Jobs to India -- A Broad Look

Holy crap! by lake2112 · 2004-02-04 10:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

Jobs are being outsourced to India!!! That bastard headhunter acted like it was my fault. It sucks how some companies will pay for 9483 managers and can't pay for 2342 developers. So to keep the managers jobs they lay off the important people.

Re:Holy crap! by be-fan · 2004-02-04 11:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

What did we produce after we stopped producing shoes, then cars, etc? Other stuff! Capitalism works because human progress is unlimited. Unless you believe that progress will come to an end, you can rest assured that things will work out in the long term.

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A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Holy crap! by crymeph0 · 2004-02-04 11:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

...you can rest assured that things will work out in the long term.

A deep, unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...

Your .sig is so ironic.

--
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
Re:Holy crap! by vsprintf · 2004-02-04 13:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

What did we produce after we stopped producing shoes, then cars, etc? Other stuff!

When the jobs in agriculture started disappearing, people were told to retrain and get jobs in manufacturing. When the textile and manufacturing jobs were being sent overseas, we were told to reeducate ourselves and move up the food chain to knowledge work. If you'd read the article (either time it was posted), the looming question that nobody can answer is, *what comes after knowledge?* The author waved his hands, and like you, said *oh, something else*.

The point is, this is the first time in history when people have been educated for and lost two careers to outsourcing in a lifetime. The agricultural period lasted about 100 years, the manufacturing period lasted about 40 years, and the IT period about 20 years. It takes many people 25 years to pay off an education in the U.S. It is now a losing proposition. Whatever this next, great unknown thing is, the trend indicates it will last for 10 years (if it happens). Tell us now what the people who are losing their jobs need to be learning.

Capitalism works because human progress is unlimited.

Can you supply some proof that capitalism works? Where has it been tried? Certainly not in the U.S., where we have the worst mismash of capitalism and a centralized, regulated economy. Ever heard of the FRB, the FTC or a dozen other federal regulatory agencies? Ever heard of wage/price limits, minimum wages, tariffs, duties, NAFTA, favored trade status, or fast-track trade agreements? How about H-1B/L1 visas where certain industries are allowed to freely import cheaper labor denied to other sectors?

Unless you believe that progress will come to an end, you can rest assured that things will work out in the long term.

Nursing a burger patty from frozen pink disk to hot brown lunch is "progress". Got anything a little more substantial? As a previous poster pointed out, having your sig on that comment is classic.
Re:Holy crap! by Anonymous+Codger · 2004-02-05 01:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

>Can you supply some proof that capitalism works? Where has it been tried? Certainly not in the U.S...

Try the US at the end of the 19th century, and to a lesser degree, the early 20th. The results (depressions, dislocations, mass poverty, child labor, corporate thugs beating and killing workers who object to being exploited, wealth concentrating in the rich investor class, etc.) show that capitalism doesn't work. Of course, communism doesn't work either. The lesson we as a nation should take from the last 150 years is that what does work is a system in which capitalism provides the engine of the economy, but its excesses are restrained by strong government regulation. Too bad the right didn't learn this lesson.

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No sig? Sigh...

Please explain.... by Kenja · 2004-02-04 10:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

Please explain how the economy will survive when there is no longer a middle class because all the white-collar jobs have been moved over seas.

--

"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"

Re:Please explain.... by RickHunter · 2004-02-04 10:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

Good question, and one no-one seems to want to answer. Most will handwave and make vague comments about "expanding economy" or "dealing with people" or "management", but that's bull. This is the start of an offensive to eliminate the American middle class, and replace it with a permanent base of slave labour in "developing countries".
Re:Please explain.... by monkeytalks · 2004-02-04 10:39 · Score: 1, Insightful

America still makes cars--she still services cars, makes accessories for cars, installs radios in cars, buys and sells cars, etc. The manufacturing was moved to where manufacturing was cheaper. If code is cheaper to write somewhere else, it will be written somewhere else--if not now, eventually--if not India, then elsewhere. There will still be other work to do in the US but the American programmer is in the same predicament that the American automotive factory worker was in twenty years ago. That seems bad enough without exaggerating.

Anyway, I thought this was a good article the first time it was posted.
Re:Please explain.... by be-fan · 2004-02-04 10:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Its quite a strech to say that "all the white-collar jobs have been moved over seas" when programmers hardly comprise all white collar jobs.

And I hate to put it in these terms, but I don't see a whole lot of difference between a certain class of programmer jobs and manufacturing jobs. I mean, isn't that the whole point of languages like Java? To structure things so tightly that programmers are basically just there to put pre-built parts together in a certain order? Does it really less skill to assemble a car engine than to make a Java servlet that processes customer transactions?

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Please explain.... by gengee · 2004-02-04 10:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Easy: We cannot import from India more than the sum of what we export (to all countries). When we outsource American IT jobs to India, we are merely importing labor -- the same as we would import a car, or electronic device.

When an American company -- a company which sells the majority of its services or goods in America, for American dollars -- hires an Indian, the American company must either:

a) Pay the Indian employee in American dollars, or
b) Convert the American dollars to rupies, and pay the Indian employee in rupies

Either way, the result is the same: At some point in the chain, someone is taking dollars for rupies, whether it's the employee or a third party. That party is not taking dollars because they like the smell of them. They're taking the dollars because they intend to buy American goods with the dollars. (Or they intend to convert the currency to another foreign currency -- and so the chain goes).

That we cannot import more than we export -- over the long term -- is true. To believe otherwise would mean we somehow live in a bubble where foreign countries work for us for free.

There is simply no way, over the long term, that we could outsource all of our jobs, to India or anywhere else anymore than they outsource their jobs to us. (More on that below). It's just not possible.

The special interests will come up with all sorts of nonsense, all manner of jargon to support their fear mongering. They'll talk of
races to the bottom, living wages, social justice and other such things. But what they really mean is "gimme." (Read: I deserve to be making higher real wages for the same equivalent work because I am an American. When protectionists speak of races to the bottom, they ignore the flip side of the coin: a race to the top).

We can rack up debt in the way of trade deficits. Debt which will doubtlessly have to be paid off eventually. But sooner or later the dollar will fall against foreign currencies -- as it is currently, btw -- and foreigners will begin to receive repayment of their loans to us, by way of American exports.

As American exports increase, so too will employment, barring commensurate increases in productivity.

One other important point to make is the falsity of the assumption that only American companies are offshoring. This is the most ridiculous assumption of all, and I suspect it's the root cause of Americans' uneasyness towards offshoring.

Foreign companies offshore jops to America, too. In fact, more jobs are presently "offshored" -to- America from foreign companies than the opposite.

We all know how Flint, MI was hurt by General Motors' offshoring of factories to Mexico. Michael Moore even made a movie about it. But most people don't know about the tens of thousands who are employed in America by Toyota, by Mazda, or other Japanese car manufacturers. An American factory closing and moving to Mexico makes a great fear-mongering evening news story, but a similar-sized new factory operated by a foreign company in America does not.

Capitalism is inherently cyclical. It's the job of policy makers to make these cycles as painless as possible. But the cycles will always remain.

There is no need to blow a fuse over it.

--
- James
Re:Please explain.... by gengee · 2004-02-04 11:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

"You claim that every dollar we send to India is used to buy from the US. I call BS on that."

Sort of. I claim that every dollar we send to India is eventually either spent on American goods, or converted to another currency. Not necessarily immediately. The propogation is not instant. It could even take years. But eventually someone is going to come looking for their due, an American export.

Otherwise you're suggesting we're getting something for nothing. And if we're getting something for nothing, why wouldn't everyone else be getting something for nothing to? And where then is this something coming from? (Or if others could not do as we do, what are we doing that's so special which causes us to get something for nothing?)

I'm not debating the current state of the economy. It's not great. It's not great in Bangalore either. Things could probably be done to make the situation better. (Though smarter people than I at the policy-maker levels are certainly trying, without much luck)

If it's true that people with multiple doctorates are stuck working at fast food joints, I would guess they either chose a particularly esoteric field for study, or live in the wrong city or town for their work. I think that's the exception, not the norm.

That being said, if there really is no work to be done in their chosen field field, what would you do, if you were king, to rectify the situation?

Full employment is one of the easiest things in the world to create. All you have to do, as a government, is print money and put the people to work. But the trouble is if you don't put them to work efficiently -- an almost impossible task at such a large scale -- you create inflation, and everyone suffers as their real wages decline. ...Not a great situation for anyone.

I'm not advocating a pure Smithesque invisible hand, market-driven survival of the fittest economy. I'm just saying the problem is probably not offshoring.

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- James
Re:Please explain.... by IshanCaspian · 2004-02-04 11:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

And I hate to put it in these terms, but I don't see a whole lot of difference between a certain class of writers and manufacturing jobs. I mean, isn't that the whole point of languages like English? To structure things so tightly that writers are basically just there to put pre-built words together in a certain order? Does it really less skill to assemble a car engine than to make a novel?

*end spoof*

There's no similarity between programming and manufacturing, since the goal of manufacturing is to reproduce a given design as quickly and cheaply as possible, whereas the goal of programming is to create the design that is reproduced.

