The U.S. software industry lost 16 percent of its jobs from March 2001 to March 2004, the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute found. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that information technology industries laid off more than 7,000 American workers in the first quarter of 2005.
…this is what happens when companies outsource American jobs. Thank you greedy corporations! 🙁
As there’s no longer any loyalty to the American worker by U.S. corporations (why should there be? They’re all “multinational” now), the opposite becomes true.
In general, American workers no longer have any loyalty to the companies they work for. A far contrast to the way things were 30 to 40 years ago where you worked for the same place for most of your career and retired with decent benefits.
Being in the IT field and having been laid-off in January 2004, I’m finding it difficult to find work in my part of the country.
I guess I can always open up a liquor store – folks drink in good times and bad…
The ‘greedy’ corps don’t exist to give American workers jobs, but to make a PROFIT! If it means trimming the fat, then that’s what they do… Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing, but a reality.
Ok. This is new news to me. I’ve seen a higher rate of programming jobs in the past two years. This article never explains the rate of NEW jobs in the field. Dumb article. FUD!
let’s start offshoring the consultants as well, that saves a lot of money too..
Even with outsourcing there are new jobs and new types of jobs opening in IT.
Look at outsourcing as a challenge and as brining new opportunities.
if you are good you’ll be working regardless of what happens.
@lc3d0g: Oh yes, blame the “greedy corporations”. It’s the “greedy corporations” that generate most of the income of this country, and create the top 5% that pays 50% of American taxes. The “greey corporations” don’t owe you anything, and the government certainly isn’t responsible for making them keep around jobs they don’t need. In any case, stopping outsourcing is hardly a long term solution. You can’t escape the market, no matter how hard you try. If you outlaw outsourcing in the US, the Europeans will take advantage of it, and use their better cost metrics to hammer American companies.
If the US is falling behind in science and engineering, then blame the root cause: the people. Americans simply aren’t interested in science and engineering jobs. And to say its because of the job prospects is non-sensical. You think high-schoolers look at job prospects when choosing a major? If they did, we’d see a large increase in engineering students in fields that have good job prospects (aerospace, biomedical, physics (nanotech, semiconductors)). But we don’t. At the same time, we see American students doing very badly on international science and math exams. Couldn’t that possibly be why Americans don’t enter engineering fields? After all, if you don’t like science and math*, you’re going to hate being an engineer or scientist!
The comment about Americans staying on the cutting edge is absolutely true. Being the richest country in the world is both an advantage and a disadvantage. On one hand, we cannot rest on our laurals, continuing to do routine jobs. Routine jobs will eventually be outsourced to places where they can be done cheaper. On the other hand, we have capabilities that nobody can touch. We can get into the ground floor on new technologies. Universities around the country are already gearing up for the next generation of technologies: nanotech and biotech, and you can bet that Americans will be the first ones on that boat**. But to do all this, we need people entering the fields of science and engineering. Our very position as the economic leader of the world is at stake.
* Personally, I blame our awful K-12 system. When I have kids, I’m planning on doing everything I can to be able to send them to private school.
** At least, if a certain President doesn’t let morality impede economic progress…
The real fault lies in the US Government. The purpose of companies are to make money. The purpose of the US Government is to serve the people by making the rules and setting limits as to how corporations make money. Corporations are not failing their purpose. The only failure in the system is the US Government because our elected officials have chosen to serve these corporations rather than the people who they are supposed to be serving. Putting fault on corporations is like putting fault on a shark for eating flesh. We wont gain anything by calling corporations greedy or by blaiming them. The fault falls squarely on all the elected officials, Democrats and Republicans alike. We need to dump both parties and start putting them all in jail for lying under oath.
Are you american, from the above post? ’cause i thought you were indian or something. Actually , the US has its 100 group of academic capable people
supporting the 1000000000 majority of american morons who want to become extreme sport athletes or profesional skaters, or go to law school.
Btw, the rest of the world will catch up, China’s gonna rival the US, like the Soviet Union once did, just wait.
Anyone seen the documentary “The Corporation”?
After all, with the obscene salary increase they give themselves, there’s plenty of fat to trim there!
@bleebo:
Yes, it is a reality, however it is one we can change through legislation. Unless you don’t mind a rising unemployment rate in the “new economy” (you know, the one that was supposed to provide for lost manufacturing jobs?)
Michael Moore Noam Chomsky’s one???
Normally I find myself agreeing with you, but here I’ll have to disagree. The problem is that corporations have greater mobility than people: they can easily outsource to countries where wages are an order of magnitude lower, but people can’t easily follow the work.
Unless we open up all borders for workers, then there’s no reason we should open all of them up for corporations as well. I know the current ideological trends is for free markets, but the truth of the matter is that our economies and societies aren’t ready for that. Protectionism is still a useful economic tool (and one that’s bound to make a comeback as more and more U.S. corporations outsource overseas and unemployment figures soar).
This isn’t anything new, really. Keynes already adressed the issue decades ago.
It’s not either MIchael Moore’s or Noam Chomsky’s film. The two are just people who are interviewed on it. The credits are here:
http://www.thecorporation.com/index.php?page_id=9
Personally, I do my best do avoid doing business with American companies that outsource American jobs over to India. Dell is a prime example. I never recommend their products to anyone. It’s one thing to outsource a tech job. But, I have found the level of knowledge of most of the people I have had to work with as being absolutely horrible. Not only are they sitting there trying to read out of a book to you in order to fix the problem, but half the time it’s impossible to understand what they are saying or get them to understand the full scope of the problem you’re having. Just becomes someone knows English does not mean they are capable of speaking it. These types of jobs that were once held by capable professionals in the US are now given to idiots in India (note – I’m not saying everyone in India is an idiot, just those that I have had to speak with directly certainly are.).
Where does the blame rest? It rests with the US government. Companies that outsource American jobs should be punished. Those that keep American jobs in America should be rewarded by given a tax break as a reward. That will give the company incentive to keep those jobs here. The government would benefit from those jobs remaining here, as that’s additional income tax dollars that they’ll be collecting. American companies that refuse to employ Americans should very much be punished financially. At least, that’s my view.
@a moos, I would say that its somewhat hypocritical for the US to say that about protectionism
AFter all, the US told the underdeveloped countries in the world to do just the opposite: to open the market to the free liberal (as an economic term) economy, eliminate all barriers, market rules, and sold it as the way out of poverty.
Meanwhile, the US does the opposite, imposing tarifs on imports protecting their industries, specially textiles and agriculture.
Normally I find myself agreeing with you, but here I’ll have to disagree. The problem is that corporations have greater mobility than people: they can easily outsource to countries where wages are an order of magnitude lower, but people can’t easily follow the work.
I think the mobility issue has not so much to do with people moving to follow work, but people moving to new fields when old ones dry up. But the point is well-taken, either way, people are less mobile then corporations.
Now, there are a number of “solutions” to this problem. At one end of the ideological scale, you can say it’s not a problem at all. If you’re of the mind that society owes individuals nothing, well, that’s a fine explanation. Economically, it’s quite a good solution, and one that maximizes economic growth. Now, if you are more compassionate, you can say that society does owe individuals a certain minimum, and then you can propose we raise taxes to support welfare and retraining for people left behind be a moving market. This is economically less efficient, but may be more palatable to the conscience. At the other extreme, you can say that people deserve to work at whatever job they choose, and force corporations to keep around useless jobs. This grants the most security, but is also the most economically inefficient solution. Worse, it basically condemns your economy to becoming obsolete. Nobody is going to move to new markets if the government guarantees them the comfort and security of their existing job. More enterprising countries will then take the initiative, and beat you to the next generation of technology.
I think people understimate the dangers of the last solution. Trust me, you do not want to be poor. America’s position in the world is couched in its technological and economic superiority. Our military superiority stems from these advantages. Once we lose those, the military advantage will quickly fade away. We do not want to lose our position in the world. Living in America’s shadow is no fun for the rest of the world, and living in the shadow of whoever usurps our position will be no fun for us.
@anonymous; about the companies outsourcing? Do you believe that all jobs are going to incompetent people in India, or elsewhere jobs are being outsourced?
There are lotsa very qualified people, I would say US level qualified that are going for the job position that was outsourced. Not only lowlevel jobs are going to india and elsewhere.
These types of jobs that were once held by capable professionals in the US
Bullshit. Tech support has almost always been staffed by the biggest idiots available, and I’m convinced it always will be. I have in my life yet to meet a tech support person that could help me any more than the manual could.
“Btw, the rest of the world will catch up, China’s gonna rival the US, like the Soviet Union once did, just wait.”
The USSR never rivaled the USA. Both threatened — militarily — each other, though on most other measures the USSR had more in common with Sweden…minus the nukes and the unsustainable political system.
The USSR was crushed attempting to keep up with the USA and has not recovered yet. While they are proud (who isn’t?), shooting for more modest goals like cutting down on corruption seems like a good plan.
In the case of China, they are not as red as they are light pink. The government realizes that Communism was a bad idea and they want to move to a more socialist style government with heavy reliance on capitialist corporations. They already do that. The USSR did not; they just collapsed from years of exhaustion. China is moving towards more democratic traditions, though they realize that capitalism and democracy aren’t gimmies; they don’t want to repeat the former Soviet block’s problems.
