IMO given that "free" trade v. free trade is the real argument. Proving "free" trade is good is going to require a whirling dervish. Bruce Bartlett spins mightily but no dervish he.
“Outsourcing Stikes Back” mentions Stephen Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley and his opinion that Forrester Research's projection of U.S. jobs losses to be "pretty flaky." But there was no mention of the "rest of the story" such as Mr. Roach's writings about leakage, labor arbitrage, imported producitivity, lost consumer demand, and other affects on our economy and jobs.
He cites the Global Insight study that says IT outsourcing results in net good for the US Job Growth without mentioning the ITAA connection.
He points out that the study says the new jobs will be construction, transportation and utilities, education and health services, and wholesale trade. Fine. But these have been cited elsewhere as gainers without regard to offshoring.
He throws in a couple of platitudes saying free trade is good -- who says it is not good?
I object specifically to "free" trade with China. There is one of the socialist/communist countries that murdered at least 100 million of their own citizens last century. Now they are a key trading partner?!!
Here the whirling dervish wannabe (Bartlett) tries xenophobia. To wit, in “The (Out)Source of All Confusion” he says
"Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal recently put it, 'The current griping over 'outsourcing' seems almost a species of psychological dysfunction, one that blames foreigners over any explanation that doesn't.'"
Though he did calm down and became more rational he, IMO, overstates the automation concerns of the 1960s and the concerns about Japan years later characterizing them as hysteria. We expressed our opinions and all were happy when the impact was as most expected.
For example, we'd been exposed to the promise of automation for years and as far as Japan was concerned let 'em make our TVs we had IT exploding all around us. Plus, they got the attention of Detroit! Screw Engine Charlie Wilson, we wanted better cars from Detroit and we got 'em. Most of us were more trusting in those days, however.
He talks about retaliation if we limit offshoring. Retaliation! Like how? He fails to mention that US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick recently criticized India for wanting more and more offshoring from us but remains "one of the most closed economies of the world." Of course there is no mention of our WTO complaints against the Chi-coms obstructions.
It's "free" trade v. free trade, stupid!