Race to the Bottom

[The Fool]

<<http://zeitblog.zeitgeist.com/archives/000155.html>>

Lay off the Kool-aid Tom...
Tom Friedman, the Pulitzer prize winning Op-Ed page columnist for the New
York Times used to be such a smart guy. I think all the thin air he's
been breathing with all that travel he does has given him brain-damage.

Seriously.

For the last several months off and on, he's been "addressing" the
question of out-sourcing, or in its new politically-correct(?) moniker:
"off-shoring."

Friedman, and other know-nothing apologists for the thieves who steal
from the US treasury and US Taxpayers, yet take advantage of US military
and economic protection that makes outsourcing profitable , prattle on
and on about how outsourcing is a natural result of free trade, and that
Americans will just have to retrain themselves for higher-skill jobs in
order to compete and just "let these jobs go" because others can do them
"better" and "cheaper."

In his latest gem, he ends brown-nosing to the supply-siders like this:

What am I saying here? That it's more important for young Indians to have
jobs than Americans? Never. But I am saying that there is more to
outsourcing than just economics. There's also geopolitics. It is
inevitable in a networked world that our economy is going to shed certain
low-wage, low-prestige jobs. To the extent that they go to places like
India or Pakistan — where they are viewed as high-wage, high-prestige
jobs — we make not only a more prosperous world, but a safer world for
our own 20-year-olds.

Wow... who knew that electrical engineering jobs, biopharma jobs,
software development jobs, accounting jobs, radiology jobs -- all of
which were done here by people with advanced degrees; people who, with
the sweat of their creativity, built the the US high-technology economy
-- and all the others that are endlessly flowing to (mainly) India, China
and Russia they were really doing "low paid, low prestige jobs!!!"

Gee, I'll have to let my unemployed friends, many of whom have PhD's know
that they were really just low-wage, low-prestige slackers. They sure
were suckers to spend all those years in school, huh?

I guess it must be tough to be a very rich, well respected author who has
no actual understanding of economics, or trade, or what it takes to run a
business, or be part of a community. You really drank all the kool-aid,
didn't ya' Tom..?

Amazing.

Tom, go back home to Minnesota with your millions and retire. Pretty
please? You're not doing anyone any good... you just don't get it, do
you?

There ARE no other skills Americans can train themselves for. Why bother?
There is no bottom to the bottom any more. Outsourcing/Off-shoring is not
about skill -- it's only about cost. As soon as a skill becomes valuable
enough to command a salary that impacts some CEOs bonus, it will be
outsourced.

Let's repeat that: Outsourcing/Off-shoring is not about skill -- it's
only about cost.

No amount of hard work, no amount of skill, no amount of creativity will
save a single US job when a company decides that they can pay an Indian
worker $25/day or a Chinese worker $2.00/day with no benefits, and get
the US taxpayer to foot the bill for guarantying the world trade
mechanisms (read: the $450B+++ in military force-projection, economic and
diplomatic infrastructure) that allow them to do it.

You see, its not about the skills, its only about the money. Community be
damned. Country be damned. Real people living real lives who built this
economy be damned. All that's important is that CEOs milk their companies
and the taxpayer. Or, wasn't that obvious enough...?


I've been a software developer since the late 1970s when I was running my
own business in high-school. I was a VP in technology on Wall St. for
many years, and even helped jump-start this whole Internet thing by
putting JPMorgan & Co. on the Internet back in early 1991 -- JPMorgan was
the very first bank in the world on the Internet -- and helping to fund
the development of a little program called Mosaic (which later became
Netscape). I've run my own consulting business. I am the founder of a
start-up. God help me.

I am 41, I've got 25 years in this business and I know lots and lots and
lots of people. I have never seen such pessimism from so many smart,
smart people before. Why are they so blue? Its simple:

They know that no matter how hard they work, no matter how many degrees
they have, no matter how much have contributed/created in the past, and
no matter how much they are capable of creating in the future -- it
doesn't matter one bit. They're all toast. Because you see, its not about
training, or capability, or creativity, or past contributions, or future
potential... its only about cost. And there's no way they can win.

Ask any employer who's fired their IT people. they'll tell you: It
doesn't matter what their American staff was capable of creating or
achieving. They just don't want Americans, no matter what. Its all about
a race to the bottom; a race to see who can get away with paying the
least.

With about 3 Billion people in the world willing to work for pennies, and
with selfish, greedy, thoughtless corporate thugs willing to put the
shaft to Americans and others who made our high-technology world
possible, there's no possible way for American (or other) workers to
survive. There's just no competing with essentially free labor.

Let's see India, China, or Russia belly up to the bar and pay their fair
share of the hundreds-of-billions of dollars per year being stolen from
the US Taxpayer to make outsourcing possible. Lets see these companies
pay pack the treasury for the tax-base they are killing off which is
robbing the US of its ability to meet its own needs. Then, and ONLY THEN
will it be possible to discuss the economic merits of outsourcing.

We'll see that happen about the same time we find all those WMDs in Iraq.

In the meantime, you made your money Tom, stop rubbing our noses in it.

Please shut up and go away. Please?

Oh, Tom, one more thing: on your way out, why don't you take a trip to
offer your condolences to the family of Kevin Flanagan, a Bank of America
computer programmer who shot himself in the office parking lot in April
2003 after being laid off from his job. Flanagan was forced to train his
replacement from India as a condition for even receiving a severance
package before he was fired.

I suppose he was just another one of your "low prestige, low wage" types,
huh?

In fact, you should use all of those frequent flier miles you've accrued
for a lot of such trips... this is a scenario we're seeing a lot more of
thanks to people like you.

Seeing the Forest chimes in:
<<http://seetheforest.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_seetheforest_archive.html#10
7808906903660428>>

I don't think the job loss situation is about "trade" at all. I think the
use of the terms "trade" and "free trade" are clever ways to distract
from the real problem. "Trade" sounds great, OF COURSE we should "trade"
with others. Duh! But the arguments I have heard promoting sending jobs
offshore are pretty much the same argument as those for getting rid of
the minimum wage, for not having unions, for workers keeping quiet, doing
what they're told and being grateful that they have food and shelter at
all. As I wrote the other day in Trade, Jobs and the Ongoing Struggle,
"Show me where the current trade arguments are different from the minimum
wage arguments? They argue that raising (or even having) a minimum wage
keeps the poor from getting jobs. And they argue that asking trade
partners to protect workers rights and safety and pay higher wages keeps
THEIR poor from getting jobs."
I think this is about the moneyed interests -- corporations in this case
-- being able to make use of global unemployment to drive down not just
wages and benefits (costs) but also the power of workers. This is about
the struggle between labor and capital that has been going on and will go
on. Since they started shipping jobs to Mexico they have been able to
substantially weaken the unions and by weakening the unions they have
weakened the power of the Democratic coalition (with some help from
Ralph).

It seems that the question, Who is our economy FOR, anyway? gets more and
more relevant every day.

[r***@public.gmane.org]

Out of curiosity, and without wanting to get into the whole is it good/is it bad/is it fair thing:

What is it that the people who complain about off-shoring (which is quite different to out-sourcing BTW) want done about it.

Isn't America built on Free Enterprise? Are you going to tell these companies that they CAN'T take out a contract with an Indian company to provide help desk support services. Where do you draw the line? Can Wal-Mart buy toys from China? Can a tech-company outsource help desk to an American company? Can it outsource to an American company with worldwide offices?

I think it would be great if we could stop the brain-drain which threatens the development of future technological advances, but I'm not sure how it can be done.

Cheers
Russell C.


This message was sent through MyMail http://www.mymail.com.au


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[Michael Harney]

From: <rchapman-24jMwgp+***@public.gmane.org>


> Out of curiosity, and without wanting to get into the whole is it good/is
it bad/is it fair thing:
>
> What is it that the people who complain about off-shoring (which is quite
different to out-sourcing BTW) want done about it.


For one, I want heavy penalties levied against companies that off-shore
work. Call it an intelectual property terrif if you like. Second, I want
the government to establish work programs with that money so that people put
out of work by off-shoring are able to have some kind of job available to
them.


> Isn't America built on Free Enterprise? Are you going to tell these
companies that they CAN'T take out a contract with an Indian company to
provide help desk support services. Where do you draw the line? Can Wal-Mart
buy toys from China? Can a tech-company outsource help desk to an American
company? Can it outsource to an American company with worldwide offices?
>


A country based on total free enterprise isn't neccessarily a good thing.
Moreover, even in the past, our nation had tarrifs so that cheap foriegn
imports wouldn't put American businessmen out of business. For one, we can
extend the concept of tarrifs so that they protect not only business men,
but workers as well.


> I think it would be great if we could stop the brain-drain which threatens
the development of future technological advances, but I'm not sure how it
can be done.
>


I think that would require corperate responsability laws restricting (not
forbidding, just restricting) all outsourcing (outsourcing of anykind
weakens the strength of unionizing... to avoid corperate abuse, regulations
protecting workers in those outsource companies should be enatced), placing
tarrifs on off-shore work, and basically, make it more cost effective for
companies to hire or outsource within the country rather than off-shore.

The only other option I see is turning the economy into socialist one, or
else the worker/consumer base may collapse entirely, killing our ecconomy
completely. We have only seen the begining of off-shoring of Amerian jobs.
It will only get worse if something is not done.

Michael Harney
dolphin-ftV0hpRrbTKt+***@public.gmane.org

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[Russell Chapman]

Michael Harney wrote:

>For one, I want heavy penalties levied against companies that off-shore
>work. Call it an intelectual property terrif if you like. Second, I want
>the government to establish work programs with that money so that people put
>out of work by off-shoring are able to have some kind of job available to
>them.
>
But that's nonsense - you'd cripple the companies that are such a vital
component of the economy. If Boeing finds that an Israeli firm has a
brilliant new avionics package, why can't they contract that firm to
develop a better system for their jets. If Chrysler doesn't have the
resources to build a new sports car, but needs a fresher image, why
can't it turn to other parts of DaimlerChrysler and get their engineers
to develop the Crossfire (excepting of course the 2 Chrysler badges
which are made in the USA), just because those engineers happen to be in
Eastern Europe.
If Boeing don't - Airbus has a better package and USA loses. If Chrysler
don't, then BMW or Acura have the better car, and USA loses.
What about the truly global multi-nationals which are still American
companies - IBM, Ford, GE, Texaco, Intel etc. Do they get penalised for
the productivity of their workers outside the USA? If they don't why
can't every US company set up an Indian office or a Russian office and
do the same?

>A country based on total free enterprise isn't neccessarily a good thing.
>Moreover, even in the past, our nation had tarrifs so that cheap foriegn
>imports wouldn't put American businessmen out of business. For one, we can
>extend the concept of tarrifs so that they protect not only business men,
>but workers as well.
>
Tarrifs are being abolished because they are a short term gain for long
term pain. The simple fact is that there are more consumers outside the
USA than within it, and US companies need to be able to sell into those
markets. Uncompetitive practices propped up by artificial tarrifs make
that difficult, and the tarrifs imposed by trading partners in response
make it impossible.

>I think that would require corperate responsability laws restricting (not
>forbidding, just restricting) all outsourcing (outsourcing of anykind
>weakens the strength of unionizing...
>
But you can't restrict it. If I run a wholesale business and find I can
expand into e-commerce, should I be prevented because the three guys who
always ran my inventory system don't have the expertise to set up and
maintain a full-blown e-tailer system. When I contract an outside firm
to replace the computer system, my network administrator is going to see
himself as having been outsourced, but as a business owner I won't see
it that way. There are all sorts of reasons - PriceWaterhouseCoopers ran
a very effective consulting division within their practice, but the
facts are that modern consulting requires different ownership
structures, risk management, resourcing, insurance and legislative
compliance to accounting or audit, so they hived off the consulting
division... Should they be penalised that suddenly all those workers
were now attached to offices on an outsourced basis?

I'd really like to know how anyone can stop American companies from
giving contracts to foreign companies?

Cheers
Russell C.


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[Michael Harney]

From: "Russell Chapman" <rchapman-24jMwgp+***@public.gmane.org>


> Michael Harney wrote:
>
> >For one, I want heavy penalties levied against companies that off-shore
> >work. Call it an intelectual property terrif if you like. Second, I
want
> >the government to establish work programs with that money so that people
put
> >out of work by off-shoring are able to have some kind of job available to
> >them.
> >
> But that's nonsense - you'd cripple the companies that are such a vital
> component of the economy. If Boeing finds that an Israeli firm has a
> brilliant new avionics package, why can't they contract that firm to
> develop a better system for their jets. If Chrysler doesn't have the
> resources to build a new sports car, but needs a fresher image, why
> can't it turn to other parts of DaimlerChrysler and get their engineers
> to develop the Crossfire (excepting of course the 2 Chrysler badges
> which are made in the USA), just because those engineers happen to be in
> Eastern Europe.
> If Boeing don't - Airbus has a better package and USA loses. If Chrysler
> don't, then BMW or Acura have the better car, and USA loses.
> What about the truly global multi-nationals which are still American
> companies - IBM, Ford, GE, Texaco, Intel etc. Do they get penalised for
> the productivity of their workers outside the USA? If they don't why
> can't every US company set up an Indian office or a Russian office and
> do the same?


No, it's not nonsense, it's the only way that we can keep jobs in the US,
make it more expencive to off-shore work than to contract locally. I never
said they couldn't off-shore work, I just said there should be fines
associated with that to make it less cost effective.


> >A country based on total free enterprise isn't neccessarily a good thing.
> >Moreover, even in the past, our nation had tarrifs so that cheap foriegn
> >imports wouldn't put American businessmen out of business. For one, we
can
> >extend the concept of tarrifs so that they protect not only business men,
> >but workers as well.
> >
> Tarrifs are being abolished because they are a short term gain for long
> term pain. The simple fact is that there are more consumers outside the
> USA than within it, and US companies need to be able to sell into those
> markets. Uncompetitive practices propped up by artificial tarrifs make
> that difficult, and the tarrifs imposed by trading partners in response
> make it impossible.


For products, that may be true, I don't know, but we want to export our
products, not our jobs. Do you want american jobs exported? Do you want to
increase the rift between the working class and business owners? Make the
poor poorer, make the rich richer, and eliminate the middle class? Maybe
you do, but I don't. I'd hate to see yet another revolution that rips a
country in half. If you don't know what I am talking about, review your
history of Russia and France.


> >I think that would require corperate responsability laws restricting (not
> >forbidding, just restricting) all outsourcing (outsourcing of anykind
> >weakens the strength of unionizing...
> >
> But you can't restrict it. If I run a wholesale business and find I can
> expand into e-commerce, should I be prevented because the three guys who
> always ran my inventory system don't have the expertise to set up and
> maintain a full-blown e-tailer system. When I contract an outside firm
> to replace the computer system, my network administrator is going to see
> himself as having been outsourced, but as a business owner I won't see
> it that way. There are all sorts of reasons - PriceWaterhouseCoopers ran
> a very effective consulting division within their practice, but the
> facts are that modern consulting requires different ownership
> structures, risk management, resourcing, insurance and legislative
> compliance to accounting or audit, so they hived off the consulting
> division... Should they be penalised that suddenly all those workers
> were now attached to offices on an outsourced basis?


Did I say forbid it? No, in fact I stated to the contrary: "not forbidding,
just restricting". And what kind of restriction did I say was needed?
Corperate resopnsability laws. Not taxes, not red tape, just corperate
responsability laws to protect the rights of the outsource workers.


> I'd really like to know how anyone can stop American companies from
> giving contracts to foreign companies?


You don't have to stop it, you just have to make it less cost effective to
do so.


Michael Harney
dolphin-ftV0hpRrbTKt+***@public.gmane.org

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[Erik Reuter]

On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 09:38:00AM -0700, Michael Harney wrote:

> No, it's not nonsense, it's the only way that we can keep jobs in the
> US, make it more expencive to off-shore work than to contract locally.
> I never said they couldn't off-shore work, I just said there should be
> fines associated with that to make it less cost effective.

....

> Did I say forbid it? No, in fact I stated to the contrary: "not
> forbidding, just restricting". And what kind of restriction did I
> say was needed? Corperate resopnsability laws. Not taxes, not red
> tape, just corperate responsability laws to protect the rights of the
> outsource workers.

I'm not sure what you are proposing here. First you say there should be
fines to "make it less cost effective" then you say "not taxes, not red
tape". Are you saying that free-trade can proceed as usual in all cases
where workers rights are not being violated and environmental laws are
equivalent to those in America? If that is your proposal, then you would
not make much of a dent in unemployment in the US, since the loss of
jobs in those specific instances are only a small fraction of the jobs
lost in the last couple years.

Restricting free trade is like eating your seed corn -- it may feel
good now, but you'll be sorry later. It is to everyone's long-term
advantage to allocate the world's resources in the most efficient way
possible. And history has shown repeatedly that the best way to do
this is a free market -- so you have every person in that free market
trying to find the most efficient use for their labor or capital. That
is billions of people, all working to optimize the system. If you try
to manage a large economy, you will inevitably have only a relatively
small number of people working to optimize things, and history has shown
that managed economies fail miserably when matched against a free market
economy (most dramatic recent example is of course the US vs. USSR;
another good example is how China has been booming since loosening their
markets).

Why do comparatively rich Americans deserve a job, but dirt poor people
in other countries, who are willing and able to produce the same thing
for less money, do not? Shouldn't the job go to the person who is the
most cost-effective, the person who produces the most for the least
cost? If we can simultaneously cut our costs AND benefit those workers
in other countries who are desperate to work, why should we deny people
the opportunity? And denying some the opportunity you will be, even if
you raise tariffs or taxes on globalization rather than instituting an
outright ban. The net result is that costs will be higher in America and
some people in foreign countries will not have a job that they otherwise
would have had without the tariffs. The farm subsidies and agricultural
tariffs the US continues to employ fall the hardest on economically
disadvantaged countries which have a comparative adavantage in farming,
and they simultaneously raise the prices that Americans have to pay for
food.

Would you like to live in a place like Iain Banks' Culture? The only
way to get there is to keep our productivity, roughly GDP per head,
increasing as fast as possible. And the main way to do that is to
invest in more and better capital. But someone has to design, build,
and operate that capital to make more capital to increase productivity
further. To keep this cycle going as fast as possible, we need to
allocate our resources in the most efficient manner to increase
productivity. David Ricardo explained, two hundred years ago, that even
if a country can make every product cheaper than another country, that
BOTH countries can still benefit from trade -- each area/group should
work making the goods or providing the services in which they have a
comparative advantage. And as new capital and new ideas accumulate, the
comparative advantages for each group or country change. Jobs shift. But
long-term, everyone is better off when this happens, since it is the
most efficient way to create new capital and increase productivity.

Do you want to pay more for your DVD player? Free trade has been largely
responsible for the drop in prices of equipment such as DVD players,
TVs, and computers. And it doesn't just benefit consumers with lower
prices on consumer electronics. Cheaper computers, for example, all the
inexpensive Dells manufactured in China, allowed companies to invest
in IT and get more capital for the buck, thus increasing their workers
productivity. And remember that productivity increases are the only way
to increase the long-term standard of living.

The drop in employment in the past couple years cannot be attributed
wholely, nor even largely, to offshoring or globalization. Unemployment
in the US was only 4.0% at the end of last decade. That is significantly
below the "natural" unemployment rate of about 5%. The late nineties are
well known to have been a booming economy, in fact, an unsustainable
boom known as a "bubble". Starting in 1997, the private sector
was a net borrower, something that hasn't happened since before
1970 (and the public sector was actually a net lender for a couple
years there). Clearly, the 90's were unusual. In the bubble, the
private sector borrowed a lot of money and invested it, increasing
capital. Overinvesting, in fact. And the businesses hired a lot more
people than could be sustained long-term, particularly in IT and dot-com
areas. As a result of all the new capital, productivity shot up and
fewer workers were needed to produce the same GDP. That, combined with
some areas already having an unsustainable number of workers, caused
unemployment to rise rapidly. In short, the majority of the 2 million
jobs that have been lost in the past couple years are cyclical losses
rather than structural, i.e., temporary losses due to the recession, not
permanent lossed due to globalization. By the way, only in 2003 did the
private sector get back into the black, saving more than investing. It
may take a year or two longer for unemployment to get back to 5% in the
cycle.

America has historically been one of the most open markets in the world,
and historically, America has created a lot more jobs than have been
lost. Between 1980 and 2002, America's population grew at an annualized
rate of 1.0% per year, while the number of employed Americans grew at
1.5% per year. This may not sound like much, but it is the difference
between 59% of the adult population being employed in 1980 and 62.5%
today (even after the 2 million jobs lost recently). In absolute terms
it is even more impressive: there were 99.3 million Americans employed
in 1980, and there are 138.6 million employed today! That is a lot more
jobs created than lost! That is not to say that there wasn't pain along
the way. More than 1 million jobs were lost in the early eighties, and
another million+ in the early nineties. But they were replaced, and
more! It is a cyclical, dynamic system. People are contstantly leaving
jobs and entering new jobs where they can be more productive. There is a
churn of about 2 million jobs per month in America! Think of it as human
capital being reallocated to where they can be more productive.

But that reallocation process can be painful. While the free trade may
benefit each country as a whole, it frequently does not benefit the
workers of each country so much as the wealthy capital owners. That
is where governments can help. But not by restricting free trade! The
best role for government is to help the displaced workers, preventing
them from being mistreated, providing temporary living assistance, and
helping them to learn new skills and train for new jobs:

Certainly, a basic set of worker's rights should be enforced. If
the workers in a country are willing and able to produce something
for a lower price than Americans, then they should not be denied
the opportunity by trade restrictions SO LONG AS THEY AREN'T BEING
MISTREATED. We should not run a global competition to see who can
work under th emost dangerous or inhumane conditions -- that is not
progress. So, we should put trade restrictions on any countries that
don't have a basic set of laws governing workers rights. Here's such
a list, from a recent proxy statement of Sun Microsystems about its
factories in China (which didn't pass, by the way). These things should
not be up to the companies, this is the job of the governements, and the
American government SHOULD place trade restrictions on countries that
don't enforce these kinds of rules:

No goods produced by the company or its suppliers shall be produced by
bonded labor, forced labor or within prison camps.

Wage and hour guidelines should adhere at least to those provided by
China's national labor laws.

Facilities and suppliers shall prohibit the use of corporal punishment
and physical, sexual or verbal abuse.

Facilities and suppliers shall use production methods that do not
endanger workers safety or health.

Facilities and suppliers shall not call on police or military to enter
their premises to suppress workers rights.

Employees shall have the freedom of association, assembly, of forming
unions and bargaining collectively, of expression, and freedom from
arbitrary arrest or detention. (This sort of clause always has to be
read carefully, because sometimes human rights proposals are really
mandatory unionization proposals in drag. It's completely appropriate
for employees to have the right to unionize and bargain collectively,
so long as a company is not prohibited from hiring non-union workers
if reasonable agreements can't be negotiated. There's no mandatory
unionization in this policy).

Employees shall not face discrimination on the basis of age, gender,
marital status, political or religious activity, or arrest for
peaceful protest.

Facilities and suppliers shall use environmentally responsible methods
of production.

Facilities and suppliers shall prohibit child labor, or at a minimum
comply with guidelines on minimum age for employment within China's
national labor laws. (Again, this one is not as obvious as it might
seem. The absence of child labor is in some sense a luxury of
prosperity, and in many underdeveloped countries, child labor is a
factor in the survival of the family, as it was during the early
agricultural development of the United States. Even so, child labor
is largely the result of the unavailability of living wages for adult
workers. American companies should not allow this situation within the
scope of their foreign operations).

The company will not provide products in China that can be used to
commit human rights violations.

The company will issue annual statements detailing its efforts to
uphold these principles.


We certainly could use a better safety net: some way of providing
food, shelter, and very basic medical care to those who cannot buy it
for themselves. Right now the unemployment system is quite fragmented
-- I think it could be improved significantly by coordinating the
efforts of states and municipalities on a federal level (I don't mean
making a federal unemployment system, but rather coordinating things
such as training programs and sharing ideas, perhaps taking advantage
of downturns in one area and booms in another to smooth out funding,
etc.); it would also be a good idea to decrease the dependence of health
care on employment -- obtaining health care is very difficult if not
impossible for most unemployed people.

The cornerstone of a healthy, productive, advancing society is
education, primary, secondary, and adult education. With regards to
unemployment, we need education to help manage the constant churn in
the labor market, It is to everyone's benefit for good education and
training to be available for skills that are in demand or soon to be in
demand. This category also includes work on improving our forecasting
of what areas will be in demand in the future -- for example, it is
obvious that health care providers will be in growing demand as the baby
boomers age, but we can't all become doctors and nurses, so what other
areas should we be training for? What areas is America likely to have
a comparative advantage in the near-future, and which of those areas
will have a shortage of skilled workers? We should be investing money
in answering these questions. It might also be a good idea to greatly
expand federal funding for community colleges -- in a competitive manner
-- and provide federal scholarships to anyone who has lost a job and
wants to learn a new skill in an area that is projected to be in demand
in the near-future.

Finally, if you'd like to read a good book about trade and some of the
many fallacies that have been promulgated over the years, with a lot of
empirical data and evidence to back up the claims, check out _Free Trade
Under Fire_ by Douglas Irwin.






--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Michael Harney]

From: "Erik Reuter" <ereuter-***@public.gmane.org>


> On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 09:38:00AM -0700, Michael Harney wrote:
>
> > No, it's not nonsense, it's the only way that we can keep jobs in the
> > US, make it more expencive to off-shore work than to contract locally.
> > I never said they couldn't off-shore work, I just said there should be
> > fines associated with that to make it less cost effective.
>
> ....
>
> > Did I say forbid it? No, in fact I stated to the contrary: "not
> > forbidding, just restricting". And what kind of restriction did I
> > say was needed? Corperate resopnsability laws. Not taxes, not red
> > tape, just corperate responsability laws to protect the rights of the
> > outsource workers.
>
> I'm not sure what you are proposing here. First you say there should be
> fines to "make it less cost effective" then you say "not taxes, not red
> tape".


Your confusion is over the fact that I was talking about two different
things. The first was about off-shoring (sending work to other countries),
the second was outsourcing. Outsourcing can be done within the country, and
that is what I was talking about in the second part.


The rest of your post is far too long for me to read right now, so I may
address it tomorrow.