--

But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Re:Please explain.... by fab13n · 2004-02-04 14:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

But when another country buys dollars, it doesn't know exactly what it gets, because the dollar's value will change over the time in an unpredictable way.
So, if I buy $100 and my money raises 10% compared to dollar, I'll only be able to buy worth 91 old dollars of american work. And there, money leaked from USA! Moreover, next time I won't trust the dollar's stability, and bill more dollars for the same work, thus depreciating the dollar even more. Eventually, the situation will be stabilized when the price of work (and thus standard of living) will be comparable among countries...
Cheer up, this is gonna stop as soon as the average american guy will be about as wealthy as the average Indian one!
USA kept its higher way of life because it innovated so fast that no other country could follow. If innovation stops, then you go back with other countries.
Re:Please explain.... by MotherInferior · 2004-02-05 02:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

You haven't explained anything except just how bitter life can be. His question was how the economy will survive when there is no middle class. All of the men you described in your philippic were (and continued to be) members of a growing middle class. The middle class in America is slowly dying. This death is being accelerated by unpatriotic corporations that place their own profit margins above American economic health.

That this fact has been true since the 70's does not make it right, or acceptable. Nor does it absolve us of the responsibility of getting off our apathy-encrusted asses and doing something about it.

Life sucks. So what? It is we who do nothing to help our fellow man that make it suck.

Smaller software companies will survive.

This is the only thing you said which remotely gets to the point, and as such is interesting. Please elaborate.

What's Left? by RickHunter · 2004-02-04 10:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

So if service jobs, creative jobs, research jobs, and development jobs all get outsourced... What's left and why, exactly, will the economy survive? Oh, right, we'll all get jobs dealing with people face-to-face, selling things to people with no money. Or we'll all wind up being managers.

Excuse me while I look skeptical and write this off as one more piece to make executives feel more comfortable about destroying their country and killing the population.

Re:What's Left? by GnrlFajita · 2004-02-04 10:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

You're just not looking at it in the long term. If everyone begins outsourcing to India, then the law of supply and demand requires that eventually the cost of doing this will rise. So they'll begin to outsource to some other, cheaper, country. The cycle will repeat itself until eventually the U.S. is the cheapest place to 'outsource' jobs to.

It's all about perspective, man. Look at the big picture.

--
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
Mark Twain
Re:What's Left? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-04 11:00 · Score: 1, Insightful

The cycle will repeat itself until eventually the U.S. is the cheapest place to 'outsource' jobs to.

Wait until the US is the "cheapest place"? So, until our living condition is severely degraded, all of our brightest fled, and other countries even out with us? What the heck are you thinking??? If so, then how about the vision of the US being the leader of technology?
Re:What's Left? by alan_dershowitz · 2004-02-04 11:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

There will be the people who own companies, and the service industry to maintain their lifestyle. Don't expect to get paid good for that either, since illegal and legal immigrants will do crap jobs for less money.

You could learn a trade, but don't expect to work your way up to running your own business. Trades will be corporatized, so if you want to be a plumber you'll have to work for National Plumbers, inc.

So, basically there will be a two class system, since they've effectively figured out how to eliminate the merchant class and the professional class.

Re:Note to fat USians by Diaspar · 2004-02-04 10:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

interesting... when reading the article, i notice the cost of their daily lunch is around 50 cents. now, for comparing:

average college cost - $70,000
average apartment cost - $800
daily lunch - around $7

just a few items. hey, to be honest i'd be happy making $20,000 per year if my lunch would cost 50 cents daily, apartment $30 per month (or free, as it is in many countries) and the best college runs around $3,000 for all 4 years.

all the amounts people make are relative to what they have to spend. would you like to make $300,000 per year? if your rent becomes $20,000 per month (hypothetically, for the sake of comparison), all of a sudden that doesn't seem like that much money.

I just love how people assume that in america everybody is fat and have free money growing on trees. we work 50 hours per week and our bills are very expensive!!!

Worrisome by dustmote · 2004-02-04 10:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is one of the reasons that I am relieved that I no longer work in IT. I worry a lot about those friends of mine who still work in the industry, especially those who have kids. I think that part of the problem is also that the market was oversaturated, so to speak. IT became the big degree to get in the 90's, because "that's where the money is", so the jobs that do remain have a number of people applying for them. Post-boom, post-outsourcing computer field sucks.

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-1, "1337" speak

Cry me a river by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-04 10:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

Re:Cry me a river by orionware · 2004-02-04 11:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

Except you fail to understand that the "sweatshops" are overrun by folks who want to work there because it's the highest paying job in the region.

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Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...

Don't trip over the FUD by AndroidCat · 2004-02-04 10:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

Keep in mind that while some jobs are being outsourced to India, it serves companies even better to amplify the FUD about it. They don't have to actually do it, and their wage-slaves are bullied into terror, submission and lower wages -- especially the new-hires.

--
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.

Re:IT Fads by Wister285 · 2004-02-04 10:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm sure it's a fad much like the moving of American steel, automobiles, textiles, and a variety of other industries were. Oh wait, apparently companies have no shame in erroding their own customer base.

Re:IT Fads by savagedome · 2004-02-04 10:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

Don't forget that it was 97 and 98. *Everything* here in US was working then. Every startup was touted to be the next biggest thing. The 'hope bloat' if you will.

Times are different now. The bubble has burst and the companies (in a true capitalist way) are looking to strengthen the bottomline. If you cannot make money, well then atleast cut the costs (and yeah, I am aware of the cultural,social et al differences that are not factored but add up) and effectively, you've *made* money.

I do not want to rob you of your 'fad' but I have a feeling that this one is for real.

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Free XBox, PS2

Hmmm by Pzykotic · 2004-02-04 10:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't agree at all with outsourcing IT to India. But can anyone cite examples that show beyond a shadow of a doubt that quality is lost? At indian callcenters, can they not speak english well and frustrate customers? Is their coding sloppy?

If so, I do think this is just a "fad" that will die out once people start complaining on a huge level.

I just hope it doesn't turn around like the car industry did, now american cars are (arguably) worse than chaper foreign cars, unlike 2 decades ago.

This is programming by cubicledrone · 2004-02-04 10:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

To export software or spreadsheets, somebody just needs to hit Return.

That about says it all. No wonder it's so easy to fire people. "All you do all day is hit return!"

This is what happens when people are asked to manage something they refuse to understand. Knowledge is destroyed and the economy is damaged. Think of the thousands of years and tens of millions of dollars worth of education that are being wasted right now.

--
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.

Re:Choose One: by Dukael_Mikakis · 2004-02-04 10:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

Well, I'd want to live in a world where I'm a tech company's CEO and rich as hell. I guess it'd be icing on the cake if everybody else was unemployed and poor so everything was cheaper also.

And it follows: who are the ones in the company choosing to outsource?

Re:IT Fads by ackthpt · 2004-02-04 10:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

Outsourcing everything to India was in vogue around '97 or '98. It didn't work then and it's not going to work now. But everyone forgets the problems and history repeats itself.

And probably one of the main reasons was they weren't ready for it. Now they are and as one indian service provider stated, they've worked to improve their product. Even getting the indian workers to adopt western names, 'Shawn', 'Jessica' etc. and working on pronounciation. While these may seem to be minor, consider the last time you had a grad student lecturing for the instructor of a college course and you couldn't understand a word he said (real teachers don't teach, they get grunts to do it and are actually working on grant projects or university fundraising, those who can't, do teach)

Power and communications were a problem, now these people who own and run the companies have their own generators and satellite communications systems.

Don't assume they didn't learn something and everything is as bad as it was. Dell's failure may well be attributed to only one service vendor who wasn't as polished as others.

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

Obviously this article is biased. by big-giant-head · 2004-02-04 10:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yes, why don't we outsource congress, what do we pay those assholes?? I'm shure we could pay a bunch of Indian PHD's (PHD in Poly Sci or something) to come up with laws at least as good as what comes from congress, at probably a tenth of the cost. Shit we would'nt even have to pay for all those building in DC. They could just email us our laws in PDF format and we could turn the capital into a 200 screen movie theater.

I thought sending manufacturing jobs overseas was a bad idea 20 years ago and sending Software jobs overseas is a bad idea. Eventully you have to do or make something cars, planes, software, genetic s, spaceships SOMETHING. We can't all sit around selling each other stuff at wal-mart.

People poo-poo this point of view, but I have yet to see any of these supposed "pure knowlege worker" positions advertised in the local paper. My guess is they don't exist and never will. They are the very wealthy elite's attempts to smoke screen the middle class.

In the 90's the laid off manufacturing were promised great jobs in IT or related fields. Now those jobs are being sent overseas. Next we are promised jobs as 'knowlege works' WTF is that. I 'm waiting for someone, anyone to show me ONE of these supposed position anywhere. You can't because they don't exist.

--

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.

Re:Obviously this article is biased. by big-giant-head · 2004-02-04 11:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

It is not resonable to expect every member of your society to be a research scientist just to earn a decent living. What we are gravitating towards is a society composed mainly of very poor people controlled by a few very rich people. When that happens you should review your French history particlulary the period from say 1780 through 1812, give or take a few years. Alternately look at Russian history from say 1905 - 1920.

'They're called lawyers, professors, researchers, and executives.'

Most laywers don't care one way or the other. Academics (professors) are fairly split over whether all this is a good idea. Executives love it because they give themselves fat bonuses with the money they make sending jobs overseas. Most researches are either blissfully unaware or are wondering when they will be outsourced as well.

