The Great American Job Machine (destroying US jobs is a good thing)

NRO ^ | December 09, 2003, 8:38 a.m. | Rich Lowry

[GingisK]

Most people master spelling by the time they are ten...

Most of the words I work with are rarely in such a young vocabulary.

So when you have spelling problems, it makes you look like a dummy.

You'd be surprised how stupid most people seem to me, particularly those who get hung up on trivialities. This makes them look shallow, self-important, uninteresting, and unimaginative. Poor spelling has never killed anyone. Overlooking critical concepts certainly has.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Cyber India Online Ltd. reports that "Since the H-1B cap was raised in 2000, nine out of 10 new jobs in IT have been awarded to H-1Bs. By the end of December 2001 more than 890,000 H-1B workers were employed in the US. Add to this the 312,000 from 2002 and you have a total of 1,202,000 H-1Bs replacing US citizens and green card holders by year-end 2002." They go on to say not to worry about H1B cuts, U.S. corporations will simply move jobs to India, better for India.

Not all H1B visas are Indian, BTW. IMO no one knows exactly the H1B, L-1 and other visa counts. But this is an indication. No one knows the exact number of jobs sent offshore either.

If IT jobs are "buggywhip" jobs why are they being filled? Why do ardent Republicans refuse to acknowledge the impact on American citizens of these statistics?

October BLS figures showed that almost 1.4 million Americans were working part time because they could not find full time jobs.

The answer has to be between the Republicans' "either they don't want to work or they are too stupid to compete" and the Democrats' "there are no jobs."

[Poohbah]

It is common practice to type for postings without extensive proofing. When I type for business, I employ spell checkers and proof-readers.

In other words, if I hired you, I would be forced to hire someone else to correct your work.

Do the words "cost avoidance" mean anything to you?

[CobaltBlue]

You'd be surprised how stupid most people seem to me, particularly those who get hung up on trivialities. This makes them look shallow, self-important, uninteresting, and unimaginative.

Oh, no, this doesn't surprise me at all.

I do find it mildly puzzling that you don't realize what this reveals about your personality, nor how well it explains why you are out of work and can't get a job.

But it's not at all uncommon for people who are rigid and maladaptive to have very poor insight.

[CobaltBlue]

I am told that Indians have special talents at IT. If so, it makes as much sense to hire Indians to do IT as it does to hire black men to play basketball.

[CobaltBlue]

Interestingly, Dell recently decided to no longer base its call center in India. This is reported to be, in part, due to the accents, and in part due to lack of knowledge.
http://nsnlb.us.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031207/BUSINESS/212070453

But even so - I have read that many of the call centers based in the US are actually based in prisons.

[hosepipe]

[ I can assure you, the employment prospects for me look mighty grim. It is indeed a tragic thing to send me looking for a new carrer at the bottom of the heap in a path that peaks out far below what I am currently making. ]

Wonderful example(you're post) of time to get out of the box, Start you're own buisness thereby smashing the glass ceiling.. with those credenials you might even start several businesses... Carpe Diem...

[GingisK]

In other words, if I hired you, I would be forced to hire someone else to correct your work.

I guess you are under the impression that posting on FR demands the same level of perfection as the work I submit to my employer. You might be laboring under a delusion.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Albert Einstein's early school life was fraught with difficulty. He exhibited behavioral problems, poor spelling, and was weak in language expression. Einstein's strengths lay in visual/spatial reasoning and problem solving, you see. You can accomplish good spelling by rote. You can buy spell checkers.

No, I don't think spelling trumps visual/spatial reasoning and problem solving abilities. Could be. Maybe so nowadays. Could be part of the PC stuff that's doing strange things.

[GingisK]

I do find it mildly puzzling that you don't realize...

You seem to get all of your exercise jumping to conclusions. I do realize all of this, and more. I just don't give a damn what you might presume about me.

...it explains why you are out of work and can't get a job...

Whoops, there you go again! I am currently employed at my highest salary level. This company is now outsourcing to India, so it is prudent to watch the job market. I also have friends who have been unemployed for over a year, and they are very polite folks. Go figure.

[GingisK]

I am told that Indians have special talents at IT.

