Most parents simply do not care what their kids see and hear in a video game. But this is not only due to laziness -- it is due also to ignorance.
Probably even more is due to parents actually just not caring in general. I saw many parents take their kids to see the South Park movie, Terminator movies, etc. Most parents probably know what their kids are playing/watching, it's the vocal minority that screams out "think of the children"
We have *never* had an economy capable of employing the majority of unskilled labor at a living wage. Even the heyday of unions didn't do it.
The point of the boom of the 90's was the opportunities were there for those with the desire to become skilled. In many skilled sectors wages did in fact go up in response to the limited labor pool.
Right, let's skip on to what you're really saying: "poor people are lazy, they wasted their time in school and can only blame themselves for not having good jobs".
Poor people are not necessarily lazy. Some just do not understand the options available. We should increase job training availability, provide workforce experience. But there also is a significant portion who are just not motivated. If they choose not to gain meaningful skills, then yes, they only have themselves to blame. Unskilled labor has less economic value than skilled labor. They contribute less to the overall economy, and therefore should expect less. You don't need a degree to be skilled, become an electrician, welder, gain some sort of skill that makes you a greater contributor and therefore more desirable for employment.
You're still stuck in the Econ 101 supply-and-demand mentality: someone out there has to hire you or you starve
No it's the mentaility that you should contribute to the society to get back from it. I don't buy into the whole, "society owes me, because I'm here" mentality. You don't have to be hired by somebody, you can work independently, or take leadership and organize other people. Create goods and services that benifit society, and in turn you can benifit from the goods and services of others.
We've got the technology to provide the basics of life to the entire planet, and each year it gets even easier
It's the difference between needs and wants. Sure we can provide all the needs, and if people were happy with that, then I'd have no problems. The issue is that people have unlimited wants. You can survive making minimum wage, many college students do so (without help from anybody). You just can't live in the neighborhood you want, you can't have cable TV, or a car, or eat out every night. For most people, though, just living isn't enough.
Adjusting to a future where work is an option and not a requirement leads to the Federation (Star Trek).
That's fine, but how many people in Star Trek have their own spaceship? Probably more people would want ships than could have them. How would people earn those things that are limited? Yes people may have the option to not work, but just providing sustinance does not make most people happy.
There is no real difference between people at different strata of society.
I agree. Unfortuantely, there are barriers between social strata that makes it harder for the poor who are motivated to become rich, and the rich who are lazy to become poor. The biggest key is robust universal education. Not just making sure everybody gets a college degree, but rather ensuring people are able to maximize their skill potential. Also, understanding how to reduce the barrier that maintains the lazy rich to maintain their status (ie loopholes in inheritance taxes).
I think everyone would be happier if they worked less, perhaps 20-30 hours per week, and that the work itself would be more productive
Perhaps some people, maybe not others. Some people want balance, some want family, some are driven by love of their, others are driven by the need for material goods. Everybody is different in what they desire.
So why should you demonize people who want to do the same thing? And what's this "free" you're talking about? It's not "free" to the workers paying into it right? And you hate it, right? So why would you take it and then moan about it?
I don't demonize the people who accept the money, I never said "old people are bad" for taking social security. I said the system itself is flawed. I criticize the system, not the people who benefit from it.
They won't kick out the bad kids of rich parents though, so those kids are free to get A's from "exceptional schools" for substandard work.
If the student is a poor performer sure maybe the parents can give a little donation to help billy (but that happens everywhere in every walk of life). If the student is disruptive or outright criminal, private schools are much more likely to kick that student out, rich parents or not.
they promote conformity over learning to maintain control;
Part of school is learning a degree of conformity. Many "superior" asian schools promote far more conformity than "inferior" american schools. One of the problems in public schools is not enough conformity is being taught early. Students early on are not given enough structure to effectively build upon their unique ideas and style later on in life. The proverbial "we don't correct spelling mistakes because it detracts from students expressing their ideas." The problem is that ideas are almost useless unless they can be properly communicated. I'm not talking about brainwash conformism, I'm talking about making sure the students know all the rules, before letting them be creative with some of them. Anybody can write and call it poetry, since the rules of poetry are not rigorous; but without following the rules often you just end up with a chaotic mess. The great poets know the rules well enough so they know what they can bend and even break so the proper images and voice come through.
loud parents of bad kids get their way
The problem is making education a right and requirement. The child has to go to school, and it is extremely difficult for a school to deny them. There is also the sense of equality, that all students should be at the same level. So , the school spends it's resources basically tightening the bell-curve around mediocre.
the funding is divided along racial lines (the 'poor black school' vs the 'rich white school')
Not so much racial but economic lines. It's not rich white school vs poor black school. It's (at least in AZ), high property taxes in rich neighborhoods gives higher funding for schools with rich kids, while low property taxes in poor neighboorhoods gives less funding for schools with poor kids.
funding based on standardized test performance has turned the curriculum into 'teaching to the test'
Which I actually have no problem with, since the test should reflect the skills students should have. The problem is that for some students they can learn the test in a month and should be given the opportunity to move beyond the test, but are held back by the slower learning students still trying to get the basic skills down.
teachers don't get paid well enough to support themselves (though they are expected to work twice as hard in their jobs as everyone else);
I agree, but also because teaching pays so little it doesn't attract high level talent. We can't hold teachers responsible, because we basically take what we can get.
political forces are engaged in battles over religion, crime, pregnancy, computers, technology, etc., instead of education.
Political forces always loom, look at Japan with their history texts about WWII, and I'm sure China has various propagandists things to learn in school.
Most importantly, the problems with the public school system are that the economy is not strong enough to employ high school graduates at a living wage (forcing them to choose between college or dropping out to the underclass)
That's a cop-out, since the same problems existed in the booming economy of the 90's. The problem is that in trying to treat all students equally, we essentially lose the flexibility to teach things other than basic math, english, science. Some people don't have the desire or talent to go to college, we shouldn't try to get them to pass a college prep test. They should be learning meaningful skills a
You "anything collective is bad" people need to wake up and realize that not everyone is in a situation where they can become independently wealthy
I'm not part of the "anything collective is bad" crowd. In fact I think some programs like healthcare should be centralized by the goverment. Medicare is a bad compromise between free market and goverement control. You have goverment control over how medicine is performed (increased cost of regulation), then free market economics for the medicine (greedy healthcare companies), then only partial goverment control over medical costs (half-assed cost control). It basically takes the worst of everything.
Before Social Security, entire classes of the population were destitute when they could no longer work, as they were unable to save because they did not make enough.
After social security we still have the same thing. The system was based on the premise that the population will grow, so more people pay in, than who take out. Unfortunately, the rate of population increase has slowed, and most payments aren't enough to cover the costs of living. So we have people who spent all their lives forced to pay 6% of their salary who get barely enough to survive.
Yes, public schools, medicare and social security are such wonderful goverment programs. Private schools tend to give better education than public because they can kick the bad kids out, and have higher standards. The problem with public schools is that every child has a right to education, promoting mediocrity. Rather than spending resources on students that can excel and get greater return on the investment, those resources are spent on getting remedial students to mediocrity. Medicare is a goverment-free market kludge, that's just screwed up all the way around. Social security is a publicly subsidized pyramid scheme. We shouldn't have privitaization of social security, we shouldn't have it in the first place. People need to be responsible for taking care of their own retirement.
