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I think this is the most important question in politics right now. Politicians seem to think that our current woes can be fixed by tweaking tax codes and intere

by jiggy2011 14y ago

I think this is the most important question in politics right now. Politicians seem to think that our current woes can be fixed by tweaking tax codes and interest rates and hoping that the private sector will pick up the slack eventually. However I don't think that this is a foregone conclusion. With such high unemployment I would have expected services to have gotten worse due to business being understaffed. In fact the opposite seems to have happened, I can access services and products much more easily and conveniently than ever before. Apart from essentials like energy and housing which have become proprietorially more expensive. I'm not even sure programmers are safe, salaries at SV startups may be high now but I wonder how much of that is because of companies desperately making a landgrab for digital space. For developers not wanting to play the high stakes game and simply wanting a middle class income from writing enterprise java code it's going to become increasingly hard to compete with growing numbers of skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living.

Domenic_S 14y ago
> it's going to become increasingly hard to compete with growing numbers of skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living. This argument has been made for a very long time, and I don't think it's any closer to being true today. Overcoming the 1) time differential, 2) language barriers, and 3) culture differences of working overseas takes a very special kind of person. They absolutely do exist, and in my experience they tend to simply move to the US where they can command hefty salaries. Just my opinion, but I think skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living might be propping up the salaries of stateside devs. The higher you pay stateside devs, the more money you're "saving" in comparison by hiring a team somewhere else.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Yes and no, I can see this gap tightening as foreign teams learn better english to gain competitive advantage. Also translation software is improving and I see more contract jobs where the client is from china or some other country. Time differential can be easily overcome if developers simply move their sleep schedule around. I've developed software for people in different timezones and it's not a problem if the software is clearly specified. Since I can just send an progress report email and wait for them to pick it up. I agree that the best developers will probably seek to emigrate but at some point immigration will be tightened up and more talented devs will stay in their home country. And out sourcing is just one piece of the pie. With more people being encouraged to learn to code (which I think is great) programming jobs will face more competition.
  - Domenic_S 14y ago
    That's really handwavy. When we get Star Trek level translation, or perfect specs, or devs decide to sleep all day and work all night (because who needs a family?). Every very-large business I know of has offices and teams in other countries, and it works best when they're "just" another office. Branch in SF, branch in NYC, branch in London, branch in Chennai, branch in... When you turn to other countries to grow your business, you can win; when you turn to other countries to replace the workers you built your company with you usually lose. IMO, YMMV, etc.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      Well translation software is getting better, and plenty of people in the first world with families work weird shifts. The point is that this stuff (global working) is going to get easier , not harder in the future as is eliminating the needs for some jobs entirely. What we need is a new industry that requires a lot of workers and can pay a middle class salary. Otherwise we risk having a global proletariat fighting over an increasingly shrinking slice of pie.
  - lgieron 14y ago
    > I agree that the best developers will probably seek to emigrate I think the truly best developers will stay in their countries while earning States-level wages via telecommuting. Why pay $1500/mo in rent when you can pay $300?
Evbn 14y ago
Why would unemployment understaff business? Unemployment means all the jobs are taken. Either there is enough wealth in total, and taxes can fix the problem , or there is not enough wealth, and everyone is doomed.

Domenic_S 14y ago

> it's going to become increasingly hard to compete with growing numbers of skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living. This argument has been made for a very long time, and I don't think it's any closer to being true today. Overcoming the 1) time differential, 2) language barriers, and 3) culture differences of working overseas takes a very special kind of person. They absolutely do exist, and in my experience they tend to simply move to the US where they can command hefty salaries. Just my opinion, but I think skilled developers in countries with lower costs of living might be propping up the salaries of stateside devs. The higher you pay stateside devs, the more money you're "saving" in comparison by hiring a team somewhere else.

jiggy2011 14y ago
Yes and no, I can see this gap tightening as foreign teams learn better english to gain competitive advantage. Also translation software is improving and I see more contract jobs where the client is from china or some other country. Time differential can be easily overcome if developers simply move their sleep schedule around. I've developed software for people in different timezones and it's not a problem if the software is clearly specified. Since I can just send an progress report email and wait for them to pick it up. I agree that the best developers will probably seek to emigrate but at some point immigration will be tightened up and more talented devs will stay in their home country. And out sourcing is just one piece of the pie. With more people being encouraged to learn to code (which I think is great) programming jobs will face more competition.
- Domenic_S 14y ago
  That's really handwavy. When we get Star Trek level translation, or perfect specs, or devs decide to sleep all day and work all night (because who needs a family?). Every very-large business I know of has offices and teams in other countries, and it works best when they're "just" another office. Branch in SF, branch in NYC, branch in London, branch in Chennai, branch in... When you turn to other countries to grow your business, you can win; when you turn to other countries to replace the workers you built your company with you usually lose. IMO, YMMV, etc.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Well translation software is getting better, and plenty of people in the first world with families work weird shifts. The point is that this stuff (global working) is going to get easier , not harder in the future as is eliminating the needs for some jobs entirely. What we need is a new industry that requires a lot of workers and can pay a middle class salary. Otherwise we risk having a global proletariat fighting over an increasingly shrinking slice of pie.
- lgieron 14y ago
  > I agree that the best developers will probably seek to emigrate I think the truly best developers will stay in their countries while earning States-level wages via telecommuting. Why pay $1500/mo in rent when you can pay $300?

Evbn 14y ago

Why would unemployment understaff business? Unemployment means all the jobs are taken. Either there is enough wealth in total, and taxes can fix the problem , or there is not enough wealth, and everyone is doomed.