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Intel Chief: Don't Call Us Benedict Arnold CEOs
theodp writes "In a USA Today interview, Intel CEO Craig Barrett pooh-poohs arguments against outsourcing, explaining 'We do not send our basketball teams to compete against the rest of the world, saying the other teams have to play slower because our folks aren't fit enough to run as fast.' He is also fed up with being called a Benedict Arnold CEO (perhaps he'd prefer Unemployed Computer Scientist). Barrett pegs K-12 math and science education as the biggest threat to U.S. employment, but when pressed about U.S. kids who do well in both, attend excellent universities, but have no guarantees of good jobs when they graduate, Barrett remarks 'I don't have a solution to that one.'"
I'm reading this as I train my China replacements...
Saying goes, "If the shoe fits"
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Benedict Arnold
I still don't get it.
When CEOs say "good for the economy" they don't mean "good for the average Joe" they mean "good for our shareholders"
It's easy for these CEOs to sit in their ivory towers and tell the people that various things are good for the economy, they aren't the ones facing unemployment or living cheque to cheque. What matters to these people is making the shareholders happy, the workers are expendable cogs in their money-machine.
Imagine, for just a moment, that Craig Barrett were to say "Intel investors, I have a great plan. We'll stop outsourcing and start hiring domestically. Yeah, it'll cost more money and there will be a profit hit for a while but it will keep our people working and spending their paycheques domestically." Something like that is truly good for the economy as a whole, but how long would be be CEO for? The security guards would be showing him to the door in minutes.
Trolling is a art,
Unfortunately for the fat & happy Americans (I'm one of them), we're entering an age of a truly global economy, where there are very few barriers as far as communication and travel. There's a huge standard of living between first world and thrid world countries. Basic economics (hell, and nature) say that what's going to happen is that there's going to have to be an equilibrium that say, the US and India will reach, eventually in terms of standard of living pay rates, etc. At least for the next generation or so, the US is going to see a dramatic drop in standard of living, while other parts of the world increase (we're seeing that already in SE Asia). There's no way around it. The Net and telephones and cheap air travel have done this, and there's really no way to stop it. The genie is out of the bottle. CEO's do what they always do: maximize the bottom line. workers do what they always do: work for as much money as is possible. It's really inevitable, and it's time the IT industry sucks it up and realizes this. It's already happened with other US industries (autos, steel, textiles), and will continue for the forseeable future.
Time to tighten up those belts boys! The days of a big house in the suburbs with a giant SUV are pretty much over. If you expect to be able to continue living as well as you have been previously, you're kidding yourself.
"Barrett pegs K-12 math and science education as the biggest threat to U.S. employment, but when pressed about U.S. kids who do well in both, attend excellent universities, but have no guarantees of good jobs when they graduate, Barrett remarks 'I don't have a solution to that one.'""
How about being honest with us, and admitting it isn't about education, but all about the money?
That whole interview really did collapse at the end. He spouts off about having to compete, and discusses at length how kids need to be taught math and science, and how many teachers aren't educated in the subjects that they teach. But then he has to admit that even if the kids were taught to excel, it wouldn't change anything.
We are not competing on basis of skill here, we're competing on the basic cost of living. Today's CEO's are pocketing the savings from outsourcing, and will be retired when the house of cards crashes down because no one here has any more money to spend.
...
Barrett pegs K-12 math and science education as the biggest threat to U.S. employment, but when pressed about U.S. kids who do well in both, attend excellent universities, but have no guarantees of good jobs when they graduate, Barrett remarks 'I don't have a solution to that one.'
That seems like a somewhat pointless addition to your news submission, theodp. I wonder why it's in there...
The first thing he "pegs" has nothing to do with the "remark" he makes. It is a threat to employment because if there aren't enough kids interested in math and science, we're screwed.
To turn a small profit, they have outsourced over seas and cut the people that brought them to their current size. If turning on the people who made you what you are isnt treason, then what is?
Kids with Down's Syndrome can graduate from US public schools. I suppose it is good for the ego of the disabled kid, but it seems to indicate that standards are pretty low here.
word.
http://volokh.com/2004_03_14_volokh_archive.html#1 07922202284050918
[Eugene Volokh, 3/15/2004 07:53:35 AM]
Calling people traitors: As readers of this blog know, I've been quite critical of people calling others "traitors" simply because they disagree with them about the war or about foreign policy. There should be plenty of room in civil debate for good-faith disagreement about what's good for the country. Moreover, decent Americans can still sometimes consider the legitimate interests beyond the American national interest -- for instance, they might oppose an attack on some country because of a concern about the country's innocent citizens, whether or not the attack is in the interests of America's citizens. It's neither fair nor productive to reduce legitimate policy disagreements to accusations of lack of patriotism, or, worse still, treason?
But if this is true, then what's with all this that we've been hearing about "Benedict Arnold CEOs"? There are lots of hard and interesting questions about how American businessmen should deal with international competition. Some think that outsourcing is on balance bad for America, others think it's good. Some think that businessmen should focus first and foremost on the interests of America generally, others that businessmen should primarily serve the interests of their shareholders (within, of course, the boundaries of the law) -- or that outsourcing helps both shareholders and, ultimately, America generally, since without it we'd lose our competitive edge and thus have to lay off even more people. Reasonable minds can differ on this. But there's no justification for waging this battle through slurs and insults, and allusions (even if clearly hyperbolic) to a man whose name has become a snonym for "traitor."
But if I'm mistaken, and "Benedict Arnold" is permissible political hyperbole to be used against people whose economic policies you think undermine the American national interest, then why isn't "traitor" permissible political hyperbole to be used against people whose foreign policy you think undermines the American national interest?
" It's easy for these CEOs to sit in their ivory towers and tell the people that various things are good for the economy, they aren't the ones facing unemployment or living cheque to cheque. What matters to these people is making the shareholders happy, the workers are expendable cogs in their money-machine."
Your aim is slightly off. here let me correct. "It's all about the new BMW I'm going to buy with my golden parachute". If it was JUST about the shareholders, then CEO's would be outsourcing their jobs.
Phase 1: Blame K-12 schooling here in the States, thus taking the blame off me and instead saying, "Hey, the educational system and all those 'teachers' are at fault, not little old Intel!!!"
Phase 2: When confronted with the possibility that some kids have "slipped through the cracks" of the US education system and actually become quite smart, smart enough even to possibly hold a job at Intel and do it quite well, COMPLETELY DENY PHASE 1'S EXISTENCE.
This seems to me to be a varient on the classical Free Rider problem.
In a nutshell, all these companies expect somebody else to take the competitiveness hit so the economy will keep humming along. The problem is, nobody is going to blink first.
Put on top of that, the people actually making the decisions will actually BENEFIT from an economic crash/depression. Their relative worth will skyrocket because of the massive deinflation.
What can be done? Well, protectionism is bad, I guess. This is the end of the capitalist empire, I think. The Soviet Union fell..now the west is going to fall as well.
Globalisation is not going away. Outsourcing is not going away. IT jobs in the US are going away.
Go see Grapes of Wrath, and get a good understanding of what real hardship is like. Nasty fact of life: Things change. And no amount of political posturing, wishing, whining, begging, or threatening is going to change that.
If you really want to be a coder - that is - if you chose IT because you genuinely love it (I do), then emigrate.
You cannot change the attractiveness of outsourcing through fiat. However you can change your situation until you are more attractive than Ravi's House of Outsourcing and Tandoori[1] and you will not have trouble finding work.
Just as the dot-com bubble was collapsing, I took my meager savings and moved to a place where the cost of living is low, but infrastructure is well developed. There were surely tradeoffs - learning a new (human) language is substantially more difficult than learning a new programming language, but to be frank, that was a big part of the adventure: Throw myself into a foreign culture and see how well I could adapt.
Now, I have a comfortable, but not lavish lifestyle - two junior programmers and one artist working on projects I manage (who make about 150% of what local companies pay for the same work) - and without hesitation I can say: I have a much better quality of life than I ever had working in the dot-bomb universe. And with personal freedom increasingly a joke in my homeland, I have a strong feeling I will never repatriate.
If you chose IT because you thought it would lead to riches and a comfortable lifestyle: Well - you should have paid more attention to your carreer counselor in high school. It is not too late to learn to be a plumber, or a car mechanic.
1: The one thing I cannot get in Mexico that I really loved when I was in the Silly-con Valley: Indian food
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
K-12 math and science is poor in the U.S. Also poor are employees perceptions of the goals of a businees. The goal of a business is NOT to give graduates jobs. The goal of ANY business is TO MAKE MONEY! I've been unemployeed and I have been employed. The fact is that outsourcing work is a compeditive advantage for business and in the log run benifits all. Trade whether goods or services is a good thing. Ask any economist!
The old "but American workers just aren't as smart/skilled/hard-working" idiocy. Repeat a lie enough and people start thinking it's the truth, which is pretty much what people like him do. It would make me boycott Intel, except I already don't because AMD is so much better.
How can he say that when Intel just about won't hire anyone that doesn't at least have their bachelors?
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
This guys in charge of a really big company. Now last time I checked he is only responsibility is to people that own stock in Intel. Now last time I checked those stock holders wanted the people running the company to widen the discrepancy between costs and profit as far as possible. So, cost go down (Craig Barrett decides to outsource stuff) and sales go up (crazy market share) then the only people that matter are happy. Don't waste your time looking at a company to create anything else but possible outcome for itself. Companies are totalitarian organizations by virtue.
*.02c
Your aim is slightly off. here let me correct. "It's all about the new BMW I'm going to buy with my golden parachute"
heheheh, well done. I have no problem with people getting rich if they've earned in a way that's equitable to all but getting multi-million dollar bonuses for taking away peoples' livelyhoods? That's just disgusting blood money.
Trolling is a art,
Since when is it the government's job to secure your own employment?
If you did well in school, have a good education, but can't find a job, why not start your own business and follow the advice: Compete!
I want to fight the nanny-state mentality that the government
1) Should
2) Can, even if it wanted to,
control the economy and my economic well being.
As for failing K-12 schools, clearly more volunteerism by parents and intelligent people, along with more incentive for competition among schools, is the solution.
Again, if you are unemployed, maybe you should fix that situation. Try inventing something in your garage while working at McDonalds. They are always hiring.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
You work, I spend.
Searching around for the best deal and leveraging it to make big profits is what our great country was built on. Why should Intel be forced to pay higher wages to less skilled employees here?
Thats called COMMUNISM!!
Amusing anecdotes aside, the fact of the matter is that Americans simply don't value education as much as other nationalities. I'm sure I'm not the only one who came here from Europe, Asia or India as a kid and realized he was three grades ahead of his peers in math and science. It goes without saying, if a child is unaware of basic physics and chemistry, he'll never wonder, marvel at and be curious about just how we went from light bulbs to transistors to microchips. While not everyone needs to be like that, at least we should provide the knowledge required to roughly understand how technology works, to spur those individuals who really want to know just how a processor decides what "transistor" of the millions it has on board is switched.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
Then the shareholders of Intel can enjoy knowing they outsourced all their expertise to their new greatest rivals. They might think patents and whatever will save them, but they're nuts if they think other trading blocks will allow their workers to be wage slaves to U.S. "Intellectual Property".
Good luck Intel; it might buy you a few years, but that's all.
Read this:
LINK
The Outsourcing Bogeyman By Daniel W. Drezner
From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004
Summary: According to the election-year bluster of politicians and pundits, the outsourcing of American jobs to other countries has become a problem of epic proportion. Fortunately, this alarmism is misguided. Outsourcing actually brings far more benefits than costs, both now and in the long run. If its critics succeed in provoking a new wave of American protectionism, the consequences will be disastrous -- for the U.S. economy and for the American workers they claim to defend.
Daniel W. Drezner is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and the author of "The Sanctions Paradox." He keeps a weblog at www.danieldrezner.com/blog; full references and data sources for this article can be found here.
THE TRUTH IS OFFSHORE
When a presidential election year coincides with an uncertain economy, campaigning politicians invariably invoke an international economic issue as a dire threat to the well-being of Americans. Speechwriters denounce the chosen scapegoat, the media provides blanket coverage of the alleged threat, and legislators scurry to introduce supposed remedies.
The cause of this year's commotion is offshore outsourcing -- the alleged migration of American jobs overseas. The depth of alarm was strikingly illustrated by the firestorm of reaction to recent testimony by N. Gregory Mankiw, the head of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. No economist really disputed Mankiw's observation that "outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," which makes it "a good thing." But in the political arena, Mankiw's comments sparked a furor on both sides of the aisle. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry accused the Bush administration of wanting "to export more of our jobs overseas," and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle quipped, "If this is the administration's position, I think they owe an apology to every worker in America." Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, meanwhile, warned that "outsourcing can be a problem for American workers and the American economy."
Critics charge that the information revolution (especially the Internet) has accelerated the decimation of U.S. manufacturing and facilitated the outsourcing of service-sector jobs once considered safe, from backroom call centers to high-level software programming. (This concern feeds into the suspicion that U.S. corporations are exploiting globalization to fatten profits at the expense of workers.) They are right that offshore outsourcing deserves attention and that some measures to assist affected workers are called for. But if their exaggerated alarmism succeeds in provoking protectionist responses from lawmakers, it will do far more harm than good, to the U.S. economy and to American workers.
Should Americans be concerned about the economic effects of outsourcing? Not particularly. Most of the numbers thrown around are vague, overhyped estimates. What hard data exist suggest that gross job losses due to offshore outsourcing have been minimal when compared to the size of the entire U.S. economy. The outsourcing phenomenon has shown that globalization can affect white-collar professions, heretofore immune to foreign competition, in the same way that it has affected manufacturing jobs for years. But Mankiw's statements on outsourcing are absolutely correct; the law of comparative advantage does not stop working just because 401(k) plans are involved. The creation of new jobs overseas will eventually lead to more jobs and higher incomes in the United States. Because the economy -- and especially job growth -- is sluggish at the moment, commentators are attempting to draw a connection between offshore outsourcing and high unemployment. B
U.S. kids who do well in both, attend excellent universities, but have no guarantees of good jobs when they graduate, Barrett remarks 'I don't have a solution to that one.
I do have a solution: teach them to think globally, be mobile, and they'll naturally want to move to high-growth parts of the world, like India or S-E Asia. Then, maybe the US govermnent will realize the country is getting crusty when it sees all these people expatriating themselves.
The Europeans have been doing that for years. The french are only realizing now that their country is literally bleeding brains because they have such high taxes and high inertia, due to *gasp* social advantages and guaranteed outrageously high pay (U.S. kids who do well in both, attend excellent universities, but have no guarantees of good jobs when they graduate, Barrett remarks 'I don't have a solution to that one.yes, even at the lowest rate, a European employee is much much better off than an Indian). The US is heading that way too now.
The fact is, high-growth areas are those that have the least social protection. I say teach the youngs to want to go make money there for a while, after their graduation, while they're young, and come back home with plenty of experience and money to spend.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Or, if you're literate, read the book!
I think we have a double standard here. Yeah we can outsource production jobs to Mexico and Asia in order to get cheap shoes and clothes. Nobody bitches about that. But all of a sudden when higher education jobs are taken away, we consider it a national crisis. The farming and manufacturing sectors have shrunk drastically over the past 50 years, thats not a national crisis. This is simply a result of change, something the United States tech workers are having a hard time dealing with. So either stop bitching, or do something about policy. These people have business's to run, they aren't philanthropists. Would you rather have a couple jobs at you're local tech firm, or no jobs because they went out of business.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
While I agree education is far more important than outsourcing, this may miss the point. While education generall is a sure fire way to make a decent living (I'm not talking about rap stars or ball players here), some people can't afford (or don't have access to) quality education.
If jobs in the US become solely comprised of Uber Brain power jobs, wherby the only decent pay is in those areas - what happens to everyone else. Do we ship the people who can't compete in the educational arena overseas? Do we make them all take minimum wage jobs?
I believe in survival of the fittest and all, but if we outsource everything because of cheap labor, we will increase the gap & the contrast between the wealthiest and poorest. When those areas become too saturated, you have an unsustainable situation.
I certainly don't have the answer to any of this, I wish somebody did.
Barrett pegs K-12 math and science education as the biggest threat to U.S. employment, but when pressed about U.S. kids who do well in both, attend excellent universities, but have no guarantees of good jobs when they graduate, Barrett remarks 'I don't have a solution to that one.
And this quote is a prime example. If he truelly understood the problem faced by many in the tech industry, he would also understand why this is such a big problem. If business leaders tell us we don't have jobs because we don't have the training/education, and then we get the training/education they ask for, they should put their money where their mouth is. Unfortunately this is not the case. They would rather sit back and make more money, buy bigger houses and drive more expensive cars.
...the problem I have is that, thanks to widespread abuses in the H-1B visa program, foreign programmers are brought into the U.S. and paid very little compared to U.S. programmers.
Businesses say they do this because U.S. programmers don't have the skills they need, but with the widespread unemployment of computer programmers, this can't possibly be true.
H-1B made sense during the tech boom, but now that we're in a tech bust, there's no legitimate excuse for it.
If we stopped the H-1B visa program, all those programmers went home, and then software jobs got outsourced to their countries, that'd be OK with me -- at least it'd be honest. Right now, U.S. programmers have the worst of both worlds.
And as for doing something besides programming for a living...you mean to tell me that I spent my teenage years actually studying, getting good grades, and keeping my nose clean, I went to college to get my B.S. in computer science, I worked my tail off for 12 years...and now I'm unemployed and poor? Damn, I could have been doing drugs and partying all that time, and I'd have exactly the same to show for it! I deeply resent that losers, slackers, and lowlifes are better off than I am. Doesn't anyone understand that???
And how the heck am I supposed to afford another college degree, when I'm facing losing everything I own?
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
There's little uproar of any serious consequence over sweatshops and slave labor. People happily buy imported goods (cars, clothes, electronics, etc) with no qualms. But jobs in your sector are moving overseas and it's suddenly a big traitorous conspiracy that must be stopped.
This guy doesn't work. He apportions work. He has computed that his cashflow will increase if he apportions the work outside of the nation that gave him the stability and security to live a life of education and thoughtfulness, instead of dodging bullets and fighting for scraps with dogs in the street (or scraps of dogs in the street, depending on where you are). And the work he sends out of this nation is work that exists because of the investment by this nation; or does he forget that he was the Chair of SEMATECH and that his plants are the beneficiaries of vast reductions in local taxes?
Craig Barrett is, absolutely, a traitor to America, and loyal only to the Feudalists who are taking over America.
If he honestly can't see that, it's because he's been blinded by greed and propaganda.
"Time to tighten up those belts boys! The days of a big house in the suburbs with a giant SUV are pretty much over. If you expect to be able to continue living as well as you have been previously, you're kidding yourself."
You might want to look at bit harder.
The number of SUV's is lesser than all the other vehicles combined.
The number of "big houses in the suburbs" is lesser than the total kinds of houses out there.
Yeah we have a good standard of living, but it's not as good as you'd like it protrayed.
"There's a huge standard of living between first world and thrid world countries. "
Yes, but are people happy? Numerical superiority isn't happy.
"Basic economics (hell, and nature) say that what's going to happen is that there's going to have to be an equilibrium that say, the US and India will reach, eventually in terms of standard of living pay rates, etc."
Look up "entropy". Economics and life in general are active systems, not "water seeking" systems.
"At least for the next generation or so, the US is going to see a dramatic drop in standard of living, while other parts of the world increase (we're seeing that already in SE Asia)."
Were also seeing all the other problems that come with affluence as well.
"CEO's do what they always do: maximize the bottom line. workers do what they always do: work for as much money as is possible. It's really inevitable, and it's time the IT industry sucks it up and realizes this."
Gee, I didn't know, we didn't realize that we should be working for as much money as possible? Who knew?
"It's already happened with other US industries (autos, steel, textiles), and will continue for the forseeable future."
Yeah! That makes it OK. The "it's inevitable", just go with the flow. Pay no attention to that sucking sound. Defeatist crap.
Anyway The university education system is healthy, is nonsense. Sure you have many good schools out there, but you have many more universities that are nothing more than 'High School 2'. Many people graduate from these thinking there so educated, only to find out that their degree aint worth much.
Well, let's see. The teachers don't know the stuff they're teaching? Could that be because 99.9% of the people that DO know their stuff are off at high-paying jobs rather than educating? Most teachers are there because either 1) they're really passionate for it or 2) they couldn't find anything better. Passion alone is a shoddy substitute for knowledge. But no one wants to be the one to pay teachers more. Citizens? Don't want more taxes. Corporations? Don't want to cut into the bottom line and help. And soon we'll be screwed.
Since when does the US Constitution state that all people who go through public education are guaranteed to get a good, high paying job, straight out of school? I must have missed that part....
Give me a break! Has he ever heard of the "dream team" we sent to the U.S. Olympics in 1996? Our basketball players were so good, the rest of the world couldn't touch us. It was no contest. But the other significant difference between our players and other countries' players is that ours had a much higher salary. At least in basketball, we know our players are worth it.
I'll bet many of our IT people are better at their jobs than a lot of the workers in 3rd-world countries. But do our CEO's recognize that by hiring them for a higher salary? No, they just look at the $$$ and hire the people who are cheapest.
Interestingly enough I recently saw some outsourcing company say something along the lines of "future contracts will contain language allowing contracts to be renegotiated if laws are put in place restricting off-shore outsourcing." A lot of people are making a lot of noise about it right now, and it's an election year. I think there's a high level of concern, one might even say alarm about the political attention off-shore outsourcing is getting. Damn I wish I could remember where I read that...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Two basic classes, the very powerful and the serfs.
Now, look at the US economy. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer while the middle-class shrinks.
You have an overly optimistic view of the future.
Rather than hoping that everyone will, somehow, achieve a more equal economic level, why don't we start working now to preserve and strengthen the middle-class?
Honestly I don't how the US educational system is but blaming it for moving jobs oversees is ridiculous. Are they saying the Indian(which i can speak for) educational system is better? India has a poor educational system. And they are finding fault with US education system? Before the flames start let me tell you something I am Indian and have survived the Indian Educational system. We have really few "good teachers" and a lot of good-for-nothing ones. The text books are outdated and so are the teaching tools. The education system is more about memorizing stuff than understanding it. Most of the exams results are like gambling. Nothing but luck.
alias shutdown='sudo /sbin/shutdown -h now'
Bye folks, this whining about outsourcing is fucking boring.
$ shutdown
For some that I know 'good job', refers to the jobs that come to where they are located and are in the few areas that they find intellectually stimulating and involve no customer interaction and pay well. For others, they will relocate, work with customers, perform mind-numbing work, and accept junior pay if it can lead to better pay/consulting bucks. Both groups see the job market totally differently. Sometimes you have to do the changing, not the economy.
How is it the government's place to tell a someone how to run their business?
..if nobody wants to hire you ..it's cause you suck .. don't go running to the govt. begging them to FORCE someone to hire you.
..anybody .. in the first place? And why can't they get the best deal ... why do businesses have so many obligations thrust upon them?
.. blaming somebody else cause you cant find a job is silly .. other poeople don't have any obligations to hire you.
.. there can be enough for everybody .. if the fixed wealth argument were true .. there would be less wealth and less percentage of employed people in the world. Cause guess what 500 years ago there were only 500 million people in the world ..and many many people were living like shit and jobless ... now there are billions of EMPLOYED people living happy fulling lives. Dont you think free trade has helped .. if trade takes away jobsd .. then why not make every city an isolated system .. taht would be the best thing wouldnt it? I mean now you have jobs for everyone in the city .. why trade with the whole country? You wouldnt want my job going to some guy in a small town in Iowa would you?
.. in the end capital is stored in US banks, and this capital is used to give out loans etc. If people cant pay it back .. too bad for the rich. More than likely people will use the capital to create more enterprises. Learn some economics. Also, americans will have access to cheaper products. Unemployment will never be high in a free market economy because even the fat rich people believe it or not will still want services and to grow their wealth.
Should the goverment force people to buy the most expensive product in the grocery store?
Will the government start banning industrial automation because it takes away jobs from people???
Guess what
Why should businesses be forced to hire people
I'm sorry
If a business wants to cheaply manufacture offshore so be it.
The so called "slave labor" excuse for blocking free trade is dumb for IT. The slave labor in India argument is nothing more than a faux self made justification for one to keep their own job.
Workers in IT in India do not get abused aside from maybe some very very rare cases that. They certainly get better benefits and medical compared to being unemployed and starving.
Also, there is no such thing as a fixed amount of money in the world
Anyway
They are paid 1/10th of what a worker here is paid so they can only buy 1/10th of the finished goods produced here.
