Software Tariffs and US IT Outsourcing? 670
HeelToe asks: "A while back I worked with someone who thought the US should simply impose tariffs on imported products to adjust their price to equalize foreign labor rates to the US minimum wage. I was laid off and my position moved to Canada last year. Since then, I've thought a lot about his ideas, as well as one of our topics of conversation a while back: Why doesn't the US tax the import of software? It seems to me like they should. It's not a "tangible" product (same reason used to deny my co-workers and me NAFTA and Trade Act benefits), but when someone outsources to another country with cheap labor for any other industry, there are usually import tariffs. Why is software different, and how would this change the climate of US IT jobs leaving for other parts of the world if we did tax software imports? I've done some looking on the web, but can find nothing in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States. I did find this thread from a few months back on informationweek.com's Career Development Forum, but not much else. What does Slashdot think?"
Depends on the situation (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise, it could be similar to the issue of the "Made in America" labels that can be put on any product partially constucted within the United States. So if a widget is manufactured in Mexico, but put together in the US it can still bare the label, exempting it from some tariffs. So for coding and other computer style products, this can be worked around by doing the majority of the work outside the country with the cheaper labor, then wrapping it all up within the borders.
Bad Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
This tax will do three things:
- Software Will Cost More
- The Governemt Will Never Give Up This Tax (In 25 years great software may come from many nations, think about the future)
- Even Free Software May Be Subject to Tax or Fees
People need to understand that when Corporations are taxed they never loose money; they just charge us more. The only thing that may work is a tax incentive to companies that use American Software.I'm just starting out in this career field but I can see the writing on the wall, alot of programming is going to go the way of manufactring, overseas.
Tarriff Law (Score:4, Insightful)
Dumb idea regardless of market, commodity (Score:2, Insightful)
Nooooo! (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a soon to be CS grad, and I am scared of the current job market. But if software can be produced better and cheaper elsewhere, oh well. Tariff are just crutch.
Very bad idea, what about open source? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tax IMPORTS of software? (Score:4, Insightful)
it's kind of ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, when other countries get their labor costs to be lower than those of the US, then Americans start complaining and want to impose taxes. Well, which is it? If the US can impose tariffs on Indian computer products, is the US willing to have tariffs imposed on US computer products by Europeans, whose labor costs are higher because of better social services?
I think this Onion article [onion.com] points out what really is going on: many Americans just can't deal with the fact that the rest of the world is different and actually likes is that way.
Re:Bad Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Tangible? (Score:5, Insightful)
Software in an intangible form is basically just an idea. Can we tax ideas now? How can you regulate its importation to begin with if it doesn't exist in any physical way? Are we going to prohibit foreigners from coming into the country on vacation now, lest they write a piece of code, and in effect, import software?
What about all the software that hasn't been written yet? Maybe we should start taxing foreigners on the basis of software they might potentially create in the future, since the software really exists in his mind, just waiting to be written down...
Lies, Damn Lies, And... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, as someone who works a lot in both the USA and Canada, I can guarantee you that living costs in Canada are, on average, HIGHER than the USA. If your job was moved to Montana (which has lower living costs than where you are now) would you be asking Montana for import tariffs? Of course not; so please, drop this argument.
Second, I see a lot of Slashdot posts discussing the movement of I.T. jobs to "cheaper" locales. A lot of the arguments made against this move are the same arguments that were lodged against Japanese auto companies in the 1970's. North American IT workers may be in denial now, but the offshore trend will continue to deteriorate the IT job markets of both the USA and Canada.
So what is the solution? Just as the auto-workers realized in the 1970's, the successful worker will be one who not only performs menial tasks (i.e. programming) well, but also adds significant value to their position. For example, if you are a good communicator AND understand technology you will have no problem finding a job. If you prefer to lock yourself in the back room and code (and complain to Slashdot) then you are going to be in for some tough times. Keep in mind that times now, on average, are good. Use this time to retrain and expand your skillset, not reading up on arcane NAFTA regulations.
Four problems with this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Tariffs could have negative effects not directly but indirectly. Take sugar for instance. Odd example, but hear me out. Sugar has an import tariff to protect the US sugar manufacturers. It protected the manufacturers but it had a huge indirect effect. Since the sugar prices were cheaper (especially in Canada), all the candy manufacturers moved up to Canada.
Now think software. If software tariffs indeed is feasible and succeed, sure it might protect software manufacturers, but what about those who depend on them? If a software for factories (robots, assembly line etc) is imposed tariffs, where would the factories stand? What about consulting? Tax software? Could see CPA's opening up offices in canada just to avoid the massive software prices...
