On Sun, 25 Mar 2001, Emlyn wrote:
> You have read me wrong (libertarian economic philosophy indeed!). What I
> mean is, that if there were no shortfall, you guys (and us guys) couldn't
> charge what we all do. I think it's pretty clear evidence of a shortfall...
As I mentioned in another message, strict supply and demand will not always
determine the market pricing. As you point out IT people have been
directly or indirectly eliminating jobs in other professions for years
(for example speech recognition has certainly cut the number of
directory assistance operators telephone companies have had to
employ). The IT people can charge very high rates if their output
results in productivity gains and lower overall costs for the company.
Its unlikely that foreigners would know many businesses sufficiently
that they would be able to see these opportunities sufficiently to
sell these ideas and themselves. However combinations of 'developed'
country sales people & managers with foreign/offshore workers
could work effectively (as Emlyn points out). Probably this is the
IT the equivalent of moving the 'manufacturing' industries to places
like Mexico or Taiwan.
The only way to deal with this is to move into new industries as
rapidly as they develop. For example Rob Freitas and I were
discussing the other day how nanobot programmers are going to
have to do most of their work in 'assembly' language. That
means all you JAVA and Python programmers are going to have
to retrain. Now, old folks like me who actually speak half a
dozen assembly languages, we will be able to name our price... :-)
Robert
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