D.C. Awards Obamacare IT Work To Offshore Outsourcer 402
dcblogs writes "Infosys, an India-based offshore IT outsourcing firm, recently announced that it had won a $49.5 million contract to develop a health benefit exchange for the District of Columbia. The contract was awarded to a U.S.-based Infosys subsidiary, Infosys Public Services. That's one of the larger government contracts won by an offshore outsourcing firm, but it's unclear whether any of the work will be done overseas. The District isn't disclosing any contract details. An FOIA request for the contract has been submitted. Infosys is one of the largest users of H-1B visas, and has been under a grand jury investigation for its use of B1 visitor visas."
Yet another great argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
for why the H-1B system ought to be massively reduced and US contracts should be awarded only to actual US companies instead of shell-game "subsidiaries."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
That is a good question. I would have been willing to do it for half that price, but they didn't ask me.
Re: (Score:3)
Immigration is fine. if a company needs to hire a foreign worker who plans to immigrate, let them help with the green card and get that process started.
Given how some employers scream for more H1-Bs, you'd think they'd be sponsoring a ton of immigrants and green cards, but for some reason they are only interested in more H1-B.
Re: (Score:2)
what's the argument?
Re: (Score:3)
for why the H-1B system ought to be massively reduced and US contracts should be awarded only to actual US companies instead of shell-game "subsidiaries."
More crazy talk from the left-wing, socialist, protectionist, wacko crowd. Ain't you not heard? This here's a global econuhmy now, and if we can't compete by sending U.S. jobs overseas, or by flooding the labor market with thousands of cheap imports, Wall Street will collapse. And you don't want that on your conscience now, do you? The nerve! To suggest that American business actually spend money on a quality domestic labor force. What kind of fantasy world do you pinko's live in?
Re: (Score:3)
for why the H-1B system ought to be massively reduced and US contracts should be awarded only to actual US companies instead of shell-game "subsidiaries."
Here's the reality, though -- Infosys is one of the real big outsourcing companies that is used by most of the very large software companies in the US.
As a software worker, I think better for this to go to a US company, but the work would likely be done largely by Infosys or another similar company. As a taxpayer, I'd rather the savings on the development go to me, than padding the profits of a government contractor.
Here's a thought... (Score:4)
Here's a thought, suspend the H-1B visas and educate or retrain US citizens to take those jobs. Corporate America keeps exclaiming that the H-1B visa process is expensive and the only reason they go that route is that they can't find qualified US applicants. Well, use those funds to train your own employees. Then, when the US is at full employment (at whatever that rate really is), if more workers are needed, then bring them in.
A large percentage of college graduates are not gainfully employed in the fields they studied, including STEM. It is hard to argue, that we need to import more STEM workers when we can't even employ the recent graduates. But maybe it has to do with that new math, you know the kind where you can build wealth in America by creating jobs overseas and importing workers for the rest of the jobs here.
What was that called by Reagan? Trickle down economics, where the majority of the population trickles further down the system so the few at the top can accumulate the wealth. If it costs corporations too much to hire trained labor, then either train them yourself (as in the past), cut dividends and executive pay, or find a different line of work. After all, isn't that how economics is supposed to work?
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they had not, out taxes are paying for these contracts. Our government is supposed to represent the citizens. It is in the best interest of the citizens on this country to get people back to work.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Protectionism is why sugar prices are so high in America that we use high fructose corn syrup whereas the rest of the world uses ordinary sugar. Protectionism, not the stock market, caused the great depression (Smoot-Hawley tariff act). Protectionism causes domestic steel prices to go up, which makes goods we export cost more than foreign goods.
I could go on with a ton of examples of why protectionism does far more harm to our economy than good. When trade restrictions are lifted on the other hand, we win.
A
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Protectionism is why sugar prices are so high in America that we use high fructose corn syrup whereas the rest of the world uses ordinary sugar
Incorrect. Sugar prices may be artificially inflated some due to import/export taxes; but the real reason HFC is used is that corn is so cheap because (i) it is highly subsidized, and (ii) we (the federal gov't) pay a lot of farmers to plan corn just to give them work. Both of these are due to Agricultural Lobbying done on behalf the farmers and their unions.