Rather than protectionism, I think more effort should be put towards innovation. Anyway, that is my 2 cents.
Re:Dumb idea regardless of market, commodity (Score:3, Insightful)
Its been tried before and it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK tried this when other countries semiconductor capabilities exceeded their own - tariffs were impose on imported components. It was meant to protect the UK computer industry - but it backfired badly. Unable to compete in the manufacture of ICs, UK companies couldn't even import components and produce full systems competitively. The policy led to the death of systems manufacturing without benefitting the component producers.
The same thing happened to the UK film industry. In order to fight against films produced in Hollywood, a law was passed requiring a certain percentage of all films to be produced in the UK. Since the general public wanted Hollywood films, the only way to comply was to show supporting features produced in the UK. Since this was more profitable than producing feature films, the UK film industry ended up producing supporting features about candlemaking in Birmingham. So it died. We are now seeing some recovery, but only after at least two decades of decline.
As has been seen in the automotive industry, protection of national producers in this manner only leeds to apathy within the domestic industry. Protected from outside innovation and competition there is no reason to improve, instead the industry will settle into a cosy cabal with domestic producers. When, eventually, the import duty is removed the existing industries are far behind their foreign competitors. This is detrimental not only to the industry long-term but also to the domestic consumer.
Eventually, for the reasons outlined above, domestic producers will not be able to export - for two reasons. Lack of competition will lead to an atrophying of the state-of-the-art within the country and hence be behind other counties producers that are open to a free market. Also profit from export will be much lower than domestically. These factors will produce an inward facing industry which does nothing to help the balance of trade.
Lastly, those countries who have tariffs levied against them, may retaliate with equivalent tariffs or legislation against the import of other goods and services from the tariff imposing country which will hurt the countries export marketing and thier domestic industry as a whole.
For better or worse (and I believe better) we all operate in a global market. This drives competition and innovation and in the longer term will bring benefit to all. Protectionism only serves to kill those it seeks to protect.
A bad idea for so many reasons... (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Racism. Why is it that people have so much trouble with the idea of competing with poor people for work? Do you think they aren't hungry enough already? Does the idea of them actually developing some sort of economy disturb you? After all they have to compete with cheap mass produced products from industrialized nations, and massively subsidised food. Why shouldn't we have to compete with them for work?
3. Self-interest. Why the hell would any country want to encourage their best and brightest to waste their talent doing work that could be done for a fraction of the price by cheap labor in other countries? For that matter why would you want to waste your life doing something that is not economically productive? Find something worthwhile to do with you life, instead of trying to strong-arm your customers into paying artificially inflated prices for skills that are not needed.
4. Freedom. It isn't just good for software. When ever you see someone who is trying to shut out the competition you can be pretty sure he is trying to get a free ride by screwing everyone else.
Re:Bad Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
The "move up" argument made perfect sense back when blue-collar, unskilled manufacturing jobs were exported. It provided more incentive for people to learn a trade, go back to school, get a college degree, etc. so they could get a better job. But if the college degree-requiring jobs are moving out of the country, the "move up" argument simply doesn't hold any more. There's only two ways to move up; into management (I explained why that won't work above), and into more advanced degrees. Well, a PhD in CS might be interested, but there's not a lot of jobs out there suited for that, except maybe in research. And there's nowhere near enough research jobs out there to support that many programmers.
I'm starting to come to the conclusion that, for some, the answer may be to "move up" (or move out) to a country that has a healthier economy, and a better focus on things that are really important, like education, research, science, technology, etc. instead of how to make the most short-term profit at all costs.
Re:it's kind of ironic (Score:4, Insightful)
History demonstrates that this is not the case.
How to maintain a wage differential (Score:5, Insightful)
A much better approach is to find a way to justify the higher wages of American works. In order to not get outsourced, find a way to prove you're worth the money. Is that sheer code productivity, product insights, or what? There needs to be an angle. If you look at laptop manufacture, while most of the work is done around the South China Sea, product management, marketing, sales, etcetera all happens in the US. And while it sucks to be a laid off engineer, it certainly rocks to be able to buy an excellent laptop for half would an equivalent product would have cost a few years ago.
The thing about free trade is that its benefits are diffusely spread, but those it hurts are highly concentrated. So, even though steel tariffs cost more American jobs than they save, the steel industries and unions are more concentrated and vocal than the broader steel consumer industries, which is everyone from car manufacturers to can makers to appliance builders, or whatever. Higher steel costs might have saved a job in Pennsylvania, but they probably cost twice that many jobs in lots of other places. People were laid off from car dealerships because of them, even if the person laid off didn't know that was the root cause.
