BushCo's message to the average worker couldn't be more clear: We don't care if your job goes to India, it's good for the economy the wealthy. From the LAT:
The movement of American factory jobs and white-collar work to other countries is part of a positive transformation that will enrich the U.S. economy over time, even if it causes short-term pain and dislocation, the Bush administration said Monday.The embrace of foreign outsourcing, an accelerating trend that has contributed to U.S. job losses in recent years and has become an issue in the 2004 elections, is contained in the president's annual report to Congress on the health of the economy."Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," said N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, which prepared the report. "More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing."
Notice how Mankiw's quote suggests that tradability is a good in itself. It's a classic case of market theology: that which encourages trade is good. That which impedes it is bad. It's also a classic case of mistaking the means (trade) for the end (improving people's standard of living).
I wonder if Commander in Chief is a job we could outsource someday?