QBASIC and other languages.

[TheBigBasicQ]

I see you took offense at the term "peanuts".

Let me just say that in American English, the phrase "to work for peanuts" is standard and non-derogatory and brings up no vision of monkeys, etc. If anything, it brings up a vision of elephants working hard to move fallen trees for which they will be rewarded with peanuts. The phrase simply means "to work for little pay".

I had never thought about it before, and now I am curious where the phrase came from. Perhaps from our civil war era where peanuts (goober peas) were the only food available for the Southern army near the end.

Oh, well, I've caused us to drift too far from the subject, QBasic. Sorry.

Mac

Thats Mac for you :wink:

[toonski84]

While I know you meant no harm, mac, Nate had every right to be offended (whether he knew the phrase or not). India and (South) Korea are not sources of cheap labor, at least for programming. It has more to do with the poliferation of programmers in the market. Until the 90s, computers were'nt that common, so few people who knew how to use them. Now that there are tens of thousands of programmers out there, only the best can get good salaries now. A persons with a masters from a good school can easily get a 6-digit salary, while people with 2-years or an IT degree are going to find it harder to get a job and usually settle for lower-paying jobs. Because of this, eastern immigrants often have the best paying jobs, because some of the best schools are in other nations, and many of the best students from those schools come to the US to work. The India Institute of Technology (IIT) is, if not the best, is one of the best technical schools in the world.

[na_th_an]

Mac: If it was my faulty English, then I beg your pardon.
Toonski: The facts you describe were which made me " :o " when I read his statements.

[Phydaux]

While I know you meant no harm, mac, Nate had every right to be offended (whether he knew the phrase or not). India and (South) Korea are not sources of cheap labor, at least for programming. ...

Personally I've heard the exact opposite of this. On a finance program about 2 years ago, there were tele-sales and computer firms moving out of Britian to asia, because people can do the same amount of work for penuts... but they're not getting monkeys, they are getting a profesional service.
It's not just the cost of labour thats cheeper over there either, all utilities and services are cheeper.

But as the cost of living is also much cheaper over there it's not like they are insulting their workers, their workers are quite well paid. It's just it seems alot less compared to a western wage.

I see you are in Spain - a country that also exports cheap labor. But not for long. You will soon find all Europeans are no different from US Residents - they are highly overpaid by world standards. Soon all of your jobs, other than garbage collection, will be exported to China or Africa or India via the Internet.

I've never heard that spain exports cheap labour. And You also seem to think that we Europeans are a second world country? Were not. We just don't focus on money for happyness, we have other things to be happy about.
* Phydaux is happy that he could move to Spain without need for a visa (or theoretically, according to European law, go on holliday there without need for a pass-port)

It would be interesting to see our police-force jobs exported to China

[TheBigBasicQ]

Ok, Mac. I think you are whining over nothing. Only people who are qualified/ have the merit get the job. It doesnt matter what your nationality is. Only your merit matters in the US. This is one of the few things I like about the US.

The corporate sector does need cheap labor but that doesnt mean that Americans will not work for less. They have every right to apply for the same job as their non-american counterparts.
About the IIT(Indian Institute Of Technology) it has 100% recruitment.

And every year it gets millions of dollars(USD) in grants given not by the government but by atleast one of its past students. Now I think thats something to ponder on isn't it? These professionals must earn a lot to just give away so many dollars?

When there were very little professionals obviously the companies could 'loot' people since there wasnt any competition. Now that there is this field has become so saturated that the companies have a choice of people it wants to recruit. Naturally it will rectruit those who will work for less.

An example would be the telecom companies. Where I live they used to offer their services for an exponentially high prices and now that there are more professionals and more telecom players they offer their services for very little?

So before accusing any country of supplying cheap labor just check their professionals' credentials OK? And it doesnt apply only to India but other contries which are providing quality labor. 8)

[Agamemnus]

Yes they do, Na_th_an, compared with the US. It's true.

Microsoft is cutting many many jobs in the US for cheap (and as or better qualified) programmers in India. I read about it recently.

EDIT

AND! I just want to tell you all that India programmers are NOT going to stay cheap for long, so get 'em HOT while you can! Indian factory labor used to be cheap and high quality, but it is now getting less cheap and less quality. This is from a source who I personally know and who has witnessed this.

[toonski84]

Look, the bias here is lumping indian programmers into a single catagory here. India isnt a magical source where every programmer, not even a lot of them, are guys that where diapers and live in a box, willing to work for 2 dollars an hour. Yes, a company is going to pass over an american with a 4-year for an indian with a masters, but if they simply hired indian immigrants for pay, that's called racial discrimination, and you can't blame the IT slump over it. Salaries are turning to crap everywhere, in america, in europe and spain, in korea and in india. And it has to do with the tech slump in general and the proliferation of the market, not indian immigrants in any way shape or form.

[na_th_an]

Completely agree with Toonski.

About Spain exporting cheap labours... Wha? Maybe you are talking about Spain in 1977 where people had to emigrate to Germany to survive, but now it is the contrary: we get thousands of african people who come here for a good job. Happily, we abandoned second world years ago.

[TheBigBasicQ]

Toonski, Na_th_an, Agamemnus I think I completely agree with you

[Piptol]

Re: India - I think there's couple of issues getting confused here. If we're talking about actually hiring immigrants for less pay, that of course is racial discrimination, completely unacceptable and not to mention illegal. If we're talking about actually outsourcing the job to the Indian subcontinent then yes, it happens a lot, and because it makes good commercial sense. There you have a large, highly skilled english-speaking workforce who *do* work for less than their western counterparts, due to inevitable differences in economy and currency value. For example in the UK a lot of call centre jobs have been moved to India, where the work is seen as international, glamourous, and well paid eg. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2518651.stm