I’m back in Canada now, but lived in NZ and Australia for many years so am well familiar with the issues – and have to remind anti-outsourcers in the US one thing – the US, the companies you have shares in, or work for etc, have branches and interests in many other countries in the world- and make money from those offices. So-called ‘free trade’ agreements are pretty heavily skewed in the US’ favour. So it’s not really fair to bleat about it, unless the US is prepared to divest itself of those profit centres and give the money to the locals.

Like somebody observed about Wal-Mart et al, many of us like being able to buy cheap goods…..it helps our dollar go further etc, but is itself a form of outsourcing. Every item you buy made in China or Indonesia etc, is ‘outsourced’ but on the other hand, if you want to keep your job at Boeing or Raytheon etc, you’d better get used to international trade, as it works two ways.

I don’t like to see anyone treated unfairly and don’t like unethical behaviour, but do recognise the world is indeed, shrinking.

But why don’t you move at least to Kansas or some other place that has lower cost of living?

I live in Kansas. I can assure you that the cost of living here is nowhere near as low as, for example, New Delhi.

A third scenario which I personally hope happens is that with the rest of the world growing and developing, their cost of livings will increase so they can no longer beat us to the ground on price by being 10-20x cheaper than US companies. Hopefully all this new money flowing into those companies pushes the inflation rate for thier currencies up.

“…the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani bricklayer would consider to be prosperity…” — Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

It seems wrong to complain for that reason alone. What business in their right mind would not want to save money by hiring someone whose rates are lower? Especially if the work quality is still high?

Where ethical issues come into play for me is when I hear a company treats their employees badly with sub-standard pay, working conditions, etc. Unfortunately, I don’t have the ability to look into the background of every company I deal with.

The compromise, I beleive, is to seek out a reasonable amount of information on the companies I deal with, and when unethical business practices surface, to refuse to do start doing business with or discontinue dealings with those companies.

It’s not a perfect system, but one that satisfies the issue to some degree.

An article in the CS Monitor detailing just how hard it is to not buy a product made in China – it just might be impossible. I post this as I ponder some thoughts from another site about outsourcing jobs…

The world is shrinking.

This is what it is. Point well said.

This is basic economics. Gross—cost = profits. when you have a lower cost then you can charge less for the same profit. THis is the theory that is the Walmart business model.

If it was that simple, the problem would be easily solved by moving all the US developers into developing countries (pun not intended :) ). But while overseas developers do win by lower cost, they still lose by their distance from the market. It is true that most of the market is in the US, which only means that US developers still have a great advantage over their overseas competitors. Just take a look at friendsterindia’s post above.

As for your point about the US economy and its relation to the rest of the world: yes, the US is economically the strongest nation in the world, and its economical collapse would have a vast effect on the rest of the world. But I think that effect wouldn’t be nearly as catastrophic as you seem to think, for two reasons: First, the rest of the world is much stronger economically than it might seem from a US-centric point of view; EU, Far East (Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, China…) and Middle East, as well as probably Australia/New Zealand, are all economically quite strong and stable, each for its own reasons, and would probably quite easily survived a US economy collapse.

And second, I doupt such a collapse would ever happen, simply because US economy is too strong for something like that. Sure you’ll have your ups and downs, just like everyone else, but even the thirties didn’t do much harm to the country in the long run. I have faith in you guys. ;)

I just see things differently. You are where the US was years ago. In a growing economy.

And now you’re too undiscriminating. :)

Do you have any idea who your overseas competitors are? You could find them in countries as diverse as UK, Croatia, Jordan, India, Brazil and Australia (guess where SitePoint is headquartered); and it’s not necessarily that their home markets have been exhausted.

The world is shrinking.

My question was not out of discrimitation it was more out of curiosity. I was wondering if all of the countries that are booming (China, India, ect) depend mostly on us dollars or are they spreading their work globaly. It just seems that looking at the numbers I see that we are a major consumer of your services. What I question is that a plummet of my economy will just be the begining of a world wide rescession. The countries that loan us money are realy just putting the money into their own economy through the sale of goods and services. When this stops what happens next. I do not mean to disrespeact anyone. I just see things differently. You are where the US was years ago. In a growing economy. Every great civilization in the wold had its peak and fell. Some just do it faster then others.

I have control over my personal wealth and am in a good position. My market segment of small business will be harder to outsource and I am also covering several different areas. I agree that many people here try to live beyond thier means. Big business in the country has given the people the means to hang themself. And this we have.

“..I am neither proud nor not proud to be outsourcing. I am happy to have found an excellent professional provider at a low cost, though—regardless of where they work and live.”

OK, Andrew, that’s your right. And you do have to do what’s best for your company, I agree. But if you get overextended and face bankruptcy, do you think you’d be entitled to corporate welfare?