The same description you used for the ITAA fits ITers, including "underpaid" (in relation to 90's standards) programmers and software engineers. They're self serving, trying to get ahead at the expense of others. Though I'll admit that the ITers that lost their jobs are often suffering tremendously for it. I'll simply say that it is not my fault.
There is nothing about "underpaid" that fits the ITAA. Why is a programmer just doing his job "trying to get ahead at the expense of others"? The company hired them to do a job. I'm happy to hear you're not responsible for the job losses; I hadn't suspected you of being the culprit.
According to the IMF, shockingly, government expending being cut results in the creation of many more jobs. So, lower taxes and reduced government spending results in an overall increase in jobs.
Subscribe to whatever economic theories you like, but when jobs are lost, government "expending" goes up and revenues go down. The now-unemployed worker no longer pays taxes and is on the dole. Fewer jobs results in higher taxes, more government spending, and less wealth for all concerned.
Do these people deserve to make thousands and thousands of dollars more money than the rest of us simply because they did in the past? Of course not... especially not at our expense!
Do the workers who actually built the company into the success that it is deserve to be thrown away so the CEO can make a few more million dollars this year? Is it the worker or the CEO who is the real expense?
That's right. The economic system could cope with outsourcing of cars and of clothes, of computer hardware and consumer electronics, but if we start paying PROGRAMMERS less it'll be the end of civilization as we know it. We're all DOOMED!
No, the problem is that with each previous wave of outsourcing, we were told to move on to the next big thing, the last of which was IT. Now, there is no next big thing to move to. It looks all downhill from here. What's left for the middle class after knowledge work is offshored?
We're not losing jobs to other countries. We're exchanging one type of job for another. You can remain cynical all you want, but the facts are already accumulating to say that outsourcing is not as hurtful as so often claimed.
Government figures show the jobs being created are lower paying than the jobs lost. Those are the facts.
According to an ITAA study, outsourcing white color jobs will ultimately lower inflation, create jobs, and boost productivity. That's a whole lot of money being saved and wealth being created.
Do you understand what the ITAA is? It is a trade association that lobbies Congress to have the law modified to the benefit of the member companies. This is the same ITAA that was claiming before Congress that they could not find IT workers while they were doing massive IT layoffs during the last recession. The fact that you use the ITAA as an authoritative source removes all credibility from your argument.
Enough with the mindless class warfare.
Enough with mindless regurgitation of laughable, self-serving ITAA *studies*.
Since these patents are so laughable that dozens of sources of prior art could be cited immediately, what makes you think the judge wouldn't grant summary dismissal the moment he/she saw the case?
Oh, it's probably the results of previous decisions involving Microsoft, Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, etc., where the perps walked away free or with a slap on the wrist. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure seems able to buy anything else.
I wonder why IBM let their patent guru leave and go to Microsoft? I would have thought that IBM would keep such a kingmaker in patents & royalties under their employment.
My cynicism makes me believe it had something to do with the patent guru and Microsoft's money.
Nothing to worry about there. It will never happen. If M$ were to actually file a suit over any of these stupid patents, it would only draw attention to how completely baseless they are and might even cause their patent hoarding spree to come to a halt.
Since MS has already bought off the DOJ (and apparently the USPTO), what makes you believe they'd lose? Most companies would simply give in rather than face an expensive legal battle with MS and its bottomless bank account. When MS starts enforcing its patents to restrain OSS, the only thing standing in their way is the EFF.
I don't think people switching to linux is really going to stop them.
People switching to Linux, and then convincing their friends and relatives to switch to Linux, is exactly what will stop Microsoft - in the end.
You're going to need to get Linux to over 50% market share before we find any type of interest from Microsoft to maybe stop doing the crap they're doing.
That's backwards. Microsoft is already scared by Linux, which is why they talk about viral licensing, TCO, and cut special deals to keep people from switching. MS has reached market saturation with nowhere to go but down. That's why they switched from selling software to renting it. They no longer give stock options as rewards to employees because the options don't get above water. As MS continues to lose market share, it will only increase its efforts to patent everything in sight in order to protect its territory and inhibit F/OSS. It hasn't gotten nasty yet - it will.
