7 digit salaries. How many Indian managers could they hire for that kind of money?
Hi,
I'm a junior at a state-sponsered college in the US, and for the last 10 years, I have known what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted, and still want very much, to spend 8-12 hours a day hunched over a terminal writing code. I was promised, time and again, that the demand for computer programmers in the state would never be met by the supply. I would have the job of my dreams.
Do not talk to me about discipline, or crap culture, or lack of concern. Those might be your problems, but they're certainly not mine.
In conclusion: after getting past it years ago, I have now fallen back upon angst.
Thank you
What if -
Companies only get IP protection, proportional to the percentage of workers who are American Citizens.
ie. If IBM, (for example) outsources enough workers, so that 70% of them are Americans, their patents only extend to 70% of the term to which they'd ordinarily extend. Then expire. Then Americans who are out of work can use the IP that are now public domain, and build their own companies.
100% American, 100% IP protection. But if the company wants to go it alone with Anarcho-Capitalism, then they sure as hell won't have my tax dollars paying government lawyers and police defending their IP rights.
Makes sense to me.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Nonsense. Free Trade is about profit and nothing else
Nonsense. Free trade is about PEOPLE making their own economic/trade decisions based on their own preferences.
It is about allowing the free movement of goods and capital between countries so that corporate entities can maximize the returns to their investors.
It is not about that at all. It is about individuals being able to trade without being harassed by trading over international borders.
I work for an Indian call center which does all sorts of processing and telemarketing for clients like Chase,Citi..ec.
I work as a systems admin at night(USA time), studying for my GMAT in the day along with catching a little sleep.The job gets me about $7000 annually.Yes I am going to study in the USA probably steal another job there, temp or not if I can get it.Does that make me bad?Does that make the whole outsourcing industry bad?Its not the minimum wage factor that I'd like to argue.
Everyday we get about 5 tasks that were done wrong by some desk jockey in the USA and have to be streamlined and corrected here.(not talking about the actually processing, just simple reports n stuff)
Ok maybe not everything is that bad but what is a guy like me supposed to do? I earn more than most of my friends..live an ok lifestyle and struggle to save up for future education.This is the typical scenario you find in a IT outsourcing company in India.
Should I just quit and work as something else? Why would Citi stop Outsourcing when they earn more by outsourcing and get better value for money? Isnt it right that we lobby for Outsourcing in USA?
Lord of the Binges.
In India, you'd be correct. They're pumping money into their country.
In the US, you'd be incorrect. Here it is the executive who makes more money because they can hire 5 Indians for the price of one US coder.
Which is great for India, but bad for the US. Unless new jobs open up that pay the same as those coding jobs did.
>>(for example, if Indian IT companies do such bad work, why are over half of Carnegie Mellon's highest-rated programming companies Indian?)
Well, if CMU either rated *all* programming companies, or followed a fair random sampling of companies, this statistic would be interesting
However, lets consider that you have to *pay* to become certified. Only those companies with disposable cash who seek certifications would pay for such a service.
If 1/2 the MCSE are in india, does that mean a programmer from india is better than from anywhere else in the world? Or does it just mean they wasted their time on worthless certication?
Free trade has three requirements:
Outsourcing of jobs to India does not satisfy the third criterion. Technically, it is incorrect to call it "free trade".
The only true free trade system I am aware of is the European Union.
Reading Slashdot is ruining my spelling and grammar.
In the end of it, this is what Free Trade is about: people. This article makes that clear."
Free trade has nothing to do with people. It has to do with the gross profit margins of the companies doing the outsourcing. If it had even the tiniest bit to do with people, the people I know (who by the way were rated as top employees for several consecutive years) would not have gotten an outstanding review and a month later been told "Your skills are indispensible to us and our division couldn't have had a successful year without you. You should have no problem finding a job in 30 days with skills like yours."
Sure enough, those people had NO problem finding new jobs. Unfortunately, my company lost top perfomers so they could hire program developers that (and I kid you not) couldn't figure out what version of Visual Basic they were running, and SA's who didn't think things like subnet masks mattered when troubleshooting network issues.
That "it's about the people" crap may fool politicians and ease the conscience of the executives pondering mass layoffs, but it does nothing for talented, dedicated employees who after 10-15 years of service, are given 30 days to leave without any regard for salary level or performance.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
I think India will become a superpower which surpass U.S. someday. Not only Indian IT sectors are mighty, but also the Indian military power is getting stronger which they have bought so many Hi Tech Weapons from European countries(Russia, France, and Israel too). OK, Enough.
Back to the outsourcing issue, do you think
Open Source community has something to do with the outsourcing?
Ok, I'm not a pissed-off programmer, I'm an overqualified computer support technician. that being said, I think a lot of the other slashdotters who RTFA picked up the pro-Indian bias. what nobody is mentioning here, is that the poverty rate, and quality of living, etc in India isn't the U.S.A.'s fault. Some of you guys "in the business" may have worked for headhunters (temp agencies, consulting firms, etc.) And, there modus operandi is that they make money off of you, while you're the one doing all of the hard work. Imagine the Indian government being a super-sized temp agency that just also happens to have nuclear (or is it nuculear?) arsenal? Escalating a trade war with India might not be a good thing, but I believe they've fired the opening shot with protectionist policies on their own front. And something has to be said about a government that would have it's priorities so far out of whack to develop a nuclear arsenal rather than feed it's people. Maybe we should just be glad India isn't selling nuclear arms to the highest bidder for money instead of outsourcing? or am I just trollin by myself here?
It's easy for a company to send the work to India.
But it is hard for the US worker to follow that job.
"I'm willing to bet that as far as possessions go, the average unemployed computer geek is significanlty better off than the Indian worker who "stole" his job."
How so? Unless you count living at home because you can't find a job as "better off".
There's a reason Canada had tarriffs on imported goods to Canada...
The Free Trade agreement demolished those, and now NAFTA includes Mexico so Canada gets hit a second time. So cry me a river about how US jobs are leaving the US...
India IT outsourcing b!tching is a combination of the dotcom dropout, and the glut of IT people because of the dotcom era. Programming is a minute sector of the IT landscape, and the fact that large companies are the only ones to afford such ventures further limits. There will always be ISVs, as local shops can't contract external work for the consulting and production. Jobs are out there, god forbid you have to WORK for them.
The outsourcing is just something external to make it easier to identify with. You don't hear this sort of complaining when it's [insert your nationality] contractor replacing you - such remarks are bigotted, if not racist.
The latest Windows worm, which relied entirely upon stupidity of end-users to propogate, shows that we are outsourcing the wrong end of things. We should be outsourcing the end-users to India, not the programmers.
It sure would change things. It would give employers of IT a much greater inventive to downsize, automate, or outsource. This is how it has always worked, as the union does nothing but give the employer an incentive to have as few workers as possible.
Yes, as an independent contractor and an American, I am troubled by the disappearance of American jobs. When I saw it starting my Freshman year in college, I picked up an extra major and started doing lots of extracurricular activities. Fortunately, I still get lots of work at my normal, exorbitant rate, even from companies who also oursorce, because of all of the positive word-of-mouth: customers know they can count on me for a quality product and they can get it fast.
An awful lot of people I see graduating from the college I go to have truly pitiful skills, even after four years. I worked on a yearlong group project with people who couldn't write coherent or working code to save their lives. I tried to tutor a guy who was 1 semester away from his B.S. but couldn't write a "Hello World" program. Horrifyingly, there is even someone in my 400-level Physics class that can't do derivatives. I have no idea how she survived 100-level Physics. At a local software company that I once worked at, my desk was next to a woman freshly graduated from college as a computer scientist, and she never did any actual programming - she sat there and watched TechTV, pausing to stare at the screen when the supervisor walked in, for about a month until it was discovered that she couldn't really program at all and was fired. Two English majors e-mailed me recently with questions about my upcoming participation in the ACM World Finals. Their e-mails had approximately the coherence, spelling, and grammar I'd expect from a middle-school student. These people aren't unusual. They are, I'd say, the 30-40th percentile of a typical American college. People became so complacent during the economic boom that they thought that they could expect a 50K-plus salary without doing the mental analog of breaking a sweat and by doing the bare minimum amount of work when it came to maintaining or advancing their skill. These people, I think, ruined the market for those who actually worked in their training. I imagine that it tends to be easier to keep all of your department staff in the same place, and for the drastically reduced price (assuming you're going to get a large quantity of workers who just can't produce and a few that can anyway), you may as well just go all outsourced.
Anyway, yes. I blame the slackers (and the companies who practically sell certification) who devalued degrees in their complacence.
~Ben
First of there's not just one IIT; they are a system of seven institutions of higher education (Kharagpur, Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras), Kanpur, Delhi, Guwahati and the newest Roorkee).
Second, it's important to realize that many of the students from India who do the best in their undergraduate class become graduate students at those American institutions you listed as well as other institutions (some not very impressive at all) in North America and Europe. It is still a big deal in India to go a major American university. I have a few friends who did their undergad at an IIT campus. All of them left India for graduate study, because the research opportunities there are just not as good as in the West (although the situation has been improving steadily over the years). I will grant that the undergraduate education there seems to be particularly strong though.
Furthermore, it's important to realize that just because IIT admits such a small fraction of its applicants does not necessarily make the educational opportunities there better. Selectivity does not always equal quality. If anything, it calls into question India's ability to offer access to quality higher education for its population.
Learning is a cultural thing. While many american kids are focused on TV, Britney Spears, video games, etc, these kids start training hard for school at a young age, in the hope of their families to be able to enter IIT years later.
I do have to agree with this in general. In America, there is a very anti-academic tone culturally (even in schools). However, you have to question the quality of a life where from the womb all you do is study in order to get into a good university where all you do is work in order to get a code-monkey job which is your life.
Even when I went to highschool, there were probably a couple kids in a graduating class of ~400 I'd consider truly gifted students. Often I'm seeing the gifted students were foreign born, because their parents don't indulge their children with crap culture, but expect them to start preparing themselves to be citizens at a young age. It's usually the second and third generation parents who fall into the typical american lack of concern and discipline.
For this, I think you have to look at what kind of people are first-generation Americans. It doesn't just take a lot of work and/or a lot of money to immigrate to a foreign country. It takes ambition as well. Immigrants are therefore more likely to be ambitious about themselves and their kids.
of economic theory. Comparative advantage is not about "one place is inherently better at doing something than another." Read this piece to find out what it actually means. Here's the money paragraph:
relative to America.
The arguement that "we can't go there, it's not free trade, it's not fair" falls apart in reality when you look at immigration rates.
More people have immigrated to America in the past 20 years than the rest of the world combined !
Why do they come? Simply put, America has the highest standard of living in the world, relative to social mobility. This means that poor people can work hard, and not suffer like they would in the country they came from. They may not be able to shop anywhere but GoodWill, and they might not be able to buy a house, but they without a doubt better off.
America is the best place in the world. If you want to go to India, feel free to put yourself in an airlocked container, and smuggle yourself in. You could indeed learn a thing or two about desperation from immigrants to America.
It's the raping of our nation. You're kidding right? As I've said before, learn some new skills, make yourself valuable, work hard, and you will make it. Currently I'm in graduate school learning skills that will make me invaluable to a future employee (robotics).
Why aren't you?
blog: http://while-true.blogspot.com/
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
Many people are going to think I'm defending outsourcing just because of my name (I'm an American and always have been). The whole premise of tech boom was to be able to lower costs - that real estate didn't matter, infrastructure costs were minimal, etc. It's much easier to move an office than a steel plant (and even steel is dead in the US. During the tech boom, countless people went into computer science (or got certifications in network management from fly-by-night operations) in the hopes of riches. This was just like the run up in NASDAQ - fueled by ridiculous expectations of everyone being a programmer or a network admin. The economy cooled, and there are simply too many such people out there. And these people feel that they deserve some salary higher than the now low market salary. Let's face it. IT has become a commodity resource and is now priced like it. BTW, I still have a job, since I decided I'd rather be a mechanical engineer. And to those who somehow want to ban outsourcing, can you come up with a way to do it without absolutely destroying the concept of free trade and freedom in general? It's not easy when you're transmitting code over the internet instead of bringing steel in at the harbor.
First of all, I understand that there are two types of outsourcing:
1) Outsourcing jobs that otherwise would not have been created because they weren't cost-effective if filled by North Americans
2) Firing somebody who was doing a perfectly good job EXCLUSIVELY to save money.
I can accept 1), because it would be wrong to deprive an Indian work simply out of envy.
2) is absolutely, unmistakably morally unacceptable.
It's bad enough for somebody to find out they've been laid off, whether it be because the company's losing money or simply wants to increase its profits. It's even worse for that laid off person to find out his job has been replaced, despite his VERY BEST EFFORTS, simply because he was too expensive, due to his cost of living in North America being higher.
That person was not fired due to any inefficiency, laziness, or lack of competence. He was fired because factors OUTSIDE HIS CONTROL made him uncompetitive with an Indian developer. This fired employee was implicitly promised by the corporate community that if he invested four years of his life and tens of thousands of dollars (and the debt that goes along with it), that he would have a good job along with the salary and benefits that go with it. Suddenly, after incurring this debt and investing the time in his education, the corporation changes its mind and says "Oooops, you know what? We changed our minds. You're no longer any good to us. Sorry to make you waste your time and money like that."
Corporations, for all their talk of assuming risk for the sake of capitalism and entrepreneurship do no such thing and instead pass the risk along to individuals, who they lay off at will. Corporations are scared of risk. They don't want to assume the risk, but want all the benefits of assuming it.
For the last century, corporations have been given the political clout to influence our policy makers to pass laws favourable to that company's ongoing profits, the supply of skilled labour, "free trade" agreements, the DMCA and other repressive laws. Corporations were given these advantages because of an implicit agreement that was made with society: "We'll dole out these favours for you if you invest money and create jobs in the area in which you base your operations.". Now corporations want the best of both worlds by maintaining their political clout, but renegging on their implicit promise to create jobs in the area where they base their business.
This is absolutely morally unacceptable. Shame on them!
The zen of Yoda might help you understand more fully: Do, or do not, there is no 'try'.
Seriously, it's a cultural thing, we faced it in the 60's with electronics, the 70's with cars, the 80's with all other manner of manufacturing, it only stands to reason that someone would come along and pluck this plum, too.
It would be interesting to see what you considered spelled incorrectly on their site. 2/3's graduates have left India in the past to start up or take the helm of successful technology companies. There was a good bit on it on 60 Minutes, these grads are movers and shakers. You might look at the tech companies you admire and see who is actually driving them, rather than focusing on Darl and his lawyers.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
1) Outsourcing jobs that otherwise would not have been created because they weren't cost-effective if filled by North Americans
Do you mean all of North America? Mexico is the 2nd most populous country of North America. Is there a problem with jobs being outsourced FROM Mexico, Nicaragua, etc?
That would be this piece:
http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=1155
I agree with you on most parts, except for "America is Top Nation. I give you ten, maybe twenty more years at the top".
These kind of predictions have happened for decades. It will happen, but likely not as soon.
The Roman Empire was filled with dire "the Empire will fall immediately" predictions..... more than 200 years before it actually fell.
Other than that, I don't begrudge it when foreign workers do things better than Americans. I happen to lack that brand of racism/patriotism/etc: I admire a job well done, even by someone of a different skin color or country.
Socialist ideas such as the homestead act provided a way of giving opportunity to many early Americans. That is in fact part of what made this country more progressive, was it's focus on providing opportunity (not just freedom, but RESOURCES to actually do something with). The public wasn't charged for these resources, they were simply given them. As it stands, most Americans still have a large part of their freedom intact, but no longer have any real resources, and in fact, the average American has a negative net worth. Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift, and most Americans hate to see their country lose the socialist ideals that made it so great. Capitalism only works if people actually have capital to do something with. And, in order for the average American to get their hands on any meaningful capital, our country needs to embrace socialist ideals that promote giving capital (including a decent education for free, healthcare, etc) to people without any strings attached, so that they can enjoy the same opportunity as the rich in our country (and early Americans for that matter).
I find it quite funny to hear developers complain that jobs are going overseas. I've had to deal with big headed developers for years and all I can say is they've had this coming for a long time.
The developer market is ruled by supply and demand. During the dot com craze the equation favored the developers and they demanded (and usually got) outrageous compensation packages. For what ? Programming a computer ? I hate to break the news to you, but software development and system administration is a SUPPORT FUNCTION and a COST CENTER at that. I certainly didn't hear any complaints from the developers during the dot com boom.
Now, the pendulum has swung the other way and even further at that because of exporting jobs, etc. I don't blame the employers one bit !
I find the work ethic to be lacking in a lot of American people. They want big $$$ for not many hours of a fairly easy job. They duck responsibility, don't pay much attention to anything outside the IT department and refuse to be flexible. Can you really blame management for looking elsewhere for manpower ? BTW: How many WORK hours do YOU spend on slashdot each day ?
Do you think management would seriously be looking off shore if they were happy with the (employee) product they were seeing in North America ? This isn't just some spur of the moment decision to second source a product from a foreign vendor. When management moves IT jobs off shore, there is GENUINE discontent with the NA alternative.
Signed,
A view from the top, well at least the middle.
I know of many US companies who make a living teaching companies in other countries like India about quality control and the way that US Businesses do business. If Indian companies had good quality, these companies would be out of business and not have business booming. I shall cite some examples of the quality of offshoring below.
Thing is, most IT workers, such as me, do not blame the people taking our jobs, but the companies making the move to other countries and cutting us loose. This is a global trend that is not going to stop unless there is some law passed against it, which I doubt will happen.
First it was a Labor Shortage which was a big lie by the Corporations to get rid of US workers and replace them with H1B Visa workers or outsource to India. Now that there is a surplus of IT Workers, they still claim there is an IT shortage and need to move more jobs overseas.
Where is the beef? Where is the quality that Indian companies are supposed to have? Apparently they did not have Quality at Dell when they moved a Help Desk over to India. Where is the quality in programs written? Security issues are a big risk and we are supposed to trust someone we cannot even watch from half a world away that they will not harm source code or be a risk to security?
Of course there is always hidden Malware to consider. Really nice of them to put in a back door or virus or trojan to access the corp system after the Indian programmers are let go when the project is over.
Oh yeah, the myth that it is cheaper. Consider the Hidden costs of Ofshoring nothing like a project going over budget and full of bugs and needing US developers to fit it. Once again, where is the beef? That quality is just not there once again.
It seems that India is America's silent partner. We may not even hear about it during the election year. When a government is more interested in rewriting copyright laws so that the RIAA can sue 13 year-old girls and fair use is out of the picture, I wonder who our politicians really work for? Certainly not the US Citizens, only Corporations. So of course they support the wholesale slaughter of US IT Workers and the export of IT jobs overseas.
Ah but there is a big risk involved in Offshoring. Sort of like taking all the company stock to Las Vegas and betting it all on number 35 on the Roulette Wheel. :) Just ask those who craft the contracts about the risks involved.
Nice to meet the people that are taking the jobs moved to India. Also nice to know they are not concerned that US Workers are losing their jobs to keep the Indian workers employed. I'd think if I was given a job at someone else's expense that I would quote my religious or culutral references instead as well when asked to respond to that. :)
Maybe we should personalize the US IT Workers too. Here is Bob, he worked for a Fortune 500 company for the past 15 years developing award winning programs and his work gained the company many patents. Bob holds a Masters in Information Systems. Management decided that he earns too much, so he was terminated and his job was sent with many others over to an IT sweatshop i
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
"That doesn't stop you from making wealth for yourself, it just means that you have more competition"
It means you have more opertunity as well.
The greater the wealth created, the greater a chance to foster new outlits to generate more.
If programming is dying and the future is "innovation", how do we get there? I have come up with many (what I thought were) good IT ideas many times but was just hammered down. There are no openings for "software idea experts" that I can see. Managers generally don't like letting other people come up with ideas. US managers are too ego-centric. If we try to depend on innovation, the US economy is hosed because I am pretty sure there are other cultures who give thinkers and idea people more leeway.
Table-ized A.I.
"In this case India is showing that they have a competitive advantage in programming. They can produce code at the required level and do it for FAR less than the American programmer."
Yep. They work for less. That's the race to the bottom.
"The Indian salary will not remain static."
Well, we're pumping money into their economy so they'll see an increase, that is correct.
"As the number of jobs and the complexity of the problems increase (remember, workers are a market just like anything else) the salary will begin to rise."
Maybe. But doesn't that pre-suppose that there will eventually be more jobs than programmers and that the jobs will become more complex?
"As the rest of the economy begins to feel the benefits of this economic boon in India, more and more IT workers will begin to do other things."
I don't see this. If the IT sector is making money, why move out of it? Unless some other sector is making even MORE money?
"Eventually the global market will achieve Equilibrium and the competitive advantage will close."
That's the "bottom". The lowest price you can pay someone to do the work.
In order for that factor to INCREASE you have to have MORE JOBS than programmers. Which I do not see happening.
"We talk about how these theories are untested, well we've seen the results of this same phenemenon in auto manufacturing."
Different. It costs money and time to move cars.
"After all, remember all of those car building jobs we 'lost' two decades ago? Well, they're coming back in droves."
The ones I see "coming back" are in Mexico where the parts are assembled and shipped up to the US.
Making a car is not the same as assembling a car.
The US does not make many cars anymore.
"The Japanese auto makers are now turning to American labor to build those same cars, as the Japanese workers salary has now surpassed the American auto workers salary.. factor in the cost of shipping those cars across the ocean and American labor makes a ton of sense for that field."
It's cheaper to hire someone to assemble a car in Mexico (NAFTA) and ship it up to the US than to assemble the car in Japan and ship it to the US.
Now look at our old auto cities. Massive unemployment, still. The jobs are gone.
I like it, clearly explains what is happening.
When you can import cheap goods from offshore, it frees up more money for other things.
One thing that should happen if this starts going 'too far' is you get a large trade deficit (the US has one), and the curriencies start to adjust (the US dollar has fallen a lot).
This year your foreign made car, lets say a rebranded Daewoo (Chevy Optima maybe?) is now 20% more expensive than it was to make last year.
This sort of cost advantage makes locally built vehicles (Chevy Cobalt/Cavalier) more competative.
This is how the free market works, the really nice part is it might become cheaper to export vehicles from one market to another (Sending US built Honda Accords to Japan for instance)
It isn't all doom and gloom in manufacturing, and it won't be in other careers either.
"- and the price is right. A meal costs 22 rupees, about 50 cents" Unfortunately, I cannot eat for this amount anywhere in the US and therefore cannot work for $11,000.00 a year. There is no way to compete against that while still living in the US.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
This is different. The end game here is that the rich are widening the gap between themselves and the middle class to a gross excess that history has never seen.
But there is no problem with this. Whatsoever. In fact, it is none of my business if I have two cars, and Joe two blocks over has 16 cars (and buys 4 more next week). It just DOES NOT MATTER. Keep your nose out of someone else's wallets. Tend to your own.
This is capitalism eating itself.
That is a meaningless claim if I ever saw one.
I've read through 200 comments or so, and have yet to see several points made...
1. Many nuclear exchange scenarios have the Indians and the Pakistanis lobbing them at each other. Or driving them into Kashmir, or being launched from several of the sub platforms India has purchased from the ex-Soviet navy.
The capacity for a major terrorist or cultural swing event is large, the economy and government could de-stablize quite quickly. How much reliance on cheap coding from India will be "acceptable risk"?
2. What are the legal ramifications of having information warfare conducted against Indian targets with American data as the booty? When those bored eastern european hackers go get information from MegaTech in Bangalore and turn up 50,000 US credit card #s, I wonder what the ramifications might be?
60 Minutes article on this topic showed Indians working on systems in a room with no printers, so that no information could be moved from the screen into somebody's pocket. Designed to comfort US firms ("See our security measures!") I would think this would have the opposite effect, after all if trust is this big an issue, should they be doing it in the first place?
There are companies in the U.S. today who have made gigantic use of Indian and Chinese coders on H1-B. I can think of a couple of Silicon Valley firms and firms in Sunnyvale that 8 coders share a 1 bedroom apartment and "hot bunk" like on a sub. I don't have to name these companies, most of you know who they are.
Now look at the result? Have those companies gained real competitive advantage using those cheap coders? I don't think so. Time and time again, I see systematic shortfalls and having to acquire technology through acqusition from companies who specialize in this kind of behavior. What does that say? That people who are here from the Pacific Rim and India on H1B are not as innovative? No, that would be racist and stupid. But a culture arises, call it the "no-risk" culture, and eventually these companies stagnate.
That's false.
Foreigners are allowed to work in India.
They need a work permit. That's all.
I personally know of many foreigners working in India.
1) India
... well ... it just leads the paranoid Americans to wonder who'll be next in sniping the American economy. Stay tuned.
2) China
3) Mexico
4) Everybody else
Well, in this update, India's really stormed the scene, knocking off the previous leaders. What happened to China and Mexico? I thought NAFTA and China's induction into
Get ready for the future: http://ftrain.com/TheWorkers.html
free trade is fine and good, but when two countries have cost of living that's grossly out of proportion, then what exactly is "fair?" we have minimum wages to prevent vile corporations from paying slave wages. they've sidestepped this problem by outsourcing work to developing countries that have no such protection. the cost of living in developing countries is so out of line with our own. these companies basically get to enjoy the benefits of the system, but sidestep all the rules. if chinese workers can get by on $700 per year, they'll swipe all the programming jobs from india.
but hey, i don't blame these guys. they found a loophole and it's working great. but, for the sake of fairplay, perhaps there should be minimum wages assigned to outsourcing. for instance, programming work has a minimum wage of x dollars per hour, regardless of where you get the labor. the developing countries would be forced to charge the same rates that are necessary to earn a proper living here. if corporations choose to use them, fine. they can get jobs based on skill, not by side-stepping minimum wage. if they get the job, then they'll get even more money. that's fair. other industries have these kinds of regulations to keep things more balanced.
TODO: come up with a clever sig
By your argument there will also be 4 times as many incompetents as well. In the end the US companys pay 1/3 as much for the same crappy software giving, meaning they pay 1/3 for nothing. I have seen this. Indian programmers in my experience are niether better or worse. ANy time you throw warm bodies at a problem in programming, code goes to hell. Read Brooks.
The other point is that it is not fair trade, the jobs leave and labor cannot follow. This is not fair trade.
Also one of the basic tenents of Demming was to carefully control the hiring process to get the right people for the job. Any time you outsource you lose control of hiring, leading once again to crappy quality.
Only mega corporations can afford to throw money down rat holes like this. Small to mid sized companys have to be more efficient than this and they in fact are where the jobs are. There was an article where a smaller company was going to be charged 40k/yr for each outsourced programmer and the manager said "for that price I can buy American" and he did! If you are looking at IBM, HP, CA or other mega-corps, look elsewhere. Large corporations are not the norm even in the US. It is just thier marketing that makes you think that.
Also, as the dollar weakens, any advantage will somewhat disappear. So basicly I am saying adapt, fight for true fair trade and tell the large coporates to piss off (boycotting thier goods is a good idea).
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
On a "feed the world" level, I can't complain if there's other people who are willing to do our jobs for less, as long as they are at least treated fairly. But this isn't just competing against people who are willing to go without a few more luxeries, this is about competing with people who don't have the additional burden of American prices adding to their salary requirements. The say these programmers have homes, cars, watch cable, and drink cappucino. I recently got laid off from a job paying low six figures. But in New York City, that actually ain't as much as you think. I've never even DREAMED of owning a home around here, much less being able to afford a car. I've never lived in anything better than a studio apartment in bad to semi-bad Manhattan neighborhoods. And even if someone outright gave me a car, I certainly couldn't afford insurance or parking.
So don't give me this, "Oh, American programmers are just greedy. They had it sweet during the Dot Com Bubble, and now they're bitching because the Indians are not only more reasonable to their employers, but they're smarter too!". Horseshit. You wanna pit me against an Indian programmer on a level playing field, bring them over here and see how long they can live on $11,000 a year. Because it can't be done. My crappy, alphabet city, 9 building code violations apartment costs $15,900 a year to rent. Someone making 11K wouldn't even get an appointment with a realitor. I only eat once a day, and that's still roughly $10. Even when I was subleasing a room (6-floor walkup, no bathroom, one outlet, no phone, ect) room in a welfare hotel from a crack addict, my food budget was $2 a day. Who the hell can get a meal for 50 cents in America?
So no, this isn't about American programmers complaining that globalization means more competition. This is about using India's millions of starving masses to subsidize the lives of very bright individuals, so that they can unfairly compete with American programmers in a way which denies our country as a whole any tax revenue, or sales of American goods and services which can't be purchased on Indian salaries.
So until we have the option of paying India rents (which of course would require that our government only charged India-level property taxes), and paying India prices for food, clothes, medicine, transportation, and taxes; don't expect us to be able to work for India salaries. Or for us to keep on busting our butts to learn all this stuff when there's so little incentive.
The "IT Movement" was probably the most promising thing to happen to America's youth in a generation. And the Government may well succeed in destroying it - but don't you DARE let them tell you it's because us geeks were too greedy to work for "competitive" wages. Having your brightest and hardest working citizens wanting to live indoors, and eat more than once a week, really ain't that much to ask from their country's corporations and government. And don't let anyone tell you different.
First off, the ubiquitous analogy to manufacturing and farming that just isn't apropos. When farming jobs declined, many flocked to the city and toiled in factories and office buildings. When manfacturing jobs left American shores for developing nations and slave labor wages, Americans were urged to pursue higher education, to prepare themselves for a "knowledge economy". Now all of those technology jobs, along with any occupation that is performed in an office, are exported to the lowest bottom feeder, it's an enourmous impact that dwarfs any previous development. At least until there is a radical reformation in the paradigm of work itself in our modern culture.
Next, I'm sick of reading how these job migrations are for "grunt" type technical work while the glitzy, flashy "architect" and super designer jobs will remain. Obviously the folks making these assertions are clueless about the know-how and expertise that goes into crafting systems. The star coders and technical wizards of today become the superstar designers and architects of the future. When the lower level posts drift away enmasse, it won't be long before the pool of such gifted and talented individuals at the upper levels are also decimated.
We're thrashing about headfirst in an awful future direction, one where less work will be necessary but the profits of such efficieny and production gains accrue to a very small segment of the world's population. The unwashed masses will have to fend eachother off the few choice morsels that trickle down their way. A new model of work is needed, but I don't see an awareness yet of this creeping state, just celebratory rhetoric about rising fatter profits and rising stock prices.
After I was required to train my Indian replacements at American Express, I destroyed my American Express cards and ceased my business arrangement with them. Likewise for the other major corporations (IBM, GE, Dell, HP) that have sold out the American worker in lieu of cheaper foreign replacements.
AZspot
Keep in mind folks where all this started. With The Clintonista Social Order of Amerika. "Open the Borders, NAFTA, and Globalization", The Clinton Liberal Agenda. World socialism in a nutshell. Bush has done nothing but maintain the momentum (Social Med, Open borders, Iraqi-Halliburton oil, etc). Do you think Homeland Security was formed just to keep out terriorists? I think not. I think it has a deeper role, namely to quell the future riots that will happen due to the distribution of America's wealth, jobs, etc., (with the exception of the very, very, rich, who will benefit as usual). I think we will have to startup a new country and uphold (and modify) the laws regarding Treason, political Machiavellianism, and the like. The enemy within is our own damn government, who made all this mess possible and "legal". READ - Outsourcing is just the beginning. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
While I take offense and you trying to rank IIT above Caltech (as I'm sure the many Nobel prize winners from Caltech would as well,) I think you hit on an important aspect of American culture. We have a culture that does not promote education. We ridicule our smartest people (look at how many words we have in our vernacular for making fun of smart people.) We praise athletes or singers or pleasant looking people, but not scientists or mathematicians...
Large corporations (HP and Intel immediately come to mind) are fond of saying that they 1.) have to offshore to stay compettitive but 2.) America needs better education system because they can't find quality engineers here. These two thing seemingly contradictory at first, but they're not once you realize that maybe Intel would outsource to Arkansas if it was possible. Don't you think that if Corporation XYZ could open a new office in Arkansas, or South Carolina, or Wyoming, i.e. a place with lower cost of living and lower pay scales, then they would've done that before they "sent" their jobs to India? For that matter, even here in California you'd have a hard time hiring 100 programmers in Fresno, which is only a few hours from Silicon Valley and has 500,000 people living there. Of course there's no shortage of programmers in Silicon Valley, all needing $70K just to pay rent, but you cannot go to less expensive parts of the country and find skilled labor.