Of course, now HFC is getting to be more expansive than regular sugar thanks to corn-based ethanol production.
Re: (Score:2)
All of which is true, but protectionism remains appropriate where there's a duty to keep information inside the US. I have no clue whether this exchange has any HIPAA responsibilities, but if it does it shouldn't be sending work out of the country (there have already been some embarrassments with that). If it's just some code that happens to be health insurance related, but has nothing to do with private information, then fine.
The more likely objection here is that offshoring customer-facing work often le
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:5, Informative)
Your rhetoric doesn't align well with reality. Imports of sugar from Mexico grew under NAFTA. HFCS has more to do with profit margins and "Big Food's" ability to squeeze as much merchantable material from its raw materials.
If a large food corporation purchase corn and process it for food, the corporation would rather process the by-products into a useable/sellable ingredient than having to pay for disposal. They can undercut sugar as much as they want since break even or a little loss is still less of an expenditure than disposal.
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:4, Interesting)
It is in the best interest of the citizens on this country to get people back to work.
That all depends on who's interests you are invested in.
Re: (Score:3)
It's nice of you to try, but libertarians will only hear what they want to hear. One of my favorite comments on slashdot was this succinct description of the libertarian philosophy: If you buy a toy for your kid, and the kid dies of poisoning, then don't buy the toy for your other kid. Market corrected!
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
The race to the bottom only benefits the select few on top. With your idea we would all be working for $1/day while the rich get even richer.
If you want a good example of this see hong kong or another place that allows those kinds of income inequalities. I would rather most americans be able to afford homes and food instead of most living in squalor so a select few can be super rich.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The race to the bottom argument is a logical fallacy. Let's suppose this: If you race the prices to the bottom (i.e. everything becomes so cheap that anybody can afford it anyways) then who cares how much money you have? You can't eat money, and you can't use money: You can only spend it.
What you need to look at is purchasing power, and you need to understand the distinction between money and wealth.
I'd rather live in a world where I make $10 an hour with my lunch costing only $4 than live in a world where
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
The race to the bottom argument is a logical fallacy.
Yes, it's only in that inconvenient real world that it happens. In case you've forgotten, wages in the USA started stagnating in the 70s and the divide between wealthy and poor grows larger each year. Moreover, the real world examples of unregulated capitalism (e.g. Pakistan, Somalia, Mexico, the USA, China) show exactly what happens when the government "gets out of the way." This is solely due to changes in government taxation regulation changes on high income earners and high income corporations, and the demise of checks on finance (i.e. Glass-steagall).
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone working in tech in America is in the 1% - of the world. There's no moral harm when a job moves overseas to someone who objectively needs the money more. Arguing that the rich have too much is a poor strategy when you're part of the richest 1%.
And the race to the bottom ends with everywhere in the world having a real middle class - hardly a dystopia. Everything people say today about work going to China or India was said when I was young about work going to Japan, and later about South Korea. Emerging nations do eventually emerge, and everyone benefits as a result.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, but I'm a little worried that China + India = 2 000 0000 000 people. Japan + South Korea is much less. This time there are more people in the emerging nations than in the developed nations. For the positive end result we in the 1% need to suffer, but in the end survive. If we are wiped out by the competition, the end result may not be as positive.
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone working in tech in America is in the 1% - of the world. There's no moral harm when a job moves overseas to someone who objectively needs the money more. Arguing that the rich have too much is a poor strategy when you're part of the richest 1%.
And the race to the bottom ends with everywhere in the world having a real middle class - hardly a dystopia. Everything people say today about work going to China or India was said when I was young about work going to Japan, and later about South Korea. Emerging nations do eventually emerge, and everyone benefits as a result.
But when the job moves overseas so do all of the secondary effects.
The $100K/year programmer may be in the top 1% so no great harm if that job moves overseas (except for well except for the programmer, but that job is in the 1% and we don't care about the 1%).
The problem is that that $100K/year programmer owns a house, and the property taxes help pay for services that the 99% use.
That $100K/year programmer goes to restaurants, where the 99% work.
That $100K/year programmer gets her blouses dry cleaned, and the dry cleaner's employees are in the 99%.
