Slashdot Mirror
India Outsourcers Find Back Door in Canada
securitas writes "Metro International newspapers Toronto edition reports that more Indian companies are opening back doors into the United States by setting up shop in Canada. The issue of outsourcing, offshoring and nearshoring has become a hot issue, with the 2004 presidential election less than a week away. Candidate John Kerry has said he will close the tax loophole that makes it advantageous to outsource call centers."
I guess that makes me an evildoer, eh? Ah well, at least Guantanamo Bay will be warmer than Winnipeg this winter.
Trolling is a art,
Blame Canada?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I think near-shore or off-shore makes no difference as they're still outsourcing, ie taking away jobs which could have been given to locals.
Bush said druing a debate that he will let Mexicans to come to US to work legally, and gradually obtain residency. If this happens, the Canadian-Indian issue is small in comparison.
Maybe the ideal "screening" is based on the percentage of employees' residency status, so if over 50% of a Canadian company is from developing countries, it's no deal.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
He could of introduced plenty of bills supporting his current election platform as a senator, why didn't he? What makes you think he'll do it now if elected president? Just asking.
why is that in the summary at all...
oh i forgot, it has to be prokerry, it just cant be a simple explanation of events.
the politics section of slashdot is a soapbox for kerry.
EDITORS: ever hear of ATTEMPTING to not show bias
If Dell outsources their tech support to Canada, at least I'll be able to understand the guy as opposed to the current situation....
As anyone knows who has hit someone in India the accents can be very hard to understand, Canadian accents (if any) are very close to americain ones so you might be able to get the help you need!
Everyone that disagrees with me is a paid shill
I think it's because there was a fad for awhile for directors of TV and movies to film in Canada, because it was cheaper, and for a little while a lot of places in Southern California were feeling it. But then prices started going up in the areas in Canada where filming was being done because there was awareness that there were lots of rich people there all of a sudden, and the locals acted accordingly. It'll balance itself out. At least, in my youthful optimism, I'm going to hope it will.
Did they follow proper disclosure procedures and report the backdoor to the Canadian government before submitting it to Slashdot?
Why doesn't anyone ever talk about all the jobs being insourced? The real "Benedict Arnold" companies are those that move their headquarters overseas -- in the form of a rented office in Bermuda -- to avoid paying US taxes, not US-based companies with manufacturing centers in other countries. Those are the real tax cheats.
Bungo!
What tax loophole is this exactly? I know that the companies avoid certain expenses just due to lower wages offshore, but taxes too?
If there is a loophole, closing it would mean more revenues for the government (plus for them) and/or less outsources (plus for us)
a member of the axis of evil.
Candidate John Kerry has said he will close the tax loophole that makes it advantageous to outsource call centers.
Good thing there's only Call Centres in Canada, then. (Spelling loophole?)
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I would say 'aaagh' sounds pretty much the same in any language. You mean you had trouble understand the guy's accent when he was cussing you for hitting him?
Also please remember that the US has spent the last twenty five years literally ramming free trade down the world's collective throat (admittedly, an effort made on behalf of the financial elite, not workers).
I'm a Canuck, and I remember chatting with a guy from the States (I think it was Texas), and during the conversation I said the word "house". He suddenly burst out laughing and told me to say "house" again. I did and he was nearly rolling around on the floor. He said us Canadians pronounce certain words funny. Go figure.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Did you plug in the computer, eh? What aboot the power button, eh, did you push it?
When Australia outsources to Indian call centres, they give the Indian a new name. You see it all is ok that I can't understand what the heck the guy as saying.. because his name is Barry, or Kevin. The Canadians just need a nice American name... that makes it all better :(
iSnack 2.0 - Download it now to your iToast 9.0
You're fighting a Knob Goblin Assistant Chef. You failed to hit the monster.
vicious, untreated political sewage...niche entertainment for the spiritually unattractive...worshipless pap
Far more important. The dollar is weakening, Americans are getting cheaper.
HTH
Not that I think Bush has a clue what he's doing. A one trick pony who isn't even very good at that trick.
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but you can always move there and outsource them http://www.kaminternational.com/main.asp
"Candidate John Kerry has said he will close the tax loophole that makes it advantageous to outsource call centers." After that, he plans to raise corporate taxes and drive the companies back overseas anyway. I can't understand why people can't see through this man's shameless pandering. On one hand, he acknowledges that a company's tax burden influences their decision to outsource and on the other he slams Bush for lowering corporate tax burden to keep them from moving offshore.
Why not close all business loopholes and perhaps create a flat business income tax? This way there's no weaseling out of it somehow. Wouldn't this increase tax revenue? Perhaps only on businesses making over a certain amount, since small businesses could be hurt.
If you want to get the guy back, just ask him to say any word with more than 3 syllables. I guarantee you'll laugh at least as hard.
It started with outsourcing of Auto manufacturing jobs to Japan because they could build better cars cheaper. All that remained in the U.S. were few design jobs. This led to a decrease in in the number of auto jobs in the U.S. and a downward pressure on auto job salaries.
However, soon the manufacturing costs in Japan rose and they found they could serve their customer better and make their cars cheaper if they opened auto plants closer to the customer.
The result is that majority of Toyotas sold in the U.S. today are built right here by workers who get paid lower than before.
Same thing might happen in the IT industry.
I really fail to see any real solution to this issue being presented. Tax loopholes won't erase the fact that there are qualified workers in a cheaper business environments. All the tax loophole becomes is a Red Herring for the real issue. Let's come up with serious and real solutions to this. A. India has very qualified workers B. They are very will to work and will work for a lower wage C. The end result usually comes out to be similiar to what would be done in the U.S. I'm not sure what could be done, but I know that Tax Loopholes have nothing to do with the real problem of outsourcing. --- Get Firefox!
I can't wait until something bad happens to your country.
If the list you posted was accurate, I hope you live in France.
First off I'm voting for Kerry, but the idea that new legislation is going curb the tax advantages of outsourcing is ludicrous. So lets say Kerry does pass such a bill, what will happen? Large companies will simple open up offshore subsiaries to skirt the law, similiar to what Haliburton did under the leadership of Dick Cheney, by having a Caymen islands phantom corporation in order to business with nations like Iran.
from an old episode of This Hour Has 22 Minutes
An Apology to Americans
By Reporter 'Anthony St. George' (Performed by Colin Mochrie)
Hello. I'm Anthony St. George on location here in Washington.
On behalf of Canadians everywhere I'd like to offer an apology to the United States of America. We haven't been getting along very well recently and for that, I am truly sorry. I'm sorry we called George Bush a moron. He is a moron, but it wasn't nice of us to point it out. If it's any consolation, the fact that he's a moron shouldn't reflect poorly on the people of America. After all, it's not like you actually elected him.
I'm sorry about our softwood lumber. Just because we have more trees than you, doesn't give us the right to sell you lumber that's cheaper and better than your own. It would be like if, well, say you had ten times the television audeince we did and you flood our market with great shows, cheaper than we could produce. I know you'd never do that.
I'm sorry we beat you in Olympic hockey. In our defence I guess our excuse would be that our team was much, much, much, much better than yours. As word of apology, please accept all of our NHL teams which, one by one, are going out of business and moving to your fine country.
I'm sorry about our waffling on Iraq. I mean, when you're going up against a crazed dictator, you want to have your friends by your side. I realize it took more than two years before you guys pitched in against Hitler, but that was different. Everyone knew he had weapons.
I'm sorry we burnt down your White House during the War of 1812. I see you've rebuilt it! It's very nice.
I'm sorry for Alan Thicke, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Loverboy, that song from Seriff that ends with a really high-pitched long note. Your beer. I know we had nothing to do with your beer, but we feel your pain.
And finally on behalf of all Canadians, I'm sorry that we're constantly apologizing for things in a passive-aggressive way which is really a thinly veiled criticism. I sincerely hope that you're not upset over this. Because we've seen what you do to countries you get upset with.
For 22 minutes, I'm Anthony St. George, and I'm sorry.
are you kidding? THis is slashdot! I think they filed for a patent on presumption!
My point was that while an immigrant on a visa might not be contributing as much as a native, its much more than someone that lives in India, China, Guatamala, etc. getting that same job from a "Native"
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
It won't last. As someone else pointed out. Hollywood used Canada for a while until the locals wised up and prices went up.
.50 for lunch. Once India starts cleaning up, the rates will rise and they'll outsource again.
