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Thursday May 26, 2005


Hartford Outsourcing Protest


Got this today from the folks at TORAW:

To our local and nearby members and associates ,

TORAW has organized an outsourcing protest rally, which will take place at Constitution Plaza in Hartford on June 14, 2005 from 11:30am to 2:00pm.

Please click on the link below for more details - http://www.toraw.org/hartford_outsourcing_protest_rally.htm

We expect more organizations to be joining this rally and will update our site as they join us.

You can email me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

John A. Bauman
President
TORAW
www.toraw.org
06:14 pm
Thursday May 26, 2005
posted by gmminks
link

Wednesday May 25, 2005


Food for Thought


"China will become the IT center of the world. We believe in giving something back and truly becoming a Chinese company."

John Chambers - CEO, Cisco


"Intel can be a totally successful company without ever hiring another American."

Craig Barrett - CEO, Intel


"Anyone who's got the education and the experience, they're not out there unemployed."

"I think there must be a categorization problem. Anybody who's got some computer science skills is not looking for work."


Bill Gates - Chairman, Microsoft


"People affected by offshoring should 'stop whining'."

Thomas Donohue, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO


"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore"

Carly Fiorina - Ex-CEO, Hewlett Packard


09:22 pm
Wednesday May 25, 2005
posted by rickrob
link

Sunday May 8, 2005


Americans are the new Indians


A few months ago, one of my Indian friends told me that Americans are the new Indians, and they can't see it yet. I have been thinking of how to explain what she means. I can't explain her thinking without stating a few historical facts.

First of all, my friend is Indian. She is Tsalagi (you are probably more familiar with the English word "Cherokee".

The first historical fact actually is one that disarms a common argument for the opening US borders to anyone who wants to work.

It is a fact that there were at least 500 nations populating the land that is now called the United States of America. These nations were here thriving long before the Spanish, English, or French came searching for a faster way to get to the riches in India the first time.

And the nations that were populating North America were not "savages", nor were they less sophisticated than the Europeans. The Europeans visited cities with complex economies. The Europeans who were able to get a foothold on the continent did so not by slaughtering the native residents a la Cortez, but by particpating in the local economies.

The Cherokee nation was originally located in Tennessee, North Carolina, North Georgia and North Alabama. First European contact was probably with DeSoto in 1540. Steady trade was solidified with the Treaty of South Carolina in 1684, and with the treaty a steady trade of deerskins and Indian slaves began.

The Cherokee allied with the British to fight the French and the Spanish. One reason for the alliance was to remain favorable trading partners with the British. Deerskin breeches, gloves, and hats became a hot commodity in England, and the Cherokee wanted a piece of that economic pie. And with good reason, there was alot of money to be made trading deer skins. According to the the South Carolina Department of Archives and History:


By mid-century, 150,000 deerskins per year left South Carolina. At that time the value of deerskins and other Indian commodities roughly equaled the combined total for beef, pork, indigo, lumber, and naval stores and accounted for 20 percent of the colony’s exports.


What are the social and economic implications when a nation's economy has to meet that sort of export demand virtually overnight? (I will go into that another day)

This type of trade was not unusual for the nations that were first contact of the European settlers. Indian nations were often embroiled in disputes with neighboring tribes, and the logical thing to do was to be the first to treaty with the newcomers. The newcomers seemed harmless, they had brought their women, they didn't know how to feed themselves, and they had cool tools to trade. Why not ally with a new trading partner who could also have your back if another nation started acting up?

So the question becomes, who was responsible in the Indian nations for allowing the trade to ramp up so quickly with the settlers? Did they realize what was happening at the time? Did they know that the settlers had no intention of leaving? Did they know what they were giving up in the name of trade?

That can be asked of our leaders today. What are we giving up as a nation in the name of economic trade? They say there is no such thing as a free lunch....maybe there is no such thing as free trade either. One side always has an unfair advantage over the other, and that imbalance may be hidden for years and years. By the time the unequal side sees the imbalance, the damage is done.

So, this should put to rest the idea that immigrants built America. America was alive and kicking for thousands of years before it was "discovered" by Europeans. Hundreds of economies were decimated, then eliminated by the history books to give the illusion of an American dream. You know the one...the dream that if you work hard enough, like our ancestors did, you can have anything and everything you desire.

Let's be honest. Let's start by looking at our own history, and comparing it to events happening right now. Things aren't so different now.


08:05 am
Sunday May 8, 2005
posted by gmminks
link

Tuesday May 3, 2005


The slave ship people are liars


The slave ship people have a website up. The website makes it sound like they are bringing jobs back to the US:

Hybrid-Sourcing(tm) an innovative engineering service which creates high-end software engineering jobs in the U.S. while still providing lower overall costs for our clients. This approach combines the capabilites and convenience of our San Diego-based software engineering center with the proximity and reduced costs of our unique ship-based engineering facility. The result of this completely new business model is the creation of U.S. engineering jobs and lower blended costs for U.S. clients.


Their website doesn't mention to prospective clients that the coders will be kept on a cruise ship offshore, working 8-10 hours a day for 21K a year, in international waters. This is being done because the slave ship people do not want to deal with US visa laws.

They do not want to hire Americans. Slave ship owner Roger Green expressed his disdain for American techies this way:


"Try to get American software engineers to work at night"


05:23 am
Tuesday May 3, 2005
posted by gmminks
link

Sunday May 1, 2005


Inside look at how Microsoft really works


This guy blogs about X-Box developers getting laid off.

Now, if that work is in India, I want to know why the hell the good games still cost $50 bucks and over to buy?


09:43 am
Sunday May 1, 2005
posted by gmminks
link


Gates talking to Congress


I get the feeling that Compete America has decided to use Bill Gates as their new spokesman, in an attempt to persuade Congress that there is a need to eliminate the cap on H-1B visas.

He went to a closed-door Congressional meeting to discuss many issues, including the H-1B visa issue. Senator Patty Murray of Washington this of Gates' conversation:


"He made a strong impression on me that they need the best-qualified workers they can find," whether they are trained in the United States or other countries, Murray said.


Gates is using logical fallacies when addressing lawmakers. In this case, the logical fallacy is Non-Support, which is defined as:

An explanation is intended to explain who some phenomenon happens. In this case, there is evidence that the phenomenon occurred, but it is trumped up, biased or ad hoc evidence.


So, Microsoft wants to hire new employees, but they can't find new grads here because CS enrollments have dropped (they ignore the fact that high US techie unemployment continues to rise). They are saying the cap on the H-1B visas is preventing them from hiring qualified techies.

Maybe the CS enrollments have dropped because American students see parents and friends who are CS and engineering grads lose their jobs to outsourcing and the misuse of H-1B visas. Microsoft is the leading company that uses H-1B and L-1 visas. Surely this makes Bill Gates a bit biased when it comes to the subject of the availability of more H-1B visas.

And it is interesting that Gates does not speak to the fact that high-tech unemployment in the US is at an all-time high, and rising. This means we have US citizens who are educated and trained who are not able to work. Why isn't Microsoft tapping into this pipeline?



08:46 am

posted by gmminks
link

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