What you're seeing is a small transfer of capital from the US to other countries which raises the standard of living of a few people in those countries -and- the conglomoration of wealth in the hands of a few in the US.
His basketball comment really pisses me off. It's like he's saying that the US engineers could compete with those in China if they wanted to. And yes, they could take those wages I suppose...
But why does no one blame the car mechanic who charges $75/hr, the construction worker with the six figure salary, or the $500,000/yr doctor? Engineers in the US can't work for China-like salaries unless everyone else here does as well.
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
... and can't get it to work. So he blames the American educational system.
The most obvious change involves the loss of IT jobs. Many have gone abroad, and they aren't coming back. Offshore outsourcing as a percentage of IT budgets went from 12% in 2000 to 28% in 2003, according to Forrester Research. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there are now 212,000 unemployed computer and mathematics professionals. No doubt the number would be even higher but for the IT workers who have given up and moved on to different careers.
Fewer students are opting for computer science degrees as more corporate recruiters skip college campuses.
So? This guy blames Americans first. Some small competitor, AMD, upstages this guy with a better 64-bit architecture and he's whining about American college kids.
Sounds like a "management vision" problem to me. The problem is in Craig Barrett's mirror, if he'd just look. Maybe Intel shareholders should outsource him.
Dey tuk er jebs!
When the boards of directors discover that Indian MBA's are as good as any this guy's ass is grass. They'll sell the fancy building, rent a PO box in a prestigious town, bump profits to an all-time high. Outsource everything except ownership of the brand. Investors happy.
The problems are real -- and are far far worse than anyone is willing to admit. "Outsourcing" is merely a symptom. Like the first purple patch appearing on the skin of an airline attendant who frequents gay bath-houses in the early 1980s, the worst is yet to come.
Western civilization is destined to become a museum piece. The fundamental problem is with the way Western Civilization has decided to monetize clan structures, raising the floor on the cost of living, while it takes the deracinated clans and moves them into a pseudo-clan identity via national defense and police protection of monetized assets. Western civilization is now addicted to this con-game and can't allow people to reconstitute their clan structures lest they realize how horrendous the crime has been committed against them, and through them in their dracinated state, others around the world. So the only hope Western civilization has is to go all the way to a single tax on net assets or something similar. Of course, the con of the present situation is that wealthy people claim that they're creating the wealth when in fact they're sucking the lives out of young families from which they draw their soldiers and policemen to protect their assets. Charming charming folks... so charming many if not most have charmed themselves into a state where they actually believe their own material. If so, there is no hope for Western civilization. However, if they merely would stop sapping the life from the planet and live among others -- keeping the wealth they've ill-gotten but paying the costs of its maintanence -- they might be able to stave off hell-on-earth for themselves and their posterity (not to mention the rest of us life forms around them since our "bodies are in vain" according to their beliefs -- we don't count).
A few K5 diary entries that discuss the general situation follow:
A
dozen
K5
diary
entries
that
discuss
the
general
situation
are
linked
.
Seastead this.
but have no guarantees of good jobs when they graduate, Barrett remarks 'I don't have a solution to that one.'"
"Guarantees" of a good job? Give me a break! Nobody is guaranteed anything in life, nor should they be.
Look, I got laid off by the dot com crash three years ago and it took me nearly a year to find new work. Did I whine and moan about how I should've been "guaranteed" a good job? No! I made the choice to leave a larger, slower company to join a smaller, faster one with an eye towards more money and rapid advancement. When it came to a halt, I had no one to blame but myself. Nobody put a gun to my head and said "hey, leave this stable job for a riskier one!"
For that matter, these college grads who are complaining about poor job prospects should think for a moment (something college, of course, consistently discourages in graduates). Um, who put a gun to their heads and forced them to become Computer Science majors? Answer: NOBODY. It might have seemed a good choice four years ago when things were still kinda booming, but thems the breaks. Sometimes you do everything right and you still fail. That is not a lack of a guarantee, that is life. I know that's a radically uncomfortable concept for a twentysomething college grad, but they'd better get used to it.
As for outsourcing, I'm all for it if it makes financial sense for the company. We as consumers benefit from outsourcing in the form of lower prices. If price savings aren't carried over to consumers, we can still benefit from increased corporate profit margins by becoming stockholders in that company. Regardless, companies have no law preventing them from outsourcing, and any such law would very likely be unconstitutional in the first place.
Quit whining about outsourcing and start looking for ways you can benefit from it. It will require effort, intelligence, judgement skills, and hard work, so it's likely college grads will be totally out of their element. But it's better to get started early on understanding how life works instead of living in the fantasy world of college for an extended period of time. If you fail a course in life, rarely is there a makeup test.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Take a look at this story about H1-B visas and outsourcing and then get even madder at him. The high tech companies imported over 600,000 H1-B visas while laying off 500,000 people in IT. Pissed yet?
What I do have a problem with is that consumers are not allowed to take advantage of the same competitive edges that these large companies are. Nike can hire Chinese workers because they're cheaper, OK, I can live with that. Why can't I buy a Chinese DVD (legitimate, not a knockoff) or an Indian pharmaceutical product if I want to? Instead I've got to pay American prices (highly inflated) even though these people have products to sell, advanced communication can get me in touch with them, and transportation can get it to me cheaply.
Its funny how you never heard anything about outsourcing when all of the steel mills and textiles plants were closing down due to outsourcing. Now that it has actually hit in your proverbial backyard, it is a great crisis to the country that absolutely has to be stopped. This being an election year I'm sure has nothing to do with the press covering this like it's some brand new thing.
If you want to keep your low skill job, like working tech support or low-level programming, then do what everyone else has and form a union. If you can band together in enough numbers to convince politicians that drafting legislation in your favor will win them votes, then they might pay more attention to you.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
>By eighth grade, they are behind. By the 12th grade, they are substantially behind other industrialized nations.
Ponting the finger at the education system? I call bullshit on that. The countries they're outsourcing engineering to do NOT have a better education system than the United States, especially when you're talking about universally accessible K-12 education. If they were outsourcing to Japan or Germany because they literally couldn't find educated people here, that would be one thing, but that isn't the case. The jobs are leaving solely due to cost considerations.
Yes, our educational system needs some shoring up, but it's not fair to blame it when it's not the cause of the predicament we're in. The facts would seem to show that if anything, the United States is OVER educated. We've told everyone to go get a college degree and a desk job. In doing so, we've increased our standard of living to the point where it's difficult for us to compete against countries with lower standards of living.
This is exactly what happened to those western european nations he speaks of... They don't have unemployment for lack of skills. You can call it protectionism if you want, but I find it impossibly difficult to believe that the transfer of these high-quality jobs to other nations could be good for the United State's economy overall. These are exactly the jobs we should be trying to attract to improve the economy, so I think it's appropriate to raise warning flags when they start going away.
I'm not sure what to do about it, but in my opinion the education issue is a red herring.
Which is incidentally a Saturday.
You deserve a break from this job that requires you to train your replacement on this day.
Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?
Vote NO on executive compensation and expansion of stock options
Put shareholder proposals on the table at the annual meeting that would put a stop to outsourcing and knock down executive pay especially if the stock price is down due to mis-management
If the board members does not reign in on the CEO's, vote their asses out as soon as they are up for election. I am sure many board members of Disney will be out on their asses after keeping Michael Eisner at the last annual meeting.
There are other things that can be done to reign in on their arrogance
For the last several years, I have voted against anything that the executives wanted such as more than generous pay since it is due to their scandals that caused the stock market to fall especially in 2002 and their arrogance especially towards the rank and file workers.
"And the work he sends out of this nation is work that exists because of the investment by this nation; or does he forget that he was the Chair of SEMATECH and that his plants are the beneficiaries of vast reductions in local taxes?"
.. he isnt infinitely obligated! You are seeing this the wrong way .. he didnt force anybody to do anything! If he wanted to hire zero people and use robots that's fine.
.. what kind of a BS is this? How can you make a board statement that other countries havnet a conribution to the advancement of the US? How much precursor shit was invented in Europe, China, or India? Intel has used Indian educated engineers to make their products better, cheaper, and more reliable. How do you dismiss all that ? Now you are already enjoy the benefits of the cheap Indian education system.
Taxes were REDUCED so he would build his plant there
Also, other countries invented shit too
Deal with it.
Outsourcing isn't the fault of the CEOs and to blame them smacks to me of a witch-hunt. It's a nice way to mis-direct attention to the REAL problem: Globalization. In particular, Globalization where we don't insist foreign workers fall under the same EPA, OSHA, minimum wage, workman's comp, etc standards that we force on the employeers of our OWN workers.
If you want to REALLY solve the problem, either force outside workforces to comply with OUR standards, or lower OUR standards of employment to meet theirs. CEOs and corporations are not "boogie men". We've set up a system that basically lays money at their feet and we complain when the bend over to pick it up.
If it was JUST about the shareholders, then CEO's would be outsourcing their jobs.
The CEOs are outsourcing their jobs, or, more accurately, they're outsourcing their successors' jobs, and I think most of them realize it.
How are they outsourcing their jobs? They're training a new crop of managers and workers overseas. How long will it take before those people realize that they have everything they need to start their own company and compete with their former employers?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Windows XP is an Operating System - it controls and manages basic system operations on a computer.
Linux is an Operating System - it controls and manages basic system operations on a computer.
Understand now?
I'd go with insightful myself. Companies aren't around to be your socialist / communist best friend and take care of you. I don't know why everyone in this country has slipped into the mindset that everything should just be given to you.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
He didn't seem to mention where the new Xeon processor 'Whitefield' is being developed in his rant... See The Register's story for the rumours...
If America has such a poor education system, then how come the people who complain about it are products of it? Both Craig and Carly are American educated. Seriously if these guys are right then their top priority should be outsourcing them selves as they are products of an inferior education system, and cost 100 times more than an well educated outsourced counterpart. When outsourcing gets to the executive suite, we'll see how fast this "education rant" changes.
That looks like the only surefire solution right now. A recent newspaper article in San Francisco talked about excessive spending in city government. A security guard at the county hospital got $202K in wages after overtime. Basically to sit around a kick a few bums back into the street. And there is nothing illegal in what this guy did and the city gov't doesn't expect it to change. In another case, a coin machine technician gets paid $88K in wages yet goes and steals from the coin boxes. When he is caught, he is put on paid leave while they 'investigate'.
Many of these jobs are better paying than programmer jobs plus they will never be outsourced. We just need to get a law passed to more of us can join the gravy train.
1. Intel demands that the US gov't needs to invest in more computer R&D and schools.
/. can see, and I can tell you huge corporations care nothing for themselves first, second and third. Arnold switched sides for his own gain, these CEO are the exact same. They don't care who gives it to them, as long as they get theirs. And any location that counts on them will be burned when their loyalties switch as the money moves around.
2. Intel demands that the US not change the stock rules. Strongly suggests to employees that they mail their congress critters their nice form letter.
3. Intel demands that the US help keep the China market open for it.
Intel repays these favors by:
1. Demanding generous tax breaks which keeps money away from schools. If they had to pay the going rate, the school district in my area with an huge Intel campus would have 75% more money.
2. Offshoring all jobs but exec board. 30-40% of all US Intel engineers (at least) are already from outsourcing countries(China/India). US based Technicians and fab employees are 90-100% US born citizens, but earn 1/3 to 1/4 what the engineers get.
3. Enabling groups that want to limit freedom because they can make money from it: China, MPAA/RIAA, Patriot Act, Microsoft
Corporations exist outside of states and countries and exist only to perpetuate themselves and the few that own massive quantities of the stock. Sure places like Intel grant stock to employees but the total amount is less that 10% of the total shares per grant period.
Sure globalism happens, but I am a citizen of the US first and an employee second. Corporations should receive no special treatment because once they get they will have the in and make the locality turn and turn until all the blood is out of the stone. Then leave and blame the community for not making it a good place to keep high tech.
Just leave me anonymous though, because as Intel employee, I can be terminated for speaking the truth. Being on the inside I see a lot more than most on
yes I'm bitter because they have killed the spirit of my town and they don't care.
America collapses by the day whilst your breed of weak-willed, self-satisfied spend your time whinging and not acting. Its incredible how in a scant 200 years all that made America great has been systematically bred out of the populace.
Hey! That's a genius idea. Think India will welcome an influx of 10+ Million Americans all pining for a job?
Big hint Rosco, your solution is a non-solution, but feel free to keep dispensing these ideas. I'm certain you'll make a go with your new business.
I don't think he's right, but for once someone's at least having the discussion, so lay off the insults.
I've got it in my head that IT means: sys admins, computer programmers, computer scientists and engineers, chip/hardware designers, etc.
Are all of these roles being outsourced, or are there certain areas being harder hit than others?
The reason companies outsource to China, India, etc. is because they can get away with paying these people next to nothing. They literally wouldn't be able to legally pay these people those wages in the US because they are below minimum wage. It's not about quality or anything like that. It's because these people live in such poor countries they can be paid next to nothing. If they legally could, I'm sure these companies would have slaves. If they want to pay these people the SAME US wages I have no problem with that.
The clever executives have managed to move manufacturing and testing offshore, along with much of operations (order entry, customer support, etc). Now they're moving product design and engineering offshore.
That leaves the sales forces, executive teams, and their security guards as the in-country staff when taken to a reasonable conclusion. All the technical smarts to develop and produce the product wind up off-shore. Executives get a 'productivity spike', possibly reduced costs, and profit goes up.
For a little while...
All this makes the assumption that there aren't any talented potential corporate executives overseas, or pools of investment capital. Bad assumption. Here's what happens next.
Overseas there will be a pool of skilled technical and manufacturing staff, managed by outsourcing companies. Some of those companies have smart executives. Deals will be cut to obtain capital, and entire staffs of outsourcing firms will 'quit' and go to work for shiny new local companies that will produce competing products. (There aren't protectionist laws on employee 'poaching' in many places outside the 'land of the free'.)
In around 7 to 10 years...
Craig! You've got competition. Competition that you trained. Competition that's hiring away your sales force. Competition that's more competitive because they don't have your high executive compensation costs.
Oops.
I suggest the board yank those golden parachutes off these bozos now, so they can better feel the pain later.
here's my protest to you, as a certified k-12 teacher. i'll push my schools to purchase computers that use non-Intel processors. IBM and Apple don't make lame generalizations about k-12 education- especially as an excuse for YOU to line your pockets with more cash. the whole "k-12 students in the U.S. are behind" is BS.
"This rich vs, poor thing has never proven to actually happen throughout history."
Then you need to read more history.
As I stated, it happened in Medieval Europe.
It is happening in the US right now. A higher percentage of people are falling below the poverty line and a higher percentage of wealth is accumulating in the top 5%.
"History (and nature) both show an equilibrium happening."
Incorrect. If that were so, then we would not be seeing so much money accumulating in the top 5%.
We'd be seeing LESS money.
"The US may have less of a middle class, but that doesn't mean it's going away."
Correct, but you'd have to show that less wealth is accumulating in the top 5%.
"The middle class now lives in New Delhi."
No, what has happened is that some people in a poorer nation have had their income raised. They are now "middle class" for that nation.
-but-
The total percentage of wealth held by the top 5% continues to grow.
You are under the impression that because someone, somewhere is doing better than s/he did before, then no damage is occuring. You are wrong.
Here are some simple numbers. And before anyone gets stupid, these are just used as examples.
Suppose the entire middle class in the US held about $1 Billion.
You could wipe them out and raise an equal number of Indians to "middle class" making only 1/10th of that (about $100 million).
So, $900 million have been moved from the "middle class" to the top 5%, but you don't see a problem with that.
But we could do the same in China for only $10 million. The top 5% would gain $990 million while the middle class only made $10 million.
And that is the problem. The money is NOT being spread evenly. It is NOT going to those in poverty. It is accumulating at the top.
Therefore, the end result will NOT be what you want to believe (equal standard throughout).
The end result will be a few very rich and a LOT of very poor.
If we buy raw materials overseas, and produce everything domestically, we're plundering the third world's natural resources so they'll be dependent on our resorces for future growth.
If we teach them intensive high-efficiency agriculture, we're destroying indigenous crops and agricultural methods, and making them dependent on western biotech companies for future growth.
If we build factories there, and pay them to produce the stuff we want to buy, we're exploiting cheap labor, polluting their environment, and making them dependent on our capital for future growth.
If we outsource tech-support jobs to them, we're sabotaging the development of a strong industrial base and making them dependent on our telecom infrastructure for future growth.
Of course, if we disengage from trade with the third world, we'll be evil resource hogs that don't want to share the secrets of success with anybody, making sure that they'll be dependent on our superior tehnology in the future.
It seems we need an economics lesson here. Just because an American worker loses his/her job doesn't mean the CEO has simply taken away his/her livelihood. The money has been *redistributed*. If the company does not stay profitable, many more people do lose thier jobs. Also remember, there are more people depending on a company than just the ones who happen to work there. What about grandma and gradpa whose retirement is dependant on the success or failure of the company?
I'm no big fan of offshoring, and it does hurt (at least temporarily) people here at home. But it is small minded to forget that the money from those salaries gets divided between the new offshore worker and the share holders (and the corp execs, yes).
Also, how can someone get rich in a way that is equitable? Wealth is inherently unequal. What you seem to be saying would equate to asking Bill Gates to send some of his personal income to India to pay programmers to do nothing so the jobs stay at home and his personal wealth can diminish. (Gates is a bad example being so reviled here, but work with the analogy)
As a I side note, the company I work for was purchased by a company that does a lot off shoreing. They did let a bunch of programmers go a few years ago, but a lot of people became business analysts and project or resource managers. And they still need programmers to do architecture and design work, and review the code that comes back. If you're worried about being offshored, make sure that grunt coding isn't the only thing you can do. US companies generally recognize smart, hard working people and want to leverage thier skills.
Sorry for ranting.
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
you have nothing to loose but your chains? where did we all hear it all before? or did we? because all we really wanted to learn was what we needed for "our career". while wide-breadth education is gone and early specilization is proclaimed to be the panacea.
in case we forgot, progress means actually moving on. stagnation means having (and enjoying) the status quo. disappearing of the jobs that have been around for 30+ years is a good thing. it forces (not suggests or cajoles or entices, but forces) people with talent to hassle and reinvent themselves.
this is how capitalism is supposed to work. people constantly trying to raise themselves out of shit is the driving force of progress. so stop bitching and get another degree. and when that one becomes useless, get another one. or becomes one of those people you know you hate -- a real estate agent or a car salesman or a nurse, etc.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Among others I am going to make very certain my next CPU is an AMD (plus I want a 64-bit CPU so I dont have much choice).
In the end the only way to prove that this guys attitude is wrong is to stop buying from him....
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
What is an "equitable" way to get rich?
Obviously that would be making things in such a grossly inefficient way as to require twice as much labor, thereby doubling the price which would nevertheless be eagerly paid by a grateful public.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
Here in the US I've got fiber to the curb yet companies that I've worked for won't let me telecommute because "it doesn't work". However these same companies are downsizing & sending work off-shore based on the logic quoted above.
So how's all this offshore telecommuting work? Not only am I not telecommuting, I reached the first step (>25,000 miles) of my airline frequent flyer program in early January.
If they had the infrastructure in place to plan & implement efficiently they'd be able to make it work. But Hell! If they had that in place they'd have been able to compete in the first place. So what we really have is poor management causing lousy productivity here, then using the consequences of mismanagement as a reason to outsource work overseas, which is doomed to even worse failure because of the incompetent managment.
All it does is let them continue with their traditional response -- blame the guys doing the work & throw more warm bodies at the project -- you can buy more warm bodies overseas, though the results are no more effective.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
There's the site, complete with smiling Indians who have jobs at Digital (Hewlett-Packard).
So, the aforementioned Baby Boomers have become commoditized. Ready for the solution I tell them? The solution is to own your own destiny by owning a small business. 99% of people have problems with their computers and you can make good money doing it if you're willing to do housecalls and be sociable (non-arrogant and helpful) so that people will continue to call you.
If geeks did this (and became "Technology Advisors" just as Financial Advisors, Tax Advisors (Accountants), and Legal Advisors (Attorneys)), the large companies would find that the relationships with their customers and such are already OWNED by YOU.
When you own the relationship, you own the market. These folks have gotten such substandard, shitty service that it is such low hanging fruit. Do you think average people WANT to talk to someone in India? No, they would rather pay you good money for someone they can trust who can come over and help them.
The CEO's job is to maximize profit for his shareholders. When they say things the U.S. education system is to blame for us hiring people in other countries it is simply a lie. He can be called a liar. I buy AMD now regardless of where it is made. Screw you Barrett.
but I was taught from childhood that success isn't only about money. There is also what you return to your community. It seems to me that jobs would be included in that.
We make the same amount as our parents did 40 years ago. Why can we only buy 1/4th as much? Seems to me that all CEO's forgot about paying a living wage.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Its very clever, because since everyone knows that schools are in poor shape, it tricks some people!
It bends the arguement so just a FEW MORE people think "Why, Americans are just too stupid!" or "They have to go overseas because we just can't produce the people!"
When really, we're laying off WELL EDUCATED, HARD WORKING people to put jobs overseas. Whether or not you think outsourcing is a good or bad thing, please don't swallow the latest sound of bullshit from our nation's elite.
Time to tighten up those belts boys! The days of a big house in the suburbs with a giant SUV are pretty much over. If you expect to be able to continue living as well as you have been previously, you're kidding yourself.
Yes, and when people can't afford to buy SUVs and real estate anymore, what happens then?
But that also depends on who you refer to as "people"; some think Indians are "people" too. The only thing that takes away "people's" livelyhoods are the machines, not other people.
Let's face it, it's not the CEO's taking you Americans' jobs away. It's capitalism.
I can't believe some of the ridiculous comments being posted here.
For some reason, people think that Intel has a responsibility to all the tech workers who are losing their jobs...they absolutely do not. Intel has a responsibility for one thing only...producing their chip products as effectively and as cheaply as possible. Since when did people stop viewing them as a company who sold products and started thinking they had a responsibility to employ a certain segment of the world population?
Intel, believe it or not, is not doing this to take away people livelyhoods. They don't cut American jobs for the sake of cutting American jobs. Every idiot can say how the CEO is pocketing the savings from outsourcing. Do you know who else is pocketing the savings? Me. And you. And everyone else who uses a computer with an Intel processor. Because the processors are cheaper when you cut the costs, yes, even when you do it by outsourcing. And THAT is good for the economy, as technology prices go down, more people have access to it, including poorer segments of the population who can now use computers as learning tools.
People forget that saying you are "competitive" doesn't just mean that the company and CEO makes more money...it means that they are competitive with price.
I have no problem whatsoever with outsourcing. I'm an undergraduate computer science major at MIT right now, so it's not like I have no connection to what happens in the IT industry. But I also had the perspective of running an IT business before coming to college. I would often need some work done by contractors, and guess what. American companies charged more and were less flexible. I contacted instead a company in India. Those guys were willing to make changes without complaint whenever I needed them, and they worked twice as hard to get the project done.
I had no problem giving my business to them. I don't have this narrow view of people as either Americans or Indians. Only as other hard working human beings, and if I like how somebody does business with me, I will do business with them. It's that simple. I suppose I'm a benedict arnold too. But I was also able to charge my American client less for the project because of the lower costs.
People always have a narrow view when things like this go on. When manufacturing got outsourced many decades ago, people cried the same things about this "house of cards" collapsing because American consumers would no longer have jobs so they couldn't buy any of the products the American companies were producing. Well look what happened. The decades following saw the biggest economic growth in the history of the world. America saw unprecedented prosperity. New ideas in technology created wealth and prosperity. Can you imagine what would have happened had we protected all the manufacturing and agricultural workers who could no longer compete with their overseas counterparts? People would not have found another way to be innovative, create products with value. It's a good thing we didn't, because many of those people who would have been working in those jobs are now working in more productive, higher paying capacities that benefit the American economy more.
It is the essence of the capitalistic system that people are losing their jobs and having to find new ways to create wealth. As painful as it is, people who lose their jobs inevitably find other ways to add value to the American economy, start new companies, create new technology, etc. If we were all comfortable, with a job that did the same thing year in and year out, and had the knowledge that we could be there as long as we would like, then there would no longer be that impetus for innovation and new ideas. Capitalism means that we can never rest easy and feel complacent...we must be uncomfortable, always looking for new ways to retool ourselves or create jobs. It was a blessing that those lower quality jobs such as manufacturing were outsourced...it only forced us to create the most prosperous nation this world has ever seen. And I guarantee you, IT outsourcing aside, Americans will see even greater levels of prosperity for years to come.
As long as you keep thinking, and innovating.
If Offshoring is such a good thing, why aren't the high level execs every Offshored?
Someone please explain that to me in a manner consistent with what the exec are saying.
