Good news for those whose high tech and software jobs have been
outsourced--though it may yet be a bit of time before things swing the other
way: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/technology/28SOUR.html?th
With my own experience with Dell's outsourced phone help, it isn't just the
productivity that is a problem. The depth of knowledge is not there, as the guy
states. The clown I got finally wanted me to format my hard drive to cure a
problem with a worn out CDRW.
When I went back to email help, I had a guy here in 3 days, he replaced the
CDRW in about 4 minutes and all is well.
Charlie Self
"Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first outbreak
being often but an explosion of anger." Thucydides
Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> 1) Any nation has a responsibility to protect its borders and the citizens
> within them. It it precisely because the US Government is so busy
> doing what it should NOT (meddling with the internal social order
> and lives of its citizens) that it does not do what it SHOULD
> (controlling the borders and illegal immigration).
Security wise yes, but following your earlier arguments, allowing
unlimited numbers of immigrants would be a win-win.
> 2) Immigration, is GOOD for our nation. It provides cheap labor, in
> most cases for work no other American actually wants to do.
Sounds more like religion than economics. I personally doubt that the
occupations are in most cases work than no other American actually wants
to do.
It is
> literally true that parts of US agribusiness could not survive without
> cheap Mexican labor.
Could not survive? Wouldn't they adjust to the market? Sounds like gloom
and doom.
> This internal competition is healthy for
> the same reason that outsourcing is - it drives the economy to
> be increasingly efficient.
You constantly assume that outsourcing is purely market driven. Bad
assumption.
> Yes, Mexican labor depresses
> wages. But for what jobs? Manual labor, entry-level blue collar
> jobs, and such are the usual targets because they require minimal
> skills.
Lots of immigrants involved in skilled labor.
> 4) The primary reason you see what you do in your part of the country
> is because of all the Do Gooders in public life who think we owe
> everyone else something, whether they've earned it or not. These
> Do Gooders (they come from both the political Right and Left)
> believe that the government should mandate minimum wages,
Minimum wage is a massive non-issue. Its a good indicator that the
criticism is religious rather than economic.
> feed people,
> educate them, care for their health, and generally be everyone's mommy.
> They do this because they know that the bigger government gets, the
> more everyone will depend upon them, and thus the more power they will
> accrue for themselves.
A long term plan for personal power?
> Their lax attitudes on illegal immigrants stems
> from the fact that they cynically want to prepare the way for the
> next generation of advocates for Big Government.
The plot thickens...
> Illegal immigrants
> have legal children in this country, and that's what the Professional
> Government Mooching Enforcers are counting on for votes in 20 years.
I thought it was the constitution.
> a) US law enforcement should have the unrestricted right to shoot
> anyone who attempts to cross our borders when challenged for ID.
What about the rule of law? You sound like the mommy government types
who want to "send a message." Doesn't sound like any classical liberal I
have ever read, including Adam Smith. Since you've annointed him as the
"Father of Economics," perhaps you'll reveal why he is wrong (along with
dopey guys like T. Jefferson.
> This is the same thing as you having the right to shoot someone
> invading your home. Reasonable warning should be required, but
> after that, the presumption should be that they are illegal and
> trying to sneak in. It would take only a few such incidents,
> and illegal crossings would vastly diminish.
They said that about locking up pot smokers... actually they say that
about near every damn thing when they want to shoot or cage someone who
is viewed as an evildoer or part of a "problem."
>
> b) Anyone here illegally who has a child should have that
> child's US citizenship denied and both should be expelled from
> the country without any appeals process once their illegality is
> definitely established.
Everyone, everywhere in America who has been alive long enough is an
illegal. Immigrants are the same.
Besides, appeals are part of the process to determine more definitely
that illegality exists.
>
> c) NO immigrant, legal or otherwise, should ever be eligible for
> any US social services. You should have to be a citizen to
> participate in the system. I speak as an immigrant myself
> here. I proudly became a citizen the moment I was able to do
> so. Anyone who emmigrates here and then refuses to become a
> citizen should go home and stay there.
There you go. You just outed yourself. Virtually all of the people who
want to move here are prohibited from becoming citizens. Rather than
deal with the issue, you foul the discussion with an attack that they
"refuse" to become citizens.
Are you really an immigrant or is that added for effect?
>
> d) No civil laws should protect illegal immigrants. Only criminal
> laws (which deal with force and threat) should be brought
> to bear on their behalf.
Sounds like you don't know what civil laws are or their relationship to
crime and criminal statutes or to the justice system as a whole.
> An illegal immigrant should never
> be able to sue a doctor for malpractice,
Mmmmmm... good stuff, so someone like Bill Frist whose corporation
operated on people when they didn't need it could use these people for
medical experiments or perhaps just amusement and poor Jose's family
would have no redress.
Not only is it completely impractical, but it would shove it up the ass
of every citizen who travels overseas.
> a hospital for not
> granting service, and so on. They are **illegal** - they should
> have absolutely minimal civil rights, as they would, say, under
> the Geneva Convention for POWs.
All right. Food, shelter, and medical treatment.
> Their children are spoiled brats, badly
> behaved, and obnoxiously indulged - i.e., They are like most other
> American kids who grew up with everything handed to them and
> therefore appreciate nothing.
So immigrants and American parents generally are shitty parents. OK.
> My family comes from a part of the world that witnessed what happens
> when government is "in charge". God help us if we don't stop the slide
> in that direction we are currently undertaking. From 1930-1932,
> approximately 20 Million of my ethnic cousins were murdered by one man -
> Stalin - because he was "doing what is good for the country."
And you want to shoot immigrants for not providing their identity papers
quickly and eliminate the rule of law. You sound a bit like an admirer
of Stalin to me.
--
"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion,
religious or political; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and
freedom of person under the protection of habeous corpus, and trial by
juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright
constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an
age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of sages and blood of our
heroes have devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our
political faith, the text of civil instruction, the touchstone by which
to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in
moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to
regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety." -
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural address
Phil <[email protected]> wrote:
> Larry,
> "Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?" in Syria and in the hands of al-Qaida,
Al Qaeda has nukes? And they came from Iraq? And they came from a yet to
be discovered weapons production complex? Whew... I am woefully
uninformed.
> heck they just tried to knock off 80,000 Jordianians with some of it.
> al-Qaida had it, it was traced through Syria. It's all over the web news
> has been for weeks, some minor TV. Jordan is lucky. Where will the try
> next? Any country that has freedom.
Any country that has freedom? Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Jordan?
> I wish people would just start looking at facts.
You mean like crappy old school chem weapons aren't WMD? Or that the
whole "hate freedom" thing is Bush's personal invention? Or that
production facilities can't be hidden easily or well in the case of bio
and chem weapons or AT ALL in the case of WMD?
Do you believe Jessica Lynch story number one?
How about the Yellowcake tale from an Italian rag owned by Berlusconi?
How about when Bush said that they hadn't found WMD?
Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> No. I was merely responding to the broadbrush of "everything" being
> outsourced.
Just about every statement you make is with a broadbrush.
>
> > the other guys said: Just who are you going to sell to when nobody has
> > a job?
>
> Please cite a single example in ALL of US history from Jamestown through
> today any sustained situation where "nobody has a job". Your position
> is both based on hyperbole and is at complete odds with reality.
Its hyperbole... i.e. an exaggeration of reality.
> While there has been local displacement of jobs throughout US
> economic history, it has also always been _temporal_.
Everything in life is temporary... i won't go into a discussion of the
temporal.
> Modern American citizens, on average, have more free time
> than ever. Yet another benefit of market economies.
Is Jamestown the standard again?
>
>
> >
> > Oh, yeah, get education. Where? In what?
>
> You have *got* to be kidding. The educational system in this country
> has fed at the tax trough for over 100 years.
Longer than that. Thomas Jefferson established the first public
university IIRC.
> There is a vast
> nationwide system of schools at all levels from kindergarden through
> Ph.D. available to almost anyone with heartbeat or better. Anyone
> in this country who does not get an education is in one of a very
> few categories: 1) They don't want an education, 2) They aren't
> trying to get one all that hard, or 3) They are profoundly handicapped
> and are unable to learn at all (a very small percentage of the population).
> Before you lecture me about how much it costs ... I came from a poor
> family - today it would be called "working poor". I went to _private_
> universities without a single loan, grant, or government handout from
> undergrad through Ph.D. studies (which I did not complete). I worked
> for an education and I got one. If you want an education in this
> country, you can get one. Period.
If what you are saying is true, its merely an anecdote and meaningless
otherwise.
> > You keep saying that the bottom has never fallen out of this society.
> > Does that mean it NEVER will? Does that mean we don't need to fight
> > for what we have?
>
> I do not spend my life planning for everything to go to hell in a
> handbasket. "Could" it? Sure. But it is really, really, unlikely.
Whew... that sounds downright Marxist.
> Of course you should fight for what you have. But you are targeting
> the wrong enemy. Your enemy is not outsourcing, global trade,
> or market economies.
I would think that outsourcing as a product of government intervention
would be worth "fighting." Rather anti-capitalist if you ask me.
> > I have to agree: you are a very smart fellow. And everything you say
> > is true--from a book sense.
>
> No. Everything I say has been consistently defended with the actual
> record of American economic history. At no point have I trotted out
> some theoretical precept without giving specific examples of how
> Reality supports the theory.
C'mon, be serious. You rarely support your arguments with anything other
than religious sounding declarations and saying that long term trends
are good. Citing labor hours in Jamestown is a dodge if there ever was
one. Moreover your "theory" is your own. Throwing out the name Adam
Smith doesn't mean that you and he agree.
The only thing I have not given is
> specific citations for the actual raw data and studies because this
> is not a research paper and it will do you oodles of good to dig
> it out for yourself.
Ditto to you.
> "Reality" is that which remains after our theories have disappeared.
I agree with you there.
> The USSR
> spent 80 years trying to force Marxist economic ideas to work, up to and
> including the use of violence, and they failed miserably.
USSR bad therefore?
In an
> analogous manner, if you insist on clinging to your views of how money
> and the workplace operate, you too will fail miserably.
He didn't really say much about how money and the workplace operate.
--
"When the regulation, therefore, is in support of the workman, it is
always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour
of the masters." - Adam Smith, 'Wealth of Nations'
Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> Statistics is not the voodoo most people think. You can't just go "find"
> statistics that support your position. Well, you can't do so honestly
> anyway.
BS. Honest people quote statistics ad infinitum to argue opposite
arguments all the time.
> The variability in understanding the meaning of statistics comes
> not from the discipline itself. It comes from people poorly schooled in
> that field or with a political axe to grind coming to conclusions from
> statistical results they don't understand.
Don't forget zealotry. Considering that you seem unable to consider any
argument that questions your assumptions and continually capitalize the
word reality which continually argee with your broad sweeping
generalizations, maybe you should consider that as a distorting
influence.
> Popular culture is full of
> myths because some Talking Hairdo on "The News" misrepresented some
> statistical study. One particular example is the one we see here: The
> popular (but wrong) notion that we have "less free time" than ever.
How long of a time period of reduced free time is necessary before it
becomes statistically significant or a 'Reality' worth considering in
any sense?
>
> > at a time, prove particular points. If I weren't so lazy, I'd pick up stats
> > that prove just about the opposite, when I select my points.
> picture of the American economy. I don't "live on statistics", I live in
> Reality.
Which state is that in?
> that Reality has compellingly demonstrated the efficacy of
> market economies and the average increase in spare time that such
> economies bring to our society.
I thought we were talking about outsourcing?
Besides, maybe you better define "market economies" because it seems to
be a catch all for goodness and I have a hard time following your use of
it.
> I specifically have NOT picked selected
> statistics but rather argued from a macro-level view of the subject.
That's fine, but you operate assuming that the statistics are there. You
may be wrong. Do you think that's possible?
> This whole thread is troublesome to me, and I have spent time
> responding, because there is a lot of argument in the form of, "I had a
> bad experience, so it must generalize to the larger population" even
> when there is pretty clear evidence that the argument is false. The
> simple fact is that the average condition of today's citizens is
> demonstrably better than ever.
The average citizen? Ever?
I'm not sure that the average citizen is always the best metric.
> We are the wealthiest generation of
> Americans ever. We have more free time than ever. That the quality of
> goods and services available for our purchases is higher than ever. We
> live longer than ever.
Where do you read these statistics?
> The environment is cleaner than it has ever been
> since the onset of the Industrial Revolution (and improving).
Uh-oh... sounds like religion again. Are you sure this is reality? I
hope you don't go to an editorial from Cato for 'Reality.'
> But there
> is the cussed human streak that wants to believe everything is
> constantly getting worse
Well, there you go, a bit of hyperbole is refreshing, eh?
> It's like saying, "My new Chevy is a piece
> of crap, so all Chevys are crap." - one of the oldest logical fallacies
> in the book.
How about my new Chevy is crap, maybe all new Chevys are crap? How about
Volkswagens? Are new Volkswagens the same quality as the 80's, 70's or
60's?
> Its a great read and I could never begin to
> do justice to these topics as well as he did.
I would recommend Adam Smith to you. If you really had an interest in
'Reality,' the story of his unpublished third volume on justice is
enlightening.
--
"The great aim of the struggle for liberty has been equality before the
law." - Friedrich von Hayek, 'The Constitution of Liberty'
Doug Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> The USSR
> >> spent 80 years trying to force Marxist economic ideas to work, up to and
> >> including the use of violence, and they failed miserably.
> >
> >USSR bad therefore?
> >
>
> In a nutshell -- yes. You would argue otherwise? E.g. that the USSR was not
> bad, or was bad but for a different reason?
No.
--
He opened his speech by saying, "I kind of like ducking questions," and
said he would be "glad to duck any questions like my mother once told me
to do" following his remarks. - Bush in a speech to newspaper editors,
publishers and executives, April 21, 2004
Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>1) Any nation has a responsibility to protect its borders and the citizens
> >> within them. It it precisely because the US Government is so busy
> >> doing what it should NOT (meddling with the internal social order
> >> and lives of its citizens) that it does not do what it SHOULD
> >> (controlling the borders and illegal immigration).
> >
> >
> > Security wise yes, but following your earlier arguments, allowing
> > unlimited numbers of immigrants would be a win-win.
>
> No. Allowing market forces to operate while maintaining border
> security simultaneously would be a win-win.
Make up your mind. Do you want market forces or do you want to
artificially distort them with "border security." Some people would call
a tariff on incoming goods "border security."
> >>2) Immigration, is GOOD for our nation. It provides cheap labor, in
> >> most cases for work no other American actually wants to do.
> >
> >
> > Sounds more like religion than economics. I personally doubt that the
>
> Why? Because you said so? There is nothing religious about it.
> Cheap labor drives economic growth. This is not to say it has no
> other consquences. Clearly, it can. But it's not just some bit of
> theology I invented.
No, your theology is that in most cases it is work no other American
wants to do. Cheap labor isn't a requirement for economic growth nor
does it guarantee it. Besides, why is "economic growth" brought up?
>
> > occupations are in most cases work than no other American actually wants
> > to do.
> >> literally true that parts of US agribusiness could not survive without
> >> cheap Mexican labor.
> >
> >
> > Could not survive? Wouldn't they adjust to the market? Sounds like gloom
> > and doom.
>
> Yes. That is better said. Certain agribusiness sectors could not
> continue to exist in their current form. They might or might not
> cease to exist entirely.
Or they would do just fine.
> >> This internal competition is healthy for
> >> the same reason that outsourcing is - it drives the economy to
> >> be increasingly efficient.
> > You constantly assume that outsourcing is purely market driven. Bad
> > assumption.
>
> Everything is (ultimately) market driven.
Markets are altered all the time. There isn't a big push for absynthe
for instance.
> The only exception - that
> is, when the market does NOT operate - is when systemic fraud and/or
> force are exercised to restrain market forces.
Which market where operates without interference?
> Even then, the market
> eventually catches up, it just is considerably delayed.
Not sure what that means.
> But
> fraudulent/forceful outsourcing was not really the scope of this
> thread as I understood it. Rather, the discussion is whether or not
> outsourcing, broadly defined, was good/bad and what consequences it
> brought.
Obviously the thread is about outsourcing in the US and whether it is a
positive or a negative. There are lots of distortions of the market by
the US and by trading partners. That is the thread.
Regardless, outsourcing isn't inherently good or bad from a market
perspective although you sound as if you have painted it so.
> >> Yes, Mexican labor depresses
> >> wages. But for what jobs? Manual labor, entry-level blue collar
> >> jobs, and such are the usual targets because they require minimal
> >> skills.
> >
> >
> > Lots of immigrants involved in skilled labor.
>
> Yes, my community bears witness to this, as does my own life.
> But I was responding specifically to contentions about _illegal_
> Mexican immigration, which is overwhelmingly a labor force at
> the bottom of the food chain in most cases. Mexican doctors are
> not sneaking across the Rio Grande to practice medicine, as best
> I know.
So you're making a broad assumption that illegals are not common outside
of the absolute lowest labor positions to support your assumption that
Americans wouldn't do the work at the lowest labor positions.
Mexican doctors don't need to "sneak" across the border. Some (many?) do
just fine by having Americans come to them. A skilled physician may have
an easier time immigrating as well.
> >>4) The primary reason you see what you do in your part of the country
> >> is because of all the Do Gooders in public life who think we owe
> >> everyone else something, whether they've earned it or not. These
> >> Do Gooders (they come from both the political Right and Left)
> >> believe that the government should mandate minimum wages,
> >
> >
> > Minimum wage is a massive non-issue. Its a good indicator that the
> > criticism is religious rather than economic.
>
> Absent reason, attack with labels, eh?
No. Just pointing out how meaningless it is an issue.
> You intentionally ignore the
> context of the comment to try and trivialize it. Minimum wage is
> obviously introduced here as _an example_ of legistative intrusion
> by the people I call "Do Gooders", no more.
Well, then your point would be that legislative intrusion has little or
no effect I suppose, but that doesn't make much sense in the context and
language of your advocacy of outsourcing, itself partially a product of
legislative intrusion by people claiming they are doing good.
Adam Smith favored legislative intrusion. In fact without it, there
ain't no capitalism.
> >>feed people,
> >> educate them, care for their health, and generally be everyone's mommy.
> >> They do this because they know that the bigger government gets, the
> >> more everyone will depend upon them, and thus the more power they will
> >> accrue for themselves.
> >
> >
> > A long term plan for personal power?
>
> No, an implict plan to increasingly collectivize society and its
> sensibilities, thereby making the group more important than the individual.
An implicit plan? Is that a secret plan? An unconcious plan? Sounds
like religion.
> This has a long and studied tradition form most of recorded human history,
> regardless of the form of governance in use. People with power want to
> maintain it, grow it, and increasingly command everyone else.
The collective? "Commond" everyone else? Here I thought they just wanted
money, fame, and/or power.
I merely
> cite what I did here to note that even in our free democracy, these
> instincts exist.
> >>Their lax attitudes on illegal immigrants stems
> >> from the fact that they cynically want to prepare the way for the
> >> next generation of advocates for Big Government.
> >
> >
> > The plot thickens...
>
> Brilliant riposte' ...
And the mysteries remain...
> >>Illegal immigrants
> >> have legal children in this country, and that's what the Professional
> >> Government Mooching Enforcers are counting on for votes in 20 years.
> >
> >
> > I thought it was the constitution.
>
> It is, but I suggest here that for people who obtain access to our
> system illegally, the law should be rewritten. The Constitution is
> written, you'll recall, with the ability to be amended.
Ah, so you favor rewriting that part of the constitution.
And if these children do not receive US citizenship and don't have
citizenship in the country of their parents origin, then I guess we can
just raise them in prisons here like we do with so many others.
> >> a) US law enforcement should have the unrestricted right to shoot
> >> anyone who attempts to cross our borders when challenged for ID.
> >
> >
> > What about the rule of law? You sound like the mommy government types
>
> By all means. Note that I stipulated that "fair warning" be required.
Fair warning wouldn't create the rule of law. Try again.
>
> > who want to "send a message." Doesn't sound like any classical liberal I
>
> Why? Because you said so? I want to send no message. Do not presume
> what you cannot possible fathom - my intentions.
Are these your words: "It would take only a few such incidents, and
illegal crossings would vastly diminish." I suppose you'll do some sort
of semantic gymnastics, to suggest that you weren't sending a message by
executing people for being in the wrong place.
> I want the borders
> to be secure, much like I want the boundaries of my own property to
> be secure. I am simply applying a similar precept.
You have your own nation? I thought you were in America and now you want
to execute someone who is standing on your grass?
>
> > have ever read, including Adam Smith. Since you've annointed him as the
> > "Father of Economics," perhaps you'll reveal why he is wrong (along with
> > dopey guys like T. Jefferson.
>
> Adams is widely credited with being the father or the modern discipline
> of economics, though considerable meaningful work certainly followed him.
> The Englightenment thinkers had all manner of warts. They were not
> infallible. You may recall that Jefferson owned slaves, for example.
> Citing them is not a blanked endorsement of every position they held.
So you think that the founding fathers and Smith et al had a wart
because they believed in justice and that punishment should fit the
crime. ok.
> They lived in times that did not have to consider illegal immigration
> on anywhere near the scale we do.
lol... guess again.
> New times bring new issues and require
> potentially new ideas.
The actions of a marketplace haven't changed... really nothing has
changed. So far you've held up mass immigration as a modern phenomenon
which it isn't. What are some "new issues" that capitalism is ill suited
to dealing with?
> >> This is the same thing as you having the right to shoot someone
> >> invading your home. Reasonable warning should be required, but
> >> after that, the presumption should be that they are illegal and
> >> trying to sneak in. It would take only a few such incidents,
> >> and illegal crossings would vastly diminish.
> >
> >
> > They said that about locking up pot smokers... actually they say that
> > about near every damn thing when they want to shoot or cage someone who
> > is viewed as an evildoer or part of a "problem."
>
> Argument by misdirection.
BS. Your argument is exactly the same as the mommy types. Shoot 'em...
that'll teach 'em... heh heh.
> A pot smoker breaks a law as an otherwise
> legal member of society. Someone entering the country with the intention
> of subverting immigration control can legitimately be considered
> a "foreign invader". Big difference.
Yeah, what is that? Your use of the language "foreign invader" is
hilarious. Pot smokers according to the ONDCP along with Bush's logic
are terrorists. There, my inflammatory language trumped yours and I'll
bet you still won't address your assertion that the lives of some poor
guy are yours to eliminate.
>
> >
> >> b) Anyone here illegally who has a child should have that
> >> child's US citizenship denied and both should be expelled from
> >> the country without any appeals process once their illegality is
> >> definitely established.
> >
> >
> > Everyone, everywhere in America who has been alive long enough is an
> > illegal. Immigrants are the same.
>
> What an immensely irrelevant, incorrect, and obtuse side-stepping
> of the central point. Anyone old enough has likely broken some law
> large or small at some point.
Hardly, my relevant, correct and direct observation attacks your
inflammatory language. The immigration laws are so poorly written and
managed that there probably aren't immigrants who were or are illegal.
> So what? Your conclusion, it would
> appear, is that this therefore means the rule of law is thus irrelevant
> to those who try to sneak in.
I dare you to flesh that out. Take my statement and try to build a
bridge to the conclusion you just stated.
And if you really believe your statement, get the hell out of America,
because you almost certainly were in violation of an immigration law,
that is if you were an immigrant.
> > Besides, appeals are part of the process to determine more definitely
> > that illegality exists.
> >> c) NO immigrant, legal or otherwise, should ever be eligible for
> >> any US social services. You should have to be a citizen to
> >> participate in the system. I speak as an immigrant myself
> >> here. I proudly became a citizen the moment I was able to do
> >> so. Anyone who emmigrates here and then refuses to become a
> >> citizen should go home and stay there.
> >
> >
> > There you go. You just outed yourself. Virtually all of the people who
>
> I did? What does that mean? You finally figured out what I was arguing
> all along? I embarrassed myself? My fly is open?
No, you just added yet another false premise that is part of the
anti-immigration religion. You're talking about people refusing when
they aren't asked.
>
> > want to move here are prohibited from becoming citizens. Rather than
>
> So what? Since when do we owe anyone who want to come here the
> right to become a citizen.
Did I say anything about this? Why not respond to your distortion about
immigrants "refusing" to become citizens.
> Insofar as immigration and naturalization
> improve our country (and they do), this ought to be encouraged. To
> the extent they do not, they ought to be prohibited.
What about the marketplace? People should be highly regulated, but
managed trade, even to the detriment of American workers is GREAT. That
doesn't seem consistent.
> The boundaries
> of what is good and what is not are certainly debatable, but there
> is not inherent obligation on our part to even care about the issue
> on behalf of those who would come here. We should care about it in
> our own enlightened self-interest?
Whose interest?
>
> > deal with the issue, you foul the discussion with an attack that they
> > "refuse" to become citizens.
> >
> > Are you really an immigrant or is that added for effect?
>
> Yes, I really am an immigrant. No, I am not a liar, nor am I ever
> as unpleasant personally in this medium as you appear to relish
> being. This is a debate of ideas. But, absent a coherent
> position of your own, you attack not my ideas,
If you read your own words that I quoted, this indignation is obviously
false. If you don't like someone refusing to accept your religious
proclamations or have your illogic pointed out or your conclusions
challenged, don't post to usenet.
but my personal
> veracity. Its an old lawyer's courtroom trick: When the facts
> support your case, argue the facts. When they don't, attempt to
> undermind the character and veracity of the witness. Its a cheap
> shot.
That's a cheap shot. You're attacking me because your don't have facts,
just some wild interpretations of some anarchic law of the jungle
existence.
>
> >
> >> d) No civil laws should protect illegal immigrants. Only criminal
> >> laws (which deal with force and threat) should be brought
> >> to bear on their behalf.
> >
> >
> > Sounds like you don't know what civil laws are or their relationship to
> > crime and criminal statutes or to the justice system as a whole.
>
> One more time: I am proposing a _Change_ to our laws. I am reasonably
> familiar with what is now the case and it is not working well.
> (That is my _opinion_, BTW.)
Again, you sound like you don't know what civil laws are or their
relationship to crime and criminal statues or the justice system as a
whole. Merely saying that the entire justice system "is not working
well" is about as meaningless a foundation as can be for advocating a
retreat from what is regarded as part of civilization.
> >>An illegal immigrant should never
> >> be able to sue a doctor for malpractice,
> >
> >
> > Mmmmmm... good stuff, so someone like Bill Frist whose corporation
> > operated on people when they didn't need it could use these people for
> > medical experiments or perhaps just amusement and poor Jose's family
> > would have no redress.
>
> "Poor Jose's Family" didn't come here in a legal manner (for the sake
> of example). They didn't *have* to do so. If they want the protection
> of our laws, come here legally, and participate in the system as
> a member of our political contract, not as a criminal.
Everyone is a criminal. Everyone is a human. You want to have a justice
system that allows monstrosities like Frist's company to go on
unpunished. OK. By the way, Smith considered the justice an essential
element in capitalism. So, I've got to wonder. If I catch some female
illegal immigrants, can I break laws like you are saying hospitals can
do and keep them as sex slaves... maybe rent them out? It would be
better than shooting them, so they'll be glad.
