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You're still ignoring those 5,ooo American engineers that will soon be put out of work by one company alone. It may not be a zero sum game, but this is as clear cut of a 1 for 1 job loss as there is.

Temporarily, yes. But if you're worried about that, take a look at adam_az's post at I think #14 above. These guys will get nice severance packages, and some of them will be hired in other parts of IBM. Also, programmers are by trade very versatile and can take all kinds of different jobs. They can also start their own businesses more easily than just about any other kind of professional, except maybe a lawyer.

In the end, this act by IBM will free up American capital and result in more investment and job creation here--money that small businesses and consumers would have had to pay for PC's. If not for similar acts by thousands of other companies, everything we buy would cost three to five times as much, and much of the technology we have would never have been developed for lack of capital and resources.

Let's keep things in perspective here: this is not the cold war. This is some internal programming jobs at IBM--not nuclear secrets (which the Soviets did get, by the way). None of this falls under the forbidden export categories. They have PC's in China already.

There is no point in trying to "protect" jobs that can't be sustained here in a competitive environment. Such "protection" always comes at the cost of even more jobs and growth that won't happen.

These guys will get nice severance packages, and some of them will be hired in other parts of IBM.

You have no way of knowing that. What we do know is this comes right on the heels of 2 recent rounds of layoffs for IBM, so relocation within the company is probably extremely low, unless you want to move to Bejein.

In the end, this act by IBM will free up American capital and result in more investment and job creation here--money that small businesses and consumers would have had to pay for PC's.

IBM is the 'premium' pc company, so no one will really be saving any money buying pc's from IBM, ever.

Let's keep our eye on the ball, how about instead (article from minutes ago):

Sun fined for Illegal Exports

This kind of stuff is going on all the time, and needs to be better controlled instead of this shortsided selling out we keep seeing.