Exports

just before lunchtime on Tuesday, the 27th of January 2004 by Chad

Wired 12.02: The New Face of the Silicon Age
Hey Scott, nice picture on page 2!

One such group has adopted a friendlier title, the Information Technology Professional Association of America. But its founder, 37-year-old Scott Kirwin, voices the same indignation. “I’m very pissed off,” he tells me over lunch in Wilmington, Delaware, where he lives. “I want to make people aware of what’s going on with outsourcing.”

Now, I’ve known Scott for many years. Very smart guy, always questioning everything. He’s ran the gamut of politics too, from member of Amnesty International, to 9/11 conservative. I’ve been to interviews he has done with reporters, and the points are right on.
The core idea would be, the government should do nothing to assist companies sending jobs to other countries. If they want to move offshore, thats fine. But no tax benefits for doing so. No special programs, no deals. In fact, the opposite should be true. Companies that pledge to hire locally should get some assistance. Governments don’t exist for the benefit of the world at large, despite what some people think. Government exists to exploit, I mean, protect its citizens and residents. At no point should any government in the world make its decisions based on what is best for Elbonia. Except the Elbonian government of course.

Kirwin was a latecomer to the IT world. After college, he lived in Japan for five years, then returned to the States hoping to join the US Foreign Service. He didn’t get in. In 1997, he and his wife moved to Wilmington, her hometown, and he took a job at a tech support company outside Philadelphia, where he learned Visual Basic. Kirwin discovered that he loved programming and did it well. By 2000, he was working at J.P. Morgan in Newark, Delaware, providing back-office database services for the firm’s bankers around the world. But after Morgan merged with Chase, and the bloom left the boom, the combined firm decided to outsource the responsibilities of Kirwin’s department to an Indian company. For nine months, he worked alongside three Indian programmers, all on temporary visas, teaching them his job but expecting to stick around as a manager when the work moved to India. Last March, Kirwin got his pink slip.

I was Scott’s manager when we worked at a consulting business and the nominal team lead at JPMorgan. I was also the first to be let go from there in the outsourcing. I didn’t care too much at the time since I already had a new position lined up, but I did worry because the quality of support went right in the toilet as each of us left over time. We understood the business requirements because we met face to face with the business users. We worked the same hours. We were just a phone call and usually 5 minutes away from fixing issues. No more, even a simple bug fix had to go through “The Process.” I still hear horror stories from end users who I see around town. Most important from the article is the following:

Indeed, Kirwin, the programmer in Delaware, partly confirms my suspicion. After he lost his job at J.P. Morgan, he collected unemployment for three months before he found a new job at a financial services company he prefers not to name. He’s now an IT designer, not a programmer. The job is more complex than merely cranking code. He must understand the broader imperatives of the business and relate to a range of people. “It’s more of a synthesis of skills,” he says, rather than a commodity that can be replicated in India.
Kirwin still believes the job is “offshorable,” though I’m less certain. And he’s earning less than he did at J.P. Morgan, though the downturn is much to blame for that, as it is for at least part of the broader anxiety that programmers are feeling.

With the mega-merger of his current company with another, Scott has been laid off again, his job taken over by H1-B and L1-B visa holders.

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John Barbour Says:
January 30th, 2004 at 6:06 pm Add karma

Dear Scott,
I just read about you in an article in the Feb 2004 Wired entitled “The New Face of the Silicon Age”. It was a very interesting article. Daniel describes a very real problem. Outsourcing, however, is just a symptom. And a symptom associated primarily with large corporations. Small and medium-sized businesses often find themselves closing their doors! This results in the loss of jobs. The root of these problems is not the inevitability of globalization nor the American belief in free trade. The root of the problem is twofold:
1) Over regulation by the government as confirmed in the 2003 report of the National Association of Manufacturers. The report calls this over regulation “the silent killer” of American business. The report revealed that
the regulatory, tax, anfd mandate burden is adding at least a staggering 22.4% (nearly $5 and hour) to the cost of doing business in the U>S. relative to foreign competitors.
2) The subsidising of foreign business by our government with tax payer’s money through entities such as the IMF, World Bank, and the Export-Import Bank. This is not just happening to IT companies. For instance a bill introduced by Rep Ron Paul (R-TX) entitled The Shrimp Importation Financing Fairness Act (His district is on the Gulf of Mexico) says this in paragraph 8 of Secrtion 2, ” Since 1999 our Government has provided more than $1,800,000,000. in financing and insurance for thes foreign countries through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and our government’s current exposure through our Export-Import Bank totals some $14,800,000,000, bring the total subsidy of these countries by the United States to over $16,500,000,000.”
The real culprits are in Washington , DC and New York City.
Sincerely,
John Barbour
P.S. You do not need to lose faith in the American belief in free trade. The Economist is not a hymnal for the Free Trade church as described in the article it is rather the flagship journal for the British Roundtable group. Itr’s US counter part is the Council on Foreign Relations in NY They only pay lip service to free trade. Their real interests are global control of the economy. They use the terms free trade but in reality they are talking about more regulations in their favor. Examples are the European Common market that has morphed into th EU and NAFTA and CFTA which if not stopped will develop into th Free Trade Area of the Americas. Fox of Mexico described it this way, ” Eventually our long term goal is to establish with the US and Canada an ensemble of connections and institutions similar to those of the EU with the goal of attending future themes such as the movement of capital, goods, services, amnd persons.” He’s talking about control not free trade.

John Barbour Says:
January 30th, 2004 at 6:12 pm Add karma

I recommend you check out http://www.thenewamerican.com Article “Losing America’s Livelihood” in the January 26,2004 issue and then do a search for more articles. There are plenty. Best Wishes I too have suffered greatly in this “New Economy”

John Barbour Says:
January 30th, 2004 at 6:19 pm Add karma

You might want to talk with Bob Davis General Manager of Modern Die systems 1104 North ‘J’ Street
Elwood, Indiana 46036
(765)552-3145 He’s been through it and understands from the management prospective

Henry Stevens Says:
March 16th, 2004 at 5:21 pm Add karma

For a huge source of information on outsourceing see http://www.stoptheftaa.org/

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