Writing a 50K file to a floppy is a lot faster than burning it to a CD-ROM. Remember all of that "lead-in" and "lead-out" crap?
USB solid state drives? Come on! I can hand out floppies like candy. Can you afford to give a $50 USB drive to someone every time they need a 100K file?
"Move the files across the Internet." Yeah, that's real practical when the files you need are the Ethernet drivers that came on a floppy. Also a great idea for embedded systems without Internet connectivity.
Floppy drives are $10. The interface might cost $1 to have on the motherboard. Suppose the cable is another $1. Hoo-boy, $12. How much is your time worth? At 11:00PM when you need to get a file off of an old floppy, tell me that the $12 you saved was worth it.
I just used a floppy to load a bunch of fonts that I bought ten years ago. Why? I had a document that needed them.
If you argued against internal floppies in laptops, I'd be all in favor of that, but there is a weight, heat, cost (laptop floppy drives are not $10), and reliability issue there.
Irony: People cheering the demise of the "old technology" 3.5" floppy by typing messages on a keyboard layout that was designed in 1874 (to minimize jamming of manual typewriters) and moving these messages across a protocol (TCP/IP) that was defined in 1978 -- two years prior to the introduction of the 3.5" floppy.
But I laugh when I note your about-face when it comes to the steel industry. You started out complaining that the production was being done overseas with all the profits going to the owners.
You are right. I made a logical error. Initially I lumped in the loss of jobs in the steel industry with jobs lost through outsourcing when, in fact, the losses were caused by steel imports.
Relax, there is oversupply in the steel industry and it's having a shakeout.
This oversupply is caused by the devaluation of the Yen and other Asian currencies. The next oversupply might be caused by economic problems in South America or Africa. We cannot sit idly by while one U.S. steel plant after another closes due to the economic crisis du jour in some other part of the world.
In the worst month of the recent recession (December 2001), 10,000 people an hour were hired. The economy is a lot bigger than you might think.
10,000 people or 10,000 steel workers? How many lost their jobs during that same hour? The size of the economy is of little consolation when your job is going away.
I don't quite get why you're upset that some production is subcontracted abroad. That's exactly how trade is supposed to work. Specialization is the key to efficiency. It is a fool's errand to try to be the master of everything.
I don't get upset about "some production" being contracted abroad. What I get upset about is the mass export of desirable American jobs to low-paid workers in developing nations.
[rant alert]
We are rapidly becoming a nation comprised of a tiny fraction of a percentage of wealthy people with ever greater percentages of the workforce employed in menial, low-paid, service sector jobs. You say "specialization is the key to efficiency." Just what will our specialty be? Operating french fry machines at McDonalds and making sure that the hangers are all pointed the same direction at The Gap?
Elimination of good jobs is rapidly pushing the middle class down into the lower class, which is why stores that cater to the middle class (such as Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney) are failing while discount stores like Walmart are gaining in popularity.
Want an example? We have already ceded almost all consumer electronics manufacturing to other countries. That was an area where we were once the 'specialists' and we've lost that. While you or I might not want to assemble TVs for a living, most of the people working the counter at Burger King or mopping the floors at the mall would kill for a job like that. But, like many decent jobs for people of average skill and intelligence, those jobs don't exist here any longer.
And now that we've eliminated most of the good middle-class jobs, we are chipping away at professional positions in the tech sector. Software engineering, tech support, and web development are being outsourced to developing nations at an alarming rate.
You seem to be advocating that we do nothing to financially disincentivize outsourcing desirable jobs to foreign countries. Yet we have erected numerous hurdles that make it more costly to hire American workers. When a company hires an American worker, they have to comply with U.S. laws regarding work safety, pollution, anti-discrimination, and so forth. They face overhead costs that dwarf those in many other countries. Then there is the cost of living issue. Workers in many developing nations could live like kings for less money than the average receptionist gets in the U.S. How can American workers compete with their counterparts in, say, India or Pakistan when everything from a loaf of bread to the janitorial service to empty the office wastebaskets costs orders of magnitude more in the U.S.?
Just look at pollution regulation. It costs money to reduce pollution. But we, as a people, feel that it is a good and laudible goal and worth the investment. So what happens? A U.S. firm closes a plant in the states and opens one in Mexico where it is not subject to those laws. And both the manufactured goods and the pollution make their way back into the U.S. That is just one example of a financial incentive to "outsource" that is bad for the U.S.
You point to your experience in the wafer fabs and say 'see, it will all be okay.' Yet we have laws that prevent us from exporting much of the sub-micron chip fab technology to China and other potential competitors. That kept many of those jobs in the U.S. Gee, I guess that protectionism is working to save some tech sector jobs.
There would be NO jobs without CEOs, venture capitalists and investors.
Oh, then I'll work 12 hour shifts for $1/day and be thankful that they are there for me. What a crock of shit.
There is a reason someone becomes CEO , or starts a company...
Greed often has a lot to do with it, as does ego.
Without these people you are nothing for you are TOO STUPID or TOO COMFORTABLE being dependent on these people to do it on your own.
I can assure you that I am your intellectual superior. It's obvious from your writing.
As to the intelligence of the CEOs, venture capitalists, and bankers that you hold in such high regard, keep in mind that they are what fueled the dot-com boom, devising and financing hare-brained companies that had no possibility of turning a profit (Netpliance, Digital Convergence, pets.com, etc.).
Yep. I'm yet another person who does not think that we should be outsourcing jobs when so many Americans are out of work.
Are you an owner of a company ?
Yes. I'm a sole proprietor. I have a business license, pay business taxes to my county, pay for business insurance, etc.
No, so shut the fuck up.
Why should American workers be silenced? Why should their concerns not be heard? It's a lot more important to keep the 99+% of the population that does not own businesses employed rather than making a handful of multi-millionaires richer.
Dude, tarrifs DO NOT WORK. Again, they DO NOT WORK.
Yes they do. There are countless pages of tariffs on the books already and they do work. Look at Harley Davidson. They were at the virge of collapse in the 1980s and then the Feds slapped a huge tariff on imported motorcycles of over 700cc displacement. While I did not like it, Harley is thriving today.
