The Outsourced Future

April 3, 2004

Stephen Cohen and Brad DeLong are thinking about Our Outsourced Future

Thus the political debate over "outsourcing" will burn for the rest of the barely-started 2004 campaign season. We will hear about Benedict Arnold CEOs. We will hear about Indians and Chinese willing to work for semi-starvation wages who are stealing the jobs that are rightfully ours. We will hear lots about undervalued exchange rates. And we will be told that the real solution is education, education, education: to upgrade the skills of America's labor force so that we can productively work in those occupations that cannot be outsourced and be the bosses of the overseas workers in those occupations that can.