Perspective: Johnny can so program

"America is slipping!"

It's become a standard lead, guaranteed to grab readers' attention. Add in a few alarmist quotes from self-serving lobbyists with hidden agendas, along with the obligatory conclusion that "Education is the answer," and you've got the economic horror movie that Americans love so much to watch.

CNET News.com has got this formula down pat. Its piece, Can Johnny still program?, laments that in the annual collegiate programming contest held by the Association for Computing Machinery, the best that any American team could do this year was a miserable 17th place. The United States hasn't won a world championship since 1997--"an ominous sign for the U.S. tech industry," News.com fears.

"Oh my god," readers must have thought. "How could the quality of American computer-science students have sunk so quickly in the short time span of just eight years?" It's an absurd conclusion, of course, but readers have been conditioned to believe any claim, no matter how outlandish, about the decline of the U.S. educational system.

But let's see what News.com didn't tell you.

Start with what it means statistically to perform well in this contest today. News.com didn't tell you that the number of teams competing has grown nearly sevenfold from 1994 through 2005. In other words, for a team to finish at, say, third place, in 1994 would be equivalent to finishing 21st this year. So a hypothetical team that News.com would have lauded in 1994 would now be dismissed as having badly "slipped" in 2005, even though it would be of the same quality.

The American showing in the ACM contest does not mean that the U.S. is losing its technological mettle.

Second, News.com seems to have forgotten the history of the Olympics. Long before Olympic athletes from all countries became quasiprofessionals, the Eastern European countries were seeing to it that training for the Games was their athletes' full-time job, giving them a major advantage over other nations' athletes.

Some nations, or some individual universities, make similar time commitments in the ACM contest. Xu Jun, a public-affairs officer at the school, which fielded this year's first-place team in the programming contest from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, put it in Olympian terms: "All their time was spent in preparation except for their class work."

A faculty colleague of mine who is a veteran coach in the ACM contest estimates that many foreign teams devote at least 10 times the amount of time to practice as do American teams. Xu's statement suggests that the factor is much greater than 10.

As someone who married into a Shanghai family, I congratulate the bright, dedicated members of the winning Jiaoda team, which also took first place in 2002. But it would be wrong to view their victories as measures of general superiority over other schools, let alone other nations. Indeed, a number of ethnic-Chinese universities that are considered far more prestigious than Jiaoda weren't in even the top 10, such as Peking University (11th place), Tsinghua University (13th place) and National Taiwan University (Honorable Mention, below 30th place).

In a companion editorial, News.com Executive Editor Charles Cooper repeated the lobbyists' favorite example, the seemingly poor showing of American kids at the grade-school level on international math and science tests. Yet it has been repeatedly pointed out by education experts that differences in test scores are primarily due to America's struggle to deal with a social underclass.

Consider the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study eighth-grade science test, for instance, and the scores achieved by Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Had these states--none of which has a substantial

Biography
Norm Matloff is a professor of computer science at the University of California at Davis. You can read more about H-1B and offshoring issues on his Web page.

More Perspectives

Hear, Hear!!

Right on target.

Want to Support US Jobs? Stop Shopping Walmart

Want to support US Jobs? Stop buying Walmart goods (99% of which is cheap because they are produced cheaply in foreign countries.)<br /><br />Yet Walmart sales skyrocket every year. Why? Because you people are all hypocrites. You continue voting with your wallet -- purchasing cheap forgeign (Walmart) goods over locally made (expensive) goods.<br /><br />Start practicing what you preach. Then you can mabye expect Wall St. to do the same.

[Christopher Hall]

We should all learn from this

There are two sides to every story. Sometimes, it's very easy to forget that.<br /><br />The going trend lately is that a vast majority of news organizations have an anti-American spin on them. It's wise to take that news with a grain of salt.

[Remo_Williams]

Kinda suspected as much.

I never quite understood the H1-B visa dilemma until this essay filled in some of the missing pieces. Makes more sense to me now.<br /><br />As for US CS being inferior... I never believed it. Math classes do not equal programming superiority, that much I've proven daily at work. Studying to place high in one contest makes them experts... in that contest.<br /><br />-Remo

Correct

"As for US CS being inferior... I never believed it. Math classes do not equal programming superiority, that much I've proven daily at work. Studying to place high in one contest makes them experts... in that contest."<br /><br />This is very true. I, myself, have competed in a couple of ACM programming contests. The problems you are asked to solve have little to nothing to do with anything these students will be doing when they graduate. None of the problems we solved have helped me in my job, other than the process of continual learning.<br /><br />Part of the strategy in one of these contests is to pick out the easy ones. The faster you can submit a correct solution, the more points you receive. Plus, it can be ugly as you please. There are no bonus points for being elegant.