Well, not enough of us you voted for legislators who would make the music public domain.
Go vote? Thanks for the advice. I'm one of the voices on Slashdot continually advocating voting, but my vote doesn't count heavily when representatives of both parties have become nothing more than boot-licking beggars to industry. And it's not about "legislators who would make the music public domain"; By law, the music should have already been public domain.
[Waves hand]Today the Federal minimum wage in the USA is $5.15, but many states push it to $6. Let's use $6. A single hit recording of today in disk format would cost $4.20 in mid-1960s prices using MWU units and an album (in portable disk format) would cost $15 today at 60s prices in MWU units.
So why does thirty-year-old music, which the industry no longer promotes, advertises, or has any associated costs aside from pressing a 10-cent disc, still cost $16 for a CD?
The mere fact that that question exists tells me that Ballmer has a point. You guys just don't know. That doesn't mean that you should switch to Windows, but it does mean that you should be treating your computer like it could spontaneously explode at any minute. No different than Windowsx.
I didn't realize Windows had X, but anyway there was a time when MS users did not have a huge presence on the 'net and most users were using *nix. There were numerous attempted exploits, but who can remember any successful ones? The Morris worm is the only one I can remember, and I think RMS chronicled catching a single cracker/hacker. At the same time, who had the most virus-ridden OS even then? Microsoft (or MicroSoft as it was styled), for the same reason as today - it's easy. Nothing has changed in twenty years except MS now has a market lock on the desktop and is a huge company instead of a small company, and it's causing a huge problem instead of a small one.
Get 'em quick. These are going to be geek collector items after the next name change. We can start collecting the series. Anybody got a Firebird (and I don't mean an old Pontiac) they want to sell? It's what I'm still running at work.
I rather understand why Katz hasn't had an article in ages, after all the tards who didn't like his articles couldn't resist sh!tting all over them with their witty repostes.
Hey, if the editors can post dupe articles, we slashbots should be able to post dupe comments. (Sorry, I tried to resist but failed.):)
But the dot-com thing was not a bubble. It is still expanding, just not in the US.
It was a bubble in the U.S., where a lot of greedy CEOs made personal fortunes by bilking investors and employees before the bubble burst. The rush to offshoring is just the next big buzzword money-making scheme by U.S. corporate management with no morals or foresight.
These numbers are meaningless without the corresponding figures for companies that didn't outsource.
I provided a link. Should I read the article for you too? 46% vs 9% for most companies. $10.4 M vs $8.1 M for other large companies. And despite the title, it wasn't about outsourcing which can be local, it was about offshoring. Anything else I can do for you?
Have you been reading about all the companies (that is, there facilities and offices) in China that have been nationalized
No, I haven't seen anything like that, but a related link or address would be appreciated. I do know that Cisco was burned by Chinese contractors who took Cisco's code to a Chinese firm that made a knock-off and undercut Cisco's business. Of course, that doesn't get much coverage in the financial press.
Because, as wel all know, Microsoft has never invested in another company simply to make money.
Microsoft invests in some companies (Apple) in order to deflect actions from a tame DOJ. When Microsoft wants to "make money" it buys a company or cuts off its "air supply" to get its product. Why would MS need to buy a multi-million dollar license for an antique UNIX that is decades behind the times? So they can produce something that only works with decades-old UNIXes? That'll surely make them tons of money. Buying a useless license for millions is not investing, it's a gift.
That doesn't mean that SCO is not in huge trouble. They have recently laid off a bunch of fairly key middle managers in the profitable SCO UNIX branch.
The term fairly key manager is an oxymoron, unless you mean the one with the keys to the building.:)
Right now they're playing the "I can find warm bodies in India" card. I expect that one will start falling apart within a few months. Just hang in there and keep looking.:-)
It will be a lot longer than a few months, especially when all the CxOs see these numbers.
