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"I don't know what magical spell has India cast over Americans"

This is a common question esp. among Pakistanis ("m23khan" is someone from Pakistan living in Canada, available from his HN comments). Please let me explain. (1) India is the biggest democracy in the world. US is the oldest democracy. We share common values like liberty, equality, secularism. (2) India has the potential to be largest growth market for American companies (think Android, Uber, American defense companies, etc.). (3) No Indian has been involved in terrorism attacks in US. (4) Indians integrate in US much faster than other immigrant communities, reasons could be familiarity with English, belief in freedom of speech, etc. (5) Significant contributions made by Indian-Americans - look at their work as Professors, as doctors, as CEOs, as journalists. (6) In spite of sharing many values with US, India is not afraid to distance itself from American policies when they do not agree, e.g. India said no for troops in Iraq, led the non-aligned movement during Cold War. My guess is that America respects a principled country more than a country which keeps asking for more $ while pointing a gun to its own head.

So it should not be difficult to understand why India is considered as an ally by US.

Great response.

It is more likely that India can be invaded if all goes wrong, but China would easily withstand US military nowadays.

In other words, Chinese negotiate from the position of strength in all regards. And they do want to keep control of their economy and their internal market.

What is this? Civilization 2 or something. HN too is subject to such juvenile commentary like Reddit, I suppose.

China manipulates its currency, disregards WTO standards and blatantly prevents foreign companies from dominating their market. Not to mention you have to hand over your company secrets to them if you need their 1.3B market access.

On the other hand, India is much more transparent and follows open market, Any foreign company can freely operate there without being feared of getting disadvantaged over local competition.

Btw, USA and other western power blatantly bullies India and other third world countries alike. When India started making cheap solar panels, USA dragged them to court. In the 90s, India started producing cheap fertilizers for their farmers.. oops, big daddy us doesn't likes it because it hurts the interest of Monsanto. So stop playing this US vs Them game.

Such nation of hypocrites. Takes proud in Democracy and free market capitalism but hates when it plays out on the world stage.

Not to mention: the US continue billions in dollars of farm subsidies for corn, wheat and cotton making them artificially cheap and thus making farmers of other nations (especially India) noncompetitive in the global market.

> I don't know what magical spell has India cast over Americans that all American politicians have become totally stone blind

Trump and every other American politician do not talk about it because the trade deficit between India and USA is not as big as China. Also, 9 out of 15 top internet companies in India are from USA. So like China, India is not a protectionist country and this outsourcing is a part of free trade.

Btw,Welcome to Capitalism!

> Trump and every other American politician do not talk about it because the trade deficit between India and USA is not as big as China. Also, 9 out of 15 top internet companies in India are from USA. So like China, India is not a protectionist country and this outsourcing is a part of free trade.

The day we hear Indian companies have outsourced jobs in India to outside of India, then your point will be valid.

This is not capitalism and is certainly not free trade - it is simply one-way trade and the problem lies with the Western World who have propped up the Indian economy by handing over jobs that should have remained in the West over to India.

> This is not capitalism and is certainly not free trade

It most certainly is, sadly.

> handing over jobs that should have remained in the West

Capitalism recognises no "should" other than the market.

> Indian companies have outsourced jobs in India to outside of India

Does it matter whether the jobs were in India in the first place? India is certainly an export market for the US: https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/south-central-asia/india

Three billion dollars of aircraft! That's got to be worth a job or two at Boeing or Lockheed-Martin. And then there's a little note at the bottom:

"Sales of services in India by majority U.S.-owned affiliates were $16.4 billion in 2011 (latest data available), while sales of services in the United States by majority India-owned firms were $9.3 billion."

pjc50 says:" Capitalism recognises no "should" other than the market."

And therein lies the rub for the USA: capitalism is not the be all and end all of our existence as a nation. Somewhere down the road we lost the notion that there was an implied social contract between a nation and its citizens. And that contract must take precedence over unfettered capitalism.

USA citizens thought the social contract included protection from competition with 2nd- and 3rd-world workers who are paid 2nd- and 3rd-world wages. But MBAs, economists, and "globalizers" believed that no such protection should be provided.

