“First, cutting excessive regulations has the great advantage of actually getting at a root cause of the de-industrialization that is the source of the current unemployment.”

THANK YOU. For saying that. It’s made me nervous for years that we have fewer and fewer manufacturing jobs. They feel so much more substantial than these flimsy service-sector jobs.

Among other things, I’m an editor, and have worked (on-staff and freelance) for some of the biggest and most prestigious. Now I’m working for — INDIA. The Publishers outsourced their book-editing to India, and at first the Indians did the work themselves. Now they’re the traffic managers, hiring American and English editors, because their own workforce can’t handle the English-language demands (not fluent enough). Our pay, which was never munificent, has sunk to a level about 1/3 of the way down the ladder toward Bangalore’s.

I must say, though, they’re very polite. But even that work has dried up. I too am partially employed, with three gigs that are dwindling fast.

Black market, anyone?