Weeds are also superior... from an evolutionary standpoint.
Not true! Why do you think meadows are full of grass instead of weeds? Hell, hundreds of thousands of square miles of the Great Plains were once covered with grass, despite buffalo regularly trampling it. Native grasses are very hardy, they just don't do so well when you regularly cut them to within an inch of their lives. Let grass grow to its proper height (a few feet depending on the type) and it will choke out the weeds.
Good. No shooting please, but a trade war needn't involve that. Actually we've been in a trade war for years, it's just that China was the only one fighting it.
But I do agree with you that the American (Actually 1st world/G7) workers are in a tough spot because their standard of living are so much higher than say in India.
In that case, shouldn't American CEO's be in an even worse spot? IIRC American CEO's make about 400x the already high salaries of their American employees, while in most other countries it's more like 10-20x. Yet CEO cost cutting is hardly rampant, which goes to show this is often more about power and politics (institutional economics) than any supposedly inexorable market forces.
As long as capital can move unhindered, outsourcing will forced to continue.
And that's the problem. There is nothing about free trade that requires either capital or labor mobility. Capital mobility exists to enrich some people at the expense of their countrymen.
I think companies would move incorporation locations without too much thought if the US Gov started enacting laws like the one you just suggested.
Let 'em, just make sure they really move. No listing on US exchanges, no US residence for executives, etc. I think you'd find surprising resistance if the IBM CEO had to live in India. If not, so what?
Of course one doesn't have to be overly good at transferring such knowledge.
I wouldn't be, and I doubt I'd be the only one. Which mucks the project up even more. You you think corporate geniuses haven't figured that out, or they just don't give a damn? They're so divorced from any reality that's not on a spreadsheet that it's hard to tell.
Your radiology xrays are read by MDs abroad, and even your military is fed by workers from 3rd world countries. So it is but obvious that Americans love cheap stuff and dont really care about where it is manufactured or assembled ( e.g. iPhone) or who does the work.
That's a gross oversimplification. I'm not opposed to importing goods and services, so long as the trade is balanced.
So why do you suddenly feel surprised that the one profession that can easily work from home is now getting outsourced ?
Sudden? You call the last 13 years sudden? And programming is far from the only job that can be performed at home. Think of your radiologist example (though that happens less than you might think, thanks to the doctor's union). Think call center operations, much accounting and legal work, etc.
White collar jobs are no different from blue collar jobs, because the value added compared to the compensation is severely mismatched in the USA.
How do you come to the conclusion that it's severely mismatched? It's slightly mismatched. If it wasn't mismatched at all then we'd eliminate our persistent trade deficit. Of course this leads sycophantic pundits to say that American workers should be more "globally competitive" (i.e. work for less), as though the $50k/yr person should suddenly accept $40k. Wrong approach, because what matters in terms of international comparisons is what someone earns times the exchange rate. $100k means nothing to a European to pays for things in Euros, until you convert it by the exchange rate. So what has to happen is for the exchange value of the dollar to drop.
Why pay $100K for someone when it can be done by an equally experienced guy in India, Argentina or Eastern Europe for $30K ?
Because in many cases that $30k is a false economy. Outsourcing often doesn't save much money because of all the additional management and oversight required. That doesn't even include the quality, support and delivery time issues. To the extent it does save money, the difference is just shoveled into the pockets of CEO's and shareholder. That doesn't save money for the customer, it just shuffles the money to different people.
the only reason to call them a US company is because of their incorporation in Delaware
I completely agree. Companies that do more work outside of the US than in it shouldn't be allowed to be American companies.
It's the lies IBM will tell its customers, starting with the quality lies, then the onshore/offshore lies, and finally the resource commitment lies.
It does seem like a number of customers, including major ones, have been dropping IBM services lately as a bunch of overpriced crap. I'm not in the part of the business that let's me judge that firsthand, but I'm interested in any knowledgeable commentary on that.
I certainly don't like anyone losing their jobs, frankly particularly Americans, so I hope many of these people can find decent jobs elsewhere. Question about labor laws (may vary from state to state), can people who were laid off (from in this case IBM) be prevented from getting jobs with IBM customers that they worked with? Can the IBM customers be forbidden, even contractually, from hiring these people? If so it should be outlawed as interfering with people's right to work.
And how the government customers will roll over and ignore the contract provisions.
And later will stop asking IBM to even bother to keep work and data onshore when it is required by law.
That's the worst of it, the crony capitalism. While I'm not of the "markets are always perfect" ideology, at least there's some possibility that businesses will eventually recognize overpriced crap and buy elsewhere.
