My last job, the company's still doing quite well, beat Q1 expectations by 50%, and we did something like fifty to a hundred phone screens a month for an average of 1 hire a quarter. That's up to three hundred phone calls for ONE goddamn programmer. Do you know how frustrating that is?
What I don't buy about the argument of the Average Joe becoming cynical is that I just don't see a lot of hard work. Binary search is something that you should have learned in freshman year of college, and yet it's still a staple of programming interviews because people regularly fail it.
There are bad apples all around and the situation remains the same with foreign programmers. There are actually very few good foreign-born programmers, just as there are very few good American-born programmers. The catch is that they've all been spoon-fed all the algorithms knowledge so you have to pose your questions in other ways, see if they can creatively apply their knowledge to real world tasks like flipping through a phone book, etc.
In all, I think the problem is more one of PR. We need to get the word out that if you are good, there Will Indeed be a job for you out there. If you love doing it, then stop being so scared of the hordes from India.
You mean an aspiring exploiter and member of the parasite class?
How many jobs and how much wealth have _you_ created today?
Does creating jobs and generating wealth justify being an exploiter and parasite?
Unless you think it's simply impossible to have a non-exploitative employer relationship, in which case all I can say is that it's great that you don't believe in the concept of an "economy" but personally I prefer it to the squatting-in-a-hut-that-I-made which is the other basic alternative.
And if you did that, you would in fact be a parasite, you are parasiting off the wealth that is created by the people tricked/forced into working for you. Furthermore you are parasiting off society, because you have stolen the hopes and ambitions of those people you are exploiting. One of the basic tenets of capitalism is the idea that the harder you work, the more reward you get. When this is not upheld, people become disillusioned, and why wouldn't they be? Why would I work hard and come up with new ideas and inventions, if the benefit of my work is stolen by someone else?
I totally think it is possible to have a non-exploitative employer relationship. I also totally think it is possible to have an exploitative employer relationship. Surely you admit the possibility of the existence of both types of relationships?
Yes, congratulations on finding my point.
By definition, if you are a net wealth suck because you are being exploitative, then you are not a wealth producer. You're trying to have it both ways to make a bad point. Being a net wealth increaser can't "justify" being a net wealth sink because you can't be both at once. This smells like weak thinking.
On the other hand, I believe there is a danger in devaluing the relationship between education, effort, and wages. With 0 wage growth over the last decade, the American public is becoming cynical about the idea that you can work hard to improve your situation. If industry can always import someone a little more desperate or naive into indentured servitude the moment there is any wage pressure, what incentive is there to improve your skills or education?
Considering the potential impact on macro-economic conditions, this might be a net negative for an aspiring entrepreneur.