>
> >
> > Not only is it completely impractical, but it would shove it up the ass
> > of every citizen who travels overseas.
>
> Really. What a brilliant insight. The US cracks down on illegal
> foreign invaders and US citizens who *lawfully* visit other nations
> would therefore be at greater risk thereby?
Why include the *lawfully*? I doubt many people hire foreign attorneys
when they travel. Shouldn't foreign countries be allowed to execute
without process (except for your vaunted LE 'warning') anyone who
doesn't comply immediately?
Why refer to the legislative delineation of immigrants as not having
human rights as a "crack down on foreign invaders"? That crack down
language is used all the time by the daddy types who want to "send a
message" or purify society somehow. It used to be blacks.
I hadn't considered
> that ramification. OK, you're right. We need to remove all restrictions
> on foreigners entering the country so that other nations will be nicer
> to us when we visit.
Facts don't support you so you use a logical fallacy.
> >>a hospital for not
> >> granting service, and so on. They are **illegal** - they should
> >> have absolutely minimal civil rights, as they would, say, under
> >> the Geneva Convention for POWs.
> >
> >
> > All right. Food, shelter, and medical treatment.
>
> Right - *minmal* in each case to sustain life. No more.
That wouldn't comply with the Geneva Convention and sounds rather
sadistic.
> And you don't
> get to sue the agency delivering them because you don't like the food,
> want a bigger tent, or desire a face lift.
A face lift? I guess we should eliminate the rule of law so they don't
get face lifts. OKAY. Will that send a message?
> >> Their children are spoiled brats, badly
> >> behaved, and obnoxiously indulged - i.e., They are like most other
> >> American kids who grew up with everything handed to them and
> >> therefore appreciate nothing.
> >
> >
> > So immigrants and American parents generally are shitty parents. OK.
>
> It was an attempt at irony and humor. Since this seems lost on you,
> let me explain: I was noting that real assimilation is taking place.
> The Mexican kids are very much the same as their other American
> counterparts.
That explanation only reinforces the implication that immigrants and
American parents are generally shitty.
> >>My family comes from a part of the world that witnessed what happens
> >>when government is "in charge". God help us if we don't stop the slide
> >>in that direction we are currently undertaking. From 1930-1932,
> >>approximately 20 Million of my ethnic cousins were murdered by one man -
> >>Stalin - because he was "doing what is good for the country."
> >
> >
> > And you want to shoot immigrants for not providing their identity papers
> > quickly and eliminate the rule of law. You sound a bit like an admirer
> > of Stalin to me.
>
> You could not possibly be more offensive than with that last bit.
Truth hurts. I notice that you don't challenge the observation.
> You propose no new ideas of your own here.
Oh now that isn't true. I think I made strong implications that the rule
of law is essential to a solution. I contradicted your assertion that
outsourcing is inherently good.
You write decontextualized
> responses intended to trivialize what it said, but you have nothing
> new to add.
Boy, you are unwilling to support your arguments. Religious
proclamations and proof by a single anecdote aren't much flesh to an
argument. Providing your claimed education and re-education without
assistance as absolute proof that anyone can do it is a trivial
argument.
> Worst of all, you attack personally (something I did not]
> do). You, sir or madam, are an ass.
Gee, can you name something I said that would be the equivalent of this
poetic statement?
>
> PLONK
That was a quick surrender. I'd like to say good job, but sadly it
wasn't.
Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> Be careful. I never said, nor do I believe that outsourcing is always
> an inherently good thing.
Ah, the changing tune...
> Decision makers can decide to outsource
> for all the wrong reason and it can be an terrible thing - witness
> Dell.
What about Dell? What wrong reasons did they use and what terrible thing
was it?
Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> The fallacy in your argument is that these people are being 'used
> and abused'.
lol... guess the whole H1B debate is unknown to you. It would make some
sense before acusing someone of fallacious argument, if you actually
knew what the arguments are.
> They aren't (unless fraud or force are being used
> against them, in which case they should seek legal relief).
What a humungously hypocritical statement.
> Is it fun? No. But its necessary.
> Survival is always the province of those who are most adaptable.
Yes mommy.
> Life is just too short to be bitter.
Yeah, that's obvious in your desire to execute immigrants without
documentation produced quickly enough or some pool slob who wants to
drink out of your garden hose.
> I want
> to savor every minute I can, no matter how crappy moments like this
> are. It sounds really corny like some bad self-help book, but your
> attitude about life drives your success. If you wallow in misery
> and anger, you inhibit your own ability to succeed. The way you think
> dictates the way you act. And the way you act determines how well
> you succeed.
Sounds like your Tony Robbins tapes aren't working...
Doug Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> >> The USSR
> >> >> spent 80 years trying to force Marxist economic ideas to work, up to and
> >> >> including the use of violence, and they failed miserably.
> >> >
> >> >USSR bad therefore?
> >> >
> >>
> >> In a nutshell -- yes. You would argue otherwise? E.g. that the USSR was not
> >> bad, or was bad but for a different reason?
> >
> >No.
>
> In that case, if there was any point at all in your comment, I must've missed
> it.
You're right.
He opened his speech by saying, "I kind of like ducking questions," and
said he would be "glad to duck any questions like my mother once told me
to do" following his remarks. - Bush in a speech to newspaper editors,
publishers and executives, April 21, 2004
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> We can go 'round and 'round but sooner or later we will all be forced
> to answer the question: Is there a point in all of this that we look
> at the human aspect? Is there a point where 'the system' is treating
> humans as a commodity in a way that is no better that the way people
> were treated in the old USSR? Really, think about it. The way
> workers keep getting hosed all in the name of more and more profits.
> The greed is getting so far out of hand that I feel I am working for
> Carnegie Steel and the Pinkertons are ready to whack me at any time.
>
Funny, you don't sound delerious to me :-).
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
Outsourcing is a tough one for me. On one hand I hate to see any jobs leave this
country, on the other hand consumers will always have a tendency to buy the least
expensive when comparison shopping. We have to be competative. Every time we tack
on a government program we make ourselves less competative. Yes I think we need
social security and medicare and other benefits, but maybe more as safety nets. I
have my ideas on the answers, but more government is not among them.
Charlie Self wrote:
> Good news for those whose high tech and software jobs have been
> outsourced--though it may yet be a bit of time before things swing the other
> way: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/technology/28SOUR.html?th
>
> With my own experience with Dell's outsourced phone help, it isn't just the
> productivity that is a problem. The depth of knowledge is not there, as the guy
> states. The clown I got finally wanted me to format my hard drive to cure a
> problem with a worn out CDRW.
>
> When I went back to email help, I had a guy here in 3 days, he replaced the
> CDRW in about 4 minutes and all is well.
>
> Charlie Self
> "Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first outbreak
> being often but an explosion of anger." Thucydides
"Charlie Self" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Phil responds:
>
> >Outsourcing is a tough one for me. On one hand I hate to see any jobs
leave
> >this
> >country, on the other hand consumers will always have a tendency to buy
the
> >least
> >expensive when comparison shopping. We have to be competative. Every
time
> >we tack
> >on a government program we make ourselves less competative. Yes I think
we
> >need
> >social security and medicare and other benefits, but maybe more as safety
> >nets. I
> >have my ideas on the answers, but more government is not among them.
>
> It's not a tough one for me in this instance. As noted, Dell's outsourced
phone
> help is, to be polite, shit. You don't want to hear my full description
when
> that twit told me to format my hard drive to fix a CDRW problem.
>
> If being wrong is how another country is competitive, then we are truly in
some
> bad trouble. It hasn't got a damned thing to do with government programs.
It
> does have to do with the fact that U.S. tech people are paid about 3 times
what
> Indian tech people are paid. But, according to the experts, they are then
6
> times as productive.
>
> Whoops. Where's the competition?
>
LOL....Competition????
I loaded some SONY hotfixes and the system went into meltdown. Cripes.
Called Sony and got a Indian gentleman, in Ft. Meyers, Florida!! We spent
half our time together, with him repeating everything he told me to do until
I could "devine" his English. After about an hour of this, I was kicked up
to a very knowledgeable American tech. Spent another hour, trying some very
esoteric fixes.
And then HE told me to do a full recovery of XP. (Well, it did solve all
the conflict problems. Ofcourse, a full recovery, reformat's the primary
drive, so there's not much to conflict.)
Just a hint....if you're into video, some of these high powered video
editing programs don't play well, together.
And "apparently" Kodak Easyshare really irritates some Sony factory loaded
software.
Beware. Recovery Points are in there for a reason. Use Them.
And you (and I) can screw around with that registry, but if you mess up the
InstallShield data, you'll NEVER get it straighten out. Start over.
(Total telephone time was well over two hours. Wonder what my next
telephone bill will look like? Bet money, right now, I'm not going to be
happy).
Full recovery takes about an hour, but I've spent a week tracking down
programs, serial numbers and I guess I'm going to end up buying yet another
copy of McAfee. The last time I bought my "copy" of McAfee online and
THAT's not going to happen again.
James....
J&KCopeland wrote:
<SNIP>
> Full recovery takes about an hour, but I've spent a week tracking down
> programs, serial numbers and I guess I'm going to end up buying yet another
> copy of McAfee. The last time I bought my "copy" of McAfee online and
> THAT's not going to happen again.
>
> James....
FWIW, I can restore my Win32 system to a full running state from
scratch in about 45-50 minutes. This includes everything - OS,
applications, and my own data. How? By taking regular snapshots
of working systems with Norton Ghost onto a removable hard drive.
My system configuration on that machine is really complex. It used
to literally take 2-3 days to get it rebuilt. Now I take
regular snapshots and my worst case scenario is about an hour
to recover my world...
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Phil responds:
>Outsourcing is a tough one for me. On one hand I hate to see any jobs leave
>this
>country, on the other hand consumers will always have a tendency to buy the
>least
>expensive when comparison shopping. We have to be competative. Every time
>we tack
>on a government program we make ourselves less competative. Yes I think we
>need
>social security and medicare and other benefits, but maybe more as safety
>nets. I
>have my ideas on the answers, but more government is not among them.
It's not a tough one for me in this instance. As noted, Dell's outsourced phone
help is, to be polite, shit. You don't want to hear my full description when
that twit told me to format my hard drive to fix a CDRW problem.
If being wrong is how another country is competitive, then we are truly in some
bad trouble. It hasn't got a damned thing to do with government programs. It
does have to do with the fact that U.S. tech people are paid about 3 times what
Indian tech people are paid. But, according to the experts, they are then 6
times as productive.
Whoops. Where's the competition?
Charlie Self
"I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
In article <[email protected]>, Tim Daneliuk
<[email protected]> wrote:
> The only "trouble" we are in as a nation is that the vast majority of
> the Sheeple want to legistlate success, don't understand economics, and
> think that a job is a "right". This is cynically exploited by the
> Congress Critters, "News" Commentators, and other lower life forms
> to create the impression of impending doom - for which, of course,
> they have the answer if you'll just vote for them, watch their show,
> and so forth.
Now I remember why I set a filter to highlight your posts.
Thanks, Tim!
Kevin
Charlie Self wrote:
> Phil responds:
>
>
>>Outsourcing is a tough one for me. On one hand I hate to see any jobs leave
>>this
>>country, on the other hand consumers will always have a tendency to buy the
>>least
>>expensive when comparison shopping. We have to be competative. Every time
>>we tack
>>on a government program we make ourselves less competative. Yes I think we
>>need
>>social security and medicare and other benefits, but maybe more as safety
>>nets. I
>>have my ideas on the answers, but more government is not among them.
>
>
> It's not a tough one for me in this instance. As noted, Dell's outsourced phone
> help is, to be polite, shit. You don't want to hear my full description when
> that twit told me to format my hard drive to fix a CDRW problem.
>
> If being wrong is how another country is competitive, then we are truly in some
> bad trouble. It hasn't got a damned thing to do with government programs. It
> does have to do with the fact that U.S. tech people are paid about 3 times what
> Indian tech people are paid. But, according to the experts, they are then 6
> times as productive.
>
> Whoops. Where's the competition?
>
"Competition" is not defined by your single experience - it is a
macro-level activity. The market is not "smart", it just seeks to be
efficient. That means market-driven behavior sometimes tries new things
that are dumb - like outsourcing support at the expense of customer
satisfaction. But, absent goverment fiddling, the market always corrects
itself, as it did in this case. You cannot legislate money or economies,
they just have to work it out for themselves.
Incidently, all this braying about the evils of oursourcing, led by
people like Lou Dobbs, is wildly out of context. Outsourcing has a
place. People _within_ the US do it all the time. For example, many busy
middle-class people have found it helpful to "outsource" houskeeping to
a local service. Corporations are doing the exact same thing, except the
service is not "local". But money does not understand geographic
boundaries. It flows where it can be used most efficiently. Outsourcing
overseas makes sense in some cases, and not others, but competitive
markets will figure that out over time.
Where it makes sense, outsourcing has the effect of lowering the costs
of goods and services ... which benefits consumers right here. Have you
noticed, the cost of many goods is _declining_? The effective cost of
large ticket items, inflation adjusted, is also declining when you
consider the cost of money to buy, say, a house or car. Inflation adjusted,
we pay less for gasoline than ever in history ... even considering
the artificial price increases inflicted by gas taxes. There's a reason
for this - businesses are increasingly productive, year over year. One
way to achieve that productivity is to outsource where possible. So even
when outsourcing is done to an overseas entity, it has local benefit.
I remember the hollering in the 1970s when TV and radio manufacturing
was outsourced to Japan. People screamed about losing "US" jobs and how
the middle-class was getting screwed, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Well,
the displaced workers found jobs, and guess what, the real cost of TVs
and radios went WAY down and pretty much anyone could afford them for
the first time. Color TVs are now a fixture of almost every home,
even for the poorest citizen. This was decidedly NOT the case in, say
the 1960s. i.e., Outsourcing, over time, benefits everyone involved.
The only "trouble" we are in as a nation is that the vast majority of
the Sheeple want to legistlate success, don't understand economics, and
think that a job is a "right". This is cynically exploited by the
Congress Critters, "News" Commentators, and other lower life forms
to create the impression of impending doom - for which, of course,
they have the answer if you'll just vote for them, watch their show,
and so forth. No money-grubbing televangelist could every compete
with this level of sliminess ...
But that's just what I think...
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Tim Daneliuk responds:
>"Competition" is not defined by your single experience - it is a
>macro-level activity. The market is not "smart", it just seeks to be
>efficient. That means market-driven behavior sometimes tries new things
>that are dumb - like outsourcing support at the expense of customer
>satisfaction. But, absent goverment fiddling, the market always corrects
>itself, as it did in this case. You cannot legislate money or economies,
>they just have to work it out for themselves.
Nor was my experience "single" for the overwhelming majority of business users
refused to buy Dell until it stopped using Indian help desks. That worked.
Consumers in general don't have that kind of immediate clout, so Dell is still
sticking it to us.
I don't recall say legislation was necessary. Don't recall mentioning it, in
fact. I don't recall saying anything about "evils of outsourcing."
>
>I remember the hollering in the 1970s when TV and radio manufacturing
>was outsourced to Japan. People screamed about losing "US" jobs and how
>the middle-class was getting screwed, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Well,
>the displaced workers found jobs, and guess what, the real cost of TVs
>and radios went WAY down and pretty much anyone could afford them for
>the first time. Color TVs are now a fixture of almost every home,
Radios? Damned near everyone I knew in the '60s had, and listened to, a radio
of some sort. The driving force in the sale of radios to everyone seems to me
to have been the discovery that FM was cleaner than AM and could be used over
long distances, given the right technology. As far as color TV goes, until the
'70s, there wasn't a whole helluva lot of use for it because many stations
still broadcast in black & white. Yes, the prices came down. Yes, there was a
lot of noise.
>This was decidedly NOT the case in, say
>the 1960s.
Everyone I knew in the '60s who wanted a TV set had one. Not color, but,
generally, color idjit boxes were hard to find as well as afford, about like
HDTV today...you don't want to know my opinion of people who will spend $5000
and up for a television set.
>The only "trouble" we are in as a nation is that the vast majority of
>the Sheeple want to legistlate success, don't understand economics, and
>think that a job is a "right".
I don't know anyone who wants to legislate success. I do know a lot of people
who think that competence should be a basis for transferring work to other
countries, if it has to be transferred.
>This is cynically exploited by the
>Congress Critters, "News" Commentators, and other lower life forms
>to create the impression of impending doom - for which, of course,
>they have the answer if you'll just vote for them, watch their show,
>and so forth. No money-grubbing televangelist could every compete
>with this level of sliminess ...
Never watched many televangelists, have you? I remember my first visual
encounter with Oral Roberts, when I was just about 16. Magnificent slime. Since
then, the sheen has gotten worse, the slime deeper, and the numbers incredible.
TV really does draw in the idiots, both in performances and watchers.
There is always going to be an outcry when work moves. The cotton mills (read
textiles) moved south many years ago. Now, they're moving from the south to
places most of us never heard of a decade ago. Most companies are also getting
garments manufactured overseas, a phenomenon that seemed to kick off in the
'60s and early '70s with designer jeans makers realizing they could get their
100 buck a pair retail items for $4. Now, even the 25 buck a pair jeans are
made overseas.
The displacement this time, though, is across more industries and deeper than I
ever recall reading about it being before.
As for a job being a "right," well, why not? I recall a factory owner I knew
who felt that when he expanded, which he did with great care and conservatism,
all the people he hired had as much "right" to have their jobs continue as did
those who were already there. And he felt that any businessman who didn't
maintain the jobs he provided was a poor businessman. John did that for a great
many years, but he was fortunate to be the owner of the business, without a
board or a bunch of stockholders to answer to. He could plan and work for the
long term. Today, that seldom happens.
Oh, yes. The jobs that John provided: he ran that place for over 40 years,
without a layoff.
Charlie Self
"I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Everyone I knew in the '60s who wanted a TV set had one. Not color, but,
> generally, color idjit boxes were hard to find as well as afford, about like
> HDTV today...you don't want to know my opinion of people who will spend $5000
> and up for a television set.
>
Especially as the quality of the hardware and the quality of the
programming seem to be inversly related :-).
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
Larry Blanchard responds:
>but,
>> generally, color idjit boxes were hard to find as well as afford, about
>like
>> HDTV today...you don't want to know my opinion of people who will spend
>$5000
>> and up for a television set.
>>
>Especially as the quality of the hardware and the quality of the
>programming seem to be inversly related :-).
Nah. TV has always been mostly lousy, though now we call the early days "The
Golden Age" because most of it wasn't picked up on kine, so is never shown. I
spent too many mornings staring at a little (10"?) screen with snowy gray
images of Bill Boyd and Buster Crabbe and a bunch of little know actors in some
of the most puerile series ever. Today's stuff is a bit better presented, but
is just as stupid.
Captian Video where are you?
Charlie Self
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon Bonaparte
Charlie Self wrote:
<SNIP>
> Radios? Damned near everyone I knew in the '60s had, and listened to,
> a radio of some sort. The driving force in the sale of radios to
> everyone seems to me to have been the discovery that FM was cleaner
> than AM and could be used over long distances, given the right
> technology. As far as color TV goes, until the '70s, there wasn't a
> whole helluva lot of use for it because many stations still broadcast
> in black & white. Yes, the prices came down. Yes, there was a lot of
> noise.
>
My point was really about color TVs and good "hi-fi" equipment. Prior to
these products being comoditized by offshore manufacturing, the prices
were out of the range of the masses. Offshoring drove the costs down and
almost everyone could (and did) buy this stuff. The meta-point here is
just that this is one of many examples of how offshoring produces
domestic benefit.
>> This was decidedly NOT the case in, say the 1960s.
>
>
> Everyone I knew in the '60s who wanted a TV set had one. Not color,
> but, generally, color idjit boxes were hard to find as well as afford,
> about like HDTV today...you don't want to know my opinion of people
> who will spend $5000 and up for a television set.
And I probably share that view. There is precious little broadcast or
even delivered by cable/sat that remotely justifies a $500 TV imho,
let alone one for $5000.
>
>
>> The only "trouble" we are in as a nation is that the vast majority of
>> the Sheeple want to legistlate success, don't understand economics,
>> and think that a job is a "right".
>
>
> I don't know anyone who wants to legislate success. I do know a lot of
> people who think that competence should be a basis for transferring
> work to other countries, if it has to be transferred.
But that _is_ the basis for it - the market ensures that this will
happen. Maybe not intially, but sooner or later, it catches up. Your
Dell experience confirms this. The fact that Dell was wrong in their
original assessment in the matter means that they tried something that
did not work. It is not in any sense a general indictement of
offshoring.
>
>
>> This is cynically exploited by the Congress Critters, "News"
>> Commentators, and other lower life forms to create the impression of
>> impending doom - for which, of course, they have the answer if you'll
>> just vote for them, watch their show, and so forth. No money-grubbing
>> televangelist could every compete with this level of sliminess ...
>
>
> Never watched many televangelists, have you? I remember my first
> visual encounter with Oral Roberts, when I was just about 16.
> Magnificent slime. Since then, the sheen has gotten worse, the slime
> deeper, and the numbers incredible. TV really does draw in the idiots,
> both in performances and watchers.
Perhaps. But tote up all the money that Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart,
Benny Hinn, and the rest of that bunch have soaked their constiuencies
out of. It likely would not come even close to what a single bad
goverment policy decision costs (like the stupid steel tariffs that
thankfully were recently repealed). The big difference here is that
televangelists get the _willing_ contribution of their followers.
Government extracts money by (the implicit threat of) force - the
taxman's gun, so to speak. Government policies are not voluntary -
we are forced to abide by them, at least until we can replace the
current idiots in government with new ones.
>
> There is always going to be an outcry when work moves. The cotton
> mills (read textiles) moved south many years ago. Now, they're moving
> from the south to places most of us never heard of a decade ago. Most
> companies are also getting garments manufactured overseas, a
> phenomenon that seemed to kick off in the '60s and early '70s with
> designer jeans makers realizing they could get their 100 buck a pair
> retail items for $4. Now, even the 25 buck a pair jeans are made
> overseas.
And more people can afford even cheaper jeans at, say, Walmart.
>
> The displacement this time, though, is across more industries and
> deeper than I ever recall reading about it being before.
Perhaps, but this is more a reflection of how interdependent economies
have become. 50 years ago, economies tracked the nation-state. Now they
track global behavior no matter what individual governments want to do
about it. Even totalitarian states like China have come to recognize
this and have increasingly chosen to adapt to market economies.
>
> As for a job being a "right," well, why not? I recall a factory owner
> I knew
Because for something to be a "right" it has to have some basis or some
authoring agent. Something is not a "right" because I say so. Most all
of us affirm that some basic rights are, well, "inalienable" - innate to
being human. These include the right to be free from fraud, force, or
threat.
But a job is a commerical transaction between employer and worker,
entered into voluntarily. So long as both parties abide by their
agreement with each other, and neither engages in fraud/force/threat,
then either should be free to terminate the agreement at-will. Many of
the people who are opposed to outsourcing would vehemently oppose an
arrangement that requires the employee to stay with a particular
employer (the inverse situation). If a job is a "right", then why does
the employer not have a corresponding "right" to a stable workforce that
gets paid whatever the employer feels is proper? Rights granted to one
side of the arrangement but not to the other make for an iniquitous
arrangement that is fundamentally unfair.
> who felt that when he expanded, which he did with great care and
> conservatism, all the people he hired had as much "right" to have
> their jobs continue as did those who were already there. And he felt
> that any businessman who didn't maintain the jobs he provided was a
> poor businessman. John did that for a great many years, but he was
> fortunate to be the owner of the business, without a board or a bunch
> of stockholders to answer to. He could plan and work for the long
> term. Today, that seldom happens.
>
> Oh, yes. The jobs that John provided: he ran that place for over 40
> years, without a layoff.
I once worked for a place like that. On the surface, it was a very nice
arrangement. But it also had terrible downsides. There was very little
upward mobility in the company because turnover was very low.
Incompentence was never flushed out of the system. The company struggled
whenever international economic and monetary conditions were not in its
favor. I left after 2 (happy) years and did far better in companies
where layoffs were the possible.
No employer enjoys laying off people, but it is fundamentally unfair to
the shareholders of a company to diminish their return on investment to
maintain full local employment at all costs. The employee has a right to
be treated honestly, but not to a job no matter what. By contrast, the
stockholder has a right to also be treated honestly, and that means
maximizing shareholder value. There is a fair debate to be had about
whether or not outsourcing maximizes that value, and this will likely
vary from situation to situation.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Charlie Self wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk responds:
<snip>
>> But a job is a commerical transaction between employer and
>> worker, entered into voluntarily. So long as both parties
>> abide by their agreement with each other, and neither
>> engages in fraud/force/threat, then either should be free to
>> terminate the agreement at-will. Many of the people who are
>> opposed to outsourcing would vehemently oppose an
>> arrangement that requires the employee to stay with a
>> particular employer (the inverse situation). If a job is a
>> "right", then why does the employer not have a corresponding
>> "right" to a stable workforce that gets paid whatever the
>> employer feels is proper? Rights granted to one side of the
>> arrangement but not to the other make for an iniquitous
>> arrangement that is fundamentally unfair.
I'm in fundamental agreement with this statement. The choice to
leave one employer to go to another is under-exercised.
However, it's important to note that this choice becomes ever
more difficult to make as employees approach retirement age. Loss
of retirement benefits makes this a non-choice for some.
> Not so. That's your opinion, and it is the way things operated
> until unions started up in the late 19th century. The model
> you present was in place through the Great Depression, and
> only changed with the coming of WWII. It was iniquitous.
There's no way (IMO) to make a blanket statement either in favor
of or against labor unions. As a mechanism for workers to
cooperatively deal with workplace problems when management is
unwilling to institute solutions, they're effective. When the
union becomes a mechanism for the exercise of greed or
sanctioning of laziness, they become one of the worst of possible
problems. I've seen both scenarios.
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto, Iowa USA
Morris Dovey states:
>
>> Not so. That's your opinion, and it is the way things operated
>> until unions started up in the late 19th century. The model
>> you present was in place through the Great Depression, and
>> only changed with the coming of WWII. It was iniquitous.
>
>There's no way (IMO) to make a blanket statement either in favor
>of or against labor unions. As a mechanism for workers to
>cooperatively deal with workplace problems when management is
>unwilling to institute solutions, they're effective. When the
>union becomes a mechanism for the exercise of greed or
>sanctioning of laziness, they become one of the worst of possible
>problems. I've seen both scenarios.
>
Look at what I wrote. Check the dates I used. I said absolutely zip about
unions today, or for the last 40 years.
Charlie Self
"I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
Charlie Self wrote:
> Morris Dovey states:
>
>
>>> Not so. That's your opinion, and it is the way things
>>> operated until unions started up in the late 19th century.
>>> The model you present was in place through the Great
>>> Depression, and only changed with the coming of WWII. It
>>> was iniquitous.
