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Please read
http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/11/commentary/dobbs/dobbs/index.htm

We don't have, as Americans, any special skills that cannot be learned just as well by Indians or Chinese. I don't have anything against the Indians or the Chinese; God loves them just as much as He loves us. However, in the above referenced article, Professor Terry makes a compelling case that offshoring is an economic externality.
An economic externality cannot be fixed by market forces. The example he gives is the companies dumping their toxic wastes into the rivers and lakes in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. The companies did this because it was the cheapest way to get rid of the waste. They did not have to pay for it until the government made it financially unwise to dump waste. I don't think anyone could argue that the rivers and lakes are far cleaner today than they were in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.
An economic externality must be fixed by legislation. The best proposal I have seen so far is the 1% tariff on imported goods and services.

Nice theory. I am telling you what I see in real life daily. There is a backlash and Dobbs doesn't work in my space (sorry for usng Consultant-spaek). We DO have special skills in that the Indians don't have. We can translate real needs into code specs and they can't simulate an entire lofetime of shared cultural ecxperiences. I am telling you I have worked with the head offices of 3 major multinationals who have basically said "no Indians!"

There is a real, measurable and significant difference. Part of the cultural aspect is what I described to you -- they generally accept "from above" as sacred writ. Americans don't. This is what I see all the time. And it is a problem. I just spent many hours re-designing a system I gave to an Indian to design -- he hard-coded all over the place and I had to redesign the whole damn thing.

Trust me, Dobbs is wrong. And Corporate America is waking up to that fact.

Nothing against them, God loves them, but that has nothing to do with their ineffectiveness.

"The best proposal I have seen so far is the 1% tariff on imported goods and services."

You apparently haven't studied the FairTax proposal. It would levy a 23% sales tax on all purchases of new goods and services for consumption. However, because of the removal of the current tax system, American made goods would drop in price app. 20 - 30% to cushion the impact of the sales tax. However, imports would not be able to drop their prices by anything like that amount and remain profitable. Therefore, a very significant shift in the demand here in the US for domestic made products would occur.

On the other hand, we could ship products outside the country at a 20 - 30% reduction in price with comparable profit margins. That would increase the demand for US produced goods in foreign markets as well.

The bottom line is that the current tax system handicaps US producers enormously vs their international counterparts. Fixing that would go a long way toward creating more jobs in this country and stimulating our economy.