Companies pay $1400 a plate to learn how best to eliminate your job (Offshoring)

[Nitemare]

link

Got a feeling this is going to be a big item in the election this year. It ranks second in my opinion to national defense. Unless Bush addresses this he will lose alot of Republican votes, primarily in the larger cities with an IT presence

 

[bcterps]

How is this different than the many manufacturing jobs that have moved to other countries? Market demand dictates that companies have to cut costs. Not all IT jobs will move overseas, people need to learn and adapt to the market.

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: benchiu
How is this different than the many manufacturing jobs that have moved to other countries? Market demand dictates that companies have to cut costs. Not all IT jobs will move overseas, people need to learn and adapt to the market.

What do you do for a living?

 

[bcterps]

Financial analysis

 

[Freejack2]

Nothing is going to stop outsourcing or Bush getting re-elected. Why pay a white collar worker in the US $30k - $100k a year when you can pay someone in India $10k a year for the same job. Why pay a factory worker $5 - $15 an hour when you can pay 13 cents an hour in China?
A companies bottom line is how much money they can make, there is nothing more important to a company than this, NOTHING!
If they can make more money by outsourcing they will do so in a heartbeat.

Say they have 10,000 workers doing some job in the US, say data centers where they are paying an average of $35k a year for these workers. That's 350 million a year just for salaries, that doesn't include medical insurance, benefits and whatever else. Now if they can move those jobs to a foreign country they can pay an average of just 8k a year. That's a 270million a year savings just on salaries alone.

Now tell me what corporation is going to say "270 million a year isn't much, we should keep the jobs in the US."? NONE.
It's all about the bottom line.

If you think this is not the case you are only fooling yourself.

 

[Lotheron]

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something.

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: Freejack2
Nothing is going to stop outsourcing or Bush getting re-elected. Why pay a white collar worker in the US $30k - $100k a year when you can pay someone in India $10k a year for the same job. Why pay a factory worker $5 - $15 an hour when you can pay 13 cents an hour in China? A companies bottom line is how much money they can make, there is nothing more important to a company than this, NOTHING! If they can make more money by outsourcing they will do so in a heartbeat. Say they have 10,000 workers doing some job in the US, say data centers where they are paying an average of $35k a year for these workers. That's 350 million a year just for salaries, that doesn't include medical insurance, benefits and whatever else. Now if they can move those jobs to a foreign country they can pay an average of just 8k a year. That's a 270million a year savings just on salaries alone.
Now tell me what corporation is going to say "270 million a year isn't much, we should keep the jobs in the US."? NONE.
It's all about the bottom line.

Anything it takes to keep the shareholders happy... Why not ship all the low cost jobs to Mexico & China, ship the top paying jobs to India, Russia and the Phillipines, so there will only be 2 classes in America, those who work retail and those that own stock?

 

[Freejack2]

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Anything it takes to keep the shareholders happy... Why not ship all the low cost jobs to Mexico & China, ship the top paying jobs to India, Russia and the Phillipines, so there will only be 2 classes in America, those who work retail and those that own stock?

Precisely. There will be the poor and the wealthy. The middle class is historically a freak anomaly that will eventually be eliminated again. Do I think it's right? No. Can I do anything about it? No. The people with power are those with money.
As some lowly middle class worker I have no power or say what goes on in the world.

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: Freejack2

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Anything it takes to keep the shareholders happy... Why not ship all the low cost jobs to Mexico & China, ship the top paying jobs to India, Russia and the Phillipines, so there will only be 2 classes in America, those who work retail and those that own stock?

Precisely. There will be the poor and the wealthy. The middle class is historically a freak anomaly that will eventually be eliminated again. Do I think it's right? No. Can I do anything about it? No. The people with power are those with money.
As some lowly middle class worker I have no power or say what goes on in the world.

We can elect someone who will do something about it.

 

[bcterps]

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Originally posted by: Freejack2 Nothing is going to stop outsourcing or Bush getting re-elected. Why pay a white collar worker in the US $30k - $100k a year when you can pay someone in India $10k a year for the same job. Why pay a factory worker $5 - $15 an hour when you can pay 13 cents an hour in China? A companies bottom line is how much money they can make, there is nothing more important to a company than this, NOTHING! If they can make more money by outsourcing they will do so in a heartbeat. Say they have 10,000 workers doing some job in the US, say data centers where they are paying an average of $35k a year for these workers. That's 350 million a year just for salaries, that doesn't include medical insurance, benefits and whatever else. Now if they can move those jobs to a foreign country they can pay an average of just 8k a year. That's a 270million a year savings just on salaries alone. Now tell me what corporation is going to say "270 million a year isn't much, we should keep the jobs in the US."? NONE. It's all about the bottom line.

Anything it takes to keep the shareholders happy... Why not ship all the low cost jobs to Mexico & China, ship the top paying jobs to India, Russia and the Phillipines, so there will only be 2 classes in America, those who work retail and those that own stock?