Information became commodotozed when there was more money to be made from selling information services than selling information
A songwriter can be hired to provide a service as a consultant, but the results of that is still the creation of new information. The consulting fee is the necessary investment for the creation of information, only the business model has changed. Rather than peddling a precreated information product, a service approach results in the creation of information as works for hire. This means the investment by the ultimate consumer must be made upfront. (eg people donating for an author to write a book, or another season of Enterprise).
Well, sounds to me like Linux and FOSS are more acountable to free market forces and are slowly displacing the closed source methods.
It's not open vs. closed source, it's one product vs another product. Closed source could still change it's policies to become more competitive. Both open and closed source are accountable to free market forces
It is just another way of promoting that if they can't make as much money as with their old distribution monopolies than we should figure out a way to make it work for them
No. Ultimately it is the artists/programmer/movie maker that creates the product. If there is a system in place that lets them bypass the current distribution channels and make money they will follow it. Freely distributing their works on P2P hasn't worked for many independent bands. The hype machine of the labels does, like it or not, provide an important service to the content creators. Right now, just giving your content away is far less likely to work than selling out to a label, since people are more likely to be looking to download the latest pop idol. iTunes is an example of a system that works. While profits probably have shrunk, consumers are happy using it, and artists are happy to get paid.
The information age demands the free flow of information just as the industrial revolution demanded the free flow of labor and the death of controlled labor like the plantation system.
The industrial revolution promoted greater control of labor. The higher cost of capital for business meant many workers could no longer work independantly, but rather had to be parts of a larger company. The beginning of the industrial revolution was scarred by low wages, poor labor conditions, workers who lived in company owned housing. Unionization and goverment regulation, both which are artificial restrictions on labor were required to maintain conditions for the workforce. The information age demands similar protections for information, such that workers (in this case creators of information) are protected. I'm not saying the current systems in place work, in fact I think copyright law as it stands is far too restrictive. I'm saying that some sort of restrictions are still necessary to continue to promote investment.
Copyright monopolies are not property, they are not just, they deserve to die because they controll people, they need to die for society to enter the information age, and they will die because forces that are bigger than life are going to force them to die.
All laws control people in some way. If we really want the information age to continue, we need to ensure that some regulation is in place to promote investment, without being overly restrictive. Creating new ideas is not free, that's the point of IP. Nobody would make $100M blockbuster movies, or spend $10M on promotion and recording studio time, or $5M designing a new game, if there were no way to recoup the invesment. Even the most liberal open source licenses typically have restrictions, such as giving credit to the original code writers. While it isn't much it still restricts how people can use the code. Of course it only seems fair to ensure the right person gets credit for creating something, right? That's the key issue that needs to be solved. Promoting free exchange of ideas, but ensuring the original creator gets some sort of fair compensation.
That's why I put "boring" in quotes. The O-line is a complex position, but it's a support type playstyle. Therefore there isn't the same kind of feedback response that you have from other positions (eg. Tackle, interception, touchdown run, etc)
I would liken the O-line position to the fantasy MMO "crowd control/buff" class. The position doesn't contribute directly, so often is unappreciated or considered "boring" by novices. However, experts recognize how much better the team functions with good support class players.
Then it becomes clear that Linux is truely more accountable to free market paradigms, and in the information age - as information becomes commoditized, that will be even more so
The problem is that information reproduction has been commoditized, not creation. It still takes some kind of investment to create new information. Open source is not more or less free market than closed source, there are many advanatages and disadvantages for each. Google and IBM use Linux because its license offers them technical and business advantages over other licenses, both closed source and open source. With Linux they get the ease of an open source backbone, while still maintaining many of the proprietary rights of their own code.
as the companies that treat unrestricted copying over the internet like a threat will loose, and those that treat it like an advantage will win.
It's not about embracing unrestricted copying, it's about figuring out how to make it work. iTunes is still restrictive, but could be considered a "win." The companies that can strike the balance between consumers and content creators will be the winners.
Even something like football - if you're not the quarterback or a receiver, is it really going to be fun?
People like playing Medics/Engineers in Battlefield; people play clerics, enchanters, and other support roles in MMOs. In terms of "boring" positions in football, pretty much the only ones I can think of are the O-line and maybe full back. All defensive positions offer complex gameplay. I would love to play safety or corner.
It kills me that so many/.'ers don't understand what true marketing is. It's so much more than a 30 second spot on TV. Marketing is required to understand what the customers want, and deliver the appropriate product.
The environment at the time of the dotcoms was such that many companies thought the only way to survive was to outgrow the competition. There were so any companies were going after the same market with the exact same products and services. The thought was only through growth momentum would the company be able to attract enough capital to survive until the competition died off. The alternative was to grow slowly and wait until the competition killed each other off, and exist as the only player remaining.
Both models worked for different companies, and both models failed for different companies. Of course the latter resulted in much less loss of capital for the losers
So tell me what did Microsoft give us other than a combination of other peoples technologies and ideas?
They put it all in a neat little consumable package. They took the McDonald's type approach, give people what they want, quickly and easily, with just "enough" quality.
So, basically, it is okay that future windows of opportunity will be closed to more people than before?
Yes, we shouldn't expect opportunities to be open to unqualified people, or to remain if they are non-value added.
Why can't an automated factory build a billion AIBO's? Who says that "higher value" product has to create any more jobs?
Building factories creates jobs, more technical and higher paying, than to just have people soldering the things together. Long term most industries end up needing less people to perform the same task. The only way to increase employment, is to create new industries.
They're far more likely to become un-apathetic and rush the ballot box than a bunch of free market yeehaw cowboys dreaming about keeping more of their yacht-buying money (no offense intended but that's how I see this bunch).
I agree, but so long as the free market keeps people fed and happy, then it's doing it's job. All economics does is exist as a system to distribute limited resources.
Just because offshoring and automation have created higher-value jobs in the past, does not mean we won't come to a point where higher value industries are automated or offshored right away and there is no opportunity for previously displaced workers to get back on their feet.
I would contend we are still far from that point. Developing the international infrastructure (transport, communications, legal, etc), is expensive. New industries start up small. They don't have the ability to offshore immediately. Over time however, like any other industry they will end up offshored, and we move to the next thing. Let's look at the alternative to offshoring. US companies only able to hire US workers, are then hampered when it comes to doing buisness in the world. A foreign company that makes similar products with cheaper foreign labor, has a distinct advanatage over a US company. Americans have already shown they'd buy cheaper imported goods than to "buy American." Even if we do have tariffs for imports, they will have an advantage selling to the 6 billion people who don't live in the US. Lower exports = weaker dollar = overall goods more expensive. An isolationist economic policy means a lower standard of living for everybody. And the middle class would be hardest hit, the rich can afford to invest in foreign currency and deal with 10% higher prices.
As for laid-off auto workers... where will they go to find a job that sustains their families?