The difference is that Canada has a significantly better quality of life than the average Indian. So the Indian company can pay an Indian call center employee 8,000 a year, he'd still have to pay a Canadian call centre employee 30,000 or 40,000 a year. This is vs a call center employee here making 40,000 to 50,000 a year. (All WAG's, recent tech support position advertised on dice.com was for 55 an hour).
When India starts fining the companies dumping waste into the Ganges, the companies will pass on the costs to the citizens which will then require raises in order to be able to afford the goods these companies sell. When the wages get too high, they'll outsource to China. Then China will start fining the mining companies (chinese dieing in unsafe mines because it's either work the mine or starve) or waste management folks (chinese exposed to toxic waste from computer salvaging) and the cycle starts again.
I think my salary (currently non-existant) is globally balanced. When you consider all aspects, I was getting paid the same amount, adjusted for living conditions, as the guy in India who got $10,000 and pays
Shit better not happen!
There needs to be a way to correctly adjust for primary momentum.
Easy, have all the states hold their primaries at the same time.
What?
You're allowed to smack Texans upside the head. They usually deserve it.
Maybe we should go back to that policy since it was so effective. By the way which country are you in?
Why would we want to pre-emptive strike Canada? They give us all our good actors these days.
I have non-indian friends who were doing this in Toronto 20 years ago ;) This is just competition!
Ah forget aboot the computer eh! Have a beer ya hoser and take off eh?
According to a recent article in "The Economist": "Mr. Kerry's ranting about outsourcing has irritated economists: a huge majority dismiss outsourcing as either a small or non-existent problem, and almost 60% give Mr. Kerry's trade policy a bad or very bad rating." As an academic, I see some opportunities going to international students, but I don't really mind. I know I am on the international market myself, and I'm a good candidate to take a position overseas. Coming from a middle-class family, I have yet to know anyone in my family or community affected by outsourcing. Why is Kerry making this an issue? Do other people really have horror stories about this, or is the notion of outsourcing an encapsulated blurb that gets votes, because it sounds like the right thing to vote against.
If I hadn't been through all of this election I probably wouldn't have believed my eyes. This report from last February from people in Wisconson finding Caller ID signatures from Canada for the Kerry Election Call Center? Makes you wonder if there will be political loopholes in any laws similar to those for the National No Call list.
Today is a gift. Save the receipt.
Last I checked, his wife's money was made prior to their marriage; and therefore he isn't legally entitled to a penny of it unless she wants him to be. I have this odd feeling that she hasn't promised him 50% of her net worth.
What?
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my friend works for d-link support and they are all told by their supervisors that they're supposed to answer that they are located in d-link headquarters in the US whenever customers ask them eventhough the reality is that they are in canada. there are actually customers out there that ask the tech support people whether they are located in india or china.
i'm not entirely sure that quality jobs are moving to canada. i agree with tech support jobs coming here, but i dont see any EE jobs. on the contrary, my school's career fair had a record number of EE-related companies this year since 2001 (sounds like an exaggeration -- there were only 4 and that was "good").
to be honest, as a master student about to graduate in EE, i have not much of a clue as in to how i'm going to find a decent career-related job anywhere (in canada or US).
i'm unable to vote because i'm not american, but i wish you guys out there elect the "correct" president for 2004.
my blog
Why does not someone just come up with a real-time accent and artifact removal filter. For Indians you will need to spread out the syllables while maintaining the pitch. For Canadians you will have to remove the trailing "eh" from sentences.
I would suppose you could optimize the filter per individual and maybe one of the options on the phone menu is that you can select the dialect you are comfortable with. For example you can select:
+ West Texas drawl (replace all "you" with a you'all so "you do have the power turned on eh?" becomes "ya'all do have the power the turn").
+ New York/Jerseyan insulting snarl (remove all r's from the stream and add a little color. For example "Yo you idiot, you do have the powe tuned on doncha."
... on drugs .
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the supposedly liberal crowd, that would often complain about the rich countries not giving enough aid to the poor ones, quickly rushes to highly illiberal views depriving the poor of ways to build honest wealth through honest work.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Because it's politically convenient. We should not be surprised when politicians say things that are politically convenient. Bush does it all the time --- he opposed free trade early in his presidency by imposing that steel tariff now says that we shouldn't fight outsourcing.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Exports are cheaper. Harleys now only cost £5000 where they used to be nearer £8000. Course in the particular case of Harley they'd have to reach £3000 to be worth buying but the US does make other products.
Deleted
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Here's some real homework on the whole issue. http://www.factcheck.org/article225.html I'd highly suggest this non-partisan site for anyone of either persuasion who wants a few zingers to shut up the overbearing Kerry (or Bush) supporter sitting in the next cube.
The article only explains half the story. This is actually worse, and I had been expecting it for somtimes.
This is how Canada is a backdoor to the US:
You'd think that because Canadians are cheaper (slightly) that they are using Canadians to do Americans jobs.
Having lived there, I can say that nope, this isn't how it works at all, its worse than that!
Here is what they are doing: (basically, they are moving the Indians to Canada, to outsource them on US projects, because it is easier to get an Indian to Canada than it is to the US. So Canadians aren't even getting the jobs either, because even Canadians are too expensive!)
Canada has a very lax foreigner friendly and immigration policy. Especially if companies go waving around money about 'investing in Canada', the Canadian govt. will buy into it, because they (think) that this will create Canadian jobs rather than destroy them.
Satyam opens his company (I wonder how many of his 120 employees in company in Canada are not Indian). Then bring in Indians/foreigners to do the work less than Canadians will.. (but the office wouldn't have been opened anyways if you couldnt do this, so the Cdn govt doesnt mind that much really).
Then outsource the Indians in Canada, to US projects. Voila! Timezone and connectivity problems all go away because the cheap Indians are now in Canada and not India!
Then it gets even better! Unlike the USA, Canada has a very quick and easy naturalization process (takes only a few years), and then the Indians become 'Canadian' and get Canadian passports.
Then, because of the NAFTA agreement, those Indians can come to America, and take Americans jobs as that is now a T1 Free trade visa, and not an H1B. T1s have no limit, anyone who wants one who is Canadian with a college education in IT can get one and move to the US.
T1s hadn't been a problem since Canadian and American standard of living were almost the same anyways, but with this scam, the whole safeguard goes out the window.
So no one in North America really benefits from this, not the Americans, nor Canadian IT people either..its a purely Indian play.
Its a great plan really, surprised they didn't think of it earlier. Hard to fix it though, if Canada stops the practice, then they can just use Mexico the same way I suppose.
When did Bush say that we shouldn't fight outsourcing? Kerry siezed upon a part of the tax code that has been in effect since corporate taxes were instituted and started making noise, thus implying that Bush supports the practice. The fact that candidate A is against something does not mean candidate B is for it.
Dude. Your life is so complicated.
Just buy a nice little knife at the dollar shop and be done with it.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
I was stuck on a plane from Dallas to Frankfurt with this Texan lady who insisted on yammering at me the entire trip. I didn't understand a word she said the entire time, but I just kept nodding my head. Her accent was so thick you could stand a fork upright in it.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
"that is after... Florida"
Dude, if this means having tanks rolling down "Main Street, USA" and toppling over a statue of Mickey Mouse, I will supply the person celebrating in the street!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But as far as taxes go, how is that a closeable loophole. The only fix is to introduce a direct directly focussed on outsourcing (to which I say, go for it, except don't tax Canada as it's a bad idea with such closely tied economies).
My mother tends to do that, although not at a Dollar Store. She buys Chicago Cutlery knives which are much better than Dollar Store knives and infinitely worse than any decent knife. They have a low carbon content and thus lose their edge easily. They also have a wodden handle which as any cook will tell you is a big no no. Wooden anything and raw meat is food poisoning waiting to happen, or worse. You really do get what you pay for when it comes to cutlery. Buy crap and it will perform like crap. Buy something decent and it may last you the rest of your life. Would you buy a generic crap IDE drive for your server or would you rather buy a nice Seagate or Maxtor? Why? Don't you think a quality knife is as important to someone who cooks as a quality hard drive is to someone who wants to run a reliable server?
enough to maintain the same level of living
I wasn't talking about alimony, I was talking about distribution of property, etc. It doesn't matter whether they get a divorce or not; anything that is acquired prior to a marriage is the property of the person that acquired it unless it is given to the other person (or mixed in joint accounts). If they do get a divorce, anything they had before, is still theirs. If the court awards alimony (which it usually only does when one party relies on the other for support) is a different issue.
