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I confess that I'm no economist, and there's probably a patently obvious answer to this question that I'm completely unaware of, but for that reason in particular, I'll go ahead and lay it out.
Silverman says that it's the speed of outsourcing that's the problem. That makes sense. It's not as though there's a finite number of jobs that are out there - the economy grows and swells and adapts to change, but it has to be somewhat gradual, not an entire industry essentially disappearing at once. So I can follow that thinking.
Then he says that subsidies and whatnot could (or should) help American companies stay more competitive. Which also makes sense, but where would that money come from, if not (ultimately) from the workers that you're trying to help? That's not something that many people would be keen on - people complain about even modest taxation, can you imagine if they knew that it was going up at all just to help some other person keep their job? Think of the management point-of-view on outsourcing in the '80's. They LOVED it - it meant there was a bigger piece of the pie for them, until it became clear that their jobs could be exported as well, only then did it become something that the upper-middle class worried about. So while I agree that subsidies may well work, I'm not sure that it's a workable concept.
Which leads to the final point - why not raising tariffs on items (including electronic items) produced overseas? As it is the American public has become more aware of corporate tax dodges in the wake of Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing - it's not as though a tariff on products brought in by companies with an American office and production facilities (including information production) overseas would be an unpopular notion were it properly done.
It's not even like it would be a hard sell, if journalists or commentators actually cared (which, as Al Franken pointed out on this topic in "Lying Liars", it could be said that they don't). Simply addressing a variation on the phrase "why do you hate America" to any company who defends their annual $30 million in profits when they could have still made $27 million and been helping the American economy more. Of course, I realize that the issue is slightly more complex than that (but only slightly), but boiled down to its essence, that really is an accurate question.
I mean, in the end, it seems to me that the options are four-fold.
1) Pay slightly higher taxes to keep America competitive.
2) Pay slightly higher prices by forcing companies to buy American (whenever possible).
3) Slowly adjust the American standard-of-living downwards to match that of the countries taking jobs from here.
4) (Relatively) quickly adjust the American standard-of-living downwards by losing exponentially more jobs over time as all material goods production becomes cheaper elsewhere.
Again, I confess my ignorance on the topic, but when I hear something like this - this is what goes through my head. Thanks for reading.