I suspect I will draw a lot of fire with what I have to say, but here goes... There's one kind of outsourcing that has always struck me as ridiculous-- Support. I can fully accept that India (or wherever) has intelligent, talented people in the work force. However, intentionally moving your support to an area with an accent (or even dialect) that can't be understood by most of your customers is daffy. No, not everyone in India has an accent I can't understand. No, not everyone in the US has an accent I can understand. However, it's just gotta be hard to beat the odds. How many times have you called support, and not been able to understand the person on the other end of the line? Frustrating. It can't be worth the savings. I mean, all support is customer support, and all support is customer relations. There, I said it.
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The article touches breezily on what Americans will do once their jobs are outsourced. This is a huge issue, and until whatever superior job field comes next arises, we need to err on the side of caution.
It is very likely that whatever jobs come next will be outsourced too (as there really aren't any jobs that can't be outsourced that I am aware of).
Also, It is my belief that this is going to hurt most of the businesses that are doing the outsourcing (because offshore IT outsourcing frequently makes sense for an individual business but doesn't make sense for anyone when a whole bunch of businesses do it because customer dollars become increasingly scarce and the new economy created offshore isn't going to replace this dollars as paying them low wages was the reason for the move in the first place).
I'll shed a tear for the American Programmer the day the American consumer sheds a tear for the sweat shop laborer that made the overprices POS shoes you can afford to pay gross markups for from the likes of Nike.
Your country profits from the exploitation of child labor and people caught in poverty traps... You there, unemployed developer, reading this... reap what you sow.
My dev group was recently approached by some gentlemen from an Indian outsourcing company. They wanted to do our new product and made a very convincing case.
When asked for a ballpark figure about cost, they stated 20-30 an hour: probably not less than 21 and probably not more than 35.
After they left, the QA manager, the Project Manager, and me, the programming manager, ran through the numbers by using our estimation of project man hours times the Indian's lowest quoted price (21/hr) vs. the costs of tech labor in Utah.
Local workers actually beat Indians in overall costs because Utahns are willing to do a great job even when paid relatively little. The margins were close, but the Americans still won by about $20,000 for the project. So with these figures in hand, our CEO will probably decide to go with local help. Not only will the locals be a bit cheaper, but we'll have the workers in the office for consulations, oversight, and better QA and none of us will have to make frequent and costly trips to Bangalore to oversee the project.
This scenario probably won't work in much (most?) of the country, but this does show that there is still room for Americans once the figures are carefully analyzed and once wages cycle downwards for a bit.
I have worked with many Indian-educated software people, and notice no difference in proficiency. Some are smart and some are stupid, just like their US counterparts. This hyped belief amoung themselves that their success is because they are smarter instead of cheaper is probably a form of denial that the same thing might happen to them someday.
Although I have noticed they have a tendency not to bring up issues or concerns about potential problems and instead ignore it or toss code at the problem. Whether this is "good" or not depends. Some managers don't like to hear bad news and would rather encounter it the hard way. Others welcome it. I don't know whether this is a cultural difference, fear of losing their Visa status, or something else.
Table-ized A.I.
The displaced workers didn't get jobs as more highly trained farm workers. They went to new industries in new towns. Better? Worse? dunno, probably worse to start with but better in the long run.
And when they lost their farm job they may not have known what they were going to do next. Heck the industries they eventually worked in didn't exist when they lost their job. Certainly true for the jobs their kids would work in.
But sure, it's hard to grasp let alone appreciate the broad intergenerational and international sweep of capital and labour through emerging and dying industries when you haven't got enough to eat and the bank is about to kick you out of your house.
Ever read the Grapes Of Wrath. Read it again now.
What happened yesterday, happened again today. And it will happen again tomorrow.
What I really don't understand is companies offshoring technical support. Just yesterday I had to help a user with a Palm problem that he wasn't able to resolve because he couldn't understand the tech support rep's thick Indian accent. Tech support is difficult enough when dealing with a non-technical user, but throw in the language barrier and it becomes a joke. The only explanation I can think of is that the companies simply don't give a shit if their support sucks, which probably wouldn't be too surprising a statement...
for example, if Indian IT companies do such bad work, why are over half of Carnegie Mellon's highest-rated programming companies Indian?
CMM does not rate a company on its programming skills or quality, but on its development process. It's a very different thing. My company is trying to get to CMM level 3, and the process is a nightmare. The people in charge are not developers, software engineers or in any way technical. They're paper pushers and meeting schedulers. We flunked a preliminary audit because t's weren't crossed and i's weren't dotted.
Process is important, but like anything that is good, too much is fattening. Too little process and you flounder in ignorance and miscommunications. Too much and you flounder in the paperwork. The purpose of a process to get things done, and not to be an end in itself. CMM only cares about the process.
Indian software engineers are top notch. Their programming skills are excellent. They also have a more keen sense of the bureaucratic corporate culture than most US programmers, which explains the abundance of CMM Level 5 companies in India.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Yes, we are lazy, fat and rich in the West and tend to whine way too much. However, for you to assume that Indian workers will be devoid of their own problems and will somehow be more productive is indicative of the kind of ignorance that leads to the kind of excessive outsourcing that hurts even the Indians.
I call tech support, get some clueless but well-meaning man who calls me "Mr. Dan" and can't answer any real question, which doesn't inspire my confidence level at all. In fact, as a result of that call I decided not to buy that particular service. Another simple example - India has around 100 days of festival per year. While the Hindu culture is somewhat Victorian in some ways, you'll find quite a bit of drunken revelry going on somewhere about 1/3 of the time. Fun times for sure, but this kind of thing is a real drain on Indian productivity, and they know it.
And don't get me started on class struggles & management issues stemming from the still twitching remains of the caste system. Westerners would find the commonplace struggles from this absolutely abhorrent. Get pissed at your new wife? Set her on fire! They call this a dowry burning, and its not all that uncommon. In fact, many of the pyro-husbands are never even prosecuted. Wife gets pissed at her drunken and/or adulturing husband - cut off his penis! There are entire wards in hospitals that specialize in 'treating' this kind of wound.
In short, the massive rush to outsource has some good components, but as a whole it is simply the result of greedy management trying to get something for way way less. Life has taught me that if something seems too good to be true, it generally is. Wandering around the streets of Bombay will teach you this much more quickly.
- too lazy to not be anonymous
I blame me. I blame every single American with negative feelings toward this outsourcing trend. Though we are not responsible for it happening, we are responsible for not seeing the major cause and attacking it instead. We are a representative democracy, and it is majorities that put people who vote and start/pass bills into offices. Offices where laws can be made to fix American problems. This American problem is the high ranking business officers and CEOs who think they deserve 7-8 digit salaries and 7 digit bonuses. I'm sure they work hard...but that hard? I'm sure reduction of those large numbers for all who have been reaping it's benefits would add up to some staggering costs as well. Is such flagrant luxury a suiting compensation or investment?
But this opens many many doors to many more arguments. For the sake of simplicity, here is my rambling opinion: I think legislation should be introduced to severly curtail and limit the amounts of salary paid out to high level executives and limit the bonuses paid out to high level executives. Just cap it at levels. This would place a large amount of money back into the company's budget. How they choose to use it, say research and development or start their own in-house training, would be up to the company. Outsource jobs they think are done better for cheaper, it will either benefit or bite them in the ass. Maybe it will spur a whole new job category based upon creativity with upper level and lower level coding. The money will be invested in the best, and where you align yourself is your choice. Would you be willing to invest countless personal hours drumming up support and campaigning and trying to spend what little you could and beating the street? Shit lets be honest, I'm not. Would you trust just anybody, and who is to say how they would act in office. We have created too many whats and ifs. That's why I blame us.
It is not the Indian's fault their cost of living and style of living is drastically cheaper affording cheaper rates. They were able to rapidly and efficiently build a custom tailored trade to specifically target and drain one thing. It has it's benefits and it has is losses, but regardless it's being done well enough to create a stir. Do I resent it, hell yes. But the only thing to do is try to find the next wave and hope it lasts longer. Maybe that means back to school or lower level jobs to work your way up, but only bitching about it or just attacking visas accomplishes nothing.
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
Ingredients:
1 chicken, cut into 8 pieces refined oil for frying
1 cup pure (desi) ghee
4 cloves (laung)
15 cups water
9 gm salt
1/2 cup garlic (lasan) water
8 green cardamoms (choti elaichi)
5 tsps turmeric (haldi) powder
2 tbsps onion paste, fried
4 tsps Kashmiri red chilli powder, dissolved in 1 cup water
1/2 tsp saffron (zafran), ground and added to 2 tbsps warm water
1 cup dry cockscomb (mawal) flowers, heated with 1 cup water
1/4 tsp black pepper (kali mirch) powder
Heat the refined oil in a wok (kadhai); fry the chicken until light brown in colour.
Remove and drain the excess oil on absorbent kitchen towels. Keep aside.
Meanwhile, heat the pure ghee in a pan; add the cloves and saute them till they crackle.
Remove the pan from the heat; very carefully sprinkle 1 tbsp water, and then cover the pan with a lid.
Mix the fried chicken with the water, salt, garlic water, green cardamoms, turmeric powder, clove-flavoured ghee and onion paste.
Bring the mixture to the boil.
Add the red chilli water and mix well.
On a medium heat, with the pan covered, cook the chicken until it is tender.
Stir in the cockscomb flower extract, saffron water and black pepper powder.
Bring it to a rapid boil.
Serve hot.
I've been in the IT industry since 1995, working in service related jobs such as systems integration, support, network design and implementation, and security. I have a circle of friends in the local area who pretty much do the same thing. Many of us were laid off in 2000, but only a few of us were unable to find jobs relatively quickly.
Now, all of us are working again, and making pretty much the same we were then, per capita (I am personally making more). I have been trying to figure out why were are doing so well compared to the rest of the IT community at large. (In a way, I guess I've been afraid to ask!) It seems to me that the key is that our jobs are service related, not manufacturing. When you write code, you are producing something. This can be very portable, but someone who can walk into a server room and figure out why the router went nuts isn't.
It seems to me that the end result of outsourcing is a great deal more IT actually in use in the American economy, which means a lot more people needing help to implement and support it correctly. Perhaps the answer is to stand in the gap between producers and consumers and make the technology work for people. It seems to have worked for us so far.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
Unemployment only includes people searching for work.
It does not include:
Also unemployment does not distinguish the diference between jobs. I sure someone is happy flipping burgers for $5.50/hour at mcdonalds instead of making $70,000/year as a programmer. NOT!!
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
How come it is never mentioned here that VA Software (the parent of Slashdot) is producing tools that encourage the tractive of "offshoring"? Just see their press release here. Why does VA Software continue to hurt us, the geek "community"?
If the US economy cannot supply work for programmers kicked in the ass by globalization, you ain't seen nothin' yet. The hacking power of an idle 200,000 programmers will rival anything even SCO has seen.
Table-ized A.I.
Bullshit. I already did that and what do I have to show for it other than a fucking huge student loan that strangles me every 1st of the month? Oh I got to train my Indian replacement. That was nice.
You can't compete with 8K a year. No way, no how. I'm contemplating moving into the auto tech industry so I can at least service the BMWs and MBs of the fief-holders.
so I'm gonna get out of college with this CS major and not have a job that pays for squat. THANKS INDIA!
fucking americans, you think it's all about you as usual. this outsourcing crap is happening all over the world not jus to poor poor USA. in australia massive numbers of call center and programming jobs are being outsourced to india. and as for the comments in the article from that indian programmer thinking they get the jobs becuase they provide better serivce?? i laugh in their faces.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I don't begrudge others around the world a living wage, but this trend of outsourcing is revealing one of the critical flaws in globalization (at least, as implemented by the US.) As long as the lost jobs aren't being replaced by new opportunities we're going to continue to have a backlash.
The author of the article posited that in the course of the US's economic development we moved from farming to manufacturing and manufacturing to knowledge but leaves open the question "where do we go from knowledge?" This is exactly where government can have a role. How about energy?
There are millions of jobs waiting to materialize in the field of sustainable (and independent) energy production. Probably millions more to repair much of our nation's infrastructure. To be sure, a lot of the work will be construction, but there is bound to be a certain amount of design, IT and integration work-- much of which would probably be more difficult to outsource.
http://www.apolloalliance.org/
--Nick
You bring up an interesting point. One thing I wonder about is cultural differences. In many cultures, it's fairly normal for lots of family to live together. In the US, everyone is always looking to move out on their own. Imagine the savings if you still lived at home with mom and dad (rent/mortgage, utilities, food). Yeah, you'd go insane, but that's another point.
And before you assume that this is something that only happens in third-world countries, I know there are several European countries where multi-generation households are considered normal.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
Take away our jobs, we'll take away your food.
Hmm.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The cost of living in FL is much lower than in CA. It is cheaper to hire programmers in FL. Some programming jobs moved to FL. I followed them- I took a pay cut but do very well thanks to the decreased cost of living. I can even afford a house now.
The cost of living in india is much lower than in FL. It is cheaper to hire programmers in india. I love indian food, I speak the language and wouldnt mind living there. Yet I cannot move there and work because I am not an indian citizen.
Thats the problem. There is an artificial barrier between countries that keeps their populations from mixing. There should be a corresponding barrier which keeps the jobs from wandering to where we cant follow them. Otherwise we are screwing ourselves.
I predict this will be a good year for outrage over outsourcing with the election and the "jobless recovery" underway.
Bottom line, it's not the responsibility of US workers or the US government to improve the Indian economy and help Indian programmers get jobs. The responsibility of US elected officials is quite the opposite, it's to see that highly trained US workers don't become redundant. And that too many of these highly skilled jobs don't move offshore to third world countries.
And for those who suggest everyone should have an equal chance to get a job no matter where in the world they live, you are living in a world of make-believe on lollypop lane. One might as well say "Gee, why don't all the countries of the world won't simply open their borders and let anyone to immigrate anywhere."
The truth is, there is very little totally "free trade" in the world, especially little of it India. And those that suggest anything that's not completely "free trade" must be "protectionism" are just drinking the free-trade kool-aid.
Most of the goods and services in the world are somewhere in the middle, not totally free trade, but neither are they totally restricted. That's where US high tech jobs need to be, somewhere in the middle. We can't afford to allow all of the United States technical base to migrate overseas, yet neither can we afford to totally cut ourselves off from the world. There will have to be reasonable restrictions. Reasonable restrictions do not equal protectionism.
Also keep in mind that India is one of the most restrictive, anti-free trade countries in the entire world. The offshoring of US jobs isn't an example of free trade, it's actually an example of very unfair trade. The Indian workforce doesn't have nearly the same worker protections and regulations affecting US workers and companies. The Indian government disallows many American products from being imported and actually manufacturers many US products in India without paying the US patent holders for their products. The US pharmaceutical industry alone loses billions a year in un-paid license fees.
So before any suggest offshoring is "Free Trade" Let's see India walk the "free trade" walk by paying those license fees to US patent holders. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
"no amount of wishing, screaming, arguing, protesting, legislating, hoping, lobbying, letter-writing, bribing, petitioning, imagining, discussing, complaining, worrying, fretting, bothering, sign-writing, stalking, or planning will bring it back"
You are quite wrong. Much of the debate of the next Presidential election will focus on the "free trade" policies that are gutting the middle class in the U.S. to the benefit of U.S. Big Business. Many many middle class people who used to have decent jobs who now are out of work, or working at WalMart, are mad as hell. American workers are coming to realize that they cannot compete with overseas workers who earn a pittance. In the end, no amount of money from Big Business will keep the electorate from kicking the guilty parties out of office. Thankfully Indian programmers cannot vote for American congressmen and Presidents.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
this is what Free Trade is about: people.
i'm really confused. was that supposed to be a joke? is it a typo?
By out sourcing we are starting a chain of events that will eventually impoverish the united states and cause our downfall. Eventually we will outsource so many jobs that we will ruin the very market companies need to sell to at this point american companies will begin to fail and the united states will have traded our economy to china and india. Is this what you want, is this what our government should let corporations do. The leaders of these companies do not care about the long run but are concerned with this months profit, how much money they can make themselves, and how this helps them keep up with the competition. I'd rather lose my job to an HB1 visa then send it overseas at least the money stays in the US that way.
This is not like the loss of manufacturing jobs where people were able to go and get education and work different jobs or go to the service industry. Hemorrhaging millions of jobs that were occupied by americas best will damage our economy. Who will pay excessive prices any more.
I admit it, I have not read the article, but the pictures there are pretty ugly!
Just a quick comment here...
The Carnegie Mellon CMM Level 5 rating that a lot of these firms receive is not always related to overall quality. Like the ISO 9000 standard, you can have a poor product come out of a CMM Level 5 shop.
The CMM is supposed to improve overall software development process but, for example, there is nothing in the CMM that says "Don't use unprotected globals" or "Avoid goto's and labels".
Code written in CMM Level 5 shops can be good or it can be utter crap. The CMM states that you have a process which meets all of these different criteria.
That's not to say it's bad to pursue a CMM rating. In some cases it helps. A lot of it can be common sense. Though what is one person's common sense is another's undiscovered fronteer.
Do not let a CMM rating wow you just as an ISO rating should wow you. It can be a factor in deciding a contract but there should _never_ be a single factor to decided a contract!
why are over half of Carnegie Mellon's highest-rated programming companies Indian?
Because they will work cheaper than anyone in the US?
How is this a Troll??? It is %100 truthful!!!
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
There always is a next big thing, but it seems we don't know what it is until it's upon us. Perhaps it is the creation of new ideas. Designers and inventors.
That is, there may be engineers of various types in India, but how about designers? Perhaps the next big thing will be an industry of creating new ideas and concepts. It would be less of just what you know, and more applying what you know to create something.
Why would you want to go to India? If you were serious about mov9ing to a country with a lower cost of living to compete on the same terms you should consider Mexico.
You can probably get a work visa there and what's more, you could be in the same time zone as your customers.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
I liked the article, but he either thinks india is stupid, or America is if he thinks that India can't be creative, and America will be left to be creative all by itself and let India do the rest (debugging; maintaining the code base).
That's the root of our problem. Fascist zoning laws restricting supply mixed with the mortgage interest deduction artifically goosing McMansion demand have sent housing costs soaring. Take a look at the big home building company stocks. There's no way they should be able to make the $megabucks they're making in a free-market system that's actually working. It isn't their doing, they're just taking advantage of the system other people set up.
There's no technical reason why cheap, high-density housing couldn't be built. If we're going to keep importing over a MILLION immigrants a year it'd be a good idea to have an economical way to expand the housing stock.
Anyhow, so long as a decent home is a 6-figure investment, competing with overseas labor making 1/10th our wages doesn't look very plausible. Though last I knew Japan has this problem worse than we do.
Or maybe I'll just live in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER! (ducking)
It's the companies that should pay. Find out who is outsourcing and tax the hell out of them. They're making quick bucks off of the American government and domestic/foreign workers.
and on top of all that I was forced to give myself the pink slip and outsource my personal website becuase free was too damn spendy!
Slavery in India
The problem with The Wealth of Nations is that it boils everything down to arbitrage. Unfortunately, the technology that really only came into being over the last decade have made nearly everything a potential for international arbitrage. This is not just a problem for the United States, although the United States seems to be the last to blush at it from a governmental point of view. This is something that every single one of the so-called "global North" are worried about because if everything is distilled to "capital" and "labor," well, labor is cheaper almost anywhere else. Labor is cheaper in Canada and Mexico. You don't even need to go to India. You think we've got problems with that? Go to Germany or Scandanavia where labor is even more expensive.
OF COURSE it is a "good thing" to the recipients of the work in underdeveloped countries. However, CEO salaries are on average thirty times what even the President of the United States makes. The CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch makes about half of the compensation for the entire House of Representatives and Senate combined. The AVERAGE CEO compensation is $11,000,000 per year--thats 39,285% more than the average American. A Dilbert cartoon recently opined on this where Alice is speaking to the CEO and asks, "I work 70 hour weeks and I don't make $40 million per year. Do you work twenty-eight thousand hours per week?" Note, this is a characterization of someone making $100,000 per year -- in the top eight percent in the United States.
This "they need the jobs more than we do" is ridiculous. That's a race to the bottom. Almost EVERYONE needs the jobs more than we do. By comparison, the unemployed computer programmer needs the $60k that used to be his salary about two hundred times more than the CEO who outsourced his job. Put your scorn for the overpaid where it belongs.
$60k in 2004 is $27k in 1980 dollars. Anyone who remembers 1980 remembers that was a painfully modest salary then. We're getting lost in a collective memory lapse where the numbers we see today are impressive compared to what we experienced a decade or two ago. In 1980, the pay gap between worker and CEO was only about 42:1. In 1990, it was 84:1. In 2000, it was 531:1. That's a jump of 44,700% in ten years. That's a compounded 192% raise every year. If a $60k computer programmer performed that well, they'd be making $40 million per year after ten years. In the meantime, we can all sit back and party like it's 1981. YAY.
As for this argument from possessions, the cost of possessions is relative to the location. Anyone who has travelled abroad at all realizes that the standard of living that $50k affords in the United States costs $100k in Sweden, costs $25k in Poland and about $15k in India. A $7.50/hour engineer in India is SIGNIFICANTLY better off than an unemployed computer programmer in the United States by virtue of the fact that it costs many times as much just to stay alive in the United States as it does to live in luxury in India.
That is the nature of arbitrage. You'd think by blathering Adam Smith you'd realize that.
The article claims that the average Indian programmer makes about $8000 per year. But it also claims that these companies have "gleaming" buildings and "lawns fit for putting." It claims that these twenty- and thirty-somethings are driving nice, new cars and living in fancy suburbs. They say it looks exactly like Santa Clara, blah blah blah...
So, if you can live like a king in a beautiful, shiny city for $8K per year, then why don't all of us overpaid, fat, American slobs just save up a few months of salary (while we still have jobs) and move to India, and buy a palace? Ok, that's a silly rhetorical question and I know the answer.
But you see my point? How is it possible that there's an order-of-magnitude difference in the cost of living there? Who is building these gleaming buildings at 10% of what we're paying? Who is selling them shiny new cars at 10% of what we're paying? It doesn't add up.
Give us all a break, please. The republicans are dead *wrong* about the state of the world today.
Free trade ONLY works on a level playing field, and I'm here to tell ya, it ain't.
Why don't we just enslave India? I mean, the cheap labor would be even better if it was free.
Amen Brotha! Organize or Die. Other professions protect their ass from cheap labor competition, so we can too.
I'm jealous I don't live in a country where the cost of living is this low. I'm not jealous of the rich. Never wanted to be rich. Just wanted to take care of my wife and I and not be poor. Apparantly that makes me greedy.
Well, it at least makes you nosey, when you get so concerned about what is in someone's wallet when it really does not matter at all.
"If it were about free trade, I could freely follow my outsourced job to wherever it is sent."
Precisely. And the Indians could also freely follow the money to the place where the work is coming from, i.e. they could move the the US, UK and other developed countries for higher pay. If they were as free to cross borders as the product of their work, salaries would have to be raised in India to keep them from fleeing, which would reduce the advantage of outsourcing there.
How come "Free Trade" is only free for the corporations? When you a consumer try to take enjoy free trade by moving to another country or buying DVDs or pharmaceuticals from another country, the corporations and governments do their best to bitch-slap you till you stop trying that.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
India has 1 billion people right now, and China has 1.3 billion compared to 250 million in the US. That means they have 4 or 5 times the number of potential workers that we do. The article talks with glowing terms about how 'inventive' we are - can you out-invent 4 or 5 people that are of the same caliber as yourself? I think not. There is nothing special about the people in the US, only that we started industrializing 50 years earlier than everyone else. When China and India become industrialized to the point that the US is, they will be the main producers AND consumers in the world. The US and its companies will be basically irrelevant.
The next century will be dominated by two super powers - China and India. By globalizing business instead of conserving US jobs and manufacturing the government has only accellerated the shift. Once the tax base erodes to the point that we can't maintain our military, the US will go the way of the USSR.
Welcome to the third world.
For that matter, even here in California you'd have a hard time hiring 100 programmers in Fresno...
It's a chicken-and-egg situation. You can't find that many programmers in Fresno because there are no programming jobs in Fresno (well, none that I want). That and if you actually find a job there, you're stuck with it because it's the only programming job that's come up in a long time so if you need to look for work elsewhere (say, because Catbert is now head of HR), guess what? Time to move because there aren't programming jobs in Fresno.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
and the fact that the majority of Americans have none. Most people don't have any wealth producing assets. The majority of Americans have a negative net worth. So, when the jobs disappear, suddenly many Americans realize that they have NOTHING. They've been working, some of them, for 20-30 years, and the most many of them have to show for it is maybe a house, which, again, does not produce any real value other than a roof over one's head (unlike a farm would have 200 years ago). This is the main problem in America, is that most Americans don't own any capital. In an economic system known as capitalism, to have most of the players without any chips, or any capital for that matter with which to play the game, is the true travesty. Capitalism is only fair if everyone has an "average" starting place. In other words, start people out of college with a networth equivalent to the net worth of the average American, and suddenly the game becomes playable (if still a bit backward of a way of running an economy). Setting up the game the way it is now, is much like playing a game of "monopoly", and giving some players $20,000 and half the property, and others nothing. It's a rigged game, no matter how consistently the rules are enforced.
India: WMDs out the wazoo! Proven. Well-known.
India after US invasion: Cheap labour, still. But American managers!
The movement of jobs to India is simply the result of currency exchange rates .
Take a look - starting around 1991, the Rupee dropped from around 17/dollar to today's 45/dollar.
So that chick making $11,000/year? Using the 1991 exchange rate, her Ruppe-based salary would have cost her U.S.-based employer $29,100/year. 29K is s still cheap compared to a U.S. salary, but its a lot easier to compete against than 11k.
I suspect that a lot of companies would not be offshoring to India if the exchange rate hadn't gotten out of hand back in 1991. We've been bring the dollar down for a year or two now, but it's too little, too late. The exchange rate has been too "attractive" for too long, and companies are now finding the risks worth the potential reward.
Unfortunately, once this transition is complete, it will be nearly impossible to get the jobs back. Even if the exchange rate drops - the investment will have already have been made, and the risk of change will all be going the other way.
Quote your sources buddy. Its easy to barf what you feel like, but back it up with facts.
Actually the returning jobs aren't going to detroit, they are going to mississippi and kentucky, because they are cheeper places to live. But the irony is that most "Japanese" cars are assembled in the US now because they found that is was cheeper than manufacturing them in Japan. Of course the parts of the car come from all over the world, just like American cars, but much of the assembling is done here.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
The thing that most people are missing about outsourcing, and one that the article is trying to emphasize, is that outsourcing is unstoppable and will happen to many white collar jobs (not just IT). Any "thinking" job that does not require the worker's immediate presence in the US may, and for the most part, will get outsourced. The only jobs that are secure are surgens, dentists, trial laywers and blue-collar jobs like cops, delivery people, chefs, etc.
A lot of the proponents of outsourcing claim India as a bottomless supply of talent because they have a population close to a billion of mostly educated people. This is wrong.
India is a country of diversity where there are hundreds if not thousands of languages, having a caste system which means that there are the educated and non educated as it has been for thousands of years. Many indians do not become more than what they are because they believe it is bad karma. If you are a begger than you stay a begger because you believe that you will be something better when you become reincarnated.
Most of the IT companies in India are concentrated on the west coast of India (bounded by the mountain ranges to the east) and therefore only a fraction of the population of India would be highly skilled. Moves to expand the IT industry in India will stalled because of cultural reasons.
It is possible that most of the companies that have taken advantage of India's talent would have taken the cream of the crop. As with anything that has a great amount of hype behind it, Indian outsourcing will suffer from a bubble effect... Early adopters benefit while others find that the later they outsource the benefits become diminished. Others will find a detremental effect to their business.
Perhaps a policy to slow down outsourcing to India would be good thing for America in the same way that raising interest rates - in order to stop the economy overheating - is a good thing. This will have the benefit of stopping the bubble effect described above and at the same time will give time for American programmers to adjust and adapt to the new outsourcing reality.
The blind rush of people outsourcing to India also means that people forget that there are other countries with highly educated and undervalued people.
There are many professions that may never be outsourced like programmers. Managers, doctors and lawyers they have a competative advantage that professionals in other countries cannot imitate. In order to survive software developers need to be able to think and act like a business. Things like finding a competative advantage which outsourcing cannot compete against. Maybe rebranding yourself. Maybe building your capability to take advantage of new opportunities out there. But its frigging tough when one moment you have a job and the next you don't.
One more thing I want to add... corporations have a primitive drive to increase profit by either increasing revenue, decreasing costs or both. So therefore much of the politics related to business involve 1. protecting revenue sources, 2. reducing costs.
Now patents/copyrights is a actively discussed in /. and really is a form of protectionism that enables sustainable development of intellectual property and maintains corporate revenue. Outsourcing is also actively discussed on /. and is against job protection.
Now people who argue for job protection are also arguing against intellectual property protection and people who argue against intellectual property protection probably argue for job protection. My point is that beauty and sustainability must be a balance between nurture and freedom. Like a garden you pull out the weeds if you can, or if you can't destroy the weeds because you will hurt the good plants then you leave the weeds alone.
Yet another ironic recursive statement.
...that way we can not only have a powerful lobbying influence but also have a bit of pull.
People have said that tech jobs shouldn't be paid silly money etc., but at the end of the day, without techies the world as we know it in 2004 is effectively paralysed. Without the sysadmins running the networks and keeping things ticking over, world business would grind to a halt.
Now, imagine the policy making power a strike by 90% of techies in a country would create. Absolute chaos.
What's needed is organisation, not moaning on slashdot about losing your job.
Of course I'm not instigating anything here or even suggesting it, this is just a thought, I've never really seen anybody suggest this before.
I am NaN
There is lots of work in North America. If you can't find a job that sustains a lifestyle in NYC, move. I can't imagine why you'd want to live there anyway, but I'm not an American and YMMV. Surely with all those people and connections that are possible, you can find some way to either run a company or get employed and make enough money to live.
I don't understand the problem. I'm a Canadian, and the economy here has never been what the US economy has been. I've always admired the feeling in US cities that things are getting done, money is being made, and the government stays out of your way.
But, that's right. Move. Sell your apartment on the street and hitchhike out of town. There are loads of small towns in the US where you can eek out a living with a tech background. If it's too expensive, those boots were made for walkin'.
Or become a mechanic. Learn to weld. Move to texas and work in the oil fields - or Alaska, for that matter. Figure out how to make things out of wood. Learn to take care of old people. Learn a martial art and teach people.There's lots of ways to make money besides bitching about outsourcing. Go into business managing outsourcing operations. Etc.
My own piece of constructive advice is move to a smaller city, and get employed by a small company that can't afford to outsource and can pay a living wage - and a living wage isn't $100,000, but it isn't $10,000 either.
I thought people here were supposed to be resourceful?
..don't panic
Yes free markets are great. We, the US, is stupid because we are allowing the Indians to work here and learn our methods and contacts, and then beat us at our own game.
Shame on us!
From the third page in the article: "Turner's bill passed the state senate by a 40-to-0 vote. But it got bottled up in the assembly, thanks to the efforts of Indian IT firms and their powerhouse Washington, DC, lobbying firm, Hill & Knowlton."
Why the hell do we allow Hill & Knowlton to greatly influcence our governmental decisions regarding outsourcing U.S. jobs? They have offices in 37 countries around the globe and firmly believe in outsourcing jobs outside the U.S. Our government really needs to stand up to companies like Hill & Knowlton and fight for U.S. jobs.
http://tomgould.com/
Australia won't have to outsource it's cricket team :)
Right now, it's easy for the business types to say to the techies "Don't worry; new, better jobs will come along" when they outsource work to India, because they're sure that their type of jobs can't be outsourced. But, I bet that there are Indian companies that will eventually produce software from start to finish. Then all the jobs, techie and business alike will move off shore. It's called competition and we need to get used to it.
laws? If it is cool to outsource to countries without these laws because it is 'cheaper' then why the fsck did we ever pass laws that protect citizens from unfair labor practices only to allow all of the jobs to leave this country?
i am so very tired....
