Feb 26, 2004: What Goes Around . . .  
 
"How can it be good for America to have all these Indians doing our white-collar jobs?" Thomas Friedman asked 24/7's founder, S. Nagarajan. Well, he answered patiently, "look around this office." All the computers are from Compaq. The basic software is from Microsoft. The phones are from Lucent. The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke……………"It's unfair that you want all your products marketed globally," argues Mr. Kulkarni, "but you don't want any jobs to go."

He's right. Which is why we must design the right public policies to keep America competitive……..Because beneath the surface, what's going around is also coming around. Even an Indian cartoon company isn't just taking American jobs, it's also making them.

What Goes Around . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/opinion/26FRIE.html?th 

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: February 26, 2004

I've been in India for only a few days and I am already thinking about reincarnation. In my next life, I want to be a demagogue.

Yes, I want to be able to huff and puff about complex issues — like outsourcing of jobs to India — without any reference to reality. Unfortunately, in this life, I'm stuck in the body of a reporter/columnist. So when I came to the 24/7 Customer call center in Bangalore to observe hundreds of Indian young people doing service jobs via long distance — answering the phones for U.S. firms, providing technical support for U.S. computer giants or selling credit cards for global banks — I was prepared to denounce the whole thing. "How can it be good for America to have all these Indians doing our white-collar jobs?" I asked 24/7's founder, S. Nagarajan.

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