That $100K/year programmer pays federal state & local taxes (including sales tax), gets hair cuts, oil changes, buys groceries, remodels his house, and a multitude of other tasks that give money to the 99%.
When that $100K/year job is outsourced to an outsourcing company for $20K/year, then none of the money stays in the USA.
Re: (Score:3)
But when the job moves overseas so do all of the secondary effects.
Raising the standard of living of the 99% of the rest of the world, in this case, India's 99%.
At the cost of America's 99%
You should see what real poverty looks like - where people do not get 1 full bowl of boiled rice a day, forget meals with meat and unhealthy fats or govt rations.
I think it's overall a good thing - considering that your 99% do nothing to change the policies of your Govt and the rest of the world suffers tremendously because of your Govt being controlled by Petroleum and Banking cartels artificially raising the cost of living everywhere in the world.
It's high time you guys revolted - in some sane way - and took back control of your country and stopped messing around with the economies and internal affairs of other countries - Pakistan for example, was a monster created by the British and sustained by NATO, and USA primarily because Kashmir is a strategic location to keep the Soviet and Chinese threat under control, among many other things.
USA is a democracy, remember, as you so proudly claim while shoving it down the throats of other nations and so the blame goes directly to you, the people of America.
Don't blame Indians for the exchange rate being 1 USD = 58 INR, it's your doing, and now it's your undoing.
I see, so the fact that we have a high standard of living (and high cost of living) is our own fault, but India's poverty is also our own fault so we should ship our jobs and our money to India? Is there anything that's not our fault? And if we don't revolt against our high cost of living then we are also at fault for all of the problems of the world?
Re: (Score:3)
I'm all for raising standards in other countries. We can do that intelligently where nobody gets hurt, or the way we are doing it where a few get super rich, and many suffer while the 3rd world barely inches up.
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:4, Insightful)
And the race to the bottom ends with everywhere in the world having a real middle class - hardly a dystopia.
How do you figure? The race to the bottom ends at the bottom. Real wages reach a minimum and only capital has any value.
That there are local minima along the way (where emerging nations prosper) doesn't mean that the end result is a middle class everywhere. The end result is that a few extremely wealthy persons have most of the capital and everyone else works for peanuts. Look at the money "saved" by outsourcing labor. Do the prices you see at the store reflect all of that savings or are the profits from those products just increasing?
Globalization is just wealth consolidation. Though it may be nice in the short term, it doesn't end well for most of the global population.
Re: (Score:3)
It amazing me how many people just assert this in the face of about four centuries of increasing globalization accompanied by an ever-increasing middle class.
Because until recently, globalization only meant the import/export of manufactured goods or raw supplies (ie, the outsourcing of the working class). Predictably, that had little negative impact on the middle class. Globalization now involves the outsourcing of the middle class, which seems to actually have an effect on the middle class.
Both. This is well studied - imports make products cheaper for Americans far in excess of the total lost wages from those imports.
You're going to have to provide some evidence for that assertion. I've not been able to find any credible source to back that up.
Plus most Americans now own stock, directly or indirectly, and so also benefit from better profits.
That's a generous stretch of indirectly. The
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, it's only in that inconvenient real world that it happens. In case you've forgotten, wages in the USA started stagnating in the 70s and the divide between wealthy and poor grows larger each year.
As long as the standard of living continues to grow for both, that divide is irrelevant. That is, it's irrelevant to all but the very wealthy.
Moreover, the real world examples of unregulated capitalism (e.g. Pakistan, Somalia, Mexico, the USA, China)
None of those are examples of unregulated capitalism (maybe Somalia, IDK, but they have a very low level of income inequality), those countries run on what is more closely termed Crony Capitalism, where the government picks certain companies and help them to success (US, China, Pakistan), or the companies have so much influence in the government it amounts to the same
Re: (Score:3)
The race to the bottom argument is a logical fallacy.
Yes, it's only in that inconvenient real world that it happens. In case you've forgotten, wages in the USA started stagnating in the 70s and the divide between wealthy and poor grows larger each year. Moreover, the real world examples of unregulated capitalism (e.g. Pakistan, Somalia, Mexico, the USA, China) show exactly what happens when the government "gets out of the way." This is solely due to changes in government taxation regulation changes on high income earners and high income corporations, and the demise of checks on finance (i.e. Glass-steagall).