The USA's citizens lost the argument w/o knowing it was going on. The asymmetry in the situation puts only upside into the hands of the MBA/globalizer and downside into the hands of the USA worker:

MBA/globalizer - "I'll make mega-mega-megabucks if I can produce widgets abroad! I'll be a god* billionaire!"

Other would-be MBA/globalizer down the street - "If MBA/globalizer doesn't produce widgets abroad, then _I_ will do it! I'll be a god* billionaire and MBA/globalizer will be out of business!"

US citizen worker - "I'll lose my job and be penniless if anyone produces widgets abroad!"

Guess which ones put the most money into USA'S political campaigns over recent decades!

There is no question that China has a "China first!" policy. In contrast, the USA has forgotten that it once had a "USA first!" policy as part of its social contract. The USA should restore that policy and make it economically explicit. Otherwise, why have a nation-state at all? If we don't go "USA first!" then we will be little more than a protective nest for an extremely wealthy few.

[Edit: I was somewhat reluctant to add this, but several of the few extraordinary wealthy I have spoken to have literally whispered:]

But that might not last long. The USA populace would likely revolt, kill the extremely wealthy and start all over again.

Some, and possibly many, wealthy persons apparently fear the judgement of the crowds, pitchforks, torches and finally death at the hands of the mob! How wonderful must be extraordinary wealth that one begins to fear for one's very existence and that of one's children!

Don't worry, they will hire paramilitaries (not from US even) and beat everyone to the ground with them. Even gun laws are no good against trained military. The US would then be even more fully de facto police state.

Or they could just move, leaving a poor country behind.

Only if the military and the police rebelled would the revolution have any chance. Even in the US.

(People may be temporarily suckered by hypocrites and liars by omission.)

Are you truly interested in debate or just jealous Pakistani( based on your HN history) who can't fathom India getting successful ?

The average american who maybe lost a factory job 10 years ago, or who's parents made a good living working for a Ford factory in the 60s.. is mad about manufacturing leaving the country. There are millions of people with low education unable to make a living wage. That is where the anger is.

When an India bodyshop comes in, and displaces 50 people making 100k a year.. and they have to go find a new job making 100k a year within a month, there is much less outrage. The general rust belt population in the US is not going to go to bat for lawyers getting paid less, or IT workers making 10 or 20k less. Their parents made 60k working at a Ford factory, and now they make 20k working for a carwash. They are the ones that are outraged.

whose parents

brianwawok says:> "manufacturing leaving the country. There are millions of people with low education unable to make a living wage. That is where the anger is."

That's not the only place the anger is!

I can no longer buy good hand tools like those made in the USA during the 60s. Since then, neither China nor India (nor any other rising nation except Taiwan) have produced hand tools comparable to those formerly available from the USA.

Remarkably, most of my USA-made hand tools from the 60s still work but nothing lasts forever and accidents do happen. At least I can still get high-quality German, French or Japanese tools.

Business schools taught international economics theory to MBAs, who proselytized and burned down the barn (i.e., the USA's manufacturing capability) by globalizing everything in sight. MBAs in finance engineered a series of disastrous economic collapses, each larger than the previous. While the USA has "enjoyed" center-stage in this circus, I would have preferred that we, as a nation, avoided such a sordid business history.

Were it possible to do again, I would put most of the MBAs (along with all political science students) onto concrete boats and let the Navy use them for target practice. India and China would be much poorer but also would have avoided much upheaval. And I could buy good hand tools which, of course, is all I care about!

So let's talk about handtools.

Clearly some people value this. I know people that go to garage sales just to get vintage better made hand tools. So clearly there is some kind of demand for this.

Why do we not have a hand tools startup come in, and offer 1960s quality hand tools for a price premium? Choices are:

1) They literally cannot be made today. Say the type of steel is different, or there is some physical reason they cannot be built.

2) They can be made, but the price is so high - not enough people would pay for it, and the company would go under.

3) This is a ripe opportunity, and we just need a startup to come along an exploit it.

I am going to rule 1 out without more proof. So down to 2 choices. How much are people will to pay for really nice hand tools? 2-5x the autozone tools price?

