Bush's Fantastic Economy:Americans declaring Bankruptcy, contemplating suicide, can't compete with India at 1/6 of wages

[dmcowen674]

People that still do have a job are busting their collectives a$$es:

2-3-2004 Factories Sizzling But Jobs Still Elusive

Manufacturing in the United States surged to a 20-year high at the start of the year as factories scrambled to meet demand, while consumer spending increased modestly during the holidays, reports showed on Monday.

Even with improved factory production, however, manufacturers remained cautious about hiring, dampening hopes for a turnaround in production jobs.

Even though the economy has picked up in the past six months, robust hiring has been the missing link in the recovery. The risk is that if the job market does not improve, consumer spending could falter.

Economists have been surprised that the national payrolls report has not shown an improvement in factory hiring after three years of declines. In December, 26,000 manufacturing jobs were lost.

"The factory sector is in direct drive -- when the new order comes, there's not enough stuff on the shelves to fill it, so they have to ramp up production," said Northern Trust Chief Economist Paul Kasriel.

"If job growth doesn't pick up soon, we could be rethinking the strength of the economy," said Kasriel.

 

[dmcowen674]

2-3-2004 117,556 Job Cuts in January, lost to India & China

Job cuts in January were 26 percent higher than in December as U.S. jobs moved to countries like India, China and the Philippines...

Job cuts reached 117,556 in January surpassing the 100,000 threshold for the first time since last October...

Poor job creation is a headache for President Bush as he seeks re-election in November. The economy -- specifically job creation -- is expected to be a key issue in the campaign. Since Bush took office, more than 2.3 million non-farm jobs have been lost.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting Math, number stays at 2.3 Million Jobs lost even though we keep losing 100,000 + jobs at a clip.
Must be more of that "Good for Us" Math.

 

[dmcowen674]

2-3-2004 Economy Experts: Outsourcing Helps World Economy

BOMBAY, India - Outsourcing information technology-related jobs to developing countries such as India will boost competitiveness and slash costs, international software experts and government ministers said Tuesday.

"It's a great business opportunity for U.S. businesses because it makes IT available for a wide swathe of U.S. companies," said Dan Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Washington-based Cato Institute.

More jobs in developing countries would build "larger middle classes and create a larger market for U.S. products in the future," Griswold said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
What U.S Products? All of the Factories have been shipped overseas.

Here is 2 Counter articles that people wrote in refuting the above "Economy Experts" that say the Outsourcing is good.

2-4-2004 How India became the capital of the computing revolution.

Meet the pissed-off programmer. If you've picked up a newspaper in the last six months, watched CNN, or even glanced at Slashdot, you've already heard his anguished cry.

He's the guy - and, yeah, he's usually a guy - launching Web sites like yourjobisgoingtoindia and nojobsforindia

He's the guy telling tales - many of them true, a few of them urban legends - about American programmers being forced to train their Indian replacements.

And for the past year, he's the guy who's been picketing corporate outsourcing conferences, holding placards that read WILL CODE FOR FOOD will code for food and chanting, "Shame, shame, shame!"

In 1992, Jairam graduated from India's University of Pune with a degree in engineering. Jairam's annual salary is about $11,000. She could do your $70,000-a-year job for the wages of a Taco Bell counter jockey - she won't lose any sleep over your plight.

If you pulled the shades and ignored the accents, you could be in Santa Clara. But it's the talent - coupled with the ridiculously low salaries, of course - that's luring big clients from Europe and North America. The coders here work for the likes of Citibank, Deutsche Leasing, Alliance Capital, Air Canada, HSBC, BP, Princeton University, and several other institutions that won't permit Hexaware to reveal their names.

American programmers collecting unemployment, declaring bankruptcy, even contemplating suicide - because they can't compete with people willing to work for one-sixth of their wages.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, you guys will be thrilled especially the ones that like sending all of America's jobs overseas, I've apparently reached the limit of editing with the Forum software so this thread is done as of today.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inside Risks 164, CACM 47, 2, February 2004


Outsourced and Out of Control


Lauren Weinstein

Outsourcing (farming out production or other work) is not new. But when
advanced technologies such as telecommunications and computing are applied
to outsourcing, along with vast differences in pay around the world, the
results can be unfair, unwise, alarming, and even dangerous. While
frequently providing significant "productivity" enhancements, the
associated negative risks include domestic unemployment and
underemployment; privacy, security, and reliability concerns; and other
serious problems.