The divide between the wealthy and poor means exactly jack shit unless you can demonstrate that the poor are becoming more poor relative to themselves. It doesn't matter a bit if the rich are getting richer unless you can prove that they are getting that way by directly harming the poor.
You also fail at life for saying that China is an example of the government getting out of the way and trying to compare the US to any of the places you listed. Yet clearly the solution to all our problems is more government
Re: (Score:2)
The middle class shrinking is fine?
All the gains of the recovery going to the top percent is ok?
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:4, Insightful)
You missed his point. There are more poor people in the US than in any point in history because we have been continually raising the cutoff to what we consider "poor". Poor people today are likely to have a car, a fridge, a cell phone, a flat screen TV, air conditioning, etc. The majority of the poor in the US are obese, not starving. Wages may be declining, but standard of living is still increasing.
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:4)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
i'll take a capitalist race to the bottom over a communist forced march to the gulag.
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:4, Insightful)
Awesome false dichotomy you got there.
Re: (Score:3)
The problems you speak of are due to corruption, not free markets. Even in the height of the Soviet Union, most people were living in squalor while the few lived in luxury. I know you are not going to say that the former Soviet Union was a free market.
Iraq under Saddam Hussein had the same situation. Most people lived in poverty while those that were high ranking party members were rewarded handsomely.
China is not a free market either. While it does have some capitalist tendencies, it is still a Communi
Re: (Score:2)
That is totally off topic. I am talking about market manipulation to drive down the price of labor. Like we see with H1-bs, they can come here to compete with Americans but we can't go compete with them.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Both of your examples reference fraud. In a free market, it doesn't mean that there are no regulations. A free market does require regulation, specifically regulations that protect private property, prevent fraud, and protect the lives of citizens. In other words, don't steal, don't lie, and don't kill. Pretty simple regulations.
Aside from that, the general trend may be upward in a free market, but there are outliers as you point out (those that fail due to poor luck). Those in a truly free market are aided
Re: (Score:3)
The general trend?
Free markets as in so limitedly regulated as you suggest tend towards monopolies and very few people capturing all of the surplus. Many fail from simple lack of opportunity as well. Many will never make enough to be able to invest. Add in tax rates that favor the investor over the worker and the problem exaggerates itself.
The rich also create foundations to avoid taxes and support their own aims. The Gates foundation has been accused of requiring nations/people who take their aid of signin
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
How does that fit into the free market capitalism that made America great? If someone else can do the same job cheaper, hire them instead.
You mean to say, "If someone can be hired for slave wages and locked into a single-employer contract with no chance to move jobs rather than hiring people on an equal footing."
This is about as far from "free market capitalism" as it comes. The H-1B system deliberately alters the agreement [slashdot.org] and creates a semi-slave labor deliberately paying under-market wages.
And then there's all [aila.org] the fraud [lexology.com] in the system [motherjones.com]. Including falsely inflated skills listings designed to keep anyone from successfully applying [dailykos.com] for the jobs later salted to H-1Bs with far less than the originally advertised qualifications. And of course the demand for H-1Bs rather than actual EB-5s [cringely.com] where they would have legal right to leave for better employment if it was offered by another company.
Don't you dare use the term "free market capitalism", you fucking slavemonger. It's nothing of the sort.
Re: (Score:2)
This is about as far from "free market capitalism" as it comes
I question if "free market capitalism" is even possible
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:5, Informative)
Including falsely inflated skills listings designed to keep anyone from successfully applying for the jobs later salted to H-1Bs with far less than the originally advertised qualifications.
Actually, they don't have to go through that rigamarole any longer: they quietly dropped the requirement that jobs be offered to citizens before hiring an H-1B the last time the various tech kingpins called up their patsies in Congress to ask for a change.
Re: (Score:3)
So it's OK because they are indentured servants then?
You don't have to be a communist to be against that sort of thing.
You can be a Lincoln Republican and be against that kind of thing.
That's what happens when you have the proudly ignorant rambling on about things they know nothing about.
Re: (Score:3)
They're not indentured servants, since they can leave the job (and the country) at any time.
