Ritu, I almost let this thread die, or go on without me, but I decided that I would answer.
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "ritu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > No, I am not forgetting any such thing. Nor have I heard anybody ever > claim that these companies were Indian or that they exist for the good > of the Indian society. But what you seem to be forgetting is that > according to the your economic system, these companies don't belong to > the American people per se. If they did, the companies would be > nationalised and we'd probably not be having this discussion. There is ownership and then their is ownership. The point is that it has been our hard work, our society, our national decisions, and our commitment that has fostered these companies and allowed them to exist. As with every system there is trade offs. Our society has both good sides and bad, but we have selected the one we feel maximizes the good for us. We do things like allowing companies tax breaks individuals would not have specifically because these tax breaks are expected to foster job growth. We as individuals agree to make up the difference the government will need to operate based on the agreement that we are paying that difference so that more jobs will be created. And it is not ridiculous that we make such decisions IMO. The Economy is a complex adaptive system, but allowing companies more funds does seem to produce job growth. However, we would never have made up the difference, if those companies had indicated that they would be hiring for those positions in other countries. How about an analogy? I kno it's taxing and you thik you already understand, but give it a try. You live in a building with 100 other tenants who are your close friends and family, 20 of them are unemployed and are having difficulty paying their rent. 10 tenants already work for the building keeping up the grounds and what not. The landlord comes to you and suggests that if everyone pay an extra 10 a month and in return he will hire 10 people to help with the upkeep of the building. You think everyone will get a building with better upkeep, and 10 will get to keep living there and have jobs. You also agree that the 10 wealthiest tenants, who are staying in the 10 largest apartments and already paying much more than everyone else, will not have to pay more because they too will create 10 new Jobs. Next door is another building where the rent is much cheaper, and the food in the cafeteria is much cheaper. Recently several people from that building have moved into your building but they still classify themselves as being from that other building. They play on the other buildings teams, socialize only with people from the other building, and speak the language (which no one in your building understands) of the other building, even when they are at group functions. They are often seen laughing and looking around and motioning to your friends then laughing more. Your building is open to all types from everywhere, people with different customs and different ways. Your friends and family are accepting of any cultural nuance they come across, The new people from the building next door take ample advantage of this, although they do not generally socialize outside their click of old-building people, they feel free to exhibit and participate in the culture of the old building, even when those customs would normally be considered rude by many in your building. No one minds really, because that is their way of acceptance, But these new people expect everyone to not be offensive to them according to their old-building standards. They want everyone to accommodate to them. This is understandably a source of much tension. They also have taken a few of the jobs around your building. These are jobs that your friends and family might have been able to fill, but there is no worry, everyone will have enough jobs now. After some time, tenants from the neighboring building come over and offer to do the same work your friends and family are doing for much, much less money. Your friends and family are put out of their jobs, and can not pay rent. They would offer to work for the same wages, but that would not pay their rent. They go next door to the other building where things are cheaper thinking that they could live there, work for less, and have a place to live, but they are not allowed to live in that building. The people in the building next door are not accepting of outsiders and have made rules against anyone from your building. This seems very unfair to your friends, and they begin to get angry. Who do you think your friends and family (now living on the street) will be the most angry at? Which group will be the easiest target for that anger? > Then do what it takes to stop the process. Who's stopping you? Not > Indians, that's for sure. That is true, but I am afraid by the time that happens, it will be too late we will have already gone down a path that will take a long time to come back from. > > > The other > > > part of the reason being the backlash being felt in US and Europe. > > > > Yea well, like I said it's NOT an open economy, you have every right > > to try and produce your own companies which then sell their product > > to us. But when you start doing the same work for slavery wages, and > > selling the work, not the product, there are 2 problems. First you > > are SLAVES. > > Since when is selling services the same as slavery? Whether a wage is a > slave-wage or not depends on how far that