Media wars

This just looks like CNET &#38; NEWS.COM going at it. There are one or two valid points.<br /><br />BUT - the H1-B bit sounds overblown. How large a proportion of all programmers have/need a masters AND a PHD ? I've been writing software for 25 years and I don't have ANY form of degree. I did 1 semester in college in 1981. THis doesn't imply that none of the programmers today, have these qualifications. But it's my belief that the majority of todays programmers DON'T NEED them.<br /><br />BTW - H1-B's are legally required to be paid with a narrow range of the national average for their job.<br /><br />Intel, has a large facility here in Phoenix - not sure if that's where many of the H1-B's are working. But our wages are a great deal lower than other parts of the country - our cost of living is lower too - about half that of Silicon Valley. This isn't conclusive. But I don't see a conclusive sound argument in this argument. There are too many thing that could skew it.

I Jumped right into the this, and no escape now

just as i was finishing college, CS industry ran out on me. I remember when i attended classes hearing all the success stories about CS carrier. When it was time for me to jump in, i could not scratch a job. I am reduced now to IT work that have to do with fixing computers, OS's, installing drivers, blah blah blah,, they call me computer guy.. Damn it i am tired of it.. i am not a computer guy. I am an developer, program designer, programmer. But it does not matter no one is paying attention..

[nobrainr]

Very True

I read alot befuddled reports on how the US is losing its edge against other nations. Where's that claim coming from??? We can't reach that conclusion without good statistics!

I couldnt agree more!!!!

Corporate america is beholden to the stockholders, at the expense of american workers. Enrollment has declined in computer science applications only because job security and pay have fallen in the united states due to investment in india and china. This investment translates directly into job attrition in the US.

[yageroy]

This dude Rocks!

Rock on dude!

He is clueless

His logic is circular<br />1. He said that 3rd in 1994 would be 21st now if everyone advanced the same... However, we know that is not the case because of who continues to place in the top 10 even though we dropped out.<br /><br />2. He said we don't grill out people who compete like the other countries do, therefor there win doesn't mean much. Considering he is a computer teacher that is so ludicrous. Perhaps AppDev just isn't his thing but anyone who has learned AppDev languages knows that drilling in the concepts is the best way to perfect the trade. Not doing so is lazy and indicative as to why we continue to fall farther behind.<br /><br />3. He says we perform poorly in grade school on math and science. He is 100% wrong. It is the exact opposite. We perform very well in grade school, ok in middle school, poorly in high school, and terribly in college. <br /><br />4. I'll stop with this one. He claimes H1B is bad for us as it makes it harder for us to compete. This is where is true extreme left-wing shows. Beyond misquoting facts, claiming to understand the computer world and beleieving we are fairing just fine, here he claims that if we would get rid of the foreigners (i.e. the motivation to excell and improve from competition) we would get better. And then he complains about the concept of educating more engineers as part of the fix.<br /><br />A true left-coast quack looking to make himself appear intelligent to his extremist friends. For those that live in the real world, we need to make colleges harder and push for more accomplishment while the students are in them. China will pass us by while the Norm Matloff's of the world claim it is a false alarm.

[BattleAce7101]

I' m sure you are some kind of outsourcer

This guys is right on!. <br />The H1B issue is about cheap labor.<br />We have many skilled IT workers who are unemployed today because of outsourcing and offshoring.<br />The college degree has become nothing but a right of passage that many forigners have mastered. <br />Americans have a spirit of entrepreneurship we are not professional studnets like many from China and India ; pursuing Master degree after master degree and Phd to Phd. Thes trophies have nothing to do with capability but it is used as an argument for getting more H1Bs

[Steve Bryan]

