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Obama Says Offshoring Fears Are Unwarranted
alphadogg writes "The perception that Indian call centers and back office operations cost US jobs is an old stereotype that ignores today's reality that two-way trade between the US and India is helping create jobs and raise the standard of living in both countries, US President Barack Obama told a gathering of business executives in Mumbai on Saturday. President Obama's remarks come after some moves in the US that had Indian outsourcers worried that the US may get protectionist in the wake of job losses in the country. The state of Ohio, for example, banned earlier this year the expenditure of public funds for offshore purposes. US exports to India have quadrupled in recent years, and currently support tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the US, he said in a speech that was also streamed live. In addition, there are jobs supported by exports to India of agriculture products, travel and education services. President Obama, who is in India on a three-day visit, said that more than 20 deals worth about $10 billion were announced on the first day of his visit."
The H1-b fraud is what kills it for most Americans that stumble upon offshoring's negative qualities.
You don't go to India for US jobs, especially when you're millions of US jobs in the hole.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The reality is that those jobs are already in India and aren't coming back.
(Yes, I'm aware of the less than a handful of companies that reversed outsourcing of their call centers after constant complaints from customers about not being able to understand a word out of "Kevin" from Bangalore's mouth. Outsourcing firms are much better with the English these days.)
1998 called. They want their abnormally stretched asshole back. I suppose if you were born in 1998, and you've never seen Goatse before, that it might be shocking to you. For those of us who aren't 12, it's just old, tired, and lame.
HAND.
My admittedly limited understanding of this is that of course it costs us jobs, because it's very expensive to hire US employees compared to the costs of hiring employees in most other countries in the world. (The transaction costs of all of the employee rights and rules and regulations are massive. It's helpful to live in a society with some of them, but there's a massive cost. Think of how massive and absurd so much of HR is.) So between that and the standard of living, labor is cheaper elsewhere. Which means that companies make more money by producing products or services elsewhere. Which both drives prices of products and services down. This in turn raises the standard of living by making products and services less expensive. But the beneficial effects are spread across the entire economy, while the losses are concentrated and massive to the people who lose their jobs.
Economists say the widespread effects are a net gain. I don't know if I believe them--because I haven't done the math, and I've known a lot of economists who aren't very empirical.
At the same time, our gini coefficient (i.e. the divide between the rich and the poor) is increasing, which is probably a bigger problem.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
The state of Ohio, for example, banned earlier this year the expenditure of public funds for offshore purposes.
One of the many things that was possible with Governor Strickland, and not Head Banker-elect Kasich.
The only shame is that Kasich got elected as Head Banker, instead of the state retaining Governor Strickland. Now we get a Wall Street banker that compares himself to an East Coast thug. By how he's talking to the media, he's not going to step aside; the Head Banker's simply going to exact revenge.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Harley Davidson is building an assembly plant in India to assemble American parts. Why not ship the entire (pre-built) motorcycle to India? Well, because India has tariffs that essentially double the price
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
But I fear the populism in the tea party and the progressives is more in alignment for more economic nationality.
And I also believe that no legislation will stop the world from turning. The developing world will keep developing and net flows of capital and standards of living are going to flow from more developed to less developed.
We can make ourselves leaner and meaner on the business regs and the spending front, but instead we will build more more walls.
These plans will fail.
"Create job abd raise the standard of living in both countries".
This statement is only true if you count the rich getting richer in the US. I fail to see how losing your middle class income job to outsourcing raises your stadard of living.
This is why the tax breaks given to companies who shift US jobs overseas needs to go. This plus NAFTA is continuing to destroy whatever manufacturing the US has left inside its borders.
My company has been outsourcing jobs in India to East Asia. I doubt it is as romantic as the movie Outsourced
Neah, offshoring is terrible obviously. And in even worse will be when computers do all of our menial and boring tasks using simple AI.
Imagine that; all those jobs will be done for free, and thus we'll lose even more jobs! I can't imagine how bad a world would be where every unwanted job is left to robots and computers!
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
His job will not likely be outsourced to India for quite some time.
The truth cuts close for Kasich supporters. Someone delivers a support for the facts and y'all modbomb them.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
The fact that Obama thinks that millions of previously American jobs that have been outsourced to India is somehow good shows just how out of touch Obama is with regular America. America needs jobs, and those jobs used to provide careers to Americans. What happened to the Democrat party defending American jobs?
Mr Obama, please get back in tough with the needs to of the American people. Didn't your parties recent thrashing in the election send a message that you need to listen to?
Obama should gather a little bit of data on the tech sector. IBM alone has hired 80,000 people in India in the last 8 years. Meanwhile, my colleagues and I have not had raises in the last 5 years. We aren't a group of chump manufacturing people putting tops on bottoms either. We develop a lot of the firmware in the high end systems, and do high level hardware design. We've been told no back fills in the US. The only new people are in cheaper regions.
I'm sure our friends at HP, Oracle, Dell, etc are up to the same nonsense.
Is President Obama taking into account MY personal costs when I require internet tech support and have to use my cell phone minutes? Not to mention the difficulties of the language barrier when you can hardly understand what they're saying due to their thick accents that further complicates matters and takes up yet more of my valuable time? Does he understand that they can hardly understand me either, so we go back & forth repeating ourselves trying to resolve the issue, taking up yet more time and costing ME more money?? I think not.
What he said about India could have well applied to China more, as the US exports more products to China than to India. But he, and the other politicians, did not say the same things to China. The only reason being that China is now the main competitor and so we have to demonize it and please countries like India and Vietnam, exactly like how we pleased China 30 years ago -- opened up our market without asked for the equivalent level of opening up, established relation with Mao's regime which was a million times more suppressive than the current one, and kicked out Taiwan from th UN, in order to fight against the then biggest competitor -- the Soviet Union. The problem with this strategy is that while we may constraint one competitor, we are creating another new major one for ourselves down the road. And we the common people pay the costs. History repeats itself again and again.
Goddammit! We got fooled again!
I think this is just a ripening up of the American public for Palin and the Tea-Nazis to come crash the party in two years time. It's all just part of the show and Obama is just the latest bit-part player.
-FL
Several weeks ago I remember hearing a negro professor on the radio mention that even the black community recognized he was not dramatically different from other politicians on issues of civil rights and bringing our jobs home. Too many put their hope and faith in a man that didn't deserve it.
When Obama got elected, I remember speaking about it to a friend of mine who emigrated to Europe some years ago. People there were ecstatic about Obama being our new President-elect. I asked him why. "Is it because Obama is going to make a wonderful President in their view?" His answer? "No. It's because he isn't George Bush." They were far more rational in their appraisal of Obama than we were.
Obama is an ex-Chicago politician, with all that that implies to anyone who knows that fine city. Expecting him to be some kind of messiah, some kind of prophet ringing in a new era of prosperity for America was just ignorant. He is what he is, another tax-and-spend Democrat with delusions of grandeur like all the rest of the Washington crowd, and we're getting precisely the leadership for which we cast our votes. I did my research, and had a pretty good idea how he was going to turn out, and alas, I was not wrong. That many refused to exercise their power wisely, especially in the Internet Age where everything about everyone is online for the taking, and had literally deluded themselves into believing otherwise in no way affects who and what the man represents.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
That is $ 10 Billion coming in to the US - by exporting products (33 planes from Boeing, 414 Jet Engines from GE, etc.) to India. RTFA ... oh, wait, this is Slashdot.
Worth ten billion dollars to whom, Mr. President. Is that ten billion leaving the U.S., never to been seen again, or are we getting something worthwhile in return?
[...]
What? What's that you say? I may not ask those questions?
Reading comprehension fail.
The 10 billion is the money is coming from India to the US. How it gets distributed within the US depends on how you vote in elections.
The US trade deficit with India is already over $7B this year through August; heading to top $10B this year. That will be among the highest annual deficits, though Bush/Cheney got deficits as high as $12B+. August 2009 saw the only monthly trade surplus with India in well over 20 years, $34 million; the rest of the months total to something like a quarter $TRILLION more spent on India than India spent on the US. It's obvious that the parallel growth in the US and India leaves the US with less money from our jobs and more money in India for its jobs.
Of course, the corporate profits on all those jobs are not counted in trade stats. The real competition isn't between US labor vs Indian labor. It's between labor in either country, and the corporate owners who run the system, keeping the profits among themselves and their banker partners.
--
make install -not war
It is getting to the point where outsourcing will start costing US companies money. In my current employment situation, we outsource the management of the network infrastructure to AT&T. They manage the firewalls, load balancers and switches. However everything is managed from Singapore. Whenever I need to discuss network design decisions or changes with a real Cisco certified engineer, I have to do it on Singapore time. They don't have any engineers in America anymore. All of their project managers seem to be in India. They must be a getting a great discount, because my PM doesn't know jack. Every time I need a question answered, he has to ask someone else.
Anyone who has dealt with AT&T knows that getting change orders processed is a complete PITA. When you add a 12 hour time difference on top of it, it is amazing that anything gets done at all.
Our solution is that we are going to hire a network engineer here in America. AT&T can bugger off. We are an American company. We are hosting our servers in an American data center on US soil. Our vendor should have people who can work with us during our regular business hours. I'm all for having people on the other side of the world who can do things during a midnight (local time) maintenance window. I'm not all for having to wait until 9pm to have a conference call to discuss things. I'm even more put off by dealing with people who barely speak my language and don't have the technical competence to keep up.
We were hoping for a Theodore Roosevelt. We got a Bush with a brain and a tan.
To flesh that out--I think a TR is exactly what we needed. That's somebody who isn't afraid to go against the party and prevailing wisdom among the elites. That would NOT be somebody who wants "card check" to expand union power. It'd be somebody who is able to use his bully pulpit to push for a restoration of a progressive tax structure that would truly benefit the working class, and not just the ones lucky enough to have a cushy union job.
Instead, he pushed card-check which is DOA with Republicans in Congress, and he will probably be forced to compromise on the Bush tax cuts.
It's pretty ironic that the "populist" tea party movement probably has a lot of people who would be well served by the kind of Progressive movement that existed 100 years ago. Instead, they're voting for more Corporatism.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I once charged over $ 100 an hour. I'm now lucky if I get a job for $10 an hour. Go figure!
The question is what happens if you had to hold the H1-b/etc. candidate to the same standards(and qualifications) as the US one? If firms like Patni can't prove that the foreign candidate can meet the same (impossible) standards, they haven't proven that a US citizen can't do it.
Of course, that might mean that the qualifications get skewed to include language proficiencies and such things that US citizens obviously can't do. That could be addressed by having them act in good-faith towards the citizen, and hire them. Then give the hired person a bit more power by allowing them to report attempts to circumvent (e.g. their projects are designed to fail).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Yes, thats the actual US unemployment rate when you take into account those who gave up looking. And in return for outsourcing jobs he cites $10B in export deals. Really? That's 1/8 of AAPL's yearly revenue. That's 1/60 of what the Fed just printed to buy Treasury bonds.
Sure you can ask those questions. You'll just look stupid, because the answers are in the fucking article.
Way to Poe's Law the thread. :(
Today's reality is you have a government that wants to pile on endless and needless regulations which raises the cost of business here in America and a Federal Reserve that will debase the US dollar until it's worthless effectively creating a tax on everyone's money not just their income. Not only that but you want to raise taxes on people in the upper brackets who create jobs either as upper management or by owning a business themselves and a President who wants to bash business every chance he gets. What kind of business would want to create jobs here in America in this type of environment?
Sure some outsourcing where people need to talk to each other has come back, but anything else hasn't.
You know what, I have actually worked VERY extensively with outsourced call centers. You know it's not the fact that you can pay $2 per call. That's not really the issue as I see it, because you know what folks? You get what you pay for! The cultural differences between the US and India and the Philippians is just to marked. If the folks can't work through something on a script, then they're typically screwed. Why is this? Because their culture is different. I used to work as Escalation for these folks and when I would ask some basic questions as to what the problem was, they would just say yes to everything! I would find that the problem they had missed was basic because they don't think like a troubleshooter. They have preconceived notions and would take 8+ hours on the phone with these customers and end up not helping them. I have also run into this behavior as well. I'm a technical guy. When I have to call into technical support, I do so because there's a problem that I have diagnosed and can't move forward without them doing something. I go over the exact steps that I have done to diagnose the problem, and then they have me do silly shit (For example...my power supply is bad, it's not charging nor providing power to my laptop, swap the power supply out and all is good...guy in tech support had me take my battery out and hold down the power button...REALLY!?!).
Anyways, that's my rant about outsourced call centers. Their troubleshooting skills are useless. I will say this however, our European call centers were outstanding. Is this because their culture is similar to the one found in the US? Probably. It might be education, but from what I'm led to understand most of the folks who work at call centers in India and the Philippians are college grads, and they aren't dumb. I think their cultures just don't have them question authority enough!
[citation needed]
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Several weeks ago I remember hearing a negro professor on the radio mention that even the black community recognized he was not dramatically different from other politicians on issues of civil rights and bringing our jobs home. Too many put their hope and faith in a man that didn't deserve it.
How is this off-topic? The discussion is about President Obama and his policies.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This is the "lowest bidder" theory applied globally. If it so good as they say would Obama and the government please move into facilities/housing determined by "lowest bid" instead of spending so much money on the White House etc. I'm sure they could find a better deal in Detroit or somewhere.
You know, Arafat would say one thing in English, and then another in Arabic.
The linked article quotes him speaking against outsourcing, and then he goes to India and speaks favorably of it. He's not using a different language; but it's the same idea.
The first thing I thought of Obama's election is that he would go the Daley path. So far, he has not disappointed me; this trip to Asia is only Obama's Meigs Field. The only goal is that he distances himself from his earlier actions and appeases the current group in power.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The primary source of this entire argument that outsourcing everything to India or China is good for America is Larry Summers. Mr Summers served as Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, where he orchestrated NAFTA and the continued opening of the US market to China with the exact same arguments as now. During the Bush years, he served as the president of Harvard, where he supervised a massive drop in the endowment and massive annoyance to everybody who had to work with him, until he was booted out over some foolish remarks about the capabilities of women in science. And more recently under Obama, he served as the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, which I'm positive is where Obama got the ideas that he's spewing here.
He's been wrong throughout his entire career, but because his mistakes make a small group of people very rich, he manages to get more and more power. Compare that to someone like Paul Krugman, who regularly gets his forecasts correct but is ignored because his policy responses would involve giving ordinary people a helping hand.
I am officially gone from
It still gets me hard. I jack off to goatse once or twice a week.
For those confused:
Cohen & Grigsby, with offices on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.
Youtube video catching the firm in the act.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
they deserve jobs India can do for a cheaper price?
You lost me at "tax and spend". We should get past bumper-sticker assertions, especially when they're not even right. I guess "tax less but spend more" isn't as catchy, but it seems to work for the Republicans.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
Obama is a politician.That should have been enough. Unfortunately with a two party system all you can do is vote for the lesser of two evils.
What will happen is that one party tries to get out of the financial crisis. The only way to do that is by raising taxes. The other party will then gain votes by blaming the other party and start spending money like crazy. This will lead the other party to blame the other party and gain votes and do stupid things.
Just blame the other party and you will be elected every so often.
We live in a world of soundbites and voting is done by emotion. In Belgium with elections, there always are one or two websites where you can do some tests to see what party fits closest to your ideas. Yet when I ask my friends what the outcome will be the party they will vote for, the answer is always no. This because they are voting with emotion, not reasoning. http://www.euprofiler.eu/ as an example and in English
And people wonder why shit happens in politics.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I work in tech support and I'm on the phone to India ALL DAY. Obama is another corporate whore, no different than all the other presidents since they shot JFK in the face. He's better than Bush in exactly one way: He can speak English. Too bad it's all lies. They share that trait.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Worth ten billion dollars to whom, Mr. President. Is that ten billion leaving the U.S., never to been seen again, or are we getting something worthwhile in return? [...] What? What's that you say? I may not ask those questions?
Reading comprehension fail.
The 10 billion is the money is coming from India to the US. How it gets distributed within the US depends on how you vote in elections.