Remember how fucked US car industry was in 70s ? Think how bad it would be by now if it weren't for tough Japanese competition.
Outsourcing by U.S. firms is a whole different ball of wax. Outsourcing won't make U.S. tech workers more skilled, productive, or motivated. It will just allow rich U.S. CEOs and investors to get richer while skilled U.S. tech workers lose their jobs.
You have a lot of nerve talking about personal attacks when you entered this conversation by saying "fuck you, you selfish bastard."
In any event, let me give you an example. Suppose Bank A charges a $1 ATM fee, while bank B charges a ten cent ATM fee because they outsourced their IT. Now, using bank B saves me money that I can use on other things, and makes my life more comfortable.
Let's take your example further: You were working at bank B. They outsourced their IT and you were without a job. Because much of the tech sector is being outsourced, you can't find a decent job. You end up taking a job painting houses for $9/hour.
You really are clueless. How "comfortable" will you be when your job is outsourced? How comfortable will you be with your ten-cent ATM fees when your salary is cut in half? And what makes you think that Bank B would pass on any of the savings to you? They'd probably just use the savings to fatten the wallets of the executives and the stockholders.
Once you and enough others are out of work due to outsourcing,consumers will be spending less money. Retail stores will be hurt. Their suppliers will be hurt. The economy will just continue in its downward spiral.
Where was that PC made, huh?
At my workbench.
Asking for a handout in the form of an over-paid job is lame.
I'm not asking for a handout. I'm asking the U.S. government to represent the interests of U.S. citizens and to put some tariffs and legislation in place to make outsourcing less attractive and to preserve the standard of living for all Americans. Do the third-world IT shops have to comply with OSHA regulations? Do they have to be handicapped-accessible? Do they have to meet our building codes? Hell no. So, yes, I do think that the Feds should do something to protect American jobs.
By the way, getting paid more than someone in Pakistan or India does not mean that someone is overpaid.
But when that happens, India companies will outsource their work to cheap labour to you.
I doubt it. Given my years of experience and my skills, you'll probably be saying "paper or plastic" long before I ever need to accept a low-paying job of any kind.
But, my own career is quite safe, thank you very much, because I have an unusual amount of education, experience, and intangible skills; i.e., some means of justifying my bloated salary in a global marketplace.
Only if your employers are as impressed by you as you seem to be -- which seems highly unlikely.
Not to worry, your volunteering isn't necessary. Macro-economic principles will operate quite freely without your consent.
How did you become so damned arrogant? It's really quite amazing.
Re:you and your family is all that matters?
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Giant Sucking Noise
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I don't have a job.
Then get one before you start lecturing those of us who contribute to the economy.
Now explain to me why I should care more about you then about someone in India. Explain to me why people should subsidize you and your family when the same money could go to 3 Indians to write 3 times as much code?
So that Americans, like you and your family, will have decent jobs when you need them.
If all you care about is yourself and your family, then all I can say is fuck you, you selfish bastard.
Go fuck yourself. I care more about them than I do about some loser living off mommy and daddy's money while he steals music using the college LAN and runs a porn link server out of his dorm room. Mom and dad must be real proud when they see comments on your web page like "She must be in her mid-fifties. Granny boobs, whoa."
How odd, aren't you the same person who said in this post [slashdot.org] "If some smoke-belching plant across a border can pay people $10/day and work them for 12 hour shifts, then the company using that workforce can realize lower operating costs and, hence, higher profits. Folks, this isn't rocket science. All other things being equal, businesses will go with the cheaper source every time." I guess you've realized that not all workers are equal.
You have shockingly poor reading comprehension. I never said that all workers were equal. In fact, you even quoted my use of the qualifier "all other things being equal" yet you apparently did not understand it. I don't have time to give you remedial reading lessons. Hire a tutor.
But you're wrong again. 60% of our imports from Mexico are "Machinery and Transport Equipment", 15% are "Miscellaneous Manufactured Articles", 8% are "Mineral Fuels, Lubricants and Related Materials" (oil and natural gas), and less that 5% are agricultural-related (http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/sitc1/2001/c2 0 10.html#13 [census.gov])
You (and the Census Department) are confusing imported goods with outsourced labor. When a U.S. firm opens a plant in Mexico and supervises workers there producing products and subassemblies for sale in the U.S., that's outsourced labor. When a Mexican firm independently produces a product and ships it to the U.S., that's an imported product. Just how many Mexican car brands are you aware of? But, in the end, it's hardly germane to this discussion and is simply you nitpicking an off-the-cuff remark that I made -- and qualified with the word "perhaps."
Hmmm, how do U.S. firms compete in steel? Quite well, actually. During the tough time of the 1990s when those mean foreigners were dumping steel on our shores, domestic production of steel rose from 95.5 Million Tons per year to 127.9 Million Tons per year (Table 994 of 2001 Statistical Abstract).
Again, you seem incapable of understanding simple statistics. The statistics you quote only show the tonnage of steel produced. They do not indicate that it was produced profitably.
It is true that imports grew faster than domestic production, but once again it is not true that our industry is in decline.
The following large U.S. steel makers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent years (source: An industry on the edge):
From the "STATEMENT OF THE BASIC STEEL INDUSTRY CONFERENCE, United Steelworkers of America, Adopted at Pittsburgh, PA on January 23, 2001":
As we meet today, the American Steel Industry is facing a crisis of extraordinary dimensions. Without immediate and comprehensive action, we could easily witness the permanent loss of - millions of tons of domestic steel-making capacity, tens of thousands of jobs and pension and insurance benefits for hundreds of thousands of retirees and their widows.
You really don't have any idea of what you are talking about, do you? 7,500 steel workers lost their jobs at LTV Steel alone. The United Steelworkers of America says "We face this crisis aware of the fact that our Union must lead the fight to save the domestic steel industry." You are wrong. They are an industry in decline.
About IC fabs, I don't know the exact numbers.
