From BLDGBLOG--I would have thought I'd see this first somewhere like Catallarchy--is a report of a San Diego-based company called SeaCode. The company has the idea of mooring a cruise ship in international waters off the coast of L.A. to host offshore computer programmers from Russia and India, paying them about $1,800 a month in take-home pay, with a four-months-on, two-months-off work cycle. That compares to $500 a month for a programmer in India.
The idea's been condemned by right ("an outrageous affront to U.S. labor laws") and left (calling it an idea for "sweat ships"), which is a sign of either a really good or really bad idea--I think it could be a good one. Since this was reported originally back in April of 2005, it doesn't look like it's gotten anywhere.
The fact that the "rightist" argument consists of complaints about the circumventing of labor laws shows just how far leftward this sad nation of "ours" has drifted - and how vacuous the notion of "conservative" has become (as I have noted before).
ReplyDeleteThis is NewsMax, where xenophobia rules--so I think when they say "circumventing of labor laws" they're complaining about the employment of noncitizens.
ReplyDeleteGood point.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about this idea and have come to the conclusion that it's so impractical it's not likely to be profitable, unfortunately. When you add up all the costs associated with the boat, the boat's location, etc., I'm not even sure it could be made profitable if the programmers all worked for free.
This probably goes a long way toward explaining why no obvious progress has been made on the idea since the original report.