Tuesday, September 30, 2003

Overseas Job Exodus. I was thinking about yet another call I got today from yet another offshore outsourcing company. There has to be some way of stopping some of this flow of jobs, in the high tech industry.  Here's my thought -- drop any tax write-off for overseas services work.  That is, disallow as a business expense money given to overseas outsourcing shops.  I have no problem with a bunch of hard-working guys in India doing software.  How about they develop their own software economy, over there?  Figure out some products, design'em, build'em...it's not like they can't...lots of great companies. We just need to find a way to stop the blood-flow of jobs.  What's happened in the manufacturing sector could happen in high-tech.  I think it's worth mentioning that the playing field isn't really level -- American companies must provide a lot of benefits to their workers (health care, etc)...the costs just aren't there overseas.  It's not really protectionism... Maybe I'm really wrong-headed, here... 11:29:39 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Distracting You From Plame. I've predicted that the Bush Administration would engineer some sort of distraction from the Valerie Plame affair, and I have been proven correct: Gorilla escapes Boston zoo, injures toddler, teen Look!  Monkey!!! 1:22:03 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

libruhlss! Shorter Right-Wing Punditry's Reaction to the Valerie Plame Affair: An Internal Dialogue "Why would master do this? Why he tricks us, and betrays us?" 1:04:09 AM     | comment [] | trackback []

The Texas Health Care Miracle. Deep under everything, I'm sure there's a reason why Bush's policies seem not to have done too well in Texas.  It's just so darn hard to figure out.  I mean, chop taxes, cut back services...private industry for everything...should have worked, right?.  And look at the results! One out of four Texans Lack Health Insurance "One out of every four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest percentage of uninsured residents in any state in the nation, according to new Census Bureau figures. The findings are part of a report that shows the ranks of the uninsured nationwide swelled by 2.4 million last year as insurance costs kept rising and more Americans lost their jobs and health care coverage." I guess Bush can put that one up on the trophy shelf, next to the one labelled "Texas Education Miracle". 12:28:53 AM     | comment [] | trackback []