RE: India - Wave of the Future?

["Anameier, Christine A - Eagan, MN" <christine -dot- a -dot- anameier -at- usps -dot- gov>]

> When multinationals build power plants and factories in 
> developing countries, they are advancing the world toward a time of
> less poverty, pestilence, war, and famine, even if their motivation
> is nothing more than getting the most production for the least money.
> And the world will be better for ALL of us when there is less
> poverty, pestilence, war, and famine, doncha think?

Hi Dick,

I would have to agree that less pestilence is a good thing. How did Tom
Lehrer put it in 'The Folk Song Army'? Something like "We're against
poverty, war, and injustice... unlike the rest of you squares!"

The thing is, when we're talking about "offshoring," the multinationals
are building plants and factories and whatnot in developing nations at
the cost of plants and jobs and whatnot in the US. The developing
nations may wind up with less poverty, and the US winds up with more
poverty. It really does seem like a zero-sum game sometimes. I'm all for
reducing poverty and hunger, but this whole trend seems to MOVE it
rather than reduce it. 

The laid-off US tech workers -- whose skills are not obsolete, I might
add; just more expensive -- are winding up in an increasingly large pool
of jobless people with an increasingly smaller number of jobs available.
Some of them will lose their homes. Some will have to fall back, one way
or another, on the tattered social safety net that is funded by
taxpayers, and the pool of taxpayers diminishes every time someone loses
their job. Some will lose their health care.  The world won't be better
for them if there's less poverty on another continent.

Christine