After all research can be done much more cheaply in India than here. PHD's grow on trees, no EPA to deal with, no FDA. Want to run clinical trials, go get some low caste individuals sleeping on the sidewalk and wala test subjects. If a few die no one will care. Point is, almost everyjob can be done overseas more cheaply, including yours, however we americans have to SOMETHING.

In your world Jonas Salk would'nt have cured polio either, because his work could've been done more cheaply in India. Then the Drup company that paid for it could supply the vacine to the suffering masses at outrageous prices, and if some could'nt aford well, who cares, certainly not George Bush or his friends.

Jonas Salk did what he did to help suffering people, not to help the corporate profit sheet.

--

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Re:Obviously this article is biased. by Free_Meson · 2004-02-04 13:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

It is not resonable to expect every member of your society to be a research scientist just to earn a decent living.

And what is a decent living? Americans have an incredibly high standard of living and, barring an invasion, they will from this point forward. The geographical advantages of the United States, combined with the incredibly high education rate, will ensure that the average American can feed and clothe himself with more disposable income left over than workers in most other countries, regardless of brute labor outsourcing.
Just because you don't have the education to pull down a mid-6 figure salary doesn't mean the system is broken. If you don't like your job, get a new one or go back to school instead of whining about some guy in India who is better suited to do your job than you are.

What we are gravitating towards is a society composed mainly of very poor people controlled by a few very rich people. When that happens you should review your French history particlulary the period from say 1780 through 1812, give or take a few years. Alternately look at Russian history from say 1905 - 1920.

How can someone dense enough to think like this actually float? I know you're trolling, but I'll answer anyway. The United States has a far more even distribution of wealth now than Russia or France had during their revolutionary periods. It's less equal now than it was 5 or 10 years ago, but there are fluctuations up and down w.r.t. the distribution of wealth. Anyway, if you have a job, odds are you get paid a lot better than the military you'd be counting on to help you with your revolution, and whining to some soldier about how you're only making $20k more than them instead of $30k because you're no better educated than some guy in India isn't really going to win him over.

Most laywers don't care one way or the other. Academics (professors) are fairly split over whether all this is a good idea. Executives love it because they give themselves fat bonuses with the money they make sending jobs overseas. Most researches are either blissfully unaware or are wondering when they will be outsourced as well.

Whether or not these workers are aware of the situation has nothing to do with the fact that they are the "pure knowledge workers" that you claimed do not exist. Believe it or not, a company won't outsource their CEO's and it's not possible to outsource legal work. Our professors are the foundation of our economy and our researchers develop the technology that is new enough to manufacture profitably in the united states. The united states has the best higher education system in the world and, because of critical mass issues, this is unlikely to change. The pre-college education system in the united states is also much broader than it is in almost any other country, and while the graduates of most other countries' school systems have more developed skills, American graduates have a broader range of skills and knowledge, making them ideally suited to the entrepreneurial environment encouraged by the current economic climate.

After all research can be done much more cheaply in India than here. PHD's grow on trees, no EPA to deal with, no FDA. Want to run clinical trials, go get some low caste individuals sleeping on the sidewalk and wala test subjects. If a few die no one will care. Point is, almost everyjob can be done overseas more cheaply, including yours, however we americans have to SOMETHING.

The cost of the medical research you seem to be focusing on isn't product development, but FDA approval. Why do they get this? Because they want to market the drug in the U.S. They could sell the drugs in india much earlier, often ten years or more earlier, than they could sell them in the United States. This is why many patients awaiting unapproved medication go to mexican pharmacies when conventional treatments fail to cure them. Unsurprisingly, most of the research is conducted in developed countries, and b

All this talk about a new global economy by picklepuss · 2004-02-04 10:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

One of my Co-workers and I were talking about this the other day. Truth is, we had some vendors come in who were bragging about their reduced costs due to outsourcing, and we had a teleconference with their engineers. We couldn't understand a single word they were saying. With what did filter through, we could tell we were dealing with a couple of extremely intelligent guys, but the communication gap was killing us. At the end, I just asked them to summarize everything in an email and send it to me (the email was very clear).

But the thing that we kept going back to was the way salary and cost of living were related to location. The differences even in portions of the US is extreme (the wife and I were goofing off one day and found several places in the states where we could triple the size of our house and property for the price of our current place). I just don't see the world sustaining a global economy much longer supporting these kinds of differences. Eventually, everything must begin to even out. Their cost of living and salaries are going to eventually increase and ours will drop. The burning question in my mind is... How much? Will we have significant drops as they have only minor increases, or will they have major increases and our's drops a little. I'm not so much worried about finding a job... if you really want to work, you will work. I'm just worried about those unbalanced moments when the salary has dropped and the cost of living hasn't :-/

Re:Note to fat USians by pcraven · 2004-02-04 10:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

You could try making a sandwich and bringing it with you. I don't spend $7 on my lunch unless I go out to eat.

Re:Stop government aide by kippy · 2004-02-04 10:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

Not just that, tax ths shit out of companies that outsource. If they're saving 50K per year, charge them 45K. Put it into a fund to generate domestic jobs via public works projects.

lots of details to work out but it would slow job leakage and what does still happen would feed domestic job growth.

--
Blaze a trail to the New World

parallel example by theMerovingian · 2004-02-04 10:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

I am reminded of when Coke tried to penetrate the Indian market with their sugar water. They hired a high power American ad agency, who made these commercials about the 'heart of India', with misty images of the Taj Mahal and such. It flopped.

Then, Coke hired an Indian ad agency. These guys made commercials with sexy women and fast cars, and Coke sold like hotcakes.

The moral of the story: creative work is more likely to be relevant in the culture it was created in.

--
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti

And so it goes... unless we the people stop it! by SmilingMonk · 2004-02-04 10:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

So it all comes home to roost, eh?

Back in the early part of the previous century, few middle class, and certainly no upper class people complained when textile, glass production, steel, and later manufacturing were shipped off shore. Many people just smiled and wagged their heads whenever Unions complained about jobs going overseas. Some people warned that off-shore job movement would sink the US economy.

Fast forward to the present. Who's complaining now? It appears to be whoever is left in the middle class. The upper class still doesn't care. One difference this time is that the middle class is largely un-unionized and therefore un-represented during job/salary reviews and other decision making activities.

If people want to change things, here are several things to consider:

Corporate law specifically states that actions taken or products produced by corporations must be in the public interest. Yes, it says that. So a good question to ask is Is it in the public interest to put them out of work by moving their jobs overseas?

Corporate leaders currently earn over 600 times the average salary of their employees. Moving jobs off-shore is likely to make a small percentage of the US population even more wealthy.

Yes, it's still about the economy. For all his other failings, Henry Ford had an interesting idea that his employees should be paid well enough to be able to afford one of his products.

Until corporate officers are encouraged to employ people from the country that issues their charters, the gap between the have's and the have nots in the US will continue to grow.

The automotive industry by Dr.+Evil · 2004-02-04 11:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

Isn't the automotive industry heavily regulated regarding foreign content? Isn't that the case for precisely the reason that Wired is blithering on about?

Also in the past fourty years haven't we seen the demise of the single-income family? Hasn't the price of goods, services, taxes etc all outpaced the increase in income? Don't Americans have the least time off and the worst hours in the industrialized world?

I don't see how the automotive industry is an example of how outsourcing overseas is a win/win scenario.

Am I missing something?

Re:The automotive industry by Killswitch1968 · 2004-02-04 13:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

You are missing a lot.

Single income families have become double income families. How this is a bad thing I don't understand.
REAL prices (adjusted for inflation) have steadily decreased. Income (and real GDP) have all been icnreasing. Standards of living are going up.

Trade is, and always has been, a win-win scenario. Econ101 will tell you that.

--

Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.

Moral by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-04 11:09 · Score: 1, Insightful

Wow, that really sounds like a moral approach to the corporate world... NOT!

Whatever happened to morals in the vision of Capitalism? Adam Smith wrote that in order for Capitalism to be sustained, morals must be an integral part of it. Now that companies have no morals and will always go to the lowest bidder, will the principles of capitalism hold? Or is a redefinition of capitalism needed?

I nominate the name for the new definition "Corporate-Whorism."

Look man, I don't think our country will survive if we all end up having to work at 10 bucks an hour as the top paid job. Either the cost of things in our lives will have to SIGNIFICANTLY decrease, or we will all be homeless bums on the street while 10% of the population in the U.S. enjoys their huge mansions and comforts all day long.

I'm sorry, but this country will be destroyed before that happens. It's a nice wetdream for the corporate CEOs, but it's just not feasible.

Re:Here we go again!!! by iggymanz · 2004-02-04 11:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

How about the low-caste people in India? do they have any rights? Are we really helping the masses in poverty in India, or just benefitting a small amount of upper-caste people and allowing them to continue their oligarchy? Is there any incentive for the Indian companies to be honest about their capabilities, to keep our information confidential, to subject themselves to our laws & ideas of legality?

