While people are complaining about the paranoia of the U.S. government, they are ignoring the most likely explanation. A big political thing in the U.S. now is "offshoring", the loss of "American" jobs to people in foreign countries.
It's a big problem in heavily industrialized nations because the price of labor and benefits is so high that people in India and in some cases Israel can compete very well. Call centers are programming are the hot items now, manufacturing slipped so long ago, I wonder if anything is made in the U.S. at all. People have begun to realize that the jobs they lose are their own, and are complaining. The Bush administration has a let it happen attitude, the Democrats are against it. It will be a major issue in the next (2006 Congressional and 2008 Presidential) elections. The UAE ports debate was just a smokescreen, no matter who owns or "operates" them, the work still has to be done in the U.S. However the ports are highly unionized and the workers were afraid the new owners would not honor the old owners contracts or bring in cheap nonunion labor from overseas. My guess is that members of the congressional committe in charge of defense spending are up for reelection and if they are on record of aproving "offshoring" they will be looking for new jobs in December. It would be wise to pay attention to what happens, not only does it affect the Israeli job market, but in ten years those of us who are left here will be complaining that all the programing jobs went to India and China. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED] N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/ ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
