Ya, small time consequences like incredible hyper-inflation, reduced cost of living that impacts the lower income brackets the most, lack of some specific goods and parts due to the fact we don't have the manufacturing infrastructure in the United States any more...
There are reasons the jobs left the United States. Americans benefit from those reasons - specifically, products were able to be produced at a lower cost, thus making it so more Americans could afford them.
I know it's a pipe dream, but I wish we would spend less budget money trying to keep low-skill, low-wage jobs in the United States, and spend more money on re-education and re-skilling to higher-income jobs. In other words... government facilitated creative destruction.
What a novel concept.
None of that stuff matters (inflation, cheaper products, etc) if you're broke, unemployed, and losing/lost your home. These theories don't have to be theories anymore. We can look at our current economy and use the facts instead of theories.
I do agree with you that we should be spending more on education though. Not that I think there are enough of those "higher-income" jobs to go around if everyone decided to get educated. But at least there would be no more excuses.
Then you are looking at pissing off more than the Phillipines. Add Singapore, India, China, Canada, Mexico, France, Britian, Germany amoung others to that list. What if they do the same? Alot of people just got screwed. How do you accomodate for that? Are you thinking that the amount of jobs brought back will equal that amount lost? What if they take other steps such as cancelling agreements and treaties in other ares such a military cooperation and research?
I see your idea as creating 20 problems where only one existed before.
I am totally fine with pissing off all of those countries to bring the jobs back. And if those countries do the same, fine. It's way beyond time that we stop worrying so much about the rest of the world and clean up our own kitchen.
We pissed off most of the world (and even most Americans) when we invaded Iraq. I'd rather piss them off for a good reason.
Think about what you are saying. These would not be middle class jobs you'd be bringing back.
And so what would companies do? Incorporate in other countries, enter into joint ventures here in the United States, and do business with the parent company being sheltered by another government's regulations. It's not that hard to do.
The answer to economic recovery through creative destruction is not to try to hold on to what's on its way out.
The answer is to make the transition easier.
Yes, those would be middle class jobs. Manufacturing jobs, customer service jobs, and computer programming jobs. Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head that are commonly outsourced. All of them are middle class jobs. Computer programming can actually be above middle class depending on how good the programmer is. We're not talking about the fry cook at Burger King here. These are all decent to very good jobs.
And if companies are finding loopholes to get around the rules, then penalize them. Eliminate the loopholes.
The only alternative here is wait for things to "even out" so that Americans compete with the overseas workers. In other words, we'll have to start living 30 people to a hut and earning $1.00 per hour like the fine folks of India, China, etc. And what is the benefit? We get products for slightly cheaper? (and getting products for cheaper is debatable- I honestly don't think we get them any cheaper, I think the corporate execs pocket the savings)