If you married Bill Gates tomorrow, and divorced him a week later, you would only be entitled to 50% of whatever he made while you married (assuming Washington is a community property state, I have no idea if it is.) You have no claim to anything he made prior to the marriage while you are married, it is still his money.
So, what was Theresa's prior to her marriage, is still hers now, and in no way John Kerry's, unless she made a gift to him. Even upon divorce, he probably wouldn't be entitled to any of it.
What?
I really hope your trying to be funny here. Realize that if the US shutdown trade with Canada, there would be serious problems in BOTH countries. Canada provides fossil fuels, fresh water, lumber, etc. to the US in huge quantities.
I won't go into too much detail here, but guess what, Canada doesn't want to assimilate immigrants. Keeping your culture and values is part of being Canadian.
You will need to nuke most of the English speaking world this way. There are no news here - Tata and Reliance which cover 80% of the outsourcing market to India have long set up shop in UK, Canada and Australia. I have had calls from headhunters working for Tata pestering me to work for them in the UK as far back as 2 years ago. They also continue to buy companies in key IT and telecoms area in these countries. Usually post chapter 11 so it is on the cheap. They can present any outsourcing deal as a deal between local companies if they want to. They do not do it for the only reason that the management types who outsource want to outsource to Indians. They do not want to outsource to another UK or Australian company as this is not fashionable. What they do not realise (but Tata and Reliance know very well) is that someone has to stay locally and compile requirements, do high level design, support and professional services. So they are actively looking for people to fill these positions.
It is only a matter of time until they use the FTAs + Commonwealth agreements to get into the US with an outsourcing agreement that goes to Canada, but in fact is done in India.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
No no, you seem to have misunderstood. All the work is going to India, but with Canada as a midpoint. See the way it works is American A passes comment about how they can't understand those idiot Indians on the support line. So Capitalist Pig American CEO decides hmmm I'll outsource to a Canadian Company instead. People complain 2% less about Canadian accents than Indian ones. However, Canadian Company turns out to be a front for Indian Company. So American A STILL gets to listen to those apparently unintelligible Indian accents, but American CEO gets to claim we're not outsourcing our support to India, just to Canada. OTOH I haven't read TFA (I must be old here) so u may be referring to something stated in it...
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maybe we are just expecting to be over paid. Why would Indians in canada get paid less than Canadians? They both have to pay the same for their stuff. Just because you arn't willing to work that cheap doesn't mean someone else shouldn't be able to.
Personaly, I like having cheap tech support workers because even if they don't know much more, they are still better than talking to a computer. And, they can pass me up to somone who doesn't need a script if the script won't solve my problem.
Not to mention the the fact that the money these companies are saving will be invested on other things which creates more jobs.
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
The Roman Empire failed because in too many places it required the senators / soldiers to be born in Rome along with other strict ethnic requirements.
The US Empire must allow people who CAN do the job to do it. Otherwise it too will collapse.
Everything you've said so far is good except for the
Maybe in 3rd world nations were slave labour is fine
comment. Software Developers in India (including me) are paid 350 times the prevailing minimum wage in India. They aren't slaving away at all. That's the REAL reason outsourcing is working. Because the people in the 3rd-world companies are NOT being exploited. They're paid astronomical sums by their country's standard, but dirt cheap by American standards, so it works out just fine. This article may help. Eventually our salaries will rise (they've been rising about 6% every year for the past 5 years) and eventually the work will move elsewhere - or it might even move back to USA after y'all make a painful adjustment and decide to work for $30,000 instead of $40,000 At some point, it will no longer be worth the communication, distance and time lag problems to hire 50 Indian workers to do the work of 12 American developers. Yes the work might then be outsourced to the Philipines or China or some place but this is unlikely and I'll tell you why: The reason India is a chosen destination is population. There is just such a LARGE pool of english-speaking univeristy graduates relative to other developing nations. So philipines might take some of the work, but never as much as was shipped to India. China is unlikely, because its standard of living is already higher than India's. This means that Chinese workers are already more expensive than Indian ones (plus in terms of english-speaking people and IT China has some ways to go - by the time China catches up with India in this particular demographic its standard of living also be higher thus meaning that the price differentials between Chinese and American workers ain't too big so no outsourcing). In order for this to truly be a race to the bottom as all of you Slashdot panickers assume you would need another country of India/China's size in terms of population, with a standard of living lower than them and with a large percentage of young, university graduates that can speak the language of the western world. There is no other country. So this is what the future holds - American wages fall a little, Indian wages rise a LOT. It becomes financially unviable to outsource to India so some work comes BACK to the US, some work gets shipped to Sudan or the Philipines or Croatia or whatever and some other work stays in India. And now that India has higher wages, they start buying more developed world products, trade increases, your economy picks up again blah blah. But yes, if you're a software engineer, it'll be hard to find a job for the next 5 years or so - this all hinges on how fast Indian wages rise, and how fast American wages fall. If Americans are willing to work for less, then less jobs will be outsourced. I'm not saying you SHOULD be willing to work for less, I'm just stating the facts.
My Favourite Meme
Kerry isn't perfect, but a) it ISN'T universal healthcare, but it does get us closer. b) 2 trillion? factcheck.org, among others, have widely put down the number Bush has put out there on how the government will be running the health care system if kerry wins, and the number used to pooh-pooh the plan are imcomplete are wrong.
However, if you wanted to say a (reasonable and accurate) 900 billion dollar figure, that both Kerry has accpeted and the multiple non-partisan groups have arrived at and presented with facts. Thorpe Study presented by Factcheck.org. (it is a .doc file, sorry)
Factcheck has the best article, and it is even critical of Kerry. Yes, he has more specifics to give. His plans will pay for a bulk of it, but not necesarily all of it. More specifics and more ways of redistributing money would likely cover this.
2 Trillion is a rediculous and simply unfounded number. I understand that not everyone has time to lookup every fact, but don't spread things you havn't atleast TRIED to look into as truth. Esspecially if you were presented this information from a politician that stands to benefit from the damage those numbers imply.
Bush has come out and said that we shouldn't fight it:
.
Bush (Dayton, Ohio, May 4, 2004): We care about outsourcing in America. We want people working here. But the wrong policy would have been, let's go through economic isolationist policy, let's wall us off from the world
His economic advisor has also come out in favor of it. Of course, he is 100% correct on this issue, but it is a bit of a flip-flop from his previous position of pushing the steel tariff.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The problem is that sure, more companies can start with smaller initial capital, and sure some products will be cheaper, but more americans will be out of work.
How will you feel when your boss comes up to you and says "you are fired, we are replacing you with some one over seas who will work for 1/8 what you make and doesnt want any benefits"
Thats the problem with out sourcing. Americans are not getting jobs they could be getting, and some Americans are losing their jobs.
What do you say to this? "get a different job?" Well, when you have studied for 6 years in a university to get a degree in whatever you do, you are going to want to apply it to that field of work arent you? But you can't now can you? Thats right, that job you could you could get is now in India, or Tailand.
So, you go on ahead and enjoy your wasted degree, and you have fun knowing that when outsourcing happens more people are unhappy in a job they don't want. At least some things will be cheaper and we'll have more start up companies... right?
http://www.pleasurecaptains.com
What is interesting is that the US applies this also to its citizens and green card holders across the world. If you are a US citizen living in Paris, you must file for US taxes unless you receive a very small amount. However higher french taxes and a double-taxation treaty means that you don't get to pay taxes in the US.
2 billion huh? That's an awful lot of money! Only about 100 times less than what George Shrubya Bush spent on the useless war against Iraq so far
he said 2 trillion you moron. how much universal healthcare can you buy for 2 billion?
Universal health care is expensive, but not that bad. Canada has it. It eats up our budget liek defence spedning eats up your but the ones who benifit are largly the ones who contribute. Why? because the poor don't knwo how to use it well, and the rich pay to use your system. So while we spend a lot of money on health care, we get it back in services. You spend a ass load on weapons and get back infrequent wars set to happen right when the bombs are about to expire.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Candidate John Kerry has said he will close the tax loophole that makes it advantageous to outsource call centers.
Whew. I was worried I wouldn't get a job taking calls from irate users. How about instead focusing on the jobs America could really use like software development?
