Just had my Kia minivan (cheapest minivan available) in for service. $125 an hour for labor. Plummers are same thing or worse. Don't revolt. Send your kids to trade school, not college. But the worst of all (drum roll please)............... - real estate agents. College education of any kind unnecessary. "Here's the bedroom, this is the kitchen, see how big the backyard is?" $50,000 commission. Seriously. Millions have been fleeced of months and even years of wages by these smiling people who are your best friend for 30 minutes.
Not really ..... many of the advances that we produced in our research group were balanced and came from members in the US and overseas. Many of the overseas people had and have no interest in coming to the US. The best employees we have had dont come from IIT but we have had people from IIT who have performed adequately. I think you hit the nail on the head though ... if employees are what you are looking for then you can hire equivalent - but not necessarily any better - talent overseas for much less money. Simple labor arbitrage. As for the Darwinian view of building a company ... Yes there is competition in the world. However, if this is your only driving value - namely that competition of any type and at any cost is fine - then the type of organization you will build will be monstrous, as will the people that inhabit it. It really is possible to build a profitable well manged company full of talented people without taking shortcuts or requireing your employees to win at any cost. ...... Morover, if you are smart enough you can even do it with US labor ... if you are smart enough.
So agree... and i have software developer friends who are getting outsourced bids against them for $10 to $15 an hour... cj... _________________ HAVE STOP - WILL TRADE If You Have The Vision We Have The Code
There's an old joke about a doctor calling a plumber to come fix a leak at his house. The plumber gives him the bill and the doctor exclaims..."my God, that's more than I make!". Plumber says, "I know. I used to be a doctor." Regarding RE agents, you are quite correct, but that industry is already changing. Some of the newer agents a clueless. They think the past few years is a "normal" market".
Here is an idea for middle class survival: Start living below you means Yes there will be more competition from foreign workers but that will lead to more consumers. 1 billion chinese will be working overtime but they will also be buying your products and services. Now that the government is just kissing asses and doesn't do s**t to open up India's and China's markets is a separate topic. I read an article in some magazine about a middle class couple that was struggling and their combined income was only $120,000 !?! Well maybe if they didn't lease brand new navigators and ate at home from time to time they were going to have some money to pay the bills. Some senior manager in his mid 50s got fired and was complaining he couldn't find another job and had no money. He was making about $300K and had no savings, took $250K home equity loan and that was gone in less then a year. The government is spending money like there is no tomorrow and then people complain that chinese and saudis are buying american real estate. Maybe they can balance their checkbooks in contrast of some people I went to college with. (Who by the way still graduated)
There are not many people who graduated from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) that you encounter here. Thats why you dont see many employees from there. In fact, very small fractional percentage of employers even know or recognize IIT degrees here. Nothing wrong with that, just that people often confuse brand recognition with real value. I graduated from one a long time ago and people bugged me to change my degree from B.Tech to B.S on my Resume which I flat out refused (These people also unsuccessfully bugged me to change my name to Martin, thats a different matter) I have seen some of the smartest people who actually never got to go to school formally both in and out of jobs. They are just ambitious, passionate and hardworking. We, the educated people , should learn to value people and their skills for what they really are, not based on how well you recognize their school (brand name) or how comfortable you feel spelling/pronouncing their name. (Before you jump to assuming that I am in India stealing your jobs, I am not in India and I can live well in any English speaking country with Internet connection )
what it comes down to is that people have been complaining since people opened their mouths. it's not something new and it will always be there.
No reason to change anything ... the people that matter know the difference: IIT is a fine place. Fact of the matter is that the best and the brightest are not monopolized within any single academic institution - or groups of universities - nor are they confined to any particular country or ethnic background. Educated people know this ....
The original post was referencing Portland. The problem with Portland is the fact there is no real industry-university connections in the area. Portland is a pretty well-educated area, but the workforce is highly mobile. Because of the industry-university disconnect, a lot of the very well paying jobs are being imported from other regions, and the opportunities available for the middle class are generally assembly-type labor, such as wafer manufacturing at Intel or truck assembly at Freightliner. If you look at the successful regional economies, there are strong industry-university connections. For instance, Boston and San Francisco have perhaps the strongest regional economies, but they also have huge local universities that are integrated into the regional industries. The innovations at the major universities in the area creates new business ventures which in turn employ the middle class. Portland's "major universities" are Portland State and Oregon Health Sciences University. OHSU does some cutting edge stuff, but the medical industry in the area is far behind others, as much of the biotech in the Northwest is in Seattle. Portland is a great town and a wonderful place to live. Downtown is one of the cleanest city centers I've ever seen. But the economy is very lacking. The are doesn't really have much in the way of industry, except for semi-conductors, which are being exported. The fab workers at Intel only need a 2-year degree to make $35 per hour. There is no reason for Intel to pay that for semi-skilled labor when they can get the same work in Asia for a fraction of the cost. In fact, Intel has recently been complaining about the lack of Phd's available from the state schools. In short, without a cutting edge school, real industry will not prosper, and the middle class will decline.
I didn't intend for this discussion to go into a "brand-name" education comparison. Be that as it may, I do not care if you have a CS degree from a community college or from MIT. I'll admit that MIT, CalTech, IIT all stand out because I know what I takes to get there and suceed. These are some of the most demanding and challenging schools in the world and it requires a certain dedication and motivation to complete the programs there. All that aside, this is off topic. People are people and the value comes from individuality and motivation. It doesn't matter where they come from or what language they speak. What does matter is that they are constantly refining their skill set and always learning. There is no substitute for motivation and desire to learn. Complainers to me are unmotivated (have someone else pump my gas for me) type who want a socialist regime to provide everything for them. That is why I dislike liberals and large government - not because their intentions aren't noble, but becuase the mentality is such as to appease the lowest common denominator. They do not have the capability or the desire to change from within or to instill into someone else that idea, they look for external circumstances upon which to complain about. I've ranted enough.