This is a very suprising statements especially Intel sponsers the International Science Fair, which is in reality, +90% represented by people in the United States. Granted we might be naive high schoolers along with out parents, but Craig Barrett speaks at these things almost every year emphasizing that we are the future of science and commends us.
Besides some limited pr and a few hundred extra processor sales over amd or ibm, I saw this a big way to recruit some major talent. I'm willing to bet there is atleast a few people there that have the potential to develop something that is capable of bringing in millions if not billions. What better way than to get a person like that to like your company and maybe be under your employment.
Ireland is part of the Euro-zone. It is a little cheaper than America to employ people. But in terms of education and infrastructure, these are the same people, often holding British or American degrees (btw, if you've ever been to the Republic you can see why some would choose to foresake cash for scenery etc).
And you don't mind this apparently. No-one ever carps and moans about the Irish. You could certainly stop all outsourcing to Ireland by taking a reaonable pay cut. But no-one wants to discuss that option. Is it because Americans (amusingly) think they are Irish? WTF is going on? Would someone like to explain please? It looks like the outsourcing hoo-haa has more than a little to do with thinly veiled racism given the difference in attitudes to the Indians and the Irish.
It's funny you should mention pension plans and investments. In keeping with that the other AC's are saying. One people are cashing in their investments in order to keep food on the table, and roof over their heads. Also with Worldcom, and Enron (among many), the small guys lost big time, and not just their jobs. Now we come to the Pension scandals, and the curtailing, and doing away with pensions for new workers. Throw in the soaring health costs, and overextensions (for various reasons), as well as "investments" (like education) that didn't pay off, and you'll find that we are going to crash bigtime, and lest you forget the "global" part of globalization? That WILL affect the rest of the world in a big way. So lets continue down this foolish path, after all we're ONLY hurting ourselves.
Black Adder Goes Forth: Episode 5
And that's good for them, bad for us(especially in the short term), but the people who are benefitting the most are the American CEOs.
In fact, American isn't quite right, but right now it's mostly American CEOs. It will spread throughout the world, as "free trade" expands.
The wealthy have been getting their fingers deeper and deeper into the governments around the world, and they will eventually have total control. They will be our lords, and we their subjects.
And then of course, we will have new revolutions. A lot of blood will be shed. Periodically, the poor masses will acheive brief periods of comfort, influence, even partial control. But as always, new kings, emperors, lords, deities, whatever... will gain control and force the masses to do their bidding, again. History repeats itself.
Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe we truly are "civilized" now, and will remain free of such extreme tyranny forever. Heh, yeah right...
<whisper>wow, this new armchair is comfy</whisper>
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
If you don't want to be called a "Benedict Arnold" CEO, all you have to do is quit acting like one.
Unfortunately, they're way outnumbered by the hordes of people with CS and EE degrees who are neither excellent nor well-educated.
One of my colleagues had to hire some people a while back. Our work is research-oriented, meaning we want people for the long haul, with a good foundation of knowledge rather than the IT skill du jour. He described the crop of applicants sent to him by HR as "mostly worthless" because it seems they learned almost nothing in their 4 years except Java. Most of them couldn't tell the difference between an O(n^2) algorithm and an O(n log n) one. In fact, most didn't even understand the concept.
When I worked at a university, I saw where a lot of this came from. There was competition for warm bodies between the departments, so there was pressure to lower requirements in order to keep students from transferring to the easier departments. EE lost lots of students to CS because CS required almost no math, and EE took the heat for its "low retention rate."
Probably the most telling anecdote I remember from my work there was when an EE professor, who was talking with some juniors, stopped me and said he wanted to ask me a physics question. I told him I took physics 23 years before and was probably rusty. He asked anyway. It was very elementary, and I hesitated, suspecting a trick question. But finally I gave the right answer, and he triumphantly thanked me. It turns out he had used this as part of a larger problem on an exam, and the students had complained that he hadn't covered this material. He said it was covered in the prerequisite course, which most had taken the previous year, and they argued that they couldn't be expected to retain that for a whole year! (And these were A and B students, not the bottom of the barrel.)
If you understand economics, you understand that a country pays for its imports with its exports.
/programmers/ fall into the cliche of not enjoying working in a cubicle because humans weren't meant to (Office space, anyone?) but yet they roar up a storm when they lose said job.
When jobs are outsourced to other countries, the average level of income and standard of living in 'receiving' countries raises, the average level of income and standard of living in 'exporting' countries stays roughly the same. It the country of origin, the average level of income and standard of living raises as people stop whining about losing their "American Jobs" (ignorant of the fact that "American jobs" is a myth) and get out and find a new productive job.
When you lose your job to someone overseas, it's the market telling you that your skills are worth something better. Well, at least if you got off your lazy ass and actually continously educate yourself and expand your skills in various fields.
When the economy of a foreign country becomes stronger, they then have more money to spend on imports into their country. Very few countries (well, none really) can have everything they want as cheap as they want as fast and efficient as they want.
Be creative. Be useful. Don't be afraid of a little change. It's funny how so many
A monopoly refers to lack of competition. Please, no more nonsense about WalMart's evil outsourcing, either. American made goods are of higher quality. American programmers produce better qualitiy code (possible reason for the slowing down of job outsourcing for the more highly skilled positions?)
Let's recap:
-One pays for imports with exports. As with the individual, so is with a nation.
-Stronger foreign economies means more money to be spent important American goods into said country. (The world loves American goods, so why are we afraid of them having enough money to buy them?)
-Losing your job due to finding someone who can do a sufficient job cheaper means that you can earn more money and are capable of more difficult work.
It's really disheartening when faux-intellectuals run off about evil corporations and blood money, and then propose that more government (laws, regulation, agencies, and officials) be put into play in order to prevent evil business.
Right, because we know if a monopoly forms naturally, it is by definition a good thing and that no "monopoly" in U.S. history formed without the helping hand of big government. Also, Microsoft is not a monopoly, and the reason it acts as it does it because of government "regulation" permitting it. Microsoft has plenty of competition. I'm writing this off of a Redhat box.
Book Recommendations:
Hazlitt - Economics In One Lesson
Hayek - The Road to Serfdom
von Mises - Human Actions
Folsom - Myth of the Robber Barons
Pretty much read anything by Milton Friedman, Frederic Bastiat, von Mises, Hyek, Rothbard, Szasz, Hazlitt, and Sowell.
And let's not forget Chodorov's Income Tax: The Power To Destroy (or was it, Root of All Evil? Look it up yourselves).
about it... for now?
Speckpot?
Did anyone else notice that his defense is not that what he is doing is in fact good for the country.
He wishes not to be called a Benedict Arnold then he shouldn't act like one. CEO's have fed this pablam to us for years that what is good for business is good for America.
What is an "equitable" way to get rich?
Making a good product, paying your workers well, treating them fairly. Happy workers can do more for the bottom line than hard-line capitalists will ever admit
This guy is droning on and on about how Americans "need to compete in a global market".
Allright, asshole. Let's compete, then. I'll be the CEO of your company for a mere $35K a year. How's that? I'm about as qualified to do your job as Habib Nasahapeemanapthilan in Bangalore is qualified to do mine.
I'm sure there are plenty of people in the world who are actually point-for-point qualified to do your job, and would do it for much cheaper than it takes to keep you on, Mr. Barrett. Think about it. you could presumably save your company millions by outsourcing your CEO needs. So whats stopping you?
Perhaps you need to learn how to compete in a global marketplace, Mr. Barrett.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Mechanics are pretty safe, they need physical access to you car to fix it. Just like the way call centers are now operated in other countries, basic medical diagnosis is going to become outsourced soon too. You'll go into your local doctors office and sit in a video conference with a local nurse and a doctor in Bangalore who will examine you and make a diagnosis, write a prescription, etc... As soon as this becomes cheaper than local doctors you can count on your health insurance provider to do it.
burris
Is for countries worldwide to work towards eliminating "dollar dependence" The trade we have today isn't trade in any sense of the word, basically the US gives other countries little pieces of paper in exchange for manufactured goods, programming, call centers etc. If you ask me this isn't trade in any sense of the word. Because the US economy is the biggest economy in the world, the dollar is considered the most desirable and "safest" currency(Though if Britain joined the EU, the Euro will probably take it's place, but for the time being the UK isn't in a rush to join because of it's oil supplies, but I digress). This has introduced a world-wide "dollar dependency" ie every country in the world wants the most dollars possible(versus other currencies) to help it's economy grow. This worked out really well during Japan's economic miracle, because the Japanese could take their dollars and exchange it for anything(Canadian wood, Saudi oil), but look at Japan now. They are buying tons of dollars just to keep the yen as weak as possible(more yen to the dollar means Japanese products are cheaper). Now, Japan is just one country, a relatively small country at that. What happens when 3 billion others try this same thing? We are already seeing it, the value of the dollar is starting to fall. As the supply of dollars outside the US continues to skyrocket, each dollar is going to be worth less(supply and demand! Even the IMF said that America's huge trade and budget deficits are a threat to the world economy) So what happens when India, who bases a lot of their growth on exports to the US finds out that the dollar is worthless? Some argue that they could just transition to exporting to Japan, Europe(which they do now, but on a very small scale) But these countries will also be dealing with the falling dollar. Also, transitions do not happen overnight. Not to mention that OPEC prices it's oil in dollars too.
My opinion is that if the US opens it's market to the rest of the world, the rest of the world should reciprocate. This is most definately not the case. So all you people scream free trade, but to me, the trade is anything but free. The US should use it's considerable infuence to pressure these countries to open up their markets and move towards a more balanced approach to trade, ie trade goods for goods, services for services, instead of trading little pieces of paper.
How does Benedick Arnold sound then?
a traitor by any other name?
So lets say you have a business of maybe 50 employees, and you have 4 people in IT. Those 4 people in IT are essential for the operation of the business, but there's no room for them to grow. The business focuses on $widget, and only the people essential in the design and marketing of $widget are going to grow and achieve. All of the other departments will just stagnate. The employees in the stagnant departments may be happy with this, but ultimately unmotivated employees are inefficient and expensive.
The modern business owner/operator doesn't want to waste their time on typical business crap issues like payroll, accounting, computers, etc. Today, they have the option of focusing on their marketing and product development, with the rest of the boring humdrum of running a business outsourced to professionals. The outsourced professionals grow their own companies by providing the essentials, the client business focuses on their core competencies.
Everyone wins!?
Well, except for the people who want the "security" of doing the same job day in day out for the rest of their lives.
You're not going to see the solution if you close your eyes to the truth. And the truth is that times change. What once took hours now takes nanoseconds. What once was the size of a building is now the size of a nickel. Naturally, what once took 50 employees now takes 3, and what was once done in farms on the island of Manhattan are now done in farms in a third world country you'll never visit.
The solution is for humans to do what we've always done to survive: adapt.
You really mean to tell me that a well-educated , intelligent, CS-degreed-from-a-fancy-school-graduate can't find a job? What are they trying to do, gain employment as an entry-level Java monkeys in some giant corporation?
All of the people I know in my field who have skills or intelligence can find well paying work, and all of the people I know who lack both whine about how all of the jobs they want have been outsourced, like my father in-law who has been working in IT for 25 years doing entry-level programming who can't find anything today (luckily, the rest of us make so much extra money doing what we do that the government can hook him up with all of the free drugs and disability pay he could ever want).
The strength of your whining isn't going to stop the horrible wheels of progress, and no one cares what excuses you can come up with (I'm a high school dropout and have no trouble getting work). You will learn to adapt or you will, well, you won't die, but the highlight of your month will be your dentist prescribing you vicodin.
The funny thing about the protectionism argument is that other countries do it. Were's the hue and cry there? Other countries pursue policies that benefit their citizens. We do it however and somehow we're the bad guys. This whole stage isn't "equal" in any shape or form, but all the globalist argue as if it were so.
Is this a joke?
We do not send our basketball teams to compete against the rest of the world, saying the other teams have to play slower because our folks aren't fit enough to run as fast.
We also don't relocate our teams to other countries because their players don't get paid as much.
If we happen to find a good player overseas, the first thing we do is try to lure them here with an American-size paycheck. We don't move the team to them to avoid giving them a raise.
Granted it is harder for someone in another country to be such a standout that they are discovered and recruited: that is why the Intel chief is a traitor. It is because he is moving the jobs out of America to where it is harder and a greater inconvenience for Americans to get them.
These companies love to say they are international and loyal to their shareholders, but not to any one country: that is what they say when they are talking about outsourcing. When it comes to tax breaks however they start claim they are red, white, and blue, and it would be bad for them and therefore bad for America if we tax them.
If these companies don't want to be American companies, tax their products as imports. They are penalizing American workers, and if our current administration cared at all about American workers they would penalize them in return.
But the appointed President isn't interested in helping workers. He is busily turning the income tax into just a salary tax. Meaning if you have to work for your money (like people at the bottom do) the government taxes you more. Meaning it is harder to work your way to top, and easier to squat at the top while doing nothing.
So much for the American dream.
This author is using a series of flawed assumptions/myths that I'd like to debunk:
1) Outsourcing is only happening to menial jobs. The author first states that "the activities that will migrate offshore are predominantly those that can be viewed as requiring low skill since process and repeatability are key underpinnings of the work"
Software Development is not "low-skill". Repeatability for complex processes is a complex achievement. Nearly all of technology/science is concerned with repeatability.
2) What is better for the global economy is better for the American economy.
Let's say that China becomes even more of an economic powerhouse, the world economy becomes more efficent, and America gets beat out of many major corporate and employment deals to EU companies. America will go into decline. This is neither good for American business nor is it good for American workers.
3) What is good for American corporations is good for American citizens.
These two ideas are increasingly at odds. Let's say Joe CEO, an American citizen, starts a car-building company and outsources everything but the CEO spot. Let's then say that he beats out every major American car manufacturer and takes their marketshare. THIS WOULD BE A DISASTER FOR EVERY AMERICAN WORKER BUT JOE. Joe might get rich, he might make a bunch of foreign outsources rich, but he has helped suck both money and jobs out of the country.
4) Protectionism would hurt our economy because it makes the world economy less efficient.
WRONG! This would only be true if America was an equal consumer of goods world-wide. America is, by far, largest world consumer of most goods. Channeling that purchasing-power back towards American goods and services would be a huge boon.
5) Protecting globalization at the expense of American jobs will help american citizens by creating more jobs.
The author's whole argument about outsourcing of jobs towards America is completely false. His numbers are made up, as well.
6) It is the U.S. government's job to protect the global economy.
WRONG! It is the U.S. government's job to protect US citizens in both the short-term and the long-term.
7) It is patriotic to support free-market economies.
WRONG! It is patriotic to support the well-being of your fellow countrymen and women. Supporting slave-labor in China that forces inequitable economies of scale in labor is tantamount to economic treason.
People need to stop thinking in blindered terms of "free-markets are good" and need to start thinking at a more sophisticated level about these problems. I'm ashamed at the trite cliches and hackneyed arguments put forth in this poorly-written article.
I'm not trying to put blame on anyone or anything. I'm just making a simple observation: wages in the US are very high. In many European countries $30K buys you a very decent living. From what I read around here, it sounds like thats about bottom barrel for US college graduates. Anyone from Asian wants to weight in the discussion?
Barrett pegs K-12 math and science education as the biggest threat to U.S. employment, but when pressed about U.S. kids who do well in both, attend excellent universities, but have no guarantees of good jobs when they graduate, Barrett remarks 'I don't have a solution to that one.
As unpopular as this notion has become lately, I submit that you should be going to college to get an education, not a job. That's what trade schools are for. Higher education is just that, education. Learning, getting used to assimilating new information. A good job is what we all want, but college isn't supposed to be churning out cogs for the wheels of industry.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
with business or law. Money in the bank. Always has been, always will be.
I say we try Barrett for treason in a recognized court of law, and then when he is convicted, hang him publicly. Also do the same to Bush, Clinton, and all the rest of the globalizers.
Do all this by the rule of law. Our Constitution gives us the power to do that.
Throw off the yoke of the hierarchical elite. Stop acting like animals. Act like us the citizens own this country.
Vote for Nader or another 3rd party leftist candidate for President and vote 3rd party leftist for all candidacies.
Don't buy into the There Is No Alternative (TINA) scenario presented to you by the neoliberal globalist propaganda. There IS an alternative. Start acting like a business owner. And stop acting like an absentee business owner.
What do you think would happen to a business owned by joint absentee owners who just like the management run the company for years at a time, and just dropping in to vote for management once every few years? Do you think it possible that the management would rip them off? Well, the management of the USA has sold us out to crooks like Barrett. It is time we punish them by the rule of law.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Well I'm sure that everyone here is very smart, but I am always suprised at this community's lack of understanding the way that business works. Its very simple. In business, you do what makes sense for your company. This is very similar to how as a person, you do what makes sense for you.
How many of you drive an American-made car even though it is less quality and more cost compared to a foreign car? Well if you don't, you are supporting foreign industry insted of American industry! How many of you buy only fruits and vegetables grown in California and Florida so that you can pay more money and support the American farmer over the one in Mexico or Argentina? None of you, right? Look around your house. See a lot of 'made in taiwan' tags? Shame on you for not buying American! Now imagine that you are slightly well off and you want to pay someone to clean your house. Do you ask for citizenship papers before hiring your cleaning lady? Take that one step further-- What if you wanted to hire someone to manage your schedule for you because you are very busy? Would you hire a qualified American at $15/hr + taxes, benefits, etc., or if you could, would you outsource that same work overseas to someone who would be available 24-7 via phone and e-mail for less than $1.50/hr? Seriously, how can you expect a business to act any different that that?
I've done a lot of IT and software development hiring over the past 3 years for my company, and I can tell you that I have NEVER hired an American. Is this because I'm unamerican? No.
Its because everytime I've interviewed an American (and I still do, by the way, I'll interview anyone who submits a resume to one of my monster.com ads at least via phone), the American person is always by far underqualified for the position in comparison to H1B's that apply for the same job. In the rare event that I find an American who actually knows his shit, he's so full of himself that he will ask for twice as much money as a H1B working the same position, and both people are HERE.
So, as a business person, do any of you honestly expect that I'm going to hire pompous, overpaid, and undercapable Americans when there is a HUGE supply of smart people who can do the same job or better for less money?
This difference only increases by a factor of about 20 when you take it overseas. At my company's satalite office in India or our office in Eastern Europe, I can hire American-quality IT people at $3/HR. I can hire ones with PhD's and 10 years experience for less than $10/hr. Now why on EARTH would I pass that up? Pay 10% the American price for the same or better quality, no benefits, and no headaches.
Or maybe I've just got it all wrong. Lets be very left wing radical about the whole situation and start charging huge tarriffs and fees to companies who use non-American workers. Lets subsidize American workers in IT and software development so that American companies can pay 10 times as much as companies based in other parts of the world. That ought to make everyone happy since shortly thereafter, America would cease to be a dominant world power. Now who is being unpatriotic?
Way underrated. Mod up, please.
Cheers,
Bowie
From your post:
"Most jobs will remain unaffected altogether: close to 90 percent of jobs in the United States require geographic proximity. Such jobs include everything from retail and restaurants to marketing and personal care -- services that have to be produced and consumed locally, so outsourcing them overseas is not an option."
Do you want fries with that?
So, instead of working and actually PRODUCING something, we will become a nation of burger flippers.
"There is also no evidence that jobs in the high-value-added sector are migrating overseas."
Which jobs would that be? Any specifics? Please do not say "prostitute".
"The parts of production that are more complex, interactive, or innovative -- including, but not limited to, marketing, research, and development -- are much more difficult to shift abroad."
Incorrect, R & D is moving overseas.
"As an International Data Corporation analysis on trends in IT services concluded, "the activities that will migrate offshore are predominantly those that can be viewed as requiring low skill since process and repeatability are key underpinnings of the work."
Yet I keep seeing complaints about how many PROGRAMMING jobs are moving to India.
But I don't know of anyone who claims that programming is "low skill".
"As for the jobs that can be sent offshore, even if the most dire-sounding forecasts come true, the impact on the economy will be negligible."
Then there are a few paragraphs devoted to debating whether the predictions are good or bad. Whatever. Facts are easier to deal with.
"There is no denying that the number of manufacturing jobs has fallen dramatically in recent years, but this has very little do with outsourcing and almost everything to do with technological innovation."
So, the FACT is that there are FEWER manufacturing jobs. Well DUH!!!!!
Now they are arguing that the FEWER jobs are NOT the result of offshoring.
So, we don't have a "rust belt" because we still crank out the same PRODUCTS in the same QUANTITY but we do it with FEWER PEOPLE?
I don't believe that the FACTS will support that.
We've lost the jobs. They are now being performed overseas.
"If outsourcing were in fact the chief cause of manufacturing losses, one would expect corresponding increases in manufacturing employment in developing countries."
Incorrect. It is possible to lose 100 manufacturing jobs in the US and only gain 10 robot-assisted manufacturing jobs in other countries.
So, the same number of PRODUCTS are being produced, but fewer people are doing it and those people are NOT US citizens.
"The fact that global manufacturing output increased by 30 percent in that same period confirms that technology, not trade, is the primary cause for the decrease in factory jobs."
But the technology is NOT in the US. The jobs are NOT in the US. Rather than pay to upgrade the US factories, the jobs are going overseas.
"What about the service sector?"
Service sector: burger flippers, prostitution, butlers and such.
"For example, a Datamonitor study found that global call-center operations are being outsourced at a slower rate than previously thought -- only five percent are expected to be located offshore by 2007."
Dude, "global call-center" being outsourced would have to go to MARS. We're looking at US jobs here.
"Delta Airlines outsourced 1,000 call-center jobs to India in 2003, but the $25 million in savings allowed the firm to add 1,200 reservation and sales positions in the United States."
Here's a link to show how good Delta is doing.
http://www.newschannel9.com/vnews/1081980359/
And I quote: "The nation's third-largest airline said it lost $387 million dollars."
So, they "save" $25 million by outsourcing, but then they LOSE $387 million?
"An Institute for International Economics analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data revealed th
Convince shareholders to outsource CEOs from (Santa Clara) California wiith a high cost of living to somewhere in Kansas, just to show them that the real way to increase company profits is to pay CEOs a reasonable amount of money. Maybe then those CEOs would be nicer to their employees here in America (I'm sure companies in Europe could do the same thing) not to mention fewer CEOs with ridiculous amounts of money.
Someone from Intel Labs came and gave a talk here a few weeks ago, and dropped an interesting fact -- they've learned how to distribute a processor team within a single time zone or two pretty well (say, Oregon, Santa Clara, and Folsom), but the amount of daily interaction needed for a custom chip makes distributing a single design between, say, India, Oregon, and Israel not easy at all. So, processor design jobs are stickier to a region, for the same reason full-custom VLSI is so hard in general (and avoided whenever possible) -- breaking the design apart horizontally (architecture, logic, circuit, layout) and vertically (ALU, register files, caches) leaves everyone with a schedule full of meetings each week to make sure details aren't falling through the cracks. The only practical way to outsource is to create the whole team in a region, and finding 200 specialists to fill all the roles a processor needs takes a generation of preparation (successful example: Intel Israel).
Umm I'm pretty sure a "hard-lined capitalist" is always concerned with his bottom line. And if happy workers are what will cause they workers will be kept happy. Its only when happy workers are inefficent, or when the boss is a control-freek (don't have to be a capitalist to be a sadist, hell most dictatorships are comunist) that one is willing to sacrafic the bottom-line just for kicks. Sometimes you (not often though) you see the bottom-line sacrificed to create happy workers, though not really, because generally it comes back to reward the company.
If jobs are outsourced to say india, then surely that will boost their economy and they will start demanding more money, eventully it wont be worth outsourcing anymore. Or maybe im talking crap (im was always bad at economics!) Can anyone explain exactly how a global economy could work? are there actually enough jobs for everybody? surely atleast some proportion of the world must live in total poverty for the rest of the world to be able to enjoy themselves? whats the natural tendency of things? will all the wealth just end up in the hands of a dozen people? can the world survive if everyone is smarter?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Barrett does have a point about the K-12 education in the US.
This kind of statement makes me wonder. People repeat this as if the decay of American schools is an established fact. But generally these people don't refer to any personal experience; it's all third hand anecdotes. No doubt there are horror stories of failed schools with terrible leadership and indifferent teachers, but is it accurate to hold these up as representative of the whole? Will there ever be a system in which there are no failed schools?
My children's elementary school is way better than any elementary school I ever heard of in the 1960s, and we produced quite a few world class scientists and engineers. That's not saying I wouldn't change things if I could. Class sizes are creeping up; more lab materials would be good. More specialists should be hired to help with math, science and language skills. I think there should also be foreign language programs in elementary schools; if I had a choice I'd put them there before I"d put them in high school.
