[Superman]

Outsourcing. That's the term and concept people are using, but it seems to me that this is probably a matter of economic globalization and the equilibriation (did I just invent a word?) of stuff like wages.

We have some of the world's highest wages, and we're losing jobs, the ones that can easily be outsourced, to countries where wages are a tiny fraction of ours. Technology is driving that. Like when fresh fruit was hard to find in the winter. You could ask a pretty high price for it, even though it was plentiful in the other hemisphere. Now, transporation and food handling technology make New Zeland apples popular and delicious....and cheap.

So, i don't see an end. I think worldwide wages are on their way to a more balanced equilibrium. There is hope that our wages can stay highest, but we will have to kick asses and take names in terms of productivity in order to retain high wages. And even so, wages WILL FALL in this country, or stay flat for a very long time while wages and standards of living rise elsewhere on the Big Ball.

I don't know what our strategy is (I don't actually think we have one, or at least the current, semi-illiterate president certainly would not have one unless his corporate sponsors see some profit opportunity in it...wait a minute...outsourcing IS the strategy. Well anyway....), and I don't know just how this will all play out, but there is something I think we can do. It starts with the letter "E."

Can anybody guess the word I am thinking of? Its a thing that Dubya promised to support and improve....until he got his underwear into the drawers in the Lincoln Bedroom....where he changed his mind and decided to cut funding instead.

Techweenie, Nostatic, Kach22, Michigan and a few others....you're disqualified. I know you know this one. Let's see who else does.