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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.'"
Benedict Arnold
I still don't get it.
"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.
...
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.
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?
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!
Yes they would show him to the door, because his job is to make money for the shareholders.
If your bank sent you a letter and told you that they had decided that a new policy would be to reduce 20% of your savings annually in order to increase the wages of their local branch tellers so they could match cost of living increases and ensure employee comfort would you (or the average joe) keep banking there? Nope... so why would any shareholders keep money in Intel if they can make more money elsewhere... answer... they won't.
Furthermore... despite all the hoopla about buying domestic... most people don't check every single thing they buy for where it was made. They buy whatever offers the best value, so if AMD outsourced their work to a place that had cheaper labor and thereby reduced the cost of operations and thereby reduced the price per chip... then Intel would in a tough spot, would most likely lose sales, and would eventually be in a weaker competitive position, which would reduce their shareholder value.
Now since both companies are in the U.S. one might argue that you have to legislate that these companies keep jobs here. This is a Benedict Arnold policy, pandering to the fears and pains of today's masses while selling out the future. Yes would protect some higher paying domestic jobs today if we keep companies from outsourcing, but this would be giving away competive advantages to foreign companies who WOULD take advantage of lower costs of skilled labor in other countries. So in 10 years, you could have an Indian/Chinese/ that could enter our market, drastically undercut our prices, and still make good/better profits. Our companies would fold, investments dollars would flow out of the U.S. and future generations would have a much more difficult time finding quality work.
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.
Dey tuk er jebs!
um, no, a true global economy would mean that workers can move to where the jobs are and that there is a world wide rate of pay that differs little from one location to the next.
what we have is CEOs taking advantage of underpaid high tech workers in countries that have no labor laws.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
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?
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.
Most "average Joes" are shareholders. Many have personal investement accounts, some have pension plans, and most everyone with a semi-decent job has a 401K, or equivalent.
Take a typical smart middle-class person who started out with only modest support from his parents, and made his own wealth.
Let's assume he makes $60,000 a year for 30 years, and puts away 10% of that into stocks increasing at a growth rate of 10%. Let's assume no inflation (it doesn't affect my illustration, it just makes all the numbers bigger).
When he retires he'll have made $1.8 million from salary. He'll also have put away $180k of that salary into stocks, and he'll have made about $900k in stock growth. (I used a free web 401k planner to get the numbers.)
Now, 10% growth is about all you can really expect, and a 10% rate of savings is pretty considerable. Most people do not save that much. Even so, the stock growth contributed only 1/3rd of his lifetime wealth accumulation.
Try walking down the row of cubes at work with the following offer - if you accept a layoff we'll add to your 401k as if you had an extra 1% of growth for 30 years in the company stock. The CEO might take that in a heartbeat (assuming he were solely motiveated by money) - the CEO probably has millions invested in stock, and a 1% boost over 30 years might easily exceed his annual salary. On the other hand, the average worker probably has maybe $100k in stock, and so an extra $50k or so after 30 years surely isn't worth losing his job.
Most ordinary people benefit the most from decisions that benefit works - not shareholders. That isn't to say that we should just plunder company treasuries - there should be a balance. However, the balance should not be, whatever is good for people who can afford stock is good for everyone...
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?
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
If you bother to study history, you will notice that complaining is part of fixing the problem of free trade. Crying is important. America doesn't need to do accpet anything. And, let's be accurate, by America, you mean America's poor and middleclass, since clearly America's wealthy love free trade. Likewise, India's poor needs to quit protesting the fact that their farms are being put out of business by US corprorate agriculture. They just need to accept the change as a small minority in their country get rich by expoiting free trade.
Here's something to think about, when you hear someone from India on slashdot talking about how wonderful free trade is, remember that only a minority of people in India can access the internet, and they are relatively wealthy. The majority of people around the world cannot stand this exploitative form of trade. If democracy means anything to you, then you will be in favor of allowing people to govern their own lives, rather than have them run by the richest in that society.
Informative ??? What crap ..
.. I'm from India and let me tell you a US$ 30K salray in India is equivalent to a US $500K salary in the US.
.. thats 5500 US$ a year. Many people make less than that.
.. its not that rosy. The difference is a maid in the US can do something to make her children go in good schools and have a better life. The maid who works for my landlord in the US comes to work in a toyota Highlander SUV... a car that only the super rich in India can afford. Hyundai sells a "high end" SUV in India which sold a grand total of 35 units in Feb 2004.
I dont know what you are smoking
The average programmer makes 20 000 Rs a month
If people could make 30K a year there, why do you think thousands like me want to come to the US ?
As for being able to afford maids etc