Wipro's Azim Premji - 'The man who wants to take your jobs'

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2004 at 07:44:05AM -0500, Robert L Krawitz wrote:
>    idea.  Most of us became "spoiled" by investing a great deal of
>    time and money into obtaining our skillsets.  To be good at IT is
>    often EXPENSIVE.  

> It's no more expensive being trained in IT than it is being trained in
> any other engineering/technical/professional skill.  

In my experience this seems wrong.  Friends in other engineering
fields don't seem to spend anywhere close to the same amount of time
earning certifications and taking special triaing classes that my
friends in IT do.  So I don't have any statistics to back that, but my
experience is that your statement is false.

> In terms of formal higher education

Ok we can stop there, because I'm not only talking about formal higher
education, and in fact for many techies I think the cost of certs and
training exceeds what we spent on college.  Some of us are lucky to
have our employers pay for this stuff.  Others are not...

> Continuing education is expected in many professions.  Doctors, for
> example, have to earn CME's (continuing medical education) credits
> just to continue their practice.

Doctors also frequently make seven-digit salaries.  I don't know any
IT people who can say the same -- not a single one.   I think you're
making my point.  FWIW, I consider CIO and similar to no longer be IT,
but instead be executives.  Why do I feel justified?  Simple: many
people in executive IT possitions have zero background in IT.  Many of
them were in finance, etc. before becoming IT execs.  So if you're
going to suggest such people, I'm discounting them.  They're not IT
workers, they're executives.  It's a totally different ballgame.

> The problem of excessive hours is not restricted to the IT field (and
> is not universal within it), by the way.  It depends a lot upon
> management and corporate culture.

I'm aware of both, but that doesn't make it any less common.  And most
other fields which expect excessive hourse are also high-paying
fields/positions.  So I'm not sure what your point is...

>    We deserve high salaries; we work as hard as doctors or lawyers,
>    and obtaining our skillsets is at least as expensive.  Our skills
>    are in high demand, even if that currently means importing cheap
>    labor.  We deserve to be compensated appropriately.  In my opinion,
>    this SHOULD add up to six-figure salaries for most experienced and
>    talented IT workers.  But we're being jilted because of the
>    availability of cheaper labor elsewhere, and dishonest businesses
>    who abuse the system.
> 
> So everyone else should continue to pay artificially inflated prices
> for IT and IT-related services to keep our salaries up?

Are the prices artificially inflated because of our wages?  Or is it
because the companies are excessively greedy?  Who makes the most:
Microsoft's programmers, its executives, or its stock holders?  On
average, I'd bet a month's salary it's not the programmers...  Are our
wages artificially inflated?  I don't think they are.

> What about the people both in the US and elsewhere who write free and
> open source software?  Are those people also competing unfairly with
> paid IT workers by commoditizing IT?

No.  They're not competing at all.  They are hobbyists.  FWIW, most
free software I'm familiar with falls into one of two categories:

  1. that which always was free, since the beginnings of software.
  Software like BIND, Sendmail, etc. which form the bedrock on which
  the Internet and much of the computing industry were built.
  
  2. that which seems to "compete" with monopolistic companies'
  offerings -- software that provides alternatives in areas where most
  consumers won't pay for software, because they /perceive/ that they
  get it for free when they by their computer.

There is a third class of software: everything else.  But I think it's
relatively small in comparison.  Are any of these competing unfairly
with commercial companies?  I don't think so.

> There are problems with the H-1B program and other similar programs,
> but those problems really center around the temporary nature of these
> programs.  

Well that sounds like nonsense to me...

> Most if not all of the people that I know who hold or have held
> these visas are interested in living permanently in the US and
> becoming citizens.  

We have laws that cover becoming a citizen.  If that is their goal,
let them use normal channels.  In case you don't get the idea, I'm not
at all sympathetic to the plight of H1-B visa workers.  If they don't
want to go through normal channels to become a citizen, let them stay
home and find work there.

> I have no idea what if anything they're remitting to their parents,
> but Boston isn't exactly cheap to live in, particularly if you're
> paying off student loans and don't have a lot of savings.

My ex-girlfriend is an H1B visa worker, and I have known others.  None
of them live in Boston or Cambridge, though they all work there.  They
live in much less expensive suburbs.  So that's a non-sequitur.  Even
if they do choose to live in Boston, that's their choice; they have
other options.

> The way the H-1B program works, a holder of this visa has no security
> whatsoever.  

Nor should they.  It's intended as a temporary stop-gap measure.  When
their term is up, they should go home.

 
>    If you believe in the free market system, then maybe your response
>    to this is, "as it should be."  But at the very least, you must
>    realize that it is unquestionably detrimental to the American
>    economy.  
[SNIP]
 
> I hardly know where to begin here.  Since this is a Linux list, I'll
> quote Darl McBride in his letter to Congress (which of course claims
> that OSS is riddled with proprietary code, but the argument is really
> against competition):

I'm not against competition.  Not at all.  But I am for normalization
of regional economic differences in order to lessen their impact on
the local population.  These ideas are not mutually exclusive.

Not sure what quoting Darl is meant to accomplish; he takes some true
economic facts and distorts them to his own evil plan.  So?

> What I find ironic about this argument is that the second part of it
> ("That income is spent directly...") is the classical free market
> answer to complaints about excessive disparities in income, while the
> first part is the classical protectionist argument.  

Right: it's logically inconsistent.  I fail to see how that relates to
anything I said.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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