The only reason why the USSR was even an issue was because of the military and the world domination angle. As soon as it went from brute force (nukes and men), to high tech and industry, the USSR couldn’t keep up the appearance of being a peer to the USA.
Don’t give the USSR credit for having in the past what China can legitimately claim in the present.
I think the mobility issue has not so much to do with people moving to follow work, but people moving to new fields when old ones dry up
Isn’t that de facto the same?—>still no job.
Economically, it’s quite a good solution, and one that maximizes economic growth.
Whose economy?Certainly not the pockets of joe average at the factory of the company who is shifting some branches to a low wages country .Those who directly benefit are as usual the share-holders (fair enough it’s their investment)and the management.
If you’re of the mind that society owes individuals nothing, well, that’s a fine explanation
Economically the society at large maybe yes.If you see *the society* as the total of employees that work for an X company than i would disagree with you.
and then you can propose we raise taxes to support welfare and retraining for people left behind be a moving market. This is economically less efficient,
Spending $300 billion on the warfare in Iraq doesn’t help the economy either.I think the money had better be spend in USA,well at half of it.On sholarships,better education,healthcare,tax rabat,fighting drugs/crime,etc.
At the other extreme, you can say that people deserve to work at whatever job they choose, and force corporations to keep around useless jobs. This grants the most security, but is also the most economically inefficient solution.
Again,whose economy?
More enterprising countries will then take the initiative, and beat you to the next generation of technology.
Have you been sleeping?That’s allready the case and not only in America.
When the unemployed masses riot at your mansion in the hamptons, hopefully your private helicopter will be nearby for you to escape
I was just saying that China is going to become the next world power. i wasnt comparing them with the ussr. Theyre not. Maybe in 40 years they will become the world power,
but they will get there. The US will have to make their foreign policy based on “what the chinese may think about this”.
I wasnt talking about communism either. red, pink or whatever, China’s gonna be the next country people are going to rush to. Maybe chinese corporation will start employing recently unemployed american workers.
Once China’s wages rise, companies will move elsewhere, assuming Free Trade agreements allow it. Africa, once stable governments are installed, will probably be the next source of cheap labor.
> If the US is falling behind in science and engineering,
> then blame the root cause: the people. Americans simply
> aren’t interested in science and engineering jobs. And to
> say its because of the job prospects is non-sensical.
Who said that the U.S. is falling behind in science and engineering overall, rather than doing worse on average at lower grades? Is there an enormous shortage of scientific development or engineering performed in the U.S.? No.
> You think high-schoolers look at job prospects when
> choosing a major? If they did, we’d see a large increase
> in engineering students in fields that have good job
> prospects (aerospace, biomedical, physics (nanotech,
> semiconductors)). But we don’t.
Some of them obviously do, although almost none of my associates studied physical sciences for the money, because it’s really not that good. Everyone doesn’t need to do the same thing, or obtain the same skills. Do you think that doing so would mean that there were more jobs in the U.S. for these workers, and thus they wouldn’t be outsourced. Do you think these jobs are moved abroad because people from China and India are smarter?
> At the same time, we see American students doing very
> badly on international science and math exams. Couldn’t
> that possibly be why Americans don’t enter engineering
> fields?
Some don’t do well because they don’t want to be engineers, and there’s no social pressure to excel.
> After all, if you don’t like science and math*, you’re
> going to hate being an engineer or scientist!
Yep. And that has nothing to do with the outsourcing trend of work in all of the science and engineering fields. They aren’t outsourcing the jobs because people from the U.S. aren’t smart-enough, either. They aren’t doing it because they cannot use U.S. labor to innovate.
> On the other hand, we have capabilities that nobody can
> touch. We can get into the ground floor on new
> technologies.
We have capital and an existing higher education infrastructure that is excellent. Both can be touched, as capital is invested into foreign markets to produce more IP-related goods. Companies are already investing increasingly more into China and India for R&D and education. Don’t for a moment think that there’s anything untouchable that U.S. scientists or U.S. engineers can fall onto to be competitive.
> Personally, I blame our awful K-12 system. When I have
> kids, I’m planning on doing everything I can to be able to
> send them to private school.
Well, you can blame the awful K-12 system if you want, but the average performance in mathematics is a byproduct of cultural values. If you procreate, your children may just as well want to be Pokemon until they’re old enough to want to be rappers, and then they might want to be laywers, artists, or cooks. Perhaps they won’t be especially intelligent, and they’ll work retail. Of course you could attempt to engineer your children into science robots, but doing so wouldn’t necessarily improve their job prospects.
> On one hand, we cannot rest on our laurals, continuing to
> do routine jobs. Routine jobs will eventually be
> outsourced to places where they can be done cheaper.
This part is completely true for jobs where it’s cheaper to export the labor. This include the routine jobs of performing research in biochemistry and physics, too. On the other hand there are routine jobs that cannot be exported less expensively that are safe until better automation is developed. The real kernel of wisdom here is that “we cannot rest on our laurals.” You cannot expect to be doing the same job for a decent wage for the rest of your existence, if you’re involved in any sort of intellectual property construction. Not doing lab work for a hospital, not doing research for a drug company, and not working for a university. You don’t have a monopoly on education or intelligence, even if you have a higher standard of living.
You have to be adaptable, no matter how difficult that becomes as you age. If you can’t then you’re going to end up working a local, repetitive job that isn’t yet automated. You (the most generic U.S. you) might consider investing more of your money, instead of living off of credit and constantly buying new Macs, PDAs, and cell phones with cameras that play video games. Don’t be averse to creating your own businesses. Whatever you do, don’t have the cultural hubris that leads you to think that because you were good at elementary calculus that you’re an invaluable resource.
Isn’t that de facto the same?—>still no job.
It’s very dangerous to conflate two causes because they have the same effects.
Whose economy? Certainly not the pockets of joe average at the factory of the company who is shifting some branches to a low wages country.
The country’s economy. If you look around you, there is a lot of stuff that exists because of the total amount of money generated in the economy. Joe Average might not be benefitting directly, but because Joe Millionaire pays taxes, he’s benefitting indirectly. Take Georgia as an example. Much of the wealth of the state is generated here in Atlanta (by giant corporations like the Bank of America, Home Depot, Delta, etc). That wealth is redistributed outside of the city to all of the smaller towns. If you drive around these towns, you’ll realize they have public services (libraries, schools, parks), that they couldn’t possibly maintain with their own economic activity.
Economically the society at large maybe yes.If you see *the society* as the total of employees that work for an X company than i would disagree with you.
I’m not saying that this is what I believe, rather, this is one thing that somebody could believe.
Spending $300 billion on the warfare in Iraq doesn’t help the economy either.
Undoubtedly. But we’re talking about protectionism, not war. Just because you oppose the former does not mean that you support the latter.
Again,whose economy?
The economy as a whole. You have to look at the long-term picture (which is hard, I admit, when you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck). Sure, having the government secure for you a job is good for you now. But ultimately, the government’s money is the peoples’ money. The peoples’ money are generated in large part by corporations. If the corporations are poor because their competitors are outdoing them, then the people will be poor, the government will be poor, and Joe Average’s secure job will cease to exist. It’s all about sustainability: it doesn’t matter if something is good for you now, if its not sustainable, you’re quite throughly screwed.
France is a rather good example. The French have a huge level of social services. 50% of the country’s GDP goes to the government. That, in and of itself, is not wrong. The French have decided that they like a proactive government, and that they as a people owe something to their bretheren. Their model of society has its benefits — they have excellent healthcare, cheap education, and even the poor lead decent lives. France’s problem, however, is that the government’s 50% share keeps on growing. To put it bluntly, their system isn’t sustainable. They could make it sustainable, without altering its fundemental structure, but they choose not to. Whenever presented with the opportunity to trade some comfort and security for economic progress, they choose to keep comfort and security. Decades downt he road, this will hurt France. Other nations in the EU are embracing competitive markets, and will leave France behind. At that point, they just won’t have the money to continue to provide their social services, and nothing will be secure or comfortable.
The United States is the same way. We could protect programming jobs. That would make programmers feel better, but it would mean that college students would continue to get into a profession that Americans aren’t useful in, while neglecting professions that Americans could be useful in. Moreover, our competition will take advantage of outsourcing, and their better cost structure will hurt our companies. After all, they compete in a global marketplace, and America can’t set the rules for that marketplace.
“** At least, if a certain President doesn’t let morality impede economic progress.”
Don’t you think it should be the converse — economic progress shouldn’t impede morality, i.e. real human values?
Would you like to know when the world will stop hating America and will stop fighting your globalisation? When you as a whole show moral excellence, something your obsession with technology and economic progress at the price of everything, e.g. Bush and his Kyoto non-agreement, is not going to allow.
@hashem’s comment: I would say that’s very arrogant of ya saying that the rest of the world’s living in the US’ shadow. Well, eventually so will the US. They will become another european country-like has-been former world power, still first world, but no longer sole s.power.
Its just the dynamics of the current world. In the future your boss will be chinese.
If you outlaw outsourcing in the US, the Europeans will take advantage of it, and use their better cost metrics to hammer American companies.