Kerry admitted during the second debate that his "plan" wouldn't really do anything. The problem isn't tax loopholes, the problem is that offshore workers are so freaking cheap. An offshore worker gets paid a week what people in the US get every hour, sometimes less. And that's big money in the offshore country.
That's a pure cost savings right there.
Plus, the tax issues mentioned wouldn't apply, because most offshoring is arms-length, There aren't income tax issues there, because the offshore company probably isn't a subsidiary of the mother company.
All Kerry can really do is make it socially unacceptable to offshore. But at a 30-to-1 cost advantage, well, the savings goes into the EPS number. It's hard to argue with a 40-60% savings.
I'd like to point out that the story as posted edited out the attribution.
Editors: Please don't remove quotation marks where they are necessary because that effectively results in plagiarism. The words in quotes are not mine. They belong to the reporter.
Also, the reference to the interview with the Chairman of Satyam - an Indian outsourcer that has set up shop in Toronto - was removed. Knowing that Slashdotters often don't read the source articles, I included that detail as an incentive for people to read what the leader of a large outsourcing company has to say about this politicized business practice.
Original post follows:
The department of homeland security has declared this is not terror related.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
"Candidate John Kerry has said he will close the tax loophole that makes it advantageous to outsource call centers."
translation: John Kerry will make it so businesses will be punished for seeking lower prices.
trade is NOT zero-sum. We benefit from "outsourcing" even if few have lost jobs. it's better labeled "competative advantage".
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
Wusthof knives are OK but I have given up on henckels. If you really want great knives I would go for the japanese brands myself. Global (forged only) or masahiro are fantastic.
If you want German knives the messermeisters are a great value and are as good as wusthofs IMHO.
If you want the best bang for the buck I'd go with forschner or Tramontina Professional Series. Tramontina are made in Brazil and are an exceptional value for being forged.
If I was buying something for my mother I'd by the tramontina, for myself I am saving up for a nenox.
evil is as evil does
Seriously, though, this post looks like a campaign ad for John Kerry. Not the article, the post. If we're going to post a factual article, don't turn it into a campaign ad for either candidate by including commentary such as "John Kerry supports such a plan", or "George Bush supports such a plan", or "Ralph Nader is just too damn high to do anything about it."
Im not american. But the call centre issue is not only a hot topic in the US. The UK are following the US's way and setting up call centres in india/etc etc..
Its always interesting to see that most often than not the quality of service depreciates and the profits of the companies increase. This has been discussed several times in slashdot previously. But the real issue is that the tax loop hole gets closed so that companies can benefit less from moving people off shore. Yeah it may benefit the indians to some extent but there are 1bn of them and most of thier call centre staff are not perfect english speakers. I recently rang a UK based company that had thier call centre in india to find that hte person had such bad english I had to ask for someone else. I had to go through three people to find someone. In the end I cancelled my account in favor of not even having that type of service any more. In principal I will deal with as few internationally based call centres as possible.
Go Kerry.. I wont vote in the US election but the principal stands strong.
...sooner or later. The simple truth is that there are a LOT of Indian immigrants in Canada in the major business sectors around Toronto. All they are doing is bringing their business with them as well as their family. Smart people as far as I'm concerned.
Now, that reasoning doesn't apply for a company that wants to get on the government dole selling them weapons or prisons or eavesdropping equipment or tax-collector data-processing services, especially if they'd be illegal if operated in the purchasing country, or things like that; those guys ought to put up with the bad effects of the Administration they're supporting.
You're not "cheating" on taxes if you arrange your affairs in ways that aren't taxable - even the Supreme Court has declared that over the years. You're only cheating if you're turning in dishonest returns. Enron and their ilk may have been cheating on their taxes, or may have only been cheating their investors - but somebody who moves their headquarters offshore because it's advantageous is no worse than someone who registers their company in Delaware or Nevada because it's advantageous.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
..what you say is correct, but there are other aspects to consider. A US company competes in a global marketplace, they're competing against products made all over the world. If for example an Indian company makes a piece of software similar to your entirely "made in the USA" product, their costs will have been much lower, they'll be able to sell it for less and nobody will buy your software - you're completely screwed. Outsourcing allows you to lower your costs, which isn't just trying managements evil attempt to fire you. Outsourcing also allows other advantages, you can exist as a small startup company in the US with a core R&D team and a great idea. When you've designed the product you can suddenly have a team of 100 in Bangalore coding like banshees for 6 months to make it a reality - and when you've got your product you can wave them goodbye. Without outsourcing you'd either be trapped as a small company, have taken years to code the same yourself - and miss your window of opportunity, have been bankrupted taking on US contractors or have taken on employees and either kept them on afterwards (bankruptcy) or laid them off. Because of outsourcing you're now a small company, with a great product you're selling around the world, making a tonne of money and paying a lot of tax into the US system. Point I was trying to make is that outsourcing isn't right or wrong, good or bad, it's another tool and if you refuse to accept it exists or use it if available you'll be screwed.
Indians and other nations that perform cheap outsourced labor have much more cause to complain than the US or the Europeans: the US and Europeans are using huge amounts of money to subsidize farmers, who then turn around and dump their products on other markets. As a result, those other nations can't even compete in markets in which they ought to be competitive if it were a level playing field. Now, Americans get upset when people in those nations do manufacturing, service, and technical jobs for peanuts and want to take away those jobs as well. What are those people supposed to do?
If the US keeps trying to keep every profitable business opportunity to itself, at some point, those nations may well decide that so-called "free trade" with the US just isn't in their interest anymore.
All those companies making their cars in America! Darn them all!
I mean we'll have to get rid of insourced jobs if we get rid of outsourced jobs. We'll all be better off. Trust me, I have thought through the implications of my rash economic policy.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
electricity doesn't come form the heavens
It does if you use Solar power.
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
if the companies want to move offshore, that is their business. That is what liberty and freedom is all about.
Where I have an issue is when the Feds gave a 5 BILLION deal to EDS to do computer system who did move overseas. That is just plain wrong. Worse, Kerry should be burning W. for that decision.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
wow you've totally missed my point haven't you. I think I just laid out that if anything the outsourcing is temporary. Outsourcing to India and China are more unique then is given credit for. It's because our countries have a BIG population - this means lots of every type of person, including university graduates and english-speaking people. Once our countries' living standards rise, there won't be any other country with a population of our size to replace us as the new outsourcing recipient. The work will just be shipped off to a bunch of much smaller countries, or RETURN to the US of A. Another reason outsourcing works in India is because we're EXACTLY 12 hours ahead of PST. The time difference is an important factor for 24-hour support firms. We work a regular 9-5 (or 9-6) but help American companies maintain that 24 hour support. Other countries are geographically closer, thus they can't take advantage of that time difference, and thus have to pay their workers for the overtime. So again let me repeat. When India and China's standards of living rise (and they are rising), this outsourcing thing will go away, because there is no cheaper replacement with the size AND skills to match India/China. here are other countries with better skills, but they don't have the numbers. And if there is small amount of highly-skilled people, they charge more. So again, depending on how quickly Indian wages rise, and they are rising fast, this outsourcing will come to a quick end.
My Favourite Meme
I for one am tired of being cheep foreign labour.
I want to be expensive foreign labour.
wow you've totally missed my point haven't you.
He's likely (understandably) worried that by the time everything's evened-out he'll be dead and gone. Not earning enough to drive a Porsche is one thing; not being able to afford a $250,000 mortgage or $300/month healthcare is another.
Exactly I think if the cost of living was on par then a lot of developers wouldn't be overly bothered by a pay cut or working for less.
Good lord; do we really need to read any further?
If ((today=="Monday") && (moon="FULL")) {
CLAIM=position(1);
}
else
{
CLAIM=position(2);
}
>> So this is what the future holds - American wages fall a little, Indian wages rise a LOT.
You are absolutely right. As an American, I'm still pissed about the sitation though. It is our culture that is causing this. So many companies focus on growth. This years profits must be 10% higher than last years, or the new CEO doesn't get his bonus check, or his stock plummets. He will make certain that he receives that check, no matter what the cost to american society is.
And it's not just public companies. Even privately held companies outsource everything possible in order to free up additional take home pay for the stakeholders. These days, it is incredibly difficult to find a job in America where you are valued as a thinking, feeling HUMAN BEING and not a "human resource"
We don't have to live that way. There are some things more important than the growth of a made-up entity: a company. Screw the company, if the company always comes first. With these attitudes, I guess I don't belong in my own society.
