Well, I am not sure about which "we" you mean, since neither you nor I are too worried about our jobs being sent to Mexico.
I've heard of a few IT jobs going to Canada but in the forseeable run I don't think it will be a problem because Canada has a very high standard of living. It is just not ripe for exploitation at the moment. Canadians themselves should probably worry about pressures to start offshoring their jobs to places like India and China.
But neither is Mexico much of a threat, at least in terms of IT, for the moment -- the technical class is not that large, and the language difference doesn't make for easy communication either.
But in the general case a lot of people are angry about Mexico because a huge number of manufacturing jobs have already been moved there. Not that conditions have improved one bit there, because the place is run like a colony for the benefit of a global empire.
Racism plays a role because people who have been marginalized by the loss of jobs are ripe for exploitation by rightist kooks and as cover for politicians.
And it's not strictly clear-cut racism. For instance my Mexican American neighbor -- who works as a carpenter -- just told me how he cannot stand all the Mexican nationals who work on U.S. construction sites. And this is not an uncommon attitude among Mexican Americans, there is a lot of tension between them and new arrivals. Perhaps it is about culture, but ultimately it is about competition, and the forces at the core are a lack of good jobs and money. Money is plentiful, but it is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
Which is also really why you've got these gun nuts with active fantasy lives "patrolling" the border for "terrorists" and other imaginary threats, and agitating for border fences, and all this controversy about Dubai Ports World running docks all over the country. Congress will throw these folks some bones: token chain link fencing will go up on the border (and they'll be in shreds within a year), our ports will end up run by some other huge and equally anonymous multinational corporation, and in the end nothing meaningful will actually be done.
The shit fit you are hearing is just useless thrashing, ugly and dangerous, but ultimately a side effect of the massive screwing over we've been getting for a long time. Maybe people start getting wise to the deck stacking that has been going on, but it may take a good while. It will require a concerted effort to put things right, if it happens.
Even before GATT and WTO, the big industries had decided it was cheaper to invest in Taiwan and Korea than to modernize any operation in the U.S. It was common for domestic steel mills to go fifty years without refurbishment, to operate with electrical equipment dating from the 1920's for instance. That was when I was in college, and all those operations are closed now, never to reopen.
There is no reason to think the same will not happen to knowledge work in the end. Soon the only "skill" that will guarantee a good living in American may be to be born into a rich family.
I didn't start this thread, but I'll throw my comments in anyway.
My feeling is quite the opposite. I gladly accept all those "brown skinned people" as you put it, working in IT.
I'm glad when they live here, incur the cost of living here, spend wages here, pay taxes here, and keep local service trades healthy. They should become part of the American middle class, especially while there still is one to be part of.
And even though that will likely depress a few outsized salaries, that is hardly the same problem that off shoring has become.
When jobs go overseas, that cannot possibly do anything but degrade the U.S. standard of living, regardless of the monotonous assertions of an army of corporate flacks. The once reasonable, but now gaping division between the middle and upper class is growing by the day. Income up? Yeah, someone's is, but the median is falling, and falling for a reason. All the manufacturing jobs are gone from here, and IT is going.
If you think the folks who are threatened with losing jobs to the developing world are supposed to be pleased and philosophical about the matter, think again. Did you think the reaction would be "oh take my job, I wasn't using it"? Not. People whose lives are unraveling can become downright "unreasonable".
The truth is that the current global economic "consensus" (a consensus of a truly tiny elite) has one primary objective, which is to ensure that those who control the vast majority of wealth in the world get to control the rest of it. If you're getting some of the spillings now, grab all you can, because sooner or later they're coming back for what's left.
The issue is not racism though you were playing that card with quite a heavy hand. The issue is that a government should be more interested in ensuring the livelihood of its citizens, not increasing the profit margins of global investors, so glorified in the ludicrous books of Tom Friedman, et al.
And though lots of Asian workers in Asia are doing quite well right now, it is not going to be quite the deal they think, not in the long run. Just as in the U.S., they are certainly not doing nearly as well as their bosses. And under the current arrangement they never will, either. And furthermore, long before the rural poor in a country like India feel any sort of "rising tide", all the high paying tech jobs will have moved on to China.
And when China gets too expensive, some other place will make do.
Repeat this radical experiment in laissez-fare economics until your own grandchildren cannot afford the same college education you got. Unless you started out rich in the first place, that is.
