More on outsourcing

A large controversy was set off this past week when one of President Bush's economic advisors said publicly that he thought the outsourcing of U.S. jobs was probably good for the U.S. in the long run. Since then, others have joined in the debate, including academics and consultants:

Experts at Wharton and the Boston Consulting Group point out that outsourcing is as old as the corporation. Increasingly, sourcing work overseas is no longer a tactical option that can help firms save a few dollars here and there; it is a strategic necessity for any company that cares about its long-term competitiveness.

An extended essay brings some content to this discussion, information that may have been obscured by the volume of the political debate earlier in the week.

UPDATE: Tom Peters has posted "16 Hard Truths" about what he calls "Off-shoring." Among several quotes that he includes are these:

"The world has arrived at a rare strategic inflection point where nearly half its population -- living in China, India, Russia -- have been integrated into the global market economy, many of them highly educated workers, who can do just about any job in the world. We're talking about three billion people." (Craig Barrett, CEO, Intel)

"The notion that God intended Americans to be permanently wealthier than the rest of the world, that gets less and less likely as time goes on." (Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate in Economics)