Re: Oh my Gawd! Carly!

Just over Fox News... McCain is considering Carly Fiorina for VP :-(

> > =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=

=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD= =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD ...Jim Thompson

And sadly, Carly would be an improvement to the ticket!

How much "success" does it take to offshore thousands of US jobs and spin off divisions (namely, Compaq) to show short-term profits at the expense of long term viability?

Is that the Republican litmus test these days?!

Reply to
mpm
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[snip]

So vote for Shrillary. You sheep will remain sheep, your just reward.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

That's always a good scheme. However I think Shrillary is playing directly into Republican hands... she'll knock off Obama, who might beat McCain, then McCain will clean her clock in debate ;-)

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

This must be an "I told you so" moment.

The Republics want to be able to say, "You vote for PYFD*" and see what has happened!!!!

So the plan is to let the Democrats win this election so the Republicans can win the next one.

donald

(*) Pick Your Favorite Democrat.

Reply to
donald

? ...Jim Thompson

Jobs moving offshore is simply companies fleeing oppression--a natural response. When the rules and burdens get too high, leave.

That's long-term, not short-sighted at all. Leave, or die.

Carly's sin was taking a first-class engineering outfit and turning it into a disposable printer cartridge factory; that's completely different.

Cheers, James Arthur

Reply to
James Arthur

Most people don't consider stuff like "minimum wage" particularly oppressive, James -- even if all the othe rrules were equal, companies are always going to be attracted to workers at $0.25/hour compared to $8/hour.

Over the long term this will sort itself out anyway -- there's an article from a few days ago about how Indian wages have gone up enough that it no longer is the "obvious" choice for oursourcing, e.g., software development. (Plus any manager who visits somewhere like

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can -- if they have any technical background -- see the folly of hiring overly cheap programmers, regardless of what country they're from.)

Reply to
Joel Koltner

Sure it is! The s.o.'s teenager had trouble getting a job. There were a bunch of rules & reporting associated with hiring a teen, and most companies didn't want the overhead or risk of penalty for mistakes.

When he did get a minimum wage job, local "living wage" rules meant the kid earned enough to raise a small family, for bagging groceries. No wonder they can't afford to hire many workers!

The result was that his teen contemporaries mostly didn't work at all. Too bad--early jobs & real work, together, are one of the best learning experiences and preparations for real life there is.

Not so, otherwise there wouldn't be any engineering jobs, for example, here at all. Someone local will always have big advantages over someone distant--communications are vital, and difficult enough in person. Throw in some time zones and several languages, and things quickly fall apart. Witness the Mars mission disaster just from metric vs. imperial units, and that gaffe arising amongst countrymen.

Right, and that's super healthy. It's great to see other countries prospering, their people enjoying those fruits of technological and social progress which have been too exclusively ours for too long.

Oftentimes like Dorothy's predicament, the solutions have always been within their grasp, if they only chose to see them. India's mega-growth in IT comes from reduced taxation of same, I read.

Cheers, James Arthur

Reply to
James Arthur

from

is

It seems, around here, that employees are hard to come by. I see signs, even billboards, for burger flippers at way over minimum wage.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

Hi James,

Rather than eliminating minimum wage laws, a better approach might be to expand the "farm worker" laws to encompass more people? It's a hard question -- while obviously most teens are living with their parents who are supported by them, there certainly are older teens out there supporting themselves largely or completely independently from their parents and as just as "deserving" of the minimum wage as, e.g., some 40-year-old is.

Or maybe we just need to make it easier for teens to declare themselves as independents: In college a few kids did that because they didn't qualify for student loans or grants based on the buckets of money their parents had, yet said parents weren't volunteering any of it to help the kid put himself through school either.

At least locally, if you go to somewhere like McDonalds it's probably about a

50/50 split of teens and those who are, say, over 25 and likely completely self-supported. At Wal*Mart the split is more like 25/50/25 of teens/"regular working Joes"/"seniors who may not actually need the money but wanted something to do."

My grandparents lived in Naples, Florida and it was rather odd to find that nearly all of the fast food workers were either seniors or immigrants -- it's an affluent area, so apparently a lot of the local teens could readily do without the wages offered. (And when it came to lawn care or pool care services, I'd say that less than 5% were not immigrants! Many were Cubans and Hispanics, and had good work ethics.)

And of course we can argue all day about how much the minimum wage should actually *be*, but most people do support the concept.

I worked at McDonalds as a teen, but if I had to be 16 again I think I would try to get a job in a regular restaurant with tips: The idea that there's a pretty direct connection between the level of service you provide and your income is pretty appealing when you're confident that you provide above-average service.

I just said they'd be attracted, not that they'd all actually decide that going overseas is a clear win. :-)

Yes, agreed.

From my scant knowledge, India is on paper a pretty decent government but in practice is a bit corrupt, but over time that probably will fix itself. On the other hand, even on paper China is not a very citizen-friendly place, and while it saddens me to think about it, I imagine there will be plenty of bloodshed before their government becomes markedly democratic.