I've worked with several engineering projects where components were outsourced to India. The Indian engineers were are talented and motivated, and wrote good code. And, honestly, I can't say they need the money any less than "native" programmers. Our long term national interest is certainly aligned with India developming a modern, integrated economy! And I'm happy to be able to pay less for software, or buy packages that otherwise wouldn't have been written, than if all software had to be authored in the USA.
Taxing ousourced labor (Score:3, Insightful)
The same for production of goods, like computers, TVs, cars, clothes, etc... but there should be a clause that says that the burden must be absorbed by the corporation, and not passed onto the consumers.
Conversely, companies who produce goods in the USA using US labor and US parts should be given tax breaks.
Our problem is that since the 80s we've moved out of being a "production-based economy" - and we've become a "service-based economy"... and it's cheaper for US corporations to exploit workers overseas to produce our goods rather than pay US workers an honest wage. Now that most of our goods are made overseas, we're moving our service-oriented jobs there, too.
Notice that the "american dream of being middle class" is now pretty much a fantasy. (one parent works, the other stays home and raises kids, 3 bedroom home 2 car garage - nice suburban neighborhood). Now it takes 2 incomes to make ends meet in this scenario - and barely...
fairness (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a question that anti-globalization people need to ask themselves. If somebody in mexico can turn screws for $1.24 an hour, it makes sense that you would use that labor source before using a $38 an hour source in Michigan. That $38 figure only because so obnoxiously high because of some tortured sense of nationalism, and the wonderfully effective extortion campaigns brought to us by national unions.
This situation is entirely brought on because people either don't understand basic economics, or feel better about themselves if they feign ignorance.
As with physical labor as with software: Nothing good can come from the government issuing a tax on the import of what is essentially foreign brain power. As another poster mentioned, once written into law, such a tax would be damn near impossible to undo.
If a Mexican (or Indian or Russian) programmer is willing and able to write equivalent code as I can for half the price, which would a rational buyer choose? Yes, it sucks for me, but these other people have made good decisions to get to where they are that they can threaten my job security. I think tariffs such as this is at best nationalistic and at the worst, racist. Such tariffs only succeed in widening the artifical economic gaps in the world, and supporting them is tantamount to supporting poor quality of life in other countries.
Thos Evil Canadians... (Score:2, Insightful)
....are already subject to enough punitive measures by Americans who don't want competition, even in spite of NAFTA. Ask a BC logger or a Saskatchewan wheat farmer.
Why is an American programmer any more entitled to a job than one in Calgary? It's not like you can claim that the Canadian is working for ten dollars a week like one in India.
This is typical of the American attitude towards international trade: other countries exist to serve as markets, not sources of competition. Buying things from Americans good, selling things to Americans bad!
tangible, from dictionary.com (Score:3, Insightful)
adj.
1.
1. Discernible by the touch; palpable: a tangible roughness of the skin.
2. Possible to touch.
3. Possible to be treated as fact; real or concrete: tangible evidence.
2. Possible to understand or realize: the tangible benefits of the plan.
3. Law. That can be valued monetarily: tangible property.
some people don't seem to know the context of tangible in this instance.
I think the poster wants to tarrif the money paid to outside vendors.
If it is done as a percentage, then free software would be free. however if you paid someone to write software, free or otherwise, that would get tarrifed
Tit for Tat (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bad Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
It's your wits, experience, technology exposure, past and present learning appetite, critical mind, well-presented opinions and IT culture that will get you the job.
Well, you don't need all that, but you do definitely need a sane mix of some of them.
Re:Nooooo! (Score:3, Insightful)
Good McDonalds wants you! Please clean the grill and cover for the drive thru window. Thank you.
Ha, you wanted cheaper software right? You got it!
Your too expensive and can not work for minimal wage.
Now how do you feel? Tarrifs are part of standard imports on goods for the last century. When you buy sneakers, they are tarrified, when you buy a foreign car its tarrified. If not then American would look more like Mexico or Argentina.
We need tarifs now!
Why combine aid and tariffs? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or, to take another perspective, compare the industries in the U.S. that do have tariff protection (such as steel and agriculture) with the ones that do not (such as software and entertainment). In which ones does the U.S. lead the rest of the world?
Tarrifs will never be placed on software (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you really picture the American government taking an altruistic stand to preserve our domestic software developers?
I thought not.
Our government will sell out cheap (sorry, have sold out cheap) to the big indistry consortia that stands to benefit from that particular kind of cheap labor. This is old news.
Taking the long view on "cheap foreign competition" over the years, the lesson of history is that labor always loses.