Free trade is about money, NOT people. Can you honestly go up to someone and hold a straight face saying companies outsource to India because they want to help the poor in this world? Or because Indians are better programmers?
The reason is it saves money. The PHBs get a nice fat bonus for cutting costs. If the quality of the final product is no good, they just blame it on the contractors.
Look on the bright side, eventually management consultants will start getting outsourced. Then theyll get to taste their own medicine.
I am Monkey, the Great Sage, equal of heaven!
The rapping of America is our future. McJob, here I come!!! Word to yo'mudda.
It sucks, but $0.50 will buy more rice than you can eat in one sitting, and will probably contribute towards butter for calories, vitamin pills for nutrition, and tang to ward off scurvy. I lived off a food budget of $40-50/mo while going to school for a few months when I was stretching ends a bit.
Key is to get the 50lb bag bulk.
You are aware that is how most of the world lives, right? There is no entitlement that being born in the first world means you'll always have a good job, or food, for that matter.
..don't panic
"Don't you think we're helping the US economy by doing the work here?" asks an exasperated Lalit Suryawanshi. It frees up Americans to do other things. . . , adds Jairam.
Yeah, like kick your towelheadded ass!
What? The people living there have little education? They don't even know how to use a computer? Well, I'd be glad to live in the sticks and telecommute - just like those Indian workers. While some may prefer the city, I'm sure that quite a few geeks would prefer the sticks, like I do.
The problem is, the corporation won't let you live in the sticks. They insist that you relocate to the most expensive regions. Then they complain that you are too expensive - because the cost of living in NYC, NoVa, SFO, LAX, etc is so high - and outsource your job to India.
My distaste for the city prevented my from taking a number of high salary offers. Also partly because the salary wasn't really all that high after talking to people who lived where I would have to move to. My friends were in incredulous that I wouild turn down $90K. But $90K is peanuts in SFO (even 10 years ago when I had the offer). Now I am glad that I stayed away.
There is really only one fundamental problem preventing cheaper Tech labor in America. Lack of infrastructure. Lack of education can be worked around by moving people like me to low cost areas. This creates more demand for technical education, and more qualified native workers will turn up as local kids get turned on to tech. However, telecommuting requires a decent broadband internet connection. In the sticks, you can't get DSL or Cable, so you have to get T1. That runs $600/mo, which adds $7500 to your salary right off the bat.
This is EXACTLY the problem here. Many of these companies outsourcing want to have their cake and eat it two. They're pitting two different systems of rules against each other and exploiting the gaps.
No, free trade is about the people involved in the trade having the rights to decide if the trade is fair, or even if they want to participate. They can act out of money or other motives.
This is in opposition to non-free trade, in which outsiders dictate the terms.
Can you honestly go up to someone and hold a straight face saying companies outsource to India because they want to help the poor in this world?
No, I never made that claim. However, it is good in that the people involved are better able to make their own decisions without unfair solutions being forced on them by uninvolved elites.
Or because Indians are better programmers?
If the Indian does the same job for 1/4 the money, they are the better programmer for a job.
Look on the bright side, eventually management consultants will start getting outsourced. Then theyll get to taste their own medicine.
That's fine. If others can do the jobs better, let them. That is what free trade is all about. People making their own decisions.
Still, if you're 61 years old, it makes sense to borrow a page from Charlie Chaplin and try to throw a wrench into the machine. John Bauman is 61 years old. More than a year ago, Northeast Utilities fired Bauman and 200 other IT consultants. From his home in Meriden, Connecticut, he created the Organization for the Rights of American Workers. The mission: to protest H1-B and L-1 visas.
Bauman's problem isn't the H1-B's and L-1's. It's not the Indians who are competing with him. Bauman's problem is the lack of job protection for US workers, the lack of life planning, and the lack of insurance.
On the one hand, Americans are screaming for low taxes and smaller government. They pride themselves on a capitalist economy with few restraints and few protections.
Fine, but then Americans should be investing their money in private insurance and retirement plans. Instead, it goes into SUVs, gas, and other consumables. The net result is that people end up with no income and no retirement funds at age 61 and then they blame the Indians for their plight.
A compassionate society must somehow help its John Baumans.
The US isn't a compassionate society--the voters don't want it to be. If the US were a compassionate society, the choice wouldn't be between people like Bush, Reagan, and Clinton, who are basically outdoing each other on trying to ratchet down social services.
And I wonder where John Bauman was during past elections. Did he work for the candidates that preached compassion and that advocated more protections, more social services, and a tighter social safety net? Or did he laugh at them as wimps and whiners, like 90% of America?
actually, last time i checked, it was corporations that worked in international trade, not people. granted, in the US, corporations are legally considered "persons" (thanks to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was supposed* to give equal rights to blacks), however i assume the author meant living, breathing humans, and not "artificial persons".
*"...of the cases in this Court in which the Fourteenth Amendment was applied during the first fifty years after its adoption, less than one-half of one per cent invoked it in protection of the negro race, and more than fifty per cent asked that its benefits be extended to corporations."
~Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black
this gave corporations all the legal rights guaranteed to humans (which marked the beginning of free trade in the US). it's interesting to note that at no point did the human population of the US ever vote to allow corporations these rights. it was not until after the 14th Amendment was already ratified that it was publicly announced that it would be applied to corporations.
Mass producing goods doesn't make sense to do in North America anymore. This is something everyone accepts right now - and doing large scale IT work in North America also doesn't make any sense, or it's making less sense than it once did.
What is happening with manufacturing is what IS done here is increasingly specialized development - usually high end CNC machining, or other automation work. I do a nice side business working on controllers and other equipment to automate processes for small companies. They're not interested in laying off workers - they want the workers they have to be able to produce more.
Corporate america and SME's need to innovate to get to the next generation of products and services to make up the gap. All indications are they may.
..don't panic
Read Marx; capital moves to the edges
The only thing you learn reading Marx is "what nuts think". You certainly don't learn anything about how history has happened or how economics works. The gulf between Marx and reality is one of the reasons that whenever Marxism is implemented, you get a situation like Pol Pot's Cambodia.
You people took the British idea of anarcho-capitalism and ran with it. You reap what you sow
It was a good idea: that the people should be able to make their own economic decisions. It is a good thing to run with it, and the harvest reaped has been unprecedented prosperity for more people than ever.
crackheaded mods.
Maybe we should start being mad at bad programmers who got into the field because they thought it was sexy, or because they read in some magazine that they could make a huge hunk of dough. They are the ones making us look bad.
If grunt programmers would move on to something that suited them better, maybe there would be enough jobs so that competent people in America and India can both have jobs doing what they love.
Look at any CS graduate program in the US and you'll see that at least half of the students are from Asia/India. Read their web pages to get a feel for them, and you'll find that they aren't Americans, but foreigners that are here to study. Check out where they are going to work -- IBM, Microsoft, IDS, etc... They are the future researchers, coming up with the latest and greatest stuff, not Americans.
I'd feel less pissed off at outsourcing if...
1. A worldwide minimum wage was created (based on local factors like food prices, housing, utilities)
2. Companies lowered their prices some when they found cheaper labor. And by that I mean willingly lower prices, not forced to find cheaper labor because Wal*Mart wont stock their products unless they under a certain price.
One of India's biggest advantages is that they speak English. If I were running a developing nation, I'd switch my national language to english in a hurry and spend all my money on education so one day greedy American corporations in search for an extra cent or two per share of profit can send their jobs to my country.
The coming America is a service-industry based country of people who will one day have the rug pulled out from under them by the rest of the world when they wake up and realize they dont need American Marketing agencies, PR departments, CEOs and stockholders taking their cut of the profits for not much work.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Indian supporters are so fond of using words like "Global Economy" and "Capitalism" which I dont think they really understand (or just try to use to confuse those who dont). Explain how Global Economy works when Local Economy fails?
Let me entertain you with some simple FACTS:
When U.S. programmers loses his/her job to a foreign worker the money they would usually make doing thier job is lost to the community where they live. This causes the following problems:
1) They become a burden to all tax payers by claiming Unemployment. They are highly skilled in a profession that no longer exists.
2) The money they would usually spend on taxs, bills, and general living (groceries, house supplies, etc.) are no longer spent. This means local jobs that sell services to these people lose money. They eventually die.
Ive wrote about this several times in several different news publications. I can given examples all day where outsourcing and other means of cost cutting by companies have killed local communities. I know for a fact that Indians could care a crap less since they dont live here.
If you want an example of where things go wrong go to Gary Indiana and have a look around. Explain why this once proud city is now an urban decay nightmare. Remember to wear a bullet proof vest because the locals can become hostile.
And somehow, Americans, who are comprised of people who are descended from immigrants from all parts of the world
The parent's argument was not well thought out. He was attacking the "West", but most of his examples where examples of one part of the West (Europe) plundering another part of the West (the Americas).
Quote: "But isn't part of this country's vitality its ability to make these kinds of changes?" I counter. "We've done it before - going from farm to factory, from factory to knowledge work, and from knowledge work to whatever's next."
She looks at me. Then she says, "I'd like to know where you go from knowledge." Unquote. Further down in the piece it's alluded that those that lost jobs will move on to something higher-end, like generating ideas for India et al to work on/implement.
and
Quote: A century ago, 40 percent of Americans worked on farms. Today, the farm sector employs about 3 percent of our workforce. But our agriculture economy still outproduces all but two countries. Fifty years ago, most of the US labor force worked in factories. Today, only about 14 percent is in manufacturing. But we've still got the largest manufacturing economy in the world - worth about $1.9 trillion in 2002. We've seen this movie before - and it's always had a happy ending. The only difference this time is that the protagonists are forging pixels instead of steel. And accountants, financial analysts, and other number crunchers, prepare for your close-up. Your jobs are next. After all, to export sneakers or sweatshirts, companies need an intercontinental supply chain. To export software or spreadsheets, somebody just needs to hit Return. Unquote.
As one person said in the article, "where do you go after knowledge".
Anti-knowledge! UFO cults, Enron "accountants", HP PR, TV, SCO PR, WMD finder, Politics. Bullshit is the Future of America!. So put on your Hale-Bopp sneakers and come ride the magic bus!
Table-ized A.I.
Would you rather have decreased sales due to increased costs (your scenario) or decreased sales due to nobody having a job?
This is my sig.
Well, now we have "The NEW New Economy" which is supposed to be based out of Bangalore or something.
Has Wired ever gotten any fundamentals correct?
Seastead this.
By globalizing business instead of conserving US jobs and manufacturing the government has only accellerated the shift.
If American industry can only be preserved by "protecting" it from competition, then we will be stuck with high prices and inferior products. The Ford Pinto, so to speak, will never face competitioon from the Honda Civic.
Globalizing is actually of great benefit. Among other things, it gets rid of inefficiences causes by overtaxation (in the form of tariffs) and problems caused by the inability to get the best products because of something as silly as an international border.
I think America is better than you do. You seem to think that America is incredibly inferior, so India and China will do everything better and snow it under.
I'm buying guns, lots of them. If we are going to end up with a rich and a poor class, then it would behoove the rich to remember that the poor are well armed.
Before I forget to mention this:
If Global Economy is the way it should be, and India continues to refuse foreign programmers working in India, shouldnt it be said that India is refusing to respect the idea of Global Economy? Maybe we should insist that India be removed from the WTO for violating trade agreements? Oh, are you going to counter that world trade has nothing to do with global economy? PLEASE DO!
It's in my countries best interests that I be gainfully employed.
You are a welfare queen if you want the government to "look after your interest" and your salary ends up being $35,000 more than the real value of the work because the government has blocked competition from overseas workers. That's not gainful employment (well, only a little of it is).
Not bad. How's life at Camp X-Ray, Cuba?... with the rest of the taliban?
Face it: American IT workers are no longer competitive. Partially, it is because the third world is catching up in education and infrastructure; partially, it is because too many talentless and overpaid people entered the American IT industry in the 90's. The causes really don't matter, as long as American labor costs too much. Most American IT jobs will go; those that remain will have much lower salaries, and the only American programmers remaining will be those that have a second job, and love programming more than money.
Why do I know this? Because I saw it, 10-15 years ago. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian scientists, engineers, skilled blue-collar workers, etc. found that their skills were suddenly no longer needed. The Russian industry was not competitive with the West, and the government was too poor to pay gov't contracts. So what happened? Some people emigrated to the West, where many of them had to take blue-collar jobs (because racist Westerners didn't care about their job experience or education). Some stayed for the love of their job despite not getting paid, and accepted a massive fall in their quality of life. Many broke down psychologically, started drinking, and are by now basically unemployed and unemployable. The rest went with the flow, and followed the money. They worked three jobs, sold vegetables, fixed cars, imported Western goods, went back to school, opened stores, created a banking system from scratch, etc. Some failed. Some were incredibly successful. The richest Russian businessmen today were knowledge workers in the 1980's.
The ones that were too stubborn or too shocked to adapt are living below the poverty line.
The political compas is rather skewed. It places many left-wing leaders in the right, such as Tony Blair. The vertical line needs to move about an inch or two to the right in order to show an accurate left-right division.
Mandela, who for years advocated totalitarian state control in South Africa, is falsely listed as "libertarian".
Sharon is like Hitler? You are starting to sound rather antisemitic.
I agree to some extent, but it depends on what you mean.
.NET.
.NET is. It's insane. The amount of automatic code generation is staggering. Automatic generation of stored procedures. Automatic generation of data object models. Automatic generation of all UI code -- just drag and drop -- although this has been there for a while with VB... Automatic XML schema generation. And on and on...
The trend in programming from tougher to easier has been slowly occurring ever since the beginning. First it was hardware to assembler, then assembler to C... Now it's C++ to
Since you guys are mostly unix people, let me tell you how insane
I was a very very good C++ coder. I *knew* my job was going to go away someday, regardless of the expensive seminars that Herb Sutter et al. rake in the cash for. Those guys are plying a dying art. So few people ever even tried to understand the vagueries of proper exception handling in C++ before bailing and moving to Java or VB or C#, because it's just too damn hard. I knew the differences between char arrays, stl strings, BSTR's, _bstr_t's, and CComBSTR's like the back of my hand, but it was just way overly complicated. Some things like STL generic programming constructs are not overly complicated per se, but are too difficult for the average programmer to wield properly, and therefore the return on time investment is low...
So, will you be surprised at what I'm going to say next? These are the reasons why Americans have to think really hard about strong intellectual property protections for our future. IP is at least one of the things that will help us get over this change. Let me rephrase: the ability to maintain the rights to our innovations, to make money from them by taking advantage of cheap overseas labor such as mentioned here, is key to our continued growth. None of our creative work can be protected from outright appropriation by e.g. Chinese startups, without strongly enforced intellectual property rights...
Even if it is an AC.
It's not the money it's the quality of life. It's just cheaper to offer a high quality of life over there. If I can't take advantage of it then my job is being stolen!
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
First off.. I have to crib about how all posts by Indians in this concern on slashdot are always mod down. Why is it that an open-forum with such high repute as /. seems to be biased against posts from the other side?
As far as the issue of outsourcing itself goes.. I am not going to say "products" coming out of India are "better" or even "on par" to those which come out of the US. Personally I think Germany is far ahead of both India and the US on that respect. I have for the last year or so been working for a company in India while i take a break from school (UG in Michigan - Computer Science ofcourse), and I have noticed on several occasions that programmers here use techniques which would definately be frowned upon by "gurus" from ANY part of the world. And their communication conduits with their western clients is not close to being adequate. The manager of the Information Services department of my company cant frame a proper sentence in english without any gramatical errors if his life depended on it (which it should if you ask me). This has inadvertently on many occasions resulted in changes having to be made on the software over and over.. on many occasions the same change being communicated many times and mis-interpreted over and over. Has everyone forgotten that HP withdrew some of its operations from India just because of "language barriers"?
But on the other hand you also have some indigenous indian companies with high repute (some which are fortune 500 companies) which have consistently churned out quality code for a long time now.
The fact of the matter is the same wether you take the US or India... some of the work is good some isnt. The only thing that is pulling the jobs to India is the cost, and not everyone in India is totally overjoyed by it.. some of us do feel for our counterparts in the US.. its called humanity. Sorry guys but people here need to make a living too.
I got one thing from this article, one great quote. And even if the writer thought the question was answered further on, it wasn't. . .
"But isn't part of this country's vitality its ability to make these kinds of changes?" I counter. "We've done it before - going from farm to factory, from factory to knowledge work, and from knowledge work to whatever's next."
She looks at me. Then she says, "I'd like to know where you go from knowledge."
This is the great problem, there is nothing for us to do at this point. And one thing nobody ever seems to consider, all this free trade, means no taxes, which means no money to our country, which means less money to fund these fat cats in washington, who keep spending billions on the 'war on drugs' and the 'war on terrorism'. I say legalize the drugs, tax em, and then HEY we have an exportable product, and if not; you may be out of work, but at least you can smoke some dope and forget about it.
okay, end of rant
Simply put, we consume the most in the world. We have the biggest houses, the most cars, consume the most fuel, and consume more of just about everything than just about any other country (think Hummers, McMansions and the rest). No other country in the world consumes like we do. Looking at a nation of big fat overconsumers from a country of rampant poverty like India complain about losing jobs must be a rare sight.
So IT salaries will have to drop in the US for a while, as all salaries will. Solution? You'll have to put yourself on a diet for a while (figuratively and maybe literally). Remember that materiel wealth is not equivalent to happiness. People in India lived quite happily relative to their materiel wealth for quite some time. Now it's their turn to get a piece of the pie.
Americans are spoiled rotten and Slashdot is evidence of that.
Bottom line and advice: you're gonna have to learn to live with less for a while. As salaries go down the cost of living will go down. It'll happen, don't worry (actually it is happening, median rents are dropping like crazy). Make yourself a more efficient consumer. Drive a fuel efficient car that reliable. Buy only things you need.
As I said, learn to live with less. 90% of the world does.
You obviously don't work at the management/executive level. These jobs started out sourcing years and years ago. It is quite desirable for the management and executives of large corporations to be world savvy and experienced.
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
Is the outsourcing will not quit anytime soon and that american wages continue to lower yet there's no correction in the currency to support americans with lower wages. Just look at the fact that nowdays both parents have to work just to provide a comfortable lifestyle for themselves and their kids.
Greenspan is worried about deflation but does he not know that americans are making less and many are unemployeed so things are really getting more expensive. He's looking at the wrong pricetags here. Gas prices are over a 1.50 is most locations and in most cases are much higher than they were before either gulf war. To top it off the press and oil companies "Claim" the weather, weak dollar and supply shortages are the problem here. When was the last time the press reported on a oil line sabotage in Iraq recently? The oil's flowing but it's not getting cheaper like it was supposed to.
With energy prices rising it's increasingly harder for companies to pass discounts to the consumers. Much so if the govt were to suddenly raise Minimum wage 50 cents it would just cause a inflation of prices to make up with the forced paying of workers more money.
...or use this as an opportunity to change...
There are a lot of fallacies with this article presented here.
In almost every major pro-outsourcing argument, history is mentioned that back in the turn of the century farmers moved to the factories. And in mid 30's and 40's, migration from the factories to the cities started. So essentially a lot of the workers were trained in newer "better" jobs.
True...
Except everyone fails to mention this important fact: it all happened internally within one economy so overall affect was positive for the U.S. worker/economy/country. Workers moved from farms to factories then offices (spanning generations), to higher salaries, better standard of life and etc.
So what is just the U.S. IT worker will do? Train for a better a job? Such as law, or medicine? If one wanted to become a lawyer, s/he would have never majored in computer science. And worse, loss of IT job in the U.S. means lost income and tax revenue.
Ultimately, the Indian IT worker's salary will also go high, but then there will be Malaysia, Indonesia, and etc. Don't forget China.
Just what are Americans are supposed to do?
Here's a question: with the low-end (farm and service industry) jobs to be filled by Mexican workers, mid-level (such as customer service - AOL anyone?) jobs to be outsourced to India and others, manufacturing jobs gone forever (challenging to find any product made in U.S.A anymore), high-tech jobs and products outsourced to India and made in Taiwan, steel industry succumbs to cheaper import, I ask again just what are Americans are supposed to do? How many lawyers, dentists, and doctors do we need? Or are we supposed to become car salesmen at local dealerships?
Personal experience dealing with Indian outsourcing, calling tech support, trying to get a replacement for my router. The company, being SMC. They read from a script, they don't speak english very well. This is supposed to be high qaulity? Your an idiot if you think it does. Ya it's cheap, high qaulity? Your smoking crack, if you actually believe that. How about you give up your job, and let someone else take it for awhile. Now go fuck yourself with a stick, without lube asshole!
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
To do what?
There aren't any new industries that are coming up that require lots of human workers. The next revolution is supposed to be in biotech. But biotech work is very easy to automate and what human work is needed will only be done by the elite of the elite.
I know what "other things" Americans will be doing.. they'll be spending their time fighting even harder over fewer jobs.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
As much as I like to read /. as a way to gain insights into the way the American mind works (or at least the American mind of a subset of the polulation I can relate to), I am often annoyed at the capitalism flags that get waved in droves at every occasion. I find it highly entertaining how quickly people turn around and suddenly find capitalism Not So Good. Welcome in the real world, don't forget the lesson you learned
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=walmart
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
"First of all, I understand that there are two types of outsourcing:
... they are liasons that would not be needed if the developers were in the same building.
1) Outsourcing jobs that otherwise would not have been created because they weren't cost-effective if filled by North Americans
2) Firing somebody who was doing a perfectly good job EXCLUSIVELY to save money."
There is 3rd type, which is the worst type and probably the most common type:
3) Firing somebody who was doing a perfectly good job to create the APPEARANCE of saving money, while losing money in reality.
The large salary differences can create the illusion of huge savings; however the total cost of outsourcing a programming job to India is multiples of the Indian programmer's salary. Although the labor costs might be around 1/10 of what American programmers earn, just about every other part of the equation is equal or MORE expensive than in the US.
There is a premium on office real estate that is well-equipped enough to support outsourced programming jobs (reliable electricity, Internet connectivity, etc), to the point that a square foot of office space in Bombay is now more expensive than one in Boston. Internet bandwidth in India is 2-4X more expensive. Computer and networking hardware is about the same, or slightly more expensive. On top of that, offshore projects generally require a number of technical leads and/or managers to be at the US client site (at US-level salaries)
After you add up everything, you only save about 20-25% if things go right, and they often go wrong. It can be a very bad mistake for the company to fire programmers who have proven themselves for years, in order to pursue a shaky chance at 25% savings.
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Marx and others were in favor of free trade. Once you move economies from national to international reach, the concept of nations are left behind. The world-state is then required to address the world economy.
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/oneworld.html
Secondly, what we're engaging in with China and India is not "Free Trade". We have little to no access to their markets. All these companies have done is move their factors of production to labor markets with absolute advantage. Ricardo's theories were based upon the traded goods being mobile, but production being stationary.
Take the '80s for example. When the Japaneese auto companies came into the US, they employed US workers. However, they sold the product to the same market that the labor originated. Thus the value of the labor was related directly to the value of the product.
Now if we use foreign workers at low labor costs to sell to their native markets, that is one thing. An office suite couldn't sell for $500 US dollars, as the market would reject it. Therefore the price would fall.
But instead, these companies are exporting the product back to a different market for sale (the US).
Not to mention there are massive trade barriers (ie protectionism) in place in the markets we would like to sell to, the vary same markets that are providing the cheap labor.
Sorry people, this is NOT "Free Trade". This is simple wealth redistribution.
And Marx saw it coming..
>In any case us western countries have had the lion's share of the distribution of wealth for far too long at the expense of poorer nations. I don't think we have the right to complain if an Indian coder takes our job.
This is very short-sighted, and a typical liberal American's view (read: someone who thinks they are progressive.)
The long-term macroeconomical problem is that this kind of development where all production jobs are distributed to third world countries reduces the natural evolution of the economy and degrades self-sustenance, probably hindering them forever from forming their own, healthy economies, effectively maintaining the status quo, the division between creators and producers.
One of the short-term macroeconomical problems is that, sooner or later, for example India starts becoming too expensive as the workers there start realizing their value (the quality may also start suffering as more hopefuls jump aboard.) At that point, the industry will just find another developing country to use, and leave India stranded.
Another short-term macroeconomical problem is that this developement will effectively recreate the gap between skilled workers and management again.. when companies outsource the production jobs (which, for IT, actually require much more skill than management), they will keep management jobs around because it's seen as a necessity. We will see a trend of modest but constant raises for middle to upper management because of the perceived operating cost savings, while the remaining skilled workers will see a steady degradation in compensation.
Then there's the matter of the reducing buying power of the home market as people are laid off, but that's not a problem yet since there're many emerging markets.
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A personal opinion is that the only way this world will survive is the eventual conversion to a utopistic trade economy not unlike communism (please don't confuse the totalitarian state capitalisms of the USSR, China, Cuba and so on as communism.) I may, of course, be wrong.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
On the subject of Indian Outsourcing... Check out this cool T-Shirt :P
I live in Pittsburgh and can live comfortably as a programmer on $25k a year if I had a stable job. Since I basically had to go into business as a consultant to make any money with zero job secutity, I decided to go back to school to get a master's in financial math. Before I could even graduate, those jobs have been moved to India as well. Education is not the solution. You can know all the math and all the science there is to know and it's not going to help you get a job. The only thing that can do that is being lucky enough to somehow know the right people.
I've seen a lot of things, but I've never been a witness.
PS - I'm totally talking out of my ass here, but I've a feeling I've got the right of it.
In the 1970's and early 1980's a man/women with a "union" job made $15 to $20 per hour plus benefits. Those jobs went south where the workers made about half as much. Then those jobs went to Mexico (NAFTA) because the COMPANIES could save another 50% or so. Now those same jobs are in Asia and those COMPANIES again save +/- 50%
Those jobs will return, because WE will be the lowest paid workers. And the COMPANIES will save another 50%
Let's make outsourcing of jobs illegal. What happens next? American companies will be at a cost competitive disadvantage compared with foreign companies, and foreign companies will then get the contracts. What's the response to that? Make importing of foreign goods illegal. Then what happens? No US exports, either. Economy goes in the dumpster. Oh well.
Now that I have your attention (or not), free trade *is* a good thing. Outsourcing is also a good thing. The problem is that it only goes ONE way - there is no competition since one side is dumping jobs. I have no problem if IBM wants to hire people in India - just pay them the *SAME* ammount as if you would pay them here. This is the only way that people can compete on even ground. This is also the only way that a standard of living in India (or elsewhere) will ever go up.
If the trend continues, people in the US will loose all their jobs to other countries. Then people in the states will not have the money to buy stuff from other coutries and the people that got the jobs in other countries (India, etc) will not be able to buy the stuff they supposedly wrote/made. The result is a global economic meltdown (hyper deflation).
It is time to hammer out global trade policies. These should include at *least* these two points:
1. If company A wants to import services/goods from country X to Y, company A must pay its employees the acceptable salary from country X *OR* country Y, WHICHEVER IS GREATER
2. If company A wants to import services/goods from country X to Y, company A must follow BOTH, the environmental policies of country X and the environmental policies of country Y, at all of the facilities that the company owns.
I have no idea why it is sooo difficult for them to get the world trade agreement - only 2 points!!
But fuck that, as long as the CEO can inflate their "porfolio"
Most folks at /. have already qualified for the "unwashed"
As a Computer Science major at Fresno State, let me jump in here.
You're pretty much right on the dot. Here we are, just south of the Bay area (it's not even a full 3 hours from here to San Jose, barring excessive traffic near SJ). Our department is rather well respected - we're one of the few CS departments in the CSU system that pulls in recruitment from Microsoft, HP, etc.
And not only are we a tiny department, but the vast majority of the students that are there aren't Fresno natives. Most aren't even United States natives.
Rather, we get a ton of students from India, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, etc. Only a select few of us are Valley (that's San Joaquin Valley) products.
Virtually none of us will remain in Fresno come graduation. The overseas students will largely return to their home countries. The non-Valley natives will head back to their areas of the country, and most of us Valley natives will leave the Valley (which is fine with me, but I'm sure a few would rather stay in their home).
Funny thing is, Mayor Alan Autry (better known to most as "Bubba" from "In The Heat of the Night", our Arnold before Arnold) really was seeking to pull some Silicon Valley business down here, where cost of living is far lower. Unfortunately, things haven't remained rosy in the tech sector, and there's a lack of homegrown talent here waiting for the jobs. I'm sure there'd be a number of out-of-work programmers willing to head here, but California's business climate is just not allowing much of anything to happen right now.
I am from India and I used to read books from Norman Vincent Peale as a teenager. I distinctly remember 'Tough Times ...'. He used to emphasise religion, that was easy to look past given my very broad spiritual upbringing - (Sikhism, Hinduism and part of Christian school). My mom also made me read 'Made in America' by Lee Iococca. And I remember an out of print book by Dale Carnegie about autobiobraphies of 50 Americans including Edison and Doolittle. As part of going to engineering school I got exposed to Miller, Hemingway, Pirsig, and Ayn Rand (there were many more, these are the highlights).
American literature was much more positive and effusing of opportunity as compared to British literature which was bordering on some sort of Victorian classism. Americans came across as an open, cheerful, can-do people though they shared the Anglican roots with the British. This mild yet powerful shift attracts Indians to American qualities and we as a nation are finally willing to trust and aspire to equal a white race. Our previous experiences with the French (colonisers), Portugese (colonisers), British (colonisers) were not good.
Free trade has nothing whatsoever to do with migrating to a foreign country. Wherever did you get that idea?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Two things concern me about this (other than the obvious fact that no American can live in the US for $8000/year and we have nowhere else to go).
Number one, these people are, on the average, smarter than we are. Period. We all like to think, yeah, I could go get a PHD in nuclear physics, it's just a matter of the money and the time. Most of us can't. Especially not somewhere like IIT (which has higher standards than MIT, which accepted about 2000 of 20,000 applicants last year). Ever looked at the GRE? The average Indian who comes here to study scores about 760 on the quantitative (Math) section of the GRE. Ever tried it? How'd you do? Even break 700 (90%)?
Second, we joke about getting jobs at Wal-mart if things don't work out in programming. We may not be qualified. My senior year of college, I took a job in a gas station (cash register) to make my truck payment. After four months, it didn't work out.
It wasn't the meniality of the job, or the boredom - I've been far more bored by, say, HR presentations or sales pitches than I was in the gas station (although you do begin to see why people start smoking marijuana to get through the day).
It wasn't the customers. I never in four months of working there had to deal with a ridiculously surly customer. When they were a pain, well, I can be polite to anybody for two minutes.
It was my coworkers. They hated me. I hated them. They would start conversations about characters on MTV's "The real world" and I'd admit I didn't watch much TV. They'd curl their lip and think, "snob". And, of course, I'd scratch my head and think "moron". I tried to hide it, but shit - these people were the bottom of the barrel. What can I say? They can sense how you feel about them, and trust me - listen to them talk for a few days and you'll feel that way too.
And... what makes you think Wal-mart is going to hire you? They'll want to know your employment history - and when the hiring manager finds out you used to make $70,000, he's going to be a bit concerned that you'll jump ship at the first opportunity. And he'll be right.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Trade isn't free unless, and until, you include labor mobility.
Stop ranting about "economics" until you grasp the basics.
American workers are "too expensive", because of Government policies. Taxes, employment rules, enviromental rules, etc. Factors over which they have exactly zero control, either in the US or India. The amount of money the US Governmental system flat out FORCES each of its citizens to pay is probably more than the average Indian makes in a year. Forget optional expenditures, like food, where the situation only get's progressively worse.
So, the playing fields upon which they "battle" are NOT equal, by sordid design, and will not be unless labor can "trade" as freely as the product produced.
It has rather nothing to do with worker productivity, in the micro sense, or Indians being "better".
The next big thing after knowlege workers is Reality TV. By 2012 10% of all Americans will be on a reality TV show. The other 90% will be involved in production and post-production operations.
Who cares what they look like...or how smart these particular foreigners are?
NONE of these Indians is a rare-find Einstein or employed in a job requiring one.
They are simply SLAVE-WAGE LABOR.
FACT #1:
- For ALL of the jobs described in the article, THERE IS MORE QUALIFIED TALENT IN THE UNITED STATES THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD.
