Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Obama's Wonderful Gesture

President Obama just made my day!

He is going to scrap all tax benefits to companies creating jobs in
India instead of the US. What a way to knock out the much touted
Indian BPO industry. What a blow to outsourcing from the USA, and
what a statement to all the IT industry wannabe global citizen fools
who campaigned for him in Bangalore! I'm loving it.

(In its fullest implementation, Obama cannot really put a full stop to
outsourcing of jobs to other countries, for there are many loopholes
to legally exploit with or without tax implications. American
companies are very good at that sort of exploitation, but his move
will take effect to some extent right away.)

To all the smug IT industry mediocrity bred cattle, who acted like
they really deserved all the money they were making without being good
at anything in particular, I am glad to say, "You deserve all that
you're getting!". I have no sympathy for any business built on
speculation. I am not in favour of building a company based on
assumptions of everlasting growth, and I am most certainly very happy
about the felling of an industry built on a gold rush mentality.

India's IT and BPO industries were very much a gold rush mentality
driven run. Typically uncreative and most certainly not challenging,
the BPO industry was the perfect opportunity for many unimaginative,
unoriginal, not very intelligent Indian cattle to find jobs in. In
came the boom, now comes the bust! No more gold, folks. Eat mud.

President Obama is a fine representative of his people. For all of
our morons who constantly wonder if we are in the good books of the
USA, here is his unstated statement - "I am the president of the USA,
not India. My people matter to me first and foremost!" Why shouldn't
he stop outsourcing from his country? Why shouldn't he completely
choke off all the freebies that Indians have been enjoying thanks to
greedy American companies wanting to cut costs by hiring our slaves?

His move is the best thing that could have happened to dispel our
primary illusion that we are something of a powerhouse in Information
Technology. We're not. There is not a single Indian IT product that
is on every single computer in the world. In fact, there is not a
single Indian IT product that 90 out of a 100 computer users worldwide
can name. We haven't invented anything significant, and we do not own
anything in IT that the country can really feed its millions with.

This really is like HAL making doors for Airbus planes, with a
manpower resource that is ten times that of the European giant. It is
not even as if HAL makes all the doors for Airbus. Hindustan Motors
and Toyota were started in the same year. Toyota is now the world's
#1 car maker, while HM is all but gone. What is wrong with HM is that
it is an Indian company, run with Indian attitudes. Nothing is wrong
with it, except everything.

Our BPO industry hires young fools coming out of college, who don't
know anything in any field well enough to get them a proper job. They
are sucked in like cattle, and kept at the same mediocre level, where
the brain has to work only till the accent is learnt and the manuals
are familiar. After that, they're just part of the process. Kind of
perfect for the mentality we have towards jobs anyway.

Now, our politicians are busy yelling hoarse about Obama being
protectionist in his policies. Not a thought spared on how we can run
our IT industry based on our own requirements. How about elevating
India to a point where we use so much IT that we can support our IT
cadres? That would be hard work, unlike the invisible data train that
flies thick and fast and brings in dollars from the USA. It would be
a lot of facing up to reality. That is something we are of course not
willing to do. Nation building after all, isn't a joke, and if we'd
ever been any good at it, we'd not have to worry too much about other
nations, would we?

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