Some (Scattered) Thoughts About Globalization
or My 1.5 cents (adjusted for inflation):

• The key to survival in this economy is to understand that everyone is replaceable. This is one of the first things my mentor Ray Storey pounded into me when I joined Bell Labs ~20 years ago.  There’s nothing special or unique about “American innovation” except that too many Americans find this superiority myth comforting. This is the lesson National Semi, Microsoft, and others have learned, that’s why they have moved parts of their design divisions to India and other parts of Asia. Furthermore, the notion that Indian and Chinese students can go to the same colleges as American students and come out without the ability to innovate as well as (or better than) Americans is ignorant and racist on its face. At some point the Americans who hold these notions must grow up, join the rest of the world and stand up without using their white supremacist crutches. Read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States if you need a clue.
• I don’t think this country can survive into the next century as a nation of managers. (There’s a nightmarish thought! Meetings....nothing but meetings...8 hours a day, 5 days a week!) Particularly given the constant unaddressed crisis of ethically and intellectually challenged American management. (WorldCom, Enron, Lucent, The New York Times,.....). This is our "big white elephant in the living room"--everyone bumps into the management quality issue but no one examines it. Meanwhile, patriot missiles blow up the wrong targets; pilots stop taxiing commercial airplanes to announce that, because of a software "glitch", they're going to shut the plane's electrical system down and restart it; Navy ships have to be towed back to port because the navigation system crashed; Ethically Challanged (EC) reporters lie to the public in newspapers run by EC editors and EC publishers; and we all groan as Microsoft Office eats the memo that was due yesterday yet again. Is this normal? Is the fact that "70% of all projects fail" an act of God or the result of ignoring the misbehaviour of the guy with the pointy hair (as in Dilbert)? Think about it.
• Only someone (probably insane) who has never written code could believe that software development is “grunt work” best left to "peons" from India or China. Once again I say, there is a crisis with American management that has yet to be addressed. Simply put, you can’t manage what you don’t understand. This is a concept the military has down to a science, why does it still elude some American corporations?
• Here's a real national security issue: as technology jobs and expertise leave this country, Americans become consumers of technology they cannot understand or create.
• My beef is not with workers in India or anywhere trying to take care of their families and better their lot. If they are here in this country on H-1B or L-1 visas too often they are little more than indentured servants to their sponsoring companies. My problem is with my government and the corporations that have shaken us down for all kinds of tax breaks, give backs, and special rights, only to abandon us and leave this economy floundering. What these companies have done to us and the rest of the world is nothing short of criminal and we need to begin holding their leadership accountable.
• Real globalizm occurs when both capital AND LABOR are free to move and sale to completely open markets. What we have now is not an open market; what we have is socialism for wealthy individuals and corporations, and capitalism for the poor and working class.
  
• I always find it amusing to hear my fellow engineers describe American workers as “overpriced”. I wonder if they would be willing to reduce their salaries to be “more competitive.” I’m reminded of a conversation I overheard in a stairwell at Bell Labs long ago during better times. Said one engineer to the other: “I sure hope wages stay down so that inflation doesn’t get out of control!” Huh? I’ve always felt that I should have stopped the conversation and asked, in a mock John Wayne drawl: “whose wages you talkin ‘bout, pilgrim?” Sometimes we’re too smart for our own good!

-Jesse “engineering is better as a hobby” Alexander