RE: [CPF0000] Good new, bad news about Hewlett-Packard and American Workers...

["Booth Martin" <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All of these points are valid of course but the underlying problem remains
unexpressed.   It isn't just outsourcing that is taking our jobs.  The
consequences of huge improvements in  worker productivity takes jobs too.  

For instance, when we programmers automate a step so a clerk is never needed
for that job again we are contributing to the problem.   When we set up a
web site to take orders electronically we've just fired call center workers.
 Cheaper wages aren't an issue because there are no wages in the first place
 those jobs are gone forever.

80 years ago we dropped to a 5 day 40 hour work week.  A man could support
his family with the wages from his 40 hours of work.  Now we have both
spouses working, usually over 80 hours between them.  Our standard of living
is improved but what about the our quality of life?  

The longer range problem to solve has to do with how we function as a
society when gains in productivity provide all the goods and services we can
possibly need with substantially less work from humans.  Do we spread the
available work among many, or do we concentrate the work on a favored few
and force everyone else to live off the largess of society?
 
 
---------------------------------------------------------
Booth Martin   http://www.MartinVT.com
booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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-------Original Message-------
 
From: Open discssion among iSeries Users
Date: 01/14/04 11:48:49
To: 'Open discssion among iSeries Users'
Subject: RE: [CPF0000] Good new,bad news about Hewlett-Packard and American
Workers...
 
That's what I've felt for a long time Steve - this is REALLY going to come
around and bite us/the U.S. BAD - maybe latter than sooner, I don't know.
 
Someone wrote into Network World this week and noted that a CIO story had
quoted a guy that was a consultant from Chennai, India who touts giving work
to "an Indian with an Ivy League education working in India at $10,000 per
year" as more advantageous than employing "an American night schooler who
demands $70,000 per year".
 
So this writer proposing "...outsourcing ALL executive positions from the
board of directors down to India. I figure companies could pay each, say,
$30,000 per year. If a dozen execs at a company making an average of $10
million a year ($120 million total) are replaced by 12 Indians ($360,000)
this would produce a savings of $119,640,000! I say include upper management
in outsourcing".
 
So maybe he is on to something and we should all attend the stock holders
meeting(s) for whatever stock we hold and be prepared with our own figures
relevant to that company on this and "get the mike" ! ;-)
 
Chuck