I predict this will NOT work out in the long term:

Indian companies will lie about their competency to get work

They will sell proprietary information

They will take advantage of no legal venue to steal & commit fraud & breach of contract

they will employ people without regard to background problems, because there is no way to do meaningful background check in India

the commnication, time zone, and cultural differences will cause customer alienation

it will be found that the managers in the U.S. who recommended outsourcing are cooking the books to bury the true costs

it will be found that high technology is leaked, given, and sold to terrorist organiations

thank our tariffs on auto imports for those jobs by SethJohnson · 2004-02-04 11:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

Those Japanese car factories are located in America because tariffs on imported cars make it more economically sound to build the cars in America. While you seem to be espousing free-market trade, you use an example that is in fact protectionist. You get rid of those tarrifs and those Toyota and Mazda factories will evaporate back to Asia.

--
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!

Countries and economies need to advance... by Osrin · 2004-02-04 11:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

They need to ship the old, dead, non-growth skills out to lower cost economies that can sustain those types of job and then retrain the workforce to take on new challenges that help the country and it's economy on the road to growth.

Nobody in the developed world needs to be developing code anymore, we need to use the minds we have for aids and cancer research, building hover bots and interactive hologramatic entertainment stations.

As an individual it's a harsh world, industries are going to turn over faster and faster in the future, we have to be ready to retrain and move on.

There is a reason why most European countries have worked hard over the last two decades to reduce the number of blue collar workers building cars or mining coal. This is just a natural extension of the same macro economics...a weak government will bend their policies and stop the flow of offshore low end jobs, a forward looking one will encourage it.

Sorry, I'm in a funny mood.

Re:An indian perspective by stwrtpj · 2004-02-04 11:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

Outsourcers come....
I have 1 billion people, 200,000 jobs, and tax revenue of 1 billion dollars. I now have a huge net export of goods and services.

Political climate in US changes ...

Pipeline of jobs to India shuts down. Now you're back to 1 billion people, 10,000 jobs, and tax revenue of 100 million with which to feed them.

things always seem alot worse when youre homeless and used to have a house than if youve been homeless your whole life

Combine this with a shutdown of the job pipe, and you have a recipe for civil unrest.

It is true that it is unlikely that the outsourcing will stop anytime soon. But no nation should rely on the bulk of their economy coming from a single outside source. Putting all your eggs in one basket is never a good idea.

--
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)

Re:An indian perspective by Radical+Rad · 2004-02-04 11:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

I like your attitude. India does not need people with post-grad degrees answering moronic questions at a call center. But America has an entire class of otherwise unemployable people who would consider that the pinnacle of their careers. In a perfect world, each job would be held by someone to whom it is part of their self-actualization.

It seems as though Americans are being punished today for having forefathers who loved them and worked hard to give them a better life, because now the fact that our communities are relatively safe, sanitary, and aesthetic is a liability when competing for jobs offered by multinational corporations who pledge allegiance only to money.

recent studies by geekoid · 2004-02-04 11:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

have shown, that in a best case scenerio, after ALL costs are added in, its as expensive as hiring local talent. Usual it's more expensive, and the project failure rate is hirer, as well.

There is a difference between manufacturing and software development, and to compare the two will lead to some pretty specious arguments.

I have had the 'opportunity' to be interviewing for a job. In many of those interview, the subject of oursourcing has come up. In every one, there projects had failed, and internally, the project managment has started to prevent outsourceing do to its cost.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Re:Think ahead by coastwalker · 2004-02-04 11:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

The pace of change is hotting up and although there are new jobs in new industries - you wont get into them whilst ageist hiring policy is still the norm. Most high tech workers could easily adapt to working in Bio tech or whatever the next big thing may be - but you wont get in unless you graduated yesterday. This is a serious gap in all western economies, not only is it impossible to change professions but it is also - inevitably - impossible to retrain for new industries.

So having thrown generations of highly skilled manufacturing workers into the trash we are about to throw generations of highly skilled high tech workers into the trash. Sadly this is not going to change unless people start getting organised and changing the way our education system and our businesses work.

Outsourcing to developing countries addresses some of the wealth imbalances in the world and can only be viewed as a positive thing if their economies improve to the point where they can supply clean water to the whole population etc. However we should be looking for smart ways to help ourselves and since we have democracy this should be coming from our politicians.

So far all I hear is a deafening silence, no change from when the manufacturing jobs went.

Today not only can you not expect to have a job for life, but its doubtfull whether your particular skill and expertise will be needed in ten years time.

--
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.

No by geekoid · 2004-02-04 11:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

There are too many people in India. When programmer A wants a nickel more, they will get rid of them, and get someone else who doesn't have an uppity attitude about money.

The only way the US will compete, ever, is if our standard of living drops...a lot.

Now, If everything I need to survive decently had its cost cut by 90%, then I'd be able to compete.

Personally, I'd like all corporat tax breaks be removed from any company that outsouces. If it makes them so much money, it shouldn't be a problem, right?

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Re:No by donutello · 2004-02-04 11:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

The only way the US will compete, ever, is if our standard of living drops...a lot.

Or if the standard of living in India rises...a lot.

--
Mmmm.. Donuts

Biased and misleading article by NixLuver · 2004-02-04 11:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

This article presents information in a somewhat deceptive fashion. For one, it leads the reader to assume that a single programmer X replaces a single programmer in the US. This is not the case. There are several layers of 'glue infrastructure' - American reps, Indian reps, managers, etc.

It also leads the reader to believe that the product is 'better' somehow. I can tell you from firsthand observation (as a user of several corporate applications, the development of which has been outsourced) that this view is simplistic at best and flat out wrong at worst. The poor communication across the Big Pond alone insures that there are more than a normal amount of bumps in integration.

The thing that people miss is that there is only one source of new wealth. That is the labor of people who create something others will pay for. Any change in value outside that is inflation, pure and simple.

We're steadily exporting everything Americans do that creates wealth, moving more and more of our population into 'service' jobs that are parasitic on the creation of wealth by 'producers'. We've moved out much of our manufacturing infrastructure, and corporatized our farms, the source of much of the wealth that made the US economy the powerhouse of the mid-20th century.

Now, we've moved into the information age - leading the charge, as it were - and just as quickly as we can, we're exporting these positions that produce value as well. There can be some debate about whether or not IP is 'real wealth' in the sense of food or manufactured goods, but I don't think many will challenge the position that America's economy certainly depends on these producers.

When all that is left is a chain of service (I wash your car, you serve John lunch, John cuts down a tree for Pete, and Pete fixes my deck), we're circling the drain, economically; with no infusion of new wealth, we're living on our savings.

The failure of the "Globalization" process is that it's not India or America that benefits, but the CEOs of corporations; this increases the divide between the 1% that controls most of the wealth and the 99% that control 10%. If Nairobi happens to figure out how to put together a solid programming base next year, Bangalores' economy will be in the shitter overnight.

The mutinational corporations (in the form of the most wealthy stockholders) are taking advantage of standard of living, population pressures, and the artificial barriers of visas, borders, and the like.

--
Thinking outside my Head

My far-feaching, unlikely prediction: by sirReal.83. · 2004-02-04 11:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

Many jobs will be outsourced. No, not just to India, but to anywhere labor is cheaper (Sidenote: I'd rather see white-collar jobs outsource to India than manufacturing jobs outsourced to children in Asia, which is now the norm). This includes coders, artists, writers, and their managers. Eventually, a few executives. This will mark the abandonment of America by a few, or many, large corporations. After all, the folks at the top of the chain, who make the real money, belong to no nation. They belong to their desires. America's economy will slowly deflate to a level more equal with the rest of the world, while nations with more jobs will rise a bit. Globally, I think this possibly will have an equalizing effect in general. But those with the deep pockets will greatly benefit. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it.

The above stands for privately-owned corps. I have no idea what may happen with publicly-traded ones. It's obviously a bit more complicated.

Please explain where this all ends by HangingChad · 2004-02-04 11:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

The manufacturing and customer service jobs go first, then the tech jobs and it suddenly stops there. Bull-shit. After that it's accounting and HR, graphics and creative positions, account managers, sales. So, what's left? What's your next adjustment career? Anything that India and the Cheney administration are arguing for is guaranteed to be BAD for you.

--
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage

Big Picture by weston · 2004-02-04 11:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"
"In the long run, we're all dead" - Keynes

No matter how true the rosy big picture may be, the devil is still in the details for those suffering from the change. If there are things we can do to make the transitionless volatile, why not do them?

--
Tweet, tweet.

Re:IT Fads by comedian23 · 2004-02-04 12:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Umm, what country are you living in? Unemployment is high. Jobs are not being created. Uneducated people can only work at Walmart, restaurants, and other jobs making a few dollars above minimum wage and producing nothing. How is that strengthening our country? So a few highly trained people can get jobs in bi-tech? Great, that takes care of about 1% of the work force, and the rest of the people are supposed to take hand-outs from them? Or live of wellfare funded by the taxes paid by the rich which are constantly increasing.

I don't want to strain you here, but if we have 1% of the population actually producing something, and the rest simply serving those elite few, A) we have no middle class, B) we have a HUGE trade imbalance and C)we are making other countries rich off of American ingenuity. This doesn't bother you? Maybe you want your children to compete for a few highly coveted jobs which pay extremely well but are taxed at 50%, or else give up and work at burger world as a slave to the rich. The rest of us want the US to actually produce and sell a variety of good all over the world so the US can grow and prosper even more. And yes, we would be better off if we made memory chips here and charged enought to make a profit. We can counter competition from other countries by adding tariffs to cover differences in price and use that money to pay off the deficit. Of course the deficit wouldn't be nearly as high because we would actually be producing and selling stuff rather than just consuming as fast as we can.