Michael Harney
dolphin-ftV0hpRrbTKt+***@public.gmane.org

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[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 12:03:22AM -0700, Michael Harney wrote:

> Your confusion is over the fact that I was talking about two different
> things. The first was about off-shoring (sending work to other
> countries), the second was outsourcing. Outsourcing can be done
> within the country, and that is what I was talking about in the second
> part.

Outsourcing can often be done more cheaply outside the country while not
harming foreign workers or the environment, and if it can be, then it
should be. Your efforts to tax it or add red tape hurts everyone.

>

--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, Erik Reuter <***@e...> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 12:03:22AM -0700, Michael Harney wrote:
>
> > Your confusion is over the fact that I was talking about two
different
> > things. The first was about off-shoring (sending work to other
> > countries), the second was outsourcing. Outsourcing can be done
> > within the country, and that is what I was talking about in the
second
> > part.
>
> Outsourcing can often be done more cheaply outside the country
while not
> harming foreign workers or the environment, and if it can be, then
it
> should be. Your efforts to tax it or add red tape hurts everyone.
>

Why is that? If work is a comodity, should it not be subject to the
same import laws as everything else?

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[Michael Harney]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Reuter" <ereuter-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 8:59 PM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom



> Why do comparatively rich Americans deserve a job, but dirt poor people
> in other countries, who are willing and able to produce the same thing
> for less money, do not? Shouldn't the job go to the person who is the
> most cost-effective, the person who produces the most for the least
> cost? If we can simultaneously cut our costs AND benefit those workers
> in other countries who are desperate to work, why should we deny people
> the opportunity? And denying some the opportunity you will be, even if
> you raise tariffs or taxes on globalization rather than instituting an
> outright ban. The net result is that costs will be higher in America and
> some people in foreign countries will not have a job that they otherwise
> would have had without the tariffs.


Paraphrase of what you asked: Should we give the jobs to rich Americans or
poor foriegners? That question is utter bullshit. There are *poor*
ameicans with college educations that can't do shit with them because some
coprperate fat-cats decided to send the jobs over seas where they can get
the work done cheaper. Should we let american jobs be given away just so
already rich americans can get richer. Fuck no! In case you are wondering,
yes, this subject is a very sore spot for me.



> Would you like to live in a place like Iain Banks' Culture? The only
> way to get there is to keep our productivity, roughly GDP per head,
> increasing as fast as possible. And the main way to do that is to
> invest in more and better capital. But someone has to design, build,
> and operate that capital to make more capital to increase productivity
> further. To keep this cycle going as fast as possible, we need to
> allocate our resources in the most efficient manner to increase
> productivity. David Ricardo explained, two hundred years ago, that even
> if a country can make every product cheaper than another country, that
> BOTH countries can still benefit from trade -- each area/group should
> work making the goods or providing the services in which they have a
> comparative advantage. And as new capital and new ideas accumulate, the
> comparative advantages for each group or country change. Jobs shift. But
> long-term, everyone is better off when this happens, since it is the
> most efficient way to create new capital and increase productivity.


Job shifts... Do you see any programs to support and retrain the workers
that were displaced so that they can perform a new job and still make a good
living? I sure as fuck don't.


> Do you want to pay more for your DVD player? Free trade has been largely
> responsible for the drop in prices of equipment such as DVD players,
> TVs, and computers. And it doesn't just benefit consumers with lower
> prices on consumer electronics. Cheaper computers, for example, all the
> inexpensive Dells manufactured in China, allowed companies to invest
> in IT and get more capital for the buck, thus increasing their workers
> productivity. And remember that productivity increases are the only way
> to increase the long-term standard of living.


So the rich in America get richer, the poor in America get poorer, but
that's ok, because we can buy cheap DVD players. Fuck that!

I've already read too much. This topic is aggitating the hell out of me and
I have other, more important things to do than participate in a discussion
that is going to piss me off. I just cannot beilieve the utter number of
people on this list that think giving away American jobs is a good thing.

I bet you wouldn't like off-shoring quite so much if it cost you your job
and job opertunities.

I'm filtering all but "brin" posts as of now. DO NOT CONACT ME OFF LIST ON
THIS TOPIC. DOING SO WILL BE CONSIDERED HARASMENT.


Michael Harney
dolphin-ftV0hpRrbTKt+***@public.gmane.org

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[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 10:34:22AM -0700, Michael Harney wrote:

> Paraphrase of what you asked: Should we give the jobs to rich
> Americans or poor foriegners? That question is utter bullshit.

It sure is. WE giving jobs? Who are you to decide? And you got caught in
the fallacy again, it isn't an either/or thing. Foreigners AND Americans
can both improve by free trade. One job moves out from America in one
area, and two more are created in America in another area.

> There are *poor* ameicans with college educations that can't do shit
> with them because some coprperate fat-cats decided to send the jobs
> over seas where they can get the work done cheaper.

Good. Cheaper is better. Higher productivity helps us all.

> Should we let american jobs be given away just so already rich
> americans can get richer. Fuck no! In case you are wondering, yes,
> this subject is a very sore spot for me.

Maybe you should try thinking rationally about it instead of getting
emotional and irrational about it.

> Job shifts... Do you see any programs to support and retrain the workers
> that were displaced so that they can perform a new job and still make a good
> living? I sure as fuck don't.

Some, but not enough. So why don't you target that for your political
activism? That would be helpful, rather than trying to hurt foreigners
and all Americans in the long run, which is what restricting trade would
do.

Restricting free-trade because jobs are churning is like the old joke
about the guy on is hands and knees at night, under a streetlight,
looking for his lost contact -- someone comes up to him to offer help
and says, "where did you drop it?" and he replies "way over there, but
the light is better here". You need to attack the problem(s) directly,
not tilt at windmills. In fact, restricting free trade is even worse
than looking under the streetlight, because in the long run, restricted
trade will REDUCE the number of jobs for everyone.

> So the rich in America get richer, the poor in America get poorer, but
> that's ok, because we can buy cheap DVD players. Fuck that!

If this concerns you, then you need to attack the problem directly. How
do you make the poor richer? You do NOT do it by restricting free trade
-- the evidence is that you will make everyone poorer that way.

> that is going to piss me off. I just cannot beilieve the utter number
> of people on this list that think giving away American jobs is a good
> thing.

When you get more than you give, it is a good thing. You are dangerously
focused on the short term. Eating your seed corn may feel good now, but
you will be sorry later.

Why do you think you know how to manage the world economy better than
two hundred years of economists? Why do you think you should be able
to tell people how much they should pay for their goods and who they
are allowed to hire? Why do you think your decisions would be better
than those made by billions of people all individually optimizing their
situations?

> I bet you wouldn't like off-shoring quite so much if it cost you your
> job and job opertunities.

I bet you wouldn't like restricted trade so much when the number of jobs
created in the US goes negative and we enter the worst, most extended
depression in American history.


--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Damon Agretto]

[Julia Thompson]

Michael Harney wrote:

> Job shifts... Do you see any programs to support and retrain the workers
> that were displaced so that they can perform a new job and still make a good
> living? I sure as fuck don't.

And a friend of mine in Austin saw the same thing, and helped set up a
program intended to do that.

Now he's hustling and performing whatever computer-related odd jobs that
he can, and he's not above doing heavy lifting if that's what it's going
to take to bring in the grocery money; he's doing what he can, and not
complaining about it even in bad weeks.

But it helps in that he's something of a people person.

Julia
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[Russell Chapman]

Michael Harney wrote:

>
>Job shifts... Do you see any programs to support and retrain the workers
>that were displaced so that they can perform a new job and still make a good
>living? I sure as f##k don't.
>
Thankyou Michael for the profanity - big help from someone who has made
such demands about the way we treat him onlist in the past...
Now that I've dragged the email from the cybercellar it was consigned
to, and removed it's entry in the logs (I can't imagine NOT being the
network administrator...)
Not that Michael is listening any more, because he doesn't like
dissenting opinions, but I question this.
This is standard practice in Australia during retrenchments and the like
- tons of money gets thrown at these programs. (Not always successful -
we now have thousands of MCSEs who can't use a command prompt and MBAs
who can't read a bank statement, but the effort is made to give these
people every chance).
I see that IBM is doing something:
http://news.com.com/2100-1011-5167506.html?part=dht&tag=ntop

Surely there are programs like this throughout the US?

Cheers
Russell C.


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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Russell Chapman" <rchapman-24jMwgp+***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 5:04 PM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom


> Michael Harney wrote:
>
> >
> >Job shifts... Do you see any programs to support and retrain the workers
> >that were displaced so that they can perform a new job and still make a
good
> >living? I sure as f##k don't.
> >
> Thankyou Michael for the profanity - big help from someone who has made
> such demands about the way we treat him onlist in the past...
> Now that I've dragged the email from the cybercellar it was consigned
> to, and removed it's entry in the logs (I can't imagine NOT being the
> network administrator...)
> Not that Michael is listening any more, because he doesn't like
> dissenting opinions, but I question this.
> This is standard practice in Australia during retrenchments and the like
> - tons of money gets thrown at these programs. (Not always successful -
> we now have thousands of MCSEs who can't use a command prompt and MBAs
> who can't read a bank statement, but the effort is made to give these
> people every chance).
> I see that IBM is doing something:
> http://news.com.com/2100-1011-5167506.html?part=dht&tag=ntop
>
> Surely there are programs like this throughout the US?

Not many, not really. During bad recessions some token money gets thrown at
it; but a good severance package is a weeks pay per year of service, the
opportunity to keep one's health insurance at the total cost to the company
+ a 5% service charge, and a payout on any unused vacation.

Outplacement usually ranges from nothing, to a 2 day seminar in which you
attend classes with 20 others on getting your resume together, job hunting
techniques, etc. I was lucky that I was as senior as technical people
could get and had almost 20 years of service when I was outsized. I was
able to get the executive package, which included 6 months of outplacement.
This included weekly meetings with other job seekers, the ability to use
their offices and resources, and some coaching. I think I met with my
coaches a total of 8 hours over the whole experience....and I was one of
the lucky ones.

The US tends to have outplacement as sink or swim. Training for new jobs
is rare and is mostly window dressing AFAIK.

Dan M.


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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Reuter" <ereuter-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 9:59 PM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom


> Clearly, the 90's were unusual.

In some ways, but not in employment. The job growth from '92 to '00 was
21%. The average job growth over 8 years, since the '40-'48 comparison,
was 18%: higher than average, but not unusual. The sixties saw far higher
growth than this, peaking out over '61 to '69, with a 30% job growth. Even
'72 to '80 saw better job growth than '92 to '00, at 23%.

>In short, the majority of the 2 million
> jobs that have been lost in the past couple years are cyclical losses
> rather than structural, i.e., temporary losses due to the recession, not
> permanent lossed due to globalization. By the way, only in 2003 did the
> private sector get back into the black, saving more than investing. It
> may take a year or two longer for unemployment to get back to 5% in the
> cycle.

2002 and 2003 were the first consecutive years with a net loss of jobs in
each year since the end of WWII. 2003 compared to 2000 shows a net job
loss of 1.4%. The next worse performance was -0.3% from '79-'82. And,
well into the recovery, the president has had to back off his projections
for job creation in '04.

What's happening is not business as usual. The numbers I've seen indicate
that about 1/3rd of the loss can be attributed to outsourcing. But, I
think that a fundamental shift in the US economy may be taking place.

Dan M.


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[Dan Minette]

> What's happening is not business as usual. The numbers I've seen
indicate
> that about 1/3rd of the loss can be attributed to outsourcing. But, I
> think that a fundamental shift in the US economy may be taking place.
>
> Dan M.

In case anyone wants my source for employment data, it is:

http://data.bls.gov/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet


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[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 04:11:05PM -0600, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> From: "Erik Reuter" <ereuter-***@public.gmane.org>
>
> > Clearly, the 90's were unusual.
>
> In some ways, but not in employment.

Definitely in employment, looking at the late 90's, which is what
I meant to imply (sorry for the ambiguity). Just look at average
historical unemployment:

average
unemployment
rate
years %
==================
2001-2004 5.3
1997-2000 4.5
1993-1996 6.3
1989-1992 6.1
1985-1988 6.6
1981-1984 8.6
1977-1980 6.5
1973-1976 6.5
1969-1972 4.7
1965-1968 4.1
1961-1964 5.9


The last time there was a significant period with unemployment below the
"natural" rate of 5%, it was the late 60's/early 70's, which was a big
boom time. Which was followed by a big bust, with over a million jobs
lost and a period of lower employment. As far as employment, this looks
just like a typical cycle. Just look at the BLS data, get a historical
graph (new feature of their website), and you can see the employment
cycle doesn't look extraordinary. In fact, if anything, looking at
decades back to 1930, it seems the cycle amplitude is attenuating a bit.


> 2002 and 2003 were the first consecutive years with a net loss of jobs
> in each year since the end of WWII.

And the late 90's had the biggest corporate investing boom (and stock
price boom) since WWII. After a big, unsustainable boom comes a cyclical
bust. You haven't shown any evidence that this cycle is significantly
different than others. At every cyclical slow down, a lot of people
shout that it is different this time, particularly those who have
recently left jobs. But they are usually wrong. Yes, this time is
different in several ways (I think the biggest difference is how
much higher private and public debt is, and the huge current account
deficit), but I don't see anything unusual in the employment behavior in
the current recession, which by the way, I think is relatively mild --
there may be worse to come since the excesses haven't been worked off
yet.



--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Reuter" <ereuter-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 6:24 AM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom


> On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 04:11:05PM -0600, Dan Minette wrote:
> >
> > From: "Erik Reuter" <ereuter-***@public.gmane.org>
> >
> > > Clearly, the 90's were unusual.
> >
> > In some ways, but not in employment.
>
> Definitely in employment, looking at the late 90's, which is what
> I meant to imply (sorry for the ambiguity). Just look at average
> historical unemployment:

We have different numbers because we are looking at different things. You
are quoting unemployment..which is

(those actively looking for work)/(those actively looking for work + those
employed).

I'm quoting employment. There has been a historical correlation between
the two as far back as I've seen statistics.

That correlation is now broken. Our own Brad DeLong is one of the
ecconomists who is noting this break. As of yet, there is not an
explaination.

Let me give comperable figures for increases/decreases in employment to
your unemployment rate. They aren't quite the same because your figures
are averages and mine are differences, but I picked the same year
groupings.


1944 to 1948 4.7%
1948 to 1952 8.1%
1952 to 1956 17.6%
1956 to 1960 4.4%
1960 to 1964 5.9%
1964 to 1968 16.2%
1968 to 1972 8.4%
1972 to 1976 8.4%
1976 to 1980 15.7%
1980 to 1984 2.0%
1984 to 1988 11.9%
1988 to 1992 4.4%
1992 to 1996 9.1%
1996 to 2000 10.6%
2000 to 2004 -0.4%

BTW, the website I gave was where I was when I copied the numbers, but it
didn't translate well. Try

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

and then picking the seasonally adjusted payroll and the maximum years.

So, unemployment was very low in the late '90s and doesn't look all that
bad in the early '00s. But, this is the first drop in employment during a
presidential term since the start of the Great Depression.







> average
> unemployment
> rate
> years %
> ==================
> 2001-2004 5.3
> 1997-2000 4.5
> 1993-1996 6.3
> 1989-1992 6.1
> 1985-1988 6.6
> 1981-1984 8.6
> 1977-1980 6.5
> 1973-1976 6.5
> 1969-1972 4.7
> 1965-1968 4.1
> 1961-1964 5.9
>
>
> The last time there was a significant period with unemployment below the
> "natural" rate of 5%, it was the late 60's/early 70's, which was a big
> boom time. Which was followed by a big bust, with over a million jobs
> lost and a period of lower employment.

I don't see where you got this. Let me quote my statistics for those years
jobs
year x1000
1968 66805
1969 69438
1970 71176
1971 70866
1972 72445
1973 75620
1974 78104
1975 77297
1976 78506
1977 80692
1978 84595
1979 88811
1980 90800

Over no two year period is there a job loss. Betwen jan 1974 and jan 1975,
about 800 thousand jobs were lost, but in between 75 & 76, about 1.5
million were gained. Let us look at the recent years:


2000 130730
2001 132388
2002 130494
2003 130190
2004 130155

All numbers are January numbers BTW, that's why 2001 looks so good. We see
about 1.9 million jobs ere lost between jan 2001 and jan 2002, another 300
thousand between '02 and '03, and another 35 thousand between '03 and '04.
This is unprecidented.





>As far as employment, this looks
> just like a typical cycle. Just look at the BLS data, get a historical
> graph (new feature of their website), and you can see the employment
> cycle doesn't look extraordinary. In fact, if anything, looking at
> decades back to 1930, it seems the cycle amplitude is attenuating a bit.
>
>but I don't see anything unusual in the employment behavior in
> the current recession, which by the way, I think is relatively mild --
> there may be worse to come since the excesses haven't been worked off
> yet.

But, the growth in GDP, while very good, wasn't out of the ordinary during
'92 to '00. It was 37%, compared to 46% from '60 to '68. I realize that
corporate debt is high, and that there's been a lot of investment in
infrastructure, and the stock market was over valued during the '90s, but
the classic sign of an overheated economy wasn't there. That is the rise
of inflation. Throughout this all, wage pressure was minimal. The
inflation adjusted median wage was still lower than its peak in the '70s in
2000.

Further, standard numbers for measuring recovery from excess have been
looking fairly decent. Things like factory utilization and business
inventory are good.

So, it appears that we are now having a change in the correlation between
key figures. I'd argue that, when important variables that have had
correlations within certain bounds for decades start losing those
correlations, something fundamental is changing.

I understand why you used unemployment numbers to talk about employment,
its been done for years. For the first time, there is a disconnect between
these figures, and its very curious.

Dan M.


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[Erik Reuter]

On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 09:35:55AM -0600, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> From: "Erik Reuter" <ereuter-***@public.gmane.org>


> > average
> > unemployment
> > rate
> > years %
> > ==================
> > 2001-2004 5.3
> > 1997-2000 4.5
> > 1993-1996 6.3
> > 1989-1992 6.1
> > 1985-1988 6.6
> > 1981-1984 8.6
> > 1977-1980 6.5
> > 1973-1976 6.5
> > 1969-1972 4.7
> > 1965-1968 4.1
> > 1961-1964 5.9

> > The last time there was a significant period with unemployment below the
> > "natural" rate of 5%, it was the late 60's/early 70's, which was a big
> > boom time. Which was followed by a big bust, with over a million jobs
> > lost and a period of lower employment.
>
> I don't see where you got this.

I made a couple assumptions and calculated assuming unemployment went
from 4.7% to 6.5%. If unemployment went up because more than a million
people out of the "uncounted" entered the job market looking for work
net of those who left the market, then my conclusion may be wrong.

Let me quote my statistics for those years
> jobs
> year x1000
> 1968 66805
> 1969 69438
> 1970 71176
> 1971 70866
> 1972 72445
> 1973 75620
> 1974 78104
> 1975 77297
> 1976 78506
> 1977 80692
> 1978 84595
> 1979 88811
> 1980 90800
>
> Over no two year period is there a job loss. Betwen jan 1974 and jan 1975,
> about 800 thousand jobs were lost, but in between 75 & 76, about 1.5
> million were gained.

So these data say my 1M estimate was too high, and should have been
800K.

Let us look at the recent years:
>
>
> 2000 130730
> 2001 132388
> 2002 130494
> 2003 130190
> 2004 130155
>
> All numbers are January numbers BTW, that's why 2001 looks so good. We see
> about 1.9 million jobs ere lost between jan 2001 and jan 2002, another 300
> thousand between '02 and '03, and another 35 thousand between '03 and '04.
> This is unprecidented.

If you leave out the spike in 2001, then your conclusion looks a lot
different -- less than 600K jobs lost.

I don't mean to dispute your suggestion of looking at the employment vs.
unemployment numbers, I actually think that is a good idea. Perhaps we
have both been too cavalier with drawing conclusions from the limited
data set we were looking at. I don't really like looking at numbers that
show monthly changes, since the data looks so noisy, but that seems to
be what is most readily available. I'm looking around for more data
myself, and I'll have more to discuss later, probably this weekend. If
I can't find smoother data, I'll do some averaging myself and make some
graphs on my web page for discussion.


--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Reuter" <ereuter-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2004 5:59 AM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom



> I don't mean to dispute your suggestion of looking at the employment vs.
> unemployment numbers, I actually think that is a good idea. Perhaps we
> have both been too cavalier with drawing conclusions from the limited
> data set we were looking at.

That doesn't seem unreasonable.

>I don't really like looking at numbers that
> show monthly changes, since the data looks so noisy, but that seems to
> be what is most readily available.

I decided to test this by plotting monthly employment from 1940 to now
(2-2004). There is, of course, monthly noise, but I was surprised at how
smooth the overall curve looked.

I think decided to plot a variable I called job loss. That variable is

((Maximum number of jobs) -(Present number of jobs))/(Maxium number of
jobs)

As you can see, during upswings, this number is zero because the maximum
number of jobs is the present months total. It is only positive during
downturns. What is interesting about the present downturn is that it is,
since 1940, the longest span where this number is positive. The most
comperable span was 1980-83, but there was half a year in the middle where
this variable was zero.

Unfortunately, I do not have a website to post this, but I can send it to
you if you are posting charts. That we we can split the work in getting
numbers. (I have it in an .xls file now, but I can put it in a number of
different formats.)

Dan M.



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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Minette" <dsummersminet-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 10:55 AM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom


>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Erik Reuter" <ereuter-***@public.gmane.org>
> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
> Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2004 5:59 AM
> Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom
>
>
>
> > I don't mean to dispute your suggestion of looking at the employment
vs.
> > unemployment numbers, I actually think that is a good idea. Perhaps we
> > have both been too cavalier with drawing conclusions from the limited
> > data set we were looking at.
>
> That doesn't seem unreasonable.
>
> >I don't really like looking at numbers that
> > show monthly changes, since the data looks so noisy, but that seems to
> > be what is most readily available.
>
> I decided to test this by plotting monthly employment from 1940 to now
> (2-2004). There is, of course, monthly noise, but I was surprised at how
> smooth the overall curve looked.
>
> I think decided to plot a variable I called job loss. That variable is
^^^
then
Sigh,

Dan M.


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[Dan Minette]

Another interesting number I found is they delay between the rebound in GDP
and the rebound in employment. The figure that I used for each is the
number of quarters after the first quarter of a recession for the
gdp/employment to once again be a historical high. The numbers are

year gdp employment
1949 4 6
1953 5 7
1957 4 6
1960 4 6
1969 3 7
1974 7 8
1980 3 3
1981 6 8
1990 4 8
2001 4 13+


For the most part, the delay between GDP and employment is 2 quarters or
less.

There are three exceptions to this. In 1969, it was 4 quarters. But, this
is a bit of an anomoly, because there was almost a double dip recession,
with the GDP falling in the 3rd quarter of 1970...which help prolong the
unemployment dip.

The second is 1990, which again had a 4 quarter gap. This time, there was
no anomoly in the GDP, it kept rising throughout the unemployment dip. The
final one is the 2001 recession. They gap is 9 quarters and
counting...well unless March jobs are up 7 million from February. :-)
Expectations are for it to be at least 12 quarters.


Dan M.



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[John D. Giorgis]

At 04:11 PM 3/2/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
>> Clearly, the 90's were unusual.
>
>In some ways, but not in employment. The job growth from '92 to '00 was
>21%. The average job growth over 8 years, since the '40-'48 comparison,
>was 18%: higher than average, but not unusual. The sixties saw far higher
>growth than this, peaking out over '61 to '69, with a 30% job growth. Even
>'72 to '80 saw better job growth than '92 to '00, at 23%.

I'm sorry Dan, but I suspect that you could not find a single PhD economist
who would agree with your assertion that the 1990's were, quote, "not
unusual in employment."

This is what I mean about playing "fast and loose with the numbers."
You toss a lot of numbers out here, and reach a conclusion that is the
economic equivalent of "the world is only 15,000 years old" . There is
simply no serious economist who agrees with you on this Dan.

I may be off slightly off on the top of my head here, but IIRC the
unemployment rate hit 3.8% during the 1990's. If this does not qualify
as "unusual employment" in your mind, then I don't know what does.

>2002 and 2003 were the first consecutive years with a net loss of jobs in
>each year since the end of WWII. 2003 compared to 2000 shows a net job
>loss of 1.4%. The next worse performance was -0.3% from '79-'82.

Is it just me, or do "'79-'82" qualify as "consecutive years?"

Anyhow, I think that our economic situation is unusual, since the US
economy is recovering from its largest asset-bubble since, well the end of
WWII. (Actually, its probably the largest asset bubble since the 1920's.)

In terms of analyzing job gains, it is important to consider that from
1960-1990, female labor force participation was increasing significantly.
I am sure that that had to play a role in the time series of employment
gains, and I would suspect that female labor force participation was
probably beginning to level-out by 2000 (although it may have been
increasing a bit in the late 1990's due to the 1996 welfare reform.)

Anyhow, the point is that the current economic times are highly unusual.
In particular:
1) The US is recovering from the largest asset price bubble since the 1920's
2) During the 2001 recession, very few jobs were lost relative to previous
recessions
3) Historically speaking, US employment levels, while they could be better,
aren't exactly "bad" either.

For example, in 1996 when Bill Clinton was re-elected on the strength of
the economy, 63% of Americans had jobs. Today, the figure is 62.2%.
In 1982, around 57.9% of Americans had jobs, by 1989, when Reagan left
office, over 62% of Americans had jobs. By contrast, Bill Clinton took
until 1996 to match the peak employment of 1989-1990, (and Clinton didn't
have the after-effects of a bubble to deal with) and by the end of
Clinton's eight-year term he had only increased the employment rate by
something on the order of 2.5 percentage points, compared to Reagan's
increase of over 4 percentage points.

Here is an article with the data, and an interesting discussion of this topic:
http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2446951

JDG



_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - jxg9-***@public.gmane.org
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
_______________________________________________
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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John D. Giorgis" <jxg9-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom


> At 04:11 PM 3/2/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
> >> Clearly, the 90's were unusual.
> >
> >In some ways, but not in employment. The job growth from '92 to '00 was
> >21%. The average job growth over 8 years, since the '40-'48 comparison,
> >was 18%: higher than average, but not unusual. The sixties saw far
higher
> >growth than this, peaking out over '61 to '69, with a 30% job growth.
Even
> >'72 to '80 saw better job growth than '92 to '00, at 23%.
>
> I'm sorry Dan, but I suspect that you could not find a single PhD
economist
> who would agree with your assertion that the 1990's were, quote, "not
> unusual in employment."

