Re: someone noticed 90 percent indians posting on asktom.oracle.com

quarkman <quarkman_at_myrealbox.com> wrote in message news:<oprtrhweejzkogxn_at_haydn>...
> >> Yeah, what is it about a little competition that gets people shaking
> >> in thier boots. If you don't wnt to get replaced, you just have to be
> >> better.

or cheaper.

> > Yeah but for the avg cost of a DBA in the USA, companies can hire 10 from
> > India or Russia. They may or may not be as good but even 10 mediocre DBAs
> > can probably get a lot more done than 1 excellent one.
>
>
> 10 crap DBAs are certainly likely to get a whole lot more done than 1 good
> one. Including wiping all my data, tuning things dreadfully, and generally
> stuffing things up.

and a lot faster than you can too...

> for DBAing, unless they're good at it. "Cheap" doesn't mean inevitably that
> the work will flow there, otherwise you'd find Botswana somewhere near the
> top of the industrial production league tables.

Hmmm, wanna bet the "next frontier" is gonna be mainland China? For as long as its dictatorial government stays in power. Then African states will be next. Then what the heck: lapland will be as good.

> There have been quite a
> number of posts here lately moaning about 'cheap' Indians, or sort-of
> suggesting that Indians/Russians/Whatever aren't really quite as good as a
> 'proper' DBA... the same sort of argument, incidentally, that had those
> nice people on the streets of Seattle not too many years ago, though tinged
> I notice in this case with a nice hint of racism.

What I find amazing is they only started now. The whole thing has been going on at least in Australia since the early 90's, how come only now they've woken up?

> Have you not heard of the law of comparative advantage? Namely, work goes
> to where it can best be done for least cost. Adam Smith wrote about it
> about 200 years ago.

He was talking goods manufacturing. Services is not exactly the same thing...

> it, only one factor of which may be low cost. And that means you have to
> work harder and better to compete, and be prepared to shift your ground to
> concentrate on those things where *you* have a comparative advantage.

exactly. Now, what precisely was that comparative advantage for a 20 year old kid starting in IT now? Or do you sincerely think yours and my generation are the only ones that will need work in IT services? See, you don't have kids, I do. These things worry parents, silly little retards we all are...

> One would have thought that the lesson would have been learnt by now, given
> that such shifts have happened many times in the manufacturing industry
> (Manchester still producing cotton goods these days? Norton bikes are the
> market leader? Where did your last RAM chip get made?) over the past 200
> years. Service industries are not immune, and why should they be?

Well, what I'd like to see is ALL service industries being subjected to the same scrutiny. Why on earth does IT have to be singled out for this treatment when there are a zillion others equally as inefficient and open to the same approach?

I'm thinking here accounting, administration, MIS, sales, insurance, help desk, secretarial, etc etc. Heck, with a bit of creativity we can even find a way to outsource McDonnalds to Botswanna. Then we can all relax and enjoy our middle class living while someone else does the real work.

Oh, hang on: without jobs there is no middle class, no major source of income for taxation, no major consumerism, no shopping centres, no profit, no society in general. Produce anything real cheap anywhere you want: without a consumer to buy it, it's worth nothing. Bummer.

What was the problem again we're discussing? Sometimes, what looks like an easy solution is just the start of tomorrow's nightmare...

> But you don't react to it by getting racist, just by getting smarter. Web
> deployment, anyone?

You can't feed the cat surfing websites. But you are right. Either we get another Marx, or we all re-deploy as Pizza Hut cooks. Let's just hope there are enough people left with an income large enough to buy a pizza...

There is a limit to how far profitability can be taken. Once it starts shooting itself on the foot, it must be stopped.

Cheers
Nuno Souto
wizofoz2k_at_yahoo.com.au.nospam Received on Mon Aug 11 2003 - 22:06:04 CDT