President Blames Unemployment On Lack Of Tech Skills

Undermining the middle-class has always been a goal of the communists. We MUST protect the middle-class as they are the economic engine

Well, at last we finally get to the truth. What you're advocating is nothing less than a rejection of economic policies that have guided this country for around 150+ years. At the point of divergence from well grounded economic principles, the charge of conspiracy and appeal to emotion fail to convince me otherwise.

First the China issue: so, the Chinese gov't is training 1m Java programmers not because individual Chinese would like to enjoy a higher standard of living, but rather, as a covert attack on its largest trading partner? Hmm, I think I hear a black chopper out there.

As to why we MUST do anything that is not grounded in sound principles can be rejected out-of-hand by emperical evidence: not one candidate from any major party is even slightly entertaining the types of trade policies being advocated on this board. It's a sad reflection of how far FR has gone.

Computer technology and the internet has changed the economic model into one of instantateous global trade. The old policies are not adequate and no longer fully applicable. The concept of trade is radically different than it was the last 150+ years, surely you must see that.

China is a communist country with a determination to become the dominent power in the world. They are waging an economic war with us right now while building their military for a confrontation. Why do they need such a massive military machine if they are not our enemies?

Dumping cheap labor on the market is no different than dumping cheap chips on the market. Both are designed to destroy the competition so that it can be replaced by the one doing the dumping.

All things change including economic models. Just because we've done it that way for 150+ years doesn't mean it's a good idea to do it exactly the same way for the next 150. History is a guide not a template and the real world is not the academic world. Those of you who support Free Trade tell us to change with the times, I subject to you that you need to change with the times and understand the new economic reality of the "virtual economy".

Computer technology and the internet has changed the economic model ... the old policies are not adequate and no longer fully applicable. The concept of trade is radically different than it was the last 150+ years

Why must seemingly intelligent posters be so lacking in basic economic history? To the contrary, computer technology is probably the LEAST disruptive technological change we've had over the last 150 years. If you want disruptive technologies, try steam, electric & internal combustion engines.

The end of sail power meant much more rapid, deterministic shipping schedules. Power equipment enabled the construction of the Suez/Panama canals that cut off weeks of shipping times. Refrigiration enabled long-term storage of perishable goods. Add it all up, and you see what drove the great trade debates 100 years ago: imported agricultural products. And guess who the primary beneficiary was (and still is) ie the prime exporter?

No grasshopper, today is not so unique that we have to discard every prinicple that has guided trade for the last 150 years. If it was, you'd see one of the major candidates picking up on what is so widely espoused at FR.

China is a communist country with a determination to become the dominent power in the world

Again, blanket statements that are supposed to elicit shock and awe must be soundly confronted. Is stating 'China is a communist country' supposed to be your ace in the hole around the missus and friends?

If China is a communist country, that what the hell is the US? China is such a primitive Dickensian capitalist system that it would turn your stomach to see some of their working conditions. Safety nets, worker protection, health care? These are all benefits enjoyed in the US, but are an illusion for the Chinese.

China is so far behind the US it isn't even funny. It would take them 500 years of 50% growth to catch up to Mexico. Take a tip and go there sometime - plane fares are pretty cheap right now to HK. From there, it's a hop, skip and jump into the economic zone.

People should really get out more often. The US is a decendent of 2,500 years plus of Western thought. Our core institutions and cultural behavior are the ultimate advantage. The west will always be the dominant economic/political system (even if it's practiced elsewhere) - it's why the Japanese adopted it wholesale, and why ambitious Chinese emigrate to N. America.

The concept of economical remote work did not occure until the internet boom. Remote work is far more enabling than any other technological advance in human history.

You still don't get it. ANY job that can be done at a desk can be done anywhere in the world. I'm fully aware of our economic history and this is a unique advance. If it wasn't unique then companies would have found a way to do it decades ago.

China is not a trustworthy trading partner, they have ambitions that are contrary to ours. They have threatend military action against Taiwan and they support the North Korean regime. They supplied weapons to Iraq and other known adversaries. They constantly violate our patent and copyright laws and have stolen nuclear secrets from us. But YOU are willing to trade with them just to enrich a few corporations?

The concept of a "virtual economy" has never be theorized until recently. Don't you think a new economic model like a virtual economy should have new trading rules? As I've said before history is a guide not a template, we must learn or lose the race.

Hello All:
There is a quote in the Sunday Denver Post by the president of an outsourcing company called Technology Crafters:

“There’s a lot of interest,” said Robert Welch, the company’s president. “American software teams are awesome for innovation, but in terms of being able to crank things out in a productive manner, they’re no the best on the planet.”

I find this quotation completely laughable! What a joke! If the Indian software companies were held to the same high standards that the software companies in the United States are held to, their prices for labor and product would be the same. A good example would be that a customer product takes 10,000 lines of “C” code in order to provide the customer with the amount of functionality they need. The Indian programmer writes the code and the documentation in order to install and use this piece of software. The Indian’s American counterpart writes the 10,000 lines of code, the documentation to support the installation and use of the software and he/she will also write the ISO9001 documentation required to go along with the software product which includes the project planning document, the software design document, the software testing documentation, the architecture review board documentation, etc. As you can see it’s obvious who takes more time to produce their product and who does a more careful and a better job. So just how many Indian software companies are ISO9001 certified? I wonder! American IT management would like their customers to think the quality is the same but underneath it all, we all really know the truth.
Let me relay an actual customer event that took place recently, a large Swiss Bank found an operating system defect on their system while trying to write an application to produce custom graphics for their bank statement printing. The function they found the bug in was wcstombs which converts wide character set strings to multibyte character set strings. Anyway this customer was/is paying for 24 X 7 development support and called into the 1-800 number and talked with a support engineer here in the United States. The customer was told that the engineers where looking at it and that they would be updated every morning until the fix was shipped. The software these days is written in India, it was Friday morning here in the United States, the Indian programmers don’t work weekends or overtime and are not required to be called out even if there is a customer emergency. The support representative from the United States called the customer on Saturday morning, Sunday Morning, Monday morning, always telling the customer that the engineers were working on the fix even though they weren’t. The customer finally received their fix the following Thursday afternoon, thus making the delivery of their bank statements late and costing them a lot of extra money for shipping, etc. Previous to this instance that same software had been written here in the United States, the customer would call in on Friday morning and a real software engineers was working on it within the hour, a test fix was usually supplied before the weekend was out and the customer would have shipped their statements on time. Now if you were that customer, would you be happy with your 24 X 7 development support?
I have one last comment, I find it interesting that a Japanese company named Toyota can produce a superior car with American workers and the CEO only earns 1.5 million dollars a year and an American company named GM pays their CEO 30 million dollars a year, uses foreign labor and produces cars with twice the number of defects per thousand cars shipped. I personally believe that the real problem in this country is the inept management running our companies, they cost more, create more headaches and redtape and then pass the blame down to the engineers and those doing the real work.
When will it stop? Enron continues to go on and on and on, this time the management is pushing the blame on the engineers and replacing them with foreign workers when the real responsibility and problem lies with them, they are the ones who agreed to all the extra work for the products, not the engineers and yet they take no responsibility for their own actions. And lastly, you think the stockholders will see any of the benefits from these costs savings via a dividend? Or do you think the execs will give each other bonuses?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.