Not at all. You can't be accused of not comprehending that which you didn't read in the first place. As I explained to jo_ham, I prefer to go on a good rant first. That gives all of you a chance to feel haughty and superior, leaving you thoroughly disarmed before I eviscerate you with my sharp logic and rapier wit.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
thet t'k rrr jeeebs
Freedom of choice, knowledge & life...
You lost me at "tax and spend". We should get past bumper-sticker assertions, especially when they're not even right. I guess "tax less but spend more" isn't as catchy, but it seems to work for the Republicans.
Fine. How about "borrow and spend"? Because that's what he's doing. Is that an improvement over "tax and spend"? The reality is he's doing both.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
He's just kissing ass because we supported Pakistan (which used to be part of India)in the so called "war on terror" instead of India. Why is it whenever we have a war the only people who win are the defense contractors? So now that we have not realized the objective we hoped to achieve by pumping money into Pakistan and propping up a dictator we are now trying to make nice with the country we pissed off in the process. I think the Indian army was better organized to help us in this "war" and had more experience to help us in Afghanistan when we needed them.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Obama is an ex-Chicago politician, Obama is a politician.
I put it that way for a reason, because anyone with half a brain would have taken him down a few notches in their estimation simply because of his background.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I had to compete to get my job v an outsourced person in some far flung land. I also had to take an 8K salary drop.
It is quite bad when you consider these companies made tens of billions a year in revenue.
Do they not realise that if I don't have a job, I am not going to be buying products? If I am not buying products, the person in the shop won't get paid and the chain carries on. Laws should be introduced to outright ban offshoring.
That and the fact everyone hates calling off shore tech people. I had to ring about a faulty cable modem. The guys english was so appalling I couldn't understand anything at all. Got even worse when I mentioned I don't run Windows. Pure panic moment for a certain Indian
Call me a racist, whatever, but this is unsustainable and is down to pure greed so some fatcat can get an extra 3 percent per product. It is directly taking money out of everyones pocket to pay some indian to do our job.
Lastly, we don't seem to make anything these days except TV shows (cartoons farmed out to Vietnam to be created) and crap like X factor etc. IP is the oil of the 21st century but the worm will turn, and it will be a world of hate.
This is what you get paying another president to spend 7 trillion on an unnecessary war.
Is that ten billion leaving the U.S., never to been seen again, or are we getting something worthwhile in return?
Nope, you were talking about specifics. Nice try though!
What will happen is that one party tries to get out of the financial crisis. The only way to do that is by raising taxes.
Raising taxes in a recession is just about the fastest possible way to turn it into a depression... it just sucks money out of the productive parts of the economy so that the government can waste it on unproductive makework scams or hand it to their big business cronies who are busy outsourcing jobs to India.
I am not even going to entertain the idea that raising taxes is a smart thing to do, only a idiot want's to give more hard earned money to a wasteful organization like our government. The govt does not create jobs, it does not create wealth it only consumes other peoples hard earned money. When I am in a financial bind I quickly work to reduce my financial burden by making cuts to non essential items, why should the govt be any different?
Got Code?
exactly. you're not an idiot, you're just an asshole.
at least the GNAA is honest about what they're up to.
"for I am the great and powerful OB!"
Outsourcing jobs to India means more jobs for better pay at home - just like War creates Peace and Freedom makes Slavery and Ignorance breeds Strength.
Women never really faint, Villains always blink their eyes, Children are the only ones who blush and Life is just to Die.
http://www.studentsfororwell.org/
Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It's pretty ironic that the "populist" tea party movement probably has a lot
of people who would be well served by the kind of Progressive movement that existed
100 years ago. Instead, they're voting for more Corporatism.
It's the widespread adoption of socialist... sorry, 'progressive'... policies which has got us into this mess: imposing more of them is hardly going to fix it.
A few years ago, I remember this economist saying that Americans need to get more education and go up the "food chain" of labor. Get those master's degrees, JDs and Ph.D.s. What they didn't consider is companies sending those jobs overseas too. You see, their models are based upon Third World countries doing the "lower food" chain jobs. They never considered the "high food" chain jobs going overseas too.
Very simply, there are over 7 billion people on this Earth and anyone can be replaced with someone cheaper. Technology has allowed communication to become extremely cheap.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
This because they are voting with emotion, not reasoning. http://www.euprofiler.eu/ [euprofiler.eu] as an example and in English
Yes. And not always just with emotion. For example, when Clinton was first up for election, my girlfriend at the time explained why she voted for the man (now, mind you, this was a girl with very high native intelligence and a Master's degree.) It was because, during the debate between the elder Bush and Bill Clinton, she felt that Clinton "looked the most Presidential" and had "much better hair."
I spent the next several minutes cleaning my beverage off the carpet, and trying not to cry.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I am sort of inline with your way of thinking, except that what really "burned me out" is that when you look @ the campaign contributions of ANY MAJOR CORPORATION (think Fortune 500 etc.)? You'll see they back BOTH players from the 2 major parties, Democrat & Republican...
This practice of theirs tells me that they're only "hedging their bets" & making SURE they win, either way... and, that they have their "political puppets" who answer to them, either way.
(I mean, for Pete's sake, and for example? E.G. - I can recall Government in the 1970's & the Democrats had to hold a telethon to get contributions & the Republicans had "KORPORATE AMERIKA" backing them as per usual... this was Nixon vs. McGovern days!)
A whole diff. ballgame now, & the crooks only got smarter imo... see the above.
Now, what bothered myself from said article above? Ok, this line:
"U.S. exports to India have quadrupled in recent years, and currently support tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the U.S."
Great - only problem is? That only serves stockholders of said companies, NOT THE GENERAL WORKING POPULACE OF THE UNITED STATES!
(Yes, that's right folks - the rich have only made sure THEY GET RICHER, as per usual, while the rapidly eroded "working middle class" keeps getting smaller & poorer is all!)
I mean, this is "Economics 101":
How on earth do you have an economy and people with disposable income to buy goods & services IF THOSE SAME 'working stiffs' don't have good jobs that provide monies for goods & services? Each time you buy something, you give money to Peter to pay Paul, who pays Henry (& the idea is, that it eventually circulates back to your company YOU work for etc./et al).
APK
P.S.=> I suppose this is the world, & how it's always been... only that the "rats @ the top" (the wealthy & their lobbyists) have only "refined their game" further. I was hoping Obama would cut the outsourcing out, but alas, I am only disappointed once again - iirc, it was one of his major platform issues he was going to change in fact. So much for that, eh? What does the USA need?? Heh - jobs, & not "hand-to-mouth" no disposable income ones, but good paying ones (like I say thru the 1980's - 2000 for example)... apk
You mean a Maverick? That was the other candidate.
Is that ten billion leaving the U.S., never to been seen again, or are we getting something worthwhile in return?
Nope, you were talking about specifics. Nice try though!
Nope, that was one line taken out of context. And since I pointed out that I hadn't RTFA, it's pretty hard to pin me down to specifics. Nice try though.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
He is what he is, another tax-and-spend Democrat ....
I'll take that over the "borrow and spend" Republicans any day. Cash and carry. It's not good - but it's a little better.
And people wonder why I "throw my vote away" on Libertarians.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
The next couple of years are going to be very interesting in the U.S., with the Republicans controlling the House, but the Democrats retaining the Senate and Presidency. It seems that the only thing both parties agree on is the dismantling of the middle class - so perhaps policies that help the super rich and powerful secure more of our middle class wealth will not be gridlocked.
Offshoring technology jobs is bad for our economy in many ways, both short and long term. Anyone who tells you otherwise has something to sell. It doesn't take an advanced degree in economics to have some common sense.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
exactly. you're not an idiot, you're just an asshole.
at least the GNAA is honest about what they're up to.
What does that make you? I don't recall calling you any names, although if you keep it up I may change my mind.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
My admittedly limited understanding of this is that of course it costs us jobs, because it's very expensive to hire US employees compared to the costs of hiring employees in most other countries in the world.
Those countries' governments are cheaper to corrupt to the end of business; they are not cheaper on the worker end. If you want an example of this, see Foxconn.
Economists say the widespread effects are a net gain. I don't know if I believe them--because I haven't done the math, and I've known a lot of economists who aren't very empirical.
The standard of living is not raised; only the amount of junk-grade trinkets is raised. If you want to take it further, the economists fail to figure out what happens to those people who lose their jobs(who usually don't gain a comparable one back).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
He is what he is, another tax-and-spend Democrat with delusions of grandeur like all the rest of the Washington crowd, and we're getting precisely the leadership for which we cast our votes. I did my research, and had a pretty good idea how he was going to turn out, and alas, I was not wrong.
You sure did your research. For the past 30 years every Republican president has increased the debt while every Democrat has decreased it. Damn those tax and spending Democrats and their lowering of the national debt. Here's a clue: stop repeating unfounded talking points.
-1, completely oblivious to macroeconomics
Our computer robots can already make billions of copies of digital products so close to free as to be laughable, yet these copies are being sold-tried to-at a price that reflects if you had monks hand scribing them.
As we lose more and more jobs, it becomes irrelevant how efficient some automated process becomes, because there is a tipping point where you have so many people with zero income that you can't sell your automatic robot made widgets. The digital robot product sellers absolutely refuse to drop prices to more reflect tech advances for their products, no matter what, so I don't expect the tangible product sellers to do it either, they will just insist on a pricing model that was established pre robotic manufacturing, and if you don't have it, tough noogies, join the ranks of the planet's billions of desperate peons/serfs.
Our current globalist economic model is going to stagnate with a global two class society, ultra rich, less than 1%, then those in perpetual debt to the robot owners, who can keep everyone else in debt by not hiring at a living-free wage. They will pay just enough to keep you coming back to what work is left, but not ever enough to get ahead.
And before anyone tries to argue against that, notice we don't have laws limiting price gouging for digital products. Look at what they want for a few megs of tune, or a gig of movie or a few dozen megs of software product. Instead of dropping prices to do huge volume sales, they insist on the "hand scribed by monks" prices established "per copy" way early last century or more, and no laws have forced themn to change to reflect this robotic manufacturing advance. In fact, they have worked hard to make the law so that you MUST pay those high prices, or suffer the consequences if you "manufacture your own copies", as in tens of thousands of dollars per "illegal copy".
So no, there won't be any Federation style mass leisure class with all your wants covered by robots, it will be MUCH WORSE than it is today, global lords and masters and masses of serfs, feudalism in other words.
Given our current economic condition combined with nothing but increased cost of hiring a US worker why would anyone hire here?
Got Code?
Have you had a problem with any of the credit bureaus lately? You get an 800 number which then you call someone in India - I think. To identify yourself, you have to answer all these personal questions about your location, SSN, DOB, bills, and amounts.
After I was done, I asked, "By the way, what country are you in?"
"We do not answer that for security reasons."
So my personal information, everything needed to get a Government ID and borrow money, is in another country and God knows where else. If someone steals said information and abuses it, I'll be the one spending the rest of my life trying to clear my name - maybe from a jail cell.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
He is in India. So he talks nice to India. WOW! Welcome to politics 101.
I am sure he will say the opposite when he is somewhere else. That is what politicians do.
A president is still a politician. Do not think he is above any other politician, even if you might want or expect it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
That is $ 10 Billion coming in to the US - by exporting products (33 planes from Boeing, 414 Jet Engines from GE, etc.) to India. .
Chump change.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Because he can't be blamed for not solving a problem that doesn't exist.
Fine. How about "borrow and spend"? Because that's what he's doing.
So you are saying he's a Republican?
You didn't say shit for two paragraphs. "Tax and spend Democrat?" You left a little Limbaugh vomit dripping from your cheek. Might want to hit that with some sanitizer.
The bottom line is that Bush was a complete fucking disaster. He lowered taxes and started two intractable wars, despite making campaign promises to avoid nation building, which are going to end up costing our country 3 trillion dollars. He refused to balance the budget after making campaign promises to do just that. He refused to regulate Wall Street, and eliminated the one guy in the Treasury department who had the balls to call him what he was: unquestioning and incurious. He appointed a witless crony to run FEMA with disastrous results. He failed on the economy, he failed on the war on terror, and he failed to uphold the constitution.
When people asked what they could do to help their country, he literally said, "go shopping." This is not leadership. Erasing the very foundations of our personal liberty with the PATRIOT ACT is not leadership. Ordering the torture of prisoners is not leadership. Pretending that the Iraq war would cost 50 billion dollars is not leadership. Not telling your citizens the real truth about war and the costs in honor and treasure and blood is not leadership.
Obama is no saint, but at least his cronies have two brain cells to rub together. He may be another member of the Business Party, but at least he has a slight interest in not pissing on the middle class and telling them that it's just raining.
Bush is a fucking disgrace, probably executed the worst eight years of foreign policy decisions in American history, and none of your historical whitewashing will change that.
Fine. How about "borrow and spend"? Because that's what he's doing.
So you are saying he's a Republican?
Explain to me the effective differences in terms of actual fiscal policy between modern Democrats and Republicans. Which will be better for the long-term health of the country, and who is the most responsible with our tax dollars, and the money we borrow to keep our government operating.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I agree generally international trade is on balance good for the world from a consumption POV. This does not necessary follow that it would be good for you or your region.
I believe the argument misses a broader issue.
Technology is consistantly making it easier to enlist labor from anywhere in the world where it is most cheapest and most exploitable.
At the same time and more importantly automation is leading to production on ever more massive scales with fewer people. At some point I believe the offsets for specialization will break down as tools and machine intelligence improve.
There just will not be enough jobs for everyone in the world even if some how you could magically fairly distribute work in such a way that noone is unequally explioted. Denying globalization does not solve the underlying systemic problem.
You are correct. Some lawyers build their careers off the ability to create a job description that no American can meet. Usually the company knows the person they want to hire and so the lawyer writes a generic sounding job description but is really targeted. There are rules against this, but hey, who's checking?
... did we even bother to worry about voting down Fiorina for Senate then? Great. After months trying to make sure Failorina didn't get to Capitol Hill, we find it doesn't matter b/c her agenda's already in the White House. Fiorina doesn't even need to think about running for the top spot in two years, her agenda's already there.
"I never considered myself a maverick" -- John McCain, seeking reelection in 2010
Tax and spend Democrat is the left's version of the borrow and spend Republican. You get what you deserve if you think there's a difference between these two.
Just make it so that if the H1B visa holder pays a reasonable fee, say, a prorated $20,000, they can leave the job and get another, keeping the visa. Then companies will have to pay US market rates for people.
But frankly, they should be convertible to a green card (permanent resident), we want to steal all the smart people from other countries, not train them for a few years, then send them home.
Plato seems wrong to me today
The only way to break the lock of a recession is to get money changing hands again. Businesses won't do it, they cut jobs and spend less, this leaves more people out of work and they spend less, a never ending downward cycle. The only entity that has enough mass to reverse this cycle is government (or maybe a room full of Bill Gate's) to spend money on projects that will require business involved with these government projects to hire more workers. This money has to come from someplace, so the government has to either raise the debt ceiling, or raise taxes. There is your 'tax and spend', but it's the ONLY solution to the stagnation and recession we are now in. The trickle down theory the Tea Party dim wits have only lines the pockets of the rich, the money will STAY in their g-d pockets and not help get the middle class out of foreclosure. For now it is probably necessary to raise taxes on the uber-upper class and spend the money to get the economy moving again. For those who have forgotten, this is how the great depression finally ended, only the government project that finally generated jobs was fighting WWII.
Not at all. You can't be accused of not comprehending that which you didn't read in the first place. As I explained to jo_ham, I prefer to go on a good rant first. That gives all of you a chance to feel haughty and superior, leaving you thoroughly disarmed before I eviscerate you with my sharp logic and rapier wit.
You're one of those guys who likes proving he's so awesome by doing something stupid, like cutting his own fingers off, aren't you?
Somehow I doubt that reality and your perceptions are in accord.
But the new roads they are talking about are not replacing the existing infrastructure, but instead will be used to build the 10-lane NAFTA highway from Mexico to Canada.
-1, completely oblivious to macroeconomics
You're right, only someone who's completely oblivious to economics would even consider raising taxes in a recession.
