More Reasonable Approaches To Offshoring

from the will-anger-or-reality-win? dept

Lots of articles on offshoring today. We'll start off with a nice opinion piece from Declan McCullough pointing out how much of a political hot potato offshoring is. Just about all economists will agree that more efficient means of production are good for the economy, and protectionism turns out to be worse - but actually saying so in the political arena is a big sin. Unfortunately, though, politicians seem to be singing the praises of protectionism, because it sounds good to those who may have just lost their jobs (even if it would mean the economy and the job situation would be made worse). Meanwhile Marc Andreessen chimes in by pointing out that this isn't a zero-sum game and offshoring should help us create even more jobs in the US going forward. He also points out that more jobs in China are being lost to automation than are being lost in the US do to offshoring. Offshoring to cheaper labor locations is just a step short of automating jobs - and the responses from protectionists seem similar to those of Luddites from years past. However, with all this doom and gloom talk, Business Week is at least trying to look to the positive. Everyone knows that the process of a labor shift is very painful for those involved, and thus, they are trying to look at ways to build new American jobs. In the end, they say it has to go back to innovation. They come up with a handy list of ways to keep the US software industry strong. Basically, they point out what economists have been saying for years. By innovating and making the costs of production cheaper, other, more advanced opportunities open up.