Apparently not since all that you quoted had little to do with IC fabs. In fact, many of the companies in the U.S. have chips fabricated at USMC and TMC in Taiwan. Basically, all of those numbers you dredged up were meaningless. It's like citing how many people work in U.S. automotive manufacturing when someone asks what percentage of tire manufacture has gone overseas.
Apparently you're wrong about that, too. So if you have some statitistics to share, go ahead. Otherwise I can only assume that you have no idea what you're talking about.
Your ability to use Google has wowed me and, I'm sure, other Slashdot readers. Stunning. Simply stunning. If only the statistics you gathered supported your erroneous statements, you'd have a real winner there.
You ask, in your subject line, "why not start small businesses[?]." Most people who are out of work don't have the capital to start a small business. Banks and venture capitalists are very hesitant to loan out money to start new businesses, especially tech-sector businesses after the dot-com fiasco.
I think that you also ignore the economies of scale that large corporations enjoy. Walmart can browbeat companies into supplying computers so cheaply that Walmart can sell them for $199 and make a profit. You or I would be laughed out of the supplier's offices for even suggesting pricing that low.
iii) Large corporations routinely reject producing products because there is only a 5-10% profit.
And if your parts are costing you 20% more, you can expect to do those same projects at a loss.
Smaller companies can be profitable with the same product line that the large corp rejected because there is much less management overhead.
That is a common generalization, but one that often does not hold true. Let's just look at some examples:
* A large corporation with 5,000 wastebaskets can hire a firm to empty them at a lot less per wastebasket than a small company can.
* A large corporation can hire a full-time corporate attorney (or a number of them) while a small business must pay much higher hourly rates to lawfirms.
* Office space is much cheaper per square foot when you need a lot of square feet.
* Large corporations can negotiate more effectively for everything from cell phones to health plans to business insurance providers. Sprint doesn't give a damn whether they lose the business of your 30-person firm, but they will do anything possible to retain a Microsoft, IBM, or General Motors as their client.
I have run a small business and it's ugly. You pay a premium for almost anything that you need and you end up diverting no small amount of hours just to try to get more favorable pricing -- and still get nothing comparable to what the large corporations enjoy.
Yeah, god forbid any 'impoverished' people ever get a job programming. They should be working in the fields like a good poor person while we all get paid $60k a year for shitty VB code.
Do you want to give up your job? Have you gone into your boss's office to encourage him to outsource your job to someone more needy? Until you do, don't lecture the rest of us who are just trying to make a decent life for ourselves and our families.
By the way, there are real computer professionals out of work, not just people who write "shitty VB code."
You seem to have left "American consumers" out of your list. Are these people unimportant in your political view?
I don't think that an American consumer is a "winner" when he/she is unemployed due to outsourcing.
And yet, strangely, there are workers who are willing to work under these conditions. It's almost as if this is the best choice that they have available to them and their families.
It is. Do you want $10/day salaries and 12 hour work days to be the "best choice available to [you] and your [family]"? If so, keep outsourcing.
Because, when the chips are down, peaceniks and social activists would prefer giving handouts to giving hand-ups. They would be happy for most of the world's population to live in poverty and suffering for all of eternity, so long as their own jobs are 'protected'. What spiritual people!
You be spiritual all you want. I'm more interested in supporting my family, paying my mortgage, and maintaining a good standard of living in the U.S. I'm not happy that others live in poverty, but I'm not about volunteer to have my job outsourced to some third-world country to improve their standard of living.
The solution to your unemployment is to start thinking about selling something that has value - not whinging about how your job just went overseas. Produce and sell something other people want to buy and you'll do fine.
Produce and sell something other people want to buy and overseas firms will produce it cheaper and put you out of business -- or you'll be forced to lay off your workers and outsource the jobs to keep your business open.
Do you think that people don't want televisions, stereo equipment, and computers? We used to lead the world in production of all of those things and we no longer do. The U.S. factories are shut down and almost all such devices are imported. Do you think that televisions with the RCA, G.E., and and Zenith names are still manufactured in the U.S.? If so, turn off your computer, drive to your local store, and read the "Made In" labels.
Your post is a classic example as to why engineering majors should be required to take liberal arts courses like History and Economics.
Your post is a classic example of using ad hominem attacks (e.g., claiming that I am uneducated) rather than reason.
The only solution is to level the playing field, but in a true sense. Things won't actually get better until everybody else's standard of living is brought up. What we should be doing is making sure ours doesn't go down in the process (or, at the very least, make sure it's a controlled descent).
How? Certainly eliminating OSHA regulations won't improve our standard of living. Nor will relaxing pollution restrictions.
As you imply, the playing field will level as everyone else's standard of living goes up, but all that will really happen is that countries that enjoy a much higher standard of living will see that decline while third world countries will see their improve. I don't want to be paid the average world salary. It would suck.
If that were true, there would be drasticly different standards of living from state to state. Most parts of the US look like other parts of the US because states don't have the ability to regulate interstate commerce.
Connecticut and New York residents enjoyed an average annual income of over $46,000 per year in 2001. During that same year, residents of Mississippi and North Dakota had incomes of under $26,000. Sounds pretty drastic to me.
I think they call that.. sociali.. hmmn.. communis.. something like that.
I don't care what you call it. American jobs are more important than lining the pockets of wealthy CEOs, venture capitalists, and professional investors.
The truth is we import 68% more from Canada than from Mexico. What a spectacular failure for your theory.
Mexico has a largely unskilled, undercapitalized workforce while Canada's more closely resembles our own. I would not expect tech sector jobs to go to Mexico. Nor would I expect us to import much from Mexico other than, perhaps, agricultural products. Look instead to Pakistan, India, or former USSR countries where there are significant numbers of tech workers. That's where our H1-B Visa workers come from. It's where outsourcing goes.
Hint: read in an economics textbook about wages and productivity. The reason wages are so high in the United States and that we can afford the niceties of pollution and safety regulations is that we are so much more productive. As productivity grows in other countries, their wages rise, too. Forty years ago Japan was a country with wages lower than China has now.