What about those elevator operators? Door-to-door salesmen? Some jobs aren't needed anymore, sometimes they leave then come back, people need to be flexible.
Our scientific dominance is slipping; with that, will go our enterpreneurial leadership. We lack the will to even fund our schools to keep this lead going because to fund education would be like communism.
I feel lack of education is the biggest flaw for the long term survival of the United States. Not necessarily just public school, but overall funding and cultural encouragement.
As for that bet, well, you have my IM:D
I can't IM from my business computer, but will once I return home:D
Except that the destination, in offshoring, is orders of magnitude weaker. And so is everything in between...
Who says domestic tapping isn't going offshore? Anybody can tap anywhere in the world, it's one of the problems with our highly connected information systems.
Not bad for a 33 year old single mom from da h00d
In 1998 2 stoner friends of mine with hardly any skills earned $60k/year in San Jose doing web maintenance. Not creating web pages mind you, but just making sure the links worked and content displayed correctly. The IT industry overexpanded, they took anybody and everybody. Right now, unfortunately, talented people are feeling the hardship as well as the untalented. In the long run things will equalize, those who truly have a passion will be the ones employed, not just a warm body.
IP theft is a lot easier when a Chinese spy can tap the factory itself than tapping a computer on the internet. All the internet security in the three universes and infinity and beyond is, as I said, irrelevant when you can get the information - *ahem* - factory direct.
And unless the goverment does something, businesses will pull out to other countries. Getting ripped off is an additional cost which can quickly outweigh labor cost savings.
Actually, we didn't create higher value textiles, electronics or cars - the three major things that got offshored.
Textiles was a dead end industry, cars have actually ended up becoming balanced offshore and onshore, and cheap electronics, we use those to create the entire IT industry. There doesn't have to be a direct progression like IT being a layer of business on top of the electronics one. Value added, means there are goods and services that can gain higher margins that labor can move into. Computer manufacturing has become a low margin affair, it's the services that earn more money. Look at how IBM has reinvented itself.
Cars, computers and cell phones are still the highest value products, and all of it is being made overseas
Cars being made by US workers working for Japanese companies investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the US (including building hybrids). Computers are no longer high value, $299 for a complete system, and cellphones that are literally given away. Services are higher value. The cellphone service providers, IBM has shed much of it's hardware (hard drives, computers) and moved towards a consulting service and custom chip provider.
You would cry if you saw the PDAs, cell phones and even computers that they sell over there.
I visit there often, and I'll be there next week, I've seen what they have. One of the reasons those products take longer to come to the US is because the market doesn't embrace technology. I've also been to third world countries who have cell phone technology far ahead of ours. In fact they may be more advanced technologically, but they aren't higher value (the margins are still small). Actually one area where I see Japan ahead is in robotics. There doesn't seem to be much interest in the US. Although there really isn't a big market for it right now, I could foresee that as being one possible area for high growth in the future. It is an area that could exploit cheap electronics, and cheap programming. Japan is by far not a cheap labor market, but could be a global leader in that area, creating a higher value good that uses commoditized electronics and software, AIBOs sell for 2k.
Democracy in the US is being wiped out by wealthy people
Only because the general population is apathetic. The wealthy could always be kept in check through democracy, however, most people don't care. Right now there is false legitimacy to our goverment. It is controlled by the few, but has the legitimacy t
Overseas, however, the guy who runs the intranet can still be tapped. Fi' dolla times fitty two for 10,000 customers' data. Deal!
Not much different from the US with "click here to install hot coed screen savers". The points of origination and destination are always the weakest, especially the people.
Then what is a sure fire ticket any more?
The sure fire ticket of IT was another in the cycle of sure fire jobs, that eventually weren't, just like the aerospace boom of the 80's.
The ultimate problem with offshoring is it leaves us much more vulnerable to IP theft.
The internet has cause much more issues with IP theft. It's something that individual companies have to take into account when they make their decision. Sometimes offshoring helps, as it gives them a presence in the region. A company with a plant in China, can put much more pressure on the goverment. Also, as industry grows in those areas, they will lobby for increased protections. I'm sure Bollywood is asking for more and more protections as they now stand to lose more money with IP theft.
In fact, look at your consumer electronics. Every item you buy from China puts money into the hands of a communist dictatorship responsible for the deaths of 50 million Chinese baby girls under their "one child policy".
That's not a problem of companies, it's a problem with consumers. If there were consumer backlash, then it would increase the cost of business and make offshoring less appealing. It reminds me of the "buy american" campaign during the early 90's recession. Of course it didn't work, because people didn't want to pay more for american made products. In the end even though people weren't buying american, we didn't slip into a depression. We continued to innovate and create higher value items
You're going to say that cutting down considerably on offshoring hurts. Well, evidence is strong that continuing it, hurts the world even more.
The middle class in China has been expanding, as this happens there will be more push towards democracy.
Hold it just a second. In the 1950s one manufactoring job paycheck could support a whole family. How were things more expensive then? History and theory are in serious conflict here.
A 1950's manufacturing job could support a lower standard of living. How many computers did they have. What kind of car did they drive, plasma TV? Things like housing prices which are closer tied to population increase have impacted cost of living more towards the high side. Oil prices would be higher unless we imported, as would raw material prices, that would translate to higher prices for the actual goods. When manufacturing gets exported, it's because the margins begin to narrow so much the only gains are by reducing costs. Things like computers have become commodities, with razor thin margins. The only way to remain competitve is to lower cost, of course the competition does the same, so the pressure on prices continues down making things cheaper for the consumer.
a) what is to stop them from creating more value added goods and services overseas instead of here?
b) why can't we do more manufacturing domestically and provide value-added services?
c) assuming these value-added services can only be done domestically, who says we need more than ten thousand people to do this nationwide?
d) how is anyone going to learn how to create custom solutions for a company when they cannot even get the experience to do so to begin with, because the jobs that train you for this (grunt level programming, system admin, network admin, etc) have all been offshored? Where will you get that experience?
a)Why didn't China and India lead in IT? First because the infrastructure wasn't there, second the population hadn't been trained. The US has the infrastructure for the next big thing. We just need to stay ahead of the curve. b)Who is going to do these manufacturing jo
I could not trust my data to cross a 6000 mile pipeline that could be tapped wirelessly or via hard line (in the ocean)
It's just as risky to have it pinging randomly around the country.
Flat is bad enough. Our population is growing, the good jobs are not.
When I graduated in the boom times, if you were comp sci or EE, you had 5 jobs waiting. But if you were were aerospace eng, IE, chem E, or Mat Sci (like myself) it was hard to find a job. IT has matured to the same point, it's no longer a surefire ticket to a job.
And are you saying our economy is not expanding, or cannot expand?
I'm saying that IT in particular overexpanded. When everybody and their 50 year old mother was getting some sort of IT degree or certification, you can't expect them to all get jobs. The growth rate just couldn't support all those people. Meanwhile other economies like China and India are growing and can support IT expansion. Not all those Indian call centers handle US calls, as India's economy picks up they are handling more and more calls domestically.