Ok, first of all, it is not this phantom tax loophole that makes offshoring attractive - and it's not as if this tax "loophole" even exists. It is not a loophole at all. What makes it advantageous for taxes is that the US cannot collect income tax from people who don't live and work in the US. Duh! That's not a loophole, it's just the law. We will never be able to close this loophole because we cannot collect income tax from foreign citizens working in a foreign country.
Moving on. The factor that really makes offshoring attractive is that, for a call center as an example, the labor and utility costs are so much less. An American might demand $12/hr to work at a call center, which is expensive for someone who just reads a script over the phone all day. On top of that, the company has to pay for real-estate (which is ridiculous in this country right now), insurance (which is also ridiculous thanks to frivolous lawsuits), payroll taxes (FICA, Medicare) which are high because of government fat, high utilities due to high cost of energy in general, and a host of other factors that makes low-income jobs difficult to maintain in the US.
What makes these things cheaper in a place like India? Well, first of all, a dollar in America goes a long way in India because of the exchange rate and the differentiated standard of living. Something that costs $10 to buy here costs $1 in India, including labor. Second, India itself has a hugely growing economy and infrastructure, and for American businesses to participate in building that growing nation, they have to have a presence there anyway. India has a very nationalist government and they won't allow foreign companies to simply walk in and take money out of the country. India needs call centers for India, too, and those call centers by Indian law must be located in India. Also, Indian law also requires things that are sold in India to have some % of Indian-manufactured content. So, for infrastructure companies to sell their goods, they have to have a presence there as well.
India's nationalist policies are working well for them because they are a growing nation. There is so much stuff to be done and sold there that it is worthwhile for companies to locate jobs there. Nationalist policies often work for rapidly growing countries because it keeps money in the country. However, once that nation is mature, those companies and the jobs they brought will leave just as quickly as they came. This is why nationalism does not work in a world where it is easy to move resources around, or in a matured nation that is in a state of continuation rather than development.
This is also why nationalist policies will not solve our outsourcing "problem." There really is no solution because we cannot control what is going on in other nations. The best we can do is do what we've always done - persevere. I've been fortunate enough to keep my job even though I can definitely see my job going to India in the next 24-36 months. I will have to get another one, which is why I am training for it now and not later.
This really is a sink or swim situation, and the choice lies with each individual. One cannot be dead-set on a specific job at a minimum rate of compensation. If you are flexible, willing to learn a new profession, and willing to relocate, you will be able to find employment. The jobs are out there. The unemployment rate has been falling steadily since the post-9/11 peak, and is lower now than it was for the first 4 years of Clinton's presidency. Historically, the unemployment rate has fallen in between 5 and 7%, which occasional excursions outside that range both above and below. Right now it is 5.4%.
What we're seeing is a shift away from technology jobs because that period of growth is over. The explosion of the Internet is what gave us the first period of prosperity, and now we're in a period of continuation. Time to find something else to do.
Because I know, when I think of high-tech jobs that require a bachelors in CS, I think of call center jobs.
WTF? Over?
In Soviet Russia, the motherland outsources you!
Funny, I've lived in Canada my whole life and I don't think I've ever heard someone say "hoser" in conversation. Maybe it's an east coast/west coast thing?
The "aboot" thing is an exagerated form of a mostly (to my ears) east coast accent. No one in Canada actually says "aboot", despite American meme. There's a great writeup about Eh at Wikipedia. The stereotypical use of "eh" prevalent in humour is more common in rural settings, but we all proudly say the interjection.
My religion forbids the use of sigs.
Let's just hope Canada outsources these jobs back to US. What goes around comes around, right?
just my 2 bytes
Closing a tax loop hole for outsourced call centers barely affects the biggest draw to outsource. A customer support rep in India or the Phillipines is payed 10% or less than his American counterpart. Only the growing wealth of the developing world will shrink that gap. Not changes to the US tax code.
With a Canadian base, the outsourcer opens an office in the same time zone, and staffs a call center and maintenance team there.
Evil, but elegant.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
If you are a free marketeer, this shouldn't bother you because it's simply a widening of the competitive market for labor to international levels. If US employees and laws cannot be competitive, maybe it behooves us to help bring the rest of the world up closer to our standard of living so that they won't so easily undercut us.
On the other hand, if you're a bleeding-heart internationalist, what's wrong with people from India or whatever country doing these jobs? If they can (in Dell's case) learn english to a degree that they are indistinguishable from cust svc people in the US, what's the problem? They can use the US$ far more than we can here.
-Styopa
I thought this was an intellectual site. Does slashdot really think the outsourcing problem is caused by "tax loopholes"? Really? Which ones? I thought the problem was that Indians were willing to work for ten cents an hour. If I'm right, and Kerry's wrong, do we really need someone so clueless in the White House?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well it is not so much that we (Canadians) got stronger dollar, but more that GW Bush, is destroying the American economy and weakening the US greenback.
So I guess that I have one thing to thank GW for. Cheaper hi-tech toys...
I live and work in Toronto. From my experience, Canada is not the final destination for many US jobs. It is a backdoor to the backdoor type of thing. I think the only reason they are setting up shop in Canada is to DECEIVE. If they are setting up shop in Canada then how come the job growth sucks a$$ ????. The LOW....LOw....Low...low paying IT jobs up here in canada might be one of the reasons, but I think they are just renting office space, hiring a few *fake* enterpreneurs* and re-routing the projects back to india, where compared to the Canadian IT market it is slightly cheaper.
The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid. Fcuknig amzanig eh!
Sadly, most, if not all, of the companies that provide outsourcing services in India and elsewhere tend produce substandard code. Yeah, they code like banshees- but the results are far from optimal. This is from personal experience, working as a contractor within a large multinational corporation.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
What are you smoking? Yes, Canada is friendlier and the way to get a Work Permit is a lot easier than doing this in the US, but "easier" doesn't mean they just roll over.
I am currently sitting here for almost 2 months waiting for my new Work Permit and the last update I got was that HRDC (who has to approve the job) is still fiddeling around with the paperwork.
Mind you, I am going to move from Toronto to Edmonton, a place where "talent" if you want to call it that, is a bit more scarce, but the point is that it costs companies money and a lot of time to hire foreigners, and I am not even Indian, I have a German passport.
The company has to proof for ANY employee they are hiring that is not landed or a citizen of Canada that they couldn't find a person who was. This takes (depending on the market) 4 - 8 weeks and a LOT of paperwork (Who else did they try to hire, how did they advertise the job etc. etc.).
So even if they have "indian" guys sitting there, those are most likely already landed immigrants or Canadian Citizens, especially Toronto has a large Indian / South East Asian population.
Not likely, the company would have to proof that every person they bring over from India HAS to be brought into the country because they couldn't find anyone local, and believe me HRDC in Toronto is nasty to deal with, I know, I did a couple of times.
What is more likely to happen is that they have some people here in Toronto who then delegate the work to the Indian Headoffice but that in and on itself isn't that bad in Canada, because the Canadian Subsidiary gets paid on the contract and pays it's taxes still in Canada.
Also, people on a Work Permit have to be paid "comparable wages", so you cannot simply hire an indian for 10% of what the Canadian would make AND unlike the US H1B the Work Permit belongs to ME not the Company, if I want to leave I can, I just have to find another company who wants to do the HRDC portion again, and the old company would never even know.
It takes around 2 1/2 years to get your landed papers, you have to apply in your country of Origin or (if you are already in Canada on a temporary permit) in Buffalo, after you have this paper in your hand it takes another 3 years before you can apply for Citizenship.
The Landed Status, btw, will cost you ~5K CAN, that includes language proficency tests, medical exams and a host of other things. 5K is a lot of dough for a dude in India.
The T1 ONLY applies to Canadian Citizens, by the time the guy has this he has already been in Canada for at least 5 years, chances are pretty good that by then he has settled and the last thing on his mind is moving to the states.
Geez, tone down your fear a bit, will ya?
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
>India Outsourcers Find Back Door in Canada Who's this "Canada" chick and how do I get a date with her? Seriously though, is she hot?
So the reason American labor is so expensive is because we tax it to death? Pavon asserts the Kerry plan is to eliminate this "loophole":
pay taxes only in the foreign country on their foreign operations, but at the same time, they get deductions in their US taxes, even though there is no double taxation.
and that
both the bullet point, and detail plans currently on the John Kerry site are fairly vague.