The reason why the system is flawed has nothing to do with slavery. It's because employers are, essentially, allowed to bargain from a different position with H-1Bs compared to citizens. Because the former don't hold citizenship, the promise of sponsoring their green card essentially becomes the part of their compensation, and they will agree to less pay etc relative to someone who is already a citizen. And because t
Re: (Score:3)
However, when it comes to hiring talented professionals who didn't have the chance to be born in the US, there doesn't seem to be any alternative to the H1-B. If someone completes a master's or PhD in a US university, why should they have to compete for a visa with a limited quota with large corporations that mostly hires foreign workers?
There's the EB series (eg, EB-1 [wikipedia.org]) of visas. All of the priority worker goodness and none of the indentured servitude.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Because, the government is what's making it uneconomical to hire US.
First off, we were founded on the principal of having tariffs. Having kept tariffs, we'd have kept much of our manufacturing and middle-class.
Second, when you claim an American worker costs to much, but point to all the mandated costs the American government has placed upon U.S. workers and business. Then for that reason, go elsewhere. It's not because of capitalism, but regulation.
Simple way to bring back jobs to America. Mandate ALL cont
Re: (Score:2)
How does that fit into the free market capitalism that made America great?
It has nothing to do with capitolism, but it has everything to do with democracy and secret ballot free elections, and PR. This just looks shitty to the voting public. As an American IT worker, it looks shitty to me. Obama isn't winning a lot of PR victories lately, and now this.
Re:Yet another great argument... (Score:4, Insightful)
A gigantic, unexploited continent chock full of resources is what made America great. Americas problems have increased as less of those resources and land remain there for the taking. Meanwhile, we blame each other for what none of us have any control of.
Re: (Score:2)
pretty much required, isn't it? (Score:4, Insightful)
These kinds of contracts are supposed to be bid out to the lowest bidder.
If that actually happens: people complain that a company like Infosys wins the contract.
If it doesn't happen: people complain that the government is overpaying for IT services, and back up their allegations by quoting a much lower price someone in the private sector got (...from Infosys) as evidence that the government is inefficient.
Re:pretty much required, isn't it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this cost plus or fixed price?
I ask because I suspect the former and that there will be lots of extra costs not factored into the quote. Like rewriting it over and over when the lowest bidder not surprisingly supplies crap.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:pretty much required, isn't it? (Score:4, Insightful)
These kinds of contracts are supposed to be bid out to the lowest bidder.
Not necessarily. Another common standard is, "best value."
Cheapest "up front" doesn't always equal cheapest total cost.
Cheapest doesn't necessarily mean you are getting a good deal.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
There actually are rules on that, but in this case the firm winning the contract was technically a U.S.-based firm, which happens to be a subsidiary of a foreign company.
You could try to prohibit that, but that would cut out a lot of companies that often legitimately bid for contracts, e.g. Siemens USA is the American subsidiary of German-based Siemens. You could alternatively disqualify companies that outsource more than a certain percentage of their work, but that would disqualify a number of US-based fir
What an inflammatory submission (Score:5, Funny)
Obamacare + foreign workers = WIN! (for you click-whoring editors)
By this logic, probably every government IT project has some element of either outsourced labor or parts manufactured overseas. Right now, I'm trying to find an article that I can reduce to a headline with big tits, gun rights, and failed Bush foreign policy in it...
Re: (Score:2)
Obamacare + foreign workers = WIN! (for you click-whoring editors)
Transparent click-bait for sure.
...reduce to a headline with big tits
Nobody wants to hear more about Karl Rove.
Dey took are jerbs!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be great if immigration policy could be decided based on something other than the interests of suppressing wages and controlling the workforce.
Agribusiness loves cheap labor from Mexico. Keep 'em coming, but keep that deportation threat over their heads so they don't get uppity about those "wages" and "working conditions" things.
Then the wealthiest companies America need tech workers and don't want to pay American wages. Since they can't pile in illegals to run the data centers, get those h1bs rammed through congress. There we go, cheap tech workers who are nice and easy to control because they don't want to get deported after two weeks if they lose their job.
Feudalism. Fascism. Whatever, it's a racket.