A few years ago, I worked a project to outsource $100M+ development project to India. Sure, the cost per head was less, much less, but we ended up having to hire 3x more people so the cost was a wash. Then we had concerns over our development tools being stolen and problems with software license agreements going to India. In the end, we deployed Citrix servers and had all the tools, code everything located inside our USA-based data centers. This also meant that unless the India-based developers took screen shots all day, they weren't going to steal the code.
In India, our developers were part of a larger company, but we insisted on physical, access controlled, separation from the other outsourced developers that the company there had. Also, we controlled the network connections and placed hardware encryption devices on both sides of the world. Most of the developers provided were extremely junior people. They appeared to have taken 1 class and been hired. I'm not saying everyone was 100% clueless about professional development techniques, just that the people we were provided were.
Even though everyone spoke English, there were always communications issues and cultural misunderstandings. Constantly.
After running for 2 years with remote development, we dropped the outsourcing and brought everything back to the USA. The only good thing is that with the recession here, we were able to hire highly qualified people for $10k/yr less.
H1-b visas are important, but only 200 should be allowed each year to allow truly gifted people to come to the USA. The vast majority of H1-b visa holders that I've worked with here ... about 50 total ... were nothing special and seem to be used to keep costs down, not provide any special skills as what is intended. Companies prefer to pay $50K to a H1-b visa holder instead of $70k to a local, qualified, mid-level developer. The cost difference is a major concern.
BTW, I don't write code for "the man" anymore. That type of job is extremely "entry level" and can be outsource on a whim. I write code for myself and my company, which will never be outsource unless I chose to do that.
offshoring fears...there's a good business idea somewhere in there
doesnt matter india, pakistan, china, this that. quality job on a given quality, costs always same.
.....
ill give an example of software development with outsourcing to india. since im myself doing software work to entire world from where i live. (im not american). and i am naturally competing against everyone from around the world, including indians. (im not indian) :
you can get things done for $3/hour when you outsource to india. however, the result generally ends up to be shabby quality (if it ever happens to 'end up' in the first place), and very bad things can happen in the process.
you can get things done for $5/hour. much better than the above. but, you may find that the developers you are working with are always trying to persuade you that what you have received, different than what you have asked, is good for you. or things like that.
you can get things done for $8/hour. you will generally get what you need. but, it would still be hard to rely on delivery dates and whatnot. generally you cannot be sure that the developer you have found, will deliver on time, and will be there for you to continually work with.
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ALL the levels above, are sweatshop levels, or levels in which you can find a lot of fresh-out-of-college kids, or newcomer people being employed or trying to make names for themselves. and, the instant they find a better paying job/project, they ditch their employer, or your project for it.
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then you get to $10-15/hour. things are much more stable in this vicinity. you can rely on deadlines (in general), you get what you ask for, things happen to proceed much more professionally. BUT, there is no guarantee that, the people you are working with, are going to be there forever.
you get to $15-25/hour. this is a stable area with good quality, professionalism, deadlines met, and long time relationships. this is, it seems, where everything stabilizes. you can work in this vicinity for years, unless, the person you are working with ends up recruited for a very good position somewhere, or, established another business, changes fields or so on.
at this point on, starts the 'cream de la creme'. as the hourly goes higher, you find more and more professional people. and the higher you get, it is harder to find such people. because, if they stayed in the field for that long, it means that they will have amassed a reasonable clientele that relies on their services and established good business relationships that would last. so generally, people who are in these rate levels are kinda out of the market, because, if they dont decide to have others do their own work (outsourcing again), it means their hands are full.
almost all the developers seem to go through these levels eventually, unless they leave their fields, or leave trenches by being managers, or things like that. so, there is indeed a 'global' leveling of 'you get what you pay for' even in outsourcing.
the thing is, american wages, and workload seem WAY too high and way too low, respectively, compared to the global levels. it is not uncommon for a small american shop to ask $60 hourly. this, is of course tied to the cost of living in america. however, the thing is, if indians, pakistani, australian, chinese, russian, french, spanish, brasilians end up stabilizing in a given hourly wage for a given job globally, and americans still cant make ends meet with it, the problem would mean that there is a problem with cost of living in america, than the field itself. and that should be questioned in the first place ; why despite everything is being produced cheaply in china, prices are STILL as high as pre-outsourcing levels.
that being said, there is a noticeable percentage of americans being able to compete in places like elance com etc, against indians and their low hourlies.
Read radical news here
She's merely an H1-b cheerleader that was denied additional influence.
HP rejected her.
California rejected her as well.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Parent is correct.
People need to THINK about their targets - don't waste time killing a camel with a million dollar bomb (even if that is the American way. Grow out of it or go broke.)
The trade deficit is a HUGE problem for the USA and the little we do with India always gets cited in situations like this one while not mentioning how much more we import and how that is indicative of the larger overall problem.
Protectionism IS HEALTHY to a certain extent but we don't believe in it anymore! Instead we believe solely in the free market gods to come rain prosperity upon us. If we get too dry, we just change the rainmen/high priests and pray to the almighty credit card for prosperity to return.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
"If the world operates as one big market, every employee will compete with every person anywhere in the world who is capable of doing the same job. There are lots of them and many of them are hungry." - Andrew Grove, president of Intel Corp., in his book High Output Management
"The recent quantum leap in the ability of transnational corporations to relocate their facilities around the world in effect makes all workers, communities and countries competitors for these corporations' favor. The consequence is a 'race to the bottom' in which wages and social conditions tend to fall to the level of the most desperate." - Jeremy Brecher, historian and author
> Oh... and considering that-- how the hell does a college justify charging $20k a year for a degree which is only going to pay $60 to $70k?
Perhaps we should consider outsourcing college. I'm pretty sure tuition at the University of Mumbai is significantly cheaper than here, and the cost of living is but a fraction of any area around a US university campus. If you wanted to take it further, you could expat and then come back on H-1B.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You're not staying on topic. We're talking about your use of blatently incorrect talking points. Enlighten me as to your research that makes the Democratic party tax and spend. Correct me if I'm wrong but government spending and the national debt are inextricably linked.
Explain to me the effective differences in terms of actual fiscal policy between modern Democrats and Republicans.
When the GOP demonizes "tax and spend" as the other party's problem, they mean "spend on domestic social programs" and deliberately exclude US military spending. I think that's a pretty accurate summary, actually.
When you include US military spending as part of "spend", you will find that the GOP is worse on "tax and spend" than the Dems. They started a war that costs the US $1B a day, that has lasted 8 years, and provided no way to pay for it. That is a more egregious "tax and spend" program than any social program the Dems have initiated, "Obamacare" included.
If the GOP proposes a balanced budget that included the military budget and preserving Social Security, they'd be worth listening too. I expect that if they fail to produce an actual budget like that, they will again be voted out in 2012.
OTOH, if they do produce such a budget, Christ, I'll vote for them myself.
--
$tar -xvf
Tax and spend Democrat is the left's version of the borrow and spend Republican. You get what you deserve if you think there's a difference between these two.
Yes. Please explain that to nloop.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You lost me at "tax and spend". We should get past bumper-sticker assertions, especially when they're not even right. I guess "tax less but spend more" isn't as catchy, but it seems to work for the Republicans.
Fine. How about "borrow and spend"? Because that's what he's doing. Is that an improvement over "tax and spend"? The reality is he's doing both.
"He" who? George Bush? George H. W. Bush? Ronald Reagan? Each of these Presidents tripled, doubled, and quadrupled the national debt while in office, and each pretended to run on a platform of fiscal responsibility. The only one who hasn't in the past thirty years is Clinton and, to be fair, that really only happened because he got lucky with the economy.
Right now Obama is running up the debt because that's what you do in a recession. Now, will he turn around in two years or so and put the brakes on spending? Maybe he'll try, but I doubt the "fiscally responsible" Republicans will let him, unless the Tea Partiers break ranks and actually let taxes rise and spending fall like they were elected to.
I understand that given his audience he had to say that, but I suspect soundbites will come back to haunt him later. Even were it true (which I tend to doubt) that outsourcing is balanced by some kind of equal trade from India that create jobs here, (I'd like to see some specifics on that) there's one heck of a lot of unemployed IT professionals who might disagree that their standard of living has been raised.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You're right, of course - the quickest way out of a recession is massive deficit spending, as proven historically. I think that the GP was referring to was the deficit. The only way to eliminate the deficit is by raising our historically very low taxes. Military spending, Social Security, and Medicare cost more money than the government receives. If you cut every other government program completely you'd still have a deficit.
The only problem with the US government is people are trying to drown it in a bathtub. Government designs, government standards, government issues - these things used to connotate quality. Now half the federal government has to deal with budget cuts and more - very necessary - work.
As an aside, I see that by "makework scams" you have no idea what the government actually does, or should do. Is fixing our crumbling infrastructure a "makework scam"? Is NASA a "makework scam"? Is providing money to states to hire more teachers "makework scams"? The government is quite capable of creating wealth and jobs - after all, it is nothing more than "we the people".
that being said, there is a noticeable percentage of americans being able to compete in places like elance com etc, against indians and their low hourlies.
What keeps them from being smote by a large First World interest? I'd think that there'd be large enough interest to bend that company to the wills of the US.
Elance, and the other unmentionable firms can maintain a US-only market that is closed off from the rest of the world. All would be well.
When someone uses the words "global" or "competition" (and derivatives thereof), someone usually wants to pass off anti-US bullshit.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I am not even going to entertain the idea that raising taxes is a smart thing to do, only a idiot want's to give more hard earned money to a wasteful organization like our government. The govt does not create jobs, it does not create wealth it only consumes other peoples hard earned money. When I am in a financial bind I quickly work to reduce my financial burden by making cuts to non essential items, why should the govt be any different?
"The govt does not create jobs, it does not create wealth it only consumes other peoples hard earned money." What an idiotic idea. Is this what our college graduates are producing? No wonder we're losing all our jobs overseas.
The US government's "wasteful spending" created the national highway system, the Internet, the space program (which started the basic science that would become the computer). The Great Depression would have been demonstrably shorter if the Republicans hadn't gotten debt-crazy and drastically cut government spending in 1930 and again in 1937.
Look, I know it's popular to blame the government for everything that's wrong in this country, but just because it's a popular idea doesn't mean it's in any way factually correct.
You do know what a Troll means, don't you? No wonder jobs are going to India because of Trolls like you here.
N/T
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
You're promised "best of breed" and you get farmers. It's not just that outsourcing takes away jobs in the US, it also takes away expertise from the company. The Mark first demands the level of performance he was promised, and eventually settles for a level of performance that just barely keeps his business alive. Because the alternative, insourcing, is frightfully expensive and would almost certainly cause the sudden "seeking of new challenges" amongst the higher-ups who made the outsourcing decision in the first place. A CIO faced with that kind of decision will tend to ride it out and hope the company survives.
Meanwhile, the people who had the expertise to do the job are on their eighth month of unemployment, or they've been hired by a competitor who decided not to make the same mistake you did.
The outsourcing company has some easy wins if they have any expertise at all. Suggestions made for years internally and rejected, suddenly become shiny and desirable when made by outsiders. But in my experience this doesn't outweigh the sheer incompetence of most of the workforce. You try to make it work because you have to, but trying to deal with *NIX "best of breed"s who don't know how to use "su" to acquire root access is hard to take.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Is there a job surplus or job deficit because of offshoring? Otherwise, STFU.
54000 jobs is far from the millions of lost jobs that still are lost.
All he wants to do is look good to the people that are offshoring work.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It's pretty ironic that the "populist" tea party movement probably has a lot
of people who would be well served by the kind of Progressive movement that existed
100 years ago. Instead, they're voting for more Corporatism.
It's the widespread adoption of socialist... sorry, 'progressive'... policies which has got us into this mess: imposing more of them is hardly going to fix it.
Which "Socialist" policies? Deregulation of the banking sector? Pushing liar loans onto poor people and betting against them with derivatives? Lowering the tax rates on the rich so much that Warren Buffet pays less in taxes than his secretary? Awarding no-bid contracts to private security firms so they can loot other countries and abuse their people? Lowering estate taxes on the wealthy so we can have a permanent wealthy aristocracy?
Face it: we're living in a Republican utopia, the world as they wanted it: the rich are getting richer (and secretly siphoning a small part of that wealth gain into anonymous shill organizations to re-elect Republicans under the astroturfing "Tea Party" umbrella), and the poor can't complain because they're all starving to death or being thrown in jail for being druggies/illegals/terrorists. This is exactly the world the Republicans have been trying to build for thirty years, and it's ignorant people ranting about "socialism" who are letting them.
For the past 30 years every Republican president has increased the debt while every Democrat has decreased it.
Sure, if you're lucky enough to avoid being in office when Kuwait gets invaded, ride the dot-com bubble, then miss 9/11 and the resulting housing crisis.
But don't let those little coincidences get in the way of your pretty chart.
I'm getting tired of the whole "my party is better than your party" crap.
Neither of them have had the American public's best interest at heart in some time.
That cheaper price comes with a higher cost of cleanup.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
We shouldn't be surprised at the level of expertise we see from the outsourcing companies. It's built into the business paradigm. The objective of the outsourcing company is to make money, and they do that by "right sizing" both the numbers and the salary level of the workforce assigned to you.
Added to this the very important factor that you can't easily insource after you've pulled the ripcord, and the outsourcing company is very aware of this.
So if you're not a top tier company, you get farmers and street sweepers to start with, then the outsourcing company grudgingly gears up to the point where you still don't have anywhere near what was promised but you have enough to keep the company alive.
If you are a top tier company, you may get the outsourcing company's "A" team initially, which they will gradually "right size" until you can just barely keep the company alive.
The outcome is the same -- $$Profit$$ for the outsourcing company at the expense of being able to do business.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"When someone uses the words "global" or "competition" (and derivatives thereof), someone usually wants to pass off anti-US bullshit."
and when someone talks like that, it means its someone who is a right wing nutjob.
if elance, and other unmentionable firms maintain a us only market that is closed from the rest of the world, the rest of the world would maintain their market. all that would happen would be right wing nutjobs like you in usa, driveling in your own crap. because, a smaller market means less activity in ALL respects.
what keeps them from being smote by a large first world interest ? duh. i dont know. non american, or non first world corporations ? governments ? armies ?
Read radical news here
That doesn't get rid of the fraud, killing the entire program and regulations will.
What you suggest only leads to more disposable & desperate workers.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
is that it is not always of high quality /.ers would accept that "unemployment" numbers are, at best, correct to with a factor of 2 (people who have given up, people doing other stuff, etc)
I think many
Why is 2% unsustainable ? I suppose you will fall back on an argument based on the non accelerating rate of unemployment (which has some wierd acroynm). The trouble with such arguments is - they are just arguments; particularly in the last few years when inflation has been roughly 3% or less , even 1% unemployment would not cause accelerating inflation, particularly given the insecurity people feel about jobs.
Also, for college grads, there tends to be more specialization, so jobs are more scattered geographically; if you become unemployed, there may be a lot of "openings" but it is a big deal to move across the coutnry, esp if you have kids. I work in biotech in MA; my small (13 person) compnay laid off most of the staff; the 3 PhDs all had commutes of I also know that china is making incredible strides in producing world class univeristys and RnD, at least in biotech, and that chinese scientists get paid a lot less then me; I read on slashdot recently that china has a project to develop an Intel level chip company, a couple of years from fruition - what will happen ot our tech sector when the chinese make cpus, and when code starts getting written with comments that are in chinese ?
Another, data driven approach that I think is better is to look at the number of gualified applicants/job. If you are getting alot of applicants per job, then that says there is significant un employement, and there are a lot of qualified people out there.
One final thought: when I was a kid, in the 60s, it was understood by both employers and a few economists that college grads required a lot of on the job training. This cost was borne by the employer, which , when you have long term employement, makes sense. Now, this cost is borne more and more, in one way or another by, the employee (eg, I have seen search firms that charge the job seeker) If firms were still doing the on the job training that they did in the'60s, they would be able to use a much larger pool of talent, and the "real" unempolyemtn rate would be higher
A good point, even though you were moderated Funny. I should clarify my PoV. Simply being a Maverick isn't enough. You have to be the right kind. McCain's willingness to compromise not only on his party's core values, but on Constitutional values (via campaign finance reform), wasn't, IMHO, the kind of Maverick attitude this country needed. His running mate's certainly wasn't either. At least we don't have oil gobs washing up on the coast of Big Sur... yet.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
That still doesn't fix the lack of jobs for US citizens. It only encourages more fraud, and the $20k becomes a hostage ransom.
