Steve Ballmer says cut salaries
Tech workers paid too much
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What an idiot. Typifies everything that is wrong with this contry. The ultra rich and their cupidity and desire for the closest thing to slave labor.
Quote:
EARLIER THIS week Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer apparently suggested that the way to keep American jobs was to lower US professionals' pay to $55,000 - according to a report
EARLIER THIS week Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer apparently suggested that the way to keep American jobs was to lower US professionals' pay to $55,000 - according to a report
More here
Quote:
As he reportedly claimed at a recent technology conference, ?low supply is keeping US engineers? wages too high and causing job losses.? ?Lower the pay of US professionals to $50,000,? Ballmer was quoted as suggesting, ?and it won?t make sense for employers to put up with the hassle of doing business in developing countries.?
Ballmer never explained how U.S.-based high tech industry could expect to keep attracting the best and brightest American youth once salaries had cratered, but hey. He?s a CEO. That?s not his problem, right?. But here?s something that is his problem ? explaining how Microsoft will keep sales buoyant in a nation whose entire wage structure has cratered, too.
As he reportedly claimed at a recent technology conference, ?low supply is keeping US engineers? wages too high and causing job losses.? ?Lower the pay of US professionals to $50,000,? Ballmer was quoted as suggesting, ?and it won?t make sense for employers to put up with the hassle of doing business in developing countries.?
Ballmer never explained how U.S.-based high tech industry could expect to keep attracting the best and brightest American youth once salaries had cratered, but hey. He?s a CEO. That?s not his problem, right?. But here?s something that is his problem ? explaining how Microsoft will keep sales buoyant in a nation whose entire wage structure has cratered, too.
What an idiot. Typifies everything that is wrong with this contry. The ultra rich and their cupidity and desire for the closest thing to slave labor.
Comments
Now, what if we talked about lowering Ballmer's pay to $50K/year? That would be a better start.
Originally posted by Amorph
Now, what if we talked about lowering Ballmer's pay to $50K/year? That would be a better start.
The sad thing is that his standart of living would take no hit by this. The capital decides and previals.
If you looked back in my 5 years here you´ll notice ups and downs with my activity here caused by work, school and cleaning of the poisioning internet toxins from my body, Thats happens one to two times a year.
Originally posted by hmurchison
What an idiot. Typifies everything that is wrong with this contry. The ultra rich and their cupidity and desire for the closest thing to slave labor.
This is what's going to turn into a quality AO thread.
Anyway, Ballmer is taking about simple supply and demand. He's not an idiot for saying this. In fact, it's so mathematically elegant that, to me, you sound like an idiot for being so put off by it. Do you honestly think Ballmer cares that much about cutting wages? I think he's more interested it presenting the answer everyone was to afraid to make to the "why are all of our jobs getting outsourced" question. You assume a lot about the "ultra-rich," yet you really have no idea. How many ultra-rich people do you know?
I could go on for pages and pages about why Capitalism is proven, works great, and makes overall welfare much better. I'll save it for an AO thread, although I've spit it out at least 100 times on this forum before.
Anyway, if you're in danger of losing your job to Indians, it just means you aren't good enough. Survival of the fittest. . . . We've been living with it before we were even homo sapiens, but now for some reason it doesn't apply. Go figure.
Yeah I thought that line was a bit too AO'ish. So i'll tone it down by simply stating that there has to be some advantage to persuing higher education.
Let's hope that the next "boom" in technology is met with rising salaries and growth here in the states. I wouldn't say I am put off by it. Simply supply and demand should dictate higher pay for those in higher demand. But then again MS is a monopoly and monopolies are an anathema to free market capitalism and it's beneficial effects.
Splinemodel I worked payroll for 2 years as a processor and have most likely seen far more executive paychecks than you. And these people aren't what i'd call ultra rich but the delineation between those making great money and those scraping by is sharp indeed.
You can spout off whatever trite garbage you learned in some Economics 101 class but it's all for naught. Low salaries will eventually equal lower talent which will lead to the demise of many a company.
Our economy would be far more vibrant if maintaing and open and free market was paramount.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Our economy would be far more vibrant if maintaing and open and free market was paramount.
And an open and free market isn't one that outsources when it's a better option?
