Yes, and the domestic high tech jobs are going to immigrants as well. The employers are winning this battle, believe me. I go to engineering meetings and about 60% of the attendees are learning english, including the manager. They are here on visas thanks to the lobbying efforts of companies like HP over the last few decades. This continues in spite of the high unemployment caused by the tech wreck. One more reason to master trading, the old days are gone. WIN stands for "Work is Nonprofit". Max
The Balancing Of Globalization The United States has been responsible for 96% of the growth in world GDP since 1996. We are the engine that pulls the world. However, to do it we have run ever increasing trade deficits, which now run well over $500 billion. This is an unsustainable trend. As the dollar continues it slide, at some point the world will cease to finance our deficits at today's level. However, this presents the world's central bankers with a dilemma. If they let the dollar fall too far, too fast or somehow damage the US economy, the main source of their economic growth would be reduced. If the US economy catches cold, many of the nations of the world might also catch our colds or develop economic pneumonia. The hope among especially Asian Central Bankers is that they can build a middle class which becomes capable of supplying its own consumer spending and growth engine and they will become less dependent upon the American consumer. So far, they seem to feel that it is better to take dollars which are decreasing in value than to risk recessions and turmoil in their own economies. The goal seems to be to try and slowly transition to a more balanced world economy. But whether that new balance is slow or fast, it will happen. Asia has tasted the fruits of a free market for decades. China has drunk the Kool- Aid of Capitalism. There is no turning back. Further, as these economies grow and become increasingly privatized and a new emerging middle class develops, they will increasingly become their own growth engines. While I am concerned that the transition may not be as smooth as the world might like, and in fact might be quite rocky when the United States falls into recession, this is a trend that is locked in place. As an aside, the world is currently obsessed with China and the powerful growth in the Chinese economy. And rightly so. But I would keep my eye on India. The economy there has been disappointing for decades, as their government pursued a socialist policy which did not foster trade and development. That is changing. As a younger and highly educated population begins to eye the rest of the world, they will force India to become more open. I think India is a sleeping giant. In a few decades we could be talking about the Indian Miracle. One other prediction: China will be griping about the unfairness of cheap labor from western Asia within 20-30 years. All this is going to increase global trade as the developing world increases trade with each other and with the developed world. Despite cries from luddites like Senator Charles Shumer of New York and other protectionists, there is no stepping down from increasingly free markets. Any attempt to close barriers in a significant way or to impose tariffs will precipitate a trade war and a world wide depression. The US has in fact lost fewer manufacturing jobs (percentage wise) than Europe or even many third world countries like Brazil. We are producing only slightly less than we did at the peak in 2000. We are simply doing it with fewer workers, as productivity has increased. The US will not be a third world country in 20 years as Paul Craig Roberts, a former Reagan Treasury official, predicts. In 1975, as things looked bleak and we were sending jobs to Japan, there were those who predicted the demise of the US. The economy was in terrible shape. (Do you remember the Whip Inflation Now buttons?) Where would we find jobs in the future? The correct answer was, "I don't know, but we will, because that is what free markets and American entrepreneurs do." It is still the correct answer today. 25% of workers in the US today hold jobs that were not even on the government list of jobs in 1967. That has been the case for the last two centuries of American history. That does not mean the transition is a walk in the park. It might be quite daunting. But it will happen.
No. .. Having worked for many, if not most of the firms on the street in these areas - and having done many of the hires - I can tell you that these are atypical compensations. Moreover, the number of people needed for these types of positions is steadily decreasing and the knowledge is now commodity. Some firms on the street are actually outsourcing these types of positions overseas through offshore divisions they are starting: this is a new trend in the financial engineering business that has started only in the last 18 months at major firms. Again, this stuff is just not that difficult to do and can be taken over by lower paid talent in most cases.
Bill Introduced To Force Companies To Disclose Offshoring Plans Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's bill would require any company that plans to lay off 15 or more workers and send those jobs overseas to disclose how many jobs are affected, where the jobs are going and why they're being offshored. http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,90158,00.html?nlid=PM
Creative Destruction is still alive and well. We just have to make sure that our Education System is up to the task to educating our children in math and the sciences, as Alan Greenspan remarked earlier today at Humphrey-Hawkins.
R&D Starts to Move Offshore http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outsourcing/story/0,10801,90599,00.html?nas=PM-90599
Yup.... give it a couple of decades. We will have 1 CEO sitting in a california office, with the ENTIRE rest of the company working in INDIA. After all... why not? Any good reasons? Nope. Were so screwed. peace axeman