>That's a naive argument.

No, it's an experienced one.

>Intelligence / Competence more or less has the same distribution curve. With the access of knowledge now widely available, A country with 1.5B people will always have more competent people than countries that have 50 Million in population.

That is only a fraction of what it takes to produce good software developers. You have to include quality of the educational systems, living conditions and all that. Any offshore developer worth their salt gets paid market rates or near market rates.

>And these countries have cheap labor. US has always poo-pooed Japanese, Chinese and Indian workers as low quality. That's only because you didn't filter well

It's not their nationality, it's the price they are charging for. I bet you can't find a quality US worker for $30K a year either.

I work with IDC folks a lot and just like you said there is no difference in quality but the time difference and being US centric makes a difference. The US side makes the decisions and the ither sides has to follow. I personally try to give as much independence as possible but it's just how it is based on where the money comes from.