TheAgitator.com
Lou’s Blues
Saturday, January 10th, 2004That I think will be our de facto title for posts relating to outsourcing overseas, immigration, and general nativist thinking on economics.
Here’s Tim Lee on outsourcing tech jobs to India:
Preventing foreign workers from competing for American I.T. jobs is unfair both to workers and to American consumers who are forced to pay those higher geek salaries in the products they buy. The slashdot crowd is demanding that American consumers–many of whom make $30,000 or $40,000/year–pay higher prices for computer products so that more geeks can continue making $60,000/year. Somehow, I have trouble working up much sympathy for their plight.
Well put.
The whining upper middle class really sometimes makes me want to barf. I’m sick of these $60,000 a year or more geeks bitching like they have some “right” to make that kind of money. I have a college degree and I make $31,000 a year in a very expensive city, so I do appreciate cheap consumer goods. If these displaced geeks don’t like earning an uninflated wage, they can learn a new skill that pays better.
People don’t want to “think” about free trade and what it means, how it works and that often bad business practices are disguised as “blame free trade”.
You do realize though that based on where most of those computer geeks live that 60k a year is about the same as 30 to 40k a year for the rest of the country. You may think you live in an expensive city but come to San Francisco or the entire bay area some time and then you tell me that. Question in your expensive city Mark how much would you expect to pay a month for a 2 bedroom 1 bath no frills appartment? (We wont even talk owning a home as even in some of the worst areas a run down small home will cost you 200,000+ and thats if your lucky.) Seriously, 60k may look like alot to you but its nothing out in california becuase everything is so damn expensive here.
uh, in CA my $60 grand a year would be $200+. And I’m very thankful for the $60 I get, but I’m also preparing for when it’s gone. That’s what’s so great about the free market. Keeps us on our toes.
I live in CA and I’m in IT. I make 34K a year and I don’t see a whole lot of 60K a year geekies. Moke like alot of out of work geekies. Maybe these guys made 60 or 70K a year in ‘99 but not now. I have a hard time working up simpathy for people that don’t know what they’re talking about.
And I don’t really support the “nativist” thinking.
It seems to me that letting other countries bid for our IT jobs is a good thing since it should drive down the cost of goods. Why would anyone argue that? (of course unless you’re an unemployed IT person).
Well thats all well and good that it drives down the cost of goods, but what happens when all the jobs are outsourced? So your goods are cheap but you have no money to spend on them. Great. Now that may seem somewhat extreme, but taking arguments to their extreme conclusion is a popular past time around here.
My biggest concern with outsourcing runs like this. If *Insert Company here* wants to move its operations from say california to nebraska becuase costs are lower there, hey thats fine. But if they want to then move from Nebraska to India I have issues with that. The company is then getting all of the benefits of being a US corporation but what are they putting back into the US? Cheap goods. That no one can buy. Becuase no one has a job.
The reason why I have an issue moving jobs to say India is that if my company decides to outsource to Nebraska, well in theory I can easily packup and move out there if I want to follow the job. As soon as they move it to another country my ability to go there is suddenly dramatically reduced. And that is where I have issue.
reduced, but not an impossibility
What if your job were moved to Cozumel? Would that be so bad? Wouldn’t it be awesome to have the option of moving anywhere in the world rather than to just Nebraska? Isn’t that what the world economy is going to bring to the table? And with those libertarians moving to other countries, won’t that spread liberty to the world? (I do realize that this is an idealistic point of view).
Brad,
I have two friends in CA one in LA and one in San Fran, each make 6 figure salaries. Maybe you need more IT skills. I will say they started with much much lower salaries in the 90’s. And have probably 10 to 15 years on you. You can’t expect basketball like salaries in IT without working very hard for it.
“reduced, but not an impossibility”
Well I would say reduced and an impracticality. Sure it would be possible to move to India, of course I wont speak the language, know anyone, and still hope that they will actually give me the job. But sure its possible.
And Kim, thats kind of the point. The jobs that are going oversea’s, yeah their not the ones that someone has 15 years experience in. Nope their the ones that would allow people like Brad to get 15 years of experience.
Oh well, guess I am a protectionist because I want to be able to find a job that will allow me to afford rent and food.
You have a pretty nice blog. English is not my native language but it was please to read your site. From Russia with love :)Sincerely yours..