I don't advocate a closed system; but I do advocate clamping down hard on offshoring. Especially with regards to our personal information.
I agree that there needs to be much more oversight on personal information, and that it would take alot more to ensure its handled correctly internationally than domestically. I just have a problem with just across the board saying offshoring is bad. First, almost all imports are the result of some sort of offshoring. Whether it's a foreign company or US company providing the product made overseas, it's still taking away a potential job from somebody in the US.
Every bit of foreign oil takes away a potentially high paying job from an American. We could produce internally all the oil we need, it's just that it's more expensive. Would you be willing to pay an additional dollar per gallon at the pump to keep some American petroleum workers employed?
Same thing with mining, or steel, or other raw materials, which used to be produced domestically but which were offshored to save costs. The gain from lower raw material prices has helped the economy more than the loss of those jobs has hurt it. This then transitioned to offshoring of manufacturing in the late 20th century. Electronics and computers became cheaper, so much so they were being used everywhere, and we created the IT industry. The value wasn't making the actual machine anymore. It was programming it to be an ATM, or game server, or electronic store front.
What's next, I'm not sure. You can never be sure about these transitions while they are happening. What can we expect though? Software will be cheaper, general computer services will be cheaper. Now we need to figure out what we can do with these things. Perhaps complete customization packages. Right now many businesses lose efficiency because they are using an solution right out of the box. Consulting services to create custom solutions, one where you physically have to visit the company, spend time, understand the market, customers, suppliers, are one possible growth area. The value isn't writing the software, but actually figuring out how to make it work best.
You cannot play "fair, free market" against nations that run sweat shops and tie their currency to ours.
It depends, if you want to compete head on, then no. If you want to exploit them so your population can create more value added goods and services (the way we have done with raw materials, and cheap simple goods), then yes you can compete, and win.
As long as everyone else has a chance to at least keep up with their bills if they're being sensible.
It is still a very nationalistic view to tell people willing to work, who can do a good job, that they must starve so you can keep your job and pay for your luxuries.
Would you trust your data to a European country? The problem with confidential data security isn't outsoucing, it's outsourcing to countries with poor policies.
You're living in the past again. Back then they didn't send every new industry that came up, overseas practically overnight.
There's a difference between packing up industries and sending them overseas, and expanding overseas. I agree some sectors like data centers and tech support are moving, but overall the IT industry has remained in the US. The employment numbers for IT are flat. Companies aren't sending jobs overseas, they just aren't expanding domestically. Which makes sense since China and India represent expanding economies.
You're clinging to a free market ideology that is unsustainable.
What is the alternative, a completely closed system? We can keep our same level of pay, but everything is just more expensive, and it still won't fix issues with jobs being replace by machines and productivity increases.
I care about my people in my country before I care about others
So you don't care about the rich becoming richer, you just want to make sure you are part of the rich.
That should also answer your data center question.
I don't trust foreign or domestic data centers. The question is whether it's because of lax laws and lack of oversight, or because the data is handled by foreigners. While I agree sensitive information may be one specific example where we may not want offshoring (another being military), what about the other industries? They are building more than data centers in India and China.
These computers still need programmers and admins. And customer service, which, mind you, has been depleted and that has resulted in a situation where people loathe the companies they have no choice but to deal with (or just do without).
Yes they still need people, but not as many as they replace. Instead of 50 people, you may need 3 people and and a computer to accomplish the same task.
In the past, women using abacuses and slide rulers could learn how to use a computer. What are today's college grads, facing mostly jobs in the service industry, going to re-train for?
That's the beauty of hindsight. You can say "Look those women could move into the IT industry." Of course, when those women were being layed off people thought that we'd only need a few computers to run the entire world. When they were replaced they were not thinking about learning CAD or IT, those things didn't exist. Rarely is there a clear path about what is next, that's why change is scary.
Step down from your theories and look these people in the eye and tell yourself what they need besides playing musical chairs and betting against the tragedy of the commons for their survival
I'm sure it's just as difficult to tell somebody they can't have a job no matter their qualifications because they live in another country. American jobs are only for Americans, otherwise, how could we keep our relatively rich lifestyle.
Free trade existed mainly between the so called first world countries, with few exceptions to the general rule. The gates are wide open now.
So free trade should remain something that remains in the first world. Besides throughout the cold war China has long been an major player exporting goods, as has much of south east asia.
Not that I am advocating infringing the law, but how many companies dutifuly compensate their employees for overtime work?
True, but that's where we should have the goverment step in and crackdown. Of course, because of public apathy the goverment isn't held accountable for borderline corrupt practices, so in turn they don't hold the corporations accountable.
It goes both ways. Several people have pointed to eroding benefits elsewhere in this thread, like healthcare coverage, on the job training, or pensions. Anyway, India and China are attractive to offshorers partially because of the lack of western societies worker conditions.
The average US worker would be considered "rich" compared to many foreign workers. Do you feel that they should not have a better standard of living, if it possibly erodes yours?
Training is no solution either. In an extreme example you can have corporations investing overseas to fund universities and reap the fruits of the low paid foreign worker (in quantitative terms, purchasing power is likely to be higher there).
Ah, but that increases the price for a company to do business. Now they don't just have to account for wages, they must also spend money sponsoring schools. Also as the economy grows the value of the currency increases, and makes business more costly. Eventually an equilibrium will be reached.
Wages are going to decline over large sectors of the economy, there's no way to stop that.
Wages already declined over several decades (relative to inflation), however, the standard of living has increased as we've reaped rewards of cheap goods.
Offshoring increases the trade deficit. What was once domestic production it is now charged as imports. An wages, a fundamental aspect of a high growth economy (see Keynes's multiplier), are paid overseas.
Yes, and the trade deficit is included in the GDP, which continues to grow. The trade deficit, which has existed for decades, has not drained the US of resources. The reason is because we apply those cheap goods towards more value added activities.
Quite frankly, I don't see the cheaper goods coming from offshoring a call center or technical support. Net gain for the community: zero (negative, in fact). And I don't see the benefit of exporting manufacturing overseas in the long run either. A strong economy cannot subsist without manufacturing.
$299 Dell box is a good benefit. TV's, clothes, and electronics are so cheap that they are basically disposable.
No idea, really:-) What we are seeing is inevitable under the framework we operate. I do see the benefits of the market, but it has some drawbacks too, perhaps less obvious than in communism and socialism. Repeatedly ignoring externalities (free rider problem) may well be Achiles' heel of a capitalistic system. Global warming, anyone?
I agree, unregulated free trade not a cure-all solution. My frustration is that people complain that offshoring is bad, but don't give a good alternative. Ultimately I think that there is actually no good solution. You still come back to the fundamental problem of limited resources with unlimited wants. All the "best" system can do is piss-off people the least.
Slashdot Mirror
Most parents simply do not care what their kids see and hear in a video game. But this is not only due to laziness -- it is due also to ignorance.
Probably even more is due to parents actually just not caring in general. I saw many parents take their kids to see the South Park movie, Terminator movies, etc. Most parents probably know what their kids are playing/watching, it's the vocal minority that screams out "think of the children"
We have *never* had an economy capable of employing the majority of unskilled labor at a living wage. Even the heyday of unions didn't do it.
