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Jobs to India -- A Broad Look
dumpster_dave writes "Wired has an excellent 7 page article on the current and future trend and nature of IT outsourcing from the United States. The conclusion: the smell of inevitability--the economy will survive, though your job, as it is currently, will likely not. Outsourcing is expected to expand from Service and code projects to the creative aspects as well, with obvious correlations experienced in the manufacturing industry during the 70s and 80s. An excellent read that provides good coverage of the perspectives of players on all sides."
Those who protest outsourcing should also protest the export of goods from our country. After all, by manufacturing and shipping our products, we are depriving foreign workers from making these products in their own country.
I am as much threatened by outsourcing as you, but I also understand that there are various roles in a marketplace - producer, consumer and labor. Americans do not have a God given right to be any of these.
The truth is that India is able to get all outsourcing projects simply because the country has been mismanaged all these years. All they are really selling is their poverty! Think about it. If all other countries became extremely rich and USA became extremely poor, we would be the recepients of this "favorable trend". Would you prefer that situation?
All your favorite sites in one place!
Let's forget for a moment that the dollars spent in other countries is all but permanantly not returning to this country and that the dollars which would otherwise be spent in the US stimulating the economy will be lost forever. (This is our national wealth permanantly leaving the country... is it coming back? Not when we're paying for services it ain't.)
What about the RISKS involved? Does anyone recall the story about the Indian (or was it Pakistani? Is there a difference?) medical company who threatened to release all their confidential information to the internet because they did not think they were being paid properly?
Even if that incident never repeats itself, we are dealing with nations that do not necessarily have our fullest national trust. Suppose, for example, a religious "idealist" decides he wants to terrorize U.S. companies and U.S. "consumers" (we're not citizens any longer or didn't you notice?) by releasing our private information or otherwise doing something nasty with the services that are being outsourced? It's a HUGE risk to our national economy.
We're not talking about manufacturing... that's hardware. We're beyond the "Industrial Age" which is why we didn't suffer a tremendous amount when most of our manufacturing left this country... we said, "Psh!! This is the 'Information Age!'" Okay so it's still the information age and already we're selling our informational processing commodities overseas leaving us with what?
Maybe these rich corporate bastards think the declining middle-class and soon to be lower-class will just silently die off? Maybe we'll wither away and stop voting? Perhaps we'll join gangs and kill each other off because we have nothing better to do and there'll be a mere 10,000 or so people left with all the money?
Nice game plan or maybe they aren't thinking that far in advance...?
EXACTLY!!
You know what happens when you outsource to india?
Subway.
I dont know about your neck of the woods, but round here (southern ca) every Subway is owned by Indians, you know like 7-11s. And they just dont make good sammiches anymore. They used to cut the bread in a V shape up top. They used to put the mayo/mustard on the (gasp) bread instead of on the lettuce. Sure, they still make a sandwich and they do it cheaply, but do they make a good sandwich?
Not really.
Straight to pot they went, and not in a good way.