Fans of capitalism will announce that even though you're out of work, the economy benefits because as goods (and now services) are cheaper, everyone (businesses and individuals) can afford more, and be more productive, etc. Theoretically you'll get another job doing something else and progress marches on.
Globalization as a whole is tricky, though... simplistic thinking like this doesn't take into account the vagaries of currency markets and national conditions. I'm not qualified to really get into currency and other macroeconomic games, but as for the other... overseas software shops may never be as bad as it is in the garment industry (though I won't bet on it), but generally speaking "free trade" is often just code for "legal loophole" - it allows one to shop around for a "friendly" environment (child labor, inhuman work weeks, totalitarian security, exploitive wages and contracts, "flexible" legal system, no environmental regulations, and even the occasional ability to "disappear troublemakers without too much fuss"). They could never get away with this stuff in America - we have (or had) decent public education and functioning democracy. So they shield themselves in the complexities of trade to do it elsewhere.
Ultimately I think favorably of globalization only as long as there are enormous punitive tarrifs to correct for legal imbalances, and a very healthy reexamination of global economic (and especially currency) policy to insure that games aren't being played. But I am always learning more about the topic and I would love to hear other opinions about this.
Re:Nooooo! (Score:1, Insightful)
Think about what you just said, if you are really in need of a CS job. Are you going to say "so what" if you cant find a job, or its moved overseas?
Think about this. You're in your job, you've got a family (wife 1.5kids) just purchased a house. Starting to save some money for retirement. Then your company moves your job overseas so you're done. They give you say 3-6mo notice. So you start looking for another job, but so does everyone else who just lost their job. The more this happens, the less likely you'll find a job.
Still so slap happy about complete free markets?
Re:Bad Idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Nope! (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason I can do this is because the first time I went to Romania, the exchange rate was 17000 Romanian Lei to $1. The second time I went it was 19000 Romanian Lei to $1. In a word, the exchange rate favors me.
SO... obviously what you need to do is devalue the dollar against the world economy to the point where a dollar is roughly in line with the Romanian Lei. And the only way to do that is to have rampant inflation. The easiest way to do THAT is to get the Fed to print more money. Lots more money. While this WILL cause a massive devaluation of your savings, if you are like most Americans, you won't have a lot of savings to devalue in any event.
Once we've persuaded the Fed to print a few extra trillion dollars a year, we can start working on repealing some of those pesky workplace safetey laws. My company just had to spend a lot of money to remove some asbestos and really, was that asbetos really bothering ANYONE? I submit that it was NOT! If it weren't for some goddamn hippie worried that someone might get cancer, that stuff could have stayed up there forever.
Once our population becomes one of the poorest and least safe workforces in the world, there should be no further problem with overseas IT outsourcing.
Re:Lies, Damn Lies, And... (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly, if a bunch of people Someplace Else can write the same software cheaper than Americans can, then good for them! They deserve to get that software writing business.
I've seen a lot of whining about standards or costs of living, and clamouring for tarriffs, but why exactly is it that it's okay for US workers to earn vastly more than third world workers for doing essentially the same job? Why should a US worker have some divine right to be protected by tarriffs against his more economically efficient competitors in foreign lands?
Let the free market do its thing.
Re:Nooooo! (Score:3, Insightful)
It sucks. I'd like to have job doing what I want. But I am not so arrogant to think that my industry should be protected at the detriment of the rest of the country. This same arguement, that we should have tariffs, leads to protectionism. Why should we allow immigration, they'll just take our jobs right? Tariff and other protectionist measures help a few, but do great harm to many.
Loser mentality (Score:2, Insightful)
Some thoughts:
* The location of where software is developed should be based on some weighted avg. of the best programmers/software outcome ratio to cost. Outsourcing software abroad is a free market, capitalist US decision that we use to become competitive. The consumer benefits, and in the long run leads to a stronger economy. Ask IBM, Intel, Cadence, etc. who are outsourcing their R&D efforts.
* Every US operation I've seen that outsources SW dev still has programmers in the US that direct architecture and leadership issues. These guys are either A) luckier than the counterparts that lost their jobs or B) more skilled.
* If taxes were imposed, you would see companies start to incorporate somewhere else (Caymans?), develop R&D in Asia, and have heavy sales forces in the US while still opening on NYSE, NASDAQ. This would reduce US jobs even further.