FACT #2:- American companies outsource to FIRE AMERICAN WORKERS and hire SLAVE-WAGE laborers, all the while receiving GOVERNMENT TAX BREAKS. Instead,
- these companies should be TAXED for their ECONOMIC TREASON...at an amount to eliminate any advantage of going overseas. THEN, we would see how many Indian Einsteins these companies "couldn't find in the U.S."
FACT #3:- Any SUCKER who trains a foreigner to take over his job DESERVES the shaft.
FACT #4:Take action:
Just look at how Dell recently switched its support for CORPORATE customers back to the U.S. after NUMEROUS COMPLAINTS. Of course, Dell's HOME customers MUST STILL SUFFER THE INDIGNITY OF DEALING WITH THE VERY SAME INCOMPETENT INDIANS!
P.S. The author of the Wired article sounds just like one of these new-age management freaks. In the old days, union guys would club such a weasel over the head and feed him his testicles. But, then, the unions are mostly gone, now, and IT workers, never having had a union, ARE PAYING MIGHTILY FOR IT.
The article in question specifically mentions a young woman who earns $11K slinging code, thus the pronoun at issue, but you don't care. Your prior posts coupled with your rant about one word which really has nothing to do with the topic at hand have confirmed you are an unimaginative troll with a different axe to grind than outsourcing=bad. But what the hell, let's have some fun. Please note asueekim's hallmarks, highlighted in bold.
Since when were girls programers?
Gee, my wife has been one six years or so.
the tech/engineering/hard-science fields are manned {see, he can hardly help himself} almost entirely by men
There are several professional organizations dedicated to increasing the number of women in engineering.
Are you a feminist?
Yep.
Are you glad that our women have been corrupted beyond repair during the last 30 years?
I am glad that women have gained control over their own bodies and destinies, a process that began long before 1974.
Are you happy that they are all going to hell in a handbasket while being lead by the "great womyn" of our century to their eternal death?
Lemme just hazard a guess here. Fundamentalist Christian, right? Does your bible not say, remove the rafter from thine own eye before plucking the straw from thy neighbors? Does it not also say, Judge not lest ye be judged?
Please. If you want to troll Slashdot you should at least try harder to make it fun for the rest of us. This is too easy. Sky Gods. I mean really.
All you have to do is look at the TV show "Biography." When was the last time they ever did an episode on a scientist, engineer, or great thinker? I can't think of them ever doing that. 9 out of 10 "Biographies" are on movie stars or rock musicians.
Aggregate Expenditure = C + I + G - T + X - M, the 'M' is for iMports.
The more we import this labor from India, the more we hurt our own economy. The issue isn't so much the quality of labor as it is the effect it has on our gross national product, price level, and ultimately overall condition of the economy (deflation, loss of jobs, etc).
However, you have to question the quality of a life where from the womb all you do is study in order to get into a good university where all you do is work in order to get a code-monkey job which is your life.
explain what americans do is different than this.. (substituting the words study with bumming and university with *internship* and code-monkey job with trade)
it all depends on what ur definition of quality of life is. is it happiness? is it material comforts? is it $$$? and thats where culture comes in. This is a very subjective area and making generalizations about what everyone would want is kind of like defining beauty for everyone aka stupid.
"The US and its companies will be basically irrelevant. ...
Welcome to the third world."
Japan has ~100 million people, and in a few short decades was considered the greatest threat to the US economic power (and still is a tremendous influence). Nokia is a Finnish company and dominates the worldwide phone market. Nortel is a Canadian company that dominates much of the world networking infrastructure. HSBC is a British company that is one of the biggest banks in the world. What does the size of the flag nation have to do with the worldwide potential of an organization?
I for one welcome our Corpress Critters Overlords outsource our jobs as long as we can import their cost of living.
You may implement fair trade policies. You may implement trade restrictions. You can declare war on India. You can vote Democrat. You can vote Green. You can vote Libertarian. You can enact a law that forces all US companies to use only US Citizens for all software engineering labor, to force them to use only foreign labor, or anything in-between. You can make it all free, or all restricted.
The reason businesses choose to hire cheap programmers is because that is how much they are willing to pay. If you artificially try to raise that price, they will not hire programmers at the higher price; the projects will simply go away.
You will not make your job come back. It is gone FOREVER. It is a dead issue. Politics and greed are simply irrelevant; this is the reality you must face and deal with constructively, by looking for ways to adapt your skills.
A brief aside:
I have little sympathy for the millions of my fellow Americans who charged into the gold rush of computers in the 90's who now have no jobs. I did not choose this lifestyle because I had dollar signs in my eyes. I chose it because it is who I am and have always been.
I am fortunate that people are willing to continue to pay me to do something which I enjoy and do well. But I am not so naive to think that this will always be the case; I am mostly concerned with whether or not I am providing more value to my employer than I cost. If I fail to do so, then it is up to me to find new ways to be productive.
And I'm lucky in that my employer actually asked me to provide weekly status reports. Imagine that -- he actually ASKED me to do something which I really wanted to do anyway: Once a week, I remind my bosses how I am contributing more value to him than he is having to pay me. And by doing so, he is happy because he feels he is getting a bargain, and I am happy because I am well-paid, enjoying my job, and likely to keep it.
But there's more than that. I'm also keeping up on the industries we're in, and the trends in those industries. And I am using that to get advance warning of what skills I will need to brush up on, and the likelihood of my company succeeding in certain areas, and most importantly, when the project I am is in danger of becoming cancelled by the company.
My resume' is a marvel of marketing: It tells an employer not just that I have skills, but that I do this because I enjoy it, have always enjoyed it, and have a history of seeking to make value for my employers.
I don't have to like doing this. I just have to do it. That is part of being a professional. That is part of adapting to reality.
This is how you deal with a down job market constructively! You can go ahead and do your superstitious lobbying and your arcane petitions to the witch doctors in Congress to somehow magically summon your long-dead, buried, and decomposed job from the grave. There is no evidence that such mythical sorcery has ever managed to successfully resurrect a job, and it's not for a lack of trying!
Fuck politics. Instead, market yourself well. Learn about the industry you work in. Make your goal to produce more value than you cost. Do these things, and you never need worry about having a job, regardless of what you do or where you do it.
I know a lot of people are pretty angry about outsourcing. As an programmer in a western country I realise that my days of code cutting may soon be behind me. There are really two scenarios here:
Either Indian companies really can provide coding and IT services of the same quality as an australian team, or they can't.
If they can't, then this process will come to an end and I can make a good living writing code. On the other hand, I might be forced to think about doing something new. How about home automation? No one is in as good a position to help people sort out the bewildering array of hardware, software and interior design as someone who actually lives in my town.
I can imagine as home automation becomes more hackable, more and more people will want to make software modifications. If it's a quick hack, I can do it myself, if not I can call my team in india to put together a high quality mod for my customer's climate control/music system/garden fertilising system. I can provide a highly technical and productive service based on my local presence and feed my family too.
Comming back down to earth, I wonder whether outsourcing companies can truely provide the quality we need. Frankly, when I think about it, I hope they can. Cutting code just isn't as cool as hacking someone's house.
--
Ven. Jhanrato
This all started with letting third worlders into our country at all. We should never have started letting them into our universities. They are our competition. And "our" means the workers of America, not the investors, not the tycoons, and not the CEOs. Giving educational access people from low wage country is a winner for corporations and rich people and a loser for the everyday american.
The battle for our wages and our jobs was lost when we started seeing the same perspective, starting taking the viewpoint of the investor class. How stupid can you be!
What small business owner would let his competitor in on his trade secrets. It's one thing to let people from high wage countries like Western Euros into our country to work or go to school: there is not much of a wage disparity.
BTW, Slashdot's parent company involved in outsourcing. That is why they rarely run outsourcing stories, and why the only stories they run these days are favorable or sympathetic to outsourcing.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
As a college senior majoring in computer science, I can't wait to get into the U.S. market so that I can get shafted like so many of you. Of course that's provided that I can afford graduate since my state is discussing requiring out of state tuition for anyone who needs more than the bare minimum number of credits required to graduate. With my minor in mathematics already earned and another in cognative sciences in progress, I can't help but wonder why, with a lack of properly trained people in the U.S., people would conspire to make getting the knowledge I need to survive with the life that I want so much more difficult. Why is the U.S. importing IT and killing education? Oh well, at least I can feel assured that with the number of unemployed pissed off programmers in the U.S. rising, it won't be too long before the U.S. information security technology exports to India start picking up...
However, you have to question the quality of a life where from the womb all you do is study in order to get into a good university where all you do is work in order to get a code-monkey job which is your life.
This is true, but from the American perspective, it's not very encouraging to see that you can work hard, study, blow some serious cash on school, and then have your job sold out from under you, leaving you with $7/hour flipping burgers and trying to pay off those student loans. That's one aspect of the Wired article that was almost completely ignored - with all of the people saying, "just move laterally into another field", no one seems to have a good idea just how to afford that lateral move and the training it entails, especially for the poor schmucks that are just now graduating.
There are lots of comparisons made with the steel and textile industries, but those didn't require an expensive specialized education that suddenly became worthless. Also, there is *such* a gap between the COL between here and India - the Wired article mentions that the project manager they interviewed makes $11,000 per year and lives quite comfortably - that's practically at U.S. minimum wage and not really a sum you could live on here.
I guess that this whole thing is an object lesson in going into business for oneself - when it comes down to it, you're the only person that can really be trusted to look out for you, because you can't trust an employer to give a damn.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
The reason people got so upset about the economy of Japan is because of the WWII propaganda - people jumbled together Japanese economic threat with the WWII military threat.
The worldwide potential of the 'flag nation' is limited by their population. If you are outnumbered 5 to one by a group of people that are equal to you in skill and resources, you are basically irrelevant. You become the tail trying to 'wag the dog'. India has 4 times the economic potential because it has 4 times the workers.
So, in you lifetime you will be seeing your PHB looking for job.
- People who believe other people have no right to live, got no right to live ...
To solve this issue here would be a great plan. Say Microsoft is located in Washington State they would have to pay there Indian employees State of Washington minimum wage. It will get to a point it would be cheaper to move to the Southeast where the min wage is 5.15 an hour
Don't you think that if Corporation XYZ could open a new office in Arkansas, or South Carolina, or Wyoming, i.e. a place with lower cost of living and lower pay scales, then they would've done that before they "sent" their jobs to India
There's absolutely nothing keeping them from doing just that, except for the fact that you can't find software people that will work for $10K per year anywhere in the U.S. You make more than that working as a greeter for Wal-Mart, for crying out loud.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
1. If company A wants to import services/goods from country X to Y, company A must pay its employees the acceptable salary from country X *OR* country Y, WHICHEVER IS GREATER
No, they should pay whichever is lower. The best deal. The real value of the work. Otherwise, things are much less efficient and prices are much higher.
2. If company A wants to import services/goods from country X to Y, company A must follow BOTH, the environmental policies of country X and the environmental policies of country Y, at all of the facilities that the company owns.
No, people should be able to escape bad government regulations.
I have no idea why it is sooo difficult for them to get the world trade agreement - only 2 points!!
They are both bad idea that make things worse. No wonder they won't fly.
The real loser here is the US Government. If each Indian programmer that was hired had to have medical, dental, disability, social security, state, and federal taxes taken out of their salaries they wouldn't be making nearly as much, not to mention that you can double most of those as the company pays about the same. For outsourced programming positions, that is a lot of money that Uncle Sam never sees.
The only hope is...
Maybe we can get Bush to declare that India is a terrorist nation.
I'm just down on Herndon and Maple and graduated in 1993 from Fresno State with a Computer Science Degree. Know Brent Aurenheimer? How about Henderson Yeung or Shigeko Seki or maybe Walter Reid? The class of 1989-1993 consisted of 50% chinese, 30% indian and maybe 20% caucasian. This lopsided class demographic is nothing new. And you're right the job situation is weak right now in Fresno. Maybe it will pick up this year, here's hoping. As far as the cost of living and housing it has doubled in the last 3 years. My old $133k house is worth $225k today easy. The tech jobs don't pay enough to even put a roof over your head any more. We're slowly creating silicon valley real estate prices without the high paying jobs to go with it.
IIRC, the Germans refer to the US South as "our Mexico."
This article brings up many interesting points on outsourcing. Its history. Its effects in the past. The consequences.
Discuss.
From: http://www.pfir.org/outsourced-cacm
"There are many fine workers performing outsourced tasks around the world. Yet, it is more difficult to maintain control over customer information, security, development, and other critical issues, when work is performed distantly or under completely different laws. The opportunities for errors, mischief, and serious misdeeds are alarming, to say the least. Businesses and governments need to carefully consider the manners in which outsourcing can be reasonably exploited, and how it must be controlled."
In general, I do not have a problem with outsourcing of jobs to cheaper locales, but there are some pieces of information and bad stereotypes being thrown about here in general that need to commented on.
Hey, think like real Americans, don't just try and distribute a fixed pie amongst everyone, make the pie a whole lot bigger through innovation and scientific discovery. I've yet to see a system that fosters new ideas like that of the United States.
> I live in Pittsburgh and can live comfortably as a programmer on $25k a year if I had a stable job.
That's only $12.50/hr. 2 years of "education" in a state institution has a 10 year payback load of roughly $5/hr. About $11/hour for 4 years.
"WalMart" pays cashiers $9, to start, and is about as stable as you want to make it.
If you spend 5 years going to school, you're working for "free" the next 10 years - compared to a WalMart Cashier working, day 1.
"Master's in Financial Math", and you considered this a sound investment, as related to computer programming? No wonder your job went to India.
BTW, I'm from Pittsburgh too.
Anti-flame follows...
$72,000 = 4 years at 0 salary vs. $9/hr at Wal-Mart.
$37,100 = Tuition, 4 years, at Pitt, using 2004 rates.
$4,000 = books.
To "catch up" to the Cashier, you have repay an investment of $113,100, at fairly high effective interest since you could have put that $113K to work in longer term investments (Stock Market=10%). If you use a Student Loan, add 4% to your effective interest rate for the loan principle.
Add another $30K for a graduate year.
When you're done, the WalMart Cashier is $143,000 ahead of you. A 10 year repayment plan of about $22,489/year.
That's not the point. This point is that Indian workers have the option of coming here and working. By law, it is illegal for Americans to get work visas related to IT in India.
This is a bogus excuse... What matters if it's theorically possible to get a work visa in the US when it's almost impossible to get one, because the US gov't doesn't want to give them in first place.
Still, the US don't want to burn their self-image of land of freedom/oportunities/etc. At least India is not hypocrite.
http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/newscli p/story/165_0_2_0_C/
Peter Drucker is a schmucky 94 year-old management guru that just wants to destroy the average white/black American's standard of living.
-------------------Freaking Doofus-----------
What about the anti-outsourcing hysteria that's getting shriller now? Drucker exclaims: "Thank God, we've discovered outsourcing. I believe you should outsource everything for which there is no career track that could lead into senior management." His reason? While labour productivity in a plant can be --and has-- improved, productivity of an in-house knowledge worker has grown dismally. That is inherent in the way of knowledge-work. But companies have persisted with a 19th century notion that a great corporation must do all its work in-house. On the other hand, "when you outsource to a total-quality-control specialist, he is busy 48 weeks a year working for you and a number of other clients on something he sees as challenging. Whereas a total-quality-control person employed by the company is busy six weeks a year and the rest of the time is writing memoranda and looking for projects," says Drucker.
I've worked with Indians. For a long time. They remind me mostly of the 1960's US military: all hierarchy, no thought.
I remember my time in the 1980's/1990's US military: cooperative, and beating the hell out of 1960's Soviet military: all hierarchy, no thought.
I suspect that the Wired magazine front page is the turning of the tide, as it has been so many times before.
(Bye bye, India; sorry we got your hopes up, please take care of your interior barriers to trade before trying to compete, we are the world's brain trust, we rule!, etc...)
Mark it, dude. Indian claims for supremacy ended when Wired highlighted them.
A personal opinion is that the only way this world will survive is the eventual conversion to a utopistic trade economy not unlike communism (please don't confuse the totalitarian state capitalisms of the USSR, China, Cuba and so on as communism.) I may, of course, be wrong.
State capitalism? That is an oxymoron. Statism is the opposite of capitalism. There is no such thing as state capitalism. By definition it wouldn't be capitalism. Maybe corporative socialism?.
At least, Cuba is currently a state with an economic system that is point between socialism (no private property, state controls everything and distributes wealth to each according to what (s)he produces) and communism (there is neither private property nor state and wealth is distributed to each according to what (s)he needs). In their system there is no private property, the state controls everything and distributes wealth to each according to what the government thinks they need.
In my country the government is trying to implement a system similar to Cuba's.
My heart is pure, but make no mistake, it's pure evil
Einstein tells us - "Imagination is more important than knowledge".
Umm, let me see. I think you are berating the incorrect entity. Americans don't see cheaper Nikes because Nike uses child labor or people caught in poverty traps. Sorry. Guess who benefits? Nike. So how about you redirect your self-righteous ass to the real problem. Corporations.
Oh, I know... We shouldn't purchase Shoes from such a company. So whom do we buy them from? Reebok? Adidas? Please! Every corporation is doing it.
EAT my SHORTS, Sacred Cow. Wounded knee in your groin all over again!
.
I have to make about $45K out of school, day 1 and every year after, and force myself to live no better than a WalMart Cashier for the first 10 years just to break even.
If I fail either of the above, even for a fairly short period of time, University - even a cheap state one - proves itself a complete waste of a life's effort.
Ouch. What a racket.
Half the best according to Watts' metric. And he's a Napoleonic type.
Personally, I think the Indians bought a crock of shit.
I mean, Watts keeps changing things with the newest trend in software development, but he's saddled his early adopters with concrete boots.
Management Gurus should be killed.n t/newscli p/story/165_0_2_0_C/
http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/conte
What about the anti-outsourcing hysteria that's getting shriller now? Drucker exclaims: "Thank God, we've discovered outsourcing. I believe you should outsource everything for which there is no career track that could lead into senior management." His reason? While labour productivity in a plant can be --and has-- improved, productivity of an in-house knowledge worker has grown dismally. That is inherent in the way of knowledge-work. But companies have persisted with a 19th century notion that a great corporation must do all its work in-house. On the other hand, "when you outsource to a total-quality-control specialist, he is busy 48 weeks a year working for you and a number of other clients on something he sees as challenging. Whereas a total-quality-control person employed by the company is busy six weeks a year and the rest of the time is writing memoranda and looking for projects," says Drucker.
to counteract the American opposition to outsourcing.
l /u ncomp/articleshow?msid=282052
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/htm
"India's National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), representing 850 international companies, has hired Hill & Knowlton, an influential public relations and lobbying firm. Nasscom paid the company $100,000 for the first six months of this year.
"India really feels a need to get their story out. They are frustrated by being bashed for their success in developing an educated work force that can compete worldwide," Michael Clark, executive director of the US-India Business Council, said. "
As I meet programmers and executives, I hear lots of talk about quality and focus and ISO and CMM certifications and getting the details right. But never - not once - does anybody mention innovation, creativity, or changing the world.
Indian developers have a dedication to professionalism that you just can't buy in the US, and that's the point, it's not about money, because no matter how much money you throw at US engineers they refuse to be professionals.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Now that I've given you the proper grammar, please get back to sucking your penis.
(you know, "Tastes great, less filling!")
Offshoring in India took off when the Indian government gave a 100% TAX BREAK to any company that operates as an offshoring services company.
Gee, fair trade?
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
"Jairam's annual salary is about $11,000 - more than 22 times the per capita annual income in India. Aparna Jairam isn't trying to steal your job. That's what she tells me, and I believe her. But if Jairam does end up taking it - and, let's face facts, she could do your $70,000-a-year job for the wages of a Taco Bell counter jockey"
Sure, if I lived in a dirt poor country, I could afford to take a much lower salary as well.
If those ppl want american jobs, then they should live in america, pay american taxes, pay american prices, live the "american dream". Then they'll find that their friggin' $11k salary won't even cut it for the poverty level. Guaranteed they'll want that $70k salary just like everybody else deserves for their time and education and if they dont' get it, I doubt they would stick with the tech sector for much longer at those wages.
"In the end of it, this is what Free Trade is about: people. This article makes that clear." Hmmm, and I thought it was just economics.
>My suggestion would be to not have kids, then your priorties don't have to change.
This is where you really need to think about what you are saying.
Ask any parent if they would change their single-life priorities or have a child. Ask your parents. Ask a single mother having a hell of a time surviving. Why not never have sex with another human being or go on a date? Those situations could lead to you having to change your single-priorities.
Its seems like your whole life is dictacted or controlled by money. This isn't freedom or some sort of special wise advice.
YOU ARE LETTING YOUR LIFE BE CONTROLLED BY MONEY.
See that number in your bank account? That is more important than your happiness and your future because you already are cutting off future paths to happiness all for the all-mighty dollar.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life
When too many people learn how to fish,
It is a bad time to be a fisherman.
Female = Push to Start (dot head)
Male = Pull to Start (diaper head)
Fuck these ugly fucks. Fuck everyone in the turd world countries. Let them eat shit but fuck them.
We have people here that need to work.
America first, fuck everyone else...
Correction - technical education, *by itself*, is not the solution. It is only part.
The other part of the solution, like you said, is knowing the right people. That doesn't mean you know them right now; that means you may need some social education, too - how to "schmooze". It's a skill that most techies / geeks / programmers are not very good at. But it's just as important, if not moreso, than the technical education. You need EQ as well as IQ. If you've got both, and you're using both, there are jobs out there to be had.
I don't mean to insult the parent - I don't know anything about his or her personal situation or qualifications. But I do know that there are still companies hiring, even today. People can and are being hired, even as others are being laid off and "outsourced".
Hexaware's headquarters, the workplace of some 500 programmers (another 800 work at a development center in the southern city of Chennai, and 200 more are in Bangalore)
What the heck are these people working on..? Ok, with so many hundreds of thousands, millions, whatever, of software engineers on the planet HOW COME WE DONT HAVE ONE ALL AROUND BADASS O/S THAT DOES NOT CRASH?
I think there is a big feeling of invincibility out there, especially in the US. People have to remember that bad things have happened and will happen again. History tells us that it is not impossible that the US economy could go into a depression. It is not impossible that it would never come out of it.
I'm not saying that this is the end of the world, or trying to get everyone depressed, but I think the Pollyanna attitude in this article needs as much of a reality check as the "chicken littles" that it's addressing do.
bottom line is $$?? that's deep analysis...
dell, and their ilk are not charities. as for quality of support, speaking english very well (sic) is far from sufficient, and your grandma really isn't qualified to work on her own computer... i should know, i've spoken to her enough.
Why don't *you* help your grandma yourself if your so interested in families...
silicon entitlements, Pshaw!
The problem with getting customer support from the sub-continent is that the frontline and its escalation paths are ever further removed from the decision makers who absolutely positively could give buggerall for you and your problematic grandma...
Her monitor would display properly if she didn't knock the video cable out of the plug on the back of her "server."
she could read the binary groups off her isps nntp server if she would just make sure her wireless card were getting its signal and LAN IP, off her own "WAP" instead of her neighbors on a competing service.., DS...
the folks in Iderabad and Mumbai just want to kick it on weekends with their grandmas and kids... they really are a cut above your doritos chewing mountain dew swilling xbox modding american geeks.
So, I guess you're saying American programmers don't offer quality?
"...he took a job at a tech support company outside Philadelphia, where he learned Visual Basic. Kirwin discovered that he loved programming and did it well."
Since when was VB considered programming?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Quoting Teddy Roosevelt?
Here's another quote for you aspiring leaders of the world:
"A [politician] is someone whose arrogance has somehow managed to overwhelm their ignorance."
There are an interesting series of articles all month on outsourcing and its impact on the US brain equity and national security and its effect on the economy. These have been overlooked by the Slashdot editors, in their preference for pro-outsourcing information.
4 /01/12/wage_ insurance/index.html
0 04/01/27/amy_d ean/index.html
4 /01/14/outso urcing_foundation/index.html
No safety net for programmers (as there is for factory workers whose jobs have been offshored)
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/200
What's labor going to do about outsourcing?
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2
Poisoning the Roots of the Technoboom
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/200
I had written this for a different forum (plastic.com). Perhaps you will find it relevant as well.
Here is my theory of outsourcing.
Companies do it because it appears to be more cost efficient. This is important for publically traded companies, because they can say "We've cut our development expenses by 30%" and that looks good on paper.
This neglects the long term health of the company. Will an Indian sub-contractor have the ability to say "shit, this isn't going to work once your portfolio hits more than 10,000 positions" and be heard by management in the US? Or "if we generalize this module a little more it can be used in another application that we haven't considered before?"
Having an unimagenitive, disinterested work force -- that's not to say foreigners are stupid -- is not good for your company's growth. Your Indian workers may be very clever but by the time a design gets down to India there's not going to be much room for someone on the floor to pitch in ideas. Having lower development costs today may look good on paper but it may not be good for your growth.
In the long term, smaller companies may be able to gain competitive advantages against the big firms that have traded away future potential for lower costs today.
It's great that Lehman (btw, I hate Lehman. They only hire jerks.) realizes this for themselves. But it would be OK if they hadn't. Sooner or later other companies, the ones that did not skimp on a quality workforce, would overtake them.
That's my theory, anyway.
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
We didn't win at Midway using Nissan dive bombers.
Relying on foreign sources will lead to
massive hordes of cheap foreigner labor wandering
our streets and flying airplanes into buildings.
Oh wait. It's already happening.
Time to wake up, America !!!
Even if one nation is incredibly protectionist and the other is incredibly open, trade is still MUTUALLY beneficially. Nobody is going to accept a trade that makes them worse off.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
You know, I think you hit upon a point that I've been using to sculpt my company's outsourcing policies, actually. We hire the "100th man" here in the US and we give that person a team of "1-99th"-type workers in India to make magic. Am I ashamed we hire only superstars in the US? Not the slightest bit. I have competent co-workers that enjoy their work, enjoy working with one another, and who produce really high quality output. That's more than I can say about the majority of co-workers I've had in previous positions.
Just like a good company, a good employee needs to be agile - able to turn on a dime and adapt to the surroundings.
My prediction is that the salaries will rise in India and make outsourcing there less and less attractive. We'll end up with a balance of some work being done in India, some work being done in the US, and some work moving to the next developing nation with the infrastructure + human capital to support a tech industry...and then the same thing will happen there...everything will balance out - which actually doesn't sound too bad, does it???
You don't have a family, do you? Try supporting a couple kids with two parents making a stable $25k in Pittsburgh, and you'll get to watch your kids grow up in abject poverty with no hope of affording an education at CMU. $70k only sounds like a lot when you don't have any responsibilities.
I worded that badly. I meant to say "this isn't the whole truth", or perhaps "this isn't the whole story". My mistake.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
This has been said before, but I think an example might make it clearer.
Suppose that we have 100 mega-man-hours available to us in the U.S., and we can use each of these mega-man-hours to produce EITHER three software programs OR ten spaceships. So we can have at most 300 programs or 1000 spaceships.
India also has 100 mega-man-hours available to it, but there each mega-man-hour can produce EITHER two software programs OR one spaceship. Thus, at most India can make 200 programs or 100 spaceships.
The question is, even though we hold the absolute advantage over India in all goods, should we still outsource programming jobs to them? The answer is a resounding yes, and here's why.
In economics, "cost" is defined to be what you give up to get something. So in a manner of speaking, the cost of a software program in the U.S. is 3 1/3 spaceships, since each mega-man-hour spent coding cannot be spent building spaceships. In India, however, the cost of writing a program is only half a spaceship. Thus, we say that India has a comparative advantage in producing software programs, since it costs them less to produce then it costs us (in terms of spaceships), even though they can't produce as many.
So what these two countries should do is something along these lines: the U.S. should put all of its mega-man-hours into building spaceships, and India into building software programs, and then the two countries should agree to an even one-to-one trade of spaceships and programs. Now the U.S., by trading with India, can obtain software programs at the cost of only ONE spaceship each, rather than 3 1/3, and India can obtain spaceships at a cost of only one program each, rather than two. (This isn't necessarily the optimum outcome, but it's still better than it was when there was no trading at all.)
This is how taking advantage of comparative advantage, rather than absolute advantage, theoretically allows everyone to have more than they would otherwise.
Now, I can already forsee the millions of replies saying "Yeah, but this isn't a perfect world, and people can't just change jobs instantly from writing code to making spaceships, so you're full of BS." There is a lot of truth to this, but I believe the original point is still valid: even if you are ten times the coder of a programming team in India, it may STILL be an inefficient use of your time to be producing code -- not because the Indians are cheaper, but because you are even better at other things than the Indians. For example, I've often heard it said that Indians are very good at following processes exactly, but that Americans excel at thinking creatively, so perhaps this is an advantage that you may have been underutilizing that makes you even more valuable than you realized.
Remember, the point of free trade is that everyone has more. And don't give me that crap about "but it will just go to the evil corporations!" Remember that these evil corporations have to compete with each other for your money, so it is in their best interest to pass some of the savings on to you so that you'll buy from them rather than their competitors. (And, on an unrelated note, if you don't mind the corporations competing for your dollar, then you are being a hypocrit if you don't think that you should have to compete for their job -- the beauty and terror of capitalism is that it works both ways.)
Snarkiness is inversely proportional to wisdom because it emphasizes feeling right rather than being right.
All you need to do is go to any java forum and read :
the questions posted by so-called "professional" coders in India. I'll admit I am going by names and odd grammar sometimes to determine nationality. Here is an example from artima.com java forum
Hi,
Currently iam working in Banking application.Does anybody working in banking software,if so can u tell me how to create a dialog id for the incoming client message?
Thanks in advance,
s.balu
Meanwhile, the media darlings (Dean, Kerry, Edwards, Clark) give lip service to those not happy about their jobs going to India. They talk about fixing trade agreements. Bullshit! There is nothing that can be fixed about WTO and NAFTA: no one can or even wants to enforce labor and environment stipulations in third-world countries.
Oil up and bend over America!
So, why aren't we outsourcing executive positions? Wouldn't offshoring that $40 million/year CEO position save the company a lot more than offshoring that $70,000/year programmer position? Doesn't India have any business schools?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
So these are the prime Indian students who are designing our bridges and writing our software today. I would hope the American overseers can distinguish the 1-in-10 engineer who did his own homework from the other 9, but I don't believe that is possible.
In a similar vein, I doubt that any Indian company is truly at SEI CMM level 5. In a nation where bribery is a way of life, certification is too easily bought.
I say bring it on India. Protectionism does nothing but delay the inevitable. If we protect US jobs, we will decrease competition, and we will stagnate. They'll eat our lunch in the long run if they're better, no matter what. But if we compete with them, then maybe we'll be forced to get better at our jobs.
In fact, none of these is more than "the best we've got".
Monarchy is great -- if the king is good. If the king is bad, monarchy sucks and we replace the king.
Democracy is great -- if the people are smart enough. If they aren't, bad people take it over and it becomes a monarchy again. You can't put in enough checks and balances to prevent this from happening. If you don't believe me, go read the Patriot Act (among other things).
Democracy also sucks when you can't get enough people to agree on things. Even if you eventually get a happy majority, you get a disappointed minority.
Communism is great -- if you've got a decent way of actually governing it. Otherwise, it becomes a bad democracy or a bad monarchy. It neither helps nor hinders the form of government. It also doesn't work unless it really ends up being fair for everyone.
Capitalism is great -- you get to make your own sort of "fairness" -- if you make a good product, you get payed (which doesn't happen in bad communism). But it doesn't work if competition isn't just right, or if the government plays favorites. Look at the Enron mess if you don't believe me. Or look at Microsoft -- a blatant monopoly.
Or look at car manufacturers -- you have to take your (reasonably new) car back to the original dealer for quite a lot of repairs/services. This helps the manufacturers and the dealerships stay competetive -- but in this case, the consumer loses.
The other problem with capitalism is that it allows for too many smaller "countries" within a larger one. In America, you may be free, but at work, there is one boss -- and you didn't elect him (or her). It's basically like if America said "I want that report by tuesday or we deport you." The only difference is you are partially responsible for America's rules -- and (probably) not at all responsible for the rules of your company.
None of these work. The only thing I've seen work well is communism on a small scale, or monarchy with an infallable check/balance: look at Linux.
If enough people didn't like what Linus was doing, they could make something called "Finux" copied line for line from Linus' tree, and if everyone started using that, he'd be essentially dethroned.