They would have to be vauge, as the only way to equalize the cost would be to tax the hell out of US companies with foreign workers. It's not so much closing a loophole as it is an increase in taxes that will make the US less competitive than it already is.
Sure, I'm disgusted by talk of "thanks for our best year ever" followed by "we have to tighten our belts and you are fired." I'm convinced, however, that the soloution is closing loopholes in personal income so that you can reduce the kinds of corporate taxes that serve as a disincentive to hiring people. I don't see either candidate addressing the issue honestly, but I can be sure that Kerry will make things worse than Bush will.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It is a sink or swim situation. However, when the ship suddenly plunges, it's difficult to avoid being sucked in. Your wages, your job, are dependant not just on your abilities and efforts, bu the state of the entire (in this case) American economy. Being a good mechanical engineer on the Titanic probably didn't help so much when the ship hit the iceberg.
As many people have said on Slashdot, and on more academic boards, the entire point of outsourcing is to lower labor costs. That's it. Nothing else. Nothing more. A capitalist system exists primarily to generate a return to those who own the capital. Cutting labor costs increases the capitalists returns. No, I'm not speaking from any Marxist point of view here. Read Adam Smith.
India's policies work do to the low pay of their workers. Nothing more. Not a policy choice, but a cheap labor force due to a massive and desparate population. So, do you really think American workers can compete against about two billion Indian and Chinese workers? The only way we can do that is to have our own wages plunge to a level that would be difficult for most American's to imagine.
As wages fall for workers facing international competition, wages fall in other fields. Think of this: if the automobile factory closes the next town over, business probably won't be that good. When we combine outsourcing with a taxation system that encourages the concentration of wealth, we can foresee serious structural problems in the American economy. I've tried to think of a simple way to explain this - maybe the greatest evidence is the fact that American real wages have been flat for thirty years, despite incredible increases in productivity.
Jobs are out there - but job quality, measured in wages and in hours, is falling. If your job is outsourced, its unlikely - and against economic theory - that you'll be able to find an equivalent job in the same field and roughly the same locale for the same wage. And as the Democrat's have been happily pointing out, the new jobs being created pay far lower than the ones lost.
Other employers understand outsourcing, and they'll be happy to give you a lower offer. Of course, your bank doesn't care about outsourcing and your mortgage stays the same. So does your health insurance, children's tuition, etc. So your in serious trouble.
I have a question for all of our fun Libertarian economists on /. If immigration to the US averages about 200,000 per month, and the Administration claims that 1.7 million jobs were created in the last four years, how many new jobs were available for the native population? Guys, unemployment statistics are easily manipulated. I'd recommend you visit the Bureau of Labor Statistics site and, well, read between the lines. Alos, please consider that unemployment statistics only count those who are receiving unemployment benefits. Once you've exhausted your six months, you're no longer unemployed, you become a "discouraged worker." Off the roles, out of thought. Same thing occurs if you take a low wage job - say go from being a chip designer to a chif fryer. Still counts as a job.
I have to say this: The government of the United States exists to protect the welfare of the American people, not to protect the welfare of the wealthiest American's bank accounts. And the two are not one and the same.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Ah no, my friend, you are not so lucky. By law, the Indian that are hired by Canadian companies will have to also speak French. Because the people at the help desk don't really understand English, they won't know the difference between French and English scripts and will read from them at random.
Now you might think that this would just cut your chances of getting help by one half, but you would be wrong. No only will the French reading be incomprehensible, the English reading will be harder to understand than ever because the reader will confuse the accents they are supposed to use and a new language will be born, FrIngligsh. It will sound like a cross between Ghandi and Savoir Faire but will contain very few words of any language.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I wish the Yankees among us could learn proper use of "y'all". It is the PLURAL of "you".
You do NOT say "Y'all" to a single person.
No more than you use "yermominem" to a group. "How's yermominem?" is only used to address a single person....
Note for those who have never lived in N'Awlins: "yermominem" is how we say "your Mom and them". It is normally used in an inquiry into the health and well-being of one's family....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Ok, I guess that's a start...
But at the company I work for (/^$/) we have kept the helpdesk (entry level) positions and sent the developer jobs offshore. I used to be a developer, I was afraid that I'd get confused in the mornings if I moved to another company - so I'm working the helpdesk now. I didn't have to take a cut in pay so I guess there is a silver lining - but I miss my old buds who have all monstered out to places that still code onshore. And I have some unexpected results to modification requests.
Nor any finincial responsibilities other than yourself. I spent two years between "real jobs" and had to work two or three minumum wage jobs just to make ends meet and help keep my child and my wife fed and in shelter. It's not laziness- it's a staggering economy. Right now I'm back to work in IT, doing what I love (software design). But it was much harder to find work now than it was the last time I was out of work (right out of college, 5 years ago). The main problem I had looking for IT work is that I was over-qualified (I'm working aan entry level job right now. I had to convince my current employers that yes, I wanted to do this even though it was lower than my level of experience because finding a job as a lead programmer was taking way too long.) Bigger and better things my ass. It's only bigger and better if it's still ours to achieve. If the jobs are over seas than there is nothing bigger or better.
click me
I think the fact that it is Canada DOES make a difference because it allows us to compete more evenly.
No one is saying that the work in India is better than what is being done here. The primary reason it is being done is that the cost of labor in India is 1/10 of the cost of labor in the USA. We can innovate all we want, but we're not going to save 90% of our costs (and if we do come up with such an innovation, it will be used in India next week to cut their costs by 90%!).
The problem is magnified in that by sending those dollars to India, since their wage scale is so much lower than ours, it is very unlikely that they will be buying goods made here. They just can't afford it.
In contrast, if Canada is at 90% the wages of the US, that allows us to compete better. Some competition is good, but when your competitor brings a nuclear bomb to a knife fight, that's no competition.
And money spent in Canada is far more likely to be re-spent in the USA. Canada is closer, we trade more with them, and they can afford our goods.
Remember, a dollar spent locally is more likely to stay local than one spent halfway across the globe to a trading partner that is only taking your dollars, not sending them back.
The other key thing to remember is that is a lot easier for the average US citizen to trade with Canada. The cultures are similar, the languages are similar. It is FAR more likely that trading with India will be done by large multinational corporations. That's no accident. They want it that way -- it limits their competition.
And that's the danger of globalization -- it gives corporations much, much, much more power than they had in the past. There is no global government to monitor them, there is no way for workers to exercise leverage on them via unions, they can just run roughshod over us in the race to the bottom.
Did you ever notice that almost every Dean Delegate was a Party Hack? There are a big chunk of Dem Delegates that are NOT chosen by the Primaries (Dem Congresscritters are delegates, by dfinition, as an example). THOSE delegates gave Dean his big lead going into the Primaries. Then the people actually voted, and they preferred Kerry to Dean.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
So this is what the future holds - American wages fall a little, Indian wages rise a LOT.
This would be fine if it was true for all workers (although people would call it deflation and it would probably be bad for other reasons). The problem is that there are still many industries -- and therefore goods and services -- which are priced as high as ever.
Healthcare is an ideal example. If most of the people in the US could afford to pay their medical bills, everything would be fine. But as you send more jobs overseas and replace them with wages that are minimal, now many people can't afford health care.
Housing is another one. Same situation, a job for an unskilled worker 80 years ago let that worker afford a modest house. Now that worker is on government assistance, living in subsidized housing.
The IT industry might be just a small chunk of the US economy, but outsourcing, which has been going on for years, is raising the standard of living for some US citizens while lowering it for many others. Taken to the extreme, all jobs should be outsourced, and then no one would be left to buy any goods or services, and no one would be left to innovate either (because innovation comes from the ground up). That isn't good for this country in the long run.
Wow. Nice argument. You would rather the building that Satyam houses stay empty or worse remain a grassland (or snowland). The maintenance and other management activities that employ local canadian business are ignored in your argument.
Everything that changes the status quo is good - thats what the govt of Canada thinks. If you are bringing in new business - even if you are going to import 80% of your workforce, it is still good because you are somehow impacting the local economy which is otherwise moribund.
First, I agree that eventually things will even out. And, hopefully, interconnected economies and cultures will do wonders for peace. However, the cost of outsourcing to some americans is greater than you might think and it should be no surprise many are upset. $40K per year isn't a fortune over here and if I only made $30K, I'd qualify for multiple types of government assistance.
What does it cost per month for rent? What is the monthly food budget for a family of 5?