>How the heck can IT folks from US/Canada/UK and other such nations compete with India

They can compete by doing a better job. A lot of people who have outsourced to India have run into problems and regretted it.

Absolutely. I've worked with dozens of remote teams in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, and every single one of them has produced absolute garbage work product, and the project management is very much CYA and do-as-little-as-possible. On paper it's nice to give them a list of things to be completed overnight, but in actuality it's never done.

Random web service times out once? Don't do any more work on anything, even stuff that doesn't use that service. Bill the full 8 hours though, of course.

Have a question about some tangentially related business process? Stop work until we get an answer, bill the full 8.

Oh, someone is actually checking our commits? The guy that wrote that is on vacation, sorry.

Oh, someone is actually checking our commits? Delete and recommit entire files, now it's impossible to see the volume of work complete.

At my current gig we picked up about 40 offshore developers and ended up dropping every one of them within the first year. We're still remote but US only at this point.

>I don't know what magical spell has India cast over Americans that all American politicians have become totally stone blind to the fact that how damaging India has been to outsourcing of jobs from America to India and how many highly skilled/educated Americans have been left without jobs due to India's usurping of jobs.

The "usurping" of jobs is because American companies are fine with driving down wages.

Infosys, Tata, etc in addition to being horrible bodyshops that treat their people like garbage are also some of the larger lobbying groups in the US. I know Infosys alone donated something like 3+ million dollars to the Clinton Foundation.

Many campaign donors effectively tossed millions into the trash this last election cycle by backing the losing candidate.

Good news: it isn't a total loss; the Clintons and the Clinton foundation are now rich b/c everyone thought Hilary Clinton would win the election.

Do not forget that even a losing candidate has quite some pull in the party.

And Democrats will not forget about the support.

When I sell my products/services to others, globalization is good but when others sell their products/services to me, globalization is bad.

India frequently gives contracts to build nuclear power plants, metro railways, and a bunch of other infrastructure projects to foreign companies, including American companies. Indian also has a bunch of big data projects, like a national data registry to which US companies contribute.

If India can survive outsourcing of her jobs to American companies, America surely wouldn't perish by outsourcing American jobs where it makes perfect business sense to do so.

The wages in india IT are growing at a pretty high rate.

Does DevOps engineer in India make US $120,000? Does Java programmer in India command US $100,000? Does a system admin. in India command US $90,000?

> Does Java programmer in India command US $100,000?

2500 USD to 15,000 USD

http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Java_Software_Develo...

That data is just wrong, and not what people get paid in major IT players, which are more likely to get these projects.

The empirical formula for a new hire is $3000 * years of Experience. The median starting Salary is $4500 ~ $5000, and the salary usually caps out at $25000, and people above that payscale are usually considered architects.

The DevOps in my company is in Pakistan. They make $10 an hour.

I'm on the other end of things, but never got a satisfying answer to why should I earn a cent less than someone US based (remote, traveling nomad whatever) just because I push commits from a different ISP.

Because the market wills so. (Actually, you're at the mercy of your employer.)

Also high competition for perceivably cheap candidates.

For one, I don't think just because you can exploit entire groups of people you are right to do that. The market could command lower wages for <underprivileged group> and it would not be right. It just happens overseas employees are protected by no one.

What I find more interesting though, is that remote first companies behave the same. way E.g. look at GitLab salary calculator[0]. How does that make sense assuming a rational market?

[0] https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/developer/

Perhaps because you don't need to:

- pay $250K per child in college costs

- pay 25K/year in health insurance

- pay $3K/month for a small apartment

This is the sentiment I usually see but how are one's expenses or expected living standard is relevant regarding compensation for work? Imo it is very hard to argue against equal work => equal pay. At least from a moral pov.

Btw that is a lot of incorrect assumptions about expenses, including where someone's children might want to go to college, globally fixed costs like work equipment and cloud services, not to mention goods which are actually cheaper in the US.

This is a good point. At a prior company we pulled our outsourced IT from India and went to the Philippines. Even there wages were quickly rising, and there was constant turnover as people job hopped for more money.

I finally convinced the company to just hire a couple people locally, and they were much better off for it.

I think thats because China takes away a lot of manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing in India is yet to take off.