Re: (Score:3)
Yep yup. Funny how our chronically dysfunctional Congress always seems to come together when it comes to pandering to their Big Biz masters and sell the American dream ever farther down the river, while their media buddies keep John Q. Public preoccupied with single-issue zealotry (abortion, LGBT, 2nd Amendment, w/e) or benumbed with network television.
If one must vote in this charade in hope of change, vote Green or Purple or Pink, anything but Red or Blue. Reinstalling the perpetrators only prolongs the a
Re: (Score:2)
Feudalism. Fascism.
Funny, I read the second one as Federalism.
Re: (Score:2)
Dey took are jerbs!!!
Agribusiness loves cheap labor from Mexico. Keep 'em coming, but keep that deportation threat over their heads so they don't get uppity about those "wages" and "working conditions" things.
You're hardly the one to complain. You apparently outsource your "Comment Subject" writing to the Caribbean, Jamaica, from the looks of it, or maybe Minnesota [youtube.com].
No worries man!
Re: (Score:2)
Ummm....get worked up about whether or not Paula Deen called Kanye and Kim Kardashian's potentially gay-marrying baby a certain 6-letter word?
Does it matter who does this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone, except for small companies, is using H-1b programmers. InfoSys, Tata, and the like have discovered that an American front company can get them past the "we want to support American companies" view of business so they started buying up their American competitors.
Since we can't get away from foreign programmers, then we need to ensure that the job they do is good. What the D.C. and the U.S. really need are decent lawyers who won't let something like this become a honeypot that any vendor can ra
Surprised? Shouldn't be! (Score:2)
The people in power have been outsourcing everything possible to off shore work, against the law in many cases (several pieces of DOD work have been outsourced to South American countries). The only thing they are trying to keep local are the people needed to implement a police state when desired.
You only need to look at what they are doing and compare that to the state of our economy to figure out that they want the country to collapse. They are trying as hard as they can to make it collapse without bein
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What I mentioned is not a private company, this is the US Government shitting on US Citizens. The difference is huge!
These should be American contracts (Score:2)
new reality (Score:5, Insightful)
US companies do business in India? Wait.. To get in there you have to fight to pass innumerable hurdles thrown in your way.
How about China?
If the world was a level playing field, I'd probably be ok with the H1 Visa scam bullshit. But I'm not (and I'm a Brit in the UK). Globalisation is fine, I have no problem with it in its bassic capitalist basis. But it has to cut both ways. If China and India get to grow their middle class by working on US workload, then US companies should have the same access to do the same in China and India.
I watch real time each week. Its somewhat weird seeing the slagging off the republicans get there. The dems in the US seem very very friendly to immigration, and to globalisation, and seem to take a lot of funding from the Apple and 'Media' funding. In the meantime on an observational level, seems to me the bone marrow of America - the middle class person is under seige. I can't fundamentally understand off shoring, from a business perspective. Even in raw capitalists terms - eroding the middle class is eroding away your own customer base long term.
Globalisation in the west now seems to be 'worry about the H1 visa holders', and immigrants, and 3rd world - more than your own people. Screw them. Very strange way to proceed.
Its ok to have a concern about minorities and immigrants, but its got strangely out of kilter.
Re: (Score:2)
Its ok to have a concern about minorities and immigrants, but its got strangely out of kilter.
You have to understand that, while H1-B visas can be a way to immigrate, and can be a path to naturalization, they don't really exist due to concern for immigrants. They exist because the US is kind of xenophobic and hostile to immigrants. H1-B visas are a method of creating an underclass of what are essentially indentured servants strung along with the carrot and stick.
Re: (Score:2)
I watch real time each week. Its somewhat weird seeing the slagging off the republicans get there. The dems in the US seem very very friendly to immigration, and to globalisation, and seem to take a lot of funding from the Apple and 'Media' funding.
There are no innocents. Agribusiness wants (and gets) millions of pickers wandering the land unfettered by the INS. Industrialists want (and get) finished goods flowing from third world hell-holes to a Walmart near you without any burdensome tariffs or port authority inconveniences. Gentry liberals incentivise all of this with BANANA policies, pulling up the ladder and adopting ever greater levels of environmental rigor while evacuating our industry to Asia.