Because not all industries are that portable. There is a glut of IT workers in this country, no doubt partially driven by the IT and stock market boom in the 90s. Times have changed now, and the IT industry is not as good as it once was. You have to recognize the changing times and adapt accordingly. If you think that you can sustain a career in IT because of your skills and background relative to the jobs available, then by all means stick with it. But if the jobs that you are qualified for are being moved offshore, and you dont think that your chances are good to stay in this industry, then you need to evaluate your options.

A lot of my friends work in the IT industry and I work with a lot of AD guys throughout my company. Some people in my company got laid off because of offshoring, but you know, I receive BETTER service and support from the offshoring people than I ever did from the IT guys in my own company. The friends that I have that have had job troubles have done a number of things -- some of them go back to school to gain more skills, some change their careers completely, some are able to find new jobs in the IT industry.

 

[TommyVercetti]

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Originally posted by: Freejack2

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Anything it takes to keep the shareholders happy... Why not ship all the low cost jobs to Mexico & China, ship the top paying jobs to India, Russia and the Phillipines, so there will only be 2 classes in America, those who work retail and those that own stock?

Precisely. There will be the poor and the wealthy. The middle class is historically a freak anomaly that will eventually be eliminated again. Do I think it's right? No. Can I do anything about it? No. The people with power are those with money.
As some lowly middle class worker I have no power or say what goes on in the world.

We can elect someone who will do something about it.

But will that person give passionate speeches that makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside?

 

[bcterps]

In terms of electing someone to do something about it, what can a President do to stop this? To bring back the manufacturing example. Unionized labor has a huge lobbying presence in Washington, why havent more manufacturing jobs stayed in the US? The only thing that an elected official could do would maybe limit the number of H-1 and similar visas that allow overseas workers to come here. You can't stop a company from trying to reduce costs by moving jobs overseas, you can make a little more difficult, but the cost advantages are just to great to ignore.

 

[Freejack2]

Originally posted by: TommyVercetti

But will that person give passionate speeches that makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside?

Thats all the person will do. Good luck finding elected leaders who will actually do something.

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: TommyVercetti

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Originally posted by: Freejack2

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Anything it takes to keep the shareholders happy... Why not ship all the low cost jobs to Mexico & China, ship the top paying jobs to India, Russia and the Phillipines, so there will only be 2 classes in America, those who work retail and those that own stock?

Precisely. There will be the poor and the wealthy. The middle class is historically a freak anomaly that will eventually be eliminated again. Do I think it's right? No. Can I do anything about it? No. The people with power are those with money.
As some lowly middle class worker I have no power or say what goes on in the world.

We can elect someone who will do something about it.

But will that person give passionate speeches that makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside?

Thomas J. Whitmore is just make believe. Let's face it the latest batch of Presidents have just been turds, some just have been more polished than others

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: benchiu
In terms of electing someone to do something about it, what can a President do to stop this? To bring back the manufacturing example. Unionized labor has a huge lobbying presence in Washington, why havent more manufacturing jobs stayed in the US? The only thing that an elected official could do would maybe limit the number of H-1 and similar visas that allow overseas workers to come here. You can't stop a company from trying to reduce costs by moving jobs overseas, you can make a little more difficult, but the cost advantages are just to great to ignore.

change the tax laws

 

[bcterps]

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Originally posted by: benchiu In terms of electing someone to do something about it, what can a President do to stop this? To bring back the manufacturing example. Unionized labor has a huge lobbying presence in Washington, why havent more manufacturing jobs stayed in the US? The only thing that an elected official could do would maybe limit the number of H-1 and similar visas that allow overseas workers to come here. You can't stop a company from trying to reduce costs by moving jobs overseas, you can make a little more difficult, but the cost advantages are just to great to ignore.

change the tax laws

Care to be a bit more specific?

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: benchiu

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Originally posted by: benchiu In terms of electing someone to do something about it, what can a President do to stop this? To bring back the manufacturing example. Unionized labor has a huge lobbying presence in Washington, why havent more manufacturing jobs stayed in the US? The only thing that an elected official could do would maybe limit the number of H-1 and similar visas that allow overseas workers to come here. You can't stop a company from trying to reduce costs by moving jobs overseas, you can make a little more difficult, but the cost advantages are just to great to ignore.

change the tax laws

Care to be a bit more specific?

Make it less beneficial for companies to offshore workers. I'm sure it gets reported on a company's tax returns, just bump them up in the bracket and use the extra tax revenue to fund training of those misplaced IT workers.

At least with them bringing in workers with H1 visas, the workers spend their money in the US thus creating jobs. Offshoring does nothing but build other countries economics and pad the purses of shareholders

 

[Ferocious]

If it can be done mostly or all on a computer.....consider the job exported sooner or later.

If not now....then during the next downturn in the economy.

This country will continue to have 3 classes of people. The rich, the poor, and the one that takes care of the other two.

