Let me say up front that wage stagnation since 2001 is real. I've experienced it, everyone I know has. Wages are worse than flat once the annual 10-15% benefits cost delta is factored in. Let me also add that I and all of my peers are anything but junior or middling people in terms of skill and experience. We all typically have advanced degrees with 10-20+ experience in our respected fields. Some of us are industry known, published technical types. So - no slouches there. And yet, wage stagnation is real. The mythical midpoint is killing us. The mythical midpoint is HR's tool to weigh your wage against a statistical midpoint, seemingly pulled out of their ears. If you are above that midpoint, then once again, this year it sucks to be you (or me). This mythical midpoint never appears to catch up with us no matter how many years our wages remain unchanged. So factor in inflation, benefits costs increases, real wages are headed down not up.

But they haven't come back and threaten to send our jobs to Sao Paolo or Bangalore, yet. Maybe soon. I suppose at this point, anywhere they speak English, like India, South Africa, Australia, hell, even Hong Kong, Singapore or Tel Aviv.....

Having said all that; so? I would do the same thing given the choice. Why not? The folks here who claim to have quality control problems with oursourcing are desribing project and operations management failures, not skills problems. There might be some language problems but by and large English is the language of commerce. Jobs in the Philippines are every bit as reliable as that team you have in Boulder or Idaho or Huntsville. Every bit. Everyone gets a C- or a C. When we had 100% of our systems integration done in the US we still had 50% project failure. We still had cost overruns related to quality and time. We're not that good at managing this work.

We tried to source work in Europe but the infernal labor laws were hell. We had to build facilities to house a person in a building that was completely robotic, automated lights out because the law said we had to have a guy there. Even though his job was to do nothing. We tried to build giant tape silos in the US but the local building and fire codes were an excuse for bribery there too.

I propose these are not inherently bad trends. The work which can be shipped offshore should be shipped offshore. That's a qualitative evaluation US firms have to make. Many have decided it's a devil's bargain. After a few years of offshore call centers, they are starting to come back to the US for example.

But I for one don't welcome the day when senior people like me are tossing their shoes into the Jaquard looms of the future. That doesn't fix anything. Become a loom engineer instead. Exploit the system on its own terms. If technical jobs leave the country then that job was not a great job to cling to. Skill up. And when that job leaves the country, etc. etc. If IT jobs are priced downward, out of the country, then fine. Screw it, it's wage slave monkey job anyway. If programming skills go to Mumbai or Hanoi then you don't need that job. You are doing the wrong job. Labor is no longer a significant component of that development cycle. It's simply not. So worrying about it and trying to pass laws is not useful. It would be as if you passed a law requiring cars to have 25% of their production costs in labor, which is 3x what they are today. No one would tolerate that unless the cheaper car literally fell apart day one.

I am a cold eyed bastard when it comes to this because keeping people employed in dead end jobs for no other reason is self defeating. Yes, wages are flat, yes jobs are leaving the US. And until that work product is useless, poor quality or more expensive in the long run, that is exactly how things are supposed to work.

You get affirmative action and we get to ignore how you feel about off color jokes. Or at least your tendentious explanation of them. Ignoring that would vbe great.

Sign up smarter next time. For years, decades really, I can't tell you how many times the reservists I knew were thrilled to get paid for their 2 weekends a month, 2 weeks a year camping trip and beer. Well.....that's the bargain you make when do that soldier stuff. Does it really matter what the bullshit story is?

Only one Medal of Honor was permitted per Division. It did not matter what the nominated person did if there was already an award in that Division. So clearly the Army and the nation has a history of shaping the perception of events to a specific purpose. I fail to see how this spin is better or worse than any other instance.

A rock in my shoe, fell off my horse, got captured like a dumbass, for my country. This sucks.

Nathan Hale's unedited speech.

It's a bullshit topic propped by demagogues for the benefit of frightened stupid soccermoms