. . .
During the Clinton administration, the employment picture in the U.S. was particularly bright because hi-tech companies were investing a lot of resources to upgrade their technological capabilities and enhance their productivity. Many jobs these days are moving to India and the Philippines precisely because the technological impediments to this job shift have been removed over the last ten years.
I don't know what the answer is when it comes to keeping Americans employed, but in one respect the incessant complaints about outsourcing border on the absurd. For some people, their approach to this issue is the equivalent of a government official who celebrates the dramatic decline in his state's unemployment rate when 10,000 people are hired to build a 12-lane freeway across the land but then expresses alarm over the "devastating environmental conseqeunces" when people actually go out and start driving on it.
Tell me in what "one respect [it] borders on the absurd"?
Does the desire to retain high-paying jobs in America border on the absurd? Or perhaps it is absurd to wish to preserve an American middle class. Is the absurdity contained in the desire to retain our standard of living? Maybe it is absurd to want to avoid embracing the communist model of distribution.