The point of the boom of the 90's was the opportunities were there for those with the desire to become skilled. In many skilled sectors wages did in fact go up in response to the limited labor pool.
Right, let's skip on to what you're really saying: "poor people are lazy, they wasted their time in school and can only blame themselves for not having good jobs".
Poor people are not necessarily lazy. Some just do not understand the options available. We should increase job training availability, provide workforce experience. But there also is a significant portion who are just not motivated. If they choose not to gain meaningful skills, then yes, they only have themselves to blame. Unskilled labor has less economic value than skilled labor. They contribute less to the overall economy, and therefore should expect less. You don't need a degree to be skilled, become an electrician, welder, gain some sort of skill that makes you a greater contributor and therefore more desirable for employment.
You're still stuck in the Econ 101 supply-and-demand mentality: someone out there has to hire you or you starve
No it's the mentaility that you should contribute to the society to get back from it. I don't buy into the whole, "society owes me, because I'm here" mentality. You don't have to be hired by somebody, you can work independently, or take leadership and organize other people. Create goods and services that benifit society, and in turn you can benifit from the goods and services of others.
We've got the technology to provide the basics of life to the entire planet, and each year it gets even easier
It's the difference between needs and wants. Sure we can provide all the needs, and if people were happy with that, then I'd have no problems. The issue is that people have unlimited wants. You can survive making minimum wage, many college students do so (without help from anybody). You just can't live in the neighborhood you want, you can't have cable TV, or a car, or eat out every night. For most people, though, just living isn't enough.
Adjusting to a future where work is an option and not a requirement leads to the Federation (Star Trek).
That's fine, but how many people in Star Trek have their own spaceship? Probably more people would want ships than could have them. How would people earn those things that are limited? Yes people may have the option to not work, but just providing sustinance does not make most people happy.
There is no real difference between people at different strata of society.
I agree. Unfortuantely, there are barriers between social strata that makes it harder for the poor who are motivated to become rich, and the rich who are lazy to become poor. The biggest key is robust universal education. Not just making sure everybody gets a college degree, but rather ensuring people are able to maximize their skill potential. Also, understanding how to reduce the barrier that maintains the lazy rich to maintain their status (ie loopholes in inheritance taxes).
I think everyone would be happier if they worked less, perhaps 20-30 hours per week, and that the work itself would be more productive
Perhaps some people, maybe not others. Some people want balance, some want family, some are driven by love of their, others are driven by the need for material goods. Everybody is different in what they desire.
So why should you demonize people who want to do the same thing? And what's this "free" you're talking about? It's not "free" to the workers paying into it right? And you hate it, right? So why would you take it and then moan about it?
I don't demonize the people who accept the money, I never said "old people are bad" for taking social security. I said the system itself is flawed. I criticize the system, not the people who benefit from it.
They won't kick out the bad kids of rich parents though, so those kids are free to get A's from "exceptional schools" for substandard work.
If the student is a poor performer sure maybe the parents can give a little donation to help billy (but that happens everywhere in every walk of life). If the student is disruptive or outright criminal, private schools are much more likely to kick that student out, rich parents or not.
they promote conformity over learning to maintain control;
Part of school is learning a degree of conformity. Many "superior" asian schools promote far more conformity than "inferior" american schools. One of the problems in public schools is not enough conformity is being taught early.
Students early on are not given enough structure to effectively build upon their unique ideas and style later on in life. The proverbial "we don't correct spelling mistakes because it detracts from students expressing their ideas." The problem is that ideas are almost useless unless they can be properly communicated.
I'm not talking about brainwash conformism, I'm talking about making sure the students know all the rules, before letting them be creative with some of them. Anybody can write and call it poetry, since the rules of poetry are not rigorous; but without following the rules often you just end up with a chaotic mess. The great poets know the rules well enough so they know what they can bend and even break so the proper images and voice come through.
loud parents of bad kids get their way
The problem is making education a right and requirement. The child has to go to school, and it is extremely difficult for a school to deny them. There is also the sense of equality, that all students should be at the same level. So , the school spends it's resources basically tightening the bell-curve around mediocre.
the funding is divided along racial lines (the 'poor black school' vs the 'rich white school')
Not so much racial but economic lines. It's not rich white school vs poor black school. It's (at least in AZ), high property taxes in rich neighborhoods gives higher funding for schools with rich kids, while low property taxes in poor neighboorhoods gives less funding for schools with poor kids.
funding based on standardized test performance has turned the curriculum into 'teaching to the test'
Which I actually have no problem with, since the test should reflect the skills students should have. The problem is that for some students they can learn the test in a month and should be given the opportunity to move beyond the test, but are held back by the slower learning students still trying to get the basic skills down.
teachers don't get paid well enough to support themselves (though they are expected to work twice as hard in their jobs as everyone else);
I agree, but also because teaching pays so little it doesn't attract high level talent. We can't hold teachers responsible, because we basically take what we can get.
political forces are engaged in battles over religion, crime, pregnancy, computers, technology, etc., instead of education.
Political forces always loom, look at Japan with their history texts about WWII, and I'm sure China has various propagandists things to learn in school.
Most importantly, the problems with the public school system are that the economy is not strong enough to employ high school graduates at a living wage (forcing them to choose between college or dropping out to the underclass)
That's a cop-out, since the same problems existed in the booming economy of the 90's. The problem is that in trying to treat all students equally, we essentially lose the flexibility to teach things other than basic math, english, science. Some people don't have the desire or talent to go to college, we shouldn't try to get them to pass a college prep test. They should be learning meaningful skills a
You "anything collective is bad" people need to wake up and realize that not everyone is in a situation where they can become independently wealthy
I'm not part of the "anything collective is bad" crowd. In fact I think some programs like healthcare should be centralized by the goverment. Medicare is a bad compromise between free market and goverement control. You have goverment control over how medicine is performed (increased cost of regulation), then free market economics for the medicine (greedy healthcare companies), then only partial goverment control over medical costs (half-assed cost control). It basically takes the worst of everything.
Before Social Security, entire classes of the population were destitute when they could no longer work, as they were unable to save because they did not make enough.
After social security we still have the same thing. The system was based on the premise that the population will grow, so more people pay in, than who take out. Unfortunately, the rate of population increase has slowed, and most payments aren't enough to cover the costs of living. So we have people who spent all their lives forced to pay 6% of their salary who get barely enough to survive.
such as health care or retirement plans.
Yes, public schools, medicare and social security are such wonderful goverment programs.
Private schools tend to give better education than public because they can kick the bad kids out, and have higher standards. The problem with public schools is that every child has a right to education, promoting mediocrity. Rather than spending resources on students that can excel and get greater return on the investment, those resources are spent on getting remedial students to mediocrity.
Medicare is a goverment-free market kludge, that's just screwed up all the way around.
Social security is a publicly subsidized pyramid scheme. We shouldn't have privitaization of social security, we shouldn't have it in the first place. People need to be responsible for taking care of their own retirement.
