Re: Outsourcing developer to India and China - As an Oracle developer I am miffed

"Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote in message news:3f846a2b$0$22822$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au...

> Of course they obey the same economic rules. Supply and demand is supply and
> demand whether you're talking widgets or lectures or help desking.

Well, actually no. Supply and demand laws apply primarily to products. That was where they were defined. There was no such thing as services back when that law was figured out. The application of the principle to services is a modern phenomena that has not been proven correct. Yet.

> in which the US, UK and Australia, to name but three, have an *enormous*
> advantage over China, if not so clearly over India: language. We all speak
> English. Well, most of us do).

Not sure if that is an advantage, nowadays... :)

> Not entirely sure what 'secular' has to do with it, but I would hardly call
> the 18th century a 'secular' age.

It most definitely was. Most of the societies back then were absolutist monarchies. With a fairly structured and rigid social caste system. That is hardly the case nowadays in downtown SF.

> That's a mite unfair, since we haven't had advanced, services-oriented
> societies for a long term yet. But no matter: the law of comparative
> advantage says nothing about what the advantage is over or about. It
> dictates nothing explicit about whether one should refer to manufactures or
> services.

Of course it doesn't. Services didn't exist back when it was enunciated, how can it say anything about them *specifically*? That is the whole point: claiming that it applies everywhere when some applications didn't even exist back when it was thought out is akin to claiming that BCHR is good for 10g because it worked with V6. Which as we now know is far from true. Yet you still see plenty of BCHR supporters around.

> Economic theory hasn't stopped since Adam Smith, and CA is as useful in
> economics today as it was when he first roughed it out. And it has been
> elaborated and developed over many years.

Sure it has. But nothing has been proven as to its long term applicability to services or even basic validity in a post-industrial society.

> Missing the point, I think. No-one is suggesting that finding yourself
> redundant due to a new outsourcing deal is pleasant, or even desirable.
> Point is, do you just wring your hands and moan, or take to the streets of
> Seattle to battle that which you can't win? Or do you get off your bottom
> and find some new skill, some new niche, in which you can excell?

If you were a middle age family head, you'd find it next to impossible to find new skills and niches just like that. Things aren't that linear when family responsibility throws its little snag into the works.

And that's why you find so many parents doing the "streets" thing. To pretend that they are less entitled than anyone else to a change of niche is discriminatory, to put it mildly. Yet, that is precisely what is being done (not by you, of course!). Hence why you get Seattle. And a lot more to come along the same lines. It worked many years ago for other problems, it will work again.

>
> Remember the post which started this thread posited the idea of a boycott of
> companies that outsource. King Canute or what?

Heck. It worked to stop the Nam war, what can you say?

-- 
Cheers
Nuno Souto
wizofoz2k_at_yahoo.com.au.nospam