As an European I can say that Europe fears that “greedy” US will take advantage of offshore outsourcing if it doesn’t do it self…
There are really 2 problems:
1) Incompetence
2) Management
We’ll start with 2:
Why don’t we outsource the management? Chopping off that one guy with the fat paycheck will save a lot more than laying off 5 guys down the chain.
1:
If you’re going to hire idiots, you might as well hire cheap idiots. Because, honestly, Indians and Chinese are absolutely no better at IT that anyone else. Finding qualified IT people of any kind is hard.
In fact, because there’s so much hub-hub about IT over in India and China, you’re more likely to have to deal with a greater ratio of cluelessness, which, speaking from a interviewer’s point of view, is extremely irritating and disappointing. How much? Let’s just say their Masters and Doctrates in IT fields are worthless. It’s like one big degree mill. In fact, as far as IT and CS courses anywhere are concerned, they’re all like freaking degree mills.
But in the end, when it comes to picking expensive clueless guy or cheap clueless guy, I’ll take cheap clueless guy. Actually, I’d take neither, but there’s always that management thing insisting on one despite how useless they’d be. And guess who complains when clueless guy gets hired on insistence and can’t do the job? Sigh.
bush and his cronies would rather have the world light up like a chimmeney than reducing fuel and gas outputs from oil companies.
The wages paid to workers are just a small part of the cost to the employer. Workers need office space ($/sqft), office furniture/supplies, computers, benefits, government deductions, etc. Even if the hourly wage was the same in the US and India with all those other factors it would still be cheaper to be in India. Some companies in North America have been working senior employees longer hours rather than hire additional junior employees. It is cheaper to pay a few employees overtime wages than to have to pay for training, office space, benefits for additional employees.
@a moos, I would say that its somewhat hypocritical for the US to say that about protectionism
AFter all, the US told the underdeveloped countries in the world to do just the opposite: to open the market to the free liberal (as an economic term) economy, eliminate all barriers, market rules, and sold it as the way out of poverty.
Yes, I completely agree with you, it is one of the biggest hypocrisies of the second half of the 20th century. In fact, one can argue that, for all its glorification of capitalism and free markets, the U.S. is actually quite an interventionist country. It has shoved “pure” capitalism down client states’ throats so they would buy U.S. products, but never actually adopted it for itself. Today we can see the dire results of this all too clearly.
Now, if you are more compassionate, you can say that society does owe individuals a certain minimum, and then you can propose we raise taxes to support welfare and retraining for people left behind be a moving market. This is economically less efficient, but may be more palatable to the conscience.
It’s not only a question of compassion, but of avoiding class warfare. If CEOs keep getting richer while more and more workers lose their job, you’re bound to have a dysfunctional society, and that can lead to civil unrest.
At the other extreme, you can say that people deserve to work at whatever job they choose, and force corporations to keep around useless jobs
It is the government job’s to make sure everyone (or at least the most people possible) have jobs. If that means protectionism, then so be it – the government should have all available tools at its disposal to make that that the country’s economic wealth (and I’m not talking about stockholders here, but real living and breathing workers) is in good shape. One thing is clear: tax breaks for the wealthy don’t create jobs.
Who said that the U.S. is falling behind in science and engineering overall, rather than doing worse on average at lower grades?
Engineers. In the aerospace field, there is something of a mild panic about what we’ll do when a huge percentage of our workforce retires in the next 10-15 years. We just don’t have enough aerospace engineers in the pipeline to replace those lost workers, much less enough to account for growth. The same is true for many other engineering fields.
Do you think that doing so would mean that there were more jobs in the U.S. for these workers, and thus they wouldn’t be outsourced. Do you think these jobs are moved abroad because people from China and India are smarter?
Not at all. Jobs will be outsourced, one way or the other. You can’t fight the market. The question is, will there be jobs to take the place of the ones that are lost. The answer is a qualified “yes”. As long as America is richer than China and India, American workers will be able to work at the cutting-edge of technology. China and India just don’t have the capital to do that now. They cannot train nanotech or biotech workers in the same way that they can train programmers. However, that all depends on Americans entering those new fields. If Americans aren’t interested in science and engineering, nobody will enter these new fields, and no jobs will be created to replace the ones that are lost.
Labor is the problem, and it is a problem that will get worse. Think of what will happen once the economy in China and India get better. Right now, a huge percentage of America’s engineering students come from Asia. They come here because they can get a lifestyle here that they cannot get at home. We benefit, because we have workers to work at our high-tech industries. If you look at the employee racial makeup of a place like Xerox or NASA, this becomes obvious. But it won’t always be true. What happens when China and India become better places to live? Why will those students travel 6000 miles to the United States when they can live nicely in their own country? What will happen to our technology industries then, when the sources of foreign students dries up and our own students don’t enter engineering programs?
Don’t for a moment think that there’s anything untouchable that U.S. scientists or U.S. engineers can fall onto to be competitive.
Engineering R&D is expensive, and the nice thing about economics is that growth is exponential. As long as we’re richer than India and China, and as long as we remain competitive, we’ll have more resources to throw at the problem than they will. Of course, that all depends on us staying competitive. What troubles me is how many people here have no desire to remain competitive.
K-12 system if you want, but the average performance in mathematics is a byproduct of cultural values.
Early education is where children get a lot of their cultural values. Our K-12 system and its “everybody is special in their own way” values do no service to our children. This is not to even mention the crappy curricula that focus more on Native Americans than Europeans, more on “Guess and Check” than arithmetic, more on “creative” writing than analytic writing, more on “feelings” than logic.
Of course you could attempt to engineer your children into science robots, but doing so wouldn’t necessarily improve their job prospects.
I don’t believe that. Parents have enormous power to shape their children. If parents use that power to shape them into the kind of people our country needs, the kind of people that can contribute something to our economy, then their job prospects will be much better than if they say “do whatever feels good to you!”.
“(libraries, schools, parks),”
Hmm those are hard to appreciate when you have no job. Products are made in foreign countries at little cost, then the finished goods are brought to the US at little cost (no tarriffs–free trade) and sold in the US, so as to crush any competition that uses local labor–prices drop through the floor, sales are high, and the product is commoditized–stock holders greatly benefit.
So you have jobs leaving the country, finished goods entering the country at no tarrif cost, which in turn crushes any competition using local labor, to the benefit of a few.
Unless these FEW people spend that money in the USA on USA built products, the economic cycle is that of MONEY LEAVING THE US AND NEVER RETURNING. I’d be curious as to how ANYONE other than stock holders can see ANY benefit here.
Don’t you think it should be the converse — economic progress shouldn’t impede morality, i.e. real human values?
What are “real human values”? Morality is a fiction, and values are guidelines people invent to make their lives easier. Everybody has different values, and one set isn’t really any better than another set. Economic progress, on the other hand, is real and quantifiable. It has intrinsic value, and its meaning is universal.
We in the software industry are our own worst enemy. I don’t know why we did this to ourselves. No other profession reduces prices to 0 – take lawyers, doctors, insurance agencies, bankers, movies, sports, etc.
The main question is that why are we (the software people) making it cheaper for the non programmers and software “consumers” to obtain our products inexpensively (~$0) ?.
Maybe an idea is that FLOSS must be free (without cost) only to other software developers making FLOSS products but everybody else “using/consuming” FLOSS should pay full market values.
It’s all about consumers and producers. If producers don’t value their products why should consumers?
Once people see that “computer” people are making money and the average software guy pulls in $250K (like the average doctor or lawyer) we’ll then see a resurgence in tech jobs.
nazi science, Japanese science 1933-1945.
Science unbounded by morality greatly advanced the field of aerospace, chemical warfare and biological warfare.
“What are “real human values”? Morality is a fiction, and values are guidelines people invent to make their lives easier. Everybody has different values, and one set isn’t really any better than another set. Economic progress, on the other hand, is real and quantifiable. It has intrinsic value, and its meaning is universal.”
Experimenting on people against their will with 100% possibility of death is wrong Rayiner, it’s morally wrong even if it is a test which would benefit a science.
It’s not only a question of compassion, but of avoiding class warfare. If CEOs keep getting richer while more and more workers lose their job, you’re bound to have a dysfunctional society, and that can lead to civil unrest.
This is true. Too often, people neglect the hidden costs of doing nothing. But economists recognize this too. Most economists will tell you that income disparity is a danger to the economy. But they’ll also tell you that protectionism is not the way to fix it.
It is the government job’s to make sure everyone (or at east the most people possible) have jobs.
According to whom? Certainly, the Constitution makes no mention of something like that, and classical liberalism would treat the idea as ridiculous.
As far as I’m concerned, jobs that exist due to protectionist measures are merely a form of welfare. I, personally, have nothing against welfare. But if we’re going to have it, let’s make it as simple and cheap as possible. Instead of having a guy do a job that isn’t needed, just cut him a welfare check. The cost to the economy is similar, and at least this way, he knows to go find a different job.
economic wealth
Economic wealth is measured in GDP, the total volume of dollars generated by the economy. It doesn’t really matter if the money is coming from one guy making $1,000,000 or 20 guys making $50,000.
Rayiner: “What are “real human values”? Morality is a fiction, and values are guidelines people invent to make their lives easier. Everybody has different values, and one set isn’t really any better than another set. Economic progress, on the other hand, is real and quantifiable. It has intrinsic value, and its meaning is universal.”
