Obama is doing one thing right... punishing companies who outsource labor overseas

[rudder]

The President said he’s implemented “a plan that’s focused on making our middle class more secure and our country more competitive in the long run — so that the jobs and industries of the future aren’t all going to China and India, but are being created right here in the United States of America.”

You have to respect him for that. Trying to save American jobs and all. But then what the hell is this?...

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/integration/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226500202

$22 million is a drop in the record breaking deficit bucket... but that is $22 million to train people who will be then placed with outsourcing vendors... all with new English and IT skills.... to compete with the IT industry in the U.S.

 

[Hacp]

Hahahaha. Good job Obama. He still thinks the US needs more engineers and H1Bs right? FUCK NO! Stop importing foreign engineers or IT workers. Also, stop letting all those damn illegals into our border. Obama is slowly deteriorating the standard of living of the working man.

 

[StageLeft]

The difference here rudder is that there's what the politician said and then what he did.

 

[her209]

Obama is slowly deteriorating the standard of living of the working man.

Says the guy that wants to eliminate the minimum wage.

 

[DesiPower]

It has to happen all over board, talking about just engineers and IT workers is not going to help, this pool of ppl are educated and have good common sense, they can make a living even if their primary jobs are gone. If and when the economy picks up, Engineering and IT jobs will be created.
More worrisome are the factory workers and laborers, these jobs are gone for good and will never be created in the near future unless some drastic steps are taken. These ppl cannot do anything else, its very difficult to train a 50 year old factory worker to become an engineer or IT worker. Also the amount of factory or call center jobs lost is wayyyyy higher than engineering or IT jobs.

 

[Hacp]

It has to happen all over board, talking about just engineers and IT workers is not going to help, this pool of ppl are educated and have good common sense, they can make a living even if their primary jobs are gone. If and when the economy picks up, Engineering and IT jobs will be created.
More worrisome are the factory workers and laborers, these jobs are gone for good and will never be created in the near future unless some drastic steps are taken. These ppl cannot do anything else, its very difficult to train a 50 year old factory worker to become an engineer or IT worker. Also the amount of factory or call center jobs lost is wayyyyy higher than engineering or IT jobs.

They are being created by the tens of thousands by US companies. Only those jobs are already gone to other countries.

 

[halik]

Errr I'm all for free trade, but those sort of jobs are our competitive advantage.

You're creating inefficiency by having places with plentiful cheap unskilled labor dabble in stuff like that. The opportunity cost in terms of product of unskilled labor is far higher in places like sri lanka compared to the US.

 

[Cogman]

Errr I'm all for free trade, but those sort of jobs are our competitive advantage.

You're creating inefficiency by having places with plentiful cheap unskilled labor dabble in stuff like that. The opportunity cost in terms of product of unskilled labor is far higher in places like sri lanka compared to the US.

Yep. Everywhere I've read and heard, software developed "cheaply" abroad rarely comes anywhere close to US developed software. You end up spending double what it would have cost to just develop in the US because you have to maintain and fix all the crap you get from abroad.

It was a scare around 2000-2004 that doesn't exist so much.

 

[Carmen813]

Hahahaha. Good job Obama. He still thinks the US needs more engineers and H1Bs right? FUCK NO! Stop importing foreign engineers or IT workers. Also, stop letting all those damn illegals into our border. Obama is slowly deteriorating the standard of living of the working man.

Yeah, it's all Obama's fault. It has nothing to do with the fact that greedy corporations don't want to pay the "working man" a fair wage. 30 years of flat wages despite production output increases are obviously all his fault.

 

[halik]

Yep. Everywhere I've read and heard, software developed "cheaply" abroad rarely comes anywhere close to US developed software. You end up spending double what it would have cost to just develop in the US because you have to maintain and fix all the crap you get from abroad.

It was a scare around 2000-2004 that doesn't exist so much.

That's honestly the feedback I've got from left and right. There's some advantage in having 24-7 coverage (time zones come in handy), but even on a macro level you create inefficiency:

To make 1 unit of some software product, you have to sacrifice 10 tons of textile goods output in sri lanka vs 1 ton of textile goods in US.

 

[piasabird]

What about the companies that just use h1b visas and just import lower wage foreigners legally? It is like the government is trying to destroy our education system in the USA. Who is going to study in these fields if there are no jobs?

 

[Hacp]

What about the companies that just use h1b visas and just import lower wage foreigners legally? It is like the government is trying to destroy our education system in the USA. Who is going to study in these fields if there are no jobs?

Good question. I have an answer. No one! All the scientists are going to go back to their home countries. In 30 years, when the next big technology hits in the world, the US isn't going to be the one that discovers it. It'll be someone in India or China or Russia that was trained in the US but went back to live like a king being paid to do research back home.

 

[halik]

What about the companies that just use h1b visas and just import lower wage foreigners legally? It is like the government is trying to destroy our education system in the USA. Who is going to study in these fields if there are no jobs?

