I would hate to think that all the recent violence, the needless deaths, all the seemingly endless chants of "death to America!" and the ransacked McDonalds' was totally atavitic, irrational and w/o purpose.
On other boards, I've often argued that terrorism comes from poverty, not politics. Poor people with no hope for a brighter tomorrow will easily follow a radical who gives them someone else to blame. Without a large pool of followers, these radicals are just the crazy guy yelling on the street corner.
If the economy takes off, then terrorism evaporates. Take Ireland as an example: outsourcing to Ireland massively improved Ireland's economy, and terrorism basically stopped there.
Just last week, I had three separate encounters with customer service / tech support departments that had been outsourced to Pakistan. Outsourcing doesn't seem to have helped much there.
Its all about the Arab governments fomenting unrest to hide their own atrocious behaviors.
On general principles, I will grant you that point. But specifically dealing with the topic at hand, it seems rather peculiar to me that american owned corporations would outsource anything to volatile parts of the world, or countries with less than stable political climes. Must be something else... like maybe 25 cents an hour wages? Sure get what you pay for these days though.
1. the Pakistanis who manage to land these outsourced jobs are fertile ground for the appeals of Islamic radical fundamentalism [my inuition would be no, as the fact that they are able and willing to work of The Great Satan and its corporate minions argues that they are more in tune with the western/rational/scientific worldview;
2. the jobs being outsourced to Pakistan are jobs that formerly would have been outsourced to India? If so, perhaps yet another pretext for Indian Pakistani conflict?
3. when do the Eskimos and the Lapplanders and the Outer Mongolians get to work at outsourced US jobs?
You both seem to be saying it's kinda weird to be outsorcing to places this unstable, and yes, it is indeed a bad idea in the long run. One of the best possible things that could happen to our high-tech economy would be a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. It would demonstrate that companies can't just look at wages when deciding to outsource. There's certain other "issues" they'll have to consider.
I recently changed careers, getting out of software development because the pressure from outsourcing was too great. It was also not good for my self-image to be hoping for a nuclear war.
As for Xiao's #2, the Indians and Pakistanis don't need any more reason for conflict. They've got the oldest nation vs. nation conflict there is: They both think they own the same land.
And #3: Yes, eventually outsourcing will leave India for cheaper markets. The 'cutting edge' outsourcing exectutives are already doing this, because they have to find a new cost savings to justify their obscene salaries. I wonder how long until a board of directors realizes that a CEO in India will work for far less than a CEO in the US.
[and totally deserved] of chickens coming home to roost [or perhaps in this case vultures coming home to roost?] as well as some of the most sublime irony my jaded eyes would ever be priveledged to behold.
And I'm still wondering when I'm going to start getting those Saturday morning calls on behalf of Chase from workers in Lappland and Outer Mongolia?
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