Bob Cringely's preditions for 2004 . . .

are mostly about technological stuff, but there's one that ALL of our candidates should pay attention to, imo . . .

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040101.html

"14) IT outsourcing, as covered ad nauseum in this column, will become a political issue in the 2004 U.S. Presidential campaign. Whichever candidate comes out in opposition to outsourcing will have the advantage. And they'll be correct, though the extent of real damage to the U.S. economy and IT industry won't be apparent to those bozos for several more years. As for the touchscreen voting scandal, nothing will be resolved or improved. Don't get me started."

my emphasis added, because I think this can be a huge issue for the Democrats IF we pounce on it and keep driving it into Bush's gut . . . if there's one thing soccer moms and NASCAR dads hate, it's seeing good American jobs go overseas to benefit the few at the expense of the many . . .

- more to the article, but generally not political stuff . . .

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040101.html

its all fine and dandy for a candidate to "come out against
outsourcing"...but talk is CHEAP. These bastards need to be held to
their word. Unfortunately, in the 21st century, stating truths is
not the norm.

Or rather, Bob Cringely could be right. I've been thinking hard, like Rodin's statue, about the path that the US has taken in the past few years. In particular, the war in Iraq had me dumbfounded, to say the least.

And after watching our economy sink slowly into the quicksand, I wondered, "when will they finally say they've had enough? Manufacturing jobs have evaporated. I think a total of 1.5 million jobs will have moved to India.

I have read on at least 2 threads, that the Americans will stand up and take back their country when they themselves have had enough. No amount of foreign involvement can motivate a change. It has to come domestically.

Let's hope we're there.

does that count?

at home, the moderator pushed for some specific plan for software jobs that have gone to India. Clark made a stupid response, which he has since corrected (I saw it on C-SPAN).

But the upshot is, jobs leave because there is no INCENTIVE to keep the jobs here. Clark's tax plan will provide that incentive, and that applies to ALL jobs.

I don't think Clark was aware of this particular, fairly new issue, as were NONE of the other candidates. ALL the other candidates then had an opportunity to respond to that question, and only Kucinich elected to do so. And Kucinich's answer was not job-specific; he said that cutting out fair trade would help keep ALL jobs home.

None of the candidates was aware, I think, of this relatively new problem. The hallmark of a good leader is to become informed, when he realizes he's not, and to rectify and clarify and attack a problem head on, once he becomes aware. That's what Clark did. He studied the issue and then specifically addressed it. A good leader.

The candidates (all the candidates) will not answer all the questions correctly all the time, and they cannot have at a moment's notice a specific plan to address every single problem, esp. since they're on the road virtually nonstop. But Clark rectified the gaffe and devised a plan for the problem. A good leader. He didn't try to spin his answer and say he meant something elsle, or that's not exactly what he said. You can trust him, or at least I can. And that's why I'm voting for him.

companies that do the outsourcing that he would stop any state or federal law that stopped outsourcing.

Looks like I need a new career. It has been stated that half the data processing jobs will be outsourced in another 5 years. Guess how made I am at Bush!

Has spoken out against the high-tech outsourcing in almost all of his stump speeches that I've seen.

http://www.dickgephardt2004.com/plugin/template/gephardt/41/221

http://www.dickgephardt2004.com/plugin/template/gephardt/41/2729

Aren't both legal? But are they ethical? Every mention of the number of jobs that have been outsourced should be contrasted with the number of people out of one and still looking.

Regrettably, our congress has allowed the number of dollars nicely warm in islands like Grand Cayman to be secret. No accounting. Nice job.