This is my first diary entry here so be gentle...
So I've got to ask the question... Recognizing that we are in an economy where our currency is information, what are we going to do when we out-source those jobs too? The service industry can only support so many people... Then there's the specter of the inverted yield curve as discussed by Devilstower, see here. So my question is when are people going to wake up and see that the company's bottom line may not be the best thing for the country! I'm not saying that we need to ditch capitalism, but one thing is crystal clear from history, periods in which the corporation was viewed as superior to the individual (i.e. worker) lead to one thing problems. In this time of media consolidation it seems to me that people have forgotten the history of this country during the laissez-faire time of President McKinley. Obviously, there are many more far less rosy views of McKinley available, but I think that the tone in the White House web page gives a clue to how glowing those are, see here.
An interesting aside, McKinley's imperialist venture into the Philippines and its consequences had very similar effects (i.e. the rise of a repressive regime followed by a vehemently anti-American regime) to what we are seeing in Iraq, see what Howard Zinn (a personal hero of mine) has to say about it
here. Yes, I'd say the pro-business, imperialist views of McKinley would be welcomed in this White House.
But I digress, the NC Legislature will hopefully look at a bill, originally proposed by frm. State Sen. Eric Reeves, that will require, "written permission from consumers before their personal financial information could be used in a foreign call center," taken from the Charlotte Observer. Get this, this bill gives YOU the right to determine if you want a call-center in a foreign country to have access to YOUR personal identification, i.e. SSN, drivers license number... You know, in this era of concern about "the terrorist getting id's and sneakin' into our country," you'd think we'd want to hold our cards a little closer. Malcolm Graham who conveniently happens to be my state Senator is the vice-chair of the committee which will look at this bill. Needless to say he will be hearing from me.