While in the earlier days the jobs offshored were the types that were labor intensive and tedious, there is a growing trend of jobs in the higher value-add spectrum which are getting offshored nowadays. For most companies, research and development are considered to be core competencies. However with the R&D facilities set up in India by the likes of Microsoft and Oracle, it is not the back office IT jobs only that are getting offshored any more. Even in the Finance world some of the high-end value add work including Investment Banking is now coming from such low cost centers. The following parody video clip from the News Source "the Onion" sounds funny but we need a dose of this type of sentiment to get serious. Really!!

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According to a report by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu: "After years of outsourcing technology support and other back-office operations to countries like India and China, financial institutions are increasingly looking to move large portions of their investment banking operations abroad. As a result, what began as technology support is now morphing into more analytic operations."

A lot of investment banking jobs involve number crunching. Even before this Wall Street crisis hit, big Financial Institutions like JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup , the now defunct - Lehman Brothers had been offshoring research analyst positions. These are just the initial steps. According to the same report : "Some experts expect that as banks become more comfortable with their offshore operations and foreign talent becomes more attuned to the companies' way of doing business, financial institutions may even shift some deal-making responsibility onto its foreign employees". That report came out in 2005-2006 long before this crisis happened. With some of the Wall Street Financial giants collapsing, investment banking itself will slowly become a rather rare commodity to be hotly pursued as a career anymore. For the jobs that remain in this area a pressure to cut costs and save money will drive wages down and push work overseas at a faster pace.

Do these Corporations really care about America maintaining a leadership in Science, Research and protecting its intellectual prowess. It seems as though Science/Mathematics/Analytical Research students who may love their field of study are increasingly faced with a dilemma nowadays. While they could get a higher education here they will almost need to move to a country like China or India to actually do their work. When the actual work base shifts to another country it will not be long before our educational institutions will also fall behind and will slowly lose its edge in that area. With less students showing interest because they cannot even work in their field at home, the departments at the Universities will not be able to sustain themselves.

In the past, our politicians and even the industry leaders touted that to keep America competitive on the intellectual platform we needed to get the brightest and the best brains from around the world to contribute within America's economy by bringing them here. But is that really true ? If they truly meant that, then offshoring that intellectual capability seems to be a counter argument. All the big Corporations wanted was cheap labor. It is even more cost effective to have the labor just contribute the work directly from the low cost countries. The intellectual capability can stay offshore as long as it promotes cheaper cost for the Corporations. It was never about the advancement and fostering of high skilled disciplines in Science and Technology. It was about money savings for the big business.

It does not even necessarily mean better prices for the American consumers. Price reductions of goods and services that have been offshored are greatly exaggerated. Yes, those who do the work to produce the goods and provide the services are paid much less. But most of that cost saving ends up as increased corporate profits and expanded CEO pay, very little is passed on to consumers. How much cheaper are athletic shoes as a result of their being produced offshore?

The Mckinsey Global Institute has published data that shows a $0.26 loss for U.S. workers resulting from every $1 offshored. This undermines the economy, it does not stimulate it.

Harvard University economist Robert Z. Lawrence, a free-trade advocate, says, "If foreign countries specialize in high-skilled areas where we have an advantage, we could be worse off. I still have faith that globalization will make us better off, but it's no more than faith." Offshoring only gives a competitive advantage to those companies that engage in it. Rather than increasing competition, offshoring tends to concentrate economic power in fewer hands. What is happening today is a slow and painful offshoring of America's Middle class at large.

As much as we like to think of having less Government involvement in the commercial activities of this country, we cannot just let America's big Corporations be the only stalwarts of our economic future. No doubt business needs to be competitive on a Global basis to remain profitable, but there are plenty of indications that much of the accelerated trends in offshoring has been brought about by an eagerness to advance CEO and Executive pay. We need to have a framework where Government regulators can step in immediately if needed to realign social and economic motivators without being over bearing and then quickly get out of the way again. Do we trust the Government to do this job flawlessly. Not by any means but giving a free rein to big business does not seem to be the answer either.