I.T. Offshoring

This is probably going to be one of my biggest issues for at least the next ten years.

We already have signs of this starting to affect us in New Zealand. My employer recently lost a large contract, at Fonterra, to an Indian IT firm. As far as I could tell the Indians were that much cheaper that they made their case.

Interestingly, the Australians have decided to protect their services industry so my Australian colleagues are fine - at least for the short term. I happen to think this is a mistake - and would certainly be a mistake for New Zealand.

If my industry were protected then Fonterra, this country's largest exporter, would have to pay more for their IT services. This would then put them at a disadvantage against their global competition.

Secondly, such protection is essentially rascist. It says that being born in New Zealand means you get a better ride than being born in India.

Now certainly there are issues with the way countries like India have lower standards on labour and environment issues - or how China has a very poor human rights record.

However, I'm quite happy to compete with the Indians. I think it will be a fruitful challenge and I think it's about time Kiwi IT people got their act together and stopped accepting the low quality and productivity we current produce.

Fascist America, in ten easy steps

I have often thought much the same thoughts as Naomi Wolf has expressed in this article. I may not agree with everything she writes on every subject - she is known for being anti-globalization but I happen to think she's dead on with this one.

Essentially, 9-11 was an incredibly successful attack which has managed to turn the US away from freedom towards a totalitarian state.

However, I have much greater hope for the US than I do for, say, Fiji. I think the civil society in the US to eventually swing the pendulum back. We've started to see signs of that with the last midterm elections and the subsequent robust fight from the Congress and Senate over Iraq.

The presidential election next year will be very interesting and a true test of US democracy. Either a Democrat will win (and the fight between a black man and and a white woman will also be interesting or, I predict, the Republican candidate will be far more centrist than Bush (although that's not exactly hard).

We'll see.