They don't. This company spent $2,000,000 on outsourcing to India. Now that the results are in, the software has proven to be poorly designed and riddled with bugs. Of course, we'll be fielding the stuff because someone in management, probably a great speller, can't be made to look like a fool for blowing that much money.

[CobaltBlue]

It's a myth that Einstein was a poor student. He did not go to school when he was young because he was sickly. But when he did go to school, he was a good student.
http://www.fmnh.org/museum_info/press/press_einstein_quiz.htm
http://members.fortunecity.com/alberteinstein/e=mc2/physics/einstein_truth.htm

Yes, you can buy spell checkers. But spell checkers can't help people who think that spelling is "trivial" and that everybody else is stupider than they are. For that, you need a personality transplant.

[CobaltBlue]

Oh, so you were whining about nothing? Why am I not surprised?

[MissAmericanPie]

horse manure

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: Indians v. American techies

I have a few times posted the results of googling for, India universities cheating. To wit, this International Herald Tribune article by Ted Plafker, "In China, flood of fake diplomas".

"In August, the U.S.-based Educational Testing Service, which administers the GRE worldwide, announced that it was canceling its GRE Computer Science Subject Test in China (and also India) because of widespread cheating. That followed an earlier decision by the testing service to suspend its computer-administered GRE General Test in China and other parts of Asia after investigators discovered" widespread cheating. [end excerpt]

I believe that happened in 2002. Sound like winners to you? Do all Asians cheat. No. Are all Asians ten-feet tall? No. Usually these threads attract first-hand accounts of experience dealing with software developed "over there." Not always bug-free.

RE: call centers and prisons

A quick google shows that there are indeed call centers at prisons. Without reading beyond the snippet of text it appears that states for one do that.

[MrFreedom]

President Bush Is Less Conservative Than Clinton

Orange County Register

I am writing this column to one particular sort of reader. I want as many people as possible to read my column, of course, but this week's essay is geared toward those who insist that President George W. Bush - a man I supported and voted for - is advancing the cause of freedom.

Don't be influenced in your thinking about the president by the odd gyrations of America's leftists, who are consumed by Bush-spite. They despise him and embrace kooky ideas about him. It's almost enough to make one rally to the president's defense, but we shouldn't.

The enemy of our enemies is not necessarily our friend. Especially when the president, even though I believe him to be a decent man, is busy expanding government power at a pace that would have been unthinkable even under Bill Clinton's horrible administration.

We need to be hardheaded and evaluate this president in the same way we evaluated Clinton, Jimmy Carter and other presidents. I remain a Republican, because over my lifetime, Republicans have been the only party with a winning chance that has come close to advocating, however inadequately, principles of limited government.

Watching the Republican Party at the national level over the past three years is causing rethinking on my part. I want other Americans of right-leaning persuasion to hold the president and the Republican-majority Congress accountable for their deeds, rather than their occasional fine-sounding words.

The U.S. Constitution means what it says. It does not live and breathe, which is a liberal euphemism for stretching the Constitution to say whatever it is liberals want it to mean at any particular time, usually in service to some modern, government-expanding idea.

Government must be limited. Growth in government is not good, because government is based on coercion. Individuals do a better job spending their own hard- earned money than government, which lavishes its ill-gotten gains on special interest groups and constituencies that whine the loudest. Government should protect the national defense and do some basic, clearly delineated tasks, but defense means defense, not offense. American civil liberties must not be endangered by never-ending wars with constantly shifting endposts.

Compared to this ideal, President Bush is a disaster. Even compared to other modern conservative politicians, he has been a huge disappointment. In fairness, the president has been good on tax cuts, has appointed some decent people to judicial posts and has resisted some of the worst proposals from the left, such as the Kyoto global warming treaty.

But mostly it has been one sellout after another.

Writes the Cato Institute's Doug Bandow in a cover story in the American Conservative magazine: "Despite occasional exceptions, the Bush administration, backed by the Republican-controlled Congress, has been promoting larger government at almost every turn. Its spending policies have been irresponsible, and its trade strategies have been destructive. The president has been quite willing to sell out the national interest for perceived political gain, whether the votes sought are from seniors or farmers. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 encouraged the administration to push into law civil-liberties restrictions that should worry anyone, whether they are wielded by a Bush or a Clinton administration."