No he isn't

Claiming that people are clueless rather than that they happen to disagree with you is a rather lame position to take.<br /><br />1. There can certainly be more than one factor involved in a specific result. The claim that a much larger field of competitors is a significant factor would be obvious to anyone with any numerical competency. I don't imagine the professor would disagree that there could be other factors.<br /><br />2. He isn't a "computer teacher", he is a professor in one of the great public university systems in the world. As such his educational responsibility is far broader than it seems you might imagine. That is sort of the point he was making. It is possible to tweak a fairly insigificant result (except to journalists) by sacrificing more enduring goals but we wisely don't always force the required monomania on our university students. There are many other educational activities that will serve the student better than the sort of drilling and practice that he suggests others are employing.<br /><br />3. Your claim of declining results with education level is nonsense and not supported by any of the results I've ever read. For instance, American universities are always at the very top of any survey. A significant factor in this is the presence of vast array of top notch foreign students who "vote with their feet" for where the best education is available. Of course this blurs the point since it gives us American institutions with a significant fraction of foreign students.<br /><br />In any case his observation about the inclusiveness of American efforts at lower grade levels remains an uncomfortable, but apparently true point. More specifically if you limited your statistics to students who go on to Ivy League and other prestigious universities you would get some pretty impressive numbers. The claim is that countries like Singapore do something similar to that in order to make their numbers look comparatively better. If they really were that much better then where are all the Nobel Prize scholars from the Singapore education system? I don't mean to cast aspersions on their many fine scholars, just the bureaucrats who play games with their statistics.<br /><br />4. The comments concerning H1B visas is too incoherent for any response. The motivation for employers, like Intel, is rather clear. It allows some very rich people to become even more rich. If there weren't other associated costs, I don't think that would present a problem. If it tends to decrease the possibility that talented and motivated people will endure the rigors of the required training then those are decisions that last a lifetime. Can we afford to ship all of our technical jobs offshore?<br /><br />On the other hand we might just be witnessing the transition of American high tech from the digital arena to biological and nanotech ventures. The recent $3B venture in San Francisco would tend to support that as a possibility. Too bad about all those 50 somethings who need to make a transition.

US finished ahead of India which BTW is #1 h1-b and outsource

The US is competitive on quality level in software development.<br /><br />Anyone using the ACM as an example of how the US is falling behind in the computer science industry, is an idiot.<br /><br />If the ACM meant anything, than China should be the #1 destination of out-sourced American IT jobs and the #1 source for IT people coming in on an H1-B visa. <br /><br />India is the #1 source and destination, where did they finish in the ACM? somewhere in the 20's, well behind the US.<br /><br />The loss of jobs to India has nothing to do with, quality, capability, worker competitiveness.<br /><br />It has everything to do with the high value of the US dollar relative to the Indian rupee. <br /><br />The US dollar is gradually falling in value, this causes all the costs of resource inputs into out economy (like oil) to become more expensive.<br /><br />I think most of us will have to give our gas guzzling SUV's and pickups (that should be enough to scare any Republican).<br /><br />Frankly if the H1B program were limited to just PHD's, we would never hit the limit. I have seen too many H1B'ers (with Masters or lower) assigned to be the build engineer or QA engineer to believe any lobbyist hype that we need more H1b'ers at the Masters or BS level. <br /><br />Half my engineering friends (most (95%) with Bachelors degree of higher in computer science) are enemployed (some with 10+ years of experience). <br /><br />I think most of them will be able find work, when they lose their mortgage, take a huge cut in pay. <br /><br />Frankly I think trade imbalance is the main cause of stagflation.

Wonderful Bullshit

But ********, nevertheless.<br /><br />The issue isn't whether Johnny can program. And it isn't whether the Chinese cheat, like East Germans in 1976. And the issue isn't visas.<br /><br />The issue is that the American public doesn't know which side of the bread the butter goes.<br /><br />Look around. Everybody who is anybody has completely forgotten about tech. THEY ARE ALL BUYING REAL ESTATE to sell to foreigners.<br /><br />It's not that Johnny can't program. It's that Johnny's father has his head up his ass and is morgaging his kids future to get a plush retirement.<br /><br />Oh, and by the way, we live in a world of litigious patent process. The lawyers and the patent holders are winning this game, HANDS DOWN.<br /><br />And how many patent LAWYERS does CHINA have?

[jamie.p.walsh]

And how many patent LAWYERS does CHINA have?

None, the chinese don't patent anything, they just reverse engineer everything and mass manufacture it cheaper.

[jamie.p.walsh]

mortgaging his kids future to get a plush retirement.

why not, HIS father developed a social security system that he'll still benefit from. HIS son pays for it but will never see a penny of it.

