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"We've lost manufacturing. Now we may lose white-collar work. I'm just a tech writer, not a political theorist, but it's hard to imagine that these sorts of changes won't have dramatic economic, political, and social impact."

That was the conclusion of my column of June 4, 2002. How soon the controversial seems obvious. At the time people told me I was overreacting to the offshoring threat. Now it’s become Issue Number One—the source of Lou Dobbs’ ratings surge, a sure-fire hot topic for John "Benedict Arnold CEOs" Kerry (who ought to know better), and a source of nervousness for the more and more companies who feel they have no choice but to get work done wherever it is cheapest. (I’ve tackled this issue in several recent columns, including Rage against offshoring is very real").

Companies are pushed hard both by the market and by Wall Street to continually lower their costs. If one company in an industry shaves expenses by sending work offshore, its competitors have little alternative but to follow. If they don’t, their profits will fall, and in turn, their stock price. It’s that or fire all their people when the company goes out of business because its prices are too high and it can’t compete.

The reason we have a so-called "jobless recovery" has little to do with offshoring. The number of jobs offshored to India so far remains minuscule—in the low hundreds of thousands at most. What’s causing much more pain is that employers are reluctant to hire. As several have pointed out, we don’t have a firing crisis, but a hiring one. And the reason companies can get away with not hiring is that they’re getting extraordinary productivity gains from their existing employees. Why? All the technology that has been installed over the last decade or so is finally starting to pay off.

But it’s not very satisfying to feel rage toward computers and the internet. It’s easier to focus on foreigners and those big bad corporations. Or so seems to be the attitude of Lou Dobbs’ audience.

Most e-mails in response to my offshoring columns that continue to flow in show outrage. Typical is this one:

"You talk about how jobs going to India frees up Americans to do other things, Yeah, waiting in the unemployment line. You say that sending x-rays overseas for analysis is good because that will free up money for medical innovation… I'm wondering if you actually believe the hospitals will drop prices on hospital visits ... Dell has sent jobs to India, but if they want to be fair they should sell their computers for what they would go for in India. But I still haven't seen a Dell computer for about 150 dollars ... When will I get to see the savings? This goes to show that you are a sell-out for writing this story."

The writer’s virulent anti-business attitude is routine among the notes I’m getting. But like so many, he misunderstands economic realities. Dell is the low-price computer company, and the one growing fastest, precisely because its costs are lowest. Yes, it outsources some of its customer support to India. That’s partly how it’s able to undersell HP. But as a result, it’s thriving in the market and growing more profitably than any competitor. Dell satisfies customers and investors at the same time. And to top it off, it is adding thousands of new employees each year in the United States. The combination of increased U.S. employment and lower prices for consumers should be universally applauded by the letter-writers who profess concern over the fate of the American economy. But instead they can only focus on those few call-center jobs in India.

More logical is the following note I received from a writer of Indian ancestry:

"Major American companies get most of their business from the WORLD. It was convenient for Americans to enjoy record growth and prosperity when the world sent their huge investment dollars to the U.S., purchased tickets to watch Hollywood movies, and purchased American products. During these very same boom years, 99.9 percent of Americans completely ignored the plight of poor workers in the Third World who complained of illegal farm subsidies and globalization issues. Now, some of these same Third World countries have opened up their markets (India/China), educated themselves, adopted American-style marketing and are competing on a more level playing field. American workers…have to show why they should be paid more for a job that can be done equally well for a lower cost in India/China. If they can't show this, they will have to develop new industries and skills to adjust for their lack of advantage."