And we've all heard the horror stories of the teacher from hell that the principle just can't get rid of. THere used to be one of them in our town (out of hundreds of teachers), and people still talk about her five years after a new, tougher princpal (promoted not coincidentally from the ranks of teachers) did the admittedly PITA work to get rid of her.
Nonetheless, my direct observation and interaction with the schools leads me to believe our schools are actually better than they've ever been before. The science and math is better taught. The assignments are better. The textbooks are with a few exceptions better, although that admittedly isn't saying much.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But I also believe that we should NOT be into NAFTA or the WTO or any other "free trade" agreement until AFTER we have the freedom to work in those countries AND those countries have the same worker/environmental protection laws we have here.
Once we get THOSE in place, then I'm all for free trade.
Dude! China and India are more socialistic and communist in nature than US! you got it all bass ackwards. If it takes 10 million to insure your sad ass while you do business in the US and it takes 1000 dollars in china, where do u think one would go? you got to be stupid to continue working in the US!
He is correct when he states that math and science is the major cause of moving jobs over seas. When USA today asks about students that score well in both they are comparing apples to oranges. This is because the SAT has been renormed. How many of you knew that? An SAT score today is about 200 points higher, for the same results, as it was 20 years ago.
What this really means is the people that we entrust our children to know that they are not educating our children. What they are doing is indoctrinating them into a philosophy that is controlled by the teachers union.
For example I have two children one nine and one four and we home school. My nine year old, who would normally be in third grade, is doing eighth grade math, algebra, and my four year old is reading at the end of first grade level. The reason for this is we use a curriculum from Singapore.
And the big kicker is we only do schooling for about three hours a day. The rest of the time is spent in gymnastics and dance classes for my nine year old and playing with my four year old. If you think I am full of it how come Sylvan learning centers guarantee one full grade improvement with only one hour per week? The schools have your children for a minimum of six hours per day. And they do such a poor job they have to renorm the SAT scores?????
It's time to wakeup to what's happening in our schools. Our children's futures are at stake.
So when you send your smiling children off to school realize they are not getting an education but an indoctrination.
But you should really look up the figures. Try any of the major financial consulting organisations that have figures. Just because the reality and the data oppose the received view doesn't make me a liar with my head up my rear.
Everyone here seems to be worrying about Standard of Living, as they should be, but in case anyone has forgotten, I'd like to point out that the US (IRRC) is ranked 15th globally (for standard of living), despite having the largest economy in the world. Britain, with a similar approach is also in the same boat (high GDP per capita, comparitavely low standard of living).
On the other hand, the traditionally more welfare oriented states (Canada, France, all of Scandinavia) are all ranked at the top, despite lower per capita incomes.
So, while outsourcing may be bad, just keep in mind that there's a lot of domestic policy that the US could incorperate if Standard of Living is what everyone is worried about here.
You mention 300 million people in the U.S., 6 billion in the world.
:
Just for fun
U.S.land area : 9,158,960 sq km
population : 290,342,554
India land area : 2,973,190 sq km
expected population : 2973190/9158960 * 290342554 = 94,251,266
actual population : 1,049,700,118
EEK!
That's a good 11 times higher population density.
Note that I didn't include mountainous ranges and such that are basically uninhabitable, but there's no way those natural inhibitors could equal things out.
India is largely poor because it has so many people to support!
And its population is only growing and growing. In fact, the influx of foreign money is partly cause of that. Why ? Because as families are more financially stable and *can* support a greater number of kids - a large group of families will.
But what happens once the kids are grown up and no longer with their parent supporting them ?
They either have to support themselves, or be supported by society.
EEK EEK!
Not good. I'm all for families deciding for themselves just how big a family they want - but I do wish they'd look at the bigger picture, too, and consider some self-restraint.
Disclaimer : I'm only aiming for 2-3 kids myself.
There's the small matter of them getting rid of all the qualified people that were already there and still available hanging out in the unemployment lines.
Kids with Down's Syndrome can graduate from US public schools. I suppose it is good for the ego of the disabled kid, but it seems to indicate that standards are pretty low here.
:-)
It does not matter much. 99.9% of the population does NOT do at their office desks what they do in school, for the most part. Who the hell is doing the match-ups? They should get a D.
Story problems are probably the most relavent. Beyond that, it is mostly Busy Work being handed out to kids. Perhaps the purpose is to teach them how to tolerate bordome, but the content does NOT prepare for the work world of today nor tommarow. (Coming from somebody who is bad at spelling
If anything, it sets them up to be offshored. Perhaps it enlightens in some cases, but you cannot cash enlightenment at the bank nor pump up your GNP with it.
Table-ized A.I.
It's true that the problem is Globalization, however not the way you're describing it. As the article says, Globalization has meant that about 3 billion people have been added to the competitive landscape in the last 10 years. That's making everything more competitive.
But when it comes to things like worker protections, you need to keep in mind that right now the place where US jobs are most likely to go is Canada. Yup, the land with higher minimum wages, better environmental and worker protections, universal health care, etc. Guess what? I can hire a programmer their for less than half the cost of a US programmer. This person will understand US culture and needs almost exactly as well as their US counterpart. They will be as well educated (if not better).
While India (everyone's favorite Globalization fall guy) doesn't have all the same worker protections that the US has, in many cases they have more (remember, most countries are actually far more socialist than the US).
sigs are a waste of space
For those who haven't bought into the "outsourcing is great for America" BS, check out this discussion about IEEE-USA's stance against outsourcing. The IEEE has also released a position paper on the topic.
Looking at the economic side of the argument, there is also a short article about a finance professor arguing against placing blind faith in outsourcing and the "externality" that companies are exploiting given the current labor and tax laws.
Want to do something about it? Try using your vote. Bush and Kerry have established their position on outsourcing (Bush is for, Kerry is against). Being unemployed does not mean you lose your right to vote, so make it count.
Yep, a small amount of capital can have a big impact on a poor country.
But that does NOT contradict my point about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
But the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer DOES contradict your claim that, eventually, everyone will be at the same level.
Like I said before, it is possible to transfer 90% of the middle class's income to the top 5% AND STILL HAVE A MIDDLE CLASS in India.
The wealth in moving to the top 5%.
Making some poor people less poor does NOT contradict that.
The wealth is moving to the top 5%.
Your prediction is wrong.
Here in the US we spend far too much money on the bottom 10% of students and far too little on everyone else. If we really treated education as an investment, our allocation of resources would be much different. Even so, education is a minor component of a large economic problem.
There are plenty of well-educated US people with math/science/engineering skills. How else do you explain all the unemployed people in the IT industry? They can't compete with the offshore people, mostly due to the US cost of living, taxes, and lack of fully subsidized higher education. The problem is economics, not education.
Most US employers require US citizenship, unless you are offshore in which case the requirement goes out the window.
These same employers want a degree, unless you are offshore, in which case they probably can't verify anything anyway.
Telecommuting is generally frowned upon, unless you are offshore, in which case telecommuting is just fine.
Employers want satisfactory background and reference checks, unless you are offshore and this is difficult to do.
They want senior level skills, but if you are offshore and your skills are entry-level at best, the employer is still satisfied because the salaries are low enough for them to approach IT problems with a "human wave" of entry-level people. The quality of the end product is debatable, but the profitability is not.
Employers require "Excellent oral and written communication skills" unless you are offshore , in which case a heavy accent and third grade grammar will be just fine.
The next time you see a really dumb problem in a software application and you get the runaround from the vendor's tech. support center, think about the CEO bonuses and "shareholder value" that is made possible by your suffering with inferior products and services.
Open source is killing certain sectors of the commercial software industry. It's about time.
Those who seek to commoditize IT will be slaughtered by the ultimate commodity strategy. You ask for a miracle to foil the commoditization of IT jobs? I give you GPL. Let's see if these genius CEOs can cut costs enough to compete with free.
Nobody said K-12 education was a proving ground to sort the men from the boys. That
K-12 education is a mechanism to educate the citizens so that the status quo is advanced. If you don't educate people you are just damaging the future of the nation by putting parts of the population at a disadvantage to the upper ruling class which will only result in discontent and violent revolution as history has proven time and again. Grades are not measuring sticks like borometers for intrinsic intelligence, they are feedback for the learner and the educator to gage comprehension as they continually improve.
If you think intelligence is inherent in the person you are probably the kind of person who does not study because you can wing it on the exam like some sort of hot shot when you're realy just clipping your own wings. I hate people like you.
So the poor little CEO is crying because someone called him Benedict? I say companies that outsource just to raise the bottom line should LOSE ALL TAX BREAKS!
I'll do it!
TRAITOR!!
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
How about: It's because they picked the wrong fucking degree! How about: You don't deserve a guaranteed good job.
I've said it many times before: Computer technical support and simple programming work are low-skill excercises.
I mean, fuck, many people can learn good hardware and programming skills as a kid, without needing any special degree. If a kid can do this shit, don't you think that you should do better?
How about you use that supposed intellect and develop a rare, useful skill? Make yourself wanted!
Message to you jobless computer people: You bought into the fad. You have lost. Have a nice day. Accept lower wages. Move to India. Stop whining. It's your fault.
My Intel proxy ballot doesn't allow me to vote to outsource executives. A small group (well under 0.05% of the company) get around 2% of the stock options. Which they tout as being good. Put this this way: you get 50 shares like thousands of your peers, the #3 guy gets 50,000.
Perhaps schools might be better if these companies paid current property tax rates (business properties rarely "turn over" and are, therefore, more likely (at least in Calif) to be paying at rates when the properties were at 1970's valuations.). That schools in Silicon valley just SUCK is kind of pathetic and a warning.
But we all know that teachers, who rake in 100s of thousands of dollars and drive around in Limo's just look down their noses at CEOs - scraping by on $20-$40k/year.
He is also fed up with being called a Benedict Arnold CEO
The formerly employed are fed up with being called "poor credit risks" and "broke."
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
But money spent on gas guzzling American SUV's which finances countries that are simply terrorist in nature is not.
Also, financing Al Queda is definately not blood money. That somehow is santified operations.
http://himalayantraveller.blogspot.com/
Yeah, I remember reading about Linus' mansion.
I can not wait to get back in to the office on monday...
How long will it take before those people realize that they have everything they need to start their own company and compete with their former employers?
Excuse me, but isn't competition a good thing for the entire world economy?
It is all their fault. The internet has made it too easy to outsource. The positive side is that millions of Indians and Chinese are begin lifted out of poverty. Is that so bad? The same thing happened in this country 100 years ago. Labor standards were lousy until workers organized. The same thing will happen in Asia as long as we don't interfere and support authoritarian regimes like we did in Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iran, Iraq and other countries.
"How long will it take before those people realize that they have everything they need to start their own company and compete with their former employers?"
Hello?!? How could they compete if they must pay *minumum wage*? "Those people" are doing what all buisnesses do and should do: make money. If the fucked up liberals of the US decide to require employers to waste money on frivolous lawsuits, minimum wage, unemployment insurance, etc, then the employers will simply leave the country. And that is what they are doing.
Try to look at the root of the problem instead of complaining that everything isn't handed to you.
yopu must be around 23-18 years old with no kids. as that would explain your lack of knowlege into the real world.
Say I have a family, wife is not working and 2 kids at home... if I lose my job, then we are screwed royally. Not from the loss of income, mostly from the loss of health insurance. only a single young kid with no kids would fail to understand the terror of having a family without health insurance. Housing can be gained, food can be gained... that $400.00 a month perscription for your wife's health or the special needs of a chil you have? you CANT get those wnywhere.. you cant replace those med's with a $0.29 cent box of Kraft Dinner. without the med's you are Boned... royally boned. what happens if a child get's sick? I guess let em die? a single woman with children get's aid from the state... a family is told to go to hell.
"I haven't seen any overlords with whips beating the backs of workers to get them to perform."
really? you are obviousally new to the world of work... as they do find those and make sure to let that employee know that "we are going to have to cut health benefits if you dont work double overtime for free so we can ship this product on time." and management knows for a fact that family workers are prime for abuse as they will not leave without having something else lined up no matter how crappy they make it for that employee.
Me? I'm enough of an asshole to tell my boss to F**K himself loudly and instantly go over his head and tell that asshole to F**K himself.. I've let my bosses know this from day one that I will NOT go above and beyond for them unless they do so for me. Basically I learned really early to NEVER EVER trust your employer, I don't care how nice they are, they will NEVER go out on a limb for you.
CEO's are not boogeymen. but they are generally useless to every corperation. they typically offer ZERO leadership, ZERO ability to actually change the course of the company. Ther are a few good ones, but they are getting as rare as the DoDo bird.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
At what stage in US history was it ever the case that anyone had a guarantee of a good job???
Geeze, we Americans have gotten as bad a Europeans, we demand that someone has to take care of us, or else we whine about how unfair everything is!
Hellfire, if my parents had had that attitude during the Depression, they wouldn't have ever married and raised a family, since there definitely were no "guaranteed jobs!" My Dad was a coal miner, but when the mines shut down, he packed everyone up and headed to Detroit to find work, and if he couldn't work at a car plant, he worked odd jobs, worked at tool and die plants, worked wherever he could. Mom would work checkouts, or wherever she could, even if it was shit work (washing the diapers for kids she babysat surely counts).
There are times I really despair about the future of the US, if the generations to come are expecting endless "guarantees" and special treatment. What the hell will happen when we do have another Great Depression? From the attitudes being shown by the current crop of whiners, I predict mass suicide by people too shocked to cope.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
How is that situation now?
And they are not becoming that much wealthier.
How much are they paid again?
emt 377 emt 4
I just feel like pointing out a recent article in Infoworld that suggests that offshoring is good and the related press release of a study by the ITAA.
All the India IT/teleco workers would be OUT OF JOBS if it wasn't for the USofA outsourcing. Want a job? Move to India and start living it the same standard of living and Indian programmer lives.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I can't believe this was marked down as a troll. We now have 30 job openings in the Santa Monica office of Symantec that I'm aware of, and we're having a hard time filling the job openings.
Is it that the person who marked this down is more interested in promoting their politics than letting people know that there are job openings? Granted, I was sarcastic, but the need for jobs at Symantec is real: if you have Java experience, go to Symantec's web site and submit your resume.
But I guess if politics is more important than people getting jobs, please--mod this down to -1: Troll.
I hope someone reads this, my humble post.
I have been required as part of my daily work existence to actually point out to people who run major corporations all over the world that their is a potential downside to all the benefits of outsourcing, namely:
!) All these so-called third world countries who have been the focus of relocation of so many American, Japanese, European Union, Australian and a few Russian and Chinese jobs, yes, RUssian and Chinese,...are NOT generating enough tax revenue from these low paying and HIGHLY technical jobs to provide themselves any means of actually starting these industries effectively, in their own countries thereby allowing reciprocal trade and imports or say allowing Africa and parts of Asia to someday become the 'India' of the future.
2) Some of these countries, nay, most, subsidise business competitiveness through government involvement such as outright cash distribution, grants which never get paid back, loans at less than 3 cents on the dollar equivalency and by arbitrating or outright denial of litigation against any of these firms in order to protect their investment, when they do break the law. What do I mean? In India, child labor laws do exist, but they are enforced by 'voluntary' action on the part of the firms. It is the same in China where legal dissidents are jailed for their views or for perceived and unconfirmed actions/views and forced into back-breaking labor to meet private industry needs without trial or chance for parole!
3) In countries where a legal trade is flourishing a growing middle-class occurs. In countries where illegal activity generates tremendous wealth and gain, their is a rapidly growing disparity between the haves and have-nots and almost no middle class or a middle class that begins to falter badly, as in Canada for example where the drug trade and the poor legal enforcement system and political corruption ( The police chief of Toronto calls it," this bargain basement legal system...") has allowed organized crime to grow so much that it most literally prints its own money right at the treasury! They have members of the Hell's Angels running organized crime rings while earning a college-Law degree, both, while behind bars, watching CNN and receiving $50.00 per month from the tax payers!!! In China, there is a growing middle class. In India there is one also, BUT, the purchasing power in these middle class entities is so low, whole industries are outside there reach: They will NEVER be able to buy
a car, a house, a boat, a plasma display high definition television, even a real gamers-type PC with all the bells and whistles. All you will ever see of Indian and Chinese wealth or prosperity is the wealthy ones at the top or five working class families sharing a house and apparently 'surviving'.
4) The high tech hardware they need to move into true first world presence is illegal for them to use, purchase or virtually, touch. One of the high tech firms I assist, has a Cray supercomputer for a mail server. It is expressly forbidden for anyone in Indian to even send mail TO IT!!!! You cannot even export an SGI 'anything' to China, India or Russia. Their response has been to use Open Source tools and clusters of slighty older technology which is allowed and commendable, BUT , NOT INNOVATIVE. What am I saying? Under close scrutiny, there is really nothing to fear from all this outsourcing - ITSELF!!! Yes, companies will do it, but as long as import laws keep these nations using three and four years old hardware, and cutting edge technology is being invented in US labs and closely controlled, you will stay a step ahead, but just a step.
NOW, enters the " Benedict Arnold" component. Most major hi-tech firms are moving R&D to CHina and Inda and allowing industries there access to the latest and greatest technology as a matter of technology transfer for lower taxes and keeping work wages down, this IS treason and not just for the US! Al Queda has very strong ties in ALL these countries except Japan and Australia. It may
What to do with your old children? Sell them off for experimentation or to send them to reservations or disinternment camps where we put people who we don't want around and have to listen to their whining.
.. then the cost of their products should go down proportionally to the amount of jobs shipped overseas (well not directly, but you know). How much have the prices of Intel's products actually gone down? One could argue that the extra profits would allow Intel to fund more research, but unfortunately I do not think this money has begun to trickle down, a la Reagan *cough*. Perhaps it got stuck in the CEO filter?
Globalization where we don't insist foreign workers fall under the same EPA, OSHA, minimum wage, workman's comp, etc standards that we force on the employeers of our OWN workers.
Amen! Dumping cheap products and services in the US is a PRIVILEDGE, not a right of these other up-coming nations. Plus, many of the nations guilty of dumping have plenty of barriers against US goods and services. We are boxing and they are street-fighting. (Simon and Garfunkle reference)
Table-ized A.I.
http://www.vasoftware.com
do a quick search and notice that 95% of fortune 500 companies outsource. What we need now is to outsource all those CEO, CFO and marketing. Yeah, I want to buy at Walmart at dirt cheap price for high quality goods(?)
It's really troublesome how much money is squandered on expensive executives... but it looks like there's a grand solution out there:
OffshoreExecutive
Communities reduce taxes on plants because plants mean jobs and the promise of making it easier to get future plants to the same area.
That tax reduction is an investment by the regional government, because other revenue streams have to be tapped to cover the shortfalls in services and infrastructure costs that the plant creates.
The other revenue streams are your income and property and sales tax dollars.
YOU invested in that plant, so that YOUR community would have jobs. Then Barrett blows you off and sends the jobs to Bangalore.
And you say "wow, what a big cock you have, Creggers."
Our economy is suffering. It is due, in large part, by our growing unemployment rate. But let's skip the unemployment problem for a moment and move on to macro-economics.
When money is spent on labor within the U.S. the money stays here and, for the most part, circulates. When money is spent on labor outside of the U.S. the money is gone and lost forever.. for the most part.
The nation's wealth is being sent out of the U.S. It's simple.
Now back to unemployment. These companies are allegedly trying to make cheaper (more competitive) products and services. (I say allegedly because SWBell is cutting benefits for employees while they are consistantly making profits and raising salaries of top executives and this practice isn't limited to SWBell) With unemployment growing, to whom exactly do these wise captains of industry expect to sell their cheaper products and services? With a rising employment rate is a dwindling consumer base.
The error is in being short-sighted and, in my opinion, fall-out from some 80's style economics practices. I don't fully buy into the "we must remain competitive" crap we're being fed daily either. These retiring CEO's know exactly what they are leaving to their successors and simply don't care.
So what solves it? Altering their motivation. What would alter their motivation? Threat of death? Threat of criminal prosecution? Good-will and conscience doesn't play into this at all, so what would be the instrument of change?
Geeze, we Americans have gotten as bad a Europeans, we demand that someone has to take care of us, or else we whine about how unfair everything is!
Nope. We point out, correctly, that despite our best efforts to become productive members of society, others make it impossible to do so, and now have a financial incentive to continue.
headed to Detroit to find work, and if he couldn't work at a car plant, he worked odd jobs, worked at tool and die plants, worked wherever he could. Mom would work checkouts, or wherever she could
It's one thing to expect to lose a job when a company goes out of business. It's entirely another to lay off people by the thousands to increase quarterly profits, only to hire them back at dramatically reduced wages the following week.
It seems we need an economics lesson here. Just because an American worker loses his/her job doesn't mean the CEO has simply taken away his/her livelihood. The money has been *redistributed*. If the company does not stay profitable, many more people do lose thier jobs.
The point is these companies are in no danger of going under. They are shipping jobs overseas to get the CEO a bigger bonus.
Also remember, there are more people depending on a company than just the ones who happen to work there. What about grandma and gradpa whose retirement is dependant on the success or failure of the company?
Actually, Grandma is more likely dependent on Social Security than any company for retirement. When a company ships a job overseas, not only does the U.S. lose out on income tax revenue, but also FICA (Social Security) tax. It also loses the employers matching FICA *contribution*, so Grandma loses twice for every job that leaves.
But it is small minded to forget that the money from those salaries gets divided between the new offshore worker and the share holders (and the corp execs, yes).
Yes, the unemployed people who built the company into what it is should really be happy that their redistributed salaries are inflating the executives' already obscene *compensation*. Those "small minded" whiners deserve to lose their jobs.
it's worth to them. They don't seem to mind spending millions on buying any companies that they think present a threat to them. However they don't seem to spend millions on buying out individual open source contributers to keep them from damaging Microsoft's interests. Probably because by the time they find out, it's too late. Well, ok, some of them work for Microsofts competitors but I know for a fact that some do not.
We now have 30 job openings in the Santa Monica office of Symantec that I'm aware of, and we're having a hard time filling the job openings.
I'll take a wild guess and say the hiring manager is looking for people who have no "gaps" in their employment history, thus disqualifying almost everyone.
I'll take a further wild guess and say the hiring manager is getting dozens if not hundreds of resumes from fine programmers who don't happen to have exacting experience in the specific language or technology of the job, thus disqualifying everyone else.
Small houses on big chunks of land in the country. And my car is a paid-for 1993 model. That's what happens. But it sucks to be anybody else, I guess.
resigned
. . . at the expense of millions of others, but "consumers" and their own employees.
."
That is, "both 'consumers' and . .
Sorry about that.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I am wondering something about all these supposed 'productivity gains' in the US, like because of outsourcing their math used in calculating productivity is wrong (which is why it looks like it keeps going up so much).
I mean if you have a company in the US with 100 people, and 50 IT staff working on stuff. You fire 45 of the IT/software staff and outsource their work to India (5 staff have to stay with the company for network maintenance work..etc).
Now you have a company with 55 staff (rather than 100), far lower IT costs, and a line item that says 'IT oursourcing services'. So now 'productivity' has shot up, hasn't it!?!
Well not really.. Probably you now have in India 150 people doing the same work as the 45 you fired, but since they work almost for free, it doesn't matter.
So productivity hasn't gone up at all (in fact it has gone down!). What has just happened is you replaced americans doing the work, with people elsewhere who work just for food..
This is just a numbers fudge..productivity in the US hasn't gone up at all...
Let's then say that he beats out every major American car manufacturer and takes their marketshare. THIS WOULD BE A DISASTER FOR EVERY AMERICAN WORKER BUT JOE.
Well, except for the workers who buy cars. Which would be what, all of them?
Joe might get rich, he might make a bunch of foreign outsources rich, but he has helped suck both money and jobs out of the country.
It's impossible to suck money out of the country. If US dollars get exchanged for foreign goods, then either those dollars are eventually used to repurchase US goods (in which case money wasn't sucked out of the country) or they are never eventually used to repurchase US goods (in which unlikely case we can safely print replacement dollars without contributing to inflation, the country has just as much money as before, and we've simply received free foreign goods).
6) It is the U.S. government's job to protect the global economy.
WRONG! It is the U.S. government's job to protect US citizens in both the short-term and the long-term.
Yes, but for at more than the last century this has implied protecting the global economy. It was less than a century ago when the US realized this, though. Attempting to recover from a stock market crash by record protectionist tariffs, then suffering through a global depression for the next decade, really brought the lesson home.
Moderators, I oppose outsourcing of American jobs but I want to give a different point of view here.
But ( devils advocate here ) why should a CEO pay more money for an inferior service?