Bean counters spreadsheets prevail at the cost of doing what is right or morally sound.
And often at the cost at doing what's right for business beyond the next quarter. Almost the entire focus is on short term profit or capital gain maximization, and that has not always been the case. IBM was a publicly traded corporation, and subject to all the investor pressures thereof, when in the midst of the Great Depression they announced a no layoffs policy. Today that would probably make them a penny stock. Historically I heard they survived, and perhaps even prospered a bit.
I would bet money that eventually Google's servers will be attacked by someone who wants to wipe themselves off of the servers. Maybe the Russian mafia or the Chinese will offer a service to do just that for a price.
There are already such extortion services. They publish a mugshot of your arrest 20 years ago (you know, the class Z misdemeanor that you were acquitted of anyway) and offer to remove it for a price.
The ruling is entirely reasonable (at least to the extent that I understand the European law). The answer is to amend the law so that it does include the right to be forgotten, except for non-trivial things (e.g. a paper that you've published, or news articles, especially about public figures). We need such a law in the US too, but I don't see how the Constitution requires it (which doesn't mean you can't have a law, especially in light of the 9th Amendment).
A search engine is also the last party that should be responsible for this. It's utterly unreasonable to ask them to judge whether such a requirement is applicable to every page they index. The "publisher" of the page is the one that should be responsible.
Slashdot Mirror
Research within the humanities is mostly useless for the society at large.
You think history is useless, or that perhaps we already know as much of it as we need to?
Heinlein forgot to add "write science fiction novels for an adolescent audience".
but they do introduce Engineers mainly male engineers to to girls
As someone who graduated from a technical university, I have one question: what's a "girl"?
Should have used "tera" in place for "giga"
I'm getting tired of all the prefixes, couldn't we just use scientific notation? 1e18 flops means a lot more to me than exaflop.
Of course, if the conspiracy theorists are to be believed, NSA and friends already have this 10-years-into-the-future technology...
I heard 20 years - they're still learning stuff from the Roswell crash.
RTFA
Call it retro and everyone will want to learn it.
Weeds are also superior... from an evolutionary standpoint.
Not true! Why do you think meadows are full of grass instead of weeds? Hell, hundreds of thousands of square miles of the Great Plains were once covered with grass, despite buffalo regularly trampling it. Native grasses are very hardy, they just don't do so well when you regularly cut them to within an inch of their lives. Let grass grow to its proper height (a few feet depending on the type) and it will choke out the weeds.
When you're talking about a system that still has references to things like punch cards ...
Nothing wrong with that as long as it's been updated to use Virtual Card Decks.
oh, that's rich. Apparently you're not aware of how the US does business with those it considers it's friends and allies!
That explains our persistent trade deficit, especially with China.
Good. No shooting please, but a trade war needn't involve that. Actually we've been in a trade war for years, it's just that China was the only one fighting it.
We are now entering a trade war ...
No, we've been in a trade war for years. It's just that China was the only one fighting it.
I really don't give a rat's ass if China is snooping on me. I do, however, care greatly that my own government is snooping on me.
That's why I use Kaspersky at home. I doubt the FSB gives a damn about me, but to the NSA I'm suspicious because I'm a US citizen.
I'm not sure I want to drop the border with Oklahoma; they steal _everything_! Even dirt!
Don't be too hard on them, it's only because of all the dirt they lost in the Dust Bowl.
Snowden has made it harder for US hackers
How did he do that?
Listen, retard ...
Thank you for starting your post this way. It saved me the trouble of reading any further.
But I do agree with you that the American (Actually 1st world/G7) workers are in a tough spot because their standard of living are so much higher than say in India.
In that case, shouldn't American CEO's be in an even worse spot? IIRC American CEO's make about 400x the already high salaries of their American employees, while in most other countries it's more like 10-20x. Yet CEO cost cutting is hardly rampant, which goes to show this is often more about power and politics (institutional economics) than any supposedly inexorable market forces.
As long as capital can move unhindered, outsourcing will forced to continue.
And that's the problem. There is nothing about free trade that requires either capital or labor mobility. Capital mobility exists to enrich some people at the expense of their countrymen.
I think companies would move incorporation locations without too much thought if the US Gov started enacting laws like the one you just suggested.
Let 'em, just make sure they really move. No listing on US exchanges, no US residence for executives, etc. I think you'd find surprising resistance if the IBM CEO had to live in India. If not, so what?
Just like the Auto industry will IBM be nationalized to save jobs ?
Under the right circumstances, it would make sense for India to nationalize IBM to save jobs.
