Protectionism, be it of the steel industry or of high tech jobs, just doesn't work. I honestly don't know what to do about the problem. It has been going on for a long time. First, it was low end manufacturing jobs like textiles and small parts. Later, it was semi-high tech like computer RAM manufacturing. Now, it's high tech like CPU manufacturing and software engineering.

I do hope the people who run American corporations begin to think beyond the next quarter's profit margin, but that's asking a lot. What with the glut of MBAs out there, long term strategic planning is almost extinct in American boardrooms. All that matters is beating the estimates for the next quarter so the stock price will go up.

What, as a nation, are we going to make anymore? What kind of economy do we want to have? Time was when someone could leave school and get a job at a local factory, making enough money to support a family. Today, that's an opportunity available to fewer and fewer people each year.

Are we going to become a nation of lawyers suing one another into extinction? Are we going to sell bits of data to one another? Or, are we going to actually make products that people want and can afford to buy? That's the rub - labor prices are very high in the US compared to most of the world. If a company can't make products at a price people are willing to pay, they won't be in business very long.

Perhaps the export of high tech jobs will cause some people to think again about the long term wisdom of large scale outsourcing. If most Americans don't have a chance earn a reasonable living, they're not going to be able to buy those products regardless of where they're made.

Not too many people complained when it was low-end jobs like textiles being outsourced. After all, that wasn't their job on the line. To paraphrase the famous saying:

First they came for the textile workers, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a textile worker.
Then they came for the parts makers, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a parts maker.
Now they're coming for the software engineers and there was no one left to speak up.