Or move to the former soviet union and get ahead of the game. Of course you'll probably only make a fraction of what you make now and get slammed horribly on taxes [think in the range of 70% of your income]. But you'll be where the jobs are going to be. > -----Original Message----- > From: KRFinch@dstsystems.com [mailto:KRFinch@dstsystems.com] > Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 2:27 PM > To: Jeremy Fowler > Cc: Kclug@Kclug. Org > Subject: Re: OT: U.S. firms move IT overseas > > > > This is pure labor economics. There is no reason for a > company to spend > more for exactly the same work. The only way that these jobs > will be kept > here is if it is more expensive to move them than it is to keep them. > Companies only care about people as much as they have to > (aside from some > rare exceptions). History can show you that. > > FWIW, unemployment is now hovering around 6%, and was much > worse in the > early 80's and in the early 90's: > > http://www.cdrpc.org/rte_usa.gif > > Aside from that, though, I'm not disagreeing with you at all. > I think that > this job migration is awful too. Really, it's just an > aftershock from the > bubble economy, IMHO. Salaries skyrocketed, and firms began to look > elsewhere for cheaper labor. The thing that they realized > was that for a > lot of IT work (especially programming), it didn't really > matter where the > work was being done, and that it was hence very easy to > locate operations > offshore. They still needed some talented pros domestically to keep > everything running smoothly, but most of the gruntwork could > be sent where > grunts could be hired cheaply. > > The auto industry has been doing this for decades, and so > have most other > manufacturing industries as well. I remember talking to a friend that > worked for Ashley Furniture about their processes. He said > that what they > would do was ship American oak overseas to China for > millwork, and then > ship the tooled pieces back here for final assembly. Because > of the cheap > labor overseas, this was the cheapest way to get the most > expensive work > done, despite the fact that most of the wood in a given item > had "logged" > over 20,000 miles before it ever got assembled. As a bonus, > they could > still market the stuff as "Made in the USA" and "made of > American Oak", > because it really was. > > So, IT finally caught up with manufacturing. Big deal. > There will still > be a market for "premium" domestic IT services that other > countries simply > cannot provide, the industry will survive, and the economy > will recover. > The workers will get trampled on, and the companies will > continue to get > richer. The main thing is just to stay ahead of the curve. > > - Kevin > > > > > > "Jeremy Fowler" > > To: > "Kclug@Kclug. Org" > Sent by: cc: > > owner-kclug@marauder.i Subject: > OT: U.S. firms move IT overseas > lliana.net > > > > > > 12/11/2002 01:54 PM > > > > > > > > > > U.S. firms move IT overseas > http://news.com.com/2100-1001-976828.html > > > This just makes me sick. "By 2015, a total of 3.3 million > U.S. jobs and > $136 > billion in wages will transfer offshore to countries such as > India, Russia, > China and the Philippines, according to Forrester." We're in a major > recession! > Unemployment is at an all time high! What the hell are these > US companies > doing? > Outsourcing to other countries! Are they out of their friggen > minds? Do > they > realize what this will do to our already dismal economy? "as > much as 40 > percent > to 50 percent of U.S. IT services work could be done overseas > in the next > five > to 10 years" What's sad is that our government probably won't > do anything > like > set tariffs because these same companies have our congressmen in their > pockets. > This is bad, very, very bad. > > > PS> Sorry about the non-Linux post. -Jeremy > > > > majordomo@kclug.org > > > > > > > majordomo@kclug.org >