Trying to slow the process of outsourcing is no solution. Instead, the US must make the adjustment process less painful and ensure that it has full access to foreign markets.
First, the government should assist displaced workers. The benefits of free trade can only be realised if those people find alternative employment. More could be done to set up job- finding services, to make health insurance and pension plans more portable, and to provide financial assistance for severely hit local communities to attract replacement jobs.
Economists talk about this all the time - "easing the pain" for people displaced by macroeconomic currents - but IT NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENS. We never, as a society, seriously think about compensating the victims of necessary economic change. We don't help them, we don't make arrangements, we don't think or talk about it. Basically, we live in a "you're on your own" society that believes everyone succeeds or fails, rises or falls, completely on their own. Until it happens to us.
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Tom Beck
my LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/tomfodw/
"I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never thought I'd see the last." - Dr. Jerry Pournelle
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