Have you ever wanted to be a programmer? I did. Back in 1984, I was “afraid” of the Apple computers sitting in the back of the classroom gathering dust. They seemed so complicated. At the same time I thought it would be cool to write computer languages, but I didn’t think I was smart enough.
Writing computer code for a living probably lost prestige a long time ago. Now it seems those and other tech jobs are being outsourced to the point where college kids are rethinking their career plans:
As an eager freshman in the fall of 2001, Andrew Mo’s career trajectory seemed preordained: He’d learn C++ and Java languages while earning a computer science degree at Stanford University, then land a Silicon Valley technology job. The 22-year-old Shanghai native graduated this month with a major in computer science and a minor in economics. But he no longer plans to write code for a living, or even work at a tech company.Mo begins work in the fall as a management consultant with The Boston Consulting Group, helping to lead projects at multinational companies. Consulting, he says, will insulate him from the offshore outsourcing that’s sending thousands of once-desirable computer programming jobs overseas.
More important, Mo believes his consulting gig is more lucrative, rewarding and imaginative than a traditional tech job. He characterized his summer programming internships as “too focused or localized, even meaningless.”(Source)
Programming used to be geek territory, but with open source platforms like WordPress, even I know how to write code. And I’m not even that smart!
This is a little off-topic, but the story reminds of a Dell commercial that left me flabbergasted. I have a Dell desktop, and I’ve had to call support a few times. The first time I called, I couldn’t understand what the guy (Indian?) was saying. I’d heard that American businesses were outsourcing these kind of jobs, but my ears were unprepared. The other times I called, I got someone who had a better grasp of the English language.
So when I see this Dell commercial, I’m wondering if I misheard the word “Dell.” The support person was a white, Midwestern-looking guy with an all-American accent answering questions and cracking jokes. For shame!, I said to myself. Why don’t these computer companies make commercials with the kind of people who really answer support calls? Who do they think they’re fooling?
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Glad to see you out of the nerd closet.
1984. That was the year the little backwoods school I went to got it’s first computers: Commodore 64’s. I was in 8th grade, and each of the 2 math teachers got one, and the school counselor had one. Mrs. Sandra Mahan was my math teacher, and I could not stand her, and was sure she didn’t like me either. So first day with the new computer, she is demonstrating it to us, and picked me first to try it out. I was hooked. I knew right then that I wanted to work with computers when I grew up. Now I am a system administrator, and I just started on my master’s in Information Technology, specializing in System Design and Programming. However, I wouldn’t say that I have grown up. 
I will say that I have a very different attitude towards Mrs Mahan now than I did back then. It’s a shame that I couldn’t see what she was trying to do with me back then-give me some discipline to study hard rather than try to play all the time.
Who will hire the consultants? We’re sending all of the productive work overseas while all we do is come up with new and creative ways to shuffle money around. Do you think that can last? How long will the overseas firms continue to occupy only the low end of the corporate hierarchy? They certainly have people who can be effective CEOs overseas. And it’s wrong to think that we will still be the creative engine when we aren’t doing the work. It’s the people doing the work that come up with many of the creative ideas. Give these outsourcing firms a few years and we’ll find that they are now competing with our companies rather than doing their bidding. (By the way, I’m not a democrat. I’m a right-winger who doesn’t buy the outsourcing bit of the right-wing orthodoxy. Perhaps there’s a little populist in me!)
On a different subject, while it’s great that WordPress allows someone without a degree in computers to run a blog, keep in mind that a real programmer had to write WordPress.
Finally, a comment about Dell. They ended up bringing their support operations (for corporate customers) back to the US. They received too many complaints like yours. Of course, the home user support is still overseas, so your comment about their dishonest commercial is spot on.
I’m with you, La Shawn. I raised such a fuss about being able to understand Dell’s tech reps that I actually received a call back from a genuine American with no accent. I told them I’d rather pay a little more for their computers or tech support and get someone I could understand. I complained that a 10-minute problem had taken 45 minutes to fix because neither I nor the rep could understand each other. FRUSTRATING!
Hot button issue with me. Before I buy anything for the office, I try to find out where the tech support is located. If not in the U.S., I’ll try to find a comparable product with management which understands how important it is to have U.S. support.
One fallout is that we are no longer HP supporters. At one time, we settled on HP printers as our standard, but all that changed when I discovered that they had farmed out their tech support to Bombay, and worse, to idiots in Bombay who can’t make themselves understood and who have less knowledge of the products than the callers do. I’m sure the loss of our little company is of no consequence to HP whatever, but a few thousand companies like mine will be a problem for them. Shortsighted bean-counting morons.
Americans don’t want to pay a lot of money for products and services, so outsourcing will continue. If people didn’t care about prices, they wouldn’t be flocking to WalMart and buying other items that are manufactured in labor-cheap countries. I remember when the manufacturing outsourcing first started, and there was a big campaign to “buy American-made products.” Obviously, no one cared.
You don’t need to go to Walmart to get cheap labor goods.
However, Walmart does a better job of passing the lower cost on to you, than many of their competitors.
