We are the good guys

Chek out this nice piece in Salon by David Silverman – an honest article about a small typesetter in Iowa going out of business thanks to the jobs outsourced to India

I would love to agree with CNN’s Lou Dobbs that by exporting jobs to India, greedy American corporations are killing independent businesses. I could say this is exactly what happened to me, that it explains why I lost my father’s life savings, my company, $4 million and my entrepreneurial American dream. I could take comfort in the fact that outsourcing swept me away in its capitalistic tide, and that there was nothing I could do about it. But this is not what I believe. And these are not the lessons I learned.

The article doesn’t feature any life changing lessons, but it is a well-written personal story with the right perspective on the dynamics of the changing world, which is often so hard to have when you are in the thick of things.

Clarinda was founded in Iowa when it served publishers in New York and Chicago because the technology of the day — trains and trucks, telephones and fax machines — allowed Midwestern states to be the outsourcing outposts of their day. At the time, the big cities were mourning the loss of their “printers’ rows.” Much of the desolation that was SoHo in New York was caused by manufacturing leaving the city for the hinterlands.

Somehow, made me think of the movie Babel – I know, there is no obvious similarity – except that everyone involved are basically good guys and yet, there is no happy ending.