It's still valid in a couple of other countries though. I'm sure I don't make more than my friends in England for example, and I know some in Brazil that make really good money (compared to those around them who are not programmers) and I'm sure there's other countries who pay their software engineers well enough. But yeah I'm aware that there are countries where being a software developer is not that profitable sadly. I always hear of outsourcing software development overseas for simple things like having a website done.
In many cases it’s because that’s what we demand of them. The “you get what you pay for” line works well here, we demand low cost so they have low time to build anything right. Long term impact is that they never fully developed into seasoned and deeply skilled staff. Then we complain about quality, its kind of funny in a sad way...
As a programmer in "other countries", you're very much wrong. You just get what you pay for, and when you're going for "cheap outsource" you get bottom of the barrel. Pay senior salaries, you get senior people.
Incidentally, I'm not sure if this statement has any validity outside US. I wonder why that is.