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http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P62115.asp
 
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Challenger identifies five sectors with an especially low risk of exportation:
Health care. �You can�t go overseas to see a doctor or nurse or get physical therapy,� Challenger points out. The aging of America�s population makes health care a good long-term career bet, he adds, singling out medical transcription and nursing as two particularly hot areas.


While this is true, I've heard from other sources that the health care industry could very well become saturated in the coming years causing a rebound affect in wages. Along the same lines, it is to no one's surprise that health care companies are already importing labor from overseas as we speak. I read a recent editorial about this same thing in the local paper recently. The write-up was mainly about not switching careers to follow the money, but instead stay with what you are good at regardless of the current trends. I guess its easy to say unless you are unemployed, though.
 
Jim Baiter
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Yeah - I work for a Biotech company. From the IT perspective, Biotech and large Pharma are moving towards outsourcing datacenters and possibly everything else. Their view is that their "business is drug discovery and development, NOT technology". Obviously certain research systems have to remain in-house but when viewing the entire sector, were they all to take this route, many jobs would be lost.
 
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who says you can't go overseas for healthcare?
Health insurance companies here have been doing it in emergencies and are starting to do it ever more as healthcare in this country is breaking down (less capacity, higher cost and higher demand).
It's coming to the point where it's cheaper to send someone from Amsterdam to Madrid for 2 weeks for surgery now than to have him/her on a waiting list for 2 years (with associated cost of medication and care in ther interval, plus for serious problems the risk the patient won't survive) than it is to wait until a place in a local hospital becomes available.
The quality of healthcare abroad is often also a lot better, reducing the chance of medical failures and complications.
Last but not least doctors and hospitals are often less expensive abroad, making treatment there an economically viable alternative.
Last year several people were sent to the US from the Netherlands for open heart surgery, it was cheaper than having the organs sent here...
 
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Hello,
I think the scenario of the link is primarily for US labor market.
Regards,
MCao
 
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Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
who says you can't go overseas for healthcare?
Health insurance companies here have been doing it in emergencies and are starting to do it ever more as healthcare in this country is breaking down (less capacity, higher cost and higher demand).
It's coming to the point where it's cheaper to send someone from Amsterdam to Madrid for 2 weeks for surgery now than to have him/her on a waiting list for 2 years
...


According to mapquest Amsterdam to Madrid is 1800 km. That is approximately the distance from Dallas TX to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN. I am sure that somepeople are willing to make that trip if they prefer health care at Mayo.
However, traveling from the US to India would be out of the question for health care needs.
[ October 01, 2003: Message edited by: Glenn Opdycke-Hansen ]
 
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It is happening already.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3143612.stm
"I have a couple of good books and the weather's nice. I'll do some trips and perhaps have a look around some of the historical places there," he adds.
 
Matt Cao
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Hello,
Globalization in motion. You can kiss your western countries quality of life good-bye.
Westerner just give and give until you wind-up in street. The Third-Worlds just take and take until seeing on street corner and hesitate should or should not spare you a dollar.
Sorry, I am pissed this morning because when I drive around the city for company emergency errant, I notice a very clean, white blouse and champagne trouser White Woman held up a sign asking for spare change. She looks very embarrashed and nervous. Not a single luxury car stop and give her a spare change. I spin my car around and notice another White Woman parks her car, steps out and talk to her if she needed any help. The woman responds that she just got evicted out of her apartment because her saving already empty. Then broke down in a loud cry. Points to her kid sit under the tree nearby.
One thing for sure she is not a Java Rancher because we probably drilled her about how to survive in this treachous time years ago.
Regards,
MCao
 
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Originally posted by David Raid:
It is happening already.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3143612.stm

The glories of socialized medicine!
:roll:
 
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The gories of socialized medicine!
There's a story recently of a young man holidaying in Spain when he received news that his mother was very ill. He finally managed to get a flight back (via 2 airports, I think) and got home to find the ambulance hadn't even arrived.
I wonder what the cost saving was in this case.
regards
 
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Not to be cruel or rude or anything, but would you go to a country with a billion people where most of the infectious diseases are still thriving alive and well if you need a doctor?

I think health care will remain around here for while yet. Of course knowing the American corporations and politicians I can see the day when they kick out American doctors from most places where unemployed population of this country like me can afford, and install a bunch of Indian doctors instead.