>>
>> There's no way (IMO) to make a blanket statement either in
>> favor of or against labor unions. As a mechanism for workers
>> to cooperatively deal with workplace problems when
>> management is unwilling to institute solutions, they're
>> effective. When the union becomes a mechanism for the
>> exercise of greed or sanctioning of laziness, they become
>> one of the worst of possible problems. I've seen both
>> scenarios.
>
> Look at what I wrote. Check the dates I used. I said
> absolutely zip about unions today, or for the last 40 years.
Yup - did. However, evaluation of any solution to a problem isn't
complete unless it considers the consequences of that solution.
The short-term consequences were more or less as intended. The
longer term consequences seem to me to be a mixed bag.
Failure to plan for and account for long-term consequences would
appear to be at the very heart of a great many problems -
including this thread's outsourcing issues.
(My 2¢ worth)
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto, Iowa USA
Charles Spitzer wrote:
<SNIP>
> it is taking place, you just don't hear about it because the news media can
> get bigger headlines with 20,000 layoffs rather than 50. i would bet that if
> you asked the local chamber of commerce's of some reasonably sized city,
> they could cite plenty of examples. i know i saw some figures from my local
> area that indicate losses of 200-300 jobs at a time are going overseas.
>
Maybe, but more jobs are MOVING to rural America than ever. From the
May 10, 2004 "Forbes" column, "Digital Rules":
One-third of the American jobs created between 2001 and 2004 went to 16
million people. That's a tiny number in a country of nearly 300 million.
It's equal to the populations of Florida or greater Los Angeles.
So who are these lucky ones, this 5% of the total population behind 33%
of the new jobs? Redheads, perhaps? Hockey fans? (No, that's way too
many hockey fans.) Asian immigrants? (Good guess, but wrong.) Correct
answer: the residents of 397 rural U.S. counties averaging 40,000 in
population.
Read the whole column, it is excellent. (Membership required, but
it is free):
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/0510/039.html
This whole outsourcing business is way exaggerated. IIRC, about 250,000
jobs have been outsourced while in the same period of time almost
twice that number of jobs have been created. It is much ado about nothing
so that guys like Lou Dobbs (who failed to run his own business successfully)
can appear to be wise and leaderlike ...
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Morris Dovey responds:
>>
>> Look at what I wrote. Check the dates I used. I said
>> absolutely zip about unions today, or for the last 40 years.
>
>Yup - did. However, evaluation of any solution to a problem isn't
>complete unless it considers the consequences of that solution.
>The short-term consequences were more or less as intended. The
>longer term consequences seem to me to be a mixed bag.
>
>Failure to plan for and account for long-term consequences would
>appear to be at the very heart of a great many problems -
>including this thread's outsourcing issues.
>
This is a thread on outsouorcing and you want a history of the frigging union
movement, with consequences to date...which, by the by, no one that I have ever
read knew would occur when unions first cranked up.
Forget it.
Charlie Self
"I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
"Morris Dovey" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Charlie Self wrote:
>
> > Morris Dovey responds:
> >
> >
> >>> Look at what I wrote. Check the dates I used. I said
> >>> absolutely zip about unions today, or for the last 40
> >>> years.
> >>
> >> Yup - did. However, evaluation of any solution to a problem
> >> isn't complete unless it considers the consequences of that
> >> solution. The short-term consequences were more or less as
> >> intended. The longer term consequences seem to me to be a
> >> mixed bag.
> >>
> >> Failure to plan for and account for long-term consequences
> >> would appear to be at the very heart of a great many
> >> problems - including this thread's outsourcing issues.
> >
> > This is a thread on outsouorcing and you want a history of the
> > frigging union movement, with consequences to date...which, by
> > the by, no one that I have ever read knew would occur when
> > unions first cranked up.
>
> No, I don't need that history here. I was responding to your
> statement inferring that unions brought about a change in the
> general operating mode in the late 19th century. If you think
> that those events have not had consequences that reach all the
> way to the present and bear on the outsourcing issue, then you
> may need to find a more recent history book.
>
> And I think you're right that probably none of the early labor
> organizers had any clue about longer term consequences. They seem
> to have been totally focused on the immediate problems of the
> time - as either of us probably would have been, too.
>
> Between then and now, however, has been ample time to observe,
> consider, and learn from the actual consequences; and to
> extrapolate/project where current trends lead.
>
> I've read (and I believe) that the primary difference between a
> wise man and a fool is that the fool refuses to consider
> consequences; while the wise man always does.
>
> This outsourcing is not a random, isolated event. It is part of a
> chain of events and decisions. I don't think that the story of
> John's company is really unusual. I'm pleased to be able to say
> that I've heard a lot of similar stories describing similar-sized
> enterprises - but relatively few such stories about Fortune 500
> size companies. I've also heard relatively few stories about
> firms the size of John's outsourcing jobs to the Pacific rim or
> Indian subcontinent - while reports of outsourcing by the larger
> firms abound.
>
> What factors do you think are at play to cause that effect to be
> size-selective? Or do you think I'm misinformed and that
> outsourcing activity is taking place without regard for company size?
it is taking place, you just don't hear about it because the news media can
get bigger headlines with 20,000 layoffs rather than 50. i would bet that if
you asked the local chamber of commerce's of some reasonably sized city,
they could cite plenty of examples. i know i saw some figures from my local
area that indicate losses of 200-300 jobs at a time are going overseas.
> --
> Morris Dovey
> DeSoto, Iowa USA
>
Charlie Self wrote:
> Morris Dovey responds:
>
>
>>> Look at what I wrote. Check the dates I used. I said
>>> absolutely zip about unions today, or for the last 40
>>> years.
>>
>> Yup - did. However, evaluation of any solution to a problem
>> isn't complete unless it considers the consequences of that
>> solution. The short-term consequences were more or less as
>> intended. The longer term consequences seem to me to be a
>> mixed bag.
>>
>> Failure to plan for and account for long-term consequences
>> would appear to be at the very heart of a great many
>> problems - including this thread's outsourcing issues.
>
> This is a thread on outsouorcing and you want a history of the
> frigging union movement, with consequences to date...which, by
> the by, no one that I have ever read knew would occur when
> unions first cranked up.
No, I don't need that history here. I was responding to your
statement inferring that unions brought about a change in the
general operating mode in the late 19th century. If you think
that those events have not had consequences that reach all the
way to the present and bear on the outsourcing issue, then you
may need to find a more recent history book.
And I think you're right that probably none of the early labor
organizers had any clue about longer term consequences. They seem
to have been totally focused on the immediate problems of the
time - as either of us probably would have been, too.
Between then and now, however, has been ample time to observe,
consider, and learn from the actual consequences; and to
extrapolate/project where current trends lead.
I've read (and I believe) that the primary difference between a
wise man and a fool is that the fool refuses to consider
consequences; while the wise man always does.
This outsourcing is not a random, isolated event. It is part of a
chain of events and decisions. I don't think that the story of
John's company is really unusual. I'm pleased to be able to say
that I've heard a lot of similar stories describing similar-sized
enterprises - but relatively few such stories about Fortune 500
size companies. I've also heard relatively few stories about
firms the size of John's outsourcing jobs to the Pacific rim or
Indian subcontinent - while reports of outsourcing by the larger
firms abound.
What factors do you think are at play to cause that effect to be
size-selective? Or do you think I'm misinformed and that
outsourcing activity is taking place without regard for company size?
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto, Iowa USA
Charles Spitzer wrote:
> "Morris Dovey" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> What factors do you think are at play to cause that effect
>> to be size-selective? Or do you think I'm misinformed and
>> that outsourcing activity is taking place without regard for
>> company size?
> it is taking place, you just don't hear about it because the
> news media can get bigger headlines with 20,000 layoffs rather
> than 50. i would bet that if you asked the local chamber of
> commerce's of some reasonably sized city, they could cite
> plenty of examples. i know i saw some figures from my local
> area that indicate losses of 200-300 jobs at a time are going
> overseas.
I just talked to the people in the Iowa Economic Development
office and got bounced around until I ended up talking to a
helpful gal at the Labor Market Info desk.
Iowa can only track offshoring via unemployment claims; and then
only when there are claims from a minimum of 20 people from the
same company during a 30-day period. There is a new program
(started up in January) that will specifically track offshored jobs.
Exact numbers aren't yet available but are expected to be in
about a week and a half; and these will be maid available at
http://www.iowaworkforce.org/trends.
I pushed a bit for guesstimates and as best I could understand
the (unofficial, off-the-cuff) response, the state total YTD
offshored jobs total in the hundreds for firms with over 400
employees, with a very much smaller total for firms with fewer
than 400 employees.
Interestingly, it /does/ appear that in this part of the country
the outsourcing/offshoring activity is related to business size.
On the other hand, Iowa has a population of only about three
million - so we're probably neither typical nor statistically
significant...
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto, Iowa USA
Tim Daneliuk responds:
>But that _is_ the basis for it - the market ensures that this will
>happen. Maybe not intially, but sooner or later, it catches up. Your
>Dell experience confirms this. The fact that Dell was wrong in their
>original assessment in the matter means that they tried something that
>did not work. It is not in any sense a general indictement of
>offshoring.
Problem is, they're STILL doing it, so the market hasn't made its demands
clear.
>>
> > There is always going to be an outcry when work moves. The cotton
> > mills (read textiles) moved south many years ago. Now, they're moving
> > from the south to places most of us never heard of a decade ago. Most
> > companies are also getting garments manufactured overseas, a
> > phenomenon that seemed to kick off in the '60s and early '70s with
> > designer jeans makers realizing they could get their 100 buck a pair
> > retail items for $4. Now, even the 25 buck a pair jeans are made
> > overseas.
>
>And more people can afford even cheaper jeans at, say, Walmart.
Didja ever buy clothing at Walmart's? Two wearings and they're great for shop
rags.
>Because for something to be a "right" it has to have some basis or some
>authoring agent. Something is not a "right" because I say so. Most all
>of us affirm that some basic rights are, well, "inalienable" - innate to
>being human. These include the right to be free from fraud, force, or
>threat.
What does that MEAN? Basis? Authoring agent?
>
>But a job is a commerical transaction between employer and worker,
>entered into voluntarily. So long as both parties abide by their
>agreement with each other, and neither engages in fraud/force/threat,
>then either should be free to terminate the agreement at-will. Many of
>the people who are opposed to outsourcing would vehemently oppose an
>arrangement that requires the employee to stay with a particular
>employer (the inverse situation). If a job is a "right", then why does
>the employer not have a corresponding "right" to a stable workforce that
>gets paid whatever the employer feels is proper? Rights granted to one
>side of the arrangement but not to the other make for an iniquitous
>arrangement that is fundamentally unfair.
Not so. That's your opinion, and it is the way things operated until unions
started up in the late 19th century. The model you present was in place through
the Great Depression, and only changed with the coming of WWII. It was
iniquitous.
>I once worked for a place like that. On the surface, it was a very nice
>arrangement. But it also had terrible downsides. There was very little
>upward mobility in the company because turnover was very low.
>Incompentence was never flushed out of the system. The company struggled
>whenever international economic and monetary conditions were not in its
>favor. I left after 2 (happy) years and did far better in companies
>where layoffs were the possible.
Not the case with this company. Incompetence didn't last long around John.
I'd guess any company struggles when monetary policy isn't in its favor, though
I'm not sure how a domestic chair manufacturer would struggle. As for upward
mobility, well, you could be certain you weren't going to be president of the
company, but otherwise, you could work your way up pretty decently. I know of a
number of people there making a good many dollars more than they had ever
anticipated being able to make with just a high school education. Are they
adminstrators? Nah. Foremen and forewomen and shift supervisors and whatnot.
But, as one guy said something over a decade ago, "Where else can I go and make
45,000 a year with my education?" Without overtime.
That said, there is always a certain amount of turnover in a manufacturing
situation, because the work can grind you down physically, if for no other
reason. Expansion helps, and this particular company continued to expand. IIRC,
John had 50 employees when he took over in 1959. When he had to sell the
company (age catches up with all of us) he had over 350 employees. That was
slow, steady growth, and done deliberately that way.
>No employer enjoys laying off people, but it is fundamentally unfair to
>the shareholders of a company to diminish their return on investment to
>maintain full local employment at all costs
But it's not impossible to run the company so that the ups aren't as extreme
and the downs are lessened and lay-offs are simply not a part of the operating
procedure.
>The employee has a right to
>be treated honestly, but not to a job no matter what.
No one has a right to a job no matter what. Competence is the major feature
under discussion here, and one would expect that to be displayed on a daily
basis, in a reasonably energetic manner.
Charlie Self
"I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote:
>Tim Daneliuk responds:
>>And more people can afford even cheaper jeans at, say, Walmart.
>
>Didja ever buy clothing at Walmart's? Two wearings and they're great for shop
>rags.
You've apparently *never* bought clothing at Wal-Mart, then. That's where a
*lot* of my clothing comes from, and it lasts for years.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
For a copy of my TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter,
send email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
Doug Miller writes:
>You've apparently *never* bought clothing at Wal-Mart, then. That's where a
>*lot* of my clothing comes from, and it lasts for year
Odd. I've bought several shirts at Walmart. On one, a sleeve fell off in the
first washing. On another, the placket came unraveled. On two others, buttons
were off during the first wearing. I went back to LLBean after that. Shirts are
still made in Malaysia, but at least there's an attempt at quality control.
Slacks? They're better. Material is half as thick as stuff selling through
LLBean or Land's End, but hey, what the hell. Buy a dozen pair and they will
wear for years.
And yes, the Bean and Land's End products do cost more. It's about like the
whole outsourcing argument, though: I get 4-6 years from an LLBean shirt and
5-7 weeks from a WalMart shirt. Price differential? LLBean costs about 2-1/2 to
3 times what the WalMart stuff does. Work it out.
As I said, shop rags.
Charlie Self
"I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
"Doug Miller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote:
> >Doug Miller writes:
> >
> >>You've apparently *never* bought clothing at Wal-Mart, then. That's
where a
> >>*lot* of my clothing comes from, and it lasts for years.
> >
> >Odd. I've bought several shirts at Walmart. On one, a sleeve fell off in
the
> >first washing. On another, the placket came unraveled. On two others,
buttons
> >were off during the first wearing.
> >
> All I can say is, my experience with clothing from Wal-Mart is 180 degrees
> apart from what you describe. As I type this, I'm wearing a shirt that I
> bought at W-M so long ago that I've forgotten exactly how long it was, but
> it's somewhere in the 5-8 year range. It's showing some wear at the cuffs,
> collar, and pocket (to be expected at that age), but the all seams are
still
> tight, and all the buttons are still attached -- and this is typical of
the
> shirts I get there. I have three or four other shirts that I bought at the
> same time, and they're all in similar condiiton.
clothes made 5-8 years ago were better made than that currently available in
walmart. it's a race to the bottom.
Charlie Spitzer notes:
>clothes made 5-8 years ago were better made than that currently available in
>walmart. it's a race to the bottom.
Trouble is, it was probably 7-8 years ago when I last bought a shirt from
WalMart. And the placket opened out like a flower the first time it was washed.
Before that, the sleeve of one came almost all the way off. Buttons are
non-holders, too, IME. I was paying $12 or so for a shirt and getting to make
two 24 mile round trips to the store to get it and then to return it.
Far cheaper to mail order and get a shirt that can be picked up by UPS if it
has to be returned, though I never have had an LL Bean shirt that needed
returning. Cost, then: about $34. Nearly 3 times as much, but no driving, no
hassles and at least 2 that I am still wearing.
Charlie Self
"I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote:
>Doug Miller writes:
>
>>You've apparently *never* bought clothing at Wal-Mart, then. That's where a
>>*lot* of my clothing comes from, and it lasts for years.
>
>Odd. I've bought several shirts at Walmart. On one, a sleeve fell off in the
>first washing. On another, the placket came unraveled. On two others, buttons
>were off during the first wearing.
>
All I can say is, my experience with clothing from Wal-Mart is 180 degrees
apart from what you describe. As I type this, I'm wearing a shirt that I
bought at W-M so long ago that I've forgotten exactly how long it was, but
it's somewhere in the 5-8 year range. It's showing some wear at the cuffs,
collar, and pocket (to be expected at that age), but the all seams are still
tight, and all the buttons are still attached -- and this is typical of the
shirts I get there. I have three or four other shirts that I bought at the
same time, and they're all in similar condiiton.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
For a copy of my TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter,
send email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
"Doug Miller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
>
> You've apparently *never* bought clothing at Wal-Mart, then. That's where
a
> *lot* of my clothing comes from, and it lasts for years.
>
My experience w/ shirts from there was more akin to Charlie's. Shirt tails
way too short, fabric way too thin. In this case, it was *not* a cost
effective experience for me.
"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
> Charlie Self wrote:
>
>
> "Competition" is not defined by your single experience - it is a
> macro-level activity. The market is not "smart", it just seeks to be
> efficient. That means market-driven behavior sometimes tries new things
> that are dumb - like outsourcing support at the expense of customer
> satisfaction. But, absent goverment fiddling, the market always corrects
> itself, as it did in this case. You cannot legislate money or economies,
> they just have to work it out for themselves.
Read the thread on this between you and Charlie and will confess that I'm in
your camp on this one.
Think you nailed it, and well.
> boundaries. It flows where it can be used most efficiently. Outsourcing
> overseas makes sense in some cases, and not others, but competitive
> markets will figure that out over time.
Also think you'd look to history for analogs - our shift from industrial to
information processors.
> I remember the hollering in the 1970s when TV and radio manufacturing
> was outsourced to Japan.
Yeah - remember when we rallyed around Curtis Mathis? Deplored the death of
Zenith?
>
> But that's just what I think...
I think I'm thinking more what you're thinking...
Larry,
"Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?" in Syria and in the hands of al-Qaida, heck they just
tried to knock off 80,000 Jordianians with some of it. al-Qaida had it, it was traced
through Syria. It's all over the web news has been for weeks, some minor TV. Jordan
is lucky. Where will the try next? Any country that has freedom.
I wish people would just start looking at facts.
Larry Blanchard wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> says...
> > Outsourcing is a tough one for me. On one hand I hate to see any jobs leave this
> > country, on the other hand consumers will always have a tendency to buy the least
> > expensive when comparison shopping. We have to be competative.
> >
> Just for the sake of argument, why? Internal competition is
> great, but why do we have to compete with some country where the
> standard of living is 10% of ours?
>
> Obviously it's good for that country, and for the corporate
> profits of the outsourcer, but I can't see where it's good for
> most of our citizens. And they are who our government is
> supposed to be for.
>
> --
> Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
"Phil" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>
> I wish people would just start looking at facts.
They have, and they don't look good...
> Larry Blanchard wrote:
> > Just for the sake of argument, why? Internal competition is
> > great, but why do we have to compete with some country where the
> > standard of living is 10% of ours?
We had a prime minister over here who for years tried to convince
us we had to become competitive when measured against countries
that sleep their workers under a banana tree and feed them banana peel.
His period in government is now remembered as the worst period of economic
mis-management ever in our short (200 year) history.
I'm just wondering...
> > Obviously it's good for that country, and for the corporate
> > profits of the outsourcer, but I can't see where it's good for
> > most of our citizens.
It's not, it can't be, it will NEVER be good for the citizens.
It's all a load of pure unadulterated crap.
--
Cheers
Nuno Souto
[email protected]
In rec.woodworking
Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>Say a company makes the right choice to outsource - that is, they
>improve their profits _sustainably_ by doing so.
This is where your plan fails Tim. It is a pyramid scheme. America is the
consumer of the products. As more and more Americans lose jobs or take pay
cuts, they are going to consume less.
>Free markets are not
>always nice, but they are always efficient. Attempting to artificially
>interfere with them causes nothing but economic ruin, _for the country
>trying to protect itself_.
You have to admit one thing if you have any intellectual honesty.
Globalization is not good for America as whole. The countries that stand
to gain are the ones that do the outsourcing. As they're standard of
living rises, ours HAS to lower. There is no other way because it is a zero
sum game. This is not a win-win situation.
CBS news
BBC news
ABC news
MSNBC
JordanTimes
Boston Herald
Yahoo News
FoxNews
Radio Free Europe
ArabTimes
Plus about 10,000 other sources. Try learning to use a search engine.
Larry Blanchard wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> says...
> > Larry,
> > "Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?" in Syria and in the hands of al-Qaida, heck they just
> > tried to knock off 80,000 Jordianians with some of it. al-Qaida had it, it was traced
> > through Syria. It's all over the web news has been for weeks, some minor TV. Jordan
> > is lucky. Where will the try next? Any country that has freedom.
> >
> > I wish people would just start looking at facts.
>
> That's funny. I read a daily newspaper and watch TV news from
> three different sources. You get your news from the web??????
> Pardon me while I try to control my laughter.
>
> --
> Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
Not to mention - back closer to topic - tax laws which encourage landowners
to remove all timber to 6" MBH to get a tax break rather than pay for trees
to grow.
I pay 5 times what commercial forest does, 10 times what state or national
forest does. Oh well, my youngest is already cruising for the timber he'll
harvest at middle age.
OK, I'll put the tax assessment into the firebox where it belongs instead of
the "to pay."
"B a r r y" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 13:01:01 -0600, "xrongor" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>
> >not to mention eventually all these people are gonna decide they want
their
> >mtv. its a short term solution.
> >
> >randy
>
>
> I'm from Earth, and our corporate executives are paid / bonused on
> short term goals. Why is a short term solution a problem from the
> executive suite / Wall Street angle?
>
> Not to mention that many of us pee-ons buy mutual funds that put much
> of the pressure on the executives to operate with a short term vision.
>
> It is one F'd up, complicated conundrum. <g>
>
> Barry
>
Better check the market for teachers with masters. Masters degrees _must_
be paid premium scale here - union rules. Schools can get lots of certified
teachers at less cost . Junior colleges may hire, though.
My advisor warned me....
"RKON" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:Frxkc.10308$iy5.6589@okepread05...
> As soon as SWMBO completes her masters and her teachers certfication and
> begins working as a teacher I can quit my job and start my own business.
> SWMBO used to be a Programmer Analyst before kids but decided it wasn't
> worth it to go back in to the IT Industry.
>
> Rich
>
>
Then she still has time to check.
"RKON" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:a4Ckc.10346$iy5.4633@okepread05...
> I don't think she will have a problem because she is a Mathematics
Teacher.
> There is plenty of demand.
> She will have her Masters by December.
>
> Rich
> "George" <george@least> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > Better check the market for teachers with masters. Masters degrees
> _must_
> > be paid premium scale here - union rules. Schools can get lots of
> certified
> > teachers at less cost . Junior colleges may hire, though.
> >
> > My advisor warned me....
In rec.woodworking
Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
>That "consistent level" is maintained by laid-off factory
>workers becoming burger flippers. Who was it in the Bush
>administration that tried to get those fast food jobs redefined
>as manufacturing jobs? 'Nuff said.
Exactly!
kenR wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, do-not-
> [email protected] says...
>
>>>We work with a languge called NATURAL
>>>on the mainframe.
>>
>>Ahhh! ADABAS... :)
>>
>>
>>>One of the Indians, who we were told was a CMM
>>>Level 5 programmer who was experienced in NATURAL (ha!!! What a
>>>lie!!!)
>>
>>I'm sure you know this now, but CMM Level 5 has damned little to do with
>>*results*. It's all about process, procedures and policies with an intent to
>>deliver a quality product.
>>
>>Next time someone mentions Level 5, remind them that NASA was one of the
>>first, and their sh*t still explodes from time to time.. :)
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> In order to be totally off topic, does anyone know where one can find a
> fairly short description of what the heck CMM and it's levels involve.
> My bosses boss, just announced in a meeting last week that he wans us to
> obtain CMM level 4 certification by the end of next year. Nobody said
> anything at the time because frankly, nobody knew if he was serious.
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/cmms/cmms.html
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
That is unfortunately something that is being lost in all this
greed-driven outsourcing: the fact that if it creates sufficient
unemployment a lot of people WON'T buy your product.
Regardless of how el-cheapo it might be produced in Outer Mongolia.
IOW, shoot yourself on the foot. Which is EXACTLY where this myopic
outsourcing "easy-profit" mania is leading us.
--
Cheers
Nuno Souto
[email protected]
"Ray Kinzler" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I do, however, believe in what Henry Ford thought. He realized a well
> paid and happy workforce would ultimately help him and his company
> because they could afford to purchase the product they were producing.
> There is a happy medium that can and should be hit.
>
Ray Kinzler wrote:
>><SNIP>
<SNIP>
> Maybe I am using one experience of outourcing but I feel that one
> experience is probably a very common one. When the ERP ssytem was
> outsourced, the question was asked: "Why?" And the answer was
> "Because they cost too much." Now, answer me this: why is it good
> business practice to send the life-blood (in IT terms) of your company
> to an outsided just because it costs less? Why outsource it BEFORE
> you give the employees a choice like "You can either take a n% paycut
> across the board or we will outsource because we are saving n% if we
> outsource."??
>
Be careful. I never said, nor do I believe that outsourcing is always
an inherently good thing. Decision makers can decide to outsource
for all the wrong reason and it can be an terrible thing - witness
Dell. My only contention is that outsourcing is not inherently bad.
There are times and places where it makes a lot of sense.
Whether or not it was a good idea in your particular company's case,
I have no idea. If it was a bad idea, the market will "correct" your
company's bad decision one way or another.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Ray Kinzler wrote:
<SNIP>
> You are saying that things like sales and marketing and such stay
> behind. What in the heck are you saying? Everybody in this country
> is supposed to go into marketing? Sales? I agree with what some of
No. I was merely responding to the broadbrush of "everything" being
outsourced.
> the other guys said: Just who are you going to sell to when nobody has
> a job?
Please cite a single example in ALL of US history from Jamestown through
today any sustained situation where "nobody has a job". Your position
is both based on hyperbole and is at complete odds with reality.
While there has been local displacement of jobs throughout US
economic history, it has also always been _temporal_.
>
> Oh, yeah, I forgot. Our median income has risen in the past 50 years.
> Hmmm...could that be because of the terrible inflation in the 70s and
> early 80s? COuld it be because women have gone back to work en force?
> Could it be because couples have 1 1/2 jobs a peiece nowadays?
This is ridiculous. The average *actual buying power* of the
working American (that's inflation/tax and all the rest of it
figured in) has grown consistently in this nation. Moreover, that
buying power today buys better and more reliable products than
ever in pretty much every category of things consumers buy.
IOW, we the sheeple are much wealthier *in real terms* than any
generation before us.
>
> Where is our free time? My father had a LOT more free time 30 years
> ago when I was a 13-year-old kid. I put in a lot more hours now.
You have *got* to be kidding, right? From Jamestown through about
the middle of the 19th Century, the dominant occupation in this
country was in agribusiness. I promise you, that those old farmers
(and the new ones) put in a whole lot more hours on average than
you (or I) ever will. Moreover, the average amount of "free time"
across this nation - this means hours available to you after you
have worked enough to take care of yourself - has gone *UP* consistently
over the past century. This is primarily due to higher and higher levels
of invention and technology in our lives. The reason there are so
many (bad) cable TV stations today, for instance, is that there is
so much more demand by consumers to be entertained - THEY HAVE MORE
TIME TO FILL.