There are plenty of jobs in the "tech" sector that have become closer to traditional clerical work. There are plenty of areas I can think of where a college education is completely unnecessary, and basic programming is one of them. Now, you don't see Green Hills outsourcing their work to cheaper, foreign consultants. Outsourcing tech support and web programming to India seems like a good idea to me.
Originally posted by hmurchison
You can spout off whatever trite garbage you learned in some Economics 101 class but it's all for naught. Low salaries will eventually equal lower talent which will lead to the demise of many a company
Where talent is needed, salaries will be higher. That's supply and demand. Invariably, higher levels of talent are in shorter supply or in greater demand. Indeed, that's also how it works in the real world. Having applied for a number of jobs in the tech industry, my knowledge of signals and analog got me offers a lot higher than did the folks with more computer focused concentrations. The supply of analog/signals people is much lower. Why? because you have to go through four years (at least) of complex math hell to get there.
Interestingly, MS overpays its programmers. Some of the CS folks I know who are going to Redmond are getting paid pretty good money (70-80k first year) to do what ends up being shoddy work. Apple pays it's programmers much less on average.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Splinemodel I worked payroll for 2 years as a processor and have most likely seen far more executive paychecks than you. And these people aren't what i'd call ultra rich but the delineation between those making great money and those scraping by is sharp indeed.
Maybe. Instead of going to work for a large company I decided to start my own with some like minded fellows. We've been operating for about a year (some of the guys graduated in '01 and '03, and thus currently work full time) and have some big clients. But it has put me in contact with a lot of very successful folks who know are semi-retired and operate VC or private equity groups. I draw the "ultra-rich" line at anyone with more than 100 mil net worth. I know a bunch of these guys. . . some of them put 2 mil into my company.
Anyway, most ultra-rich people aren't primarily concerned with the bottom line, but rather are concerned with generating wealth. If this means hiring more expensive people to assure quality, ease of development, and to leverage their experience when unexpected hurdles arise, then that's what happens. But for doing call centers and web pages, outsourcing seems like a great idea.
I'm not really concerned with Outsourcing. I'm in agreement with you. If your skills are in demand then you'll get a decent salary.
I've strayed OT too much though but I think Outsourcing really only hurts when we're in a recession. We'll have a boom again and people won't fret Outsourcing like they do know. I'm just a little bitter because of the overhyped "IT is in such demand that there are not enough workers to fill positions" racket of 3-4 years ago before the dot.com implosion and 9/11 decimated things.
Ballmer spoke his mind albeit crassly. Just interesting that Middle-Class America has to compete Globally for jobs without the benefits.
Outsourcing= Benefit to company
Tariffs on Imported goods- Keeping costs for imported goods high.Benefit to Gov.
It's no wonder some of us are feeling the pinch this new Global Economy thing is benefitting everyone else but the consumer. C'est la guerre
Originally posted by Towel
That's really an odd thing for Mr. Ballmer to say, because it implies that companies are having a hard time finding workers to work at that wage. Job markets should be pretty self-correcting. If there's a glut of workers, or lower-wage competition, you either work for less or find a new job. Are that many IT people choosing "none of the above"? Low supply of workers causing job losses, like Ballmer claims, just doesn't make any economic sense.
If I read his clever ideas correctly, I think he means that companies are trying to cut costs by all means available. One way to cut costs is really to hire cheaper workers, hence outsourcing. But that is not very good because that reduces the demand in US, which, in turn, reduces young men's incentive to consider IT jobs, which, in turn, means that the trend can ultimately reduce the need for IT education in US and thus reduce the overall number of intellectual jobs in US. What he proposes is pay American people less so that those people keep their jobs, which, at least, theoretically helps keep the whole IT industry in US rather than outsource it to India and China.
Originally posted by Towel
That's really an odd thing for Mr. Ballmer to say, because it implies that companies are having a hard time finding workers to work at that wage. Job markets should be pretty self-correcting. If there's a glut of workers, or lower-wage competition, you either work for less or find a new job. Are that many IT people choosing "none of the above"? Low supply of workers causing job losses, like Ballmer claims, just doesn't make any economic sense.
zizactly! as my pal Obelix would say...
Even if he did this provocation by purpose : giving an excuse for outsourcing employment, the only thing that people will keep in mind, is that he want to lower the wages of engineers, people who earn very little in comparison of him.
I call this an error of communication.