The only solutions that work are ones that put US citizens first and foremost, even at the expense of business.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
You're just making the qualifications overkill so you can create a "lack of qualified workers" out of thin air.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
the part you are missing is this. Republican borrowing and spending = patriotic and fiscally responsible. don't look at the debt, please. Democrat borrowing/taxing and spending = communism = evil. Americans are very simple minded anymore it seems. everything a republican does is conservative. everything a democrat does is communistic fascist evil. neither is correct but they do their job: get us upset and mad at the "other" guy. meanwhile all the politicians collect big fat checks, live in mansions, and take the proverbial dump on their constituents every day. but anger from platitudes sustains people like ScrewMaster. as long as he can blame someone else he's happy.
Unfortunately, you give the US citizen an impossible-to-meet set of qualifications, but let the foreign help get by with far less than the US citizen.
Then your fraud is exposed for all to see.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
in exchange for what? The cockroaches are getting rich quick off the dismantling of our country's infrastructure. Who can say when allies may become enemies or enemies become allies? When all of a nation's most vital manufacturing industries have been outsourced, what effect does this have on the balance of power and the leverage that nation has with which to provide for itself in troubled times? The United States is being sold out to the highest bidders. Enjoy your cheap disposable goods and slave labor.
You sure did your research. For the past 30 years every Republican president has increased the debt while every Democrat has decreased it. Damn those tax and spending Democrats and their lowering of the national debt. Here's a clue: stop repeating unfounded talking points.
You're a fool. The President alone has no power to increase/decrease the deficit. Look who controlled the House and Senate (the ones who approve the budget) in your table and I think you'll see who has the better track record of decreasing deficits.
Roads that are needed to ship more jobs out of the USA and Canada. Perfect.
I guess if you are in the construction unions you'll take anything, even if it means selling out all your neighbors and countrymen.
What surprised me most about the election is that the disillusionment and cynicism people feel toward Obama today is what I always felt from him when he was a candidate. I never understood what the big deal was; he was always an inexperienced politician who was firmly partisan, saying one thing and doing another (promising to use public campaign funding and then turning around and doing the opposite), and riding a wave of friendly media hype. So it's a little confusing to me that people rate him lowly now who rated him highly two years ago, because to me, nothing at all has changed about him. He's exactly the same now as he was then.
Western Europeans love Obama because Obama wants to Europeanize the United States. Things like climate change legislation and socialized healthcare are seen as a normalization to Europeans, and the U.S. is behind them and simply catching up. But America's history is rooted in government revolt, and people see the negatives of big government and reject it. It's just how America is and always will be. Granting the government power is seen as taking power away from the individual and burdening them with the expenses.
Why hire and keep people in USA rather than anywhere in Asia, now in India, later in China, the in Mongolia, I don't care?
Because at some point, not even the most legendary lawyers from Hell will save you from the US Government. At the worst, they may just cut the losses and sever the US arm from the foreign ones; the best is that they realize that their best interest will be to create US jobs.
I would only hope that IBM (and you) realize the error of your ways, and stop drinking the Third World Flavor-Aid. Otherwise someone's going to make it a very bad day for IBM.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I've been in Computer Consulting and worked for many international consulting companies. The last 5 years have seen a HUGE increase in off-shore work, plus 90% of recruiting calls I get for work come from inside the USA, but are indians on the other line. I worked for National City Bank/PNC bank for 2 1/2 years. The team I was when I started was about 50 US Citizens and 5 on-site indians without any offshore work, but when I left there were 5 US Citizens and over 100 offshore resources working on the project.
I watched position after position move from US Citizens to Offshore people. This is a nation-wide epidemic and won't stop until we get support from our government to keep jobs here in the USA!!!!
Bringing foreign engineers to work here is not a zero sum game between them and the US engineers.
The problem with the H1-b program is that we kick them out of the country AFTER we've trained them to do our jobs. If we encouraged the ones who could find employment here to stay, the program would be GOOD for American engineers.
Train the US citizens first, create US jobs for US citizens, then the world can follow. Otherwise the problem is that the program exists and fraudulently exports US jobs.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Wait, aren't the jobs being created the same kind of jobs everyone's worried about the Mexicans coming here and taking ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Yes, one is better off with Daquan and Bubba. They create some sort of value while keeping them off the streets.
That "highly educated" Pradeep is merely someone lower than Daquan & Bubba's level that took a couple of call center courses. Then they get a certificate by someone who claims that they are "highly educated".
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
NIMP = Not In My Profession. A cousin of NIMBY. I love it how everyone is for "Free Trade" except when it is disadvantageous to themselves. Also, "Democracy" except when the they don't like the people elected. Also "Free Speech" except when the find they speech offensive or politically inconvenient (Wikileaks). You Westerners reap what you sow. Good luck with turning protectionist and see the prices of your goods go up while other countries would no longer buy your goods when China and India makes them cheaper.
and when someone talks like that, it means its someone who is a right wing nutjob.
I call events as I see them with my own eyes, ears, and brain. If that makes me a "right wing nutjob" in your eyes, so be it. I like my country, and proudly identify as a US Citizen. I may have disagreements from time to time as to how our government runs, but none that would make me want to surrender my citizenship.
If you just simply hate the right wing, you're biting the hand that feeds you. One part of them is responsible for sending the work offshore(and calling the critics "Communist" or "Socialist" while funding actual Communists & Socialists).
if elance, and other unmentionable firms maintain a us only market that is closed from the rest of the world, the rest of the world would maintain their market. all that would happen would be right wing nutjobs like you in usa, driveling in your own crap. because, a smaller market means less activity in ALL respects.
I'd hate to have to use such a dividing line, but the reasonable options kept getting circumvented.
what keeps them from being smote by a large first world interest? duh. i dont know.
What I am saying there is that I'm surprised that nobody has found a way to get those companies to play favorably to the US and western EU.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It encourages companies to move U.S. jobs overseas. I have seen first hand the decisions being made due to this terrible law.
that Obama has ever had to call Dell to fix his broken laptop.
On one hand, I understand you're worried. But man, you have it easy, you don't even know it. We must equalize global wealth one way or another. It's about time you took a turn in sacrificing - even a little bit. Perhaps you'll do something else. That Indian guy, on the other hand, will be able to feed his family. And you're no better than him. In fact, you just might be worse. And whether Obama lied to you or not - you should've thought about that when you voted for him. But the *change* of abortion laws didn't prevent you from falling for the hype, so why would this?
O.T. P.S. if anyone has a Firebug extension, what the heck is this slug-Bottom transparent div that covers a quarter of my comment box? Didn't I file a bug about it already?
I call events as I see them with my own eyes, ears, and brain. If that makes me a "right wing nutjob" in your eyes, so be it. I like my country, and proudly identify as a US Citizen
people have been manipulated into private agendas through use of religion first, and then nationality second for thousands of years. it doesnt matter what you 'see' with your own eyes. if you cant see through, it means that you dont see at all. and, if you had truly seen through, you wouldnt be able to proudly identify yourself an u.s. citizen, with SO much shit that would make hitler weep, under the pile.
I'd hate to have to use such a dividing line, but the reasonable options kept getting circumvented.
you can set up your trade barriers as soon as you want. its your call. i doubt the rest of the world would notice too much. after an adjusting period, world market would adjust.
What I am saying there is that I'm surprised that nobody has found a way to get those companies to play favorably to the US and western EU.
oh they are trying. what do you think acta is ? wto, and all that ? however, the world is not one sided anymore. there are other powers than u.s. and u.s. cannot run the empire it run for its own benefit for 60 years anymore. and by the way, us and western eu, are not in the same side, in these affairs.
but what strikes me odd is, american people complaining and bitching and whining about their jobs being lost to overseas, after 5 decades of exploiting and manipulating and living off on the blood of those who have been brought unwillingly under the control of their empire with a democratic storefront.
sounds 'far too left' ? it isnt. i have been actually a center right individual up till the last few years, and have been way too pro-american, than you yourself probably are. however, what i speak of is a solid history with facts and references and survivors that the private interests that basically ran your country for half of the decade, dont want you to know, so that you can be proud of your citizenship. i would provide links and references to historical facts, however this will very probably shake your view regarding your country. if you want, i can provide these disturbing stuff.
all that's happening at this moment, is just crumbling of the bloody empire your country was riding on.
Read radical news here
I'm a US citizen by birth, and living in the US. I'm employed by a technology staffing services corporation, which is based in India, and I'm working at a US technology corporation.
So, that US corporation, outsourcing to India, hired workers born in the US, as well as workers who were born in several other countries.
It's the 21st century. You can't tell who's doing what where just from the mailing addresses anymore, especially not when you're dealing with information technology.
In Los Angeles, I got $40k as a junior programmer right out of college, in 1996. I noticed with interest as the entry-level starting rate climbed into the $60k range in short order. I'd say they ask for close to $70k now, which is slightly below what I think the REAL inflation has been since I started (considering housing, energy, healthcare, clothing, and grocery costs)... I'd say real cost of living has almost doubled in L.A. in less than 15 years.
I don't begrudge the new kids for wanting to afford to live like I did when I started, but what has happened is that the more senior position pay scales have not kept up with this inflation, due to all the government fiction around inflation rates and the economy in general. The pay band is now very compressed in my field, with entry level at $60-70k, mid-career folks around $90-110k, talent around $120k, and only outliers above that. You don't see the spread of the 90s, where mid-career folks could have a family on one income and even consider purchasing a house.
I think the management/executive class has boosted their own pay bands to keep up with my perceived inflation, but the technical/knowledge class is left behind. Now in my mid-30s, it warns me that I had better not assume my earning/purchasing power will continue until retirement age. My wife and I are looking at this and remaining DINKs for now, but we also wonder if there's any real point in trying to live frugally and save; will hyper-inflation erase our safety net anway...
India is a big motorcycle market, and has high tariffs. A plant in India would give access to the big Indian market. In addition, Harley Davidson needs to establish its important brand and mystik in the Indian market, before someone else grabs the high end motorcycle market.
He is what he is, another tax-and-spend Democrat...
As opposed to the cut-tax and spend Republicans? It seems to me that under the current political system, the US is stuck with two parties, and that independent candidates will remain marginalized. In my view, Obama was clearly the better candidate of the two major parties in 2008.
Don't ask me why Americans deserve to get paid more to do the same job an indian worker does for less while you charge me $600 a month for providing medical insurance for my family. Yes I pay more in medical insurance for my healthy and young family than a regular Indian worker gets paid in an entire month. How the f**k am I supposed to get along in this country on the same wage as an Indian then? The system is rigged against me. Legal costs, regulation costs, taxes, medical costs, education costs, every bloody thing is stacked against the american worker.
Then after all that crap get stacked against the american workers, they are asked "why should you get paid more?". Fine, do not pay me more, pay me the same, and get rid of all this crap that makes it so expensive to live here. Or better yet, get India to do implement all this crap and see how many people are able to survive on their current salaries.
When I am in a financial bind I quickly work to reduce my financial burden by making cuts to non essential items, why should the govt be any different?
One of my biggest complaints against conservatives is that they never really talk about exactly what they want to cut. Assuming that we take recent Sunday morning statements at face value, defense, medicare, and social security are not being considered as targets. What does that leave?
Over 15 years ago I sat in my cube and a manager came in and told my cube mate to puff up his job description. He needed to make it so that only he could satisfy the requirements. The manager needed the worker to inflate the requirements so that he would not have competition.
Anyone who has been working for more than a couple of years in tech can do this, just paste stuff from your resume and you are good to go. Everyone works on unique projects given time.
This may be against the law but, prove it. I think this is one cause of the job ads we see which have inflated requirements
I no longer work for that company. my former cube mate got canned long before I left. He was an exception to the H1 workers that I have worked with in that he was not really able to work on technical matters.
A friend of mine here just outside of Houston, Texas is an in-sourced rural (country side) developer and he loves the freedom of being to work from his house on development projects or travel to the clients in case they need something in person. He drives in to Houston whenever he needs to do something in the city. He's a fully educated and experienced American guy and his job is here in America. He produces code here for any companies that need his skills.
I really hope that this becomes the norm to in-source jobs towards Rural areas of the country where the cost of living and the expense of hiring people is much lower than large cities. I'd personnally would love to move away from server administration and into development as I get a little older to get away from on-call issues and because I enjoy producing work like complex scripts.
Off-shore rates for developers are dirt cheap but there is extra unidentified costs with communications, quality of personnel, quality of work performed and code produced, and also timeliness of work. From what I saw in the Finance sector in New York City a lot of out-sourced and off-shored jobs and contracts to India and Singapore are very problematic with a lot of personnel issues and failure to produce usable work.
Cause every LEC I deal with has an offshore facility or two to deal with overflow and off hours (follow the sun.)
interviews where there are 400+ guys applying for a single job
I'm trying to hire a system designer and project leader in a medical device business. This requires technical experience, ability to do requirements/traceability and risk management in a heavily regulated industry. It is a very challenging role and a great leadership role in a very reputable company. Not exactly an IT or programming job but is definitely a senior technical role.
I have NO candidates in the funnel. The requirements for the job are the minimum and not anything crazy. However, I'm in Milwaukee Wisconsin...so is it a location thing? Where are my 100's of qualified candidates? Right now, H1 or not..I need candidates.
I would normally not mention something like this in an open forum but seemed appropriate. I'm not posting the exact job since I know that's a bit of an abuse. Wish I could though...seems like many good people on /.
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
Let's just keep in mind that spending is bad no matter who does it. And it's not okay to spend money on something just because it amounts to less than the military budget. Let's not dig ourselves deeper into the hole.
When Obama got elected, I remember speaking about it to a friend of mine who emigrated to Europe some years ago. People there were ecstatic about Obama being our new President-elect. I asked him why. "Is it because Obama is going to make a wonderful President in their view?" His answer? "No. It's because he isn't George Bush." They were far more rational in their appraisal of Obama than we were.
I voted for Obama for 1 reason, McCain scared me. I preferred McCain economically but not militarily, I was afraid if he won the election he'd attack Iran.
In that, Obama hasn't let me down but he has let me down by not taking advise from Chicago school of economics economists.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
No it doesn't but your worry DOES show the real problem the US has.
There is some believe working in the US that makes it value to top. The interesting jobs, the well paying jobs. But that is not what the economy, the boring local economy, runs on. It runs on truck drivers, factory workers, construction, repair. This is what keeps that majority of the population employed. Silicon Valley, Redmon, Wall Street do not.
Obama, and he is hardly the first, seems so pleased with 10 billion in orders. But how much of that money flows straight back out again because to produce those orders the US needs foreign goods? And those 10 billion are petty cash for the US. Meanwhile far more money is lost with outsourced call centers year in year out.
And no, outsourcing a call center will NOT cost the country a fortune, just a local community. A local community that can't then tax the local salaries and use those taxes to fund local education, local road maintenance etc etc. Outsourcing is not about a cripling injury that instantly kills the economy. This is a slow bleed that isn't stopped.
The call center goes, the local catering van can't break even anymore. The locals find far lower paying jobs and make ends meet by buying cheap Chinese imports instead of higher quality American goods. More and more American business got to cut costs to be able to meet the lower prices. They do so by outsourcing production to China and yet more Americans have just a bit less to spend.
It ain't complex to see, but if you believe in Wall Street as a religion then this can't be. This is not how the market, the magic fairy market, is supposed to work. Obama, and democrats and republicans with him, is saying "let them eat cake". The famous saying that started the revolution showing that the ruling elite didn't have a clue about what was really happening. It is after all not in Washington or Redmond or Wall Street that the job cuts are hurting the most. Oh, they might have a bad year, but not decade after decade in which a factory town turns into a ghost town. How many of the powers that be come from Detroit?
