IT job outsourcing
Here's an interesting story on federal legislation (no word on whether or not President Bush plans to sign it) to ban outsourcing of federal IT work to low wage countries, and India's hypocritical response to it.

(I deleted link since it's no longer working)

One thing to remember when Indians start making charging of the U.S. being "protectionist" and "anti-free trade" is that they have one of the most isolated economies in the world except for North Korea.

The government throws huge roadblocks in the path of both internal and external entrepreneurs who wish to invest there. It is a massive bureaucracy where even buying a simple railroad ticket can take hours for a foreigner.

Protectionist? The Coca-Cola Company had to concede unusual brand name defeat and allow Coke to be sold under the local label "Thum's Up" -- yes, there is no "b" in it. The bottles look just like those Coke used to be sold in during my childhood.

IT skills is the one arena where India has seemed willing to enter the modern world -- shipping its computer programmers and network engineers and ERP trained techies to the developed world and letting local techies perform contract work.

Although many of you will disagree, I have to admit my own position is a libertarian one -- the free market should win out. American techies should get used to the idea that routine IT donkey work can more profitably be outsourced to India and other such countries and that's it's simply inevitable.

For one thing, I've been to India -- I understand that although they have millions of capable programmers, they have hundreds of millions of desperately poor people who live on the city streets and rice paddies little differently than their ancestors did a thousand years ago.

Their greatest hope for a better life is that their government does move to anti-protectionist, free market thinking to encourage growth through both internal and external investment.

Unfortunately, it's not surprising to me that the Indian government wants a slice out of the goose that laying the golden eggs by taxing companies who outsource IT to its people.

So my advice to American and European techies is -- get used to it, and expand your skills and capabilities. You are human beings, not programming machines or slaves to the world economy.

Learn to offer your employers some leadership, some creativity, some insight into meeting your customer's needs and desires. No Indian sitting in a cramped e-sweatshop in Calcutta can do that.

Learn to manage projects instead of being one more cog in the machine.

I realize all this is easier for me to write than for you to do, but if you want it badly enough, you'll do it. If you don't want it badly enough, why shouldn't you lose out to a man or woman who is only a few rupees away from starving on a dirty sidewalk?

What makes you automatically better than him or her? Nothing. Just because you had the good fortune to be born in the US? Take advantage of the opportunities you have here instead of routinely doing just enough to get by and thinking that's enough because so many other Americans also have the mistaken notion that putting in 40 hours a week should be enough to guarantee them "the good life."

We live in a country that allows us the *pursuit* of life, liberty and happiness -- not that we shouldn't have to work as hard or harder than Indians etc for that.

Rick Stooker, author
Secrets of Changing to a Computer Careers, a computer careers book
- posted by RickStooker @ 7:41 PM