So you believe in total moral relativism? Some, but not all, moral standards are universal. Do you know anyone who approves of theft, treason, disloyalty, murder of innocents?
NOT stealing, NOT committing treason, NOT being disloyal, NOT murdering innocents ARE REAL HUMAN VALUES, Rayiner. And there are more, much more.
nazi science, Japanese science 1933-1945.
Science unbounded by morality greatly advanced the field of aerospace, chemical warfare and biological warfare.
No they didn’t. Name a single major technology developed as a direct result of “science unbounded by morality”. German and Japanese scientists contributed greatly to these fields during World War II, but those contributions were not dependent on them breaching morality.
Experimenting on people against their will with 100% possibility of death is wrong Rayiner
‘Wrong’ is a fiction. Nothing is objectively wrong or right, just as nothing is objectively true or false. There is merely what is and is not acceptable to society. The level of acceptability is something that varies greatly depending on time and circumstance.
So you believe in total moral relativism?
Yes. Absent some sort of higher power, moral relativism is the only logical conclusion. How can fundemental rules exist without some fundemental power to lay them down?
NOT stealing, NOT committing treason, NOT being disloyal, NOT murdering innocents ARE REAL HUMAN VALUES, Rayiner. And there are more, much more
These are all values held by us, but they are not values held generally by human societies. Prior to the invention of personal property, there was no concept that “stealing” is wrong. Certainly, there exists no such concept in the animal world. Prior to the existance of government, there was no conception that treason was wrong. Heck, the United States was founded by a bunch of treasonous individuals! Loyalty is a value that very few people hold today, given the rampant rate of adultry, as is not murdering innocents, given the rampant rate of warfare.
These “values” are all contingent, they are all circumstantial. They are guidelines that people follow and choose not to follow voluntarily, not rules. They are useful because they ensure the smooth functioning of society, but they have no intrinsic value. When they fail to be useful to society, there is no harm in ignoring them.
It is the government job’s to make sure everyone (or at least the most people possible) have jobs.
Thats hard to do when the lowest wage you can legally pay in the US is a top salary in some parts of the third world. The U.S.’s standard of living is too high to compete.
Personally, I have given up my dream of a Tech job in the U.S. Despite being a long term nerd, I don’t want to compete with the third world on ANYTHING. I plan to attend lawschool now next fall.
The job of the federal gov’t, as originally written, is to provide for the defense of the union from foreign invaders and the enforcement of contracts and laws. All the other stuff that they do is/was supposed to be reserved for the state governments (read the 10th amendment).
But, as always happens, a central gov’t grows out of control until it is whipped back into shape, collapses of it’s own weight or is replaced.
I was looking at this feature on PBS which was talking about Walmart. Initially Walmart using US suppliers used to make 18 – 20% profit. After importing goods from China they have a whopping 60 – 70% markup. Now its just fine to make profits but Walmart is driving the suppliers to move their manufacturing operations to 3rd world if they want to do business. Which is sad, needless to say this markup cannot last forever. When China comes to a level playing field in terms of the currency rate, We would see another bubble burst.
Hmm those are hard to appreciate when you have no job.
If they didn’t exist, your children would have no jobs. I agree that it is hard to appreciate long-term benefits when you lack short-term security. But security is temporary and fleeting if your system is not sustainable in the long term!
Products are made in foreign countries at little cost, then the finished goods are brought to the US at little cost (no tarriffs–free trade) and sold in the US, so as to crush any competition that uses local labor–prices drop through the floor, sales are high, and the product is commoditized–stock holders greatly benefit.
In a free-trade system, we can do the same thing. Everybody benefits. The only problem is if we have nothing they want to buy, and well, that’s our fault isn’t it.
Unless these FEW people spend that money in the USA on USA built products, the economic cycle is that of MONEY LEAVING THE US AND NEVER RETURNING.
But money isn’t leaving the US. We’re richer than ever! Sure, programmers don’t have jobs. But because of cheap IT service, other people do. You just have to look at the numbers to see the truth.
http://www.aches-mc.org/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312303564/ref=pd_bxg…
The economy as a whole. You have to look at the long-term picture (which is hard, I admit, when you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck)
Well the majority who has a wife ,kids and a job does.You must be either single,easily satisfied or making a lot of money 🙂
Sure, having the government secure for you a job is good for you now.
I’m certainly not for artificially creating and maintaining jobs in general.The goverment doesn’t have to provide jobs directly per se but a healthy economically climate better yet a healthy social structure that can be ideal equally exploited.So much opportunity and people in the USA so little gain from it.I agree with a shift to more stimulation of education and phychological stimulating jobs.
The’re a lot of bright young people who want education but aren’t backed financially and lets end seek their furure for example in the army or low paid jobs.There’s a lot of danger coming within the society itself:crime,drugs,easy additive entertainment, etc,that doesn’t benefit the society much less the economy and therefore job security.
France is a rather good example. The French have a huge level of social services. 50% of the country’s GDP goes to the government
Well i would say whole western Europe.We here in Holland for example go to %60 on the tax scale in some occasions.
Other nations in the EU are embracing competitive markets, and will leave France behind. At that point, they just won’t have the money to continue to provide their social services, and nothing will be secure or comfortable.
Well the Dutch also voted against the European legislation law,maybe you have heard from it.Competitive markets,good that you mention it,yes they got themselves 10 new poor Eastern European member countries.Ten new ones to get subsidized or new opportunity to produce at very low cost in those countries.
Our goverment had the guts to tactically (*not*) announce the increase of their salaries with %30 and that in a time the unions have to fight for one or two percent increase.The goverment wanted to treat themselves with a “more market conform salary”.A good politician in my opinion doesn’t bother about his salary to much but has ideals where he.she stands for and tries to put it in practice no matter how little listen.To much company power is intertwined with goverments.
Engineering R&D is expensive, and the nice thing about economics is that growth is exponential. As long as we’re richer than India and China, and as long as we remain competitive, we’ll have more resources to throw at the problem than they will.
Now you are promoting something you declared against somewhat.Throwing resources in other to solve a coming or existing obstacle You agreed not to artificially create or maintain jobs.Just simply take the heat with resources is just borrowing time,it’d fried air.
We inevitably loose the production.Companies management don’t give a shit about the nation,they all are brainwashed for profit or are just to preoccupined with their own world.I think we should better use the resources we have as a nation.
We could protect programming jobs
Happened with the car industry also,and now with the steel industry,not that i’m in favor of it.Doesn’t change anything substantial for the future.
but it would mean that college students would continue to get into a profession that Americans aren’t useful in, while neglecting professions that Americans could be useful in
Well,we have here in the netherlands a numerus fixus for the popular sciences like medicine.You have the best chance of getting a spot if you score straight A’s,daddies money isn’t a factor( I think that’s very wise).Maybe there should be put an numerus fixus as well on studies where’s not really a demand for.But that’s dangerous as well for a lot of parameters which can’t be measured by econometrics.There’s more than money.
Your let them eat cake attitude will probably get you the same result at some point.
“In a free-trade system, we can do the same thing. Everybody benefits. The only problem is if we have nothing they want to buy, and well, that’s our fault isn’t it.
‘
Everybody WHO HAS MONEY AND IS A CONSUMER WILLING TO PAY THE AGREED PRICE benefits. If you have no job, you are STILL SCREWED. Keynes pointed out the role government needs to play in helping economies, the Adam Smith “it’ll fix itself” concept was greatly disproven by the great depression, and by the “great leap forward” in China–either you spend money / find ways to get people employed or help people or they starve to death, inwhich case those who did not starve will benefit, because now there’s enough food. I prefer the former.
I find it amazing the conclusion you draw, where were you educated rayiner? Did you get a philosiphy degree?
<<<When China comes to a level playing field in terms of the currency rate, We would see another bubble burst. >>>
It will be a long time away. China’s workforce earns less than $1/hour, and they work 12 hour days, 7 days/week, and there are almost 200 million more unemployed/underemployed waiting to take the places of the ones that collapse from exhaustion.
By comparison, jobs in India are are 1/3 our salary this year, as opposed to 1/6 three years ago.
I don’t deny that “unethical” scientific experimentation occurred. What I take exception to is this: “Science unbounded by morality greatly advanced the field of aerospace, chemical warfare and biological warfare.” The science that contributed greatly to society was not the kind that was “unbounded by morality”. Just because it was done by Nazis doesn’t mean that it was inherently unethical. After all, Hans von Ohain didn’t test the jet engine by pushing Jews through the flowpath!
Dachau hypothermia and high altitude experiments starting in 1933 benefit you everytime you get on a commercial jet.
The means, were and are disgusting. And now you’re adding qualifiers. Your statement was that there is no “wrong,” that it’s all about perception, and philosophically it is, but somethings are wrong and do not need an explanation as to why they are wrong because the answer is so obvious.
What is your job title Rayiner? Consultant?