Yet the simple people, like the poster above think H1-b is the issue. Yeah right. The US has 300+ million citizens, and how many immigrants on these things? They are irrelevant. This is just the Redmond, Silicon Valley etc job. The get a lot of attention, but they don't keep the heartland working. Producing.
Scream at the immigrant worker while another factory is shipped lock stock and barrel abroad including every single job. SethStorm is like a frenchmen who reacts to "let them eat cake" with: "But I don't like cake."
But you don't have bread let alone cake.
IT has done this a lot. Thinking that they would be save from the export of jobs and then it turned out those dirty filthy foreigners could not just knock out cheap goods but cheap code. Boohoo, now our jobs are going...
Well, you didn't protest when every item in Walmart came from China, who is now supposed to care the next version of Windows comes from China?
And don't you worry, the decline will be so slow and the average American so attached to his large house and larger car that he will bend over backwards to keep up with payments rather then protest. Because if you strike or protest, you miss a payment and then that SUV is gone.
American citizens have managed to enslave themselves to Wall Street thoroughly. Willing slaves with guns. If you wrote this down in a book of fiction, nobody would believe it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Correct, Obama is not the politician the American people hoped for, but he is what a pragmatist would expect. He could not get elected without owing several very powerful (wealthy) individuals and corporations no matter how much individuals gave to the campaign. He can not change a power structure that has developed and entrenched itself since 1776, at least not in two years. What he has done is concentrate on the one goal he had above all others, health care reform. This by itself raises the standard of living in the US for middle class Americans who make up the bulk of the source of both tax dollars and GDP. However, with the complexities of Washington and the perversely unyielding stance of the Republicans the White House has not achieved what the people who supported him expected Obama to achieve. Thus we had the backlash in the mid-terms. More of a throwing out of the incumbents over disappointment rather than enthusiasm for Grand Old Party candidates (in a two party system who else do you vote for when voting someone out?).
It seems that a new party needs to be created, Democrats being ineffectual even when owning both houses, and the Republicans denying any help to the people (failing to pass unemployment extensions as an example) and screaming small government and less spending while doing neither. The Tea Party seems to instinctively know this, however, judging by the members, they certainly did not seem to plan it in a planned,
sober or thoughtful way. America can use a third party but it will have to one that does not preach what seems to be thinly veiled anarchy (by the government, not the people) with a mind set bent on starting world war three. The TP are feeding off of the opportunity that the average American distrusts and fears the government. In Washington state the people voted down I-1098, which would have created a tax rate of 5 percent on annual income exceeding $200,000 for individuals and $400,000 for couples, and a 9 percent rate on income that tops $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for couples and cut the state portion of personal property taxes by 20 percent, about a 4 percent reduction in the annual overall property tax bill. Also, I-1098 also would have exempted an 118,000 businesses from the business-and-occupation tax on gross receipts. All of the money was to be spent on education (70%) and healthcare directly benefiting the poor and middel class. I-1098 lost with more than 65 percent of voters rejecting it, losing in every county. Obviously it was not only the people earning more than $200,000 that voted against it. My brother-in-law lives in Whatcom county Washington and I asked him why hew voted against the initiative. He said that if the state started to tax the rich they would not stop and soon he and everyone else would have to pay more income tax no matter how little they earned. He, like the majority, does not trust the government and the system in place is not working as anyone/everyone wants. But, it is stable and works to a degree that the standard of living in the USA has gone from thirteenth place in the United nations Human Development Index (HDI) list in 2009 to fourth (although in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index the USA places 12th) in 2010.
This leads us back to offshoring:
Since FDR reduced government controls of business in order to stimulate the economy in the thirties there has been less and less direct government control of the economy which, of course, led to the banking collapse of 2008-2009. This also caused more and more businesses to be able to move operations offshore or over border. Many large Manufacturing companies like GM increased profits (or be more competitive - depending on who you ask) by moving operations to Mexico. Oregon based Nike does not produce a single shoe in the US. Almost the entire US agricultural business is completely dependent on Mexican labor. IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and other IT firms have made large investments in India and other countries.
The American economy is no longer based
If the GOP proposes a balanced budget that included the military budget and preserving Social Security, they'd be worth listening too. I expect that if they fail to produce an actual budget like that, they will again be voted out in 2012.
I agree about military spending but Social Security is soon to be bankrupt. With Baby Boomers retiring more and more workers will be needed to support those Boomers. The ratio of retired people on Social Security (SS) to workers paying into it is getting bad. In 1950 16 people paid into SS for every person collecting it. Today that ratio is 3 workers for every retiree, and in 10 year it may be 2 to 1.
Fact is when established under FDR SS was only supposed to be a safety net, people were expected to save for retirement. But now too many people depend on it, even those who made enough money still didn't save and invest enough.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
We were hoping for a Theodore Roosevelt. We got a Bush with a brain and a tan.
Excuse me for mingling in this all-american and highly traditional pie fight, but I think you were hoping for someone with a magic bullet or even better a magic wand. Americans always do, and then they get disappointed, and when the mid-terms are there, they try to see if the other side has the magic wand. (Hint: nope.)
The truth is that the US is a large country with a complicated demographic, a complicated economy, voters that vote with their underbelly rather than their brains, (and hence voters that listen to the loudmouths rather than the nuanced politicians), with a rather bad case of corruption (or 'lobbying', as you call the most prevalent case), and a degenerated media system.
In these circumstances even the best president ever would have a hard time making an impact.
Curing all this takes time, a lot of time: you have to start at the local level, breed sanity there, convince people that it works, try to get an entire state converted, try to get a few more states converted. Then, and only then, you could even try to think of steering the national politics in a saner direction.
Good luck. I hope you make it, but you'll definitely need all the luck you can get.
That's not what his campaign said when he ran against Hillary Clinton. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/world/americas/19iht-obama.1.6203898.html
It is the location, try someplace like Atlanta or Little Rock or Dallas and you'd find plenty of good folks. Perhaps you should place online ads in those areas? I'm sure with so many hurting there would be some willing to trudge through the snow for a good paying job. Also are you offering any on the job training? With something THAT specialized I can see not having as many choices. You might have candidates that are great at one or two of those requirements, but are afraid to apply because they lack experience in one of the others.
But place some ads in the south and I bet you'll start getting resumes hitting your inbox. From there you can simply do an initial interview over the phone and get a feel for whether the person is worth taking a closer look at. Don't give up on your fellow Americans, there are still plenty of good hard working folks out there. Maybe just widen the net a little.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Let me get this straight: you think that a US economy completely closed off from the rest of the world would be an improvement? What do you figure would be the consequences of doing that? (Ignoring for the moment how you'd do it.)
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
--edfardos
Mr Obama is not making me happy. And I'm a Democrat. Can we offshore all the politicians ? They certainly don't care about Americans.
Very good points. As a conservative minded person and a military member, I tend to side with the Republicans, but have gotten quite fed up with all parties on things like this.
I agree we need to start re-address our military spending. I see prime examples every single day of waste, and just simply over paying for everything. Sec. Gates seems to have a good head on his shoulder (fairly non-political: he admits to identifying with the Republicans more, but seems to put aside the petty crap and just do what needs to be done, hence why Pres. Obama kept him around.), and seems to be really interested in cracking down on this kind of stuff. (For example, the proposed closing of Joint Forces Command. Keep in mind, the elected officials in VA are up in arms over this, because it means losing jobs, but it would benefit the entire nation. Definitly not an easy call...)
That being said, military spending tends to pump money into our economy, as a lot of the spending is paid to US contractors (and sub contractors, and subs of subs, etc). Secondly, military spending goes to paying our troops (anyone feel like trying to reduce that portion of the military spending?!), who then put that money back into the US economy (and other economies, but they do pay mortgages and rents, car loans, etc etc).
In end, as I mentioned, though I identify more with the Republicans than the Democrats on most issues, I agree both sides need to stop the rhetoric and be honest, and look to see how we can bring military spending back down to sustainable limits. Definitely some tough choices/calls to be made on that front.
There are two fallacies in play here.
First, there's a misunderstanding about the fundamental nature of commodity production. Commodities have a dual nature: they have a use value, and they have an exchange value. Most economics spends most of its time discussing exchange value. Use value is based upon a commodity's value to human beings. It is based upon human desire, and the ability of humans to empathize with the desires of other humans. It takes a human being to recognize use value, either to produce or to consume -- this is "creativity," though many forms of creativity go under-appreciated. Improved technology multiplies the effect of creative input. You can have workers who makes sandwiches, because they can recognize a sandwich that other people would like to eat. You can have a sandwich-making machine, but it would have to be designed by a person who understands sandwiches, and it would have to be maintained by someone who can recognize whether the machine is making edible sandwiches.
So, automation can reduce the number of workers in a (particular) field, but that number can't go to zero, because then you're just multiplying nothing; you'd have no creativity, no recognition of use-value. If you created human-like AI that was creative, then you've got human-like AI that would have desires, would consume, would demand rewards. "Robot" is derived from the Russian word for slave, and a "slave" robot would be less effective than a "free labor" robot, for the same reasons as with humans. You could only truly replace humans with AI that is effectively human, and with similar rights as humans. That's a completely different science fiction scenario.
Second, there's a misunderstanding about the cyclical nature of economics. An economy is like an ecosystem. Before industrialization, most economic crises were crises of consumption: there were not enough resources to go around. Since industrialization, and the dominance of capitalism, most economic crises are of consumption: there's more being produced than being consumed, which inhibits production. This "self-corrects," albeit at the cost of considerable human suffering and loss.
So, if unemployment becomes high enough, the economy shuts down, and this would happen well before total unemployment.
Where are you posting the job? Try posting it on Monster.com, Yahoo! Jobs (which combines Monster and HotJobs), or search for candidates on Linkedin.com. If the job can be worked virtual, be sure to mention that. If the job can't be worked virtual, and the location is hindering people from applying, can you raise the pay and offer relocation benefits? You could also try working with a contract hiring firm to find someone who can support the position temporarily until a permanent candidate is found.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
I am appalled by the comments Obama made - We are losing high paid jobs for low paying/low skill ones... where is the balance in that? India is being propped up to be a rival to China, yet, why not come out and say that? The problem is, India is no dummy and if the estimates in my region are any indicator, 1 Engineering Job = 3-4 local service jobs. Now all those jobs and associated multiplier jobs are in India.
In the midst of the Great Recession, I can only see someone akin to Carly "I killed HP" Fiorina brazen enough to make such a statement. That Obama made it, that he makes it in India and not in the US. Sad state of affairs out here when your elected Leader throws you under the bus.
(Simpsons - more time to play the lottery - Cha-Ching)
It *does* take time to play the lottery.
I've been buying a few scratchoffs recently, and I often spend a little while in the convenience store in question when going through a batch.
I have a rhyme and a reason for how I go about buying tickets - I hypothesize that different scratchoffs are not wholly independent trials, because they have to be machine-printed [pseudo-random], and the lottery has some rules and policies for how they spread out the winners and losers. I'm wondering if I can discern any useful patterns. (Conversely, the numbers draws are independent trials, not to mention that their prize pools are much more top-loaded to the few large winners, rather than spread out amongst minor prizes.) Stand back, I'm going to try science.
I wonder if I could get a research grant to fund initial analysis? :P :)
My working capital is a stack of $1s.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
It is true that skills in the medical device business are highly specialized, and often trained in-house. There's also a particular culture in the medical industry -- the cost of cutting corners and not following the rules is so catastrophic that people are more likely to avoid risk.
I know medical writers who write the regulatory documents for FDA approvals. Most of them are trained in-house. A headhunter told me that there are 500 people in the country doing that kind of work, and every company steals employees from the others.
Can I have a piece of the cake obama is eating?
Deregulation of the banking sector?
What deregulation, the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933? It was repealed by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act which Clinton signed. Or do you mean the regulations outlawing redlining? And easy credit, when the Federal Reserve lowered federal fund rates from 6.5% to 1% to encourage lending, had nothing to do with it?
Pushing liar loans onto poor people and betting against them with derivatives?
That's easy to deal with, it doesn't even take 1 page of regulations. Better yet, it only takes 1 sentence. "No mortgage lender will be bailed out."
Awarding no-bid contracts to private security firms so they can loot other countries and abuse their people?
No-bid contracts are not to be found in fiscally conservative circles, they are opposite of what is wanted.
Lowering estate taxes on the wealthy so we can have a permanent wealthy aristocracy?
And what's wrong with allowing people to do what they want with the money they work to earn?
it's ignorant people ranting about "socialism"
It's ignorant ranting like this that's the problem. People should learn the truth before speaking.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Because of your white/western guilt.
Because you're on top, you HAVE to keep giving and giving to the rest of the world, even if it destroys you.
One of my biggest complaints against conservatives is that they never really talk about exactly what they want to cut. Assuming that we take recent Sunday morning statements at face value, defense, medicare, and social security are not being considered as targets. What does that leave?
Your salary, comrade. Hand it over, please.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
McCain was a better choice? I voted Bush against Clinton and Kerry. I would have voted McCain over Bush but that didn't happen for some reason. Obama was better than all of them except McCain 10 Years ago before he was indoctrinated.
I vote for the best option. Give me better options.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
At least with the "Tea-Nazis," as you call them, the government's power is restricted as a matter of policy.
No, the government's power is not restricted, instead it's shifted. Though not all, many Tea Partiers have their own social agendas such as outlawing abortions and and denying homosexual unions. Check out the tea party platform.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
He is in India. So he talks nice to India. WOW! Welcome to politics 101.
I am sure he will say the opposite when he is somewhere else. That is what politicians do.
A president is still a politician. Do not think he is above any other politician, even if you might want or expect it.
That's bullshit and you know it.
1. One isn't born a politician. They're not some animal with specific behavioral patterns. Believe it or not, they're people, and just because some are motivated by greed or glory or some other ignoble impulse, it doesn't mean they all are.
2. By espousing this bogus belief that all politicians are by some strange nature lying opportunists, you imply that nothing less should be expected of a politician, so those who believe your crap will become apathetic to political corruption. Why expect better, why demand better, why believe in better; when the honorable politician is nothing but a myth? It's the same apathy displayed by the "I-don't vote" crowd. When you declare a person to be a liar without any evidence they no longer have much of a reason to tell you the truth. Why should they when you'll accuse them of lying anyhow? So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lying opportunists become politicians because people like you begrudgingly accept that to be a politician's role rather than becoming outraged when a politician is caught lying and holding them accountable.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Of course, that might mean that the qualifications get skewed to include language proficiencies and such things that US citizens obviously can't do.
Horseshit. ENGLISH is the DEFAULT language of international business. Everything else is a regional pretender that is marginal at best.
Not alot of love for the Indian cause.
The problem is the Indians just can't seem to get it done.
Obama might as well be talking trade with Africans.
At least doing business with the Chinese, you make money.
With the Indians, you are sending your money into a black hole never to be seen again.
On the balance, the Republican presidents had a Democrat controlled Congress. Even though the President suggests a budget, Congress is free to do what they want to it, and it often times gets quite perverse in spending.
The budget lands in the House first, which has been under the Democratic party for a significant portion of time. Obviously funding two major wars at significant cost was a poor political move for the Republicans.
Both parties suck - I wish we could restore rational debate.
Nice try. You get called on it, so now you are retconning your answer.
Let me guess, you think Han fired in self defence too, right?
That's not a very good sample: 6 presidents (if you don't count Carter). We need a much bigger sample size. The problem is that parties shift. The Democrats of today are nothing like the Democrats of 60 years ago and the Republicans of today are nothing like the Republicans of 60 years ago. There are similarities but both parties have changed (arguably for the worse). In any case, picking the past 30 years is cherry picking data. Further, Congress is in charge of spending. I know that Presidents have a large sway over it but the President cannot pass a spending bill. If you want to give blame or credit for debt levels, more of it should go to Congress. If you look at the numbers that way, you get a different picture. Further, you have to look at if Presidents were of the same party as the majority party in Congress and how large that majority was. You also have to take into account the overall economy during administrations and Congresses. There was a sizable recession during the 80s (and 70s), which by itself can result in an increase in national debt in part because of decreased revenue.
