[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

There is a difference between offshoring jobs to another country and simple modernization.
Consider, there will be an American field service technician (because machines break), an American manufacturing plant with American engineers and computer s/w engineers who all have jobs to create the modernization.
The unemployed former American cashiers can very easily be retrained for a better career.
But, how does a nation retrain millions of offshored degreed engineers with (in some cases) decades of experience? The most experienced are being replaced first, (Sun Microsystems has a class action lawsuit right now for age discrimination - they fired all the really experienced engineers and replaced them with young Indians).
In offshoring, America loses all around. In modernization, America gains all around. There is no comparison.

[Agamemnon]

But, how does a nation retrain millions of offshored degreed engineers....

Again, it's always somebody else's job to do this? These folks went to college. Some even to grad school. If they learned anything there at all, they'll be enterprising enough to discover what it means to be the captains of their own success. If they learned nothing and just went throught the motions, and glad handed their way through, that will be seen for what it is too.

Instead of waiting for a hand-out in a bread line, thinking that a "training program" comes from someone other than themselves, maybe they should look inwardly and see what it is about their skills-set they have to market and sell without someone having to think one up for them.