By: Maynard Handley (name99.delete@this.name99.org), August 18, 2014 1:36 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
Gabriele Svelto (gabriele.svelto.delete@this.gmail.com) on August 18, 2014 8:17 am wrote:
> Purana Archer (ancientarcher.delete@this.gmail.com) on August 18, 2014 3:32 am wrote:
> > 2) The biggest cost of R&D is cost of manpower. TSMC's engineers
> > in Taiwan are far cheaper than those employed
> > by Intel in the land of the free and home of the brave (or is the other way around, I forget)
>
> This is not how things work: first of all both Intel and TSMC can (and do) hire people in a lot
> of different places and not just where they're incorporated. Second, if TSMC has an outstanding
> engineer or researcher and they're not paying him enough then there's nothing preventing Intel
> from hiring him with a higher salary and a paid relocation. Seriously, this is not manufacturing
> or some other sector where you rely exclusively on the local workforce; people move and companies
> regularly poach underpaid talents from others (and especially US companies).
People are not QUITE as mobile as you imagine.
One problem is language. If you're not comfortable with English (beyond the ability to puzzle through the details of a technical paper) it's going to take a lot of money to convince you to give up the comfort of being surrounded by people who talk, write, and think like you. Even more so if your wife does not speak English, or your kids speak it poorly.
A second is that the US is not quite the shining city on a hill that it may have been forty years ago. Yes, if you live in China or India, the US is a great improvement. If you live in Taiwan, the images the US brings to mind are Chinese student at USC beaten to death on his way home by a gang of teenagers for no obvious reason except that he was Chinese, or what's happening in Ferguson right now, or Republican politicians falling over themselves to point out who hates foreigners, intellectuals, and science the most.
A third is the US government doing everything it can in its power to make every person who visits the US, even a tourist, let alone a worker, feel like a terrorist who's liable at any minute to be shipped off to Guantanamo without the slightest hint of due process.
I mean, christ, I'm a freaking US citizen and TWICE *I've* been through the "we're pulling you out of the passport line and sticking you in a dark room for questioning" business. You sit there for HOURS. Your phone and other electronic items have been taken (and are doubtless being copied sector by sector for the NSA to do god knows what with). You aren't allowed to tell anyone who might have been waiting for you at the airport what has happened, so they wait in the dark as every other person on your flight leaves the airport --- but no-one tells them anything either. You're not even allowed a book to read while you wait. You wait and wait and wait. Then the random questions all over the place. And at the end --- why were you taken aside? What were they looking for? WTF knows? I can only imagine how much worse the process is for foreigners.
> Purana Archer (ancientarcher.delete@this.gmail.com) on August 18, 2014 3:32 am wrote:
> > 2) The biggest cost of R&D is cost of manpower. TSMC's engineers
> > in Taiwan are far cheaper than those employed
> > by Intel in the land of the free and home of the brave (or is the other way around, I forget)
>
> This is not how things work: first of all both Intel and TSMC can (and do) hire people in a lot
> of different places and not just where they're incorporated. Second, if TSMC has an outstanding
> engineer or researcher and they're not paying him enough then there's nothing preventing Intel
> from hiring him with a higher salary and a paid relocation. Seriously, this is not manufacturing
> or some other sector where you rely exclusively on the local workforce; people move and companies
> regularly poach underpaid talents from others (and especially US companies).
People are not QUITE as mobile as you imagine.
One problem is language. If you're not comfortable with English (beyond the ability to puzzle through the details of a technical paper) it's going to take a lot of money to convince you to give up the comfort of being surrounded by people who talk, write, and think like you. Even more so if your wife does not speak English, or your kids speak it poorly.
A second is that the US is not quite the shining city on a hill that it may have been forty years ago. Yes, if you live in China or India, the US is a great improvement. If you live in Taiwan, the images the US brings to mind are Chinese student at USC beaten to death on his way home by a gang of teenagers for no obvious reason except that he was Chinese, or what's happening in Ferguson right now, or Republican politicians falling over themselves to point out who hates foreigners, intellectuals, and science the most.
A third is the US government doing everything it can in its power to make every person who visits the US, even a tourist, let alone a worker, feel like a terrorist who's liable at any minute to be shipped off to Guantanamo without the slightest hint of due process.
I mean, christ, I'm a freaking US citizen and TWICE *I've* been through the "we're pulling you out of the passport line and sticking you in a dark room for questioning" business. You sit there for HOURS. Your phone and other electronic items have been taken (and are doubtless being copied sector by sector for the NSA to do god knows what with). You aren't allowed to tell anyone who might have been waiting for you at the airport what has happened, so they wait in the dark as every other person on your flight leaves the airport --- but no-one tells them anything either. You're not even allowed a book to read while you wait. You wait and wait and wait. Then the random questions all over the place. And at the end --- why were you taken aside? What were they looking for? WTF knows? I can only imagine how much worse the process is for foreigners.