The fact that you have less free time than your father is anecdotal
and irrelevant to the larger disussion here. It could be that you're
more ambitious than he was. It could be that your not as competent
and have to work harder than he did to keep up. It could be that your
profession necessarily requires more hours than his did. But none
of this speaks to what is going on in the larger society. Do some Google
research. Modern American citizens, on average, have more free time
than ever. Yet another benefit of market economies.
>
> Oh, yeah, get education. Where? In what?
You have *got* to be kidding. The educational system in this country
has fed at the tax trough for over 100 years. There is a vast
nationwide system of schools at all levels from kindergarden through
Ph.D. available to almost anyone with heartbeat or better. Anyone
in this country who does not get an education is in one of a very
few categories: 1) They don't want an education, 2) They aren't
trying to get one all that hard, or 3) They are profoundly handicapped
and are unable to learn at all (a very small percentage of the population).
Before you lecture me about how much it costs ... I came from a poor
family - today it would be called "working poor". I went to _private_
universities without a single loan, grant, or government handout from
undergrad through Ph.D. studies (which I did not complete). I worked
for an education and I got one. If you want an education in this
country, you can get one. Period.
"In what?" In learning to think for yourself. Then, learning how
to teach yourself new things the rest of your life. Education should not
first be a place you learn a job - that's for vocational school or
post graduate work. Undergrad education, especially, should be a
place that exposes you to great thinkers, human history, and critical
thinking. If this was done more, these threads would disappear and I
(the poor immigrant here) wouldn't have to defend market economics (to
what I presume to be Western-born citizens).
>
> You say that us stinking Americans think we need to get paid too much
> for certain jobs. You bet! When you put tens of thousands of dollars
> into a college education, you need to get some return on value. Geez.
In Marxist economic theory, they use what is called the "Labor Theory"
of value. That is, something's value is based on what it _cost_ to make.
Unfortunately, this does not work AT ALL as every single Marxist economy
in the 20th Century discovered. If I am a slow carpenter, and it takes
me twice as long to build a house as you, my house is not worth twice as
much. Well, the same thing applies to your theory about pay and cost of
education. What you paid for your education is irrelvant (in market
terms) to the rest of us. You are only worth what an employer (or
customer) is willing to pay for your services. Marxist value theories do
not work. If you want more pay, become more valuable to your
employer/customer.
>
> I hear what you say about me sounding rasict but I am not. I have
> many friends from India, Russia, Bulgaria. I think I mentioned that
> before but, of course, that gets forgotten--but the racist card is
> played real fast.
I said your _position_ was implicitly racist, not that you were ...
and I was pretty clear about this.
>
> You keep saying that the bottom has never fallen out of this society.
> Does that mean it NEVER will? Does that mean we don't need to fight
> for what we have?
I do not spend my life planning for everything to go to hell in a
handbasket. "Could" it? Sure. But it is really, really, unlikely.
Of course you should fight for what you have. But you are targeting
the wrong enemy. Your enemy is not outsourcing, global trade,
or market economies. Your enemy is *change*. The whole world is
changing. It always has, its just doing it faster and faster.
If you choose to adapt to change, you survive. If you cling to
"the way things were" and scapegoat things like globalization,
outsourcing, and market economies, you become economically irrelevant.
I have had to change my profession two times in the first 25 years of
my career. I am about to have to do it again to stay relevant to
this once-again changing business landscape. It's not easy, but it
is necessary.
>
> I say these outsourcing people ARE stealing our jobs. Listen, they
How is it "your" job. A job goes to whomever can do it best (as
perceived by the employer) for the least amount. No one owns a job,
they earn it - over and over, every day. You want something that is
not yours to keep to remain unconditionally in your possession
without regard to marketplace realities. THAT is a theoretical
fairytale.
> can never, EVER perform the job without raping us--we need to teach
Suppose I come to your town as a fellow-American citizen and tell your
boss I have NO job and I'll do yours for half what he pays you. Am I
"raping" you (what an ugly word to use in this context)? Or is it just
them "furriners" that are the rapists?
<SNIP>
>
> I have to agree: you are a very smart fellow. And everything you say
> is true--from a book sense.
No. Everything I say has been consistently defended with the actual
record of American economic history. At no point have I trotted out
some theoretical precept without giving specific examples of how
Reality supports the theory. The only thing I have not given is
specific citations for the actual raw data and studies because this
is not a research paper and it will do you oodles of good to dig
it out for yourself.
>
> I think this countey is going to hell in a hand basket and all this
> global-schmobal crap is speeding things up.
>
> I think we will have the best educated burger flippers in the world
> here pretty soon.
>
> And so you know: I do not live in an extravagent house. I drive cheap
> little cars. I do what I can to live within my means. Actually, a
> lot of what you are seeing in this country is a facade. I believe
> most of us live WAY above our means.
>
> Geesh, this thing has gone way off-topic. Let's just say if (and
> when) they come to me at my place of employment and tell me to teach
> "Sunil" my job, I will tell "Sunil" and the person who told me to kiss
> my ass.
Good. Then let's test YOUR theory. Why don't you take YOUR money and
start a company. Maybe you could mortgage YOUR house and borrow money
from YOUR friends and family. Make sure to only hire Americans and pay
them all, every one, a "good living wage" with plenty of benefits like
retirement programs, medical coverage, life insurance, day care, and so
forth. You're not allowed to lay anyone off no matter how poorly the
business does. You're not allowed to reduce salaries. In fact, you have
to maintain your "living wage" consistent with the inflationary growth
rate. At no point are you permitted to hire foreigners who would "rape"
your poor employees out of "their" jobs.
Do that for a few years and get back to me on how strongly you feel
about all this. Talk is cheap when you collect a salary and don't have
to worry about the jobs of hundreds or thousands of other people. Try
being the boss for a while - your perspective will change dramatically.
"Reality" is that which remains after our theories have disappeared. It
makes very little difference to the Universe how you "feel" about
things. Money, economics and all that goes with that operate on a set of
principles that transcend legislation, opinion, and even force. The USSR
spent 80 years trying to force Marxist economic ideas to work, up to and
including the use of violence, and they failed miserably. In an
analogous manner, if you insist on clinging to your views of how money
and the workplace operate, you too will fail miserably. Gladly, this is
not inevitable. You can decide to cooperate with Reality or fight it.
You choose and get results accordingly.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Tim Daneliuk writes:
>>
>> Where is our free time? My father had a LOT more free time 30 years
>> ago when I was a 13-year-old kid. I put in a lot more hours now.
>
>You have *got* to be kidding, right? From Jamestown through about
>the middle of the 19th Century, the dominant occupation in this
>country was in agribusiness. I promise you, that those old farmers
>(and the new ones) put in a whole lot more hours on average than
>you (or I) ever will. Moreover, the average amount of "free time"
>across this nation - this means hours available to you after you
>have worked enough to take care of yourself - has gone *UP* consistently
>over the past century.
Speaking of irrelevant, he asks about 30 years ago and you tell him about a
century ago. Spare time for many has disappeared in the appalling need for
more. People have so many wants that both partners work full time to pay for
the second SUV, the Alaskan vacation (sorry, Luigi: I realize it's only a
driveto a similar spot for you), the 2800 square foot house (a real joy after
the kids leave home), the acre or larger lot and on and on and on.
You can promise all you want, by the by, but farmers' hours are pretty much
defined by the type of farming done. Some types of farming do not require much
more time at the desk and in the field than do your normal commuters' jobs
(especially when that daily 90 minutes on the road is added in).
>The fact that you have less free time than your father is anecdotal
>and irrelevant to the larger disussion here.
Jeez. I do love that type of argument. Anything that doesn't fit your
conclusion is anecdotal and irrelevant. You live on statistics, which chose one
at a time, prove particular points. If I weren't so lazy, I'd pick up stats
that prove just about the opposite, when I select my points.
Charlie Self
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon Bonaparte
Charlie Self wrote:
<SNIP>
The fact that you have less free time than your father is anecdotal
>>and irrelevant to the larger disussion here.
>
>
> Jeez. I do love that type of argument. Anything that doesn't fit your
> conclusion is anecdotal and irrelevant. You live on statistics, which chose one
No, anything that does not conform to observed Reality is wrong. The
fact that one person has less free time today, or even a thousand people
do, is "irrelevant" to understanding what is going on in the overall
picture ... until it is studied formally, rigorously, and using properly
selected test samples.
Statistics is not the voodoo most people think. You can't just go "find"
statistics that support your position. Well, you can't do so honestly
anyway. The variability in understanding the meaning of statistics comes
not from the discipline itself. It comes from people poorly schooled in
that field or with a political axe to grind coming to conclusions from
statistical results they don't understand. Popular culture is full of
myths because some Talking Hairdo on "The News" misrepresented some
statistical study. One particular example is the one we see here: The
popular (but wrong) notion that we have "less free time" than ever.
> at a time, prove particular points. If I weren't so lazy, I'd pick up stats
> that prove just about the opposite, when I select my points.
The argument is "irrelevant" in the sense that it is anecdotal, a
comparison involving only 2 people, and given no context. It is
certainly relevant to the persons who experienced the working conditions
described. But my posts and responses have been in context of the larger
picture of the American economy. I don't "live on statistics", I live in
Reality. that Reality has compellingly demonstrated the efficacy of
market economies and the average increase in spare time that such
economies bring to our society. I specifically have NOT picked selected
statistics but rather argued from a macro-level view of the subject.
Have some people experienced less free time in this society? Sure. But
some also have far greater free time. (There are far more
multi-millionaires per capita today than ever, who presumably have all
the free time on their hands they want - they only work if they want
to.) Neither of these points, in and of themselves, speaks to the larger
picture. What does, is what has happened to the *average* over, say, the
past several generations of Americans. That is to say, it has gone _up_.
This whole thread is troublesome to me, and I have spent time
responding, because there is a lot of argument in the form of, "I had a
bad experience, so it must generalize to the larger population" even
when there is pretty clear evidence that the argument is false. The
simple fact is that the average condition of today's citizens is
demonstrably better than ever. We are the wealthiest generation of
Americans ever. We have more free time than ever. That the quality of
goods and services available for our purchases is higher than ever. We
live longer than ever. The environment is cleaner than it has ever been
since the onset of the Industrial Revolution (and improving). But there
is the cussed human streak that wants to believe everything is
constantly getting worse (a topic considered in some depth by Julian
Simon in "Hoodwinking The Nation").
The experiences of particular individuals speaks only to _their_
circumstances. The whole point of the Scientific Method is to remove
individual bias when trying to reach general conclusions. It is entirely
true that some people have had a really rough time in the past few years
as markets have globalized and work forces have become fluid across
international boundaries. But this simply does not speak to the "general
direction" things are headed. It's like saying, "My new Chevy is a piece
of crap, so all Chevys are crap." - one of the oldest logical fallacies
in the book.
I cannot recommend Simon's book highly enough. He was both a professional
economist who could write clearly for the layman, and someone who
was interested in this whole phenomenon of the human need to believe
in increasing disaster. Its a great read and I could never begin to
do justice to these topics as well as he did.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Tim Daneliuk writes:
>But this simply does not speak to the "general
>direction" things are headed. It's like saying, "My new Chevy is a piece
>of crap, so all Chevys are crap." - one of the oldest logical fallacies
>in the book.
Now that part's true, but it still doesn't answer the guy like me who bought a
new Dodge a few years ago, found it had 2 problems, neither of which the dealer
corrected...while stating that he couldn't replicate one and that the other was
something that "happened" in all that particular model.
It doesn't have to represent ALL Dodge cars or trucks, but you can bet that the
next vehicle I buy will not be built by Daimler-Chrysler.
Charlie Self
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon Bonaparte
Buying a Toyota or Honda car is just as good as buying American because the
Car's are for the most built in the USA or by our great neighbors to the
North. My wifes Odyssey is built in Ontario Canada and it a great vehicle.
Why is it that Honda's or Toyotas are solidy and rank at the top in Quality?
Rich
"Charlie Self" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Tim Daneliuk writes:
>
> >But this simply does not speak to the "general
> >direction" things are headed. It's like saying, "My new Chevy is a piece
> >of crap, so all Chevys are crap." - one of the oldest logical fallacies
> >in the book.
>
> Now that part's true, but it still doesn't answer the guy like me who
bought a
> new Dodge a few years ago, found it had 2 problems, neither of which the
dealer
> corrected...while stating that he couldn't replicate one and that the
other was
> something that "happened" in all that particular model.
>
> It doesn't have to represent ALL Dodge cars or trucks, but you can bet
that the
> next vehicle I buy will not be built by Daimler-Chrysler.
>
> Charlie Self
> "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon
Bonaparte
>
BTW, Here's to your original post
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/business/worldbusiness/02india.html
Rich
"Charlie Self" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Tim Daneliuk writes:
>
> >But this simply does not speak to the "general
> >direction" things are headed. It's like saying, "My new Chevy is a piece
> >of crap, so all Chevys are crap." - one of the oldest logical fallacies
> >in the book.
>
> Now that part's true, but it still doesn't answer the guy like me who
bought a
> new Dodge a few years ago, found it had 2 problems, neither of which the
dealer
> corrected...while stating that he couldn't replicate one and that the
other was
> something that "happened" in all that particular model.
>
> It doesn't have to represent ALL Dodge cars or trucks, but you can bet
that the
> next vehicle I buy will not be built by Daimler-Chrysler.
>
> Charlie Self
> "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon
Bonaparte
>
Larry Blanchard wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>
>>I have several responses to this:
>>
>>1) Any nation has a responsibility to protect its borders and the citizens
>> within them. It it precisely because the US Government is so busy
>> doing what it should NOT (meddling with the internal social order
>> and lives of its citizens) that it does not do what it SHOULD
>> (controlling the borders and illegal immigration).
>>
>
> Just when I'd given up on you, you go and write something that
> is, for the most part, quite sensible. Or, IOW, something I
> agree with :-).
>
And here I thought I was being sensible all along ...
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
> We work with a languge called NATURAL
> on the mainframe.
Ahhh! ADABAS... :)
> One of the Indians, who we were told was a CMM
> Level 5 programmer who was experienced in NATURAL (ha!!! What a
> lie!!!)
I'm sure you know this now, but CMM Level 5 has damned little to do with
*results*. It's all about process, procedures and policies with an intent to
deliver a quality product.
Next time someone mentions Level 5, remind them that NASA was one of the
first, and their sh*t still explodes from time to time.. :)
I beleive what it all comes down to is the ole addage of book sense vs.
common sense. We all know a lot of people strictly from either side, and
very few people that seem to draw from both sides. It is the ones that
draw from both sides that seem to awe and amaze those that struggle with
a task on a daily basis. MOST (not all) business people only look at the
short term bottom line and the current metrics only draw from the book
smarts (how do you quantify common sense in the accounting books or in
the share price ?).
Some of the same acculades were given years ago to the Japanese. That
the were supposedly eating our lunch, and the reason was because of the
education system. Now you are hearing the same metrics being lauded with
respect to the Indian workers. Sure they are smart, and their eductaion
system pumps them out, but book smarts is not where the work gets done.
I will take a person with a basic knowledge of the problem, and lots of
common sense, over a person with a in depth knowledge of the problem and
very little common sense any day.
Ray Kinzler wrote:
>>>I used to manage two FOB Indians that were in house in our company at
>>>ridiculously low hourly rates. We dumped them when they spent two
>>>months working on a feature that any of the other developers would
>>>have screamed, "F*ck it! They don't need that feature anyway" - and
>>>have been right.
>>
>>Yikes! These were features their managers had asked for? Then they were
>>fired because they didn't tell their managers the features were
>>unnecessary? That doesn't sound like a problem with the programmers...
>>
>>Neil
>
>
> Neil,
>
> I have to disagree with you. Maybe the feaures were part of the
> original design but one has to look at the return on investment of the
> feature. Is there maybe another way to perform the same function?
> What is the value of the function? Is it a 'must have' or is it just
> one of those things what would either be nice or cool?
>
> I guess what I am saying is somehting like "Is it worth spending that
> much time on it?"
>
> Also, if this feature was so darn difficult, why didn't the
> programmers say something? Why did they sit there and spin their
> wheels for two months?
>
> We outsourced our ERP system to an Indian firm and I must agree that
> they leave a lot to be desired. We work with a languge called NATURAL
> on the mainframe. One of the Indians, who we were told was a CMM
> Level 5 programmer who was experienced in NATURAL (ha!!! What a
> lie!!!), was told to add a field on a screen (which is called a MAP).
> This field was on a database file and was already defined in the
> program. All he needed to do was find a place for it on the MAP,
> include a label on the MAP. Then, to make everything work, just
> compile the program using the new MAP and the field will instantly
> appear--no 'programming' involved.
>
> It took this guy 2 freaking weeks--working weekends, too!--to get it
> to work. He called us DBAs and told us the database file was screwed
> up. Then he said it was hsi user id. Then he said there was
> somehting wrong in the environment.
>
> These guys follow a script and cannot deviate from it. They are like
> little robots--little confused robots. If those two guys in the
> original post were told this feature was needed, they just worked to
> make it happen come hell or high water. They do not seem to have much
> common sense and they certainly cannot think for themselves.
>
> Sorry. It may seem cruel but it is the truth. Actually, it may be
> the management of these comapnies that force this to happen. Seems to
> me they can milk the clients much better if it they force their people
> to work on a useless feature for two months.
Have you looked at house construction these days?
Yes, we're beuilding lots of McMansions, but they're cheap-a$$ SOBs.
I live in a 55 year old house, modest (very) size, with hardwood
floors, solid masonry construction, little things here and there that
would NEVER be done in a basic house today.
See, (among other things) back then, there were carpenters who had
pride in their craft, not dipwads and furriners who don't know what
the heck they're doing, have no pride 'cause they have no craft, but,
hey, they're cheap.
And, I do believe I read that gas today is at a historical high, even
inflation adjusted an' all.
Renata
On 30 Apr 2004 17:30:07 EDT, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]>
wrote:
-snip-
>Yes. And they lived in homes far inferior in size and construction
>to what their modern counterparts own. Their cars were inferior
>in most ways to the ones driven by Joe Sixpack today. They had
>fewer opportunities for upward mobility. They paid more
>(inflation adjusted) for key goods like gasoline. T
-snip-
On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 13:01:01 -0600, "xrongor" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>not to mention eventually all these people are gonna decide they want their
>mtv. its a short term solution.
>
>randy
I'm from Earth, and our corporate executives are paid / bonused on
short term goals. Why is a short term solution a problem from the
executive suite / Wall Street angle?
Not to mention that many of us pee-ons buy mutual funds that put much
of the pressure on the executives to operate with a short term vision.
It is one F'd up, complicated conundrum. <g>
Barry
[email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Good news for those whose high tech and software jobs have been
> outsourced--though it may yet be a bit of time before things swing the other
> way: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/technology/28SOUR.html?th
>
> With my own experience with Dell's outsourced phone help, it isn't just the
> productivity that is a problem. The depth of knowledge is not there, as the guy
> states. The clown I got finally wanted me to format my hard drive to cure a
> problem with a worn out CDRW.
>
> When I went back to email help, I had a guy here in 3 days, he replaced the
> CDRW in about 4 minutes and all is well.
>
> Charlie Self
> "Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first outbreak
> being often but an explosion of anger." Thucydides
This article is right in line with my observations on the job. The
gist of it is that given the prerequisites of clearly defined
requirements and an established design pattern that outsourcing can be
effective.
However, those are two very big assumptions that I have yet to see on
any project I've been on. I would also argue that given those
requirements, you could farm out the work to recent college grads or
interns just as cheaply and easily.
I used to manage two FOB Indians that were in house in our company at
ridiculously low hourly rates. We dumped them when they spent two
months working on a feature that any of the other developers would
have screamed, "F*ck it! They don't need that feature anyway" - and
have been right.
I do not want to stereotype Indian, Pakistani's or whoever is involved in
Outsourcing. However, they do project themselves as god's gift to computers.
Don't get me wrong, there are thousands of brilliant Indians I have worked
with over the past 10 years or so. But I have also run into some overbilled
consultants who don't know how to code their way out of paper bag or tune a
database to save their life. They have a huge network of friends and are
very close and call, email, IM each other when they run into problems. You
have to admire their determination and their intuitiveness.
If anyone has ever worked in IT Consulting they will tell you that many of
the consulting companies oversell the skills in order to get the consultant
billable. The same thing happens in outsourcing.
Rich
"Ray Kinzler" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> > > I used to manage two FOB Indians that were in house in our company at
> > > ridiculously low hourly rates. We dumped them when they spent two
> > > months working on a feature that any of the other developers would
> > > have screamed, "F*ck it! They don't need that feature anyway" - and
> > > have been right.
> >
> > Yikes! These were features their managers had asked for? Then they
were
> > fired because they didn't tell their managers the features were
> > unnecessary? That doesn't sound like a problem with the programmers...
> >
> > Neil
>
> Neil,
>
> I have to disagree with you. Maybe the feaures were part of the
> original design but one has to look at the return on investment of the
> feature. Is there maybe another way to perform the same function?
> What is the value of the function? Is it a 'must have' or is it just
> one of those things what would either be nice or cool?
>
> I guess what I am saying is somehting like "Is it worth spending that
> much time on it?"
>
> Also, if this feature was so darn difficult, why didn't the
> programmers say something? Why did they sit there and spin their
> wheels for two months?
>
> We outsourced our ERP system to an Indian firm and I must agree that
> they leave a lot to be desired. We work with a languge called NATURAL
> on the mainframe. One of the Indians, who we were told was a CMM
> Level 5 programmer who was experienced in NATURAL (ha!!! What a
> lie!!!), was told to add a field on a screen (which is called a MAP).
> This field was on a database file and was already defined in the
> program. All he needed to do was find a place for it on the MAP,
> include a label on the MAP. Then, to make everything work, just
> compile the program using the new MAP and the field will instantly
> appear--no 'programming' involved.
>
> It took this guy 2 freaking weeks--working weekends, too!--to get it
> to work. He called us DBAs and told us the database file was screwed
> up. Then he said it was hsi user id. Then he said there was
> somehting wrong in the environment.
>
> These guys follow a script and cannot deviate from it. They are like
> little robots--little confused robots. If those two guys in the
> original post were told this feature was needed, they just worked to
> make it happen come hell or high water. They do not seem to have much
> common sense and they certainly cannot think for themselves.
>
> Sorry. It may seem cruel but it is the truth. Actually, it may be
> the management of these comapnies that force this to happen. Seems to
> me they can milk the clients much better if it they force their people
> to work on a useless feature for two months.
> As a director of an IT shop in a competitive industry, I say "Good!"
> Be scared, be very, very scared.
>
> I've enough confidence in my skills -- and my team's -- to say "Bring 'em
> on."
>
You don't get it.... It is not about skills.. it is about $$$$$$$$
http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/story/0,10801,91916,00.html?from=story_kc
look at the payscale at the bottom of this article and honestly tell me if
you can pay your staff a living wage and compete with those salaries of off
shore. If you can, you should write a book, become a millionaire, and
retire to your dream shop. ;)
And I admit it. I am Scared. I have 20 years in IT and I survived major
layoffs the past 4 years at one of the largest software companies in the
world. I have excellent skills. But I don't have a cavalier attitude about
the IT industry as I once did.
As soon as SWMBO completes her masters and her teachers certfication and
begins working as a teacher I can quit my job and start my own business.
SWMBO used to be a Programmer Analyst before kids but decided it wasn't
worth it to go back in to the IT Industry.
Rich
In article <[email protected]>, Dan <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Fri 30 Apr 2004 03:30:59p, Wes Stewart <n7ws@_arrl.net> wrote in
>news:[email protected]:
>
>> (how do you get to be an
>> activist? Where do I apply?)
>
>Last I knew, the only requirement was to quit talkin' and start doin'.
>
Aintcha got that backwards, Dan? Seems most "activists" don't do anything
*but* talk.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
For a copy of my TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter,
send email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
In article <1gd5lgd.cxogrb139mgl6N%[email protected]>, [email protected] (p_j) wrote:
>Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>> The USSR
>> spent 80 years trying to force Marxist economic ideas to work, up to and
>> including the use of violence, and they failed miserably.
>
>USSR bad therefore?
>
In a nutshell -- yes. You would argue otherwise? E.g. that the USSR was not
bad, or was bad but for a different reason?
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
For a copy of my TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter,
send email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
In article <[email protected]>, do-not-
[email protected] says...
> > We work with a languge called NATURAL
> > on the mainframe.
>
> Ahhh! ADABAS... :)
>
> > One of the Indians, who we were told was a CMM
> > Level 5 programmer who was experienced in NATURAL (ha!!! What a
> > lie!!!)
>
> I'm sure you know this now, but CMM Level 5 has damned little to do with
> *results*. It's all about process, procedures and policies with an intent to
> deliver a quality product.
>
> Next time someone mentions Level 5, remind them that NASA was one of the
> first, and their sh*t still explodes from time to time.. :)
>
>
>
In order to be totally off topic, does anyone know where one can find a
fairly short description of what the heck CMM and it's levels involve.
My bosses boss, just announced in a meeting last week that he wans us to
obtain CMM level 4 certification by the end of next year. Nobody said
anything at the time because frankly, nobody knew if he was serious.
mttt wrote:
> "RKON" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:dCpkc.10279$iy5.9940@okepread05...
>> position I'm in I travel to all of the big companies and work with
>> CIO, Directors and EVERY company is outsourcing or is looking at it.
>> Lou Dobbs is a hero to me because he is standing up to this cancer.
>> It is not just IT jobs. It is friggin scary because they are good
>> paying jobs.
>
> As a director of an IT shop in a competitive industry, I say "Good!"
> Be scared, be very, very scared.
>
> I've enough confidence in my skills -- and my team's -- to say "Bring
> 'em on."
Famous last words.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
[email protected] wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 08:24:07 -0500, Phil <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Larry, "Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?" in Syria and in the
>> hands of al-Qaida, heck they just tried to knock off 80,000
>> Jordianians with some of it. al-Qaida had it, it was traced
>> through Syria. It's all over the web news has been for
>> weeks, some minor TV. Jordan is lucky. Where will the try
>> next? Any country that has freedom.
>>
>> I wish people would just start looking at facts.
>
> OK bub...
>
> let's see some hard documentation that those chemicals came
> from Iraq.
[The current joke is that] we know they did because DOD issued
the receipts.
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto, Iowa USA
"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Wes Stewart wrote:
>
> > On 30 Apr 2004 17:20:07 EDT, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> > |
> > |Large scale unemployment and economic ruin are the hallmarks of
economies
> > |managed by fraud and/or force, almost always at the hands of
government.
> > |Prosperity and growth are the hallmarks of private sector voluntary
> > |cooperation with a strong profit motive.
>
> <SNIP>
>
> > This "in sourcing" is going to be the ruination of our economy and way
> > of life long before outsourcing does. And this is the fault of a
> > corrupt government that turns a blind eye to enforcement of the law in
> > a flagrant pandering for "Hispanic votes."
