Like it or not, the world is changing and becomming smaller all the time. Many industries which are not competitive are being attacked by more efficient competitors both inside and outside the US. The US had the advantage for decades but we foolishly squandered resources and opportunities and caused most of are own problems (as well as imposed our problems/stupidity on the rest of the world.)

Do you think GM/Delphi should continue to pay assembly labor at a rate of three or four times the going competive rate, If they do they won't survive, may already be too late for them.

It's easy to compete with someone in another country at 1/10th the wage structure, just change your wage structure until you provide a better value to your employer. This may make it difficult to live, but you can compete if you want to.

The average wage in the US is under $40K, good programmers (who have real world business skills) can make 2 or 3 times that, and management even more. This will not last forever, but also will not go away immediatly.

When I started custom programming consulting I offered my services for $10/Hr in order to compete. Only a few individuals can truely set their own pricing, the rest of us have to live with supply and demand.



>My background is doing completely custom business/government applications. I like
>to think that I'm exceptionally well qualified and skilled at what I do.
>
>But I still think it'd be awfully difficult to "compete" with someone that is paid
>1/10th of what they'd pay in the US.