From the bottom of the "to blog" pile...

...sitting by the laptop. A month-old (February 27) column from the Wall Street Journal. (italics mine)

...one of the little surprises of India's outsourcing boom: Knowledge outsourcing, the outsourcing of skilled work, is outpacking the simpler call-center work, rising 42% last year complared with 34%, respectively. Tasks one wouldn't expect to see leave the four walls of American companies are handled overseas by the world's second-largest reserve of Ph.D.'s, M.B.A.'s, engineers, doctors, and lawyers."

Giving this column a "human touch" is one Ram Negi, a 26 year old LOAN OFFICER who lives with his parents (the article did not say basement, fyi) in New Delhi. The columnist shows Mr. Negi going over a loan application for a mortgage from San Jacinto, California.

One might expect in a real, not-written-just-for-Management newspaper that this article would be page one above the fold, and that it might! just! mention! the death of the middle class in America, particularly for those entering the business job market for the first time. Going over the massive paperwork apparently required for a mortgage in San Jacinto used to go to a twenty-something working in, um, San Jacinto? But now India, in addition to having an underpaid call-center class serving US corporations, has, as the Wall Street Journal celebrates, "a professional cubicle class working on heady stuff such as equity research, biotech R&D and legal services."

BTW the Journal has in the exact same section of this paper, without irony, the following two articles:

"No Need to Hide Job Losses Beyond Your Control [Read, Downsized] in Today's Fluid Marketplace." (yeah.)

"Seniors, No Luck on the Job Hunt? Don't Panic -- There's Still Time"

Time for what? To book a flight with your student loan payment booklet to some New Delhi cubicle center?

But here's the money shot: this article is not about Corporate America stripping any economic hope from today's college graduate in pursuit of lower labor costs. The spin of this article, and I am not making this up, is that companies that outsource knowledge jobs to India must prepare themselves for an increase down the road in office politics. Yes, folks, just like the USA, it turns out some India-based white collar workers are actually learning to demand things like corner offices and in-house exercise facilities. No word about showers or three-martini lunches.

I just don't know why they hate America.