That's where the article goes astray.
It's a minor point. It all depends on what you consider skilled. Just because it takes some 2000 classroom hours to be a hair dresser, doesn't make that a skilled profession.
That's gonna bring facts into the argument! Shame on you, facts have no place in discussions such as these!
Not only that, but the author has his head conveniently and firmly up his backside. He needs to go talk to Sprint and find out about outsourcing technical expertise. I know, because it has already happened and is going to continue to happen.
That's only one place. Here are a couple of others:
And if this transition pinches a little, aren't Americans being a tad hypocritical by whining about it?
Two problems here, one economic, the other political.
The economic problem is that he's belittling economic self-interest. I'm afraid fear of being preceived as hypocritical has yet to demonstrate itself as quite as important an economic force. Americans would prefer America to prosper, even at the expense of foreign economies. Sorry, but that's just basic economics. Those in favor of outsourcing need to make the case for American prosperity (which is done elsewhere in this article) and accept this "hypocricy" as part of human nature.
The political problem is related. Very tough for a political party to survive in power through one of those "transition pinches" when your messages is, "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore." Doesn't matter if that statement is true. It's a political albatross, which any opposition party will be happy to hang around the neck of any pro-outsourcer foolish enough to embrace it. And once the pro-outsourcer is out of power, his successor will be all too eager to introduce extreme protectionist barriers, and will be lauded as heroic for doing it.
The other big flaw in this article, as in most others on the topic, is that it is naive to the real-world situation. Meaning it looks at economic well-being in isolation of other issues like national security and the social problems that stem from the mass unemployment resulting from entire displaced industries. That works in a college text-book, but not so great in real life.
Outsourcing absolutely does have a place. It's not going away, and no serious people even intend for it to do so. But it is not going to work well every time it's tried. And when it fails it can have negative consequences for all involved. Failing to pay attention to the full impact of real world trade practices in favor of retreating into macro-economic theory is doomed to faiulure.