And during that same time, ours fall if we are outsourcing work to the "other countries." If you put a bunch of people out of work, then the wages for that line of work go down. Eventually, it may get to the point where it's cheaper to hire a U.S. worker than to pay for the inefficiencies in outsourcing. Of course, by then, you might be living in a refrigerator box under a bridge, but you might be able to burn your economics textbooks for warmth in the meantime.
Just look at the jobs we've already lost to outsourcing. How many IC fabs do we have in the U.S.? What percentage of consumer electronics is manufactured in the U.S.? How many steel industry jobs have we lost? How are U.S. firms supposed to compete when China's government invested $6 billion in their steel industry in 2002?
Once jobs go overseas, they seldom come back. There is a tremendous economic cost to bring them back, so even if the wages overseas grow to rival our own, the costs to bring the jobs back here often prevents it from happening. That's why Asian government are so willing to invest in developing industries. They know that, once they get the market, they will probably keep most of it.
You do NOT have to be wealthy to own stock, as a matter of fact many stocks are available for quite reasonable prices today...
I know that. But only the wealthy benefit from this outsourcing. If you have 100,000 shares of company X and outsourcing results in the stock going up by $3/share, then you benefit.
If you work for company X and have 117 shares that you got through the company's stock purchase plan, then it's small compensation when the stock goes up $3/share after they outsource your job to foreign workers.
Paying fair U.S. wages, while complying with U.S. regulations to protect the workers and the environment, costs money. So a company can gain a competitive edge by hiring workers in foreign countries where salaries are lower and where such rules do not exist. If some smoke-belching plant across a border can pay people $10/day and work them for 12 hour shifts, then the company using that workforce can realize lower operating costs and, hence, higher profits.
Folks, this isn't rocket science. All other things being equal, businesses will go with the cheaper source every time. What we need to do, as a country, is to level the playing field. We need tariffs, laws, and fines to discourage firms from outsourcing desirable jobs.
Screw pure capitalism. Unregulated capitalism doesn't work. That's why we have massive unemployment in the tech sector while desirable jobs are going to overseas workers in impoverished countries. And all the while, U.S. CEOs and other executives are receiving compensation packages that rival the net worth of some small countries. It's time we put our feet down and protected the vast majority of working Americans rather than pandering to the greed of multi-millionaire CEOs.
If someone chooses that their child should not view it, then the parent has the option to not allow their child to see it.
I wholly agree. No argument there at all.
Heck, as an adult I even will fast forward a few scenes in movies since I'd rather not watch folks have sex on my TV.
And that's your right and it's fair use. What's not fair use is you creating an edited copy of the movie that you distribute. You've made your views about sex on your TV known, but how do you feel about watching folks have sex on your couch?
Though you are just being an idiot here, I'll bite.
So I see that we've resorted to name-calling. Okay, I'll bite back: you are a buffoon with delusions of adequacy.
That is what folks want for their DVD players. The OPTION to filter.
No, what they want is for a third party to filter the DVDs and, thus, deliver a derivative work for which the firm doing the modification does not own copyright.
As soon as something enters my home that I own, I should have the option to filter, change, mutilate, or alter it.
I agree and you already do. What Hollywood is saying is that third parties cannot sell modified versions of copyrighted movies -- regardless of whether the modification is burned onto a new DVD or whether it is done through a device which modifies the movies on the fly (skipping scenes, muting dialog, etc.).
Specifically, I prefer to watch PG-13 (and less) movies, but would like to see some R-rated movies, minus gratuitous sex scenes*, or gory violence
What next? An art museum that paints clothes onto nude portraits and puts a toga on the statue of Venus de Milo?
There is such a thing as artistic integrity. While the proponents of this "filtering" technology love to point to schlock films with "gratuitous" violence and sex, there are truly artistic, powerful movies that need the violence and sexual content present in order to tell their story. Not all movies can be made into PG-13, kiddie-safe pablum.
if I want sex, then I romance my wife
Speaking of gratuitous sex, I'd rather not read postings about who you having sex with on a tech news web site.
If you aren't making copies of the edited version, you can mix and match the scenes however you want. If somebody wants to buy the sexed-up DVD player you made, they should be able to do so, as long as they are informed that the player isn't playing the original content 100%.
Why? Why should someone be able to modify someone else's copyrighted movie and then resell it? If you truly believe that's a legal and moral right, then I hope that your life's story is released as a movie some day. I'd love to use CGI to add in some scenes of you molesting the family dog. Don't worry. I'd include a notice that "the player isn't playing the original content 100%." That wouldn't bother you, I'm sure.
If somebody personally doesn't want to see the horrors of war in Schindler's List, they should be free to do so, as long as they're not preventing anybody else from seeing the full thing.
If you don't want to see that, then you need to skip the movie.
That said, fair use means that you have a right to skip any scene that you want in the privacy of your own home. What you don't have a right to do is resell a derivative work without the permission of the copyright holders. (Whether you sell it as a DVD or as a player/service that mangles the existing DVD is simply a technicality.) The only people that should maintain artistic control of a movie are the artists involved (and those to whom they have assigned rights).
Hollywood is offended by this for artistic reasons. When someone creates a Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan, the horrors of war need to be seen. No one should be "kiddie-izing" such films.
What if I were to decide that Snow White needs sex scenes? Should I be able to hire animators to add a dwarves-gang-banging-Snow-White scene and sell (or rent) a DVD with that? Should I be able to create a PVR-style box to automatically add those scenes when someone watches the DVD?
People are too stupid to live lives themselves or take any sort of personal responsibility! We need laws and lawyers and lawsuits!
We need to go to a lawless society where every man fends for himself.
Those who can't read 40 page EULAs and interpret the legalese in them should just suffer the consequences. If some company wants to sneak in some ambiguous phrase giving themselves permission to put the entire contents of your hard drive on P2P networks, more power to them.
Why should consumers be protected from predatory and deceptive business practices? Why should lawyers be able to sue companies that prey on people's trust?
I cannot believe the nerve of people that hire lawyers and press lawsuits! So what if a program erased your hard drive? There was a clause on page 27 of the EULA stating that they could "write binary data to the hard drive" and that's really all that erasing a hard is -- writing data to it.