My point is that it is way too simplistic (and technically wrong) to assign credit or blame to Presidents for debt levels. I know Presidents usually propose the budgets but Congress has complete control over them. The President is the easy target because he is only one person but we should really blame Congress, if for nothing more than not standing up to the President when they really should.
See this video at http://www.iptv.org/video/detail.cfm/3135/ittv_20081220_155
Sorry, it's long - an 80 minute lecture.
Very eye opening. Right, the argument has been that if wages go down say, 10%, due to outsourcing but things are 20% cheaper, then that's a net gain. But that is not what happened.
And of course, the right-wing media fans that fire constantly, but they still never say what programs the conservatives want to cut.
We shouldn't be worried according to Obama... According to His Changeness, outsourcing is GOOD for us. After all, if we destroy our middle class and send all our jobs and software development overseas, then MAYBE an unrelated sector that happens to do business with India will sell more widgets and everything will be O.K. for everybody. Our entire economy can survive based on a small number of suppliers that India will eventually replace. Of course! It makes perfect Obama-sense.
You know, I'm sure all the programmers, engineers, and quants who've been kicked out of the middle class by outsourcing and the H1-B visa are doing just fine. I'm sure that after their divorces, the loss of their homes, and their collapse into despair while living in a smaller apartment then they had in college, they'll derive a great amount of comfort knowing that somewhere, in some other state, some guy named Joe Bob has a job making widgets for India because their lives got ruined.
Obama just lost my vote. If I didn't already hate the Republicans, I'd give it to them out of spite. Maybe I'll vote for the Green party from now on. At least they haven't destroyed any lives yet.
Thus spake the master programmer:
"When the program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." (Tao)
Inflated or for that matter deliberately impossible requirements. I've seen job ads that were packed with enough requirements that no one was likely to fulfill them, including one that demanded "experienced with FrameMaker 7.7". Adobe never issued a 7.7, they went from version 7.2 to 8. I called the shop to ask them about this.The recruiter insisted that 7.7 was absolutely necessary and mandatory and the client used it and specified it. Clearly this was a phony screening excuse in operation. I've also seen ads requiring 6 or 7 years of experience with Web technologies that have existed for only 2 years. All too often see such ads from Indian-run agencies so I expect there's a hidden agenda to bar all but the desired pre-selected candidates.
I love it: "Required: Proficiency in Hindi, Telugu, or Kannada." It's even relevant to the job because the candidate will have to communicate with all the *other* Indians already working on the project.
I like how to AC's point this out to him, and he (nloop) is suddenly silent.
This is a Fortune 50 company that has good recruiters, ad placements and a global presence. Your post and another sibling do remind me to follow-up again and push them to research other opportunities to get the job out.
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
That's why your job was overseas outsourced, you costs more than others. It doesn't feel good to be on the receiving end but reduced costs lowers most people's expenses. What you and others need to do is find a new market and or acquire a new set of skills.
Where I have a problem is where the people losing a job are close to retirement. By the tyme they're retrained they might as well retire, except they may be broke. Though not close to then myself I am in a similar situation. Because of an accident I was disabled and basically I need to retake a bunch of classes I took, I was a college student when I had the accident. But I can't afford the classes, I can't even work if only to take 1 or 2 classes at a tyme.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
This environment definitely requires a different mindset about quality and compliance. However, many of the technical skills in software and hardware design are the same as other industries. Even the embedded nature of the devices have similarities in other industries.
I'll admit that it seems like a small community with people having friends and previous coworkers in different medical companies. However, it isn't closed community. I personally joined from an enterprise IT company years ago to drive a team making data management products.
The quality and regulatory functions are very specialized and we do significant hiring within and training. Writing 510K documents and compliant quality management systems isn't for the feint of heart. That is only one particular role in building a device.
However, someone with strong background in embedded design (where quality is also important), requirement management and traceability (also important in many environments from consulting, avionics, telecom systems) could be successful in a design role. Risk management is critical to identify hazard and design mitigations but certainly not outside the realm of the rigor found in other industries
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
we're forced to compete with third-world wages, but don't have the option of paying third-world prices.
If you don't shop at Walmart that's your fault and no one else's. And even Walmart employees make enough to pay Walmart prices. Heck Walmart's current growth is with stores in China. And guess where the profits go... To the US and Walmart shareholders.
Once you start talking about products rather than jobs, suddenly all the bullshit rhetoric about "free trade" disappears.
What's Bullshit is that there is no free trade and the US is just as guilty. While China artificially keeps it's exchange rate low, which makes Chinese exports cheap and imports expensive, the US subsidizes agriculture businesses to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Corn is grown and harvested in the US then exported to Mexico where it's sold cheaper than Mexican farmers can grow corn because these exporters are subsidized.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
"I agree about military spending but Social Security is soon to be bankrupt."
You are lying.
Social security can pay 100% of benefits through 2037. After 2037 they can pay about 75% of benefits if no changes are made.
"In 1950 16 people paid into SS for every person collecting it. Today that ratio is 3 workers for every retiree, and in 10 year it may be 2 to 1."
Do you come from a long line of idiots? Or do you just try really hard? This is what a mature entittlement program looks like. It was predicted by those who designed the fucking program. It's not a failure, it's what was expected to happen. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a fucking moron.
"Fact is when established under FDR SS was only supposed to be a safety net, people were expected to save for retirement. But now too many people depend on it, even those who made enough money still didn't save and invest enough."
And it is still only a safety net. People still have to save. If they don't, retirement will be unpleasant.
What exactly will cutting SS solve? It will make those peoples lives worse. Just so you can feel better. That's pretty much the definition of evil. It won't save any money. Because someone is still going to have to support them. SS has a dedicated funding stream. Those who want to cut SS want access to that stream. They want to redistribute the wealth from the working class to the wealthy.
And here is what I see in my humble travels. Offshoring is alive in well at Kolkata. India is full of people and can fill any need quickly. There are ads for training everywhere. Companies have ads posted on walls wanting interviews and say they give spot offers. The people here seem capable of doing software development, some more then others, just like the US.
The newspapers here seem to be harping on how many jobs the US is getting from the Boeing jet purchase. This is debatable depending on A) Boeing backlog - lots of orders come and get canceled before fulfillment, fact of life in Seattle area. b) are they Boeing 787? These parts are manufactured all over the world now, like the fuselage is made in Italy. Anyhow I don't think the few jobs there will make up for the drain from all the companies here. All the big companies here have a presence here and are still hiring. I was in Romania this summer and while US companies were there also, hiring had ground to a halt.
Why am I here? I'm offshoring some work! We have some protocols we haven't touched in a few years and a customer wants them upgraded to a newer spec. I'm training Indians that work for our company to do it. Could we hire some guys in the US to do it? Sure. Even guys straight out of school could do this in about the same amount of time. The bottom line is it is so much cheaper in India. Until companies and consumers in general are willing to pay more, it's just the way it is unfortunately. Quality may be less and I'm sure that's debatable on both sides, but it is what it is.
I told my kids not to go for computer jobs when they get older, I suggest you do the same. Godspeed and good luck to us all.
What I like is all of the TARP funds, 100's of BILLIONS of dollars for Obama's friends to open up factories offshore.
Then Bush and his cronies with NAFTA, and all of the unfair free trade!
Then of course we had the recent elections.
Choose your crook!
1) Robbed blind by Republicans.
2) Robbed blind by Democrats.
Every single one of those so called representatives are treasonous traitors.
What I want to know is when are people going to realize that voting is nonsense and take the "alternative" paths to liberty and freedom and stop living on food stamps, tents cities and getting your testicles grabbed at the airport or your breasts groped.
You people are stupid. Idiots.
You deserve the slavery you are all going to get from this farce of a political system in this country and are not worthy of freedom or liberty.
Die a slave.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
"I agree about military spending but Social Security is soon to be bankrupt."
You are lying.
No you are. You can't even provide links to support yourself, not even those that haven't been peer reviewed.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
While that's true at face value, what you're actually saying is the last 3 Republican administrations have increased the debt while the previous 1 Democratic administration decreased it. You could also say that, assessing Congress' effects, the last time the debt decreased was under a Republican Congress. I give you credit for at least linking your source. It just doesn't really tell me much, TBH.
"spending is bad no matter who does it"
This is a foolish economy. Spending is good when it causes changes which cost us less in the long run.
Thinking is not as hard as you imagine. Give it a try.
...there have been hundreds of thousands of jobs outsourced that used to be in the US. Those jobs are gone with just a few coming back. The argument that the market expansion
of US products in India will create more manufacturing jobs in the US is also bullshit. These new factories will just ship the jobs back overseas. According to the American Prospect,
since 2000, the U.S. has lost 5.5 million manufacturing jobs, with 2.1 million jobs lost in the past two years. You think this is a good thing? Obama is a fool
which is why the Democrats just lost their asses in the mid term elections and why Obama will be a one-term president.
You need to apply at the right places: NSA, CIA, NRO, DARPA, DHS
The above also have numerous contractors with the same requirements.
The US national public debt has not gone down since Harry Truman managed to do it in 1950-1951. I'd love to know what you're smoking.
And in case you're wondering, since then it has gone as follows:
Dwight Eisenhower (R) - From 266 billion to 288 billion. 8.2% increase over 8 years or a little over 1% per year
John F. Kennedy (D) - From 288 billion to 305 billion. 5.9% increase over 2 years or a little under 3% per year
Lyndon Johnson (D) - From 305 billion to 353 billion. 15.7% increase over 6 years or about 2.5% per year
Richard Nixon (R) - From 353 billion to 475 billion. 34.5% increase over 5 years or about 6.9% per year
Gerald Ford (R) - From 475 billion to 698 billion. 46.9% increase over 3 years or about 15.6% per year
Jimmy Carter (D) - From 698 billion to 997 billion. 42.8% increase over 4 years or about 10.7% per year
Ronald Reagan (R) - From 997 billion to 2.857 trillion. 186.5% increase over 8 years or about 23.3% per year
Daddy Bush (R) - From 2.857 trillion to 4.411 trillion. 54.3% increase over 4 years or about 13.6% per year
Bill Clinton (D) - From 4.411 trillion to 5.807 trillion. 31.6% increase over 8 years or about 3.9% per year
Baby Bush (R) - From 5.807 trillion to 11.909 trillion. 105.1% increase over 8 years or about 13.1% per year
Barack Obama (D) - In his first year he's managed to increase the public debt by 13.8%
Republicans tend to be terrible at controlling spending, I will grant you that. The two worst performers on the list are Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. But Obama comes in at 3rd (so far) with Papa and Baby Bush at 4 and 5.
Out of all of our presidents, the only ones who did any real good were Andrew Jackson and Calvin Coolidge (Jackson reduced our public debt to less than $35,000!). The worst of them all was FDR, managing to increase the public debt by a STAGGERING 1044% in 12 years or 87.3% per year. One could argue he had some extenuating circumstances, however.
I work for a major IT outsourcing firm, and the client (my former employer) has written into the contract that a certain (high) percentage of all IT labor will be offshore.
So imports from the U.S. to those offshore locations creates manufacturing jobs in the U.S.? Big friggin' deal. That doesn't help anyone who does IT for a living. I suppose I am expected to end my career as a information systems engineer and take a manufacturing job once they figure out how to offshore my position as well? And then they'll offshore that factory job to China.
Jobs supporting agricultural exports? You mean jobs for undocumented migrant workers, not U.S. citizens.
Travel services? Last time I called the travel agency, "Steve" answered the phone with a thick Indian-accented English.
Educational services? We teach them all the things we know and are good at?
Give me a break, Obama. All of the listed categories employ a minimum amount of American citizens, and none of them in the sector that's hardest-hit by offshoring.
Mr. President, after watching your elitist attidue of knowing better than the average citizen we sent you a message by electing republicans.
If you want we can continue this trend with your job being outsourced in 2012 when we elect another republican. I do not care if he is pro outsourcing as much as you are. The fact that you wont listen and thumb your nose at us infuriates me.
http://saveie6.com/
The power of the purse is the domain of Congress and more specifically the House of Representatives. This turns your Democratic spend thrift thesis on it's head (excluding G.W. Bush).
Finally, the last Congress (or president if you insist) to lower the national debt was Truman coming out of WWII. Your post is provably false on all levels.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm
Oh, and because I forgot to quote my source, straight from the horse's mouth.
I am a disbeliever. If you have proof, show it to me. Otherwise, know that jobloss has lead to foreclosures on homes, and a big drop in standard of living.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
"When the GOP demonizes "tax and spend" as the other party's problem, they mean "spend on domestic social programs" and deliberately exclude US military spending. I think that's a pretty accurate summary, actually."
I'll tend to agree there - most conservative feel that money spent on "defense" to be worth it and do not see it as something that should have caps. They see spending on social programs as propping up people who will not work for whatever reason.
"When you include US military spending as part of "spend", you will find that the GOP is worse on "tax and spend" than the Dems. They started a war that costs the US $1B a day"
And this is where the democrats lost - a billion a day is roughly 365 billion a year. We are looking at more than trillion new spending - MUCH more than a billion a day. You can include *everything* the Republicans have ever spent in the history of the us and almost not equal what we have (for one thing the Democrats accepted that spending on "defense" too). Running on anti-fiscal largess and the subsequent spending is one of the main things that killed the Democrats. That money also went to something that was truly unpopular so as far as "affect on the voters mind" double it. Many will put up with spending when they feel it is needed, spend on things that they feel aren't (regardless of if it is) let alone truly *unwanted* and you get even worse, further have a great deal of why you were elected to be a low spender and it is even worse. Thus the total rape of the so called "Blue Dog Democrat" who weren't as Blue Dog as what they ran as.
"If the GOP proposes a balanced budget that included the military budget and preserving Social Security, they'd be worth listening too."
To a liberal/leftist. To a conservative not so much. To a centrist I do not know - centrists are much harder to gauge as they tend to still be hard with their ideas, just have a mix of them. I rather guess that the "best" in terms of winning votes right now would be to exclude military spending, be more discrete in where we spend on it, fix social security (not really sure what this means though - *long* post there), scrap HCR and start over (even if it takes years to work out), and mostly try and move back from your party's extremes.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
just because it's a popular idea doesn't mean it's in any way factually correct.
The idea that the government CAN create jobs is the one that's popular. Most people buy the politicians rhetoric about creating jobs hook, line and sinker.
The government can certainly hire people to do work but the money to do so ultimately has to come from tax dollars. This is money that people would have put to other uses had it not been taken from them by the government. Therefore the government cannot create jobs without ultimately sacrificing private sector jobs in the process.
Furthermore, even though the government prints the money, it's the workers and entrepreneurs who give it its value.
It's not that the government never does anything useful but out of all your examples only the "national highway system" has any credibility. Computers? They're a natural progression from the transistor which was developed in the private sector. IBM developed the integrated circuit and would have eventually done so no matter what the government was up to. The internet? I guess no one would have ever thought to hook 2 computers together had it not been for the government. The space program? It was a by product of the cold war which (talk about wasteful spending!) led to a hugely inflated military budget and the current problems we have in the Middle East.
Also, deficit spending is seriously irresponsible and leads to the long term decline of the economy.
$10 Billion dollars... Oh whoop-de-doo! Your Ms. Hillary scored $60 bil from the Saudis with a single "deal". Who do you think Wall Street will favor in 2012?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
9/11 and the resulting housing crisis? *smacks forehead*
I work for a Fortune 50 company as well. If the job isn't getting any candidates, I would begin to wonder if something might be wrong or missing on the job posting. It could be something simple like the "show externally" flag wasn't set correctly on the job posting, so it's only being shown internally. Or it could just be that nobody wants to move to Wisconsin right before winter. :^)
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
My career was outsourced to a woman after WWII. Fortunately they increased their living standard and increased the size of the modern economy, And I got a job as a programmer. Can these emerging economies have the same effect as women entering the work force? How can we increase their standard of living?
Hello Cruel World
..are underway in the US. But judging from the list of Indian investment in America or Indian purchasing of American technology none on the list will be part of the new effort that the US needs in order to compete with a lesser reliance on fossil fuels. Gas and steam turbines, a variety of aircraft that use fossil fuels, diesel locomotive manufacturing and a gas powered motorcycle plant are ok for now but use your imagination people and see what future technology will be required in say 10 years down the road. I look forward to hearing about these technological advances from the US and not only China. (based on what little I have heard about Chinese efforts in clean technology or "less polluting" technology for those who look at it that way..)
