Posted on 12/16/2002 7:06:21 AM PST by FlyingA
Honorable Representative Tom Davis,
I have just finished reading the article http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021213S0035 and as an unemployed IT consultant and US CITIZEN, I find the idea stupid and unpatriotic. First, training foreigners on the internals of our IT infrastructure is a disaster in the making. Second, I find it difficult to believe that it will "save" that much, if any, money - the employment of CITIZENS to do the work keeps the money in the USA and adds to the growth of OUR economy, not that of India or China. Finally, at a time when the unemployment rate for IT and telecom people is at record levels, I find this action to be extremely unpatriotic.
If you really want to save money, why don't you outsource the war on terror and Iraq, to India and China. I'm sure that would save the taxpayers a lot of hardship and grief, not to mention money - funerals aren't cheap. Maybe you can save even more money by importing some people to replace those overpaid policeman and fireman - I'm sure the state and local governments would appreciate the help.
Let's be honest, all you're doing is lining the pockets of any contractor will to move government contracted work to offshore sweatshops. Short-term gain for you and your bosses, with long-term cost and hardship to the American people.
"A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled to, and less than that no man shall have." •Theodore Roosevelt Gonna forward something to my reps, but I'm waiting a few more days for a response from my last nasty-gram.
This is all part of the on-going Big Employer scam that went like this 2 years ago:
1) "There is a drastic shortage of Engineers, Programmers, etc."
2) "We cannot possibly find enough technical Americans."
3) "We must import 390,000 more H-1B technical workers."
4) Congress falls in line; 390,000 H-1Bs are imported; 390,000 Americans lose their jobs.
Notice it is always technical workers ... I like your idea about out-sourcing the war on terror and the war on drugs.
And he wants to Run Again
Bush is raising a LOT of labor discontent among America's non-government workers. This discontent will absolutely overwhelm the current approval ratings, and is an issue being dropped squarely into the Democrats' laps.
Let's get people ready for the good jobs of today, not the good jobs of yesterday. And the country will be just fine if we do that ;)
It's wasteful and inefficient. And in exactly the same manner, it's wasteful and inefficient to try to prop up things like textiles - let's concentrate on the things we do better than everyone else, rather than trying to race for the bottom by competing with the Indonesians to see who can make the cheapest tennis shoe or tech work. Even if you "win", what's it worth? Not much.
Why? Are you going to tell them I am a good guy or a bad guy? :)
NEW YORK - Tech giant Hewlett-Packard has seen the future of technology consulting. It's on the other side of the globe and it's really, really cheap.
"We're trying to move everything we can offshore," HP Services chief Ann Livermore told Wall Street analysts at a meeting Wednesday. "We're aggressively realigning our resources." Short term, that means adding to the software and services personnel HP already has in India. Further out, HP expects China to also turn into a major consulting center.
...
So, PuNcH, just what is it you would have all the laid off US citizens do for a living - since the only jobs not subject to outsourcing and H1B's appear to be certain public sector jobs - have everyone work for the government? Perhaps they can compete with the illegal aliens your pals at the Wall Street Journal insist on bringing in for minumum-wage jobs sweeping floors or cutting lawns - oops, I forgot: they won't be elligible for free medical care, being merely US Citizens. I suppose outsourcing the military and police will be the ultimate coup - at that point the rule of law (what's left of it) will cease. Welcome to the Transnational Progressive vision of the future - a world with no borders ruled with an iron fist by an unelected, unaccountable elite; a giant slave-labor camp with an enforcement class to keep them under control.
There's only one problem with that thesis: no one's been able to quantify that part of the productivity boost that is attributable to IT spending, and explain how it happened.
Hehe, first I forgot to put any indication that I was being sarcastic although it was obviously obnoxious then when I went to post again my connection went down ;)
That post is actually something a "free trader" said to me except I added in the IT stuff. Back when it was still cool to tell us all that we would just get tech jobs I argued that there is no reason why tech jobs couldnt be done cheaper outside the country. Of course the snots just snorted even though there were already examples of it happening. Now the snots just tell us we need to prepare for the "jobs of the future".
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