re: #132 BryanS

First rule of economics is to buy what you need at the lowest cost because that is the most efficient way to use resources and maximizes return on investment, even if that means buying exports. Sometimes that is labor overseas, but sometimes that overseas labor is more expensive than it first seems because of lower productivity, education, communication barriers, etc. In phone tech support, for instance, there has been some back tracking on the outsource craze around the tech bubble.

That might be the first rule (although I thought it was there are no free lunches) but the second rule is (since we’re just making shit up) blindly adhere to the first rule at your own peril. Many large corporations (the kind that you might want to invest in for the long haul, not the ones you day trade), are not embracing unfettered capitalism driven by the micro parsing of the bottom line, but viewing the world as an integrated market place where issues of resources are as much local as they are global and sustainability are no longer buzzwords for green jobs, but future jobs.

Many, and I mean MANY progressive ideals are being embraced within the upstream marketing R&D of Fortune 50 companies. The wagon train your wagon is in is heading for the river crossing while everyone else is going over the pass. It’s a higher climb, but the rewards are greater. Hope you can swim.

Dinner time.