I care. I won’t shop at Walmart, for many reasons, mainly the lousy service and bad attitudes of the “associates” I’ve run into. I buy clothes at the 100-year-old Main Street store that’s struggling to stay afloat. Yes, I know the clothes themselves are largely made elsewhere, but sadly in most cases I have no choice.
We bought a very expensive UNIX enterprise-wide computer program a while back. We might have paid a couple of bucks extra, but when we need tech help we talk directly to real American human beings in Iowa, the same brains who designed the thing. All the code is written by other real Americans in Iowa, too. Those things are worth something.
What RedBeard is doing is rare. Most of the time, people want the cheapest prices, for everything. When bids are presented, people won’t inquire about the source of the product or service because they just want the good deal. We brought this on ourselves.
I agree, MJ. Shortsightedness is our worst enemy, as consumers.
When we committed to the big software deal, we looked past the shortsighted aspect of initial price, and tried to assess the total cost, amortized over the life of the system. U.S. support is a cost savings, directly and indirectly, so when I said we might have paid extra, I misspoke. Overall, with everything considered, we saved money.
The problem with outsourcing, be it WalMart or Dell, is the cost of doing business.
I am in the IT field, so I am very aware of the issue I speak about.
Everyone loves to pay $700 or less for a fully loaded Dell with a flat panel, etc… where does Dell get the hardware assembled cheap enough to offer them at that price?
I am an adamant ‘buy American’ shopper, where I can. Too much in WalMart, some argue, are made in China, yet they do stock a lot made domestically. Sometimes the price is comparable, other times not.
We’re in a transition period in our economy: people want more for less — more product, more money for their labor. The difference has to be made up someplace.
Charlie, give us a brief economics lesson for dummies. Why does it cost more to make/buy American computer products, and what’s the solution?
For shame, I said to myself. Why don’t these computer companies make commercials with the kind of people who really answer support calls?
1. Economics. The support guy could be speaking Martian you don’t care ’cause you only paid 700 for a new PC.
The last time actually bought an entire PC it cost me $2400 and that was the going price for a fully loaded system. Now I can get something 10 times better for a third of the price.
2. Just cause he sounds “America” doesn’t mean he’s American. Many Indian call centers train there reps to have different accents.
Lastly expect to see more “off Shoring” as more and more emerging markets experience industrial revolutions, and the quality of there work improves. All of the the other Nations want a piece of the standard of living that we have enjoyed for nearly a century.
Sean, whatever happened to buggy whip makers & cotton pickers? Outsourcing is a fact of life, whether we outsource old technology/services or we move on to the latest & greatest. 100 years ago, we had a majority living in a rural/agro setting, today, less than 2% are engaged in such — blame it on outsourcing which also raises the standard of living.
So why shouldn’t 3rd world counties get a piece of that action? We talk about the equality of mankind, well that includes 6 billion other people that have yet to move into the 21st century. And outsourcing is what is going to help get them there. Sure it will “drop” our economic power, but it ain’t a zero-sum game since others will rise.
The key to watch is when global GDP ceases to rise as a whole, then you know we’re in decline, but that’s not likely for the foreseeable future. The best that we can do is be flexible and adaptable to new changes.
As much as i am against outsourcing, I don’t think there is anything we can do about. Why would a company pay $15 an hour plus benefits for labor when they can get the same product made for $2 an hour. I think it is a fact of life and it is sad.
Redbeard, PCs are at the point where tech support is pointless for anything other than hi-$$$ items. Just like I never pay for extended warranty for anything.
If it’s broke, try to fix it for kicks, otherwise chuck it and get another. Usually the cost of fixing something is more expensive than getting a new one — provided of course you got 2 -3 years use out of it.
Speaking of fixing, I just got a brand new laptop and after checking that everything worked fine, tore it down completely down so I could paint it with 3 layers of pearl – lime-green, purple-blue & a top layer of burnt orange for that chameleon effect. I’m at the clearcoat stage right now.
But that’s not all, I also covered about 35% of it with Lacewood, trimmed it with Purpleheart wood and bits of brass. I also gave the mouse, external HDD and port replicator with the same treatment. I’m currently debating on whether or not to make a marquet of a Roger Dean flying elephant on the lid of the laptop and running red LEDs (HDD activity) to the eyes.
Needless to say it’s killer looking and I’ll soon find out if I end up with extra screws and whatnot when I put it back together again after the paint cures.
This is my 3rd ‘Woody’ project — did a 3.2GHz PC in copper & lacewood/purpleheart with UV reactive internals. Followed that with the same effect for a 2nd hand Slim-PC 500 MHz for the kids to use. As you might guess, I have a softspot for lacewood and purpleheart.
These are practice runs before I build one completely out of exotic wood and brass/copper. Maybe later people can outsource their woodified consumer elctronics to me eventually.
That geeky enough for ya?
And then there’s Google who has seriously, rekindled whatever was lost in the Computer Science Field. On top of that, the Silicon Valley seems to be hiring SW Engineers at the same rate Michael Moore is ingesting hamburgers. They’re after the freshest and brightest minds.