In the past, the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs has been qualitatively
different from the very broad and rapidly expanding sort of outsourcing
we're seeing today. Most of the vast range of jobs now being exported to
inexpensive foreign labor markets from "higher-wage" countries would be
impractical to outsource in such a manner without today's inexpensively
accessed communications and data infrastructures.

Improved corporate bottom lines are often cited to justify outsourcing. But
the devastating impact of lost domestic employee positions cannot
reasonably be ignored. Former employees are understandably bitter when
their jobs are outsourced to foreign workers being paid only a small
fraction of domestic wages. In at least one case, a company has used the
threat of outsourcing to demand that their local employees accept basically
the same low wages as foreign workers.

The ability to cheaply communicate across the globe via voice and data
networks has permitted vast outsourcing of customer service, health-care
transcription and medical information processing, financial and systems
analysis, software development, and many other extremely technical and
sophisticated tasks. Highly skilled domestic workers, including many who
probably have read this column on a regular basis, have seen their
livelihoods lost to technologically enabled outsourcing and are now
competing with teenagers for low-pay, unskilled jobs.

As more customer-support call centers move to non-domestic locations,
complaints from consumers about poor service rise. In many cases,
language-related barriers cause communications difficulties. Computer
manufacturer Dell, Inc. recently announced it would cease using its
India-based call centers for corporate customers due to such complaints.
However, ordinary non-corporate Dell consumers may still find themselves
routed to offshore customer service representatives. (See
<http://callcenterinindia.blogspot.com>callcenterinindia.blogspot.com for
illuminating information about India-based call centers.)

Large-scale outsourcing is growing at a frenetic pace around the globe.
Many outsourced jobs involve countries where significant privacy laws do
not exist; even if those laws are improved under pressure of potential lost
business, effective enforcement would still appear to be highly
problematic. Customer service outsourcing can give risky access to data
such as names, addresses, Social Security numbers, telephone call records,
and medical information. Recently, a Pakistani subcontract worker
threatened to post U.S. patients' medical data on the Web if claimed back
pay was not forthcoming.

Software, sometimes of a critical nature, is now routinely subcontracted to
foreign outsourced environments, bringing risks of development
miscommunication or worse. The U.S. General Accounting Office noted the
possibility of malicious changes to code since significant U.S. air traffic
control system Y2K work had been subcontracted outside the U.S. without
mandated background checks.

There are even moves to outsource computer system administration to foreign
centers, often in countries with poor (if any) computer security laws,
creating the possibility of massive abuse of domestic systems by distant
persons who could be difficult or impossible to effectively prosecute.
Thanks to subcontracting, you might not even know that the company managing
your system is using such facilities and personnel.

There are many fine workers performing outsourced tasks around the world.
Yet, it is more difficult to maintain control over customer information,
security, development, and other critical issues, when work is performed
distantly or under completely different laws. The opportunities for errors,
mischief, and serious misdeeds are alarming, to say the least. Businesses
and governments need to carefully consider the manners in which outsourcing
can be reasonably exploited, and how it must be controlled.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
<mailto:lauren@pfir.org>lauren@pfir.org or
<mailto:lauren@vortex.com>lauren@vortex.com or
<mailto:lauren@privacyforum.org>lauren@privacyforum.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility -
<http://www.pfir.org>http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, URIICA - Union for Representative International Internet
Cooperation and Analysis - <http://www.uriica.org>www.uriica.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - <http://www.vortex.com>http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
<http://www.pfir.org/lauren>http://www.pfir.org/lauren


_______________________________________________
Politech mailing list
Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)

 

[dmcowen674]

One thing the U.S. will have to do to compete Globally is turn the work hours upside down.

Americans will have to work at night and sleep during the day.

People on the other side of the planet have been doing that for years and no the table will turn since they are the dictating force in the Global Economy now.

BellSouth - Project Horizon

How will we communicate across so many time zones?

As we do today, we will employ a number of mechanisms to communicate. While face-to-face meetings are not feasible for obvious reasons, conference calls, video conferencing, e-mail, and other technologies will be used depending on the type of interaction required.

What is the time difference between Birmingham, Atlanta, and the India Delivery Center?