Obviously, in the US rent (or mortgage) will vary depending on where a person lives, but for most middle class people, it'll be between $500 to $1500 per month. Food will be at least $500/month for a family. Tack on at least another $500 in other expenses such as utilities and we're at a $1500 to $2500 per month, or $18K to $30K per year without even considering clothing or medical costs. At a minimum, tack on another $5K/yr. We're now at $23K/yr to $35K/yr. The poverty line for a family of 5 in the US is $22K/yr, so I'm not talking about an extremely rich lifestyle here. We haven't even touched discretionary income or the cost of a car.
This is why many americans are so upset. Its not that they're tired of being extremely rich, its that there's a lot of people who are already having a hard time getting by and losing even $10K per year makes a big difference. While most americans might be richer than most people in India, most are no where as rich as they appear on TV.
My ass. Both of the individuals I spoke with sounded Malaysian to me. I used to have a Malaysian coworker and his speech had many of the same intricacies. He however had lived in the US for over a decade and spoke English much better than the two people I spoke with last night. Based on their speech I don't believe either of them have lived in the US or been in the US longer than for perhaps the duration of a vacation. My foreign friends from college used English better their 2nd week of school that either of these two individuals. The fact that I got two in a row makes me certainly believe that my CS call was routed to a foreign land.
If Kerry wants us to get our drugs from Canada then Canada's going to need some cheap labor in order to provide the massive amounts of drugs that will be needed without driving the costs up.
...is it just me or does it seem like most people are lacking a basic economics course? People...look at the laws of supply and demand! Big government just screws it all up and doesn't end up helping anyone for long.
I've been wondering as I've watched John Kerry's commercials, what tax loophole is he talking about? Also, in what year was the loophole created and who voted for it?
Just wondering...
Over the past few years 300,000 US jobs have been outsourced. But over two million (2,000,000 is greater then 300,000) jobs have disappeared due to automation! (Forrester Research). So play with the tax codes all you want, we've got to have people educated enough (and flexible enough) to create new sources of wealth
It's the machines you have to watch out for. Remember 'Terminator'? That computer you reading this on, it wants your job.
We all know CEO's don't do much, other than try and look good.
Only somebody with no real idea of what goes on in a large organization would say that CEO's don't do much.
You're one of those people who actually believes a Dilbert cartoon is representative of reality, aren't you.
Which is ironic since English is descended
from Proto-Indo-European (Sanskrit) via
High German and Latin.
If you want a car made in the USA, you buy from a japanese company, if you by from a US company, you get one made in mexico.
I don't read AC A human right
Funny, Toronto hasn't exploded into a 3rd world hellhole. I'm still here in Canuckistan. Whaddaya know? Balkanisation doesn't ruin the country, so long as everyone's law abiding and decent to each other and knows enough English to get by.
Is there a written contract somewhere that says Slashdot is obliged to provide you with the drivel that you want because other issues are more important to you?
No, I didn't think so.
If you're a paying subscriber, is there anything in the terms of the contract that says Rob has to provide you 1337 Shadow, with the crap that you want, or that you are forced to continue the subscription?
No, I didn't think so.
Don't like it, go somewhere else.
Bye.
I don't care about Kerry's record. I have seen too many atrocities on television now for me to worry about the freaking paperwork.
What is worse, passing a bill about medicare that someone doesn't like, or carpet bombing two city blocks because they think that a bad guy is there?
Yeah, show me all the paperwork you want.
well, we Canadians were involved in Korea... and you can't say that was a clear cut victory.. not really a lose either, but still.
Yes, Canada is already in an Axis.
Hmmm. Don't like after-the-purchase EULAs the UCITA enforces interfering with your ability to examine code? Worried about the Patriot act leading you to be investigated because of your opinions or curiosity? (note: happened to friend of mine). Concerned with Microsoft OS security flaws in eVoting? Dislike the broken U.S. patent system? Don't like the DMCA forbidding what you can and cannot release? Want a good anti-spam law, or at least the existing laws to be enforced (or not?) Here's a clue: these are all LAWS. LAWS are approved by various Representatives we colloquilly call POLITICIANS. Selecting the most acceptable Politicians is called Politics.
Maybe it was true 20 years ago that Nerd-type news could safely ignore politics. But not today. Why? Because we nerds collectively create a lot of money, and where money is involved, there will be a lot of businessmen pushing and shoving, power plays, and even less savory things that require our attention, unless we want to be steamrolled.
Oh, but you are not really upset about Politics per se. It's really that Slashdot allows people of any opinion to post. In this very discussion, I've read several Libertarian viewpoints, some Democratic, some Republican, a number of foreigners, and one that might be considered too socialist to be Green. This obviously disturbs you. Like most US conservatives these days, you are obviously more comfortable with the "Shut up Shut up Shut up Cut His Mike" style of GOP cable news in the U.S., so anything that doesn't censor opinions you disagree with must be, perforce, "Bias". You want validation, dammit!
In truth, you're right: Taco is "biased". He's given a substantial media platform to third party candidates far disproportionate to their ability to ever get them implemented. He seems positively enamored with Libertarians. That's ok. I'm not whining. I like having my views challenged. Enjoying intellectual discourse is part of being a "Nerd".
and neither will Bush (if he wanted to). The why is very simple. Any closing of these loopholes will have to go through Congress which as everyone knows is a corporate lobbyist's playground.
Setting up overseas centers is not cheap, as the company I work for is finding out and this loophole has no chance of being closed until costs of opening the centers has been recouped. As long as there is money to be "donated" to House and Senate, they will get their money back on their investments. Regardless of Kerry's intentions.
Even if Kerry were to close a tax loophole, is he going to force those other countries to start charging more money? Loophole or not, someone in India that will do for $30K/year what a U.S. worker wouldn't touch for less than twice that amount still amounts to lower costs for outsourcing.
If you submitted that, it would have been incorrectly quoted anyway. There is no single-quote in English; you have a couple of misplaced apostrophes. I'm also going to have to cite you for misuse of the Right Single Quotation Mark Unicode character (') in place of an apostrophe (', unicode and ASCII) on that posessive noun. Damn computer geeks... *grumble* *grumble*
(P.S. It's funny -- laugh!)
Thats too bad for the Canadians I guess, half my friends work at an inbound call center to pay for thier tuition. Whats more it is called YAC, they always use the acronym cause Young America Canada doesn't make much sense
In any case, when someone asks where they are they have to reply that they are in Minnisota.
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
Furture Quote From GW on This Topic
"By golly we gave the Indians all those casinos. What more do they want....?"
Minor nitpick--there are only about 800,000 legal immigrants to the U.S. each year, plus another 300,000 or so "unofficial" immigrants. That total is closer to 100,000 per month.
Also, not all of those people came to the United States and immediately took jobs. An immigrant who brings a non-working spouse or children fills one job, not four. The total number of employment-based immigrants (skilled workers, mostly) is only about 140,000 per year (a shade more than ten thousand per month).
It should be noted that Canada--a country a tenth the size of the United States--admits roughly the same number of skilled immigrants each year as the U.S. Curiously, there seems to be relatively little whinging up there about Indian immigrants "stealing" skilled jobs. Perhaps the problem in the States isn't immigration, but rather a massive mishandling of economic and trade policy...?
~Idarubicin
In response to: The US has two free trade agreements with Canada, so get used to finding out what agreements Canada has with other nations..they will quickly become agreements with the US by transitivity.
...... "We can not let these transvestights from Cannid da effect our strong economy hear at home."
-GWB, President-
Everyone complains about companies outsourcing, but has anyone ever see any actual studies on Insourcing vs. Outsourcing? From my browsing around it looks to me like it's actually more beneficial to the economy.
We insource a LOT more than we outsource: "The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that, in 2003, the United States bought $77.38 billion in services from foreign countries and sold $131.01 billion to them" and "according to the McKinsey Global Institute, for every $1 outsourced, the economic gain to the United States as a whole is $1.12 to $1.14"
Can anyone find a link with some good info on the evils of outsourcing?
quoted text from: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba480/
Candidate John Kerry has said he will close the tax loophole that makes it advantageous to outsource call centers.
So Kerry is going to close that pesky tax loophole that allows indian and other workers to get paid a fraction of what US workers make?
The reason outsourcing is profitable is because workers are willing to work for a lower wage outside the U.S. That's not a tax loophole.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
I said I didn't have time to argue and now I have even less. You are in fact a racist and an idiot, troll. Troll somewhere else.