Its not a golden parachute but rather part of the resonsiblities of a CEO. If a CEO wont outsource he needs to be fired for someone who will look out for the shareholders. Remember they own the company.
PS if the stock prices go up, then mom and pops make money and improve the economy. The economist just did an article showing how outsourcing creates 2 jobs for every one lost.
If you are a high tech worker or dont have money to invest( regular guy) then yes you are being screwed.
If a CEO has a problem with it, then he should work for a private company or start his own. Then he can do whatever the hell he likes.
Also I do believe Barret was full of it with education ( as the sole reason) as a statement to divert attention of the outsourcing. But he is correct and so is Fiorna of HP. We are undereducated, expensive, and non productive( we demand money).
Colleges are a dime a dozen in the states and k12 do not educate our youth. They are child daycare centers. Do your homework and you instantly get a low B.
Sure there are a few highly educated workers but they are hard to find and non numerous. Havard is known to crank out degrees so anyone with a degree from an Ivory league school may or may not be as good as a graudate from IIT( Indian institute of Technology). Also a recent grad from there will be happy making 15k a year if he is really good. Far from minimium wage and is a livable salary.
Such prestigious schools in India do things like ban calculators which force them to do real math, and they accept students based on knowledge rather then wealth cough Princeton/harvard cough.
Second is english. As you can tell from my post, I suck at it( lack of education and dyslexia). Why should I have the job over someone who can write and speak better? I use to get angry over this but the employers are correct. What value do I provide?
Also why can't we work for 20k or 25k a year? Think your better then the sucks at BurgerKing and walmart? they make 7 or 8k a year. Seriously? They work less then an Indian and have terrible working conditions. Many work 2 jobs at 80 hours a week just to pay rent? Working for 25k a year for only 40 hours in an airconditions office is paradise. There is an overhead of probably 10k a year for the 15k a year indian costing the company perhaps 25k. ( talking out of my ass here). But there is the overhead.
You have a much better job and yes it costs money to have things oversea's. 20-25k is quite equal to the amount of 15k plus overhead for a good Indian.
People live in poverty all the time so get used to it. Your not better then they are. Living poor like I am now is quite character building. You can always move up.
The moral is get highly educated( real college not a certification school), work for alot less and provide better. Get straight A's in school if your not ivory league. This will show your employer your just as valuable as the Indian and have the advantage that your local.
http://saveie6.com/
"No single drop of water thinks it is responsible for the flood"
This is the problem with capitolism in America... Each company will do what will net it the most money in the short term, while screwing themselves over in the long-term... It was self-regulating when companies were small, but now they can destroy the economy in one city and not be affected, because they service such a large area, that an economic disaster in one city doesn't seriously affect their sales anymore.
Outsourcing is only one example. I'd say it's comparable to companies settling frivilous lawsuits... It might cost them more to fight a case, rather than settle, but if they fought a few, people would get the message, and wouldn't file frivilous lawsuits anymore. On a case-by-case basis, settling is better, but pretty soon, there are millions of frivilous lawsuits, and the company would go bankrupt if they settle them all.
Outsourcing is the same thing... You can rationalize it by saying that it will drop prices and increase sales, but that doesn't happen because, *gasp* the economy is doing poorly. They will continue to complain about the terrible economy, while they are outsourcing more jobs.
It's time to increase tarriffs people. They were actually invented just to prevent countries with more competitive economic conditions from completely taking over, like China and India are now.
And before I hear from you free-trade advocates, you need to take a look at what's happened because of NAFTA. Things have not gotten better, they've gotten worse. There are a few people making a tiny bit more money, but the majority of Mexicans are making less, mainly because their former jobs are gone... Corn farmers in Mexico are out of work because of the industrialized corn farmers in the US. Yet the farmers in the US still aren't making enough money to support themselves. It's been lose-lose almost exclusively, and dropping tarriffs across the board would be catastrophic.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
This is not a troll, but im sure those most affected by the problem will miss the point ... anywho ...
... you simply wouldnt have those toys.
Just be like Bush
Ignore any trade agreements / laws.
Put a huge tariff on any work done overseas for US companies regardless of how reasonable or fair it is for the work to be done in the manner it is in those other countries. (you are afterall the only important people anywhere, screw all others, they don't deserve what you can have)
Let your own companies die a slow painful death, killing your economy because all other companies around the world are able to compete better.
The programmers in India live a very good life there because the cost of living is much lower than it is here. I wonder how much of the high cost here is due to the ignorant protectionism that has nearly destroyed the US agriculture, sugar, lumber and other industries?
Don't like that someone else can live a good life doing what you do for less? Go live the good life in India instead of twiddling your thumbs here.
Why shouldn't programming / IT work be outsourced? manufacturing of everything you use every day has been outsourced (manufactured elsewhere) 30 or more years! Just imagine what you would have to pay for your favourite toys if you had to pay for them to be made in the US!
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
only a single young kid with no kids would fail to understand the terror of having a family without health insurance.
Or someone living in a civilised country where health care is provided as a basic right. Any country that would leave sick children untreated is itself diseased beyond anything words can convey.
yea I read somewhere that wal-mart alone was responsible for 10% of the GNP of China.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/08 05063897/103-2802373-7693457?v=glance
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
If I could clarify my comment a bit:
1) It doesn't matter if the company is going under today or not. CEOs get paid a lot to try to predict the future and figure out what the economy and business climate will be like in 3 - 10 years, while at the same time being profitable today. Its called strategic planning.
2) grandma may be dependant on SS today, but if you think it will be around for too much longer you are kidding yourself. I should have used the 55 - 60 year old who has been contributing to 401K for a few years, and knows that SS won't cover costs as the example.
3) No, the people who worked hard to build up the company do not _deserve_ to lose thier jobs. And I truly believe that a responsible company will offer a generous severance in these situations.
The simple fact is that we have entered a global economy. Labor mobility is higher and easier to achieve than ever before (especially in technology). The internet and modern telecommunications have made it possible to remove physical location from the labor equation in many ways. Time zone differences and language barriers are still an issue, but we see that dealt with rather smoothly.
No one should think that thier employer owes them a job, and no one should think that they owe thier employer anything but an honest day's work. The simple fact is, make yourself valuable to the organization and you will probably have a job. If you get laid off or downsized you will have the skills and the resume to prove your worth to another company, or maybe start your own.
I'm not trying to be crass, but to just point out that none of us are entitled to our jobs. Save money and do your best to add value to the organization and you have smaller chance of being downsized or offshored. The entitlement mentality is killing the US.
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
I get sick and tired of CEO's who argue "Free Market" when it benefits their own pockets (not even those of the shareholders) then argue for legislation when that same market reveals their bad business plans. If the free market is really the true solution, then why do we have government subsidized agriculture that benefits only big agricultural firms? Why do be have high steel tariffs? How come the US had to provide bail-out loans for major airlines, yet discount airlines could survive without the loan money? Also, if the markets are truly free, why do we have such a hard time exporting to China, Japan, and even Europe. Why can China sell goods in the US virtually unabated, yet Phillip Morris is severely restricted from selling cigarettes in the Chinese market, yet the Chinese want our cigarette manufacturing techniques? Why must Japanese citizens acquire a special driver's permit to purchase a Harley Davidson Motorcycle? Let's face it. The free market is a myth. How will Intel react when their own offshore employees form thier own semi-conductor companies that turn around and dump chips on the US market? I am willing to bet then, our same Intel CEO preacher of the free market would be begging for protectionism legislation. As far as the "Benedict Arnold" label. While that label may be extreme, it is abundantly clear from his own words in the interview that Intel's Executive Management is acting in it's own best interest. Clearly, this interest has nothing to do with the health of its own home country. As he points out, China is Intel's second largest market. What will happen when it becomes his first largest market? Maybe "foreign national" is more appropriate?
I once worked with a guy that claimed he was a programmer of hand-helds.
He was asked to write a function to calculate the distance between two points.
He didn't know how. So I wrote the formula down for him.
He asked, "What's that?" as he pointed to the square root symbol.
This guy had a high school diploma. Now how the hell do you get through high school not knowing how to calculate distance? How do you graduate not knowing WHAT A SQUARE ROOT SYMBOL LOOKS LIKE?
American schools aren't being honest with their students. Feelings come before making sure student get a good education.
It's dishonest.
- America is actually a net benificiary of outsourced jobs (i.e., more money comes in from foreign countries outsourcing jobs to the U.S. than are lost outsourcing jobs from the U.S. to foreign contries). "In 2002, U.S. companies exported $14.8 billion worth of computer, data-processing, research, development, construction, archicetural, engineering and other IT services. During that same year, America imported $3.9 billion of those same kinds of services. So for every dollar Americans sent abroad for outsourcing, the world sent more than three dollars to the US. for 'insourcing.'"
- According to a 2003 study by the McKinsey Global Institue, every $1 spent on foreign outspurcing creates $1.12 to $1.14 of additional economic activity in the U.S.
- The vast majority of job losses due to outsourcing have been for lower skill jobs. Between 1999 and 2002, IT jobs went from 6.24 million to 5.95 million. However, during the same period of time, those requiring a relatively high level of training (i.e., an associates degree or higher) actually increased, from 3.43 million to 3.51 million.
- If you use the saner baseline of 1998 rather than the peak of the dotcom bubble, things look better still. Current IT employment levels are equal to those of 1998.
- "Domestic software, computer, and communications services accounted for a combined 4621 billion in 2003, up from $510 billion in 1999."
- Far more people loose their jobs to technology or domestic competition than outsourcing.
- The total outsourcing between 2000 and 2015 is only projected (by Forrester Research) to be 3.3 million jobs, or about 220,000 a year. This is a fairly miniscule number for an economy that employees 137 million, where an average of 350,000 million people file for unemployment every week even in strong economies, and which creates and average of 32.8 million news jobs (while eliminating 31 million, for a net annual gain of 1.8 million jobs) every year.
- Outsourced jobs tend to go to countries that emulate the United States with low taxes and deregulated economies, and the foreign companies jobs are outsourced to tend to buy American equipment and services to do the job.
A lot of the reason you see so many complaints about outsourcing on Slashdot tends to be the reinforced tendencies of self-selected sets. The people who do lose their job to outsourcing are the ones that complain loudest and longest, and the ones whose sob stories get modded up. The people who haven't lost their job, or who work in a company that benefits from "insourcing," have no particular reason to speak up. The fact is, outsourcing is just one of the more painful parts of free trade, but free trade improves the lives of everyone. You have to be able to look at the big picture to see that.Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
If you did well in school, have a good education, but can't find a job, why not start your own business and follow the advice: Compete!
Becuase I don't have the millions required to start a semiconductor company. Those that, do, venture capitalists, will insist that all the R&D in my new company be outsourced.
So, in the best case scenario, I end up doing work that I am neither trained for, nor well suited for. How is that any different than if I don't start my own company?
Since when are there guarantees? There are no guarantees people. All the banal systems you craft, family, wealth, security, can and will disappear like the phantoms they are. You can wake up with some flesh eating disease and that's it, you're fucked. Don't expect to live forever. Be nice to people and try to do something interesting in your life instead of obsessing over comfort and credit. Then maybe when you realize everything has fucked up and it's over, you won't feel so bad and have to complain that your simulated life's gone to shit.
Rights are whatever people want them to be. That's the only reason people have rights to begin with, is because at some point everbody agreed that things like democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of unlawful entry, right to bear arms, would be a good thing to have in a free society. So, if enough people want it, then yes, it IS a right. It's worth thinking about.
According to this wonderful documentary
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/
the problem is that corporations now have more power than the government. Cheap labor is current in the manufacture industry since the industrial revoltion and unions where made to prevent that in the US.
The resulting factor is that the Us companies went abroad to get more cheap labor.
It isn't unionized, but even if it were, the offshoring is already underway.
The governement should pass some sort of cheap labor tax where the companies using offshoring would have to pay a tax, but since corporations hold more power than the governement now, such a law would never pass, and even if it did, it would just be a tax, the governement would hold the money and we poor IT workers wouldn't see it do any good.
Go see this movie, it's an eye and mind opener.
We should have been
So much more by now
Too dead inside
To even know the guilt
If we love free market and capitalism, then we should love outsourcing....whether it puts us out of a job or not.
If we want to put more regulations on business to prevent outsourcing, and employ more Americans, then we will be making the market a little less free, and our economic system will be a little less capitalistic.
I am not saying this is good or bad. I am just pointing out that we can't have it both ways.
--B
Wasn't Intel created by a group of engineers who learned the trade at another chipfab, and left together? Now that entire CPUs
(Whitefield) are being designed in India's Intel colony, I wonder how long it will take for history to repeat again.
Yes, I have a US-centric viewpoint. Duh! I'm in the US.
"The whole point globalization is to remove national barriers to trade therefore allowing other nations to directly prosper from the unequal wealth that the west currently holds."
Yet it does so WITHOUT any of the worker/environmental protections that we have in the US. In essence, it is about hiring cheaper labour.
"It will probably take a generation or two before the whole world really starts to see the direct benifit from these exercises, but overall it will be much better for the world economy as a whole."
That is a belief. Rather than base the future upon a hopeful fantasy, why not take steps NOW to ensure that the future will be better?
Such steps include NOT opening up "free trade" until AFTER a country has the same or better worker/environmental protections that we do?
"As the remaining of the 5/6 of the world's markets open, in general a state of equalization will occur between all nations on the planet."
This is also known as the "race to the bottom".
You didn't think about that, did you? It is possible for "equalization" to result in a LOWER standard of living for everyone except the group currently at the bottom. That sure sounds like a future I want to live in.
"Globalization will prove to the western world formost that we are not at all that great and competing in free markets as we think."
Translation: Globalization will prove that slavery is a viable economic solution.
their local gov'ts are cutting businesses really good deals right now (stuff like paying half of all employees wages for 5 years). As soon as those deals expire, the businesses will take off. The politicians responsible for those deals don't care though. By the time the sh*t hits the fan, they'll have moved on the next stage of their political careers, leaving their successor to clean up the mess.
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You can not ask for even more R&D spending funded by the taxpayer and tell them that you will outsource the results of that offshore in order to commercialize it. People like Intel should be well aware of the fact that their business was created by the taxpayer during the cold war for the national interest. There has to be some middle ground. They essentially want to have it both ways and this cannot happen. It is just a form a serfdom to force research funding out of the taxpayers' wallets and then farm it out overseas to make a profit. Better that the intels of the world undertake their own long term R & D. This particular argument is not just disingenuous, it is fundamental crooked. They are merely avoiding investment at the taxpayers expense and investing in competing economies at the same time - it is just screwing the taxpayer twice. They will quickly see through this. Curiously, it is reminiscent of the early rational for farm subsidies.
I really do not believe the education argument at this point in time - it is just about cheaper wages. That is not to say that it will not be a problem in the future. I think this is just a dodge, and it is supported by his contention the the university system is "healthy." If this is so then there must be enough graduates with the right skills - they just want first world wages. This is a rhetorical pose meant to deflect and scare - It does not make economic sense. Again, it is the price differential, not the skill, that motivates the outsourcing. Again, the offshorers expose themselves as possessing a singular tendency toward dishonesty and obfuscation in their defenses. The public will soon weary of this constant resort to rhetoric at tjhe expense of rational argument.
In addition, if companies like intel use offshoring to "compress" wages then there will be fewer people entering the fields. Nothing could be more obvious. What is required is a middle ground - yes obstacle to business, infrastructure and educational issues need to be addressed but there needs to be some sort of guarantee to support the nation. The question will be put before them: are you a loyal a corporate citizen of our society? If just the left can force such extreme measures in environmentalism and and "diversity in the work force" just imagine what an entire engraged populus can do. Push will come to shove, and the Intels of the nation need to have some less self-serving answers then these when it does.
The attitude one sees in this article is particularly vexing in that the Feds went in and supported the semiconductor manufactures both in term of trade agree ments and informal quotas when the Japanese and the Taiwanese we threatening them in the 70's and the 80's, they were not preaching competition back then. This is how the current "international division of labor" in IC manufacturing came about. I would not be surprised to hear them start whining about unfair trade practices when the Chinese home grown semiconductor business takes off in a few years. They may find that their own words are thrown back at them.
We must address this issue seriously and find the right compromise. Firms like intel will find that they have to come half way. It would seem perfect time for a true compromise that might work
It is truly disturbing how self serving their arguments are and the fact that they do not seem to see this fact themselves. The nation will soon weary of high tech firms that do not contribute to the advance of the nations work force. I am amazed that they do not see this; this was an axiom is technology management throughout the cold war.
"Right", no I suppose not, but unions worked hard to make the 40 hour week a standard in this country. The problem is, there is no threat to these companies anymore: no one cares where the crap they buy is made. No one will pay extra to buy American. Hell, in a few industries (auto in particular) some will pay more to avoid it! We have had it real easy in this country for a long time, and it looks like its time to pay the bill.
The best thing we can do as members of the work force is try to be the BEST at our jobs. Make it worth the extra money! Trust me, it can work. In my industry (Boilermaker), there are many non-union companies that will do the work MUCH cheaper than we will, but the eventual result is that we are hired to fix what they fucked up and it winds up costing more in the long run!
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
I contracted at Intel last year. It seems the majority of workers there are contractors (a.k.a. temps) and the rest immigrants. Believe it or not, Intel managers actually go overseas to recruit people on a regular basis.
While I was temping there as a Network Admin, the fired my boss about half way through my contract, I was running the show until it was over. Near the end, they asked me to interview other temps and train a few regular employees to do the job. They even extended my contract despite telling them I had other plans, regardless, I left after a year anyway.
I've heard through the grapevine that things in that department completely fell apart about three months after I was gone. The people that they replaced me with has no real experience running a large network. The manager of this department is one ignorant SOB, most of the temps that were working there with me stated there was no way the would never come back either.
My impression of Intel was completely shattered after all this and I probably turn down at least two recruiters a week to go back and do another year.
I also stopped buying Intel products, as a consumer that votes with my dollars, I refuse to support a company that doesn't support jobs in it's own country.
>I'm enough of an asshole to tell my boss to F**K
>himself loudly
How do you pronounce "**"?
Done aaaaaaand done!
Believe me, I'm way ahead of you on that one.
Your situation and my situation are very different. When you moved to the U.S., you got paid way more than you would have back home, and could return home very well off. If I went to another country to work, I would get paid less than I can make here shoveling $h1t in Hell, and if I could one day afford to return to my country, would have nothing to show for it.
Do you see now how your solution is not viable?
I guess I can't fault you; after all, I can't come up with any viable solutions...
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
>> They work of their own accord. And if they want, they can leave.
I can. I'm an American. Someone in India, where there are more people too poor to eat than there are US citizens, can't do that. They starve if they do. The overlords don't need or want slaves. Look at the South around civil war times. All their capital was being dumped into slaves. Why do that when you can have all the benefits of slavery (people who have to work as much as you want for as little as you want) without the added hassle of ownership. It's so much easier to replace the ones that run away or you work to death when you don't own 'em. It's a very dumb capitalist indeed that wants to own their workers.
If outsourcing isn't the fault of the people doing the outsourcing (CEOs), then whose is it? Globalization isn't a living, breathing thing that makes decisions, it's an abstract concept. The negative effects that we attach to the word 'Globalization' are caused by human decisions. I wish people would stop treating economics and human behavior as inevitable natural events like tidal waves and earthquacks.
Lowering our standards of employment doesn't solve the problem, it _is_ the problem. If you want to solve the problem, start enforcing manditory sterilization for the poor. The only time in history when the poor haven't been abused is when there haven't been enough of 'em to go around.
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...oh, wait a second... I'm sort of Indian. Do I get to be an overlord to?
Seastead this.
Fine - the kid gloves are off then. Republican heads on pikes, people! Riot now!
the culture underlying it
A lot of things have changed in 40 years, not the least of which being the expansion of the entitlement mentality.
In my opinion it comes down to basic rights and responsabilities: Corporations are given the rght to exist and are also given other special rights and protections and in return they have a responsability to add to the public good. CEOs become confused wether the "public" in question is their shareholders or their employees. I think we should make it clearer to them which public they should serve first. I'm to the point of recommending using a cattleprod to do it.
Corporations don't manufacture or sell goods in a vaccuum. There are a lot of hidden costs in commerce currenly underwritten by the citizens and we should make it clear to corporate America who is paying the loin's share of the bills.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I call bullshit on this. No one is holding a gun to your head. You can find opportunities everywhere, if you're smart enough and have the cojones to work at it. Maybe it's not what you went to school for, maybe it starts out crap work, maybe it's something you think is beneath you, but the opportunities are there.
Oh, darn, you don't want to be a manager? You don't want to fix people's computers? You don't want to do something that no one else is doing? You don't want to move 1500 miles from your parents to find a programming job? You don't want to work for less than $75,000 a year to start? Too damn bad!
I call bullshit on this one, too. Even if a company acts like this, it still doesn't mean it 's the only company in the entire US that's hiring people. Move away, go work for a different company, or start one of your own, or do something different. Staying there to be treated like that is no one's fault but the ones who stand for it. And don't tell me "it's too hard" to move, or "too hard" to start a company, or "too hard" to do something you've never done before. Your grandparents and great-grandparents would laugh in your face to hear that. They certainly would be ashamed of you for the attitude.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
He is on the other side of the labor market. He wants more qualifed people to choose from becuase it pushes labor supply up and drives wages down, just as outsourcing kills job security and pushes wages down.
By the way, his argument about improving K-12 education is entirely bullshit. He is hiring for technical positions out of bachelors, masters, and PhD holders, not high school grads. Quality of US universities and university grads is right up there with the foreign competition.
nevertheless be eagerly paid by a grateful public.
You mean a grateful employed public. You know, the kind that actually has money to spend?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
IMO, outsourcing is merely a symptom of a much larger problem that has psychological and sociological roots.
I submit:
* There's a fundamental paradigm shift in the mindset of the American work force. This is evident in all societies that become more capitalist and consumer-centric, and America being the leader of this trend, exhibits the pathology to a more extreme degree than other societies. America also has a less-substantive cultural background from which its sense of purpose has evolved when compared with Asian or European cultures and this also contributes.
* While there are numerous exceptions, I see a substantive trend towards the output of the American worker, on average, considered little more than a means to an end. Sense of pride in a job well done now takes a back seat to revenue generated and the collection of material posessions.
* The new, extreme consumer-centric American society revolves around selling neatly-packaged, instantaneous [seeming] solutions to solve all known problems.
We have new economies rapidly being built around business models driven by the idea that everything needs to be constantly updated, upgraded and replaced. Things aren't built to last "forever"; products are specifically engineered to be quickly obsoleted in order to maintain a constant scheme of consumption and revenue.
* So now we have a society where we have managed to easily provide ourselves of basic necessities, and are now "manufacturing desire" as a product unto itself. The process of creating this market has two really bad side-effects: First, we are conditioned to consider all products to be inadequate, even from the moment we produce or acquire them. The fact that nothing is ever good enough demoralizes our work force. So nobody really cares about the quality of their work. Second, the process of promoting this consumer-centric model manifests itself in an ever-increasing sensory bombardment of messages promoting inadequacy and simple solutions (however unrealistic) to complex problems. People become ADD and progressively less-capable of addressing issues from a proactive perspective.
* So in our great, advanced society, we are overrun by those seeking simple solutions to complex problems, and those promoting simple solutions to complex problems. Our work ethic has gone to shit. We're so constantly bombarded with messages of inadequacy and the idea that "upgrading" will make everything instantly better, that we're not motivated to take the long road, understand why things fail, and actually solve problems. We just keep putting band-aids on things and passing the buck.
* In many markets, this pathology isn't as critical, but when you talk of computer systems, their ability to be qualified as capable or non-capable are obvious. So when you need a complex system developed, outsourcing the project to a different cultural state, that isn't so tainted (yet), and still maintains more of a sense of pride in a job well done, makes sense.
I've always felt that outsourcing was less about money and more about quality. And the truth is, the tech industry in America has become overly politicized, and the American worker has a dramatically diminished work ethic that is the result of his ever-changing environment, which de-emphasizes the significance of a job well done in favor of upgrading to the next perfect solution.
Is education an issue here? Yes, but it's not as much dependent upon the knowledge people posess as it is the need to educate people on more abstract concepts involving a non-materialistic search for satisfaction, pride and productivity.
Indeed, these were two rather wild guesses, and do not sound too convincing.
...I appreciate it.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
The problems with family in the U.S. are much, much worse than you are saying. Even when there is no divorce, a high percentage of families are disfunctional. For example, both U.S. President George W. Bush and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney are alcoholics. Dick Cheney has two DUIs and George W. Bush one:
Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record
Most people have little experience with alcoholics. If you know one, ask him or her about this. Alcoholics say that it requires "4 to 6 years" of driving drunk before they get a DUI. (DUI means "Driving Under the Influence of an intoxicating drug.) They will tell you that "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic".
