Outsourcing realities

While I don't list books in my profile, you'll find that I link to Thomas Sowell quite often. One of my favorite books by him is "A Conflict of Visions". Sowell has a very realistic view of economics that I believe in. Here's a passage from a recent article that makes sense, but read the whole thing:

Many policies designed to "save jobs" have effects that are the opposite of their intentions. Germany has some of the strongest job protection laws in the world -- and double-digit unemployment rates are common in Germany.

Job protection laws add to the cost of labor. These laws may save the jobs of those who already have jobs but the passage of time brings new young job applicants into the labor market and the high cost of labor means that employers have incentives to get their work done by substituting machines for workers or by shifting to producing products that require less labor.

Thomas Sowell: Jobs and snow jobs

The left often accuse the right of using fear as a tactic to scare people into voting for Bush, but they themselves use fear in much the same way by scaring people with economic falsehoods - jobs is just one.

One of my Principles is believing in the Law of Unintended Consequences. Laws have consequences that aren't always those which were intended - I'm wary of politicians promising to 'fix' all problems with a new law.