up with PyGUI!

[Terry Reedy]

"Cliff Wells" <clifford.wells at comcast.net> wrote in message 
news:1095378815.31957.166.camel at devilbox.devilnet.internal...
> On Thu, 2004-09-16 at 14:30 -0400, Terry Reedy wrote:
>> "Alex Martelli" <aleaxit at yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> > So I was wrong -- it's happening all right, but tends to be disguised
>> > (perhaps for marketing reasons).  Thanks for the info!
>>
>> Also for political reasons.  The US has reactionaries, left and right, 
>> who
>> reject the idea that all people have a right to participate in the 
>> global
>> information economy.

I intentionally restricted myself to one sentence, with one opinion word --  
'reactionaries', on a topic people have written books about.  However ...

> The main problem a lot of people (myself included) have with the so-
> called "global economy"

To me, the global information economy is as real as the global Python 
community.

> is that it mostly benefits the US employer who
> can pay wages that are far below cost of living inside the US.

To the extent that all US employers producing similar products have equal 
access to such cost savings, the long-term competitive benefit should tend 
toward zero and most benefit should go to consumers and non-US workers.  It 
was Indian software entrepreneurs who pursued US businesspeople more than 
the reverse.

> I'm certain there are few people who begrudge others getting work,

I did not try to quantify in my original statement.  However, it takes more 
than a few people to get myriads of job protection laws passed in countries 
around the globe.  Dislike of competition for 'my job' is pretty universal.

[snip]

> let's ...have laws that require employers to pay prevailing wage

The prototype 'prevailing wage' law in the US, the 1930s Davis-Bacon Act, 
was passed and signed by begruding people.  It had the explicit purpose 
(and effect) of excluding dark-skinned Americans from participating in the 
American construction industry, especially in northern states, by making it 
unprofitable to hire them.  Its negative effects continue today.

> (based on the *employer's* country of origin).

Programmers in developing countries generally are employed by local 
employers who pay them more than the previous local prevailing wage.  In 
terms of real economic goods -- food, clothing, housing, internet service, 
and so on -- their pay may be comparable to that of programmers in the 
'industrial' nations.

Their apparent cheapness per comparable output is largely a function of 
exchange rates at least partly distorted by centuries of government force. 
I expect such distortions will lessen as communication makes them less 
tenable.  I also expect increasing numbers of US knowledge/information 
workers with portable skills to take advantage of the distortions while 
they last.

Terry J. Reedy