* From the venture capital and financial perspective, it's becoming more difficult to fund startups because the software/hardware execution costs are so high. You can't make money on a company that you poured 50M into anymore. Did you know Cisco raised less than 10M of venture money TOTAL?! (src: VentureSource)
* India and China are moving from "code monkey" type programmers, to advanced software (solid architecture, innovative algorithms, etc.) and beyond. It is becoming a myth that only simple, "dumb" jobs are being farmed out abroad. An enabler of this is that many foreign-based US programmers are leaving their US-based jobs and going to their home countries in part because standard of living is HIGHER in their adjusted income bracket. They took knowhow from US development processes and are spreading it around the worl. Intel is moving some software and hardware design to India. Cadence has an Indian ops (fairly advanced EDA software). Motorola, HP, etc. They aren't making web pages over there anymore.
* China and India are poised to become leaders in VLSI (chip design) if US doesn't keep up with engineers, etc. Entire chip design is being done in India today. Government and universities are putting a lot of money in this area. They may not develop the latest and greatest Pentium anytime soon, but more of the chips in your cell phone or other high volume devices (802.11) are being designed there instead (read Jobs).
* If you are a top programmer/architect, you will get hired in the US. It won't be easy like it was in 1996-1999 when they were giving 10K bonuses just for a CS grad from MIT to sign on. Programming jobs will not be a commodity like it was once today.
Re:Bad Idea (Score:2, Insightful)
How? A product costs $10 to make in a high wage country. Corporation moves to country where product costs $.01 to make because they can hire 12 year olds who work 16 hour days for $3 dollars a week (no child labor laws or pesky worker's rights or expensive toxic waste disposal requirements etc...). Corporations exists to maximize shareholder value - the majority of the $9.99 in savings is not passed on to you - it is used to build - you guessed it - shareholder value.
Now, if a tariff of $9.99 is imposed for importation of said product the corporation has no incentive to hop from impoverished nation to impoverished nation paying slave wages to powerless peasants until they grow weary of slavery. They have no incentive to drag wages down to a global lowest common denominator polluting and dragging everyone else down in their pursuit of wealth.
Please read Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights [amazon.com]
by Thom Hartmann (which if i remember correctly was reviewed quite positively here on slashdot recently). It completely changed my mind on the whole issue of tariffs and the government's legitimacy when it comes to taxation as it relates to promoting the greater good.
Tariffs are a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say the U.S can produce a widget for $2 and Third-World country X can produce it for $1. Any reasonable business person (and many consumers) would save 50% and buy the $1 widget. Of course, the American Widget Workers will scream bloody murder, and ask for some government protection.
So the U.S. puts a 100% tariff on widgets, so that the U.S. companies can compete. Great for the widget makers, but everyone that uses widgets is paying a dollar more than they would have to. Any product that uses widgets is that much more expensive. Companies that use widget-based products need more money for inventory and can spend less on salaries, so there are less total jobs in the economy. The only people that benefit are the American Widget Workers. And even they don't benefit as much as they think they do - the tariff works it's way invisibly through the economy, making the goods they buy more expensive than they would normally be. Plus, the third-world manufacturer can still sell widgets to other countries, whose products will have an advantage over the U.S., since they'll be using half-price widgets! There goes the exchange rate on a dollar...
Now replace widgets with software, and it gets a whole lot worse. What business doesn't use software? What sector of the economy wouldn't be helped by having to pay much less for software?
If job security really bothers you, there are some software jobs that can't be outsourced. Most U.S. military projects go to American companies, for reasons of security. It's even better if you can get security clearance.
It's not easy to be a worker in a fast-paced economy, where the skill sets are changing and job security is non-existant. But it's a lot better than the alternative, a broken economy where the government protects the jobs of a few privilidged workers at the expense of everyone else.
The usual reason (Score:5, Insightful)
The first solution is the beloved H1 (amongst others) Visa. This was designed to reduce teh so called "tech labor shortage" (read: high salary) of the high-tech sector. When this failed to increase corporate margins, companies were forced to make prfound sectors about the bold new global economy (read: outsource work to places labor is cheap). I have watched a number of projects get outsourced to the 3rd world for exactly this reason.
So when I think back to those years when mom was telling me that all I needed was a good education, work hard in school, etc. I get sad. I should have tried to be a football player like those "losers" I figured would work a check out counter. I was right of course, they are working the check out counter, but the business world won't stop until my salary is reduced to the level of a check out clerk, but those football players sure got laid more.
hmph.
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Divine right?
This is what globalisation is all about; well, that and ensuring that the people at the very top of the heap don't lose out in the process.
If you're not competitive (or don't want to compete), drop out of the race. Live your life by your own standards, not someone else's.
Re:Bad Idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Last I heard, Nike is a company that farms out it's manufacturing to overseas factories. So what point are you trying to make, exactly?
And there are plenty of shoe manufacturers that create sneakers for $2.99. But they don't have the Nike marketing machine behind it (which is what you really pay for) to promote their products.
