This small web site (just a handful of HTML pages) is devoted exclusively to the offshore outsourcing of information technology jobs by USA-based companies, and to several additional related topics. Hence the name of the site: "USA Information Technology Outsourcing", or "US IT Out" for short. I have to admit that this name itself sounds rather pessimistic, but so is the trend described by it — the trend that is devastating to the lives of so many merely for the further enrichment of the very few, and that is threatening to wipe out an entire industry from the country where it was originally created.
Leads to almost all the information presented here have originated from the alt.computer.consultants news group. My brother Victor got used to reading this group's postings on a regular basis, sending the most interesting ones to me (as a "family" service). I archived those postings from his selection that I liked most, and shared them in my turn with my friends. Finally, a considerable bulk of material got accumulated, and I started to lose track of it, not being able to pull out what I wanted when it was needed.
The next logical step was to organize material as a hierarchy of several HTML pages — and so this site was originated at first as a local navigational tool. I'm already running another web site, so it was relatively easy for me to take this selection to the outer world, and to make it accessible to anybody interested in answers to the desperate question all of us in the IT are bound to ask sooner or later: "What the hell is going on?"
The US IT Out web site consists of the following sections:
| About | – | The text you are reading now that explains the purpose and the structure of the web site. | |||||||
| Advice | – | Quotes that offer direct advice on what one can do to oppose the offshore outsourcing. | |||||||
| Quotes | – | Quotations selected mainly by the following criteria:
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| Opinions | – | Opinions selected on most part from the alt.computer.consultants news group. Just linking to them would be quite clumsy, and not reliable enough, while bearing the risk to lose them, if they were deleted from the news group archives. A few opinions were selected from the media — again for the sake of keeping them in case they were deleted from the media site archives. |
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| Books | – | Short reviews of books that describe and analyze the offshore outsourcing phenomenon. |
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| Cartoons | – | "One picture is worth thousand words" — especially if it's a good cartoon. Treating a topic that is anything but fun with a smile (though a sad one) serves as a healthy add-on to the basically depressing content of this web site. |
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| IT Links | – | Classified links to information about the offshore outsourcing of information technology jobs by USA-based companies. |
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| USA Links | – | Classified links to information about USA events (some links here are related to offshore outsourcing). |
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| World links | – | Classified links to information about world events (some links here are related to offshore outsourcing). |
Page modification dates are colored to serve as an eye-catcher for pages that have been changed. Different colors are used to indicate how recently the page has been modified (brighter colors indicate newer pages):
| Fuchsia | – Modified within | the last week. | ||
| Red | – Modified within | the last month, | but before the last week. | |
| Brown | – Modified within | the last 3 months, | but before the last month. | |
| Black | – Modified before | the last 3 months. |
This web site contains links to the Davar Web Site — my main site where US IT Out is physically located. However, there are no links from the Davar Web Site to the US IT Out site — please use it.davar.net as an entry point to the US IT Out web site.
While the offshore outsourcing phenomenon is quite complicated, especially in terms of conflicting economic theories, in practice it boils down to only a handful of basic issues:
| • | What is offshore outsourcing, and why is it so irresistibly tempting (often even imperative) for an ever growing number of companies to engage in it? |
| • | What companies outsource jobs offshore, and to what degree they are involved in that? We can translate this into our buying decisions. |
| • | What officials and politicians promote and support offshore outsourcing; who opposes it? We can translate this into our voting decisions. |
| • | What are the overall negative effects of offshore outsourcing on the Information Technology industry, the economy, and the society in the USA (both short and long term)? |
| • | Who has been hurt (directly and indirectly) by the offshore outsourcing, in what way were they hurt, and what are the prospects for others? |
| • | What can those who were hurt by the offshore outsourcing (or are just awaiting their turn) do to counter it — both politically (via their elected representatives), and, most important, economically (by reviewing and adjusting their own buying habits, and educating others)? |
In selecting material for this web site, I've tried to look for information with free and unrestricted public access that provides answers to the above questions. Since this is just a humble personal site, I can afford the luxury of not having to pretend that the information presented here is "fair and balanced". I'm selecting and placing here only what I truly believe to be "fair" (to the best of my judgment), but I couldn't care less about making it "balanced". I have neither the resources, nor any desire to engage in the senseless exercise of "political correctness". If you want to look at the opposite point of view, i.e., one supporting "offshore outsourcing", just enter these magic words to any search engine, and you'll get an endless parade of scavengers — so ugly that you'll be sick to the stomach for long...