Society use your Sciences
I doubt you ever did consider trade amongst Spanish speaking nations, China with these nations, or Japan and Korea for instance. A lot of oil trade will be done in for instance Arabic or Russian. Maybe you should look abroad first, instead of thinking that because the USA does it's international business in English, the rest of the world does too. I wouldn't be surprised if the trade between non-english speaking countries would be much larger than the English speaking ones.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
We have 10% unemployment how can he say that and not be run out of Washington on a rail. American jobs are caught in a pincer between improved automation and continued outsourcing. Which is in part why the economy can grow with almost no change in the unemployment figure. That 10% percent may be the new norm only replaced by a higher figure next decade. Honestly any president that says such a foolish thing after taking a drubbing in the mid terms due to frustration in part over high unemployment is just a damn fool.
I can name at least one (US/Dutch) bank that moved their Data Center to India, that cost over 500 jobs in the US alone, most of which have still not found work and that was 3 years ago.
I also have a friend that works for a major consulting company and he is traveling to/from INDIA most of the time. He is a full partner and his full time job is outsourcing IT companies to India and he is making mega bucks from the outsourcing deals. He looked at a major brokerage house in NYC but that did not go as planned.
On this specific instance Obama just does not know what he is talking about. People are loosing their jobs and they just cannot find other jobs in the IT industry. One guy dropped out and went to work for Obama's election. I have not had the nerve to ask him what he thinks of Obama's stance, now.
The H1B system is there to be abused by people with no criminal record, wanting to work hard for a living for little money?
The USA has plenty of those living in Oakland for instance. Every street corner is filled with them? Florida has the highest rate of young people going there to get a job, despite the terrible weather?
Young, (semi) intelligent people wanting to work, pay taxes and not make a mess of their life and neighborhood are a treasure for every nation. Sure, you'll need the nannies and maids too, but for those people, it's impossible to get a legal status so they'll remain illegal Mexicans and don't pay taxes. Stop complaining when people come into your country wanting to work. It's happened up to the great depression and was considered beneficial for the economy and the country.
There's over 3 billion people living in China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia. Even if only 20 percent of them are willing to work hard and are intelligent, they still outnumber the total population of the USA. You are heavily outnumbered by people that want to work harder, longer and cheaper. There are plenty of them that are smarter and fast on their way to become better educated. Look at the level of the students leaving prestigious US Universities now, and compare them to the H1B applicants you are complaining about. I don't think the level in knowledge isn't all that different. Maybe the US students fit in easier in a US cultured work environment, but I doubt their output will be as cost efficient as that of the H1B applicant. You'll need replacement for all the baby boomers that are migrating to Florida to die, and you won't get it in your trailer parks or ghetto streets. If you wouldn't have the H1B visas, you'd be in a lot more trouble as a nation than with them. Sure, wages are lower because there's competition from young and eager people, but the real problem you have, is that your own culture fails to bread them locally. Wages are determined in a global economy these days. You are competing with people that don't have a white picket fence, 401Ks and an iPhone. Shut off your communist union-managed economy and be left behind by the rest of the planet, just like the Russians were left behind when they shut off theirs.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Whoa....Walmart is about tariffs not out-sourcing. We need at least 100% tariffs across the board on almost all Chinese manufactured non-durable goods. Durable goods need looked at on an industry-case basis. For example, increasing the cost of a table cloth from 50 cents (coming in) to $1.00 (by way of tariff) would create an opportunity to encourage job creation in the US while not at all inconveniencing anyone except China (ok, and walmart). Sure, Walmart will lobby because it would mean they would have to charge $3.00 instead of $1.50 for a table cloth to retain the same RATE of profit on the product, but who cares(they could easily maintain the same net profit by charging $2.00). I can guarantee a new factory would then open up in the US to compete with the low-quality dangerous products flowing out of China. Walmart would threaten reduction in their workforce but reality would not bear it. And yes, walmart charges at least triple markup (sometimes 5x, and more) on all products (excluding food). Clothing is around double markup to 2.5x. (The tarriffs collected could be used to pay down the national debt.) The levy of tarriffs would cause some job loss at first but would eventually be mitigated. Out-sourcing, off-shoring, is a whole different issue although it still relates to the usage of over-seas wage-slave labor. Clinton is often cited as running a balanced budget after the massive spending of the Reagan years BUT he cannot take credit for the decade of prosperity experienced in the US during the 1990s. That was a direct result of tariffs placed on certain imports by the Reagan administration which caused a retention and flow of jobs into the US.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
9/11 and the resulting housing crisis? *smacks forehead*
The dot-com bust, 9/11, and some wars were what caused all the people with "interest only" loans (and other voodoo accounting) to go belly up.
Or would you simply have preferred I used the word "following"?
But my original point still stands - the recent [D] presidential administrations have benefited greatly from coincidence.
Do you have any alternative ideas to put forth? or just snark?
So the Chinese engineer went back to Canada because he knew if he didn't they would pull the same trick on him, and he would have to go back home, which he didn't want to do. He did get some really boring job in Canada, but it really sent him into a mental hole. Six months later he jumped out of a window and killed himself.
As far as I am concerned, the HR department and the management might as well have been standing there and opening the window so he could jump. They acted as if everyone is a piece of toilette paper, and once you are used they flush you down the shit hole. Not everyone can take it, and the results can be fatal.
This was about 10 years ago, and I think it is worse now. If corporate American thought they could get away with killing employees and selling there body parts they would do just that. Until corporations are held responsible they will continue to destroy workers, either directly like BP or the Massey coal mine disaster in West Virginia, or indirectly by cutting health care, or by working people into impossible corners like my friend.
Why is Snark Required?
That sale to Saudi Arabia is U.S. government corruption. Many Saudis, including the September 11, 2001 bombers of the World Trade Center, wanted and want more influence within their own country. The sale of weapons makes money for U.S. investors in weapons, like the Cheney and Bush families, and allows the ruling organization in Saudi Arabia to control everyone else in the country. The result is overall de-stabilization and constant war, which weapons investors want.
the data-driven facts say that we don't have enough highly educated Americans to do the jobs our economy is currently producing,
US citizens already do, you and your kind just ask for impossible qualifications. Those impossible qualifications couldnt be met by anyone in the world, but only the US citizen ever sees these impossible qualifications; the foreign help gets away with a lot less.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Dey took our jawbs
Indian call centres are a classic example of the race to the bottom that occurs when capitalists compete to supply the minimum possible standard of service.
Whenever two entities in non-english speaking countries have a business relation with each other, they will settle sooner or later on one of their respective languages, because it just skips one translation step and thus one source of misunderstandings. And then profiency in at least one of both languages is a necessity.
Americans do not want training. You can see this by poking your nose into any science, math, or engineering graduate program in the nation.
Then give them the jobs, then train within the context of the job.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It isn't worth impoverishing a single man (let alone thousands) so 100,000,000 can buy screwdrivers that are 10 cents cheaper. It is immoral, and it is herd mentality. And it is not an equation that genuinely helps the people in the home country in any meaningful way.
I agree with what you say, SmallFurryCreature.
If anything, here is something that may paint a little more of the canvas:
The company I work for, which I will not name, is the typical one that constantly bleeds jobs overseas. Tho, recently, we were in the process of growing our local payroll. Like any company these days, we have to be careful with how much many we have to spend, for reasons that are both obvious and others that I cannot disclose. The logical choice was to go for new grads, at either the master or bachelor level. Note, we also had openings for people with a lot of experience, only that we couldn't find them either. We could not find any, and we were at this odd situation of having openings that we couldn't fill.
And the majority of the people who responded to the ad were foreigners.
So here is the bit that may paint that canvas. I don't know in what phase of this crisis we may be, but it seems it involves already the effects of a population steered away from some particular majors. Furthermore, away from some particular jobs. You could say "well, your company is not attractive anymore!" but I doubt that people would pick underemployment or unemployment either. So it seems that the fact is that there is really a lack of qualified or trainable people. It may just be too late.
For what it matters, I don't have any issues with hiring H1b people, being an immigrant myself (L1) and able to outwork almost anyone I know (and more if you give me time :) ). You could be doing a lot by hiring or not hiring foreigners. You could both "save an american's job" or kill it by rejecting a qualified person who will be forced back to their country and find the same job at the local wage.
I also don't have any issues ith hiring H1b people because I reject the notion that their production will be detrimental to the whole country. You alays want to work with the best you can. And I see quite a lot of our veterans of the layoff war decade think that they stay because of their irreplaceable skills (instead of a political coincidence) and thus be unwilling to put any effort to relearn as the job requires it. I could go on forever.
Finally, on a negative note, sometimes I wonder if this is all no more than a waiting game, that we are suckers by putting money in the 401K (see, I'm an immigrant who is here to stay and play by the rules), and that this is all going to blow up on our faces just at the time when we turn 60.
Signed,
anonymous coward.
Human beings advance together or not at all? Humph! In exactly what way is Somalia advancing? Burma? North Korea? China and Persia brought enlightenment and progress when Europe was mired in the dark. Then Europe brought enlightenment and progress when pretty much the rest of the world was mired in the dark. Advancement flourishes where the spark is brightest at any given time. There wouldn't even be computers the way you know them if the US hadn't brought them into being. Or space flight - with a lot of help from the USSR in the form of competition, though in the end it was US footsteps on the moon.
Now, if you had said, advances spread among the receptive, I wouldn't have an issue with that.
The nations play fair. OTH, when nations such as China, South Korea, AND INDIA play with their money to make exports cheap, then there is a problem. Right now, America is forcing our money down, but that is to try and stop all the leaching that a number of Asian countries are doing, in particular, China. If we could get China to SIMPLY OBEY THEIR MULTIPLE TREATIES and free their money, then offshoring would be less of an issue.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Misys is dumping their entire development staff in the US in favor of programmers in Bangalore.
OBAMA, you should be outsourced.
"For the past 30 years every Republican president has increased the debt while every Democrat has decreased it."
Sounds good, but a closer look at the cited page shows that in the last 30 years there has only been one Democratic president, and we all know Clinton was just lucky to have presided over the superbubble. Furthermore, for six of his eight years both the House and Senate had Republican majorities. Remember, the President cannot spend a dime -- only Congress can do that.
Going back to the beginning of the table in 1945, the results are more mixed.
NHA
The thing is, the military spending is the only thing that the constitution specifically authorizes*, so whatever the federal budget is, it probably should be mostly military spending.
*and at that, the only permanent force that the constitution authorizes is the navy. A large standing army is actually expressly forbidden during peacetime.
The argument that we should spend less on the military, in no way justifies the "savings" to be spent on other things. That money doesn't belong to the government to do with as it pleases.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I disagree with Obama. I have seen many US either lose their job due to outsourcing or they couldn't get the job because they couldn't beat the salary of 20 year olds from India. Our nations unemployment rate is at it's highest and the H1B sponsorship in IT is at it's highest. Some might say that this is good competition but we are losing our identities. It is impossible for a 30-year-old IT professional with children to compete salary wise with a 23 year old single person from India. If you notice that most of the people who do landscaping now are immigrants. A immigrant can live with several others in a small apartment and save much more of their income and work from less, so much less, that a US citizen cannot compete, especially if the immigrant isn't paying taxes or contributing to the system. Insourcing or outsourcing, it doesn't matter what you call it, they are still jobs and work that unemployed Americans could be taking. It's no different than getting a 10 year old in a sweatshop in Indonesia to make our shoes, maybe we need a few more of those. President Obama, I gave you a chance and I had high hopes but your statements just confirm my suspicion that you are out of touch with the American people just like the rest of the CEO/politicians.
Just take a good look at detroit on google maps, it is disgusting that a full city could have been let to deteriorate to this point....
it was heavily dependent on the car industry, and then when all the plants took their operations offshore, look what happened, you have empty skyscrapers for god's sake......the abandoned cars in the middle of downtown.
I would recommend maybe offering the immigrants from india to all move to downtown detroit, with giving them a contract stating they have to stay there at least 10 years before becoming full citizens of the US, and you could import 3 million immigrants to morrow, and fully repopulate that area, and trust me, the immigrants from those poor countries would find ways of making their lives work with what they are given....they would not just leave at the first sign of trouble, like a lot of investors did leaving behind so many empty buildings.
By doing this, you keep the industry HERE, and also help out those nations buy giving them jobs here and offering them a better life.
I am sure the indian government would not mind...
Carter
That's because having guns before a revolution is quite useless.
Unarmed societies (India) waged more successful revolutions then well armed societies (Ireland, the IRA) with the will to use them.
Giving an oppressive government an actual enemy to fight violently gives that government a cause to rally the people around. Which of these phrases makes you worried, "look at the terrorist blowing up the train stations" or "Look at the terrorists, starving themselves and meditating"? Start blowing up stuff, you become a threat in the average persons eyes, a semi competent government will use this to good effect (paging Mr Saddam and Mr Putin)
After a revolution starts (violently) then you need a source of weapons and munitions as stockpiles never last. This source is almost always the parts of the military that did not follow the governments orders.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
American, this is Roman.
Roman. this is American.
Pfft It's still 60 billion dollars. Nobody cares about "corruption" and "destabilization". 98% of the voting population will tell you every two years that war is good business
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Offtopic? Another troll moderator! How is talking about money coming into the US "offtopic"? You must some kind of Obama worshiper. I've heard about you people. You're as weird as the Reagan lovers.
Let's say I have a factory and employ 100 people in State X. I shut down the factory and relocate to State Y. The wages that I paid to the people in X are no longer going in to the local economy of X, it's going in to Y. Same thing with off-shoring. Aside from the wages lost to India, we no longer have the money going in to the local economic base in the form of sales tax, which is a major revenue source for local government.
Same issue exists with mail-order pharmaceuticals. Our drug plan wants us to switch to 90 day supplies "to save money", but to do so means that the money goes to another state, not our local economy. Walgreens might be a national corporation, but my money is helping people to keep local jobs, so I'll keep picking up my meds on a monthly basis.
If you want to see something scary, go see the movie Waiting For Superman. Our education system is wrecked, but they don't mention that there's a tidal wave just over the horizon: India's top 1% of college graduates are more numerous than the entire US college graduate class. If India tried, they would be an all but unstoppable economic power.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
I've been thinking more and more that anybody's who's smart will teach their children Mandarin Chinese.
India is too fragmented linguistically to use anything other than English.
French is more for literary pleasure, not any kind of economic gain.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
The U.S. Voter has said, "No Job, No Vote, No Problem". BRIC seems to be doing pretty well now. How about helping us low life, no good, short sided, dirt bag, inner bred voters? And all I got is this electronic voting machine made by some profit oriented company that Off Shored is service, and manufacturing and seems to donate to Republicans. What are we going to do about it? Sir.
>fears...unwarranted
My employer sent my job and a hundred others to Bangalore this year. The people taking over my department are mostly a good bunch of kids, all about 30 years younger than me. I'm looking for another job that i can be unwarrantedly fearful about.
Outsourcing of jobs is a direct response to corporate taxation on foreign profits. When corporations make money in overseas markets, they have two choices to make. Bring those profits back into the US and pay corporate taxes again, or leave the funds overseas and invest them in projects. The two easiest countries (considering both tax and skills) to do this in is China and India. The companies are making a financial decision to take this course of action. Investing overseas profits into the US does not make sense given the current corporate tax rate.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
If the GOP proposes a balanced budget that included the military budget and preserving Social Security, they'd be worth listening too. I expect that if they fail to produce an actual budget like that, they will again be voted out in 2012.
Too bad a balanced budget is not possible. Estimated receipts for taxes this year is $2.38 billion. We're currently estimated to spend $2.18 billion on "mandatory" spending like social security, welfare, etc...
Even if we cut our ENTIRE military budget worth 18.74% of our overall budget, we would not run a surplus this year. In fact, we wouldn't even be close. We have to come to grips with reality here. Entitlement spending, military spending, and all discretionary spending has to drop significantly. ALL of it. Not just a billion here and there, but 30%+ cuts in each department. The math doesn't lie, we do not have the money to keep spending on our current path.