---Joel

Reply to
Joel Koltner

I recall hearing about an article in National Review suggesting that republicans should vote for Hillary so she crashes and burns.

Meanwhile I ask, who gives a damn for the country anymore?

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

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Reply to
Tim Williams
[...]

I'd have to disagree here. Most of my life I have worked across times zones, all the way up to 12 where day and night flips. Even right now I am although this time it's "only" nine hours. No problem. Everybody speaks English so no problems there either. Ok, some of my projects are not handled in English and those would be a bit tricky for most Americans but that's not the usual scenario. It doesn't hurt to learn other languages.

And yeah, I do have to switch back and forth between metric and non-metric. Guess what? In the medical world we always had to live with three systems. The topper are often catheters. Length in centimeters, distal tip diameter in French (a really archaic unit), proximal dimensions in imperial. All on the same (!) page of a set of technical drawings and formally released.

--
Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Sure it can be done, but a) it's harder and more error prone. The Mars error couldn't have happened if the teams were in the same room, using the same units,

b) were you hired because your client was trying to save money on engineering $/hr, or because you were just plain better? I'm guessing the latter.

Cheers, James Arthur

Reply to
James Arthur

On Apr 25, 10:47 am, Jim Thompson [....]

There is no shortage of low wage and dead end jobs. You can't offshore burger flipping and floor sweeping. Free trade allows manufacturing and the like to be moved to where the labor is the cheapest. Modern communications allow jobs that deal in information to also go off shore. The result is that for a while we will have a race to the bottom.

Reply to
MooseFET

Too many exceptions. Why not just let people work for whatever it is they're willing to work for? Why not encourage retirees to get out and make some pocket change, and contribute to their health & society even if they don't need the money? Ditto for teens, or well-kept housemates.

Mr. Adam Smith assured us long ago that it's quite impossible to work long for less than a living wage.

[And it is, unless you introduce subsidies. Subsidized people are willing to work for less because they can--it then makes sense for them, with taxpayers footing the balance. Subsidies drive down wages. But, then, they're still living wages.]

So I don't really see the need for a minimum wage--it just restricts employment, the training of future generations, and many who would otherwise contribute.

Oh, and, of course, results in the export of low-valued work that could be done here.

Cheers, James Arthur

Reply to
James Arthur

How about: because it leads to most people being in poverty and a few being very rich.

How about: because we will all be old some day and we don't want to die in poverty.

Lots of people said lots of things long ago. I remember a book called Mother Goose was written long ago.

Only if you define "living wage" as just enough to afford the food to get the strength to work another day.

The high value work is being exported when that work involves information. The burger flipping job can't leave. We will end up a nation of burger flippers and all of the banking and computer science and engineering will be elsewhere.

Reply to
MooseFET

Or if there had been an efficient (and obeyed ...) design review process.

It becomes harder and harder for them to find analog guys. That problem seems to be the same overseas.

But seriously, the distance is not a problem. Occasionally that means the late night oil for conference calls but it's not too often. Then it is of great advantage to have the office in 15sec walking distance ;-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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Reply to
Joerg

Heard a recent program (BBC Global Business with Peter Day, I think) about doing business in Cambodia. The wages there for a sewing machine operator are US$0.23 an hour. $600 a person-year destroys the option of the advanced countries competing with more productive automation.

We can't build robots cheap enough to compete. And they can't earn enough money for a real life (and economic development). So doing a "Henry Ford" and raising the wages would develop the third world and allow the first world to compete with its technological advantage.

Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

Reply to
Mark Zenier

It is very hard or imposible in the current environment to raise the wages in the third world. The leaders of many of those countries want to keep the populace at a subsistance level because that is how they will stay in power. It is the middle class that pushes for democracy. The truly poor don't have the time or power. The wealthy are holding 4 aces so they won't call "misdeal".

There is also a change in where the centers of the power in the world are. In the past, the states had nearly all of the power. Today, the multinational corporation is becoming a power equal or greater than the state. Many states are in the situation of a "banana republic". They have a very small number of exports and those exports are controled by external forces greater than the power of the state.

In the past, United Fruit could use the force of the US military to help put down attempts by the populace to improve their lot. Today that is less likely to happen but it still could or perhaps it would be hired thugs. Even if the government of the country wanted to improve the lot of its people, it would be unable to because the corporation will move the jobs elsewhere in a heart beat.

What is often called "free trade" isn't free at all. It is just trade that is controlled by somebody other than a government.

Reply to
MooseFET

Except that as you grow the wages in the third world they start demanding the same standard of living we in the 1st world have had. Competition for resources then rears its ugly head.

Why do you think oil and copper and steel are so expensive these days. It's simple supply and demand.

Reply to
T

kid

are

just

for

yet

Hmm, so the existence of any minmum wage--natural or enforced--means that all wages are driven to that minimum, and we're all working for it as we speak.

Allowing older folks to participate, earn & contribute condemns them to poverty? I see your point.

Better to prevent them from working, then make up the difference with government money--it's free, after all.

Grins, James Arthur

Reply to
James Arthur

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