How can something that does not cost anything be taxed? The only thing protectively taxed is if a service such as labor went into developing the product. As long as its not paid then its not taxed. A %10,000 tax on something thats zero is still zero.
All taxes are not percentage based. Gasoline has a tax that is based on the units sold. You pay $0.65 per gallon instead of %25. Free software could very well be taxed into non-free (beer) status. The price would be all tax.
Re:Econ 101 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:it's kind of ironic (Score:1, Insightful)
A fine example is the world market price for sugar vs. the US domestic price. Most sugar producing countries do so far cheaper than the US, but this is not considered competition, it is considered unfair dumping and so a domestic market is maintained. You might be surprised at the difference in price, especially when you consider how many products use sugar, and thus, how much consumers pay to maintain this artificial market.
Sugar info [sugar-reform.org]
Why should others subsidize YOU? (Score:2, Insightful)
Second, following this logic to its natural conclusion, this will end up destroying almost ALL international trade. The Europeans already pay too much for food simply because many of the countries have systems that "protect" farmers in those countries. Using your logic, consumers of all products should subsidize less efficient (or more expensive) producers of ANY product. (U.S. consumers also pay too much for many products, both because of production limits and tax subsidies.)
Third, this logic will lead to reduced incentives to innovate and cut costs, which LOWERS standards of living everywhere -- as consumers pay more and get less.
Fourth, on a pragmatic level, have you even considered that there are plenty of products where the U.S. company is the low-cost producer who would be hurt by this system being enacted in other industries by OTHER countries?
Fifth, what moral right do you have -- or does anyone have -- to tell two individuals (or companies) that they can't enter into consensual trade that is to the benefit of both parties?
What you propose is wrong from the standpoint of individual rights AND pragmatic economics. There is NO reasonable argument in favor of it unless you're an inefficient producer who is demanding that he be subsidized by his neighbors.
David
Re:Bad Idea (Score:2, Insightful)
I feel the attention given to the college degree has decreased its value. Far too many people believe the way to the [insert fancy import car] and huge house is a degree. [Paste death and taxes rant here]
College was not high school, you should have learned something for the amount of money you spent, then using that knowledge, apply reason to your world. The rest of us figured it out after having to earn a living after high school, in my case it was building and installing computers and networks (actually that's why I dropped out, money calls).
I'm glad the jobs are moving off-shore; it will make it easier for me to hire people at a low price with "prestigious" college degrees and certifications a dime a dozen.
So it may not be working out for you, but it is for me.
One last thing, NAFTA should include all the Americas, while I may not care what occurs on the other side of the planet, I would at least like to see everyone in my hemisphere have a better life.
Software is no different; wrong problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
By imposing tariffs on products made in poorer countries, you are essentially forcing them to lower their prices even more (to stay competitive). Result? USA workers lose (because tariffs are never enough to really offset the lower initial cost), foreign workers lose (because tariffs are never low enough to let them really raise their standard of living), US state wins. In a country with good welfare / unemployment funds / etc., this could be a good thing. In the US system it's not. The money ends up being spent on obscure government and defence projects, and the programmers remain unemployed and broke.
Capitalism can be a reasonably fair system if all markets are open. Tariffs screw everything up, for everyone. If there are no tariffs, the tendency is for all markets to become level. A poorer country may have an initial advantage (lower wages), but as it becomes richer, its workers will want higher wages, until it has reached the same level as richer, more developed countries, which means workers in those richer countries become an economically viable option again.
And everyone lives happily ever after. As it is, you have a lot of unemployment at home, a lot of people that hardly make enough to eat abroad, and a cowboy that spends hundreds of bilions of dollars in toys that go "boom" on other people's homes.
RMN
~~~
Re:A bad idea for so many reasons... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Trade War" is an oxymoron. Trade is a form of cooperation, not a form of agression. Perhaps the term you meant to use is "Protectionism War" ?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
I think my best asset is the huge problem solving base I developed (really, learned how to develop) while at university. I went to Virginia Tech, which at the time, had a reasonably known program, but the basic philosophy was to teach us by forcing us to use unix for all our coursework. I had seen it in high school CS classes and knew it was better than butter on bread, but this didn't keep me from experiencing all manners of problems with it. It helped me by showing me I must learn to recognize patterns of software failure, and how to analyze a system as a whole, rather than just the 15 lines of code above and below the bug.
Anyway, I've not had the opportunity to do a whole lot of interviewing of others, but when I've interviewed, I noticed most people just don't ask the technical questions. Maybe this had led the industry's interviewees to never expect a hard interview.