The Yahoo, Google, Microsoft competition for SW Engineers has heat up the market.
I say, it’s a Software Designer’s world. If you’re good, even out of college, Microsoft and a host of other companies are prepared to scoop you up.
With the advent of a lot of new independent user interface companies, etc, I disagree that writing computer code has lost its prestige. Especially since blogging has gone bigtime.
People writing code in their living room are getting bought out by the minute. This is clearly a mark of something good.
Ben & Mena Trott: I bet they never knew they’d be running an international company all because they wrote the code for Movable Type.
Brad Fitzpatrick: Wrote the program for LiveJournal.com as a side project and ended up spinning it into a lucrative business, and formed Danga Interactive. Then they got bought by Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type.
Jason Shellen: Started Blogger.com, he and his team of SW Engineers got bought by a little known company called Google.
Biz Stone: Helped start Xanga, now works for blogger.
Flickr, a once small picture sharing venture, just got bought out by Yahoo! and now the whole company is relocating to Sunnyvale, CA so they can become Yahoo! employees.
If you want to be a SWE, there are plenty of people ready to hire you, before you go off and start a company they’ll want to buy out anyway.
La Shawn wrote, “Charlie, give us a brief economics lesson for dummies. Why does it cost more to make/buy American computer products, and what’s the solution?”
Just call me Charlie…
To make/buy American products (not just computer products and services) is generally as expensive on the scale of expensiveness as the other G8 nations compared to Central and South America and China and India.
The factors are two-fold:
1) In the G8 nations it requires more money to do things (inflation) because of all of the cost(s) associated with everything. All of the added costs to all goods and services is:
a) lawyers – built into all products and services as well as consumer’s household costs (divorce)
b) regulations – hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations G8 country corporations must comply with (EPA, OSHA, EEOC, etc) that the other nations do not
c) taxation – builds added cost into everything. We pay more in taxes in a month than the GDP of most nations.
2) The other side of the scale is how much people in other nations will work for. But it’s all about perspective. People will get upset that American companies have a factory in another country paying people .50 cents an hour. But the other side of the story isn’t told. American companies may actually be paying 5 times the prevailing wage in that area. When this factor was brought up in a debate once the leftist then talked about the inequities that caused making the other people in that area poorer and disrupting the economy in that area. anti-Globalization and anti-Corporate leftists have it both ways sometimes and don’t realize it.
Anyways: – - When it comes to computers it is a little different than apparel or toys. It requires more expertise and therefore only countries like India can fill that role because of the relatively large computer knowledged people.
I’m only explaining some of the factors that are involved here.
My personal opinion is that I’m a loyal and patriotic American who would like to see more people buy American goods and services only (including employees). Where the reality hits is how do you make that happen? Do you pass some law? How unconstitutional would that be? Obviously, I am not for that. I would rather people choose on their own to buy American goods and services (including employees) but one of the adverse affects of liberals making things cost so much is that people work towards lowering costs by choosing products and services (including employees) from other countries.
How does that do anything for the environment liberals? How does it do well for the environment to have companies setting up shop or buying services and goods from other shops in other countries when they may or may not be looking out for the environment as well as they would here?
Bush had some proposals concerning power plants that would streamline (lower costs) plant’s abilities to modernize (lower emissions) but the leftist-environmentalists rated his plan an “F” and put out all kinds of scare tactic rhetoric and inaccurate accusations about Bush’s intentions and where did that leave us? No improvements were made. More pollution. Leftists need to grow some common sense.
Sorry so long.
Sorry La Shawn I used a paren instead of a less than symbol. Can you fix that up there? I intended to bold the #1 only.
The number “1″ only or the whole sentence? – Admin
#1 only. I also wanted the #2 only.
Thanks you for your time.
“Charlie, give us a brief economics lesson for dummies. Why does it cost more to make/buy American computer products, and what’s the solution? ”
Including labor and environmental standards in our trade deals.
Deals require two parties to sign. Not that I’m for NAFTA or against it but if you were to try to impose our environmental standards on Mexico they wouldn’t have signed the deal.
Living in an idealist utopian world will not move us forward (you need common sense).
Another factor is how do you make sure that Mexico is living up to the standards? Do they allow U.S. regulators to come and check plants and if not complying what’s the penalty and who can we penalize? You crack me up sometimes Actus.
“Not that I’m for NAFTA or against it but if you were to try to impose our environmental standards on Mexico they wouldn’t have signed the deal.”
They don’t have to be our standards. They can just be standards that lead us to go up, rather than compete down.
“Another factor is how do you make sure that Mexico is living up to the standards? Do they allow U.S. regulators to come and check plants and if not complying what’s the penalty and who can we penalize? You crack me up sometimes Actus.”
Our trade deals include enforcement mechanisms to make sure that people don’t renege on their lowering of protectionist barriers, or enact new protectionist barriers. How do we enforce labor and environmental provisons? The same way we enforce others. Does it really crack you up that you can’t imagine how present trade treaties are enforced and only the ones I want are un-enforceable?