[michaelo1966]

Clear thinker

Great job Prof. Matloff! You've always stood up for professional software engineers under what, I'm sure, is great pressure.<br /><br />The MBA sees programmers as commodities and will do whatever they can to reduce the price. This is no more true than, say, singers or screen-writers as commodities but they don't understand that. They do understand when they offshore and their sales tank from poor products, but don't usually acknowledge the correlation.<br /><br />I'm hoping the rise of the India Institute's of Management -- and that great sucking sound we hear from the job availabilty finance types who push the offshoring (finance really is a commodity) -- will put some common sense into them.

[pcLoadLetter]

Off base

"So a hypothetical team that News.com would have lauded in 1994 would now be dismissed as having badly "slipped" in 2005, even though it would be of the same quality."<br /><br />That is such an ignorant comment it defies belief. Assuming that the 1994 team is the same quality as the 2005 team(which is a strech), you think that is a good thing? These things should not be looked at an absolute point of view, but from a relative one. You inadvertantly proved what you were trying to disprove, that the US is slipping in CS. If a runner keeps at the same pace, but is falling behind the leaders, he is slipping.<br /><br />The contest, of course is not the sole indictator, of whether CS education is falling behind, but it is one good indicator.<br /><br />The second is the constant falling behind in mathematics. Anyone who thinks programming is not inexerably linked to math is clueless. Programming is built on mathematics. You don't need to know math to learn a language, but learning a language does not make you a programmer, nor does it make you a professional. You have to learn the underbelly of data structures, algorithms, hardware, the theory that computing is based on, ect and that requires a solid understanding of what mathematics really is.

You misunderstood

You've missed the mathematical point of the author's claim, which is statistical. He claimed that the number of people in the contest increased seven-fold, and as such the percentile ranking for US teams has not changed. You say that the problem needs to be looked at from a relative standpoint, yet fail to do so.<br /><br />If there are 10 teams one year and the US team finishes third, they're in the 70th percentile for the competition:<br /><br />(10 - 3) / 10 * 100 = 70%<br /><br />If there are 70 teams in a future year and the US team finishes 21st, they're in the 70th percentile:<br /><br />(70 - 21) / 70 * 100 = 70%<br /><br />I.e. they're not slipping at all. The absolute body of people increases; the relative statistical ranking does not.<br /><br />You should probably think twice before claiming absolute mathematical ignorance of a professor of Computer Science. Statistical probability says you're the one who is most likely wrong.

The ACM is a poor measure, it does not reflect IT outsourcing destinations

The ACM is a poor measure of IT (or development or programming) capability.<br /><br />India finished in the 20's somewhere. Well behind the US.<br /><br />Yet India is the #1 source for H1-b IT workers. It is the #1 (foreign) destination for US IT "out-sourced" jobs.<br /><br />China finished first, and had other placements in the top-ten. (Again where's India? Way behind in the 20's)<br /><br />If the ACM meant anything, then we would be seeing more IT jobs going to China and more Chinese H1-bers (than from Indian).<br /><br />This whole subject (of the ACM being an example of US IT problems) was nothing more than fetish, a put-on, by news.com and its affiliates.<br /><br />Frankly most of the negative opinions of U.S. workers (expressed in other postings) are nothing more than bigotry. <br /><br />There is a dirty smear going on of the US IT worker, and it's being perpetrated by those who have financial interest in denegrating US workers.