> This is what I mean about playing "fast and loose with the numbers."
> You toss a lot of numbers out here, and reach a conclusion that is the
> economic equivalent of "the world is only 15,000 years old" . There
is
> simply no serious economist who agrees with you on this Dan.

Fine. Give me the ecconomic equivalant of carbon dating.

Give me the ecconomic equivalant of the big bang theory...in particular I'd
like to see experimental conformation equivalant to the 4K background
radiation

Give me the ecconomic equivalant of the correlation between astrophysics
and particle physics.

Give me the ecconomic equivalant of the decay of uranium over the last few
billion years.

Give me the ecconomic equivalant of SR and GR

Give me the ecconomic equivalant of Newtons laws.

Give me the ecconomic equivalant of genes as an explaination of evolution

Give me the ecconomic equivalant of finding the mechanism that let the sun
shine for more than a couple of hundred of thousand years _after_ the
theory of evolution was developed requiring times much larger than this.

Give me the economic equivalent of the measured reversal of the earths
magnetic field.

Since economics is a science, and you've taken graduate courses in it, and
what I said is equivalent to the young earth theory, this should be a
trivial request...I expect you can give these numbers off the top of your
head. I could give the physics equivalent off the top of my head (well GR
would be a bit arm wavey but that's about it.)

Dan M.



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[John D. Giorgis]

At 01:48 PM 3/6/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
>> At 04:11 PM 3/2/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
>> >> Clearly, the 90's were unusual.
>> >
>> >In some ways, but not in employment. The job growth from '92 to '00 was
>> >21%. The average job growth over 8 years, since the '40-'48 comparison,
>> >was 18%: higher than average, but not unusual. The sixties saw far
>higher
>> >growth than this, peaking out over '61 to '69, with a 30% job growth.
>Even
>> >'72 to '80 saw better job growth than '92 to '00, at 23%.
>>
>> I'm sorry Dan, but I suspect that you could not find a single PhD
>economist
>> who would agree with your assertion that the 1990's were, quote, "not
>> unusual in employment."
>
>> This is what I mean about playing "fast and loose with the numbers."
>> You toss a lot of numbers out here, and reach a conclusion that is the
>> economic equivalent of "the world is only 15,000 years old" . There
>is
>> simply no serious economist who agrees with you on this Dan.
>
>Fine. Give me the ecconomic equivalant.......

In any Economics 101 textbook, you will find a concept called the
"Non-Accelerating Inflation Unemployment Rate", or NAIRU. This is
considered by economists to be the lowest sustainable rate of unemployment
without increasing the rate of inflation.

The most recent textbook I consulted on this topic, published in the late
1990's, called 6.0% the "canonical" NAIRU. I suspect that there are few,
if any, economics textbooks that would identify a NAIRU below 5.0%, with
most opting for a NAIRU range of 5.0-5.5% or 5.0-6.0%.

According to any economist, the unemployment rates that were so
substantially below the NAIRU were unusual - all the moreso when one
considers that it was combined with such relatively low inflation.

I'm sorry having "called you out" like that, but it was mostly me lashing
out in frustration. I find it extremely frustrating that you
consistently are posting economic statistics that all, amazingly enough,
reach the same conclusion: that Republicans are disastrous and that
Democrats are wonderful. Actually, its probably more specific than that:
it's that Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush were disastrous and that
Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton were wonderful. Moreover, it makes
me very frustrated that I perceive you as trading on your expertise in the
unrelated field physics, to make your analysis (which I usually find to be
quite flawed) and your conclusions (which I usually find to be quite
spurious) more believable - while at the same time continuing to suggest
that Economics is not useful for drawing specific conclusions or
predictions, and that in fact, economic data is pretty much only useful for
supporting whatever you want to believe. Anyhow, I apologize for that....
there were much more polite ways for me to correct your analysis without
"calling you out."

JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - jxg9-***@public.gmane.org
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
_______________________________________________
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[Erik Reuter]

On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 04:52:18PM -0500, John D. Giorgis wrote:

> In any Economics 101 textbook, you will find a concept called the
> "Non-Accelerating Inflation Unemployment Rate", or NAIRU. This
> is considered by economists to be the lowest sustainable rate of
> unemployment without increasing the rate of inflation.

Not all Ph.D. economists agree:

http://www.hussman.net/html/economy.htm#wageprice

The belief in a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment is
both widely held and completely false. On a statistical basis,
the relationship between inflation and unemployment is actually
slightly positive; higher inflation is weakly correlated with higher
unemployment. The relationship is highly significant if we lag
unemployment by two years. High inflation today is strongly related
to high unemployment two years later. In contrast, there is no
statistically significant evidence that low unemployment today is
followed by high subsequent inflation. There is also no evidence that
excessive, inflationary credit creation can be used to create jobs.

The widespread view to the contrary is based on a 1958 Economica
paper by A.W. Phillips, which presented what has come to be known
as the "Phillips Curve". Phillips studied the relationship between
unemployment and wage inflation in Britain using a century of
data through the 1950's. What he found has a very straightforward
interpretation: when labor is scarce, the price of labor tends to
rise. This is a basic fact of economics, and was indeed supported by
the data presented by Phillips. Moreover, the data Phillips used was
largely during a period when Britain was under the gold standard, and
overall price inflation was subdued.

I've long asserted that the only accurate interpretation of the
Phillips Curve (which still holds true in the data) is that low
unemployment is associated with inflation in real wages. Quite simply,
when workers become scarce, the price of labor tends to rise faster
than the overall price level.

Unfortunately, over the past several decades, the idea of the Phillips
Curve has been twisted beyond recognition. Some economists and the
public have quite incorrectly come to believe that the Phillips Curve
is a relationship between unemployment and overall prices. Moreover,
it is often argued that higher inflation can be pursued as a way to
create jobs. This is a fascinating distortion of the facts. The true
Phillips Curve says that low unemployment tends to lead to inflation
in real wages. The notion that higher overall inflation can buy jobs
not only drops the words "real wages", but reverses the direction of
cause and effect.

In short, when workers become scarce, the price of labor tends
to rise, relative to the price of other things. There is nothing
controversial in this. However, the belief that overall inflation can
buy jobs is simply false. The belief that low unemployment causes
general prices to rise is also false. Even if wages rise, there need
not be general price inflation. As long as labor productivity (output
per worker) is growing, workers can be paid higher wages without
having to raise output prices. In addition, wage increases can be
accommodated by reducing profit margins, rather than by raising
prices, particularly when profit margins are high.The only way for
wages (measured in dollars) and overall prices (also measured in
dollars) to "spiral" higher together is for the government to create
too many dollars.




--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Erik Reuter]

On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 01:48:01PM -0600, Dan Minette wrote:
> Fine. Give me the ecconomic equivalant of carbon dating.

A couple economic principles relevant to free trade are:

- David Ricardo's principle of comparative advantage

- Abba Lerner's symmetry theorem stating the equivalence between taxes
on imports and taxes on exports


--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John D. Giorgis" <jxg9-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom


> At 04:11 PM 3/2/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
> >> Clearly, the 90's were unusual.
> >
> >In some ways, but not in employment. The job growth from '92 to '00 was
> >21%. The average job growth over 8 years, since the '40-'48 comparison,
> >was 18%: higher than average, but not unusual. The sixties saw far
higher
> >growth than this, peaking out over '61 to '69, with a 30% job growth.
Even
> >'72 to '80 saw better job growth than '92 to '00, at 23%.
>
> I'm sorry Dan, but I suspect that you could not find a single PhD
economist
> who would agree with your assertion that the 1990's were, quote, "not
> unusual in employment."

And, if I do? Is that PhD economist then wrong. The PhD ecconomist on
this list has indicated that his view of how much you and he agree and your
view of how much you and he agree vary significantly. You may write him
off, but I can't see why you should expect the rest of us to.

> I may be off slightly off on the top of my head here, but IIRC the
> unemployment rate hit 3.8% during the 1990's. If this does not qualify
> as "unusual employment" in your mind, then I don't know what does.

Something lower than the average unemployment between 66-69. The lowest
yearly unemployment rate under Clinton was

> >2002 and 2003 were the first consecutive years with a net loss of jobs
in
> >each year since the end of WWII. 2003 compared to 2000 shows a net job
> >loss of 1.4%. The next worse performance was -0.3% from '79-'82.
>
> Is it just me, or do "'79-'82" qualify as "consecutive years?"

No, I made two statements.

1) 2002 and 2003 were the first consecutive years with job losses since the
end of WWII.

2) there was a job loss over a 3-year time span of 1.4% between 2000 and
2003. The next worse performance was -0.3% from '79-'82.

> Anyhow, I think that our economic situation is unusual, since the US
> economy is recovering from its largest asset-bubble since, well the end
of
> WWII. (Actually, its probably the largest asset bubble since the
1920's.)

But, then why did this just effect employment growth and not GDP growth.
This is the first jobless recovery every president could have excuses.
Jimmy Carter presidied over the biggest increase in prices for commodities
in history. Yet, I'm sure you'd cut him no slack.

> In terms of analyzing job gains, it is important to consider that from
> 1960-1990, female labor force participation was increasing significantly.
> I am sure that that had to play a role in the time series of employment
> gains, and I would suspect that female labor force participation was
> probably beginning to level-out by 2000 (although it may have been
> increasing a bit in the late 1990's due to the 1996 welfare reform.)

What about the simple fact that the jobs are not there? I've read analysis
after analysis by PhD ecconomists that have stated this is the most likely
cause.

> Anyhow, the point is that the current economic times are highly unusual.
> In particular:
> 1) The US is recovering from the largest asset price bubble since the
1920's
> 2) During the 2001 recession, very few jobs were lost relative to
previous
> recessions

Sigh, have you ever plotted the numbers?

Here are the percentage job losses for the recessions since '60

1960 2.16%
1969 1.46%
1974 2.76%
1980 1.27%
1981 3.10%
1990 1.47%
2001 2.05%

This gives us the mean and standard deviation of the fractional job loss
as:


2.04% +/-0.70%.

So, 2001 is just barely above average.

But, you might argue that 1980 should be tossed as part of a double dip
recessio;n.

Throwing out the low 1980 number (accepting a single "double dip"
recession), we have:


1960 2.16%
1969 1.46%
1974 2.76%
1980 2.45%
1990 1.47%
2001 2.05%

This gives us

2.06%+/-0.52%

With 2001 being just a bit below average.

Indeed, 2001 has, by far, the closest to average job loss of any recession.

Also, its not just me that notices the lack of job creation:

"Economists were hard-pressed to explain why job growth had fallen far
short of expectations yet again, although some said poor weather may have
played a role. For the most part, however, they cited the ability of
businesses to boost output without taking on new workers.....Some
economists said the relative dearth of hiring more than 27 months into an
economic recovery was unprecedented. 'We are in uncharted territory,' said
David Rosenberg, chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch."



> 3) Historically speaking, US employment levels, while they could be
better,
> aren't exactly "bad" either.

This is the longest time by far since we've started measuring between the
bottom of the recession and the time that total jobs exceeded the previous
peak....and we are still counting.

> For example, in 1996 when Bill Clinton was re-elected on the strength of
> the economy, 63% of Americans had jobs. Today, the figure is 62.2%.
> In 1982, around 57.9% of Americans had jobs, by 1989, when Reagan left
> office, over 62% of Americans had jobs. By contrast, Bill Clinton took
> until 1996 to match the peak employment of 1989-1990,

Not true. The peak employment of 1989-1990 was 109.8 million in June 1990.
The bottom of the jobs recession was May 1991 at 108.2 million. Employment
was 110 million in February, 1993...roughly 1 year after Clintion took
office.


(and Clinton didn't
> have the after-effects of a bubble to deal with) and by the end of
> Clinton's eight-year term he had only increased the employment rate by
> something on the order of 2.5 percentage points, compared to Reagan's
> increase of over 4 percentage points.

I thought you just said that the '90s were unusually high in job creation.
If the above statement is true, then how can that also be true?

> Here is an article with the data, and an interesting discussion of this
topic:
> http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2446951

I needed to pay, AFAIK, to get the story.

Dan M.


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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Minette" <dsummersminet-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom

I didn't finish a thought, sorry all.

> Something lower than the average unemployment between 66-69. The lowest
> yearly unemployment rate under Clinton was


4.0%. (There was indeed a 1 month dip to 3.8%.) The average unemployment
between '66 and '69 was <3.7%.

So, compared to the '60s, the '90s did not have unusually low unemployment.

Dan M.


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[John D. Giorgis]

At 02:34 PM 3/6/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
>
>I didn't finish a thought, sorry all.
>
>> Something lower than the average unemployment between 66-69. The lowest
>> yearly unemployment rate under Clinton was
>
>
>4.0%. (There was indeed a 1 month dip to 3.8%.) The average unemployment
>between '66 and '69 was <3.7%.
>
>So, compared to the '60s, the '90s did not have unusually low unemployment.

First, I think that some would argue that a phenomenon occuring only once
every 35 years might count as unusual.

Secondly, given that this phenomenon occurred during LBJ's "Guns *and*
Butter" expansion only highlights my point that the 1990's were unusual for
their unsustainable level of employment.

JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - jxg9-***@public.gmane.org
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
_______________________________________________
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[Erik Reuter]

On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 02:27:58PM -0600, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> From: "John D. Giorgis" <jxg9-***@public.gmane.org>

> > Here is an article with the data, and an interesting discussion of
> > this topic:
>
> > http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2446951
>
> I needed to pay, AFAIK, to get the story.

I didn't post this article earlier because I wasn't really happy with
some of the hand-waving (not up to Economist's usual standards, I
think). It did give a little bit of data, which I posted previously. But
since you're the second person to ask, I'll post the full article below.

By the way, I am still looking around at available data and working on a
post, Dan.


***

The great hollowing-out myth
Feb 19th 2004 | CHICAGO AND WASHINGTON, DC
>From The Economist print edition

EARLIER this month the president's chief economic adviser, Gregory
Mankiw, once Harvard's youngest tenured professor, attracted a storm of
abuse. He told Congress that if a thing or a service could be produced
more cheaply abroad, then Americans were better off importing it than
producing it at home. As an example, Mr Mankiw uses the case of
radiologists in India analysing the X-rays, sent via the internet, of
American patients.

Mr Mankiw's proposition, in essence, is the law of comparative
advantage, first postulated by David Ricardo two centuries ago and
demonstrated to astonishing effect since. Yet the Republican speaker of
the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, joined Democrats in their
rebuke of Mr Mankiw for approving of jobs going overseas; another
Republican called for his resignation. The White House gave Mr Mankiw
only lukewarm support.unsurprisingly, since George Bush recently signed
a bill forbidding the outsourcing of federal contracts overseas. And the
Democratic presidential contenders? Mr Mankiw had just written their
attack ads.

As if to underline the point, this week's Wisconsin primary was
dominated by the subject of jobs, and the failure of the Bush
administration to do enough to protect them from going off to India. In
John Edwards, who wants to rewrite the North American Free-Trade
Agreement, the American left may have found its cuddliest protectionist
yet; support for the southerner surged after he spent much of a debate
drawing implicit comparisons between his own skills as a jobs-defender
and those of John Kerry, who has stuck to free trade only a little more
loyally. The Democratic front-runner defends NAFTA, but rants about
.Benedict Arnold. bosses betraying American workers by moving jobs
overseas (presumably to boost returns for fat-cat investors, like, er,
Mr Kerry's family).

As for what might be called the business lobby, this is in disarray.
.Tech jobs are fleeing to India faster than ever,. moans the cover of
Wired. Watch .Lou Dobbs Tonight., America's main business show, and
every factory-closing is hailed as proof of America's relentless
.hollowing-out. at the hands of dark forces in China, India and indeed
the White House. Strangely, no mention is made of the fact that a pretty
tiny proportion of all jobs lost actually go overseas.

So what is really happening? Three themes emerge:

.Although America's economy has, overall, lost jobs since the start of
the decade, the vast majority of these job losses are cyclical in
nature, not structural. Now that the economy is recovering after the
recession of 2001, so will the job picture, perhaps dramatically, over
the next year.

.Outsourcing (or .offshoring.) has been going on for centuries, but
still accounts for a tiny proportion of the jobs constantly being
created and destroyed within America's economy. Even at the best of
times, the American economy has a tremendous rate of .churn..over 2m
jobs a month. In all, the process creates many more jobs than it
destroys: 24m more during the 1990s. The process allocates
resources.money and people.to where they can be most productive, helped
by competition, including from outsourcing, that lowers prices. In the
long run, higher productivity is the only way to create higher standards
of living across an economy.

.Even though service-sector outsourcing is still modest, the growing
globalisation of information-technology (IT) services should indeed have
a big effect on service-sector productivity. During the 1990s, American
factories became much more efficient by using IT; now shops, banks,
hospitals and so on may learn the same lesson. This will have a
beneficial effect that stretches beyond the IT firms. Even though some
IT tasks will be done abroad, many more jobs will be created in America,
and higher-paying ones to boot.

Just you wait

The .jobless recovery. first, then. Despite strong productivity growth
and an accelerating recovery from the recession of 2001 (the economy
grew by an annual 4% in the fourth quarter of last year), jobs are being
created at a feeble rate of 100,000 or so a month. The jeremiahs point
out that a net total of 2.3m jobs have been lost since Mr Bush came to
office.

Although this date is often used as the starting-point from which to
make a comparison, it is a silly one. In early 2001 the hangover effects
from the investment boom of the late 1990s were only starting to be
felt. Unemployment, at 4.2%, was unsustainably below the .natural.
unemployment rate, consistent with stable inflation, that most
economists put at around 5%. In other words, perhaps two-thirds of those
2.3m jobs were unsustainable .bubble. ones. Given the scale of job
losses.along with the shocks of a stockmarket bust, corporate-governance
scandals and terrorist attacks.it is a wonder that the recession was so
mild. By the same token, a mild recession is now being followed by a
commensurately mild recovery.

This week, the White House retreated from a claim that 2.6m new jobs
would be created this year. But there are reasons to think that job
growth will be more robust. In particular, the remarkably strong
productivity growth, running at twice its long-run average of 2.1%, must
slow down eventually. In the face of rising order books, businesses will
have to hire more workers.

This may already be happening in some parts of the country. William
Testa, director of regional research at the Federal Reserve Bank of
Chicago, points out that the downturn began in the mid-west (because of
its relative emphasis on manufacturing, notably business equipment, the
mid-west was hit first by the slump in business investment) and then
spread to the coasts. Now a recovery is spreading in the reverse
direction.starting on the coasts and ending up, alas for Mr Bush, in the
key electoral states of the industrial heartland.

In the absence of an obvious jobs recovery, it is perhaps not surprising
that the myth arose that the American economy was being buffeted by
structural, not cyclical, forces. Yet it nevertheless is a myth.as three
notable economists, William Baumol, Alan Blinder and Edward Wolff, point
out in a recent book.*

Churning, they point out, has being going on in the American jobs
market for years, and .the creation of new jobs always overwhelms the
destruction of old jobs by a huge margin.. Between 1980 and 2002,
America's population grew by 23.9%. The number of employed Americans,
on the other hand, grew by 37.4%. Today, 138.6m Americans are in work,
a near-record, both in absolute terms and as a proportion of the
population (see chart).

Of course some firms wither.Reynolds Tobacco's workforce shrank by
nine-tenths between 1980 and 2002.but others grow: Wal-Mart's by 4,700%.
During the 1990s, about a quarter of all American businesses shed jobs
in a typical three-month period, equivalent to 8m jobs. Yet jobs created
greatly outnumbered these, to the tune of 24m over the decade.

The process leads to incremental shifts that can have profound
cumulative consequences for some sectors of the economy. In 1960 only
one in 25 workers was employed in the business-services and health-care
industries. Today, one in six is. In terms of output, manufacturing has
risen, but, thanks to that productivity spurt, these goods are produced
by fewer people.12% of the workforce, less than half the proportion of
three decades ago.

And what of China? Still piffling. Certainly, China competes with some
labour-intensive American industries that have long been in decline,
such as textiles and stuffed toys. In the mid-west, metal-furniture
makers and small tool-and-die foundries face growing competition. Yet
most Chinese imports are of consumer goods, competing with imports from
other poor countries, whereas America's manufactures are chiefly capital
goods. Even at their peak in 2001, the number of all .trade-related.
layoffs represented a mere 0.6% of American unemployment.

As for the Indian threat, .offshoring. is certainly having an effect on
some white-collar jobs that have hitherto been safe from foreign
competition. But how big is it, really? The best-known report, by
Forrester Research, a consultancy, guesses that 3.3m American
service-industry jobs will have gone overseas by 2015.barely noticeable
when you think about the 7m-8m lost every quarter through job-churning.
And the bulk of these exports will not be the high-flying jobs of IT
consultants, but the mind-numbing functions of code-writing.

Meanwhile, there is another side to the ledger. Instead of focusing on
jobs lost to the globalisation of information technology, Catherine Mann
of the Institute for International Economics in Washington looks at
globalisation's power to reduce prices and so help spread new
technology, new practices and job-creating investment through the
economy.

She uses the example of cheaper IT hardware, one of the main aspects
of globalisation in the 1990s. Most of the drop in prices for PCs,
mainframes and so on was caused by the relentless advance of technology;
but she still thinks that trade and globalised production.all those Dell
Computer factories in China, for instance.was responsible for 10-30% of
the fall in hardware prices. These lower prices led to higher American
productivity growth and added $230 billion of extra GDP between 1995 and
2002, equivalent to an extra 0.3 percentage points of growth a year.

These days, software spending is increasing at twice the rate of
hardware spending, as businesses struggle to make their new computers
work better. The manufacturing sector is where such integration has gone
furthest. In many other parts of the American economy, the process has
barely begun.particularly among smaller- and medium-sized businesses. Mr
Mankiw's example of the Indian radiologist shows how the internet could
help lower costs and raise productivity in health care. Who would object
to that?

Ms Mann concludes that, if IT software sees falls in prices, thanks to
globalisation, similar to those that IT hardware has seen, then the
second wave of productivity gains.notably in the service sector.could be
greater than the first, which was based mainly on manufacturing. Some
service sectors, such as construction and health care, are ripe for
gains, because their efficient use of IT is low.

Will the trend lead to jobs going overseas? You bet, but that is not a
disaster. For a start, America runs a large and growing surplus in
services with the rest of the world. The jobs lost will be low-paying
ones, such as bank tellers and switchboard operators. Trade protection
will not save such jobs: if they do not go overseas, they are still at
risk from automation.

By contrast, jobs will be created that demand skills to handle the
deeper incorporation of information technology, and the pay for these
jobs will be high. The demand for computer-support specialists and
software engineers, to take two examples, is expected by the Bureau of
Labour Statistics (BLS) to double between 2000 and 2010. Demand for
database administrators is expected to rise by three-fifths. Among the
top score of occupations that the BLS reckons will see the highest
growth, half will need IT skills. As it is, between 1999 and 2003 (that
is, including during the recession) jobs were created, not lost, in a
whole host of white-collar occupations said to be particularly
susceptible to outsourcing.

Yes, individuals will be hurt in the process, and the focus of public
policy should be directed towards providing a safety net for them, as
well as ensuring that Americans have education to match the new jobs
being created. By contrast, regarding globalisation as the enemy, as Mr
Edwards does often and Messrs Kerry and Bush both do by default, is a
much greater threat to America's economic health than any Indian
software programmer.

* .
Downsizing in America: Reality, Causes, and Consequences,. Russell Sage
Foundation


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[John D. Giorgis]

At 02:27 PM 3/6/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
>> I'm sorry Dan, but I suspect that you could not find a single PhD
>economist
>> who would agree with your assertion that the 1990's were, quote, "not
>> unusual in employment."
>
>And, if I do? Is that PhD economist then wrong.

He would be an outlier. Just like the PhD's at the Institute for Creation
Research.

> The PhD ecconomist on
>this list has indicated that his view of how much you and he agree and your
>view of how much you and he agree vary significantly. You may write him
>off, but I can't see why you should expect the rest of us to.

I don't know if you saw the same post that I did, but it seemed like he
didn't even dignify the discussion with a substantive comment.

Anyhow, I feel quite confident that he would say that employment trends
under Clinton were unusual...... unusually good, that it is, at minimum.

This is what I meant by the referring to job losses in the 2001 recession
being milder than previous. I'll explain the NAIRU in a subsequent post,
but suffice to say that in the 2001 recession unemployment didn't fall very
far below the natural level of unemployment, if at all, whereas in past
recessions unemployment sometimes approached doube digits. This left a
much greater scope for job gains in the recovery.

>> For example, in 1996 when Bill Clinton was re-elected on the strength of
>> the economy, 63% of Americans had jobs. Today, the figure is 62.2%.
>> In 1982, around 57.9% of Americans had jobs, by 1989, when Reagan left
>> office, over 62% of Americans had jobs. By contrast, Bill Clinton took
>> until 1996 to match the peak employment of 1989-1990,
>
>Not true. The peak employment of 1989-1990 was 109.8 million in June 1990.
>The bottom of the jobs recession was May 1991 at 108.2 million. Employment
>was 110 million in February, 1993...roughly 1 year after Clintion took
>office.

This was due to population growth. What I am referring to is employment
rates for the population, which negates the effects of population gains,
and thus paint a true picture of what percentage of adults in the economy
are able to hold down jobs. My above statistics refer to employment rates.

>(and Clinton didn't
>> have the after-effects of a bubble to deal with) and by the end of
>> Clinton's eight-year term he had only increased the employment rate by
>> something on the order of 2.5 percentage points, compared to Reagan's
>> increase of over 4 percentage points.
>
>I thought you just said that the '90s were unusually high in job creation.
>If the above statement is true, then how can that also be true?

Reagan was starting from a much lower base. There were many more people
looking for work after the sever recession of the early 1980's, than after
the fairly mild 1991 recession. Thus, there was a need for much more job
creation.

Clinton's job creation was unusual because despite starting at a very high
base, employment continued to increase steadily - even as the unemployment
rate was up against its natural limits.

JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - jxg9-***@public.gmane.org
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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[Doug Pensinger]

John wrote:

> Here is an article with the data, and an interesting discussion of this
> topic:
> http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2446951

So, is this a solicitation or were you going to lend us your password?

8^)

--
Doug
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[John D. Giorgis]

At 12:20 PM 3/6/2004 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
>John wrote:
>
>> Here is an article with the data, and an interesting discussion of this
>> topic:
>> http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2446951
>
>So, is this a solicitation or were you going to lend us your password?
>
>8^)

Drats. Sorry, sometimes I have a hard time seeing if an article is free
or pay on that site.