The time at the Ban galore Delivery Centre in Standard Time is 10.5 hours ahead of Atlanta, 11.5 hours ahead of Birmingham. During Daylight Savings Time, the time is 9.5 hours ahead of Atlanta, 10.5 hours ahead of Birmingham.

 

[alchemize]

The death rattle of the programmer, so interesting to watch. The era of the geek was a short one, wasn't it?

 

[dmcowen674]

Need to compile a list of the blames on the jobless - Latest excuse is Bad Weather:

2-5-2004 Jobless Claims Rise on Bad Weather

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans lining up to claim first-time jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week, the government said on Thursday in a report that was partly impacted by bad weather in some parts of the country.

Claims for state unemployment aid rose 17,000 to 356,000 in the week ended Jan.

A Labor Department official said inclement weather in the Midwest and Southeast had affected the numbers in the latest report. The official said he could not quantify the impact but said that layoffs can increase during bad weather in industries like construction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting to blame Construction too since most of the workers are undocumented Southern Citizens.

 

[burnedout]

Bush's Fantastic Economy:Americans declaring Bankruptcy, contemplating suicide, can't compete with India at 1/6 of wages

<sick sarcasm>How can this be bad for the funeral services industry?</sick sarcasm>

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: burnedout

Bush's Fantastic Economy:Americans declaring Bankruptcy, contemplating suicide, can't compete with India at 1/6 of wages

<sick sarcasm>How can this be bad for the funeral services industry?</sick sarcasm>

hehe

 

[etech]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
2-3-2004 Economy Experts: Outsourcing Helps World Economy

BOMBAY, India - Outsourcing information technology-related jobs to developing countries such as India will boost competitiveness and slash costs, international software experts and government ministers said Tuesday.

"It's a great business opportunity for U.S. businesses because it makes IT available for a wide swathe of U.S. companies," said Dan Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Washington-based Cato Institute.

More jobs in developing countries would build "larger middle classes and create a larger market for U.S. products in the future," Griswold said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
What U.S Products? All of the Factories have been shipped overseas.

Here is 2 Counter articles that people wrote in refuting the above "Economy Experts" that say the Outsourcing is good.

2-4-2004 How India became the capital of the computing revolution.

Meet the pissed-off programmer. If you've picked up a newspaper in the last six months, watched CNN, or even glanced at Slashdot, you've already heard his anguished cry.

He's the guy - and, yeah, he's usually a guy - launching Web sites like yourjobisgoingtoindia and nojobsforindia

He's the guy telling tales - many of them true, a few of them urban legends - about American programmers being forced to train their Indian replacements.

And for the past year, he's the guy who's been picketing corporate outsourcing conferences, holding placards that read WILL CODE FOR FOOD will code for food and chanting, "Shame, shame, shame!"

In 1992, Jairam graduated from India's University of Pune with a degree in engineering. Jairam's annual salary is about $11,000. She could do your $70,000-a-year job for the wages of a Taco Bell counter jockey - she won't lose any sleep over your plight.

If you pulled the shades and ignored the accents, you could be in Santa Clara. But it's the talent - coupled with the ridiculously low salaries, of course - that's luring big clients from Europe and North America. The coders here work for the likes of Citibank, Deutsche Leasing, Alliance Capital, Air Canada, HSBC, BP, Princeton University, and several other institutions that won't permit Hexaware to reveal their names.

American programmers collecting unemployment, declaring bankruptcy, even contemplating suicide - because they can't compete with people willing to work for one-sixth of their wages.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, you guys will be thrilled especially the ones that like sending all of America's jobs overseas, I've apparently reached the limit of editing with the Forum software so this thread is done as of today.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inside Risks 164, CACM 47, 2, February 2004


Outsourced and Out of Control


Lauren Weinstein

Outsourcing (farming out production or other work) is not new. But when
advanced technologies such as telecommunications and computing are applied
to outsourcing, along with vast differences in pay around the world, the
results can be unfair, unwise, alarming, and even dangerous. While
frequently providing significant "productivity" enhancements, the
associated negative risks include domestic unemployment and
underemployment; privacy, security, and reliability concerns; and other
serious problems.

In the past, the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs has been qualitatively
different from the very broad and rapidly expanding sort of outsourcing
we're seeing today. Most of the vast range of jobs now being exported to
inexpensive foreign labor markets from "higher-wage" countries would be
impractical to outsource in such a manner without today's inexpensively
accessed communications and data infrastructures.