Article is misleading

It is bad enough that it is somewhat accepted that politicians lie, and we don't think it is a big deal, but now we have a University professor twisting and omitting facts to support his flawed premise.<br /><br />From the article:<br />"Congress, openly admitting that it was responding to industry campaign donations rather than the popular will, complied by increasing the H-1B cap in 1998 and 2000, the latter action coming at the time the mass layoffs began. This past December, despite a continuing abysmal tech labor market, Congress enacted another expansion of the program."<br /><br />The facts:<br />The H1B cap (which covers not only computer professionals, but also foreign workers in a wide variety of fields, including sports, and fashion model) was 65,000/year in the early 90's. For those who remember the situation in the IT market in 1997-1998, it was clear that there was a shortage of qualified computer specialists, especially in areas away from the major IT centers like the Silicon Valley, New York City, Boston, etc. The raise of the H1B cap, if I remember correctly, was done only once - in 1998. It was temporary, and in two stages, with initial raise to 120,000, then to 195,000 (in 2000), and then it went back to 65,000 in 2004, with the additional rule that the number is not for the visas issued, but for the visa applications - i.e., if a company applied improperly for an H1B visa, they used one of the allotted numbers even though they were refused the visa. This is far from the implied continuous expansion that Norm Matloff wants you to believe.<br /><br />While the cap was up there, close to 200K a year, the supply and demand equilibrium was achieved and not all available visas were used (obviously the bubble burst had a great impact on that). In the fiscal 2004 (Oct. 2003 to Sept. 2004), the 65,000 visa application were exhausted in about 4-5 months. In the fiscal 2005, all 65,000 applications were submitted in a single day (Oct. 1, 2004) since that number included the applications filed in fiscal 2004 after the cap was reached. This meant that high-tech companies had to wait for an year to offer a job to a non-citizen, regardless of their qualifications. This is why there were an additional 20,000 H1B visas allocated in December, restricted to MS and PhD holders from US universities.<br /><br />Quote:<br />"Government data show, for instance, that Intel, which claims that its H-1Bs have master's degrees and Ph.D.s, pays them far less than the national medians for engineers with these degrees."<br /><br />The H1B visa regulation require that the salary of the visa holder is comparable to the local level of compensation, and not to the national median, and for a very good reason. The IT and CS professionals in California are probably skewing the average and median values nationally to such an extent, that companies in Tennessee or Alabama, for example, would have a hard time hiring someone at or above these levels of compensation, since it will make their local costs too high, and make them less competitive in their local markets.<br /><br />If Norm Matloff (or anybody else) has credible evidence that Intel, or anyone else, is paying their H1B employees less than their US counterparts, he should file a lawsuit - it will bring them the gratitude of current and future H1B employees around the country. BTW, HP tried this in the late 80's - early 90's, and got slapped very hard with fines. I haven't heard of anything comparable from a large corporation since then.<br /><br />Quote:<br />"Contrary to these parties' putative goal of maintaining American technological competitiveness, H-1B has brought great harm."<br /><br />What "great harm"? The scandals at Enron and WorldCom? The Internet bubble? In my opinion, clueless and arrogant executives, who believe that they are above the law, or that they can manage in areas about which they have no understanding, have brought much greater harm to the US economy than a million H1B workers will ever do.<br /><br />Of course there are problems with the H1B program. There are employers that abuse it. Unfortunately, it is the only viable way for companies to bring highly qualified specialists in the US. If a permanent resident program was available, where a person could start working in 1 to 6 months after accepting an employment offer, and their status was confirmed in under a year, the H1B path will be abandoned in a second. This is the solution to H1B abuses, not the fairy tales that Matloff wants to tell...

No - it's very accurate, NOT a fairy tale

Obviously you don't have enough credibility to sign your real name.<br /><br />Having actually worked with H1B visa holders, interviewing them, and being replaced by them, I have experienced first hand how American tech jobs have been devalued. <br /><br />For example, in Mountain View, California, the bioscience company I worked for posted a H1B Senior Electronics Engineer, MSEE job on the bulletin board, paying $78,200 year. This is with &gt; 10 years experience.<br /><br />"The H1B visa regulation requires that the salary of the visa holder is comparable to the local level of compensation..." This means that the company must pay in the same salary range. Companies always post H1B jobs with salaries AT THE BOTTOM of the range. NOT THE MEDIAN, NOT THE AVERAGE. If they want to drive down the salary, they simply reclassify the job, which is legal.<br /><br />In this same city a police officer earns between $60K - $95K, plus $40K in benefits. No college required.<br /><br />Is it any wonder that high school grads are not motivated to study science and engineering? There is no job security. <br /><br />"For those who remember the situation in the IT market in 1997-1998...." I REMEMBER it very well. You should reflect more on how fast the bubble burst. The growth rate in the IT market was not sustainable. But proponents of the H1B program were overly optimistic of job growth during that period.<br /><br />?If Norm Matloff (or anybody else) has credible evidence that Intel, or anyone else, is paying their H1B employees less than their US counterparts, he should file a lawsuit?? Well, DUH, you mean I should spend my own $$$ and litigate for years to fight H1B abuse? You either have too much confidence in the legal system or you are a deadbeat lawyer. <br /><br />When my contract was terminated with the biotech company, I found it more constuctive to look for another job than to sue my former employer

What is YOUR AGENDA News.com?

News.com is just like the New York Times, LA Times and the rest of the screwy news... I read them for things they can't taint like product releases and the like, but that's IT!<br /><br />Norm Matloff has hit it on the head. That guy Foley, whoes so "scared" we are falling behind said not to long ago that "..it does not make sense to become a programmer...(because) programming jobs will continue to go offshore."<br /><br />What does it say about Foley's position? Or News.com's as well? What is YOUR AGENDA News.com?