Consulting firms hiring programmers is neither new nor related to outsourcing. They need smart, hardworking folks with good quantitative skills. Computer science, engineering, math, and physics departments are full of those types of folks (especially at schools like Stanford), so consulting firms recruit there. They pay more than engineering firms, grad schools, and most anything else, so it can be a very attractive option.
Andy, I think you might have out-geeked me.
Anyone remember Wang? Hows about the Commodore? All the years I wasted learning DOS. I actually know someone who refuses to learn Windows, and still does everything in DOS.
As for Walmart: Don’t fault enterprise. It’s just basic supply and demand. Consumers have a right to low prices. I support Walmart because they are non-Union. It’s become very dangerous to cross picket lines these days…..even though, ideologically, I have no problem with it.
It’s tough to balance the need for low prices, with the need to buy American.
Wal-Mart has some American-made products. You have to dig, but they have them.
Ultimately, it comes down to Unions, and I feel they are evil. So, I do what I can to support the non-Union retailers.
They may not be “evil” but they definitely don’t understand that it’s in the best interest of the employee that “x” company is strong (and still able to employee their employees.
I remember when UAW was striking GM in the mid to late 90’s. GM was losing billions per year (not able to improve their product do to their losses) and the union was imposing strike after strike.
Also, in a presidential election year the latest figures is that the presidential candidates raise and spend about 60-80 million dollars on their campaign (advertising and stuff). Unions during a presidential year spend about 400 million on political advertising and stuff and it is estimated to be 93% Democrat. While campaign finance laws didn’t address this and I’m not generally in favor of passing laws limiting speach, I DO THINK that unions should have to limit COERCED/FORCED union dues to bargaining and representing employees and not be allowed to spend on other things. Or at least people should be ABLE to work without paying a union.
“While campaign finance laws didn’t address this and I’m not generally in favor of passing laws limiting speach, I DO THINK that unions should have to limit COERCED/FORCED union dues to bargaining and representing employees and not be allowed to spend on other things.”
Isn’t union spending as coerced and forced as employer spending? or company spending, for companies that I buy from?
Baklava, in most states you can go work in a unionized workplace without joining the union. These are known as right-to-work states.
As for your point about unions supporting Democrats, I would suggest that it generalizes to suggesting that organizations (as opposed to people) should not be allowed to contribute financially to the political process. I’m not sure what I think about this, but I don’t really see much difference between the AFT (or any other big union) supporting the Dem’s and Exxon (or any other big corporation) supporting the Republicans.
Not in CA (where I am). And the union is organizing and fighting in those states everyday to change the laws.
In other organizations people contribute freely. It’s not pulled out of your paycheck unless you voluntarily have an automatic deduction.
As far as corporations and CEO’s, they give 50/50 to Republicans and Democrats. It is stereo type / prejudice that corporations are in the “back-pocket” of Republicans. The media informs everyone poorly on this. In fact when Clinton was in office, corporations gave greater than 50% towards Democrats. Me thinks it has something to do with buying government to be off thier back or do something for them to some extent.
To me any entity should be able to contribute as long as the money is not FORCED from people. I have a problem with union participation in politics MORE than any other entity for that reason. Everyone else is completely voluntary and I don’t have aproblem with any entity’s right to speach (what it amounts to).
I have never seen such Republican/Corporate talking points in one series of posts! * Wal-Mart is good, they just meet supply-and-demand. * Outsourcing is good, why shouldn’t 2nd and 3rd world countries get in on the gravy train… and many others.
The fact is that, thanks to un-patriotic multi-national corporations and these fool “trade” agreements; our national sovereignty is hanging like a loose tooth; like a ripe fruit for the globalist elite. Yeah, this open (actually, deeply manipulated and managed) trade will make us all equal: equally poor.
Also, I have called Dell. Their phone customer service system I would deem as unacceptable.
Excellent points Bak. Another thing is that that we’re also experiencing the “here today, gone tomorrow’ effect. If I had an idea, but was unsure about market potential, I could outsource the manufacturing on a small scale to someone in Taiwan etc. If it works, good, if not, I’m only out the developmental costs, ie no facility construction, hiring all sorts of human resources.
Unions tend to be anti-flexible workplaces which drives up costs since everyone is pigeon-holed into a specific job description – thus making shops headcount heavy if a company needs to constantly change workflows. For example GM/Ford has 100s of people sitting at home collecting a check while there is no work specific to their position availale – this drives up costs for the consumer. Hence they are to blame when jobs go overseas where the same product can be built with a lower headcount.
The answer to job creation is further deregulation of the workplace w/reagrds to at-will employment contracts. Prime example, prior to deregulation, how much has the telephone evolved compared to the last 10 years. Ma Bell teased us for decades with visions of videophones now that she’s dead and gone, heh. More people are employed in the telcom business than Ma Bell ever dreamed possible.
“The answer to job creation is further deregulation of the workplace w/reagrds to at-will employment contracts. Prime example, prior to deregulation, how much has the telephone evolved compared to the last 10 years”
After airline dereg, one of the more sucessful ones is also the most unionized: southwest.
