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Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

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  • #31
    Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

    ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
    ctibodoe said:
    We are evolving into a country of information, instead of physical products. What could it possibly evolve into next? Whatever it is it seems to be a ways off. I have visions of those sci-fi flicks
    A friend of mine recently said it in a harsh/funny/thoughtful/scary way... "Bit twiddling is so 1990's - let the Indians have it. And the space race is even more 'done' than that, China! Time for us to kick nano-tech into high gear and either re-assert ourselves as the technological world leader or turn everything into 'gray goo' in the process. :-)" Search this site for Victor Rozek's now aging articles on nanotechnology for a glimpse of where things might head next. Fascinating stuff. Who knows? A long time ago, that guy in The Graduate said "plastics" for the future. He'd probably say "IT" in the 80s & 90s. I wonder if he'd say "healthcare" now, or maybe "healthcare and warfare"? Brian

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    • #32
      Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

      ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
      It's not greed on our part, as programmers and developers, that caused this mess. Experience in this field is, or at least was, a big plus. I have seen H1-B's come into a company and the first thing they did was study programming manuals on "how" to program, then proceed to create a system that crawled! That's what experience would have avoided. Sure it might have been a little more expensive for the experienced people but the company would have had an efficient system in the end that met their needs much more efficiently on the computer that they were on. I personally, as a contractor, have trained people from another country to take over the job I had and these people did not know the computer, the language, or the software. One of those people only knew mainframe SQL and that's all he would do is that-- never really tried to learn anything but what he already knew which was not sufficient to help him with the software that they had. None of us has been paid excessively for what we know! We're not ball players or polititions we're just the people that keep the businesses running and make all the changes that we are constantly asked to make good or bad -- but we do it right! We are, for the most part, fairly middle class in our living standards -- no jet planes here. I don't want to live as a third world underclass person, in my own country, nor should I have to! Mike D.

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      • #33
        Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

        ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
        The only way to protect ourselves from this trend is asking for deficit reduction. The companies are able to do the offshoring because they can send the dollars to another countries, and those countries are not required to send them back. When they are required to send the dollars back, either by puchasing our services or products, then the deficit will be reduced, and there will be a barrier for the companies to offshore the IT services, because they can only send the work offshore the offshore country can give us someting in return. Controlling th deficit is in itself the way to reduce offshoring.

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        • #34
          Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

          ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
          Mike - Did the execs in your company realize that the cost savings that were intended by the hiring program were really a cost quagmire? If they did realize that they were not saving any money, did the try to salvage projects by hiring qualified people, or did they try to cover up the bad decision by putting out positive memo spins? Dave

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          • #35
            Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

            ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
            International Corporate Law.

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            • #36
              Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

              ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
              I wonder if ICL (International Corporate Law)is going to help us if we ever decide to cut off the flow of dollars to China or India? Aren't they both nuclear powers? I believe I saw that Japan attacked us of Dec 7 after we cut off their oil. Could we cut off the cash to either of these guys? Not saying we should or shouldn't, just wondering what happens if we do, I'm betting it wouldn't be nothing.

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              • #37
                Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

                ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
                Could we cut off the cash to either of these guys?
                It'll never happen unless something else catasrophic causes it. The corporations would never allow it. ;-) Everything's far too intertwined now to be able to safely undo it. Just think of the obvious stuff - like no more Chinese goods on the shelf, which means either that things are either more expensive (drastic inflation domestically) or not available at all. That means people complaining, stores closing, jobs lost, etc. For what purpose? What is more likely to happen is that they will cut off money to US! Not directly, but through the loss of market confidence in our ability to repay our loans. They're financing our current account deficit right now - that's indicated in the trade deficit. And you've got the government budget deficit, which is financed in part by the foreign purchases of US gov securities. If the capital markets decide there's a better place to put their money, they move away from investing in us, which means we have to have higher rates to attract the money, and the dollar could fall hard, like in Russia or Mexico. That would be no fun. We need our businesses to remain competitive in the international markets, which is why we've got to tolerate some adjustments from time to time and do everything we can to be competitive. Walls don't work, as evidenced by the Soviet Union. Brian

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                • #38
                  Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

                  ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
                  Unfortunately, I have been 'forced' to be involved with interfacing for clients with two oursourcers from India. The quality in both instances was very poor due to (1) language and linguistic barriers, (2) time differences, and (3) understanding of complex specs. Again and again the QUALITY of the programming that you get from off shore outsourcing is questionable. I hear this over and over again from my fellow associates and from first hand experience. Specs are interpreted literally, without the usual 'thought' process that would be taken upon by someone who grew up with the nuances and inflections of our language....to say nothing of cultural differences. I am not a prejudiced person. I am very good friends with person from India who is still employed here thru his H1B visa - so much so that were it not for 9/11 my husband and I would have attended his wedding in India. HE's a very good programmer, so I know there are exceptions, but my experience has been that the RULE has been poor quality. Why are so many people reluctant to bring this up??? The only forum that I've heard the quality issue dicussed was on National Public Radio on the Diane Reams show. A professor on her show discussed some studies that showed that although India companies were only charging $25/hr compared to the standard American $75/hr, that due to reworked code, poor testing, misunderstandings, etc., that the productivity gain was only 7%. He stated that even this 7% could probably be reduced further by lost intangibles due to missed deadlines, extra on-shore personnel to manage the off-shore personnel, etc. etc. MORE STUDIES LIKE THIS ARE NEEDED!! Because I think we are missing the boat here folks. Just looking at an hourly wage is not looking at the total picture. Why did Dell cancel their off-shore contract? QUALITY. Someone pointed out that off-shore companies have not produced many FULL, WELL-WRITTEN, WELL-DOCUMENTED systems yet. This is fairly new, so the quality issue may not have fully surfaced yet, but that it will. Why is it taking so long? I've worked with fairly substancial modifications to programs that had abyssmal results, only to have management quietly send the programs back for further re-work... And ok, let's say the productivity gain is 7% - NONE of that money is staying in the United States. None of that money is going into our tax coffers. Is it worth it to our businesses to destroy our country for a so-called 7%??? And I can't leave this forum without mentioning kickbacks. Indian companies are notorius for offering very creative and lucrative 'legal' and/or 'hidden' kickbacks to executives. You tell me how sane and proper decisions and judgments can be made when you have some "under the table" money coming at you. Bribery; kickbacks - they exist. Let's not pretend like they don't. You know it; I know it. Stockwell writes a good article but I'm disappointed that these two items weren't mentioned. QUALITY and BRIBERY, are NOT being properly evaluated, investigated, nor even discussed. SHAME ON US for being so 'politically correct'. Peggy McMurtray Owner Preferred Midrange Solutions, Inc. peggymcmur@aol.com