The reason this is better than pure democracy is that democracy only works well if it's direct democracy, which only works in small groups of non-lazy people (in the traditional sense, not the hacker sense). Large projects can be managed by a small ruling person/family/class, but only if everyone has an opportunity to remove them and make a new country, without the use of force.
I agree that it is not the responsibility of the US government to ensure that Indians get wealthy. But I do not believe that by simply being Americans, we are entitled to something. I don't like the idea of a US government. I like either a world government or (preferably) a world with no governments, and with mostly small direct democracies in everything (business included).
Maybe American programmers wouldn't be as rich. But if you really believe that we should be, then I am wasting my breath (er, keystrokes).
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
One day he'll make it to the BIG TIME...
PHP!
Yeah,in my experience most of these guys I encounter over here on visas are MSCE or some other MS-certified BS. They are often times nothing more than helpdesk types...who do some minor web programming in non-languages
like VB,PHP,javascript.
Gotta love the quote from the Indian programmer in the article:
"Don't you think we're helping the US economy by doing the work here?" asks an exasperated Lalit Suryawanshi. It frees up Americans to do other things so the economy can grow, adds Jairam.
Yes indeed. It frees us up to work at Wall*Mort, and Starbunks. Yes, now we can do the important stuff like bagging groceries and pouring lattes.
No more of that silly programming and engineering stuff. Now that there are so many of us freed up our economy can really grow!
Hey, who moved my paneer?
Look at India, look at South Africa, look at Russia, look at Georgia... most of the revolutions of the past thirty years have been about passive resistance and not backing down. They haven't all been bloodless. You've got to have a backbone when you start tossing around words like "revolution" -- I agree with what you said that the millions-to-one advantage certainly means you could never win at that game. But who says that's the way you need to play? (I offer up the Amish as Exhibit A -- they have certainly opted out of the standard game and because they are in no one's face, they are allowed to do it.) DQ was right. We have to stop thinking of the problem in the same tired ways.
That is the fundamental truth of the matter. The center of the article lies in this quote:
I'll admit that the outsourcing trend, combined with the recession has thrown me for a loop. Obviously, I'll have to adapt since no amount of ranting will put our economy back to the glory days of dot-com. I'll always hack computers, even if I can't do it for a living, but I do need to make a living.
So where do we go? What's the Next Big Thing? What kind of professions are out there that promise a big boom in the near future, where I could retrain and make an honest living (doesn't have to make me rich, but does give me the ability to pay my bills) that has something resembling stability, at least for a little while? Where should the middle class of the US migrate so they can stay in the middle class?
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
Greenspan deplores attacks on outsourcing
January 28, 2004 09:33 IST
Amid increasing calls for protection of American industries and banning outsourcing of IT services to countries like India, China and Brazil, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan has asserted that globalisation eventually benefits all and any impediments to it would exact a heavy price.
Outsourcing and India: Complete Coverage
"I do not doubt that the vast majority of us would prefer to work in an environment that was less stressful and less competitive than the one with which we currently engage," Greenspan said delivering an address via satellite before the British Treasury's Enterprise Conference in London on Monday.
"The cries of distress amply demonstrate that flexibility and its consequence, rigorous competition, are not universally embraced," he said.
But as consumers, most people "seem to insist" on low product prices and high quality.
"If a producer can offer quality at a lower price than the competition, retailers are pressed to respond because the consumer will otherwise choose a shopkeeper who does," Greenspan said.
He warned that the consequences of moving towards protectionism in today's globalised financial world could be unexpectedly destabilising.
"I am optimistic that we and our global trading partners will shun that path. The evidence is simply too compelling that our mutual interests are best served by promoting the free flow of goods and services among our increasingly flexible and dynamic market economies," he said.
Outsourcing to someplace other than the US is a business decision. Like all business decisions, it eventually boils down to the question of what value will be received for the shareholders, given the expenditure of a predefined amount of capital.
Many managers have made this assessment and determined that the loss of value associated with moving the IT expertise out of the shop is overcome by the cost savings.
I think that the rationale behind this is suspect. If you've never outsourced before, how can you objectively measure what your loss of value is and make an informed decision? You can't.
How does the decision get made? They do a pilot, which is limited in scope and does not affect critical business processes. The pilot then works because the scope is limited and it doesn't affect critical business processes. The "value" associated with the project is gauged with some metric pulled out of a hat and then compared against an internal project in an apples to oranges fashion.
The numbers look favorable to outsourcing and the next thing you know everything gets oursourced.
As a guy who develops code interally and runs shotgun for my coworkers when they choose to outsource, quality and value are the great myth/canard of outsourcing. Outsourcing firms are quick to claim that their quality and value is as good or better. Actual results that I've seen differ dramatically. After a time, the collective experience of the business community will show that the quality does suffer and the pendulumn will swing back.
Think about it objectively. If it is extremely difficult for a crack team of internal developers to deliver a home run system when they sit just down the hall, don't you think it would be that much harder for a group half way around the globe to perform the same feat when language issues are also introduced? It is like comparing driving your R/C car in your back yard to driving the Spirit probe on the surface of mars. If you can't drive the R/C car in your back yard, you don't stand a chance getting the Spirit probe to function.
no one seems to have a good idea just how to afford that lateral move and the training it entails, especially for the poor schmucks that are just now graduating
Well, actually, the idea is pretty obvious, and has been used repeatedly for the previous wave of outsourcing in manufacturing jobs.
The basic notion of free trade is it that it makes people richer. (If not, the parties involved wouldn't trade.) We all buy electronics made in Asia because they're cheap; that's a great deal for us as consumers (because we get to have more stuff for the same money) and it's a great deal for Asian manufacturers and their employees (because they get a slice of our wealth). In the long run, everybody is better off.
But as you point out, in the short run people whose jobs go overseas are in a pickle; they have trained for a job that's no longer available. The solution is to tax consumers a bit (so their cheap imports aren't quite as cheap) and pay for job retraining and income support.
There are some programs like this for lost manufaturing jobs, and there should be more. And their needs to be support for those harmed by the new wave of white-collar jobs. Write your congressman!
But the solution isn't to block trade. Trade makes us all richer, and blocking it makes us all poorer.
Well - I have outsourced... not for programming but it is possible we will do that to. We needed some commercial artistic work done - illustrations.
After posting a notice in the nearby college of art and trying to work with some local talent - out of the blue we were contacted by some people from Pondicherry.
They offered to give the work a whirl and they did an absolutely excellent job. None of the local workers did. In fact - the local artists (three so far) have not produced a single thing of any use to us. This does nto mean the present one will not come through - just that to date this has not happened but at least this time I know we have found considerable talent.
The bottom line is pretty simple. If Local talent isn't up to the job then we will outsource.
You're completely right about Brooks and Deming! But I can't let this pass:
The other point is that it is not fair trade, the jobs leave and labor cannot follow. This is not fair trade.
I see. Is it unfair trade that, say, US movies are so successful around the world? Perhaps we should be noble and shut down Hollywood so that local film industry jobs around the world can flourish?
Of course not. Free trade is a positive-sum game; blocking trade makes us all poorer. If India can make better software for less, then more power to them.
But I think, for exactly the reasons you cite, they can't. In the same way that the Japanese competition forced American cars to improve drmatically, Indian competition will force American software developers to improve. And as you say, they could start by doing the things that Brooks was recommending 30 years ago.
And there is the problem. I have worked with many skilled immigrants. America is great because we attract the most ambitious and skilled people from all over the world. And they make jobs for us, the children of immigrants, or the displaced children of natives.
And if those people decide to go back home, they take our culture with them, making the world more like ours, in what they don't wish to live without that they learned here.
But they won't learn that if the job is outsourced. They won't come here to learn to love America. They won't see a human face to our international machinations. They will think of us as not able to compete with them, and their culture.
This will promote terrorism, not destroy it. Because you don't learn to love America by hearing how we have intervened to protect our interests. You learn to love America by knowing that we are human too. That we do care about other people. That even if we are crude, we give our hearts openly and fully. Do you really think that "we hired you because you're cheaper" warms the heart of those workers in India? Many in the article acknowledge that they will be screwed by us next. That doesn't seem like promoting international love. It sounds more like promoting distrust.
Lets hear the view from India...
The reason why American drugs are so cheap in Canada is because the Canadian government controls pricing (it's a socialised medical system).
It has been argued that the US consumer is paying the difference.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Do people predict that such a fate may be in store for software?
On a more humorous note, I don't mind either way... 50 cents for authentic Indian food? I'll take the first plane out there.
Until, of course, it's pointed out to me that India doesn't allow people from other countries to take jobs in theirs (it's a fact)... (fairness check everyone? Perhaps we *are* justified after all in wanting securities against outsourcing... just food for thought...)
-Vendal Thornheart
Who cares. A girl that good looking wouldn't be interested in me no matter what OS I use.
"In 1992, Jairam graduated from India's University of Pune..."
That's where I should have gone to school...
You are right on!
Another myth is the free trade between nations. China ships crap goods to us and pays about 3-5% tax. Try shipping goods their. It's at least 30% tax. Why do you think Bush 41 threw up in the Japanese Prime Ministers lap? He was begging to drop the tarrifs and open up their market. Well, why would they want to lose the protection of tarrifs? They protected their own industries, and they have done very well because of it.
My brother, an MBA, made a great comment. He claimed that as an nation advances, they move from manufacturing to knowledge based. To which I replied, "Just like Japan?"
He had no reply, but a laugh.
Sorry mates. Free trade is about ECONOMIC INTEGRATION for the trans-nationals. It has NOTHING to do with the people. I, a Canadian, CANNOT cross the border, shop and come back with whatever I want. I have to pay severe tarrifs on it. Why?
a plug for Hexaware. Why just hexaware? There are other SEI CMMi5 companies like vMoksha, Infosys and Satyam.
I noticed the article is not about outsourcing - its more about outsourcing to India. But now the US cos are employing the services of other global service providers from countries like Romania, Russia, China and Phillipines.
Also, why has ONLY software outsourcing attracted so much attention? Right from shoes to garments to even toys, and other manufacturing industries - components are outsourced. I guess the IT boom cast a brief vision of a great lifestyle..... and then went bust - and outsourcing is being blamed for the boom not booming.
One must not forget that even the citizens of the US were once outsourced....
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
do they give internet access to them xray campers? then life must be pretty good!
*what a moron!*
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140 296468/qid=1075267179/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-735534 2-3856129?v=glance&s=books
.com boom. It covered Jim Clark's bang-up company Healtheon (later WebMD, etc.)
.comers.
Michael Lewis wrote a book about the new new thing during the
It's an interesting read if only for the contrast with Liar's Poker, which was written by Lewis when he was a brash youngster who could see that the emperor had no clothes. This time, Lewis is the old hand being taken for a ride. Other than that, the book is little but an exercise in ego-stroking for the
Lewis' new book, Moneyball, is excellent.
I could rattle off a ream of job-protecting legislation that has made America and the world a better place, but your true-believing Panglossian ass would simply deny it. Anti-trust laws were designed to protect not just marketplace competition but to prevent the loss of jobs that would occur with total consolidation. But I'm sure you believe we'd all be better off without those laws. The same way I'm sure you believe that we'd be better off without Workers' Compensation laws that require employers to make jobs safe.
Whatever. Go jack off to your copy of the Fountainhead. America should be using the power of its economy to negotiate for better trade practices. We are the most profligate consumers in the world, and we're stupid not to require corporations to behave in certain ways in order to have access to our markets.
For some definition of "stolen", anyway. From Cortez to the East India Company to the slave trade, natural and human resources were systematically removed from the rest of the world by European colonial powers.
"Stolen" implies that one group of people has the right to property or resources.
Nature IS competition for resources. Does the wolf steal from the mountain lion because it killed the lamb first, thus depriving the lion of food?
Ever since the first single celled organisms in the primordial ocean began to consume each other due to the exhaustion of glucose in that ancient environment, life forms have been stealing resources from one another.
The lie you are perpetuating is that amongst humans, this is unique to white men. The fact is only they were good enough at it to affect the whole world. What about the mongels? Who got all the way to vienna? Or the huns?
Every major war, every revolution, every system of society, and every culture has come into being to assist that extended tribe in the conquest of and competition for natural resources.
Yes, since then, most of the wealth of the west has been generated. You have to understand, however, that it takes wealth to make wealth. The rest of the world is only just now starting to bounce back thanks to globalisation, despite the best efforts of wealthy countries to keep protectionism alive in all industries except the ones they do well.
It takes human ingenuity and civilized behavior to create wealth. It should be clear that wealth in the material sense is insufficient, otherwise Africa would be the wealthiest continent. For primitive people, wealth cannot be created. Their instincts only allow for the most basic form of resource exploitation.
I would also question your suggestion internationalism helps third world countries. The major issue with India never discussed is why they as a people are focusing on software engineering and not improving the country they are in. We are talking about a country where the vast majority of people live in housing inferior to most urban housing in the Roman Empire over 2000 years. India is a prime example of how Internationalism only benefits a select elite. The average Indian citizen is probably worse off today than under British rule.
What hope does the average fellow have in India except to work as a servant for the wealthy who get their money from the US?
Internationalism is only going to further the caste system in India, except that even the upper echelons of society there will be little more than parasites on the great fat Internationalists.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's just plain old capitalism . Buy where it's cheap, sell where it's expensive (and in demand). America has been talking capitalism for so long. Butnow that India (Ex-Socialist) and China (Ex-Communist) has started carving its own pies out of the market ... America goes protectionist ?.
... I *am* biased :)
In short "You can dish it out, but can you take it ?"
Excuse me , I'm an Indian working on Outsourced stuff
You are absolutely right.
> medical insurance and associated costs.
Isn't India way up on the list of wanting to violate/avoid patents on medicine? In response, of course, drug companies just shift the cost - to captive Americans held literally at gun point by the FDA. Lower costs in India, paid for directly by my unemployed ass.
Imagine a US where you could access drugs on a "free market" basis. Imagine a US where you could find medical assistance without the burden of funding a multi-billion dollar malpractice insurance overhead, through a multi-billion dollar medical cost insurance.
Insurance overhead paying themselves, producing absolutely ZILCH. You are forced to pay 9K/year, 3K gets eaten up by the "Medical Insurance" division, another 3K is handed over directly to the "Malpractice Division", and all but $65 of the rest ends up in embedded malpractice insurance in the products consumed. You, you get a $65 checkup once a year for that $9K "you" cost.
Indian medicine, I'm sure, is nowhere near as, um, "progressive" as we are.
I want to pay my way for Indian style medicine here. I want to get drugs off the shelf at the local pharmacy. Stocked from the lowest price supplier anywhere in the world. Warn me about the dangers on the bottle. I want to "opt-out" of malpractice insurance when I only need to see the doctor to LEARN the latest on how to control blood pressure.
BTW, you can't "shift costs to the government". That means you pay for them, plus the overhead of administering the funds. These countries have LESS government - far less - maintaining a captive audiance forcing how things "MUST BE DONE".
Imagine a doctor in the Indian outback. Everyone too poor to afford anything close to $200/month for a drug. Even "cheap", if disdained, US drugs at $10/month are beyond most. How would they operate? Teach what you can, let them get what they need by any means possible. That's how.
They call them Free markets.
The US wouldn't know one if it bit them on the ass.
Politians are short-sighted/corrupted/old-fashion. At the time of Adam Smith, there was only one form of economic activity between nations: trade. As a result, everyone and his dog talks about trade imbalance. Frankly, buy a few China/Mexico/Indonesia made dolls won't make US bankrupt... But, massive drain in jobs will.
India is in fact a member of WTO since 1995. I have never heard any noise from that front. India does not manfacture much, no wonder.... Clearly, there are problems other than trade.
Politicians, it is 2004. If trade is an item for negoitation, it is hard to argue unregulared out-sourcing makes sense.
The biggest lie of all is that Non Free software puts food on the table. It does not. It simply locks up your work for 100 years so that it can be used against you, just like this. Offshoring exposes this lie for what it is.
The Free Software community welcomes contributions from all around the world. Free software can not be used against it's authors.
Think about this the next time you sign a NDA. RMS was right about them being a promise to be a bad person. When you make such a promise to screw others, you should not be surprised when the person who you make that promise to turns around and screws you with your own work.
The same thing works for bogus patents in other fields of engineering too. The power you grant big companies to screw others will be turned against you at their earliest convenience. It is a disaster for the US and the world.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
No pun intended.
Now, we import technology services from India and India imports products from the US, creating jobs in industries such as...
wait, I'll think of one soon...
Oh that's right. India protects certain industries from foreign imports. They might do something silly like have heavy import duties, or ridiculously complicated paper-work to import foriegn products. They do import from abroad, but they are fairly protectionist.
If this were free trade we would loose jobs to India because they can export technology services cheaply. That would have two positive effects, the first being the IT cost bourne to produce decreases, making products and services in the US cheaper. The second is that Indian salaries go up and they can buy more US goods. Unfortunately, the only benefit of outsourcing is a cheaper source of IT services, until Indians buy US produced goods, such as cars, motorcycles, Omaha steaks, or widgets.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
Slashdot articles about jobs and outsourcing get more vociferous comments than any other topic. More than Microsoft, more than Personal Rights. Why? The reason is fear. The same fear that I feel whenever I think about whether I will still have my job next year.
Outsourcing of blue collar work slipped under the radar of many white collar workers, and was likewise disregarded by college students (my father was in the former group, and I was in the latter -- both of us now fallen on hard times). The reasoning went like this:
"Well, blue collar workers may have brute strength, but I am smarter; Blue collar workers may work more, but I will do more than mere grunt work; Blue collar workers have repetitive jobs, and don't do much training -- I am going to college / earning higher degrees, and I love reading about it on my own. I have earned a measure of success."
Sound familiar? Sound reasonable? For the first time, I think, job security is crumbling due to something completely beyond our control. "If only I were smarter; If only I were more studious; If only I could be more industrious; If only I cared about my job and kept up with new developments." There are so many programmers who can no longer make those laments, because they've already done everything conceivable to secure a good job and a long career. Not a guarantee anymore.
To me, the hard-working programmer is an ideal. Perhaps not a knight in shining armor -- but, damnit, they care about their job, they work long hours, they are smart, and their work matters. To see them devalue themselves as they apply for retail jobs is, in a small way, a strike against idealism, and a point scored for materialism.
- rabs
let's really ponder how "free" trade really is. only in the us is trade really free. everyone else protects their borders. we are the only nation on earth rich enough to stand on principle and mean it.
Sorry, I had one of them. If you asked him to point North, and showed him how, he'd be pointing West, or East, or South, but never, ever, North - every time.
He had a Master in Comp. Sci. (well, according to his resume and HR let him pass). Can't imagine how he got that without ever seeing a computer, tho. He couldn't have, at least he'd have had some clue.
So, I guess, Dumbass is not an attribute exclusive of Americans.
I know that's a line that isn't very popular in any context, but I think it applies.
Our country has paid a great price for taking advantage of people. During the 90's a lot of companies brought over a bunch of H1-B visas to do our jobs. These corporations convinced congress that there weren't enough Americans that were skilled enough (perhaps this was true at one point). However, instead of making this people citizens, corporations turned these people into indentured servants. Often employing hundreds of them. These H1-Bs were highly motivated and often well educated (often times having a MS, sometimes even more than one, in some field of engineering while working in "advanced IT" or software engineering positions). Eventually, these glorified indentured servants grew sick of their corporate oppressors. They went back to India. We could have made these people US citizens. They could be CONTRIBUTING to this economy. These people could be demanding American-level wages.
Some of my friends are foreigners studying or working in the US as programmers. Every one of them has told me or demonstrated (by trying to become) an American citizen. However, as a few friends have put it, if the Americans don't want me here, I'll just go home. I can make quite a bit of money with my American degree. Why should I stay here and be abused.
I'm a naturally born American whose father and mother's father are immigrants. The latter came through Ellis Island. I'm proud of being a second and third generation American. We have stood by too long.
We are a morally bankrupt society. We don't want to make illegal aliens citizens, but we seem to enjoy the benefits of their labor. We complain because the Mexicans drain our social system, but we don't seem to mind the fact that they do jobs most Americans won't do. We are paying the price for this moral bankruptcy. Some day these Indians, who are taking our engineering jobs, will realize they don't need to outsource for US companies. Some day, some Indian will realize that he too can start his own company. That day will be the beginning of the end for our late great American empire. Our biggest fear is not terrorism; our biggest fear is our own greed.
If we wish to stop this event from occurring we must speak out on this issue. We need to find ways to re-open immigration. We must end this indentured servitude. We must allow the best and brightest to come to this society and contribute to our culture. We must become what we once were, the great melting pot of the world.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
Fear of change is part of the culture of fear in western society. One current incarnation is the outsourcing of jobs to India. Opponents of free trade live on stories like this. "Fair competition between countries will result in people losing their jobs!" they cry. They are right. But history has taught us that an industry that dies in this way is replaced by another that is even more rewarding. In the past, farmers lost jobs as agriculture became more efficient. Next, industry became more productive, and manufacturers lost jobs. Then, the computer was born, replacing accountants, typists and switchboard operators. Today, the people who service the computers are being shifted. In every case, people who do servicing jobs are replaced, and go on to more creative jobs.
The difference between these sector revolutions is that each happens faster than the last. But ever since Toffler's classic Future Shock, people have feared the ever increasing pace of change. Others, especially young people like myself, have embraced it, and even thrived on it. Which person you are is up to you.
So what if it is? Not that I'm saying that it is, but what's the problem with nationalism? Doesn't it make sense that a country should take care of its own, putting them before others? After all, if you don't take care of your own, you'll be defeated and destroyed by those who do.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
I'm old enough to have endured the ravages that occured in the automotive industry in the early 1980's. I graduated from college just north of Detroit in 1983. I had a hell of a time finding a job...because laid-off alumni were sleeping overnight in the halls outside the Placement Office to sign up for interviews. (I'm not placing blame for that, there was plenty to go around for that disaster).
Yet, at the time, I was hopeful. I was a CS major, with a Computer Engineering minor, and a decent GPA, and I knew there was a future beyond spinning lugnuts. And I did get a job (albeit in RR's deathmachine combine), and eventually did pretty well, and got out from under the M-I combine.
The problem with the current phenomenon is that, I can't for the life of me figure out what the "next big thing" is. To hear GWB and his friends talk, all we have to do is become biochemists or nanotechs. Should only take us a couple weeks of correspondence courses, right?
Er, that is, until India/China/Singapore/et al decide they want that action...at 0.10 on the dollar. So what's after that ? Fuel cells ? Well , um, can't they do that too?...and actually, don't they have more of a reason to pursue it than we do ?
So all I'm left with is
- "Would you like fries with that?"
- Cleaning bedpans for the huge number
of elderly invalids we'll be saddled with
in the next 15-20 years
In closing, I'd like to offer the "Dr Strangelove" solution: lets make programming so damn easy/ simple that we take 'em down with us.Lord knows there are plenty of projects at SF that purport to ease programming effort... but usually end up just building IDE's (if they ever produce anything at all). And I don't mean VB (a #10 pencil with a circle of paper). I mean real tools for building real solutions with drag/drop capability. Yes, even for real time, data mining, bio-informatics, whatever. Make it so damn easy that the mailroom clerks..even PHB's!... can do it.
If we do that, then I'd like to see "Wired" do another interview with our overseas friends in 5 years, and see how they feel about their "cheese" then...
Free Trade according to US: 1. ALL countries should import US goods without imposing any import duty. 2. ALL countries must use imported GM grains for planting their crops without any protective tarriffs. 3. ALL countries must beg America for funds year-after-year. 4. ALL countries must have McDonalds and Pizza Huts without restrictions. All conditions must be met if US agrees to a Free trade agreement with other nations. Unfortunately (for US) other national leaders are also as smart and intelligent as US leaders are. These national leaders and citizens will not allow their countries to be raped by US to fulfill US needs. Since these countries have now woken up and are fighting back, US of A immediately wants to outlaw these countries. CHange the rules when the game turns against you! Fine! We too know how to do the same. Try knocking on Europe in 10 years from now. US enemy is not Iraq, China or India. It is Europe! Remember that you morons. Don't fight fate.
-------- Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate -- the bombs always hit the ground.
" I live in Oregon next to some pretty big high tech businesses(who hired tons of foreign workers, becuase they couldn't find enough qualified workers here, so they said) that have let tons of workers go and now our local economy is total crap. "
Hmmm...interesting.
No telecommuting:need qualified workers.
Go outsourcing:need qualified workers.
Quite frankly the only industry that American companies are good at is the making excuses.
After 9-11, the INS is more screwed up than ever, and since the economy has sucked since the bubble burst, H1b and Green Card processing has come to a standstill. Many on the H1b came in during the bubble and are coming to the end of the the term the H1b affords them in the U.S. . So now many are being forced to return home. They are returning to India and the jobs they have now are waiting for them with the same company there( but at a much lower wage ). I don't know if it's really offshoring if you take a guy or gal out of the office here and now they work from home.
So, are the programmers in India better because they have not been lobotomized by years of reliance on microsoft? Or because they are so removed from the management and IT bureaucracy?
I blame the corporations.
A while ago, I realised that coporations truely are greedy. They don't care about the long term effects of what they do, only about profits. They don't seem to realise that, by outsourcing, they are hurting the economy in the long run. They are slowly trickling money out of the states that will not be used to buy things here in america...meaning less money flow in america. As we all know from economics, money flow is what creates a good economy.
The funny thing is, in the long run, this will hurt their profits too. Guess only the now matters though.
"Their burning greed just blinds them to the truth." - mp
I feel like that is hardly fair, given that IIT has produced great thinkers such as Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems, Goldman Sachs partners, many Microsoft VPs, and too many (almost countless to name). Perhaps IIT tends to focus upon creativity in industry (as does seem to be the case), but regardless, it is there. Yes, schools like Caltech, MIT, and Harvard do create some of the great thinkers of our time, but please give IIT credit where it's due.
> Isnt it right that we lobby for Outsourcing in USA?
It is, but it's also right, if not more so, to resist it.
These are US companies buying labor in other countries, which not only drains our job market but sucks out taxes. You don't pay US taxes on your salary over there right? Would you mind if our government taxed our companies for the work you do over there? Wouldn't it make sense for us to tax the product you make?
Don't be surprised if new laws come out of this, it's going to be one of the hottest issues in this presidential election.
- sigs are for wimps.
Are you implying that Slashdot has been outsourcing its commentary? =)
True story.
1. There is no 'next big thing.' The farmers saw their jobs moving to the factories. The service industry was blossoming when the manufacturing industry began to falter. There is no booming industry now. There is no next step. You can tell the programmers to retrain and get new skills but what skills should they get? Unemployment is about 6%. There currently isn't an industry in need of workers. The Wired article suggests that programmers should move toward some designer/process-problem-solver type of conglomeration... thanks captain obvious but a good programmer is a designer/process-problem-solver. They tell us to becoming inventors and innovators which, apart from being ambiguous and, well, hard, begins to lose it's meaning when the jobs that support innovation are moved off in just a couple years.
2. Unskilled vs. Skilled labor. Farmers, while skilled in their own right, didn't require expensive formal education to practice their craft. It was learned from the generations before them. Textile workers didn't go to college and sometimes didn't even graduate high school. Skilled programmers now-days often attend prestigious 4 year universities with high and ever increasing tuitions. It hard to tell someone who spent $18,000 per year (the current cost of my alma-madre) to 'just retrain.'
3. Trimming the wrong corners. Look at the stats in the article. Top 400 wealthiest Americas, y2k average salary $174 million. Yes... One hundred seventy four million! Many of these top 400 are CEOs of the very companies moving their IT workforce overseas. Let's see... at 50 grand a programmer per year that's 3480 programmers per CEO. Let's speculate and say 100 of these top 400 are IT oursourcing CEOs... that's the equivalent of 348,000 programmer jobs. By the way, their incoming is growing about 15% faster than the average Americans and this number is sure to increase as unemployment stays high.
Ok, these points being stated, I agree that IT is on an irreversible decline in the US. That's unfortunate as the reason I got into computers wasn't because that's where the money was; it was because I really like computers. Luckily, the company I work for is stable enough and my job is such that outsourcing would be between difficult if not pointless. Regardless, the plight of the IT worker must be addressed. Companies are moving their workforce like ants marching.
Unfortunately, you can't place a tariff on a service like you can a good. I'm not sure that would even be the best answer as most people seem to thing that 'protectionism' is a very bad thing. It just seems odd that a company can reap all of the benefits of being and doing business in America while still getting all of the benefits of international cheap labor all the while, American jobs are dropping like flies and the rich are getting richer.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Most Americans are working in retail, and related. Two requied to earn a living. Two people at $9-$15/hr and you're as good as most. $25K is $12.50, and typical for the 30-40 crowd.
Nice thing about kids, parents, and being married, is the US tax law transfers substantial wealth your way. (Kids and Parent keeping are choices, you choose to have kids and why should I pay for them, and there are state programs for parents who squandered their life's earnings.)
CMU? The only people it pays to send to college is 1) the abject poor - because others foot the bill; and 2) the uber rich - because they don't care. For most people not in either of those two groups, going to college is a demonstrably poor investment choice. It is a remarkably HUGE upfront cost, which, in the typcial case, is not repaid over the working life of the child.
Alas, lotteries have a unique way of consistently fooling all of the people, all of the time.
The answer seems to be "downhill". Most job growth is in low-paying sectors. The U.S. Department offers this guide to anticipated job growth through 2010. Top job growth areas are "Combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food", and "Customer service representatives".
Would you like fries with that?
A fundamental question for American business, and their political servants, is this: Where does the buying power come from? As disposable income decreases, business activity will slow.
Looks like a programmer is a daily wage entity! When the work is shipped to India there is US(well non-Indian ) manager /managers behind it. He/She wants to reduce his expenses and dump work to India.
People trying to feed their kids do not give a teeny tiny shit about long term macroeconomical problems.
Nor should they.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
In case you hadn't heard, the Japanese economy is FUCKED. It's in a deflationary spiral that doesn't seem to have an end. It costs more to live in Japan than it does the US and the jobs are leaving Japan as well. It's imploding into itself. Japan is just what we are speaking of. There are those that live in a 1 bedroom apartment where the sink acts as the toliet and the shower and those that can afford the $1MM golf membership. RICH and POOR.. nothing else.
Also, I don't know what the hell you are talking about when you say they are coming back. Name two Japanese auto manufacturers that are building new plants in the US!
Sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar.
People need to keep things in perspective (Mortgage? Give me a fuckin break.), to keep their eye on the prize (for me, it's autonomy). Others will say it is impossible to live on $11,000, but it is a situation where enough is never enough; people seem only too pleased to sell themselves out for an HMO they complain about and then tell you "real life" scenarios of saving for a retirement when that can't even save enough to weather a dry spell in jobs.
Even if the numbers are significantly higher, is it so hard to grasp making do with less?
"You knew the mission was dangerous when you accepted it. Quit bitching about it now."
The US imports software from Germany, Japan, Israel, Canada and many other countries and of course profitably exports software to many more.
How are you going to write a law banning imports from poor countries?
"What is the cost of protectionism? How many jobs will be lost be preventing companies from outsourcing? "
How many jobs will be saved by preventing outsourcing? Can you answer that with the presumed ease that you believe your question has? Anyway companies exist (much like copyright) at the bequest of the society. That entails "agreements" (social and otherwise). Companies agree to not bring harm to their hosts. That means not polluting the water, or fouling the air. That means not abusing the citizens that make up the society. That means not destroying the economic, or social structure of the society. In return the society creates a favourable environment in which a company can take root and grow. A lot of companies unfortunately have (by being defined as citizens) have violated that agreement, and much like the RIAA/MPAA will be dealt with by the society they have broken pact with. The government as agent (for that's what government is ment to be) for the society can use whatever means that the citizens have so decreed. For a society that stands together will succeed, and one that stands apart wil fall. Now how does the behaviour we've been bearing witness to stand together with the society that gave birth to these companies? Seems more to be "divisive" than anything else. The benefit of the few, with the fall of the many. Always the fruit of a selfish heart.
What total BS!
Reality is the the lowest prices will win. You can't produce more value than you cost. If you take two identicle super geniouses and place 1 in India and 1 in the USA; which one gets the job for $11k a year? Hell, the USA guy could be a bit better and he'd still not get the job.
