On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 17:28:17 -0500, Ron Jeffries
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I see, acknowledge, and respect the intensity of your feelings here.
The last thing I want is starting a flame war about "misery in the
third world". It doesn't belong in here. I'm actually sorry for
answering Stede's post.
>
> I'm taking my basic theme in this note from Bob's observation that
> economics runs on the difference between cost and value.
Cost and value of labor, to be a bit more precise.
>
> Historically the relative richness of countries has often been based in
> part from the difference between the cost of something in one place versus
> the value in another. Whether that something is gold, oil, manual labor, or
> software development doesn't matter.
>
> It's not a good thing that shoes can be made more cheaply in Jakarta ...
> unless you're the person in Jakarta who would be doing something even worse
> were it not for the shoe factory. People wouldn't work there if it wasn't
> better for them. (Slavery and child labor off the table for purposes of
> simplification.)
Some people say that some confort is worse than none. Some confort
makes you soft.
>
> Time was when shoes from Jakarta or cars from Japan weren't as good as
> those made "here", so that some people who valued that kind of quality
> bought the more expensive domestic products. Then Jakarta and Japan figured
> out how to bring up the quality level. And the cycle continues.
>
> A person, a company, or a country thrives based on its ability to provide
> /something/ desirable at a favorable price. Countries or individuals with
> no resources of interest, or no skills of interest, are in big trouble. And
> individuals in countries with no resources of interest are also in big
> trouble, to a degree independent of their own individual skills.
>
> These aren't easy problems to solve, and I don't claim to know how to solve
> them. What I know how to do, a little bit at least, is to help individuals
> raise their skills, and to help organizations improve their ability to
> bring value to the people they serve.
>
> That may not be enough. But it's what I know how to do, so I do it.
>
It�s enough that you acknowlegde it as a problem, Ron.
Cheers,
Luiz
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