Posted on 08/03/2003 7:42:08 AM PDT by RockyMtnMan
Michael Emmons thought he knew how to keep a job as a software programmer.
"You have to continue to keep yourself up to speed," he said. "If you don't, you'll get washed out."
Up to speed or not, Emmons wound up being "washed out" anyway. Last summer, he moved his family from California to Florida for the Siemens Co., makers of electronics and equipment for industries. Not long after, Emmons and 19 other programmers were replaced by cheaper foreign workers.
Adding insult to injury, Emmons and the others had to train their replacements.
"It was the most demoralizing thing I've ever been through," he told ABCNEWS. "After spending all this time in this industry and working to keep my skills up-to-date, I had to now teach foreign workers how to do my job so they could lay me off."
Just as millions of American manufacturing jobs were lost in the 1980s and 1990s, today white-collar American jobs are disappearing. Foreign nationals on special work visas are filling some positions but most jobs are simply contracted out overseas.
"The train has left the station, the cows have left the barn, the toothpaste is out of the tube," said John McCarthy, director of research at Forrester Research, who has studied the exodus of white-collar jobs overseas. "However you want to talk about it, you're not going to turn the tide on this in the same way we couldn't turn the tide on the manufacturing shift."
India Calling
Almost 500,000 white-collar American jobs have already found their way offshore, to the Philippines, Malaysia and China. Russia and Eastern Europe are expected to be next. But no country has captured more American jobs than India.
In Bangalore, India, reservation agents are booking flights for Delta; Indian accountants are preparing tax returns for Ernst & Young; and Indian software engineers are developing new products for Oracle.
They are all working at a fraction of the cost these companies would pay American workers.
For example, American computer programmers earn about $60,000, while their Indian counterparts only make $6,000.
"It's about cost savings," said Atul Vashistha, CEO of NeoIT, a California-based consulting company that advises American firms interested in "offshoring" jobs previously held by Americans. "They need to significantly reduce their cost of doing business and that's why they're coming to us right now."
Vivek Pal, an Indian contractor for technology consulting group Wipro, whose clients include Microsoft, GE, JP Morgan Chase, and Best Buy, is hiring 2,000 Indian workers quarterly to keep up with demand. Pal knows American workers resent the "offshoring" trend but says all Americans will benefit in the long run.
"Globalization — whether it's for products or services — may feel like it hurts, but at the end of the day, it creates economic value all around," said Pal.
At the end of the day, Emmons has a different view: "If you sit at a desk, beware," he said. "Your job is going overseas."
I respectfully disagree. I think enough people tune into FR to make it a significant influence on the American psyche. Also, it is a proper place to vent about and analyse problems in the Murrican landscape. Finally, it's a great place to meet chicks. Oh, no, wait, strike number three please.
It's just that Agamemnon has a way of expressing this in a sufficiently obnoxious way that you're too busy wanting to punch him out to examine what he's saying. This is also why I'm wondering if Agamemnon is really running his own company -- he doesn't display the charm and tact that an independent businessman tends to need to make habitual in order to manage his clients and workers, and to get his pitch across.
The thought also crossed my mind that he is full of feces about his business, for the same reason you cited. People who run businesses don't start off hostile and derisional (or should that be delusional?) in most conversations.
Have you tasted me lately? I used to be salty, but now I taste like lemon-lime.
Comes from spraying myself with Pledge all the time.
The seeming fact that we are approaching an economic depression due to the competition in the world marketplace gives no one license to disparage successful individualists, even if they do seem a bit boastful.
Besides, I have a phrase that perfectly describes people like that: He's playing his movie on my screen. (IOW: He's projecting like crazy)
That'd make a great Laurel and Hardy skit. Oliver in his blue flannels and suspenders sits grmiacing with a lunch box and a pink slip. Stanley, sad-faced in his white collar and starched black pants, joins him with his own pink slip.
"Well!" exclaims Ollie, "Here's another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into!" Then Stan bursts into tears...
A few of us are beginning to question his honesty, concerning his business. I don't think a lot of successful businesspeople act like he does.
My disagreement with Agamemnon has to do with his own political obtuseness. It is kind of an old time calvinist viewpoint that bad things happen to people because their souls are damned. He may be theologically or morally, or perhaps even - perhaps - economically correct that these folks deserve to lose their jobs because they won't go out and start their own successful companies. That position will not win Bush the next election, however.
One name, Al Davis.
I am not at all convinced that America, or any other country, can be a country of CEO's.
No business owner, knowing anything about the world order, boasts about a 6 figure income. It's a living - a good living - right up there with a good doctor or a second rate lawyer. In a good year Buffett or Soros have made 10 figures, and in any year going there are a good 6,000 executives in Fortune 500 companies that make 7-8 figures.
Of course not. Someone needs to do the real work.
Um, here's another one I think I take issue with. 40k a year with 4 kids is barely survivable in low-cost rural areas of Georgia. I know this because one of my friends is barely making ends meet at that income.
So your statement that income taxes are trivial is not reasonable. I and you are in no wise paying 'trivial' income taxes, in that we can rest assured.
Excellent point.
What has really made the US rich is the fact that we destroyed nearly all of industrial bases of competing countries during WWII, which is why jobs and retirement packages were secure.
The third world has of come of age and is now entering the marketplace. Now that America is forced to compete, all of those perks are being sold to the lowest bidder, unfortunately.
Of course, it's an insane policy to compete with slave labor, as we do with China. The day William Buckley showed up on the TV proclaiming that MFN status being bestowed upon our ideological enemies was a revelation.
Well, WE didn't destroy them, mostly. They destroyed themselves, with Russia and France and England and Germany slugging it out until they were punch-drunk. But, otherwise, that is an outstanding observation.
Of course, it's an insane policy to compete with slave labor, as we do with China. The day William Buckley showed up on the TV proclaiming that MFN status being bestowed upon our ideological enemies was a revelation.
Tariffs sure would help that situation greatly. MFN status with China was utter insanity, and what is more insane, was at the time I was indifferent to the granting thereof.
I've come a long way in my political education.
Actually, I think the mistake is that people thought that voting for Perot would make a difference. Actually it didin't, but it made them feel good.
That vote for Perot, brought the Clinton tax increase, two liberal Justices on Scotus, the very close implementation of Hillary care, and other liberal boilerplate issues.
But what the hey some are inclined to believe the Carvillian lie, worst economy in 50 years, when the Carter economy was actually the worst in the last 50 years.
But you go ahead get yourself into a tizzy, while ignoring all the facts and machinations of modern American politics.
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