-Comedian

Re:It's a risk that they think we can afford? by TheSync · 2004-02-04 12:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

US exports to developing countries like India and China are continuing to rise. As the economies of these countries improve, they purchase more from the US as well.

It's Our Own Fault, Programmers! by SparafucileMan · 2004-02-04 12:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

WAKE UP! This isn't the 50's! It no longer takes any skill to write code for 90% of the world's applications! Programmers spent too much time and money writing code to make their code-writing easier, and now you're wondering why all it takes is a mouse and VisualBasic to write a production-level application. PROGRAMMING IS EASY! Which means you can a) try to code for NASA or the military, b) start your own company, c) move up in the corporate ranks where planning is more important than coding, or d) move to India.

Corporations want code thats easy to write, easy to debug, has limited impact, and can be taught to anyone. This will allow them to still at least break even while reducing risk immensely, in turn increasing their profits elsewhere. THEY DON'T WANT YOUR PROGRAMMING SKILLS. (this is why IT is often billed as an "expense" rather than as an "investment" in most corporate accounting books)

Face it people, RMS is right.

Re:An indian perspective by donutello · 2004-02-04 12:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

Nonsense. That is the exact kind of thinking that has led to India staying poor for the past 50 years. India's closed economy ensured that Indian companies could be successful without striving to improve their products. Compare the average quality of goods you can buy in India to the average quality of goods you can buy in the US.

Here's a newsflash: India is neither self-reliant nor powerful. Open trade improves the economy and the living standards. There are no self-reliant countries anymore. Every country depends upon other countries for essential resources.

And it's not as if the call-center jobs are taking resources away from other, more productive endeavors. Until recently the unemployment rate in India has been through the roof. You would have a very good point if these outsourced jobs meant that people were not doing other stuff that would be more useful to the national economy, however that is not the case.

The East India company took natural resources away from the country. No money was input into the country in exchange for these resources - rather money was taken away from the country when the products of these resources were sold back to India. This is not the case here. Outsourced jobs infuse valuable foreign exchange into the country and provide employment to a large number of people, improving the overall lifestyle.

--
Mmmm.. Donuts

re: Shawn & Jessica Nahasapeemapetilon by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-04 12:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

In the past 6 months I've been on the line with no fewer than 5 different outsourced support lines in India, and let me just say this....

You can replace "Patel" with "Josh" all day long (which BTW totally fucking cracks me up) but it is extremely difficult to get rid of the accent. Hell, you see the same problem in the US with children of immigrants who, while they've essentially grown up here, simply don't speak English outside of school due to their family situation or their circle of friends. I actually feel sorry for them, because many sound no better than their cousins who are FOB (Fresh Off the Boat, a word I learned from some Iranian immigrant pals) arrivals to the US. Call me racist if that's convenient for you, but I've found that in the case of Shawn and Jessica working for Dell in Bangalore it totally impedes the support process.

Even worse, there is a common tendency to be extremely polite and deferential (perhaps a cultural thing?) while simultaneously simply not understanding what the fuck I'm getting at yet refusing to deviate from the script or think outside the box. I count it among the most maddening things I've ever experienced on a telephone.

Re:IT Fads by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-04 12:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

(real teachers don't teach, they get grunts to do it and are actually working on grant projects or university fundraising, those who can't, do teach)

No, real teachers teach. Self absorbed pricks piggybacking the educational institution for their own projects have others do their job for them while getting paid a fraction for it.

Don't confuse researchers with teachers.

Turd happens. by KrackHouse · 2004-02-04 12:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you're saying that we should be paid more money for lower quality work because it hurts our feelings then you don't believe in capitalism. Yeah, I'm an American, and I'm aware of that fact that we've been overpaid for soo many years that we have developed a nasty sense of entitlement. I think that's the real reason we're not very popular abroad. We're the rich kid with the asshole dad.

--
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com

Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-04 12:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

There is a basic simple solution to this whole off-shoring debate.

Give in and realize that
a. Software for life critical things (airplanes, military, nuculear reactors, etc) will remain the the US.

b. Software jobs for just about everything else will move outside of the US.

c. Linux and open source software will lower the costs of software so that there are significantly less paying software development jobs worldwide.

d. US based IT jobs will center around:
1. Data managament and security (DBA for a bank)
2. Data analysis - high level decision support for financial data
3. Physical presence jobs - on site IT/network work (pulling network cables, rebuilding pc's, etc)

e. The total number of IT related gradutes from US universities will drastically decline since the perceived job prospects are declining.

f. Commodity hardware ($300 dell machine), bootable OS CD's/firmware, and web based services will greatly reduce the number, type and size of programs installed on an end user's local machine. This compounds the reduction in support and development jobs since all of those installation program developers will be obsolete.

g. Mainframe type data centers will be the big dollar items in corporate IT budgets.

I think, with 10+ years paid programming under my belt + 2 CS degrees, that
a. there will be IT jobs in the US
b. the jobs will pay better than other skilled jobs
c. the pay will be lower in real terms than the current level when adjusted for inflation
d. that it workers in the US will have a lower standard of living than now, unless there is a drastic lowering of taxes at federal, state and local level from their 50% plus percent today.
e. that significant simplifications in government regulation at all levels are needed to make the US more compelling to operation businesses and employ US workers
f. that the ratio of people producing product to the people not producing product will have to be corrected from the projected major decline from todays level. The not producing product includes government workers at all levels plus those receiving handouts from the government (e.g., social security, medicare, ssi, unemployment, etc) .

Re:Simple solution by Genda · 2004-02-04 22:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

There is a basic simple solution to this whole off-shoring debate.

Give in and realize that
a. Software for life critical things (airplanes, military, nuculear reactors, etc) will remain the the US.

b. Software jobs for just about everything else will move outside of the US.

Your response is interesting, but moot... it ignores;

1. Business will do what it bloody well feels like doing, and unless you write laws or change laws forbidding the export of jobs from the U.S., you can pucker up now, because those jobs will be gone sometime early tomorrow morning, and you might want to kiss them bye before they get on board that jet to India. Welcome to economics 101...

2. The nature of software must dramatically change. Our hardware is thousands of times more powerful today than 25 years ago, but our software keeps finding new and horrible ways to piss away useful work, meaningful process, and sane cooperation between it's desparate parts. We as a technological community need to stop this incessant process of polishing turds for business people who have spent the last quarter century trying to carve up the IP universe so that they might better charge us for the bits of data flowing through the wires. Instead we need to actually begin to look ahead and design software that utilizes the tremendous horsepower now available in new and exciting ways, and truly lay down a pathway to creating externalizations of our own intellect, that we might begin to finally draw from our inventions that which we dreamed of when we first began this journey of conception...

3. The use of software is soon going to be a diverse universe unlike anything any of us have ever imagined, from smart household appliances, to intelligence in your car's tires, to bioinformatics, and advanced modeling in proteomics, to 3-D interfaces designed to allow molecular engineers the needed tools to model nanotechnological systems manufacture. The stuff IT engineers do today is going to change tremendously over the next few years. How much of that should be outsourced? None? Some? All? The impacts of any of this stuff could be tremendous. How do you choose? What of software that writes software? What of software that converts human intent into meaningful instruction?...

There needs to be a completely different model for the production of software. Maybe we need a guild. Maybe we need some sort of Protected Status, as a critical and endangered national resource. If American allows it's intelligence to emmigrate, it will ultimately collapse. We need to create an environment conducive to the growth and development of human intelligence through the medium of external process... it must ultimatele be unhitched from the profit motive because profit takes IT in stupid directions. That is, direction inherently contrary to the expanding expression of human intelligence. Business must benefit from the fruit of that work, and should therefore contribute to it's perpetuation, but IT must be free to grow where it needs to grow to address and resolve larger social and human problems. Problems supplied by business should be resolved, or problems should be refactored to prevent unseen conflicts between the business intent and larger social considerations (eg. don't give a businessman a working program to run a fusion reactor that is itself poorly designed and will make a 6 kilometer crater when first tested.) Let collaborations between software engineers, social engineers, mathematicians, cosmologists, anthropologists, philosophers, artists and asthetics, architects, business visionaries, and financial planners occur, in fact make them occur. Generate societal infrastructure to make the creation, management, flow, storage, and utilization of information, in all it's forms consistent, seamless, and transparent to the average citizen. Begin laying down a future by design, as opposed to one that is mindlessly sputter blasted across the scenery.

Use labor resources around the world, but make sure tha
Re:Simple solution by graphitemessiah · 2004-02-05 01:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

I just wanted to address your first point. The military, in fact, has had a push for years to use cots (commercial of the shelf) products for even the most critical applications. While much is still produced in house, more and more is bought as-is from private companies. I would assume those other industries you mention would be no different.
My point being that these types of jobs are far from secure.

Re:IT Fads by frank_adrian314159 · 2004-02-04 12:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

The bubble has burst and the companies (in a true capitalist way) are looking to strengthen the bottomline.