Right now we are building new, larger Panama lo
want obamacare to fail? this would be the way (Score:2)
What a great way to create jobs (Score:2)
Why not an American firm... (Score:2)
part of the issue is HR and the schools / training (Score:2)
part of the issue is HR and the schools / training.
When you have HR doing stuff some time it's not even that they are looking for a H1-B it's just that they don't know about IT when setting the job posting.
Like listing each skills that IT may use or even stuff that they only touch 1-2 times a year or maybe even 1-2 times in 3-5 years and say we want people with 5 exp, saying that we want EXP with tool X and passing over people with tool Y that is just about the same thing or even when tool X is easy to pick
Obamacare? (Score:2)
Is Obamacare the official name for this healthcare reform package? Somehow I don't think it is. It's not very good legislation. It's definitely not healthcare done right. But using the term "Obamacare" still seems to smack of bias, especially when you consider that main details of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are implementations of the Heritage Foundation's plan that the Republicans were pushing back when the US was trying to get meaningful healthcare reform. US politics seems to be driven
Infosys will always do a lowball bid. (Score:5, Informative)
I thought... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, present actual facts. I am sick and tired of the same old sound bites that just never seem to be true.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
I work for Accenture, my counterparts in India cost 1/5 of my wage and in many ways equal my quality. I'm not going to stick my fingers in my ears and him loudly, it is the facts.
Re: Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I work for Accenture, my counterparts in India cost 1/5 of my wage and in many ways equal my quality. I'm not going to stick my fingers in my ears and him loudly, it is the facts.
So in the name of helping the american economy you should clearly accept an 80% pay cut to make yourself competitive with someone from India :)
(PS - This is a joke, in my experience offshoring to India is an utter disaster as your average indian outsourced development company will never give you an honest assessment of time involved in a project or actually admit when they are going to overrun the deadline before they do, causing any sort of confrontation is just too alien to the local culture even when it is better in the long run)
Re: (Score:2)
Do you compare the bills you both have to pay?
Cause, you know, in my homeland in Eastern Europe I can get along nicely with 1/5 of a German salary....
Re: (Score:3)
my counterparts in India cost 1/5 of my wage and in many ways equal my quality
I'm not sure if you are trying to sell us on the quality of the work done by off-shore workers, or your lack of quality. Either way it works I suppose.
BTW, I'm working 3 blocks north of you, and I've never seen an off-shore team that was of any quality.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, but it will cost 20 times more to be burdened by and the be forced to fix a shitty first implementation.
Do it right the first time or you're going to pay even more to do it right the second.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, because American companies have an excellent track record with government IT projects.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, because all companies have an excellent track record with government IT projects.
FTFY
Re: (Score:2)
Average salary of systems administrator in India - ~$4,000 US
Average salary of a systems administrator in Washington DC - ~$75,000 US
'nuff said
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Average salary of a systems administrator in Washington DC - ~$75,000 US
Availability of your systems administrator when the shit hits the fan:
Outsourced to India - ~The third Thursday after Monsoon season ends.
In-house in DC - ~Already waiting in your office with an apology and an action plan.
Which one do you want to explain to the board you hired to save $71k/year, while the company hemorrhages 10x that per day in downtime because of your savings?
Now in fairness, I've worked with Indian H1Bs, and they pretty much have the same skills profiles as Americans - Half can just about get the job done when nothing exciting comes up, a quarter suck, and a quarter rock. But despite that, outsourcing still simply doesn't work for one simple reason - Management views it as waving the magic green wand and making a pesky project someone else's problem; when in reality, outsourced work requires more careful management than traditional in-house development.
Any PHB who thinks coding something to spec means a job well done, has never actually looked at the craptastic quality of most real-world specs.
Re: (Score:2)
I know and completely agree with everything you said. However, as far as the government is concerned, they look at $$$, not at the quality of work or any of the numerous important factors which you spelled out.
