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To: Victor Lazlo who wrote (64489)	9/12/2003 9:23:48 AM
From: Stock Farmer	Read Replies (7) \| Respond to of 77397

LOL Anybody who has worked in an executive function overseas will note that it's one thing to have sales offices sprinkled around the planet, but it's another thing to make significant sales without having local "presence". And for some not-so-strange reason, salespeople don't count as "presence". For so long as US workers feel free to whine and moan about jobs going overseas, they should expect reciprocal whining and moaning from overseas, about jobs being in the US. Which means that any company wanting to do significant business globally has to to create jobs globally. And even without this pressure, it's darned hard to do work in daylight when the only folks competent to do the work are snoring through the dark of night. It isn't rocket science. And management isn't going to create an under performing asset, if they are going to create jobs locally, then they are going to manage the asset those jobs represent for maximum productivity. And because managers everywhere have a selection bias for a desire to be promoted, they strive to build up their organizations to facilitate an increase in their level of responsibility and authority. Which they know isn't going to happen by being known as the king of the foreign clown-force. And top management doesn't want to spend precious money creating centers of incompetence either. So once the decision is made to build a local office, a relentless chain of events takes place. It is only a matter of time. Management behavior is rational and predictable. Local centers are necessary for us to be global players. We might as well get something out of them while we are at it (typically a part of the big contract we are trying to win, or local sales engineering, repair and return, trouble-shooting... and any yeucky stuff that our prima donnas back home don't like to do). To build the competencies of these local centers, we have to have talent. And shipping our people overseas not only doesn't count, but is frightfully expensive. Our prima-donnas (the top 80% of our work-force, unfortunately) are 2x to 10x the cost of the top 2% of the local labor pool. So while we expat a few of our people there and put them in key leadership positions, we are far better off to open the doors to the mother ship and cycle a lot of the local labor pool through the mother house. Ratio is about 1 expat to 5 rotators. Along the way, what the prima-donnas at HQ note is the complete lack of competence amongst the folks being imported relative to them. Well duh! That's the purpose. And when they are parachuted overseas in order to boost the competence of a foreign (to them) team, they also notice this lack of competence. Duh again. But what they often fail to appreciate is the growth of competence over time. And the increasing number of "foreign" employees whose competence grows to match or even exceed their own. Those of us who have been consciously part of this process see it for what it is. A long-term skill building plan. And it is better for those who co-operate than for those who fight. After all, once skill is built it can be used over and over and over again. Sure as sunrise, an offshoot of building global competency is to create the beginnings of a global labor market with which our coddled US workforce is forced to compete. Oh, they don't mind it when the stuff they don't want to do is taken from their plate. But they whine like a table-saw when the collateral competencies developed by this labor encroach upon their own. Aw geez, now we hear a lot of whining from coddled and overpaid US employees how their jobs are being taken by cheap labor. It's true. But there is a good reason for it. They are under-delivering relative to what the global labor-pool is capable of producing per dollar wage. And no amount of whining will change that. Instead of whining about it, folks need to learn to get over it and knuckle down and do so much better a job than their counterparts somewhere-else that they DESERVE a premium salary. Because over time, as a company (or industry) grows up and becomes a global player, the company (or industry) will effectively tap the global labor pool. On a wages-per-unit output basis. Every single maturing industry has experienced its own "we are being replaced by cheap labor" trauma. The software industry is now there. It's not something that we can escape. Or change by incessant groaning. It's something we have to deal with. Economic Darwinism in action. Unfortunately, the constant screaming of those least likely to survive tends to be the loudest.

To: Victor Lazlo who wrote (64489)	9/12/2003 8:16:59 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 77397

Victor, As you know, my key issue with this matter is with deficits and taxation. I will refer you to the tax facts website to mine the information yourself, taxpolicycenter.org But in summation, individuals pay most taxes in this country, not corporations, who pay approx 10%. I am including social security/medicare as a tax, which of course it is. If you maintain a tax structure like this, with federal budgets being what they are, and you do nothing to support your labor force... allow L1 workers to come here and work while paying no taxes, things like that.... its red ink as far as the eye can see. Which is exactly what we have. 3% deficits are considered "red flags" for the EU and we are way above that, some say close to 6%. We are certainly very near 5%. It looks like another 6 figure job loss month btw, maybe double last month? Again that is fine as long as 1) our budget gets cut substantially or 2) somebody else picks up the tab to pay the bills. Fwiw there are actually loopholes available where someone like me, who is a manager of anywhere between 50 - 100 offshore consultants in india, can setup shop in Bermuda, work "here" and avoid taxes in this way. Sortof a similar situation to the L1, work here but get paid in an offshore bank acct scenario. If they can do it, why can't you or me? I sure don't want to be the US budget bagholder. All of this requires foresight and planning on the part of government and to me they seem like people on this thread, that sortof dismiss this offshore labor tidal wave as just another phase. We aren't going to have an improving jobs climate for a long, long time imho. BTW notice the oracle numbers today, all other tech companies booming but Oracle will have to work within the confines of their decision to offshore their own customer base. Not too bright.