Lawmakers Can't Arrest U.S. Job Shift to India to Lower Costs

Bloomberg ^ | 12/31/03 | Bloomberg

[Pikamax]

Lawmakers Can't Arrest U.S. Job Shift to India to Lower Costs Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Bob Thibodeau founded Financial Systems Architects in 1998 to help companies such as Citigroup Inc. handle electronic transactions. By 2001, he was driven out of business. Lower-cost Indian competitors undercut his bids on two straight contracts, he said.

[TheFrog]

Re:"When I ws at UT in the '60s I lived and went to school for two summer semesters and two full semesters, --fifteen months--of less than $1,800" I believe my total tuition my freshman year was $212.

[bvw]

A binary sort is binary sort no matter what the language is. Most people who can program well in any particular language, can quickly program in any other language. What makes a good program is not the syntax, not the grammar.

I have used punch cards, paper tape, teletypes, wire recorders, tape recorders, real magnetic core memory, the front panel, the back panel, patch panels, mechanical sorters, fortran, spitbol, cobol, algol, basic, apl, hasp, jcl, cmd, unix, fortran II, II, IV, 77, dos batch files, assemblers of any stripe, designed circuits, cpus and hydraulic systems (those have logic too), analog computers, sliderules, monographs (does anyone out there know what these are, calculation-wise?), shell scripts, word and excel macros, I've written comiplers, interpreters, debuggers, data base managers, I've programmed in forth, lisp, prolog, paschal, sql, html, vb, vc++, shell scripts, that and this.

I've learned how to design IC's, how to read a steam table, how to figure beam loads, and do heat load analysis. I can burn proms with x-rays coming out of my eyes.

All what is important to design, to analysis, and even to most of implementation is independent of the language, of the revision number.

[RobbyS]

In case I was not clear, the $1, 800 was my total living costs including what I paid to the school.

[swarthyguy]

>>Now if only we could get those Indian programmers to contribute to US Social Security

No, that's going to be done by all the illegals who will become legal. For that very reason, IMO/

[A. Pole]

What exactly makes him believe that these "new" jobs will be created here? Blind faith in Free Market ideology?

Yes. He is an "objectivist" - a follower of this guru for adolescents Ayn Rand.

[Jerr]

There is a total cultural and societial difference between the United States and India (far East...etc.). They can understand the English language, but they don't understand any of our slang or common usage. The Far Easterners have not grown up and experienced what the bulk of Americans experience. They interpret words strictly in their literal sense.

Having studied some technical computer areas (Cisco networking, etc.), I can see the differences in the interpretations, and it is very difficult to overcome. I have also experience Indian/Pakistani (?) customer support for computer equipment that I have purchased...it takes three to four times to get them to comprehend what is going on, and sometimes they treat you like an idiot, starting from the very beginning...while you have connected the equipment, run the installation program, configure and run through the initial program diagnostics...all to no avail.

Then after they walk you through their prescribed script several times, then they tell you their is nothing else that they can do. I have taken back several printers that have given me problems right out of the box.

I no longer buy HP printers anymore, or at least I will not bother to call their tech support, just return the problem... I also am going to write to Dell and tell them that I won't buy anything more from them unless they bring back their tech support to the states for individual customers as well, not just businesses. I don't feel that individual buyers need to be taken advantage of just because they can.

[nmh]

"Your mantra is get another job. People post an example, and you still insult the poster and the person who is supposedly following your advice. It is very clear, you are a nothing. A nit. You have nothing of value to add to the discussion."

Yes, getting another job is the LOGICAL thing to do! No examples were posted just more whining. It is you who prefer wallowing in gloom and doom. I'm suggesting the person rise above it and get a life! To someone like you, this would be too much to ask. You're happily in the same situation as these other folks who want to do something the market no longer values or wants.

[hedgetrimmer]

No examples were posted just more whining

Not true and then you made a morally vacuous remark about the person growing marijuana or some such offensive thing. You have no moral character at all and you spout the UN mantra. You are nothing.

[TheFrog]

Like I said time to through the BS flag!

p.s. A monograph is nothing more than a treatise of a single subject i.e. Richardson's Extrapolation and the Bulirsch-Stoer Method for the integration of ordinary differential equations.

[Euro-American Scum]

I see the issue of decent paying jobs being the one issue the rats can hurt Bush with.

Then why don't they? This has been going on since before Y2K (offshoring). And the Rats haven't said so much as a word.

They don't care about destroying the middle class any more than do the Pubbies.

[Euro-American Scum]

Dell has already pulled their corporate customer support back form India for just the reasons you've mentioned.

They only did that for their corporate customers. And only for those who complained. The public still gets to deal with Bangalore.

I had a boot virus a few months back, and dealt with the pros from Bangalore for over a week -- a different one every time I called -- and ultimately had to reload Windows XP and all peripheral software.

It's my last Dell. And since every other computer manufacturer appears to be following suit, I'll end up building my next PC rather than go through this farce again.

[Question_Assumptions]

Time for the US workforce to 'stop spending, start saving.'

Ultimately, I think this will be bad advice. Why? Because Americans, in general, aren't saving and the solution to this problem is going to lie in adjusting the value of the dollar. That's going to require either deflation or inflation, and that means the choice is between punishing debtors (deflation) or saver (inflation). Since America has more debtors than savers and operated under democratic principles, I suspect the path chosen will be the path that ultimately hurts the fewest people and that seems to be inflation. The alternative is to allow debtors to default en masse. Neither benefits savers.

Please note that the Japanese economy has been on the ropes for more than a decade now and they are savers. Their economy is seeing deflation and they still have problems.