It's like all of those people that sue doctors just because the doctor removed the wrong organ or let a family member bleed to death during a tonsillectomy.
Slashdot Mirror
Writing a 50K file to a floppy is a lot faster than burning it to a CD-ROM. Remember all of that "lead-in" and "lead-out" crap?
USB solid state drives? Come on! I can hand out floppies like candy. Can you afford to give a $50 USB drive to someone every time they need a 100K file?
"Move the files across the Internet." Yeah, that's real practical when the files you need are the Ethernet drivers that came on a floppy. Also a great idea for embedded systems without Internet connectivity.
Floppy drives are $10. The interface might cost $1 to have on the motherboard. Suppose the cable is another $1. Hoo-boy, $12. How much is your time worth? At 11:00PM when you need to get a file off of an old floppy, tell me that the $12 you saved was worth it.
I just used a floppy to load a bunch of fonts that I bought ten years ago. Why? I had a document that needed them.
If you argued against internal floppies in laptops, I'd be all in favor of that, but there is a weight, heat, cost (laptop floppy drives are not $10), and reliability issue there.
Irony: People cheering the demise of the "old technology" 3.5" floppy by typing messages on a keyboard layout that was designed in 1874 (to minimize jamming of manual typewriters) and moving these messages across a protocol (TCP/IP) that was defined in 1978 -- two years prior to the introduction of the 3.5" floppy.
I'm not even going to try to touch this nonsense:
Smart move on your part.
But I laugh when I note your about-face when it comes to the steel industry. You started out complaining that the production was being done overseas with all the profits going to the owners.
You are right. I made a logical error. Initially I lumped in the loss of jobs in the steel industry with jobs lost through outsourcing when, in fact, the losses were caused by steel imports.
Relax, there is oversupply in the steel industry and it's having a shakeout.
This oversupply is caused by the devaluation of the Yen and other Asian currencies. The next oversupply might be caused by economic problems in South America or Africa. We cannot sit idly by while one U.S. steel plant after another closes due to the economic crisis du jour in some other part of the world.
In the worst month of the recent recession (December 2001), 10,000 people an hour were hired. The economy is a lot bigger than you might think.
10,000 people or 10,000 steel workers? How many lost their jobs during that same hour? The size of the economy is of little consolation when your job is going away.
I don't quite get why you're upset that some production is subcontracted abroad. That's exactly how trade is supposed to work. Specialization is the key to efficiency. It is a fool's errand to try to be the master of everything.
I don't get upset about "some production" being contracted abroad. What I get upset about is the mass export of desirable American jobs to low-paid workers in developing nations.
[rant alert]
We are rapidly becoming a nation comprised of a tiny fraction of a percentage of wealthy people with ever greater percentages of the workforce employed in menial, low-paid, service sector jobs. You say "specialization is the key to efficiency." Just what will our specialty be? Operating french fry machines at McDonalds and making sure that the hangers are all pointed the same direction at The Gap?
Elimination of good jobs is rapidly pushing the middle class down into the lower class, which is why stores that cater to the middle class (such as Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney) are failing while discount stores like Walmart are gaining in popularity.
Want an example? We have already ceded almost all consumer electronics manufacturing to other countries. That was an area where we were once the 'specialists' and we've lost that. While you or I might not want to assemble TVs for a living, most of the people working the counter at Burger King or mopping the floors at the mall would kill for a job like that. But, like many decent jobs for people of average skill and intelligence, those jobs don't exist here any longer.
And now that we've eliminated most of the good middle-class jobs, we are chipping away at professional positions in the tech sector. Software engineering, tech support, and web development are being outsourced to developing nations at an alarming rate.
You seem to be advocating that we do nothing to financially disincentivize outsourcing desirable jobs to foreign countries. Yet we have erected numerous hurdles that make it more costly to hire American workers. When a company hires an American worker, they have to comply with U.S. laws regarding work safety, pollution, anti-discrimination, and so forth. They face overhead costs that dwarf those in many other countries. Then there is the cost of living issue. Workers in many developing nations could live like kings for less money than the average receptionist gets in the U.S. How can American workers compete with their counterparts in, say, India or Pakistan when everything from a loaf of bread to the janitorial service to empty the office wastebaskets costs orders of magnitude more in the U.S.?
Just look at pollution regulation. It costs money to reduce pollution. But we, as a people, feel that it is a good and laudible goal and worth the investment. So what happens? A U.S. firm closes a plant in the states and opens one in Mexico where it is not subject to those laws. And both the manufactured goods and the pollution make their way back into the U.S. That is just one example of a financial incentive to "outsource" that is bad for the U.S.
You point to your experience in the wafer fabs and say 'see, it will all be okay.' Yet we have laws that prevent us from exporting much of the sub-micron chip fab technology to China and other potential competitors. That kept many of those jobs in the U.S. Gee, I guess that protectionism is working to save some tech sector jobs.
There would be NO jobs without CEOs, venture capitalists and investors.
...
Oh, then I'll work 12 hour shifts for $1/day and be thankful that they are there for me. What a crock of shit.
There is a reason someone becomes CEO , or starts a company
Greed often has a lot to do with it, as does ego.
Without these people you are nothing for you are TOO STUPID or TOO COMFORTABLE being dependent on these people to do it on your own.
I can assure you that I am your intellectual superior. It's obvious from your writing.
As to the intelligence of the CEOs, venture capitalists, and bankers that you hold in such high regard, keep in mind that they are what fueled the dot-com boom, devising and financing hare-brained companies that had no possibility of turning a profit (Netpliance, Digital Convergence, pets.com, etc.).
Oh God.
Not another one.
Yep. I'm yet another person who does not think that we should be outsourcing jobs when so many Americans are out of work.
Are you an owner of a company ?
Yes. I'm a sole proprietor. I have a business license, pay business taxes to my county, pay for business insurance, etc.
No, so shut the fuck up.
Why should American workers be silenced? Why should their concerns not be heard? It's a lot more important to keep the 99+% of the population that does not own businesses employed rather than making a handful of multi-millionaires richer.
Dude, tarrifs DO NOT WORK.
