But I look way smart saying it.

Not to nitpick, but you should leave that for others to decide. I got dial-up so I ain't seeing nothing, but have never known anyone to say 'they look way smart' without being facetious.

Are you being facetious?

Er, I was being facetious.

“All I say is, ‘People are panicking a lot over a very, very small part of the job picture.’”

I didn’t see the ABC news segment concerning outsourcing. My guess, however, is that the major media have decided that John Kerry has made a fool of himself and can no longer be protected from ridicule. The consensus majority of economists can barely keep a straight face when he talks about protecting American jobs. This is what Robert Reich candidly admits:

“In the next five years, outsourcing won't amount to much. At most, we're talking about a few hundred thousand jobs subtracted from an American labor market that is likely to generate 10 million new jobs. In 30 years, outsourcing will be a very big deal.”

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04081/288422.stm

On top of that, the overall good economic news is increasing on a daily basis. The major media simply cannot hide this obvious fact. They can only slant their stories so much before it becomes too embarrassing. To be blunt, Senator Kerry is on his own. He should have thought twice before uttering his “Benedict Arnold CEOs” nonsense. Now even Kerry’s allies cannot save his rear end. The era of John Kenneth Galbraith as a respectable economist is over. Somebody should have told Kerry. Now he’s learning the hard way.

Things are picking up. Do you think voters will be feeling the happiness of the surge? And have confidence it will last? Or will they remember the angst of the first three years of recession?

Is there a Doing The Media for Dummies book? I'd buy one.

“Things are picking up. Do you think voters will be feeling the happiness of the surge? And have confidence it will last? Or will they remember the angst of the first three years of recession?”

The Rasmussen daily tracking poll now has Bush leading Kerry by a 2-3 point margin for the third day in a row. No longer can this lead be dismissed as mere statistical noise. See for yourself:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking_Poll.htm

The odds have always been on President Bush’s side. Senator Kerry has had to hope for a national calamity. This year’s election may very well highlight the uncompromising divisions within the Democrat Party. The Republicans essentially got rid of their anti-growth crazies when Pat Buchanan left the party. It’s time for the Democrats to do likewise. In an earlier posting, there is a mention of “Josh Livens, an Economic Policy Institute economist, and critic of the Bush administration and corporate outsourcing of work overseas.” This organization is very left wing. Robert Rubin and Brad DeLong would suffer an intense existential dark night of the soul if the EPI’s economic platform were embraced by the national Democrat Party. It would be more to the liking of Ralph Nader.

Er, I was being facetious

Thanks, it's so hard to tell sometimes, with the blogosphere being what it is. Alot of personalities and egos etc...sorry to cast doubt.

The BLS report is incomplete since it is based on layoffs. What isn't included is the hiring a company doesn't do in the US. I work for a multinational. We have 3 projects that I know of where 18 people are doing the work in India that previously would have been done in the US.

My dad was in the NYPD and gave some data to a NYT reporter in the late 60s, and said he saw the chart from the data reappearing for years in the Times.

Dan,

Counting layoffs is useless at this point. The layoffs were largely finished quite a while ago.

If a company decides it's time to re-staff now, after layoffs in 2001, and opts to hire offshore, it wouldn't be counted by this study, because the layoffs weren't caused by the intent to offshore, but rather due to the cycle.

Further, layoffs aren't a problem if it's easy to get a job. Slow hiring due to offshoring is thus a bigger threat than offshoring-related layoffs.

Nobody'd *care* about their job being sent to India if it were easy to find a new, good, job.

I'd expect you'd understand this. Isn't guaranteed job security a big attraction of getting tenure? Sod the academic freedom, I'm sure it's much better than if you had to fear being cast out into the highly competitive academic job market again and possibly relegated to making ends meet as an adjunct, or even tutoring.

The US needs job *growth*. Offshoring slows down job growth in the US. The BLS study doesn't address this at all.