Why can't Johnny program? - 'cause

even a UC Davis CS Prof (who was a math and statistics prof) can't reason. His article would be worth reader's time if only his arguments have more substance &#38; logic than pure rhetorics.<br /><br />Point 1: #3 in an earlier competition is of the "same quality" as #17 or lower in a later competition which has more teams. Sure. I guess we all agree the US sports team that were #1 in the STOCKHOLM Olympics (28 nations (or more accurately, NOCs) participated) were about as bad as #7 in Athens Olympics (201 nations participated). And sure, in ACM contest, if only they had allowed more people to participate, the gold medalist would for sure degrade to silver, bronze or just honorable mention! It's just simple math isn't it?<br /><br />Point 2: Peking Univ., Tsinghua Univ. are far more prestigious than Jiaoda. Now where did that come from? I know far more about Chinese Univs than Norm and I can emphatically say that it's not true. Peking, Tsinghua are better, but no way by a lot. More importantly, by arguing that one Univ. is generally better than another, then its ACM team should also beat the other univ's, it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Just where is the logic in this guy's blogs?<br /><br />Point 3: TIMMS shows that even some U.S. STATES are better than some NATIONS. Now this is so misleading - picking a group of better performing states and compare them to whole nations. Now I can easily pick a good class in any country, and say even just this one class in (fill in your favorite country name) can beat the United States handily. Would that be fair? Again, a clueless "professor" provided ridiculous logic in his arguements.<br /><br />Point 4: How can American engineers compete with cheap, imported labor? Well, offshoring and H1B issue are not just because they're cheap labor. It's because it's proven that techies in other country can do the same/similar job at lower total cost. That's not gonna support this "Johnny can program" statement.<br /><br />It's very disappointing that a college professor from a well-known university is so confused in logic and so obssessed with H1B issue such that he totally forgot to put forth (even just) one valid support for the title of the article - "Johnny can program". <br /><br />This article's nothing more than a perversed version of the author's hidden aversion towards H1Bs and foreigners. I'm no supporter of "Johnny can't program" mentality, but if the supporters of "Johnny can program" are so dumb, maybe that claim is true.

[CompEng]

It is a shame

It is a shame to see such name calling in a post where the counter-arguments boil down to "I don't understand his argument".<br /> Now Norm clearly has an agenda, as does all of those folks he names. But I think anyone who thinks of himself (or herself) as a scientist or engineer ought to be pretty comfortable with his agenda, which seems to be to provide a counterpoint to current corporate propaganda. As far as his arguments, they are fairly well reasoned, especially if someone is familiar enough with his views (explained in more detail elsewhere) to fill in the gaps. <br /> Unfortunately, one of the major problems with this kind of discourse is that it is impossible to dredge out enough background in a given forum to establish a consensus on the relevant facts. So it's nearly impossible to make much progress at a time on what's currently going on, much less speculative or philosophical points on where a policy will lead.<br /> There are always some people with opinions who just need to vent them, but not much opportunity to improve understanding within a group. It's kind of sad, really. No wonder so many people think everyone else is an idiot.

Hypocritic Uncle Sam

The US companies mass-produces goods and undercuts prices in third-world countries. There has been no qualms about that. Whereas when India and China mass-produce smart people and export them to US, there is a big uproar.<br /><br />The US is still lobbying around the world for open markets. But wants to protect its own interests by imposing severe restrictions on what other countries can export to it.<br /><br />Another example of the US's double standards is the NPT. The US has enough nukes to decimate the world and do it over and over again several times. Is the US willing to defuse all nuclear weapons it has? (Oh! I forgot, the US is the saviour of Planet Earth from aliens and needs nukes to fight them.)<br /><br />Why the hypocrisy, Uncle Sam?