My data is taken from an enclosed graph, which I will happily send to
anyone who asks for it.

And in a way, I guess this is a soliciation, as in my mind _The Economist_
is head and shoulders above any other news magazine out there.

Some key excerpts from the article:

Despite strong productivity growth and an accelerating recovery from the
recession of 2001 (the economy grew by an annual 4% in the fourth quarter
of last year), jobs are being created at a feeble rate of 100,000 or so a
month. The jeremiahs point out that a net total of 2.3m jobs have been lost
since Mr Bush came to office.

Although this date is often used as the starting-point from which to make a
comparison, it is a silly one. In early 2001 the hangover effects from the
investment boom of the late 1990s were only starting to be felt.
Unemployment, at 4.2%, was unsustainably below the “natural” unemployment
rate, consistent with stable inflation, that most economists put at around
5%. In other words, perhaps two-thirds of those 2.3m jobs were
unsustainable “bubble” ones. Given the scale of job losses—along with the
shocks of a stockmarket bust, corporate-governance scandals and terrorist
attacks—it is a wonder that the recession was so mild. By the same token, a
mild recession is now being followed by a commensurately mild recovery.

.....

Between 1980 and 2002, America's population grew by 23.9%. The number of
employed Americans, on the other hand, grew by 37.4%. Today, 138.6m
Americans are in work, a near-record, both in absolute terms and as a
proportion of the population (see chart).

Of course some firms wither—Reynolds Tobacco's workforce shrank by
nine-tenths between 1980 and 2002—but others grow: Wal-Mart's by 4,700%.
During the 1990s, about a quarter of all American businesses shed jobs in a
typical three-month period, equivalent to 8m jobs. Yet jobs created greatly
outnumbered these, to the tune of 24m over the decade.

The process leads to incremental shifts that can have profound cumulative
consequences for some sectors of the economy. In 1960 only one in 25
workers was employed in the business-services and health-care industries.
Today, one in six is. In terms of output, manufacturing has risen, but,
thanks to that productivity spurt, these goods are produced by fewer
people—12% of the workforce, less than half the proportion of three decades
ago.

JDG




_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - jxg9-***@public.gmane.org
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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[Doug Pensinger]

John wrote:

> My data is taken from an enclosed graph, which I will happily send to
> anyone who asks for it.
>
> And in a way, I guess this is a soliciation, as in my mind _The
> Economist_
> is head and shoulders above any other news magazine out there.

So how do you answer the critisizm leveled in the article Erik posted last
month?

http://www.mccmedia.com/pipermail/brin-l/Week-of-Mon-20040202/033450.html

--
Doug
...he asks again. <SEG>
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[John D. Giorgis]

At 03:56 PM 3/6/2004 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
>John wrote:
>
>> My data is taken from an enclosed graph, which I will happily send to
>> anyone who asks for it.
>>
>> And in a way, I guess this is a soliciation, as in my mind _The
>> Economist_
>> is head and shoulders above any other news magazine out there.
>
>So how do you answer the critisizm leveled in the article Erik posted last
>month?
>
>http://www.mccmedia.com/pipermail/brin-l/Week-of-Mon-20040202/033450.html

A number of responses to this:

1) As a fiscal conservative, I definitely have to admit that I am not
thrilled about the current budget deficits. Nevertheless, I think that
the budget deficits for the last several years can largely be credited with
producing a very soft landing after the (partial?) popping of the biggest
asset bubble in the US since the 1920's. In addition, given that
uncertainty before the last Iraq war triggered a recession, these deficits
may well have kept the US economy from double-dipping into recession in
2002-2003. Lastly, the current budget deficits as a percentage of GDP
are not the worst ever.... so it is important to remember that things could
be worse. Indeed, US total debt as a percentage of GDP is not at a
terrible level compared to the rest of the world.

2) Nevertheless, even if I concede that large budget deficits were/are
necessary as a temporary stimulus, they obviously should not go on forever.
Obviously, however, it is unreasonable to ask any President to put the
brakes on short-term economic stimulus in an election year. That is why,
however, that even leaving all the other issues aside, I really, I really,
I really, hope that Bush wins re-election. If Bush is re-elected, and the
Congress stays pretty much in the hands of the Republicans (a near
certainty), and an economic expansion holds for the first several years
(also very likely, IMHO), it will be a very interesting real-life
experiment of what is usually called "supply-side economics," and its
ability to balance the budget.

I remain somewhat optimistic on this count that it can be done. Bush's
first tax cut was fully supported by the budget projections of the time,
and even a liberal think tank found that it would essentially return taxes
back to taxpayers in roughly the percentages in which they paid taxes.
The dividend tax cut, on the other hand, was obviously not coming out of
surpluses, but to the extent that it might shift the valuation of stocks
slightly away from capital gains and towards dividends, it struck me as
being essentially a good idea.

Still, it is worth remembering that even Clinton's own budget forecasts
were not predicting surpluses pretty much until the surpluses happened.
Long-term budget deficit forecasts are notoriously tricky, so there may yet
be some reason for optimism that after the economy really gets going again
that the budget may be able to be balanced again..... at least until Social
Security starts imploding, but given that Clinton ignored Social Security
during the "surplus years" and while he was ostensibly searching for a
"legacy" project, and given that Bush is essentially the only Presidential
Candidate in US history to even touch the Social Security issue, I don't
think that Democrats have much standing for criticizing Bush on that
particular point, as their record is just as bad, if not worse.

>Doug
>...he asks again. <SEG>

As I've noted before, I hardly read all posts on Brin-L any more. And if
I don't have time to respond to a post right away, there is so much traffic
on this List that things I mark "save for later" can quickly get buried.
After all, I think that I directly answered a lot of questions from you
about Iraq and "motivatiosn" that I still haven't heard back from you on.
:-) In this case, as noted previously, I don't read most of Erik's
posts, since he has stated that he is unwilling to abide by common decency
standards for polite conversation - and in any case, since there was no
explanatory text included this message, I probably would have browsed right
past this one.


_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - jxg9-***@public.gmane.org
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
_______________________________________________
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[Russell Chapman]

Russell wrote:

>Out of curiosity, and without wanting to get into the whole is it good/is it bad/is it fair thing:
>
>What is it that the people who complain about off-shoring want done about it.
>
I see this proposal has been submitted to the house:

*********
The proposed Defending American Jobs Act, introduced on Wednesday,
requires federal agencies that provide grants or loan guarantees to
businesses to obtain reports on the number of employees those companies
have inside and outside the United States, and on how much each group is
being paid. One year after the bill becomes law, which is unlikely to
happen this year, grant or loan recipients would be required to disclose
how many domestic employees have been laid off as a proportion of the
company's total global work force.

Here's the catch: If more U.S. workers than foreign workers received the
ax, the company would be "ineligible for further assistance" until it
started hiring American employees again.

**********
I think (a) it's doomed, (b) it's probably a bit limited in scope
because the big stick only applies to a limited number of companies, and
(c) it's probably a good idea - at least it's a formula that encourages
companies to think twice about layoffs, though it completely misses
outsourcing (where the US company doesn't actually have any foreign
employees, just a contract with a foreign company).

Cheers
Russell C.


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[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, Russell Chapman <***@o...> wrote:
> Russell wrote:
>
> >Out of curiosity, and without wanting to get into the whole is it
good/is it bad/is it fair thing:
> >
> >What is it that the people who complain about off-shoring want
done about it.
> >
> I see this proposal has been submitted to the house:
>
> *********
> The proposed Defending American Jobs Act, introduced on Wednesday,
> requires federal agencies that provide grants or loan guarantees
to
> businesses to obtain reports on the number of employees those
companies
> have inside and outside the United States, and on how much each
group is
> being paid. One year after the bill becomes law, which is unlikely
to
> happen this year, grant or loan recipients would be required to
disclose
> how many domestic employees have been laid off as a proportion of
the
> company's total global work force.
>
> Here's the catch: If more U.S. workers than foreign workers
received the
> ax, the company would be "ineligible for further assistance" until
it
> started hiring American employees again.
>
> **********
> I think (a) it's doomed, (b) it's probably a bit limited in scope
> because the big stick only applies to a limited number of
companies, and
> (c) it's probably a good idea - at least it's a formula that
encourages
> companies to think twice about layoffs, though it completely
misses
> outsourcing (where the US company doesn't actually have any
foreign
> employees, just a contract with a foreign company).
>

Nothing wrong with the idea of America for Americns (devoid of
ratial conotiation of course)

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[ritu]

The Fool wrote:

> Let's see India, China, or Russia belly up to the bar and pay
> their fair
> share of the hundreds-of-billions of dollars per year being
> stolen from
> the US Taxpayer to make outsourcing possible.

What does 'belly up to the bar' mean?
And I am not sure what you mean by the rest of the sentence after that
phrase either. Could you please elaborate?

Ritu


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[Steve Sloan II]

The Fool wrote:

> > Let's see India, China, or Russia belly up to the bar and
> > pay their fair share of the hundreds-of-billions of dollars
> > per year being stolen from the US Taxpayer to make
> > outsourcing possible.

ritu wrote:

> What does 'belly up to the bar' mean?

From context, I think it means going to the bar and paying for
your drinks -- in other words, paying up.

> And I am not sure what you mean by the rest of the sentence
> after that phrase either. Could you please elaborate?

He's claiming that US taxpayers pay hundreds of billions of dollars
a year to support the US military, which is necessary to keep world
politics stable. Without that stability, outsourcing would not be
possible. So, he's claiming that US citizens pay taxes to eliminate
their own jobs, while citizens of China and India benefit for free.
______________________________________________________________________
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Science Fiction-themed online store ..... http://www.sloan3d.com/store
Chmeee's 3D Objects .................... http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee
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Software ................ Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links
Science fiction scans ......................... http://www.sloan3d.com

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[ritu]

Steve Sloan II wrote:

> The Fool wrote:
>
> > > Let's see India, China, or Russia belly up to the bar and
> > > pay their fair share of the hundreds-of-billions of dollars
> > > per year being stolen from the US Taxpayer to make
> > > outsourcing possible.
>
> ritu wrote:
>
> > What does 'belly up to the bar' mean?
>
> From context, I think it means going to the bar and paying for
> your drinks -- in other words, paying up.

Thanks for the explanation, Steve. :)

So India and China are supposed to responsible for the decisions of the
US companies...else they would not have a 'share' to pay up...just
imagine that. Never knew we had that kind of an influence. ;)

> > And I am not sure what you mean by the rest of the sentence
> > after that phrase either. Could you please elaborate?
>
> He's claiming that US taxpayers pay hundreds of billions of dollars
> a year to support the US military, which is necessary to keep world
> politics stable. Without that stability, outsourcing would not be
> possible. So, he's claiming that US citizens pay taxes to eliminate
> their own jobs, while citizens of China and India benefit for free.

I wonder if s/he wants India and China to pay for the US military's
upkeep...Given the US role in the region's politics, that would be an
interesting proposal to float. I can just see a couple of billion people
rendered apoplectic. :)

Ritu




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[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, "ritu" <***@b...> wrote:
>
> Steve Sloan II wrote:
>
> > The Fool wrote:
> >
> > > > Let's see India, China, or Russia belly up to the bar and
> > > > pay their fair share of the hundreds-of-billions of dollars
> > > > per year being stolen from the US Taxpayer to make
> > > > outsourcing possible.
> >
> > ritu wrote:
> >
> > > What does 'belly up to the bar' mean?
> >
> > From context, I think it means going to the bar and paying for
> > your drinks -- in other words, paying up.
>
> Thanks for the explanation, Steve. :)
>
> So India and China are supposed to responsible for the decisions
of the
> US companies...else they would not have a 'share' to pay up...just
> imagine that. Never knew we had that kind of an influence. ;)
>
> > > And I am not sure what you mean by the rest of the sentence
> > > after that phrase either. Could you please elaborate?
> >
> > He's claiming that US taxpayers pay hundreds of billions of
dollars
> > a year to support the US military, which is necessary to keep
world
> > politics stable. Without that stability, outsourcing would not be
> > possible. So, he's claiming that US citizens pay taxes to
eliminate
> > their own jobs, while citizens of China and India benefit for
free.
>
> I wonder if s/he wants India and China to pay for the US military's
> upkeep...Given the US role in the region's politics, that would be
an
> interesting proposal to float. I can just see a couple of billion
people
> rendered apoplectic. :)
>
> Ritu

Ritu, your mising the rest of the story.

American companies get billions and billions of dollars a year in
tax reliefe (that's money that the US taxpayer has to make up). They
get this reliefe supposedly becouse it's supposed to help them
create jobs for americans.

The American worker is starting to feel that they are getting taxed
so that jobs can be created in Indea etc. We have nothing against
the Indean worker, it's just that we pay our taxes an work in our
country for ~our~ country, not so we can subsidize job groth
elsewhere, and especialy when that job growth is at the expense of
jobs here at home.

It may sem aufuly uncaring and not a small amount nationalistic, but
still, you can only keep asking what you can do for your country for
so long, without your country doing something for you. When it's all
take and no, give, then what's the point?

We have had this discussion befor. This isn't about free markets. If
it was a free market, then it woud be about hiering the most
qualified worker, well, the most economicaly qualified worker. Every
worker woulod be free to apply for every job. But that is not the
case here. It's not like Indea will allow any joe shmoe to move to
Bangalore and start applying for the job he use to have in San Jose.
It's also not like the Indian worker is being aforded all the rights
the american would be acusdomed to, even if he could move and apply.

And you will have to pardon the american worker if he or she feels a
little like his financial well being is being stolen. What is more,
it's not just our economy, it's our very way of life. Indea may not
be to blame, but that is really hard to tell someone who has been
shoved out on the streets. And what is more, it may be out leaders
who are to blame, but I'm sorry, fixing that problem, is still going
to take it all back.

Personaly I am a little tired of the Republican party pretending to
be the most ficaly sound. If that is so, then why does everyone
(except the very wealthy americans) allways seem to do well when we
have a democratic president, but everyone looses their jobs and is
out of work when we have a Republican.



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[ritu]

Jan Coffey wrote:

> Ritu, your mising the rest of the story.

No, Jan, I'm not. :)
You and I have had a discussion on this issue before and I'll clarify
bits of my position later in this mail but my sole point was that India
and China are not responsible for these decisions to outsource and that
they do not owe anything to the American taxpayers or the American govt.
All they owe anybody in these circumstances is providing the service
they are being paid to provide.

> American companies get billions and billions of dollars a year in
> tax reliefe (that's money that the US taxpayer has to make up). They
> get this reliefe supposedly becouse it's supposed to help them
> create jobs for americans.
>
> The American worker is starting to feel that they are getting taxed
> so that jobs can be created in Indea etc. We have nothing against
> the Indean worker, it's just that we pay our taxes an work in our
> country for ~our~ country, not so we can subsidize job groth
> elsewhere, and especialy when that job growth is at the expense of
> jobs here at home.

See, I can understand this reaction. And I have never thought that
people fighting to keep jobs in America are doing so to spite India. I
don't even expect people to keep quiet, or protest less stridently than
they wish to, out of concern for some Indian worker [the fate of the
Indian worker is, after all, the concern of the worker, the Indian
companies and the Indian govt. and is certainly not the concern of the
US govt. or citizens].

> We have had this discussion befor. This isn't about free markets. If
> it was a free market, then it woud be about hiering the most
> qualified worker, well, the most economicaly qualified worker. Every
> worker woulod be free to apply for every job. But that is not the
> case here. It's not like Indea will allow any joe shmoe to move to
> Bangalore and start applying for the job he use to have in San Jose.
> It's also not like the Indian worker is being aforded all the rights
> the american would be acusdomed to, even if he could move and apply.

Restrictions are certainly there but a lot of Europeans are moving to
Bangalore and Gurgaon for the jobs they used to have, so I think there
is no uniform restriction against foregin workers.
But, as their interviews make it clear, the pay scale, work-culture,
benefits etc. are all vastly different from what they are used to. And
then there is the problem of climate and electricity and other stuff
like that.

> And you will have to pardon the american worker if he or she feels a
> little like his financial well being is being stolen. What is more,
> it's not just our economy, it's our very way of life. Indea may not
> be to blame, but that is really hard to tell someone who has been
> shoved out on the streets. And what is more, it may be out leaders
> who are to blame, but I'm sorry, fixing that problem, is still going
> to take it all back.

Fix the problem any way you see fit, even if it means that no jobs are
outsourced to India. I have no problems with the idea. The workers who
feel the way you have outlined above have never offended me so pardoning
them is out of question.
'Tis just that I can't see *how* India is supposed to be blamed for this
and thus, I will ask when someone says that in front of me.

Oh, btw, something you mentioned yesterday, the outsourcing of legal
services to India. Well, rediff reported today that that has started
too:

http://in.rediff.com/money/2004/mar/04bpo.htm

Ritu


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[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, "ritu" <***@b...> wrote:
>
> 'Tis just that I can't see *how* India is supposed to be blamed
for this
> and thus, I will ask when someone says that in front of me.

The logic is that americans workers tax dollors, hard work building
american corporations, and the political environemnt in which those
corporations were able to exist, have payed for job expansion in
India, therefore the Indian people owe the american worker
compensation back.

If a theif comes and steals your car and gives it to me, when all
is discovered I would have to give the car back. Now, If I knew the
car was stolen, and I sell it's parts, then I would be a criminal.

You have to understand that what is going on right now is fostering
a very negative emotional respons.

I am not justifying that emotional response, only pointing it out,
and asking what should be done about it.

>From the out of work american's perspective Indea is steeling our
Jobs, and they know it. I have heard representatives from Indean
companies say and I quoate, "I can hve 200 developers on this
toomarow for the price of one of your workers here. You can get rid
yourself of these expensive development staff emediatly."

How can we not hear this and not get angry and feel like we are
being robbed?

You see, it's not just about rational logic, it's also about
irational logic, the kind that fosters the justification of raceism
and nationalism. The kind that can create an environment ripe with
anger and dispare.

Americans, are a ficle people, you see one face now, the one giving,
but you might have to deal with the other face eventualy, then one
that has had their way of life taken away.

What is going on right now is drasticaly shifting the political
opinions of those being affected. Outside of work, in the bars and
in the resturants, there is also raceism growing.

Consider that it takes many CS majors 5 years (not 4) to get a BS.
That is not 5 years of frat parties and spring breaks, it's 5 years
of very intense long hours which are physicaly demenishing. Nearly
very CS course I took ended with less than 10% of the students who
started, and not all at the end passed. Meanwhile the buisnes majors
drank and caroused and didn't have to work on projects over spring
break. They took easy courses which allowed them time to go to the
gym and party every night. Many of these so-clled students were the
same ones droping out of CS classes. Now they have conspired with
Indea to rob the American Computer Scientist of all their hard work,
all the Software Companies we built with 16 hour days while others
were working 8, all of the life postponements and dedication, and
now, Indea and some frat-boy fat cats come and steel it, say thank
you very much for the tax breaks, thank you vey much for doing all
the hard work, thank you very much for putting your lives on hold,
but we are now going to take that and give you nothing in return.

Do you see, we are breading classism...but then I guess that is
nothing to Indea, where classism is common place.

Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe this will all pass, but right now, I m
hearing strong raceism from those who use to be liberal, I'm being
told not to bring my indian friends along, I am seeing fewer tables
with Indeans and Americans eating together, Indean resturants that
are empty of all but Indean patrons. I'm hearing reports of Indean
kids getting beat up by other American kids who's parent are out of
work. It's getting starting to get ugly.

Am I angry? well, yes, but I still have a job. Do I think this
raceism is right? No. Do I think that the Indean people owe the
american worker, ...the guy telling my boss she can fire me and all
my associates and replace us with some Indean sweat shop, yes, he
owes the american worker, but the average Indean, No. Am I going to
vote Republican in the next election. Hardly. I tensions rose
between Indea and Pakistan would I be infavor of helping indea out.
Doubt it.



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[ritu]

Jan Coffey wrote:

> --- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, "ritu" <***@b...> wrote:
> >
> > 'Tis just that I can't see *how* India is supposed to be blamed
> for this
> > and thus, I will ask when someone says that in front of me.
>
> The logic is that americans workers tax dollors, hard work building
> american corporations, and the political environemnt in which those
> corporations were able to exist, have payed for job expansion in
> India, therefore the Indian people owe the american worker
> compensation back.
>
> If a theif comes and steals your car and gives it to me, when all
> is discovered I would have to give the car back. Now, If I knew the
> car was stolen, and I sell it's parts, then I would be a criminal.

Dunno - I still don't get why everyone is so very eager to hate the
third party rather than the actual thief which carried out the entire
displacement of property.

And as for the criminal bit, well, it isn't some shady, underground,
fly-by-the-night illegal operation. These contracts follow the laws of
two countries and are in tune with the concept of globalisation.

> You have to understand that what is going on right now is fostering
> a very negative emotional respons.

Oh, I know that. Sometime in March a young American killed himself over
this issue. I don't know how many times this has happened but that
incident made the headlines here. People don't kill themselves if the
issue isn't emotional and once people are driven to that point,
bitterness and hate only intensifies. All this I know.

> I am not justifying that emotional response, only pointing it out,
> and asking what should be done about it.

And I am just asking what these people would like the Indians to do. Not
accept the jobs that are being offered? Insist on being paid the salary
of their US counterparts? Put aside a part of their paycheck each month
and send it to the US?

> >From the out of work american's perspective Indea is steeling our
> Jobs, and they know it. I have heard representatives from Indean
> companies say and I quoate, "I can hve 200 developers on this
> toomarow for the price of one of your workers here. You can get rid
> yourself of these expensive development staff emediatly."
>
> How can we not hear this and not get angry and feel like we are
> being robbed?

Oh, there is no way you can not get angry. But I thought value for money
was a basic tenet of capitalism and robbery involved coercion. To use
your previous example of a car, it is like one mechanic accusing the
other of robbery just because the latter offered a lower price and wooed
the former's customers away.
As far as I can make out, the salient point here is that a choice was
offered and that the second mechanic neither used
guns/threats/blackmail, nor got into the car and drove it away.

About that Indian chap you quoted above, the only way he was telling the
truth was if each US developer is paid around USD 60,000 pm. Is that the
going rate in the US?

> Americans, are a ficle people, you see one face now, the one giving,
> but you might have to deal with the other face eventualy, then one
> that has had their way of life taken away.

Oh, please, nobody here is under any illusions about 'the giving face of
the Americans'. We know that we are being paid a pittance by your
standards, that the jobs are coming here not out of any concern for us
but because it suits the bottom line of these companies and that the
minute they find a cheaper alternative, they would relocate the jobs.
Which is part of the reason why the Indian govt. has been encouraging
people to explore the African and Asian market for these jobs. The other
part of the reason being the backlash being felt in US and Europe.

> What is going on right now is drasticaly shifting the political
> opinions of those being affected. Outside of work, in the bars and
> in the resturants, there is also raceism growing.

Yep. The NRIs mention it frequently.

> Consider that it takes many CS majors 5 years (not 4) to get a BS.
> That is not 5 years of frat parties and spring breaks, it's 5 years
> of very intense long hours which are physicaly demenishing. Nearly
> very CS course I took ended with less than 10% of the students who
> started, and not all at the end passed. Meanwhile the buisnes majors
> drank and caroused and didn't have to work on projects over spring
> break. They took easy courses which allowed them time to go to the
> gym and party every night. Many of these so-clled students were the
> same ones droping out of CS classes. Now they have conspired with
> Indea to rob the American Computer Scientist of all their hard work,
> all the Software Companies we built with 16 hour days while others
> were working 8, all of the life postponements and dedication, and
> now, Indea and some frat-boy fat cats come and steel it, say thank
> you very much for the tax breaks, thank you vey much for doing all
> the hard work, thank you very much for putting your lives on hold,
> but we are now going to take that and give you nothing in return.
>
> Do you see, we are breading classism...but then I guess that is
> nothing to Indea, where classism is common place.

Don't you think the last comment was a bit below the belt? Besides being
inaccurate, at least insofar as it suggests that the US society has been
class-free one until all this happened?

But you are right, it is nothing to India. Not because class divisions
are common here [they are, as are caste, communal, regional and economic
divisions] but because it is not our problem. All the Indian companies
are doing is offering the US companies an alternative. The US companies
are free to not take it.

> Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe this will all pass, but right now, I m
> hearing strong raceism from those who use to be liberal, I'm being
> told not to bring my indian friends along, I am seeing fewer tables
> with Indeans and Americans eating together, Indean resturants that
> are empty of all but Indean patrons. I'm hearing reports of Indean
> kids getting beat up by other American kids who's parent are out of
> work. It's getting starting to get ugly.
>
> Am I angry? well, yes, but I still have a job. Do I think this
> raceism is right? No. Do I think that the Indean people owe the
> american worker, ...the guy telling my boss she can fire me and all
> my associates and replace us with some Indean sweat shop, yes, he
> owes the american worker,

Okay. What do you think he owes the American worker? Not to make the
offer? Or not to make the offer in the hearing of the workers? Or a
percentage of his profits? Or something else?

> Am I going to
> vote Republican in the next election. Hardly.

I'm rooting for Kerry anyway.

> I tensions rose
> between Indea and Pakistan would I be infavor of helping indea out.
> Doubt it.

And Jan, how would that be any different from the USA's subcontinental
policy over the last 57 years? :)

Ritu


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[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, "ritu" <***@b...> wrote:

> Dunno - I still don't get why everyone is so very eager to hate the
> third party rather than the actual thief which carried out the
entire
> displacement of property.

That's just the way humans work.

> And as for the criminal bit, well, it isn't some shady, underground,
> fly-by-the-night illegal operation. These contracts follow the laws
of
> two countries and are in tune with the concept of globalisation.

No actualy it is not in line with the laws we ~use~ to have. Or at
least what was expected when these companies were given tax breaks.

We all voted for that becouse we thought it woudl creat more jobs for
~us~. W knew we would have to make up the difference, but we did it
anyway becouse it was what was good for our country. The companies
are not playing fair, or nice. So now we want laws to make sure they
do what is right for the US first.


> > I am not justifying that emotional response, only pointing it
out,
> > and asking what should be done about it.
>
> And I am just asking what these people would like the Indians to
do.

> Insist on being paid the salary
> of their US counterparts?

Bingo! And if you don't we should make tax laws which equalize it.
Not only is it good for the US worker, but it would be good for the
government coffers.