Information became commodotozed when there was more money to be made from selling information services than selling information
A songwriter can be hired to provide a service as a consultant, but the results of that is still the creation of new information. The consulting fee is the necessary investment for the creation of information, only the business model has changed.
Rather than peddling a precreated information product, a service approach results in the creation of information as works for hire. This means the investment by the ultimate consumer must be made upfront. (eg people donating for an author to write a book, or another season of Enterprise).
Well, sounds to me like Linux and FOSS are more acountable to free market forces and are slowly displacing the closed source methods.
It's not open vs. closed source, it's one product vs another product. Closed source could still change it's policies to become more competitive. Both open and closed source are accountable to free market forces
It is just another way of promoting that if they can't make as much money as with their old distribution monopolies than we should figure out a way to make it work for them
No. Ultimately it is the artists/programmer/movie maker that creates the product. If there is a system in place that lets them bypass the current distribution channels and make money they will follow it.
Freely distributing their works on P2P hasn't worked for many independent bands. The hype machine of the labels does, like it or not, provide an important service to the content creators. Right now, just giving your content away is far less likely to work than selling out to a label, since people are more likely to be looking to download the latest pop idol.
iTunes is an example of a system that works. While profits probably have shrunk, consumers are happy using it, and artists are happy to get paid.
The information age demands the free flow of information just as the industrial revolution demanded the free flow of labor and the death of controlled labor like the plantation system.
The industrial revolution promoted greater control of labor. The higher cost of capital for business meant many workers could no longer work independantly, but rather had to be parts of a larger company. The beginning of the industrial revolution was scarred by low wages, poor labor conditions, workers who lived in company owned housing. Unionization and goverment regulation, both which are artificial restrictions on labor were required to maintain conditions for the workforce.
The information age demands similar protections for information, such that workers (in this case creators of information) are protected. I'm not saying the current systems in place work, in fact I think copyright law as it stands is far too restrictive. I'm saying that some sort of restrictions are still necessary to continue to promote investment.
Copyright monopolies are not property, they are not just, they deserve to die because they controll people, they need to die for society to enter the information age, and they will die because forces that are bigger than life are going to force them to die.
All laws control people in some way. If we really want the information age to continue, we need to ensure that some regulation is in place to promote investment, without being overly restrictive.
Creating new ideas is not free, that's the point of IP. Nobody would make $100M blockbuster movies, or spend $10M on promotion and recording studio time, or $5M designing a new game, if there were no way to recoup the invesment. Even the most liberal open source licenses typically have restrictions, such as giving credit to the original code writers. While it isn't much it still restricts how people can use the code. Of course it only seems fair to ensure the right person gets credit for creating something, right?
That's the key issue that needs to be solved. Promoting free exchange of ideas, but ensuring the original creator gets some sort of fair compensation.
That's why I put "boring" in quotes. The O-line is a complex position, but it's a support type playstyle. Therefore there isn't the same kind of feedback response that you have from other positions (eg. Tackle, interception, touchdown run, etc)
I would liken the O-line position to the fantasy MMO "crowd control/buff" class. The position doesn't contribute directly, so often is unappreciated or considered "boring" by novices. However, experts recognize how much better the team functions with good support class players.
Then it becomes clear that Linux is truely more accountable to free market paradigms, and in the information age - as information becomes commoditized, that will be even more so
The problem is that information reproduction has been commoditized, not creation. It still takes some kind of investment to create new information. Open source is not more or less free market than closed source, there are many advanatages and disadvantages for each.
Google and IBM use Linux because its license offers them technical and business advantages over other licenses, both closed source and open source. With Linux they get the ease of an open source backbone, while still maintaining many of the proprietary rights of their own code.
as the companies that treat unrestricted copying over the internet like a threat will loose, and those that treat it like an advantage will win.
It's not about embracing unrestricted copying, it's about figuring out how to make it work. iTunes is still restrictive, but could be considered a "win."
The companies that can strike the balance between consumers and content creators will be the winners.
Even something like football - if you're not the quarterback or a receiver, is it really going to be fun?
People like playing Medics/Engineers in Battlefield; people play clerics, enchanters, and other support roles in MMOs.
In terms of "boring" positions in football, pretty much the only ones I can think of are the O-line and maybe full back. All defensive positions offer complex gameplay. I would love to play safety or corner.
Naw. He was so hardcore he decided to play on a perma-death enabled server.
It kills me that so many /.'ers don't understand what true marketing is. It's so much more than a 30 second spot on TV. Marketing is required to understand what the customers want, and deliver the appropriate product.
The environment at the time of the dotcoms was such that many companies thought the only way to survive was to outgrow the competition. There were so any companies were going after the same market with the exact same products and services. The thought was only through growth momentum would the company be able to attract enough capital to survive until the competition died off. The alternative was to grow slowly and wait until the competition killed each other off, and exist as the only player remaining.
Both models worked for different companies, and both models failed for different companies. Of course the latter resulted in much less loss of capital for the losers
So tell me what did Microsoft give us other than a combination of other peoples technologies and ideas?
They put it all in a neat little consumable package. They took the McDonald's type approach, give people what they want, quickly and easily, with just "enough" quality.
Mario
And the Star Wars Movies!
As soon as the market starts rewarding "honor and dignity in journalism" again,
Again? Media has always feasted on toeing the line between truth and sensationalism.
So far as I know you have to be a noob to become 'leet...
No you get into beta, that way once the game is officially out, you're already leet.
Who wants to memorize the 85 planets of our solar system?
Worse, think of all the styrofoam balls and toothpicks you'll need to complete your model
So, basically, it is okay that future windows of opportunity will be closed to more people than before?
:D
:D
Yes, we shouldn't expect opportunities to be open to unqualified people, or to remain if they are non-value added.
Why can't an automated factory build a billion AIBO's? Who says that "higher value" product has to create any more jobs?
Building factories creates jobs, more technical and higher paying, than to just have people soldering the things together. Long term most industries end up needing less people to perform the same task. The only way to increase employment, is to create new industries.
They're far more likely to become un-apathetic and rush the ballot box than a bunch of free market yeehaw cowboys dreaming about keeping more of their yacht-buying money (no offense intended but that's how I see this bunch).
I agree, but so long as the free market keeps people fed and happy, then it's doing it's job. All economics does is exist as a system to distribute limited resources.
Just because offshoring and automation have created higher-value jobs in the past, does not mean we won't come to a point where higher value industries are automated or offshored right away and there is no opportunity for previously displaced workers to get back on their feet.
I would contend we are still far from that point. Developing the international infrastructure (transport, communications, legal, etc), is expensive. New industries start up small. They don't have the ability to offshore immediately. Over time however, like any other industry they will end up offshored, and we move to the next thing.
Let's look at the alternative to offshoring. US companies only able to hire US workers, are then hampered when it comes to doing buisness in the world. A foreign company that makes similar products with cheaper foreign labor, has a distinct advanatage over a US company. Americans have already shown they'd buy cheaper imported goods than to "buy American." Even if we do have tariffs for imports, they will have an advantage selling to the 6 billion people who don't live in the US. Lower exports = weaker dollar = overall goods more expensive. An isolationist economic policy means a lower standard of living for everybody. And the middle class would be hardest hit, the rich can afford to invest in foreign currency and deal with 10% higher prices.