Immigration is controlled in just about all countries

Firstly, I am not in disagreement with you that the US does have a lot of double standards. My government (the US) borrows billions of dollars and then pours it out foreign aid, a good deal of it military. <br /><br />Where's the sense in that?<br /><br />And you have got admit, all countries control immigration, some are way more strict than the US.<br /><br />Frankly most countries wouldn't let me in to work, even though I'm a software engineer, been one for 10+ years. Reason is, I do not possess a degree. <br /><br />Also 911 shows, that you must screen people who are entering your country. Too many people hate the US, they were screaming "Death to the US" this week in Afghanistan.<br /><br />I have no problem with the US brain draining the world, but the h1-b program has been used to allow in mundane IT workers who possess only a BS degree. I can do their job (I am doing their job), I don't have degree. We also have way too many unemployed engineers in the US, it is hurting our economy.<br /><br />Instead of wasting H1B slots on run-of-the-mill workers, it should be reserved for those with a PHD. <br /><br />I think I could support an unlimited H1B immigration for technical PHD's. <br /><br />And for mundane workers, no problem letting them in either. But we can't let people in who hate the US, and I would really prefer we only let run-of-the-mill people in if they intend to stay and become citizens.<br /><br />I want to live with people who believe in human rights, who respect each other religion rights, who demand democratic government, and most importantly are willing to lay down their lives to protect the US constitution.

[CompEng]

Trade deficit

The concept of a "trade deficit" means that<br />the U.S. imports much more than it exports. When it exports more than it imports, then you may have a point about protectionism.<br /> As far as H1-Bs goes, the argument is that temporary workers in an H1-B arrangement are different than foreigners who immigrated to the U.S. They have different cost arrangements and are easier to abuse. I'd be happy (am happy) to work with folks who have immigrated to the U.S. We ought to make the immigration process for educated folks easier, and hamstring the H1B programs.

Johnny can still program but which Johnny?

Well he is correct that Johnny can still programm but is it Johnny Smith? No it is more likely Johnny Chen, Johnny Vu, Johnny Chandra. Even without H1-Bs the tech field is populated by a large number of Asian immigrants and their chidlren. You are right there are still great "American" programmers left but the average suburban kid has an attitude of "I hate math" or "Math sucks". They just go into sales or business. The average American guy is an insurce salesman not a techie. That is one job that won't be outsourced.<br /><br />US was great because it imported a lot of talent from all over the world. Nowadays they just find it easier and cheaper to go abroad

The 24-hour news cycle. . .

. . .has been the greatest boon to misinformation since it became a reality.<br /><br />Whether you agree or disagree with this guy's viewpoints, I think we can all agree that News.com's original report on the subject was woefully inadequate given this new information. He certainly does reveal it to be a more complicated situation than the previous articles indicated, doesn't he?<br /><br />However, I do have to give News.com some credit for having printed this as a regular article, even though it criticizes them and their articles, instead of burying this somewhere where it is unlikely it would ever be found, as is commonly done in the media. I only wish I could take this as a sign that further articles would be better researched, even if that meant delays in writing and posting the articles. Sadly, I doubt this is the case.<br /><br />Now that we have it (the 24-hour news cycle), we're stuck with it for all of its faults.

So what, an average Indian worker is probably a farmer.

The argument that the average US worker is a not a techie, and that is the reason why the US is/will not be able to compete with India in IT, is really pure B.S.<br /><br />Truthfully, in India as in the US, tech workforce is only a small percentage of total workforce.<br /><br />It seems somewhat bigoted to make a statement such as "the Average American doesn't care about math". <br /><br />It isn't correct, and it is not in any company's best interest to make such foolish assumptions. It is at worst, a bigoted POV.<br /><br />Both countries have an ample workforce that is mathematically capable in the IT area.<br /><br />Also, in my experience, there is usually little that is average about tech workers in either country. Most are quite eclectic.<br /><br />The key thing is that in both countries, the amount of monetary resources trickling down from the tech workforce is significant, and cannot be overlooked by either government.

[jamie.p.walsh]

