[Tuco-bad]

Jobs lost to unneeded products

Such as shoes, garments, steel, and now IT sofware and engineering.

Boeing is outsourcing their commercial engineering to Russia, financial companies (i.e., Merrill Lynch, Bear Sterns), are outsourcing their IT work to India, etc.

[laredo44]

How does your ideal, job-for-life society introduce change? The problem with all the central command ecomonies is that they never account for the efficient introduction of change. Capitalism does. That is its advantage.

[laredo44]

Such as shoes, garments, steel, and now IT sofware and engineering.

Quite right you are. Needed products produced inefficiently expose those who produce them to the buffeting winds of change. I believe the first census in 1790 showed 90% of the population were farmers. Today, it's what? 2% or so? Oh dear, what are all those non-farmers doing? Congress needs to investigate. What did the Oracle Marx have to say about this insufferable injustice?

[SupplySider]

Boeing is outsourcing their commercial engineering to Russia, financial companies (i.e., Merrill Lynch, Bear Sterns), are outsourcing their IT work to India, etc.

That's great. Cheaper labor means cheaper goods and services for Americans. It also means jobs for our Russian and Indian brothers, whom I respect just as much as my friends here. And what do you think will happen to the capital that is saved by these corporations who found better labor bargains? They will invest it in the pursuit of more profits, and probably produce more jobs along the way (maybe even for Americans).

You are failing to look at the wider picture, and focusing on only one effect. Perhaps you have emotional reasons for limiting your vision. Maybe you lost a job to a "foriegner".

[jejones]

Boeing is outsourcing their commercial engineering to Russia, financial companies (i.e., Merrill Lynch, Bear Sterns), are outsourcing their IT work to India, etc.

Then it's time to look for something we can do better than they can in India or Russia. If we can't, and we price ourselves out of the market, then we deserve to lose.