As for laid-off auto workers... where will they go to find a job that sustains their families?
What about those elevator operators? Door-to-door salesmen? Some jobs aren't needed anymore, sometimes they leave then come back, people need to be flexible.
Our scientific dominance is slipping; with that, will go our enterpreneurial leadership. We lack the will to even fund our schools to keep this lead going because to fund education would be like communism.
I feel lack of education is the biggest flaw for the long term survival of the United States. Not necessarily just public school, but overall funding and cultural encouragement.
As for that bet, well, you have my IM
I can't IM from my business computer, but will once I return home
Except that the destination, in offshoring, is orders of magnitude weaker. And so is everything in between...
Who says domestic tapping isn't going offshore? Anybody can tap anywhere in the world, it's one of the problems with our highly connected information systems.
Not bad for a 33 year old single mom from da h00d
In 1998 2 stoner friends of mine with hardly any skills earned $60k/year in San Jose doing web maintenance. Not creating web pages mind you, but just making sure the links worked and content displayed correctly.
The IT industry overexpanded, they took anybody and everybody. Right now, unfortunately, talented people are feeling the hardship as well as the untalented. In the long run things will equalize, those who truly have a passion will be the ones employed, not just a warm body.
IP theft is a lot easier when a Chinese spy can tap the factory itself than tapping a computer on the internet. All the internet security in the three universes and infinity and beyond is, as I said, irrelevant when you can get the information - *ahem* - factory direct.
And unless the goverment does something, businesses will pull out to other countries. Getting ripped off is an additional cost which can quickly outweigh labor cost savings.
Actually, we didn't create higher value textiles, electronics or cars - the three major things that got offshored.
Textiles was a dead end industry, cars have actually ended up becoming balanced offshore and onshore, and cheap electronics, we use those to create the entire IT industry. There doesn't have to be a direct progression like IT being a layer of business on top of the electronics one. Value added, means there are goods and services that can gain higher margins that labor can move into. Computer manufacturing has become a low margin affair, it's the services that earn more money. Look at how IBM has reinvented itself.
Cars, computers and cell phones are still the highest value products, and all of it is being made overseas
Cars being made by US workers working for Japanese companies investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the US (including building hybrids). Computers are no longer high value, $299 for a complete system, and cellphones that are literally given away.
Services are higher value. The cellphone service providers, IBM has shed much of it's hardware (hard drives, computers) and moved towards a consulting service and custom chip provider.
You would cry if you saw the PDAs, cell phones and even computers that they sell over there.
I visit there often, and I'll be there next week, I've seen what they have. One of the reasons those products take longer to come to the US is because the market doesn't embrace technology. I've also been to third world countries who have cell phone technology far ahead of ours. In fact they may be more advanced technologically, but they aren't higher value (the margins are still small).
Actually one area where I see Japan ahead is in robotics. There doesn't seem to be much interest in the US. Although there really isn't a big market for it right now, I could foresee that as being one possible area for high growth in the future. It is an area that could exploit cheap electronics, and cheap programming. Japan is by far not a cheap labor market, but could be a global leader in that area, creating a higher value good that uses commoditized electronics and software, AIBOs sell for 2k.
Democracy in the US is being wiped out by wealthy people
Only because the general population is apathetic. The wealthy could always be kept in check through democracy, however, most people don't care. Right now there is false legitimacy to our goverment. It is controlled by the few, but has the legitimacy t
Overseas, however, the guy who runs the intranet can still be tapped. Fi' dolla times fitty two for 10,000 customers' data. Deal!
Not much different from the US with "click here to install hot coed screen savers". The points of origination and destination are always the weakest, especially the people.
Then what is a sure fire ticket any more?
The sure fire ticket of IT was another in the cycle of sure fire jobs, that eventually weren't, just like the aerospace boom of the 80's.
The ultimate problem with offshoring is it leaves us much more vulnerable to IP theft.
The internet has cause much more issues with IP theft. It's something that individual companies have to take into account when they make their decision. Sometimes offshoring helps, as it gives them a presence in the region. A company with a plant in China, can put much more pressure on the goverment. Also, as industry grows in those areas, they will lobby for increased protections. I'm sure Bollywood is asking for more and more protections as they now stand to lose more money with IP theft.
In fact, look at your consumer electronics. Every item you buy from China puts money into the hands of a communist dictatorship responsible for the deaths of 50 million Chinese baby girls under their "one child policy".
That's not a problem of companies, it's a problem with consumers. If there were consumer backlash, then it would increase the cost of business and make offshoring less appealing.
It reminds me of the "buy american" campaign during the early 90's recession. Of course it didn't work, because people didn't want to pay more for american made products. In the end even though people weren't buying american, we didn't slip into a depression. We continued to innovate and create higher value items
You're going to say that cutting down considerably on offshoring hurts. Well, evidence is strong that continuing it, hurts the world even more.
The middle class in China has been expanding, as this happens there will be more push towards democracy.
Hold it just a second. In the 1950s one manufactoring job paycheck could support a whole family. How were things more expensive then? History and theory are in serious conflict here.
A 1950's manufacturing job could support a lower standard of living. How many computers did they have. What kind of car did they drive, plasma TV? Things like housing prices which are closer tied to population increase have impacted cost of living more towards the high side.
Oil prices would be higher unless we imported, as would raw material prices, that would translate to higher prices for the actual goods. When manufacturing gets exported, it's because the margins begin to narrow so much the only gains are by reducing costs. Things like computers have become commodities, with razor thin margins. The only way to remain competitve is to lower cost, of course the competition does the same, so the pressure on prices continues down making things cheaper for the consumer.
a) what is to stop them from creating more value added goods and services overseas instead of here?
b) why can't we do more manufacturing domestically and provide value-added services?
c) assuming these value-added services can only be done domestically, who says we need more than ten thousand people to do this nationwide?
d) how is anyone going to learn how to create custom solutions for a company when they cannot even get the experience to do so to begin with, because the jobs that train you for this (grunt level programming, system admin, network admin, etc) have all been offshored? Where will you get that experience?
a)Why didn't China and India lead in IT? First because the infrastructure wasn't there, second the population hadn't been trained. The US has the infrastructure for the next big thing. We just need to stay ahead of the curve.
b)Who is going to do these manufacturing jo
I could not trust my data to cross a 6000 mile pipeline that could be tapped wirelessly or via hard line (in the ocean)
It's just as risky to have it pinging randomly around the country.
Flat is bad enough. Our population is growing, the good jobs are not.
When I graduated in the boom times, if you were comp sci or EE, you had 5 jobs waiting. But if you were were aerospace eng, IE, chem E, or Mat Sci (like myself) it was hard to find a job. IT has matured to the same point, it's no longer a surefire ticket to a job.
And are you saying our economy is not expanding, or cannot expand?
