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Tech bosses defend overseas hiring.
San Francisco Chronichle ^ | 1/8/04 | Carolyn Lochhead

Posted on 01/08/2004 10:06:59 AM PST by rightisright

Edited on 04/13/2004 2:45:24 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

Washington -- Two leading Silicon Valley chief executives, reacting Wednesday to criticism they've shipped too many high-tech jobs overseas, defended hiring workers in India and China and warned that the United States and particularly California were in danger of losing their competitive edge to the Far East.


(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Technical
KEYWORDS: corporatelosers; outsourcing; siliconvalley
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To: rightisright
I'd like to see some proof that the 'immigrants' who come here are doing jobs that others won't.

I don't want to pick lettuce myself but it would be fun to develop robots to pick lettuce. Indirectly I could do the work of thousands of human lettuce pickers, and be paid well, pay lots of taxes, and use no socialist services. But with huge pools of cheap human lettuce pickers, robots are not as cost effective, yet anyway. It's coming though. The technology development has just been delayed by massive illegal immigration.

81 posted on 01/08/2004 11:47:30 AM PST by Reeses
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To: BushCountry
I see, so the american co-founders don't count. who cares where grove was born, was he an american when he founded the company? why wasn't he able to found a chip company in Hungary?
82 posted on 01/08/2004 11:47:45 AM PST by oceanview
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To: oceanview
here's an easy one: tax their US profits on a sliding scale in proportion to their relative levels of employment in the US. So if Intel makes 60% of their profits in the US, and their workforce is 60% US, they pay no incremental. But if HP makes 95% of their profit in the US, and 30% of their workforce is offshore, they get hit with a surcharge

I like the concept of incentives for employing our own, and your scenario could be a good start. But such a policy would require an extraordinary reform of the tax code (which is also a good thing). Right now, a corporate tax attorney can convince the IRS that up is down, and that black they see is really red. Maybe gross revenues is a better (at least easier to define) benchmark.

83 posted on 01/08/2004 11:53:17 AM PST by Mr. Bird
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To: BushCountry
Every company I listed had an immigrant that played a vital role in its founding.

And what's your point? They came here, became citizens, and employed other American citizens.
84 posted on 01/08/2004 11:58:47 AM PST by lelio
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To: Mr. Bird
What then is the motivation for keeping a US presence? Economically, would it be better to move offshore and pay import/export taxes?
85 posted on 01/08/2004 11:58:56 AM PST by rit
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To: BushCountry
By the way, do you know the contribution of immigrants to the world war II effort and history. Albert Einstein and his little Atomic Bomb, Welding Technology (we a stole two of these scientist from a German prison camp in France) that was required to build our war machine, A. Edward Teller the Manhattan project, B. Enrico Fermi he was instrumental in creating the first controlled nuclear fission chain reaction, A. Felix Frankfurter he served on the Supreme Court of the U.S. for 23 years, B. Andrew Carnegie eventually controlling 25% of American iron and steel production, C. Thomas Mann was one of the most acclaimed novelists of the 20th Century, ect...
86 posted on 01/08/2004 11:59:53 AM PST by BushCountry (To the last, I will grapple with Democrats. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at Liberals.)
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To: rightisright
We have to decide if we're going to be competitive with these markets”

I have two Questions.
1-Are “ We “ to compete [as equals] with people who live in mud huts and earn one tenth the [average] living wage in the USA .
2-Who has the mud hut concession?
87 posted on 01/08/2004 12:02:28 PM PST by SC oops (The planning board frowns on mud huts.)
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To: Reeses
But with huge pools of cheap human lettuce pickers, robots are not as cost effective, yet anyway.

Thanks for bringing this up, I was going to on another thread where someone said "You don't like illegals? Prepare to pay $6 for a head of lettuce."

What that poster totally misses out on is that no farm is going to swap out a $2/hr illegal for a $10/hr citizen and expect to stay in business beyond a season. They'll swap in the US worker to replace 5 illegals and give him a robot to pick the lettuce.

The only reason its not being done now is that there's an infinite supply of cheap labor. Change that situation and now you have a) a better higher paying job for a citizen, and b) more capex spending for a robot.