While you are talking to a (recovered) alcoholic, ask them about the other characteristics of alcoholics, such as the black-and-white thinking ("You are either with us or against us") of George W. Bush. Alcoholics are often very socially engaging and likable. At other times, alcoholics are often very angry and violent, for example, consider the war in Iraq that even hawks agree serves no purpose. It's easy to find alcoholics and recovered alcoholics in the United States. Anyone can go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the small city of Portland, Oregon, USA, there are 27 AA meetings each week, three each day.
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton's parents were violent alcoholics. You can read the book. Bill Clinton's misuse of sexuality is typical of alcoholism-influenced families.
Family life is so stressful in the U.S. that children turn to drugs to try to cope:
"The daughter of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was arrested...
George W. Bush's daughters seem to be imitating their alcoholic father: "Barbara and Jenna Bush were both charged ". Ask yourself, why do these teenage women feel they need a drug like alcohol so badly that they are willing to break the law?
Don't try to talk about this with most Americans, however. They have been told many times that the U.S. is a "Superpower" and that "The U.S. is the best country in the world". (My father says that, for example.) Most of them are unwilling to look at the problems and therefore don't truly love the United States. There is so much pain in the life of many Americans that looking at one more problem would be an overload beyond their ability.
The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created a social breakdown that affects everything in U.S. life. For example, consider breakdowns of large companies such as the Enron fraud and the WorldCom fraud and the Tyco fraud.
The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created corruption in the U.S. federal, state, and local governments:
Those who want corruption in the U.S. federal and state governments arrange that there is not enough money to do the work. This is happening throughout the United States. Here is a quote from an article written by the president of the Oregon State Bar Association:
"The c
ding! +5 Fuckin' A!!!
Sounds like they have the charter to go after this for me...
I dont want a nanny-state. Niether for me, nor for corporations.
Question: How will competition help schools? Notice I used the plural. Yes, competition will help *a* school, but only by concentrating the best students with the most money. They will be well served. What about the rest?
Being unemployeed. You make it sound like it is easy. Have you tried it? Inventing something in my garage? First, based on what idea? If I had the idea, I would be out working on it, employeed or not. Second, what can I invent that takes no money, or very little ( worked at McD's lately? probably not worth what it will do to your unemployment benefits ( that you have already paid for, so dont go there.... ) )? Remember, I am unemployeed, or not making much. Most of us need to eat. Some of us even have families. Can I afford to patent this invention? Probably not. So, first well heeled competitor that sees it is copying it. Can I market it? Again probably not very effectively, and the first company that I try to talk to about producing this miracle for me will take most of the profits, since I am not bargaining from a position of strength ( If I dont take what they offer, what stops them from simply producing it without me... I kinda have to show them everything to convince them it is do-able. ).
Why dont you swim to Hawaii from the mainland US? It's just swimming. The water is lovely.
emt 377 emt 4
You mean a grateful employed public. You know, the kind that actually has money to spend?
Yes, mostly the kind that spend it according to quality and cost, not on boosting local employment levels.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
1) It doesn't matter if the company is going under today or not. CEOs get paid a lot to try to predict the future and figure out what the economy and business climate will be like in 3 - 10 years, while at the same time being profitable today. Its called strategic planning.
No. Strategic planning is what CEOs did twenty years ago. Today's CEOs don't plan any further than the current quarter and their stock options, and that is the problem. It's called greed.
The simple fact is that we have entered a global economy.
The simple fact is that we have had a global economy for centuries. The other simple fact is that the U.S. is on the losing end of a 500 billion dollar trade imbalance.
No one should think that thier employer owes them a job, and no one should think that they owe thier employer anything but an honest day's work.
That's a really sad viewpoint that has only become popular by constant retelling since companies started being run by corporate raiders. A few decades back, companies and workers had loyalty, and that is what made American companies successful. Now, the current executives are spending that *capital* for personal gain, and the sheep are following, parroting their newspeak about global economies.
The simple fact is, make yourself valuable to the organization and you will probably have a job.
The simple fact is, many workers who made themselves very valuable to the company and built those companies into sucessful entities have been discarded in favor of more money for a CEO who has often just been hired. Skills have nothing to do with offshoring.
The entitlement mentality is killing the US.
You're right. Those silly people who go into debt for many thousands of dollars for an education, work hard, and help build a company should have no reason to think they should be able to retain their jobs. They're just a bunch of whiners, and they deserve to lose their jobs. Putting them in the unemployment line will stiffen their lips and save the U.S. Hoo-yaaahh!
Thomas Paine. Common Sense.
That's why he's still employed. His boss doesn't understand what he's trying to say.
> I don't know about you, but I don't find helping people with
> their WinME problems particularly inspiring.
How about working at a call center being paid $30K per year because there are no jobs?
I don't find the work of plumbers very interesting, but if they own the shop and have been in the biz for more than 5 years they're at least making $100K with incredible job security.
Work is work. It is who owns it that counts.
"Benedict Arnold" is permissible political hyperbole to be used against people whose economic policies you think undermine the American national interest
Thats easy. The people who are being laid off are seeing how the corps are giving aid to other countries in the form of jobs, at the expense of citizens of their own countries. Thus, these corporations are traitors to their former members by action. Whether or not this is treason against America is barely debatable, and any attempt would probably turn into a playground brawl between whiny brats, with the they're-traitors faction ending up with the black eye.
why isn't "traitor" permissible political hyperbole to be used against people whose foreign policy you think undermines the American national interest?
Thats also easy. People have the right to disagree with the majority decision without fear of retribution. Otherwise, the republicans could simply take a vote now to exterminate all the democrats and anyone who didn't vote for Bush (weren't you there when they were handing out armbands at the polls?) Having an opposing viewpoint does not make you a traitor.
Now, if these people start hurting citizens or the government through their actions, such as donating money to terrorist organizations, blowing up a few buildings, or showing up at the airport with a bomb, that would make you a traitor, by your action.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Software Development is not "low-skill". Repeatability for complex processes is a complex achievement. Nearly all of technology/science is concerned with repeatability
In no way do I disagree that there are highly skilled and highly trained individuals that are out of work. This is always the case to some degree, companies fail, get smaller, etc.
However the majority of software development does not fit your definition. Much of it is low skill work; much of it is not done by highly skilled and highly trained individuals. Around 1990 I worked on industrial equipment. The guy who did the principle coding for supervisor reports detailing equipment usage was a political science major who took a years worth of programming classes at night to be more employable. He did a fine job writing code that took raw data provided by other systems, doing simple computations, and formatting results in a human readable format. Others who were more highly trained and skilled worked on the embedded kernel and control software. Now the PolySci major turned programmer was the minority at this company but at his previous he was more typical. The previous employer was a more mainstream business that had my former coworker do internal data processing applications. He did very well there.
Personally I think that during the dot com era not only stock prices were over inflated. Salaries were over inflated. The importance of certain skills was over inflated. Many of the folks around here have artificially high expectations and inflated opinions of their skills. Around 1998 some students in a design and analysis of algorithms class were joking with their professor that the world had changed and the skills that the university was stressing were not that important. They mentioned that as students they were making $15 an hour designing web sites. The professor joked that in three years they would be getting minimum wage, that anyone with a word processor would soon be able to perform the same tasks. He suggested they pay attention to the core curriculum of algorithms, machine organization, compiler design, OS design, etc.
That said, I prefer that low skilled jobs be done locally. Support your local community whenever possible.
Sure, just some more math courses and i am sure
he would be happy to pay me 5 times as much
as someone in india or china. Yah right.
No, we are NOT xenophobic if we oppose the H1B program.
;. .
You wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Lastly, I've been seeing arguments against H1B or immigrant workers; people seem to prefer that these be abolished and that outsourcing is somewhat better. I think all those people have the wrong end of the stick. All those immigrants or workers who come here generate wealth for the US economy, pay taxes to the US govt, do R&D work that generates new ideas for growth in the US economy. Anyone who doesn't get this argument is simply xenophobic.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What a massive piece of crap that is. It just has to be "turtles all the way down", huh?
Here is an analogy for you: America is a a business, owned jointly by the citizens. Like the owners of, say, an office building, the citizens set up shop in their country, each selling goods and services for a price. Some of these citizen owners sell their services as programmers. Now these citizens hire a team of managers to help them operate their jointly owned country (call these managers "politicians".)
The politicians are supposed to look out for the owners' interests. Otherwise, they might get fired. Or, if they rip off the owners, the managers might be severely punished.
What happens if the managers go behind the backs of the owners and allow some of the citizens to import programmers to do work in the country/office building? When the managers are confronted with their mismanagement, they call the programmer-owners who were cheated "xenophobes".
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
So is the cost of living.
Companies here want to command a high price for their product/service, but they don't want to pay their workers a fair wage.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Nobody in America, or anywhere in the world save communist nations, has the guarantee of employment upon graduation. Nobody has the right to work. Nobody is obligated to offer you a job. That's life.
If people in India can beat us on skills vs. pay, then they get the outsourcing. I'm certainly not going to advocate some stupid scheme like tariffs or subsidizing, like we see in agriculture today. If we don't need the farmers farming, then they should get a job that's useful to society.
Freedom is the freedom to say that 2 + 2 = 4
Let me clue you in on a little thing - EVERY FSCKing JOB can be done overseas that makes above minimum wage. I'm in my second semester back at school and I've never set foot in a classroom. All Internet based baby! My professors just happen to be based in the US for now, but. . . There is absolutely no reason they could not be from Elbonia or wherever. I'm sure that they'd work for about 1/2 what this bozo makes. I wonder what his attitude would change to then. It's a hard, hard thing your kids ask "Daddy, why are you home today?"
It is all a case of "it's not me so it's not a big deal" - at least until they come for you.
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
In my opinion - this is because education has become so industrialized here (1st world, US specifically I suppose). EVERYONE has to get a high school diploma - EVERYONE worth their salt has to get a college degree. Compare this with 50 years ago when getting a college education wasn't an assumption.
Now it's an assumption - but guess what ? The number of people who actually want to be intellectuals when they're 18 years old is LESS THEN OR EQUAL TO the point it was 50 years ago.
So schools suffer because of the quality of people they admit. Students suffer because the ones who are below average are forced to take a memorization path to pass their tests. Schools have to compensate for this later case by lowering standards, because in our infinite wisdom we've decided everyone in society needs to be educated.
Now we're all running at the lowest common denominator of student - good educations are still to be had, but, as always, they require the compunction of the one being educated. The rest of the people coast through in whatever way they can to fulfill the plan that was set out for them.
Colleges can charge whatever they want because of our market economy. Demand on education is super high, not because of its quality, but because of the populace's assumption that everyone go.
Others suffer because as they get older and find out about something cool they want to study or become they have a very high bar to getting back into education.
I don't know what to do about it. I think the answer will be very unpopular and un-PC though - because I think it will require educational institutions to become CHEAPER, and to become more SELECTIVE. College shouldn't be an expensive right.
I did not go to college. I didn't even graduate from high school. I've earned a place in the upper class, excellent software jobs, and I can calculate convolutions, solve DEs, and write and solve transfer functions for AC networks probably just as well as most of you can.
Why ? Because to me - education is a deeply personal thing - I educate myself because I love learning things. I decided at an early age that those feelings were at odds with our education system and that I wasn't interested.
Do I think other people should emulate me ? Hell no ! It's not a shortcut ! It's _HARD_ ! (but many of you reading this probably know what I mean when I say I wouldn't want it any @#!$% easier !)
Somehow though, the way I feel about learning has to be either taught or somehow passed on to our kids, and not stigmatized. We need better ways to bring older people back into education - because, lets face it, 18 is too damned early to expect most people to decide their futures.
Beyond this, we need to have educational institutions that aren't prohibitively expensive that foster to bring kids like this together. While I don't suffer from this particular problem, I think it's a terrible irony that we send kids out from our universities with a diploma in one hand and tens of thousands of debt in the other.
Guess what America, no more getting fed an easy life. If you are smart enough to excel in school then try to apply that knowledge in getting a job. Americans have to learn to be resourceful and accept blame when they fail. I don't think Americans understand that. * * * America needs to stop crying and accept the change.
So, when johnny gets laid off because his company thinks it can save 50% by outsourcing, Johnny should accept blame? Man, if I accepted the blame for every boneheaded decision made by management, I'd have to shoot myself.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I quite agree...Im from UK, European in name only ;)
At some point a horrific realisation will be thrust upon those that you mention.
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Companies are outsourcing employees because it is cheaper. If they don't outsource, other foreign companies will. Now all these cheap techies are producing software at half the price of their American counterparts. End result? A weak IT sector in America, followed by (you guessed it) rampant jobloss by uncompetetive American IT professionals.
Increasing corporate taxes hurts business and makes Americans less competetive. How is that supposed to increase job growth?
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Your cocky and snide remarks suggest you are the one who lacks any reasonable understanding of the REAL WORLD.
It's fairly simple, and to help you overcome your limitations, I'll use small words:
If you force labor to cost more near you, those who need labor will get labor cheaper away from you.
Now, back to big-boy talk:
THAT is the bastard son of globalization. The 1000 lbs gorrilla in the room NOBODY wants to talk about.
The only way to offset these artificial gaps in the cost of labor is to (A) remove the constraints on local labor or (B) add the same constraints on exported labor. Personally, I like (B).
The topic was discussing outsourcing of jobs and blaming it on CEOs. It's obviously not *THEIR* fault. We've paved a road for them, then bitch when they drive down the road.
Therein lies the problem. There are no more, "hardline capitalists" running things anymore. It's a bunch of short-sighted, " I-only-look-at-the-projections-from-q uarter-because-I-plan-to-bail-inside-t hree-years", types that are running things now. Foresight is in truly short supply in corporate America these days because there's no immediate gain from it.
quarter-to-
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
Hello?!? How could they compete if they must pay *minumum wage*? "Those people" are doing what all buisnesses do and should do: make money.
You appear to be missing the point. Those people are in India, and they won't need us very much longer. We are training the next crop of Indian corporations, which might be a bad move for , say, Intel.
If the fucked up liberals of the US decide to require employers to waste money on frivolous lawsuits, minimum wage, unemployment insurance, etc, then the employers will simply leave the country. And that is what they are doing.
Your Neocon is showing. You should know better than to blame all the ills of the world on Liberal Bogeymen; it's no different than blaming the Chinese a century ago.
The stuff that the US requires (minimum wage, safe working conditions, police protection, good education) are exactly the things that allowed these companies to prosper in the first place. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the companies to contribute back to the system, but apparaently some of them do.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Also why can't we work for 20k or 25k a year? Think your better then the sucks at BurgerKing and walmart? they make 7 or 8k a year. Seriously? They work less then an Indian and have terrible working conditions. Many work 2 jobs at 80 hours a week just to pay rent? Working for 25k a year for only 40 hours in an airconditions office is paradise. There is an overhead of probably 10k a year for the 15k a year indian costing the company perhaps 25k. ( talking out of my ass here). But there is the overhead.
If I'm only making 25k a year, why the hell should I go to college? That's 4 years of my life! I could have been making $30k a year for those 4 years.
You have a much better job and yes it costs money to have things oversea's. 20-25k is quite equal to the amount of 15k plus overhead for a good Indian.
No, $15k in India is like $75k here. Why should I live here and make $25k here when I could make $15k there? It seems like you'd like to make the US like India just so that one of those nice CEOs will give you a job. I'm not willing to do that - I'm worth the money I earn and more besides.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
What business person would let his manager sell out his business to his competitor? Remember, the owners of America are the citizens, NOT the govt, not the corporations, not the CEOs.
Show me how bringing H1Bs to do work here helps the CITIZENS more than having the citizens do the work.
This statement is completely incompatible with building a global economy, which considers national borders as irrelevant, and where the only unit is capital. Of course, you might not believe in this, and I don't completely either, but that's the way things are starting to work out now.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
This whole thing is about control. The "your my slave at the lowest possible cost" type control. This is just the beginning. Unfortunatley for the US, these US based companies will profit in the short term, but the governments of the foreign countries they're exporting jobs to have no such "free market" illusion. Sure sure, come here and set up your company. In 5 years, we won't need you any longer ..
You make some good points, and I most certainly respect them. As most of both of our ideas are rather subjective, I will only disagree with you one point. _Most_ CEOs are not corporate raiders, and _most_ are not greedy, heartless bastards. Some are, and those are the ones who get a lot of attention. I will also agree that executive comphensation has been rather high for the last decade at least. It has always been higher than your average worker's because of the responsibility of the job, but lately, the disparity has grown dramatically.
;)
I think my opinions are colored because I have been fortunate (so far knock on wood) to build relationships with employers where the loyalty goes both ways. This has been due to both good managers and hard work on my part. Loyalty isn't given it is earned. I don't see a lot of people suggesting that somone shouldn't take a job that pays twice as much, but can't allow you to give a notice. It goes both ways. We don't want a German like employement law where it is nearly impossible to remove poor performing workers.
It could be argued that there has been a global economy for millenia, but it is only recently (10 - 20 yrs) that it has been practical for multi-national organizations to take advantage of labor mobility and keep the labor within the organization. While I don't like IT offshoring much more than anyone else in IT, we can't deny that it is a cycle that has been seen before, steel and autos are the common examples. We need to make sure that we have skills that either cannot be outsourced or or are not practical to outsource (like plumbing
So, yes it is bad for individuals to lose thier jobs, and it is generally not thier fault, and no they are not "whiners". But if you do the math (yes, I did major in Econ), on the whole everybody wins. Those same people will be enabled to get a job with that companies supplier or customer. That is why I advocate generous severance packages (at least 1 year) in those situations, so they are not in the unemployment line.
Sorry for this, I just hate to be misunderstood. I am certianly not some ultra conservative, pro-Bush nut job. I've just studied international economics and the steel industry and worked out the maths. If you don't like the way things are going make it clear that you are willing to pay a premium for domestically produced goods, that shifts the numbers and can justify keeping jobs local despite the expsense. But in general, consumers want more for less $, thus a product's marginal cost must be pushed down in order to maintain a profit as demanded by the owners of the business (you if you own stock) and creditors (if you own bonds).
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
So tell me, do you believe saying the most idiotic things in a complex way makes you appear intelligent, and will put people off of questioning your basic, flawed premise?
You believe that people are irrelevant, only the treatment of the group matters, and individuals who happen to be doing well should take a step back and realize that they're really being held down.
Your entire main paragraph stank of the "white man holding me down" attitude that's absurd. In addition, by placing such an emphasis on race, you imply that certain races can't really succeed in today's unjust world, and any members that do are just deluded.
Also, wealth creation is quite real, and it continues, even in today's cut throat business environment. If wealth cannot be created, then how is it that the great majority of americans and europeans now live in comfort unheard of even for the aristocracy at the time of the industrial revolution. Even many of today's poor people have cars, televisions, and access to emergency health care (yeah, no insurance, blah blah blah). The number one health problem of the poor people in the united states is obesity. Not starving to death under the jack boot heal of the local noble. So anyway, WHO THE FUCK DID WE STEAL ALL THAT MONEY FROM?
We didn't. We created the wealth. That continues today, as there's been no drastic upheavel of the western civilization that has created all that wealth. Sure, life's tough sometimes for individuals.
Incidentally, the western civilization you think is doomed to the dustbin of history has no viable replacement- most certainly not transnational progressivism, which ignore such blatantly obvious principles as the corruption of unaccountable power (Saddam Husseins brutal regime, UN's oil for food scandal, for starters) It also ignores the fact that there will always be certain individuals in society are morally irredeemable and need to isolated from the rest and that human nature is to act in your own self interest.
Western Civilization, especially the United States implemenation thereof is the best way to do all of the following:
1. Ensure the advancement of science by securing the benefits of research for those who did it.
2. Ensure that people produce goods & services, for the simple fact that they own the rewards for doing so. (property rights)
3. Keep peace between democratic market countries, because they find having a country as a trading partner is more desirable than invading it.
4. Ensure horse shit ideas like yours are thoroughly hosed down by respecting freedom of speech and a questioning attitude.
5. Locking up most bad guys, and keeping most innocent people free by having the rule of law prevail and a mostly fair justice system.
I do not claim the United States system is perfect (far from it), but it's the best the world's got by a longshot. If you don't beleive me, compare the amount of people immigrating to the united states to the amount of people emigrating from the united states.
You've spent far too much time traveling in the ultra left circles at college (sometimes high schoolers pick up on this crap too), where the "Earth-in-crisis:, communism is the best way, surrender our soveirengty to a bunch of countries who aren't half as good as us by any measure you can honestly consider, and make the world into one big commune."
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I'm an Average Joe and I don't own stock. Of course, I'm trying to pay off student loans which is hard to do when you're already unemployed less than 7 years into your IT career.
Nevermind that the "tax cuts" are causing state and local governments to RAISE property taxes, bonds, etc. to pay for the money pocketed by the rich. So in the net, right now, the Average Joe isn't exactly raking it in. The OP who seems to think so is a moron.
As for Barrett... the obvious question is... if he wants to export every professional-level job in his organization to the Third World, why would the quality of US education matter to him? Another obvious point is... if the quality of education in the US is so bad, why are so many foriegners sending their kids TO the USA for a college education? Not to say that our public schools don't suck, but our college grads seem to be as well educated as everyone else's. Our college system might be more efficient if we didn't have so many kids requiring bonehead English as freshmen, but I don't see a lot of urgency with respect to improving primary and secondary education unless we have some idea as to where these kids will be working when they get out of college.
Of course, his real goal here is to persuade kids to stay in school, run up tens of thousands of dollars in debt so Intel and other US companies can cherry-pick the top 5% and the rest can go to work at Walmart or McDonald's starting their adult lives tens of thousands of dollars in debt, even worse off than the people around them who didn't "try to make it through the system".
What he is whining about is:
1) Barrett isn't complaining about the lack of trained professionals, he is complaining about the lack of professionals willing to work for minimum wage.
2) It is unlikely that he actually believes what he's saying. The cognitive dissonance between his saying "get all the education you can" and "I don't have a solution to that" is a bit too obvious. What he's trying to protect is not Intel, but his ability to pick up a few more quarters worth of vested stock options and their market price before he retires and sells out. If America is no longer a fit place to live even for the wealthy by the time he's done, there are other countries. If Intel is screwed long-term due to Barrett's use of Intel resources to train foriegn competitors, he will have no reason to care, he'll have made his pile. If regulation hits the outshoring marketplace, even if the regulation only eliminates US subsidies to outsourcing, investment analysts will be looking a lot harder at Intel's financials, and using offshoring as an excuse to cook the books to show higher quarterly profit won't work anymore. This would interfere with his pursuit of wealth at the expense of everybody else.
With respect to competitive marketplaces, Intel has been #1 for so long despite generally inferior products (see also Microsloth) that Barrett won't know a competitive marketplace until it bites him in the ass.
As for comparing him with Benedict Arnold. . . it isn't fair, he and his generation of CEOs appear to be trying to do even more damage to America long-term than Benedict ever dreamed of. If Benedict Arnold's treason had worked out, a few thousand Americans might have wound up "up against the wall". But people would still have been able to farm land and make things, they would merely have been paying taxes to England without representation for a couple or three more generations.
The long-term result of offshoring as it's being practiced now will inevitably result in Americans as a group moving way down the economic ladder. Want to see hunger and poverty in America and a generation of college educated kids with no jobs available above the warm body level? Just wait.
What's the alternative? Other than changing law and regulations that favor offshoring, massive public sector investment in basic science and technology R&D to create the products and services of tomorrow.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The fact is that no one is asking that anyone guarantee anything except that our hired men in Washington look out for the interests of the citizens, and not themselves, as they are doing when they allow scum like barrett to manipulate the system.
Your argument is such crap. To analogize, suppose I as a business owner hire a manager, and then catch him redhanded stealing from the register. I confront him, and he claims that I am unfairly demanding from him that he guarantee me a profit of a certain amount.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
if India and China and the rest of the world made comparable wages to the US do we think that outsourcing would still be such a management fad? Thought not... Its all about paying less money for equivalent talent. Period. Anthything else is a lie and a d@m lie.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
Firing a local employee and shipping his/her job overseas may not be a good thing. But it's not immoral. If the company lied to the employee, if a contract was violated, &c, that would be immoral. Moving jobs around, however, is entirely ethically sound.
Surely, you mean freedom FROM unlawful entry? ;)
And what's all this fuss about bare arms anyhow? I always wear short sleeves...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
"Benedict Arnold CEO" is going way too easy on these A**Holes..