In the interview for my current position the huge technical section was to explain why Java had both interfaces and still left the ability to create an abstract base class. I think they asked me to describe MVC, as well, but come on, that's completely pervaded the industry buzz word lists.
In my opinion, one of the big barriers to having creativity and a drive for excellence is this dogged attachment to "my code." I've seen it in so many people.
I've long felt that the code I write represents how well I understand the problem it tries to solve. If I can solve it more elegantly or efficiently, I'm happy to throw away old code. Many of my peers have not been willing to do so. Once they write it they try to hang on to it forever.
I think we need a true certification in our field, along the lines that engineers have. These pop-technology certifications are way overhyped and don't usually mean much in terms of a person's capabilities. To find a good candidate, you must find out how people think about problems and what they try to do in order to solve them. Obviously there's a practical technological/CS basis that must underly it, but without a good approach to solving problems, it's often wasted.
What does /. think? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, don't just take the jobs oversees, take the companies that use foreign labor overseas as well. Look, there's no solution to the 'problem' of foreign labor. Adapt, overcome, and continue to innovate and you'll be fine.
If programming really is so easy that anyone can do it, why should you get a premium for being an American?
Re:Tangible? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the only way I can seem productive enough to warrant hiring/buying from is by artificially inflating the prices of others I'm in the wrong business, plain and simple.
Re:Bad Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bad Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
And the ability to work for US$5,000 - US$10,000 dollars a year. If you can't do that, skill mixes and experience won't count for much. It's the bottom line that counts.
Goose, meet gander... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because if they did, then other countries might do a similar thing and start taxing the import of software from the US. As the US is the largest producer of commercial software, and is in an economic hole, this would hurt the US more than it would any other country.
It might have worked a few years ago, before there were viable options to Windows and (low- to mid-range) Solaris and HP systems, but now Linux and BSD make it viable to run companies without US-produced commercial software.
shift the problem around (Score:3, Insightful)
If that's the only change made, then those companies would open IT shops here and staff them with imported workers on H1B visas. If the desired outcome is to employ more native born US citizens, imposing a tariff isn't sufficient by itself.
The world is changing (Score:5, Insightful)
If you run a company that only needs small easily defined utilities to automate tasks and don't need them done immediately, outsourcing works very well.
However, if you run a company that needs to turn on a dime to enter new markets, exploit existing ones, handle complex B2B integration issues or have vague software requirements, outsourcing falls flat. Even if you are dealing with a company 20 miles away, the simple fact that the programmers there don't understand your business leads to design mistakes and missing features that a dedicated well trained programmer that spends his time thinking how to improve your business should have caught.
As businesses face stiffer competition in the world market and the complexity of the software systems they run increases, I believe they will find it harder and harder not to justify hiring local talent they can train to understand their business.
If anything, I believe the US needs to do two things to help slow the departure of development jobs:
First, we need to better educate programmers to make them more rounded. The better they understand the complexities of specific industries, the better they can anticipate the needs of their employeers. A developer should be positioned in a company to understand how it can improve, not be a monkey that hammers out what the business side of the company thinks it wants.
Second, we need to sell the benefits of hiring in-house programmers over outsourcing. Marketing is really something developers aren't particularly good at, but has to change.
Now this won't stop the migration of jobs to foreign countries, but it will assure that it is relegated only to simple grunt work keeping the highest paying skilled work at home.
Re:Bad Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? Divine right?
This is what globalisation is all about; well, that and ensuring that the people at the very top of the heap don't lose out in the process.
It is NOT divine right that would provide such a thing. Sound government policy can provide this stability to the economy of any nation.
It is one of a government's duties to manage the economy to meet the goal of stability. Any worker competent in their field should be able to find and keep a stable job for at least 5 years on average. When people can't rely on anything more than a day-to-day future, the economy suffers badly because people don't feel secure. This is part of the problem we are facing in the US today.
Unfortunately, the current US administration's economic policy is very well focused on stimulating the economy...
Implementation/Technical Challenges Staggering (Score:5, Insightful)
But is it a Product or a Service? (Score:2, Insightful)
If a whole factory is moved or built in another country, there is something to import and transport. With software we have source, binaries, libraries... at what point can we decide they've made something versus done something?
Its the same greedy bastards....... (Score:2, Insightful)
For those of you that think that the "rising tide" of globalism will raise the worlds salaries you are sadly mistaken. It will only be true if you OWN the company. Say goodbye to decent living if this trend continues....unless you live in a country where 20k makes you rich.
Re:How to maintain a wage differential (Score:3, Insightful)
These are jobs I'd much rather have in the US than, say, gluing leather together. You seriously want Nike factories here?