Bunch of religious capitalist crap! You sound like a born-again Jesus freak---but capitalism is your religion!
Stupid ass.
1100 of 1124 comments? This has sure stirred up a Hornet's Nest!!
;) But as far as I'm concerned, it's all good because we allow American products on our shelves--so money can (and does) flow back (recall the circle model). That's free trade. More trade is only good assuming both parties play fair. Otherwise it might indeed be prudent for the man to step in--"Sorry, you guys can't send jobs to country X until they agree to buy our shit". is about what it amoutns to. "That way we get some of this cash back and are not bled like a slaughtered calf." This is not "protectionist policy"... it's just protection against being hosed.
I recall a circle from economics class. In this circle, employment income flowed from firms to employees in one direction and from consumers to firms in the other. Employees of course are also consumers--they are the same. The circle modeled a CLOSED economy where the wealth went round and round and everyone was happy.
I'm up here in Canada (as my name suggests) where we are also stealing American IT jobs to a degree. Or so I hear since I myself haven't been able to find one!
PS: It may also be true that if the middle class saved/invested more, we might offset our income loss with gains in wealth since our firms are doing so well with cost cutting?
Any other econ. bufs out there? Whaddya think?
here.
;)
Seems as if most Americans aren't sure of their views about outsourcing.. But I guess Greenspan isn't personally affected by it and so isn't the best judge
I agree with the subject... Thanks for the collection of references, I've come across most of them in my recent research as I consider the future of my current career path. :)
I work at a CMM Level 5 company in Korea with a few Indians that we decided to bring from India last year. They are paid the same amount as me, get free housing, 2x more vacation days with paid plane tickets, and a personal cook. They have about 2-3 years more experience than me in programming Java, yet the quality of work they produce is garbage.
To elaborate, they were slow, had immutable cultural differences that hindered communication, and their English skills are rather lacking grammar-wise. Perhaps we didn't get the cream of the crop, but they must have been good enough to hold their jobs for a couple years in India before coming to Korea.
I asked one about salaries in India -- they don't match too well with the Wired article. In addition, they get many benefits that would be quite difficult to acquire in the US. Here are the average offers that his friends and family have been getting:
2-4 Years Experience $8k-$11k
+ medical insurance for the entire family
+ interest free loans
4-6 Years Experience $12k-$18k
+ medical insurance for the entire family
+ interest free loans
Senior positions $20k+
+ house rent
+ car
+ medical insurance for the entire family
+ many more benefits...
I also heard from them that job hunters in India spend most of their time deciding between 5 different companies that will hire them. Cost of living is low in India -- but with all the influx of newfound wealth, I would not be surprised if they found themselves battling inflation.
Hopefully US contries begin to realize the hidden costs and drastic change in values of the companies due to the movement of jobs will only harm their businesses.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_550754,0013 00460000.htm
My fav units are dead Mavs
American workers cost less than japanese and americans buy a lot of expensive cars.
eventually they will go lower for cheaper workers; if greedy and short sighted.
Its wise to do it in the USA, since they consume the most cars, so by supporting their economy--they ensure the health of their biggest customers to continue to purchase lots of cars.
But if they go to mexico, then the US econ gets hurt, they can't buy as much; prices have to be lowered to compensate. Then profits end up about the same as before; long term. Although long term, its quite possible fewer cars are sold if the transition is not just right..
" Companies are moving their workforce like ants marching."
Outsourcing and SPAM have much in common. Both abuse a benign (and trusting) system for their benefit. A system that can't easily fight back without collateral damage (protectionism). The spammer (outsourcer) operates with impunity with everyone downstream suffering.
No further comments required.
America's past saw migrations of manufacturing jobs overseas. America responded by shifting the economy towards service industries. India now has shown the ability to compete very effectively with USA in services. This means USA will now undergo another transition in certain service industries, such as software. Highly labor intensive software production will shift offshore. So the key will be to find ways to use all that goddamned OO to get software to write itself, and thus the productivity will rise to a point where offshoring no longer makes sense. The irony is that the Indians will write the sophisticated software that eventually writes itself, putting themselves out of work. I can see a future where teams of Indians train AI bots from the USA, who then write code based on neurological impulse and such. These bots will be in USA because they will be maintained by the next wave of biogen coming out of Silicon Valley. But ultimately, they will be shipped to another planet because energy will be cheaper to power offplanet services.
...we are supposed to trust someone we cannot even watch from half a world away that they will not harm source code or be a risk to security?
Welcome to the rest of the world, pal. Governments worldwide are relying on Microsoft's OSes and apps. Not everybody is pleased with this situation from a national security point of view: at linux.conf.au in 2002 it was mentioned that national security concerns was a major driver of open source uptake in South America.
I'm talking about the M-word here, but the same applies to most software vendors and some hardware outfits as well. The non-US world still seems to be mostly running US-authored software; US companies don't seem to put a big priority on scrutiny of their practices by foreigners.
It is a woman's prerogative to change other people's minds.
Is it the case that Indian Programmers are more intelligent, more efficient, more organized ?? NO!! Are they Cheaper ??? YES ?? These poor chaps work just as hard. They have their own hassles, their own worries. Instead of trying to put these guys out of work, It is imperative to keep the people who actually make the money in check. Programmers of the World Unite.. I'm a programmer and designer too and I'm sick of being on the lower end of the 'Money' chain, while these corporate predators leech of my efforts.
No man burns with a special flame. They're all the same.. all the same
"Maybe these US programmers should simply adjust" - they could if there was a viable alternative to adjust to. To begin with, I suspect so-called superiority of Indian technical workers goes only so far to explain the fact that more and more companies outsource to India. From one of my corporate IT employments I recall more than one case of Indian software engineers who would qualify as complete slacker. One could only see them when it was a payday. After showing up for few hours they were gone again after lunch and with the paycheck in their pocket. In times of dotcom lax and artificial supervision such situations would occur. But it was surreal to watch that happen with consistent regularity. Finally, they were laid off when that company had to cut its workforce by half.
I have to add that I know also very bright Indian programmers who earn their well-deserved living in software development, or technical support. Yet, it isn't convincing to me that "in general" Indian engineers are better than Americans, because as pointed out it depends who, when and what.
The other thing is that if I'm required to train an Indian, or other national, in order to replace my position that isn't fair. It is a suicidal mission of sorts, because I'm being used to undermine my own ability to support myself. For many years American workers enjoyed the benefits of good economy and now when harder times arrived it is not easy to switch the gears into less subsistence. I'm not jealous that Indian workers get those jobs. But it is self-serving paradigm that we're all part of: one that pitches us against another. It was selfish of us to accumulate wealth for ourselves but it is also selfish of them to think that they have the right to do the same at our cost.
What needs to change is the economic system that invents ways to survive at the cost of those who are left out on cold. It is almost certain that when Indian IT workforce becomes more and more adept in what they're doing they will also expect to be paid better and better. Then, one company after another will start outsourcing services again say to China, or somewhere else. The cycle will repeat.
IP was invented for the sake of lawsuits.
"For those of us who have a family to support, and have made the "mistake" of buying into the so-called American Dream, $11,000 per year is nowhere near enough."
Bump this man up another notch. This is the issue I have with some of the "ra, ra, feel good" advice I see on this board. What indeed happens to the american dream (no longer deserving capitalization)? A society that has no "dream" has at best "existance" (to just exist is no way to live). And at worst there is regression were our children (not even those for we've stopped having children because we can no longer aford them) are worse off than the parents.
Well as an International student who studies in a US university, I don't see why Americans have to worry about programming or engineering jobs "lost" to someone else. It's just a shame for those folks whining "shame on Carly Fiorina shipping HP jobs to India".
You see, you can accuse whatever "Chinese/Russian/Indians/Isreali/Japanese industrial spies steal the latest Time machine diagrams" or "Chinese/Vietnamese/Indians wipe out "our" programming jobs", but isn't United States of America is built on innovations and "all men are supposed to be equal" ? You got Indians who are as capable as you're then they've equal rights to have your jobs. Well then, prove them you can do most Indian outsource companies can't do: from advanced Artificial Intelligence (make some robots girlfriends), search engines (that beats Google), software radios, clustering (can't someone on PC or Linux side write something as good as easy to use as XGrid ?), Medical Computing (if more computer and electrical engineers would learn and dedicate more time to pacemakers and other medical equipments, the world would be a better place ?) ?
Those whining Americans have no idea how lucky are they. At least you can have some education. At least if you have a vibrant VC communities and government funding programmes, that if you've the right moment and the right mind(s), you can start a successfully and insanely great company. I have great respect to my fellow American classmates who work hard everyday who are not just active learners but THINKERS as well.
Until the day India and China have real democracy and innovative culture, I don't see how smart people would have to worry. Just leave the tedious works of your company call centers, web stuff and "enterprise software" go to Indians/Chinese made cheap boxens, and spend your time to make the next killer apps...
"Who moved my cheese" is a good book too... btw...
The posts on this outsourcing issue are really insightful. Perhaps, I should add mine -- from an Indian-Indian perspective. That is, an Indian in India who is not working for any multi-national and who has never been to the US.
As a professor, my "elite" salary amounts to about $4,000 annually. (Four thousand dollars). And this was a big sum until recently.
Now from this side of the story, I suddenly find myself in the midst of an upheaval where even being quite educated I'm way down to being lower middle class. Because of the huge salaries earnt by the "cheap labour" programmers, everything around me has become expensive. We moved to a house that is a fourth of the size of the previous house which costs about 1.5 times the rent of the previous house. We don't have kids because we cannot afford to.
The most insightful part of the Wired article IMHO was this:
"As I meet programmers and executives, I hear lots of talk about quality and focus and ISO and CMM certifications and getting the details right. But never - not once - does anybody mention innovation, creativity, or changing the world. Again, it reminds me of Japan in the '80s - dedicated to continuous improvement but often at the expense of bolder leaps of possibility."
Innovation is dead and creativity is associated only with artists. I see my students being rather confused when I urge them to be technologically creative. To top it all, we have pressure from the local industry asking us academics to "step down from our ivory towers" and address "real research problems instead" -- about CMM and business processes. People are actually serious about "research labs" on some technology XYZ version 2.0 or something like that. Come on, what kind of "research" can you do on one specific version of a specific technology??!!
The scariest part is the horde of all those Indian programmers who lost their jobs in the US and want to displace us here! They come about mouthing jargons and marketing themselves about their "exposure" etc, and how we need "structural changes" etc etc..
Free trade is all okay, but as someone said in this discussion -- this is not the free trade of Adam Smith; this is more of the kind of economics that brought on a backlash in the form of communism and socialism.
In the end of it, this is what Free Trade is about: people.
I haven't laughed so hard since Office Space.
Farming labor - Pick up food.
Textiles Work - Mixing, sewing, cutting
Factory Work - Operate machinery, assemble stuff
Accounting work - process accounting records. Keep track of accounts, understand new tax laws
Computer Work - Takes specs, translate into computer format, test, fix, debug
The trend I see is that we keep having to move up to more and more challenging jobs. The new jobs are always more interesting then the last ones. Yes the cube jobs are going away, and yes there will be pain. But the new jobs will be more exiting, and by the time they get to be boring they will be outsourced as well.
If you want to know where the new jobs are going to be, take a look around at the more challenging positions that exist, where people are doing things that seam to be confusing and difficult to understand. These jobs will one day become just as everyday as programming is today.
We always want to stay where things are safe. We want to have a stable life long job that pays well, that is relatively simple. Our current educational system doesn't help us adapt to change. The only reason people stay in school till there well in there 20's and rack up tons of student loans is because they believe that they will be set once they are done. This is a lie, and the educational system is going to have to change to reflect the reality that it no longer makes sense to train for 5 years, for a job that will last only 10. Education must become much more rapid, and cheap. When it dose these transition periods will be much easier to handle.
Overpaid:The "envy" that others express over what you're making.
Underpaid:The "pity" that others express over what you're making.
The very companies that are outsourcing today to captilise on the cheaper production costs in other countries may find that their local market is slowly drying up - as an example if high salaried workers have to get low paid & low skilled jobs, their ability to spend on new hi-tech products diminishes.
US consumers are the driving force behind a lot of the global hi-tech industries. As the buying power of these consumers diminish, companies will have to discount their product in the market. One cannot forever produce hi-tech expensive products if the consumers are not there. It will have a lot of flow on effect.
I guess the collective buying power of workers in US have a huge impact on the decisions of any company. If collectively people decided that "I don't really need the laptop with fastest processor when a lower one will do", or " a 2MP digital camera is for me & not 4MP" , then one would certainly a see a shift in business attitudes.
You sound like a fucking public relations analyst. Your so-called "references" are just moronic FUD, like the rest of these Slashdot posts.
Get out of the trailer park, read a book, and get a job, you ignorant, racist, close-minded cracker.
PS, I once was the victim of identity theft. Some poor white trailer trash working at the car rental counter sold my information to a mob-connected criminal organization who proceeded to forge a driver's license and drain my bank account. Do I trust the Indians with my personal information? HELL YES I do! I'll bet none of them are drug-addicted trash like the people who have to serve me here.
I'm a relatively old fart in this forum; I'm 33 years old, and I've been programming in one language or another since '95. I've been around; I did the comp sci degree, the Y2K effort, the Manhattan, NY, dot-com/dot-bomb experience, some corporate IT, and civil service in a few different organizations. I've been around to watch our field go down the tubes, I have a pretty good understanding of the whys and whens, and I've got some advice for you, so please listen. I might be able to save you some grief.
First, look at the problem at hand: corporate jobs are going away because of corporate greed and disloyalty. First it'll be IT jobs, then virtually everyone as corporations move everything overseas that CAN be moved. This is nothing new, they did it to the manufacturing sector decades ago. But it IS unique in that once it's gone, that's it. There's nothing left for an ex-corporate type to retrain to except dead-end retail jobs at six bucks an hour.
So, this is pretty scary. But you CAN keep yourself out of harm's way. You don't have to just let yourself get sidelined.
First of all, ask yourself: do you really want to work for a corporation? You'll have to sign an IP agreement, a nondisclosure, and a noncompete, so you won't be able to work for anyone else for several years even if you're fired -- this is sort of like indentured servitude. And you'll have to work 60+ hours a week with no overtime pay because they'll write you up as an "exempt" worker. And you'll have some idiot suit breathing down your neck all day, reminding you on a constant basis that "you're lucky to have a job in this economy" (believe it or not, I've heard of this kind of thing from a lot of different people). You'll have to physically restrain yourself from dropping him out the nearest window, which will cause you stress. And you'll have to eventually watch your job go away, maybe even training your replacements.
So all those corporate jobs sucked anyway. Fuck 'em. Don't even consider them. The only reason corporations are still hiring is that they haven't fully ramped up their outsourcing yet. Why help them while they're still in the process of screwing you and all your friends over? Blow 'em off and get a non-corporate job. Stay in school. Get that Master's degree. Go on to the Ph.D and become a professor. If that's too annoying and your suck-up skills aren't strong enough, get into the IT department of a university near you -- you get all the benefits and none of the headaches of a professor's post. Get into civil service if you can. DISDAIN the corporations. They've earned it.
If you can't score one of those jobs, try and find something with a small business. Parlay your knowledge of computer science into a position where you'll learn some other trade at the same time. Wear a lot of hats. Be the indispensible local geek who keeps everything running. Small businesses are better than you might think; if nothing else, they would NEVER have the resources to outsource your job. Think about it.
So, ok, now you have a job. You're eating, you're making your car payments, you're not rich but you're not dead meat either. So, now what, you ask?
REVENGE.
Say it with me. "Revenge". Feel how it rolls off your tongue. "Revenge". It's such a happy word, such a WARM word. It LIKES YOU. It's your FRIEND.
REVENGE.
Here's how to get one for the little guy, without breaking the law or doing anything that'll get you into trouble.
1. Don't buy anything from a major corporate outsourcer unless you absolutely have no choice. Or, be obnoxious: buy a Hewlett Packard printer (usually sold at a loss) and buy NON-HP INK. If you need a new laptop, buy it on Ebay, where the money goes into the wallet of one of your neighbors instead of a corporate bank account. Buying music? Buy it used in your local CD shop. Buying a car? Get a used one. BE CHEAP, and be proud of it. Convince everyone you can to be cheap as well. Think grassroots.
If you're buying an item like a TV, and you don't w
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
"However, telecommuting requires a decent broadband internet connection"
I guess that means that OSS is impossible then.
I'm an Indian, born and raised there. After working my butt off in high-school, and I got admitted into the University of Pennsylvania. I applied to America, because I was under the impression that America was the country which wanted the world's poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and were willing to work hard to get there. I also applied simply because I wanted to see what the rest of the world was like. What a mistake. I went and stood in the line at the United States Embassy with all the other applicants to get a student visa....this after I had already gotten admission. I had to prove to the visa officer that I didn't want to permanently stay in USA, and that I wasn't going to blow up the WTC. I got to the USA, and paid the FULL $120,000+ that the tuition costs me. But I was reminded everyday how I stole Joe Public's college place. I was also told "If you don't like it here, y don't u go back to your own country. BTW do you go to school on Elephants?". Interesting to see what other kinds of people make it to an Ivy league in America. Then when I graduated (The initial months of what would become the dotcom bust) I got a job with Amazon.com (again I stole Joe Public's job). Non-US citizens are NOT allowed to work in the US without a work visa. I don't know all those mexicans do it, but that's how it works for the rest of us. Then, I was told that I would get a work visa based on my performance for the next 6 months...at the end of which I got fired. This means I had to leave my job and apartment and leave the country, which I did gladly. Apparently, America is no longer the land of immigrants. You want to live peacefully and seek life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, do it elsewhere. So then I went back to my home country (India) because clearly I'm not wanted in USA, the miserable, decently educated thief that I am, and got a job with a software company. Guess what, now apparently, I'm still stealing Joe Public's job. Apparently, Indians will only be safe as long as they are only cleaning the shit out of your gutters, or acting like dim-witted kwiky-mart owners. Anything more high-level than that and we're stealing "your" jobs. First of all, this outsourcing revolution is unique to India. Software will remain an Indian monopoly, and the reason for that is English. Indian languages are closer to English than Chinese/Japanese or Russian will ever be. This means that an Indian can pick up English much faster than a Chinese person can. Second, Who the hell do American's think they are to point fingers at us for 'bad english'? Most Indians educated in English can outtalk an American anyday. Someone made a comment about culture. Apparently, teasing adolescents to the point which they steal guns and murder their classmates is a culture to be aped. Outsourcing is here to say, because it is a Big Business phenomenon. GE has a virtual empire here in India. There's no way it's letting go. Ford, GM, Yahoo, Microsoft, they all need us. Deal with it. The time will come soon, when American might will be challenged by Chinese and Indian might. Clearly you guys aren't ready to meet that challenge. Oh but we have a lead over China. Yes, a lead - we're a democracy and as proud of it as the next American is. Of course, to most Americans who wouldn't be able to figure out where their arse-hole is without class-action suit-induced directions, we're just another bunch of turbaned freaks who follow Bin Laden.... And we're a young country, whereas most of the developed world is greying out slowly but surely. Sorry dudes, the new world is Brown and Yellow, not White. So in effect. You're screwed. Capitalism/Free Trade is dead. Long Live Capitalism/Free Trade
Here comes the twist:
I don't exist.
Stick Men
India wasn't a free-trading country until it joined the WTO in '95. That means we are BOUND to lower our barriers by International Law. And the only people who disrespect international law are: 1) Al Qaeda 2) America No American products are manufactured in India without the American parent's permission. Yea there may be some illegal piracy going on, but that ain't pushed/promoted/nudged on by the Indian government.
Sorry - who's Brooks?
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Enron.
Power deregulation in the US.
Train privatization in the UK.
Parmalat.
WorldCom.
Higway and bank privatization in Mexico.
Sorry, but the private sector seems to bi as bad as the public one.
At least politicians can be voted out of office, we can't do much about Billy Gates and Darl.
Although Europe is not as prosperous as the US it is certainly more egalitarian and less disparate, the deprived parts of Europe are immensily better to the ones in the US. Been in both of them, I would not wish on my worst enemy to be a poor person in the US...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...since 1994. Please read something on the subject before your next post.
Cheers
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
It is much more complicated. Deflation is a symptom of illness, not the cause (the illness is bad productivity). There are hundreds of deflating markets that thrive. Why buy this shiny new [insert any high-tech gadget] when better and cheaper will be in just a few months? But despite that most of these soon-to-be-obsolete gadgets sell like hot cakes.
Save the bandwidth. Don't use sigs!
You can't diferentiate between trade and labour issues to start with.
If you want to protect your workers impose restrictions in foreign workers coming to your country, push for the liberalization of working markets and practices in other countries that want to trade with you.
The steel example is so dumb it begs disbelief that there are still people believeing it was a good thing.
What Mr Bush did was to subsidize an inneficient industry by means of denying US customers access to cheap steel. He gave with one hand to steel producers while harming with the other US steel consumers whose industries were damaged by being forced to buy expensive steel.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You have this exactly backwards.
You have to do what the politicians say, or they will send men with guns to kill you, even in democratic countries.
Bill Gates has no army or police force. He can only persuade you (or more likely, your boss) to buy his products. If you don't like his products or his business ethics you are free to buy Apple or install Linux.
Liberty is in far greater danger from politicians and bureaucrats than it is from the likes of Bill Gates. And that goes double for the crooked, unaccountable, unelected mandarins of the EU.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
The other option is to have an entirely protected economy. This should work very well if human greed did not exist. A model that we could try is Gandhi's concept of Gram swaraj. Each village is self-sufficient. They grow their own food, make their own clothes, and consume only what they themselves can produce. Everybody is happy and satisfied. There is no competition between countries, let alone competition between villages. Of course, the whole system is made unstable by the greed of a single person. Gandhi said, the world has enough resources to satisfy the need of everyone, but does not have enough to satisfy the greed of a single one.
You have to judge what he wrote about outsourcing on its own merits, not be refering to a descontextualized article (I would be surprised that there were no doubts in sme people just a few days after the attacks)...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How a company increasing its profits is sucking your taxes?
You know, the more profits a company makes, the more taxes they pay?
Why should the chap pay taxes in the US? He is working in india you know?
Next thing you are going to suggest is that people that work for Japanese or German companies in the US pay their 45% income tax and is sent to the respective countries.
Please I urge you to convince your politicians to enact trade barriers like the dement taxes you are suggesting. That will drive investment to other countries that would be less shortsighted.
Oh my, oh my, some people have a weird sense of logic....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
A few years ago I worked for a long established American firm making 390 mainframes(*).
High level management were trying to outsource to India, my senior peers were coincidentally assessing static source code analysis tools.
They used the tool to assess the quality of the Indian code vs their own code. Result was the Indian code was measured to be better. The outcome? Tool was deemed to be broken and not used. Company went out of business a few years later.
Moral? Well the one I took from it was that everyone thinks other peoples' code is worse than their own, because it's different. When that code comes from a different culture, then the differences are going to be greater. But if it gets the job done (which encompasses reliability, maintainability etc), stop whining.
(*) Amdahl.
A lot of the comments about being "unable to compete" with regard to outsourcing can also be made by commercial software companies trying to compete with Open/Free source software. The answer typically given is that Open/Free software raises the entry level and provides a better starting point for commercial companies to build upon.
Similarly, Western IT professionals (it is not just the US having to deal with this issue by the way) concerned at this trend should try to acquire a broader-based skillset which includes business and creative as well as "pure" technical skills - and local knowledge that cannot be easily duplicated by an overseas company (in most organisations, it still is a case of not what you know but who you know).
Also the companies outsourcing are mostly major corporations - which by their nature tend to stifle innovation with bureaucracy. Freeing up their workforce will make it easier for smaller companies to start, recruit, expand and innovate (provided the DOJ manages to rein in Microsoft). And it is only a matter of time before senior management and CEOs find themselves being outsourced (who needs a US-based board of directors when all the real decisions are being taken overseas?).
Finally, this also provides the English language with a massive boost - India is gaining a real advantage due to their widespread use of English and other nations like China and Vietnam will have to do the same in order to grab a significant slice of the outsourcing pie (French/German/Spanish supremacists beware!).
I can cite anecdotes as well, I prefer to analyze trends.
/. that may work in places where this reality is not obvious, but here in London one knows one has to be on his toes or one will be flipping the proverbial burger.
The writing is in the wall, you may prefer to ignore it, rant and cry like a child to your politician, cite anecdotal evidence that would seem to support your needs and prejudices, the fact is that people in the developping world (for many reasons) are far too expensive. Period. Punkt. Punto.
You may decide to do something idiotic about it (like passing a law) or something useful (like liberalizing labour markets, so people can compete based on their abilities), because you are not affraid of competing, arent you? After all those Indian IT people are rubbish? Right.
I work every day with people from India, and dear USians let me tell you, they are not only cheaper, but hardworking and on my personal experience on average are more capable than their counterparts in the US, UK and the far east. No wonder you are afraid, but the way to fight for your jobs is not by closing your eyes and hope that your goverment is going to take away economic realities.
You may need to completely change your carrier, dedicate yourself to something completely different or improve yourself on the IT field more than you ever dreamed would be necessary. I see tha the most talented people now a days are drawn from all around the world, not only from India, but these realities may escape some of the readership in
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Bear with me a moment.
o urce merry-go-round. Every once in a while, some manager hoping to score brownie points would suggest outsourcing as a means for the company to improve their bottom line. And it would be done.
I am currently looking for a job and have noticed that many companies ask that I send my CV as well as my preferred salary. Okay, I can do that. Of course if I state my preferred salary is R10 000 and someone with similar skills and experience says she wants R5000, who are they more likely to hire?
A few years ago I worked for a company that seemed to be permanently in the outsource-then-bring-it-back-in-house-then-
outs
Then not too long in the distant future, the outsoursed jobs would be brought back home because some other manager suggested that doing it ourselves would be cheaper. And it would be done.
Face it, Joe Soap might have started his lemonade stand as a means of feeding his kids but when he started making more money then he needed for groceries what did he do? He grew his company, branched out into orageade, limeade and coolade and employed his brother-in-law to do deliveries.
That is until Joe realised that he can pay the Indian kid down the street a fraction of what he pays his brother-in-law for the same job and in the end Joe makes more money.
Does he stop selling lemonade when the kids are all grown up and can provide for themselves (assuming they're not American programmers)?
Of course not, because it stopped being about feeding the kids a long, long time ago. Now it's all about the money.
Is it not better for a company of 150 people to outsource 100 jobs and stay in business or not outsource at all and so all 150 jobs are lost?
It's still about the money because if you don't have money, you certainly can't afford to pay a programmer.
"I'm going to worry like hell and that's not an easy job, believe me" - Lu-Tze "Thief of Time"
You say an Indian programmer would have a hard time getting a . .
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job here ??? You are so wrong . Why ??
Because there are "entire" companies setup to bring Visa workers
to the US from India and other countries
9-11 slowed it somewhat, but it is still going on under the
L-1 Visa program and to a lesser extent under H1-b
Tatia = http://www.tcs.com/ This is just one of many
The ITAA was bought off to the tune of $22 million by Cisco,
M$, Sun, and a plethora of others to lie before congress and
keep the cheap labor flowing in, while jobs were already
flowing outbound at the same time
It was not enough to displace workers on US soil, but also to can them and send the job overseas
At least when we import non-citizens they spend "some" money
here, though they often do not pay into Social Security,
local taxes, federal taxes, state taxes , but use all the
services a citizen does
This unequal ground makes it impossible for the US worker to achieve parity
The corporations in their blind greed just keep running the race to the bottom
If you look at ANY corporation in the US you can outsource
over 50% of the jobs with no trouble
Go to a construction site in the southern US and find out
how many ppl speak fluent english
They could build Socialist corporate housing, bring in L1 visa
workers to live in the equivalent of corporate sponsored
section 8 housing which they can take as a tax deduction
and deduct that from the workers pay, and displace the entire
US work force in 20 years if they wanted to
If they can take the jobs of engineers, programmers, manufacturers,
technicians, doctors, nurses, etc etc
What job as the article claims are you going to creatively do ????
It is obvious to me that if they can do the jobs of the best
and brightest here, then they can do any job here
Which leads me to a recommendation, This is a representative
democracy, I say we outsource the government
They are corrupt, taking $22 million on payola for the vote
on H1-b visas, and so on . This vote took place after
the DOT BOMB went off and IT had achieved the glide profile
of a wounded anvil with lead wings
Let's outsource the corrupt politicians, we can replace them
with indians who vote based on opinion polls
They just vote what the ppl they represent want
pretty simple, prolly make for some happy americans
50% of america is so disgusted with the corruption they do not even show up to vote
It's Cheaper, and it is a TRUE representative democracy . Let's Outsource the Crooks
Talk about balancing the budget, wow, we will save billions !!!
There is NO jobs that cannot be outsourced at this time
By bringing them here to the US they can do anything that we do
We have ppl born in the middle east working at the CIA and FBI,
and we have ppl from other countries working any and every job
you can imagine , there is no limit
The L1 visa has NO yearly limit, if they wanted to run Amok with it, there is no stopping them
Free citizenship for border jumpers that cannot read the traffic
signs is idiocy, passing out every job deemed too highly paid
is idiocy
ALOT of these foreign workers hate it here and send the majority
of their pay home, that money leaves the US economy never to return
We here ppl cry about the trade deficit, wake up ppl
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
" People who are worried about their job moving offshore should think about how they can do things that can't move as easily, perhaps by increasing their education (MS/PhD)..."
I recommend:Home builder.
Oh no! wait, that can be done mostly overseas too.
Anyone own a prefab? The house can be built over in China which has the natural resources. Make it cheaper then stick the modules on a boat. Offload at port, transport to site, then have a much smaller crew than normally needed put together*. The "build it at the site" companies are soon out of business.
*The Litton(?) porcelin/metal house of postWWII could be put together inside a week.
.... is that Juan does not make 22 cents per week.
People normally do better than what they would fo otherwise.
What is offensive here is the assupmtion that people in other places are so damn stupid that will allow to be exploited. In some extreme circumstances, when force is used, yes, there is explotation, but that is minimal. In most cases the salaries obtained by working for a foreign company are much better that what you would do working in a farm or just not working at all.
Of course you are ignorant of thelong history and tradition of union in Latinamerica, otherwise you would have placed your example not in the most stable democracy in the continent but somewhere where dictatorship flourished under the benevolent shadow of unconuntable US administrations, and even in those cases, the people did not allowed itself to be exploited all the time.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Nobody makes that little money working full time in a company.
There are unions in many countries.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You can have your companies back, but I hope you will also demand that the profits they collect overseas are not funnelled back into the US economy and tha the US goverment also forbids them to intiate any new businesses abroad.
If you want to shut down the door you can leave half of the companies in and the other hal (the one convenient for you) out.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
My job could dissapear in a puf but I am grown up enough to know that is a good thing in the great scheme of things.
I will adapt and carry on, as will do all of you.
The difference is that I am mentally and practically prepared to accept reality, others not so much so.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The government was bought off, and was lied to that we needed .
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infinite IT workers, when all they really wanted was infinitely
cheaper IT workers
Just like the vast majority of clothing is made outside the US,
even Levi jeans now, they want to ship any job that has a
differential labor cost overseas, or import the labor here
Differential labor cost = They do it cheaper somewhere else
The flipside is if we cannot get them to do it there, we will
ship the visa workers here
When these countries do not have to provide a safe work environment,
or adhere to our labor laws, or pay our tax rates, or pay
the MUCH higer level of rent how can we hope to compete
We cannot . Our TAX BURDEN alone is enormous
Most items are taxed close to tens times from raw materials
til it enters your hands here, all the TAX BURDEN is passed on
to the consumer
As for hoping it will fail, it did not with all the other jobs
that went overseas, and I expect a repeat performance
This race to the bottom will make every US job outsourced
As the corporation and the politician and Lawyers have no soul,
it is up to the ppl of the US to do something about this
A VERY few politicians like the ones in the article, and small
handful of others like Tancredo, care what happens to jobs
The others are on the dole, the payola, the lobbyist has its
marionette strings firmly attached
Our political puppets need a wake up call or there will be ALOT
more ppl out of work in the next few years . Not just coders
If they can code, can be doctors, can be construction workers,
can be government employees, they can do any job here
Including yours !
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
So is this a bad time to be considering moving
from Europe to the USA for IT workers?