amount goes in the country > where it is being paid. These wages aren't slave-wages here. That is just the point. We can not compete because we would be living like slaves if we took what you are taking. Not to mention that we would not even be able to afford the education to try and compete. And you are wrong; you could be asking a lot more. Have you ever herd of fair trade? > If the American people are going to hate the Indians because the latter > are not refusing jobs in order to help the former keep 1% or less of the > jobs being destroyed [apparently that is the Indian share], then I don't > see much point worrying about it. In such a scenario, sooner or later, > the Americans *would* find a reason to hate the Indians anyway...such > people would be hard to keep happy. > > Fwiw, I don't see it happening though. I think I have more faith in the > innate fairness and decency of the common American than you do. :) My best friend is Indian and holds an Indian passport, I was recently told that if I wanted to keep my friendship with a particular group, I wouldn't be bringing him around that group. I enjoy being with that group. I don't want to give up their friendship. Most of them have been displaced and many of the companies they work at still have foreign nationals working there, and others outsourced the jobs to India. I understand their emotion, but I really like my friend. I know it's not his fault, but I also know that he is employed and they are not. I know that he is no more qualified than they are, and I know that if he were not here, one of them might have his job. I know that if the outsourcing were illegal or taxed so heavily as to equalize it, that more of them who are unemployed would be employed. I can not deny them their emotion as if it is not valid. I think it is somewhat miss-directed, but this sort of emotion is always. It's not that they hate for the sake of hating, it's not that they think they are superior or anything like that, they just feel wronged. The difference of course with my friend is that he now considers himself an American and he is doing everything he can to get citizenship and vote, and he is more likely to vote the same way as these emotionally troubled friends I have. Some goes for my wife. But that doesn't mean anything to the unemployed right now. That is no consolation to them, that doesn't feed their babies. > So tell me, how does one do away with class system? After all, you > Americans have been working towards it for longer than we have. I don't know, but I do know that Indian managers who refuse to hire anyone who is not Indian of a particular cast or better, than it's racisms, and it tends to tick people off, and it justifies the reverse racism now being fostered here. Then there are all of the women who are starting to complain about how many Indian managers expect sexual favors from them just to keep their jobs. There are lawsuits galore. Reference? The San Mateo paper, look it up if you don't believe me. If it's that bad here, I can't even begin to imagine what it is like there. We have > legislation against it, it is prohibited in our constitution, people > have the right to move the courts, there are NGOs and charities which > have been working relentlessly, for decades, to root out the > discriminations. Doesn't look like it's working, if it had maybe you could have developed a few viable companies of your own to compete equally with ours. It's really shouldn't be our problem, but right now, it is. IFF we want a TRULY free and open market any way. You see, that guy who sat in the directors office and boastfully said that he could have all those resources for the price of only one of ~ours~. Shows exactly what kind of mentality he must have. (It's not like I don't have Indian friends to tell me what it is like there. BTW why do you think they don't want to go back? It's not like they are from the higher casts) He felt perfectly comfortable making these statements because in his world view the "coders" are of a lower cast or class, and offending them was not his concern. Why would he worry about offending a ~lower~ class? In his mind, the lowly coders that sat within earshot would continue to work or they would be let go and whatever he said would not alter that environment. This shows what was in his mind. He said this, without regard to the possibility that the director he was speaking too was married to a ~lowly coder~ or had a sister who was, he was not at all afraid of offending ~her~ with the statement. That is why it is so grievous, and that is why the attitudes of those who end up loosing their jobs in this way are so raciest. Specifically because they see a kind of classizm being played out against them. And the way that guy talked about the ~lowly coder~ in India was as if they ~were~ slaves, as if they were some type of cattle he could herd into a barn and put to work day and night with no rest until the project was complete. It gave me chills just thinking about the way his ~underlings~ must be treated. It sounded a lot like slavery to me, and to the others who were there, and to the many who hear this sort of thing all the time. It is not as if it were a unique occurrence. It made me sick, it made me angry, and it made me want to never have to work with ~those~ people. > But really, if your criteria for an open > economy includes not just equal protection of law but also a perfectly > egalitarian society, then did the American economy ever qualify as > 'open' in your eyes? No , but every participant has