I'm saying that IT in particular overexpanded. When everybody and their 50 year old mother was getting some sort of IT degree or certification, you can't expect them to all get jobs. The growth rate just couldn't support all those people. Meanwhile other economies like China and India are growing and can support IT expansion. Not all those Indian call centers handle US calls, as India's economy picks up they are handling more and more calls domestically.
I don't advocate a closed system; but I do advocate clamping down hard on offshoring. Especially with regards to our personal information.
I agree that there needs to be much more oversight on personal information, and that it would take alot more to ensure its handled correctly internationally than domestically.
I just have a problem with just across the board saying offshoring is bad. First, almost all imports are the result of some sort of offshoring. Whether it's a foreign company or US company providing the product made overseas, it's still taking away a potential job from somebody in the US.
Every bit of foreign oil takes away a potentially high paying job from an American. We could produce internally all the oil we need, it's just that it's more expensive. Would you be willing to pay an additional dollar per gallon at the pump to keep some American petroleum workers employed?
Same thing with mining, or steel, or other raw materials, which used to be produced domestically but which were offshored to save costs. The gain from lower raw material prices has helped the economy more than the loss of those jobs has hurt it.
This then transitioned to offshoring of manufacturing in the late 20th century. Electronics and computers became cheaper, so much so they were being used everywhere, and we created the IT industry. The value wasn't making the actual machine anymore. It was programming it to be an ATM, or game server, or electronic store front.
What's next, I'm not sure. You can never be sure about these transitions while they are happening. What can we expect though? Software will be cheaper, general computer services will be cheaper. Now we need to figure out what we can do with these things. Perhaps complete customization packages. Right now many businesses lose efficiency because they are using an solution right out of the box. Consulting services to create custom solutions, one where you physically have to visit the company, spend time, understand the market, customers, suppliers, are one possible growth area. The value isn't writing the software, but actually figuring out how to make it work best.
You cannot play "fair, free market" against nations that run sweat shops and tie their currency to ours.
It depends, if you want to compete head on, then no. If you want to exploit them so your population can create more value added goods and services (the way we have done with raw materials, and cheap simple goods), then yes you can compete, and win.
As long as everyone else has a chance to at least keep up with their bills if they're being sensible.
It is still a very nationalistic view to tell people willing to work, who can do a good job, that they must starve so you can keep your job and pay for your luxuries.
The #1 problem is jurisdictional barriers
Would you trust your data to a European country? The problem with confidential data security isn't outsoucing, it's outsourcing to countries with poor policies.
You're living in the past again. Back then they didn't send every new industry that came up, overseas practically overnight.
There's a difference between packing up industries and sending them overseas, and expanding overseas. I agree some sectors like data centers and tech support are moving, but overall the IT industry has remained in the US. The employment numbers for IT are flat. Companies aren't sending jobs overseas, they just aren't expanding domestically. Which makes sense since China and India represent expanding economies.
You're clinging to a free market ideology that is unsustainable.
What is the alternative, a completely closed system? We can keep our same level of pay, but everything is just more expensive, and it still won't fix issues with jobs being replace by machines and productivity increases.
I care about my people in my country before I care about others
So you don't care about the rich becoming richer, you just want to make sure you are part of the rich.
Uhhh... /. wusses
It's hard enough to get them in sunlight, you want to hit them too?
That should also answer your data center question.
I don't trust foreign or domestic data centers. The question is whether it's because of lax laws and lack of oversight, or because the data is handled by foreigners.
While I agree sensitive information may be one specific example where we may not want offshoring (another being military), what about the other industries? They are building more than data centers in India and China.
These computers still need programmers and admins. And customer service, which, mind you, has been depleted and that has resulted in a situation where people loathe the companies they have no choice but to deal with (or just do without).
Yes they still need people, but not as many as they replace. Instead of 50 people, you may need 3 people and and a computer to accomplish the same task.
In the past, women using abacuses and slide rulers could learn how to use a computer. What are today's college grads, facing mostly jobs in the service industry, going to re-train for?
That's the beauty of hindsight. You can say "Look those women could move into the IT industry." Of course, when those women were being layed off people thought that we'd only need a few computers to run the entire world. When they were replaced they were not thinking about learning CAD or IT, those things didn't exist. Rarely is there a clear path about what is next, that's why change is scary.
Step down from your theories and look these people in the eye and tell yourself what they need besides playing musical chairs and betting against the tragedy of the commons for their survival
I'm sure it's just as difficult to tell somebody they can't have a job no matter their qualifications because they live in another country. American jobs are only for Americans, otherwise, how could we keep our relatively rich lifestyle.
Free trade existed mainly between the so called first world countries, with few exceptions to the general rule. The gates are wide open now.
:-) What we are seeing is inevitable under the framework we operate. I do see the benefits of the market, but it has some drawbacks too, perhaps less obvious than in communism and socialism. Repeatedly ignoring externalities (free rider problem) may well be Achiles' heel of a capitalistic system. Global warming, anyone?
So free trade should remain something that remains in the first world. Besides throughout the cold war China has long been an major player exporting goods, as has much of south east asia.
Not that I am advocating infringing the law, but how many companies dutifuly compensate their employees for overtime work?
True, but that's where we should have the goverment step in and crackdown. Of course, because of public apathy the goverment isn't held accountable for borderline corrupt practices, so in turn they don't hold the corporations accountable.
It goes both ways. Several people have pointed to eroding benefits elsewhere in this thread, like healthcare coverage, on the job training, or pensions. Anyway, India and China are attractive to offshorers partially because of the lack of western societies worker conditions.
The average US worker would be considered "rich" compared to many foreign workers. Do you feel that they should not have a better standard of living, if it possibly erodes yours?
Training is no solution either. In an extreme example you can have corporations investing overseas to fund universities and reap the fruits of the low paid foreign worker (in quantitative terms, purchasing power is likely to be higher there).
Ah, but that increases the price for a company to do business. Now they don't just have to account for wages, they must also spend money sponsoring schools. Also as the economy grows the value of the currency increases, and makes business more costly. Eventually an equilibrium will be reached.
Wages are going to decline over large sectors of the economy, there's no way to stop that.
Wages already declined over several decades (relative to inflation), however, the standard of living has increased as we've reaped rewards of cheap goods.
Offshoring increases the trade deficit. What was once domestic production it is now charged as imports. An wages, a fundamental aspect of a high growth economy (see Keynes's multiplier), are paid overseas.
Yes, and the trade deficit is included in the GDP, which continues to grow. The trade deficit, which has existed for decades, has not drained the US of resources. The reason is because we apply those cheap goods towards more value added activities.
Quite frankly, I don't see the cheaper goods coming from offshoring a call center or technical support. Net gain for the community: zero (negative, in fact). And I don't see the benefit of exporting manufacturing overseas in the long run either. A strong economy cannot subsist without manufacturing.
$299 Dell box is a good benefit. TV's, clothes, and electronics are so cheap that they are basically disposable.
No idea, really
I agree, unregulated free trade not a cure-all solution. My frustration is that people complain that offshoring is bad, but don't give a good alternative. Ultimately I think that there is actually no good solution. You still come back to the fundamental problem of limited resources with unlimited wants. All the "best" system can do is piss-off people the least.