The lost art of buying american

We have grown from a culture happy with a few quality novelties, and more semi-quality necessities to needing lots of cheap everything. I admit, totally American made products are probably hard to find in this day and age. No matter what you buy; packaging, manufacturing; development; or sourcing; at least one if not all is being done overseas. Can we deal with it? It seems to be that way. <br /><br />Who's bright idea was it to start shipping call center jobs there? Prior to 2002 had anyone ever tried to talk to someone in India or China? It was like talking through tin cans. Indian business people routinely would give me 4 numbers to call to try and reach them, it was like the party lines of the 60s and 70s. Still today I deal with support people who don't have a conversational grasp of American english and cannot discern what your problem is because they simply don't understand you. Instead, they are trying to anticipate or guess what your problem is by replying to keywords in your speech. For example, I mentioned "firewall" in a conversation that explains a problem with something unrelated to a firewall problem. I then began to get instructions on how to troubleshoot my firewall. ***. I come from a very diverse background and education, but I know that people I have dealt with from the midwest and south would NEVER put up with a conversation like that, let alone pay for that type of service.<br /> <br />In any case, can anything be done to thwart the blatant greed in corporate america. Does anyone with a conscience really believe that this is not exploitation? The middle class is disappearing before our eyes, which is just fine by the upper class. It gives them greater separation and more power to manipulate the government. I have a Bachelor of Science degree which I earned in 2001. I was lucky to find work just before it all went bad. I trained a Singapore team to do my job, then moved to daylight, then was moved out. <br /><br />I took the job to get my foot in the door to a great up-and-coming company with the hopes that my work would allow me to move into development and design. I applied 5 times, each time being beaten by an eastern european, indian or chinese candidate. With a friend in HR, I was able to discern the REAL reason for my failure. I had more experience with the company and all of their products, better relationships with the customer contacts who submit requests for improvements, and I had high merit in my job at the time. No, I failed to land the position because the offer they gave to each one of them was equal to what I was making at the time. Mind you, it was already at the low end of the nation's Help Desk Support III salary range according to salary.com. That position was a lower level position than the one I was applying for. I understand that it is simple economics and business, but if we are going to preach "buy american", we should also chant "hire american".

Right on!!

That is the real deal, keep it up!

[Peter Glaskowsky]

How? Here's how.

Professor Matloff asks "How can American engineers compete <br />with cheap, imported labor?" His answer: make sure they don't <br />have to. That reflects a grossly distorted and utterly <br />counterproductive attitude. The only way to make American <br />engineers competitive is to make them compete. Visa <br />restrictions must be ended. Every engineer we import makes us <br />a stronger country. Every job we send offshore makes room for a <br />new, more valuable job here. Protectionism has never worked <br />because it can't work. Protectionism makes American labor <br />unnaturally expensive, which drives ALL jobs away. Open <br />competition is how America became strong, and it's the only way <br />to keep us strong.

[CompEng]

I'm not so sure

I have no problem competing with people anywhere in the world on a quality basis. I do have some issues with competing on a cost basis, when so many of the reasons for the skewed costs are temporary, artificial, or boil down to foreign protectionism we don't answer or abuse of foreign workers. Even if my producitvity were 5x of that of a competing engineer in India or China, it wouldn't matter because companies don't measure that productivity - they view us as headcount. <br /> And the fact is, American employees as individuals can't outperform foreigners by those margins because we're all people with a similar range of potential capability (on average). An experienced team can outperform a non-experienced team by that kind of margin, but again - these productivities are hard to measure. And companies are willing to spend the up-fornt investment to *develop* experienced teams globally.<br /> It is possible for the playing field to become so tilted that is impossible for the American worker, on average, to compete. Believe it.

Fuzzy Logic 101

&gt;&gt; Every job we send offshore makes room for a<br />new, more valuable job here.<br /><br />You have no proof for this rhetoric but that doesn't stop you and the neocons from shouting from the roof top, does it? <br /><br />In case you didn't know it research and development is also being offshore outsourced. It's quite obvious where those new and more valuable jobs will be created.

[robsaz]

Tell Lou Dobbs that we Want Matloff

Lately Lou Dobbs and his crew have gone way overboard pushing the education button and there is only one way to straighten him out. We must demand that Dobbs debate Dr. Norm Matloff about the education issue. I have credible evidence that Dobbs has been trying to evade Matloff, so to make this debate happen all of us must contact CNN and demand that Dobbs face the music once and for all. <br /><br />WE NEED A DEBATE - AND SOON!<br /><br />Don't expect Dobbs to agree to this debate without a lot of public pressure. I have talked with some of his people and they are all convinced that education in the US is inferior. Dobbs has been great in publicizing the horrors of outsourcing and H-1B, but he still doesn't see the big picture. The education myth is used to justify American job destruction.<br /><br />Contact the Lou Dobbs show and demand a debate.<br /><br />The Lou Dobbs contact page is at:<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?9" target="_newWindow">http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?9</a><br /><br />Email him at: [e-mail]<br /><br />And just so Dobbs can't hide from the CNN execs, you can send comments to them on this page:<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?35" target="_newWindow">http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?35</a><br /><br />To keep up with the issues, subscribe to Matloff's newsletter, and also to my "Job Destruction Newsletter". Find out more at<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.zazona.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.zazona.com</a>