>
>
> I have several responses to this:
>
> 1) Any nation has a responsibility to protect its borders and the citizens
> within them. It it precisely because the US Government is so busy
> doing what it should NOT (meddling with the internal social order
> and lives of its citizens) that it does not do what it SHOULD
> (controlling the borders and illegal immigration).
>
> 2) Immigration, is GOOD for our nation. It provides cheap labor, in
> most cases for work no other American actually wants to do. It is
> literally true that parts of US agribusiness could not survive without
> cheap Mexican labor. This internal competition is healthy for
> the same reason that outsourcing is - it drives the economy to
> be increasingly efficient. Yes, Mexican labor depresses
> wages. But for what jobs? Manual labor, entry-level blue collar
> jobs, and such are the usual targets because they require minimal
> skills. The fact that someone will come here and do them for
> half the price of an American tells me that the American worker
> expects too much for such work, not that the Mexicans are screwing
> us.
>
> 3) That said, *illegal* immigration is a disaster. Without some checks
> and balances to see who is coming and and making sure they leave
> when they are supposed to, we have at the very least an enormous
> national security problem. It is now reported that likely terrorists
> are infiltrating the US via the very same SW borders because of our
> stupid policies in this matter.
>
> 4) The primary reason you see what you do in your part of the country
> is because of all the Do Gooders in public life who think we owe
> everyone else something, whether they've earned it or not. These
> Do Gooders (they come from both the political Right and Left)
> believe that the government should mandate minimum wages, feed people,
> educate them, care for their health, and generally be everyone's
mommy.
> They do this because they know that the bigger government gets, the
> more everyone will depend upon them, and thus the more power they will
> accrue for themselves. Their lax attitudes on illegal immigrants
stems
> from the fact that they cynically want to prepare the way for the
> next generation of advocates for Big Government. Illegal immigrants
> have legal children in this country, and that's what the Professional
> Government Mooching Enforcers are counting on for votes in 20 years.
>
> 5) This is easy enough to fix, but the American people, as a group, are
> too dimwitted and badly educated (by those fine public schools we
> all pay for) to do what is needed here. Laws need to be changed
> in the following manner:
>
> a) US law enforcement should have the unrestricted right to shoot
> anyone who attempts to cross our borders when challenged for ID.
> This is the same thing as you having the right to shoot someone
> invading your home. Reasonable warning should be required, but
> after that, the presumption should be that they are illegal and
> trying to sneak in. It would take only a few such incidents,
> and illegal crossings would vastly diminish.
>
> b) Anyone here illegally who has a child should have that
> child's US citizenship denied and both should be expelled from
> the country without any appeals process once their illegality is
> definitely established.
>
> c) NO immigrant, legal or otherwise, should ever be eligible for
> any US social services. You should have to be a citizen to
> participate in the system. I speak as an immigrant myself
> here. I proudly became a citizen the moment I was able to do
> so. Anyone who emmigrates here and then refuses to become a
> citizen should go home and stay there.
>
> d) No civil laws should protect illegal immigrants. Only criminal
> laws (which deal with force and threat) should be brought
> to bear on their behalf. An illegal immigrant should never
> be able to sue a doctor for malpractice, a hospital for not
> granting service, and so on. They are **illegal** - they should
> have absolutely minimal civil rights, as they would, say, under
> the Geneva Convention for POWs.
>
> e) The money wasted on our truly stupid drug laws should instead
> be retargeted at maintaining full and active border control.
> $30B a year or so buys a lot of border patrols, USCG water and
> air management and so on. It might even help the hardcore
> unemployed. Create a well-trained civil defense corp that works
> full- or part-time in the portions of the country where the
border
> is found.
>
> 6) I live in a town with a huge Mexican population. I find these people
> largely hard working, well intended, and generally good neighbors.
> Well, the immigrant class is. Their children are spoiled brats, badly
> behaved, and obnoxiously indulged - i.e., They are like most other
> American kids who grew up with everything handed to them and
> therefore appreciate nothing.
>
> In the final analysis we all get what we ask for. Politicians get blamed,
> but the truth is that they'll do what they have to in order to get/stay
> in office. We The Sheeple keep telling them we want "more" from
government.
> We should instead tell them we want LESS - all we want them to do the
> real job of government: to keep *us* *free*. Until we as individuals
> understand that our government's job is not to be everyone's (domestic
> and foreign) Santa Claus, government will continue to abdicate its role
> as the institution that preserves freedom, and instead will be in
everyone's
> shorts in matters personal, social, and behavioral.
>
> Sadly, there is little hope that this will happen. The Sheeple have
> discovered how to vote themselves largesse' and they appear to be
> unwilling to turn back. This is not just a greasy-left-wing thing
> either. The right-wing is just as bad, and the people who vote for them,
> just a greasy. The only difference between left- and right-wing politics
> is who gets screwed and who gets the benefit.
>
> My family comes from a part of the world that witnessed what happens
> when government is "in charge". God help us if we don't stop the slide
> in that direction we are currently undertaking. From 1930-1932,
> approximately 20 Million of my ethnic cousins were murdered by one man -
> Stalin - because he was "doing what is good for the country."
>
> Larry-There has been some very outstanding answers to your questions
both of "Where are those WMDs?" and economic reality. You haven't
been listening. You seem to represent very well that "srtrong back and
weak mind" part of our citizenry. Tim has done an outstanding job of
> telling it like it is.
>
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
On Fri 30 Apr 2004 03:30:59p, Wes Stewart <n7ws@_arrl.net> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
> (how do you get to be an
> activist? Where do I apply?)
Last I knew, the only requirement was to quit talkin' and start doin'.
Dan
"Larry Blanchard" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> says...
> > Outsourcing is a tough one for me. On one hand I hate to see any jobs
leave this
> > country, on the other hand consumers will always have a tendency to buy
the least
> > expensive when comparison shopping. We have to be competative.
> >
> Just for the sake of argument, why? Internal competition is
> great, but why do we have to compete with some country where the
> standard of living is 10% of ours?
>
> Obviously it's good for that country, and for the corporate
> profits of the outsourcer, but I can't see where it's good for
> most of our citizens. And they are who our government is
> supposed to be for.
>
> --
> Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
not to mention eventually all these people are gonna decide they want their
mtv. its a short term solution.
randy
In article <1gd66po.12inuabdzb4x1N%[email protected]>, [email protected] (p_j) wrote:
>Doug Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> >> The USSR
>> >> spent 80 years trying to force Marxist economic ideas to work, up to and
>> >> including the use of violence, and they failed miserably.
>> >
>> >USSR bad therefore?
>> >
>>
>> In a nutshell -- yes. You would argue otherwise? E.g. that the USSR was not
>> bad, or was bad but for a different reason?
>
>No.
In that case, if there was any point at all in your comment, I must've missed
it.
>
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
For a copy of my TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter,
send email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
I don't think she will have a problem because she is a Mathematics Teacher.
There is plenty of demand.
She will have her Masters by December.
Rich
"George" <george@least> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Better check the market for teachers with masters. Masters degrees
_must_
> be paid premium scale here - union rules. Schools can get lots of
certified
> teachers at less cost . Junior colleges may hire, though.
>
> My advisor warned me....
>
> "RKON" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:Frxkc.10308$iy5.6589@okepread05...
>
> > As soon as SWMBO completes her masters and her teachers certfication and
> > begins working as a teacher I can quit my job and start my own business.
> > SWMBO used to be a Programmer Analyst before kids but decided it wasn't
> > worth it to go back in to the IT Industry.
> >
> > Rich
> >
> >
>
>
On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 08:24:07 -0500, Phil <[email protected]> wrote:
>Larry,
> "Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?" in Syria and in the hands of al-Qaida, heck they just
>tried to knock off 80,000 Jordianians with some of it. al-Qaida had it, it was traced
>through Syria. It's all over the web news has been for weeks, some minor TV. Jordan
>is lucky. Where will the try next? Any country that has freedom.
>
>I wish people would just start looking at facts.
>
>
OK bub...
let's see some hard documentation that those chemicals came from Iraq.
>
>Larry Blanchard wrote:
>
>> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
>> says...
>> > Outsourcing is a tough one for me. On one hand I hate to see any jobs leave this
>> > country, on the other hand consumers will always have a tendency to buy the least
>> > expensive when comparison shopping. We have to be competative.
>> >
>> Just for the sake of argument, why? Internal competition is
>> great, but why do we have to compete with some country where the
>> standard of living is 10% of ours?
>>
>> Obviously it's good for that country, and for the corporate
>> profits of the outsourcer, but I can't see where it's good for
>> most of our citizens. And they are who our government is
>> supposed to be for.
>>
>> --
>> Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
> > I used to manage two FOB Indians that were in house in our company at
> > ridiculously low hourly rates. We dumped them when they spent two
> > months working on a feature that any of the other developers would
> > have screamed, "F*ck it! They don't need that feature anyway" - and
> > have been right.
>
> Yikes! These were features their managers had asked for? Then they were
> fired because they didn't tell their managers the features were
> unnecessary? That doesn't sound like a problem with the programmers...
>
> Neil
Neil,
I have to disagree with you. Maybe the feaures were part of the
original design but one has to look at the return on investment of the
feature. Is there maybe another way to perform the same function?
What is the value of the function? Is it a 'must have' or is it just
one of those things what would either be nice or cool?
I guess what I am saying is somehting like "Is it worth spending that
much time on it?"
Also, if this feature was so darn difficult, why didn't the
programmers say something? Why did they sit there and spin their
wheels for two months?
We outsourced our ERP system to an Indian firm and I must agree that
they leave a lot to be desired. We work with a languge called NATURAL
on the mainframe. One of the Indians, who we were told was a CMM
Level 5 programmer who was experienced in NATURAL (ha!!! What a
lie!!!), was told to add a field on a screen (which is called a MAP).
This field was on a database file and was already defined in the
program. All he needed to do was find a place for it on the MAP,
include a label on the MAP. Then, to make everything work, just
compile the program using the new MAP and the field will instantly
appear--no 'programming' involved.
It took this guy 2 freaking weeks--working weekends, too!--to get it
to work. He called us DBAs and told us the database file was screwed
up. Then he said it was hsi user id. Then he said there was
somehting wrong in the environment.
These guys follow a script and cannot deviate from it. They are like
little robots--little confused robots. If those two guys in the
original post were told this feature was needed, they just worked to
make it happen come hell or high water. They do not seem to have much
common sense and they certainly cannot think for themselves.
Sorry. It may seem cruel but it is the truth. Actually, it may be
the management of these comapnies that force this to happen. Seems to
me they can milk the clients much better if it they force their people
to work on a useless feature for two months.
> I do not want to stereotype Indian, Pakistani's or whoever is involved in
> Outsourcing. However, they do project themselves as god's gift to computers.
> Don't get me wrong, there are thousands of brilliant Indians I have worked
> with over the past 10 years or so. But I have also run into some overbilled
> consultants who don't know how to code their way out of paper bag or tune a
> database to save their life. They have a huge network of friends and are
> very close and call, email, IM each other when they run into problems. You
> have to admire their determination and their intuitiveness.
>
> If anyone has ever worked in IT Consulting they will tell you that many of
> the consulting companies oversell the skills in order to get the consultant
> billable. The same thing happens in outsourcing.
Rich, I agree. I, too, work with a bunch of extremely intelligent and
gifted people from India, Bulgaria, Russia, etc. Each and every one
of these people have ajob here because they perform.
On the other hand, there is one (count it: ONE!) person from the
Indian outsourcing comapny who has potential. I am not saying is good
at programming using the products our ERP is built on but has
potential. The others go from bad to as bad as it gets. And, like
you said, each one of these people were touted as being something
wonderful. Our problem is that they are hard to get rid of. We
almost have no choice other than take what they give. I would rather
have my mother program here than at least one of them--and she has a
hard time nagivating WebTV, for crying out loud!
They do have an extensive network and they use it and cultivate it
very well. That is how they get things done. There is no way an
Indian programmer--or any other profession--is better than an American
or whatever nationality, it is the marketing of them and the way they
are marketing India as being the IT Mecca.
Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Larry Blanchard wrote:
>
> > In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> > says...
> >
> >>Outsourcing is a tough one for me. On one hand I hate to see any jobs leave this
> >>country, on the other hand consumers will always have a tendency to buy the least
> >>expensive when comparison shopping. We have to be competative.
> >>
> >
> > Just for the sake of argument, why? Internal competition is
> > great, but why do we have to compete with some country where the
> > standard of living is 10% of ours?
> >
> > Obviously it's good for that country, and for the corporate
> > profits of the outsourcer, but I can't see where it's good for
> > most of our citizens. And they are who our government is
> > supposed to be for.
> >
>
> Say a company makes the right choice to outsource - that is, they
> improve their profits _sustainably_ by doing so. Who benefits?
> The stockholders because their stock is worth more. The remaining
> employees because their jobs are more secure in a healthier company.
> The executives because their variable compensation increases
> as the company does better. AND ... all their customers because
> the goods/services of that company are either better or cheaper.
>
Who owns most od the stock? I say it is the CEO and his henchmen who
own the lion's share.
How, pray tell, are the remaining employees secure in their jobs? If
they can outsource parts of the company, they can outsource almost all
of it. Not 100%, for sure, but a huge part of it.
And just how are the companies themselves going to survive? For this
race to reach a fantastic bottom-line, companies will get overly
greedy and start doing as much as they can in places like China, where
there are nowhere NEAR the laws we have in the US or in Europe, and
they will start to manufacture the exact same products as we make
here. Hmmm, now they will undercut the US and European companies on
the same products.
Yeah, I would say this is a real win-win situation--for the people who
run the companies and the ones who own THE MOST stock in these
comapnies because they will make out the most in the short-run.
> You CANNOT legislate against this. Goverment cannot stop it. All they
> can do is slow it down. Economic reality always catches up with
> legislative silliness. Competition is global and money flows where
> it is most efficiently used. It makes no difference what the unions,
> the politicians, or the various other naysayers think. This is how
> it actually works.
>
I say this time it is a little different. WHy in the world is it
better for a country to fire their own citizens and permit people from
other countries to come in under things like H-1B, h-2B, and L-1 visas
and perform the EXACT SAME JOBS that the people who were laid-off
performed? How is that better? Because 24 of them live in the same
2-bedroom apartment and can live on substandard wages in the host
country? How is it better when the host country is paying
unemployment benefits to laid-off workers but nowhere near the same
amount is coming in to offset the amount that is going out because the
wages are nowhere near the same?
How does a country like the US maintain its infrastructure? How can
people survive when they purchased a house at the going rate but have
their real income get slashed by 75%? How can the people who live in
the host country AFFORD to keep living there.
> We have to compete with countries with a standard of living 10% of ours
> because they ARE competing with us whether we like it or not. If we try
> to shut them out by legislating against outsourcing, one of our foreign
> competitors will take advantage of this artificial imbalance. For
> example, suppose we made it illegal to outsource, and all computer
> parts for machines sold in the US HAD to be made here. PC prices
> would go up _for us_ but no one else. Western Europe would promptly
> use outsourced manufacturing to build their PCs and ever company that
> uses computers in the US would be at a significant cost disadvantage.
>
I disagree. Places like India are stealing the jobs from American
citizens. They are performing THE SAME JOB. I say competition is
when somebody makes a better widget in their factory and outsells
your. It is not competition when they just push the employeee out of
your factiry and take over.
> Now, how many people would you think build computer components in the US
> in such a situation? Let's be generous and say that because of the ban
> on outsourcing, 10 Million jobs were "created" here in the US. That
> means the other 290 Million of us who want to buy and use PCs have to
> pay more to protect them. It just won't work. It is hideously
> inefficient (from a monetary point of view). Free markets are not
> always nice, but they are always efficient. Attempting to artificially
> interfere with them causes nothing but economic ruin, _for the country
> trying to protect itself_.
Well, here is another truth: I have know American citizens who said
they will just roll with the ounches and attempted to get jobs with
places like Tata in Buffalo, New York--but they won't hire Americans.
I have know a couple who attmepted to see if they could go to
Bangalore to get a job in it--no way. They are not permitted to hire
people outside of India.
I think this is artifically interfering with the market--jsut to make
sure that the India IT Mecca isn't tarnished.
Tim,
I have been quiet for a while because, well, I had other things more
pressing to do other than be on the internet but...
1.) I agree we middle-class have created our own problem. We all got
used to something that was unnatural: double-digit growth on our
money. I think the 90's skewed everything for everybody. I talk to
my mother and grandmother (who recently died at 99) and when they
thought of 'growth' they thought 4-5-6--NOT 14-15-16% growth. Now we
have people who would have never thought of buying stocks jump into
the stock markt via mutual funds.
And we see where we are: we want double-digit growth but ALSO no
lay-off AND no environmental problems AND free health benefits
AND...well, you get the picture.
So, in part, I agree with you. I am not as unagreeable as you may
think.
You say to talk to you since you have worked with outsourcing
companies. Are you saying I didn't and don't? I do--please read what
I wrote a long while back.
You are saying that things like sales and marketing and such stay
behind. What in the heck are you saying? Everybody in this country
is supposed to go into marketing? Sales? I agree with what some of
the other guys said: Just who are you going to sell to when nobody has
a job?
Oh, yeah, I forgot. Our median income has risen in the past 50 years.
Hmmm...could that be because of the terrible inflation in the 70s and
early 80s? COuld it be because women have gone back to work en force?
Could it be because couples have 1 1/2 jobs a peiece nowadays?
Where is our free time? My father had a LOT more free time 30 years
ago when I was a 13-year-old kid. I put in a lot more hours now.
Oh, yeah, get education. Where? In what?
You say that us stinking Americans think we need to get paid too much
for certain jobs. You bet! When you put tens of thousands of dollars
into a college education, you need to get some return on value. Geez.
I hear what you say about me sounding rasict but I am not. I have
many friends from India, Russia, Bulgaria. I think I mentioned that
before but, of course, that gets forgotten--but the racist card is
played real fast.
You keep saying that the bottom has never fallen out of this society.
Does that mean it NEVER will? Does that mean we don't need to fight
for what we have?
I say these outsourcing people ARE stealing our jobs. Listen, they
can never, EVER perform the job without raping us--we need to teach
them. Then they do, in the cases I see, a horrible job. These
so-called experts are about as well-versed as a kid out of high
school. Sorry. I know some of them are good--I work with them. They
took a chance, moved over here, worked from the bottom up, and (like
you) chose to stay here. Buy a house. Send the kids to school. Put
back into this country.
I have a HUGE problem with us teaching these people. Oh, I forgot:
that is fair. Right. Why don't the corporate CEOs ask the employees
if they would accept an across the board paycut in order to save as
many jobs as they can? Why do these jobs need to go to H1Bs they ship
into this country?
I have to agree: you are a very smart fellow. And everything you say
is true--from a book sense.
I think this countey is going to hell in a hand basket and all this
global-schmobal crap is speeding things up.
I think we will have the best educated burger flippers in the world
here pretty soon.
And so you know: I do not live in an extravagent house. I drive cheap
little cars. I do what I can to live within my means. Actually, a
lot of what you are seeing in this country is a facade. I believe
most of us live WAY above our means.
Geesh, this thing has gone way off-topic. Let's just say if (and
when) they come to me at my place of employment and tell me to teach
"Sunil" my job, I will tell "Sunil" and the person who told me to kiss
my ass.
> <SNIP>
>
> > Where is our free time? My father had a LOT more free time 30 years
> > ago when I was a 13-year-old kid. I put in a lot more hours now.
>
> You have *got* to be kidding, right? From Jamestown through about
> the middle of the 19th Century, the dominant occupation in this
> country was in agribusiness. I promise you, that those old farmers
> (and the new ones) put in a whole lot more hours on average than
> you (or I) ever will. Moreover, the average amount of "free time"
> across this nation - this means hours available to you after you
> have worked enough to take care of yourself - has gone *UP* consistently
> over the past century. This is primarily due to higher and higher levels
> of invention and technology in our lives. The reason there are so
> many (bad) cable TV stations today, for instance, is that there is
> so much more demand by consumers to be entertained - THEY HAVE MORE
> TIME TO FILL.
>
> The fact that you have less free time than your father is anecdotal
> and irrelevant to the larger disussion here. It could be that you're
> more ambitious than he was. It could be that your not as competent
> and have to work harder than he did to keep up. It could be that your
> profession necessarily requires more hours than his did. But none
> of this speaks to what is going on in the larger society. Do some Google
> research. Modern American citizens, on average, have more free time
> than ever. Yet another benefit of market economies.
>
>
I am *NOT* kidding. My father was a self-taught engineer who has oer
50 patents in the US Patent Office, many of which are still in use
today in blast furnaces and coke overns around the world.
Yet he had time to maintain a 20-acre farm at the same time.
And there were many farmers around us who had loads of time. Each of
them helped each other. If one guy put the plow on the tractor, he
plowed everybody's place. When somebody saw the plowing, he hitched
up the discs and started to disc the fields. Another guy hitched up
the harrow and started doing his thing. And so on and so forth.
And there were *many* acres that were readied for seeding but they did
it all in less time than it took my father to go into town, work his
day, and get home again. Yes, I believe tehre was more free time.
Thing is I lived it. You say you came from the working calss poor and
'made' it. Congratulations. That is what this country is all about.
Always has and always should be. Actually, I was in the 'way' lower
middle class griwing up and the reason was because my father wasn't
able to go to school and get a degree. And he was paid as such. He
couldn't afford to send me of my siblings to school. I went and paid
for it on my own. It did take me until I was 27 to graduate but I
did--with no school loans and I took no grants myself.
Maybe I am using one experience of outourcing but I feel that one
experience is probably a very common one. When the ERP ssytem was
outsourced, the question was asked: "Why?" And the answer was
"Because they cost too much." Now, answer me this: why is it good
business practice to send the life-blood (in IT terms) of your company
to an outsided just because it costs less? Why outsource it BEFORE
you give the employees a choice like "You can either take a n% paycut
across the board or we will outsource because we are saving n% if we
outsource."??
What good does it do a country when its citizens who were making
$50,000 a year all of a sudden make $15,000 a year because they are
forced to work at Home Depot as a part-time cashier when the job they
used to have went to somebody who lives in another country (or will
soon go back to another country)? What happens to the tax dollars
that are generated because of the income? When you add the two
incomes together, the sum is less than it started out.
The Indian outsourcing companies ARE raping us, I am sorry. You are
wrong, wrong, wrong. They are still saying that there is a shortage
of IT people in the US and the H1-B and L-1 visas are still needed in
the worse way. All this at a time when the IT sector has seen its
highest unemployment figures ever.
The bottom line is that it costs a lot to live in this country. You
cannot get around that, no matter what you say or do. You *can* live
in China VERY WELL for $5,000 US a year--you simply CANNOT live here
for that kind of money. You cannot no matter what anybody says.
And with the screwy tax laws in this country, the richest segment gets
crushed with taxes and is supporting the poor which is also wrong.
I think the H1-B/L-1 abuse is as bad (or worse) than the illegal alien
problem. They BOTH need to be stopped. At least the illegal aliens
do grunt work at a very low price (many times at too low of a price
even for them) but the H1-Bs and the L-1s are tkaing viable jobs away
from people who had them and the people who HAD them are forced to go
out and, many times, get a job that it worth half or less of what they
were making.
I have to agree, however, with what others have said about us becoming
a geedy, selfish, arrogant society. That greed is what will do us in.
I also agree with what you said a long time ago about the kids in our
country being spoiled little brats who get everything. Yep, I agree.
My wife and I are trying like crazy not* to give our kids everything
their little hearts desire. It is rough at times but other times, we
feel we are winning thebattle because they rarely ask for much. I
know this sort of thing is not normal in our society.
I snipped the end of your message but I think you told me to put
everything I own on the block and start a company on my own and pay
thru the nose and give full benefits and all the bells and whistles.
I think you miss the point I am trying to make. I am not complaining
about teh bells and whistles-- I do not think we have any sort of
'rights' to those. I am not complaining about not getting full
benefits. Benefits are just that: benefits. They are not part of a
person's pay nor should it be looked at as such. It should be looked
at as a benefit and we should be happy as heck we get any benefits.
And I am not even saying that we (in IT anyway) are *not* being paid
too much. We made our killing int he 90's because, mostly, of the
Year 2000 Non-Scare. That did two things: artifically boosted the
'need' for IT people and created a market for the outsourcing firms
from other countries because of the dearth of IT people in this
country.
Now that we are beyond that, the 'need' for IT people has declined
and, thus, their salaries should decline, too. Shame on anybody that
got so used to their inflated IT salary and lived on the edge.
Reality has come back and bit them in the behind.
What I am fired up about is that we, who are already performomig the
job and are apying taxes here and are buying things here and keeping
others employed here, etc, are not even given the option of performing
the same job for less money. We just get tossed out the door AFTER we
are forced to perform the final, ultimate humiliation of teaching our
foreign replacement our job.
It is a hard, hard thing to NOT become bitter as you explain your job
function to a person who can barely understand your language while
looking at a picture of your wife and kids knowing that you are
betrying them because you are making it possible for the replacement
to perform you job and get paid more than you will be making at Home
Depot.
It's easy for a person or a comapny to tell somebody else they have to
do that. All it takes is a few minutes and, although it may be hard,
it is over. There is little or no humiliation involved, at least
nowhere NEAR the amount that is placed upon the person who actually
has to do it and then try to go on with their lives. It's almost
like when a doctor says a shot won't hurt. Well, it never hurts when
you are on the right side of a needle!
I simply do not understand how people who were making $50-60-70,000+
with benefits and are forced to working 3 part-time jobs all of which
add up to $35,000 with no benefits will have anywhere near the buying
power they once did. I don't see how it benefits an individual or a
society.
I do not believe in Marxism or anything near it. I also do not
believe in government run everything because government does mes
everything up.
I do, however, believe in what Henry Ford thought. He realized a well
paid and happy workforce would ultimately help him and his company
because they could afford to purchase the product they were producing.
There is a happy medium that can and should be hit.
Sorry. When the Indian who came in to replace me was 'interviewing'
me, I felt like I was getting raped. I am sorry if you do not like
the use of that word in this context but that was exactly how I felt.
Tim,
I have to admt I feel like a heel a bit arguing this subject with you.
I really feel we are at separate ends of the spectrum and we really
need to meet somewhere in the middle.
I understand what you are saying, in general, but the facts and
figures you write about happen to be living, breathing human beings.
And, at least in the IT industry, they are being used and abused
terribly all in the name of globalization. Sure, this practice may
help the bottom line but what price do you put on human beings?
I have included two recent articles about the subject. One, for sure,
is simply a beat writer for a newspaper and may not have any
credentials--I have no idea if he does or doesn't. The other is
biggie in the computer trade press (you can see his bio at
http://www.pcmag.com/author_bio/0,1772,a=123,00.asp).
Since I use Google to access this newsgroup, I see the baove did not
come through as a link. Darn. I could publish it here if anybody
wants me to.