It's hard to argue with this.

This president has not vetoed a single bill, which means he has signed into law every big-spending project that has come down the pike. Federal spending, even on non-military matters, has soared. His nation-building experiments are downright Wilsonian, a far cry from the "humbler" foreign policy he promised when he ran for office.

These are criticisms from the right, so save the "you stinking Democrat-loving pinko" e-mails for someone else. I argued for libertarians to vote for Bush in a column before the election, believing that his calls for limited government and restrained foreign policy were far superior to Al Gore's quasi-socialism, nutty environmentalism and love of Clinton-style nation- building. (Note: The Register doesn't endorse candidates, but one week we featured columns by each editorial writer explaining our personal choices for president.)

But look at what we've got, with the largest entitlement increase in decades pushed forward by the president (prescription drugs), and it's hard for me to know what to say. The right words are coming to mind: "I'm sorry." I'm sorry to my readers for suggesting such a choice. I'm sorry to my libertarian colleagues, who warned me there wouldn't be any noticeable difference between a Bush and Gore administration.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, writing last week for LewRockwell.com, agrees: "The unfortunate truth is that the Bush administration, aided by a Republican Congress, has increased spending more in three years than the previous administration did in eight. Federal spending has grown by more than 25 percent since President Bush took office." As Paul explains, the president no longer even uses conservative rhetoric. He doesn't just act like a social democrat, but he talks like one.

Yet so many conservatives continue to celebrate this president as a conservative champion. At least under the Clinton administration - and I did and still do resent the former president's liberal policies and deceptions - the Republican Congress fought back. Now pure partisanship pushes the GOP to endorse policies it opposed under Clinton.

Cato Institute Executive Vice President David Boaz explains in a recent Washington Post column that under President Ronald Reagan, non-defense discretionary spending fell by 13.5 percent but increased by nearly 21 percent under Bush II. How is that for a contrast?

Pointing to vast federal expansions in education, medical care and other areas under Bush and the Republican Congress, conservative columnist Cal Thomas wrote on Nov. 30: "We are moving rapidly, under Republican 'leadership,' past the nanny state and the welfare state to what might be called the state as family. ... Is it time for another revolution yet? Who's got the tea?"

Tough stuff. But if you still refuse to listen to these conservative and libertarian leaders, then pay attention to one of Republicanism's great modern heroes, former President Reagan.

Here are words from his famous 1964 speech supporting Barry Goldwater's presidential run:

"I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this. ...

"It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the founding fathers. ...

"Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? ... We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation."

America's enemy has changed, but the principles are still the same. It's time for those who had supported the president to make their criticisms heard. If it puts us in league with some scary left-wing loonies, don't worry. Our arguments make sense, and theirs are crazy.

[DugwayDuke]

Why do you find that statement laughable? Based upon my personal experience it is quite factual.

Lost my job in '94. No prospects. Moved my family 2000 miles to take a 20% cut in pay. I'm now making nealy 60% more than I was before I lost my job. (Also my new employer moved me back to my old home town so nothings changed except I'm making a pot load more money now.) BTW, I'm in my late fifties so any one can do it.

[GingisK]

Oh, so you were whining about nothing?

You attack me without pondering my responses to the issues. Shame on me for responding. Stop looking down your nose and observe the substance of my posts.

My concern is for America. Once young people stop training in technical subjects and no longer pursue engineering careers, this Nation will lose its edge in the technologies. Innovations in technology will occur in other countries. Now consider National Defense: Do you want the United States to acquire its defense infrastructure in the form of obsolete equipment from foreign countries?

The impact of outsourcing will be profound. But since you are far more interested in spelling, you won't notice the affect until it is too late. Can you understand this line of reasoning?

[discostu]

Poor spelling makes it a lot harder to get your code to compile, that would mean you spend more time fixing your code than a better speller, which makes you less productive. Being a better speller would improve your job prospects, especially if there's a problem on your resume or letter of intent, when I do hirings a misspelling is an automatic rejection.