OT: U.S. firms move IT overseas

[Brian Densmore]

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 at dstsystems.com [mailto:KRFinch at dstsystems.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 2:27 PM
> To: Jeremy Fowler
> Cc: Kclug at 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"                           
>                                                    
>                     <jfowler at westrope.com>       To:     
> "Kclug at Kclug. Org" <kclug at kclug.org>                    
>                     Sent by:                     cc:          
>                                                    
>                     owner-kclug at marauder.i       Subject:     
> OT: U.S. firms move IT overseas                    
>                     lliana.net                                
>                                                    
>                                                               
>                                                    
>                                                               
>                                                    
>                     12/11/2002 01:54 PM                       
>                                                    
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> U.S. firms move IT overseas
> http://news.com.com/2100-1001-976828.html
> 
> <rant>
> 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.
> </rant>
> 
> PS> Sorry about the non-Linux post. -Jeremy
> 
> 
> 
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