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Small Town USA Competing With India
William Hood writes "According to a news article at ABC, companies are sometimes opting to outsource to rural USA rather than foreign countries. Although it still achieves the same result of lowering the value of a job, I think the idea of moving to a larger house that costs less in a town with no traffic is a much better option than flying to Bangalore to train your replacement." From the article: "Sebeka is 14 miles from the closest traffic light, hours from the nearest Starbucks coffee shop and a far cry from the Chicago suburb he left. 'There is no traffic,' said technical consultant Clayton Seal, who also works in Sebeka. 'Anytime, day or night, you can cross Main Street -- almost don't have to look 'cause there's nobody there.' Seal also lost his job to outsourcing."
There is no problem doing this in a small US town.
The problem is that u need to find very well trained people who are willing to live there and work from there and still be happy with what they get paid.
Its a funny thing that u guys think there are no traffic lights in india. The cities where these outsourcing companies work from are not 14 miles away from traffic lights and not 50 miles from a starbucks like coffee shop. Its hard to see how a computer savy group can live without computer shops around, without the modern amenities and most importantly without coffee !!
Obviously written by someone with no knowledge of the housing market.
Most large metropolitan areas are, and have been the last 5 years or so, in the middle of bubble markets. Some are worse than others, but in almost all cases, those that make the median incomes cannot afford the median home.
Take where I live, Washington DC. We're in one of the worst bubbles in the history of the United States. People who make six-figure salaries cannot afford homes within 50 miles of the District. Even housing in far-flung communities like Fredericksburg VA, Waldorf MD, and even Martinsburg WV are skyrocketing.
The reason is speculation. People are willing to purchase homes they cannot afford out of the concept that they will make massive returns on it later on. They're right -- up to a point. Eventually (many are saying within the next couple years) the price point will level off because there simply aren't enough people who can afford those prices, then once it levels off, the speculation will end, and prices will plummet. Personally, I think it's all a scam engineered by real estate investors, which is why I'm renting.
Rural areas have been spared this. Making 100k a year, you can only afford to rent in and around DC. Making 50k in a rural area, you can afford a large home with acrage and still have enough left over for a very comfortable lifestyle. You won't be wearing the latest fashions and drinking at the finest clubs, but, you won't be expected, to, either.
There's always other friends, and besides, children would probably be better served growing up in a rural area vice a city, with all the problems that they come with.
It's all contingent on what's important to you.
I lived in Sebeka in 1990, it was a really nice little town. Good school, nice people, a public pool and ice rink. It even has a little river running through it.
I don't remember it being THAT small tho. I wouldn't want to live there now, but if I ever wanted to raise a family I could think of worse places.
How can you go wrong living in a place less than 10 miles from Nimrod, MN??
And then he did that thing with that stuff and it was like, wow...
During the Democratic presidential primary I heard one candidate talk about the need to stop giving welfare money to large corporations but instead give tax breaks and incentives to small businesses. The rationale is that small businesses keep jobs here in America rather than outsource them. I like the idear not only because it keeps jobs in America, but it fits in well with the American Dream. Giving people the opportunities of making a good living while being your own boss.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
Where do you live that a house near, let alone in, a big city is only $250k? In SoCal, the average house price is well over $400k now. Somewhere in the midwest, you can buy a decent home for closer to $100k depending on area.
Rural America is quite different from rural Europe in that it typically consists of very marginalized societies that live in their own communities governed by their own rules and frequently exist outside the main judiciary system. Yes I'm talking rednecks with shotguns here.
Rural America, unlike rural Europe does not benefit from equalization funds similar to Europe and resembles Bangalore India much more than it resembles villages in coastal France or northern Scotland.
When you move to rural areas you also give up a lot that is taken for granted in urban environments, that is selection of foods and products, access to culture and amenities and the ability to mingle with like-minded people. There simply is just a lack of everything.
Now, the housing cost compensates a little bit especially if you intend to have more than a couple of kids. What you have to offset this against is the real possibility that even if you manage to hold on to your job your spouse may not find gainful employment in a rural or semi-rural area. This is frequently a problem for my co-workers who have well educated but frequently underemployed spouses and girlfriends.
