View from Berkeley and the unemployment ranks on U.S. offshoring

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 10:36:13 -0800
Subject: Re: [Politech] An outsourcer's reply to Greenspan's testimony on overseas jobs
Cc: rw2 () gridwisetech com
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
From: Chris Beaumont <chris () ncafe com>

Declan,

I don't see why people don't realize that this situation is driving an
exodus away from CS among young people here in the US.

Until two months ago, I worked on the campus of UC Berkeley. I rode
the campus shuttle busses as often as four times a day and I would
VERY often hear students talking about their majors and the job
possibilities of graduates in various fields. I do computer work, so
my ears would always perk up when I heard people talking about their
majors in technical fields.

Basically, in the years between 2000 and 2003, I saw computer science
very rapidly go from being a 'good' major (one where the student saw a
graduate as having a good chance of getting a decent job) to being a
'bad' major (one where the student wishes he could switch to another
major because the chances of getting a good job in his field were low,
and even if one could get a job, salaries were decreasing.)

So, of course, there will be a 'shortage of graduates' in computer science.

What are they supposed to live on, patriotism?

Anyone who still can (who is not a complete geek obsessed with it for
other than economic reasons) is deserting (or has already deserted) it
as a major and moving to other, more lucrative areas like financial
services, law, etc.

Fields where one can hope to support a family.

CS is also now seen as a difficult major compared to others that offer
more chances for gainful employment.

That is why I see the US losing its lead in technology pretty soon,
unless steps are taken to change the outlook for entry-level computer
graduates.

Research jobs wont stay here if the lower level jobs go. One has to do
the lower level stuff before you do research. And those jobs for the
bulk of the workforce, the jobs that support middle class workers and
their families, just wont be there.

So, increasingly, the CS-related patents, etc. will go to other
companies, in other countries. Sooner or later the 'offshoring' by
American companies will trickle to an end, and the foreign companies
will just be doing it all themselves.

American software development companies will go out of business.

Or almost completely move elsewhere, i.e. 'where the money is'.  (if
that is possible for them)

End of story.

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Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 13:41:37 -0500
Subject: Re: [Politech] An outsourcer's reply to Greenspan's testimony on
        overseas jobs
From: Scott Marshall <scottmarshall () nyc rr com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>, <rw2 () gridwisetech com>

on 2/25/04 11:11 AM, Declan McCullagh at declan () well com wrote:

Just a comment from the vast USA wilderness of the terminally unemployed:

I appreciate the fact that all entrepreneurs in our socially Darwinistic
hypercapitalist society are in business to Make Money, not run charity
operations for the unemployed. But in topical discussions of "outsourcing",
there is one euphemism that absolutely drives me up a wall: "VALUE". Of
course, you are simply expressing the basic, fundamental capitalist idea of
getting the "most" for the "least". However, when I hear the term "value"
used in a discussion of outsourcing, I see the ruthless and predatory nature
of American entrepreneurs and the "valueless" lives of unemployed American
workers. I see my friends and I; laid off, unable to find decent work, or
employed at the same tasks as before but now working for a fraction of
previous wages with no benefits.

Ultimately, I am delighted that the slobbering unwashed masses in former
"third world" or Eastern-bloc countries have now matured and become
attractive fodder for American capital's insatiable, rapacious greed and
exploitation. I'm sure the sweat and toil of Indian or Polish workers comes
at a much better "value" for you and your ilk than that of us formerly
pampered, spoiled layabouts here in the US. But I, for one, sincerely hope
that some kind of control or law is enacted to constrain such business
practices in the near future, thus enabling us discarded American workers to
reclaim some lost "value" in our quality of life.

Scott Marshall
New York City

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From: GeoNeff () aol com
Message-ID: <4c.2898f0ce.2d6e3131 () aol com>
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 12:11:13 EST
Subject: Re: [Politech] Alan Greenspan on offshoring: take the long-term view
To: declan () well com

When is Greenspan's job going to be "offshored" to someone with the
intellectual skills to understand it?  Clearly he is undertrained and
lacking in the cognitive skills necessary for his position...witness
the economy.  Since he is probably beyond a trainable age to catch up,
and the Indians are so much better at the kind of pattern recognition
skills necessary for complex economic patterns, Greenspan should be
removed immediately and replaced by a non-American worker who has a
better chance of understanding the gigantic chaos of the market (shiva
land for sure).  Americans are clearly not intellectually competent
nor trained well enough to run their own government...witness all
aspects of the good ole boy and girlie bog that passes for it.
Offsourcing our government may be the only way to recovery...asap.

Georgia 

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Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 08:55:29 -0800
From: <arik () well com>
To: declan () well com

Declan,

On this issue I'd point you to the current isse of The Economist,
which has a rather interesting and clear explanation about why,
outsourcing jobs is neither a new phenomenon, nor is it a bad one over
the long run. Just politically unpopular in the short term.

See "The Great Hollowing Out Myth." in the current issue. Sadly I
don't have an electronic copy and its behind their $2.95 per-article
gateway or I'd gladly share the text with you. But....

Here's a few basic points liberally paraphrased: Outsourcing is just
the latest demonstration of the law of competitive advantage, which
was put forth by the economist David Ricardo about 200 years ago. If a
product or service can be produced more cheaply aborad, it should be,
as it is cheaper to import it than produce it at home.

Second, it points that the vast majority of the jobs lost in the last
recession were both cyclical, and unsustainable.

Third, the U.S. economy has a huge churn of jobs on a monthly basis --
some 2 million a month, even in the best of times. Over time, this
process creates more jobs than it destroys. Ultimately, more,
better-paying domestic jobs are the result of the cost savings of
outsourcing.

Finally, and this was the stat that surprised me, while the
U.S. population has grew about 24% between 1980 and 2002, the
percentage of employed Americans grew much faster by 37.4%. The
current number of working Americans is 138.6 million, which is almost
a record in absolute terms and as a proportion of the population.

Arik

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Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 11:31:30 -0500
Subject: Re: [Politech] An outsourcer's reply to Greenspan's testimony on
        overseas jobs
From: Peggy Miller <pmiller () cabinet com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

Mr. Wellner's information supports the long term approach of John Kerry's
that if we continue to allow offsourcing it will gradually improve the
economies in other countries and that will eventually put them back in
competition with our pay scales ..

And I agree that Greenspan's analysis seemed to show a distinct
'out-of-touch' quality.

Peggy Miller
The society for shifting the path of least resistance to an uphill course.

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