Of course one doesn't have to be overly good at transferring such knowledge.
I wouldn't be, and I doubt I'd be the only one. Which mucks the project up even more. You you think corporate geniuses haven't figured that out, or they just don't give a damn? They're so divorced from any reality that's not on a spreadsheet that it's hard to tell.
Your radiology xrays are read by MDs abroad, and even your military is fed by workers from 3rd world countries. So it is but obvious that Americans love cheap stuff and dont really care about where it is manufactured or assembled ( e.g. iPhone) or who does the work.
That's a gross oversimplification. I'm not opposed to importing goods and services, so long as the trade is balanced.
So why do you suddenly feel surprised that the one profession that can easily work from home is now getting outsourced ?
Sudden? You call the last 13 years sudden? And programming is far from the only job that can be performed at home. Think of your radiologist example (though that happens less than you might think, thanks to the doctor's union). Think call center operations, much accounting and legal work, etc.
White collar jobs are no different from blue collar jobs, because the value added compared to the compensation is severely mismatched in the USA.
How do you come to the conclusion that it's severely mismatched? It's slightly mismatched. If it wasn't mismatched at all then we'd eliminate our persistent trade deficit. Of course this leads sycophantic pundits to say that American workers should be more "globally competitive" (i.e. work for less), as though the $50k/yr person should suddenly accept $40k. Wrong approach, because what matters in terms of international comparisons is what someone earns times the exchange rate. $100k means nothing to a European to pays for things in Euros, until you convert it by the exchange rate. So what has to happen is for the exchange value of the dollar to drop.
Why pay $100K for someone when it can be done by an equally experienced guy in India, Argentina or Eastern Europe for $30K ?
Because in many cases that $30k is a false economy. Outsourcing often doesn't save much money because of all the additional management and oversight required. That doesn't even include the quality, support and delivery time issues. To the extent it does save money, the difference is just shoveled into the pockets of CEO's and shareholder. That doesn't save money for the customer, it just shuffles the money to different people.
the only reason to call them a US company is because of their incorporation in Delaware
I completely agree. Companies that do more work outside of the US than in it shouldn't be allowed to be American companies.
It's the lies IBM will tell its customers, starting with the quality lies, then the onshore/offshore lies, and finally the resource commitment lies.
It does seem like a number of customers, including major ones, have been dropping IBM services lately as a bunch of overpriced crap. I'm not in the part of the business that let's me judge that firsthand, but I'm interested in any knowledgeable commentary on that.
I certainly don't like anyone losing their jobs, frankly particularly Americans, so I hope many of these people can find decent jobs elsewhere. Question about labor laws (may vary from state to state), can people who were laid off (from in this case IBM) be prevented from getting jobs with IBM customers that they worked with? Can the IBM customers be forbidden, even contractually, from hiring these people? If so it should be outlawed as interfering with people's right to work.
And how the government customers will roll over and ignore the contract provisions.
And later will stop asking IBM to even bother to keep work and data onshore when it is required by law.
That's the worst of it, the crony capitalism. While I'm not of the "markets are always perfect" ideology, at least there's some possibility that businesses will eventually recognize overpriced crap and buy elsewhere.
Bean counters spreadsheets prevail at the cost of doing what is right or morally sound.
And often at the cost at doing what's right for business beyond the next quarter. Almost the entire focus is on short term profit or capital gain maximization, and that has not always been the case. IBM was a publicly traded corporation, and subject to all the investor pressures thereof, when in the midst of the Great Depression they announced a no layoffs policy. Today that would probably make them a penny stock. Historically I heard they survived, and perhaps even prospered a bit.
I wasn't aware that IBM had any American employees left to layoff, unless the CEO fired herself.
I would bet money that eventually Google's servers will be attacked by someone who wants to wipe themselves off of the servers.
Maybe the Russian mafia or the Chinese will offer a service to do just that for a price.
There are already such extortion services. They publish a mugshot of your arrest 20 years ago (you know, the class Z misdemeanor that you were acquitted of anyway) and offer to remove it for a price.
The ruling is entirely reasonable (at least to the extent that I understand the European law). The answer is to amend the law so that it does include the right to be forgotten, except for non-trivial things (e.g. a paper that you've published, or news articles, especially about public figures). We need such a law in the US too, but I don't see how the Constitution requires it (which doesn't mean you can't have a law, especially in light of the 9th Amendment).
A search engine is also the last party that should be responsible for this. It's utterly unreasonable to ask them to judge whether such a requirement is applicable to every page they index. The "publisher" of the page is the one that should be responsible.