[Hue68]

.....what will we be doing? Something else.

I have a friend who is a security manager with a 2 billion dollar company located on a major campus setting. Each building had a security guard/receptionist 12 hours a day. The security manager purchased high-tech automated doors, coupled with card access, and eliminated the security guards in three of the four buildings. My point is, it's not just white collar workers who can be replaced. In this case it was workers considered to be at the low end of the wage stream. But the company found a way to eliminate them through automation. In any business, if an expense can be eliminated, it will be. It is sad for those who lose their jobs, but it's always been done.

[superloser]

In your example, machinery was purchased and installed in this country thereby contributing something to the local economy making the displaced workers able to find new jobs "somewhere" in it.

When the job, income, and contribution to the local economy is shipped overseas, well....its a whole different story altogether. The money that would have gone back into the local economy is now gone and cannot create new opportunity.