Frankly, I'm sick of hearing what brilliant talented, indispensable, and irreplaceable technology gurus the Indians are from all the sold out politicians in this country. But of course like everything else I cannot do anything about but to get my vomit bag out privately and barf at the hypocrisy and greed of our species and especially the politician kind of our species. Let's face it what do the politicians do to make all the money they make except to sell themselves and everything else they can to the highest bidder? I am almost homeless after two years of earning minimum wage. Here's the part that hurts most, because of an emergency situation I had to stay in hotel for a weekend, piling up on the credit card debts of course. And who do I see occupying the entire hotel? I give you one guess. Some with the entire family. Why would it be that all these people are here on business when there are so many unemployed in this country?

I'm waiting for the day when the tide turns for them too. Bash me if you like but I'll be celebrating when that day comes.
 
Jeroen Wenting
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Originally posted by HS Thomas:
The gories of socialized medicine!
There's a story recently of a young man holidaying in Spain when he received news that his mother was very ill. He finally managed to get a flight back (via 2 airports, I think) and got home to find the ambulance hadn't even arrived.
I wonder what the cost saving was in this case.
regards


I know the situation.
My father had a major heart attack last year (luckily he felt it coming and was able to call an ambulance).
My mother was in hospital and had been for several months because of medical errors stemming from the doctors using techniques they shouldn't have because using those techniques when done properly (which they weren't) make the hospital stay a few days shorter (2 weeks instead of 3 in this case).
My father was left to wait on a gurny in the ER for 2 hours with no supervision or treatment while the medical staff were calling all over the country trying to find him a hospital with room on the cardiology floor, then had to wait another hour for an ambulance to arrive from that hospital (because of some rule or other the local ambulances could not be used to transfew patients to that hospital).
He was lucky to survive. A few days later we arranged for an ambulance to take my mother to that other hospital to visit my father, order signed by the resident psychiatrist (one time a shrink is useful ) on basis that the worries about her husband were slowing down her recovery.
My father got well, my mother ended up with an amputated foot and partially paralysed from surgery to remove a suspected tumour from her abdomen (which turned out to be benign).
In all, 2 people spending a total of 10 months in hospital plus major cost in equipment (wheelchair, modifications to the house, modified car, etc.) all because a doctor was under orders to save some money by using an unsafe procedure.
 
HS Thomas
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From privatisation to globalisation !
Seriously, given the over-burdened system here with huge waiting lists and beds placed in public corridors this seems a sound alternative for certain cases. A free vacation in an exotic country probably in great accomodation instead of a smelly germ-ridden , over-crowded corridor would be my preference. The treatment will take place in a flagship hospital. Spain is attracting a lot of medical cases from here and were well-prepared for it. Cases requiring super-medical skills with the latest technology will remain in this country with all the best brains working on it.
When the under-developed nations require specialist treatment they would probably come to the developed nations and be charged a fortune for it.
At some point even this technology would be transferred creating room for new technology to grow.
Of course by that time the technology transfer may be flowing this way!
It could be the cancer-free Ayurvedic , Zen kind of technology.

regards
 
HS Thomas
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Jeroen, that is a really shocking state of affairs.
I am even sorrier that you are describing a personal situation.
My father recently had an op - minor heart procedure - and it went really smoothly. The preparations up to it were crucial though (2 years of diagnosis) and would have worn both parents down if it were not for the support of the GPs , various consultants and the fact they were near family. These are the kind of cases I meant staying in the country. It's just that waiting lists can be too long. I must remember to send a thank you card to all the doctors and nurses involved and hosital staff. You can take so much for granted.
Watching my father's GP at work I wish I had the guts to become a doctor. It's a very honourable calling. The cases I described above are what I read in the papers that explain why events are moving the way they are. If it wasn't for the GP I am sure that they could even have been sent abroad; but with the ballsy parents I have ,they'd have taken it in their stride. They are very global-minded. It must be the 1/2 centuries worth battling for the free and good in very poor countries.
regards
[ October 02, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]
 
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What are your opinions on this proposed guest worker visas reform --
Although many companies legitmately need *very* specialized skills,
you will have a hard time convincing anyone with intelligence above
that of Forest Gump that the majority of the 195,000 people admitted annually had these highly specialized skills.
Guest workers are not the enemy. Those H-1B and L1 visas holders are for the most part educated and capable people. The problem is that the majority of them don't have highly specialized skills that the H-1B was intended for. It is clear that they come here because companies want to drive down wages and facilitate offshoring.