Mark wrote, “I have never seen such Republican/Corporate talking points in one series of posts!”
Your entire post was a complaint.
What would you think a solution to your complaints would be.
I think there’s another reality: countries that used to be closed to the outside world because they were allied with the Soviet Union now don’t have that support, or they’ve been released from communism.
Also, some countries, even though they’ve been borderline democratic for a while, have decided to shape up, at least a little, to participate in the global marketplace.
China’s still communist, but in the late 80’s they decided to open up, thanks to Deng Xiaoping. In a way, I wonder if the exportation of capitalism will perhaps lead to more open minds.
Bk: Sometimes complaints are called-for. My solution would be corporate and business officers with a sense of patriotism and loyalty. It is easy to just strike-out people’s jobs on paper, but every one of those statistical blips represent a person, oftimes with a family to support, who is now out of work; and with uncertain prospects of replacing what they had.
It is not for nothing that the American middle class is being squeezed out. These “cheap” goods actually have a high cost. Perhaps another solution is for people to think about what they are purchasing; to restrain their appetites for cheap junk, and maybe even save a little.
I didn’t say they were uncalled-for. You stated your perspective and I stated mine and asked for solutions that you think would fit.
How do you legislate your first paragraph’s solution? What would the law be?
If I’m not mistaken is the number of American workers that belonging to unions decreasing? So, how is the increase in outsourcing in areas where there never was a strong union presence the problem? Only about 13% of the American workforce belongs to a union. The numbers don’t add up.
Unions served a valuable role in establishing the work conditions, pay, benefits, labor laws and a host of other perks (getting paid OT) that business had no interest in supplying its workers until forced to do so. How many of you would approve of vacating the labor laws that came about because of the union movement?
I’m not a protectionist, but I’d much rather see an American making a product. The problem with a lot of American businesses is that they’ve replaced ingenuity, risk and a willingness to step outside the box and be innovative with quarterly financial reports.
Nobody makes a pickup truck like Ford and Chevy. Americans pay for those trucks because they are the best – even with union paid folks building them. I bet we could do that with a lot of other products if the CEO’s of these corporations would act like they got a pair and make it happen instead of shipping jobs overseas the first chance they get.
Dragonlady, I’m actually a F-15.
James wrote, “Unions served a valuable role in establishing ….”
Yes. There was a time… Establishing was good. Now they can move on and stop removing money from people’s paychecks. They are removing $70 more per year from each CA state employees checks to fight Arnold this year (whether the “state” employee likes it or not).
“Unions served a valuable role in establishing the work conditions, pay, benefits, labor laws and a host of other perks (getting paid OT) that business had no interest in supplying its workers until forced to do so.”
‘perks’ like a weekend. Unions are basically the only thing we have to stop us from plutocracy, but people like to think that they’ve spotted the bad guy.
Sorry for taking so long to revisit, but I see others picked up the slack for me.
Outsourcing of all types makes sense: at one time, there was a man who rode in a horse-drawn wagon bringing ice to homes all over town. GE perfects the refrigerator, mass produces it (therefore: cheap), and the ice man is out of a job.
As other wrote, paying $.50 an hour is absurd to us, but if the local wage $.10 we’re doing some good there. Besides, over time that $.50 will rise, as the standards of living rise. Good people will demand what the market will bear.
Unfortunately, the market is bearing less here, that cannot be ignored. Paying people $10/hr to do what people overseas will do for $1 makes no sense. We yell at WalMart because they’re the big target (pardon any pun), but how much stuff does anyone buy is still made here?
People shout ‘raise minimum wage’; Fine, make it $10/hr… but don’t expect your Big Mac to sell for less than $6.
Now, should we be as open as we are with such a pro-Communist country – full of human-rights violations – as China? That’s another thread…
Baklava: A-HA! Now we are getting somewhere! I never said that this is a matter of legislation, and in doing so we fall into same category as the leftists who continually exclaim that we need more niggling laws and onerous regulation (which is in large part responsible for the complaints I made).
Nay, this is a metter of the heart. This is where patriotism is found; and, along with stanching the moral decline in this mation, is the only place wherein we can save this country.
Andy: What do you mean you are an F-15? Maybe your secret identity is “Starscream” from the Transformers!
Charlie:
If life were straight out of a accounting book your arguements would be well founded. Unfortunately, business in the real world has a lot more intangibles and does not exist in a vaccum. For instance, that outsourcing results in a loss of employment in the market that the job left (U.S.)…that loss of employment results in a person losing their income, and therefore their purchasing power to add to overall GDP growth as well being a source of tax revenue for the government (local and federal). Lower revenue to the municipality that the person(s) resides can cause a reduction in services to the community as a whole, not just the unemployed person(s) (schools, public saftey). Not to mention that massive job loss increases crime rates which because of the same massive job losses, the municipality may not have enough funds to properly deal with.
In the meanwhile, eventhough in the short term, the company is making high profits, it is at the same time reducing its pool of potential customers with sufficient purchasing power to buy its products. So projected out over 5-10 years after the initial savings of outsourcing have been amortized, the company will experience a net loss of revenue due to the smaller number of people actually able to purchase their product.