Treasonous dogs, that should all be lined up against a wall and shot, is a much more accurate and appropriate term as far as I'm concerned...
Have a nice day ya'll
about free trade. You guys didn't get rich because of protectionism, you got rich because of free trade. The reason you earn more than people in the rest of the world is because you are more productive than people in the rest of the world. If people in the rest of the world raise their productivity and americans choose to buy things from abroad putting some small number of americans out of work, you have two choices:
(i) protectionism, benefiting a very few number of americans by not putting them out of work, but making america as a whole less efficient by imposing higher costs.
(ii) accept lower costs by importing things that you previously made in america, making all americans better off at the expense of a few americans, who will have to move job.
Burying your head in the sand and pretending that the rest of the world is not catching your levels of productivity up will lead to YOU being a third world country in 100 years time.
First, education; he wants the government (which as we all know, means all the rest of us) to improve education. This is of course a good thing, but it also seems like a boogeyman these days, especially when it comes to shifting blame. I wouldn't mind adding this interview to the "hot air that has gone out on this issue".
Next, government-funded R&D. This is the one that especially got me. He wants everyone else to pay to come up with ideas for his company. Perhaps he should outsource the R&D, if everything is so much more competitive in other countries!
Then, communications infrastructure. In the past, this has been built mostly by the government. Not so much anymore, the cell-phone system being the major example. Of course, the "swiss-army knife" of communications infrastructure is the wire and the protocols for the internet, which AFAIK was started up and largely implemented by the gubmint.
And finally, awww, he wants the government to leave him alone so he can outsource jobs and avoid paying taxes and keep doing all those "competitive" things he does.
If everything but service jobs leave the country, not only will corporations be paying far less in taxes, but the individual citizens will too, and then there will be no government money for education and R&D.
Just my two cents.
>> foreign programmers are brought into the U.S.
>> and paid very little compared to U.S. programmers
Nope. I'm an H1-B myself, and while we are essentially _slaves_ (because of H1-B restrictions and Green Card process taking FIVE years), we are paid exactly the same salary as our US counterparts. This is mandated by law and enforced strictly. Companies are actually NOT ALLOWED to pay LESS to H1-Bs that to US workers doing the same job, and this is very wise for both H1Bs and US workers.
Most Russian H1-Bs I know represent the creme of the crop of the Russian educational system, whom the company I work for imported into the US. In this sense, H1-B program is a lot more beneficial than outsourcing, because companies can really bring the best of the best OVER HERE, which makes they make money here, pay taxes here, and spend their money in this country, too.
It is my observation that with outsourcing (Indian outsourcing, anyway) you generally get just enough worker skill to get by. The reason for this is because there's usually a middleman, who makes 50% profit on exporting jobs from India. So to maximize the profit they need to hire the cheapest worker they can find. And with this, as with everything else, you usually get what you pay for.
Another observation that I have from the discussions with people who actually use outsourcing, is that it's not that much cheaper for jobs that require more skill. Only CS people are ready to work for peanuts and be outsourced very easily. Stuff that requires skill and interaction is not only more expensive, it's a lot more difficult to do considering the time shift.
It certainly would make a lot of sense for large corporations to drop the middleman, but for some reason not many choose to do so.
_Most_ CEOs are not corporate raiders, and _most_ are not greedy, heartless bastards. Some are, and those are the ones who get a lot of attention.
I completely agree with that, but it is the raiders who are getting media attention and using their bully pulpit to drive offshoring of U.S. jobs
we can't deny that it is a cycle that has been seen before, steel and autos are the common examples. We need to make sure that we have skills that either cannot be outsourced or or are not practical to outsource (like plumbing ;)
What IT skill cannot be outsourced? Americans are no smarter than anyone else. I agree that the Rotorooter guy's job will never be offshorred. Can we all make a living cleaning each others toilets?
I've just studied international economics and the steel industry and worked out the maths.
Then you know that the U.S. government has supported the steel industry through tariffs and price supports.
We've set up a system that basically lays money at their feet and we complain when the bend over to pick it up.
No, we've set up a system that pays them for shooting fish in a barrel, and we're complaining when they shoot the fish. Say what you will about how easy this is, but don't ignore all the dead fish.
I'm all for letting competition improve the company's bottom line. Just think how much money the average corporation could save if they outsourced all those expensive suits in the executive suite...
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
" Our annual income (my wife works part time) is far above the national average. "
which explains your lack or reality.
if you can easily afford your $250,000.00 home and the three newer cars you have (like that overpriced volvo do you? it's no better than a chevy but TCO of it is more than 5 times the chevy ) no idea as to the reality that the other 70% of america lives at.
try struggling once in your life instead of having it spoon fed.
Lumpy is right to a point but he misses one VERY important thing. the RICH of the world ($80,000.00 and above income) are so disconnected from the reality of what the world is that they think that it's "easy" solution... maybe if you actually used that overpriced education of your's and took a real look at the reality of the world you might quit being a pompus prick living in La-La land of the rich and wannabe rich you might see that you are maybe doing good now, but your Boss has COMPLETE control over you and your life. fire you and blackball you and your "savings", something that most americans have no idea of, will only delay your fall.
get a clue jerk. work a soup kitchen or homeless shelter and find outl what reality is.
#1. That the US is importing more jobs than it exports. I'd really like to see that material. My experience is exactly the opposite.
i n_win_gam e.pdf
#2. I've seen that report:
www.crimsonventures.com/pdf/offshoring_w
The claimed "$1.12 to $1.14 of additional economic activity in the U.S." is an ESTIMATE that is based off of non-offshore employment changes.
#3. I don't know about your "vast majority" but I do know that there are a LOT of programming jobs going to India and those are NOT "lower skill jobs".
#4. You don't compare one year to another year. You look at the TREND over 10 years.
#5. It is possible for an industry to make more money while offshoring the employees. DUH!!! That's what this whole discussion is about.
#6. "Far more people loose their jobs to technology or domestic competition than outsourcing." But the difference is that the jobs are still HERE in those cases. It is when the job is filled by someone outside of the country that there is a problem.
#7. "The total outsourcing between 2000 and 2015 is only projected..." Let's stick to facts, okay?
#8. "Outsourced jobs tend to go to countries that emulate the United States..." You mean like CHINA? Get a clue!
"A lot of the reason you see so many complaints about outsourcing on Slashdot tends to be the reinforced tendencies of self-selected sets."
Rather, a lot of the reason is that it is easy to check facts and present individual cases.
"The fact is, outsourcing is just one of the more painful parts of free trade, but free trade improves the lives of everyone."
No it does NOT. It is possible to send jobs to places like China which do NOT improve the lives of people.
"You have to be able to look at the big picture to see that."
I have. And until we can ensure that ANY country that wants "free trade" with us can match or exceed our worker/environmental protections, this is nothing more than hiring the cheapest labour you can find.
Slavery IS a valid economic system. And it does generate a profit.
I have no sympathy for someone because their wife won't work or keep her legs closed and you can't use a condom.
You married the woman who wanted support, you had the kids, you deal with the consequences. You're basically saying you deserve a job because you reproduce and keep a domestic servant. Give me a break.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Clearly free trade benefits America at a macro-economic level, but that's really not the point. The point is that at a microeconomic level there are people that need to pay the bills and feed themselves. So, if we want to maintain the macroeconomic benefits of free trade we need to address the microeconomic shortcomings of free trade by providing retraining, free education (?), and more robust unemployment benefits that include things like health insurance. These CEOs keep blathering on about the macroeconomic benefits, but doing so just makes them look even more clueless and out of it. Clearly they are so insulated by their wealth that they can't even relate to the average worker.
Incidentally, the Economist recently criticized the US government for insisting all work for the US government be done in the country because it would raise the cost of goods for taxpayers. I think that if you ask the average American taxpayer whether they want to save 3% on their taxes by outsourcing or instead spend that money to keep an American employed, then most would rather keep an American employed.
You may be thinking so how does any of this make Barrett a traitor? In the case of technology workers, they usually have invested tens of thousands of dollars in an education (assuming they got to the best schools like they are "supposed" to) to get a job that will allow them to pay the bills because people like Barrett told them that that is all they needed to do to get a job. Now, CEOs like Barrett say, "Too bad, you graduated from a great school, but we are shipping the jobs to country x,y,z". That's why people feel betrayed.
There are plenty of people who are fully qualified for these jobs, but instead they are sent overseas because it is cheaper. Barrett's insistence that it is because of a lack of qualified labor is completely disingenuous. In fact, Barrett's insistence that the problem is due to unqualified labor exacerbates the situation because it reinforces the belief that by getting a good education we are guaranteed a job. In fact, the issue is the cost of goods. Barrett has nobody to blame besides himself for being called a Benedict Arnold and his current position just makes the situation worse.
However, we need to keep in mind that corporations owe nothing to anybody besides their shareholders. If you happen to be wealthy enough to be a shareholder (50% of Americans) than all of this outsourcing stuff is good news because it increases margins. This is not a real problem. The real problem is a government that will not consider the needs of the not-rich (education, health care, etc) but only the wealthy.
Of course, there are other things to consider. For example, why should a corporation receive special treatment in regards to taxes, etc, when they are increasing the tax burden on others by forcing other taxpayers to foot the bill for any hypothetical job retraining. Not to mention corporations that evade taxes all together. If these corporations were made to pay taxes, the tax burden could be reduced for not-rich workers, etc. But, the main problem is that there are not appropriate microeconmic policies and structures in place in order to compensate for the unwanted outcomes of free trade and outsourcing in particular.
I think we understand each other better now. And you're right about the government's portection of the steel industry (esp under Bush, what a wanker). I can't recall off the top of my head, but studies have been done showing the negative effect on GDP of these protections (I don't want to dig out my papers). I also remember an article in Harvard Business Revue against protecting the steel industry, now there's a CEO publication.
But, many IT or 'near IT' jobs cannot be outsourced. For example, companies always need admins and trainers on site, because some things cannot be done effeciently off site. Another example, I write software for the banking industry. I need to know a lot about various government regulations, regulatory compliance and about how the people use the software. I need to be able to easily travel to a customer's site whether 10 miles away or on either coast, and work with the people using the software. We need to communicate at any time during the North American business day, that's why I work 7 - 5 central time.
A lot of the programming I currently do is going to be offshored in the next month and I'm thrilled. There's more work than I can do, and I get real tired of grunt coding after a while. I'll get to do the architecture and requirements, then review the code, but I won't have to spend so much time banging out accessors. Someone else is doing the boring part, and I can focus on the fun stuff (at least for me). I think I'm fortunate that the least appealing portions of my job are being offshored and not the job itself.
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
This is exactly it. The world's not nice. If you want to bring kids into and carry a woman around a world that's not nice just because you have a fetish for tradition, for family, like many people have, then you have to deal with all the problems that brings. I'd have kids, sure. Looks nice, spreading my genes and all, and a lot of people do it, I'd have a whole society to relate to, oh, the comfort! But guess what? If I ever loose my job, it'll be hard to support them. It's called being responsible and being nice to your family. It's not responsible or kind of you to have kids and then let them suffer just because you wanted them in spite of you knowing damn well that you didn't have the means to guarantee them a good life. Don't have kids unless you know you can take care of them.
"You're basically saying you deserve a job because you reproduce and keep a domestic servant. Give me a break. "
No one has said it better, parent.
...what Intel and HP are doing to help education if that is the real boogey man. And I don't mean a piddling little $1M here and there. These guys probably make 100 times that personally.
No, I want to know what these guys are doing nationally to help the problem they've highlighted.
Or is it the *government's* responsbility?
Oh well. Perhaps we ought to take a bigger tax bite out of Carly and Craig to pay for the problem they've so kindly shown us.
Their hyprocrisy is astounding. I wonder how Craig can spout this nonsense without laughing out loud.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"Barrett is precisely suggesting that we as a nation devote more tax money to research and education"
Yeah, just as long as the tax bite doesn't come from him or Intel. He's all for it.
What a great American.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
well "queer boy" you would certianly be too stupid to understand it. She is a CPA and CAN'T FIND WORK also she has been diagnosed with MS and now has HUGE medical bills.
and of coure the children are unwanted bastard children... why would anyone ever WANT kids? damn parasites that children are.... they all should be killed on the spot!
It amazes me as to how fricking stupid you are... I've met salad bars with a higher IQ than you.
Everybody from India has a "masters" in Math.
The master's degree in math is equal to a 2nd year engineering student in the US.
Indian education is a fucking joke.
Let's face it, it's not the CEO's taking you Americans' jobs away.
You wrongly assume that I'm an American...
Trolling is a art,
Please explain how investors are 'useless bloodsucking parasitic leeches", without investors, you most likely would not have a job. Ever take econ classes? Do you have a 401K, or you are counting on becoming independantly wealthy? (judging by your comment you don't have a great shot at that)
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
Calling anti-outsourcing people as having racist motivations is a sick McCarthyist tactic. Shame on you for being so dishonest about the debate.
No one moans about Ireland getting US jobs because (pick at least one):
** It's not a significant number. Or if it is, it's not a RAPID shift. Rapidity of jobs export is what's causing social unrest
** I'm reasonably sure Ireland has decent labor, environment, and health laws. This is relevent because when jobs are exported somewhere without, say, disability Insurance, or the right to Unionize, then that creates PRESSURE here in the US to eliminate these laws.
We're not racist, we're patriots. We don't want to see America reduced to pre-1900 status. A strong Middle Class is good for democracy, although, I can see why the extreme right thinks they'll get a better deal with a smaller middle class.
Jobs inevitably move, and MOST American's do not want dig-in-your-heels isolationism and trade wars. The jobs WILL move. But when jobs move TOO quickly, and when people stab their country in the back in the name of "global capitalism" then there are side effects.
I'll get to do the architecture and requirements, then review the code, but I won't have to spend so much time banging out accessors. Someone else is doing the boring part, and I can focus on the fun stuff (at least for me). I think I'm fortunate that the least appealing portions of my job are being offshored and not the job itself.
Indeed, you are lucky. Just remember that there are many Americans desperate for a chance to do the "boring part" that they were educated to do.
Don't choke on that vomit, there.
Honestly, I see this is a massive weak point in America's armor - if Osama and Al Qaeda really wanted to hurt America bad, I mean totally cripple America - they would destroy all the US owned tech centers in India. Nothing scares me more than this thought, honestly.
I dare Al Qaeda to try, of course - I double dog dare them. Bunch of pussies.
As long as even one US owned tech center still stands in India, Al Qaeda shows themselves to be in bed with the Americans and Jews.
Working on a new sig, ignore the following :
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
You mentioned you were salaried. Does your boss work you far more than 40 hours a week? That's a net pay cut. And your boss is free to work you as hard as he/she wants, because of your quasi-slave status. Net effect, you're paid less than your American counterpart.
"Enforced strictly"? One of the biggest complaints about the current implementation of the H-1B visa program is the lack of enforcement.
Hardly "bull crap in its purest form". At most, one sentence was half-bullcrap. Mindless hyperbole may work in Russia, but it's a harder sell here.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
Yeah, that's great. You don't have to do the boring coding anymore.
Now what do you suggest college students do for their first jobs? That "Grunt work" was how people were introduced to the company and learned their trade and how the business worked.
Where will your company get the mid/high level coders in 10 years? They're going to have to grab them off their India teams.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I understand your position - Hmm... I'm in a similar position, in another country..(A dev-lead guy with plenty of skills on many platforms and methodologies, and good formal education makes around u$13k yearly here..and an Honda Accord is the type of car only upper-class executives can afford)... let say you and I could be competing for the same job. I'll work ungodly hours for my kids at a rate less than what you probably pay your landscaping folks.
1) I think that subsidized companies - since they bring in govt as a regulator - might need to bend to govt interests of keeping jobs circulating in the country. If a company is not receiving subsidies from a govt it may do as it pleases according to local law.
2) I like to think in terms of what improves the median quality of life worldwide. I look out my window, and there's poverty all around.
3) Don't make a mistake, that even with outsourcing, the arrow of money going OUT of the U.S.A. is still smaller than the one going IN, in a global market. Thus, the US benefits. Now if that richness gets unequally distributed (shareholders, ceos etc) its nothing import/export law can help with.
In an information-based industry and with lots of US and non-US investments to create a worldwide infrastructure which facilitates exchange of information, in the end you will create a diffusive or osmotic effect, unless you place borders on the exchange of people, money and / or information. I think it'd be worse for all of us [insert cheesy reference to Metcalfe here].
As soon as you cried "racism," I immediately tuned you out. I really hate that word now. It's like a trump card. One has nothing intelligent to say and realizes that he's losing his argument, so he just blurts out "well, you're just racist!"
Crying racism is like the boy who cried wolf. It's been done too many times. Now even Michael Jackson's doing it. Outsourcing American jobs is a real problem. I have the college degree, got a fine education, am a member of Mensa (and yes, I can relate just fine with the average Joe American, thank you), and still am unemployed because my job was sent overseas.
As for the Irish thing, our Irish mates were the first to get laid off because I can probably safely assume their wages were considerably higher than India.
Yeah Intel lets compete:
Why do you give Dell processor's and chipsets at your production cost to keep AMD out?
Why do you strong arm Taiwan vendors not to use AMD?
Why do you sell the CPU for the XBOX below your costs?
If K-12 is so bad, then start a private school that offers programs geared toward Engineering and Science. Intel's School of Engineering, hire the best teachers, bring in the best kids. Put your money where your mouth is.
Its not about who is smart, you Intel, are exporting American Made Technology out of the U.S. to be extended, produced and manufactured, then import that same technology back into America to sell to Americans. The whole Electronics Industry was invented in America by real Americans, so give me a break. Its all about Intel maximizing profits. Everything for the green back. You pay lip service with no substance press releases. Its a thin veil.
I'm gonna laugh when Chinese made CPU's dominate the market and you are complaining to the government, "its not fair, its not fair". I will say so what, its a global marketplace. suffer bitach.
Jerks.
I generally reserve my "Benedict Arnold company" remarks to those that do not pay their taxes. I certainly don't like outsourcing jobs (I've been out of work for 6 months because of it), but I think companies that skimp on their duties to the city/county/state/country that provides them protection are definitely not good citizens and are significantly worse than companies that merely outsource work.
I agree that employees should not feel like a job is an entitlement.
But what about the companies entitlements?
Little to no taxes on profits?
The safety and security of operating here, protected by our laws, our military, our police. Access to world class technology and workers. Easy to forget them, once the company is built to the point were they can afford to offshore it all.
How about if the workers that built up the company get to keep their jobs? In the vast majority of cases, the employers are not without profits. The employer wants to make more.
The excessive access they have to law-makers.
I dont think corporations are entitled to those things, nor many other benefits they have from operating in the USA. But they sure have them.
I think companies that chose to operate here in the US owe the people that pay taxes something. And that something is more than paying shareholders. Not every American citizen is a shareholder, and paying the shareholder is a direct duty owed from the investment by the shareholder.
Lesson from history. Look into capital / labor relationships though the years. There was a period where capital had the upper hand.
emt 377 emt 4
Maybe you should quit trolling and get back to work then, hmm? Dysfunctional families? How about dysfunctional workers? Anyhow, back on topic: prepare to be outsourced, fat lazy asshole.
NO IT WOULDN'T (using caps like you), unless every worker worked in his particular industry. Which every worker does not. We have a very diverse economy which survives these kinds of industry specific disruptions remarkably well.
America is, by far, largest world consumer of most goods. Channeling that purchasing-power back towards American goods and services would be a huge boon.
Import substitution, the strategy you recommend, has been a massive failure in all economies where it has been tried. Everyone's favorite bad guy India used this strategy for decades and hardly grew at all - after India modernized its economy in the 1990s it has experienced rapid growth. The same was true for Latin American countries like Brazil and Argentina.
Back to the outsourcing issue, the problem I see is the tax break favoring it. This actually provides an unnatural incentive to invest overseas that gives it more value than it really has in the marketplace. We should definitely get rid of that in favor of a fairer corporate tax structure.
sulli
RTFJ.
"But if I'm mistaken, and "Benedict Arnold" is permissible political hyperbole to be used against people whose economic policies you think undermine the American national interest, then why isn't "traitor" permissible political hyperbole to be used against people whose foreign policy you think undermines the American national interest?"
Easy.
Benedict Arnold CEOs are actually *doing* things, not just opining about policies. Very few people have the capacity to take action that influences foreign policy. Most people just talk about it, because that's all they feasibly CAN do.
Talking about foreign policy - not treason. Selling arms to Iran and skimming off money for the Contras - treason.
Opining that a war isn't maybe a good idea, or that the current administration is incompetent to run a war - not treason. Broadcasting anti-US propaganda on behalf of the enemy, ala Tokyo Rose - treason.
Speaking - not treason. Acting - treason.
For a smart guy, Volokh sure can be stupid sometimes.
"I've never owned a computer with an Intel processor. Even my first 286 boxes were AMD. It's the only thing that makes me feel better about reading this."
6 32 839.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/
First, where I live (CA), houses in my area are running closer to $500k on AVERAGE statewide. The base yearly income in my area to afford an AVERAGE home is nearly $100k/year. Yes, in CA, $100k/year is BARELY middle class. According to you, they are RICH ($80k or above). Yet $80k/year in LA will get you not much better than a double-wide at the local trailer park -- UNLESS you already have huges gobs of EQUITY in a pre-existing home. I don't.
Second, I personally drive an '88 toyota pickup (a 4 banger) with over 120k miles on it and some mild rust damage. I paid $3000 for it in 90 (got it used) and it averages close to 29mpg. Why the HELL would I pay over $500/mo PLUS insurance -- EXPENSIVE in my area -- about $200/mo for a newish car? My wife drives a smallish Nissan 4-door.
Third, we don't OWN a home. We've got $100k saved and STILL are having trouble trying to budget a house AND education costs for our kids WITHOUT sentancing both me and my wife to full time employment.
Fourth, from age 19-21, I was homeless. Work in a soup kitchin? I ate in one when I could. I spent my first year in college (community college) living out of a backpack, taking "baths" in public restrooms and 2 or 3 times a week getting a $15/night hotel room in north hollywood.
Yes, I'm doing "good" now. Not "great". Good. La-la land? Spoon fed? What gaul. I've worked my ass off and you dare assume I'm "out of touch"? Stop whining, stop living off of society for a while and WORK.
"As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
Anyways, its good to point out that for most Americans / most American history, we did work 10-12 hour days, 6 days a week, without much expectation of spending time with families, vacations, benefits, disability pay or the right to unionize.Many workers fought hard- many died (check out the early history of Pinkertons) for the right to ask for better working conditions.
If we're being asked to compete on the basis of education or simply on wage differentials, thats one thing. But with some of our competition we also have to compete against the loss of all the workplace rights fought for over generations in the US.
I am 99.999% sure that pretty much everyone on this board is writing their posts on an Intel- or AMD-based machine (save a few Transmeta loners.) Both of whom are guilty guilty guilty of this so-called outsourcing treason. Not only did you all hypocritically vote with your dollar for said practices, but you didn't even pay the full damn dollar: you all benefitted from cheaper microprocessor costs that are the direct result of Intel and AMD exploiting foreign comparative advantage in chip design. Or Microsoft, in software design. Or Dell, in tech support services. The list goes on.
Sure, you can vote with your ballot for one or the other guy, but something (maybe the millions of dollars of tech-industry money between them) tells me that won't have much of an impact. What's really needed is to withold your $$ from companies that don't engage in these practices. I happen to think there aren't any, but who knows... mebbeso.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
We put out the barrel. We put the fish IN the barrel. We put the bullets in the gun AND gave the gun to the CEOs and said "Go fish!".
Blaming the CEOs for this is NOT addressing the problem of the "dead fish".
True, but there are many Americans capable of doing much more than "the boring parts", but complain because they are not willing to do so.
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
The point is that many people who are brilliant coders could also be great business analysts and project managers and code reviewers. the people making sure that the guys overseas are doing things right. I'm self taught, but my guess is that most comp sci grads have enough knowledge and intelligence that they can do the architecture and design, and can understand the business process better than some guy in India. So maybe they only code 1-2 hours a day, but spend the rest of the time analyzing the requirements and such.
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
after all, they won't be reading slashdot while they are working......
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Tell you what, Craig, you cut your salary and benefits instead of cutting jobs in the country that made you rich, then we might be more inclined to not call you a traitor.
Nathan's blog
If no one stands up and protests what they think is wrong, how do things get better?
[o]_O
That won't work. All that will do is make US corporations uncompetitive with foreign corporations, and our economy will decline as the US companies are forced out of business.
The only way to REALLY solve this problem is to lower the costs of hiring US employees. We can start with lowering the payroll tax.
'but have no guarantees of good jobs when they graduate'.