A few sound bites:
Chief executives at U.S. companies that shipped jobs overseas won a 46 percent pay hike last year
regular workers saw a 2 percent boost in pay
average compensation for chief executives at the top 50 outsourcing companies was $10.4 million last year
CEO George David's pay rose 629 percent to $70.5 million
CEO Sanford Weill's pay rose 305 percent to $54.1 million
CEO Lawrence Ellison's pay rose 103,974 percent to $40.6 million
Greed-crazed MBAs will be trampling each other (and their employees) in their rush to the beach. Offshoring is not going to abate until a bunch of companies get severely burned and are forced to admit it publicly. Offshoring is the next boondoggle after the dot bomb bubble.
If Diebold was really evil, than they would have put much more thought into the machines. If they were evil, then they would have a very small numbers of difficult to find exploits, while producing a seemingly reliable machine.
The linked article stated that the central Diebold program that tallys the votes has a separate, hidden set of books. There is a back door accessed by entering a two-digit number in a hidden cell. The totals can be changed or erased. The logs can be easily changed to hide the tampering. The senior programmer in charge was a felon convicted of embezzling. He embezzled to pay blackmail to cover up a killing. Diebold hired him in spite of or perhaps because of his background. That sounds a little evil to me.
They can't give to candidates. That link doesn't show a corporation giving one penny to a candidate.
From the article:
Judge Kollar-Kotelly heard that total donations to political donations from Microsoft and its employees to political parties, candidates and PACs in the 2000 election cycle amounted to more than $6.1 million.
Since 1992, Microsoft has contributed nearly $693,500 in PAC, soft money, and individual contributions to federal
candidates and parties.
Only 22 states prohibit corporate contibutions to candidates. Sponsoring PACs or overcompensating executives so they can give money to a candidate is also no different than a direct contribution from a company. Obviously, the PAC or executive is acting in the company's interest. Corporations giving money to PACs or political parties is even worse than direct contributions because PACs and parties can do the dirty work that candidates don't want to be directly involved in. Are you truly so oblivious that you believe the money in your left pocket is different from the money in your right pocket? All money is fungible; other fantasies are just that.
All of us Americans need to go on a strike on a certain day. THis would reign in the elite and let them know who is boss.
People would complain because their garbage wasn't picked up. People would get fired. Nothing else would happen. Systems don't generally stop working without one day's maintenance. Qwest's managers answered the phones during the latest walkout. Next idea.
Slashdot Mirror
The same description you used for the ITAA fits ITers, including "underpaid" (in relation to 90's standards) programmers and software engineers. They're self serving, trying to get ahead at the expense of others. Though I'll admit that the ITers that lost their jobs are often suffering tremendously for it. I'll simply say that it is not my fault.
There is nothing about "underpaid" that fits the ITAA. Why is a programmer just doing his job "trying to get ahead at the expense of others"? The company hired them to do a job. I'm happy to hear you're not responsible for the job losses; I hadn't suspected you of being the culprit.
According to the IMF, shockingly, government expending being cut results in the creation of many more jobs. So, lower taxes and reduced government spending results in an overall increase in jobs.
Subscribe to whatever economic theories you like, but when jobs are lost, government "expending" goes up and revenues go down. The now-unemployed worker no longer pays taxes and is on the dole. Fewer jobs results in higher taxes, more government spending, and less wealth for all concerned.
Do these people deserve to make thousands and thousands of dollars more money than the rest of us simply because they did in the past? Of course not... especially not at our expense!
Do the workers who actually built the company into the success that it is deserve to be thrown away so the CEO can make a few more million dollars this year? Is it the worker or the CEO who is the real expense?
That's right. The economic system could cope with outsourcing of cars and of clothes, of computer hardware and consumer electronics, but if we start paying PROGRAMMERS less it'll be the end of civilization as we know it. We're all DOOMED!
No, the problem is that with each previous wave of outsourcing, we were told to move on to the next big thing, the last of which was IT. Now, there is no next big thing to move to. It looks all downhill from here. What's left for the middle class after knowledge work is offshored?
We're not losing jobs to other countries. We're exchanging one type of job for another. You can remain cynical all you want, but the facts are already accumulating to say that outsourcing is not as hurtful as so often claimed.
Government figures show the jobs being created are lower paying than the jobs lost. Those are the facts.
