May ... may.

However the shirt may be just fine. And the shirt you pay $25 for ..may.. be a piece of crap (lookin at you land's end).

The software may be good- or it may be a piece of ill designed crap written by a 1st world citizen who is a better huckster than programmer.

But the money is in your hand.

Yes. I worked with an office which had 400 indian programmers and 400 american programmers. They laid off 350 of the american programmers and did just fine.

I worked directly with the indian coders. They had some very solid coders who were better coders than the standard american programmer. And at a business that isn't focused on IT, it's pretty hard for them to retain really good programmers. Heck- it's hard to hire them in the first place.

Back in 2002, the indians were very good- I think it was mostly their masters degree candidates. By 2005, they sucked pretty bad. But by 2010, they were decent again. The only issue was the turnover and the failure to say "no" to management (instead saying "I'll do my best"). The other issues you mention were on the wane since 2008.

I've used AVG and Avast plus malwarebytes and the microsoft cleaner.

They are free.

It's been 20 years since I got a virus but I've had several caught attempts.

I left AVG a couple years ago and went to Avast. It's a little pushing on upselling lately.

I've had to clean virii off of friends computers. Malwarebytes is good for that.
Avast is also good for that.

Avast has a "web page reputation" feature.. but to be honest, the only thing it ever flagged for me is the site that records all DMCA filings (which I knew was safe which mean the corporations had corrupted Avast's rating system for that page).

I'm not sure how the hell my friends get them. I has to be lol cats or something like that. I got to a few porn sites now and then and never had a problem.

Malwarebytes has been effective for cleaning a machine that was infected already.

I don't keep the microsoft cleaner on disk but download it as needed so I always have to look it up.

Right now the GT750 is the best price/performance. Save the $25 to $35 bucks just isn't worth it in the case if you are a gamer.

If you are not a gamer, then sure.

Yes but money is easy to measure.
And results are easy to measure.

If the IT consulting company can deliver the results for less money--- or more importantly- if management merely believes that the IT consulting company can deliver the results for less money-- or even more importantly if a companies competitors are all using IT consulting company and delivering more services and product while also making higher profits-- then the jobs will flow away.

It won't really stop until we have wage parity between the two skilled populations. Before- when you had to physically be present, it didn't matter so much. But today you have lots of working from home and virtual offices. Of more expensive programmers- only the very best will get the jobs. The average work/duties can be done by average employees in other countries. It's a very difficult fact.

It will resolve it self- but it's going to take a couple generations.

So what exactly is the difference between a shirt made from quality cotton with $15 an hour labor that costs $25 and a shirt made from quality cotton with $1 a day labor that costs $5?

What is the difference between a standard business program (nothing super advanced- a well recognized pattern) turned out by a $9,000 a year programmer in india vs the same program turned out by a $90,000 a year programmer in a 1st world country?

Get what you pay for mainly applies when the savings came from material quality. It is very hard to judge the quality of human labor other than by results.

Indian and Chinese labor have challenges (face being a big one- never saying "no, that's impossible" is another one) but they are on parity with u.s. workers and have been for the last 5 to 7 years.

It would be nice if it were that simple.

How can a corporation paying $80k to workers compete with another corporation paying $15,000 per year for similarly skilled labor?

The H1B is abusive and addressing it will slow down the trend.

But indian and chinese (and other) labor won't equalized until after 2045 and they will have a competitive advantage until wages equalize.

I wish addressing H1B's would fix the problem. But fundamentally, as long a 6 year masters degree can live "well" on $30,000 in china or india (and costs under $16k) while an 6 year masters degree (that cost $80 to $160k) requires $70k to live "fair" and $120k to live "well" things will stagnate or get worse for the higher paid person.

Chinese and Indian labor have challenges but they are "good enough" in most cases.

So if the door is shut- the likely result will be
a) wholey owned subsidiaries in other countries.
b) outright elimination of IT function here and purchasing it cloudwise from there.

It's not just IT- it's also radiologists, actuarials, and any other kind of easily offshorable expensive highly educated positions.

For India- at current rates we won't be at parity until 2065.

We really need to stop pumping inflation in the 1st world countries and deflate for a while to equalize labor costs.

Mosquitos do not bite below 58 degrees Fahrenheit so that puts a lower limit.

I think you missed the point that we spent 2 trillion dollars and 4000 lives subsidizing oil.

You are talking about explicit subsidies in the tax code- not troops on the ground, destroyers and million dollar cruise missiles hitting people who threatened our oil supply.

There's no point in trying to engage with you.
Cheers and good luck.

There are a lot of narcissists who would sleep with a 17 year old female who wanted to have sex with them. About 75% of men and probably 10% of women.

Expecially if she was 17 and 255 days or something like that.

In today's world with no privacy, I can't be sure if he was an indiscreet idiot.

The standards we live by today are very different than the standards in place only 20 years ago.

I mean seriously- buying margarita machines with the money?

I suspect John Oliver's piece helped push this.

Kudo's to John Oliver!

Oil isn't priced for the cost to get it out of the ground.

Oil is priced for the cost to get the last 5% out of the ground.

We don't have to replace 20% of the cars with electric cars.

You are right on the solar panels. We already have cheap solar panels. But the major industrial power plants have bought up every panel that will be made for the next several years. Until those orders are fulfilled, those less expensive panels won't flood the market.

Plus until we have better batteries, solar won't do more than demand shave (tho it's nice in sunny areas).

The peak energy most people can produce from their land/roof won't cover their energy budget. But it may reduce their energy budget. I have one panel that cuts $36 a year off my electric bill.

LED lighting energy savings beat that in six months. lol.

But net/net- my energy bills are down 30% now from five years ago. I simply use less energy than i used to.
Likewise, electric cars, hybrid cars and plain old gasoline cars with better gas mileage are all part of the total picture lowering demand for oil enough that prices were unsustainable.

and those trends are going to continue and get more efficient and less expensive.

Got a suggestion.

Print out your post and put it in an envelope to open and read when you are 45. You'll probably massively facepalm yourself that you were ever so naive.

I made it. I retired at 51. The other 499/500 don't.

1) investors drive equity prices up for companies that lay off. Executives are compensated in stock options.
2) they are being excellent owners by today's standards. offshore jobs- save money, focus on core business model, profit your self for 2 years and then move on to the next company and do it again.
3) This is a very naive statement. Turn it around- what conditions beyond your control *could* force you to work those hours. Have you taken every precaution to prevent being put in that situation. Do you live on half your salary? Do you have multiple years of income saved? (I did).
4) Companies hire people who have a job. Companies do not hire people who worked a long time at one place (even if they have good skills on paper) and are currently unemployed.

Drop the negative semantic shit like "cushy" and "coast". It's dumb and it's keeping you from seeing reality. Yes those people were unwise. I agree. Unlike me, they really didn't believe they'd become unemployable at the age of 50. I realized that when I was 28 because I saw it happening even back then. Companies want young IT staff. They cut loose 90% of the rest as they pass 45 and are not top 1% material and replace them with cheaper labor that has current skills which the company didn't have to pay for training.

I'm trying to show you the road ahead waiting for you and you are blinding yourself to reality. You won't win if you stay blind. You'll do the same thing everyone else does.

Down to $1.72 here.

BTW, your other responder is way off on shipping costs. Shipping costs do not run 1%. Lol. That's crazy low.
Business articles on setting up distributors and retailers suggest expecting 10 to 20 to even higher as a percentage for shipping. The low end (10%) is palatalized, light weight (i.e not metal), full truck from shipper to reciever, one stop only.