Again, they DO NOT WORK.
Yes they do. There are countless pages of tariffs on the books already and they do work. Look at Harley Davidson. They were at the virge of collapse in the 1980s and then the Feds slapped a huge tariff on imported motorcycles of over 700cc displacement. While I did not like it, Harley is thriving today.
Remember how fucked US car industry was in 70s ?
Think how bad it would be by now if it weren't for tough Japanese competition.
Outsourcing by U.S. firms is a whole different ball of wax. Outsourcing won't make U.S. tech workers more skilled, productive, or motivated. It will just allow rich U.S. CEOs and investors to get richer while skilled U.S. tech workers lose their jobs.
You have a lot of nerve talking about personal attacks when you entered this conversation by saying "fuck you, you selfish bastard."
In any event, let me give you an example. Suppose Bank A charges a $1 ATM fee, while bank B charges a ten cent ATM fee because they outsourced their IT. Now, using bank B saves me money that I can use on other things, and makes my life more comfortable.
Let's take your example further: You were working at bank B. They outsourced their IT and you were without a job. Because much of the tech sector is being outsourced, you can't find a decent job. You end up taking a job painting houses for $9/hour.
You really are clueless. How "comfortable" will you be when your job is outsourced? How comfortable will you be with your ten-cent ATM fees when your salary is cut in half? And what makes you think that Bank B would pass on any of the savings to you? They'd probably just use the savings to fatten the wallets of the executives and the stockholders.
Once you and enough others are out of work due to outsourcing,consumers will be spending less money. Retail stores will be hurt. Their suppliers will be hurt. The economy will just continue in its downward spiral.
Where was that PC made, huh?
At my workbench.
Asking for a handout in the form of an over-paid job is lame.
I'm not asking for a handout. I'm asking the U.S. government to represent the interests of U.S. citizens and to put some tariffs and legislation in place to make outsourcing less attractive and to preserve the standard of living for all Americans. Do the third-world IT shops have to comply with OSHA regulations? Do they have to be handicapped-accessible? Do they have to meet our building codes? Hell no. So, yes, I do think that the Feds should do something to protect American jobs.
By the way, getting paid more than someone in Pakistan or India does not mean that someone is overpaid.
5+ years of work experience...I have enough money saved up to live off of for 17 years.
So what were you doing in 1980 when I began my career (in embedded systems)?
But when that happens, India companies will outsource their work to cheap labour to you.
I doubt it. Given my years of experience and my skills, you'll probably be saying "paper or plastic" long before I ever need to accept a low-paying job of any kind.
But, my own career is quite safe, thank you very much, because I have an unusual amount of education, experience, and intangible skills; i.e., some means of justifying my bloated salary in a global marketplace.
Only if your employers are as impressed by you as you seem to be -- which seems highly unlikely.
Not to worry, your volunteering isn't necessary. Macro-economic principles will operate quite freely without your consent.
How did you become so damned arrogant? It's really quite amazing.
I don't have a job.
Then get one before you start lecturing those of us who contribute to the economy.
Now explain to me why I should care more about you then about someone in India. Explain to me why people should subsidize you and your family when the same money could go to 3 Indians to write 3 times as much code?
So that Americans, like you and your family, will have decent jobs when you need them.
If all you care about is yourself and your family, then all I can say is fuck you, you selfish bastard.
Go fuck yourself. I care more about them than I do about some loser living off mommy and daddy's money while he steals music using the college LAN and runs a porn link server out of his dorm room. Mom and dad must be real proud when they see comments on your web page like "She must be in her mid-fifties. Granny boobs, whoa."
I'd rather move to India.
We would rather that you did. In fact, I bet we could take up a collection on Slashdot and buy you a one-way ticket.
You have shockingly poor reading comprehension. I never said that all workers were equal. In fact, you even quoted my use of the qualifier "all other things being equal" yet you apparently did not understand it. I don't have time to give you remedial reading lessons. Hire a tutor.
But you're wrong again. 60% of our imports from Mexico are "Machinery and Transport Equipment", 15% are "Miscellaneous Manufactured Articles", 8% are "Mineral Fuels, Lubricants and Related Materials" (oil and natural gas), and less that 5% are agricultural-related (http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/sitc1/2001/c
You (and the Census Department) are confusing imported goods with outsourced labor. When a U.S. firm opens a plant in Mexico and supervises workers there producing products and subassemblies for sale in the U.S., that's outsourced labor. When a Mexican firm independently produces a product and ships it to the U.S., that's an imported product. Just how many Mexican car brands are you aware of? But, in the end, it's hardly germane to this discussion and is simply you nitpicking an off-the-cuff remark that I made -- and qualified with the word "perhaps."
Hmmm, how do U.S. firms compete in steel? Quite well, actually. During the tough time of the 1990s when those mean foreigners were dumping steel on our shores, domestic production of steel rose from 95.5 Million Tons per year to 127.9 Million Tons per year (Table 994 of 2001 Statistical Abstract).
Again, you seem incapable of understanding simple statistics. The statistics you quote only show the tonnage of steel produced. They do not indicate that it was produced profitably.
It is true that imports grew faster than domestic production, but once again it is not true that our industry is in decline.
The following large U.S. steel makers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent years (source: An industry on the edge):
From the "STATEMENT OF THE BASIC STEEL INDUSTRY CONFERENCE, United Steelworkers of America, Adopted at Pittsburgh, PA on January 23, 2001":
You really don't have any idea of what you are talking about, do you? 7,500 steel workers lost their jobs at LTV Steel alone. The United Steelworkers of America says "We face this crisis aware of the fact that our Union must lead the fight to save the domestic steel industry." You are wrong. They are an industry in decline.
About IC fabs, I don't know the exact numbers.
Apparently not since all that you quoted had little to do with IC fabs. In fact, many of the companies in the U.S. have chips fabricated at USMC and TMC in Taiwan. Basically, all of those numbers you dredged up were meaningless. It's like citing how many people work in U.S. automotive manufacturing when someone asks what percentage of tire manufacture has gone overseas.