“Sure, having the government secure for you a job is good for you now. ”
Noone wants the government to secure an artificially necesitated jobs. IT jobs, programming, manufacturing, support, and all the other jobs being outsourced are necessary jobs. If they were not necessary, they would be eliminated not outsourced. So the problem isn’t whatsoever about government holding back progress. The problem is that do we as a society want to compete on cost against governments whose goal is not to better their people. The problem is should we want to compete on price against people who are happy living in a cardboard box living on rice because that’s all their government wants them to have. Simply put, we cannot compete against societies that do not hold the same values on human dignity and brotherhood of man.
Your let them eat cake attitude will probably get you the same result at some point.
what “let them eat cake” attitude? I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t do anything to help those affected by tech-related job losses, I’m arguing we shouldn’t keep around jobs we don’t need. If we’re going to give these people welfare, let’s be upfront and efficient about it and just cut them a check. Forcing companies to keep unnecessary jobs is just an expensive farce.
Everybody WHO HAS MONEY AND IS A CONSUMER WILLING TO PAY THE AGREED PRICE benefits. If you have no job, you are STILL SCREWED.
There will always be people who do not have jobs. It’s inherent to the free market. There will always be people who are screwed. There is no point in messing up the whole economy just to prevent that. Your basic problem is that you think you can control the market. You cannot! If you try to hack things one way, the market will push back somewhere else.
Consider what will happen if we “protect” programmer jobs. Companies like IBM will just do business elsewhere! We can’t force IBM US to do X number of projects! The Europeans, who seem to be embracing capitalism pretty well, will have no qualms about letting IBM Europe handle the projects with outsourced labor. Even if IBM does the “right” thing and keeps jobs in the US, how will they compete with European companies who embrace outsourced labor? You can’t fight the market.
Keynes pointed out the role government needs to play in helping economies, the Adam Smith “it’ll fix itself” concept was greatly disproven by the great depression
Yes, and these points are all a part of modern economic theory. However, modern economists still don’t believe in protectionism. Just because the government theoretically needs to intervene in certain cases doesn’t mean that the government needs to intervene in this case.
I find it amazing the conclusion you draw, where were you educated rayiner? Did you get a philosiphy degree?
The conclusions I have reached are pretty much what economists are saying. I have no degree in economics, so I trust the opinion economists have on economics.
Dachau hypothermia and high altitude experiments starting in 1933 benefit you everytime you get on a commercial jet.
Thank you for finally providing an example.
And now you’re adding qualifiers. Your statement was that there is no “wrong,”
What qualifiers? My statement was that “there is no wrong, only acceptable and unacceptable to society”.
somethings are wrong and do not need an explanation as to why they are wrong because the answer is so obvious.
If something cannot be explained, cannot be proven, it is not true. It can be assumed to be true, it can be believed to be true, but those are conveniences, not certainties.
What is your job title Rayiner? Consultant?
General Programmer. Really. Of course, I’m getting a degree in aerospace engineering, take that as you’d like.
Rayiner: “Yes. Absent some sort of higher power, moral relativism is the only logical conclusion. How can fundemental rules exist without some fundemental power to lay them down?”
Not necessarily so. There are natural laws, such as gravity, electricity, etc., and there very well MAY be higher- order laws that dictate the best way for humans to conduct their lives and which we as a whole haven’t realized and mastered.
“These are all values held by us, but they are not values held generally by human societies.”
Can you point me to any existing study that states this clearly, at least for some of the values that I specified?
“Prior to the invention of personal property, there was no concept that “stealing” is wrong.”
Well yeah, because there was no personal property! But this is not a counterargument — we need to consider the case when there exists personal property
“Certainly, there exists no such concept in the animal world.”
No concept that “stealing is wrong” in animals? There are new species discovered constantly, so we do not know the animal kingdom well enough to confirm this statement.
“Prior to the existance of government, there was no conception that treason was wrong.”
Rayiner, this is another unwarranted statement. Do you realize that even the best historians aren’t very sure when the first governments started? And plus, treason can happen between individuals in a cave, you know.
“Loyalty is a value that very few people hold today, given the rampant rate of adultry, as is not murdering innocents, given the rampant rate of warfare.”
It is absolutely false that “loyalty is a value that very few people hold today”. Do you realize that even unloyal persons want others to be loyal to them?
“These “values” are all contingent, they are all circumstantial. They are guidelines that people follow and choose not to follow voluntarily, not rules. They are useful because they ensure the smooth functioning of society, but they have no intrinsic value. When they fail to be useful to society, there is no harm in ignoring them.”
Given my comments above, I cannot see the reasons why you think that morality is not quantifiable and thus has no intrinsic value. It is quantifiable that if society’s members start acting contrary to the moral values I outlined, society as we know it today will eventually stop existing, it will disintegrate. Is that good? Hell, no, it is not good. Is it objectively true that this is not good? Hell, yes!
When did the dot-com bubble burst again? Would it make sense for jobs to decrease because of it? Of course. Now will some of the job losses be due to outsourcing? Yeah, but how much?
And outsorcing is bad because some workers lose jobs? Well, guess where the parts of your are most definately made in? For one, it’s not the US. Now would you like to pay more for computer parts made in the US? How much more, to “save American jobs”?
“I’m arguing we shouldn’t keep around jobs we don’t need. If we’re going to give these people welfare, let’s be upfront and efficient about it and just cut them a check. Forcing companies to keep unnecessary jobs is just an expensive farce. ”
Are you seriously arguing that we do not need manufacturing and high-tech jobs? Explain to me, if support jobs, programming jobs, assembly-line jobs, sewing, knitting, textile industry, and all these other jobs that are being outsourced are not necessary, why are they being outsourced rather than just eliminated? Last I checked, the majority of Americans are walking around in clothes, driving cars, and using high-tech devicse. Do we keep the jobs because we like to put foreigners on welfare? Why not just be “upfront and efficient about it” and just cut foreigners a check?
I’m not racist. I know Indians, Chinese, Indonesians, Africans, Mexicans all have the brain capacity and capability to do any jobs Americans can do. I also know that mathematics is absolute. 0 never equals 1. So if brain capacity, work ethic are the same, how exactly is America supposed to compete on a higher standard of living? You protect American jobs so that America, not the country with the lowest standard of living, dictates what kind of standard of living we live with.
Apparently you’re not a pet owner.
If you have 2 dogs, throw 1 treat on the floor between them–then you’ll see how they treat stealing.
Or try to remove food from their plate while their eating–you’ll quickly see that they resort to violence.
Interesting surname Joseph,
Guess where Hyundai is building a massive car plant, one of its largest? The USA, because Americans would rather buy low-cost cars made by Americans. With a name like Hyundai, it is quite obvious that the company is foreign.
It’s funny to see a South Korean company moving into the US to avoid the “foreign car” stigma when at the same time, GM and Ford are drastically moving to Canada, Mexico and now to China for their manufacturing.
We will all be in service jobs soon manning star bucks counters for rich assholes.
> Engineers. In the aerospace field, there is something of a
> mild panic about what we’ll do when a huge percentage of
> our workforce retires in the next 10-15 years. We just
> don’t have enough aerospace engineers in the pipeline to
> replace those lost workers, much less enough to account
> for growth. The same is true for many other engineering
> fields.
The shortage of workers in aerospace is a byproduct of lower financial incentives when compared to other engineering disciplines, like mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering. Science and engineering enrollments have been growing.
> The answer is a qualified “yes”. As long as America is
> richer than China and India, American workers will be able
> to work at the cutting-edge of technology.
That isn’t true at all. As long as people from the U.S. are in control of more capital, they will be able to determine where the capital goes. That’s it. This doesn’t translate into “American workers” being able to work at anything. It means that people with the capital will decide who works at the cutting-edge of technology.
> China and India just don’t have the capital to do that
> now. They cannot train nanotech or biotech workers in the
> same way that they can train programmers.
They don’t need to have the capital when foreign entities are willing to provide it. This is what they’re doing. They aren’t just exporting “programmer” work to China and India; they’re starting to move biotech R&D.
> If Americans aren’t interested in science and engineering,
> nobody will enter these new fields, and no jobs will be
> created to replace the ones that are lost.
The jobs being exported now have nothing to do with worker shortages; they’re related to foreign cost of living. As foreign markets become richer they will have higher cost of living. They’ll also have more sloth as it becomes more profitable or easier to study other subject matter.
> Why will those students travel 6000 miles to the United
> States when they can live nicely in their own country?
> What will happen to our technology industries then, when
> the sources of foreign students dries up and our own
> students don’t enter engineering programs?
You’re ascribing current job woes to projections of future economic well-being when it’s entirely likely that until wage parity from cost of living standards and domestic competition in foreign markets occurs between the U.S. and the large labor markets in Asia, jobs are going to increasingly move to Asia regardless of what education people in the U.S. obtain. The U.S. doesn’t have a monopoly on intelligence, and the majority of capital is held without concern for nationalism. You’re projecting a superfluous crisis scenario, when the time when China and India have such a high average standard of living, it’s going to because Western capital was invested into its construction. It’s about as interesting as projecting that the U.S. won’t be able to compete at manufacturing because not enough people train as human automatons, or concerns about India, Taiwan, and China’s long-term economic growth because of the “brain drain” that’s occurred as their students moved to the West (not just the U.S.) to work. If the jobs move to cheaper labor markets, suddenly it matters much less what you’re trained in.