And this is the real problem - there is no sustainable advantage in outsourcing. Eventually, everyone who can outsource something does outsource it and then you're back in the same boat of no revenue growth, but it's five years later and you actually have less control over the situation. Plus, you've given your new foreign competitors the capital they need to create most of the infrastructure required to invade your market. The idea that capitalism requires the destruction of your economy ten years from now because it makes money a year from now is the main reason why we Capitalists are going to see our system collapse the same way that the Soviet system did. The main issue is that rewards will flow to those who have the discipline to wait for rewards, not those who choose to have them today. It's simply a case of short-term vs. long-term and we're on the wrong side of the equation here. If you think you're getting bit in the ass now, just wait a few years when the chickens finally come home to roost.

--
That is all.

Re:IT Fads by be-fan · 2004-02-04 13:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

:: stands speechless ::

If people did what you actually suggested, the global economy would revert to the 1700s.

Clue: Free trade is good. Economists say it is good. Economic theory shows trade tarrifs always lead to a reduced GDP in the long term. History shows it is good. Consider France. Before Napoleon, the various provinces were independent, and each had trade barriers (tarrifs, laws, etc) with each other. Napoleon got rid of them, and the entire economy prospored. Consider Europe as a whole. By tearing down trade barriers between countries, the European economy as a whole is becoming more competitive in the world. Consider the US trade relationship with Canada. It directly supports millions of jobs in each country. Hell, despite early criticism, even NAFTA has been successful!

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...

Re:Note to fat USians by Rallion · 2004-02-04 13:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

The problem as I see it, is that people's entire lives are dependent upon their relationship to the outsourcing firm in question.

That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? Honestly, where the hell is that more than $50,000 they save on each and every outsourced job? It's disappeared! People complain about the $8,000 per worked put into the Indian economy, but the disappearance of that much larger sum is a much greater issue.

Hey, it could be put to use giving an American another, slightly-lower paying job! Would anybody have a problem with that?

Is if you are goof by Sycraft-fu · 2004-02-04 13:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

Basically, what I consider to be one of the most important things these day is to be a bit-head, to steal a term from a friend. This means someone that LIKES working with computers and does it for fun. Someone who is intrested by how they work and teaches themselves, who reads computer news to keep up with trends and so on.

The other important thing is good problem solving skills. When you have to write something new and different in code or when you encounter a new problem, can you sit down and solve it efficiently, or do you just give up when it's not covered in the book.

If someone likes computer and is a problem solver, then they will probably do well.

However, if you are going into it just for the money, you probably shouldn't. Why? Because likely you will be value-wise on par with the bunches of people in India, only they charge less than you.

The tech market does not need, and these days for the most part won't support, poorly qualified people who just took the job because they thought there was money in it.

As for experience, you do like all other jobs: Get it slowly. The whining you hear from people on places like /. is a result of those that would like to grab a couple certifications, a minimal amount of experiecne and have a great job. Doesn't work that way in IT, or most any job.

So start off with something that doesn't require much experience. Maybe a student job at the school you go to doing something simple like helpdesk. Once you get some experience, you can try for a bit better job that requires more experience (and will give you more skills). Just keep moving up. YOu will also find this is quite possible in a company. You get hired to do helpdesk stuff but prove you are competent and willing to be a system guy, you have a good chance of getting it next time a job opens up.

There are very, very, very few industries where you simply get trained and then get a top level job making lots of money. You start small, then as your skills and experience build, you move up.

I have a friend that started working as a student in the finincal division of our campus's network operations team. He showed a great proficiency with computers and an intrest in networks, and got a staff job after a while. He started as a low-level systems guy doing Windows support. As he learned more about the network and got more skills with it, he shifted over there and continued to be promoted. Now, he's the technial leader of network operations, head of the network, and a CCIE. In a year or so, he'll probably leave for priavte industry (since the university has a much lower pay scale) and be looking at $150,000+ per year. It didn't happen overnight though, he worked and learned to get where he is.

So you can do the same, but you need to be willing to work your way up, and be able to do your job well. An associates degree and a couple certs will not get you a great job, they will get you a starting job that will allow you to work up to a great job.

Re:Note to fat USians by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-04 13:24 · Score: 1, Insightful

Tuition is like any other social program. It benefits the poor at the expense of the rich (wait?! this is what happens when I'm on the upper end of the scale? I don't like that so much...) Don't just protest it because it's inconvenient for you.

Unfortunately. when considering financial assistance there is no middle class. "Rich" means anyone with parents who make more than $20,000 a year.

Re:IT Fads by comedian23 · 2004-02-04 13:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

Trade is fine you have something to trade. The US comes up with an industry and gives all the jobs to outsiders while our own people can't find decent paying work. We have to protect our jobs, and actually make something. I can't be the only person in the US seeing rows of closed factories in almost every city but a Walmart and Starbuck's on every corner. Answer me how Starbuck's is helping our GDP. Great, if there is a latte shortage in the world we can be there to help.

The US is manufacturing virtually nothing compared to what we used to. Take a look at our trade imbalances with EVERYONE and then tell me Free Trade is good. Also don't believe everything you read or hear, take a look around you and see for yourself. I see people with Masters Degrees working at Circuit City, and some people have been out of work for almost a year with no end in sight. Doesn't sound like moving into the future to me. Sounds like the a bunch of our states are nearly bankrupt and the US debt is huge.

Every job we send overseas is less money and less power for the US. But believe what you want.

-Comedian

Re:Duped article, so I'll dupe my comments by vsprintf · 2004-02-04 13:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

Ive completed a MS in CS, and it seems harder and harder to find jobs that let you "get your foot in the door". Everybody wants 10 years of blah-blah experience . . .

The job ads looking for a laundry list of experience in wildly different areas or 15 years of Java experience are bogus.

- Placing an ad that no local worker can fill: $50.
- Spending only $50 to comply with federal regulations that make you seek local workers first: Priceless.

Poverty factor by RogerBacon · 2004-02-04 14:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

You can own an entire indian family for $1000 per year. Husband, wife, two-three kids. They all work for you--all day--and live in a hovel out back. For $22,000 you live like a king. Of course your meals cost 50 cents. The people who make your meals make $400-$500 per year.

India, like Africa, is founded on a deep and utterly degrading exploitation that Western Europe has never experienced. The professional classes there see it every day, wallow in it, and turn their eyes away from it. We can compete with the Indians as long as we are willing to drive wages for those below us down to $100 per year, watch them live and die in squalor, and in general, reengineer our society back to levels of exploitation never before considered tolerable in any Christian country anywhere.

Gentlemen, I have been there. I have stepped over dead bodies in the streets of Calcutta and Chittagong. I have seen women whoring themseves to pay off their husbands' debts of as little as $200 to $300. I have seen women bought and sold over there for $100, and happy to BE sold when they were released from sexual bondage with a $500 dollar bonus. I have seen children of four and five who were deliberately mutilated by removing fingers, hands, eyes, and feet, to make them more "attractive" as beggars.

Look at the Indian programmer next to you. They all know this. They have walked past these children each day. They know this happens, and they have done and will do nothing about it. They are Hindu and Muslim, Jains and Sikhs, Brahmins and Untouchables (yes, they still exist and are still untouchable!) and their cultures accept poverty, squalor, and exploitation as a natural part of life.

This is not Japan, a first world monoculture in which everyone is treated the same and there is no one to exploit. This is the third world, with a thin veneer of civilization over an inflamed suppurating wound of humanity. No unemployment pay. No social security. No safety net. No doctor. No lawyer. No reading. No writing. No clean water. No clean water or soil standards. Gentlemen, India makes Mexico look like a worker's paradise.

Re: Shawn & Jessica Nahasapeemapetilon by Shakrai · 2004-02-04 14:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

Even worse, there is a common tendency to be extremely polite and deferential (perhaps a cultural thing?) while simultaneously simply not understanding what the fuck I'm getting at yet refusing to deviate from the script or think outside the box. I count it among the most maddening things I've ever experienced on a telephone.