Just how many new color TV’s or computers does a minimum wage worker buy in a year?
Not only that taking one man’s (or woman’s) ability earn a living and provide for their family and giving it to someone else is not right! Isn’t that the conservative argument about the graduated income tax schedule?
I’m in agreement with Mark. There should be more to this argument than making a buck. If it’s patriotic to support out troops to help build democracy in Iraq, then it should be equally patriotic to support American workers manufacture a stove in Michigan.
Mark, it’s some personality quiz that Dragonlady has on her blog.
Bottomline about your points is that the whole world is a marketplace – patriotism means squat to me in this realm. I’m not paying Joe Bob $30/hr that Shin can do for $5. However I do ‘try’ to distinguish who I buy from if I have options and know something about the labor practices, but it’s not paramount that I spend time trying to figure it out.
I also try to look at the mark-up factor. For example, I’ll never buy Nike again, but I’ll buy a pair of no-brand Walmart sneakers, even tho both are made in China. I also don’t mind paying extra for craftsmanship.
Someday, there is going to come a point in time when 3rd world regions become 2nd or even 1st world class. That may be a bummer to those who feel entitled to 1st rate wages, but the bright side is that the closer the global income per capital reaches parity with the individual, the better the civil/human rights situation gets.
To wit:
“Back in 1820, China had the world’s largest economy — accounting for nearly 29% of global GDP — while India accounted for about 16%. In contrast, the United States accounted for only 1.8% of global GDP.”
Source: (International Herald Tribune)
“According to 2004 projections, the global economy is expected to grow from $54 trillion in 2005 to $143 trillion in 2030 — an annual growth rate of 4%.”
Source: (World Bank)
Now imagine in 2005 USD if we were at sort of per capital parity:
Right now, we have a population of almost 300 million and a GDP of $11 trillion and a per capital income of $35K.
Well imagine a near global parity of $25K per capital (about where EU-15 is right now) and a corresponding drop in our own – say $5K per capital. We’re talking 7 billion people and a global economy of $185 trillion, that’s not even counting the worldbank projections, that’s if the poor of the world made anything near where our poor are making.
That’s one way of looking at the numbers. I think the Lord will return before we get there. Nevertheless I think that’s the kind of world we should be striving for rather than “save our American jobs and screw the world”.
M Woodward, your scenario doesn’t jive with reality. Germany & France are the leaders bar none when it comes to protecting jobs and look at their double digit unemployments. Ours is down low to pre dot com bust levels, yet there are more people in totality working. All in all, we’re doing something right and they’re not.
It’s easy for people who have never owned, much less run a company to talk about how they ought to be run. But there is really a lot more to it under the surface.
Andy:
“According to 2004 projections, the global economy is expected to grow from $54 trillion in 2005 to $143 trillion in 2030 — an annual growth rate of 4%.â€
Source: (World Bank)
So, we are now to take the word of that buzzard Paul Wolfowitz and the globalists at the World Bank? Bear in mind that these are projections, the relity may very well fall short of this rosy outlook.
What you, my friend, are promoting is the total obliteration of the traditional American middle class and a declension of the United States to third-world status. The effects of this re-distribution will be equal poverty and misery, and this advocated by thise who have always claimed to be against re-distribution.
I would urge you to reconsider if this is what you think we ought to be striving after.
It’s patriotic to support free markets and capitalism which is America.
I was just pointing out many of the factors that drive free enterprises in our capitalist economy nation to find ways of cutting costs are the liberal policies of big government, over regulation, crippling companies ability to even survive, lawyers painting big targets on any corporation with money, mundo taxation, and short of passing a law to restrict a companies ability to buy goods and services (including labor) in another country, it’s going to happen. So the problem exists. Now what do we do? We can only try to change people’s minds and hearts but if the overbearing policies and regulations and taxation still exists maybe we need to tackle the source of the problem. If power companies can’t modernize because it’ll cost 10x more because of EPA regulations and Bush wanted to streamline things so that the companies could increase production and efficiency and LOWER emissions for only a fraction of the costs then we are stuck with power companies not modernizing. How patriotic is that? We can call anything unpatriotic or patriotic but what I think it should refer to is America and the American way of life. Our government and our economic system is far superior and we run circles around more controlled overregulated European countries. But as more burden gets poured on we are losing sight of the source of the problem which is liberalism.
Liberalism is ok with it’s good intentions but where it goes wrong is the RESULTS of the policies that are implemented and liberals actually believe that 1/2 of the nation (conservatives) don’t have good intentions also. The more liberals mangle the English language and make accusations and think of conservatives badly the less we can work together to actually solve problems and bring costs down for businesses so that Americans be MORE employed and have a better way of life than even now.
Mark wrote, “buzzard Paul Wolfowitz and the globalists at the World Bank?”
Nice name calling. At that point I stopped reading your post.
Try understanding what this country is based instead of leveling name callings and accusations.
There are those who deserve every name thrown at them, Bak. I was being restrained in refering to the organisation (and its head) that has as its purpose taking American largesse and distributing it around the globe.