> What troubles me is how many people here have no desire to remain competitive.
Most humans become lazy as their basic requirements of life are met.
> Early education is where children get a lot of their
> cultural values. Our K-12 system and its “everybody is
> special in their own way” values do no service to our
> children.
If by “early education” you mean the aggregate environment in which they live. Unless you plan on isolating children from the culture in which they exist entirely, they’re going to obtain social mores from those they observe. Parents, neighbors, peers, people that they see in entertainment, and so forth.
Is it K-12 that instills an obsession with athletics? Is it K-12 that instills an obsession with dealing drugs? Is it K-12 that instills children with an interest in skateboarding off of hand rails? K-12 and its deficiencies reflects the culture you live in, because it’s basically an amalgam of the children of the people in the environment you live in. If they’re all touchy-feely idiots that want to be on MTV someday, it’s because the culture of the U.S. values being on MTV.
> This is not to even mention the crappy curricula that
> focus more on Native Americans than Europeans,
I actually had to stop and ask myself if you were trolling when I read that. “Native Americans” are practically irrelevant to education in K-12, and most people graduating high school in the U.S. will know more about European history than the history of the Americas, unless perhaps if you happen to live in the Southwest. There’s a superficial amount of history provided about ancient American civilizations that is less developed than education on ancient Egyptian society, and the only places where American civilizations are mentioned later on is where they intersect with the Europeans that colonized the continents.
> more on “Guess and Check” than arithmetic
I don’t even know what you mean by “guess and check,” unless you’re referring to having students develop visual skills with respect to analyzing data. The serious problem with U.S. mathematics education is that it puts too much emphasis on rote arithmetic and not enough on writing proofs. Too little mathematical diction is introduced, and naive set theory is introduced too late if at all.
> more on “creative” writing than analytic writing, more on
> “feelings” than logic.
Analytic writing is a large part of K-12 instruction. There’s just no formal exposition on logic, and the quality of analysis accepted is low.
> I don’t believe that. Parents have enormous power to shape
> their children. If parents use that power to shape them
> into the kind of people our country needs, the kind of
> people that can contribute something to our economy, then
> their job prospects will be much better than if they say
> “do whatever feels good to you!”.
Various types of people are more easily manipulated than others. If you intend to have stupid or easily-manipulated children, then more power to you. If it had been up to my parents, I would be a lawyer. That didn’t work out so well for them.
If you’re saddened that most people in the U.S. setup little in terms of substantive academic expectations from their children, then I sympathize with you. That’s what happens when you’re on top of the heap. Art and leisure become more desirable than hard work, leaving difficult subjects to the whims of the market and the self-motivated. If the U.S.’s quality living shifts as a result of sloth, it will change.
If it matters (which it really shouldn’t), I’m a US citizen.
Yeah, the Asian car companies build factories in the US. And….?
Mr. Anonymous, what is your surname? do you happen to be a white Caucasian male born in the US, by any chance? What does that happen to do with anything?
I’m certainly not for artificially creating and maintaining jobs in general.The goverment doesn’t have to provide jobs directly per se but a healthy economically climate better yet a healthy social structure that can be ideal equally exploited.
I don’t disagree with that, but here in the US, the opposition to outsourcing in general tends to be of the “make it illegal” type. Doing so would be economic suicide. The EU already has a GDP comparable to ours, and is moving towards a more market economy. I can’t imagine Europeans enjoy America being the economic behemoth, and I can’t imagine that Americans would enjoy Europe being the economic behemoth.
Well i would say whole western Europe.We here in Holland for example go to %60 on the tax scale in some occasions.
The difference between the Netherlands and France is that the Dutch actually try to maintain their economy. The Netherlands is ranked in the highest tier of countries in economic freedom. This is an important critereon. Historically, there is a strong correlation between economic freedom and GDP-per-capita growth. The problem France has is not the 50% government take of the GDP (Western Europe ranges from 40-50%, the US is 35%, and Hong Kong is 25%), but that its share keeps growing and there is really no plan on how to pay for that growth.
Well the Dutch also voted against the European legislation law,maybe you have heard from it.Competitive markets,good that you mention it,yes they got themselves 10 new poor Eastern European member countries.
It’s not just EU laws. French politics is such that nobody wants to raise the question of “who will pay for this?” American politics are heading in the same direction. Our President keeps promising more and more, and the thought of “who will pay for it?” never enters his head.
Now you are promoting something you declared against somewhat.Throwing resources in other to solve a coming or existing obstacle You agreed not to artificially create or maintain jobs.Just simply take the heat with resources is just borrowing time,it’d fried air.
I can’t really parse this. I’m not saying that we should throw resources as a government, but rather that our companies have more resources to throw at upcoming problems. Our companies can build biotech labs much faster than theirs can. This will be true as long as our country is richer than theirs.
What are “real human values”? Morality is a fiction, and values are guidelines people invent to make their lives easier. Everybody has different values, and one set isn’t really any better than another set.
So is the idea of private property. This is another convention, and yet economics is based on it.
The fact that moral values are relative does not automatically imply that they all vary greatly from one place to another, or that they are all equal.
But economists recognize this too. Most economists will tell you that income disparity is a danger to the economy. But they’ll also tell you that protectionism is not the way to fix it.
Actually, an increasing number of them do. It seems Keynes is still very much relevant! 🙂
> So you believe in total moral relativism? Some, but not all,
> moral standards are universal. Do you know anyone who
> approves of theft, treason, disloyalty, murder of innocents?
> NOT stealing, NOT committing treason, NOT being disloyal,
> NOT murdering innocents ARE REAL HUMAN VALUES, Rayiner. And
> there are more, much more.
There are no objective human institutions, including morality. You have to collect a set of axioms to construct a moral system. If we do not accept the same set of axioms, we will have different systems. For instance, I’ll reject not stealing, not committing treason, and not being disloyal. I can think of a lot of circumstances in which all three of those are acceptable to my personal sense of ‘righteousness.’ That’s not very universal. Since we haven’t defined what an innocent is, I don’t know about that one. I’m sure many people would reject it, too.
Are you seriously arguing that we do not need manufacturing and high-tech jobs?
It’s not that we don’t need them, we don’t need Americans to be doing them. To see the dangers of protectionism, just look at the US farm industry. Every year, we give farmers billions of dollars of free money. We could get our food much more cheaply elsewhere (like Japan does), but we don’t. Now, farmers have no reason to switch to a legitimate job. We’ve provided them cushy position, and they aren’t giving it up.
aweful lot of those people should have never been employed in he first place. this is the final dot com fall out
@?: If you have 2 dogs, throw 1 treat on the floor between them–then you’ll see how they treat stealing.
The dog reacts because it wants its food back. It does not have some absurd notion that there is a higher truth saying that the food is his.
@a nun, he moos: So is the idea of private property. This is another convention, and yet economics is based on it.
My argument isn’t couched in the idea that economics is “Right” (TM). It’s couched in the idea that economics is useful. Values, in general, exist because they are useful. Society follows them because they are useful. However, “useful” is the only relavent critereon. To the extent that values are not useful, there is no need to follow them.
The fact that moral values are relative does not automatically imply that they all vary greatly from one place to another, or that they are all equal.
No, but it does imply that it’s silly to say “don’t do that, it’s WRONG”, without couching the argument in something more concrete.
The conclusions I have reached are pretty much what economists are saying. I have no degree in economics, so I trust the opinion economists have on economics.
Well, the problem is that economists don’t all agree! Unlike most “hard” sciences, the different schools of thought in economies are quite divergent.
Until wages are relatively similar in the various world markets (i.e. we have a free “job market”), protectionism will not only be useful, it will be essential. This is what most economists that aren’t hired by right-wing think tanks say today. Otherwise the market is only free for a certain class of entities (i.e. corporations) and not for others (i.e. real human beings).
> aweful lot of those people should have never been employed
> in he first place. this is the final dot com fall out
Agreed, during the .com era many jobs were held by people that weren’t producing anything useful. Their jobs evaporated when they probably shouldn’t have been constructed in the first place. However it isn’t just tech support and programming work that is being exported, so pretending that it is will only bite you in the ass in the future. There are no employment safe havens in IP, except maybe “owning” it, but even that’s problematic in developing countries. Perhaps “owning” it and having a lot of capital to pay people to protect it.
“There are no objective human institutions, including morality. You have to collect a set of axioms to construct a moral system. If we do not accept the same set of axioms, we will have different systems. For instance, I’ll reject not stealing, not committing treason, and not being disloyal. I can think of a lot of circumstances in which all three of those are acceptable to my personal sense of ‘righteousness.’ That’s not very universal. Since we haven’t defined what an innocent is, I don’t know about that one. I’m sure many people would reject it, too.”
So you honestly LOVE people to steal from you, to commit treason to you, and to be disloyal to you? So you are really the exception?
> So you honestly LOVE people to steal from you, to commit
> treason to you, and to be disloyal to you? So you are really
> the exception?
What is ‘love?’ What does what I ‘love’ have to do with whether something is ‘objectively true’ or not? I can assure you that I wouldn’t “love” someone if they shot me full of 9mm ammunition, but I certainly don’t see it as objectively wrong. It would be fairly difficult for someone to “commit treason to” me, and if you’d be so kind as to tell me what that means I might entertain responding further. I don’t particularly appreciate when people are disloyal to me in general, but it doesn’t make it wrong. There’s nothing objectively correct about “not making me feel bad.” If you don’t want to make me feel bad, please send me 10,000 USD. Otherwise you’re eeeeevil.