to have the equal ability to compete and participate. As long as you are inside the US this is generally the case. For instance, I was able to work my way through school, overcome financial and personal problems to succeed. I started with basically nothing and was able to work my way up to have a good job and own a home. I could move to where the jobs were, move to where the school was, and I was able to negotiate a wage with everyone else freely. I could do all of this knowing that I would receive equal protection under our laws no matter where I worked or where I lived. However, with off shoring, I no longer am on an equal playing field. I can not move to India and work, first India has laws against it. Second Even if they did not I would not be treated equally there. I can not offer the same services here for a like compensation because I will not be able to live on that here. That is not a free and open market. If we were talking about diamonds instead of jobs they guy offering the resources at such a reduced rate ~would ~ be~ a criminal. It WOULD BE illegal here. And that is another irritant, whenever someone suggests that it's just a free market economy and that this is the "American way" they are wrong. It's not the "American way" to undercut, and it is illegal for every other commodity but labor. If I started selling ~software~ at such a low price that it put others out of business then I would find myself in the court system. It's no so different to sell the production of software is it? Does that not put others out of business? Is it not the same? It was just 2 years ago when software developers here were all being told to form our own companies of one and sell our services rather than be employed by the larger companies. They didn't want to heir employees they wanted to buy the services. So how is undercutting that product not the same as undercutting any other product? Do you see why this guy looks like a criminal? > Bzzzt! *You* do not. Remember the origin of the entire argument lay in > jobs being outsourced to India because Indians *here* work for lower > wages? > Not that we have slavery either. We Indians have been a free people > since August 15, 1947. Yea but from the average American perspective, do you think that the managers who are doing the outsourcing are thinking that your workers are anything but servants? Especially after the way they are being sold as busy little workers who have no lives and just code all day and night. Seriously? If you are willing to work for so little, how do you expect to get any respect from your American counterparts? Would you respect a co- worker you found out was working for so little that you could not even pay rent and buy food on it? (Never mind that they some how find a way to do it,) but wouldn't you think that they get paid so little because they were not worth more? > Oh, nothing to decide there. I am an Indian and have no intention of > changing my nationality. Then move back to India, or act like a guest while you are here. You don't get to come here and have citizenship and still be loyal to India. Well, actually, you do, but that doesn't make it right. > > You either make a > > plege of aligence to this country or you align yourself with India, > > you should not have the option of having it both ways. > > Huh? > How does the question of pledging allegiance to the US arise? > Since when is one required to swear allegiance to a country just so that > one can hold an opinion on its politics? If that were a requirement, > most of the world would have sworn allegiance to Iraq over the last > year... :) I know many soldiers who feel that they have in a way. I know my opinions are a bit right of center on the national loyalty line. But they are way left of center on the racial intolerance line. That puts me in a position to look around at what is happening, and the opinions and beliefs of those around me and I am afraid that they are swaying my way on one axis and the opposite on another. This is good as it wakes people up to see that the world is not all goody-goody like they might think. It is us or them sometimes. The optimum is finding a win win, but if you can't, you don't take the loss. However, it is very, very bad when those closest and most dear to me are foreign nationals. People for some reason can't seem to be capable of separating the two concepts. They are either raciest nationalists, or non-raciest- non �nationalists. I wish that people were capable of not being raciest and looking out for their own country first, but that does not, to me, seem to be the case. I wish you well Ritu, but seriously, supporting the raping of America in favor of your old home, is really irritating to me. That and it is those supporters like you, that make it look even more like a racist issue. Personally I don't want to live and work in a racially charged society, I don't want to worry about which friend can hang out with which other friend, but I also don't want my friends and family out on the street because they were undercut by people from another country. As someone who is living in our country you have to make the choice to either be American, or be Indian. If you're American then get with us and do what is best for America because it is open to be your permeate home if you like, But if you are Indian, then recognize that you are a guest, and act like one. I don't need people like you making life more difficult for my Ex- Indian friends and my Ex-Malaysian wife. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
