Consider the typical "corporate IT" environment where your boss is not qualified to evaluate your ability as a programmer. Unfortunately for you he stumbles across an article like this in a reputable business newspaper and thinks to himself, "Why am I paying $120k/year for programmers when I can pay first-quality programmers in India only $12/hour?!" Next thing you know, you're out the door. In time he re-learns the lesson that you get what you pay for, but too late for you.

Corporate IT in the US is fast becoming a wasteland of foreign graduates desperate for green cards, outsourced consultants and offshoring. IMO the only options as a programmer in the developed world are to go very high end, do a startup where you sell directly to the end user who doesn't care what kind of programmer you are, or get out of the programming field altogether.