Re:Say it with me: "The economy is not zero-sum" (Score 1)

Very well said.

Most of the opponents of off-shoring seem to subscribe to the lump of labor fallacy (yes, that's shrill liberal Paul Krugman). Jobs are not in fixed supply because a job is not an object or an item, but a transaction. Quick proof that giving a job to somebody doesn't destroy a job from somebody else? The fact that our unemployment rate did not permanently increase when women entered the labor force.

Learned that example from the "Contemporary Economic Issues" lecture by Tim Taylor, available from The Teaching Company (one of many reasons I was inspired to switch from embedded software engineering and now am currently pursuing a Master's in econ). So far, I've found that software engineering is comparatively simple and straightforward when compared to most social sciences. After all, people are much more unpredictable and harder to explain than machines, and this whole thread seems to be a result of commenters here forgetting that.

And how about another example that strikes closer to home. The unemployment rate also did not increase permanently when computers were invented. After all, computers (and the software that runs on them) have allowed firms to get much greater productivity from fewer workers. Indeed, much more than productivity gains from off-shoring (which runs into communication issues). So maybe we should destroy all the computers and give everybody in the world more jobs!