[Lula-biz] exporting work and the "recession"

[Steve Barnette]

I've been in the computer industry since '82 in develop and last few
years IT.  I have never seen the need for the H1B visa program. I
remember way back when it was ramping up, there was a lot of Americans
to fill positions, but they cost more.  There was no shortage it was
corporations wanting cheap help.  Corporate American greed in action,
influencing politicians to create visa programs.

I first heard a lot about outsourcing back in '93 when at Borland.
They started outsourcing some of tech support, strictly for cost
cutting. Out sourcing support of all kinds is increasing. At my last
employer EarthLink a lot of the online-chat and email support was
moved to India. Again Americans cost too much.  Now I work for IBM
Global Service we are the outsource IT for many companies. Some jobs
they can't move overseas and some of IT falls into that category.
They still need people onsite to do integrations, troubleshooting, and
repair, so I'm safe for now.  But companies are working hard to try
and cut staffing in those areas too by centralizing and just using
help desk people as local hands.

Then the move to contracting staff instead of hiring. Corporate
America is switching more and more to using contractors.  Why
contractors tend to cost more hourly and get paid overtime.  But
contractors don't get sick pay, vacation pay, health benefits. More
important they can cut the pay whenever they feel like it. Sure you
have a contract, but they say accept it or we cancel your contract and
get someone else.  But more important contactors can be laid off with
no notice.  If a company's business hiccups, drop some staff. Then
corporate American wonders why employees don't seem to be loyal any
more.

Some of what I see going on in the computer industry is what happen to
other American industries.  We are losing most the jobs to overseas
cheap labor, only the design or architecture work stays here. The
trouble is you don't need that many people to design or architect, so
what are the others going to do?  At some point unemployment will be
so bad, and salaries so low, people won't be able to afford to buy
things.  The greedy CEO's of corporate America (who belong to both
politic parties, but mainly Republican) will be jumping out of windows
again.  By focusing so much on improving the bottom line, they ran
themselves out of consumers.  In the past new industries popped up to
help fill the economic void. Like the computer industry in the 60's,
then microcomputers in the 80's, Dot-com in the 90's. Trouble is I
don't see anything on the horizon.  The Bio-tech haven't been the
nirvana predicted.  We need a new industry to employ Americans and
sell to the world.  Like it or not money makes the world go around.

Steve B.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: lula-biz-bounces at lula.org [mailto:lula-biz-bounces at lula.org]On
> Behalf Of Brian Redfern
> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 9:37 AM
> To: lula-biz at lula.org
> Subject: [Lula-biz] exporting work and the "recession"
>
>
> Interesting that the recession actually ended in 2001, but
> two years later
> we continue to lose about 500,000 jobs per month. This will
> definitely
> reach the point where americans are assed out, for me we've already
> reached it.
>
> The problem is the H1B people here in the US can work a
> tech job for just
> $24,000/year, cause they're used to making much less than
> that in their
> home country.
>
> Thus the US is draining well paying jobs at an alarming
> rate, basically
> even Medicine has been turned into a McJob by the HMO's, and the new
> Republican limits on lawsuits will kill a huge percentage of the Law
> career path, so basically right now the only decent jobs
> being created are
> for cops and prison guards.
>
>
> And the new Patriot "Enhancement" will make it illegal to
> oppose these
> policies, so if we don't shut up and take it, then you can be
> "disappeared" for opposition.
>
> The Democrats are going along with it, because they're paid
> off by big
> business as well.
>
> Basically the US is being transformed into a classic Latin American
> Dictatorship, with a one party rule, and with all forms of
> dissent made
> criminal (and subject to torture and dissapearance), and
> with 99% of the
> population forced to live in super poverty, competing to
> the death for
> access to basics like water.
>
> For the CEO's it will be a new era of unprecedented wealth
> and power, Nike
> said they are planning to outsoure every job but the CEO,
> so essentially
> if you make a living by owning stocks and receiving
> dividends you'll be
> doing great, but basically the majority shareholders in
> these stocks are
> in the CEO class itself.
>
> Its telling that Bush consders himself the "CEO" of the US. With the
> Republican monopoly over all branches of the government
> they have free
> reign to do things like make personal debt criminal, so if
> you get way
> behind in a debt payment your debtor can press criminal
> charges and have
> you locked up (most likely in the future in a Wackenhut
> owned prison,
> literally being worked or raped to death for your debt).
>
> If you think that's crazy the state of Georgia already has
> such laws in
> place, its essentially a felony to get behind in your bills
> there, which
> is really convienent for the Republicans in the state,
> because when you
> get a felony in Georgia you lose your voting rights for life.
>
> If you don't think this will happen, just look at Argentina.
>
> Basically now with the enshrinement of globalism and
> privitisation and the
> criminalisation of dissent, the US Govenment is telling 90% of its
> citizens to shut up, fuck off, and die.
>
> It will be interesting to see if we have an election in
> 2004, and whether
> electronic voting machines become mandatory, as the
> companies that own the
> machines are Republican run, and those bogus machines were
> used to win
> elections for people like Chuck Hegel (who conviently sits
> on the board of
> the company that makes the machines) by truly mind boggling
> numbers that
> make our elections look like the election for Hussein in
> Iraq before we
> invaded, or other such "elections" that go on under dictatorships.
>
> But we may not need to worry, Bush has made it clear he's willing to
> sacrifice California in a nuclear war against North Korea,
> so perhaps
> within the next two years the whole state will be "put out
> of its misery".
>
>
>
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