Blinder on immoble jobs

In last Sunday's Washington Post, Alan Blinder took an important stab at the vexing question -- just what jobs will be left in America. (See Free Trade's Great, but Offshoring Rattles Me)

In addition, we need to rethink our education system so that it turns out more people who are trained for the jobs that will remain in the United States and fewer for the jobs that will migrate overseas. We cannot, of course, foresee exactly which jobs will go and which will stay. But one good bet is that many electronic service jobs will move offshore, whereas personal service jobs will not. Here are a few examples. Tax accounting is easily offshorable; onsite auditing is not. Computer programming is offshorable; computer repair is not. Architects could be endangered, but builders aren't. Were it not for stiff regulations, radiology would be offshorable; but pediatrics and geriatrics aren't. Lawyers who write contracts can do so at a distance and deliver them electronically; litigators who argue cases in court cannot.

There is only one thing wrong with this analysis -- it is not enough. We still need to earn income from foreigners to pay for all the stuff we buy from them. No economy can sustain itself only with localized jobs. Trade is too important. There is always something that someone else has that you need -- be it physical resources or specialized talent. The key to sustainable economic success is having a competitive product. So we need to think as hard about how we improve the ability of our economic processes (workers, organizations, etc) to compete against those Three Billion New Capitalists (to use Clyde Prestowitz phrase). Other wise, we will continue to sell of assets to pay for imports -- leading to what Warren Buffet calls the Sharecropper Society.