*looks at Western Politician*
What did you say about Western and honest again?
Linux is not Windows
About once a month I get a phone from the MIT alumni organization asking for more contributions. Almost all the callers are young women with south Asian accents. I cant say what country these people are located in, but pretty much know where the HQ is at.
On the positive side, MIT cuts overhead costs of fund raising.
On the negative side, obvious outsourcing rankles some of the alumni I've talked to, because their positions are under the outsourcing cloud too.
MIT also outsources the webification of its famous OpenCourseWare to south Asia. The preliminary materials are submitted in various forms by profs and TAs and polished up by the outsource company.
Let me first state I think your right in the overall assessment of this issue, let me give you some details from an outsourced techy within the US.
For the past few years I have been doing tech jobs in the US for well below the IT pricing standards within the US and from what I've seen its a matter of price. I currently run a hosting company and work as outsourced support for others. My main competition for jobs is coming from India because they are willing to work for the lower wages and know their computers. The first level Indian support is not that great because the really good computer guys are remote admins. As one of my friends in India said those first level guys are the computer guys that every other computer guy laughed at. Their second stringers the good ones are making good money for knowing their stuff.
My job and those I work with was won back from Indian call centers for a number of reasons but a big one is our familiarity with English. Not that the Indian techs cannot speak English its the language itself. If you talk to a southerner then talk to a Canadian their not the same thing but native speakers can decifer the differences. I'll give an example of this. One night at the call center an guy from Dublin, Ireland called if I had not been a native speaker I'd have had little chance of understanding his slang and dialect.
Moderation is for monks. -Lazarus Long
What's so wrong about people seeking work that pays better than what they had originally?
That's not the issue. You know it.
Just because they're of a different ethnicity than you, or they speak a different language, you think we should forbid them from coming here to work?
They aren't coming here to work. They're manning call centers in India. The only difference is that they've gone multi-national and are using Canadian PR to front for them. Nobody here has a problem with indian workers having a better life. The problem is that our kids are going hungry as a result.
News flash: People are people, some of us had the fortune of being born and raised in stronger economical and freer political environments, but to act like it's wrong for a person to find a better job somewhere and for a company to hire that person is completely antithetical to what freedom and our capitalistic nation is all about.
Those people don't have the environmental regulations, the labor laws, the minimum wages, or any of the other things this 'capitalistic nation is all about'. When you can figure out how to level the playing field without further turning this nation into a wage slavery shit hole feel free to return and present your argument again. Otherwise, you are comparing apples to oranges and you know it.
And why is that, thou "Great Sensitive Multiculturalist"?
The way the more pragmatic among us see it, a country that needs to be bombed is usually a country that needs to be bombed. Kumbaya can wait.
just like he really enjoys the 15% tax rate he and Tereza paid last year.
Humorous you bring that up when Kerry has said he wants to get rid of the tax cut that BUSH put in. Perhaps you missed the debates. So Kerry's guilty because he got the tax cut that Bush was all about, yet Bush's hands are in ANY fashion cleaner despite the fact that it was his presidency that saw it passed?
Please.
Oh well, I guess "we" Canucks really can't stand that Texan swagger.
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
First, I'd like to point out that plugging John Kerry over Bush - or the three minor party candidates - is absolutely unbiased and a disgusting show of partisanship on the part of this samspenus guy.
More importantly - ignoring for a moment that John eFfin Kerry can't be trusted - International trade law prohibits governments from 'closing tax loopholes' which allow foreign companies a competitive advantage in a given country. It would only be a matter of time before India hits the world court and sues the US and Canada for access to our markets. As well they should. People need to stop fearing the notion of global trade, and gear up to be competitive in it.
Candidate John Kerry has said he will close the tax loophole that makes it advantageous to outsource call centers.
There are two problems with Senator Kerry's promise:
1. The tax loophole he wants to close doesn't exist.
2. Outsourcing is more than balanced by insourcing, and it's the cost savings from outsourcing that are driving that. And before you spout something about the quality of the insourced jobs, they pay far more than the national average.
In short, in this as in so many other things, Kerry is just lying to try to fool stupid people into voting for him.
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Yeah I suggest to those people that they should one day try to go through the "lax" process and see how they feel afterwards.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
It was a joke, I'm canadian, lighten up.
Thank you, come again, eh?
nuff said.
click me
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do you know what a useful idiot is? Lenin coined the term to refer to Communists who towed the party line no matter how outrageous it was, and gladly parroted propaganda because they didn't know any better. That is what you are, my friend, you are a useful idiot.
FACT: CONGRESS established the Department of Homeland Security - not Bush. Only congress can greate a cabinet, approve its appointments, and fund its operation. If you had a single clue about American government, you wouldn't even bother making moronic statements equating our Republic to the Reich.
Fact: Kerry is a confessed war criminal. After using his silver spoon billionare connections to get him into the naval officer corps, he sails on to do one tour aboard a boat nowhere near the coast of Viet Nam, and 2/3rds of a second tour on a river boat. His one and only combat action involved a violation of the geneva convention, wherein her mercilessly shot an un-uniformed enemy combatant who was fleeing. Cowardly enough, Kerry shot him in the back. Then, long before he had served his committment, Kerry used political favors to get an early discharge from the Navy into the Active Naval Reserve, where he was to attend 17 days of active duty and 42 drills at Bainbridge MD's Naval Reserve Center. Kerry never attended a single one. As an AWOL officer, Kerry illegally visited enemies of the United States, made disparaging statements about his chain of command, offered aid and comfort to enemies of America, and committed treason. Thats why a naval board convened in 1977 to discharge Kerry, and why Kerrys medals were revoked, only to be reissued in 1986 when Kerry became a Congressman.
Fact: Bush is protecting people from having a sexual orientation forced on them by activist judges who violate the Constitutional Separation of Powers and legislate from the bench. Again, if you had a clue about how government works in America, you'd have at least stated that differently.
Lastly, Kerry can't be trusted. He lies. He vascillates. He flip flops. You can't support kerry because the reasons you'd support him change from day to day. So kindly get bent, you useful idiot.
People do not change their mind as rapidly and drastically as John Kerry, who has drastically altered positions on everything from "for" or "agianst" money for the troops, to whether he tossed "medals" or "ribbons" (neither of which should be confused). The bottom line is that kerry is vascillating flip-flopper who cannot be trusted to act according to principle, moral ethics, or simply strong belief. Instead, he acts according to the will of a plurality of his choosing, whether it be the voters in control group A, or the beauracrats at the UN.
Wrong again, tool-boy. Kerry said of his vote change that it was a "protest". He never changed his mind on the need to fund Iraq, what he did was use a vote on a bill he knew would pass in order to garner publicity. Is that what you want in a leader? Kerry gambled on vital funds for young men and women in need - body armor, armored humvees (which he later criticized Bush for not making sure the troops had already), bullets, medical equipment, extra pay, et al. That is what Kerry voted against, after voting for it. All for a political show.
John Kerry was never anywhere near the 'front lines' of Vietnam. He patrolled the lower Mekong delta is a boat for four months, and only took fire in one incident. The front lines were some 200 miles north of that point. Also, just to remind you, Kerry's one and only combat action was when he left his boat - something he's not supposed to do, particularly as the Officer in Charge - chased down a fleeing enemy, and shot him in the back in cold blood and in violation of the Rules of War. His act was less than honorable by any definition, and a War Crime under the rules of the Geneva Convention. I can't believe that your hatred for Bush is such that you'd consider a man like Kerry.
As for Bush's "non combat assignment" in the National Guard...who the fuck do you think patrolled our Airspace while the majority of US fighter/bomber capacity was in SE Asia and spread across Europe? There are ANG pilots on the Gulf Coast that saw more flight time than Vietname pilots. What you don't know (because you weren't even old enough to piss in your diaper) is that Cuban fighters (piloted by Russians in many cases) probed US airspace in the SE corridor once every three weeks. In three cases, Russian MIGs flew over US territory with full combat load.
This country now enjoys the lowest unemployment rate in a decade thanks to Bushs tax policy (5.4%), and real incomes are up (3.9% over last year). These are REAL incomes, not hyperinflated fluff jobs like what came of the dot-com era. So whatever economic troubles you might be having are your fault for not getting off your ass and ramping up your worthless job skills to be something more than a burger-flipping loser.
You are my hero! I am so excited about the future of India.
But please learn to write paragraphs.
fish and pipes