My internet access is finally setup, so it feels nice to be back online once again.

Over long-weekend, without any internet access, I found myself watching TV (free aerial broadcasts).

One thing that struck me were how many political commercials there were encouraging people to not vote for a particular governor in Ohio.

The main reasons were that this particular governor had voted for NAFTA and other free-trade agreements with countries such as China. This out-sourcing of work has apparently cost Ohio locals a lot of jobs.

Oops. I'm working here under the NAFTA agreement.

But all this opposition towards out-sourcing made me think back to the ECON 101 course I took last year. The (in)famous Larry Smith was the lecturer, and he talked a lot about the global economy and how a lot of jobs these days are being out-sourced to cheaper overseas workers.

Only Larry Smith talked about it in a much different way than these TV commercials were. From these TV commercials, you'd think that NAFTA was something of the devil, destroying the American economy and robbing its children of the fruits of their labour.

Now I don't claim to be an expert on the economy, so I can't comment on how things seriously are. But I have some amount of trust and respect for Larry Smith. He knew that out-sourcing is a problem for us North Americans. But he didn't slander it. He didn't go on tantrums against any politicians or companies that supported NAFTA or other free-trade agreements. Rather, he stated it as a fact. And a fact of no one's fault. It was just how the world was working as a result of mass communication and other global technologies.

His recommendation? Don't sit on your hands and expect to be spoon-fed by your employer anymore. Those days are gone. People expecting to find a cushy 9-5 job with a fat retirement fund would be sorely disappointed, according to him. So what to do? Be innovative, he'd say. You need to stay ahead of the curve and better yourself to offer more than just the ability to churn out repetitive results. You need to give your employer some kind of competitive advantage that the foreign worker won't. You need to understand that the overseas worker, at your current state, can put out the exact same product as you can, but for a fraction of the cost. You can't blame large corporations and call them evil for trying to maximize their profits. After all, that's what you, the shareholders are paying them to do. So to stay in the game, you need to put yourself ahead of them by offering more than prefabricated or routine answers. You need to give new and innovative answers. You need to think.

So Ohio, yes maybe we're bleeding jobs to NAFTA workers, but -- oh wait, I am a NAFTA worker. You wanted to prevent me from entering your country on TN status, then you needed to apply for the same job as me and beat me in the interview by offering the employer something more than I could offer. And you know, you shouldn't even be scared of me. I'm just as at risk of being out-sourced as you are. I am, after all, an expensive North American engineer. The moment they decide to send off the business to Asia, then we're out of a job - unless we can once again, provide something extra that the employer is willing to pay for. Innovation, says Larry Smith, innovation.

I'm not trying to pick a fight here. I'm just saying...