My Dell phone call from two weeks ago: (note: My company has a three year next-day service contract with Dell -- they are no longer supposed to be sending the Commercial Clients to India yet somehow I wound up there)

[Indian accent]: "Thank you so much for calling Dell support my name is Josh how may I assist you with your problem today?"
[Upstate NY accent]: "Yes, this is Timothy [xxx] from [xxx], I have a Dell here with a bad power supply, I need to get a replacement sent to me. The service tag is [xxx]."
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir, thank you so much. Let me pull up your information sir. Ah yes sir I have it here. Tell me Sir what is your name?"
[Upstate NY accent]: "I already told you, my name is Timothy [xxx]. I'm listed on the account as the contact."
[Indian accent]: "Ah yes sir, thank you so much for giving me that information. Sir I need to understand your address."
[Upstate NY accent]: "It's [xxx]."
[Indian accent]: "Ah yes sir, thank you so much for giving me that information. Sir I need to understand your telephone number."
[Upstate NY accent]: "*sigh* This is all listed on the account. It's [xxx]."
[Indian accent]: "Ah yes sir, thank you so much for giving me that information. This is a Dell Optiplex correct sir?"
[Upstate NY accent]: "That's correct."
[Indian accent]: "Ah yes sir, thank you so much for giving me that information. How may I assist you with your problem today?"
[Upstate NY accent]: "Like I said, this unit has a dead power supply and I need to have a replacement sent out. We have a service agreement."
[Indian accent]: "Ah yes sir, I am understanding that you have such agreement. It expires in March 2005."
[Upstate NY accent]: "That's right, now can we make this happen?"
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir, we will do that. I need you to insert your Dell resource CD so we can run system diagnostics to confirm the problem."
[Upstate NY accent]: "Umm... the power supply is dead. I know what the problem is."
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir I am understanding that you think the problem is that, but I need you to insert your Dell resources cd so we can run diagnostic to confirm the problem."
[Upstate NY accent]: "Your not listening to me. The power supply is dead. I can't turn the unit on."
[Indian accent]: "Yes yes, I am understanding your problem, but we need to follow procedure. Please insert your Dell resources CD so we can run diagnostic to confirm the problem."
[Upstate NY accent]: "I can't open the CD-ROM drawer because the computer has no power. What part of that can't you understand?"
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir, I am understanding that the computer has no power. Is the computer plugged in to the wall outlet sir?"
[Upstate NY accent -- getting louder by the minute]: "You are not listening to me. The power supply is dead. That means it's not working. I can't turn the damn thing on -- please set up the service call for me."
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir I am understanding that you think that is problem, but we need to confirm it."
[Upstate NY accent]: "Alright this is going no where. Let me talk to your supervisor."
[Indian accent]: "No no sir, I can help you with this problem. Please insert your Dell Resource CD into the CD-ROM drive so we can run diagnostic to confirm the problem."
[Upstate NY accent - loud enough that the entire office can hear me]: "Ya know what? Fuck off. That's an American insult if they didn't teach you that in training."
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir, I am understanding your problem. Please insert the Dell resourc...."

[sound of phone slamming onto receiver]
[sound of me walking around the office threate

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.

Hypocritical by slockhar · 2004-02-04 15:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's funny how we want this great "global economy" when it works for us. However, the very second it works to the others' advantage, suddenly it's a bad thing. Fruit, steel, lumber, it's all out there.

Re:Note to fat USians by FosterKanig · 2004-02-04 15:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yes, but India's movies suck. Big time. I mean they are crap. Worthless. Shit. I would rather vomit up puppies spiked with large metal spikes, then have to watch any fucking Indian movie ever again.
Puppies, with spikes driven through their skull and abdomen. Swallowed down my throat. It's so much easier than watching a fucking Indian musical.
I'm gonna need some Bactine.

You can't say it often enough, so say it again by Reziac · 2004-02-04 15:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

A particularly telling quote from 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.

It frees up Americans to "do other things" -- such as what? Pick cotton? Flip burgers?? These minimum wage jobs help the economy grow how??

Another exchange that sums up the problem:

"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."

[Senator Turner] looks at me. Then she says, "I'd like to know where you go from knowledge."

Apparently, one goes back to general labour (farm work or flipping burgers). Except those jobs are already overflowing with illegal aliens. So what is an unemployed citizen to do??

--
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?

Re:IT Fads by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-04 16:03 · Score: 1, Insightful

Ah yes, but you are missing a key word in the term free trade, namely the word, "trade", right now all we are doing is forking over large amounts of paper with pictures of dead people on them in exchange for manufactured goods, outsourcing, whatever. I wouldn't really call this trade, it only works right now because the dollar is considered a, "safe bet", so there are a lot more people wanting to trade rupees for dollars than vica-versa. However, as dollars keep pouring in to India and the like(and they don't pour out, since 1991 when India opened their economy, US exports to India doubled, but imports have more than tripled, http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5330. html) the dollar will quickly fall. Now the free traders, in their little ivory towers, will say that then it will equal out and outsourced things will come back etc. However, they ignore the fact that it takes a lot of time and added expense to do this, and the reality that a lot of other countries are very protective of their workforce and very nationalistic when it comes to it. What if the Indian coders refuse to train their replacements? (In the mother of all ironies of course) The bane of free traders, and the words they never like to mention when painting their rosy little view of just how wonderful free trade is is the word, "trade deficit", because those basically kill the little illusion they are trying to create. Large trade deficits usually mean that a country has an over-valued currency and that it is easy for others to sell their goods in. The problem, not just to the US economy, but, in another ultimate irony, to all those economies that export heavily to the US(but buy very little from the US) is that their economy will fall as well. The entire economy is fake, thanks in large part to the little free traders who ignore the word trade. It will be very difficult for a country to make the transition from an ecomomy whose growth is based primarily on exports, to one who is more inwardly focused. Just ask Japan! The exporters get too deeply entrenched, and it would take too many middle class job losses to change the economy around, something that is definately not popular in an election. So I will sit back in my little cardboard box and watch as the bubble bursts, and point and laugh when the free-trader economist moves into the delux refriderator-box next door. Free trade can work if there is actual "TRADE", ie if India becomes the computer technology hub, then the best computer technology people should be allowed to go and work there, and in exchange for code, America could trade cars, bio-tech, etc, whatever they excel at. But I don't see that happening any time soon. Most of the countries are too racist to allow a large influx of foriegners in, and it is just too damn profitable(short term) not to re-invest any of that money in the American economy.

Outsourcing is progress by Zhe+Mappel · 2004-02-04 20:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

Unless you believe that progress will come to an end, you can rest assured that things will work out in the long term.

What is this "progress" of which you speak, my friend?

Outsourcing, for instance, is progress. Outsourcing represents progress for capital. Capital, having found a new lever to maximize returns, now sends American jobs to India. By any rational measure, that is progress -- for capitalists.

But social progress for Americans it definitely is not. What is in America's larger interest here? Greater wealth for its tiny number of investors? Or the expansion of its middle class even at the expense of greater wealth for a few?

On these critical questions, capital is answering with a resounding, Screw you all! I'm off to India! But no sane society can accept such a verdict from its elite.

The time is nigh for those of you who have cast your lot with right wing politicians and the debased libertarianism of Wired to rethink your mistakes. You had your fun in the 90s pretending the market would roar forever, and you swallowed load after load from the likes of Gilder and Friedman. Well, it didn't; it won't again like that in your lifetime; that dream is over. You've been had. Worse, now you are facing irrelevance. You are being replaced, and your erstwhile prophets are telling you it's inevitable.

So! It's time to wake up and ask: how can you afford your right wing lifestyle when you're flipping burgers? You are at a crossroads, and the ethos of unbridled greed has sold you out, so now what will you do? There is an election coming; think about it.

Re:IT Fads by Samuel+Duncan · 2004-02-04 20:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

What you don't realize about Europe is that besides free trade they also impose social standards. Indeed richer countries are giving money to the poorer increasing the living standards there. That's why Europe works but the US version of free trade not.

--
Over 90 years and counting !

Thermodynamics as applied to economics... by Genda · 2004-02-04 21:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

Nature abhors a vacuum (apparently except the one between our president's ears.) Our current political system is tuned to give big business anything it wants, and what it wants is cheaper labor. Add the magic of global communication and suddenly you can find great talent in countries whose labor costs looks to us more like fast food service.

What they don't say or don't get is that this is an unsustainable ecology.

For the last 150 years, America has been hard at work building an economic vacuum outside it's borders. We built through trade control, an artificially high wall to keep wealth and resources inside our borders, in effect a dramatic pressure differential. During the 1980s the seal on that vacuum was broken by providing support for, and even encouraging the globalization of American corporations. Once these businesses began to establish themselves beyond the reach of American government, they began to lose any sense of accountability to the country which spawned them, and the standard pressures of business dictated that they use foreign resources to compete in a global market.

Since then, such programs as Nafta have made the breach in our economic system huge. The flow of wealth out of our country in now an exploding torrent. This is simple thermodynamics. Without sufficiently strong barrier to create an artificially high standard of living for our populace, the tendency is for our wealth to rush out into the world. Combine a tremendous trade imbalance with vanishing wage opportunity, manufacturing, then IP production, and finally services, and wealth go only go one way. This process will repeat itself at every level... India is now outsourcing to China, because it is cheaper for Indian business men to use even cheaper Chinese labor, than to utilize their own countrymen. So a cascade of wealth gushes from our shores leaving behind an American economy that'll ultimately reach equilibrium with the wealth in the world.

This is the scary part. People used to having the highest standard of living on the planet are about to discover that the distance in quality of life between themselves and a Ethiopian goat herder is about to shrink dramatically. In fact, this terrible problem our nation currently has with obesity, is almost certainly about to be a problem of the past. The wonder of Walmart only works as long as you have a realtively wealthy middle class to support the economics of tremendous consumption. When the masses are reduced to minimum wage incomes...

1. People can't make a living wage for themselves let alone their families...
2. People are forced to use wellfare to supplement their income for basic needs, and services...
3. The tax base for the Government collapses...
4. Wellfare vanishes, leaving the entire population without critical resources, and services...
5. The economy implodes. Deflation, depression, mass riots, revolution...

6. Here's the biggie... The world economy as we now know it collapses. Without the economic engine (America) powering tremendous economic flow through other nations... business falls to the dance between western nations and the new economic engine (China), and China just isn't built to provide (or is even interested in building) the kind of broad economic growth worldwide that America has over the last half of the twentieth century. American then begins to hemmorhage it's talent to Europe, and the Far East. Leaving it a third world nation not unlike Ireland before the tech boom.