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                  • #39
                    Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

                    ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
                    Hi, In my country we have had more than 80% of our sites become outsourced by the big US companies over the past 8 years, significantly reducing the availble opportunities to work. So what you are experiencing over the past few years in the US, we have been through and are probably already a few years ahead in a significantly reduced workforce in the mainframe sector. I have been contracted to IBM, contracted by IBM, worked at the three other outsources and been with companies as they got outsourced. So even though I dislike the outosurcing, and now offshoring, models being favoured I have been a part problem for purely economic reasons(money = survival). I have also done two years of no work and do not wish that upon anyone. The irony of it is now I work for a US outsourcer in my country as part of an internal offshoring effort to replace US jobs. Again not by choice but purely survival. In all my experiences there seems to be a common theme which seems to prevail through all the outsourcing and offshoring looking back from the frontline. It seems to be based on dubious accounting encouraged by weak management who would prefer not to take responsibility for their actions. the global trend of society not to tkae responsibility for their own actions tends to back this up. By encouraging a company to pay more for less service, management can shift the burden of responsibility to a third party relieving them of any real hard work or decision making. Look at any contract and you can see how fast the buck is transfered across company lines. I look back over the past 20 years of companies and managers I have worked for and there is a pattern. Those that I consider strong and knew what they were doing are still working for companies who retain their own IT, while the weaker management type outsourced their departments. The times have changed when company people went to vendors and told them what they wanted, the trend in the past ten years have been for the vendors to set the agendas for companies IT. Offshoring is just an underscoring of the dubious accounting used to justify outsourcing showing up that it is difficult to sustain in long term without labour cutting. Another sign of the weak management practices that has been driving us down this road is the quick fix solution to remove headcount and balance the figures, rather than properly manage resources, priorities and staff. The few companies that are breaking the trends over here are being lead by management that is thinking, creative and innovative and take responsibility for their own IT. So the rhetoric continues that it is market forces, globalisation etc that is causing this trend, but a schoolkid with an abacus could see that things don't add up. Until management and decison makers become thinkers and leaders again, responsible and accountable, we are doomed to slide further down, or become highly intellectual garden maintenance people and dog washers. T.

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                    • #40
                      Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

                      ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
                      This is the continuation of a process that has been going on since WWII: Technology is developed in the U.S., and first creates new jobs here, then the skills diffuse to the rest of the world and the jobs follow, leaving the U.S. We have managed to remain prosperous only because the rate of development of new technology and new jobs has stayed ahead of the losses. But the piercing of the speculative bubble in the stock market has interrupted the creation of new jobs, and the introduction of new technology has faltered somewhat. The good news is those jobs will come back. The bad news is that when they do, they will be done by machines. Even high tech, scientific, and senior management jobs can and will be automated. The only hope our generation has is for new technology to create new jobs, and that that will happen in the U.S. first. Unfortunately, the export of the high tech skills and jobs is likely to mean that the new job-creating technologies are also likely to be first introduced in other countries, and eventually the U.S. companies that are now offshoring will find themselves bought out by new companies in other countries, created by their foreign workers (offshoring senior management), or will go into bankruptcy. One of the best things we can do, as a matter of public policy, is invest in R&D, both in the public and private sector, so keep that in mind when you hear people oppose going to Mars saying the money should be spent on Earth. One of the best ways we could invest would be on solar power satellites, which could make the U.S. the energy supplier to the world. See Defense, scroll down to the bottom and click on solar power satellites.

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                      • #41
                        Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum

                        ** This thread discusses the article: Anti-Outsourcing Movement Gains Congressional Momentum **
                        To a lesser degree it has already started to happen. Our balooning trade deficit, and budget deficit has once again made the U.S. a debtor nation. Countries like China that tie their own currency to the U.S. Dollar has artificially propped up the value of the dollar. This can only go so far, before free market factors take hold and cause the value of the dollar to fall against other currencies, and to a certain degree this has already started to happen. It has not happenned to the point where it becomes more expensive to operate abroad, but it could. If the dollar goes into free fall how will the execs justify their operations abroad? I can just hear the corporate whining that it's just too darn expensive to move the operations back the the United States. Dave

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