As for the standard of living thing, you've got it backwards. Our standard of living is higher because our productivity is higher, not the other way around.
As for fleecing the consumer, how many companies are posting record profit margins these days? Investors have gotten royally fleeced these last few years, but consumers have it pretty darn good.
For specific examples of products that are cheaper due to oversease manufacturing how about, oh, everything dicsussed on Slashdot. Ever notice how kick-ass a laptop you can buy for $1000 now? Ever notice how many of those parts were built in the USA? Even as computers get better, they get cheaper, both due to outsourcing, and the pressure on prices of outsourcing.
High tariffs would erode your standard of living more via higher prices than you'd gain in job protection. Ponder the most effective free trade agreement of all time - the Constitution of the United States of America. Lots of the same arguments you're making now were made then, but I'd have to say allowing stuff into Oregon from California without us being able to charge a tariff has been a good thing. I sure wouldn't want to force every state to have its own complete supply chain for everything. Take the same principal, and apply it to the rest of the world.
Re:Globalism should be done properly (Score:3, Insightful)
We do have a national economy, your dollar is worth the same in New York as it is in Florida.
"
Not true - New York, Utah and South Carolina and California all use the same currency. Look where companies like Novell, RedHat and Caldera started up. It wasn't in Boston or New York. Guess why? "
Thats not the point, in New York you make money in dollars, in California you make money in dollars, everywhere you go your dollars are worth the same, the cost of living might vary but your money is worth the same for a REASON, it keeps things fair. No one would get hired in Boston if the money here was twice as expensive as the money down south, it doesnt matter what the job was or the situation, you could be a fisherman in Boston, but if your fish costs x10 as much money because your stupid dollar is more expensive, whos going to buy it? People will buy fish thats cheaper, meaning everywhere but from you, even if you produce most of the fish.
" It will always be about where you live. If you're a seafood wholesaler, you'll be better off in Boston than Des Moines. Why? Because there's no ocean near Des Moines. Even if your the best fisherman in the world, it's not going to do you any bloody good in Des Moines."
This doesnt apply to software, a fisherman is a trade, its like being a cole miner orfarmer, sure its harder to be a farmer in the inner city, but this has nothing to do with it, fact is anything you produce from any farm anywhere is from the same $ dollar system. Yes China will have the software development advantage because theres more Chinese, but if we are both the same price, it wont matter, people who live in the USA will buy mostly USA and people who live in Japan will buy mostly Japan.
Just like people in Boston usually buy from local companies in Boston. Sure some big global companies will sell stuff in China, but with a global dollar at least its fair, the Chinese will get paid a fair wage, I could go to China and make the same wage there and pay for my family in the USA.
Just like in the USA I can work in Boston and pay for a house in Texas.
" That's impossible. Check out the cost of living in Costa Rica. You can live quite nicely there for less than the US minimum wage. If you brought up the minimum wage to US standards, it would drive up the price of labor, which would drive up the price of everything else. The minimum wage in the US is a princely sum in Costa Rica. Most Costa Rican businesses couldn't afford to pay it. "
First if they use the same dollar system as me, why couldnt they afford to pay it? Americans in the USA who buy software made in Costa Rica would make the people who make software there rich, improving the whole economy, other businesses would form to allow these people to spend their money. Whats your point? In Maine, Idaho and other places the cost of living is kinda low, should these places never start businesses because somehow the businesses there cannot pay minimum wage? Bullshit, Businesses in these states sell to people in other states, making these states richer, thats how it works, you export your product, you make money, your economy improves, and you can pay minimum wage.
$5 is $5 everywhere regardless of the cost of living, $5 an hour here in Boston is $5 an hour in Texas, the money is the same, if you cannot live off the $5 an hour in Boston you move or you get another job, if you can live off $5 an hour in Texas and live rich but you cant live off $5 an hour in Boston, this is an issue of the states cost of living, not an issue of the currency, the global econnomy, etc.
When you have China, India, etc however not getting the same minimum wage because Microsoft you somehow believe cannot afford to pay them the same they pay us, thats absolutely Bullshit when you think about it, if they could pay us Minimum wage here in the USA they can pay everyone else.
It makes sense when you tell me people who start small businesses in China cannot pay minimum wage, perhaps not easily, but if th
Re:Bad Idea (Score:2, Insightful)
the exact same... (Score:2, Insightful)
No thanks, they mostly suck. They are good at stealing money from millions of people on humongous levels. Very, very good at that. They are truly professional analysts at that, and they spend all their time figuring out exciting new ways to do that. On a small scale they are called frauds and bunco artists and get arrested and charged. On a large scale they are called the IMF and Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Bank.