With the above in mind, here are the links to the two articles:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/8566322.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp&1c
(Watch the word wrap!)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1579337,00.asp
I am sorry if I seem bitter because, well, I am. I feel as though I
gave my livilihood away. Nay, I feel as though it was ripped away
from me by people who can not code nearly as well as I can.
Tim,
First, please let me say that this has been a very good discussion and
you have been very gentleman-like; a real pleasure--UNLIKE all those
13-year-olds who are getting all in a huff because somebody said
something that irked somebody and a schollyard fight erupts. You guys
know who you are so just quit it, alright? Let this newgroup at least
contain discussions that make you think and learn--not go back 20-30
years to fifth grade. Geesh!
I have been on the lamb since Tuesday with some sort of strange virus
that won't let my body temperature go below 102-dgrees and has been up
to 104.1--for three days now. As a result, I haven't felt much like
logging on or do anything except lay around. But I *have* been
thinking and I would like to address a couple things that you have
said and provide a counterpoint.
Please keep in mind, with 102.3 temperature, I don't know how well I
am going to address things let alone spelling!
You said I sounded racist since I claimed that I felt as though the
Indian outsourcing companies are stealing the jobs of Americans. I
still stand by that statment. The business plan of the WinPro's and
the Tata's and others (I don't care if they are from India, China,
Russia, Ireland, etc.) is VERY SIMPLY put: present a package to a
company to have their people do the EXACT same work as the American
workers (and, worse, make sure the American worker trains his
replacement). That's it. I say that is stealing (albeit 'legal').
Let's take the American IT worker for exmaple (there are scores of
different types of jobs being outsourced but I am in IT and can speak
better for that industry). First: Is it their fault their wages are
so high? Who paid them? The companies! Now the companies say they
are being paid too much. Why not give the Americans the option to
take a paycut? Why not ask the entire IT department to take a cut to
save x-number of jobs?
Secondly, how in the world CAN an American compete with the wages of
somebody living in India? Can you raise a family on $6,000 a year?
They do VERY well on that in India--better in China!
Sure, one way to combat that is to try and be a nomad and move here
and there and everywhere chasing a job that never sits still.
Wonderful.
Anoither reason I feel they are stealin our jobs is because the Indian
lobbyist groups keep pumping money in Congress trying to ensure that
they keep the H1-B and L-1 Visas very high claiming that there is a
severe shortage of IT people. You said you have been gainfully
unemployed for what? Three years? Right now, would you be willing to
take a job for $32,000 a year? I sure as heck would!
It costs a lot to live in this country. We can't help that. But I
will say that is is nice to know that there is clean drinking water
and there are laws to keep us from getting swindled very often. I
know that there has been a lot of things like Enroin and WorldCom and
Martha Stewart but, for the most part, we do a HECK of a job policing
ourselves in this country.
I can't really put into words what I am thinking (probably because I
am half delerious!) but I think somebody else touched on it a long
time ago: There is starting to be a very, very limited number of jobs
that can be done in this country and stay in this country if
everything stays the way it is currently. We will always have the
people who simply CANNOT be educated enough in the jobs that are
staying and the jobs that they can do will go to somebody in China
because it is cheaper to live in China.
I think it is high time that we all quit preaching what has happened
historically. I think it is time to stop living out of textbooks. I
htink it is time we looked a problem square in its face and did
something about it.
Okay, maybe outsourcing is here is stay but make it right, by garsh!
Stop the influx of foreigners coming into this country and give the
jobs to the Americans at, yes, the wages they will be paying the
H1-B's. Oh, I forgot, the US companies are supposed to be paying the
'going rate' for an H1-B person as an American would be because the
H1-B guy got the job because there is such a massive shortage.
You say it will correct itself. Maybe. If so, goody. That 'may'
help some people in a generation or two--but I doubt if it will do
much for the thousands and millions of Americans who are suffering
because of this stupidity now.
I say: gone are the days of sustained 10%+ growth a year every year.
To use what you have said: history says as much. There will be
ups-and-downs.
For example, in my comapny, the year they did the outsourcing for
monetary reasons, they had the BIGGEST year in their 100-year-old
history but, since it was not at the coveted 10%, they lay people off.
Isn't there reason to believe that the people they laid off just may
be one of the reasons they hit such lofty numbers? And, from what I
see, the 'programmers' they replaced the people with couldn't cover a
patch on the butt of even the worse one.
Okay, let's talk correction: at least four people have moved their
families and have taken jobs in other cities at WAY less salaries. In
each case, it was a very hard thing to do as each of them had at least
one kid (well, one had none--I was mistaken). They should move back
again in a couple years to take their jobs back because the company
finally figured the Indians aren't working? That is stupid. They
would be doing the same hting all over again and ripping their kids
lives apart even more.
And no matter what anybody says, it *is* hard on kids when they move,
especially teenagers.
I am getting woefully off the off-topic (can one do that?!).
In any case, I do not believe it is a good thing to make your standard
of living go down so another society can climb up the ladder. I do
not believe I should be required to willfully hand over the job that I
have performed very well (according to all my reviews) to somebody
else juse because they live in another part of the world where it
costs less to live. I still live here. I can't live on $5,000 a year
and work 14-hour-days. (Oh, yeah, there is a person who I know who
used to work for Tata in India and he told me that he was picked up by
the comapny bus at something like 5:00 in the morning and, after a two
hour ride, he worked until the bus came back--around 8:00 at
night--and rode for two more hours home. Sounds a lot like slave
labor to me.)
We can go 'round and 'round but sooner or later we will all be forced
to answer the question: Is there a point in all of this that we look
at the human aspect? Is there a point where 'the system' is treating
humans as a commodity in a way that is no better that the way people
were treated in the old USSR? Really, think about it. The way
workers keep getting hosed all in the name of more and more profits.
The greed is getting so far out of hand that I feel I am working for
Carnegie Steel and the Pinkertons are ready to whack me at any time.
*rant off*
Sorry, told you I was a little delerious!!!!
Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
> > We can go 'round and 'round but sooner or later we will all be forced
> > to answer the question: Is there a point in all of this that we look
> > at the human aspect? Is there a point where 'the system' is treating
> > humans as a commodity in a way that is no better that the way people
> > were treated in the old USSR? Really, think about it. The way
> > workers keep getting hosed all in the name of more and more profits.
> > The greed is getting so far out of hand that I feel I am working for
> > Carnegie Steel and the Pinkertons are ready to whack me at any time.
> >
> Funny, you don't sound delerious to me :-).
Yes, yes I was...now that I just read what I posted. Geesh. Who
would've thunk that you would be out of your gourd with at least a
102-degree temperature for almost four days.
When you mix emotion and fever together, you can certainly say some
stupid things.
I hope I didn't offend anybody with my last post.
ray
Larry Blanchard wrote:
<SNIP>
>
>>The executives because their variable compensation increases
>>as the company does better. AND ... all their customers because
>>the goods/services of that company are either better or cheaper.
>>
>
>
> That's assuming they have jobs so they can buy those
> goods/services. What if they're not "remaining employees"?
This has NEVER happened on any scale in this country. While
indivdual people have financial difficulties, the aggregate
of the nation has been a fairly consistent level of employment,
notwithstanding economic strains and layoffs.
>
>
>
>>You CANNOT legislate against this. Goverment cannot stop it. All they
>>can do is slow it down. Economic reality always catches up with
>>legislative silliness. Competition is global and money flows where
>>it is most efficiently used
>>
>
> You say "competition is global" as if that were a given. It
> doesn't have to be. We can bar the doors and only participate
> in global trade for those things we can't produce (imports) and
> things other countries can't produce (exports).
>
> That may or may not be a good way to go, but it IS possible.
Not unless you want to destroy the entire US economy. If we lock
the trade doors into the country, then foreign competitors will trade
with each other at a noticeable advantage to our cost stucture.
Moreover, global trade IS a given. We cannot possibly maintain our
current standard of living (never mind grow it) without imports.
Our energy needs alone mandate this.
Failing to participate openly in a global market would essential
destory generations of US economic growth, so, no, its not an option.
>
>
>>Now, how many people would you think build computer components in the US
>>in such a situation? Let's be generous and say that because of the ban
>>on outsourcing, 10 Million jobs were "created" here in the US. That
>>means the other 290 Million of us who want to buy and use PCs have to
>>pay more to protect them. It just won't work.
>
>
> Great. Now what level of unemployment/underemployment do you
> find acceptable? 10%? 25%? 75%? Everybody but you? There is a
> point where we're no longer a market that anyone cares about,
> just another bunch of starving peasants.
Absent some huge singularity like war on our soil, a nuclear holocaust,
or a totalitarian regime' in power, you will never get this level
of unemployment, at least not for very long. Market, left to their
own devices, correct *as* *they* *go*. The individual corrections
can be painful, but they are bearable. Contrast this with what happens
when government meddles in economic matters. The markets still correct,
they just do it *all at once* which is usually NOT bearable.
Take the Depression for example. The markets were correcting for way too
much outstanding leverage (loans) in the financial markets. There is
considerable evidence that this would have been over sooner had that
raging socialist FDR stayed out of the discussion. Instead, he moved
the country into becoming a welfare-state, slowed down the recovery
that was already underway, and forever doomed us to a more inefficient
economy than we could have.
Large scale unemployment and economic ruin are the hallmarks of economies
managed by fraud and/or force, almost always at the hands of government.
Prosperity and growth are the hallmarks of private sector voluntary
cooperation with a strong profit motive.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
says...
> Outsourcing is a tough one for me. On one hand I hate to see any jobs leave this
> country, on the other hand consumers will always have a tendency to buy the least
> expensive when comparison shopping. We have to be competative.
>
Just for the sake of argument, why? Internal competition is
great, but why do we have to compete with some country where the
standard of living is 10% of ours?
Obviously it's good for that country, and for the corporate
profits of the outsourcer, but I can't see where it's good for
most of our citizens. And they are who our government is
supposed to be for.
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
>
> Say a company makes the right choice to outsource - that is, they
> improve their profits _sustainably_ by doing so. Who benefits?
> The stockholders because their stock is worth more. The remaining
> employees because their jobs are more secure in a healthier company.
Note the phrase "remaining employees" :-).
> The executives because their variable compensation increases
> as the company does better. AND ... all their customers because
> the goods/services of that company are either better or cheaper.
>
That's assuming they have jobs so they can buy those
goods/services. What if they're not "remaining employees"?
> You CANNOT legislate against this. Goverment cannot stop it. All they
> can do is slow it down. Economic reality always catches up with
> legislative silliness. Competition is global and money flows where
> it is most efficiently used
>
You say "competition is global" as if that were a given. It
doesn't have to be. We can bar the doors and only participate
in global trade for those things we can't produce (imports) and
things other countries can't produce (exports).
That may or may not be a good way to go, but it IS possible.
>
> Now, how many people would you think build computer components in the US
> in such a situation? Let's be generous and say that because of the ban
> on outsourcing, 10 Million jobs were "created" here in the US. That
> means the other 290 Million of us who want to buy and use PCs have to
> pay more to protect them. It just won't work.
Great. Now what level of unemployment/underemployment do you
find acceptable? 10%? 25%? 75%? Everybody but you? There is a
point where we're no longer a market that anyone cares about,
just another bunch of starving peasants.
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> I cannot begin to correct the many implict wrong assumptions in these
> statements. Capitalism is the only system by which everyone can win.
>
OK Tim, you're a staunch defender of pure capitalism. Let's
look at another example.
I'm old enough to remember when someone with below median
intelligence (and that's half of us by definition) could get a
job that supported his family at a reasonable level. Lots of
blue-collar families with one wage earner bought their own
house, owned two cars, etc. etc..
There are still a few of those jobs around. But in most cases,
those jobs have been killed by automation and cheap imports.
Now many couples both work, sometimes at multiple jobs, and
still live at a subsistence level. What used to be referred to
as the "lower middle class" is rapidly joining the poor. While
the gap between workers and executives continues to grow.
Do you have a solution for this other than "Let them eat cake"?
And don't say education, remember I'm talking about the "strong
back and a weak mind" part of our citizenry.
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
says...
> Larry,
> "Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?" in Syria and in the hands of al-Qaida, heck they just
> tried to knock off 80,000 Jordianians with some of it. al-Qaida had it, it was traced
> through Syria. It's all over the web news has been for weeks, some minor TV. Jordan
> is lucky. Where will the try next? Any country that has freedom.
>
> I wish people would just start looking at facts.
That's funny. I read a daily newspaper and watch TV news from
three different sources. You get your news from the web??????
Pardon me while I try to control my laughter.
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
In article <EOpkc.10280$iy5.3717@okepread05>,
[email protected] says...
> I do not want to stereotype Indian, Pakistani's or whoever is involved in
> Outsourcing. However, they do project themselves as god's gift to computers.
> Don't get me wrong, there are thousands of brilliant Indians I have worked
> with over the past 10 years or so. But I have also run into some overbilled
> consultants who don't know how to code their way out of paper bag or tune a
> database to save their life.
>
I was a computer consultant for many years and some of stuff my
fellow consultants passed off as work and got very well paid for
made me shudder. I suspect the percentage of bullshit artists
is about the same across all human groupings - except
televangelists where it's 100% :-).
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
Larry Blanchard writes:
>I suspect the percentage of bullshit artists
>is about the same across all human groupings - except
>televangelists where it's 100% :-).
>
Ding! Wrong. The percentage of bullshit artists with TV preachers is 175. ALl
of them and all of 'em planning to rake in big scores that way--which they
will, after which they can whine and sob and drip tears about how sorry they
are they screwed all their parishioners out of money while screwing some
showgirl in Vegas or elsewhere.
It's a rough life, but someone has to do it.
Charlie Self
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon Bonaparte
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> > That's assuming they have jobs so they can buy those
> > goods/services. What if they're not "remaining employees"?
>
> This has NEVER happened on any scale in this country. While
> indivdual people have financial difficulties, the aggregate
> of the nation has been a fairly consistent level of employment,
> notwithstanding economic strains and layoffs.
>
That "consistent level" is maintained by laid-off factory
workers becoming burger flippers. Who was it in the Bush
administration that tried to get those fast food jobs redefined
as manufacturing jobs? 'Nuff said.
But that won't convince you to lay aside your theoretical
economics for the real world, so I've made my last responses on
the subject. At least to you.
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> I have several responses to this:
>
> 1) Any nation has a responsibility to protect its borders and the citizens
> within them. It it precisely because the US Government is so busy
> doing what it should NOT (meddling with the internal social order
> and lives of its citizens) that it does not do what it SHOULD
> (controlling the borders and illegal immigration).
>
Just when I'd given up on you, you go and write something that
is, for the most part, quite sensible. Or, IOW, something I
agree with :-).
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Larry-There has been some very outstanding answers to your questions
> both of "Where are those WMDs?" and economic reality. You haven't
> been listening. You seem to represent very well that "srtrong back and
> weak mind" part of our citizenry.
Now THAT's funny! Last time I was tested, I had an IQ of over
165 - and 67 years of experience to go with it.
Perhaps you should investigate some sources other than Rush and
Fox Spews :-).
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
On Mon, 03 May 2004 08:57:50 -0400, Renata wrote:
> And, I do believe I read that gas today is at a historical high, even
> inflation adjusted an' all.
Not true:
<http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Gasoline_Inflation.asp>
-Doug
--
"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always
depend on the support of Paul." - George Bernard Shaw
Charlie:
I couldn't begin to tell how scary outsourcing is. I have seen hundreds of
people with Oracle, Java, BEA, experience lose their jobs. Because of the
position I'm in I travel to all of the big companies and work with CIO,
Directors and EVERY company is outsourcing or is looking at it. Lou Dobbs
is a hero to me because he is standing up to this cancer. It is not just IT
jobs. It is friggin scary because they are good paying jobs.
Some positive news:
http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=1234156233
Rich
"Charlie Self" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Good news for those whose high tech and software jobs have been
> outsourced--though it may yet be a bit of time before things swing the
other
> way: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/technology/28SOUR.html?th
>
> With my own experience with Dell's outsourced phone help, it isn't just
the
> productivity that is a problem. The depth of knowledge is not there, as
the guy
> states. The clown I got finally wanted me to format my hard drive to cure
a
> problem with a worn out CDRW.
>
> When I went back to email help, I had a guy here in 3 days, he replaced
the
> CDRW in about 4 minutes and all is well.
>
> Charlie Self
> "Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first
outbreak
> being often but an explosion of anger." Thucydides
"kenR" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> In order to be totally off topic, does anyone know where one can find a
> fairly short description of what the heck CMM and it's levels involve.
> My bosses boss, just announced in a meeting last week that he wans us to
> obtain CMM level 4 certification by the end of next year. Nobody said
> anything at the time because frankly, nobody knew if he was serious.
Ahh - anuth'a idiot boss. Has he been there long? If he just showed up, he
might be the one we just let go... :)
The only way to make it to Level 4 is by going through Level 3. If you're a
3 shop, then you've got a shot at hitting 4 by EOY 2005. Had an "official"
assessment yet?
Plenty of big shops can help you through it - CSC for one [ not an
endorsement by any means ].
You can always *buy* a Level 4 rating, if you desire.
Might be the path of least resistance.
On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 18:14:30 +0000, Bruce wrote:
[snip]
> You have to admit one thing if you have any intellectual honesty.
> Globalization is not good for America as whole. The countries that stand
> to gain are the ones that do the outsourcing. As they're standard of
> living rises, ours HAS to lower. There is no other way because it is a
> zero sum game. This is not a win-win situation.
I don't have to admit that wealth is a zero sum game! Are you trying to
say that there will be no more wealth in the world in the future and that
the current total wealth in the world today has always been the same in
the past? This is the traditional argument used to justify punishing
those nasty rich people. Wealth is not a constant and a win is possible
for anyone willing to take a risk and work at what they believe in - and
not necessarily at the expense of someone else unless that some else
can't/won't adapt to the competition.
-Doug
--
"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always
depend on the support of Paul." - George Bernard Shaw
[email protected] (Ray Kinzler) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>
> I have to disagree with you. Maybe the feaures were part of the
> original design but one has to look at the return on investment of the
> feature. Is there maybe another way to perform the same function?
> What is the value of the function? Is it a 'must have' or is it just
> one of those things what would either be nice or cool?
>
> I guess what I am saying is somehting like "Is it worth spending that
> much time on it?"
>
I agree, but I also think all of these questions should be addressed
seriously in the design/architecture phase before a single line of
code is written. Since the poster claimed that any other programmer
would have screamed "F*ck it! They don't need that feature anyway", it
is baffling how this feature made it into the design, possibly made it
through several design reviews, and was assigned to a programmer by a
manager. If the feature was so obviously useless, why did anyone ever
work on it at all?
> Also, if this feature was so darn difficult, why didn't the
> programmers say something? Why did they sit there and spin their
> wheels for two months?
>
It is not clear from Jay's post that the programmer didn't say
anything. Remember, Jay's post cited a case with an in house
programmer. This guy sat in the next cubicle and wasted two months.
None of my programmers could waste a week without me knowing about it,
and I would expect to be given most of the blame if it went on for
months.
> We outsourced our ERP system to an Indian firm and I must agree that
> they leave a lot to be desired. We work with a languge called NATURAL
> on the mainframe. One of the Indians, who we were told was a CMM
> Level 5 programmer who was experienced in NATURAL (ha!!! What a
> lie!!!), was told to add a field on a screen (which is called a MAP).
> This field was on a database file and was already defined in the
> program. All he needed to do was find a place for it on the MAP,
> include a label on the MAP. Then, to make everything work, just
> compile the program using the new MAP and the field will instantly
> appear--no 'programming' involved.
>
> It took this guy 2 freaking weeks--working weekends, too!--to get it
> to work. He called us DBAs and told us the database file was screwed
> up. Then he said it was hsi user id. Then he said there was
> somehting wrong in the environment.
>
> These guys follow a script and cannot deviate from it. They are like
> little robots--little confused robots. If those two guys in the
> original post were told this feature was needed, they just worked to
> make it happen come hell or high water. They do not seem to have much
> common sense and they certainly cannot think for themselves.
>
> Sorry. It may seem cruel but it is the truth. Actually, it may be
> the management of these comapnies that force this to happen. Seems to
> me they can milk the clients much better if it they force their people
> to work on a useless feature for two months.
Sorry to hear it. Believe me, I understand that you have to fire
people if they can't do the things you need them to do in a timely
fashion. However, as I indicated, Jay's description sounds like a
bigger problem than a programmer who couldn't do the work.
Neil
On Mon, 03 May 2004 15:34:01 GMT, "mttt" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
>"Ray Kinzler" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>>
>>
>> Who owns most od the stock? I say it is the CEO and his henchmen who
>> own the lion's share.
>>
>
>Wrong, wrong, wrong. How '30's.
>
>Insitutional investors and lil' Blue Haired Ladies from the Midwest are the
>correct answer.
>
And for bonus points, who are the institutional investors?
Answer: All of us who own mutual funds and/or some sort of retirement
plan with investment options other than fixed income. <G>
Barry
On 30 Apr 2004 17:20:07 EDT, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]>
wrote:
[snip]
|
|Large scale unemployment and economic ruin are the hallmarks of economies
|managed by fraud and/or force, almost always at the hands of government.
|Prosperity and growth are the hallmarks of private sector voluntary
|cooperation with a strong profit motive.
Tim, I have read your stuff with interest. You are clearly a smart
guy and for the most part I agree, if only in principle, with almost
all you have written.
But since you bring up fraud and government (redundant?), I would like
your take on the massive economic fraud being perpetrated on the US
worker by the tidal wave of illegal aliens, most specifically those
from Latin America.
I happen to live in Tucson, which has the dubious distinction of now
being the most crime-ridden city in the union, thanks in large part to
the presence of wetbacks--err--illegal aliens, undocumented migrant
workers, illegal entrants, border crossers or whatever term du jour
they are called today.
Our national parks and wilderness areas are being ruined by wetbacks,
our hospital trauma centers are closing because of the costs of
treating wetbacks injured in car crashes while fleeing from the Border
Patrol and we are at risk while driving down an interstate highway
because wetback smugglers are now having running gun battles on the
highway. (Four killed on I-10 a month or so ago) BTW, it is published
Border Patrol policy to *not* arrest these people until *after* they
have received their medical care. Thus the local taxpayers and legal
patients are responsible for the costs, rather that the federal
government. Free market in action, eh?
The Hispanic apologists and "activists" (how do you get to be an
activist? Where do I apply?) say that the wetbacks are taking only
those jobs that citizens will not take. Of course, that is completely
wrong---they are taking jobs that citizens will not take at the
depressed wage brought about by the illegal activity. We also hear
that the wetbacks contribute more in taxes than they receive in
benefits, which is also absurd, since much of their labor is paid for
in cash and is definitely "off the books."
We have articles in our newspapers wherein building contractors admit
to breaking the law by hiring wetbacks because, "Otherwise, we
couldn't be competitive and the price of housing would go up." Sounds
good huh, until you think about it. If none of the contractors used
illegal labor, they would all be on the same level playing field. And
so what it the initial price of the house goes up. The buyer only
pays for the house once; he gets to pay the increased property taxes
need to provide the medical care, education, and other welfare
benefits for the wetbacks and their kids forever.
This "in sourcing" is going to be the ruination of our economy and way
of life long before outsourcing does. And this is the fault of a
corrupt government that turns a blind eye to enforcement of the law in
a flagrant pandering for "Hispanic votes."
Wes
Larry Blanchard wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>
>>>That's assuming they have jobs so they can buy those
>>>goods/services. What if they're not "remaining employees"?
>>
>>This has NEVER happened on any scale in this country. While
>>indivdual people have financial difficulties, the aggregate
>>of the nation has been a fairly consistent level of employment,
>>notwithstanding economic strains and layoffs.
>>
>
> That "consistent level" is maintained by laid-off factory
> workers becoming burger flippers. Who was it in the Bush
> administration that tried to get those fast food jobs redefined
> as manufacturing jobs? 'Nuff said.
>
> But that won't convince you to lay aside your theoretical
> economics for the real world, so I've made my last responses on
> the subject. At least to you.
>
Really? Are you sure about this? I think you'd better go back
and look at the per-capita personal income figures and how they
have grown even in just the last 50 years (never mind the last 250).
If laid-off factory workers are becoming burger flippers in such
large numbers, then why does the average income of American family
keep *rising*? Why is the percentage of Americans who are poor
keep *declining*? You are the one grinding the theoretical axe here.
The data of the past couple generations well supports my contention
that free markets make the "average" family's wealth go up - not down.
The fact that there are always some people at the bottom of the economic
ladder who really struggle does not change the Big Picture...
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Tim Daneliuk responds:
>
>Really? Are you sure about this? I think you'd better go back
>and look at the per-capita personal income figures and how they
>have grown even in just the last 50 years (never mind the last 250).
>If laid-off factory workers are becoming burger flippers in such
>large numbers, then why does the average income of American family
>keep *rising*?
Has it risen in the 5 years he was writing about? 1980 is not much help to the
guy who got laid off this week.
Charlie Self
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon Bonaparte
On Sat, 01 May 2004 17:30:07 -0400, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
> I don't know. But the debate here is about larger economic policy.
> Looking at some short period of time is never particularly instructive.
> Making policy based on last week's individual circumstances would be
> insane. My point is merely that free markets, in the Big Picture, have
> been good for us all, notwithstanding the momentary problems of particular
> individuals.
Per capita income & disposable income keep rising:
<http://www.bea.gov/bea/dn/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=58&FirstYear=2002&LastYear=2004&Freq=Qtr>
Also, there's 1.5 million more people employed now than 3.5 years ago.
--
"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always
depend on the support of Paul." - George Bernard Shaw
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Also, there's 1.5 million more people employed now than 3.5 years ago.
>
And how much has the population (legal and illegal) risen in
that time span?
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
Charlie Self wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk responds:
>
>
>>Really? Are you sure about this? I think you'd better go back
>>and look at the per-capita personal income figures and how they
>>have grown even in just the last 50 years (never mind the last 250).
>>If laid-off factory workers are becoming burger flippers in such
>>large numbers, then why does the average income of American family
>>keep *rising*?
>
>
> Has it risen in the 5 years he was writing about? 1980 is not much help to the
> guy who got laid off this week.
>
I don't know. But the debate here is about larger economic policy.
Looking at some short period of time is never particularly instructive.
Making policy based on last week's individual circumstances would be
insane. My point is merely that free markets, in the Big Picture,
have been good for us all, notwithstanding the momentary problems
of particular individuals.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
On Sat, 01 May 2004 06:13:02 GMT, Paul Kierstead
<[email protected]> wrote:
|In article <[email protected]>,
| Wes Stewart <n7ws@_arrl.net> wrote:
|
|> Our national parks and wilderness areas are being ruined by wetbacks,
|> our hospital trauma centers are closing because of the costs of
|> treating wetbacks injured in car crashes while fleeing from the Border
|
|Can we have dizum guy back and have this guy given the boot instead?
So what part troubles you? The facts maybe? Or that I don't speak of
them as "border crossers," the title of the day in the local press.
