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"Nobody seems to realize that we import twice or three times as many jobs as we export. I'm talking about the jobs created by foreign companies coming into the U.S.,"

One major problem....Companies based in India that are opening up shop in the US are also bringing in their own ( Indians ) to fill the jobs !! To add salt to the wound, they don`t have to pay any taxes on their income !!

Left that little tidbit out, didn`t we?

However, consider this:

Manufacturing jobs mean that *products* are being produced in your country. Products are real, tangible assets that can be sold overseas at a profit, thereby importing wealth. Services can also be sold overseas, but many service jobs in the United States only serve the United States. Grossly inappropriate example: if everyone in the United States was a highly paid lawyer, but the only demand for American lawyers was in America, we would pass wealth around to pay for lawyers' fees, but then bleed wealth overseas to provide ourselves with creature comforts. Over a span of years, we'd all be poor lawyers.

So the question arises: do we create more wealth in the U.S. than we trade away in the form of the trade deficit? I'm guessing we don't, but I haven't looked at the figures.

When push comes to shove, I would rather have hot products to sell and import wealth than be a consumer economy that bleeds wealth. Our productivity is high, but are we only producing vapor - a la the 1990 internet boom?

The loss of manufacturing jobs scares me because it makes us externally dependent and it means that valuable manufacturing infrastructure disappears from our country.

There is no question that many computer programming jobs have moved from the United States to India. But this is just a half-truth, which can be worse than a lie. As management consultant Peter Drucker points out in the current issue of Fortune magazine, there are also foreign jobs moving to the United States.

I expect a little better from Capitalism Magazine than siting an article in another magazine. Where are some stats in Thomas' article other than some "Indians are only 15% as productive as Americans" that he pulls out of thin air.

I just checked out Capitalism Magazine and I came across this gem from Walter Williams:

Here's my question: If millions of high-paying jobs are leaving the country only to be replaced by millions of low-paying jobs, what prediction would you make about the trend in our standard of living?
...
The historical trend, including today, is a rising American standard of living. In fact, our per capita GDP in 1980 was $21,500 and, as of 2002, it was $36,000 -- a 59 percent increase. So how can it be that we're becoming a nation of low-pay hamburger flippers?

There's two falacies with his argument. The first is that GDP doesn't take into account if a product is made oversees or here in the country. Does a $30k car that's 15% made in the US contribute as much to the economy versus one that's 90% made here?

The second is that Walter seems to imply that the only way that per capita GDP can go up 59% is if everyone's value goes up. Its like saying that peole that live within 7 miles of Bill Gates have a net worth of $10M.