Umm... this is messed up. I give these guys credit for trying something new, but... this is messed up.
I mean, this offshoring is barely off the shore... of San Diego.
What's next, an artificial island, perhaps made of the Great Pacific Garbage mass?
Or how about a sweatshop in a hydrogen-filled zepellin? A submarine, perhaps?
I found an article about SeaCode from 2005, so this is not a new thing... nor an unsuccessful thing, apparently, if they're still doing business in 2011.
So here's the deal: a few hundred Indian and Russian (which could mean Ukrainian, Belarusian, whatever) programmers sit on an old cruise ship and do programming work for galley-slave wages. Presumably there is no daytime excursion, shuffle board, aqua aerobics, casino, or open bar, so that's all they do. These floating refugees are registered as "seamen" in the Bahamas so there are no U.S. payroll taxes. Here's how one article describes SeaCode's business model, which could catch on, don't laugh:
"Surround the USA with shiploads of migrant workers. Suck away the jobs, don't pay taxes, and funnel money overseas as fast as possible. Come into port once a month to dump sewage. When our economy is finally drained they can steam to another coastal nation that still has a few bucks in the treasury."
As Monty Burns would say... "Eeeexcellent."
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