[brownsfan]

No offense, but now that you've got this off your chest, what exactly do you want President Bush to do about it?

At least you aren't telling him to run to the DU and join the Democrats. Ok, how about this? How about penalties/tarriffs on businesses that do the endrun. Sure, I agree some 3rd world development is necessary, but wholesale offshoring isn't. Maybe the penalty/tarriff would be in proportion to the pollution/worker safety laws the company is trying to avoid. I'm sure that could be refined. The point is, if Mr. Bush continues to deal with this issue as he is now, he will look more and more like Bush Sr. That is what sunk Bush Sr. The economy. The heirarchy of needs comes into play. Sure we need to be safe, but we need to eat and have shelter more.

[Mr. Bird]

That is what sunk Bush Sr. The economy

If by that you mean the steady drumbeat of lies coming out of the major media (at the time, the only media) regarding a tanking economy when it was in fact growing, you'd be absolutely right.

The economy didn't sink Bush Sr. Slick Willie, his submissive media whores, and H. Ross Perot's psychotic followers sunk Bush Sr.

[kevkrom]

How about penalties/tarriffs on businesses that do the endrun.

That will just encourage more companies to leave the US altogether, causing even more jobs to go away. Then the next step would have to be to add a protectionist tariff, which would then be immediately reacted to by all of the countries we export to.

In the end, we would get expensive, low-quality crap and no significant improvement in jobs.

[Southack]

"How about penalties/tarriffs on businesses that do the endrun. Sure, I agree some 3rd world development is necessary, but wholesale offshoring isn't. Maybe the penalty/tarriff would be in proportion to the pollution/worker safety laws the company is trying to avoid. I'm sure that could be refined. The point is, if Mr. Bush continues to deal with this issue as he is now, he will look more and more like Bush Sr. That is what sunk Bush Sr. The economy."

Here's the dirty little secret that no one has been letting out of the bag: it ain't cheap labor, but rather, cheap *currencies* that drive outsourcing.

For every 10,000 unknowlegable persons who cry about the low cost of Mexican and Chinese and Indian labor, fewer than 5 will be able to explain why those outsourced jobs went to China instead of to Nigeria.

Nigeria has 100+ million people, and 47% of Nigerians earn annual salaries of just one tenth (yes, 10%) of the average Chinese income. That's $100 in Nigeria for a year of labor, versus $1,000 per year in China.

Yet the outsourced jobs are going to China, not Nigeria.

The difference, of course, is in various transaction costs (e.g. red tape, bribes, crime, chaos, and most of all, in currency valuations).

What both China and India have done is to *undervalue* their Yuan and Rupee versus the U.S. Dollar. That makes all of their exports of goods and services cheaper than would ordinarily happen in a free market.

OK, that's all fine to say and explain, but what is President Bush doing about it?

Well, GWB isn't having the Fed buy Dollars on the global currency markets any longer. This means that India and China are having to prop up the Dollar by buying and hoarding huge amounts of Dollars.

And if they ever stop buying and hoarding U.S. Dollars, the value of the Dollar on foreign exchange markets willplunge.

And if the Dollar plunges (it's already dropped 20% against the Euro since Bush/Greenspan stopped intervening in the currency markets to buy Dollars), then suddenly the cost of Chinese and Indian goods and services skyrockets.

Watch Bush hold Greenspan to this policy until the Dollar drops at least another 20%. The 40% overall drop in the Dollar is pretty close to just about what is needed to stop the majority of offshore outsourcing.