The government is like the guy that needs to buy a lawnmower and finds something on Craigslist. He spend $50 for a lawnmower that works for a month then blows up. So he buys another $50 lawnmower on Craigslist. The cycle repeats. By the end of the year, he's spent $300 buying used lawnmowers beca
Re: (Score:2)
Effects, directly, note 1, note 2
Another person either
On the dole ( increases govt spending in US ), possibly leading to increase in crime in US
Jobless, possibly homeless ( note 1 ), possibly leading to increase in crime in US
Going after the dwindling pool of jobs in "career", resulting in downward pressure on IT wage ( which reduces tax revenue in US ).
Going after pool of jobs out of career, downward pressure on wages ( reduction in tax revenue )
Re: (Score:2)
Average quality of a government systems administrator - Priceless
Re: (Score:2)
Because it would cost D.C. about 5 times more if it was done here?
Then maybe we shouldn't do it anywhere.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
How about the real question, since companies are ephemeral entities with no real way to measure their "americanness." Why have we inserted pointless middlemen of contracting companies into our government's process of managing itself. The fact is that it's an internal project, and having developers working for the government wouldn't really cost us much more. We've yoked ourselves to the wagon of privatization, without really caring what that means. I'm not entirely convinced of the value of having entire industries built around providing workers to the government when the government can damn well hire its own employees.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much that.
What no one thinks about is the for an outside source to provide you with something they have to charge what that costs and profit. Now if you need a single trinket that works, but if you need lots of work done hiring directly can be substantially cheaper. For this kind of thing I would think some direct hire and some contract workers would be best.
Shopping it out has to be the most expensive way to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You forgot the water fluoridation and vaccination conspiracies, Comrade.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I know the argument tends to reach fever pitches of hysterics on both sides, but the core reasons for not undertaking government sponsored health-care is because ultimately it makes promises that the government won't be able to deliver on in the long run.
It has little do do with "deserving health care" or "not being communists".
The fact is that health care is a gigantic black hole that you can pay for while things are good, but sooner or later, something happens and flushes it down the toilet. De
3rd party health care was failing any ways (Score:2)
where you had sick people being drooped / hit with bills with 400%-500%+ markup and other bs like they coded it the wrong way so we will not pay.
health care places that take your money for years and when you get really sick they look back and say you had a zit 20years ago so it's a pre existing condition and you are not covered.
mini med planes that don't cover jack shit it you do get sick.
When you switch jobs you have to change health plans.
The obamacare is not the best idea but it's a good starting point a
Re:Groan (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, I know the argument tends to reach fever pitches of hysterics on both sides, but the core reasons for not undertaking government sponsored health-care is because ultimately it makes promises that the government won't be able to deliver on in the long run.
How is this any different than private corporations running the insurance? They'll make the same promises and just declare bankruptcy when they can't meet the obligations. They'll prescreen their population to ensure profitability (i.e. no pre-existing conditions, jacked up rates for the elderly, etc.) so enter government regulations... and if the government has to regulate to ensure fairness, why not let them administer the program? It seems to work (so far) in basically every other country in the world.
Fundamentally, health care (and education for that matter) aren't "market" products. Everybody needs them, and that is something the "free market" doesn't handle well in the case where some portion of the customer base cannot afford them.
The free market handles car sales and stuff like that great - prices float, lots of competition, but ultimately if you can't afford one you can do without. Maybe its inconvenient, but that's entirely different that say you with the congenital heart defect, who cannot afford the health care you need to stay alive.
Now the free market would simply say "fuck you" to those people and let them die. Can't afford the service = you don't get the service. After all, they were selected by random biology to suck up more resources to screw them, right?
The rest of us in the modern world, with the richest country in the history of the known universe, find this outcome simply unacceptable. In fact, rather than piss away the resources of the country on random bullshit to benefit the wealthy, how about investing some into the actual literal welfare of the population. You know, one of those functions government is supposed to provide for its people?
Your nightmare scenario about the failure of government health care leading to chaos is exactly balanced by the same failure of the private insurance/medical industry causing the same chaos. People get sick and have their retirements wiped out. A car accident through no fault of their own tosses the family into poverty. Debts mount people simply can't handle. Etc. Sorry but this is a time when government reliance is the only answer, that being: too goddamn bad medical industry, we're imposing a ceiling on the profits you're allowed to make. That's what it all revolves around, capping fees and controlling costs, versus private industry exercising monopoly situations to extract maximum profit of people's suffering.
Re: (Score:2)