> > >From the out of work american's perspective Indea is steeling
our
> > Jobs, and they know it. I have heard representatives from Indean
> > companies say and I quoate, "I can hve 200 developers on this
> > toomarow for the price of one of your workers here. You can get
rid
> > yourself of these expensive development staff emediatly."
> >
> > How can we not hear this and not get angry and feel like we are
> > being robbed?
>
> Oh, there is no way you can not get angry. But I thought value for
money
> was a basic tenet of capitalism and robbery involved coercion.

No, becouse we are not in an open market, it's not true capitalism.

>To use
> your previous example of a car, it is like one mechanic accusing the
> other of robbery just because the latter offered a lower price and
wooed
> the former's customers away.

That leaves out so much infomration. Besides dumping realy cheep
product on the market, or undercutting for a loss is illigal in
~this~ country.

> As far as I can make out, the salient point here is that a choice
was
> offered and that the second mechanic neither used
> guns/threats/blackmail, nor got into the car and drove it away.

Your forgetting, that we built these compnaies, our tax dollars and
society have supproted the ability of these companies to be what they
are, they are ~our~ companies. We have supported them and fostered
them, and worked for them and built them for ~our~ society. If we
thought that they would simply abandon America we would never have
given them tax breaks, we would never have allowed them the kind of
freedoms to grow, we wouldn't have worked the increadably long hours
(in comparison ot our contrymen & women) over the past decade to make
the US technology industry what it is today. Why would we do that if
they are just going to rob us of the benifit, You don't get up on a
scafelding and build a town hall and paint the ceeling if the Forman
is going to pull the scafelding down, and he's not going to let you
even come to town hall.

> About that Indian chap you quoted above, the only way he was
telling the
> truth was if each US developer is paid around USD 60,000 pm. Is
that the
> going rate in the US?

No, for a very poorly paid, just out of School developer who can't
show that they know how to code maybe. Actualy scratch that, it would
have to be a QA trainee (like the sit and play video games and
complain about it kind) with no degree. The low end rate is about
120,000 for someone with 4 year experience and a CS degree.

Of course right now, people are taking temp work for 60 or 70, but
you can't live on that here. You couldn't even pay for shelter and
food for a family of 3 on that, much less have traspertation to and
from work. Non-skilled labor like washing toilets is 60.

> The other
> part of the reason being the backlash being felt in US and Europe.

Yea well, like I said it's NOT an open economy, you have every right
to try and produce your own companies which then sell their product
to us. But when you start doing the same work for slavery wages, and
selling the work, not the product, there are 2 problems. First you
are SLAVES. Second, you make enemies of our people, and believe it or
not, our people really do have the power here eventualy. The
governement may lag our opinions and beliefs, but in then end, India
may find that they are an enemy. Not the goverment doing wrong kind
of enemy, but the people hate kind.

If you have so much trouble finding jobs for a decent living then I
have one very important bit of advice. If you can't afford the well
being of a child, then don't have one. It's not advice that I myself
have not taken to hart, so I don't feel the least bit rude in making
it to others.


> > Do you see, we are breading classism...but then I guess that is
> > nothing to Indea, where classism is common place.
>
> Don't you think the last comment was a bit below the belt?

Not at all, if the market were open, the first thing anyone here
would require is equal treatment under the law. You would have to do
away with your class system to achive that. So until you do, there is
no open echonomy. And don't tell me differnt, I see the class system
at work right here in my own workplace. This is a kind of raceism
that has creeped into the american workplace and it discusts me.
Especialy when, for some reason, non Indian americans ended up at the
bottom.

> Besides being
> inaccurate, at least insofar as it suggests that the US society has
been
> class-free one until all this happened?

No it doesn't, but see above. We do not have an indoctrinated class
system. We may have had slavery, but..wait, from the sound of what
kind of wages you will work for it seems we still do.

> But you are right, it is nothing to India. Not because class
divisions
> are common here [they are, as are caste, communal, regional and
economic
> divisions] but because it is not our problem.

cast class, slavery, same difference from my perspective. And it is
your problem, becouse unless you ware willing to open your contry to
an open economy, and play by the same rules as the west, you are
SLAVES, and your MASTERS are steeling our jobs.


>All the Indian companies
> are doing is offering the US companies an alternative. The US
companies
> are free to not take it.

I hope that makes you feel better when you go to bed at night. ....
The more I talk about this. The more even ~my~ emotions begin to
spill over into a dehumanizing mode. It's very hard to stay level
headed and fight the desire to lash out. The more I think about what
is being done to my society the less I care about any other. If I am
feeling this way, how must those other I know, the ones who have
abandond all their Indian friends, how must they feel? What about the
ones who have lost their jobs? I bet they hate. I bet they no-longer
think of the Indean people as human. It makes me sad and disgusted
and it gives me a feeling of dispare.

> > Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe this will all pass, but right now, I m
> > hearing strong raceism from those who use to be liberal, I'm
being
> > told not to bring my indian friends along, I am seeing fewer
tables
> > with Indeans and Americans eating together, Indean resturants
that
> > are empty of all but Indean patrons. I'm hearing reports of
Indean
> > kids getting beat up by other American kids who's parent are out
of
> > work. It's getting starting to get ugly.
> >
> > Am I angry? well, yes, but I still have a job. Do I think this
> > raceism is right? No. Do I think that the Indean people owe the
> > american worker, ...the guy telling my boss she can fire me and
all
> > my associates and replace us with some Indean sweat shop, yes, he
> > owes the american worker,
>
> Okay. What do you think he owes the American worker? Not to make the
> offer? Or not to make the offer in the hearing of the workers? Or a
> percentage of his profits? Or something else?

Well, he can have his slaves if he wants. It's not my country, it's
not my society, he, and those like him can be your masters if that is
what you really want, but when he comes over here hocking slave
trade, then pardon me if I am repulsed, and pardon me if I beleive
what he is doing is theft. I have this one vocation that I worked
hard to aquire. I paid a fortune for my education, and I worked my
way up from nothing, from washing dishes and scraping toilets to have
what I have now. It's the american dream. But if he thinks he is
going to come over here and offer my same vocation to be done by
slaves, then yea, I think he is steeling something, becouse In my
country he wouldn't be allowed to have slaves. In my country what he
is doing is illigal, only he is doing it in ~your~ country. So sure,
I am appoled at ~your~ country as well, for letting him do it.


> > Am I going to
> > vote Republican in the next election. Hardly.
>
> I'm rooting for Kerry anyway.

You need to decide if you are American or Indian. You either make a
plege of aligence to this country or you align yourself with India,
you should not have the option of having it both ways.

> > I tensions rose
> > between Indea and Pakistan would I be infavor of helping indea
out.
> > Doubt it.
>
> And Jan, how would that be any different from the USA's
subcontinental
> policy over the last 57 years? :)

good point. Like I said, we are a ficle people.

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[John D. Giorgis]

At 09:06 PM 3/3/2004 -0000 Jan Coffey wrote:
>Personaly I am a little tired of the Republican party pretending to
>be the most ficaly sound. If that is so, then why does everyone
>(except the very wealthy americans) allways seem to do well when we
>have a democratic president, but everyone looses their jobs and is
>out of work when we have a Republican.

You mean like how everyone did well under Jimmy Carter?

Or you mean like the "fiscally sound" policies of LBJ's "Guns *AND* Butter"
or Bill and Hillary Clinton's "Nationalized Health Care."

And by "everyone losing their jobs" under George W. Bush are you referring
to our 5.6% unemployment rate and our 62.2% employment rate?

JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - jxg9-***@public.gmane.org
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, "John D. Giorgis" <***@a...> wrote:
> At 09:06 PM 3/3/2004 -0000 Jan Coffey wrote:
> >Personaly I am a little tired of the Republican party pretending
to
> >be the most ficaly sound. If that is so, then why does everyone
> >(except the very wealthy americans) allways seem to do well when
we
> >have a democratic president, but everyone looses their jobs and
is
> >out of work when we have a Republican.
>
> You mean like how everyone did well under Jimmy Carter?

Weird, My father was emloyed under Carter, but we had hard times
under reagan.

>
> Or you mean like the "fiscally sound" policies of LBJ's "Guns
*AND* Butter"

Before my time.

> or Bill and Hillary Clinton's "Nationalized Health Care."

We simply disagree on that.

> And by "everyone losing their jobs" under George W. Bush are you
referring
> to our 5.6% unemployment rate and our 62.2% employment rate?

Why are so many of the best educated computer scientists in the bay
area out of work any yet at every office where I know someone not
unemployed, they are hiering people on H1 visas? Whole devisions are
being layed off and those who are left say that they jobs are going
to India. They are not even giving people a chance to relocate, or
take a pay cut, unless of course your one of thos H1 visa holders,
and you have Indian citizenship.

What about all of the clean room workers who I use to know, but who
moved becouse they got layed off and couldn't find anything to
replace it with? What about all they guys I know who just gave up
and move in with mom and dad? Do you count them as unemployed? What
about all of the broken families where dad went off to who knows
where to work for 1/8th what he use to make and mom and baby moved
in with grandma and grandpa? Sure dad's not "unemployed" but does
that count?

I guess I'm scared that I'm next, but so is everybody.

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[The Fool]

> From: rchapman-24jMwgp+***@public.gmane.org
>
> Out of curiosity, and without wanting to get into the whole is it
good/is it bad/is it fair thing:
>
> What is it that the people who complain about off-shoring (which is
quite different to out-sourcing BTW) want done about it.
>
> Isn't America built on Free Enterprise? Are you going to tell these
companies that they CAN'T take out a contract with an Indian company to
provide help desk support services. Where do you draw the line? Can
Wal-Mart buy toys from China? Can a tech-company outsource help desk to
an American company? Can it outsource to an American company with
worldwide offices?
>
> I think it would be great if we could stop the brain-drain which
threatens the development of future technological advances, but I'm not
sure how it can be done.

Should we allow any trade at all with countries that engage in child
labor (by the hundred million), that are communist or fascist? No. All
that does is import the cancerous tendrils of communism here.

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[Erik Reuter]

On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 11:49:13AM -0600, The Fool wrote:

> Should we allow any trade at all with countries that engage in child
> labor (by the hundred million), that are communist or fascist? No.
> All that does is import the cancerous tendrils of communism here.

You've oversimplified. How do you define "child labor"?

Throughout much of history, children working were vital to the survival
of the family. In many third world countries, that is still the case.
Now, I don't advocate 9 year olds working 12 hour days in a factory.
But in some countries, 14 year olds working for 4 hours a day on a farm
or at a traditional trade would not be unreasonable. It really needs to
be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[John D. Giorgis]

There is a very simple response to all of this:

"Do you truly believe that America can make itself more prosperous by
making goods and services more expensive?"

JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - jxg9-***@public.gmane.org
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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[Erik Reuter]

On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 11:30:35PM -0500, John D. Giorgis wrote:

> There is a very simple response to all of this:
>
> "Do you truly believe that America can make itself more prosperous by
> making goods and services more expensive?"

And the response, that unfortunately even the Bush administration has
been giving, is "yes".


--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Michael Harney]

From: "John D. Giorgis" <jxg9-***@public.gmane.org>


> There is a very simple response to all of this:
>
> "Do you truly believe that America can make itself more prosperous by
> making goods and services more expensive?"
>

And my very simple response to that is:

"Do you truly believe that America can make itself more prosperous by
sending money and jobs out of the country?"

Michael Harney
dolphin-ftV0hpRrbTKt+***@public.gmane.org

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[Erik Reuter]

On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 11:58:57PM -0700, Michael Harney wrote:

> "Do you truly believe that America can make itself more prosperous by
> sending money and jobs out of the country?"

Absolutely. This is extremely clear. David Ricardo explained it 200
years ago, and it has been demonstrated over and over since then. Since
you haven't read my post where I discussed in detail, I will summarize:
overall, we get back more than we send out. No question about it. The
only question is the distribution of the benefits -- and that should be
addressed directly, not by restricting trade.


--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Gautam Mukunda]

[John D. Giorgis]

At 11:58 PM 3/1/2004 -0700 Michael Harney wrote:
>
>From: "John D. Giorgis" <jxg9-***@public.gmane.org>
>
>
>> There is a very simple response to all of this:
>>
>> "Do you truly believe that America can make itself more prosperous by
>> making goods and services more expensive?"
>>
>
>And my very simple response to that is:
>
>"Do you truly believe that America can make itself more prosperous by
>sending money and jobs out of the country?"

But of course. The only country that has tried to achieve
self-sufficiency, the DPRK, is the biggest economic disaster on the planet.

Again, do you truly believe that America can be made more prosperous by
making goods and services more expensive for us?

JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - jxg9-***@public.gmane.org
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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[Alberto Monteiro]

JDG wrote:
>
> But of course. The only country that has tried to achieve
> self-sufficiency, the DPRK, is the biggest economic disaster on the planet.
>
Brazil tried too, during the military dictatorship. Brazilian economy
is mostly self-sufficient, BTW, with one of the lowest import/export
rates in the world.

Alberto Monteiro

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[C***@public.gmane.org]

I have to side against the Fool in this case. His point was that his job was
threatened by the outsourcing scourge. I work in IT, and I do not see the
threat. But then I am an analyst and not principally a programmer. It is the
heads down programmers, web developers, and phone support that is being
threatened by outsourcing.
It is clear that programming is difficult, but its rather technical work
(like fabrication or assembly), meaning that large scale innovation is no
longer driven by the programmers. It is the architects and analysts that
provide the innovation.
What has to happen is these same programmers need to shift their careers to
analysis. No off-shore worker can provide business requirements or delve
deep into legacy systems to solve business problems. The focus of IT is
business. This fundamental belief is lost with those who are bothered by
outsourcing. The days are gone of the Mainframe programmer/analyst, who did
it all with respect to creating mainframe apps. No one person can write a
large program any more. The technology is too sophisticated, and the
business requirements are too massive for one person. The programming has
become the easy part of the technical solution. It's the analysis of
determining the business behind the bits that's important.

>From a personal level, Freightliner now out sources mainframe legacy
development. This is largely because there are so few mainframe programmers
left who will do legacy sustaining work. The Off-shore outsourcing is now
our only good source of talent who can dedicate careers to these legacy
systems. No American worker would "waste" career time learning COBOL, when
is considered such a career limiting effort.
The few mainframe programmers left, none of which are under the age of 50,
have converted their skills to analysis. They are providing their subject
matter expertise to provide guidance for development. They bring their
knowledge of the BUSINESS to the table. It is not for their COBOL skills.
Its for things like understanding when you copy a parts list from one
database to another, you are legally obliged to bring over the costing
information with that data. Failure to do so would break financial laws.
Nothing in COBOL demands this, which is why these Americans are needed for
the job. No Off-shore developer could provide this.

Another example from Portland. A successful Video rental company recently
tried to outsource all of the elements of a project, including the analysis.
The Indian company contracted to do so realized that they could not do
analysis from a continent away. So they shipped a bunch of analysts from
India to Portland to do the work.
Do I need to mention that this multi-million project quickly went belly up?

And what about those little manuals that come with most Asian computer
components. Ever read one that did not have some significant English
spelling or syntax error? We are the Masters of English. It is this mastery
that will keep us on top.

And about those outsourcing companies... Rumor has it that the Indians are
now not satisfied with the rates being offered by American companies for the
work, so they are now doing offshore outsourcing to countries like Russia
and Viet Nam. This tells me that the American programmer is going the way of
the punch card operator, and that things will shift world-wide.

Working with a large multi-national Fortune 500 company, I have seen how
subject matter expertise now gets the high wages. We are importing $300/hr
analysts to convert our parts systems to the new global parts management
system for the largest automobile company in the world. Half of this
expertise comes from Europe. The other half from the American side. Both are
needed, because Europeans don't get IT very well, but Europeans know how to
organize, categorize, and how to work with the rest of the world. You can't
buy that here in America. Ask two American developers how to do a task, and
they will both fight about the best way to do the task. To Europeans, tasks
are viewed much differently. They "play well" together.

So let this work go to the Offshore people. I can get ten times the work
done for programs I design for the same cost of doing the work here. This
makes the company better, and because of that the bonuses are bigger. Its
not the American Corporate Pig-Dog that is greedy, its people like me.
Outsourcing makes me look good. I am an analyst who programs, not a
programmer that does analysis. This is the difference. I only hope that the
development community sees this as well. I have made the shift, and any
programmer can use his oversized brain to cope, as well.

Half of our development staff is Indian. I turn to them to tell me the
technology can do what I want it to do. They are the subject matter experts
to programming. The American developers are OK, but the Indians really get
it, and they really enjoy the work. They are also the most friendly. The
American developers here are probably the most unsocial people in IT. They
have not make the transcendental shift to socially connect to the business
that supports their lifestyle. It is these people that complain that wages
are diminishing, that there is too much foreign competition, and how
everyone outside of their little world are idiots who don't get technology.
I have news for them. The Ivory Tower they live in is falling.

I hear stories about phone support people off-shore, who place marbles in
their mouth while speaking to straighten out their accents. Phone support
people here complain if they have to be nice to customers. How hungry are
you to do this job? Try putting a marble in your mouth the next time you put
a headset on. This is what you are up against. Those foreign workers are
hungrier than you, and they are kicking your ass! I don't think Americans
are wanting to compete, they just want to complain about foreigners taking
their jobs, asking for special protections so they can maintain their lazy
lifestyle. I do hope they see the writing on the wall. Its time to move on.


In summary, I state to every weasel manager that makes a claim that change
is needed, I retort that change IS good, because it applies to their sorry
ass as well. Everyone wants change to happen around them, not _TO_ them. For
me, I embrace change, because it means change for all the poor suckers
around me as well. Bring it on... I'm up to the challenge. Are you?

Nerd From Hell


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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: <ChadCooper-***@public.gmane.org>
To: <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 10:36 AM
Subject: RE: Race to the Bottom



>
> I hear stories about phone support people off-shore, who place marbles in
> their mouth while speaking to straighten out their accents. Phone support
> people here complain if they have to be nice to customers. How hungry are
> you to do this job? Try putting a marble in your mouth the next time you
put
> a headset on. This is what you are up against. Those foreign workers are
> hungrier than you, and they are kicking your ass! I don't think Americans
> are wanting to compete, they just want to complain about foreigners
taking
> their jobs, asking for special protections so they can maintain their
lazy
> lifestyle. I do hope they see the writing on the wall. Its time to move
on.

I'll have to disagree with you on this, Chad, and have some data to back it
up. My wife works in reservations for Continental Airlines. Their market
niche is being as good as possible in customer service/satisfaction. They
have won numerous awards for this; and its a big part of their advertising
campaign. Training in sales/customer service from other large Fortune 100
companies has been outsourced to them; and they've even outsourced
sales/customer service from their agents to other large companies.

Their VP told the reservations agents that they would not outsource
offshore because of the need for customer satisfaction. They further
stated that other companies are starting to retreat from outsourcing
customer service. Delta had a reservations center in India, which they
closed for this reason. One of the smaller rental car companies tried
this, and it hurt sales, so they stopped it.

Airlines might be in a different position than others because of their
benefits. My wife, for example, works half time at Continental and is a
psychotherapist with a MSW. She works for $12/hour more for the health
insurance and fight benefits than for the net cash. There are a number of
other folks, most of the part timers I think, who are in somewhat similar
circumstances.

Having traveled a decent bit internationally, I'd argue that customer
service is more of a priority in the US than anywhere I've been in Europe.

Dan M.


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[Julia Thompson]

Dan Minette wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <ChadCooper-***@public.gmane.org>
> To: <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 10:36 AM
> Subject: RE: Race to the Bottom
>
> >
> > I hear stories about phone support people off-shore, who place marbles in
> > their mouth while speaking to straighten out their accents. Phone support
> > people here complain if they have to be nice to customers. How hungry are
> > you to do this job? Try putting a marble in your mouth the next time you
> put
> > a headset on. This is what you are up against. Those foreign workers are
> > hungrier than you, and they are kicking your ass! I don't think Americans
> > are wanting to compete, they just want to complain about foreigners
> taking
> > their jobs, asking for special protections so they can maintain their
> lazy
> > lifestyle. I do hope they see the writing on the wall. Its time to move
> on.
>
> I'll have to disagree with you on this, Chad, and have some data to back it
> up. My wife works in reservations for Continental Airlines. Their market
> niche is being as good as possible in customer service/satisfaction. They
> have won numerous awards for this; and its a big part of their advertising
> campaign. Training in sales/customer service from other large Fortune 100
> companies has been outsourced to them; and they've even outsourced
> sales/customer service from their agents to other large companies.
>
> Their VP told the reservations agents that they would not outsource
> offshore because of the need for customer satisfaction. They further
> stated that other companies are starting to retreat from outsourcing
> customer service. Delta had a reservations center in India, which they
> closed for this reason. One of the smaller rental car companies tried
> this, and it hurt sales, so they stopped it.

Anyone remember the announcement of Dell stopping the offshoring of some
tech support? They'd moved a lot of tech support over to India. Due to
complaints about how some business accounts were being handled, they
brought the business/corporate tech support back to the US. There is
still tech support for home users in India. (I don't know how big a
deal it was anywhere else, but I'm 10 miles by somewhat windy roads from
Dell HQ, so there was a fair bit in my local newspaper about it.)

I have called Dell for tech support a couple of times; both times, I
believe I was talking to someone in India. If I wasn't talking to
someone in India, I was talking to someone *from* India, at least. And
I got good tech support both times. However, I was prepared for the
worst, and tried to do my best to make the tech support's job in helping
me easier, and the extra effort *I* took was noted one time, and the
tech guy actually *thanked* me for being so cooperative once we'd
diagnosed the problem. (Dead video card that time. Really dead.)

Julia
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[Tom Beck]

Does the success of LOTR bode well for future fantasy projects? Or was
it based, at least in part, on the legendary status of the Tolkien
books? Would some other adaptation fare as well, regardless of quality?
For example, would a movie based on Guy Gavriel Kay’s masterpiece
Tigana, even if accomplished on the scale of LOTR, with as good a cast,
as fine an attention to detail, similar scope and beauty, be received
with the same serious respect, or would it be relegated to the ghetto
of escapist drivel?

What distinguishes those fantasy projects that are taken seriously from
those that aren’t? Why is Buffy able to make at least a bit of a
mainstream breakthrough while Stargate SG-1 remains a genre show? Why
did LOTR get full props while The Empire Strikes Back didn’t? Even
mighty Star Trek is, at best, fondly indulged as a sort of beloved
childhood plaything instead of truly welcomed into full adult status.

I’m asking the question, I don’t have any answers. I’ve heard the
theory that for a genre show to develop some breakout potential, it
helps to be have a recognizable setting; e.g., Buffy brings horror to
otherwise bland suburbia. But although the Shire resembles the pacific
English countryside, that’s as far as Middle Earth goes in bearing any
similarity to the surroundings of most of the people who have flocked
to see the movies; so that theory is only so useful in explaining the
success of Peter Jackson’s trio of films, and therefore offers us
little on which to base predictions of what success future genre
productions can expect.

Another suggested key to mass appeal is a character with whom the
audience can identify, likewise making the strange and weird more
palatable to those for whom fantasy is usually too fantastical to waste
their time on. For example, the Harry Potter books and film adaptations
present a suburban child thrust into the wizarding world, giving
readers and viewers access to that thrilling and chilling demimonde
through Harry’s eyes. But again, the characters in LOTR are not
particularly familiar to us; even Sam, closest thing there is to a
surrogate for the reader/viewer, is not really the protagonist in quite
the same way that Harry is.

When asked what I would like to see a movie made of, I always answer,
John Varley’s great, underrated novel Titan. Hollywood technical
wizardry has reached the point that realizing Varley’s imaginative
creatures from that book (Titanides, Blimps, Angels, Smilers, etc.)
would be relatively easy. The adult themes of the book might be too
much for some viewers, especially those so unnerved by Janet Jackson’s
not even totally bare breast, and the story would no doubt have to be
simplified in order to bring it to the screen in less than 3 hours
(although LOTR has shown that audiences will tolerate or even relish a
lengthily told tale when the tale merits the length). But let’s say
someone had the vision and guts to bring Titan to the big screen with
all the vitality and spirit that Peter Jackson had in realizing
Tolkien’s works. Would it have a chance of succeeding even half as
well? Or a quarter?

What I am asking is, did the phenomenal success of LOTR presage a sea
change in the way fantasy is perceived by the general public (including
the critics), or was it a one-off, difficult if not impossible to
repeat, even by the finest in filmed art? Was Tolkien, as much as Peter
Jackson, responsible for the fact that these 3 magnificent films were,
for once (or thrice) not relegated to the proverbial parents’ basement,
as it were? Hard to say. Doubtless many millions who have seen the
movies had not read the books beforehand (although hopefully many of
them have since at least picked the novels up). But the existence of
the books and their near legendary status probably persuaded some
moviegoers who would otherwise eschew “mere” fantasy, to give it a try.
There is comfort in a “brand” name, after all. And the books’ literary
reputation probably induced at least some critics to treat the films
more seriously than they normally do for anything given the dreaded and
infantilizing label of “genre.”

Again, it is hard to think of any potential project that would have the
same advantages. This is not to demean the quality and filmability of
other properties. Tigana would make a wonderful movie, in the right
hands, and so would Titan, Startide Rising, The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress, Ringworld, His Dark Materials, Perdido Street Station, and
any number of others. In the aftermath of LOTR, it is not fantasy to
imagine that at least some genre projects will get the green light in
Hollywood, and that some “prestige” filmmakers will be tempted to give
them a go (although let them at least be true fans of what they are
attempting; Ang Lee, this means please let someone else helm the next
comic book adaptation).

There have been genre booms in the past-almost inevitably, to be
followed by “mass extinctions.” This is not to say that fantasy will
disappear-but will it be permitted to stay up late with the grownups,
or will it be sent to bed early and leave the adults to their more
sophisticated conversation? Lord of the Rings has broken through,
gloriously, and well-deserved. Will anyone else be allowed to follow,
or did the hopes of fantasy fans for the respect we think we have
earned melt away with the demise of the One Ring?