The last nail in the coffin, is that the wealth as it flows from the U.S. is being concentrated into the hands of a very few. When this process is complete, a significant amount of the world's wealth will lay in the hands of a very tiny group. Much more wealth, much more concentrated than it is even now. The kind of wealth the moves countries, and controls governments. We can expect that the standard of living for the typical world citizen will be very low. We can expect that Americans will share that fate. We can

Re:IT Fads by rcs1000 · 2004-02-04 22:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

"Every job we send overseas is less money and less power for the US. But you believe what you want."

I shall skip the lecture on the law of comparative advantage. I shall avoid talking about how spinning jennys put home textile workers out of business, or how coding software is not bending buts of metal. I shall avoid pointing out the America has lost jobs in manufacturing cars since the '60s, electronics since the '70s, memory chips since the '80s, computer programming since the '90s... and has grown richer not poorer. Accoding to John Mauldin, a distinguished economist (www.frontlinethoughts.com), 96% of the world economy's growth since '98 has been generated in the US. I shall pass on mentioning that the US still has one of the lowest rates of unemplyment in the world. (Certainly compared to more protectionist Europe.)

Instead I shall mention rights and freedom.

Lets say I have a San Jose based consulting business, and am bidding against Cap Gemini E&Y in France for a contract at a Brazilian aerospace company. If Cap E&Y can offer cheaper prices because it hives SOME of the work of to India, then I lose, my company loses, and all my employees lose. What right do YOU have to stop me hiring workers in India, or outsourcing some of my work there?

What right do you have to make ME lose that contract.

Robert

--
--- My dad's political betting

Rubish. by jotaeleemeese · 2004-02-04 23:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

Modern software is designed with resuse in mind.

Do not invent the wheel.

If you are trying to re-invent it the one that is completely out of toucvh is you, not your Indian counterparts.

--
IANAL but write like a drunk one.

Re:Rubish. by wideBlueSkies · 2004-02-05 03:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

>>Modern software is designed with resuse in mind.

Agreed. Reuse is great. Where it makes sense.

>>If you are trying to re-invent it the one that is completely out of toucvh is you, not your Indian counterparts.

I'm not advocating reinventing the wheel. What I'm saying is that you need to lay out and understand the problem that you have to solve.

Then pick the proper tools and components with which to solve the problem. It doesn't make sense to 'turn the problem around' and shovel it into a solution.

Show me how Java and J2EE can solve the business problem. Show me how this code block or an Entity Bean will solve the problem. Not how the problem can be looked at in such a way that it fits the code/framework.

There's a subtle difference there. Knowing that difference is part of knowing the difference between good and bad design. A 'closed in' design methodology does not work, it is not flexible, is not extendable and will not handle future requirements gracefully.

Reuse rocks. But good design rules.

wbs.

--
Huh?

Re:IT Fads by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-05 02:01 · Score: 1, Insightful

What right do YOU have to stop me hiring workers in India, or outsourcing some of my work there?

What right do you have to make ME lose that contract.

The same right by which WE permitted you to incorporate your business, so that if it fails you do not lose all of your personal possessions. The same right by which WE have set up a system whereby you can offer investors part of your company to raise capital, and then those investors can freely trade those investments (shares), and the capability to do so makes those shares far more valuable in the first place. The same right by which WE subsidized the begining of the building of the Internet by which you can even consider farming out work overseas. The same right by which WE pay for the roads so you can live somewhere other than your office and still commute. The same right by which WE subsidized the electrical grid which makes any of your computers, lights, air conditioning, etc. even work.

You take the complete social and legal framework in which you operate so much for granted. You fail to realize that if enough of the people around you no longer feel as if this society is worth protecting, that framework you unconsciously depend upon can go the hell away.

Re: Shawn & Jessica Nahasapeemapetilon by Punk+Walrus · 2004-02-05 03:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

[Indian accent]: "Yes sir I am understanding that you think the problem is that, but I need you to insert your Dell resources cd so we can run diagnostic to confirm the problem."
[Upstate NY accent]: "Your not listening to me. The power supply is dead. I can't turn the unit on."

I hate to burst your bubble, but that's not an Indian problem, that's a competence problem. Way before outsourcing to India started, I was having the same problems with Good-ol-American tech reps from time to time. People who lived off of call scripts and laminated notebook pages. Not only that, many of them were rude, too!

Also, I have seen videos of these people. Many of them don't have the *slightest* Indian accent. Some are even taught to mimic Minnesotan accents, southern accents, you name it. That guy "Mike" could have been from "Texas," a small shanty town named for convenience in trade (in Japan, there is a town called Usa, in the Oita Prefecture, for instance, as in "MADE IN USA!"), or he could have just been outright lying to you, knowing he'd get abuse if he said, "No, I am from Jaipur, sir." He did say he wasn't from the US in your example, but I don't know if you meant that if he was Texan, whether he considered Texas not part of the US because he was being state-centric, or just really uneducated.

These Indian aren't dumbasses, either. Those images of brown-skinned people wearing wrapped cloth around their groin is inaccurate to modern India. They are hard-working, well-educated, quality-focused people. Maybe you didn't mean it to sound this way, but a lot of the comments in this Slashdot thread sound a bit like racism, or at least living in some stereotype of a universe where Indians are portrayed as a mass of unwashed dumb third-world people. How many people here have actually BEEN to India? Like outside the tourist areas? India has many subcultures, just like the US. Indian exists outside of New Delhi, it's a big country with a lot of people.

But aside from all that, the article mentions that even they know they will be outsourced someday. I have worked Internationally, and I know the conditions in some of these countries aren't so hot. All they have to do is pick a war with Pakistan, and BOOM... there goes all that outsourced talent. We used to have a site in Afghanistan under the old Taliban rule in the late 1990s, and we constantly lost contact with it because of all the local fighting. "Sorry, the phones are down, someone cut the cable... again."

But in the long run? It's inevitable. Complaining just slows me down and prevents me of thinking of where to go next.

at least I'll have an American to yell at on the phone if anything goes wrong.

And where do you think this "American" comes from? Unless he's Native American, like Pawnee or Dakota, I can bet this "American," including you, have roots back in another country. Maybe even as close as 2-4 generations back, your anscetors were Irish, German, or Italian.

Re: Shawn & Jessica Nahasapeemapetilon by Punk+Walrus · 2004-02-05 05:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

No, I assure you that is an Indian problem [....] no level 1 American tech would be so stupid as to keep insisting that you insert a CD into a computer with a dead power supply.

Your faith is inspiring, but my experience differs, and I used to train people on the phones for an ISP. I had one guy, for instance, who blamed all modem outages with, "Was there a lightning storm in your area in the last month, sir? Well, your modem is fried..." He was from Virginia, not India, so I still don't know how that example could be an "Indian problem." Now, if he said, "Have you had any monsoon weather?" or "Did you ask her holiness, Sri Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, what she thought?" Now THAT would be more related to an Indian cultural miscommunication.

Go ahead -- keep outsourcing all the middle-class American jobs.

You can't look at it that way. Read the article. You can't outsource everything. Until they build really good remote controlled robots, they still need lots of hardware people, designers, and so on. All the grunt, back-end work is being done outside the US. Our goal is not to make sure everyone stays dumb and doing the same thing, but to educate people so they can get better jobs. Bettering yourself is the American way. Keeping everything the same and safe is more of a socialist way, and it's not doing France very much good.

All of these companies will screw themselves when there is nobody left to buy their products.

Then they will go out of business, and the outsourcing problem is moot. But in reality, those who outsource will save a TON of money. Pay a programmer $75,000 plus expenses, or pay three programmers $8,000 a piece and let another company worry about the free coffee? Dude, business wise, it's a no-brainer, and whether we like it or not, it's going to happen. Those companies that stay domestic will not be able to compete. Take the computer you are typing on right now. Who made it? Some US factory worker getting paid Union wages, or some factory worker in Taiwan, getting paid less a day than you paid for your lunch today? Say WidgetCo tried to make all their computers in the US. It would cost about $5000 to make one, once you factor in wages and changing the current supply line to the US (with tariffs, shipping, containment, storage, EPA, etc.). Get some people to do it in the Philippines, and that cost drops dramatically.

Like it or not, global labor is a commodity, like rice or orange juice. And no matter how tight we close our eyes, or shut other countries out with laws and trade discrimination, they are coming, and we can't stop being global if we're going to survive. Just look at China, as an example of not only the hypocrisy of xenophobia, but how it's hurting them as well.

If you want to stay the same, Sweden might be a great place to move, if you don't mind the huge tax rate such a "cradle to grave" policy must endure. But they do have a lot of great historical "living factories" and so on. I have been there, I know, and those who work at such places are as enthusiastic about things like centuries-old linen mills as you are now about IT jobs. Where did all the Swedish people go when linen production and distribution moved to another country? Just whither and die? No. They got other jobs, and I would never call Sweden a country of piss-poor unemployed people. They have a very high standard of well-educated living.

I know, you're scared. I'm scared. The IT industry is scared. But we will survive. Have faith in America, as well as your own ability to adapt. Don't waste your time with clutching your knowledge like handfuls of sand, but spend time figuring out what to do next.

Change, as they say, is inevitable.

Slashdot Mirror

Jobs to India -- A Broad Look

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