Rural areas may get hit hard by the impending energy crisis. There is nothing for public transport in where I live and no real chance of seeing any. Having a car is an absolute necessity to even stay fed and clothed. Driving distances tend to be enormous. My work place is 60 miles from my house while the nearest grocery shop is at least 5 miles away.
As a European I can't get over that I have to travel that far for milk and bread with no walkable community. And I'm actually in the main town's subdivision!
Having ended up where I am I'm seriously reconsidering returning to Europe. You can make a little more money working here vs Europe but you have to sacrifice sooo much more!
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
You clearly do not live in Silicon Valley.
An "average" 3 bed home, no frills here will set you back 700k - 1m.
Move to rural america, heck anywhere and you can buy a god damn mansion for 300k.
You take your equity and run. Assuming you have equity and you're not stupidly buying property right now with interest only mortgages because you can't afford it.
The housing market is going to crash folks, get ready for negative equity.
By what standard? With almost 2 million people, whatever big-city conveniences the KC metro area doesn't have are not due to its size.
Tell them to go review the FCC website that states in plain English that passive reception devices are their authority, can be deployed anywhere on your property, and that they explicitly override any landlord or HOA with regards to these decisions.
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
Here you go:
:-))
http://passport.nic.in/visrules.htm
http://www.immigration.com/india/visa-info.html
(disclaimer: I didn't do the web-design
Google search keys:
"employment visa" site:in
immigration to India
BTW, I'm not pretending it's hassle-free - the Indian govt. remains bureaucratic and corrupt, but I can think of equivalent hassles that potential immigrants to the US face.
OK. I did look it up. It's here. Only applies if the dish is less than 1m in diameter. So a digital satellite dish would qualify, but one of those 2m+ ones (like I used to see in the 80's) could still be restricted. Then again, does anybody still get the giant ones? Maybe to pick up foreign television transmissions?
"Uh... yeah, Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants our size?" --Pinky
My parents have lived in Moses Lake for the last 12 years. They're trying to sell their house and get out of there; unfortunately for them the housing market there is not as hot as it is other places. In fact they haven't had any bites in the last couple of months it's been on the market.
You mention water skiing in Moses Lake - However whenever I have visited the lake is full of algae scum. It's a rather stagnant lake. Not anything I'd want to swim in.
And the weather? It gets very cold in the Winter (down around 0 is not unusual) and very hot in the Summer (100 is not unusual this time of the year). And it's a desert landscape without much of anything interesting. There's a park nearby called the Potholes Park (sounds just lovely). Lots of farms around so you can get plenty of pesticide spray wafting your way (one of the reasons my parents want to move - it has become enough of a problem that it's effecting their health). Oh and then there's the Hanford Nuclear Reservation not an hour away - lot's of glow-in-the-dark fun to be had there!
No, Moses Lake is not the beauty spot you make it out to be. I actually find it to be one of the most depressing places I've ever visited - but maybe it's partly because I prefer the green side of the mountains.
Do you know why the US dollar got off the gold standard? Voters who were debtors were in favor of a currency that could inflate; if a dollar was worth less, so were the dollars they owed to the bank.
Fast forward a century, and we now have the government that is deeply indebted, and while both parties like to gloss over it, it's still an albatross around the federal government's collective neck. The easiest way to pay off this debt? Devalue the dollars that debt is measured in.
This is why the US government has done little in the wake of the dollar's slide in the past few years, and why foreign governments (including/especially Japan) have been scrambling to prop it up. And this is why your particular conspiracy theory holds no water.
Absolute value with respect to other currencies doesn't matter, the only important part is the change in value over time (think back to first semester calculus). If the US dollar being worth less than a (presumably) Mexican peso is such a bad thing, then why isn't Japan in a panic since there are about 10 yen to a peso? Was Italy a third-world country back when they still used lira?
Perhaps invading Iraq wasn't a great decision, but at least America tries to do something about murderous tyrants.
No, it doesn't. The invasion was about WMD's, remember?