Apparently you're wrong about that, too. So if you have some statitistics to share, go ahead. Otherwise I can only assume that you have no idea what you're talking about.
Your ability to use Google has wowed me and, I'm sure, other Slashdot readers. Stunning. Simply stunning. If only the statistics you gathered supported your erroneous statements, you'd have a real winner there.
You ask, in your subject line, "why not start small businesses[?]." Most people who are out of work don't have the capital to start a small business. Banks and venture capitalists are very hesitant to loan out money to start new businesses, especially tech-sector businesses after the dot-com fiasco.
I think that you also ignore the economies of scale that large corporations enjoy. Walmart can browbeat companies into supplying computers so cheaply that Walmart can sell them for $199 and make a profit. You or I would be laughed out of the supplier's offices for even suggesting pricing that low.
iii) Large corporations routinely reject producing products because there is only a 5-10% profit.
And if your parts are costing you 20% more, you can expect to do those same projects at a loss.
Smaller companies can be profitable with the same product line that the large corp rejected because there is much less management overhead.
That is a common generalization, but one that often does not hold true. Let's just look at some examples:
* A large corporation with 5,000 wastebaskets can hire a firm to empty them at a lot less per wastebasket than a small company can.
* A large corporation can hire a full-time corporate attorney (or a number of them) while a small business must pay much higher hourly rates to lawfirms.
* Office space is much cheaper per square foot when you need a lot of square feet.
* Large corporations can negotiate more effectively for everything from cell phones to health plans to business insurance providers. Sprint doesn't give a damn whether they lose the business of your 30-person firm, but they will do anything possible to retain a Microsoft, IBM, or General Motors as their client.
I have run a small business and it's ugly. You pay a premium for almost anything that you need and you end up diverting no small amount of hours just to try to get more favorable pricing -- and still get nothing comparable to what the large corporations enjoy.
Yeah, god forbid any 'impoverished' people ever get a job programming. They should be working in the fields like a good poor person while we all get paid $60k a year for shitty VB code.
Do you want to give up your job? Have you gone into your boss's office to encourage him to outsource your job to someone more needy? Until you do, don't lecture the rest of us who are just trying to make a decent life for ourselves and our families.
By the way, there are real computer professionals out of work, not just people who write "shitty VB code."
You seem to have left "American consumers" out of your list. Are these people unimportant in your political view?
I don't think that an American consumer is a "winner" when he/she is unemployed due to outsourcing.
And yet, strangely, there are workers who are willing to work under these conditions. It's almost as if this is the best choice that they have available to them and their families.
It is. Do you want $10/day salaries and 12 hour work days to be the "best choice available to [you] and your [family]"? If so, keep outsourcing.
Because, when the chips are down, peaceniks and social activists would prefer giving handouts to giving hand-ups. They would be happy for most of the world's population to live in poverty and suffering for all of eternity, so long as their own jobs are 'protected'. What spiritual people!
You be spiritual all you want. I'm more interested in supporting my family, paying my mortgage, and maintaining a good standard of living in the U.S. I'm not happy that others live in poverty, but I'm not about volunteer to have my job outsourced to some third-world country to improve their standard of living.
The solution to your unemployment is to start thinking about selling something that has value - not whinging about how your job just went overseas. Produce and sell something other people want to buy and you'll do fine.
Produce and sell something other people want to buy and overseas firms will produce it cheaper and put you out of business -- or you'll be forced to lay off your workers and outsource the jobs to keep your business open.
Do you think that people don't want televisions, stereo equipment, and computers? We used to lead the world in production of all of those things and we no longer do. The U.S. factories are shut down and almost all such devices are imported. Do you think that televisions with the RCA, G.E., and and Zenith names are still manufactured in the U.S.? If so, turn off your computer, drive to your local store, and read the "Made In" labels.
Your post is a classic example as to why engineering majors should be required to take liberal arts courses like History and Economics.
Your post is a classic example of using ad hominem attacks (e.g., claiming that I am uneducated) rather than reason.
The only solution is to level the playing field, but in a true sense. Things won't actually get better until everybody else's standard of living is brought up. What we should be doing is making sure ours doesn't go down in the process (or, at the very least, make sure it's a controlled descent).
How? Certainly eliminating OSHA regulations won't improve our standard of living. Nor will relaxing pollution restrictions.
As you imply, the playing field will level as everyone else's standard of living goes up, but all that will really happen is that countries that enjoy a much higher standard of living will see that decline while third world countries will see their improve. I don't want to be paid the average world salary. It would suck.
If that were true, there would be drasticly different standards of living from state to state. Most parts of the US look like other parts of the US because states don't have the ability to regulate interstate commerce.
Connecticut and New York residents enjoyed an average annual income of over $46,000 per year in 2001. During that same year, residents of Mississippi and North Dakota had incomes of under $26,000. Sounds pretty drastic to me.
I think they call that.. sociali.. hmmn.. communis.. something like that.
I don't care what you call it. American jobs are more important than lining the pockets of wealthy CEOs, venture capitalists, and professional investors.
The truth is we import 68% more from Canada than from Mexico. What a spectacular failure for your theory.
Mexico has a largely unskilled, undercapitalized workforce while Canada's more closely resembles our own. I would not expect tech sector jobs to go to Mexico. Nor would I expect us to import much from Mexico other than, perhaps, agricultural products. Look instead to Pakistan, India, or former USSR countries where there are significant numbers of tech workers. That's where our H1-B Visa workers come from. It's where outsourcing goes.
Hint: read in an economics textbook about wages and productivity. The reason wages are so high in the United States and that we can afford the niceties of pollution and safety regulations is that we are so much more productive. As productivity grows in other countries, their wages rise, too. Forty years ago Japan was a country with wages lower than China has now.
And during that same time, ours fall if we are outsourcing work to the "other countries." If you put a bunch of people out of work, then the wages for that line of work go down. Eventually, it may get to the point where it's cheaper to hire a U.S. worker than to pay for the inefficiencies in outsourcing. Of course, by then, you might be living in a refrigerator box under a bridge, but you might be able to burn your economics textbooks for warmth in the meantime.