And remember, when the big boys sit down to divvy up the world, the only color that really matters to them is the color of money.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I am not sure about which "we" you mean, since neither you nor I are too worried about our jobs being sent to Mexico.
I've heard of a few IT jobs going to Canada but in the forseeable run I don't think it will be a problem because Canada has a very high standard of living. It is just not ripe for exploitation at the moment. Canadians themselves should probably worry about pressures to start offshoring their jobs to places like India and China.
But neither is Mexico much of a threat, at least in terms of IT, for the moment -- the technical class is not that large, and the language difference doesn't make for easy communication either.
But in the general case a lot of people are angry about Mexico because a huge number of manufacturing jobs have already been moved there. Not that conditions have improved one bit there, because the place is run like a colony for the benefit of a global empire.
Racism plays a role because people who have been marginalized by the loss of jobs are ripe for exploitation by rightist kooks and as cover for politicians.
And it's not strictly clear-cut racism. For instance my Mexican American neighbor -- who works as a carpenter -- just told me how he cannot stand all the Mexican nationals who work on U.S. construction sites. And this is not an uncommon attitude among Mexican Americans, there is a lot of tension between them and new arrivals. Perhaps it is about culture, but ultimately it is about competition, and the forces at the core are a lack of good jobs and money. Money is plentiful, but it is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
Which is also really why you've got these gun nuts with active fantasy lives "patrolling" the border for "terrorists" and other imaginary threats, and agitating for border fences, and all this controversy about Dubai Ports World running docks all over the country. Congress will throw these folks some bones: token chain link fencing will go up on the border (and they'll be in shreds within a year), our ports will end up run by some other huge and equally anonymous multinational corporation, and in the end nothing meaningful will actually be done.
The shit fit you are hearing is just useless thrashing, ugly and dangerous, but ultimately a side effect of the massive screwing over we've been getting for a long time. Maybe people start getting wise to the deck stacking that has been going on, but it may take a good while. It will require a concerted effort to put things right, if it happens.
Even before GATT and WTO, the big industries had decided it was cheaper to invest in Taiwan and Korea than to modernize any operation in the U.S. It was common for domestic steel mills to go fifty years without refurbishment, to operate with electrical equipment dating from the 1920's for instance. That was when I was in college, and all those operations are closed now, never to reopen.
There is no reason to think the same will not happen to knowledge work in the end. Soon the only "skill" that will guarantee a good living in American may be to be born into a rich family.
I didn't start this thread, but I'll throw my comments in anyway.
My feeling is quite the opposite. I gladly accept all those "brown skinned people" as you put it, working in IT.
I'm glad when they live here, incur the cost of living here, spend wages here, pay taxes here, and keep local service trades healthy. They should become part of the American middle class, especially while there still is one to be part of.
And even though that will likely depress a few outsized salaries, that is hardly the same problem that off shoring has become.
When jobs go overseas, that cannot possibly do anything but degrade the U.S. standard of living, regardless of the monotonous assertions of an army of corporate flacks. The once reasonable, but now gaping division between the middle and upper class is growing by the day. Income up? Yeah, someone's is, but the median is falling, and falling for a reason. All the manufacturing jobs are gone from here, and IT is going.
If you think the folks who are threatened with losing jobs to the developing world are supposed to be pleased and philosophical about the matter, think again. Did you think the reaction would be "oh take my job, I wasn't using it"? Not. People whose lives are unraveling can become downright "unreasonable".
The truth is that the current global economic "consensus" (a consensus of a truly tiny elite) has one primary objective, which is to ensure that those who control the vast majority of wealth in the world get to control the rest of it. If you're getting some of the spillings now, grab all you can, because sooner or later they're coming back for what's left.
The issue is not racism though you were playing that card with quite a heavy hand. The issue is that a government should be more interested in ensuring the livelihood of its citizens, not increasing the profit margins of global investors, so glorified in the ludicrous books of Tom Friedman, et al.
And though lots of Asian workers in Asia are doing quite well right now, it is not going to be quite the deal they think, not in the long run. Just as in the U.S., they are certainly not doing nearly as well as their bosses. And under the current arrangement they never will, either. And furthermore, long before the rural poor in a country like India feel any sort of "rising tide", all the high paying tech jobs will have moved on to China.
And when China gets too expensive, some other place will make do.
Repeat this radical experiment in laissez-fare economics until your own grandchildren cannot afford the same college education you got. Unless you started out rich in the first place, that is.
And remember, when the big boys sit down to divvy up the world, the only color that really matters to them is the color of money.