Comment Re:Yes, getting India into IT *was* a good idea. (Score 1) 718
You brought up good points but your presentation highly is one-sided.
Your Comment:
"You knew India was going to kick the US's ass at coding eventually." is inaccurate.
This is more accurate: Many of us were busy coding away trying to meet deadlines and learning new stuff while CEOs and Politicians were busy taking work from U.S. Citizens and taking it to 3rd world countries. We were just to busy and/or self-absorbed to pay attention until our pink slip came along.
(To be fair, who the heck wants to be bothered with these details when they're busy? Maybe next time we'll pay attention to what's really going on politically, vote, make our voices be heard by politicians regardless of how demanding our jobs are.)
You wrote:
"So everyone gets trickle-down benefit. Globalization is, in the long run, good for just about everyone."
and
"Globalization tends to spread out wealth more evenly"
Globalization is not about the working person - American or foreigner. It is about CEOs maximing their profits. Jack Welch, Craig Barret, Shawn Maloney, Bill Gates, and others aren't going global so they could make things cheaper and better for the consumer and provide jobs in the 3rd world. They're doing this to Maximize their profits and minimize expenditures.
Their investors (who consist of the CEOs themselves, their friends, the upper management echelon, and Wall-Street) demand this from them at any cost. If you don't believe me then read up on Enron. They don't care what lives they ruin or people they impoverish.
When enough companies have gone global and minimized their expenditures, their profits will also be minimized. Who is going to buy their stuff?
Recently, I heard on a radio program how a worker at a Nike Chinese sneaker factory only makes $800 a year and will not devote $100 or 1/8 of their salary to buy these shoes. They can't.
Linux is taking off in India, to Microsoft's concern, because they can't afford the Microsoft OS or Windows applications. (Heck, even I'm switching to Linux. I'm unemployed and I won't be able to afford the forced upgrade to the new Microsoft office suite.
companies, (Intel, Microsoft, GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc, etc,) take advantage of social inequalities. Their factories and plants are operational in a country so long as poverty is high. The moment poverty decreases and wages improve for the common person, they're looking to move elsewhere.
Recently, car-manufacturing plants in Mexico migrated to Vietnam because in the former, wages went to $2.25/hr Wow - a lot of dough there! In the latter they are 25 cents per day!! For the last decade, thousands of people in Mexico had built their lives around these factories They contributed to the wealth and success of these companies just like the Americans here in the U.S. did.
What are they supposed to do now, eat their own young? No CEOs, including Ford's, apologized.
Globalization increases the profits for the already insanely rich and yes, it allows people in impoverished nations to squeak by as long as they don't cost too much.
My guess is that at some point the African continent, where extreme poverty is rampant, will be the next China, or India, or Vietnam. Everyone gets to try squeaking by for a while.
You wrote:
"I can afford foods that used to be only for the seriously wealthy
Right now, I can buy a keyboard for $10, and a mouse for $5. Just about anyone can afford a pair."
Are those fruits and vegetables you can buy any time of the year really that inexpensive. Let's examine this. The government allows people to come up illegally because they say Americans don't want to pick their own fruits and vegetables. (Actually agricultural lobbyists pay American politicians to look the other way on this issue and are the ones promoting this propaganda.)
I just saw a program today about women in labor on a cable channel. They focused on a South-Western state. Interestingly most of the women were in their teens and were from South-Of-The-Border. (Gosh, maybe they and their parents had to come up here after the car companies shut down over there.) Do I honestly believe these teens are paying health insurance that will pay for the cost of their pregnancy? No. Who then is paying this? It's the American Tax Payer.
Let's take this a step further. These newborns will attend school here. Every homeowner knows this raises taxes. Uncle Sam and the state governments are not turning around and saying, "Gee, we know you've been displaced from your good job and now you have a lesser one. Don't worry everything's cheaper now. We'll even lower your property Taxes." No, No, No, this is like automobile insurance - it only goes up especially when migrant workers are adding more kids to the system.
The point is the cost of producing that apple cheaply comes from somewhere else. Nothing's for free. What good is an inexpensive fruit or vegetable or keyboard if I can't afford to live somewhere, buy gasoline, or own an auto?
You stated that moving stuff to other countries is a good thing in the long run.
BTW, I was born in a communist country. Many people in this country have an out-of-touch view with the rest of the world. There's a lot of hatred for this country - some of it justified and some of it not.
Large companies will do whatever they need to do to keep their investors happy. If this means taking sensitive technologies to China, Russia, Poland, India, Pakistan or some other place hostile to this country, they will do it. It's all for short-term profit. BTW, life in these countries is cheap.
What does this really mean in the long run? For example, if there's a political crisis between the U.S. and say China then what? They shut down Intel's chip producing plants and a huge part of the tech sector collapses. Gee, where did all the short term profits go then? Down a Chinese toilet.
Interestingly, I just learned this:
"US: Boeing, Hughes Helped China Illegally WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department said on Wednesday it had charged Hughes Electronics Corp. and Boeing Co.'s Satellite Systems unit with illegally sharing sensitive space technology with China in the 1990s that may have helped Beijing fine-tune its missiles"
I came across this article at www.iwon.com.
Who knows, these missiles may aimed at American soldiers/citizens one day. Hopefully not though.
On a final note, I'm not proposing any solutions other than to say, we need a new system. One where people are more important than profits and one that is in tune with the environment. Maybe the current system has to crash before this is obvious.