According to an ITAA study, outsourcing white color jobs will ultimately lower inflation, create jobs, and boost productivity. That's a whole lot of money being saved and wealth being created.
Do you understand what the ITAA is? It is a trade association that lobbies Congress to have the law modified to the benefit of the member companies. This is the same ITAA that was claiming before Congress that they could not find IT workers while they were doing massive IT layoffs during the last recession. The fact that you use the ITAA as an authoritative source removes all credibility from your argument.
Enough with the mindless class warfare.
Enough with mindless regurgitation of laughable, self-serving ITAA *studies*.
Since these patents are so laughable that dozens of sources of prior art could be cited immediately, what makes you think the judge wouldn't grant summary dismissal the moment he/she saw the case?
Oh, it's probably the results of previous decisions involving Microsoft, Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, etc., where the perps walked away free or with a slap on the wrist. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure seems able to buy anything else.
I wonder why IBM let their patent guru leave and go to Microsoft? I would have thought that IBM would keep such a kingmaker in patents & royalties under their employment.
My cynicism makes me believe it had something to do with the patent guru and Microsoft's money.
In all seriousness, AFAIK they beat you to it.
Then IBM is going to be a little upset.
Nothing to worry about there. It will never happen. If M$ were to actually file a suit over any of these stupid patents, it would only draw attention to how completely baseless they are and might even cause their patent hoarding spree to come to a halt.
Since MS has already bought off the DOJ (and apparently the USPTO), what makes you believe they'd lose? Most companies would simply give in rather than face an expensive legal battle with MS and its bottomless bank account. When MS starts enforcing its patents to restrain OSS, the only thing standing in their way is the EFF.
I don't think people switching to linux is really going to stop them.
People switching to Linux, and then convincing their friends and relatives to switch to Linux, is exactly what will stop Microsoft - in the end.
You're going to need to get Linux to over 50% market share before we find any type of interest from Microsoft to maybe stop doing the crap they're doing.
That's backwards. Microsoft is already scared by Linux, which is why they talk about viral licensing, TCO, and cut special deals to keep people from switching. MS has reached market saturation with nowhere to go but down. That's why they switched from selling software to renting it. They no longer give stock options as rewards to employees because the options don't get above water. As MS continues to lose market share, it will only increase its efforts to patent everything in sight in order to protect its territory and inhibit F/OSS. It hasn't gotten nasty yet - it will.
Well, not enough of us you voted for legislators who would make the music public domain.
Go vote? Thanks for the advice. I'm one of the voices on Slashdot continually advocating voting, but my vote doesn't count heavily when representatives of both parties have become nothing more than boot-licking beggars to industry. And it's not about "legislators who would make the music public domain"; By law, the music should have already been public domain.
[Waves hand]Today the Federal minimum wage in the USA is $5.15, but many states push it to $6. Let's use $6. A single hit recording of today in disk format would cost $4.20 in mid-1960s prices using MWU units and an album (in portable disk format) would cost $15 today at 60s prices in MWU units.
So why does thirty-year-old music, which the industry no longer promotes, advertises, or has any associated costs aside from pressing a 10-cent disc, still cost $16 for a CD?
Why is a $13.42 price for a Beatles CD wrong? The Beatles' recordings are still in demand.
Perhaps because I've already purchased all the albums before, and the music is 40 years old and should be public domain by now?
The mere fact that that question exists tells me that Ballmer has a point. You guys just don't know. That doesn't mean that you should switch to Windows, but it does mean that you should be treating your computer like it could spontaneously explode at any minute. No different than Windowsx.
I didn't realize Windows had X, but anyway there was a time when MS users did not have a huge presence on the 'net and most users were using *nix. There were numerous attempted exploits, but who can remember any successful ones? The Morris worm is the only one I can remember, and I think RMS chronicled catching a single cracker/hacker. At the same time, who had the most virus-ridden OS even then? Microsoft (or MicroSoft as it was styled), for the same reason as today - it's easy. Nothing has changed in twenty years except MS now has a market lock on the desktop and is a huge company instead of a small company, and it's causing a huge problem instead of a small one.