“My argument isn’t couched in the idea that economics is “Right” (TM). It’s couched in the idea that economics is useful. Values, in general, exist because they are useful. Society follows them because they are useful. However, “useful” is the only relavent critereon. To the extent that values are not useful, there is no need to follow them.”
If there is no right and wrong as you explicitly said, how do you determine what is useful, Rayiner? Do you realize that you cannot even prove that economics is useful without the notion of right and wrong? Your notion of relativity nullifies your argument that economics is quantifiably useful to all people.
not a surprise. the IT industry filled the gap when we started trading with china and started importing loads of stuff.. those jobs were all outsourced but this emerging industry succsesfully prevented economic turmoil.. that’s why emerging marketslike this are so important… since it was foudned in the united states..
however, its expected that this stuff will go overseas..
in my opinion, the ‘global economy’ should be a gradual thing not a BAM thing that was pushed onto us thanks to regan and gw. bush (and let continued through clinton and gwbush)
thank god alotta japanese cars are made here..
‘The dog reacts because it wants its food back. It does not have some absurd notion that there is a higher truth saying that the food is his.
‘
The word “its” implies ownership, the very thing that you deny exists. How did the dog determine that food was his and not yours? No higher truth or level of thought is needed, it’s so simple, so basic, that even a dog understands it, but you don’t.
“We don’t need Americans doing these jobs”
then what exactly do we need Americans do be doing? Kindly define our role, since that of all manufacturing, all research and all technological jobs will be lost to countries with MUCH lower standards of living to increase profits?
What jobs are left?
Service jobs. Serving the haves. Isn’t that indentured servitude?
I’m a college-educated IT professional with 12 years of enterprise administration and management experience. I’m tired of being a downtrodden wage-slave, begging for scraps of the dessicating IT industry.
I think I am going to go be a migrant in Europe, do the jobs over there that “Mexicans” do here. It would be an improvement in standard of living, vis a vis time off, healthcare and lifestyle. Sure, I won’t have a house and cars, but I will ski more, learn more and won’t be prostrating before the abusive hyper-wealthy.
The state of affairs in the IT world in America, 2005, is abyssmal. If I’m going to be poor and worried, better some place with style and culture.
Some people responded to my statement that “it’s the government job to provide jobs to the people” by saying that this isn’t defined in the Constitution anywhere. This is true. However, common wisdom tells us that an elected government that doesn’t care about people having jobs (or gives that impression) will almost always be voted out. This is the ONE issue people really care about.
So in effect it’s not in the job description, but not doing it will probably result in getting fired…
> If there is no right and wrong as you explicitly said, how
> do you determine what is useful, Rayiner? Do you realize
> that you cannot even prove that economics is useful without
> the notion of right and wrong? Your notion of relativity
> nullifies your argument that economics is quantifiably
> useful to all people.
The usefulness of science stems not from its provable correctness, but rather from its ability to make predictions that coincide with observation. This is not comparable to moral relativism because morality is That Which Is Righteous, and doesn’t make testable predictions about that can be falsified by observation.
This process can to certain degrees be said to be applied in economics, but economics also suffers considerably from its adherents falling into pseudo-science and constructing a lot of models that don’t predict future behavior. That doesn’t stop them from constructing models to explain past behavior that favor their financial or ideological interests and suggest that they are useful for predicting future behavior. When they don’t they just wait for things to change and then say, “See? Told you!” It’s dangerous to put blind faith in economists, because falsifying their work can be voodoo.
Where they do predict behavior, independent of any objective “truth” they are useful. Something else may be constructed that isn’t “true” but still better at making predictions.
“What is ‘love?’ What does what I ‘love’ have to do with whether something is ‘objectively true’ or not?”
See a dictionary definition. In this case it has to do, because on the basis of whether you yourself love or do not love the listed moral values, data can be gathered to prove whether it is objectively true “not stealing” is an universal moral value (universal=shared by all people). All people I’ve met in my life do not like others to steal from them, and I read the same on the Internet and in books, and you answer below that you do not like that, so that supports the notion that “not stealing” is really an universal, real human value.
“I can assure you that I wouldn’t “love” someone if they shot me full of 9mm ammunition, but I certainly don’t see it as objectively wrong. It would be fairly difficult for someone to “commit treason to” me, and if you’d be so kind as to tell me what that means I might entertain responding further.”
I’m sorry, but the dictionary tells the definition of “treason”. And “innocent”, too.
“I don’t particularly appreciate when people are disloyal to me in general, but it doesn’t make it wrong.”
It is objectively wrong because it causes societal disintegration.
“There’s nothing objectively correct about “not making me feel bad.” If you don’t want to make me feel bad, please send me 10,000 USD. Otherwise you’re eeeeevil.”
Wait, wait, I haven’t stated, nor anyone/anything else I am aware of, that there exists an universal value stating “Never make other people feel bad”.
> See a dictionary definition.
You do realize that dictionaries are circularly defined? Seeing the dictionary won’t tell me anything objective.
> In this case it has to do, because on the basis of whether
> you yourself love or do not love the listed moral values,
> data can be gathered to prove whether it is objectively true
You have a broken, wishy-washy understanding of what proof is.
I do not “love” any moral values under any cursory dictionary definition of love. If I did, and for the sake of argument everyone else did, you can gather a body of evidence that all people love a certain set of moral values. That doesn’t make the values objectively true.
> “not stealing” is an universal moral value
> (universal=shared by all people).
Really? Like people without resources? Greedy people? All of those ‘things’ that apparently aren’t people, since humans universally oppose stealing?
> I’m sorry, but the dictionary tells the definition of
> “treason”. And “innocent”, too.
They have lots of definitions for them. And each dictionary will sport a different defintion. And every definition will be circular.
I can’t kill me no innocents, which is peooles that ain’t evil, which is peoples that aren’t immoral, which is people that don’t kill no innocents. Excellent work.
> It is objectively wrong because it causes societal
> disintegration.
I don’t value societal integration. Therefore it’s not wrong.
In reading your arguments it seems rather fitting that your viewpoints are indicative of the East Vs. West Religious points of view. I use the term religion loosely to encompass concepts relating to faith. While the western world often views the concept of morality as it pertains to the individual, concretely conforming to a set of guidelines for the benefit of society, the eastern view tends to lean towards the notion that all actions whether for good or for evil are part of the progression of society (of course I’ve oversimplified here for the sake of all of our sanities). The point I’m trying to make is that even though we live in a globally connected society, we DO NOT live in a global culture. Morality is more a reflection of social conditions than it is some untouchable human consciousness (Karl Jung supporters please forgive me
). One of the main problems with outsourcing as I see it has less to do with the immediate loss of jobs and more to do with a clash of cultures that in my mind is inevitably on the horizon. While your typical American soccer mom would find the idea of selling her child into a labor camp for $5 unconscionable, there are those in India who find the practice to be just good business. From my point of view the Western way is better, but I have no power to push my ideas on another culture; however, by sending money to them indirectly by purchasing products made by said child, I am in fact indirectly supporting this activity. Move this concept up the food chain a bit from manufacturing into IT services and suddenly this clash of ideals becomes even more important (as it directly relates to me). Supposing that the firm that handles my credit card information out sources (presumably to an eastern country) its services. Suddenly I have a vested interest in this morality debate. What is to become of my personal information? What legislation is there to prevent my information from going to the highest bidder? I am not getting on my high horse here and preaching the virtues of American and European corporations (equally evil regardless of what the EU would have us believe), but rather questioning what legal recourse I have. Probably none. Also when trying to contact this organization; there are very real cultural barriers while communicating my problems beyond that of a common language. While economics may be a globally understood language, I cringe at the thought of a society whose sole measure of success is based on numbers.
“It’s not that we don’t need them, we don’t need Americans to be doing them. To see the dangers of protectionism, just look at the US farm industry. Every year, we give farmers billions of dollars of free money. We could get our food much more cheaply elsewhere (like Japan does), but we don’t. Now, farmers have no reason to switch to a legitimate job. We’ve provided them cushy position, and they aren’t giving it up.”
And what would the American people get by exporting food jobs to other nation and becoming completely dependent on those nations for food? Is America’s dependence on oil not a good enough example of the perils of doing so. There is a cost to freedom and living how you as a society wants to live. This is why the founders of the United States put tariffs right into the constitution. They were very interested in keeping America free. I will more than gladly pay for the cost to do business here. It beats spending billion dollars and thousands of American lives trying to fix corruption.
> The word “its” implies ownership, the very thing that you
> deny exists. How did the dog determine that food was his and
> not yours? No higher truth or level of thought is needed,
> it’s so simple, so basic, that even a dog understands it,
> but you don’t.
