Outsourcing is good. 326

The US is in a very critical time WRT its fiduciary responsibilities, largely complicated by the boomer population about to retire. There are a couple of "silver bullets" that can prevent us from having to gin up the printing presses, print money, and thus enter into hyperinflation.

(Believe me, you'd RATHER see jobs go overseas than have 6% + inflation for a decade. The last time it happened we mutated overnight from an Ozzie and Harriet society where Dad with an average white collar job could comfortably support a family of four in the burbs, to one where Mom had to work in order to maintain a similar standard of living.)

Two of the silver bullets that can help us avoid a liquidity crisis are immigration and increased productivity. All other factors being equal (and they never are, of course) the number of immigrants we'd need to avoid the liquidity crisis is significantly more than the current US population. Can't go there -- societal upheaval would result.

The other side of the immigration coin is outsourcing. You don't get ALL the revenue you would from an immigrant, but unlike immigrants, there's no limit to how many you can tolerate. I might need 10 outsourced codeslingers to get the same revenue into the Treasury as I could with one US citizen, but I can get it, and......

.....I increase productivity at the same time.

So, from the position of the Feds, US companies are just hiring cheap labor, creating a *short-term* problem in certain industries until the boomers retire. US corporate expansion, being first to the table to pick off this cheap labor, reaps the largest benefits from it and then can shut down their compebreastion (read: Europe) when they finally come a- calling for that cheap labor *after* their own boomer crisis begins (which is much worse than ours, for the record).

So, from a Fed and Corporate standpoint, there's no downside here. Thus, the guys who (regrettably) are caught in the middle (some computer professionals) have to hang on until the boomer jobs open up.

I concur. But, since people don't think about the three headed beast (the deficit, the current accounts balance, and the ongoing fiscal imbalance) and don't undesrstand what happens during a liquidity crisis, they become fixated on their short-term problems, which, buttuming they're not homeless or starving, are *not* the most critical thing they should be worried about. As I said before, you'd rather be managing a McDonalds with 3% inflation than writing Java code at 6%. The former is the better job under the conditions.

Quite so.

I think that retraining is the most essential capability anyone can have if you are young. The first inflationary cycle (70's and early 80's) took us from a work-for-one-company-until-you-die to one where you have to be light on your feet, since your COMPANY is light on their feet, meaning that they may be called upon to change the texture of their workforce quickly and efficiently. It's nice to blame this on greedy CEO's, but in fact they are working in a global compebreastive environment that allows them little margin for error and far less time to ponder sweeping decisions than they used to have.

But, more to the point: people who understand technology AND can communicate it to nontechnical people AND who know how to present themsevles professionally will always have a job. Tekkies who dislike personal interaction (and there are many who do) should spend their evenings getting a math teaching credential so they'll always have a backup. Tekkies of the other ilk ought to join Toastmasters, work on their speaking and communications skills, and take some B-school courses. Then both will be light-on-their-feet, so to speak, and able to cover in case the job market bounces even more than I expect it to.

I ended up unemployed in the tech lull of the early 90's, and having a teaching credential saved my butt. I taught two years, got back into tech, and have since increased my (admittedly crappy) teaching salary by 5X by being in a client-facing, salary + bonus position buttisting our salespeople sell stuff. Gotta stay flexible and not get negative.

Mike