India to raise US visa fee hike, outsourcing ban at trade dialogue

[OhioChick]

Source: Economic Times of India

21 Sep, 2010, 09.16AM IST,IANS

WASHINGTON:, A steep hike in US work visa fee for IT professionals and Ohio state ban on outsourcing is expected to figure prominently at a key India-US trade dialogue here ahead of President Barack Obama's India visit.

While both India and the US do not wish to muddy the waters before the visit, India is expected to record its disappointment over recent "protectionist" trends in the US at the Trade Policy Forum (TPF) Tuesday co-chaired by India's Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and US Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

The bilateral trade between the countries stood at $36.5 billion in 2009-10. The US also accounts for about 60 per cent of India's total $50 billion IT and IT enabled services exports.

Besides the hike in fees for certain categories of H-1B and L1 visas to raise $600 million for securing the US-Mexico border and Ohio state ban on government offshore outsourcing, India is also concerned over the 'Buy America' law that requires companies availing of state incentives to source their requirements from the US itself.



Read more: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/services/travel/visa-power/India-to-raise-US-visa-fee-hike-outsourcing-ban-at-trade-dialogue/articleshow/6597460.cms

[gateley]

1. "protectionist" Oh, please. Fuck those who voted in the laws that enabled this

nightmare to occur. US accounts for 60 percent of India's total $50B IT exports? Doesn't that infuriate you?

What happened?

[PSPS]

3. Those are startling numbers

That is $30 billion that would otherwise be being paid to US workers and, through them, into the moribund US economy.

[leveymg]

7. The US market is 25%, not 60%. The US deficit in trade in services with India is only $159 million

The total private services deficit with India, the most effective competitor with the U.S. in the IT sector, is small and declining, only $159 million in Q1 2010, according to the latest Commerce Dept. data.

The value of annual exports of services to India is close to what we import from that country. It's the deficit in trade in manufactured goods with China -- $250 billion last year -- and other major industrial countries, such as Japan and Germany, a total trade in goods deficit of about $600 billion in 2009 that's the big problem for the U.S. The U.S. actually enjoyed a $125 billion surplus in its global trade in services. The obsession with Indian IT is misdirected, and a way of distracting the public from the fact that U.S.-based multinational corporations have been moving plants, capital, and jobs offshore for several decades - a fact that nobody, in either party, wants to try to address.

During the recession that started in late 2007, U.S.-based multinationals laid off Americans at a rate twice that of other companies. The big MNCs employ about one-in-five in this country. The MNCs were the largest single contributors to unemployment in the U.S. Information sector -- they eliminated at least 300,000 jobs here. By comparison, the net current job loss to India in IT amounts to less than 4,000 workers. That is less than one-tenth of one percent of the 3.9 million currently employed in Information occupations.

Finally, the figure of 60 percent that's being reported in the article for the share of the U.S. market for the Indian IT sector is from 5-6 years ago. Indian exports to the U.S. in the combined IT-BPO sector amounted to some $12 billion in 2009 of the total $47 billion in global service exports.

[cosmicone]

11. Excellent post

Anti-India "red meat" threads are posted here by a few and become incendiary, resulting in India-bashing.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Omaha Steve]

14. There is a difference between bashing and laying out a case pro or con

Hungry kids in India and China get one reaction from most DUers. But there are many articles about younger kids in China and India that work in very hazardous fields that should be in school. Take that up for a cause.

Job losses in several fields besides IT, and I'm a protectionist. To bad you don't seem to understand anything but your own opinionated personal agenda.

We have mouths to feed here in the USA too. I have no problem with the "red meat" posts, since they aren't that just because YOU say so!


Omaha Steve

[ChromeFoundry]

15. In full agreement

Just because someone says the sky is green, doesn't make it so.

Funny how he has no problem posting anti-Pakistani posts like clockwork, but tries to call foul on something like this. I don't consider his posts to be 'raw meat', something that attracts more flies comes to mind.

[cosmicone]

19. I understand your sentiments ..

however, every time there is a pipsqueak story about outsourcing or H1B visas, the threads turn into bashing India and Indians. The people who post these stories know quite well that it would be the result and I wonder if that is the desired result.

China has taken away some 70 times more jobs than India in various fields but I don't see the same number of stories posted about jobs lost to China as there are about outsourcing to India or H1B visa holders. Furthermore, when there are such stories, one doesn't see many "China sucks", "Chinese workers suck" kind of posts on DU.

Whatever anyone's beef is, it should be directed to the American companies who award contracts to Indian companies or bring Indian H1B workers here. Why bash India and Indians? They are only seizing opportunities presented to them.

