An interesting site about outsourcing is this one, where the forums appear to harbour many resentful Amercians. Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily - it is after all one of the perspectives on the whole matter. The issue of outsourcing is one I'm not able to produce a final judgement on. Being an NRI (non-resident Indian), I seem to be stuck in the middle somewhere. There have already been heated debates from an ecomonic point of view, citing globalization as being one of the reasons why outsourcing is A Good Thing, only to be fiercely countered by arguments from the other side. I can't claim to understand either argument very well, quite frankly. My knowledge of economics is truly rudimentary, and I don't really understand "how the world works", as it were. But ignorace has never stopped me before, now has it?

It's always interesting to see the perspective of the workers on both ends. The Americans are forced to watch their jobs, one by one, be usurped by people on the other end of the world, whereas the Indians are grateful to be getting large salaries and a steady job. Objectivity in this case is particularly hard, I think. For instance, Indian top-makers (or some other toy-makers, I can't remember) were recently being crippled by cheaper competition from China. The knee-jerk response I felt was of course "That's not fair!". Why is that? Perhaps it's because I've seen how these people live, and how their small income is the only thing that allows them and their families to stay alive (a bit of a hyperbole). I guess that makes me automatically assume that what's happening is "wrong". However, my ignorance of what's going on with the Chinese toy-makers means that I can't really judge the situation at all.

I think the above was basically an exercise in the obvious.