I certainly agree with you regarding the liberal mess being responsible for those things you mentioned. Also, the EPA is probably chief among them, their purpose is to harass state environmental services and employees. It is definitely a regulatory body we can do without.
I’m sorry. I disagree with you about Paul. He doesn’t deserve the disdain and disrespect. I suggest you really don’t know him or what he thinks.
I suggest that he is trying to make things better there just like Bolton would try to reform the U.N.
“I was being restrained in refering to the organisation (and its head) that has as its purpose taking American largesse and distributing it around the globe.”
I think you deeply misunderstand the WB’s role in world finance. Google “washington consensus.”
I don’t see what the fuss is about. Anyone who focuses their career in one area and doesn’t have backup skillsets deserve what they get.
India has a 300 million strong middle class that American Business has yet to touch. I say, build them up, and then move in and sell our goods.
Bak, I aagree, Paul is there to whip some common sense into the World Bank.
Mark, all I did was juxtapose the World bank estimate aginst my own figures based on today’s numbers to show how the world as a whole would be richer if there was some level of parity.
Furthermore, why is it only America that deserves to have the best of everything at the expense of others? That’s what you’re in effect arguing. And we ARE talking about your own brothers and sisters whether once, twice or x removed.
Right now, we have billions of people not reaching their economic potential, where someone in Niger has an annual income of a couple of hundred dollars. While some fat overweight American is boo-hooing about outsourcing ratcheting his marketabilty down several notches.
Cry me a river… Hard work made us the richest country in history and too many seem content to ride on those coattails as if the world owed them that happy lifestyle for perpetuity. If you want to stay rich, you have to work, not protect, harder.
Is it such a bad thing if we’re relatively poorer by our own standards. if by the same token the poorer nations raise their standard of living?
Don’t ge me wrong, I’m not advocating moonbatic economic distribution. I’m saying let the market have free rein where and how it allocates its resources and let the chips fall where they may. That’s a crucial difference. Moonbats see the economy as a zero sum game, where the grand total is the same no matter the distribution. Free market says that everyone benefits according to their labor output when left alone from meddling governments.
Like Bak said, a lot of our costs are driven by artificial artifacts. For example, why should you and I subsidize American sugar farmers? If we removed the trade barriers to sugar imports, we’re talking about a few thousand Americans looking for new work and new uses for their land/equipment resources. Yet 10s of thousand 3rd worlders can increase their standard/economy by selling sugar to us at a significant price drop at the checkout counter. We all win, even the former sugar workers as they find better uses of their resources.
That is a fact of life. If Genesis 3:16 – 20 does not describe your life, then you are indeed fortunate and should be thankful for that.
LB, in mid-summer, I will have been slingin’ code for 20 years.
The hardest part is keeping current. The commerical vendors are going over seas because they believe the lower costs line. But in time, things will shift back, as they already are but it’s under the radar.
Companies have to manage the software projects, and to do that, they have to get past the geek-speak barriers and now the langauge barrier. Then there is the time difference when you have to deal with managing a project overseas. Then there is the intellectual property threat of having code and ideas stolen. And, additionally, there is the question of code quality, which comes about because of language issues and miscommunication that occurs when you can’t look over the 1/2 cube wall or walk down to someone’s office to talk or when you have a lot of design discussion and “whiteboarding” just because your teammates are right next to you.
Yes, the latter can happen overseas and does, but the initial design requirements are always in the U.S.
Well, Happy Anniversary, I must say. That means you’ve been slinging since the summer of 1985. I was extending my adolescence, and you were a working man!
Back to the original topic…over here in Australia, it’s not just IT companies that have outsourced their call centres. If you call our national telecommunications provider, Telstra, you’re more than likely to end up speaking to someone in a call centre in India. And it takes ridiculous amounts of time to work out what’s going on, as you don’t understand each other.
It’s frustrating – unemployment is a huge issue here, and then there’s major companies in Australia outsourcing quite a lot of their work.
Does anyone know whatever happened to that Wal-Mart in Canada, that was set to close up, rather than allow the employees to Unionize? Supposedly Quebec was going to file a lawsuit to force Wal-Mart to stay in business.
LOL
If workers have every right to unionize, then Wal-Mart has every right to go out of business.
Guess Wal-Mart won’t be expanding into China, or France, for that matter.
DS,
I see the work coming back already. If you are coding modules that are behind the curve, and have explicit requirements AND a proper regression bed and QA, you can get away with offshoring. But if you want the latest, the greatest or innovation, the work is best handled locally.
I saw an interesting article a few months ago: some investors are looking to buy an old cruise ship, and anchor it just off LA/San Diego, in international waters.
They want to fill it with nerd, to build code and other IT tasks. Have a movie theater, shoping, and regular shuttles to the main land.
Close enough to let customers easily interface, but no hassles with visas and green cards.
An interesting idea, IMO
SCSI, that’s an interesting twist on the off-shore gambling boats. Now that’s really off-shore work
Glamchild, yeah that store closed and a couple more Canadian stores got the bright idea to unionize. Nothing breeds success like failure
I hear that some employees at a Colorado store got that bright idea as well but was quickly killed off by the othes.