 

[tcsenter]

Now tell me what corporation is going to say "270 million a year isn't much, we should keep the jobs in the US."? NONE. It's all about the bottom line.

Actually, its often not about the bottom line. Often, its about not going bankrupt.

You can't expect any company to unilaterally disarm. Many companies have made heroic efforts to keep jobs here for as long as they could while they lost market share to foreign imports or domestic competitors who began off-shoring years ago.

Above all, consumers are voting with their dollar. Among my few burning desires, is to have enough money to pay a private investigator to shadow several well-known viscerally outspoken critics of off-shoring long enough to film them buying cheaper import cars, cheaper import consumer electronics, cheaper import clothing, cheaper import shoes, cheaper import home appliances, cheaper import everything, and giggling all the way home about how much money they saved over buying American.

And I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the question is not if they are doing this, but how long it would take to catch them doing it.

 

[HokieESM]

I think all CEOs should be paid an integral multiple of the lowest paid employee at their company. No stock, no golden parachutes. (isn't a CEO owning stock like the DEFINITION of insider trading? not only do you have a certain amount of information, you can INFLUENCE stock price). And it can be a HIGH multiple (100... 200... 500?). But some of the CEOs would think twice about moving a job from America to India when the lowest worker goes from a $20K a year janitor to a $2000 a year IT person.

Oh... and someone was asking why this was bad: who is going to buy all the stuff that they're producing when they get rid of the middle class? In the societies with upper-to-lower (and no middle), the upper class is a VERY small percentage.

 

[bcterps]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Now tell me what corporation is going to say "270 million a year isn't much, we should keep the jobs in the US."? NONE. It's all about the bottom line.

Actually, its often not about the bottom line. Often, its about not going bankrupt. You can't expect any company to unilaterally disarm. Many companies have made heroic efforts to keep jobs here for as long as they could while they lost market share to foreign imports or domestic competitors who began off-shoring years ago. Above all, consumers are voting with their dollar. Among my few burning desires, is to have enough money to pay a private investigator to shadow several well-known viscerally outspoken critics of off-shoring long enough to film them buying cheaper import cars, cheaper import consumer electronics, cheaper import clothing, cheaper import shoes, cheaper import home appliances, cheaper import everything, and giggling all the way home about how much money they saved over buying American. And I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the question is not if they are doing this, but how long it would take to catch them doing it.

"Buying American" almost doesnt exist anymore. The global marketplace has changed so much that it's impossible to distinguish "American" goods from others.

 

[bcterps]

Originally posted by: HokieESM
I think all CEOs should be paid an integral multiple of the lowest paid employee at their company. No stock, no golden parachutes. (isn't a CEO owning stock like the DEFINITION of insider trading? not only do you have a certain amount of information, you can INFLUENCE stock price). And it can be a HIGH multiple (100... 200... 500?). But some of the CEOs would think twice about moving a job from America to India when the lowest worker goes from a $20K a year janitor to a $2000 a year IT person. Oh... and someone was asking why this was bad: who is going to buy all the stuff that they're producing when they get rid of the middle class? In the societies with upper-to-lower (and no middle), the upper class is a VERY small percentage.

Actually, that has been tried before, I think it was Peoplesoft that first tried paying their CEO a certain multiple of the lowest paid employee. It didn't work and they got rid of that policy pretty quickly. You simply can't attract the proper talent/leadership with that method.

 

[HokieESM]

Originally posted by: benchiu

Originally posted by: HokieESM
I think all CEOs should be paid an integral multiple of the lowest paid employee at their company. No stock, no golden parachutes. (isn't a CEO owning stock like the DEFINITION of insider trading? not only do you have a certain amount of information, you can INFLUENCE stock price). And it can be a HIGH multiple (100... 200... 500?). But some of the CEOs would think twice about moving a job from America to India when the lowest worker goes from a $20K a year janitor to a $2000 a year IT person. Oh... and someone was asking why this was bad: who is going to buy all the stuff that they're producing when they get rid of the middle class? In the societies with upper-to-lower (and no middle), the upper class is a VERY small percentage.

Actually, that has been tried before, I think it was Peoplesoft that first tried paying their CEO a certain multiple of the lowest paid employee. It didn't work and they got rid of that policy pretty quickly. You simply can't attract the proper talent/leadership with that method.

yeah... it would actually require leadership with a conscience. Which is the problem we're really running into--profit is looked upon as the ONLY sign of "development" of a company. Of course, its a product of the system--we promote the most ambitious, the most "money-grubbing"... because they make the most money for the company (at whatever cost).

 

[tcsenter]

"Buying American" almost doesnt exist anymore. The global marketplace has changed so much that it's impossible to distinguish "American" goods from others.

Nonsense. The law requires the label to state the country of origin and there are still many goods made right here in the US of A. I'm betting they don't even look at any label other than the price tag and never have.

 

[RU482]

I propose that we devise a hit list of Bad CEO's and "take them out" one by one