Posted on 01/08/2006 8:17:33 AM PST by A. Pole
Bump
This has nothing to do with outsourcing and everything to do with American kids being convinced they need to throw a ball or be a rap "artist" instead of scientists or engineers.
Been hearing this since Reagan was elected.
If you listened to these clowns you'd be short the dow 8000 points lower.
But be prepared for wild eyed attacks by flamers
And the anti-freetraders who claimed all the computer programming jobs were going overseas were proven to have hyped up the reality of the industry. Low-level, redundant programming jobs were outsourced, but mid- and high-level programming jobs in America continue to rise.
And quite a bit to do with the fact that most schools are more worried about kids feeling good and knowing th ins and outs of sex, than they are with teaching the 3rs.
But how can you protects your ownership, when the assets are located over the ocean in the countries with different culture and political system? I think that your property will be as much worth as American Indian rights to the land.
Where I work all the new programmer hires are coming from China. The job posting comes up people from other tech departments and programming degrees apply and the ompany ends up flying some Chinese girl in.
How will you get the "high-level" programmers, if the entry path starting from "low-level" is gone? Oh, I know, you will bring them from abroad!
So let's have a tech bubble, hire a grillion programmers we don't need, and when the bubble bursts blame someone else.
It isn't free trade that threatens jobs in the United States it is illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is destroying the entry level rungs of the job ladder. Illegal aliens are taking the jobs that would otherwise go to displaced factory workers and other workers who are in flux. Raising the minimum wage, which was in the news last week, will make the problem even worse. Raising the minimum wage increases the attractiveness of employing people outside the law.
I am all for eliminating the punitive taxes and mandates that make offshoring attractive. But you can't whine and wail about offshoring while ignoring illegal immigration. To do so is just plain silly.
I hope that this is incorrect, but I fear it is true. Certainly, you cannot have an Akihabara unless you have the manufacturers, but it would be nice to at least eventually to have access to the high-end goods. For instance, shake-resistant binoculars were widely available in Japan long ago; in fact, I don't recall seeing them yet for sale in retail stores in the U.S., though I do see from a Google search that they are for sale from Amazon.
Get more education (MS, PhD), and start in a mid-level job.
Good point. Government nationalizing foreign owner assets has happeened before, and will happen again. The worst may be yet to come, Communist China (it is communist last time I checked) does not have a legal system, much less an international legal system; all these American companies have set up shop there on a handshake and as long as the dictators say everything is working in their favor, American business produces using Chinese slave labor. The second that changes, good luck with your claims American business. And don't forget the huge foreign trade deficit with the Chinese.
A counter argument might be that they can't afford to hurt their relationship with us; their people will uprise. Really; and the Chinese communist army will sit idly by, like at Tianemmen Square? We like to look the other way as long as the Chinese dictatorship allows us to your their citizens for cheap labor, and the Chinese continue to use their profits to update their military, steal trade and high tech secrets, and create relationships with other enemies of the United States. We are profitable in the short run, fools in the long run.
We saw after the 1973 oil crisis what such a "protected" industry here in the US would do (the then "big four" auto makers) in the face of overwhelming consumer demand for smaller, higher-mileage, higher quality automobiles: exactly nothing (which is why the Japanese came in and stole their lunch money).
The government should no more be in the business of protecting producers at the expense of consumers than it should be in the business of protecting consumers (with price controls) at the expense of producers.
N.B. Many of those "highly paid" computer engineers who were employed "at the end of the century" were nothing more than 20 something script kiddies employed at outrageous salaries by dot coms fueled by ignorant investors who assumed that the stock market could never go down again. They NEVER would have been employed (much less at those salaries) if the unemployment rate hadn't been at 2%...
Programmers like myself are certainly aware of these forigners lack of creativity and ability (Actually though I'd put India and Russia on a higher run with regard to ability and Russian programmers are quite creative, the one's I've met at least, most dont look for work overseas though. The Chinese are like worker bees, and have about the same brain capacity, and creatie ability. They aren't much use without a hive.)
Still HR sees their degrees and the cheap price and passes up tech folks in the company every time one of these positions comes up.
First and foremost we need to promote math and science better in schools.
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