Yeah, its hard to turn back the clock in the case of either India or China, though we certainly can leverage the state of existing trade to resolve some of the issues. The Bush administration's "anything goes" policy is unacceptable IMO, though not surprising considering how much money he raises from multinationals come campaign season. And, from his perspective, why not
... most of these issues are way above the heads of average citizens anyways.
Regarding the environment, its ironic that environmental organizations devote millions to altering the fate of spotted owls in the American wilderness while devoting relatively little energy to the devastation corporations cause when they move their heavy industry offshore. One could make the argument that many environmentalists ultimately cause more environmental damage than they prevent by adding incentive to relocate industry in locations with virtually no environmental protections in place ... but that is an issue for a different message board.
Back to the original issue of programmers being offshored, probably the one saving grace in all of this is that most software is in the fact most software is not really a commodity. (Larry Ellison is a moron if he truly thinks it is ... will let his company's plummeting stock price over the past 3 years speak for itself on that subject.) Developing good software takes more than a CSc degree and English language skills, and solid US software (i.e. those with the talent, experience, and focus required to make things happen) will ultimately pay for their exorbanent wages in the license revenue their software generates (which, I might add, is generally not a direct function of the production costs). Companies whose strategy is purely to shed talent until their costs match their continually-declining revenue streams are doomed no matter what shore they find themselves on.