Every dog thinks every piece of food should be consumed by it, if it thinks it can prevent something else from eating it. A lot of animals have territorial behaviors, but they don’t have systems of ethics governing them. They urinate, they make chirping noises, they beat the other animals senseless. They don’t think when something eats their food that it’s immoral. Their concept of property if you wish to call it that, is solely one of force. The social ones develop hierarchies, while the asocial ones simply fight and obtain as much food as they can. If a dog “steals” food from another dog, the other dogs won’t gang together, analyize contracts, hold a hearing, and return it to its “rightful owner.” The weakest dogs lose the most. The end.
Well Said.
“The usefulness of science stems not from its provable correctness, but rather from its ability to make predictions that coincide with observation. This is not comparable to moral relativism because morality is That Which Is Righteous, and doesn’t make testable predictions about that can be falsified by observation.”
Why is it not comparable to moral relativism? It is you who says that morality does not make testable predictions that can be falsified by observation. I disagree. Morality is NOT impervious to scientific scrutiny, and there have been quite a bit of *false* morals through the centuries that have been eventually proved beyond reasonable doubt to be wrong and harmful. What stops you from disproving a certain moral value today, if you can?
I know, it’s the GPL!!! Those damn commie bastards are causing the US economy to fall. It couldn’t be bad management of the country could it? nah. It couldn’t be a ridiculous outspending on military related items could it? nah. They all impact on things my friends, and you’re finding out the hard way that your current government, and your current business practices just aren’t really that great (neither is Australia for that matter, so don’t get me wrong).
When you move jobs offshore, in respect to the “almighty dollar”, then you not only lose jobs, but you lose the taxes that that job would have paid. Businesses typically pay fuck all in taxes compared to the individual (on a pro rata basis, not total tax). That loss of tax into the economy hurts. Not to mention that said individual can no longer afford to purchase consumables to the same degree. That means less things bought, less profit for other businesses, which in turn means more job lay offs to meet the demands of greedy shareholders and the current corporate US lifestyle.
The real idiocy is that other countries are following the same methods…
Oh, and get rid of software patents and fix the copyright problem and you might get somewhere.
I have no pity for a country that’s run by a government of imbeciles. This is what you get. Don’t worry, Australia is going the same way as well, and believe you me i’m not just singling the US out. You should hear me rant about our Australian government 😉
Dave
> Why is it not comparable to moral relativism? It is you who
> says that morality does not make testable predictions that
> can be falsified by observation. I disagree. Morality is NOT
> impervious to scientific scrutiny, and there have been
> quite a bit of *false* morals through the centuries that
> have been eventually proved beyond reasonable doubt to be
> wrong and harmful.
If you have a system of morality that is falsifiable then show it to me. That won’t make it objectively correct, but it will at least make it more useful than “murder is wrong because most people think murder is wrong.”
Nothing about the abandoned ethics of the past have been proven to be wrong. Harmful of course depends entirely on what you value, which is subjective.
> What stops you from disproving a certain moral value
> today, if you can?
I don’t know how to read what you’ve just said. “What stops you from doing what you can do if you can do it?” You cannot objectively falsify “allowing homosexuals to marry is wrong.” You can only make arguments given a certain set of values that the next person doesn’t share.
I plan to go and work in the US when I finish my degree next year. Let’s hope things pick up!
We don’t need to worry about the loss of high-tech jobs to India and elsewhere. Anyone noticed the price of oil lately? Soon enough, “high-tech” is going to mean chopping firewood and making candles.
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
And that’s why we’re really in Iraq.
Thanks for the link…a very chilling website. Even if one disagrees with their timetable, the logical consequences of our addiction to oil (not just for cars, but for food production and plastics) are inescapable.
This puts pointless talk about dictionary definitions and moral relativism in quite a different light (candle light, to be more precise).
Don’t knok the technological achievements of the former USSR. Economically they couldn’t compete with the US but in Science and Technology they were very capable especially in the Aerospace Industry.
The US relied in electonic gadgetry to try and be superior whilst the Russians honed their Aeronautical designs to and extent where they produced some of the best aircraft in the world. Their military doctrine and lazy communist economic system unfortunately were not very apt at training their pilots and maintianing their aircraft. Same for ground forces (their tanks and helicopters have been very capable) and their Navy as well. Only thing holding them back which the German Airforce discovered when it tried to integrate the East German Airforce, was there was too much reliance on central control and when you were told to commit, you did regardless of the circumstance.
2 out of 10 East German Pilots were able to be integrated into the unified Luftwaffe but the Luftwaffe found the Mig 29’s to be the supierior aircraft to anything they had.
This is the most thorny subject today, blame lies partly with us too. With the last years election the states like Ohio that lost most manufacturing jobs voted for Bush. There is a lot of talk about punishing nations who are pursiing the nuclear option. Well if you look closely at China helped Pakistan and in turn Pakistan helped North Korea and the other countries. Who are we targeting now, well let alone punish China for non-proliferation; We are making them rich.
Well lets take the case of technology, during my graduate school in some classes we had 90% indians. I wondered, this is USA and people from other ethinicity like technology. Well if you train in psychology and music you cant be working as an engineer.
For people blaming india for job loss an important statistics. unlike the us with 95% eployment rate , India has at best 40 -50 % employment rate. Most of the times what you study is dictated by what will earn you bread. Which leaves the fantastic fileds like fine arts and music and even sports attended by a minority of folks. Regarding hte number of technology graduates who get a job; that is dependent on the school you graduate from. At most 40 -50 % technica graduates may find a job by the first couple of years after grduation.
Let us talk about Outsourcing, Americans are of a view that this provides with a long term emplyment to Indians. This is far from true, the usual outsourcing jobs are taken by non-tecnical graduates. And at best they last for 1 – 3 years. One of the reason is the workers are fed up of working, improving their accent and all comes to an end when someone decides to use all fouls language they ever learned on them. The second reason unlike the US indians are not utterly serious about their job. This is one reason that throws me off try dealing with customer service in India. Its the most unpleasent experience ad guess what India now provides the biggest customer service.
I could go on and on about this but I guess US should look at its policies I was especially sad on the day South Korea had the stem cell breakthrough. And guess what our president criticized them.
How can you think positive when one state is challenging Darwins Evolution with the Jesuite fable.
i think the main problem now is that most applications can be developed so fast at stupid cost. that means less job and less quality.
we, programmers, should say no to that kind of exploitation. it’s just plain wrong. 10 years ago, it used to be fun to be a programmer: most softwares were developed in c involving many talented programmers for a long period of time. it was so fun to know exactly what we were doing and to interact with people on a daily basis.
now, most companies reuse alot of free/outdated code then give the job to some entry-level programmers that are paid less than anyone else in the industry. they don’t know what they are doing: they are mostly playing lego with some java libs.
damn, i think its enought. everything cost more than before: houses, cars, foods, ect. everything except computer softwares. what happened guys?
i think we should all go back to the roots. im so sick of seeing cs students learning java/.net stuff because thats what companies want. dammit. all colleges should avoid this. more theorical stuff please. no more corporate crap at college. i think its sad to see that most cs students dont know that eax is a cpu register but learned how to write php in class!
we should all comeback to classic development. it was way more fun anyway. and dont tell me that it will raise the cost of software development: we dont care. we need to pay our bills dammit! just let the users pay.
I lost my job in IT due to outsourcing by a large broadband/wireless British company back in 2002 and haven’t been able to locate steady work in the IT field since. I have learned from speaking with several colleagues that they will have to train their replacements (from India of course). Sadly, I will be traveling a new career path. When you have a family to feed and bills to pay you can’t wait for the government to correct things they should have been looking into years ago. Look at the steel industry, perfect example. Cheap isn’t always better, and you get what you pay for!
Not only should the government fine these companies extensively, they should stop immigration as this also has a big hand in the loss of jobs in America. Besides which I would imagine if you asked the average American, we don’t wan’t anybody’s huddled masses. They cost the ones that are working billions in health care costs, prisons, additional law enforcement, etc.
>The “greedy corporations” don’t owe you anything, and the government certainly isn’t responsible for making them keep around jobs they don’t need.
Rayiner, I could go along with this reasoning if we as a society didn’t sell corporate charters for $500 a pop. Corporations (like Securities and Exchange regulation, or Banking regulation, food and drug, etc.) is a social moderation of an otherwise raw market force. Corporations make it possible for investors to invest in a share of a business without sharing in the liability of their co-ownership. It makes it possible for officers of the corporation to evade personal liability for their poor judgement (should the company fold and leave debts outstanding). In a common law arrangement, the owners (including shareholders) would be obligated for their poor judgement.
What I find *astounding* is how, when it comes to business, we as a society are supposed to grease the skids to facilitate (and moderate) financial and commercial markets. But, when it comes to labor markets we’re told “oh, it’s all lazez faire! Free markets. Adam Smith’s invisible hand.”
If we’re going to hold labor markets to this stringent criteria, we should apply the same non-socialized critiera to business. No corporate charters. No securities and exchange regulation. No banking regulation. Etc.
Bottom line: It’s convenient to potray business as standing on its own two feet, never asking for a hand out. In reality, it’s not true. And we as citizens (our delegated powers being responsible for the social moderations to financial and commercial markets) have a *duty* to expect reciprocation from corporate America!
“Certainly, there exists no such concept in the animal world.”
Are you daft? There does exist such examples in the animal world. Animals will attack anything thing that they percieve is taking something that is theirs. Try getting out to the woods more often.