------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------

Tom Beck

my LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/tomfodw/

"I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never thought I'd
see the last." - Dr. Jerry Pournelle

------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
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[Kevin Tarr]

At 11:36 AM 3/2/2004, you wrote:

>I have to side against the Fool in this case. His point was that his job was
>threatened by the outsourcing scourge. I work in IT, and I do not see the
>threat. But then I am an analyst and not principally a programmer. It is the
>heads down programmers, web developers, and phone support that is being
>threatened by outsourcing.
>It is clear that programming is difficult, but its rather technical work
>(like fabrication or assembly), meaning that large scale innovation is no
>longer driven by the programmers. It is the architects and analysts that
>provide the innovation.
>What has to happen is these same programmers need to shift their careers to
>analysis. No off-shore worker can provide business requirements or delve
>deep into legacy systems to solve business problems. The focus of IT is
>business. This fundamental belief is lost with those who are bothered by
>outsourcing. The days are gone of the Mainframe programmer/analyst, who did
>it all with respect to creating mainframe apps. No one person can write a
>large program any more. The technology is too sophisticated, and the
>business requirements are too massive for one person. The programming has
>become the easy part of the technical solution. It's the analysis of
>determining the business behind the bits that's important.
>
> >From a personal level, Freightliner now out sources mainframe legacy
>development. This is largely because there are so few mainframe programmers
>left who will do legacy sustaining work. The Off-shore outsourcing is now
>our only good source of talent who can dedicate careers to these legacy
>systems. No American worker would "waste" career time learning COBOL, when
>is considered such a career limiting effort.
>The few mainframe programmers left, none of which are under the age of 50,
>have converted their skills to analysis. They are providing their subject
>matter expertise to provide guidance for development. They bring their
>knowledge of the BUSINESS to the table. It is not for their COBOL skills.
>Its for things like understanding when you copy a parts list from one
>database to another, you are legally obliged to bring over the costing
>information with that data. Failure to do so would break financial laws.
>Nothing in COBOL demands this, which is why these Americans are needed for
>the job. No Off-shore developer could provide this.

<snip> I started learning COBOL two years ago. The company bemoans the fact
that no college offers COBOL programming Many outside contractors have
come in an tried to prove that their software could do the job faster and
all have failed. Maybe the difference is the database interface. Most of
the work is just getting and storing a record. But the big programs work on
all the records; sorting and changing and other things.

It's not going away, in fact I know a few places switching back because it
works better. (Don't ask who, it's internal knowledge.) Our latest version
is OO, but no one has worked with it yet. We have host interfaced programs
and web applications all running from COBOL.

How are you defining a large mainframe program? The major project this year
will be re-writing a system that handles billions of dollars now; designing
it to handle trillions. There will be many small and large programs; a few
very large ones; each written by one person.


> I am an analyst who programs, not a
>programmer that does analysis. This is the difference. I only hope that the
>development community sees this as well. I have made the shift, and any
>programmer can use his oversized brain to cope, as well.
>
> Half of our development staff is Indian. I turn to them to tell me the
>technology can do what I want it to do. They are the subject matter experts
>to programming. The American developers are OK, but the Indians really get
>it, and they really enjoy the work. They are also the most friendly. The
>American developers here are probably the most unsocial people in IT. They
>have not make the transcendental shift to socially connect to the business
>that supports their lifestyle. It is these people that complain that wages
>are diminishing, that there is too much foreign competition, and how
>everyone outside of their little world are idiots who don't get technology.
>I have news for them. The Ivory Tower they live in is falling.
>
>
>Nerd From Hell

I am missing something. What would a programmer who doesn't analyze do? I
know a few programs that are same code/different system but most involve
thinking.

Maybe that's my difference. I love my job. I'll do anything. I spent 11
years fixing TVs, being an electrician, doing mechanical maintenance. I
never want to turn a wrench again. I had a dream after I started, standing
in a factory being welcomed to my new job. I felt like crying, I wanted to
call my boss and find out what happened.

That doesn't mean I'm social. I treat this as a job. I don't need to know
your kids names to work with you.

Kevin T. - VRWC
I had a point. Oh yeah: COBOL RuLZ! Java drolz! (No idea what you work with).

[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, Kevin Tarr <***@v...> wrote:
> At 11:36 AM 3/2/2004, you wrote:
> > Half of our development staff is Indian. I turn to them to tell
me the
> >technology can do what I want it to do. They are the subject
matter experts
> >to programming. The American developers are OK, but the Indians
really get
> >it, and they really enjoy the work. They are also the most
friendly. The
> >American developers here are probably the most unsocial people in
IT. They
> >have not make the transcendental shift to socially connect to the
business
> >that supports their lifestyle. It is these people that complain
that wages
> >are diminishing, that there is too much foreign competition, and
how
> >everyone outside of their little world are idiots who don't get
technology.
> >I have news for them. The Ivory Tower they live in is falling.
> >
> >
> >Nerd From Hell

I would say that you don't get it. I have had a number of experiences
with outsourcing and all of them have been the same.

I have seen project after project canceled, not because the software
could not be written, but because the people writing the software
were not capable, were not mature enough to succeed. Even when the
designs were sound, the ability to execute on those designs...the
ability to even understand those designs was minimal.

Just look at the ratio of failures that Infosys has had, and they are
India's top firm.

The Indian developer is not -> YET <- capable of the same level of
development as US developers.

If we were talking about hardware the description would be easy.
However, since it is about something that requires an in-depth
understanding it is often lost, even to those who -use-to-be-
developers.

The type of software a recent graduate in the US is capable of is
like Star Trek technology. The type of software the average Indian
graduate is capable of is like 1800s tech.

If you want a form of transportation that gets you from New York to
Paris, and you want it in X number of days for Y amount of money,
then you can throw Thousands of 1800s ship builders at it, give them
2004 technology with which to build the ship and pay them 1800s
wages, and you will get what you asked for.

If you want a transporter, then you will have to go with the
Trekkers. They may be able to do it in the same amount of time, but
it's going to cost you 2004 wages.

Even if this were not the case, even if we were comparing like
abilities (which WILL eventually be the case, and faster than you
might think), even then, we are talking about flooding a market, we
are talking about undercutting. If for instance we were talking about
Diamonds, or Gold, or anything, this would not be acceptable. Free
market does not mean that someone can artificially change the value
of something by flooding the market with that product.


>> The American developers here are probably the most unsocial people
in IT.

This may be the case, but I do not believe you are correct when you
say "unsocial", maybe just social in a different way than many who
studied Business instead of Computer Science. But do you believe that
these people should not be able to make a good living? Is it your
opinion that only ~Social~ people should be allowed into the middle,
or upper middle class? It's true, many of the Computer Scientists I
know who grew up in the US, and who enjoy Software Engineering, have
an alternative social ability. Does that mean that they should only
be allowed to work for McDonalds wages? This group of people have
found a carrier that affords them the ability to participate in the
American Dream, but form the sound of it, you would have them all
unemployed, and their jobs all sent over seas to people who will
treat you as if you are their master, and work for slave wages. This
is wrong on so many levels, I do not even know where to begin.


> I am missing something. What would a programmer who doesn't analyze
do? I
> know a few programs that are same code/different system but most
involve
> thinking.

In some software businesses that still follow an outdated methodology
known as waterfall, (which is known to be flawed and also known to be
much more conducive to outsourcing), Analysis is done by a
separate "class" of worker.

A very simple explanation is that analysis is the act of discovering
or defining the requirements for the system, Design is the act of
discovering or defining the way the system will work, and
implementation is the act of discovering or defining the actual code.

Waterfall methodology is where you do one of these complete it and
move on to the next. This "construction" view very closely matches
that of most industries were products are developed.

In modern computer science, these are all done "iteratively" and by
the same people. We have learned that "growing" software consistently
produces better quality, and is a better investment, as it allows for
the requirements, design and code to change dynamically. Software
developed in this way is more robust, more efficient, and
surprisingly requires less money, and less human resources over time.
If for no other reason than this, outsourcing is counter productive.

Although "Analyst" has been someone who did the first phase of a
project, today with methodology existing at various states between
waterfall and iterative, an analyst is generally someone who did not
cut it as a computer scientist, or someone who was more interested in
customer relations. In effect, an analyst is a "social" person
business put between developers and the customer, so that the
customer does not have to deal with the "unsocial" technically
minded. Or rather, that is the way many analysts see themselves. More
and more, the "analyst" is becoming the one Male employee the
business has who can speak Hindi.

I wonder what would happen if we started outsourcing the project
management, the accounting and the administration, Indian doctors are
cheaper, Indian Drugs, Indian lawyers… I bet there would be quite a
number laws made quite quickly to keep this from happening…oh wait,
there already are.


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[ritu]

Jan Coffey wrote:

> I wonder what would happen if we started outsourcing the project
> management, the accounting and the administration, Indian doctors are
> cheaper, Indian Drugs, Indian lawyers… I bet there would be quite a
> number laws made quite quickly to keep this from happening…oh wait,
> there already are.

We already have a lot of dental-tourists and health-tourists. It is
apparently cheaper to fly to India, travel around a bit and get dental
surgery/other medical procedures performed in good hospitals than it is
to avail of the same procedures back home. US and UK citizens form the
bulk of these 'health tourists'.
Also, the UK hospitals/clinics have started flying in Indian doctors on
weekends to perform surgeries etc - the newspapers are flooded with
advertisements for the same. Apparently there is a shortage of doctors
over there.

I haven't heard much about lawyers but the accounting firms also get a
lot of business from overseas, especially US corporations. It is
impossible to find a CA free enough to file in tax returns this time of
the year unless you book one well in advance.

Ritu


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[C***@public.gmane.org]

> lazy
> > lifestyle. I do hope they see the writing on the wall. Its time to
> > move
> on.
>
> I'll have to disagree with you on this, Chad, and have some
> data to back it up. My wife works in reservations for
> Continental Airlines. Their market niche is being as good as
> possible in customer service/satisfaction. They have won
> numerous awards for this; and its a big part of their
> advertising campaign. Training in sales/customer service
> from other large Fortune 100 companies has been outsourced to
> them; and they've even outsourced sales/customer service from
> their agents to other large companies.

I certainly agree with you about this, and you help make my point. Customer
support is about supporting the business. It's the technical industry that
has not caught on that just because you can outsource technical support
offshore you should. In the case you describe above, the customer support is
not technology based. The focus is not how well the reservationists knows
the reservation system, its how well they socialize. They are not called the
"Technical Support Staff" but "Customer Service representatives".
I am sure that you have pretty much given up on getting good phone technical
support from software and hardware you buy. You probably go to the U.S.
Sales rep directly to get satisfaction. The Sales rep brings together his
team of experts to solve your problem. This is about analysis, not technical
savvy.

As I preach here at work, you can teach anybody anything about computers,
but you can't teach them to not be assholes... This is key when hiring
computer people.

Tech support has been marginalized for solving only the easiest, most common
and least time consuming problems related to a computer product. In many
cases, it is just window dressing that has no practical value. This is why
it is moving overseas. It's a token gesture for the desperate.

Not to bash Microsoft, but the free support line is a direct line to East
Asia. If you want real support and help, you buy Premier support. This is
provided by the top analysts in the company. These analysts travel the world
rescuing companies from IT disasters. There is a lurker on this list who can
speak in this regard, if he/she dares.....

>
> Their VP told the reservations agents that they would not
> outsource offshore because of the need for customer
> satisfaction. They further stated that other companies are
> starting to retreat from outsourcing customer service. Delta
> had a reservations center in India, which they closed for
> this reason. One of the smaller rental car companies tried
> this, and it hurt sales, so they stopped it.

Good, I hate talking to people with native accents over the phone. It really
sucks. The worst conference call I participated in occurred over 8 time
zones, 3 continents, with Cockney, American, Indian and Asian native accents
all mixing together... Pretty much all you could understand was "Wot?" or
"Wut?" or "Ut?" depending on the accent. Total Disaster - but I digress.
>
> Airlines might be in a different position than others because
> of their benefits. My wife, for example, works half time at
> Continental and is a psychotherapist with a MSW. She works
> for $12/hour more for the health insurance and fight benefits
> than for the net cash. There are a number of other folks,
> most of the part timers I think, who are in somewhat similar
> circumstances.

This appears to be a pretty good wage for customer support. It is probably
Union controlled contracts that get them this wage. It may be artificial to
the rest of America.
>
> Having traveled a decent bit internationally, I'd argue that
> customer service is more of a priority in the US than
> anywhere I've been in Europe.

Its hard to say, it could be that only Americans can really provide the
socialization that prevents alienation - subtle messages that tell you you
are talking to a fellow American. The Canadians are pretty good at it until
they use certain word that clue you into their Canuck Heritage.... You can't
buy this overseas, now or ever...
NFH

>
> Dan M.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
>

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[Bryon Daly]

>From: ChadCooper-***@public.gmane.org
>
>I have to side against the Fool in this case. His point was that his job
>was
>threatened by the outsourcing scourge. I work in IT, and I do not see the
>threat. But then I am an analyst and not principally a programmer. It is
>the

I don't know any good solutions, but I am concerned about the problem.

>heads down programmers, web developers, and phone support that is being
>threatened by outsourcing.
>It is clear that programming is difficult, but its rather technical work
>(like fabrication or assembly), meaning that large scale innovation is no

Most factory workers do not have a 4 year college degree or need one to do
their job.

Any way, for your industry, maybe you are correct, but not all programming
is like that, and it's not just the rote "technician" stuff that's getting
transferred offshore: Example:
A few years back, I was offered a software job at GE Medical Systems out
near Milwaukee. This division designs/builds stuff like MRI and CAT scan
equipment. They had a split set up, using programmers in India for some of
the system coding, along with some programmers in Milwaukee. I can assure
you that though the software architecture was chiefly done in the US, the
work the Indian programmers were doing was not by any means
"fabrication/assembly" work, it was real engineering work.

>longer driven by the programmers. It is the architects and analysts that
>provide the innovation.
>What has to happen is these same programmers need to shift their careers to
>analysis.

Easy to say, but how many positions are available for analysts and
architects,
versus how many programmer jobs are open to being displaced? I'm guessing
there's a 1:10 to 1:20 ratio of analysts/architects to programmers.

What do you suggest the other 9-19 programmers do?

Are the jobs lost overseas being replaced at all by alternate,
equivalent-quality
jobs? If not, who'd going to be able to buy all those cheap DVD players and
TV's?

>No off-shore worker can provide business requirements or delve
>deep into legacy systems to solve business problems. The focus of IT is
>business. This fundamental belief is lost with those who are bothered by
>outsourcing. The days are gone of the Mainframe programmer/analyst, who did
>it all with respect to creating mainframe apps. No one person can write a
>large program any more. The technology is too sophisticated, and the
>business requirements are too massive for one person. The programming has
>become the easy part of the technical solution. It's the analysis of
>determining the business behind the bits that's important.

So your vision is companies consisting of small groups of management and
lead
analysts/architects, while all the actual body of technical work is done
offshore?

And then when the offshore developers learn the business better, and canned
software packages simplify the analysis tasks, the analyst jobs can be moved
offshore, too, right?

>And what about those little manuals that come with most Asian computer
>components. Ever read one that did not have some significant English
>spelling or syntax error? We are the Masters of English. It is this mastery
>that will keep us on top.

Keep a small select few on top, perhaps. My (high-tech) company of about
800 people currently has two tech writers on staff, and that is only part of
their
role. Tech writing is not going to save many people's jobs.

>And about those outsourcing companies... Rumor has it that the Indians are
>now not satisfied with the rates being offered by American companies for
>the
>work, so they are now doing offshore outsourcing to countries like Russia
>and Viet Nam. This tells me that the American programmer is going the way
>of
>the punch card operator, and that things will shift world-wide.

Back when people started worrying about the loss of US blue-collar,
manufacturing
jobs overseas, the standard reply was that we needed to transistion to a
high-tech
economy, and we needed to prepare/retrain workers to deal with it and
transition over.

Now, high-tech, white collar jobs are also migrating away. Where are the
replacement jobs going to come from? They can't all become analysts and
architects.

>I hear stories about phone support people off-shore, who place marbles in
>their mouth while speaking to straighten out their accents. Phone support
>people here complain if they have to be nice to customers. How hungry are
>you to do this job? Try putting a marble in your mouth the next time you
>put
>a headset on. This is what you are up against. Those foreign workers are
>hungrier than you, and they are kicking your ass! I don't think Americans
>are wanting to compete, they just want to complain about foreigners taking
>their jobs, asking for special protections so they can maintain their lazy
>lifestyle

Compete how?

US workers are up against workers that make a quarter or fifth (or less!)
the hourly
rate US workers do. Maybe you'd consider that fat and lazy, but those same
wages here would leave someone squarely at the poverty level.

In grad school in 1992, one of my fellow students, from India, worked as an
engineer
there for several years after getting her B.S.EE before coming to the US.
She told me that
she was getting paid more money working as a part-time teaching assistant
(10 hrs/week,
approx $8-10k/year) than she got paid as a full-time engineer in India. So
again, I ask, if the engineering jobs are moving there, how do US engineers
compete?

>I do hope they see the writing on the wall. Its time to move on.

Move on to what?

Again, I don't have any answers, but I am concerned, and I'm not buying
arguments
about whining "lazy Americans" just needing to "compete harder".

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[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 03:59:14PM -0500, Bryon Daly wrote:

> Are the jobs lost overseas being replaced at all by alternate,
> equivalent-quality jobs? If not, who'd going to be able to buy all
> those cheap DVD players and TV's?

Historically, they are replaced by BETTER jobs. I don't see any evidence
to see that this won't happen again in this cycle as it has in all the
previous cycles.

> Compete how?

By finding an area with a comparative advantage.

> US workers are up against workers that make a quarter or fifth (or
> less!) the hourly rate US workers do. Maybe you'd consider that fat
> and lazy, but those same wages here would leave someone squarely at
> the poverty level.

Not true. It is not necessary to have an absolute advantage, only a
comparative advantage, to benefit from free trade.


--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[C***@public.gmane.org]

Bryon,
These are great questions!


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bryon Daly [mailto:zootsuitbryon-***@public.gmane.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 12:59 PM
> To: brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org
> Subject: RE: Race to the Bottom
>
>
> >From: ChadCooper-***@public.gmane.org
> >
> >I have to side against the Fool in this case. His point was that his
> >job
> >was
> >threatened by the outsourcing scourge. I work in IT, and I
> do not see the
> >threat. But then I am an analyst and not principally a
> programmer. It is
> >the
>
> I don't know any good solutions, but I am concerned about the problem.
I am too for that matter - but for different reasons.


>
> >heads down programmers, web developers, and phone support
> that is being
> >threatened by outsourcing. It is clear that programming is
> difficult,
> >but its rather technical work (like fabrication or
> assembly), meaning
> >that large scale innovation is no
>
> Most factory workers do not have a 4 year college degree or
> need one to do
> their job.

I do not as well, nor do many of the people I work with. I did my time
working the phones, desktop support, system administration, etc. I am a
blue-collar High tech worker. My college background was a bit of medical
training.

>
> Any way, for your industry, maybe you are correct, but not
> all programming
> is like that, and it's not just the rote "technician" stuff
> that's getting
> transferred offshore: Example:
> A few years back, I was offered a software job at GE Medical
> Systems out
> near Milwaukee. This division designs/builds stuff like MRI
> and CAT scan
> equipment. They had a split set up, using programmers in
> India for some of
> the system coding, along with some programmers in Milwaukee.
> I can assure
> you that though the software architecture was chiefly done in
> the US, the
> work the Indian programmers were doing was not by any means
> "fabrication/assembly" work, it was real engineering work.

I am sure of that. They are pretty good at it. However, the Specs for the
equipment came from the U.S. The invisioning was on this side of the pond.
The solution is always tough but academic.

>
> >longer driven by the programmers. It is the architects and analysts
> >that provide the innovation. What has to happen is these same
> >programmers need to shift their careers to analysis.
>
> Easy to say, but how many positions are available for analysts and
> architects,
> versus how many programmer jobs are open to being displaced?
> I'm guessing there's a 1:10 to 1:20 ratio of
> analysts/architects to programmers.

I can only speak for what I know. At Freightliner, There is a 50/50 ration
between Analysts and programmers. However, both groups together only
represent about 20% of the organization. Operational support surpasses the
consultative support side.

Developers are a small minority of the IT workers and the analysts are
matched evenly. The rest of the programming is outsourced, but this is only
about 10% of the total work performed by IT.
In our business, Analysis is the bottleneck. We have money to spend on
development, but we can't get the analysis done fast enough. We are having a
hard time finding good analysts.

>
> What do you suggest the other 9-19 programmers do?
>
> Are the jobs lost overseas being replaced at all by alternate,
> equivalent-quality
> jobs? If not, who'd going to be able to buy all those cheap
> DVD players and TV's?

Those jobs represent infrastructure, someone needs to sell them software,
hardware and telecommunications. That comes from the U.S. Only the labor is
cheap. They pay the same as the U.S. for the infrastructure. That
infrastructure comes from the U.S.

>
> >No off-shore worker can provide business requirements or delve deep
> >into legacy systems to solve business problems. The focus of IT is
> >business. This fundamental belief is lost with those who are
> bothered
> >by outsourcing. The days are gone of the Mainframe
> programmer/analyst,
> >who did it all with respect to creating mainframe apps. No
> one person
> >can write a large program any more. The technology is too
> >sophisticated, and the business requirements are too massive for one
> >person. The programming has become the easy part of the technical
> >solution. It's the analysis of determining the business
> behind the bits
> >that's important.
>
> So your vision is companies consisting of small groups of
> management and
> lead
> analysts/architects, while all the actual body of technical
> work is done
> offshore?

It's not my vision. I am only adapting to the changing tide. Its not so much
the technical work as much as it is the time intensive work. Development is
hard, but tangable. Requirements translates into solutions. Solutions take
time.

As I said before, we are struggling to find developers with legacy
knowledge. We are forced to look elsewhere because the workforce is not
there.


>
> And then when the offshore developers learn the business
> better, and canned software packages simplify the analysis
> tasks, the analyst jobs can be moved offshore, too, right?

They can only learn the business by being here, and that makes them
contributors to our economy. Freightliner is not about to move a data center
to a third world to save money. Its too costly and risky.

>
> >And what about those little manuals that come with most
> Asian computer
> >components. Ever read one that did not have some significant English
> >spelling or syntax error? We are the Masters of English. It is this
> >mastery that will keep us on top.
>
> Keep a small select few on top, perhaps. My (high-tech)
> company of about 800 people currently has two tech writers on
> staff, and that is only part of
> their
> role. Tech writing is not going to save many people's jobs.

I agree. However, we deliver "deliverables" to other countries in English.
As an analyst, I create documents every day. Its not just about end-user
documentation. My point is that a major advantage is that we are able to
convert our intellectual capital into "deliverables", feed this into a
machine that produces products or cost savings for pennies on the dollar.
>
> >And about those outsourcing companies... Rumor has it that
> the Indians
> >are now not satisfied with the rates being offered by American
> >companies for the work, so they are now doing offshore
> outsourcing to
> >countries like Russia and Viet Nam. This tells me that the American
> >programmer is going the way of
> >the punch card operator, and that things will shift world-wide.
>
> Back when people started worrying about the loss of US blue-collar,
> manufacturing
> jobs overseas, the standard reply was that we needed to
> transistion to a
> high-tech
> economy, and we needed to prepare/retrain workers to deal with it and
> transition over.

That has happened. The trend of change is quicker now with globalization. It
will continue to happen. Strangely, we are having a hard time finding
qualified people for the top paying positions at Freightliner. That was not
the case 9 months ago. The pool of intellectual talent in the U.S. is drying
up. The jobs are here. We are struggling to find people who want to analyis
at a contracted billing rate 75-100$/hr. Explain that?!??!?!! Freightliner
was penalized taxwise last year because they could not spend its IT budget
fast enough. How's that for a business problem! You try spending 30 million
in 3 months. We were in a total panic. Analysis was the bottleneck. We got
developers at $25/hr. We can outsource for much less. But we can't spend
money until the paperwork is done, and we can't find people to the work? You
tell me why developers don't want to do analysis for double the pay? I don't
know....


>
> Now, high-tech, white collar jobs are also migrating away.
> Where are the
> replacement jobs going to come from? They can't all become
> analysts and
> architects.

I don't agree with this. If they can write code, which is an expression of
ideas, they can do analysis - which is the analysis of ideas. I spend 70% of
my day looking over source code, log files, and reports to determine how
something works - to understand the nature of the system. Developers will
now have to realize they can no longer be pure coders - they need to do the
other work they were taught in college - writing, math, accounting,
statistics, etc.

>
> >I hear stories about phone support people off-shore, who
> place marbles
> >in their mouth while speaking to straighten out their accents. Phone
> >support people here complain if they have to be nice to
> customers. How
> >hungry are you to do this job? Try putting a marble in your
> mouth the
> >next time you put a headset on. This is what you are up
> against. Those
> >foreign workers are hungrier than you, and they are kicking
> your ass! I
> >don't think Americans are wanting to compete, they just want to
> >complain about foreigners taking their jobs, asking for special
> >protections so they can maintain their lazy lifestyle
>
> Compete how?

Have you ever worked on a tech support line? They are measured by how fast
they can blow off customers, not how technically savvy they are. Managers
are measured on how much crap they can patiently take from mad customers.
Technical phone support staff who are Americans are paid to do support by
managing a phone queue, not managing customers. Its because they don't
really provide tech support that it can be moved overseas.

>
> US workers are up against workers that make a quarter or
> fifth (or less!)
> the hourly
> rate US workers do.

I think actually much less. More like $3-25 a day - closer to an eighth in
most cases.

Maybe you'd consider that fat and lazy,
> but those same wages here would leave someone squarely at the
> poverty level.

I have talked to some of these oursourcers. People beg them for work at
these wages. Remember that what is poverty level here is wealth there. But
lets make the comparision. A day's worth of food in India costs pennies. A
day's worth of food in the U.S. cost Dollars. Its all relative.


>
> In grad school in 1992, one of my fellow students, from
> India, worked as an
> engineer
> there for several years after getting her B.S.EE before
> coming to the US.
> She told me that
> she was getting paid more money working as a part-time
> teaching assistant
> (10 hrs/week,
> approx $8-10k/year) than she got paid as a full-time engineer
> in India. So
> again, I ask, if the engineering jobs are moving there, how
> do US engineers
> compete?

They can't.... That's my point. So you move on to something you can compete
with them on.

>
> >I do hope they see the writing on the wall. Its time to move on.
>
> Move on to what?
>
> Again, I don't have any answers, but I am concerned, and I'm
> not buying
> arguments
> about whining "lazy Americans" just needing to "compete harder".