Just look at the jobs we've already lost to outsourcing. How many IC fabs do we have in the U.S.? What percentage of consumer electronics is manufactured in the U.S.? How many steel industry jobs have we lost? How are U.S. firms supposed to compete when China's government invested $6 billion in their steel industry in 2002?
Once jobs go overseas, they seldom come back. There is a tremendous economic cost to bring them back, so even if the wages overseas grow to rival our own, the costs to bring the jobs back here often prevents it from happening. That's why Asian government are so willing to invest in developing industries. They know that, once they get the market, they will probably keep most of it.
You do NOT have to be wealthy to own stock, as a matter of fact many stocks are available for quite reasonable prices today...
I know that. But only the wealthy benefit from this outsourcing. If you have 100,000 shares of company X and outsourcing results in the stock going up by $3/share, then you benefit.
If you work for company X and have 117 shares that you got through the company's stock purchase plan, then it's small compensation when the stock goes up $3/share after they outsource your job to foreign workers.
The submission asks who wins and who loses. That's an easy one:
Winners
Overcompensated CEOs
Wealthy stockholders
Non-U.S. workers
Losers
American workers
Paying fair U.S. wages, while complying with U.S. regulations to protect the workers and the environment, costs money. So a company can gain a competitive edge by hiring workers in foreign countries where salaries are lower and where such rules do not exist. If some smoke-belching plant across a border can pay people $10/day and work them for 12 hour shifts, then the company using that workforce can realize lower operating costs and, hence, higher profits.
Folks, this isn't rocket science. All other things being equal, businesses will go with the cheaper source every time. What we need to do, as a country, is to level the playing field. We need tariffs, laws, and fines to discourage firms from outsourcing desirable jobs.
Screw pure capitalism. Unregulated capitalism doesn't work. That's why we have massive unemployment in the tech sector while desirable jobs are going to overseas workers in impoverished countries. And all the while, U.S. CEOs and other executives are receiving compensation packages that rival the net worth of some small countries. It's time we put our feet down and protected the vast majority of working Americans rather than pandering to the greed of multi-millionaire CEOs.
If someone chooses that their child should not view it, then the parent has the option to not allow their child to see it.
I wholly agree. No argument there at all.
Heck, as an adult I even will fast forward a few scenes in movies since I'd rather not watch folks have sex on my TV.
And that's your right and it's fair use. What's not fair use is you creating an edited copy of the movie that you distribute. You've made your views about sex on your TV known, but how do you feel about watching folks have sex on your couch?
Though you are just being an idiot here, I'll bite.
So I see that we've resorted to name-calling. Okay, I'll bite back: you are a buffoon with delusions of adequacy.
That is what folks want for their DVD players. The OPTION to filter.
No, what they want is for a third party to filter the DVDs and, thus, deliver a derivative work for which the firm doing the modification does not own copyright.
As soon as something enters my home that I own, I should have the option to filter, change, mutilate, or alter it.
I agree and you already do. What Hollywood is saying is that third parties cannot sell modified versions of copyrighted movies -- regardless of whether the modification is burned onto a new DVD or whether it is done through a device which modifies the movies on the fly (skipping scenes, muting dialog, etc.).
Specifically, I prefer to watch PG-13 (and less) movies, but would like to see some R-rated movies, minus gratuitous sex scenes*, or gory violence
What next? An art museum that paints clothes onto nude portraits and puts a toga on the statue of Venus de Milo?
There is such a thing as artistic integrity. While the proponents of this "filtering" technology love to point to schlock films with "gratuitous" violence and sex, there are truly artistic, powerful movies that need the violence and sexual content present in order to tell their story. Not all movies can be made into PG-13, kiddie-safe pablum.
if I want sex, then I romance my wife
Speaking of gratuitous sex, I'd rather not read postings about who you having sex with on a tech news web site.
If you aren't making copies of the edited version, you can mix and match the scenes however you want. If somebody wants to buy the sexed-up DVD player you made, they should be able to do so, as long as they are informed that the player isn't playing the original content 100%.
Why? Why should someone be able to modify someone else's copyrighted movie and then resell it? If you truly believe that's a legal and moral right, then I hope that your life's story is released as a movie some day. I'd love to use CGI to add in some scenes of you molesting the family dog. Don't worry. I'd include a notice that "the player isn't playing the original content 100%." That wouldn't bother you, I'm sure.
If somebody personally doesn't want to see the horrors of war in Schindler's List, they should be free to do so, as long as they're not preventing anybody else from seeing the full thing.
If you don't want to see that, then you need to skip the movie.
That said, fair use means that you have a right to skip any scene that you want in the privacy of your own home. What you don't have a right to do is resell a derivative work without the permission of the copyright holders. (Whether you sell it as a DVD or as a player/service that mangles the existing DVD is simply a technicality.) The only people that should maintain artistic control of a movie are the artists involved (and those to whom they have assigned rights).
Hollywood is offended by this for artistic reasons. When someone creates a Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan, the horrors of war need to be seen. No one should be "kiddie-izing" such films.
What if I were to decide that Snow White needs sex scenes? Should I be able to hire animators to add a dwarves-gang-banging-Snow-White scene and sell (or rent) a DVD with that? Should I be able to create a PVR-style box to automatically add those scenes when someone watches the DVD?
People are too stupid to live lives themselves or take any sort of personal responsibility! We need laws and lawyers and lawsuits!
We need to go to a lawless society where every man fends for himself.
Those who can't read 40 page EULAs and interpret the legalese in them should just suffer the consequences. If some company wants to sneak in some ambiguous phrase giving themselves permission to put the entire contents of your hard drive on P2P networks, more power to them.
Why should consumers be protected from predatory and deceptive business practices? Why should lawyers be able to sue companies that prey on people's trust?
I cannot believe the nerve of people that hire lawyers and press lawsuits! So what if a program erased your hard drive? There was a clause on page 27 of the EULA stating that they could "write binary data to the hard drive" and that's really all that erasing a hard is -- writing data to it.
It's like all of those people that sue doctors just because the doctor removed the wrong organ or let a family member bleed to death during a tonsillectomy.