Improved corporate bottom lines are often cited to justify outsourcing. But
the devastating impact of lost domestic employee positions cannot
reasonably be ignored. Former employees are understandably bitter when
their jobs are outsourced to foreign workers being paid only a small
fraction of domestic wages. In at least one case, a company has used the
threat of outsourcing to demand that their local employees accept basically
the same low wages as foreign workers.

The ability to cheaply communicate across the globe via voice and data
networks has permitted vast outsourcing of customer service, health-care
transcription and medical information processing, financial and systems
analysis, software development, and many other extremely technical and
sophisticated tasks. Highly skilled domestic workers, including many who
probably have read this column on a regular basis, have seen their
livelihoods lost to technologically enabled outsourcing and are now
competing with teenagers for low-pay, unskilled jobs.

As more customer-support call centers move to non-domestic locations,
complaints from consumers about poor service rise. In many cases,
language-related barriers cause communications difficulties. Computer
manufacturer Dell, Inc. recently announced it would cease using its
India-based call centers for corporate customers due to such complaints.
However, ordinary non-corporate Dell consumers may still find themselves
routed to offshore customer service representatives. (See
<http://callcenterinindia.blogspot.com>callcenterinindia.blogspot.com for
illuminating information about India-based call centers.)

Large-scale outsourcing is growing at a frenetic pace around the globe.
Many outsourced jobs involve countries where significant privacy laws do
not exist; even if those laws are improved under pressure of potential lost
business, effective enforcement would still appear to be highly
problematic. Customer service outsourcing can give risky access to data
such as names, addresses, Social Security numbers, telephone call records,
and medical information. Recently, a Pakistani subcontract worker
threatened to post U.S. patients' medical data on the Web if claimed back
pay was not forthcoming.

Software, sometimes of a critical nature, is now routinely subcontracted to
foreign outsourced environments, bringing risks of development
miscommunication or worse. The U.S. General Accounting Office noted the
possibility of malicious changes to code since significant U.S. air traffic
control system Y2K work had been subcontracted outside the U.S. without
mandated background checks.

There are even moves to outsource computer system administration to foreign
centers, often in countries with poor (if any) computer security laws,
creating the possibility of massive abuse of domestic systems by distant
persons who could be difficult or impossible to effectively prosecute.
Thanks to subcontracting, you might not even know that the company managing
your system is using such facilities and personnel.

There are many fine workers performing outsourced tasks around the world.
Yet, it is more difficult to maintain control over customer information,
security, development, and other critical issues, when work is performed
distantly or under completely different laws. The opportunities for errors,
mischief, and serious misdeeds are alarming, to say the least. Businesses
and governments need to carefully consider the manners in which outsourcing
can be reasonably exploited, and how it must be controlled.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
<mailto:lauren@pfir.org>lauren@pfir.org or
<mailto:lauren@vortex.com>lauren@vortex.com or
<mailto:lauren@privacyforum.org>lauren@privacyforum.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility -
<http://www.pfir.org>http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, URIICA - Union for Representative International Internet
Cooperation and Analysis - <http://www.uriica.org>www.uriica.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - <http://www.vortex.com>http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
<http://www.pfir.org/lauren>http://www.pfir.org/lauren


_______________________________________________
Politech mailing list
Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)

Dave, you are good at the bitching and moaning.

What's your solution?

 

[razor2025]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Need to compile a list of the blames on the jobless - Latest excuse is Bad Weather:

2-5-2004 Jobless Claims Rise on Bad Weather

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans lining up to claim first-time jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week, the government said on Thursday in a report that was partly impacted by bad weather in some parts of the country.

Claims for state unemployment aid rose 17,000 to 356,000 in the week ended Jan.

A Labor Department official said inclement weather in the Midwest and Southeast had affected the numbers in the latest report. The official said he could not quantify the impact but said that layoffs can increase during bad weather in industries like construction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting to blame Construction too since most of the workers are undocumented Southern Citizens.

LOL, what's next? The Fung Shui was wrong? The Moon wasn't on the "right" orbit? It's painfully obvious what the reason is, just that our politicians and Corporate CEOs doesn't want to say it.

BTW, Lou Dobbs just PWNED that poor Indian guy over the issue of out-sourcing. LOL, it's so funny how they try to "justify" their actions. These people should be HANGED!