Read the following story and you'll see that "wetback" is completely
accurate.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=4992697
"Ray Kinzler" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
> Who owns most od the stock? I say it is the CEO and his henchmen who
> own the lion's share.
>
Wrong, wrong, wrong. How '30's.
Insitutional investors and lil' Blue Haired Ladies from the Midwest are the
correct answer.
"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
> Say a company makes the right choice to outsource - that is, they
> improve their profits _sustainably_ by doing so. Who benefits?
> The stockholders because their stock is worth more. The remaining
> employees because their jobs are more secure in a healthier company.
> The executives because their variable compensation increases
> as the company does better. AND ... all their customers because
> the goods/services of that company are either better or cheaper.
I agree.
Funny thing is -- plenty of folks are stockholders and don't even know it.
Their pension plans are in equities. Heck, chances are their local
government and Church is in the market.
Changes my perspective on this. Makes me worry more about my obligations, as
an employee, to our shareholders. A lot of Blue-Haired Grandma's in the Corn
Belt are depending on me for their returns...
p_j wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>1) Any nation has a responsibility to protect its borders and the citizens
>> within them. It it precisely because the US Government is so busy
>> doing what it should NOT (meddling with the internal social order
>> and lives of its citizens) that it does not do what it SHOULD
>> (controlling the borders and illegal immigration).
>
>
> Security wise yes, but following your earlier arguments, allowing
> unlimited numbers of immigrants would be a win-win.
No. Allowing market forces to operate while maintaining border
security simultaneously would be a win-win.
>
>
>>2) Immigration, is GOOD for our nation. It provides cheap labor, in
>> most cases for work no other American actually wants to do.
>
>
> Sounds more like religion than economics. I personally doubt that the
Why? Because you said so? There is nothing religious about it.
Cheap labor drives economic growth. This is not to say it has no
other consquences. Clearly, it can. But it's not just some bit of
theology I invented.
> occupations are in most cases work than no other American actually wants
> to do.
>
> It is
>
>> literally true that parts of US agribusiness could not survive without
>> cheap Mexican labor.
>
>
> Could not survive? Wouldn't they adjust to the market? Sounds like gloom
> and doom.
Yes. That is better said. Certain agribusiness sectors could not
continue to exist in their current form. They might or might not
cease to exist entirely.
>
>> This internal competition is healthy for
>> the same reason that outsourcing is - it drives the economy to
>> be increasingly efficient.
>
>
> You constantly assume that outsourcing is purely market driven. Bad
> assumption.
Everything is (ultimately) market driven. The only exception - that
is, when the market does NOT operate - is when systemic fraud and/or
force are exercised to restrain market forces. Even then, the market
eventually catches up, it just is considerably delayed. But
fraudulent/forceful outsourcing was not really the scope of this
thread as I understood it. Rather, the discussion is whether or not
outsourcing, broadly defined, was good/bad and what consequences it
brought.
>
>
>> Yes, Mexican labor depresses
>> wages. But for what jobs? Manual labor, entry-level blue collar
>> jobs, and such are the usual targets because they require minimal
>> skills.
>
>
> Lots of immigrants involved in skilled labor.
Yes, my community bears witness to this, as does my own life.
But I was responding specifically to contentions about _illegal_
Mexican immigration, which is overwhelmingly a labor force at
the bottom of the food chain in most cases. Mexican doctors are
not sneaking across the Rio Grande to practice medicine, as best
I know.
>
>
>
>>4) The primary reason you see what you do in your part of the country
>> is because of all the Do Gooders in public life who think we owe
>> everyone else something, whether they've earned it or not. These
>> Do Gooders (they come from both the political Right and Left)
>> believe that the government should mandate minimum wages,
>
>
> Minimum wage is a massive non-issue. Its a good indicator that the
> criticism is religious rather than economic.
Absent reason, attack with labels, eh? You intentionally ignore the
context of the comment to try and trivialize it. Minimum wage is
obviously introduced here as _an example_ of legistative intrusion
by the people I call "Do Gooders", no more.
>
>
>>feed people,
>> educate them, care for their health, and generally be everyone's mommy.
>> They do this because they know that the bigger government gets, the
>> more everyone will depend upon them, and thus the more power they will
>> accrue for themselves.
>
>
> A long term plan for personal power?
No, an implict plan to increasingly collectivize society and its
sensibilities, thereby making the group more important than the individual.
This has a long and studied tradition form most of recorded human history,
regardless of the form of governance in use. People with power want to
maintain it, grow it, and increasingly command everyone else. I merely
cite what I did here to note that even in our free democracy, these
instincts exist.
>
>
>>Their lax attitudes on illegal immigrants stems
>> from the fact that they cynically want to prepare the way for the
>> next generation of advocates for Big Government.
>
>
> The plot thickens...
Brilliant riposte' ...
>
>
>>Illegal immigrants
>> have legal children in this country, and that's what the Professional
>> Government Mooching Enforcers are counting on for votes in 20 years.
>
>
> I thought it was the constitution.
It is, but I suggest here that for people who obtain access to our
system illegally, the law should be rewritten. The Constitution is
written, you'll recall, with the ability to be amended.
>
>
>> a) US law enforcement should have the unrestricted right to shoot
>> anyone who attempts to cross our borders when challenged for ID.
>
>
> What about the rule of law? You sound like the mommy government types
By all means. Note that I stipulated that "fair warning" be required.
> who want to "send a message." Doesn't sound like any classical liberal I
Why? Because you said so? I want to send no message. Do not presume
what you cannot possible fathom - my intentions. I want the borders
to be secure, much like I want the boundaries of my own property to
be secure. I am simply applying a similar precept.
> have ever read, including Adam Smith. Since you've annointed him as the
> "Father of Economics," perhaps you'll reveal why he is wrong (along with
> dopey guys like T. Jefferson.
Adams is widely credited with being the father or the modern discipline
of economics, though considerable meaningful work certainly followed him.
The Englightenment thinkers had all manner of warts. They were not
infallible. You may recall that Jefferson owned slaves, for example.
Citing them is not a blanked endorsement of every position they held.
They lived in times that did not have to consider illegal immigration
on anywhere near the scale we do. New times bring new issues and require
potentially new ideas.
>
>
>> This is the same thing as you having the right to shoot someone
>> invading your home. Reasonable warning should be required, but
>> after that, the presumption should be that they are illegal and
>> trying to sneak in. It would take only a few such incidents,
>> and illegal crossings would vastly diminish.
>
>
> They said that about locking up pot smokers... actually they say that
> about near every damn thing when they want to shoot or cage someone who
> is viewed as an evildoer or part of a "problem."
Argument by misdirection. A pot smoker breaks a law as an otherwise
legal member of society. Someone entering the country with the intention
of subverting immigration control can legitimately be considered
a "foreign invader". Big difference.
>
>> b) Anyone here illegally who has a child should have that
>> child's US citizenship denied and both should be expelled from
>> the country without any appeals process once their illegality is
>> definitely established.
>
>
> Everyone, everywhere in America who has been alive long enough is an
> illegal. Immigrants are the same.
What an immensely irrelevant, incorrect, and obtuse side-stepping
of the central point. Anyone old enough has likely broken some law
large or small at some point. So what? Your conclusion, it would
appear, is that this therefore means the rule of law is thus irrelevant
to those who try to sneak in.
>
> Besides, appeals are part of the process to determine more definitely
> that illegality exists.
>
>> c) NO immigrant, legal or otherwise, should ever be eligible for
>> any US social services. You should have to be a citizen to
>> participate in the system. I speak as an immigrant myself
>> here. I proudly became a citizen the moment I was able to do
>> so. Anyone who emmigrates here and then refuses to become a
>> citizen should go home and stay there.
>
>
> There you go. You just outed yourself. Virtually all of the people who
I did? What does that mean? You finally figured out what I was arguing
all along? I embarrassed myself? My fly is open?
> want to move here are prohibited from becoming citizens. Rather than
So what? Since when do we owe anyone who want to come here the
right to become a citizen. Insofar as immigration and naturalization
improve our country (and they do), this ought to be encouraged. To
the extent they do not, they ought to be prohibited. The boundaries
of what is good and what is not are certainly debatable, but there
is not inherent obligation on our part to even care about the issue
on behalf of those who would come here. We should care about it in
our own enlightened self-interest?
> deal with the issue, you foul the discussion with an attack that they
> "refuse" to become citizens.
>
> Are you really an immigrant or is that added for effect?
Yes, I really am an immigrant. No, I am not a liar, nor am I ever
as unpleasant personally in this medium as you appear to relish
being. This is a debate of ideas. But, absent a coherent
position of your own, you attack not my ideas, but my personal
veracity. Its an old lawyer's courtroom trick: When the facts
support your case, argue the facts. When they don't, attempt to
undermind the character and veracity of the witness. Its a cheap
shot.
>
>> d) No civil laws should protect illegal immigrants. Only criminal
>> laws (which deal with force and threat) should be brought
>> to bear on their behalf.
>
>
> Sounds like you don't know what civil laws are or their relationship to
> crime and criminal statutes or to the justice system as a whole.
One more time: I am proposing a _Change_ to our laws. I am reasonably
familiar with what is now the case and it is not working well.
(That is my _opinion_, BTW.)
>
>
>>An illegal immigrant should never
>> be able to sue a doctor for malpractice,
>
>
> Mmmmmm... good stuff, so someone like Bill Frist whose corporation
> operated on people when they didn't need it could use these people for
> medical experiments or perhaps just amusement and poor Jose's family
> would have no redress.
"Poor Jose's Family" didn't come here in a legal manner (for the sake
of example). They didn't *have* to do so. If they want the protection
of our laws, come here legally, and participate in the system as
a member of our political contract, not as a criminal.
>
> Not only is it completely impractical, but it would shove it up the ass
> of every citizen who travels overseas.
Really. What a brilliant insight. The US cracks down on illegal
foreign invaders and US citizens who *lawfully* visit other nations
would therefore be at greater risk thereby? I hadn't considered
that ramification. OK, you're right. We need to remove all restrictions
on foreigners entering the country so that other nations will be nicer
to us when we visit.
>
>
>>a hospital for not
>> granting service, and so on. They are **illegal** - they should
>> have absolutely minimal civil rights, as they would, say, under
>> the Geneva Convention for POWs.
>
>
> All right. Food, shelter, and medical treatment.
Right - *minmal* in each case to sustain life. No more. And you don't
get to sue the agency delivering them because you don't like the food,
want a bigger tent, or desire a face lift.
>
>
>> Their children are spoiled brats, badly
>> behaved, and obnoxiously indulged - i.e., They are like most other
>> American kids who grew up with everything handed to them and
>> therefore appreciate nothing.
>
>
> So immigrants and American parents generally are shitty parents. OK.
It was an attempt at irony and humor. Since this seems lost on you,
let me explain: I was noting that real assimilation is taking place.
The Mexican kids are very much the same as their other American
counterparts.
>
>
>>My family comes from a part of the world that witnessed what happens
>>when government is "in charge". God help us if we don't stop the slide
>>in that direction we are currently undertaking. From 1930-1932,
>>approximately 20 Million of my ethnic cousins were murdered by one man -
>>Stalin - because he was "doing what is good for the country."
>
>
> And you want to shoot immigrants for not providing their identity papers
> quickly and eliminate the rule of law. You sound a bit like an admirer
> of Stalin to me.
You could not possibly be more offensive than with that last bit.
You propose no new ideas of your own here. You write decontextualized
responses intended to trivialize what it said, but you have nothing
new to add. Worst of all, you attack personally (something I did not]
do). You, sir or madam, are an ass.
PLONK
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Tim Daneliuk tucks tongue in cheek and replies:
>> Not only is it completely impractical, but it would shove it up the ass
>> of every citizen who travels overseas.
>
>Really. What a brilliant insight. The US cracks down on illegal
>foreign invaders and US citizens who *lawfully* visit other nations
>would therefore be at greater risk thereby? I hadn't considered
>that ramification. OK, you're right. We need to remove all restrictions
>on foreigners entering the country so that other nations will be nicer
>to us when we visit.
Just bring money when traveling. IME, most people don't otherwise care about
our government policies.
Charlie Self
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." Disraeli as
quoted by Mark Twain
On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 15:05:41 -0400, "RKON"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>As soon as SWMBO completes her masters and her teachers certfication and
>begins working as a teacher I can quit my job and start my own business.
Maybe we CT tech guys should start a cabinet shop. <G>
Barry
Wes Stewart wrote:
> On 30 Apr 2004 17:20:07 EDT, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> [snip]
> |
> |Large scale unemployment and economic ruin are the hallmarks of economies
> |managed by fraud and/or force, almost always at the hands of government.
> |Prosperity and growth are the hallmarks of private sector voluntary
> |cooperation with a strong profit motive.
<SNIP>
> This "in sourcing" is going to be the ruination of our economy and way
> of life long before outsourcing does. And this is the fault of a
> corrupt government that turns a blind eye to enforcement of the law in
> a flagrant pandering for "Hispanic votes."
I have several responses to this:
1) Any nation has a responsibility to protect its borders and the citizens
within them. It it precisely because the US Government is so busy
doing what it should NOT (meddling with the internal social order
and lives of its citizens) that it does not do what it SHOULD
(controlling the borders and illegal immigration).
2) Immigration, is GOOD for our nation. It provides cheap labor, in
most cases for work no other American actually wants to do. It is
literally true that parts of US agribusiness could not survive without
cheap Mexican labor. This internal competition is healthy for
the same reason that outsourcing is - it drives the economy to
be increasingly efficient. Yes, Mexican labor depresses
wages. But for what jobs? Manual labor, entry-level blue collar
jobs, and such are the usual targets because they require minimal
skills. The fact that someone will come here and do them for
half the price of an American tells me that the American worker
expects too much for such work, not that the Mexicans are screwing
us.
3) That said, *illegal* immigration is a disaster. Without some checks
and balances to see who is coming and and making sure they leave
when they are supposed to, we have at the very least an enormous
national security problem. It is now reported that likely terrorists
are infiltrating the US via the very same SW borders because of our
stupid policies in this matter.
4) The primary reason you see what you do in your part of the country
is because of all the Do Gooders in public life who think we owe
everyone else something, whether they've earned it or not. These
Do Gooders (they come from both the political Right and Left)
believe that the government should mandate minimum wages, feed people,
educate them, care for their health, and generally be everyone's mommy.
They do this because they know that the bigger government gets, the
more everyone will depend upon them, and thus the more power they will
accrue for themselves. Their lax attitudes on illegal immigrants stems
from the fact that they cynically want to prepare the way for the
next generation of advocates for Big Government. Illegal immigrants
have legal children in this country, and that's what the Professional
Government Mooching Enforcers are counting on for votes in 20 years.
5) This is easy enough to fix, but the American people, as a group, are
too dimwitted and badly educated (by those fine public schools we
all pay for) to do what is needed here. Laws need to be changed
in the following manner:
a) US law enforcement should have the unrestricted right to shoot
anyone who attempts to cross our borders when challenged for ID.
This is the same thing as you having the right to shoot someone
invading your home. Reasonable warning should be required, but
after that, the presumption should be that they are illegal and
trying to sneak in. It would take only a few such incidents,
and illegal crossings would vastly diminish.
b) Anyone here illegally who has a child should have that
child's US citizenship denied and both should be expelled from
the country without any appeals process once their illegality is
definitely established.
c) NO immigrant, legal or otherwise, should ever be eligible for
any US social services. You should have to be a citizen to
participate in the system. I speak as an immigrant myself
here. I proudly became a citizen the moment I was able to do
so. Anyone who emmigrates here and then refuses to become a
citizen should go home and stay there.
d) No civil laws should protect illegal immigrants. Only criminal
laws (which deal with force and threat) should be brought
to bear on their behalf. An illegal immigrant should never
be able to sue a doctor for malpractice, a hospital for not
granting service, and so on. They are **illegal** - they should
have absolutely minimal civil rights, as they would, say, under
the Geneva Convention for POWs.
e) The money wasted on our truly stupid drug laws should instead
be retargeted at maintaining full and active border control.
$30B a year or so buys a lot of border patrols, USCG water and
air management and so on. It might even help the hardcore
unemployed. Create a well-trained civil defense corp that works
full- or part-time in the portions of the country where the border
is found.
6) I live in a town with a huge Mexican population. I find these people
largely hard working, well intended, and generally good neighbors.
Well, the immigrant class is. Their children are spoiled brats, badly
behaved, and obnoxiously indulged - i.e., They are like most other
American kids who grew up with everything handed to them and
therefore appreciate nothing.
In the final analysis we all get what we ask for. Politicians get blamed,
but the truth is that they'll do what they have to in order to get/stay
in office. We The Sheeple keep telling them we want "more" from government.
We should instead tell them we want LESS - all we want them to do the
real job of government: to keep *us* *free*. Until we as individuals
understand that our government's job is not to be everyone's (domestic
and foreign) Santa Claus, government will continue to abdicate its role
as the institution that preserves freedom, and instead will be in everyone's
shorts in matters personal, social, and behavioral.
Sadly, there is little hope that this will happen. The Sheeple have
discovered how to vote themselves largesse' and they appear to be
unwilling to turn back. This is not just a greasy-left-wing thing
either. The right-wing is just as bad, and the people who vote for them,
just a greasy. The only difference between left- and right-wing politics
is who gets screwed and who gets the benefit.
My family comes from a part of the world that witnessed what happens
when government is "in charge". God help us if we don't stop the slide
in that direction we are currently undertaking. From 1930-1932,
approximately 20 Million of my ethnic cousins were murdered by one man -
Stalin - because he was "doing what is good for the country."
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
what does outsourcing have to do with it? you can find incompetent tech
support right here in the US.
randy
"Charlie Self" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Good news for those whose high tech and software jobs have been
> outsourced--though it may yet be a bit of time before things swing the
other
> way: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/technology/28SOUR.html?th
>
> With my own experience with Dell's outsourced phone help, it isn't just
the
> productivity that is a problem. The depth of knowledge is not there, as
the guy
> states. The clown I got finally wanted me to format my hard drive to cure
a
> problem with a worn out CDRW.
>
> When I went back to email help, I had a guy here in 3 days, he replaced
the
> CDRW in about 4 minutes and all is well.
>
> Charlie Self
> "Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first
outbreak
> being often but an explosion of anger." Thucydides
Ray Kinzler wrote:
> Tim,
>
> I have to admt I feel like a heel a bit arguing this subject with you.
Don't. Our differences of opinion are about ideas. They have
not been personal. We can disagree and be pleasant.
> I really feel we are at separate ends of the spectrum and we really
> need to meet somewhere in the middle.
>
> I understand what you are saying, in general, but the facts and
> figures you write about happen to be living, breathing human beings.
> And, at least in the IT industry, they are being used and abused
> terribly all in the name of globalization. Sure, this practice may
> help the bottom line but what price do you put on human beings?
The fallacy in your argument is that these people are being 'used
and abused'. They aren't (unless fraud or force are being used
against them, in which case they should seek legal relief). They
are facing a changing world. That means they too have to change to
survive. If there aren't enought IT jobs to go around, then some
of us are going to have to find other kinds of work to do, get
retrained or whatever. Is it fun? No. But its necessary.
Survival is always the province of those who are most adaptable.
>
> I have included two recent articles about the subject. One, for sure,
> is simply a beat writer for a newspaper and may not have any
> credentials--I have no idea if he does or doesn't. The other is
> biggie in the computer trade press (you can see his bio at
> http://www.pcmag.com/author_bio/0,1772,a=123,00.asp).
>
> Since I use Google to access this newsgroup, I see the baove did not
> come through as a link. Darn. I could publish it here if anybody
> wants me to.
>
> With the above in mind, here are the links to the two articles:
>
>
> http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/8566322.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp&1c
>
> (Watch the word wrap!)
>
>
> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1579337,00.asp
>
>
> I am sorry if I seem bitter because, well, I am. I feel as though I
> gave my livilihood away. Nay, I feel as though it was ripped away
> from me by people who can not code nearly as well as I can.
And now, a personal note:
I have a Master's in CS plus most of Ph.D. done. I have 20+ years of
experience as an engineer, developer, and leader of technology
organizations. I can't get a job. I haven't been able to for over
3 *years*. Frustrating? Yes. Bitter? No. Why? Because staying
employable is *my* responsibility, not the responsibility of the Universe.
I am likely going to have to take a position that is way outside my
preferred field just to survive. But you know what? I refuse to be
pissed off about it. Life is just too short to be bitter. I want
to savor every minute I can, no matter how crappy moments like this
are. It sounds really corny like some bad self-help book, but your
attitude about life drives your success. If you wallow in misery
and anger, you inhibit your own ability to succeed. The way you think
dictates the way you act. And the way you act determines how well
you succeed.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Larry Blanchard wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> says...
>
>>Outsourcing is a tough one for me. On one hand I hate to see any jobs leave this
>>country, on the other hand consumers will always have a tendency to buy the least
>>expensive when comparison shopping. We have to be competative.
>>
>
> Just for the sake of argument, why? Internal competition is
> great, but why do we have to compete with some country where the
> standard of living is 10% of ours?
>
> Obviously it's good for that country, and for the corporate
> profits of the outsourcer, but I can't see where it's good for
> most of our citizens. And they are who our government is
> supposed to be for.
>
Say a company makes the right choice to outsource - that is, they
improve their profits _sustainably_ by doing so. Who benefits?
The stockholders because their stock is worth more. The remaining
employees because their jobs are more secure in a healthier company.
The executives because their variable compensation increases
as the company does better. AND ... all their customers because
the goods/services of that company are either better or cheaper.
You CANNOT legislate against this. Goverment cannot stop it. All they
can do is slow it down. Economic reality always catches up with
legislative silliness. Competition is global and money flows where
it is most efficiently used. It makes no difference what the unions,
the politicians, or the various other naysayers think. This is how
it actually works.
We have to compete with countries with a standard of living 10% of ours
because they ARE competing with us whether we like it or not. If we try
to shut them out by legislating against outsourcing, one of our foreign
competitors will take advantage of this artificial imbalance. For
example, suppose we made it illegal to outsource, and all computer
parts for machines sold in the US HAD to be made here. PC prices
would go up _for us_ but no one else. Western Europe would promptly
use outsourced manufacturing to build their PCs and ever company that
uses computers in the US would be at a significant cost disadvantage.
Now, how many people would you think build computer components in the US
in such a situation? Let's be generous and say that because of the ban
on outsourcing, 10 Million jobs were "created" here in the US. That
means the other 290 Million of us who want to buy and use PCs have to
pay more to protect them. It just won't work. It is hideously
inefficient (from a monetary point of view). Free markets are not
always nice, but they are always efficient. Attempting to artificially
interfere with them causes nothing but economic ruin, _for the country
trying to protect itself_.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Tim Daneliuk writes:
> is hideously
>inefficient (from a monetary point of view). Free markets are not
>always nice, but they are always efficient. Attempting to artificially
>interfere with them causes nothing but economic ruin, _for the country
>trying to protect itself_.
>
Someone needs to tell Japan that in their vehicle marketing set-up.
Charlie Self
"I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote:
>Tim Daneliuk writes:
>
>> is hideously
>>inefficient (from a monetary point of view). Free markets are not
>>always nice, but they are always efficient. Attempting to artificially
>>interfere with them causes nothing but economic ruin, _for the country
>>trying to protect itself_.
>>
>
>Someone needs to tell Japan that in their vehicle marketing set-up.
>
The Japanese economy is _not_ in good shape, and it hasn't been for a long
time.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
For a copy of my TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter,
send email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
Charlie Self wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk writes:
>
>
>>is hideously
>>inefficient (from a monetary point of view). Free markets are not
>>always nice, but they are always efficient. Attempting to artificially
>>interfere with them causes nothing but economic ruin, _for the country
>>trying to protect itself_.
>>
>
>
> Someone needs to tell Japan that in their vehicle marketing set-up.
>
Japan's economy has been a disaster for almost a whole generation
precisely because of this sort of nonsense. They are just beginning
to recover. And guess what ... they are discovering that sometimes
layoffs are required. They are no longer the low cost producer
on the block. I'd expect them to start outsourcing work themselves
at some point.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Ray Kinzler wrote:
<SNIP>
>>Say a company makes the right choice to outsource - that is, they
>>improve their profits _sustainably_ by doing so. Who benefits?
>>The stockholders because their stock is worth more. The remaining
>>employees because their jobs are more secure in a healthier company.
>>The executives because their variable compensation increases
>>as the company does better. AND ... all their customers because
>>the goods/services of that company are either better or cheaper.
>>
>
>
> Who owns most od the stock? I say it is the CEO and his henchmen who
> own the lion's share.
I see. So people who are wealthy or company owners are not entitled to
optimize the use of their property in any (nonfraudulent) way they wish?
Since when does _who_ benefits matter? Either you believe in fundamental
fairness or you do not. If you have the right to dispose of _your_
property and money as you see fit, why shouldn't the wealthy individual
also have this privilege?
Oh, and for the record, in almost all publicly traded companies of any
size, the CEO and their "henchmen" (!?) own a very SMALL proportion of
the stock. Stock in wealthy companies tends to be owned in large measure
by institutional investors - people who invest the "little guy's" 401K
money. Almost every working person in America today is a stockholder, at
least indiretly, in one form or another. It is in _everyone's_ best
interest that corporations maximize profits and do well.
>
> How, pray tell, are the remaining employees secure in their jobs? If
Assuming a company survives, at some point the company will have
trimmed all the fat that it can. This means it will be _healthier_.
Healthier companies are better for the remaining employees. No, there
is no guarantee that the remaining employess will have jobs for
life. But an unhealthy company goes out of business and _everyone_
loses their jobs.
> they can outsource parts of the company, they can outsource almost all
> of it. Not 100%, for sure, but a huge part of it.
How many companies have you run, and how many payrolls have you
ever worried about? I've helped start/grow, 4 different companies.
You CANNOT outsource "almost all" of any company. Sales, marketing,
and so forth, almost by definition, have to be close to the
customer base, at a minimum.
>
> And just how are the companies themselves going to survive? For this
> race to reach a fantastic bottom-line, companies will get overly
> greedy and start doing as much as they can in places like China, where
> there are nowhere NEAR the laws we have in the US or in Europe, and
> they will start to manufacture the exact same products as we make
> here. Hmmm, now they will undercut the US and European companies on
> the same products.
Yes, some companies will cease to exist. That is the natural order
of competition. Please reexamine the past 150 years of economic
history in the West. For each major seachange where an industry
was lost (electronics to Japan, clothing to China, manufacturing to
the 3rd Word), the US economy and standard of living continued to
GROW. The health of an economy is not measured in how many companies
and jobs we "keep at home", it is measured by how _productive_ the
economy is. Almost 300 years ago, Adam Smith (the father of economics)
made the powerful case that wealth is only about productivity, not
goods, land, cows, or any similar thing. Sadly, this generation of
Westerners (who have benefitted enormously from Enlightenment thinkers
like Smith) don't even grasp these fundamentals.
>
> Yeah, I would say this is a real win-win situation--for the people who
> run the companies and the ones who own THE MOST stock in these
> comapnies because they will make out the most in the short-run.