Also when labor's cheap theres no investment. Who cares if your $2/hr worker wacks his finger off? He's easily replacable, and besides he's not going to complain as he'll get shipped back. Why give him a spiffy new hammer that costs $100 when he can make due with a crappy old one.
88 posted on 01/08/2004 12:04:35 PM PST by lelio
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To: rit
Perhaps. Your question goes to the heart of the matter: why is anyone still doing business in America? Whatever is keeping them here needs to be strengthened, and whatever is pushing them overseas needs to be weakened.
89 posted on 01/08/2004 12:05:15 PM PST by Mr. Bird
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To: Mr. Bird
You win a prize in my book. Our educational system, tax laws etc... Definately need improving.
90 posted on 01/08/2004 12:07:16 PM PST by BushCountry (To the last, I will grapple with Democrats. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at Liberals.)
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To: rightisright
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," said Carly Fiorina, chairman of Palo Alto information technology giant Hewlett Packard.

Uh Carly, is your company planning to stop selling its products in the US and sell exclusively to residents of India and China? People receiving unemployment insurance generally can't afford to buy new printers and hardware.

These companies who are outsourcing their labor force to these third-world ****holes should be required to move their operations to said third-world ****holes and market/sell their products there.

91 posted on 01/08/2004 12:08:35 PM PST by Johnny_Cipher ("... and twenty thousand bucks to complete my robot. My GIRL robot.")
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To: Mr. Bird
why is anyone still doing business in America

I believe that part of it is

92 posted on 01/08/2004 12:10:15 PM PST by lelio
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To: Mr. Bird
I agree. For technology, we are at the heading towards the end in the first generation where old-line manufacturing is offshored in both hardware and software. The next generation is still being defined, and it is in this confusion that thousands of US based tech workers are losing their jobs. The savy will accurately guide their companies, and their employees toward that next generation as hardliners such as HP will still be lost in their confusion.
93 posted on 01/08/2004 12:10:52 PM PST by rit
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To: Reeses
The technology development has just been delayed by massive illegal immigration.

Agreed, with our arable land, and technological base, we could grow enormous amounts of cheap food. It's already been done in the dairy industry.

Back to the point of this thread, I'm now convinced that HP is pure evil. I will NEVER buy any of their crap again. I've seen too many printers go to hell after only a year, they used to make the best ones in the business. Now, they're just Yugos with expensive ink cartridges. Their computers are total junk. I've replaced a goodly number of power supplies on them, they aren't worth crap. And when ordinary Americans realize that tech support is being farmed out to East Indians that they can't even understand, they hopefully will drop HP off their shopping lists.

94 posted on 01/08/2004 12:13:07 PM PST by hunter112
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To: lelio
Great points! So what's pushing them away? We know low wages is a huge factor. But we don't want to merely lower our own wages; that's not an attractive solution. We (and really, this is an individual endeavor when you think about it) have to make ourselves indispensible. Not like the guy who keeps everyone in the dark about what he does, believing this ensures job security. Like the guy that discovers a way to make the company more money. Or the guy that does his job better than any other man or machine could ever possibly do it.

How do we plan for such an endeavor?

95 posted on 01/08/2004 12:16:24 PM PST by Mr. Bird
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To: Capt. Jake
I thought Republicans were supposed to support free markets? And not just for goods, but also for labor.

Yea, but the country is going to suffer greatly if we force Americans to compete for third world country and slave wages

96 posted on 01/08/2004 12:18:18 PM PST by SwankyC
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To: rightisright
It's very short-sighted for companies to outsource American labor to these Third World hellholes. Americans have proven their ingenuity time and time again -- and it's no surprise that computing was born and fed on our shores.
97 posted on 01/08/2004 12:23:51 PM PST by Bush2000
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To: oceanview
"she knew the train wreck was coming"

Yeah but - if she knew to get the hell out - what was wrong with that? She figured out how to survive, and is still surviving. Nothing wrong with that either. Some people made it, some didn't. Such is life...
98 posted on 01/08/2004 12:33:39 PM PST by bluejean (Will the last one out please leave the lights on? Someone needs to see what happened here.)
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To: Mr. Bird
why do they do business here in america? well, who else has a market for their products? who has the protections of the legal, intellectual property, and patent systems? who has such a relatively low marginal tax rate for the upper income corporate elites? where else can they live a life of luxury, flying on private jets to aspen and palm beach? do you think you could have that lifestyle in bangalore, or in china?
99 posted on 01/08/2004 12:35:16 PM PST by oceanview
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To: rightisright
This paper on Chinese executive compensation says that the top executives in China made an average of 157,394 yuan in 2002 approx equal to 28,713 AUD which is about $14,000 USD.

Sounds like the Board of HP could find someone else to run the shop for a whole lot less money than they're paying Carly...

100 posted on 01/08/2004 12:37:17 PM PST by George Smiley (Is the RKBA still a right if you have to get the government's permission before you can exercise it?)
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