I work for a Fortune 10 company (he) and outsourcing works like a charm. The guys in India are technically outstanding and I have no complains about working with tem.
Last year profits were great, our bonuses increased.
May I lost my job? Yeah. Such is life, I am ready for it and I will move on to something else.
Bullshit.
"[Americans] are regularly told by politicians and the media, that America is the world's most generous nation. This is one of the most conventional pieces of 'knowledgable ignorance'. According to the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US gave between $6 and $15 billion in foreign aid in the period between 1995 and 1999. In absolute terms, Japan gives more than the US, between $9 and $15 billion in the same period. But the absolute figures are less significant than the proportion of gross domestic product (GDP, or national wealth) that a country devotes to foreign aid. On that league table, the US ranks twenty-second of the 22 most developed nations. As former President Jimmy Carter commented: 'We are the stingiest nation of all'. Denmark is top of the table, giving 1.01% of GDP, while the US manages just 0.1%. The United Nations has long established the target of 0.7% GDP for development assistance, although only four countries actually achieve this: Denmark, 1.01%; Norway, 0.91%; the Netherlands, 0.79%; Sweden, 0.7%. Apart from being the least generous nation, the US is highly selective in who receives its aid. Over 50% of its aid budget is spent on middle-income countries in the Middle East, with Israel being the recipient of the largest single share"
"Why do people hate America?" by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies, 2002. p79
______________
OTTERS RULE.
They are modding it troll because they are biased .
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"News Flash" there are biased modders on slashdot
* Shocking *
News at 11 !
Alot of ppl that post/read slashdot are NOT americans
Question their opinions and you will be treated like the
lower caste over there, or how women are treated by
fundalmentalist muslims
Word to your mother !
LOL
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
You obviously have no idea how muc money IBM makes overseas which is brought to the US in the form of taxes.
Yup, that is right, the fact that IBM is incorporated in the US means that you, USian slashbots, get to reap the benefits of global capitalism to pay for things like your miltary adventurism.
If you want to practice shuch "enlightened" ideas I hope your next proposal is that IBM also renounces all overseas profits and closes all its operations abroad, after all it seems like US base companies should be contained to the US only and be only for US people.
Well, you can have it, keey your companies in your country full of happy US workers but I hope you don;t mind that they don;t make business elsewhere.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The problem with free trade, at least as it exists now is that it doesn't really help the regular American populace at all
Wake up!
Look at all the things you own.
How many of them says "Made In China"?
Now realize that you got all those things a lot cheaper because someone somwhere was paid a pittance to manufacture them...
Free trade has been fscking the 3:d world for decades. Free trade for stuff we make (or have them make cheaply for us) and tarrifs and subsidies against stuff they can produce, like food.
You (well actually we, as in the West) have been reaping the fruits of free trade for decades.
Now, we have reached the point where WE are at the sharp end of globalization and people suddenly start screaming bloody murder...
And I think we have only seen the beginning yet...
The rich will get even richer, maybe some of the poor will be a little less poor, but the western middle class will diminish over the next few decades...
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Why stop here while we are at it ? Stop using the number zero. It is not an american product, did you know ? :)
Yeah, the zero was an old arab invention if I'm not mistaken.
The parent poster seems like a "patriotic" mouth-breather, so I'm sure he'll see your point.
Using zeroes is decidedly un-american, only terrorists use zeroes!
Since the tone of this forum is somewhat negative, I am going to throw in a few positives.
I have had US bosses and they did fine without any appreciation of the culture in my country. My girlfriend is from South Africa and she was a highly paid manager ('till she returned to practising law). Jeez, you don't get much more of a different culture than South Africa and England (apartheid legacy, Afrikaan speaking, low GDP per capita etc - BTW that's South Africa not England
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
I agree that globalization is good for the world as a whole.. but it scares the living shit out of me..
I am not in favor of Visa workers, but you definitely got screwed .
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I think you should have been treated differently
I for one do not think you or ALOT of foreign born ppl are
stupid, and I remember the US missile and nuclear scientists
were almost all immigrants
If not for immigrants the US would be speaking japanese or german,
and the jewish folk would not be speaking at all
I think the point some of the angry US coders are trying to make
is that if your country is in bad shape and you are proud of it
as you seem to be, then work with your fellow ppl to fix it
Instead of working for dell, start your own dell over there,
and show them how its done
It's just a matter of time before an Indian gets the balls
to go into competition with the US companies over there,
and it is how it should really be in my opinion
Write a Linux replacement for windows as a community project
and sell it world wide and send M$ to its knees
I once again agree, you got screwed, and you were mislead
in a huge way . The US has started using their colleges
as profit centers , and they should not be used that way
Education should be the right of all on the planet
If anyone has the will to learn, they should get to learn
They should not have to pay but a minimal amount to have access
to a online internet based education system
I am no socialist, I am no communist, but ppl should not live
in fear of lack of food, education, medicine
The greed needs to be removed from certain areas of society
The US however needs to stop importing ppl into a wounded
economy, and stop exporting jobs to save a few bucks
If you send 1 billion of pay for US workers overseas, then
you take 1 billion out of the US economy and tax structure
You break the cycle, like the issues with the US trade deficit
They bemoan that, but when it comes to the worker it is the same.
I am sorry you got such a horrible deal, and you are right
as long as greed is making the decisions, no one is safe
Also the US has just seen the tip of the iceberg in the loss of jobs.
Any and all good paying jobs that can afford the high cost of
coastal cities are going to be outsourced here or sent over there
The greed will drive the race to the bottom
Good Luck to you and everyone else, I have made the choice to
work for myself, and start my own service company
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I work with two guys from India at work. One is a great guy and is super smart. The other is just an ass who has tried to make himself look good by making everyone else look bad. Unfortunately it's backfired.
Friday is my last day, as my job has been outsourced to Australia.
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
Howzabout China? Or possibly even the western-style government-industry complexes that Eisenhower warned of if you're being as cynical as me.
--
Lobbying the US government by non-citizens ...
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It would be like me paying off russian officials, to disadvantage
their fellow russians, I'd prolly get a bullet in the back
Lobbying, ie. paying off US senators, etc, to take away jobs
from the ppl that voted them into office is NOT a representative
democracy
To participate in the US government, ie. affect/effect US law/policy
you are suppose to be a US citizen
What in effect you are doing by lobbying is a foreign power/entity
is affecting/effecting the votes of our representatives
You are paying them money to nullify what the US workers want
It would be like me paying off Indian officials to do something
that would economically disadvantage the Indian ppl
Like the article states, they had riots when Pizza Hut opened
up in India, how would they feel if we put millions of ppl out
of work after they paid tens of thousands for an education ????
Foreign powers should not be able to buy votes in the US
For now though, it is going on and in a major way
Fortunate for the ppl of India, the US ppl typically only care
about their football, baseball, basketball, or whatever their
diversion on TV is, and we are a bunch of sheeple now
Only the coders with no jobs who are just a FEW million care
about this issue, and in this country the rednecks deride us
as "geeks" , so as long as the jobs are sold out one sect at
a time not enough ppl care to get any momentum
So it goes
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I was reading a national geographic, not sure about the month it was recent however, and they had a rather indepth article about the Slavery business in India. The people who are getting the college degrees in idia are far from poor to begin with. The real poor people of india don't have enough food to eat and are often times sold directly into slavery or end up working as an indentured servant (as do their children and their childrens children).
9 /featu re1/index.html
According to National Geographic Sept 2003 (went out and found it).
The online beginning of the article is here
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/030
This does not display anything about India but if you can find the paper version (or have access to the entire account) it goes into what is happening in India regarding this.
Until fat overpaid CEOs are looking down the barrel of being replaced by overseas managers who can move a company forward on sound business principles instead of stock manipulations and layoffs.
Great post amigo, I have done alot of what you have said since .
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it all went down with the DOT BOMB, my level of disgust was
pretty monumental
I just want to thank you for lining it all out, and there are
alot of ppl out there who can start their own small corporation
for less than $100 and shelter their earnings thru expenses
just like the big corporations
Just find your niche' and do your thing, and work a part time
job if you have to til things get rolling good
Good Luck to all !!!
The days or working as a high paid ANYTHING are numbered
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Well lesson learnt AFAIC should be: Jobs are'nt permanent. Skills are. Work on your skills and keep working on them.
The national geographic article shows the uneven ground .
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between the US and India
Those ppl can work for low wages in India, because of the
Caste system has some ppl working beneath them much like slaves
Look at the laws/policies nd labor laws here in the US , and
you see the US cannot compete on price when the other country
is exempt from labor laws, TAX burden, and many other points
It is not equal ground
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
You are on target here .
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Foreign labor sends US revenue overseas
A US worker would spend the money here, put the money in US banks
A Foreign worker is going to send it home to his family
Money that would circulate within the US monetary system is
instead "leaked" away and money that would stay here, and be
spent here, is just gone
Meanwhile bankruptcies, repossesions, and credit collapse
starts to affect the entire system as millions are displaced
All those unemployment checks cost REAL money, all those
court hearings for foreclosures and bankruptcies cost real money
Tax revenues drop as money leaves the US economy
I think the math is pretty simple
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
The entire CMM argument is just a marketing tool for these firms. CMM describes process not result or whether people actually found the software produced useful and usable. And the real issue is often not IT and its process, but that the line of business people and politics do not let internal IT shops practice the process.
A lot of the problems of US IT groups and projects is that with programmers down the hall and senior level line of business (LOB) guys able to threaten and yell at and IT execs and get them fired for being honest, a US based IT shop often has to do a lot of changes on the fly, delvier before something is ready, etc. With a remote operation, a specification gets written and a contract gets attached to the spec. The senior business execs sign off but now THEY CAN NOT CHANGE things without renegotiating and visibly accepting responsibility for the schedule and quality impact of the changes.
They can not pressure the Indian firm to make a change and still hiold the schedule. When you are in IT and work for a company, you are always powerless and the senior management listens to the line of business folks and gets angy at or ignores the process or schedule or deailed explanations about why a change will cost 5x as much, slip 1 year, etc.
The distance and the contractual relationship put the discipline where it is needed - on the line of business folks. That isn't to say that there aren't bad I folks, bad plans, silly promises and the like. But a lot of the problem is line of business people who buy a pitch from some software comapny whose product can't deliver the benefit promised, that will take 2x and cost 10x to implement ans the like. It comes from them refusing to understand why the stuff they legitimately need can't be delivered when they want it.
So, the discipline of the Indian companies isn't in the CMM stuff, it comes from the arms length contractual relationship protecting them from the stuff that screws up projects. It comes from the distance keeping the line of business execs from demanding constant change. Most IT shops know about process, and reviews and the discipline. The problem is that the CEO's and line of business people will not let their in house teams practive these techniques.
I can understand that there is a fair bit of anger around at outsourcing, but I think it would be better to channel some of those feelings in more productive directions.
Let's logically analyse the situation. Maybe, as the politician featured in the Wired article states, there is nothing after the present 'knowledge' economy. In that case one of two things can happen; Mass destruction of the middle class or some kind of revolution in thinking. If we extrapolate current trends then the first is a reality, remember it's not just programmers being outsourced but *all* white collar employees. That may or may not lead to the latter. But consider that in either case, the upheaval in society is likely to be such that you will have more important things to worry about than your career, no really.
On the other hand, maybe human ingenuity will come with a solution, just as it did when large scale factory work ended or when the large ship building yards closed, or when mining became a less labour intensive business. Now, in all those cases the slack was eventually taken up elsewhere in the economy, some people adjusted, but many people and many communities didn't. They spent the rest of their lives living in the past and in many cases remain to this day mired in poverty.
If you view lobbying as the sole solution then you fear the first set of possibilities (as everyone should), but you aren't really preparing for the second set.
Analyze your life. How much time are you spending developing yourself, how much time developing IT skills, how much developing skills that are transferrable outside IT. If the system doesn't come crashing down, then there will be other opportunities. You can either evolve or spend the rest of your life whining.
Yes, it isn't fair. You could have been a diligent student, and a hard working employee who always added value and not cost, and you haven't done anything to deserve it. But life is unfair, bad things happen to nice people. The only reason you didn't realise that till now was that everything was going your way. Perhaps you'll be more sympathetic when other groups in society call for government intervention in this or that matter.
The only real way of coping with being knocked on your backside is picking yourself up and moving on, but doing all the right things is no guarentee against failure.
So my question to you "race-to-bottom" types... Why are we much better off at the end of the 20th century than the beginning? You'd think if we were "racing" anywhere, we'd be there by now, given generations of industry.
When 97% of U.S. "poor" have a color TV, I don't consider us very poor. Yes, I am a subscriber to Easterbrook's world view.
If there are plenty of US workers out of work, why are software companies still lobbying congress that they need more foreign workers here in the US? This is bullshit. You want to outsource, fine. But, when there are plenty of hi-tech workers that are jobless, there should NOT be an H-1 program for the hi-tech industry. Companies want to outsource your job and insource the rest with cheap H-1 labor, while they work them for low wages for 5-6 years waiting on their green card.
That's probably because Biography airs on the A&E channel... A&E standing for "Arts and Entertainment". No scientists featured on an arts and entertainment channel? Gee, what a surprise.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Think a little harder. A company which outsources work to India saves money. Where do the savings go to?
Part of the savings go to the consumer. So instead of paying $2/minute for a helpline, you pay $1/mintue. The consumer benefits.
Part of the savings go to the company. Where do these savings go to?
They are either:
- Returned to the shareholders as dividends. To the greedy fat cat capitalists, I here you say? Well, most large companies are public companies; if you think the company is going to make a killing from outsourcing, then buy shares in the company and take a stake in the profits.
- Or, retained by the company for reinvestment, in which case the economy benefits from increased growth.
The argument in favour of outsourcing is the same as the arguments in favour of any other form of free trade - it increases the welfare of the economy as a whole. The challenges are the same as the challenges faced by any other form of free trade - the pain is sorely felt by a few, while the benefits are much more diffuse; here intense political opposition.
Benefit of $1 of US spending sent offshore, 2002 est
US
Savnig accruing to US investors/customers 0.58
Imports of US goods and services by providers in India 0.05
Transfer of profits by US-based providers in India back to US 0.04
Net direct benefit retained in UA 0.67
Value from US labour re-employed
Even with the post above, I'm still not sure that anyone has articulated the real problem as I see it. For me, it's about the quality of the software that is produced and the costs required to achieve that quality.
I've worked with about 30 Indian programmers during my career, and as a rule, I found them to be less skilled than the average Western programmers I worked with. There were several outstanding individuals - one was a Technical Architect, one was an Oracle DBA, and one was a System Administrator but for the most part the others kept their seats warm and dutifully cranked out subpar code. If the majority of the individuals I've worked with are representative of the majority of Indian programmers in India, eventually companies will bring their applications back so that they can be rewritten. Along with that, one of the things that I found was that the Indians I worked with ended up being bound by the technologies they were trained in. These programmers did not consider themselves to be Software Engineers, or Programmers, but Java Programmers or VB Programmers. As our team moved from a Java to Perl and PHP (to decrease the time it took to develop our applications), our Indian team members were unwilling or unable to make the transition. They knew what they knew, and they would not, or could not learn something that fell outside their niche. I'm certain that this isn't a blanket condition that affects all Indian programmers, but if it affects the average Indian programmer, that might say something about how the Indian educational system trains their IT workers. Perhaps that more time is spent on the syntax of particular languages and less time on the fundamentals of software engineering or on the theory of computer science.
The other thing that keeps nagging at me is the reference to CMM level. To maintain a CMM Level 5 rating would require a huge amount of overhead. Things like process documentation, enforcement, feedback, training, evalutation, etc. These tasks would have to be performed in addition to the job of actually generating the product. To me, it seems likely that you'd incur at least a 50% overhead simply with process. With that in mind, Indian developers would half as productive as they could or should be. Which means that companies are paying for alot more than just the product. And the real kicker is that CMM at any level has very little to say about the quality of the product or the quality of the code that goes into the product - just that the process that was used to generate the code is consistent and constantly improving.
Finally, I'd like to talk a little about the quality of the individual programmer. Given that the US software industry has been around for about 20 years and that there has been relatively little hiring in the last three years, I'd suggest that the average IT worker in the US has about 10 years experience. Also given that the Indian outsourcing trend started roughly five years ago and has been accelerating rapidly over the last year or two, I'd suggest that the average IT worker in India has about 2 years of experience. Assuming that the levels of intelligence and innate skills are similar, how many average Indian programmers would it take produce the same quality of output as an average US programmer? Following along with that, we know that as you throw more programmers at a problem the quality of the solution degrades. So the real question is even more fundamental - CAN you replace the average US programmer with any number of average Indian programmers?
The history of labor relations in the US and in the UK shows that unions created the middle class thanks to higher wages.
I say bring that union magic to China and India making them more expensive and they will become:
- wealthier in the process
- Less of a competitive threat to US workers on the cost side
Ok so unions aren't ideal and not as well adapted to the IT industry but it's a step in the right directionSo our battlecry shouldn't be one of protectionism but rather one of increasing the standard of living in Asia. In the end it's a more sustainable strategy.
If Korea and Japan managed to get their way out of poverty in a few decades than China and India should be able to do the same, unless of course, they are a less capable people.
The USA could end up like Rome, where the employed Citizens were mostly employed as imperial administrators or soldiers, and the unemployed were kept on the "bread and circus" dole.
1. Toyota
2. Honda
Hyundai is building a plant in Alabama, but they are Korean. Hmm. Interesting.
Both the main wave of outsourcing fever as well as most the outsourcefobia are mis-directed.
/. giving a nice profile of the shortsighted, term-profit and quantity-per-share oriented MBA, who are totally detached form any innovation, knowledge or background of the programs they manage. Outsourcing is just one in the large arsenal of tools often used poorly by the people in charge.
;-)) with no innovation, no expansion (or "added-value", if you will) is a sucicide going multiple ways:
Firstly, we have to focus on the right target.
There was a great article "Managing the company to death" posted on
These are the people who gave the outsourcing a bad name, and are ruining not only the products they tremple on, but the lives and economies on both sides of the sea.
Outsourcing a suitable product or better, parts of it, by maintaing or increasing quality, main purpose being extension of production and doubleing the pools where innovation can come from may be a very sensible thing to do. Having multiple products in different stages of development or levels of sofistication fits well with a multi-continental concept of a company.
Sacking one experienced set of troops to reduce costs (i.e. outsorcing code from a good team to a cheapest team, which, for that matter, may in the bottom line both already be located in Asia
- the products may well go sour
- ruined lives of sacked troops
- short-term benefit of new troops only lasts long enough to get acustomed to a good life just in time to lose it (and going back is never easier), as is washed away by an aftermath disaster or simply next downsize-cycle
- bad management decisions always create circumstaces that reflect in the local economies, creating new anomalies, like circles in the water, that have to be leveled later at the cost of those affected.
The problem in a "bad-but-show-me-a-better-system", democracy with a free-market economy is that there is no such thing available as an effectiv "corruption-pest control": before the politicans and the grumpy grey old pension fund board members both realize who doing a bad job (most of the times close buddies, with hands so interlaced in each others pockets that you can no longer tell where the thread starts and ends), a whole generation has to suffer and pick up the tap.
A lot of damage, especially by the US companies, has already been done and it will be very difficult to make the wrong-decision makers improve their thinking.
Well let's see
Indian programers typicaly make 16.7 times the national per capital GDP (India
GDP per capita $480 / Typical salary for a programmer $8,000) American Programmer make 2.3 (Typical salary for a programmer $70,000 / GDP per capita $35,060) I think the Indian programmers are living pretty large.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I read an article several weeks ago where the man being interviewed, I believe he may have been European, expressed the following opinion (from memory)...
"In the future all of Europe will be like a 3rd world country, China will be the blue collar for the World, India will be the white collar worker for the world, and the US will be the innovators and middle managers"
Ok, I don't agree totally with the part about Europe, and he left quite a few innovative and important countries out of that list (Japan, Canada, etc), but I think his point was that as the economy becomes more and more global, it is inevitible that the now 'global workforce' will be broken up into the most cost effective 'divisions'.
I think the 'global workforce' has been in effect for quite a whhile now for many types of manufacturing, but with the ever quickening pace of IT accomplishments, the march towards a truely global worforce also quickens.
I think it will happen, sooner than later, and some people are in denial, and/or not willing to adapt.
Having a bookmark to Google does not make you an expert on everything.
.. its time for Pres Bush to pull some strings,
devise a reason for Pakistan to be pissed off at INDIA, pull another WMD scam with the Pakistan people, and watch IT jobs return with INDIA's destruction .
The US college system has space for at least a third of its population, while India and China have a 1/20th of that. Even discounting for the poor masses who never get past grade school, you still have huge, competitative base of high school students to draw from.
I have no problem with you coming over to the US and competing with me for a job in the US. Come here, pay rent here, pay for food here, in general deal with our high cost of living. If you're willing to do that, then I'm more than happy to compete with you.
But, my friend, you live in India. With that offshored programming job you can live the life of luxury, with maid-servants and everything. So, yes, I am irritated at having to compete for a job with someone who can live on $0.36 a day.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
between "right" in the legal sense, and "right" in the moral/ethical sense. Saying we have the legal right (First Ammendment and all that) to complain isn't insightful, it's so obvious the parent post thought he didn't have to state that's wasn't what he was talking about.
A modern day witchhunt.
There is a lot of whining going on...why doesn't everyone use that energy to figure out what they can do for themselves so they aren't subject to this anymore? Getting an education and getting a job is NOT the only way to make money in the U.S.
I'll tell you why...because it's easier to be a victim than to accept the responsibility of taking care of yourself. IT'S NOT ANYONE ELSE'S FAULT BUT YOUR OWN! Those same forces that are taking "your" jobs to India are available for you to take advantage of. Got design skills? Got a good idea (we all have some)? Get a team of India programmers to bring that idea to life and sell it! Get together with your buddies that had their jobs "stolen" and have them help you design and manage it while on unemployment. Sure...you will have to adjust your standard of living...but that standard is not guaranteed to you by anyone else...you create your own.
Now I know some of you will say that it takes lots of money and lots of time and its very risky. Well...if you are creative enough you will find that isn't necessarily the case. And what's more risky? Having a job you can lose at ANY time to an offshore programmer or taking your future into your own hands and having a go at it? Are you going to outsource your own job overseas? I doubt it.
I know I am going to get flamed or whatever but I don't care. I am sick of hearing all the whining. Yes...I still have my programming job (not sure for how much longer...but I do work for a small shop so maybe I won't be a "victim") and yes...I am taking my own advice. What am I doing? Looking into investment real-estate to create cash flow since the rates are so low. Everyone and their dog's cousin's uncle wants to loan me money to buy a house. And don't tell me you have to have money to do it either. I am finding out very quickly that isn't the case. You can ask the seller to help with your down payment. If you have a renter in place before the closing of the loan (signed lease for a year) then the bank/investor/mortgage company will loan you the cash. If you can charge more in rent then your expenses then you have a monthly cash-flow that won't stop if you manage it correctly. Repeat as necessary.
Get out of the consumer mentality. Get out of the mindset that the ONLY way to support yourself is to have a job. Having a job is by far the easiest way to support yourself and your family...but with that comes the (almost) complete loss of control over it as we are seeing now. Companies are in business to MAKE MONEY! That is done by lowering costs and increasing revenue. The most expensive part of running a business is labor.
Flame away.
B
My last project had a bunch of COBOL code being developed in the Phillipines. One day we arrived at work and nothing had been done by the Manila team overnight. It took us a while to learn what had happened, but evenutally we came to know that their section of the city had been taken over by millitants and it was unsafe to attempt the journey into work.
And I thought this snow and ice crap we've been having was making it hard to get into work!
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Okay, I see a ton of economic theories running around here. As far as I can tell about all of this there is only one explanation.
This is economic exploitation. Pure and simple. It is also dropping the cost of code to the point that only large corporations can do it, and then it is impossible for innovations to come from the US.
The Indian workers are getting paid well, but they aren't getting rich... and there is a simple reason why:
If you make an employee wealthy enough to not be looking paycheck to paycheck at you, he will start up a competetive business.
This is exploiting the poor, and big corporations killing the working programmers in the USA so much that there are NO WAYS TO COMPETE.
Call it what it is. Exploitation for further pursuit of profit, all the while destroying the economy of the place that birthed its technology.
...if I could move to where the jobs are. Most of those countries have strict residency requirements, which include making sure that you don't get a job in the country. I can't move to a country where $10,000 a year is a good living. Free trade applies to corporations, but I can't freely trade my own labor.
Strangely enough, in the U.S. our new policy is to let in anyone who *can* get a U.S. job. Is it any wonder people are getting annoyed?
This is all fine and good, and I agree with your points, but this is all Greek, er, Hindi to your average CEO/CIO/business decision maker. They see one thing only: cost savings. Companies that neglect quality to favor increased profits are just as stupid as the company that neglects costs to build the highest quality item. Unfortunately, the idea of "balance" is foreign to most business people.
I thought that Native Americans were called Indians and the people living in India are called something else (Hindu?) Isn't this the same mistake that Columbus made when he called Native Americans, Indians, because he thought he arrived in India?
Here's a better example of the arrogance and disconnection of the Hindu caste system: quote: "By his very birth a Brahmin is a deity even for the gods and the only authority for people in this world, for the Veda is the foundation in this matter." -- Manusmrti 11:85.
For another example of Indian arrogance, see this story by an Indian : Hindian Arrogance on a Tourist Bus.
It would be better to outsource to Russia or an Eastern European country. The cultural differences between the U.S. and India are too great.
Part of the problem is that someone who makes 22 times the normal pay of other people in her country, as the article says, is that, for her, the company is like a god. Arrogance, like many mental illnesses, is bipolar. Someone affected with this will treat those perceived as inferiors as worthless, but that person will also treat those perceived as superiors as though they are perfect.
Often directions that come from above are faulty in some way. When arrogance is a problem, managers simply won't hear information that is perceived as different from what they want to hear.
Every engineering and programming project with which I've been associated has required some mid-course correction, or some change in planning. It is part of your job to teach your manager how to manage well. When there is such a huge difference between the economic position of workers and managers, managers just don't get the training they need to do their jobs well.
Outsourcing to India is just an extreme variation of top managers trying not to have a human relationship with the people they manage. I've seen many companies that have failed because of too little attention to relationships.
I think that many companies who think that outsourcing is saving them money today will eventually realize that there are long-term costs they haven't considered. For example, software that is successfully written in India may become the basis for the domination of a field by an Indian company. Companies that outsource export their business rules and business expertise. Those who live in a country in which the average person makes $500 per year, as the article says, may feel completely comfortable making illegal copies and selling them to anyone who will pay. Yes, I know that Indian progammers aren't allowed to bring pens and pencils to their desks. But, when they go home, someone has the keys to the building. Someone, and probably many people, are able to make copies of any successful code. In the U.S., there is not such economic pressure to break the law. It is usually not perceived as necessary to steal to make living. In a very poor, very economically unsuccessful country like India, there is a higher percentage of people willing to break the law. Think what will happen if a U.S. company tries to go to the Indian courts. That could erase any cost savings.
India is poor for serious reasons, whatever they are. Those who send jobs to India are trying to erase centuries of cultural failure. Those who outsource to India are trying to get success from a mostly unsuccessful people. If it were all so easy, Indians would make their own country successful, rather than getting money from outside.
I wonder how long will it take till the U.S. economy is outsourced to the point when American consumers can't buy goods anymore, can't afford education and healthcare, housing, taxes, etc. America will either drive itself to the point of extinction, or to socialism and government-controlled healthcare, education and housing.
To argue that outsourcing is popular ONLY because of cost seems rather racist. If americans can do something well, so can Indians, Chinese, and others. Besides, costs in India have been rising and price sensitive work is now going to SE Asia. Work will get done where it can be done best AND at the lowest cost.
Outsourcing is possible because of the wide gap in standards of living around the world. And it is about closing that gap - standards will rise in poor countries and briefly decline in the US. You may not like it but why should it be different? Do people in third world countries deserve less?
While I'm hardly a champion of globalization this is what it is - or should be - about. The US can stop outsourcing but it would loose to countries that embrace it. Just as India must prepare for outsourcing to SE Asia.
That said, the article is sadly correct about lack of creativity in India. If the west wishes to maintain its lead it had best encourage innovation in research and education - where there is still a big gap.
Lenin was predicting this in the early 20th century./ imp-hsc/)
great read (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916
Capitialism at it's highest form is Imperialism. To achive this they much knock out the 'middle class' so the system is only the rich and the poor.
Corperations outsource work to India to utilise another untapped market. India has alot of people willing to work to suvive, so they create a so called 'middle class' in India that can afford more then just the bare necessities to suvive, in doing so creates a class that can afford some luxeries. Look at India in its current state, New building are popping up everywhere, mall's are being installed that look like something out of an American movie.
This builds more capitial. Corperations outsourcing work to poorer nations welds cheaper labour. They can pay these people a 10th of what they would pay any I.T professional in America, This new 'class' open's up in-roads for America to push Amercian products into a country which it couldnt previously, evertually setting up a sterdy foundation for future capital of the country and eventually destorying Indian culture and making a society reliant on these new products. This furthering corperate globalisation and achiving more money. for the rich.
The 'Middle class' of America has a choice either they compete by lowering there saleries to same or less, or they change jobs. Eventually all 'Middle class' jobs will go this way and people in first world nations will either be rich or working class.
(This isn't figment it's happening now.)
Then you have a Country thats benfits only the rich, All public sectors are being sold off as we speak. And private schooling/hospital is out of reach of the average 'working class' worker. You now have Oppression, Either you choose to live your life with miminal rights/living standards or you fight the system.
This isn't all commie BS Talk, Look back on the revolutions in the past (1968-France, 1972-Chile,1974-Portuguese, 1979-Iran, 1980-Polish, etc.) All of them where against opression of the people and fighting for better living standards.These bourgeoisie have no problem killing or torturing their own people to keep themselves in power. Look back at historical revolutions.
Capitalism benfits the rich minority not the majority. It's evil.
I'm sorry, but this trend doesn't bother me too much. First of all, I am a government employee and my job is somehwat more secure that the ones in the private sector. Second, my jobs sucks. I work long hours for low pay, and if the Indians want it, they are welcome to it. It would give me a chance to do something else.
Funny how people are in favour of capitalism until it harms them, then they are all for socialism. It's best to roll with the punches and be more flexible at any rate. If my job goes, I'll find another.
If you could shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, keeping the same ratios, this is what it would look like:
57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 Western Hemisphere, and 6 Africans
51 female, 49 male
70 non-white, 30 white
70 non-Christian, 30 Christian
50% of the world's wealth would be held by only 6 people who would be U.S. citizens
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death, 1 near birth
1 would have a college degree
0 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for both tolerance and understanding becomes glaringly apparent.
That would be a valid argument if wealth is a scarce resource... in other words, if you looked at the world like the 6 Americans were "hogging" all of the resources, and the rest of the world was suffering for said "hogging." Unfortunately, there are resources aplenty on this planet that create wealth, mostly just lying around, matter of fact, we go to many other impoverished countries precisely because those resources are literally lying around undeveloped and are so glaringly easy to get to.
Nations and wealth are built from within. Don't speak as though the rest of the world is suffering because my ancestors died in coal mine cave-ins to build a real infrastructure... that is an inconsistent conclusion. There were these people from other times, called the ROMANS, that built wealth from vineyards and cattle farms. They didn't steal to get there. They organized. We did the same.
So let me adjust those statistics you quoted at us like we are a-holes that have it so great:
-fifty percent of those starving in that "global village" live in perfectly great growing locations with real, if not constant, growing seasons with real resources to make crops.
-80% of those that live in substandard housing live in countries with no concept of the words "building code," and thus spend all of their time keeping out the rain instead of doing it, by hand, correctly the first time. My people made log cabins. Certainly better than sheet metal and a pole.
-illiteracy is not a resource, and you cannot imply poor living to illiteracy.
Face facts. The reality of why the rest of the world is poor has to do with their lack of education and skills, not with some exploitation of the rest of the world, or these scarce resources you speak of. Most of the countries that scream "exploitation!" are upset that they can't read and are jealous when people from cultures worldwide come in and can read. See the history of the British Empire on this one. This was the first time that some people ever saw steel mechanics and other things like a record player. The lack of science was holding them back, and little tips like this:
Handy Third World Tip-
If you place rock next to the river bank, and place your house in and high, then your home doesn't wash away every other year with all of your possesions, livestock, and children.
