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"I have not heard any candidate at all plausibly address the problem of outsourcing jobs and the dismal employment situation this outsourcing is creating in this country."

OK, something to sink our teeth into here.

I don't think that the government has any business telling industry that they can't outsource jobs, having said that, I also recognize the dangers involved in sending jobs overseas.

As a solution, and middle ground, I've always thought that we should incentivize the outsourcing of jobs to countries in order to gain benefits beyond low wages.

I think that the Feds should offer incentives to companies that outsource, or even build facilities, in our hemisphere. If we are going to outsource jobs, let's outsource them to Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, etc. so they can stay home and make money. I'd rather outsource ten million jobs to countries in our hemisphere, than have ten million illegals coming here looking for work.

Your kid is interested in computers, wants to major in computer science in college. Then again, he thinks maybe electrical engineering is the way to go. He also likes history and philosophy, but is pretty sure that all you can do is teach if you get a degree in one of those areas. He thus rules them out, as he wants to be assured of getting work in the area of his degree.

What do you tell him? The computer jobs are going now. EEs are flipping burgers.

When it was just the steel mills, we shrugged and said, "Well, if the developing countries make steel, they'll have more money to buy the rest of our products. That will trigger a big world-wide trade economy and make jobs all around."

And it worked. So the next time a recession hit, we pumped a few more industrial jobs overseas. The term "Rust Belt," applied to the former industrial heartland areas of the US, entered the lexicon.

But high-tech was the answer. Let the low-tech stuff go; we'll still have the high-tech here.

The high-tech jobs are flying out so fast a lot of people won't have noticed before they're gone.

We're hitting the bottom of the jobs barrel, a place where the only job you can find is something that won't leave because it requires the laying on of hands. Most of that is what we once considered menial.

I don't see in your post where you're really waking up to this.