First of all, let us get rid of the cap that everyone complains about. Companies could bring as many technical workers they wanted here as long as they were willing to pay for it.
If an organization has a genuine, pressing business need that not a
single one out of 300 million Americans can fulfill or be trained to
fulfill, and they must bring in a guest worker to do the job. If a person has this highly specialized skills critical to the company's survival, a company should be willing to invest in that resource. This rare talents of said individual should be worth no less than $120,000 - $150,000 per year, adjustable for annual inflation, plus a $10,000 fee for the visa ($70,000 -$100,000 for non-profit and educational institutions).
In a nutshell, it shouldn't be so easy to offshore and replace
American IT workers. Companies should be able to utilize people with specialized skills, but they would use these guest professionals because of their skills and not their rock bottom salaries.
 
HS Thomas
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originally posted by Natalie Kopple:
First of all, let us get rid of the cap that everyone complains about. Companies could bring as many technical workers they wanted here as long as they were willing to pay for it.


I think they'll be doing that through companies like IBM and Accenture.
The fact that these companies are allowed to was because they probably agreed to let Indian companies compete also. Perhaps these companies are setting the standards.
It's a bit like subsiding farming to poorer countries in the latter half of the last century when aviation really took off. Did food get cheaper ? No ! But a whole new industry surrounding the transportation and marketing and QA of food grew out of that.
Similarly, software will gradually get more expensive even when outsourced, for various reasons. I don't think that stage will be reached soon where your out-sourced partner can deliver good QAable software ; the standards must be set in the out-sourcing country and that looks like it's taking time. So I think there's development work to be had in the west for a while longer and lots of it but it will die out as farming did.
I am not sure where the food's going to come from as at a recent World Conference poor countries farmer's subsidies were cut drastically. Perhaps developers will take up farming in the west or by that time perhaps they'll be cultivating the Moon. Not so cool if it's going to suck up all our sunlight.

The hunt is on for new skill sets! Make the most of the Boom while it lasts but look for your next stepping stone ! and that may or may not be in IT depending on the individual skill sets.
Having said that food technolgy stayed in western countries in labs
but the same cannot be said of IT as people and processes are crucial to developing IT technology, and each business strives to be unique.
So I am not sure where the line will be drawn.


regards
[ October 03, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]
 
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Actually food is harvested in the U.S. by people paid Third-World wages.
The Minimum Wage laws exclude agricultural workers, so they may be the only ones who don't have to worry about offshored jobs.
 
HS Thomas
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I thought the Western World as a whole imported most of it's food aoart from meat and dairy.
By the same token I don't know whether European farm subsidies have gone up. That might be an indicator.The UK imports most of it's food which eventually led to the poor state of farming in this country. But it was one way of upgrading a decadent system. Currently, most green and brown fields are being returned to providing new housing.

Perhaps developers will take up farming in the west or by that time perhaps they'll be cultivating the Moon.



Nah! Another 500 - 1000 years, I'm afraid, for cultivation on another planet!
regards
[ October 04, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]
 
Matt Cao
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Originally posted by Tim Holloway:
Actually food is harvested in the U.S. by people paid Third-World wages.
The Minimum Wage laws exclude agricultural workers, so they may be the only ones who don't have to worry about offshored jobs.


Hi,
Is that the reason why they are so freaking happy as indicated in the study?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3157570.stm
Regards,
MCao
 
HS Thomas
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Matt, you may find this difficult to believe but there are people in the U.S. being paid Third World Wages as Tim pointed out.

Nah! Another 500 - 1000 years, I'm afraid, for cultivation on another planet!


By that time developers would have been off-shored to another dimension. Tut-tutting from above at the state of affairs.
If they were to cultivate the moon it'll probably be lit from earth ,say the Hoover Dam, Aswan Dam, the one planned in China , are converted to a gigantic 'point' of light that has the moon within it's range. With luck they won't be paying the cyber-farmers Third World Wages but I wouldn't like to bet on that. The Sun might have fizzled out by then.
Enterprise is a risky business. :roll:
regards
[ October 05, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]
 
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