Hehehe... Americans are anything but lazy. Americans kick ass. The fire is
not there yet to get them motivated.
If I was to state my position on how to solve the problem, I think we are
already on the way. I see it in the schools, in business, and in American
culture. Analysis is another word for criticism. This is what we do best.
The new age is coming.

Nerd From Hell

>
> _________________________________________________________________
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[ritu]

Chad Cooper wrote:

> Maybe you'd consider that fat and lazy,
> > but those same wages here would leave someone squarely at the
> > poverty level.
>
> I have talked to some of these oursourcers. People beg them
> for work at
> these wages. Remember that what is poverty level here is
> wealth there.

Yep. These call-centre jobs pay well by Indian standards. BJP's election
slogan this year is _India Shining_ and _Feel Good Factor_. Some of the
people who identify the most with these slogans are the college kids [or
just out of college]who are employed by these call centres.

Ritu, who'd also like to say that a dollar a day is enough to keep a
person well-fed in India, at least if that person is happy with
vegetarian food.


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[William T Goodall]

On 2 Mar 2004, at 8:16 pm, Tom Beck wrote:

> Does the success of LOTR bode well for future fantasy projects?

Yes. Many other projects (such as the Narnia Chronicles) are going
ahead on the back of its success, and at least some of them will be
good.

> Or was it based, at least in part, on the legendary status of the
> Tolkien books?

Yes. The LOTR project probably benefited from more good will than any
other project might have. But because of LOTR future projects will face
less difficulties because of their genre.

> Would some other adaptation fare as well, regardless of quality?

Probably not, before LOTR. Now, after LOTR, maybe.

> For example, would a movie based on Guy Gavriel Kay’s masterpiece
> Tigana, even if accomplished on the scale of LOTR, with as good a
> cast, as fine an attention to detail, similar scope and beauty, be
> received with the same serious respect, or would it be relegated to
> the ghetto of escapist drivel?

I haven't read that, so I have no opinion on that particular example.

>
> What distinguishes those fantasy projects that are taken seriously
> from those that aren’t?

Quality.

> Why is Buffy able to make at least a bit of a mainstream breakthrough
> while Stargate SG-1 remains a genre show?

Because Buffy is awesome and Stargate *is* just a genre show, albeit a
very competent one that looks even better than it is compared to
Voyager, Enterprise, Andromeda and suchlike tosh.

> Why did LOTR get full props while The Empire Strikes Back didn’t?

Because the Star Wars films aren't actually very good really? Without
them there wouldn't be _Alien_ and _Blade Runner_, so they are
important in getting the genre noticed. But they really aren't very
good films. And the new additions are just atrocious rubbish. Well, the
first one was anyway. I couldn't be bothered seeing the next one.

> Even mighty Star Trek is, at best, fondly indulged as a sort of
> beloved childhood plaything instead of truly welcomed into full adult
> status.

LOL! Star Trek cannot be taken seriously. The whole franchise is
insular, circumscribed and utterly lost up its own mythology. And it
has rubber-headed aliens with silly names each week.

<snip>

> But let’s say someone had the vision and guts to bring Titan to the
> big screen with all the vitality and spirit that Peter Jackson had in
> realizing Tolkien’s works. Would it have a chance of succeeding even
> half as well? Or a quarter?

Probably not.

>
> What I am asking is, did the phenomenal success of LOTR presage a sea
> change in the way fantasy is perceived by the general public
> (including the critics),

Yes.

> or was it a one-off, difficult if not impossible to repeat, even by
> the finest in filmed art?

And also yes :)

They now know that fantasy *can* be good, but seldom is. Remember
Sturgeon's Law.

>
> There have been genre booms in the past-almost inevitably, to be
> followed by “mass extinctions.” This is not to say that fantasy will
> disappear-but will it be permitted to stay up late with the grownups,
> or will it be sent to bed early and leave the adults to their more
> sophisticated conversation? Lord of the Rings has broken through,
> gloriously, and well-deserved. Will anyone else be allowed to follow,
> or did the hopes of fantasy fans for the respect we think we have
> earned melt away with the demise of the One Ring?

I think each project will have to be judged on its own merits. Many of
them will be dreadful, some of them will be quite good, and with luck
some might be excellent.

LOTR has raised the bar. Now if someone makes a crap genre movie they
can't blame it on the genre.

And hey! What about Pirates of the Caribbean? Wasn't that a successful
fantasy movie?


--
William T Goodall
Mail : wtg-FAjn8uNKAGMCqOQrDF6SL1pr/1R2p/***@public.gmane.org
Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/

"Our products just aren't engineered for security." - Brian Valentine,
senior vice president in charge of Microsoft's Windows development
team.
_______________________________________________
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[C***@public.gmane.org]

> <snip> I started learning COBOL two years ago. The company
> bemoans the fact
> that no college offers COBOL programming Many outside
> contractors have
> come in an tried to prove that their software could do the
> job faster and
> all have failed. Maybe the difference is the database
> interface. Most of
> the work is just getting and storing a record. But the big
> programs work on
> all the records; sorting and changing and other things.

We are not about to move away from big Iron yet. Our issue is that as
capacity is added to the frames, it quickly gets used up. We have no spare
cycles even though we have doubled processing in the last year. There are
still 20 Mainframe programmers on staff. What is outsourced is usually
sustaining work. The analysis is done here.

>
> It's not going away, in fact I know a few places switching
> back because it
> works better. (Don't ask who, it's internal knowledge.) Our
> latest version
> is OO, but no one has worked with it yet. We have host
> interfaced programs
> and web applications all running from COBOL.

We have had that for years. In fact, I just wrote a MS script that passes
delimited text to one of these interfaces to a MF trans to order parts. Our
web based Warranty system talks to IMS in the back. Truck Sales Orders and
changes do as well.
Green screen use is now only for processing small orders or for looking up
small bits of info. Everything else is automated into the web-based back end
into IMS.

>
> How are you defining a large mainframe program? The major
> project this year
> will be re-writing a system that handles billions of dollars
> now; designing
> it to handle trillions. There will be many small and large
> programs; a few
> very large ones; each written by one person.

This is how Mainframe development is done. It is difficult to do on other
platforms.
<SNIP>
>
> I am missing something. What would a programmer who doesn't
> analyze do? I
> know a few programs that are same code/different system but
> most involve
> thinking.

Again, the old style MF programmer did it all in the past. Specialization
has taken this away.

>
> Maybe that's my difference. I love my job. I'll do anything.
> I spent 11
> years fixing TVs, being an electrician, doing mechanical
> maintenance. I
> never want to turn a wrench again. I had a dream after I
> started, standing
> in a factory being welcomed to my new job. I felt like
> crying, I wanted to
> call my boss and find out what happened.

Alas, another fellow blue-collar IT worker...

>
> That doesn't mean I'm social. I treat this as a job. I don't
> need to know
> your kids names to work with you.
>
> Kevin T. - VRWC
> I had a point. Oh yeah: COBOL RuLZ! Java drolz! (No idea what
> you work with).
>

_______________________________________________
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[C***@public.gmane.org]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jan Coffey [mailto:janwcoffey-/***@public.gmane.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 5:52 PM
> To: Killer Bs Discussion
> Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom
>
>
> --- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, Kevin Tarr <***@v...> wrote:
> > At 11:36 AM 3/2/2004, you wrote:
> > > Half of our development staff is Indian. I turn to them to tell
> me the
> > >technology can do what I want it to do. They are the subject
> matter experts
> > >to programming. The American developers are OK, but the Indians
> really get
> > >it, and they really enjoy the work. They are also the most
> friendly. The
> > >American developers here are probably the most unsocial people in
> IT. They
> > >have not make the transcendental shift to socially connect to the
> business
> > >that supports their lifestyle. It is these people that complain
> that wages
> > >are diminishing, that there is too much foreign competition, and
> how
> > >everyone outside of their little world are idiots who don't get
> technology.
> > >I have news for them. The Ivory Tower they live in is falling.
> > >
> > >
> > >Nerd From Hell
>
> I would say that you don't get it. I have had a number of experiences
> with outsourcing and all of them have been the same.

Let me clarify my position on Indian programmers. I was referring to the
Indian programmers here on staff. Some of the friendliest guys here - Always
say hi to me in the elevator. They love to do analysis. They would not be
here if they could not compete head to head against U.S. programmers. In
India, being paid to be a programmer is easy do to, but everyone needs to do
the time to learn the ropes, here or abroad.

>
> I have seen project after project canceled, not because the software
> could not be written, but because the people writing the software
> were not capable, were not mature enough to succeed. Even when the
> designs were sound, the ability to execute on those designs...the
> ability to even understand those designs was minimal.
>
> Just look at the ratio of failures that Infosys has had, and they are
> India's top firm.

I did mention earlier that a local company here did contract a Indian firm
to do a project, analysis and all, and it failed horribly. I agree with you
here. Outsourcing is still difficult to do successfully, and I can't
remember anyone having good success with it. It still does not change the
fact that Managers will at least try to sell out the American worker for a
few bucks. The fool is right about that. It does not mean that it will be
successful. It also does not mean that Managers should not try. The Fool is
against letting market forces re-educate IT management about the value of
American programming. It is a cry to say, " We are afraid that we might
lose, so let's whack them off at the knees before they have a chance to show
their mettle." I am in favor of outsourcing because I think it will light a
fire under the "Lazy American Programmers" . We withstood the Dotcom
fallout, we can withstand this as well. I say, allow criticism to be the
referee in this issue.

<SNIP>
>
> Even if this were not the case, even if we were comparing like
> abilities (which WILL eventually be the case, and faster than you
> might think), even then, we are talking about flooding a market, we
> are talking about undercutting. If for instance we were talking about
> Diamonds, or Gold, or anything, this would not be acceptable. Free
> market does not mean that someone can artificially change the value
> of something by flooding the market with that product.
>

You make a good segue for me to mention again that the value is very
artificial. When Indian firms contract out to China for work, there is
something that will break. Perhaps that will happen when China decides to
honestly valuate its money.


>
> >> The American developers here are probably the most unsocial people
> in IT.
>
> This may be the case, but I do not believe you are correct when you
> say "unsocial", maybe just social in a different way than many who
> studied Business instead of Computer Science. But do you believe that
> these people should not be able to make a good living? Is it your
> opinion that only ~Social~ people should be allowed into the middle,
> or upper middle class? It's true, many of the Computer Scientists I
> know who grew up in the US, and who enjoy Software Engineering, have
> an alternative social ability. Does that mean that they should only
> be allowed to work for McDonalds wages?
You must mean McDonalds management wages. Top range is about 45,000 /year. I
see a lot of job posting for developers at this rate. Clearly rates have
gone down for developers, unless you know Oracle, Peoplesoft or SAP.


This group of people have
> found a carrier that affords them the ability to participate in the
> American Dream, but form the sound of it, you would have them all
> unemployed, and their jobs all sent over seas to people who will
> treat you as if you are their master, and work for slave wages.

You made the strong point that failures occur when these jobs move overseas.
Do you think that this strategy will be successful? As Erik pointed out on
another thread (Oh my god, I'm agreeing with Erik!) these things are
cyclical. I am suggesting that we should allow the mistakes to happen - to
allow criticism to rule. legislating our way into jobs will only forestall
the inevitable. Offshore programming will have their chance to prove
themselves. They will eventually be successful. We need to be ready to be as
hungry as them when it comes to competing.
I am sympathetic to the "blight" of the U.S. developer. I hate to see the
wages decreased. It is my thought that we are in a period where IT
management is essentially challenging the status quo. The vocalization
coming from that is that the greedy corporate empire is selling the common
developer out for a few extra bucks. Freightliner has already been accused
of this recently by the Oregon Association of Technical Professionals.
http://www.ortech.org/Freightliner.html

But here is what 3 of the leading "Big Bosses" say about it. Take it for
what its worth...

"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore. We have to
compete for jobs."
Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co.

"..(the United States) now has to compete for every job going forward. That
has not been on the table before. It had been assumed we had a lock on
white-collar jobs and high-tech jobs. That is no longer the case."
Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel

"A couple of years ago, the biggest American corporations would have
considered it risky to outsource mission-critical work to India, but it is
now becoming a common sense proposition."
Bill Gates


So my message has been a bit convoluted. I see the inevitability of
outsourcing. I see a lot of people complaining about it, talking about how
great we are, how we don't deserve such treatment because we are so good at
what we do. I disagree with this statement. The way to fight this war, and
it is war, is to accept the facts, and make your case. If we are as good as
we say we are, it obviously is not enough to convince the market we are
worth the money we get paid. This is what needs to be changed, not trade
laws to restrict these practices. We may very well have to hump it for a
while, before things adjust.

Jan has made great arguments about why outsourcing is bad business.
Hopefully his prognosis will be true. But there will be a period of trial
for the truth to be reflected in the market.

I am very concerned about jobs moving overseas. I don't want it to happen,
but it seems to be happening. It been going on for a while. I myself, almost
put forth effort to provide outsourcing from these countries to American
companies.

At the same time, I see where the application of what we do best, which is
to convert intellectual capital into currency becoming secondary to the art
of the work. With talk of Unions for white collar tech workers being drafted
in the suburban corner pubs, planning on how to provide greater security for
the poor white collar worker, corporations are fighting a global economy
which wants a piece of the American Pie.
I am making a call to arms. Its time to innovate - to do some American
Ass-kicking. We are the corporation. Its up to us in IT to use the brains we
have to make the corporation profitable. If that means a buildup of big
Iron, or dumping the latest greatest technology to bolster some legacy
system, then that's what it will take. Someone in IT has to make the case
that IT provides value. Right now it appears we don't.
I suggested that this is best done through analysis. From my perspective,
Business/system Analysts have been given the pigskin. They are expected to
score. I am not confident they will succeed. It will take troops from the
trenches - the developers - to provide the benevolence needed at this time.
I don't see that happening. This is my message - get your head out of the
latest "Windoze Sucks" journal and start getting involved with what it
happening "socially" in the business. Your job DOES depend on it.

And with that said, I really need to get back to work. Security just
implemented a new load balancer front end last night, and it is tanking the
authentication process for our dealers. offline(Dealer)=parts.revenue(lost)

Time for me to "socialize" with the security tech workers to see if I can
help.

Chad Cooper







_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l

[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, ***@F... wrote:
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jan Coffey [mailto:janwcoffey-F5Bj5G+***@public.gmane.org]
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 5:52 PM
> > To: Killer Bs Discussion
> > Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom
> >
> >
> > --- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, Kevin Tarr <***@v...> wrote:
> > > At 11:36 AM 3/2/2004, you wrote:
> > > > Half of our development staff is Indian. I turn to them to
tell
> > me the
> > > >technology can do what I want it to do. They are the subject
> > matter experts
> > > >to programming. The American developers are OK, but the
Indians
> > really get
> > > >it, and they really enjoy the work. They are also the most
> > friendly. The
> > > >American developers here are probably the most unsocial
people in
> > IT. They
> > > >have not make the transcendental shift to socially connect to
the
> > business
> > > >that supports their lifestyle. It is these people that
complain
> > that wages
> > > >are diminishing, that there is too much foreign competition,
and
> > how
> > > >everyone outside of their little world are idiots who don't
get
> > technology.
> > > >I have news for them. The Ivory Tower they live in is falling.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >Nerd From Hell
> >
> > I would say that you don't get it. I have had a number of
experiences
> > with outsourcing and all of them have been the same.
>
> Let me clarify my position on Indian programmers. I was referring
to the
> Indian programmers here on staff. Some of the friendliest guys
here - Always
> say hi to me in the elevator. They love to do analysis. They would
not be
> here if they could not compete head to head against U.S.
programmers. In
> India, being paid to be a programmer is easy do to, but everyone
needs to do
> the time to learn the ropes, here or abroad.
>

Let me tell you, Programmers anywhere, of all nationalities and all
races, have allways for me been a joy to work with. They are the
best people in the world. I have many Indean friends at work, and in
my personal life. My best friend is Indean. However, there is
deffinatly a differnce between those who are hear to become
Americans, and those who are not. I don't care if your here from
Greate Briton, Ireland, Austrailia, Africa, Indea China, Indonisia,
Malaysia (where my wife is from)or wherever, if you are hear to --
become an American-- then your welcome in my book.

You know what though, The Indeans that are hear , are just as upset
about the outsourcing as anyone, they don't want to be indeans any
more, they came here to be Americans,

> > I have seen project after project canceled, not because the
software
> > could not be written, but because the people writing the
software
> > were not capable, were not mature enough to succeed. Even when
the
> > designs were sound, the ability to execute on those
designs...the
> > ability to even understand those designs was minimal.
> >
> > Just look at the ratio of failures that Infosys has had, and
they are
> > India's top firm.
>
> I did mention earlier that a local company here did contract a
Indian firm
> to do a project, analysis and all, and it failed horribly. I agree
with you
> here. Outsourcing is still difficult to do successfully, and I
can't
> remember anyone having good success with it. It still does not
change the
> fact that Managers will at least try to sell out the American
worker for a
> few bucks. The fool is right about that. It does not mean that it
will be
> successful. It also does not mean that Managers should not try.
The Fool is
> against letting market forces re-educate IT management about the
value of
> American programming. It is a cry to say, " We are afraid that we
might
> lose, so let's whack them off at the knees before they have a
chance to show
> their mettle." I am in favor of outsourcing because I think it
will light a
> fire under the "Lazy American Programmers" . We withstood the
Dotcom
> fallout, we can withstand this as well. I say, allow criticism to
be the
> referee in this issue.

I would agreee with you if it were a free - and OPEN - market, but
it's not.

If it were free -and ---OPEN--- then the best value would win out.
The way it is set up, only the outsourcing can win. They will after
all catch up if Americans are not allowed to particiapate.

Besides, what on earth makes you think the american programmer is
lazy? We work have worked harder than anyone else in the company, in
every company. Still, it's allwyas the PM who get's the bonus and
the promotion.

> <SNIP>
> >
> > Even if this were not the case, even if we were comparing like
> > abilities (which WILL eventually be the case, and faster than
you
> > might think), even then, we are talking about flooding a market,
we
> > are talking about undercutting. If for instance we were talking
about
> > Diamonds, or Gold, or anything, this would not be acceptable.
Free
> > market does not mean that someone can artificially change the
value
> > of something by flooding the market with that product.
> >
>
> You make a good segue for me to mention again that the value is
very
> artificial. When Indian firms contract out to China for work,
there is
> something that will break. Perhaps that will happen when China
decides to
> honestly valuate its money.
>
>
> >
> > >> The American developers here are probably the most unsocial
people
> > in IT.
> >
> > This may be the case, but I do not believe you are correct when
you
> > say "unsocial", maybe just social in a different way than many
who
> > studied Business instead of Computer Science. But do you believe
that
> > these people should not be able to make a good living? Is it
your
> > opinion that only ~Social~ people should be allowed into the
middle,
> > or upper middle class? It's true, many of the Computer
Scientists I
> > know who grew up in the US, and who enjoy Software Engineering,
have
> > an alternative social ability. Does that mean that they should
only
> > be allowed to work for McDonalds wages?
> You must mean McDonalds management wages. Top range is about
45,000 /year. I
> see a lot of job posting for developers at this rate. Clearly
rates have
> gone down for developers, unless you know Oracle, Peoplesoft or
SAP.
>
>
> This group of people have
> > found a carrier that affords them the ability to participate in
the
> > American Dream, but form the sound of it, you would have them
all
> > unemployed, and their jobs all sent over seas to people who will
> > treat you as if you are their master, and work for slave wages.
>
> You made the strong point that failures occur when these jobs move
overseas.
> Do you think that this strategy will be successful? As Erik
pointed out on
> another thread (Oh my god, I'm agreeing with Erik!) these things
are
> cyclical. I am suggesting that we should allow the mistakes to
happen - to
> allow criticism to rule. legislating our way into jobs will only
forestall
> the inevitable. Offshore programming will have their chance to
prove
> themselves. They will eventually be successful. We need to be
ready to be as
> hungry as them when it comes to competing.


That's just it though, we built this industry. We should not be
expected to compete on an uneven playing field.

> I am sympathetic to the "blight" of the U.S. developer. I hate to
see the
> wages decreased. It is my thought that we are in a period where IT
> management is essentially challenging the status quo. The
vocalization
> coming from that is that the greedy corporate empire is selling
the common
> developer out for a few extra bucks. Freightliner has already been
accused
> of this recently by the Oregon Association of Technical
Professionals.
> http://www.ortech.org/Freightliner.html
>
> But here is what 3 of the leading "Big Bosses" say about it. Take
it for
> what its worth...
>
> "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore. We
have to
> compete for jobs."
> Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co.

Well, then why don't they start paying their full share of taxes, or
better yet, why don't they move the whole company to indea and play
by indean rules?

god-given....pleas.

>
> "..(the United States) now has to compete for every job going
forward. That
> has not been on the table before. It had been assumed we had a
lock on
> white-collar jobs and high-tech jobs. That is no longer the case."
> Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel

No it wan't "assumed" we did however assume that as a fellow
american, Craig and Carly would be interested in what was best for
their country. What are they doing for their country?

This sounds like a justification for selling us all out.

> "A couple of years ago, the biggest American corporations would
have
> considered it risky to outsource mission-critical work to India,
but it is
> now becoming a common sense proposition."
> Bill Gates

Common sense, becouse they are no-longer restricted from doing so
monitarily.

> So my message has been a bit convoluted. I see the inevitability of
> outsourcing. I see a lot of people complaining about it, talking
about how
> great we are, how we don't deserve such treatment because we are
so good at
> what we do. I disagree with this statement. The way to fight this
war, and
> it is war, is to accept the facts, and make your case. If we are
as good as
> we say we are, it obviously is not enough to convince the market
we are
> worth the money we get paid. This is what needs to be changed, not
trade
> laws to restrict these practices.

These trade laws would ~equal ~ the playing field. Otherwise I ask
you? what is a nation for? Why have a United States Of America? What
purpose does a country serve if it doesn't look out for the best
intrests of it's people and their way of life?

>We may very well have to hump it for a
> while, before things adjust.
>
> Jan has made great arguments about why outsourcing is bad business.
> Hopefully his prognosis will be true. But there will be a period
of trial
> for the truth to be reflected in the market.

opefully my prog will not be true. Remember, I am saying that
without some kind of intravention, the Indean developer will catch
up while no americans bother learning CS any more. And then, well,
then, why would they even need any of us any more? That's bad for
the american programmer, and it's bad for america.

> I am very concerned about jobs moving overseas. I don't want it to
happen,
> but it seems to be happening. It been going on for a while. I
myself, almost
> put forth effort to provide outsourcing from these countries to
American
> companies.
>
> At the same time, I see where the application of what we do best,
which is
> to convert intellectual capital into currency becoming secondary
to the art
> of the work. With talk of Unions for white collar tech workers
being drafted
> in the suburban corner pubs, planning on how to provide greater
security for
> the poor white collar worker, corporations are fighting a global
economy
> which wants a piece of the American Pie.

Well thn, if they want a peice, they can imulate and get it the same
way we did.

> I am making a call to arms. Its time to innovate - to do some
American
> Ass-kicking. We are the corporation. Its up to us in IT to use the
brains we
> have to make the corporation profitable. If that means a buildup
of big
> Iron, or dumping the latest greatest technology to bolster some
legacy
> system, then that's what it will take. Someone in IT has to make
the case
> that IT provides value. Right now it appears we don't.
> I suggested that this is best done through analysis. From my
perspective,
> Business/system Analysts have been given the pigskin. They are
expected to
> score. I am not confident they will succeed. It will take troops
from the
> trenches - the developers - to provide the benevolence needed at
this time.

That's the issue thugh isn't it, your working from an outdated model.
The analysis is nothing without the code level insite into the real
concerns, that''s why we di things iterativly...or one of the many
reasons which fit the same pattern

> I don't see that happening. This is my message - get your head out
of the
> latest "Windoze Sucks" journal and start getting involved with
what it
> happening "socially" in the business. Your job DOES depend on it.

Sorry, I have to change my personality and genetic makeup to keep my
job?

> And with that said, I really need to get back to work. Security
just
> implemented a new load balancer front end last night, and it is
tanking the
> authentication process for our dealers. offline(Dealer)
=parts.revenue(lost)
>
> Time for me to "socialize" with the security tech workers to see
if I can
> help.

The pub is for socializing, Actualy caring about the intracacies is
for work.

> Chad Cooper
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l

_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l

[Bryon Daly]

>From: William T Goodall <wtg-FAjn8uNKAGMCqOQrDF6SL1pr/1R2p/***@public.gmane.org>
>On 2 Mar 2004, at 8:16 pm, Tom Beck wrote:
>
>>Does the success of LOTR bode well for future fantasy projects?
>
>Yes. Many other projects (such as the Narnia Chronicles) are going ahead on
>the back of its success, and at least some of them will be good.

It will certainly be easier for fantasy projects to be greenlit now, since
the "fantasy doesn't sell" myth is thoroughly busted, not just by LOTR
but also the Harry Potter movies.

And we can at least *hope* some of them may be good. A whole TON
of terrible SF crap was pooped out into the theaters after Star Wars
became a blockbuster. I'm hoping we won't see a similar "goldrush" of
lousy quickie fantasy movies intended to captialize on LOTR's popularity.

>>Or was it based, at least in part, on the legendary status of the Tolkien
>>books?
>
>Yes. The LOTR project probably benefited from more good will than any other
>project might have. But because of LOTR future projects will face less
>difficulties because of their genre.

I agree.

>> Would some other adaptation fare as well, regardless of quality?
>
>Probably not, before LOTR. Now, after LOTR, maybe.

I don't think even now any other fantasy adaptations have a shot at
equivalent levels of acclaim. I think they'll get more respect than
before, but not the oscars, and not the $1.5 billion dollars in worldwide
ticket sales.

>> For example, would a movie based on Guy Gavriel Kay’s masterpiece
>>Tigana, even if accomplished on the scale of LOTR, with as good a cast, as
>>fine an attention to detail, similar scope and beauty, be received with
>>the same serious respect, or would it be relegated to the ghetto of
>>escapist drivel?
>
>I haven't read that, so I have no opinion on that particular example.

I haven't read it either. But I'm guessing that while it may not get
relegated to the "escapist drivel" ghetto, it wouldn't get the same level
of serious respect.

>>What distinguishes those fantasy projects that are taken seriously from
>>those that aren’t?
>
>Quality.