Nothing wrong with that. I much rather hand out visas to educated people and have them generate value in the US than lose them to other countries.

Right now we're happily exporting our #1 product - education. Some 50% of all PHD candidates in the U.S. are foreign born and we should be doing the best we can to retain them.

 

[Hacp]

Nothing wrong with that. I much rather hand out visas to educated people and have them generate value in the US than lose them to other countries.

Right now we're happily exporting our #1 product - education. Some 50% of all PHD candidates in the U.S. are foreign born and we should be doing the best we can to retain them.

I have no problem with that but at the same time we're being redundant by spending so much of our GDP on education if we're just going to import the majority of our intellectual minds from foreign countries anyway. Why pay so much for schooling in the US when you can just import college graduate students from other countries with their K-undergraduate studies already paid for?

 

[ayabe]

I have no problem with that but at the same time we're being redundant by spending so much of our GDP on education if we're just going to import the majority of our intellectual minds from foreign countries anyway. Why pay so much for schooling in the US when you can just import college graduate students from other countries with their K-undergraduate studies already paid for?

There's too many people in diploma mill colleges who aren't equipping them with the skills they need to be competitive. This is partially a curriculum problem and partially due to having a lot of people enrolled in college when they should be in trade school instead.

 

[drebo]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: a middle class created and supported by government action is, by definition, NOT a middle class. He can call it whatever it is, but if it's dependent on the government in any way (whether it be wage dictations or any other regulation), it's not a middle class. The government can only destroy the middle class, it cannot create one.

Forcing US companies to hire American labor for all job functions is going to do one thing: make those companies move elsewhere. $10/hr for a tier 1 phone tech who does nothing but read a script is too much. If outsourcing certain types of labor wasn't cost effective, it wouldn't be done. As stated, certain types of labor cannot be efficiently outsourced due to quality concerns, but unskilled labor that does not require domestic presence most certainly can, and it should be. Or, we need to start paying people fair market wages.

 

[halik]

I have no problem with that but at the same time we're being redundant by spending so much of our GDP on education if we're just going to import the majority of our intellectual minds from foreign countries anyway. Why pay so much for schooling in the US when you can just import college graduate students from other countries with their K-undergraduate studies already paid for?

I would think that a large part of the h1b folk were educated in the US. But in any case, we should be bending over backwards to retain the foreign kids educated here.

Exporting education is probably the fastest way to erase our competitive advantage.

 

[drebo]

There's too many people in diploma mill colleges who aren't equipping them with the skills they need to be competitive. This is partially a curriculum problem and partially due to having a lot of people enrolled in college when they should be in trade school instead.

(Emphasis added)

That's certainly true, and it's pretty important. The people in the US who make decisions and dictate policy are far too concerned about "titles" and "degrees", when they should be concerned with aptitude and ability. A local state college here has way too many students, most of which graduate with a bachelors degree and absolutely no skills because even the more technical degrees don't focus on skills. We get CIS graduates from that school that don't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to computers. But they have a BS!

 

[tk149]

The President said he’s implemented “a plan that’s focused on making our middle class more secure and our country more competitive in the long run — so that the jobs and industries of the future aren’t all going to China and India, but are being created right here in the United States of America.”

You have to respect him for that. Trying to save American jobs and all. But then what the hell is this?...

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/integration/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226500202

$22 million is a drop in the record breaking deficit bucket... but that is $22 million to train people who will be then placed with outsourcing vendors... all with new English and IT skills.... to compete with the IT industry in the U.S.

Well, technically, Sri Lanka is not China or India...

How's that "Hope and Change" working out for you?

 

[piasabird]

The only middle class we are creating is in countries like India and China.

 

[JSt0rm]

Yep. Everywhere I've read and heard, software developed "cheaply" abroad rarely comes anywhere close to US developed software. You end up spending double what it would have cost to just develop in the US because you have to maintain and fix all the crap you get from abroad.

It was a scare around 2000-2004 that doesn't exist so much.

This makes me sad. The software I use everyday to make money just outsourced their development.

 

[OCGuy]

He is paying to outsource jobs. See link above.

Failthread.

 

[Cogman]

This makes me sad. The software I use everyday to make money just outsourced their development.

There ARE nations you can somewhat safely outsource to, However, you don't save any money doing it, just time. (IE Outsourcing to Great Britain and Australia shouldn't be TOO bad, but outsourcing to India, china, Pakistan, ect, will generally output crap.)

Programmers have the internet. Good programmers know where they can go to make money.

 

[Fern]

He is paying to outsource jobs. See link above.

Failthread.

^this

Fern

 

[Atreus21]

Errr I'm all for free trade, but those sort of jobs are our competitive advantage.

You're creating inefficiency by having places with plentiful cheap unskilled labor dabble in stuff like that. The opportunity cost in terms of product of unskilled labor is far higher in places like sri lanka compared to the US.

If someone else can do the same quality job for cheaper, than it's not our comparative advantage.