Lastly, these things run in cycles. When American exports were causing job losses in the rest of the world, did anyone in America complain and say, "hey, we shouldn't be exporting typewriters because thousands of clerks who depend upon writing in longhand would lose their jobs?" or "We shouldn't be exporting computers because millions of workers would be eliminated from admin pools?"

[ChromeFoundry]

20. You mean to tell me...

You never see people complain about all the crap sold at Walmart is from China?
You need to wake up. There are more derogatory comments made towards China and the products produced there than the so called services being delivered from India. The big difference is that the Chinese know the products they are producing is of a low quality - the others are too arrogant to realize.

[Hello_Kitty]

22. And when we do lay out a case that sticks to the facts and has no bashing

You and your free trade pals accuse us of racism and xenophobia anyway. I've never said anything negative about foreign workers (including ones who have replaced me) and my criticism is always about the big corporations and plutocrats but it doesn't matter. When you guys run out of justifications for the race to the bottom that you embrace (and you inevitably do because a 5 year old can see it's a bunch of b.s.) out comes the race card. Always.

[cosmicone]

23. It is not a race card.

One can easily attack the practice of outsourcing without attacking where a given project is outsourced.

The former is valid, the latter is petty and borderline xenophobic. It is very simple actually.

[Riley133]

2. Too late - insourcing is the new outsourcing NFT

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Turborama]

9. Seems like they were using stealth tactics

instead.

[AzNick]

5. Indians programmers suck

I could tell you a few bits but it would go against my NDA.

They are not as good as most people think. Some are, others aren't.

[Skittles]

6. spaghetti code

sound familiar? :mad:

[OhioChick]

12. Speaking of which....

Guess what my current project is? :crazy:

[Skittles]

16. an offshore "programmer" asked me what this means

(Jobname) SET TO QUIESCE DUE TO EXCEEDING ESTIMATE BY 1.5 MILLION LINES IN THE OUTPUT



*HELLO* :mad:

[ChromeFoundry]

17. Can you help me find that "any" key? :o)

[Skittles]

18. they routinely make me want to hang myself

the other day they couldn't understand why a job wasn't starting, so I told them it was waiting on initiators (which were not up because the system had just been booted and was not all the way up) - then they asked me how to start it if it was waiting on initiators - these are the kind of questions freaking HIGH SCHOOL students wouldn't ask me but these are supposed "experienced" people - fuck, it just STINKS

[pampango]

8. India exports 50% more in goods and services to Europe (~$45 billion) than the US (~$27 billion).

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/bilateral-relations/countries/india/index_en.htm
http://www.ustr.gov/countries-regions/south-central-asia/india

We import 10 times as much from the EU as we do from India, and 8 times as much from Canada (and have much larger trade deficits with both). The EU is negotiating a free trade agreement with India while many want the US to head in the opposite direction. Europeans seem to believe that solving their economic problems is best done, not by blaming them on foreigners (except for the far-right political parties which focus on "others"), but by building up their own societies through improvements in the social safety net, progressive taxation, market regulation, and education which are all domestic matters under their sole control.

OTOH, Americans tend to focus not on improving our social safety net, progressive taxation, market regulation, health care, unionization and education, but on what we can do about foreigners. Maybe that is because it seems easier to accomplish since foreigners are rarely popular on either side of the political spectrum. Improving the social safety net, progressive taxation, market regulation, health care, unionization and education all require difficult partisan battles with our own entrenched elite. Or maybe it's just a recurring American theme that we don't trust foreigners and if they will just leave us alone, we can solve our problems. We isolate ourselves behind tariff or border walls, because we are big and strong and can do this. Europe and the smaller countries in the world have learned that interacting with your neighbors and the "big, bad" world is just a fact of life. You might as well embrace it and make it work.

That said, India has no legal right to bid on US government procurement projects in Ohio or anywhere else. Canada, the EU and a few other countries do have that right (for federal, but not state, procurements as I understand it) due to the reciprocal procurement agreement we have with them.

[leveymg]

10. GATT and GATS both require that gov't procurement be open to int'l competition.

Procurement from vendors and service contractors is not the same thing as direct provision of gov't services, which is usually restricted.

[Hello_Kitty]

21. I'm going to ask you what I've asked in another thread and that you didn't answer

Without the threat of dreaded "protectionism" what leverage do American workers have to bring about those improvements to the social safety net, progressive taxation, market regulation, health care, unionization, and education?

U.S. corporations have used foreign labor to bust unions, avoid regulations, and erode the social safety net here in America. You yourself have told me you are okay with pollution and sweatshops in poor countries because they will "someday" lead to better conditions. So I'm not seeing how you think sending more jobs to sweatshop countries will improve things for workers in the U.S.