You just can't blame science... so you blame the people that know it, call them the devils, exploiters, and then when you see an ignorant face in the wilderness on the Discovery Channel that is living just like we all used to live, (and you notice that you are living in air conditioned, clean, vermin-free glory) you feel guilty.
You assume in the back of your mind that you made them suffer, that you are responsible, like that lumber that came from American forests by American workers for your American house, is actually coming from their forest, and they are living like this because of SOMETHING YOU DID. The truth of the matter is it is NOTHING YOU OR YOUR ANCESTORS DID, other than the fact that they innovated and busted their tails to improve their childrens lives, and these poor villagers don't have a mechanism or a concept of how to do
Wrong! I work for a Japanese car manufacturer here in the US. At a single plant they employ over 6000 americans directly to build these cars. However, the same cannot be said for American car manufacturers who do send their cars to Mexico to manufacture. I find it interesting that my employer is showing more sales and more customer loyalty than the "American" manufacturer.
..to me like a child. I want my gov't to keep foreign troops at bay, and enforce the civil laws. I'll go find my own job, house and food thanks!
Blar.
"If the west wishes to maintain its lead it had best encourage innovation in research and education - where there is still a big gap." I have to agree here. I am a Soviet-born immigrant to the U.S. and this is my last semester finishing my M.S. in computer science. There are no americans in my class. It is not that the education system here is poor. On the countrary, I believe it is one of the best in the world. However, Americans don't take advantage of it!!
This has to be a troll. When I see you hanging out in dirt-floored hovels with the farmers...then maybe I'll give your words some value. I agree, we don't have the right to complain if an Indian coder takes our jobs...that's CAPITALISM! But wait, the first half of your post espoused SOCIALISM by supporting the redistribution of wealth!
You want it both ways don't you...bleeding heart. I bet you're a perl wanker.
Blar.
Perhaps we should be noble and shut down Hollywood so that local film industry jobs around the world can flourish?
As long as we're shutting down Hollywood, can we get the major music companies shut down too?
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
But my take on all this is that the best route to well-paying, *steady* long-term employment is to learn a craft that simply cannot be outsourced. Ever.
I've been a professional programmer for almost 10 years now, and I see the writing on the wall. I figure I've got at most 5 years left before I'll have to retrain and find a new line of work. And that's if I'm lucky. It wouldn't surprise me if I'm unemployed this time next year.
I used to know a guy who did nothing but build custom staircases for homes and offices. That's all he did - staircases. But guess what? He was regarded as a craftsman; an expert in his trade. He made about $150,000 per year, and can never be outsourced.
I should have listened to my Grandfather and gone into the plumbing trade.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
--George Santayana
Clearly, you have forgotton a great deal of the last two hundred years...perhaps two thousand.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to rip on IIT, it is a fantastic school. At my company, we had a graduate from there interview with us last year and we were very quick to make him an offer that luckily he accepted. I was just pointing out that there is a difference between the type of education one would receive at top American universities amd IIT. I'm not saying the way of Caltech is better than the way of IIT, just different and that it is crazy to say (as the parent to my post did) that IIT rejects go to Caltech or MIT. I do think that difference in philosopies between American and Indian institutions will also show itself as the two economies become more and more intertwined, similar to how the author of the article suggested.
Manusmrti 11:85: This "Manusmriti" was something written by a king Manu thousands years ago for the people of that time.Its not a Hindu religion document. You have no idea abut today's India and you haven't visited India at all! Geocities website example: I can write story about any people and country on Geocities website, I can come up examples of American arrogance on personal websites. Have yourself better informed from reliable sources. India is poor for serious reasons, whatever they are. Those who send jobs to India are trying to erase centuries of cultural failure. Those who outsource to India are trying to get success from a mostly unsuccessful people. If it were all so easy, Indians would make their own country successful, rather than getting money from outside. India is poor for whatever reasons, but you are rich because you have reaped fruits of free trade so far at the cost of poor countries, now its time for countries like India to reap the fruits, you don't like it, go to hell! Indians are some of the most succesful people and they are doing so from their own money, they are working for the money just like anyother bloke in the world, Indians are not borrowing money from anybody, its American CEOs who are running to India to give them jobs, your problem is your own busniess leaders and management, not India or Indians. You lost your job because of your messed up managers, not because of India!
In most of places around the world IT industry is getting better and better. Where are you living? Wrong country perhaps? Right time to move?
Seriously, show me any country outside of US where it's getting worse? Even Europian countries still hiring hi-skiled immigrants.
Well, the difference between USA and EU is in immigration laws. USA officials hate hi-skillied immigrants (just like you do). So, perhaps that's the source of the problem: open your borders and enjoy IT industry flooding in to your country again, just as it's been already back in late-90s in the era of H1Bers.
Less is more !
Examine the problem from a logical point of view.
Dude, we live in in a capitalist society. By the definition of capitalism, we live off someone else's money. They pay us to do something.
If that someone decides to save money by firing you and hiring someone overseas who is equally skilled and is cheaper, you've lost your source of income, but not "your" job. The job was something you were hired or contracted to do. You occupied that the position, but never had ownership of it. It did not belong to you. It never did. That's a worker-generated illusion everyone shares.
The truth is, no one in any particular position matters. Everyone is replaceable. Everyone is expendable. If there are cheaper programmers in India, then a company will get rid of their Americans, and hire overseas, because the company does not owe you anything, save for within the bounds of whatever contract you signed. It has no moral obligation to keep you employed. If anything, the only moral obligation a company has is solvency. Profit is the end goal. If solvency in the pursuit of profit can be preserved by means of cheaper workers, then you, that guy and gal over there and I are all S.O.L.
Such is life.
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
Instead of bitching about this, take advantage of it. How many times do you come up with an idea that, if only you had the time, would make a million bucks? Imagine if you had an Indian programmer at your disposal... you give him a grand a month to code whatever you think up. Think like a capitalist pig and it starts to make sense. Oink!
increasing education is not the answer anymore.
Life does go on.
"Protectionism" for american tax dollars, that's fine.
Protectionism for other companies - not as good, but there are many ways to do this and some are "fair" while others are not. Something to the tune of a new tax (Yikes, I said that?!?) where goods are taxed, and the company can reduce that tax by taxes paid by workers would be innovative. This could balance the needs of the economy without being all one-sided, and can be tuned. I'm sure, however, that special interests would quickly destroy any truly fair system though.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The movement may be a profitable, effective policy for some - but my experience is a sharp contrast.
Although this article does a good job of talking about Hexaware, and their mission, it isn't reflective of the overall India outsourcing movement. I won't say my company or who we're outsourcing with, but the quality of Indian programming experienced by us here in the US is bottom of the barrel - the very accurate description used in our hallways is "You get what you pay for." Though we may save money in paying Indians lower wages, we are losing money in forcing expensive US developers to divert their time to fixing and addressing problems created by shoddy Indian work.
Something can be done about outsourcing - John Edwards offers one such economic plan, in which companies who employ in the US receive tax breaks, while those who outsource are taxed to the maximum. That way, through spent wages or taxation, American money stays in America.
Alright, I'll give you Honda, as they continue to grow their business in Alabama. Toyota on the other hand is looking hard at Mexico for US destined vehicles.
Source: google searches.
when your job goes to Botswana.
xot, I agree with you. If I were in your shoes, I'd be doing the exact same thing. I do not lament the loss of U.S. jobs, mainly because I am a strong believer in market economics, freedom, and fending for oneself. Whining is not sexy. In general, it makes sense to move the labor to where it's cheapest. India is currently about the cheapest place to do software. Moving to India is not outside the realm of possibilities for me. Just so you know, I am a software engineer in the U.S. making well above average pay, even for my field. While I am enjoying my current salary, I know I could be out of a job any day. I have studied for and taken the GMAT. I have applied to a few business schools and will hopefully get into one of them before my job disappears. Ultimately, I know it is up to me to use my resources to earn a living. The only thing people are entitled to in this world are Jack and Sh!t. In other words : no-one is entitled to anything. You must earn it.
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
So it's not your fault you're getting into debt, you were forced to buy that car, that TV, that VCR, that computer... With money that you didn't had...
What happened to personnal responsability?
It is certainly a tumultuous world economic situation right now. Corporations have no loyalty, except to their own bottom line. Companies that can't keep their prices competitive will go out of business, and everybody at the company loses their job. Managers who fail to make their companies competitive by taking advantage of all available means (including cheaper outsourced labor) to keep their prices competitive will lose their own jobs. This reality doesn't make the job exportation trend any easier for affected American workers to accept, however. Workers resent the management/MBA types who smugly point out that corporations taking advantage of cheaper sources of labor is just an example of Darwinian market forces at work, while those same managers rake in huge paychecks and enjoy considerably better job security. What we need is to give these American management types a dose of their own medicine. I'm sure there are plenty of bright, well-educated foreign MBAs who would be happy to have the jobs of American mangers for pennies on the dollar. I believe that the world market is indeed evolving, and things will all work themselves out in the end. I am just nervous that if steps aren't taken to soften the transitions for workers, it will result in devastating social upheaval that will be bad for everyone.
I have visited India. I have also had extremely serious arrogance problems with Indians of the kind that I mentioned in the last month. I'm not saying all Indians are as out of touch as I mention, but being out of touch is part of the culture. India is poor because of Indian culture. That won't be improved quickly, although it is slowly being improved.
You make an excellent point.
In China, for example, a BMW 300 series (around $35K in the US) is approx. $100K US Dollars.
That is quite the price hike.
Give me animal outsourcing, any day of the week.
The real price that you'll pay for Bangalore-sourcing must include the loss of customer confidence that you will suffer when the end result makes its way into your customers' hands.
By the way, anyone can write a check to an outsourcing firm. So just what competitive advantage do you think you'll have if you do this?
With blinders on, IT folk delude themselves into thinking that they are producing an end product. For the most part, IT is an input to a final productive outcome. Anything that lowers the cost of IT increases the productivity of those for whom IT is an input. If a company can get its IT cheaper, then it can improve its bottom-line or lower the cost of its products. I have a non-lawyer colleague in government that used to work in the Justice department as a policy analyst. He was seen as essentially support staff in this "if your not a lawyer you're little people" environment. After leaving for another department, he would welcome his Justice counsel (basically a service bureau) with a friendly taunt, "how does it feel to be support staff."
Outsourcing of jobs to india is as OBSCENE as the subsidies given to farmers in the 1st world, which prevent poor farmers in third world countries from competing in the market place. I mean really how do you compete with someone whose ENTIRE costs are being paid by a third party, and thus can afford to reduce his prices to ridiculous levels because whatever he gets is profit?????
Oh...but wait....Dammit I forgot... poor people don't have much of a voice in the media....Curse you jeremy and all french frogs !!!!!!
i think so
A description of his policies on international trade is here.
Care to identify which company and which plant?
In closing, I'd like to offer the "Dr Strangelove" solution: lets make programming so damn easy/ simple that we take 'em down with us....Lord knows there are plenty of projects at SF that purport to ease programming effort... but usually end up just building IDE's (if they ever produce anything at all). And I don't mean VB (a #10 pencil with a circle of paper). I mean real tools for building real solutions with drag/drop capability. Yes, even for real time, data mining, bio-informatics, whatever. Make it so damn easy that the mailroom clerks..even PHB's!... can do it.
I don't think it is possible because people always want to stick their fingers in the pie and want something "special" in an application. It may be nonsense, but it makes them feel important. But IMO a data-dictionary (fill in a table about fields and ER info) is the closest way to get such RAD. But it still takes some skill/practice to fill in the table values. A more visual approach tends to fail because there are important abstractions needed that often don't have an easy/familiar visual representation. Amatures often don't know how to "normalize" their setups, leaving in lots of duplication and contradictions.
Table-ized A.I.
The first is the population growth in SE asia. In essence we are paying for this regions overpopulation. They can't find adequate jobs there because of it so they come here.
Asymetric employment laws. I have never tried, but it is my understanding I would not be allowed to go to India and do the same thing they are allowed to do here.
The savings and H1B laws are a farce. I have personnaly witnessed a company only interviewing cheap H1B applicants for a position they are required by law to allow citizens a shot at. In one example of a site search progam my time estimate (I had done it 5 times before) was 1/8 of theirs, so even if I am 8 times more expensive there are no savings.
Instead of sugar coating it, no-one's ever said the reality: the fair market price for programmers is somewhere between $11,000 and $20,000 a year. It's as simple as that. Programmers do something which just isn't worth much, like basketweaving.
The higher wages some people knew in the 20th century were due to some things the democrats did in the 1900's like minimum wage. Like any social program, the labor laws were completely useless in the long term. Corporations would eventually move the labor to somewhere without minimum wage.
The government can create as many laws and social programs as it wants to. The long term is always dictated by the fair market price.
Faith in your government, faith in your own abilities, faith in the economy, etc.
Do all of you slashdotters love the USA so much that although we've got crappy laws like the DMCA, contadictory rulings in the court systems, and politicians more skilled in slick speech making than in actual governance and leadership that you wouldn't change your place of living, living standards, or other things to do what it is you want to do?
If halving your salary so you can stay near your family is most important to you, then do it!
If moving to India (or wherever) to "go where the jobs are" so you can keep up with that posh living standard you're so accustomed to, then do it!
If putting yourself through med. school, law school, or a PhD program to make yourself a more desirable US job candidate is what you've got to do these days to stay afloat in the U.S. job market, then do it!
Quit being so freakin' selfish and pretending that millions of immigrants to the United States of America weren't doing exactly the same thing: seeking a better life for themselves and their families! Just because the US has been the dominating governmental figure in the world for the past ~150 years doesn't mean that that too is not subject to change.
If it's India, or China, or wherever's time to shine, let 'em shine! Yes, I too want America to continue to shine, and I think it will for quite some time, but that doesn't mean I think it will last forever, and I'm willing to adapt to that change should the time come.
I was just saying 50% of the world's wealth is in the US and in the hands of 6% of the population.
I didn't say there was anything wrong with that. I also didn't create those stats. I got them from an internal Chevrontexaco website.
BTW
hogging resources is exactly how you create wealth. Look at the diamond industry. Diamonds are plentyful, but they are very expensive because they are horded.
I think that was mentioned in the stats...70% are illiterate.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
This is an ever present, uninformed ( even if he was just trying to help out his "chap" of a pal ), example of a person that has TOTALLY missed the point.
The point is that fine, so you friend has a "right" to have a job. Well, according to Carly Fiorina, no American has a God-Given right to have any particular job. Well, then, neither should your friend. Just because he CAN be paid lower, doesn't mean that it is ethically his right to have it. Just the same it is also not unjust that the company be penalized for doing what is ethically incorrect for the country in which it operates and provides it it's laws to protect it's interests. If that were the case, let HP move it's World Headquarters to Bangalore, and establish itself as an Indian corporation.
Do you KNOW why Microsoft, who has threatened COUNTLESS times to move either to Canada or elsewhere if it doesn't get the number of H1B's it wants, hasn't ? It's because Bill's not STUPID. He knows that if he actually were to pull such a bone-headed move, he'd lose SO much business credibility in this country that Microsoft would suffer irreparable damage. Not just in the US, but around the world. What ? You don't think that would happen ? Just ask the EU, they're already ticked off at Microsoft's tactics.
My advice to jotaelemeese....Learn English. Learn it's proper spelling ( UK or American, what you wrote adhered to neither standard ), and learn it's grammar. THEN, go ahead and formulate an argument, albeit a poor one. But then, you can be judged on solely the merit of your argument ( or lack thereof ), and not your poor communication skills as well.
If someone can do a job cheaper, they should get the job .
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,the US citizen, is about .
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...Fin...The end ...
Let's check this logic
All jobs in the US can be done by someone else from another
country, by bringing them here via L1 visa or sending the
job overseas
Thus, we end up with millions of bankruptcies, repossesions,
and foreclosures, all costing billions of dollars
Even the lawyers could be outsourced
Even the court clerks filing the death slips of america
could be outsourced
We could outsource the police force to go and bodily remove
ppl from their homess and cars
I think the "race to the bottom" logic misses the point
Destablizing the largest economy in the world will send shockwaves
thru the entire world
I for one think that shafting millions of US workers will
have a long term negative impact on this country
There are NO jobs that cannot be outsourced
If over 50% of the jobs are worked by imported hispanics,
or imported visa workers, or sent overseas , it will be the
beginning of the end of the US
It is like a snake eating it own tail
The world's largest economy is about to collapse under its
own greed, because its largest consumer
to be replaced by someone that will not spend the majority
of their money here, they will send it home
They will not put it in US banks, they will put it in foreign banks
Most of the imported labor hates the US, but loves its money
The only loyalty is to the bottom line
This will cause a ripple effect thru every sector, and once it
gets enough momentum ppl will be leaving the big cities in droves
due to their outrageous costs
The burden to welfare and other social services will
not be supportable as less money will be paid in, as the foreign
contract workers do not pay into our system
Thus it will collapse like a house of cards
No more welfare, no more jobs, no more anything
Finito
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I think you have been bitten by trolls under the bridge .
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
a bird flu pandemic is currently something to watch.
This is a real problem for countries with *compromised* infrastructure - health services, sanatation etc. I would not want to be in a country like India if a pandemic strikes.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Too bad I just used up my mod points.
This is slowly but surely being disproved. As a matter of fact, free trade *can* make a region poorer so it certainly can make a country poorer. As we buy Asian products they use that money to buy assets here in the US, as more and more factors of production move offshore (which ricardo said could not happen for his theory of Comparative advantage to be valid).
All nations must pay for their imports with their exports. As the US is choosing to pay for it's exports at a later date we are exporting ownership of our assets.At the same time our currency will and is collapsing. As more and more jobs are being lost, we are not seeing improved prices (due to the devaluation of the dollar).
At a certain point another country will overtake the US as the importing country of choice. When this happens you shall see a massive and nasty devaluation of the dollar.
As more and more white collar jobs move overseas, you shall see the collapse of both social mobility in the US and the middle class. Increasingly the US will look like a third world country.
I find this a bit rich coming from a US cit. Currently Australia is trade negotioning with the US. Guess what free trade does not include things like sugar, dairy, beef.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
The last 3 years have seen no IPO's, no startups, and no "move to killer apps", yet the largest decline ever in wages. There isn't one new product since the outsourcing wave which shows any signs of being even remotely revolutionary from what was around in 1999. How can outsourcing boost killer apps if the largest outsourcing wave in history has yielded absolutely nothing?
There is no evidence to support the suger coating outcome. The wholesale price of a computer game written in India is exactly the same as a computer game written in the US. The wholesale price of a circular saw made in China is exactly the same as the price of a circular saw made in the USA. In 1998 the Palm Pilot, engineered in the US, was $300. Today the a IPaq, engineered in India, is $600. Where's the offshoring discount?
Saying cheaper laber boosts economic growth is an absolute lie. The simple answer is the right answer. Corporate executives are making more money because they're worth more money. Programmers are making $11,000 because programming is only worth $11,000.
I agree. Fram subsidies are unfair to the rest of the world and should be curtailed.
A lot of the factory farming business in the US is driven by the seed companies. Notice every time the US tries to donate grain, they send genetically engineered unmilled grains knowing full well that most people in developing nations will keep some back to plant, thus contaminating their supply (GM grains cross fertilizes with native grains) and gets them kicked out of markets such as Europe which has a ban on GM grains.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Software developer, over 20 years of experience. US Military veteran (for you patriotic types), worked at my previous employer for over nine years. Skilled in every technology they ever asked me to learn, successful in every project I worked on. Stuck with my employer through thick and thin. Designed and built a system that increases profits by over $15,000,000 a year, while reducing inventory costs.
The last project I worked on finished on-time, under budget, worked perfectly, and made the customer (in their words) "extremely happy". Heck, the day before I was canned those same customers took me out to lunch to say 'thank you' for my effort on their project, and to say how excited they were with the work I had done.
Four days after the project went into production I was fired, by a boss who claimed I couldn't do my job.
My job is now being done by an Indian H1-B worker...
Isn't there a clause in the H1-B regulation somewhere that says a company has to prove they cannot find 'local' people to do a job? Because I can guarantee that's not the case here! To take a job from someone with over 20 years of experience and give it to someone with less than two years of experience just doesn't add up...
Anyone looking for a skilled developer? <sigh>
I used to work for a company that had an offshore office in Pune, India. My boss, an Indian (a millionaire, living here), exploited those people, charging dollars here, and paying pennies there. I was tasked to do QA over all of their code, which really was crap. Example: a small ASP page would have 300 bugs!
But they figured it was cheaper - pay 8 people $4/hr to code, then have one $35/hr person (me) do QA, and send it back, let them fix the bugs. Compare this to having 8 people at $35/hr over here.
That worked fine for a while, then eventually the customer starting getting tired of all the delays, and they lost the contract.
The place is out of business now. If they would have had better programmers then, they might still be around now.
Scary. Basically, all I can say is be the best, and you will probably always have a job. Slack a little and you will be out. Be tough on yourself, or just change careers.
I think one thing is for certain - "paper-trained" GED graduates with a MSCE certificate from ITT or DeVrys will be out first. Gotta get that college degree, man.
Look at the bottom:
messsagesmith
I did analyze trends, one trend is to offshore IT work to other countries for cheaper labor. I also cited examples that shows that companies get what they pay for.
You may decide to do something idiotic about it (like passing a law) or something useful (like liberalizing labour markets, so people can compete based on their abilities), because you are not affraid of competing, arent you? After all those Indian IT people are rubbish? Right.
I am not afraid of competing if the market was fair. Problem is Indian IT workers can work for less than US Minimum Wage, so there is no way I can compete with them salary-wize. The only way I can compete is to offer high quality services and programs. Areas that according to articles I quoted, they lack in.
I work every day with people from India, and dear USians let me tell you, they are not only cheaper, but hardworking and on my personal experience on average are more capable than their counterparts in the US, UK and the far east. No wonder you are afraid, but the way to fight for your jobs is not by closing your eyes and hope that your goverment is going to take away economic realities.
In my experience I have found both good and bad examples. I worked with an Indian who was at the top of his game in IT Work, high level expert and hard worker. I even ran a business with him for a few years. He got a green card and was paid the same as me, high quality work. Then there are others, brought over here by H1B Visas and working as cheap as can be. Poor quality, poor communcations, and almost just filling a seat. Programs are turned in incomplete and full of bugs, need someone who knows quality control to fix them. Does not even bother to learn our culture, just there to collect a paycheck until the Visa expires and send money home. The difference is that the green card holder and friend of mine cared about the quality of his work, learning our culture, and becoming an equal if not a superior to the rest of us. My friend adapted to this new environment and thrived in it. He currently is applying to become a US Citizen.
You may need to completely change your carrier, dedicate yourself to something completely different or improve yourself on the IT field more than you ever dreamed would be necessary. I see tha the most talented people now a days are drawn from all around the world, not only from India, but these realities may escape some of the readership in /. that may work in places where this reality is not obvious, but here in London one knows one has to be on his toes or one will be flipping the proverbial burger.
I assume you mean career, I am currently doing that. Taking business management courses and learning about global business, quality control, empowerment, etc. I study and research and see that many firms in other countries need help to train their employees in quality control. Few exceptions like Japan already know how to control qualty. Sadly I am finding that many Indian firms need help in this area. There are few that I found that have good quality.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I am currently going to college to improve myself so I can get a better job. I am studying business management. A career change from IT.
I was a victim of identity theft, someone was creating bogus online profiles using my personal info and trying to apply for credit cards in my name. Would have caught the individual but they were not in the US. Good thing I had credit protection and protection from identity theft from a major credit card company. It took a while, but those bogus profiles were eventually deleted.
I constantly get Phishing Scams from various IPs outside of the US that lead to bogus websites that pretend to be Paypal, ICQ, Amazon.com, etc and ask for all sorts of personal info. Also 419 type scam letters from various countries. Apparently fraud is global, did you know that?
Did you also know that there are viruses that originate from outside the US? Mostly in countries that do not have virus laws on their books?
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
See Robert X. Cringely's current post here.
Tragek
1. Currently in a class with Aurenheimer.
2. Currently in a class with Seki
3. Had Yeung early on
4. Had classes with Reed for the past 2 semesters (not counting now)
Yep, all those instructors are there. And I'm surprised to see housing costs getting so high here. My own apartment has indeed gotten more expensive, but remain at a cost I can manage - when I considered attending San Jose a couple years ago, housing off-campus was impossible.
As we buy Asian products they use that money to buy assets here in the US, as more and more factors of production move offshore (which ricardo said could not happen for his theory of Comparative advantage to be valid).
What factors of production are the Asians buying, exactly? If I understand you rightly, wouldn't they have to buy up a sufficient number of, say, movie cameras that we couldn't produce as many movies?
At a certain point another country will overtake the US as the importing country of choice. When this happens you shall see a massive and nasty devaluation of the dollar.
You're already seeing a slow collapse of the dollar. This will probably go on for decades thanks to Bush defecits and our current account debt. But it's unlikely to be sudden; the various purchasers of dollars (and dollar assets) are driven by forces that will take decades to shift.
And if our currency is lower, that's great for American jobs; that makes our exports cheaper.
As more and more white collar jobs move overseas, you shall see the collapse of both social mobility in the US and the middle class. Increasingly the US will look like a third world country.
That strikes me as unlikely. We will still have a large, well-educated workforce, plenty of capital, good infrastructure, and an entrpreneurial culture second to none. People have been predicting the death of the middle class and massive unemployment since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but we've always found something to do. Or rather, smart people have always found productive ways to keep busy.
I think the only thing that will change is that instead of focusing mainly on the US as a market, we'll pay some attention to all those new Asian consumers, the same way they've been paying attention to us for the last 40 years.
Could it be a personality problem?
If all that was needed for economic growth was a weak currency, then economic growth would be a no-brainer. The fact of the matter is that plenty of countries have weak currency and anemic growth. A falling currency tends to drive foriegn capital elsewhere, even reverse the flow (as it has in the US). Foriegners will not want to invest in an economy which will continually give lower and lower returns because of a falling exchange rate.
Also remember that a falling currency could also create inflation, which leads to a decreased standard of living. So in the end you're exports are cheaper, but you're still poorer. Think about it.
That strikes me as unlikely.
I hope you're right.
Posting the same thing again and again, what a waste of slashdot disk space. Fuck off and die.
Wow, this must be the most discussed topic for a while. While most will never read the 1638th comment, I'll just put in my opinions like anyone else.
.....
Americans complain of their jobs going overseas, politicians are becoming protectionist, etc... but why won't entreprenueral, creative IT programmers, technicians, engineers, HR, payroll, project management, and whatever outsource-able job holder re-make their business model and provide more value to customers?
Invent a better programming language that makes it cheaper for programmers to churn out bug-free code faster and better; provide better face-to-face contace and customer service, tout the benefits of direct contact vs. off-shore activity; do any number of things to make american services value for money to corporations and business so that they don't always jump on the outsourcing option the first chance they get.
Well, that's my two cents worth. I live in Singapore and many IT jobs are going to Malaysia, I don't know how long I'll last.... I'm certainly going to put my money where my mouth is (or was it the other way round) and start thinking of selling better, cheaper services than the Indians, Malaysians, Chinese, Phillipines,
Ed
E.W. (as opposed to eeeeeww)
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I really dont understand the heart burn over American IT jobs going over to India.What's so special about IT comapred to a car maker or a steelworker.at the end of teh day all of them make a product.so where were you when the manufacturing jobs went?Did u protest or did you use the phrase Global Economy?
India should be getting scared of China and east europe now because they arent stupid either.
Wanted : A Signature.
and working for $24K/anum (income tax ~27%)
I think you're right. My big mistake is in responding. But this is a sore spot for me right now.
I see lot of assumptions on non-Indians' part. I don't really think that any of the India's social problems or patterns has anything to do with work place culture.
.... it takes time to learn to deal with all kinds of people from different parts of the world.
..."
We have to remember that lot of Indians in last few years are suddenly dealing with all kinds of people from Americas and Europe. A guy or a gal who has never been out of India is now discussing busniess cases with people from across the world. This is what Information age is all about, delaings can be done from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world.
IMO, its a laerning process for all involved, I can see Indians are observing people they deal with, they are trying to understand in their own way.
Most of the team sitting and not talking during a VC is because of a reason. May be most of them are simply getting adjusted to "how" factor when it comes to a customer from Europe or Australia or US
If you are dealing with a team from India, who has already worked on number of projects from number of different markets, I can almost gurantee that your experience will be VERY positive. I cannot say the same thing for the team who is dealing with a foreign customer for first or second time.
Somebody commented: "... caste system is so strong, that you can tell what caste a person belongs to just by looking @ him
Above is simply not true, almost very comic!
Anyway, I think you should put this talks about caste system away when dealing with professionals from India.
I am sure Americans wouldn't like to discuss racism, KKK, MI militia and all the rednecks in US when dealing with Indians, same way Americans(or anybody) shouldn't worry about caste system while doing business with Indian companies. Every country and society has their own set of problems, doesn't matter whether you are from US or India!
"To argue that outsourcing is popular ONLY because of cost seems rather racist"
Not at all - its simply saying that that is the key differentiator between the two work forces, which implies that the quality of Indian programmers is at least roughly the same quality. Denying it is big headed...
Like what? FDR's great plan that has turned the USA into a welfare state? The Ancient Roman govt's policy of bread a circuses to keep the masses ignorant of a failing empire? The communist USSR's failure?
What else have I forgotten?
Blar.
I am taking an international economics class and according to the Heckscher-Ohlin model the reason Americans make higher wages is because capital (by that I mean anything EXCEPT labor) is abundant and Indians make far less because capital (same definition) is scarce. It's as simple as that; google for a quick Heckscher-Ohlin model and you won't have to ask these questions any longer!
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
I'm told that MBAs are trained to look no more than 3 years ahead.
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
John... you are right... about Raj being arrogant and petty and insulting you. But he does have a point. You did say China/Japan. And in either case if China is just above Nepal, it's only because they have occupied Tibet. And if you decide to disregard that too, well then, India is just below and beside Nepal. So that's hardly an argument for Buddhism originating in China. Next, in spite of Raj venting spleen... he did pull out a link from a website you pointed out to him which pretty much details the historical origins of Buddhism around 150 BC. And says that Buddhism only entered China in 544 CE! Also, there are enough and more historical sites in India (including a place named Bodh Gaya which is where the Buddha is said to have gained enlightenment) that support the facts that he was born and led all/most of his life in India. As to your point about conversion to Buddhism.. yes.. it is often spoken in those terms. And the reason is that one of the most important percepts of Buddhism, even before the "mystical" aspects is that of ahimsa, or non-violence. Adopting a new belief/principle is a form of conversion, isn't it? One of the famous "converts" to Buddhism was the Emperor Asoka who so regreted the carnage of a war of conquest that he embraced the concepts of Buddhism and even today, the official seal of India is the Asoka seal. That of three lions seated upon a pillar. It might be hard for you to wrap your mind around these concepts since the perception of Buddhism in the west is through Zen or through "mystical Far East" philosophy and the perception of India and Hinduism is the caste system. Just as a Jew drawing upon his his Judaic religion and his disgust with what the Pharisees had made of it began Christianity, a Hindu prince disgusted with the evil, pain and suffering fostered by desire in the world began Buddhism. Many of the percepts and principles can easily be seen to be drawn from Hindu beliefs. Hinduism is not just pantheism and the caste system. It might interest you to know that the word Hindu was coined by the British to describe the natives of India... They both derive from the name of the river Indus. I could write more, but I will stop here. Thank you for listening.
> Yet I cannot move there and work because
> I am not an indian citizen.
Once an Indian company decides to hire you, they only have to sponsor you (a la H1B) and you can work in India, legally.
The rest is FUD.
Cheers,
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
Yeah, I don't blame ya for biting, it is a sore spot .
...if your a corporation .
.
.
for "millions" of Americans, but the only ppl that
really seem to care are the ppl losing their jobs
The Dems and the Repubs are all planning on opening the
border, and the L1 visa yearly cap still stands at
"* UNLIMITED *"
The american dream is for sale
With the Visa workers taking all the jobs that are deemed
over paid, and the border jumpers taking all the jobs that
are underpaid , that does not leave alot of jobs
Things are gonna get interesting over the next 10 years
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"