As I said, the middle-class "little guys" own most of the stock via
institutional investors. You are sadly misinformed about how
money and ownership actually works in public corporations - at least
in most cases.
>>You CANNOT legislate against this. Goverment cannot stop it. All they
>>can do is slow it down. Economic reality always catches up with
>>legislative silliness. Competition is global and money flows where
>>it is most efficiently used. It makes no difference what the unions,
>>the politicians, or the various other naysayers think. This is how
>>it actually works.
>>
>
>
> I say this time it is a little different. WHy in the world is it
> better for a country to fire their own citizens and permit people from
> other countries to come in under things like H-1B, h-2B, and L-1 visas
The "country" isn't doing it. This is not some Marxist state we
live in. _Private sector_ companies are making decisions to optimize
their return on investment. These decisions may- or may not be
wise, but the marketplae will figure that out for them.
> and perform the EXACT SAME JOBS that the people who were laid-off
> performed? How is that better? Because 24 of them live in the same
> 2-bedroom apartment and can live on substandard wages in the host
> country? How is it better when the host country is paying
> unemployment benefits to laid-off workers but nowhere near the same
> amount is coming in to offset the amount that is going out because the
> wages are nowhere near the same?
>
> How does a country like the US maintain its infrastructure? How can
> people survive when they purchased a house at the going rate but have
> their real income get slashed by 75%? How can the people who live in
> the host country AFFORD to keep living there.
I repeat - please reexamine the last century and a half of economic
GROWTH in this country. It involved plenty of "lost" jobs and industries.
>>We have to compete with countries with a standard of living 10% of ours
>>because they ARE competing with us whether we like it or not. If we try
>>to shut them out by legislating against outsourcing, one of our foreign
>>competitors will take advantage of this artificial imbalance. For
>>example, suppose we made it illegal to outsource, and all computer
>>parts for machines sold in the US HAD to be made here. PC prices
>>would go up _for us_ but no one else. Western Europe would promptly
>>use outsourced manufacturing to build their PCs and ever company that
>>uses computers in the US would be at a significant cost disadvantage.
>>
>
>
> I disagree. Places like India are stealing the jobs from American
This is a fundamentally racist position whether you intended it to be so
or not. The word "steal" implies fraud or dishonesty. So you claim that
India, as a nation, is dishonestly taking what is rightful the American
citizen's? Could it be that India is doing a better job competing in
certain sectors? Could it be that some Americans are overpaid for what
they do in context of the global economy? No, no, it must be those
pesky dishonest Indians...
> citizens. They are performing THE SAME JOB. I say competition is
> when somebody makes a better widget in their factory and outsells
> your. It is not competition when they just push the employeee out of
> your factiry and take over.
Your view of competition is really flawed. Competition involves doing
the same thing "better". "Better" can mean "with improved quality",
it can mean "faster", it can mean doing it a whole new way so it
is "more efficient", and most assuredly, it can mean "cheaper". If
we take your view of economics, we should all get rid of word processors
and go back to manual typewriters because, we're just doing the same
thing we always did ...
>
>
>>Now, how many people would you think build computer components in the US
>>in such a situation? Let's be generous and say that because of the ban
>>on outsourcing, 10 Million jobs were "created" here in the US. That
>>means the other 290 Million of us who want to buy and use PCs have to
>>pay more to protect them. It just won't work. It is hideously
>>inefficient (from a monetary point of view). Free markets are not
>>always nice, but they are always efficient. Attempting to artificially
>>interfere with them causes nothing but economic ruin, _for the country
>>trying to protect itself_.
>
>
> Well, here is another truth: I have know American citizens who said
> they will just roll with the ounches and attempted to get jobs with
> places like Tata in Buffalo, New York--but they won't hire Americans.
And I know the exact opposite situation wherein American citizens
work for foreign companies both here and overseas. Neither of
our anecdotal observations in the matter prove anything whatsoever.
> I have know a couple who attmepted to see if they could go to
> Bangalore to get a job in it--no way. They are not permitted to hire
> people outside of India.
>
> I think this is artifically interfering with the market--jsut to make
> sure that the India IT Mecca isn't tarnished.
You have a lot of poorly informed options. So let me help your
understanding from the perspective of someone who has actually _worked_
with Indian outsourcing. India is NOT an "IT Mecca". For certain kinds
of repetitive IT tasks like call centers, production programming, and so
forth, they _can_ offer superior value than what can be done
domestically. However, Indian IT is nowhere near ready to replace the
front-end/creative/design part of the IT process. When the task is
entirely specified and more-or-less a manufacturing process, the Indians
do really well. But where there is a large degree of innovation or risk
or uncertainty involved in the design, the results are quite poor. This
is, IMHO, an artifact of the very regimented and government-centric
culture of the country.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Tim Daneliuk responds:
>>
>> I disagree. Places like India are stealing the jobs from American
>
>This is a fundamentally racist position whether you intended it to be so
>or not. The word "steal" implies fraud or dishonesty. So you claim that
>India, as a nation, is dishonestly taking what is rightful the American
>citizen's? Could it be that India is doing a better job competing in
>certain sectors?
Which sectors? Companies search for lower prices, not greater efficiency, in
today's marketplace. Indians manage to take their place in line by providing,
in my experience and that of many others, inferior services and low
productivity at much lower prices.
>Could it be that some Americans are overpaid for what
>they do in context of the global economy? No, no, it must be those
>pesky dishonest Indians...
Not necessarily Indians. The word now is that many Mexicans are very unhappy as
their vaunted manufacturing revolution grinds to a comparative halt. The jobs
are moving to China and Thailand (which also seems to be pulling jobs out of
China).
Charlie Self
"I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
Charlie Self wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk responds:
>
>
>>>I disagree. Places like India are stealing the jobs from American
>>
>>This is a fundamentally racist position whether you intended it to be so
>>or not. The word "steal" implies fraud or dishonesty. So you claim that
>>India, as a nation, is dishonestly taking what is rightful the American
>>citizen's? Could it be that India is doing a better job competing in
>>certain sectors?
>
>
> Which sectors? Companies search for lower prices, not greater efficiency, in
That is NOT true. Companies seek to maximize shareholder value (or just
profits if held privately). They can accomplish this in lots of ways:
lowering costs, creating new products, more effective marketing, doing
what they already do more efficiently, and so on. Lower price, in and of
itself is meaningless, and any decent corporate exec knows this.
Methinks you are jaded by your Dell experience, but I suspect Dell did
not set about lowering their cost of customer support without any regard
for the customer experience. They probably thought (wrongly, as it turns
out) that they could lower their cost of service and maintain effective
customer experience. But it is not just a race to the lowest possible
cost. You cannot "cut your way to success". Successful companies control
costs AND spend money (in the right places) all at the same time. That's
why you'll see a company laying off and hiring at the same time, for
example.
> today's marketplace. Indians manage to take their place in line by providing,
> in my experience and that of many others, inferior services and low
> productivity at much lower prices.
You have mentioned only one data point - your experience with Dell.
I have seen the EXACT opposite in some cases - very high quality, lowest
cost, on-time delivery, etc. And its not because they are "Indians".
Like all people, the Indians vary in ability along the usual Bell Curve.
Some are terrific at their jobs, some not. But to dismiss Indian work
as generally "inferior" smacks of xenophobia to me ... or at the very least,
an incomplete set of data.
>
>
>>Could it be that some Americans are overpaid for what
>>they do in context of the global economy? No, no, it must be those
>>pesky dishonest Indians...
>
>
> Not necessarily Indians. The word now is that many Mexicans are very unhappy as
> their vaunted manufacturing revolution grinds to a comparative halt. The jobs
> are moving to China and Thailand (which also seems to be pulling jobs out of
> China).
>
> Charlie Self
> "I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
> Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
>
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
Mike Marlow wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
>>Say a company makes the right choice to outsource - that is, they
>>improve their profits _sustainably_ by doing so. Who benefits?
>>The stockholders because their stock is worth more.
>
>
> Agreed.
>
>
>>The remaining
>>employees because their jobs are more secure in a healthier company.
>
>
> This is the part that only exists in text books and is not proven in
> reality. Companies that outsource or otherwise focus on the balance sheet
> almost universally take that focus to the exclusion of any other employee
> related thinking. The entire focus in corporate America and beyond into the
> global economy today is to do more with less. Outsourceing is not something
> that is done in a vaccum - it's not a stand alone process that the company
> does to buck up profitability so they can afford to support the cost of
> employees and the cost of doing business. It's a part of an enterprise
> process that is all about reducing cost and doing more with less. At first
> blush this may look like the model of efficeincy, but in a world of human
> beings, efficeincy has to balanced against other economic and social
> factors - specifically today, keeping a workforce employed at sufficient
> levels to remain in the consumer chain.
Remember, I said they made the "right" choice to outsource which led to
sustainable growth. It is surely possible to make bad decisions about
outsourcing or anything else. But the point here is that a company
driven to sustainable growth benefits all its principals: The stockholders,
the employees, the executives, and the customers.
>>The executives because their variable compensation increases
>>as the company does better. AND ... all their customers because
>>the goods/services of that company are either better or cheaper.
>
>
> Executive variable compensation increases as merit based objectives are met.
> This is not necessarily coupled with the company doing better. Doing better
> is a very loose term. Cutting headcount by 50% can be defined as doing
> better - it does not in any way suggest or guarantee a better performance by
This is a corporate governance problem that the market also corrects. If
The Board fails to set appropriate metrics for executive comp, then
the company will ultimately fail...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Ray Kinzler) wrote:
> Now we
> have people who would have never thought of buying stocks jump into
> the stock markt via mutual funds.
Was pretty uncommon just a few decades ago for the average American to
have much of a stock portfolio. They didn't need it since they were
loyal to their employers and the employers offered incentive to stay and
retire with a decent pension. That's long gone - now it seems everyone's
just out for themselves at the expense of others.
To hell with supporting the local business so your neighbor can keep his
house decent. To hell with supporting your employees and making sure
they have a decent wage and benefits. To hell with not pilfering company
supplies and keeping personal errands to non-working hours. To hell with
giving up personal luxuries rather than sacrificing *anything* for the
common good. We have become a selfish and rude society.
There's a story I heard growing up about my Dad's mom. During the
Depression she worked as a school teacher, my granddad was an inspector
for the Bureau of Mines - they lived in Rochester, Illinois. She would
leave a loaf of bread and butter on the kitchen table and the back door
would be unlocked. Anyone coming by looking for work, food or assistance
would be welcome to come in and share in what they had to offer.
Apparently it didn't matter that they could have been robbed blind - her
generosity and willingness to help others was graciously accepted and in
turn their house and possessions were left untouched.
Do such gestures exist today? Would those who are in need be as
respectful? I suspect, that for a majority of Americans, not.
--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>
Owen Lowe writes:
>Was pretty uncommon just a few decades ago for the average American to
>have much of a stock portfolio. They didn't need it since they were
>loyal to their employers and the employers offered incentive to stay and
>retire with a decent pension. That's long gone - now it seems everyone's
>just out for themselves at the expense of others.
Oh, I dunno. My mother was an RN, did most of the raising of 3 kids herself.
When we were finally out of the house and as settled as we'd ever get, she sort
of took on her career, ended up running a small hospital in Westchester County.
She busted her tail for that place, helped to raise a large percentage of the
bucks to build a new hospital, worked many more hours than she ever could have
been paid for, to all accounts did a superb job.
She managed to build up a decent amount of money in mutal funds, starting in
the late '50s.
She retired at, IIRC, 68. Yeah. By the time she was 70, the hospital had backed
out of paying for her bridge health insurance.
Loyalty from employers? Never has existed. The facade has. The reality not.
Pilfering from employer stocks has been a problem in every office I've worked
in, going back to the '60s. It probably has been a problem since office
supplies were invented.
>There's a story I heard growing up about my Dad's mom. During the
>Depression she worked as a school teacher, my granddad was an inspector
>for the Bureau of Mines - they lived in Rochester, Illinois. She would
>leave a loaf of bread and butter on the kitchen table and the back door
>would be unlocked. Anyone coming by looking for work, food or assistance
>would be welcome to come in and share in what they had to offer.
>Apparently it didn't matter that they could have been robbed blind - her
>generosity and willingness to help others was graciously accepted and in
>turn their house and possessions were left untouched.
Whole different era, though there are still places you can sleep with your
doors open. Not many any more, but a few.
>Do such gestures exist today? Would those who are in need be as
>respectful? I suspect, that for a majority of Americans, not.
No, but in the past 40-45 years, Americans have been conditioned to think they
are owed help, and get visibly angry when it's refused. Or many do. Not all, of
course. Too, the depth of need that existed during the Great Depression was
often similar to the milder forms of need we find today in Third World
countries. Very little of that exists today. And, in addition, I don't think we
had anything like the drug culture we have today. Crackheads didn't roam large
areas of the cities and suburbs and Oxy whatever wasn't even a pipe dream.
Charlie Self
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon Bonaparte
On 02 May 2004 08:51:11 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
wrote:
|Owen Lowe writes:
|
|>Was pretty uncommon just a few decades ago for the average American to
|>have much of a stock portfolio. They didn't need it since they were
|>loyal to their employers and the employers offered incentive to stay and
|>retire with a decent pension. That's long gone - now it seems everyone's
|>just out for themselves at the expense of others.
|
|Oh, I dunno. My mother was an RN, did most of the raising of 3 kids herself.
|When we were finally out of the house and as settled as we'd ever get, she sort
|of took on her career, ended up running a small hospital in Westchester County.
|She busted her tail for that place, helped to raise a large percentage of the
|bucks to build a new hospital, worked many more hours than she ever could have
|been paid for, to all accounts did a superb job.
|
|She managed to build up a decent amount of money in mutal funds, starting in
|the late '50s.
|
Aren't moms great?
When my parents divorced in the late fifties, my mom took a job as a
nurse's aid in a TB sanitorium, emptying bed pans and all those other
fun things, not to mention running the constant risk of catching the
disease herself. She worked the 11 to 7 shift so she could be home
during the day with us kids. No aid to dependent children, no food
stamps, no free day care or health care. No newspaper sob stories
about how bad she has it, etc. etc.....
I believe that this is one of those jobs that illegals take today
because, "No American will work for those wages."
Didn't seem to harm her; she's 90 and still going pretty strong.
|She retired at, IIRC, 68. Yeah. By the time she was 70, the hospital had backed
|out of paying for her bridge health insurance.
Yep. I worked for Hughes Aircraft for 30 years, during every one of
which, I was promised that if I took qualified early retirement, my
medical insurance would be company-paid until I qualified for
Medicare.
I did and Raytheon, the successor company, doesn't. The sorry part is
that the projected costs of these benefits was built into the
contracts. We taxpayers paid for them when the contracts were
executed. So not only did I get screwed, so did you. The company
basically charged the government for something they didn't provide.
In most circles this is called *theft* or *fraud*. Everyone who
thinks the government gives a shit please raise your hand.
[snip]
|
|Whole different era, though there are still places you can sleep with your
|doors open. Not many any more, but a few.
I visited a cousin in northern MN a couple of summers ago. His house
doesn't even have a lock and the keys are in his PU parked on the
street. This will all change when the illegal aliens get there.
Wes
Wes Stewart writes:
>When my parents divorced in the late fifties, my mom took a job as a
>nurse's aid in a TB sanitorium, emptying bed pans and all those other
>fun things, not to mention running the constant risk of catching the
>disease herself. She worked the 11 to 7 shift so she could be home
>during the day with us kids. No aid to dependent children, no food
>stamps, no free day care or health care.
Hell of a popular shift back then. At least with mothers who had kids in
school.
Charlie Self
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." Disraeli as
quoted by Mark Twain
On 28 Apr 2004 11:55:03 -0700, Jay <[email protected]> wrote:
> [email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
>> Good news for those whose high tech and software jobs have been
>> outsourced--though it may yet be a bit of time before things swing the
>> other
>> way: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/technology/28SOUR.html?th
<snip>
Nice to see a little sanity in the hysteria over programming jobs moving
off shore. I have seen a number of articles like this recently concerning
the hidden difficulties and costs in trying to manage software development
overseas. I would especially be nervous about the loss of control over
the intellectual property. I am sure some jobs will be lost overseas, but
I believe it will be the large companies who can set up and control an
overseas division, rather than contract type work.
> This article is right in line with my observations on the job. The
> gist of it is that given the prerequisites of clearly defined
> requirements and an established design pattern that outsourcing can be
> effective.
>
> However, those are two very big assumptions that I have yet to see on
> any project I've been on. I would also argue that given those
> requirements, you could farm out the work to recent college grads or
> interns just as cheaply and easily.
>
> I used to manage two FOB Indians that were in house in our company at
> ridiculously low hourly rates. We dumped them when they spent two
> months working on a feature that any of the other developers would
> have screamed, "F*ck it! They don't need that feature anyway" - and
> have been right.
Yikes! These were features their managers had asked for? Then they were
fired because they didn't tell their managers the features were
unnecessary? That doesn't sound like a problem with the programmers...
Neil
Bruce wrote:
> In rec.woodworking
> Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>Say a company makes the right choice to outsource - that is, they
>>improve their profits _sustainably_ by doing so.
>
>
> This is where your plan fails Tim. It is a pyramid scheme. America is the
> consumer of the products. As more and more Americans lose jobs or take pay
> cuts, they are going to consume less.
>
>
>>Free markets are not
>>always nice, but they are always efficient. Attempting to artificially
>>interfere with them causes nothing but economic ruin, _for the country
>>trying to protect itself_.
>
>
> You have to admit one thing if you have any intellectual honesty.
> Globalization is not good for America as whole. The countries that stand
> to gain are the ones that do the outsourcing. As they're standard of
> living rises, ours HAS to lower. There is no other way because it is a zero
> sum game. This is not a win-win situation.
<groans>
I cannot begin to correct the many implict wrong assumptions in these
statements. Capitalism is the only system by which everyone can win.
When market-based economies are employed, the up-and-coming nations
can compete and win while _We_ also benefit. The wrongest assumption
you make is that there is a net-sum-zero game going on here ... and there
isn't. Our economy continues to grow and has for pretty much all of its
history. This growth took place in the face of massive economic turmoil,
war, and globalization, and we continue to grow consistently. That's why
countries like China and India are moving towards market economies - they
work better than anything else.
I am entirely "intellectually honest" (or as best as I am able to be),
and globalization is mostly a good thing. The size of the pie the US gets
in global markets might be smaller, BUT the pie is much BIGGER. Would
you rather have 100% of $10 Trillion economy or 20% of a $100 Trillion
dollar economy. Smart corporate leaders are betting on the latter, and I
think they're right, at least in the long haul.
If you want to read a good intro to economics that is easy to read and
not some politican's agenda, see Hazlitt's "Economics In One Lesson".
He does a better job than I could ever do in explaining why pretty much
everything you wrote is wrong ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
In article <[email protected]>,
Wes Stewart <n7ws@_arrl.net> wrote:
> Our national parks and wilderness areas are being ruined by wetbacks,
> our hospital trauma centers are closing because of the costs of
> treating wetbacks injured in car crashes while fleeing from the Border
Can we have dizum guy back and have this guy given the boot instead?
Larry Blanchard wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>
>>I cannot begin to correct the many implict wrong assumptions in these
>>statements. Capitalism is the only system by which everyone can win.
>>
>
> OK Tim, you're a staunch defender of pure capitalism. Let's
> look at another example.
Your facts are (sort of) right, but your analysis is wrong:
> I'm old enough to remember when someone with below median
> intelligence (and that's half of us by definition) could get a
> job that supported his family at a reasonable level. Lots of
> blue-collar families with one wage earner bought their own
> house, owned two cars, etc. etc..
Yes. And they lived in homes far inferior in size and construction
to what their modern counterparts own. Their cars were inferior
in most ways to the ones driven by Joe Sixpack today. They had
fewer opportunities for upward mobility. They paid more
(inflation adjusted) for key goods like gasoline. They lived
shorter lives, partly because of the drain of physical labor,
and partly because the Big Evil Corporations had not yet
commoditized medical treatment and new pharma. They worked
more hours (and has less free time) than their modern
counterparts. They worked in far more dangerous conditions
than the modern worker.
The list is endless but the point is the same. The Good Old
Days were not all that "good" when compared to life today.
For an excellent discussion of this, see "Hoodwinking The
Nation" by Julian Simon or even just read this:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-364es.html
>
> There are still a few of those jobs around. But in most cases,
> those jobs have been killed by automation and cheap imports.
> Now many couples both work, sometimes at multiple jobs, and
> still live at a subsistence level. What used to be referred to
> as the "lower middle class" is rapidly joining the poor. While
> the gap between workers and executives continues to grow.
Right - because MORE PEOPLE ARE MOVING UP on the economic ladder.
The US Census data from 1980-1990 is instructive here. During this
time the rich did get richer ... but so did the POOR. The percentage
of Americans that are actually poor (per capita) is *declining*.
Moreover, what constitutes "poor" is very different than it was even
50 years ago. "Poor" today includes the use of heat, running water,
a color TV, and a microwave. i.e. Almost no one is living at
"subsistence" levels.
It is not "subsistence" when you choose to work to own a house, a couple
of cars, and have children at-will, no matter how meager those means may
be.
Since when is it a requirement of any economy that people get a
house, car, and comfort on one (or even multiple) incomes?
Who says everyone is entitled to this? There are lots of smarter
people than me, and most make way more money than I do. How am
I disadvanged by this? When Bill Gates creates wealth, it doesn't
hurt me, it makes my life better - I can affort more computer for
less money. In fact, I can even share in his upward mobility,
even if I'm a complete ignoramous - I can buy his stock and trust
he will make it go up.
>
> Do you have a solution for this other than "Let them eat cake"?
> And don't say education, remember I'm talking about the "strong
> back and a weak mind" part of our citizenry.
>
No one has a right to the lifestyle they *want*. They have a right to
*try* for it unimpeded by their nosy neighbors and/or stuffy
intrusive goverment. The fact that everyone does not have an equality of
outcome is hardly and indictement of capitalism or our economic
approach.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
"RKON" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:Frxkc.10308$iy5.6589@okepread05...
>
>
>
> You don't get it.... It is not about skills.. it is about $$$$$$$$
>
>
http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/story/0,10801,91916,00.html?from=story_kc
I think I *do* get it. I'm fending off the bean counters as we speak.
Dell's a good example - initial thoughts aligned with yours (it's $$ not
skills). After trying it for a while, they realized they can't afford
outsourcing their help desk.
>
> look at the payscale at the bottom of this article and honestly tell me if
> you can pay your staff a living wage and compete with those salaries of
off
> shore.
Ahem. We CANNOT compete on salary! But we can compete! It's about *value*,
not costs.
Yes, the pendulum will swing as the bean counters move stuff offshore. But
it'll come back when they realize there's more to quality software than
$3/hour Level 5 programmers.
> And I admit it. I am Scared. I have 20 years in IT and I survived major
> layoffs the past 4 years at one of the largest software companies in the
> world. I have excellent skills. But I don't have a cavalier attitude about
> the IT industry as I once did.
Me too! 'Cept, I've got 25. Scared is good. Makes you aware of the
situation. Lying awake at night worrying about how we're going to fend off
this trend is a good thing. I *know* I can compete and survive this. Hell,
with a few hours of thought, I came up with a half dozen ways to *exploit*
the situation.
>
> As soon as SWMBO completes her masters and her teachers certfication and
> begins working as a teacher I can quit my job and start my own business.
That's good news! Congrats, especially to your wife - as we desperately need
more (mo' better) teachers.
I'll hang out in IT for awhile longer. Pay's pretty damed good, and I know I
can kick some Offshore Butt if the need arises.
Neil wrote:
> On 28 Apr 2004 11:55:03 -0700, Jay <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>
> <snip>
>
>
>> I used to manage two FOB Indians that were in house in our company at
>> ridiculously low hourly rates. We dumped them when they spent two
>> months working on a feature that any of the other developers would
>> have screamed, "F*ck it! They don't need that feature anyway" - and
>> have been right.
>
>
> Yikes! These were features their managers had asked for? Then they
> were fired because they didn't tell their managers the features were
> unnecessary? That doesn't sound like a problem with the programmers...
>
> Neil
Yeah, Neil. I agree.
Looks like Jays part of the reason these jobs are moving offshore.
--
--
Mark
N.E. Ohio
Never argue with a fool, a bystander can't tell you apart. (S. Clemens, A.K.A.
Mark Twain)
When in doubt hit the throttle. It may not help but it sure ends the suspense.
(Gaz, r.moto)
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
> Say a company makes the right choice to outsource - that is, they
> improve their profits _sustainably_ by doing so. Who benefits?
> The stockholders because their stock is worth more.
Agreed.
> The remaining
> employees because their jobs are more secure in a healthier company.
This is the part that only exists in text books and is not proven in
reality. Companies that outsource or otherwise focus on the balance sheet
almost universally take that focus to the exclusion of any other employee
related thinking. The entire focus in corporate America and beyond into the
global economy today is to do more with less. Outsourceing is not something
that is done in a vaccum - it's not a stand alone process that the company
does to buck up profitability so they can afford to support the cost of
employees and the cost of doing business. It's a part of an enterprise
process that is all about reducing cost and doing more with less. At first
blush this may look like the model of efficeincy, but in a world of human
beings, efficeincy has to balanced against other economic and social
factors - specifically today, keeping a workforce employed at sufficient
levels to remain in the consumer chain.
> The executives because their variable compensation increases
> as the company does better. AND ... all their customers because
> the goods/services of that company are either better or cheaper.
Executive variable compensation increases as merit based objectives are met.
This is not necessarily coupled with the company doing better. Doing better
is a very loose term. Cutting headcount by 50% can be defined as doing
better - it does not in any way suggest or guarantee a better performance by
the company. Cheaper labor does not correlate to better or cheaper goods
and services. That again is text book, but reality does not bear it out.
How much has the cost of a car dropped over the past 20 years as the
automakers have implemented more and more robotic technology? Yes, American
cars have gotten better but that comparison owes to the crap that the
automotive industry was able to get away with for a decade before the
Japanese cars invaded their turf. That decade was an anomoly if you look
back over the entire history of the American automobile.
>
> You CANNOT legislate against this. Goverment cannot stop it. All
> they can do is slow it down. Economic reality always catches up with
> legislative silliness. Competition is global and money flows where
> it is most efficiently used. It makes no difference what the unions,
> the politicians, or the various other naysayers think. This is how
> it actually works.
True. Nor should we entice our government to get any more involved in our
lives than absolutely necessary. They have a scary way of screwing up
everything they touch.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
"RKON" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:dCpkc.10279$iy5.9940@okepread05...
> position I'm in I travel to all of the big companies and work with CIO,
> Directors and EVERY company is outsourcing or is looking at it. Lou Dobbs
> is a hero to me because he is standing up to this cancer. It is not just
IT
> jobs. It is friggin scary because they are good paying jobs.
As a director of an IT shop in a competitive industry, I say "Good!"
Be scared, be very, very scared.
I've enough confidence in my skills -- and my team's -- to say "Bring 'em
on."