And to blame this on one party or another is foolish. It also does nothing to solve the problem.
...the fact this global competition only applies to the working class? When was the last time you heard of a an executive vice president being fired from his $3 million a year job to be replaced by a couple of cheap MBA's from India making $100k a year?
I'm not American or Indian, but I'd sure rather talk to product support at the manufacturer in the States, than someone with a different cultural bias (the barrier is not linguistic, it's conceptual -- most Indian support people can speak English just fine!) who's reading off a list of what solutions go with which symptoms -- and as someone who's done support for years, I've already tried all those -- that's why I'm calling!!! No. I usually won't even talk to support in India.They've really never understood what I'm saying and they've always pointed me wrong.
Jedis are stupid. If they were so powerful, why couldn't they handle counseling for a kid who missed his mom?
This is exactly how it works. Being infuriated by offshoring indicates willful ignorance of economics. If your field is outsourced, you find ways to add additional value or you find a new field. Increased economical efficiency leads to us all being better off. Sure, it sucks for the laid off people in the short term, but getting rid of people like telephone operators is what enables a better standard of living for everyone.
Your brainwashing is now complete, Unit 23665.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'd love to know where you get your sophistry. The debt did go down while we were running surpluses under Clinton. But nice try with the misdirection, only considering from the start to the end of his presidency and not the years in between.
This country (US) is run by the Chinese and Mexicans/Latinos. Most of stuff in the stores are Chinese made or Indonesian or Vietnamese and in some cases Mexican. In the US, most of the software companies have a huge chunk of Chinese people (either on H1B or even permanent residents) Mexicans run this country by hand. Most of the cleaners, painters, plumbers, builders are Mexicans. My office cube, kitchen, toilet and the rest of the office are maintained by Mexicans. Take the above two races out of the equation, this country will crumble like a building made out of loose soil. If you take Indians (on H1B or working from India) out of the equation, they will only be replaced by some more people from China. Either way, its the immigrants running this place. Atleast it is colorful.
When you include US military spending as part of "spend", you will find that the GOP is worse on "tax and spend" than the Dems. They started a war that costs the US $1B a day, that has lasted 8 years, and provided no way to pay for it. That is a more egregious "tax and spend" program than any social program the Dems have initiated, "Obamacare" included.
Show me figures which demonstrate this, because I have searched and have been unable to identify your mythical "1 billion a day" figure. If anything, overall DoD expenditures have been less in the past decade than in the previous decade.
Additionally, you can't have it both ways: "provided no way to pay for it" can't be an argument against the war when you oppose methods of payment, such as collecting the profits from oil/mineral sales in those lands. (That is, after all, the entire point of war: maintaining or improving economic standing.)
I'm not disagreeing with you fundamentally, but you're being a bit disingenuous/intellectually dishonest.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
But it's the Executive's job to write the federal budget. Between that, the bully pulpit, the veto pen, and the leadership of his party, the president has an enormous amount of influence over what legislation gets passed.
That's a nice word salad, but does nothing to change the fact that a paying job is a paying job. And totally ignores the fact that in a highly depressed economy, the only entity capable of jump-starting demand is the government.
Only if you're talking about tax increases on the working class, not on the rich. Tax cuts for them have never resulted in job creation, only profit taking and foreign financial investment. In fact, a high top marginal tax rate encourages economic development because it makes as much sense to re-invest profits than have them taxed at 91% (the rate under Eisenhower).
#1 More than 42 million Americans were on food stamps during the month of August. That is a new all-time record, and that number is 17 percent higher than it was one year earlier. In fact, the number of Americans on food stamps is up more than 58 percent since August 2007.
#2 The number of "persons not in the labor force" in the United States has set another new all-time record. The United States has not had such an extended bout of mass unemployment since the Great Depression. The "official" unemployment rate in the United States has been at nine and a half percent or above for 14 consecutive months.
#3 More than 1000 people now live in the 200 miles of flood tunnels that exist under the city of Las Vegas. Once one of the most prosperous cities in the United States, Las Vegas is now little more than a shiny, glittering corpse that it rapidly decaying.
#4 Poverty is absolutely exploding and it is hitting those who are the most vulnerable the hardest. According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010.
#5 In the past 60 days alone, the price of cotton is up 54%, the price of corn is up 29%, the price of soybeans is up 22%, the price of orange juice is up 17%, and the price of sugar is up 51%.
#6 One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one anti-poverty program run by the federal government.
#7 The American Bankruptcy Institute says that there will be about 1.6 million consumer bankruptcies in 2010. That would represent a huge increase over 2009.
#8 According to one recent survey, 28% of all U.S. households have at least one member that is looking for a full-time job.
#9 The individual U.S. states are mostly flat broke. For example, it is being reported that the 15 largest U.S. states spent on average over 220% of their tax receipts over the past decade. Clearly this is not even close to sustainable.
#10 The U.S. government is completely and totally broke. After analyzing Congressional Budget Office data, Boston University economics professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff concluded that the U.S. government is facing a "fiscal gap" of $202 trillion dollars.
#11 In an attempt to keep our financial system solvent, the U.S. Federal Reserve has announced plans to create $600 billion out of thin air and pump it into the U.S. economy. The Fed is calling this "quantitative easing", but what they should really be calling it is "cheating, debasing and inflating".
#12 Many of the major trading partners of the United States are expressing deep resentment regarding the new quantitative easing policy announced by the Fed. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard recently described the growing animosity this way....
Li Deshui from Beijing's Economic Commission said a string of Asian states share China's "deep bitterness" over dollar debasement, and are examining ways of teaming up to insulate themselves from the tsunami of US liquidity.
#13 For many analysts, the economic collapse of the United States comes down to cold, hard math. For example, the former CEO of the tenth largest bank in the United States says that it is a "mathematical certainty" that the U.S. government will eventually go bankrupt.
#14 According to a recent article on CNBC, the financial world is already buzzing about QE3....
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Our brainwashing won't be complete until we vote for Palin in 2012.
From the Wall Street Journal (that bastion of the liberal media) Sept 29 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703882404575520091126205702.html)
WASHINGTON—The Senate failed to advance legislation pushed by Democrats Tuesday to deter
U.S. corporations from moving jobs overseas, an effort Republicans derided as political theater.
The vote on bringing the bill to the floor for a full debate was 53 to 45, shy of the 60 votes needed to end a GOP-led filibuster.
Democrats held the roll-call vote as polls showed more voters were concerned about outsourcing.
"There is a clear difference between who we are fighting for and who they are fighting for," said Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.
So Repubs stopped a bill to limit outsourcing, we sent a message by electing more Repubs, Obama seems to have gotten message, and now you're complaining. Not thumbing his nose, rather he and you are being led by the nose. Get used to the feel of that ring through your nasal septum.
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Bush/Cheney gave us the first (although Bush now claims it wasn't him), Homeland Security is working on the second, and i heard an awful lot of the third from various candidates before last Tuesday.
Oh wait you're an idiot....read the article - said nothing about what was being exported. The bigger question is, will these product soon be manufactured in India!
And in the $10 Billion is there any nuclear technology???
Farewell, United Snakes of America...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You're being intellectually dishonest by giving only half the story.
The Republicans stopped the bill for two reasons. First, because it contained a number of other provisions they could never agree to. Second, it had no chance of passing this year and would do nothing but further clutter the already overdrawn legislative schedule in the Senate.
Bringing the bill up was nothing more than political theatre designed to score some cheap political points with those too ignorant to see through it. That means you're either a shill for the Democratic Party regurgitating their talking points on the Internet or you're so utterly ignorant of the ridiculous games BOTH major parties play that you fell for the Democrats' talking points hook, line, and sinker.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
And #15 According to the Joint Economic Committee the richest 1% have 21% of the money. So at least one thing is going right.
http://jec.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=91975589-257c-403b-8093-8f3b584a088c
U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee
"share of total income accrued by the
wealthiest 10 percent of households jumped from 34.6 percent in 1980 to 48.2 percent in
2008.1 Much of the spike was driven by the share of total income accrued by the richest 1
percent of households. Between 1980 and 2008, their share rose from 10.0 percent to 21.0
percent, making the United States as one of the most unequal countries in the world.2 Moving
even further up the income distribution, the share of income accruing to the wealthiest 0.1
percent of households – those with incomes of at least $1.7 million in 2008 – has grown sharply
as well."
>intellectually dishonest ... shill for the Democratic Party
Me and the WSJ, Damn. Who can you trust these days?
> it contained a number of other provisions they could never agree
Please bolster your intellectual honesty by providing specifics for the other half of the story, along with quality references, othewise you're just a regurgitating shrill shill.
The lie is in conflating discretionary and non-discretionary spending. Programs like Social Security have dedicated funding sources - not so with the military. Then there's the trick of only counting Pentagon spending as military - not the CIA/NSA, not the military aspect of the Department of Energy, or the Veterans Administration. Defense spending is closer to 55% of the non-discretionary budget.
These are the numbers (from the treasury) for the years attributed to Clinton in the GP post. Each year the debt increased.
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38
Sources:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm
I'm a salaried employee currently working with local contractors, H-1B contractors, and offshore contractors. I have no problem competing for a job with an H-1B or local contactor. We have the same expenses. I pay taxes, he pays taxes. I buy a car because mass transit in my city sucks; he buys a car for the same reason. It's even better for me versus the H-1B worker; I don't have trips home across the ocean nor do I have to pay a lawyer for advice on my work status. However, I can't compete with an IT worker in India. They have lower costs of living, fewer worker protection laws as well as lower salaries in general. That makes them cheaper (at least on paper but that is another story). I'm much more likely to lose my job to an offshore employee.
"Long time listener, first time caller."
I've got an ongoing theory that most things that are perceived as malicious are actually due to incompetence.
In that light, perhaps someone wrote down "7.2" on their notepad in gathering hiring requirements, had crappy handwriting or spilled their coffee on it, couldn't quite read it, and wound up at 7.7?
Seems kind of possible.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
That was my first thought too, and was why I checked carefully. But I pushed the recruiter to verify with the company and I pointed out such a mistake would prevent ANY candidate who could satisfy needs from being found. I was told the manager who'd specified the needs knew what he needed, and basically, who was I to question him. Overall the large list of requirements was kind of bizarre and I felt really was being used to eliminate all candidates in favor of one they wanted but couldn't until they'ed blocked all others.
Loki, where did you go? Are you OK? It's been hours with no word from you. What happened to your intellectual honesty?
I don't think anybody was expecting a silver bullet.
It's interesting. You just reminded me of how my jr. high history teacher described FDR's approach: shotgun.
Now, if you want to stereoptype Americans as obsessed with firearms, I won't argue with you there. :)
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
But, honestly: big rubber dick? That's as angry as you get? Let me guess, you're a writer for Jay Leno, but you just got fired because you aren't edgy enough for the 65+ demo.
Yeah, I concur. Not incredibly edgy. What about something along the lines of:
"I hope you are forced to watch while everyone you love is raped, mutilated, and killed in horribly painful ways."
I think that achieves a high level of edginess.
Hm, on second thought I believe that example is more vindictive than invective. We are looking for vituperation here, not just wishes for schadenfreude. So, even the original example of "Go fuck yourself" is not especially appropriate based on its prima facie interpretation. It has, of course, come to have vituperative connotations in its informal usage, but is not excoriating in itself, per se.
The general comments about "fucktardiness", "dirtbag" and "you're an asshole" were much closer to the proper delivery of censure and condemnation, so I am also left to conclude that your metacritique (as quoted above) missed its target as well.
Now we have come full circle to edginess. Not of the vindictive comments, but of (putative) "his" direct censure of you.
What to choose in this pseudonymous forum context? Making racist allegations is passe (and in this forum blase, thanks to GNAA trolls). However, an attack on your genetic heritage is not necessarily ruled out... he could allege that you are the product of many generations of inbreeding. I sense some potential traction for that angle. Child molesters are considered especially depraved, so perhaps an allegation about that?
Another natural fit for this context would be to impugn your intelligence. One might say this would be the "least" ad hominem attack, because it would suggest that your intellect spawned substandard ideas rather than making some sort of irrelevant comment about your physical characteristics or morphology. As we have already crossed the "fuck" threshold (and sadly this remains the nuclear option in US English), the only apparent option is to go for volume. To wit:
"You are a fucktarded fuckwit whose ideas are shitty and it seems that you cannot cogently express your fucking position without being crass. On balance, I believe you to be a fuckhead. FUCK!"
Excoriating? Check.
Vituperative? Check.
Invective? Check.
Wrathful? Check.
Puerile? Check.
Would something of this ilk meet your standards and form an acceptable ad hominem attack in this context?
Maybe because this is Slashdot, maybe because the debate/discussion has been framed by the politicians to be this way - there is more to the US economy than IT/white-collar/call center jobs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States_by_sector
Any which way you look at it, it is manufacturing that took US to its current standing in the world economy and it is finance that has kept it there ever since. Manufacturing in particular is what provides the most export-related growth and this is where the focus should be. Obama talked about 50,000 jobs, but that is a fraction of the potential of core, brick and mortar factories and plants. It would behove this generation of American entrepreneurs to look at design and engineering instead of weak dotcom startups.
You are very correct, but people harp on this is because they feel swindled, and like there is nowhere else to turn. We were all told that in this post-manufacturing jobs market, we should pursue a college degree to become part of the "knowledge economy". Then, within just a few years, many of those jobs, too, got shipped overseas, and those that were left became vulnerable to corrupt H1B insourcing.
Here's what has typically happened in the past 30-50 years:
- Republicans tend to spend as much money as democrats, but instead of investing in infrastructure, education, research, health, etc., they plow it into starting wars, putting people in prison, and spying on everyone.
- On the revenue side, Republicans tend to lower taxes for the rich (but not, contrary to popular supposition, the poor or middle class), thus substantially increasing the deficit while not helping anyone that really needs "relief" from taxes.
By making government borderline useless to ordinary people and fiscally bankrupt, Republicans can make a case for the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of government, allowing them to cut MORE public services (while not cutting overall spending - ie, plow even more into military etc.), and cut taxes on the rich even more (again, while not cutting others' taxes), which makes government seem even more bankrupt which allows them to complain some more, which gives them license...
Quite possibly. Or it could be the recruiter's a stubborn proud idiot, who's afraid for the hiring manager to find out that he screwed up.
It often isn't an outsourcing situation when that happens. There's often an internal "candidate" that they want to put in the position, but in a sufficiently large company you can't just do that, you have to list the job and show that person is best for the job.
In that case, you write a req for the position that is identical to the person you want's credentials, put it on the intranet, sometimes even the internet, and a month later come to the impartial conclusion that the person you want (and who you wrote the job req to describe) is the best match. Shocking!
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
More likely this is just a manager and/or HR clone that is clueless than any sort of evil empire.
Easy solution: Just put FrameMaker 7.7 on your resume. If they claim that you lied on your application, just say that they lied in their advertisement!
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
It was perhaps $1B / day for awhile, which stuck in my head. But according to here the cost of Iraq + Afghanistan since 2001 is $1.1T. It's an average of approximately $300M/day for the entire 10 year period. While $300M/day is less than $1B/day, the expense of $1.1T is nonetheless one of our largest expenses. A fiscally responsible budget will be impossible until those costs are accounted for, and I believe Congress is being dishonest in saying that they can accomplish a fiscally responsible budget as they have not provided a way to pay for it, or shown an inclination to dial down those expenses, either by withdrawing and cutting troops, or reining in defense spending.
And for the record, I did assume that we would collect oil profits from seized Iraq oil to pay for the war--it was advertised as a way to pay for it. What actually happened to that revenue I don't know, but I suspect it was used to rebuild the country's infrastructure.
At the end of the day, the newly elected GOP majority was elected on the platform that they would reduce government spending, but since they apparently don't have any heart to reduce military spending I don't think they'll be able to accomplish much, if any, real reduction or improvement of the US credit score.
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Clinton successfully faced Outsourcing with Insourcing.
Obama is trying to counter Outsourcing with Protectionism.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga