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"It;s a bit vertigo inducing to hear you complaining about H1Bs drivng down market rate when at the same time you also actively participate in taking advantage of the lower market rate to offer more attractive bid on projects with lower development cost and get talent for what less than what you think they are worth."

Actually, you got that logic completely wrong. We didn't take advantage of the developers, our client did. They knew they could hold us to a given price because what were we to do, turn down the job??

Now the punch line: We displaced an H1-B and offshore Indian company. They sucked, did a lousy job, and they were charging and arm and a leg. That's right, we displaced an Indian firm.

The Americans did a FAR better job at half the cost. That's right, again, HALF the cost. The client had only a few bucks left and the indian company wasn't going to finish on time or budget. They were already 300% over budget.

More and more companie are finding that the Indian firms suck. They charge far more than they are worth. They usually use six week wonders to do the coding, and it shows. They change control everything into cost overruns. They also have an extremely top heavy managment style, and they can't spell in English worth a damn.

More and more companie are finding that the Indian firms suck. They charge far more than they are worth. They usually use six week wonders to do the coding, and it shows. They change control everything into cost overruns. They also have an extremely top heavy managment style, and they can't spell in English worth a damn.

Sounds like the problem is self-correcting.

Actually, you just made the point I was implying -

True, the market set the rate (including myself, for what I do, IT project management and tech product management/marketing, my salary in the last 5 years hasd gone from 80's to 90's to well over 100's back to 80's, briefly 40's and 60's, and now creeping back up to the 90's) ...

BUT, the market does not set the rate based ONLY, or even primarily, on the lowest rate. You can buy a car for 15K or 50K, and there is a market for both.

So by the same token, you can get a programmer for 40K or you can get a programmer for 80K - and the market should offer opportunities for both *if* the market has a demand for both and can clearly differentiate (and assign value to) the difference between the two - if the 80K programmer offer superior value to the 40K ones - harder working, better coder, speaks English,live in the same time zone, no strange foods, whatever, if the better paid programmer offers a better bang for the higher bucks, and the market values the better bangs (superior products and delivery time, for example), why shouldn't you be able to charge more for the superior bang? People buying 15K cars and 50Ks are both getting what they want for however they value what's important to them - so why wouldn't the market pay higher for the better programmers when they offer superior ROI?

Companies buy all kinds of goods and services, do they always buy the cheapest of everything in goods and services? Or do consideratiions other than the lowest price ever enter into the equation when corporate America buys everything from furnitures to computers and servers to new CRM and ERP systems to advertising to programming projects?