Recent Posts

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All Consulting, Biz and Career Discussion / Re: "Saving time by outsourcing tedious stuff"

« Last post by G0ddard B0lt on Today at 03:02:29 pm »

Not necessarily true. The guy hiring the illegal is probably paying below par wages plus they can cheat them on hours, add "fees" or simply not pay them their last check if they find a better job. And the employer knows that the illegals options are limited. What are they going to do that doesn't also expose that they are illegal?

Also I'm not sure about the "good standard of living" for a legal citizen since I suspect that some of these jobs are bid out so low that they can't afford a real wage or at least the hiring party won't be making the same profit margin. Especially if the work is being bid out at full market rates but the employer hires a bunch of illegals at sub par wages and pockets the difference. Then you are clearly denying a legal citizen a good job.

The bottom line being:

Illegals are distorting our economy in the area of low end labor. And it's not just a matter of wage competition,  it's also the matter of imposing foreign culture on US citizens looking for work. Example, I have a family member who could really use a job who was told that he would not be considered to work in a hotel's laundry because the job requires Spanish skills. !@%*^%

And it's a law enforcement, border defense and national policy problem that should be solved, not pushed out into the economy in order to find an opportunistic solution that harms many and benefits a few.

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All Consulting, Biz and Career Discussion / Re: "Saving time by outsourcing tedious stuff"

« Last post by Richardk on Today at 02:58:21 pm »

OK, but I personally 1) do not want to hire people here illegally and 2) do not want to take advantage of their situation.  In doing so, I also deny a legal citizen a good standard of living. 

Not necessarily true. The guy hiring the illegal is probably paying below par wages plus they can cheat them on hours, add "fees" or simply not pay them their last check if they find a better job. And the employer knows that the illegals options are limited. What are they going to do that doesn't also expose that they are illegal?

Also I'm not sure about the "good standard of living" for a legal citizen since I suspect that some of these jobs are bid out so low that they can't afford a real wage or at least the hiring party won't be making the same profit margin. Especially if the work is being bid out at full market rates but the employer hires a bunch of illegals at sub par wages and pockets the difference. Then you are clearly denying a legal citizen a good job.

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All Consulting, Biz and Career Discussion / Re: Where in the world is Scott?

« Last post by G0ddard B0lt on Today at 02:50:03 pm »

I zero in on certain posters. Most of CoT is crap posted by crazies and the ultra-angry. But it seems to have inherited a little career mentoring purpose, somehow, because posts pop up there about career that used to appear on JoS pre-sanitization from real life humans.

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All Consulting, Biz and Career Discussion / Re: Where in the world is Scott?

« Last post by Richardk on Today at 02:44:29 pm »

When do you guys find the time to read all these other boards? Speed reading, casual glance, with a time limit - hoping to find a gem?

If "Scott" has "grown it to million dollars per year of revenues" then why all the complaining and needing to move to a cheaper country? It doesn't add up. How much more does he want?

Peter - your next door neighbor - what a winner. He's probably the same kind of guy that buys a GPS for a weekend trip and then returns it, saying he changed his mind.

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All Consulting, Biz and Career Discussion / Re: Where in the world is Scott?

« Last post by Peter Gibbons on Today at 02:38:28 pm »

Calling people slaves surely doesn't look like a productive way to engage people to debate an issue.

I don't envy or hate the guy. He does appear quite paranoid and self important. Why would the police follow him around?

He could have skipped the part about renouncing his US citizenship and just tell us something interesting about his life in Chile.

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Coffee Talk / Re: what happened to Myspace?

« Last post by G0ddard B0lt on Today at 12:46:16 pm »

The "discussions" seem like mindless chatter, e.g. 3 word sentences about what someone had for breakfast punctuated by "LOL". I just checked her page. The most recent blurb was about how her cat threw up.  Thanks, I really had an urgent need to know that.

How to suck at Facebook.

"You should come to my cat's birthday party."

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All Consulting, Biz and Career Discussion / Re: "Saving time by outsourcing tedious stuff"

« Last post by G0ddard B0lt on Today at 12:43:30 pm »

So this could have been a good tread ( here, not CoT ) if we didn't get down to the toilet level and "Scott" didn't use some incendiary language like:

You guys are so addicted to the life of a slave, it being the only reality you have ever known, that you can not imagine what it would be like to be free. Like crabs in a bucket, you seek to pull back the crab that escaped.

I read the guy because he is very insightful.

You're saying his metaphor is incendiary. I think it's spot-on perfect. It's the same thing I talk about - blue collar envy and hate directed at anyone bettering themselves.

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Programming and Technology / Re: Windows 7 laptop - Not all that or a bad laptop?

« Last post by Richardk on Today at 12:15:30 pm »

benali72 - You don't need an XP license if you get the Pro level and up. Unfortunately many of the 'consumer' machines have Home premium, which does not have the XP feature.

Yes, it was nice that they allowed a trade. That's one machine where I said just take it back. There was nothing that you could point to hardware wise and say "this is what is broken" but it just wouldn't run. Looked like a bad install but no OS crashes either, just s-l-o-w.

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Coffee Talk / Re: Thoughts on podunk wasteland

« Last post by David Randolph on Today at 11:41:05 am »

Economically, there are two ways to make money in podunk wasteland: sell something to the locals, or sell something to people outside the area. Most business is done locally. The vast majority of business transactions occur within 3 km.

If you want to make money off of the local market, you need to look at the economy of the area: is there enough money and will to spend it in the area to make a living? IT is not a need. That means that it can not be a major cash sink - people won't spend a significant percentage of their money on it. People will spend on services. That means that you will need to identify what the service needs of the people are and be willing to do that (instead of development). For example, I had an uncle who tried to sell business consulting to an area. He gave up after a few years because everyone he talked to just wanted someone to do their taxes. He managed to get only one or two clients for business consulting that whole time. (Yes, he had the staff to do the taxes, but didn't want to do it himself. To be able to sell it, he had to be willing to be enthused about providing that service.)

That leaves selling to people outside of your area. How do you package what you do so that it can be sold without you being physically at the customer's site five days a week? The answer is left to the reader as it will be custom to your personality and experiences.

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All Consulting, Biz and Career Discussion / Re: "Saving time by outsourcing tedious stuff"

« Last post by JavaMouse on Today at 10:30:41 am »

If a price for a service is freely negotiated we shouldn't talk about slave wages.

If a person is in desperate straits, and there's no real marketplace for their work because they are illegal, the amount of "freedom" that they have is arguable.

Someone crossing the border probably does so because they're getting a better deal economically than they can in their own country.  OK, but I personally 1) do not want to hire people here illegally and 2) do not want to take advantage of their situation.  In doing so, I also deny a legal citizen a good standard of living.  I see nothing wrong with paying someone to clean your toilet, mow your lawn, or what have you, at the market rate.

Of course, there are those who claim that only foreign workers will do these jobs. That has not been my experience: I know two elderly women who hire legal citizens to do odd jobs and housework. These people get paid about $20/hour.