Get 'em quick. These are going to be geek collector items after the next name change. We can start collecting the series. Anybody got a Firebird (and I don't mean an old Pontiac) they want to sell? It's what I'm still running at work.
I rather understand why Katz hasn't had an article in ages, after all the tards who didn't like his articles couldn't resist sh!tting all over them with their witty repostes.
Hey, if the editors can post dupe articles, we slashbots should be able to post dupe comments. (Sorry, I tried to resist but failed.) :)
But the dot-com thing was not a bubble. It is still expanding, just not in the US.
It was a bubble in the U.S., where a lot of greedy CEOs made personal fortunes by bilking investors and employees before the bubble burst. The rush to offshoring is just the next big buzzword money-making scheme by U.S. corporate management with no morals or foresight.
These numbers are meaningless without the corresponding figures for companies that didn't outsource.
I provided a link. Should I read the article for you too? 46% vs 9% for most companies. $10.4 M vs $8.1 M for other large companies. And despite the title, it wasn't about outsourcing which can be local, it was about offshoring. Anything else I can do for you?
Have you been reading about all the companies (that is, there facilities and offices) in China that have been nationalized
No, I haven't seen anything like that, but a related link or address would be appreciated. I do know that Cisco was burned by Chinese contractors who took Cisco's code to a Chinese firm that made a knock-off and undercut Cisco's business. Of course, that doesn't get much coverage in the financial press.
Because, as wel all know, Microsoft has never invested in another company simply to make money.
Microsoft invests in some companies (Apple) in order to deflect actions from a tame DOJ. When Microsoft wants to "make money" it buys a company or cuts off its "air supply" to get its product. Why would MS need to buy a multi-million dollar license for an antique UNIX that is decades behind the times? So they can produce something that only works with decades-old UNIXes? That'll surely make them tons of money. Buying a useless license for millions is not investing, it's a gift.
That doesn't mean that SCO is not in huge trouble. They have recently laid off a bunch of fairly key middle managers in the profitable SCO UNIX branch.
The term fairly key manager is an oxymoron, unless you mean the one with the keys to the building. :)
Right now they're playing the "I can find warm bodies in India" card. I expect that one will start falling apart within a few months. Just hang in there and keep looking. :-)
It will be a lot longer than a few months, especially when all the CxOs see these numbers.
A few sound bites:
Greed-crazed MBAs will be trampling each other (and their employees) in their rush to the beach. Offshoring is not going to abate until a bunch of companies get severely burned and are forced to admit it publicly. Offshoring is the next boondoggle after the dot bomb bubble.If Diebold was really evil, than they would have put much more thought into the machines. If they were evil, then they would have a very small numbers of difficult to find exploits, while producing a seemingly reliable machine.
The linked article stated that the central Diebold program that tallys the votes has a separate, hidden set of books. There is a back door accessed by entering a two-digit number in a hidden cell. The totals can be changed or erased. The logs can be easily changed to hide the tampering. The senior programmer in charge was a felon convicted of embezzling. He embezzled to pay blackmail to cover up a killing. Diebold hired him in spite of or perhaps because of his background. That sounds a little evil to me.
They can't give to candidates. That link doesn't show a corporation giving one penny to a candidate.
From the article:
And let's try this one.
Only 22 states prohibit corporate contibutions to candidates. Sponsoring PACs or overcompensating executives so they can give money to a candidate is also no different than a direct contribution from a company. Obviously, the PAC or executive is acting in the company's interest. Corporations giving money to PACs or political parties is even worse than direct contributions because PACs and parties can do the dirty work that candidates don't want to be directly involved in. Are you truly so oblivious that you believe the money in your left pocket is different from the money in your right pocket? All money is fungible; other fantasies are just that.All of us Americans need to go on a strike on a certain day. THis would reign in the elite and let them know who is boss.
People would complain because their garbage wasn't picked up. People would get fired. Nothing else would happen. Systems don't generally stop working without one day's maintenance. Qwest's managers answered the phones during the latest walkout. Next idea.
Coroporate donations have been illegal for about 30 years, silly.
Apparently someone forgot to tell the corporations.