This REALLY bothers me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/business/worldbusiness/11cnd-hitech.html


China Overtakes U.S. as Supplier of Information Technology Goods

I'm not totally sure the trend will continue in the long term or not. At least not without swinging back our way before it finds equilibrium.

The work I'm getting out of my Indians and Indonesians is simply not up to par with what I'd expect from even a mediocre college graduate here in the states, yet these guys supposedly hold post graduate degrees in CS. The initial wave of quick results is like crack to non-tech management, but the abject horror of maintaining this code will sober them up soon enough.

Even if the overseas guys have 0 turnover, I bet most of them won't even be able to efficiently maintain their own work 6+ months out. If it's different people trying to decipher it, fuggedaboudit.

I would say you are correct in the area of offshore outsourced coding/programming. My company competes with India and Indonesia everyday. If we were to go head to head with price being our selling point, we would lose.

I have noticed a trend where the work seems to be flowing back into the US. One big reason is exactly what you pointed out, amongst other reasons. We pick up quite a few projects (about 4-6 per month) where the client has basically thrown in the towel with offshore outsourcing due to things such as simply being able to effectively communicate, and most definately on quality of work.

As far as manufacturing, I'm not so sure that we will see a turn around now or in the foreseeable future.

I am of the mindset: I would happily pay 10-20 dollars more for a pair of shoes if I knew they were made in the USA. I would also pay $500 more if I knew the computer was manufactured here.

...and I think you're full of it.

America is about buying things cheap. That's why Walmart succeeds, that's why the airline industry is dying.

Obviously, we can't prove this, but I'd have a very hard time believing that someone with a reasonable income would pay $500 extra for the same hardware and same warranty for a computer that was ASSEMBLED here - note that no computer would be manufactured here. That woudl most likely be more than an extra $500.

I would.

I am not surprised. :(

I would love to, but I'm broke mostly. When I buy, I tend to buy what I can afford. If it's made in the US, yay for me. If not, well...fuggedaboudit.