Look, I know the arguments. A year ago I was downsized from a defence contractor’s position. I took a clerical job at a 30% pay cut to cover my mortgage (and keep my security clearance intact).
Two months later I got another job; the commute is 110 miles… each way. Relocating is not an option for me, so I do it.
No, few on minimum wage can buy a new TV, but tell me how many people aspire ONLY to make minimum wage? In 3 months, if the employer doesn’t recognize the skills of the employee, that employee ought to find another job that will recognize him. Sooner or later, he will. And if the employee isn’t worth giving a raise, then there isn’t any debate, is there?
Not only that taking one man’s (or woman’s) ability earn a living and provide for their family and giving it to someone else is not right! Isn’t that the conservative argument about the graduated income tax schedule?
The tax argument I espouse is for a flat tax.
DS and LaShawn,
I’ve been working on computers since Nov 88. That makes DS smarter and better and wiser….
My father started as an Assembly programmer for Texaco 35 years ago (and retired 5 years ago).
Beaten, all of you.
My college roomate had an Osborne computer in ‘82 and let me play adventure, space invaders and fool with creating text pictures – never was any good at art with Xs & Os. Does that count
Nope. It has to be about YOU!
….working….
My aged computer science professor in college (’95) still had, in the back room of the lab, punch cards he had used and programmed as a younger man. He even had the card rotator mechanical deal.
“It has to be about YOU!!” Well, In the sixth grade we used, and I believe it was several years vintage even at that time, a set up with the standard tape drive (it took forever). I think it was an Altair 8800 or a PET, but I can’t recall exactly. Used to give us a sense of the fundamentals of computing.
Okay, I’ll put in my two cents worth about outsourcing. I am not an economist or anything like that. I am a corporate trainer. I used to work for a major managment consulting firm that eventually outsourced their document production departments from Europe and North America to India.
One of the orignal reasons for the company to even consider doing this was due to German labor laws; they did NOT allow overtime work. So, the German offices looked elsewhere to get the work done. The North American offices soon followed for various reasons; but one of the prime reasons was cost. For the price of one document production employee in the Northeastern U.S. the company could hire several employees in Chennai, India. The typical response from many here in the U.S. is to call it a ’sweatshop’ This is not at all accurate. The consulting firm pays their Indian employees a bit more than if they were working for an Indian company, their benefits are not bad at all; including free transportation to and from the office. And not the least important, they only work FIVE days a week. Indian companies have their employees work SIX days a week.
Of course, I am now out of work. BUT, I am not complaining. If the employees in India can be more competative, more power to them. I, myself, got the company to pay for a trip to India to train the new hires in Chennai; whom, BTW, were very glad to get their jobs at this company and were among the best trainees I have ever had. After two months of training I took vacation in India and travelled around the country for three weeks. While I paid for my own vacation expenses I would not have been able to afford the $10,000 flight to India, so I gained something.
And after it was all over I got enough of a severance pay to help pay for graduate school. I now have an Ed.M. in continuing education to make myself more marketable and more competative. And my experiences in India may have helped as well.
I also believe that someday India, too, will be outsourcing to some other place. Remember, manufactoring first ‘outsourced’ to the Far East; Japan and others like Taiwan and South Korea now outsource to the Philipines, Indonesia, and India.
Re: being old
Recently, a customer and I were talking of the ‘old days’, using punch cards. Two ‘kids’ wondered what we were speaking about. I Google’d a punch card, and then the discussion turned to something even more ‘primitive’: slide rules. After another search, I am proud to say I have a slide rule on my shelf, next to my 8″ floppy disk. (Go to STUPID.COM to buy your own slide rule)
Said one of the kids: ‘Hey! I saw something like in the movie APOLLO 13!’
Anybody want to buy a Commodore 64, complete with external cassette tape drive?
Punch cards? Did ‘em.
Slide rule? Used ‘em for calculus and trig in high school.
Ah, the good old slide rule. Heck if I know where my HS era one went. I might have to go to stupid to get one for kicks.
Didn’t really get into puch cards, but did some tutoring on the old IBM data processing machines. IIRC, what looked like typewriters and had a cartridge that could hold a couple pages worth of text. Mainly used for generating form letters.
Well, now that we’re talking beyond PCs, in 10th grade, I was a proud owner of an OMRON calculator. Wasn’t just a run of the mill type for ‘77-78, it was programmable and you had to use ‘enter’ as there was no ‘=’. I only had it for a couple of months before someone stole it and I was too poor to blow $150 on another import.
I also once had a real woodie calculator in 5th grade – an abacus
I was cutting edge back in the dark ages. I retired my old-fashioned straight “slip stick” and adopted the state-of-the-art circular slide rule. I was hip, man. Cool daddy-o. Unsquare. With it. Too cool for school.
Ok, ok, I was a just a nerd. But I did have a DA haircut.
Ok, ok, I was a just a nerd
What’s with the past tense there, bucko?
SCSI, are you really my wife? LOL LOL LOL
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