And what's wrong with that? Nothing in life is guaranteed. Nobody has a right to a 'good job' (whatever your definition of it is), but everybody has the right to try and get/create a good job.
"real hardship"? The Grapes of Wrath is a novel, fer cryin' out loud. A work of fiction.
3) Americans are heavilly invested in corporations, both directly via stocks and indirectly via 401ks and pension plans that are invested in stocks.
Next, you forget that under your scenario, every american gets less expensive cars. This means they have more money to spend on other things, raising their standard of living. What you're advocating is that every American essentially pay a tax to subsidize auto workers.
4) The mistake here is assuming that free trade does not consist of equal value flowing both ways. It does. That means that for every dollar "exported", a dollar gets "imported", in the form of either buying american goods or investing in america. All those unbalanced free trade numbers are bogus because they do not count foreign investment in America.
5)You're both wrong.
6) The government's job is to protect our rights. The government's job is not to force Joe to subsidize Jim's inefficient and uncompetitive job.
7)Do you think socialism is more sophisticated?
The problem you are having is not understanding the economic concept of "comparative advantage." Do a google search on the term.
The real question in my mind is whether the US's ability to innovate is running out of steam. Since the 1950's at least, technological innovation has created new industries and new high-quality jobs at a higher rate than we've been moving jobs overseas. IT is just the latest thing to go, but not all programming falls into the corporate IT mold and it's certainly possible to create really high-value software products where the difference between paying American vs. overseas salaries makes virtually no difference financially.
What's the distinction here? Both people are stating in a public forum that the war is bad. Is the difference who's paying your salary? By that definition, did Jane Fonda commit treason? She wasn't being paid, so that would seem to indicate "no." I think the guy's got a good point, calling someone a traitor, be they corporate CEOs, politicians, or private citizens, is directly contrary to the nature of a free society.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Diffferent countries have different economic situations, and as a result people of different nations have different standards for their quality of life.
A software developer in one country might find it acceptable to have to fetch the day's water every morning in a bucket. Another person might think running water is a good idea, but it's normal for electricity to only be available about 12 hours a day.
Americans have a very high standard of living, as do western Europeans and Australians. It is not surprising that if a job can be done in asia, india, south america, central america or eastern europe, that someone will be willing to pay less for the same work.
The problem that people actually have with this CEOs is that he/she are willing to hire people to do work that don't have the same standard of living that he does. The people who serve him his food and clean his office sometimes have a higher standard of living than the people that he has outsourced to maintain his network, provide tech support for his product or develop new products.
People have always taken issue when there is a wide gap between employer and employee. Sometimes this friction can show up with symptoms like strong labor unions, socialist political parties, and the like. Joe American does not like a rich fat cat capitialist trying to make a buck unless Joe American gets a piece of the action.
Well Joe American, either these CEOs will have made a long term mistake because nobody will be able to afford their products 10 years down the road. Or Joe American will have to come up with an angle to his/her employement that can't be outsourced. Like they could become a diesel mechanic for example.
Being a programmer does not take anything that is uniquely American or European. Really you just need a computer, a few hours of electricty a day, and a desire to learn. I'm sorry but these are things that are available to people all over the world, not just Americans and Europeans.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Of course the CEOs are acting in the best interests of the shareholders. They probably hold a good portion of the shares.
Last time I checked about half of the US were shareholders, and we vote a hell of lot more often than you poor people. Outsourcing aint' going nowhere.
Health care is no human right. It's a product that requires material resources, knowledge & training, and labor like anything other product, and should have to be paid for as such.
In each and every war - both military and economic - there are two sides:
Those who die and those who benefit
Patriotism is nothing but those who benefitting the war screwing those who die and suffer and squeezing out their living daylights off them. It is nothing but sweet bullshitting in order to make those who suffer to give their all so that those who benefit can harvest it later.
I have served as a conscript in my country's armed forces. It was so nasty experience - comparable well to prison or concentration camp - that the first thing I would do if my country would get to war is to take the next flight abroad as a refugee. Just anywhere, to get out of the shit. I don't care a shit about my fellow countrymen. It was just pure genetic lottery to be born in that particular country.
But that is how Capitalism works - the sly screw the gullible. Nobody said this world is fair. Did anyone say it even should be fair?
Rights are whatever people want them to be. So, if enough people want it, then yes, it IS a right.
Try telling that to the Jews caught in Europe in the latter part of the 1930's. Or Socrates.
That's the only reason people have rights to begin with, is because at some point everbody agreed that things like democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of unlawful entry, right to bear arms, would be a good thing to have in a free society.
Why did they reach that conclusion, if not based on some other *reasons* and hard facts?
Individual rights are not subject to collective power.
It's worth thinking about.
You should take your own advice.
What really pisses me off about that whole offshore outsourcing bullshit is that foreign countries like India have agents and companies here that lobby congress to pass laws favoring offshoring, or at least prevent laws that would put limit on it.
Is this acceptable? Our politicians getting bribed by foreign countries to screw up their voters?
I haven't heard any significant media coverage about this issue. Not a single one of these greedy assholes stops to think of what would happen to the US in the future as a result of this.
As foreigners gain more experience in technology, and we lose more, our country will become dependent on other countries for it manufacturing and technical needs. Eventually, they will manufacture better weapons and start threatening us.
This is the beginning of the end. This is an instance of individualism cannibalizing itself. This is what happens when people put their own selfish interests before the community and the country.
When it comes to waging wars on behalf of the oil industry and the military-industrial-complex, every one is patriotic! We sacrifice our lives in the line of duty, while the corporate pigs are cashing on our blood and exporting our jobs.
No, the CEO's aren't traitors, but it is a failure of will and imagination on the part of our leaders, including the "so called" traitor CEO's thats causing the problem.
So China and India are putting up a good fight. So What? Good for them.
America has faced challenges before, and won. We can again. But we have to fight for our place in the world, and all that I hear is whining that it isn't fair.
Well, it isn't fair, and since when has that ever mattered to the outcome of any struggle?
What matters is that there is plenty we can do about it, without using protectionism. We can develop new products, new technologies, new areas of expertise, new production methods. I have posted the details of a few of these solutions over at the forums of http://www.windley.com and I am working on even more ones.
All we need now is for our leaders to stop their bickering and start organizing an effort to create projects to make America's IT workforce competitive again.
But there is nothing but that ineffectual J.O.B.S. porkbarrel from our governmental leaders. The incredible thing is it requires no funding (all needed funding is already in place), no legislation (we have been ready for this for years) or any other action than to hold the Department of Labor's feet over the fire to do everything that needs to be done.
So it is up to the private sector to handle the problem. And that's where those traitor CEO's earned the appelation. All that is heard from them is "I haven't a clue" (something I have suspected for some time).
Take a few bucks from your pocket and BUY a clue. If you don't have an idea, there are plenty of us who do. WHY HAVEN"T YOU ASKED??!!!
I thought the talent of CEO's was to lead. If they are not willing to use some fraction of those talents and resources to make an effort to help the workets, country and the industry that made them powerful, well, it is pretty hard to think of a more appropriate term than coward and traitor.
What do you call somebody who has the ability to fight and win but instead runs and hides? Are you asking me to believe that the cream of the worlds business talent has no stomach to put up a fight for something worthwhile?
And make no mistake about it, the American Market is something worth fighting for, and the first CEO that takes up the torch is going to win big, if only by default.
It is not required that they abandon outsourcing or foreign markets, just that they not abandon American markets. It is amazing that they cannot realize that.
Given to the current trend, what is expectable of the future?
The jobs go abroad, and middle class impoverishes. Since education is no more a guarantee of a decent job - it even won't be a competitive asset, far more important is that you have relations' network - the middle class will impoverish and the very smart will notice college is waste of money and time. Better get sly, learn as little formal as possible, and use dad's relations to get a job - and advance on Machiavellian way and learn all essential on the job. College dropouts have traditionally done well.
Okay, the middle class will disappear and we will lose an enormous intellectual potential. As the big business outsource abroad and at the same time no jobs are born at home, the purchase power of public will diminish. The benefits of the corporations will diminish as well, which will lead into cost cuts, more outsourcing and more downsizing, which in turn will diminish the public purchase power furthermore.
The result will be that there will be no general purchase power and the corporations can't get their products sold. This process is called deflation.
We all know the nastity of inflation and what it means. But we have little idea on deflation. Yet it has been deflation which have been undermining the Japanese economy. This danger is eminent in all Western countries - US, Europe, Australia - where costs of living are high. Everywhere in the Western world the percentage outside the work force is about the same - roughly 30% off. While some Western countries boast with low unemployment rate, they have high imprisonment rate, do not count long-term unemployed who have fallen through all societal safety nets on, omit people in military or use similar techniques of euphemizing the situation. All in all, it doesn't matter if the unemployment percentage is 5% or 15%. What matters is if the employment percentage is 70% or 85%.
Deflation means impoverishment, and once deflation has set on, it is nearly impossible to terminate. In the end of that vicious circle looms the total collapse of economy. Yet nobody wants it. But the human nature is what it is - egoistic to the bitter end.
In the end is Fascism. The government finally realizes what is going on, and will try to save the situation by confiscating all means of production and nationalizing the economy. That will also mean the end of Capitalism: the economy will be completely state-controlled. It will mean rationalizing and finally monopolizing the economy and organizing it in the way of military. The alternative will be total collapse and falling into a quasi-feudal agrarian state not unlike the Medieval Europe.
But we have learnt the lesson Nazi Germany taught. The society will not be arranged on the Nazi way. Rather it will be something like Franco Spain, Salazar Portugal or Pinochet Chile. The Fascist government does not need to be military junta either. It may as well be a demorcatically elected estabilishment, which uses dictatorial power over the subjects.
In any case, the days of the Western democracy and Capitalism have been numbered. The future will be Fascistic.
Yes indeed. The founders of Intel worked under Shockley at his company. Shockly was one of the inventors of the transistor. He was also racist and a terrible boss. The "Traitorous 8" left Shockley to found Fairchild Semiconductors. 2 of those 8 later founded Intel. One of those 2 is More of More's law.
A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot
Actually, even if the labor cost approximately the same as it did here in the states it would still be cheaper to outsource for many companies. This is due to US laws that promote foreign investments, essentially allowing the company to tax defer all of the earnings as long as they are kept abroad. Thus they play a shell game where they either reinvest in foreign operations, or simply hide the money overseas, evading US tax law entirely. This is something that my state (Minnesota) is dealing with on a state level as a similar provision is in our tax code. One of the reasons that despite corporate profits increasing over 15% in the state, corporate income tax is actually down.
In the People's Republic of China, the ultimate corporation is the government. When Chinese corporations short the government on taxes and bribes, the charge can be treason, and the punishment a bullet in the base of the skull.
Too bad the United States government sold off the regulation process to the large corporations and "public" utilities. So then, why hasn't Ken Lay been publicly executed in the Astrodome?
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
"He is also fed up with being called a Benedict Arnold CEO (perhaps he'd prefer Unemployed Computer Scientist). Barrett pegs K-12 math and science education as the biggest threat to U.S. employment, but when pressed about U.S. kids who do well in both, attend excellent universities, but have no guarantees of good jobs when they graduate, Barrett remarks 'I don't have a solution to that one.'"
So you'd rather become part of our destruction and send jobs overseas, pick on our poor education system and insist on NOT being called names when you could be directing your company's MONEY AND ENERGY to initiating school programs (even if just in your area) to help mold the type of employee you'd want to wrk at Intel.
People like you make me sick, Mr. Benedict Arnold CEO, you'd rather take the easy way out than try to use your brain and attempt to fix things.... even if a little bit.
Take your mellion dollar Golden Parachute and move along now.
"I'm not ashamed I can't function in society like I'm supposed to." - Paul Westerberg
But there is no reason why health care for children (at least) should not be paid collectively (ie. by the state, financed from taxes). A child should not be held responsible for picking broke or malfeasant parents.
Isn't ensuring that children are not disadvantaged any more than is possible one of the reasons for the very existence of government? Decreeing what minimum standards of care should be?
Given that the government determines those minimum standards of care, it make for good sense (and efficiency) that the government provide that minimum sandard of care and distribute the cost equally across society. After all we are talking about the next generation. The same could probably be said for education.
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
And let us move freely towards better places of employment. Even the USofA, if it becomes again a better place of employment (currently it's not). Hmm, great concept. Free movement of goods, services, and people. I'll patent it.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
...and Honda, and KIA, and all these other Japanese car companies that have plants in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico...
are outsourcing.
Of course, the quick response to all of this is "so"? What part of the Constitution of any of these nations requires a business owner within them to hire only citizens thereof?
Is it proper to blame businesses for not generating jobs? Yes and no.
Businesses are driven by consumers but businesses are also consumers. We have arrived into the new millenium, an era of technology doing so much work that people don't have as much to do. Homes are filled with gadgets. Prices have fallen while user fees are being jacked up surreptitiously. Are we going to see a lot of splurging?
The trouble is the culture of having a career and enjoying life once in a while. This culture stifles imagination! It doesn't help one bit that people tried to turn imagination into greed with flashy websites that generated very little revenue; such was the dot com bubble, which created a lot of bandwidth noise and a lot of false hopes of personal gain. The result is that many people may have lost faith in their own creativity.
Now that we have all kinds of automation marvels it's time for big business to really invest in major goals. I applaud IBM for a long history of initiatives.
What about a concerted effort by big business to send colonies of robots to the moon or Mars? It's quite risky - some companies could be formed and fund themselves with public offerings I suppose. There's so much talk of voting for the sake of jobs - new companies with a lot of public sentiment and laudable goals will let people vote with their dollars. It's time people took matters into their own hands rather than letting politicians set the course - that's what all our technology has prepared us for.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
What is trolling? Is trolling saying something that is demonstrably true, but inconvenient?
What part of the arrest records of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney don't you believe? Do you think that someone who gets a DUI is someone who is having no problems with inner conflict?
According to Laura Bush and George W. Bush, he had such a bad drug problem that she threatened to leave him. Are you saying Mr. Bush had no such problems?
A DUI is a conviction for a very, very serious crime, a crime that endangers everyone on the road, a crime that often kills people.
Noelle Bush was arrested and charged with fraud, not for trying to buy marijuana, but for trying to by an anti-anxiety drug. Are you arguing that she thought she had anxiety, but she didn't really, everything was fine in her life?
Are all these books just trolls?
Your almost worth responding to, if you could get a decent argument going.
hell, fark.com has better shit than this dribble.
Nothing here, move along.
emt 377 emt 4
This has fallen off the main page but the topic is still important.
d uty
= 168e s/157.a sp
C&P
"
You're thinking of "Duty of Loyalty"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary_
The "Fair" part would fall under "Duty of Care".
http://www.orac.gov.au/displaypage.cfm?ID
Note that "acting in good faith" is part of this.
http://www.bricker.com/Publications/articl
So no the law does place limits on what corporations can do, even in the pursuit of their shareholders interest, and expects them to behave in a "fair and reasonable" manner."
So like many arguments you'll see on Slashdot. People vastly simplify what is a bit more complicated. I think it would be better to say that CEO's have an "obligation" towards their companys affairs, but they aren't compeled to break any laws (1) (to the contrary, as Enron and Worldcom proved). Also a lawyer could make the reasonable argument that some of the things that present-day CEO's are engaging in are NOT in the companies best interest, and could be considered a breach of duty.
And yes there's also the matter of free-will in this whole picture. If a CEO is presented with two choices, and the law says do the wrong thing. Should the CEO break the law in a civil manner? Why not? We advocate here on slashdot all the time in the "YRO" section for just such individual behaviour. A true double-standard when money is involved.
But they will never hire that guy who can learn the business process better, because the guy from India is cheaper!
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
students graduating.
Yes, there are many many that are graduating that think they can make tons of money, and that is all they care about. There are a number that love it.
Put it this way, why do so many people become doctors, lawyers and business people? Because, for the most part of the money. Are they *all* worthless because of the many?
emt 377 emt 4
This is one of the saddest, foullest legacies of the 1960's. The illusion that mere protest on the part of some noisy people will actuially bring about change.
You are not powerful enough to change the world, the nation, or even your town. What you can do is work to make your own life better. If you have a family, you can work to make their lives better, with their help.
It isn't easy, and you won't be able to change things just by complaining and chanting slogans, or even by voting. You have to take the crap jobs, you have to do the unpleasant tasks, you have to work instead of play, but you can make your own life and the lives of your family better. Don't rely on some faceless bureaucratic government or corporation or political party to make your life better, because that's a sucker's game.
You have to realize that they just don't know or care about you. And nothing you say or do will change that, no matter how many decibels you and your friends yell.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
When someone kicks you in the face, you gotta fight back! These Benedict Arnold CEOs are sending our jobs overseas, and you're ok w/ that?
There's alot more of us than there are of them, if the government won't listen to us, we gotta vote them out pronto.
[o]_O
At least two of those books were written by former highly placed members of the Bush administration. Republicans are saying George W. Bush is incompetent, not just Democrats.
He lied. They died.
They have clearly stated goals of profit over any other motive, including the health (physically and economically) of their country of origin. No one should delude themselves into thinking that if there were a choice between the survival of a multinational corporation and the survival of its country of origin that sentiment would play a role. Do any corporate charters begin with "I pledge allegiance..."? Companies are legally obligated to their stockholders. Chances are most citizens of the company's country of origin are not stockholders, and hence are not of concern. So, anything that would increase their ability to produce profit for their stockholders, who are a minority of citizens/non-citizens, up to and including the loss of employment for citizens of their country of origin, is fair game. No further thought is legally required.
That's one company. Now, imagine every single multinational corporation thinking and behaving the same way. Thoughtlessly, a group pushing like a herd to lobby for the original country's loss of employment becomes part of business. Each only has their small group of citizens and non-citizen shareholders to consider. Be damned with the rest. However, if all lobby for the same right to outsource/offshore employment without hindrance or thought of consequences, and continue to operate with all the benefits of an national corporation, quite a large swathe of citizens who hold and don't hold stock in each others companies lose employment. It would be an unthinking, uncaring, profit motivated push by entire industries that are the sum of the multinationals; without malice, but also without consideration to the citizenry who has made it all possible for them. In reality, all corporations are nothing more that mindless appetite. However, given a chance to support one over the other, a citizen would be wise to support the one whose fate and fortunes are tied to that of the citizen's and his country, rather than a multinational whose appetites know no borders, and whose behaviors are not bound by the laws of their country of origin and often lead to misery within other borders.
This is why multinationals should be treated as foreign companies. This is under the assumption that there are checks to curb foreign companies from abusing and wreaking havoc on the domestic market. Multinationals are not obligated to consider the financial health or welfare of the citizens of their country of origin. This new arrangement will allow companies that still behave as if they are privileged to operate within the infrastructure, protection, and market of the country of their origin to compete fairly against the multinationals (who've offshored their labor) within the local market (playing field). And, in that way, other foreign companies can also compete fairly against the multinationals within the market of the multinational's country of origin. Up to this point, the country of origin protected multinationals as citizens and as national corporations.
A citizen of the same country of origin as the multinational isn't able to behave as a multinational, although the multinational has nearly all the rights of the citizen. The citizen isn't able to determine where work will be located in the world, but a multinational can. So, citizens too are at a disadvantage towards as they are competing against multinationals in regards to jobs or at least their locations. However, if multinationals were to be treated as any other foreign company (again, assuming that there are checks that stop foreign companies from playing unfair in the domestic market), their advantage over citizens and national/local companies would be less important. When a citizen purchases products, it will be as if a
He talks about education and competing. Companies are NOT moving jobs overseas because people there are more educated or do a better job. They move overseas because they can pay them 5k per year. There is no way to compete with that. There is no education that can substitue for that. This is what the politicians and idiots like Grove don't understand.
...is death.
Get used to it.
Check the definition of deracinated-it has nothing to do with race, instead deracinated means:
1. To pull out by the roots; uproot.
2. To displace from one's native or accustomed
environment.
The barriers of racism and sexism are a caste system. People locked into certain jobs and roles merely because of their race and gender.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
You blame the Middle easterners for bombing New York City-but they did so _only_ after the US government killed tens of thousands of people in Iraq(during operation Desert Storm)--and played a major role in propping up a murderous regime in Israel for decades. The response appears a rather moderate act of self-defense in that light.
Put down Saddam all you want, but whatever his flaws, his government had no income tax and rather few gun control laws. In those respects, Saddam was far more Republican, than George Bush.
FWIW, I meta-modded it as unfair.
Did you go to the library for free books or buy comics?
Comics are a pretty good way for kids to learn to read. My kids -- ten now -- have always made a habit of checking out comics when we go to the library. Granted, Calvin and Hobbes isn't a novel, but it's reading for joy, and why would I quash it? Their schoolin' has hardly suffered.
Did you go to free museums and theater, or did you pay for movies?
C'mon -- my kids are ten and they've seen The Third Man a couple of times. We saw Ella Enchanted and it was a travesty against the book, and my son was hurt when I said so. I'll live with that, he had his own good natured opinion. We also went to the Louvre and the Musee D'Orsay this March... Do I get an indulgence for letting them see "The Simpsons" once in a while? Even if I *paid* for the Passe Musee?
My point is, false dichotomies only show how damn tricky the thing is, education. (The parent post gives us one too: Either we "keep our standards high" or we allow Downs Syndrome kids to graduate. We don't have to choose between those two.)
Personally I think the only way to raise awake kids is to be awake yourself and show them how. A huge share of the world's people seem to sleepwalk through life. I mean, --
Did you go to the free park or pay for sports?
Looking at the people around me, I'd say either one would be a dang good thing. These people don't exercise at all, and yet they still want to lose weight -- so, the Atkins Diet makes someone millions by selling too-good-to-be-true self-indulgence. Wake up, people. You don't want to die of heart disease? Exercising might just have something to do with it. These adults are every bit as cloudy in their thinking and lax in their effort as the low-income kids I volunteer with -- who watch TV after school instead of going to orchestra. It's much easier to do.
It's frightening how our popular culture has become a sort of siren's call to that hazy state of mind. We don't just suffer from the blur, we inflict it on ourselves, often to sell things. SUVs. There's a Greek tragedy in there somewhere... only nobody relates to those any more. (We just live them out unconsciously, in the form of our foreign policy. But that's another story.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
A lot of people seem to think that if your experience and perspective don't exactly match their own that you're "out of touch" and not living in "the real world".
On what basis do you demand that he not pay for the cost of protecting his asset against assault by said suicide attacks?
On what basis do you interpret a desire to have him pay the costs of his protection to a desire to steal from him?
On what basis do you attribute wealth that is created, while he is not payig the aforementioned costs, to hs initiative/creativity, as opposed to his being subsidized by those paying the costs of his protection?
Seastead this.
After 911 there were huge assumptions of liability on the part of government for what had been up to that point private insurance. Now, conincidentally, the community that is getting the largest subsidies here is the same community that bankrolled Israel.
When some airline steward flies around the world frequenting gay bathhouses, and shows up with purple splotches on his arms asking for insurance against AIDS saying "Everyone has sex and travels around... I should pay the same premium as everyone else" the insurance company will say "Find another insurance carrier."
There are plenty of indivuals and businesses that are not putting their assets at risk of "international terrorism" and are paying the same rates of taxation on their income. What should be going on isn't tax on income, capital gains, sales or value added at all but tax on insurable wealth, period.
Sorry but you just can wriggle out of this one.
Seastead this.
Sorry but you just can wriggle out of this one.
I'm not trying to wiggle out of this one. France and Spain are trying to wiggle out of the islamofascists war with the west, and it's not working out for them too well right now, is it?
They have brought open war to us. Our response is their death. Even, if as you suppose, we brought war to them, the result is the same- they are the enemy, they pose a risk to our lives, and must be dealt with as such. Such a basic instinct of self defense is lost on people like you through generations of European-style neutering.
The WTC and airline guys were "people and businesses" in general. Do you propose they were part of a great zionist conspiracy holding down the poor, disenfranchised arab? Or that the towers some how held some great industrial military complex production facility? Whatever makes you think that they people in those towers weren't, in general, hardworking honest Americans is horseshit, and you spit on their graves by implying such.
There is no hiding spot for the US, or western civilizations, or any derivative thereof, that does not put plain old US citizens at risk of islamic terrorism. The only option is to meet them in their lair and put down our enemies like dogs- which is what we're trying to do in Iraq and Afgahnistan. Those who are not our enemies in those countries have little to worry about.
And again, I don't give two shits about this insurance analogy you keep trying to make. I could offer a counter analogy, but it seems plain speaking is lost on you as it is, so it would be an even greater waste of my time.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
"We saved your ass in World War II"
"Yes, but we saved your ass in World War III"
It's all about perspective, people.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.