How-To Geek

This topic came up in a help forum thread and I wanted to pursue the non-technical ramifications. A poster commented that he no longer does business with Dell because of all of the outsourcing they have done leading to many lost jobs in the US. The poster concluded that this was done out of greed without sympathy to the people whose personal finances would be damaged or worse.

So, this is going to be a tricky topic, trying to avoid too much political discussion and concentrating on the corporate greed angle. If this thread does not survive, I won't be surprised. Let's all be careful -- don't be hating!

My response to the original assertion was to point out that IBM also did a disservice to their employees and to the US economy by selling their PC business to Lenovo. In fact, Dell is still incorporated in the US but Lenovo, and all of IBM's former PC assets with them, are incorporated in Hong Kong. Do corporations have a responsibility to the country they do business in? Does a multinational even have a country, or are they beholden only to the "almighty dollar" (or euro, or any other currency)?

InDiSent, I'm all in favor of the personal boycott. I think anyone who has had a bad experience or who has any fairly rational reason to boycott a company should go ahead and do it. This produces the effect called "vote with your wallet" where individual consumers "vote" for, or against, any given company similar to a free election. If a company treats it's customers poorly, they will stop being customers and eventually that company should feel the pressure and either improve or fold. I'm not as fond of organized boycotts. To continue the election metaphor, organized boycotts feel to me like vote buying, gerrymandering, or other underhanded tactics.

I have known lots of Desi people and as a group I consider them to be above average in character, work ethic, and friendliness. Please tell me that "Desi" has not become a derogatory term somewhere. The idea of politically correct alternatives boggles the mind. :-)

It is not just this industry. The problem with outsourcing, is, that in many cases, it involves horrendous child labour!

don't go there

What you are describing is an interim step. Remember South Korea 20 years ago and Japan 40 years ago. I remember people laughing about japanese cars. I think the laughs are over. About 20 years ago the Tata (TCS) people from India gave me a presentation about their programming facilities and were asking for subcontract work in programming. If I remember right, they had a couple of thousand IT specialists at that time. Today, they have 110.000 IT specialists in 50 countries and a yearly revenue of $5.7 Billion. India produces 10 times as many engineers as Germany each year and once these people get to work, they will be a formidable competition - and not only in the code monkey business. I think this is good, because it will keep us "old" industrial nations on our toes.

I make money off the ads, although not a real lot of money... sadly unless you stick ads into the articles themselves, it's difficult to make a lot of money until you become a giant, more professional site like Lifehacker, zdnet, etc.

I'm trying to go the professional route, which means I need to build HTG until it's a similar size to the other sites before I'll really make money off it and be able to do this fulltime.

Hey folks,
I'm the culprit that made the original remark about Dell in the other thread. I'm glad it got some good discussion going. I thought I'd stir the pot some more.
Scott, you're absolutely right about Dell outsourcing as being just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the major technical corps do it and singling out just one, gets consumers nowhere. I owned a Dell when outsourcing first became a real issue, so Michael Dell (one of the first to do it) got the first wave of my wrath.
But be clear, my anger isn't with the people of India, Indonesia, Mexico, etc. They're just trying to make a living and are actually being severely under paid and exploited by these corporations.
Actually, as Indians became more proficient in the English language and were easier to understand, they bent over backwards to help Dell customers. As their tech knowledge increased beyond the initial manuals they were given to use to help customers, their ability to help also increased.
My anger really has it's roots in (as you suggested earlier Scott) a much more complex socio economic issue, which I won't go into at lengths here.
Suffice it to say, that about 10% of the American people control (via personal or corporate wealth) about 90% of the money in this country. And about 10% of the 10%, controls about 90% of the 90% (have I confused everyone).
That wealth is so concentrated that any attempt in trying to convince me that those people don't run this country, is futile.
We don't live in a democracy. The only thing we have the right to vote for, is the next politican (Republican or Democrat) that is bought and paid for by these people (Oil, Banks and Insurance)
And these folks sit back and laugh at all of us who are psychologically incapable of admitting this reality to ourselves.
The greed of these people never ceases to amaze me and every once in a while (as in the other thread) my frustration with the American people slips out. I just can't believe how people in this country can't admit the reality they live in. Yea, we're the greatest country in the world and all of us are blessed to live here. But is that enough reason to allow this insanity to go on.
Perhaps as these Corporations continue to destroy the ozone and oil prices continue to go up, the American people will finally be willing to look a little deeper into the American soul. I just wouldn't
hold my breath.
By the way, if you never saw 2 HBO specials ('The Death of the Electric Car' and another one on Walmart)
catch them if you can.
HC

That "Death of the Electric Car" was very interesting... I'm glad that there are some startups making new and innovative electric cars now: http://www.teslamotors.com/

I want that car!

In the next couple of weeks, I'm going to enable (restricted) private messaging, mostly for the forum regulars (new signups won't get it until they've reached a certain level). At that point you guys can discuss politics in private all you want =)