Mon, 30 Aug 2004

Office of Tomorrow Has an Address in India (Los Angeles Times)

How depressing ... what's going to be left here? We've shipped manufacturing overseas in the 70's, 80's and 90's, and now it looks like the the information economy will be best informed from India.

What pisses me off the most about this whole situation (other than being something of a victim myself) is that there's essentially no way US workers can compete - not only does the standard of living here demand higher wages, but the taxes (including social security) and regulations (overtime, workman's comp, enviromental, etc.) drive the cost as well. Over the long haul the net effect of these changes will be to turn the US into a "Third World" country - high unemployment, no jobs and no hope. It will leave us ripe for political exploitation by demagogues who'll have the capability to start a class war the likes of which we've never seen.

But the saddest thing of all is that we're doing it to ourselves: we are a society seemingly driven by nothing more than bargain basement shopping. We always go for the lowest price, and those of us who do appreciate value find ourselves squeezed out of the market by forces way beyond our control. America is well on it's way to becoming a giant "McWal-Mart" - lowest prices (and quality) guaranteed.

Los Angeles Times - MADRAS, India — Task by task, function by function, the American office is being hollowed out and reconstituted in places like this, a makeshift facility on the sixth floor of a shopping arcade.

(link) [Yahoo! News - Top Stories]

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