My desire is immaterial; the reality is that there are a LOT of really sharp programmers around the world, and business is international.
I don’t see any other industry, or workers subjected to the same treatment,
Because what other industry has a barrier to entry that consists of a $200 computer?
Think about it - what mandates that you work in a factory. The tools and equipment and facilities! You can't distribute production of a car around the world. The parts, sure. But final assembly? Not a chance.
You cannot distribute production of crude oil to a dozen places - you pretty much have a physical well where you get the oil, and thus you need people and infrastructure at that location.
Software? With the Internet, if you're in the cubicle down the hall or in your home in Kiev, it doesn't matter. You need a dirt-cheap computer and a brain. That's it. Suddenly there is no need to have people here to do specific work with specific tools.
Software is the ultimate expression of intellectual property. It's ephemeral. It's bits. It's concepts. You don't even need physical copies like you did for books! Downloads are the standard (when was the last time you bought a physical CD or DVD of software, compared to the last time you downloaded a file or package). Software is developed not at a physical location, but in a person's mind.
THAT is what is changing the marketplace for programmers. The fact that the programmer does not have to be at a physical location, or use specific machinery or depend upon a specific company-built infrastructure. A computer, broadband connection, and a few free tools (e-mail, web browser, FTP client, compilers) and you can be productive in a matter of minutes, not days.
In light of this, companies are realizing that having a few really smart guys as direct hires - guys to dream up the great ideas and ride herd on the developers - is all that you need. The actual coders - brilliant ones around the world - can be anywhere. Tools are standardized, libraries are industry-wide. You can successfully integrate programmers in the Ukraine, India, and China with sharp system architects and program managers here in the US.
The demand for coders will always increase; people want custom software. But the salaries they command - here in the US - will continue to drop as things are internationalized and automated. Just look at what the CMS systems like Joomla and Drupal have done to the webdev market. You don't NEED to pay someone $40/hour to put content on your website, your secretary can take your marketing brochure and paste it herself.
Software will continue to decrease wages at high rates because, ultimately, there is "nothing" there - it's all algorithms executing on computers. There's nothing to stop the free-fall because there isn't any "floor" in terms of the cost to develop.
I even know one guy who contract-develops in Kiev from a local free Internet coffee house (he uses their computers for free, even). Literally for the price of a cup of coffee, he has a solid 4-5 hours of all the tools he needs to be a productive C++ programmer.
THAT is why the market is changing, not because business is out to screw the worker. It's the barrier to entry that does it, and if I can get great work from a guy in Seattle or a guy in Mumbai, well, why shouldn't I go for the lower price?
Yes, it DOES matter. When American IT jobs are given to those abroad, or those abroad are shipped here as a cut-rate labor supply, it discourages anyone here from going into the field, and also discourages those already working in it from continuing. This may be OK, until we need experienced, home-grown talent to work on sensitive defense -related projects, and all we have are burger flippers.
Congress justifies peddling American jobs around the world by saying that there are not enough qualified Americans to do them. It sounds good and provides political cover, but is not true and eventually is self-fulfilling. This is just like saying that the mexicans take only the jobs Americans won't do.