I think there's a number of reasons LOTR has gotten serious respect:
- The books the movie is based on are fairly well-respected as literature,
and arguably are classics, now almost 60 years old and still in multiple
print runs of all shapes and sizes. So it's fairly hard to immediately
dismiss
the story as fantasy drivel.
- it has *earned* it, and proved that it has earned it, through its quality,
box office numbers, and acclaim from most of the hard-core book fans,
all over the course of *three* films. As I see it, the 11 Oscars for ROTK
are
really a recognition for the trilogy as a whole.
- LOTR is arguably one of the most ambitious movie undertakings ever.
The studio took a colossal gamble, risking the entire studio's future, in
creating these movies. They risked it all to do the movies right, and they
pulled it off. That is the sort of achievement Holywood respects and
recognizes.

>> Why is Buffy able to make at least a bit of a mainstream breakthrough
>>while Stargate SG-1 remains a genre show?
>
>Because Buffy is awesome and Stargate *is* just a genre show, albeit a very
>competent one that looks even better than it is compared to Voyager,
>Enterprise, Andromeda and suchlike tosh.

Isn't SG-1 a cable show, vs. Buffy on primetime network TV? It might
be partially a matter of audience size. Then factor in that comedy/horror
is a bit more mainstream than straight SF, and the Sarah Michelle Gellar
babe factor.

>>Why did LOTR get full props while The Empire Strikes Back didn’t?
>
>Because the Star Wars films aren't actually very good really? Without them
>there wouldn't be _Alien_ and _Blade Runner_, so they are important in
>getting the genre noticed. But they really aren't very good films. And the
>new additions are just atrocious rubbish. Well, the first one was anyway. I
>couldn't be bothered seeing the next one.

LOTR also had 3 cracks at the academy. FOTR was possibly the
best of the 3 films, but was under-recognized. As I said above, I think
ROTK's success is a recognition of a 3 films


>> Even mighty Star Trek is, at best, fondly indulged as a sort of beloved
>>childhood plaything instead of truly welcomed into full adult status.
>
>LOL! Star Trek cannot be taken seriously. The whole franchise is insular,
>circumscribed and utterly lost up its own mythology. And it has
>rubber-headed aliens with silly names each week.

Yeah, the Trek movie franchise hasn't done much to earn serious
Hollywood respect, with the series being such a mixed bag, quality-wise.

>>But let’s say someone had the vision and guts to bring Titan to the big
>>screen with all the vitality and spirit that Peter Jackson had in
>>realizing Tolkien’s works. Would it have a chance of succeeding even half
>>as well? Or a quarter?
>
>Probably not.

Varley's Titan, or the Stephen Baxter's? (I haven't read Baxter's)

In any case, I'd say probably not, also. Neither has anything close to the
rabid fan base of LOTR, and neither has the same level of critical respect
as literature.


>>What I am asking is, did the phenomenal success of LOTR presage a sea
>>change in the way fantasy is perceived by the general public (including
>>the critics),
>
>Yes.

To some degree. As soon as the next fantasy movie come out that doesn't
do that well, the critics that only gave grudging respect to LOTR will be
quick
to proclaim that proves that LOTR was a unique situation.

>>or was it a one-off, difficult if not impossible to repeat, even by the
>>finest in filmed art?
>
>And also yes :)
>
>They now know that fantasy *can* be good, but seldom is. Remember
>Sturgeon's Law.

I agree.

>>There have been genre booms in the past-almost inevitably, to be followed
>>by “mass extinctions.” This is not to say that fantasy will disappear-but
>>will it be permitted to stay up late with the grownups, or will it be sent
>>to bed early and leave the adults to their more sophisticated
>>conversation? Lord of the Rings has broken through, gloriously, and
>>well-deserved. Will anyone else be allowed to follow, or did the hopes of
>>fantasy fans for the respect we think we have earned melt away with the
>>demise of the One Ring?
>
>I think each project will have to be judged on its own merits. Many of them
>will be dreadful, some of them will be quite good, and with luck some might
>be excellent.

Has the ground been broken enough for, say, a modern E.T equivalent
to win Best Picture? Maybe, but I tend to be pessimistic. I don't think
the academy voters *like* fantasy/sf all that much in general, and if the
genre is a turnoff, recognition is less likely, unless it is practically
undeniable.

>LOTR has raised the bar. Now if someone makes a crap genre movie they can't
>blame it on the genre.

Well, I think some will try to, anyway!

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[K***@public.gmane.org]

Kevin wrote-
>>> The American developers here are probably the most unsocial people
>>>in IT.

Jan wrote-
>This may be the case, but I do not believe you are correct when you
>say "unsocial," maybe just social in a different way than many who
>studied Business instead of Computer Science. But do you believe that
>these people should not be able to make a good living? Is it your
>opinion that only ~Social~ people should be allowed into the middle,
>or upper middle class? It's true, many of the Computer Scientists I
>know who grew up in the US, and who enjoy Software Engineering, have
>an alternative social ability. Does that mean that they should only
>be allowed to work for McDonalds wages? This group of people have
>found a carrier that affords them the ability to participate in the
>American Dream, but form the sound of it, you would have them all
>unemployed, and their jobs all sent over seas to people who will
>treat you as if you are their master, and work for slave wages. This
>is wrong on so many levels, I do not even know where to begin.


There is a "total" skill set in any job. How/what "social" skills
someone has may only be limiting when they are contrary to
what needs to be done to complete the job (frex within the
corporate "customer service" requirements). In some ways
the type of living you want to make is dictated by a match
between what you want to do (or do) and the expectations
of those you work for. Frex, if you like animals, but don't
have "great" (define as you want, merely for illustrative
purposes) social skills, then working with the animals
behind the scenes may be a better match than
that of an intake person/vet in a local practice.

No one is forcing anyone to work at McDonalds, there
are many other professions that have suffered cycles
of change. Perhaps it is simplistic (since computer
stuff is waaaaaay slow to stick in my brain), but I
seem to recall alot of previous posts on how
computer people can never stop learning, it is a
"trap" in many professions to rest on your laurels.
Many in health professions have transferred their
skills to non-patient care as conditions changed,
jobs were cut back, etc. I like the example of
toy makers who saw their business go overseas,
probably for many of us it is one of the first concrete
examples of outsourcing we can practically
remember.

No one is saying others in other countries to work
for slave wages, saving money is a corporate
strategy that happens probably more than it
doesn't (examples in the next post).

Re: "not knowing where to start"- sometimes we all
are too close to something, it may be easier for
me to see since in my profession, the changes,
fear, cut backs and job losses, were at their worst
more than 5 years ago and things are slowly turning
around.

Dee
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[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, ***@a... wrote:
>stuff is waaaaaay slow to stick in my brain), but I
seem to recall alot of previous posts on how
computer people can never stop learning, it is a
"trap" in many professions to rest on your laurels.


Yea, but that is staying on top of a particular type of knowledge,
which is differnt than the type of changes you are relating it to.

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[Doug Pensinger]

I'm for free trade as long as the environment and labor practices are
taken into account (I agree with most of what Erik had to say). However,
I do agree somewhat with Jan that U.S. corporations should have some
loyalty to the country that fostered them and the workers that helped make
them what they are. I don't expect them to have that loyalty however
because the corporate conscience is almost wholly dependant upon the
people that are in charge and all to often the rich and powerful believe
themselves to be above the law. Loyalty is an emotion that seldom
registers. That's not a blanket statement, by the way, there are plenty
of rich powerful people that do have a conscience, but when we have an
anything-goes executive like we do now, people with a conscience find it
more difficult to compete.

Let me disagree vehemently with Jan on one point. We have absolutely no
justification for any ill will towards those that benefit from outsourcing
and anyone with a brain larger than a pea should be able to understand
that - especially in this most capitalist of all nations. We're our
positions reversed I don't think anyone here would hesitate for a second
to take a relatively well paid position if it was offered to them.

And I would support a democracy like India long before I would back
Pakistan. Not least because Pakistan has a history of backing terrorism
including al Qaeda, or because of their non-democratic government.


Doug
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[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, Doug Pensinger <***@z...> wrote:
<SNIPED WELL SIAD AND WELL MENT BIT GO REAS ORIGINAL POST>

> Let me disagree vehemently with Jan on one point. We have
absolutely no
> justification for any ill will towards those that benefit from
outsourcing
> and anyone with a brain larger than a pea should be able to
understand
> that -

If by "those" you are refering to the people in Indea working for
slave wages, then you are not disagreeing with me at all. If, on the
other hand, you think that the Indian "slave masters" who are getting
rich from this scheem are not partly to blame then you `are`
disagreeing with me.

It doesn't bother me if you think Im an SOB for this opinion, just as
long as you think of me as an SOB for the right reasons.

>especially in this most capitalist of all nations. We're our
> positions reversed I don't think anyone here would hesitate for a
second
> to take a relatively well paid position if it was offered to them.

But they are not taking relativly well paid positions. They are
taking slave wages. What could possibly be right about that? And
don't start telling me how bad off their countries economy is,
becouse that is their issue. If their society could support it's own
companies without steeling the jobs from others, then there would not
be any issue here, it would be free trade and we wouldn't even be
talking about this. But that isn't the case, so we are.

> And I would support a democracy like India long before I would back
> Pakistan. Not least because Pakistan has a history of backing
terrorism
> including al Qaeda, or because of their non-democratic government.

I agree with that as well, and I was trying to make a point by
personification. Let me try again:

So would I, right after Packistan made outsourcing my job to Indea
uneconomical. There is right and there is wrong, and then their is
right for the US citizen and wrong for the US citizen.

Remember logical and emotional responses do not necisarily have to be
consistent.




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[Doug Pensinger]

Jan wrote:

> But they are not taking relativly well paid positions. They are
> taking slave wages. What could possibly be right about that? And
> don't start telling me how bad off their countries economy is,
> becouse that is their issue. If their society could support it's own
> companies without steeling the jobs from others, then there would not
> be any issue here, it would be free trade and we wouldn't even be
> talking about this. But that isn't the case, so we are.

Jan, wages are relative. Ritu has said that a person can eat on $1 a day
in India. Here you can't get a cup of coffee for a dollar. In fact, from
what I understand, the outsourced jobs pay an excellent wage in comparison
with other jobs.

> Remember logical and emotional responses do not necisarily have to be
> consistent.

That's true, but, IMO, illogical emotional responses are unproductive or
even destructive.

One thing I haven't heard anyone mention is the fact that the more money
once-poor countrys make in this manner, the more expendable income they
have...

--
Doug
...and no one's an SOB 8^)
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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Pensinger" <brighto-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom

> --
> Doug
> ...and no one's an SOB 8^)

IIRC, several Lassies were SOBs.

Dan M.

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[Julia Thompson]

Dan Minette wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Pensinger" <brighto-***@public.gmane.org>
> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 6:11 PM
> Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom
>
> > --
> > Doug
> > ...and no one's an SOB 8^)
>
> IIRC, several Lassies were SOBs.

The father of my dog was an SOB.

But I don't think that anyone participating on this list is an SOB. The
closest I would believe would be "raised by wolves". :)

Julia
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[Dan Minette]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Julia Thompson" <julia-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 10:38 PM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom


> Dan Minette wrote:
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Doug Pensinger" <brighto-***@public.gmane.org>
> > To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
> > Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 6:11 PM
> > Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom
> >
> > > --
> > > Doug
> > > ...and no one's an SOB 8^)
> >
> > IIRC, several Lassies were SOBs.
>
> The father of my dog was an SOB.
>
> But I don't think that anyone participating on this list is an SOB. The
> closest I would believe would be "raised by wolves". :)
>
> Julia

Well, I shouldn't argue for argument's sake, but that hasn't stopped me
before. I know my cats have hit keys while I've been writing posts, so I
would guess that a SOB might have a paw in an occasional post. :-)

Dan M.


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[Julia Thompson]

Dan Minette wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Julia Thompson" <julia-***@public.gmane.org>
> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 10:38 PM
> Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom
>
> > Dan Minette wrote:
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Doug Pensinger" <brighto-***@public.gmane.org>
> > > To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
> > > Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 6:11 PM
> > > Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom
> > >
> > > > --
> > > > Doug
> > > > ...and no one's an SOB 8^)
> > >
> > > IIRC, several Lassies were SOBs.
> >
> > The father of my dog was an SOB.
> >
> > But I don't think that anyone participating on this list is an SOB. The
> > closest I would believe would be "raised by wolves". :)
> >
> > Julia
>
> Well, I shouldn't argue for argument's sake, but that hasn't stopped me
> before. I know my cats have hit keys while I've been writing posts, so I
> would guess that a SOB might have a paw in an occasional post. :-)

Actually, I've had great difficulty in getting a dog to contribute to
e-mail. (I've tried. And they've gotten annoyed.) But maybe others
have had different experiences.

Julia
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[John D. Giorgis]

At 02:14 PM 3/5/2004 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
>I'm for free trade as long as the environment and labor practices are
>taken into account (I agree with most of what Erik had to say). However,
>I do agree somewhat with Jan that U.S. corporations should have some
>loyalty to the country that fostered them and the workers that helped make
>them what they are. I don't expect them to have that loyalty however
>because the corporate conscience is almost wholly dependant upon the
>people that are in charge and all to often the rich and powerful believe
>themselves to be above the law. Loyalty is an emotion that seldom
>registers.

Nevertheless, if by "loyalty" you mean keeping their goods and services
more expensive than those of their competitors, I think that it is very
unreasonable to expect that of anybody.

JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - jxg9-***@public.gmane.org
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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[Robert Seeberger]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John D. Giorgis" <jxg9-***@public.gmane.org>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom


> At 02:14 PM 3/5/2004 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
> >I'm for free trade as long as the environment and labor practices
are
> >taken into account (I agree with most of what Erik had to say).
However,
> >I do agree somewhat with Jan that U.S. corporations should have
some
> >loyalty to the country that fostered them and the workers that
helped make
> >them what they are. I don't expect them to have that loyalty
however
> >because the corporate conscience is almost wholly dependant upon
the
> >people that are in charge and all to often the rich and powerful
believe
> >themselves to be above the law. Loyalty is an emotion that seldom
> >registers.
>
> Nevertheless, if by "loyalty" you mean keeping their goods and
services
> more expensive than those of their competitors, I think that it is
very
> unreasonable to expect that of anybody.
>

Conversely, do you see companies actually lowering prices for goods or
services after outsourcing or offshoring.

I don't see savings being passed on to consumers so much as being
shared with investors. There is competition for investors just as much
as there is for customers.
I could be wrong in this, but most of the price lowering I see is
through retailers and wholesalers. Are they in position to use
outsourcing and offshoring the way manufacturers are?


xponent
Money Matters Maru
rob


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[John D. Giorgis]

At 01:08 PM 3/6/2004 -0600 Robert Seeberger wrote:
>Conversely, do you see companies actually lowering prices for goods or
>services after outsourcing or offshoring.
>
>I don't see savings being passed on to consumers so much as being
>shared with investors.

All of the major price programs have reported very low rates of price
inflation for the past several years. This is also true of the CPI in
particular. So yes, these savings clearly are being passed onto consumers.

>There is competition for investors just as much
>as there is for customers.
>I could be wrong in this, but most of the price lowering I see is
>through retailers and wholesalers. Are they in position to use
>outsourcing and offshoring the way manufacturers are?

This is exactly the phenomenon that is making so much news. Retailers are
outsourcing call-centers (order-taking and customer support) oversseas.
In addition, retailers and wholesalers can certainly make use of overseas
software development.

JDG
_______________________________________________________
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"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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[Doug Pensinger]

John wrote:


> Nevertheless, if by "loyalty" you mean keeping their goods and services
> more expensive than those of their competitors, I think that it is very
> unreasonable to expect that of anybody.

Exactly. That's one of the reasons why an unrestricted free market is an
unhealthy system, IMO. We value loyalty but the free market doesn't.

--
Doug
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[Erik Reuter]

On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 10:39:31AM -0800, Doug Pensinger wrote:

> Exactly. That's one of the reasons why an unrestricted free market
> is an unhealthy system, IMO. We value loyalty but the free market
> doesn't.

No, you apparently value "loyalty" highly, and some others do. Still
others value efficiency, progress, and low prices more highly. Who
are you to force "loyalty" on others who would choose otherwise,
especially when your "loyalty" comes at the high cost of diminished
productivity overall? (By the way, the quotes are because I don't think
you've defined your term precisely, and if you try you will run into
conflicting "loyalties")


--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Doug Pensinger]

Erik wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 10:39:31AM -0800, Doug Pensinger wrote:
>
>> Exactly. That's one of the reasons why an unrestricted free market
>> is an unhealthy system, IMO. We value loyalty but the free market
>> doesn't.
>
> No, you apparently value "loyalty" highly, and some others do. Still
> others value efficiency, progress, and low prices more highly. Who
> are you to force "loyalty" on others who would choose otherwise,
> especially when your "loyalty" comes at the high cost of diminished
> productivity overall? (By the way, the quotes are because I don't think
> you've defined your term precisely, and if you try you will run into
> conflicting "loyalties")
>

I value all the things you mentioned above as well. I'm just pointing out
that loyalty is a consideration that an unrestricted free market places
very little value upon.

As far as defining the term, I'm sure you can find ambiguity in _any_
concept, even efficiency and progress. In this case I would say that
loyalty is a degree of consideration for an entity that contributed to
your success commensurate with that contribution. I wouldn't expect a
corporation to have a blind or unlimited loyalty to it's country or it's
employees, but I don't really think it's too much to expect that they
don't defecate on those that have nurtured them even if it means not being
quite as profitable.

--
Doug
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[K***@public.gmane.org]

>Jan wrote-
>I wonder what would happen if we started outsourcing the project
>management, the accounting and the administration, Indian doctors are
>cheaper, Indian Drugs, Indian lawyers… I bet there would be quite a
>number laws made quite quickly to keep this from happening…oh wait,
>there already are.

This is happening all over, maybe not the way you think, but
variations that take money away from people who were trained
in a certain career/profession. In medicine there was/is
ongoing movement to train someone cheaper to do tasks
(I will forgo the debate of skilled interventions vs tasks).
Physician extenders are one example, job "enrichment"
for OJT personnel is another, (hiring foreign trained providers
was quite the rage for a while, but comparable training/
competency/english speaking quality made this more
difficult once quality measures were instituted at state
levels.)

Probably the most classic example of cycles of highs and
lows are nurses. Over my lifetime I have seen approx 3
cycles where nurses were "treated" to cutbacks, excessive
hours, demands and delegation of tasks to others- to
the point where many left the profession. Eventually
their value was identified again, prices when up and
nurses returned to the "fray".

In therapy professions there has been mounting pressure to
delegate tasks to lower wage workers for years.
Then, as icing on the cake, the gov't cut back in Medicare
several years ago, and workers went to work to find 30%
pay cuts, 24 hour decisions to sign modified working
contracts, on call shifts, mandatory changes in
working hours without negotiation, loss of jobs (I think
in some settings/parts of the country there were 20-30%
losses). There was major geographical relocation
of therapists and assistants, and previously "unappealing
jobs" were filled. Quite a big change from "our time" in
the 80's/90's where PT/OT were one of the most promising
vocations in the country, to years with salary cuts (and
if you were lucky "no salary increases". We are
starting to see some return of salaries with cutbacks
in those entering the profession and regulations, but
granted public safety is probably seen as a bit less
negotiable than code (in no way placing value on either, btw).

Various professionals see similarities and differences in
their paths. We can't stop people from trying to make
money, I guess we need to survive professional
evolution. I think it sucks if our taxes are paying to
help locals lose jobs though.

Dee
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[Horn, John]

> From: ritu [mailto:ritu-tRE6Sbfqpr8pUQqquT4simD2FQJk+8+***@public.gmane.org]

> And I am just asking what these people would like the Indians
> to do. Not
> accept the jobs that are being offered? Insist on being paid
> the salary
> of their US counterparts? Put aside a part of their paycheck
> each month and send it to the US?

You can send it to me, if you'd like! <grin> I can always use the
extra cash.

- jmh


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[Bryon Daly]

>From: "Jan Coffey" <janwcoffey-/***@public.gmane.org>
> > About that Indian chap you quoted above, the only way he was telling the
> > truth was if each US developer is paid around USD 60,000 pm. Is that the
> > going rate in the US?
>
>No, for a very poorly paid, just out of School developer who can't
>show that they know how to code maybe. Actualy scratch that, it would
>have to be a QA trainee (like the sit and play video games and
>complain about it kind) with no degree. The low end rate is about
>120,000 for someone with 4 year experience and a CS degree.

Are you serious? You're in CA, right? Around here, 4 years and a CS degree
will
probably pay no more than $60K and probably a bit less than that for most C
programming jobs. Damn, I'm working in the wrong state...

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[Erik Reuter]

On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 12:49:10AM -0500, Bryon Daly wrote:

> Jan wrote:

> > Ritu wrote:

> > > About that Indian chap you quoted above, the only way he was
> > > telling the truth was if each US developer is paid around USD
> > > 60,000 pm. Is that the going rate in the US?

> >No, for a very poorly paid, just out of School developer who can't
> >show that they know how to code maybe. Actualy scratch that, it
> >would have to be a QA trainee (like the sit and play video games and
> >complain about it kind) with no degree. The low end rate is about
> >120,000 for someone with 4 year experience and a CS degree.
>
> Are you serious? You're in CA, right? Around here, 4 years and a CS
> degree will probably pay no more than $60K and probably a bit less
> than that for most C programming jobs. Damn, I'm working in the wrong
> state...
>

Ritu wrote "USD 60,000 pm". That's $60,000 PER MONTH. Why are you
comparing that to annual salaries?

--
Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
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[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, Erik Reuter <***@e...> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 12:49:10AM -0500, Bryon Daly wrote:
>
> > Jan wrote:
>
> > > Ritu wrote:
>
> > > > About that Indian chap you quoted above, the only way he was
> > > > telling the truth was if each US developer is paid around USD
> > > > 60,000 pm. Is that the going rate in the US?
>
> > >No, for a very poorly paid, just out of School developer who
can't
> > >show that they know how to code maybe. Actualy scratch that, it
> > >would have to be a QA trainee (like the sit and play video
games and
> > >complain about it kind) with no degree. The low end rate is
about
> > >120,000 for someone with 4 year experience and a CS degree.
> >
> > Are you serious? You're in CA, right? Around here, 4 years and
a CS
> > degree will probably pay no more than $60K and probably a bit
less
> > than that for most C programming jobs. Damn, I'm working in the
wrong
> > state...
> >
>
> Ritu wrote "USD 60,000 pm". That's $60,000 PER MONTH. Why are you
> comparing that to annual salaries?

becouse I knwo what I was told it would cost, and here response for
~yearly~ was about 1/2 what I was told.... and I didn't know
what "pm" was for. Who quotes wages in months anyway?

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[William T Goodall]

On 6 Mar 2004, at 5:49 am, Bryon Daly wrote:

>> From: "Jan Coffey" <janwcoffey-/***@public.gmane.org>
>> No, for a very poorly paid, just out of School developer who can't
>> show that they know how to code maybe. Actualy scratch that, it would
>> have to be a QA trainee (like the sit and play video games and
>> complain about it kind) with no degree. The low end rate is about
>> 120,000 for someone with 4 year experience and a CS degree.
>
> Are you serious? You're in CA, right? Around here, 4 years and a CS
> degree will
> probably pay no more than $60K and probably a bit less than that for
> most C
> programming jobs. Damn, I'm working in the wrong state...
>

In the UK it would also normally pay no more than $60K pa, and possibly
as little as $40K pa.

--
William T Goodall
Mail : wtg-FAjn8uNKAGMCqOQrDF6SL1pr/1R2p/***@public.gmane.org
Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it.
-- Donald E. Knuth

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[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, "Bryon Daly" <***@h...>
wrote:
> >From: "Jan Coffey" <janwcoffey-F5Bj5G+***@public.gmane.org>
> > > About that Indian chap you quoted above, the only way he was
telling the
> > > truth was if each US developer is paid around USD 60,000 pm.
Is that the
> > > going rate in the US?
> >
> >No, for a very poorly paid, just out of School developer who can't
> >show that they know how to code maybe. Actualy scratch that, it
would
> >have to be a QA trainee (like the sit and play video games and
> >complain about it kind) with no degree. The low end rate is about
> >120,000 for someone with 4 year experience and a CS degree.
>
> Are you serious? You're in CA, right? Around here, 4 years and a
CS degree
> will
> probably pay no more than $60K and probably a bit less than that
for most C
> programming jobs. Damn, I'm working in the wrong state...

But everything here is 4 times as expensive. oe bedroom condo for
half a mil. and rising.

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[Jim Sharkey]

Jan Coffey wrote:
>Of course right now, people are taking temp work for 60 or 70, but
>you can't live on that here. You couldn't even pay for shelter and
>food for a family of 3 on that, much less have traspertation to and
>from work. Non-skilled labor like washing toilets is 60.

WTF??? Are you *seriously* asserting that $60,000 a year is not enough to live on? Where do you live, in King Midas' realm?

Jim
Making slightly more than that in NJ and doing fine with a family of five Maru

[Jan Coffey]

--- In brin-l-***@public.gmane.org, "Jim Sharkey" <***@e...> wrote:
>
> Jan Coffey wrote:
> >Of course right now, people are taking temp work for 60 or 70,
but
> >you can't live on that here. You couldn't even pay for shelter
and
> >food for a family of 3 on that, much less have traspertation to
and
> >from work. Non-skilled labor like washing toilets is 60.
>
> WTF??? Are you *seriously* asserting that $60,000 a year is not
enough to live on? Where do you live, in King Midas' realm?
>
> Jim
> Making slightly more than that in NJ and doing fine with a family
of five Maru

I know for a fact that the guy who cleans the toilets at my wife's
office makes 60. the guy who pics up my trash makes over 60. A prep
cook at SUN makes 60. The train conductor for the call-train makes
60, the security guard at the exploratorium makes 60. I know them
all personaly, and I also know they all have 2 jobs. The Bay Area is
EXPENSIVE to live in. I get squat compared to what most developers
have been makeing here, but I don't mind so much becouse I live
close to work, and my wife is a developer as well, we don't plan on
having kids, which is a good thing becouse most of the people I know
who did got their jobs axed, went bankrupt, moved back in with their
parents, divorced. Lack of a reasonable income for your location can
have that effect on a relationship.


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[The Fool]

> From: John D. Giorgis <jxg9-***@public.gmane.org>

> You toss a lot of numbers out here, and reach a conclusion that is the
> economic equivalent of "the world is only 15,000 years old".

You toss a lot of rhetoric out here, and preach an reganonomic theory
that is the economic equivalent of "the world is only 6,000 years old,
and Flat".

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