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Bitching about all the little yellow people who will work for less than us is probably a big waste of time.

LOL! I'm a translator, and a lot of my work is going offshore to people who barely speak English. However, I suspect that much of it is the stuff I hated to do and usually rejected (forms, birth certificates, etc.).

The only thing to do is stay competitive. I have seen truly lousy translations by US translators who should have known better, and from the agency point of view, I can see why it would be better to pay .03 a word for a lousy translation than to pay .10 a word for the same lousy translation.

Americans should pull up their socks and either do a job that's worth paying Big $ for or start their own businesses doing something entirely different.

That said, I'm sure there are some agencies that are taking my research and sending it to their .03 per word translators in India and Hong Kong. The theft of intellectual property is a wholly different matter, however.

Americans should pull up their socks and either do a job that's worth paying Big $ for or start their own businesses doing something entirely different.

That's the problem. We had a period where the world was so starved for industrial capacity that we could do low-quality work for big bucks. And we got used to it.

I have had many jobs, but about 2 years ago I started a business with a Filipino partner. He had already started a business outsourcing CAD work for architects. He and I started a new business on two fronts....legal transcription (Medical is already mostly in India) and also web and graphic design. We moved along quite well.....

I was going to make my first vist to Manila on Sept 20.....after the attacks I was not in a mood to travel there. Anyway - I have since moved on to another job, but of course, I still outsource all my company's graphics work for 1/3 of the cost.

Keep fighting the fight....we all need to work our asses off and be smart to keep out jobs and try to get ahead a little.