All information presented at the US IT Out web site is in the reverse chronological order, since the offshore outsourcing issue itself is very dynamic, and this order seems to fit it best. It doesn't mean, of course, that pages being prompted as modified recently by the date coloring have been modified always with the recent data. Instead of trying to follow all current developments (for which I have no time anyway), I look for the information that is valuable by itself, regardless of its time frame, and that gets to the core of the issue. Like the quote below:
Our trading problem is an externality
An externality exists in economics any time there is a separation of costs and benefits, and the decision maker does not have to incur the full cost but receives the full benefits of the decision. The fact is, there is no economic force, no supply and demand equilibrium, no rational decision process of either business or consumer, that will make an externality go away. Classic examples of externalities are when a business dumps toxic waste into a nearby river and the downstream residents incur the costs of cancer. The business is able to lower its costs and pass those lower costs on to its customers, and never pay for the treatment of the cancer patients. We have laws in this country against dumping and pollution because they are externalities — they require a legislative solution.
. . . . .The costs of the decision to outsource are not borne by the decision maker. As a society and as a country, we experience many costs from outsourcing, including the loss of jobs, social costs, higher costs of raw materials and loss of national sovereignty. Loss of jobs reduces the tax base, creates high unemployment benefit costs, and raises the cost of government retraining programs. Displaced, unemployed workers have higher rates of child and spousal abuse, alcoholism, bankruptcy, divorce, etc. As China and India and other large populations grow, they demand huge quantities of oil, gas, steel and other basic raw materials. These costs are born by all of us — every time we fill our gas tanks, for example. And as a nation, we lose our ability to make independent decisions that are in our best interest when we are dependent on foreign debt and foreign manufacturing. This is a classic externality.
Though phenomenon of massive jobs' outsourcing is relatively new, it's roots go deep into history, as you can see from another quote below that is separated by 170 years from the quote above:
The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men, and to relieve their distress. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it, and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public.
And finally, I want to offer a thought (my own two cents worth) concerning the last question: "What can possibly be done to counter the trend which has become the choice of the powerful corporations that can buy their way through anything?" The answer in short, IMHO, is that after the recent years of the IT job market devastation, which have passed (and having in view those that are still to come), there are already plenty of us who have been dumped as a worthless trash, who have been humiliated by being forced to train their offshore replacements before being kicked out, and even more of us who have been watching helplessly this insanity with an ever growing sadness and disgust. Thus, by the mere law of big numbers, we as a whole have become a significant power, and it would be reckless on our part not to exercise this power in order to protect ourselves.
Let's consider the obvious: Company XYZ is outsourcing its production or services offshore (say to India, or China, or Russia) not just because it can pay much lower salaries there, but also (and this is an equally important part of the equation) because it still has full confidence that it will be able to sell here (it's products or services) at the predominant USA prices. This points to one possible approach to solution of the problem — if we have to "compete for the jobs globally", why not offer them a taste of their own medicine, and outsource them from a relatively stable and secure USA market (that they take for granted) to "compete globally" for contracts and customers — right there where they outsource the jobs? They choose who to employ (there is no question that they have the full right to decide this by themselves) — but by the same token we choose who to buy from — both as a society (on all levels of government contracts), and as individuals (on all levels as well, from cars to groceries). It looks like bringing this missing balance to the offshore outsourcing issue can contribute significantly to its resolution.
Of course, anything at all can be done only if enough of us will take seriously Benjamin Franklin's advice: "We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately" — his somewhat grim joke made upon signing "The Declaration of Independence".