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[pug_ster]

Funny you mentioned that.  When I graduated from College a few years back with a CS major, I was thinking of working as a programmer.  But to think that you don't have to be here to do this type of job makes me think otherwise (eg. India).  So I ended up to be in the path of a Network Engineer since it is harder to export those type of jobs.

For a programmer, paying $40 an hour here and $10 an hour in India (I don't know the exact number), I am afraid that these type of jobs will not come back.   But I think that it is possible for other types of jobs to come back to the US like Manufacturing jobs.  

It is true that China is not playing fair in terms of copyright and jobs.  But Bush is not doing something about the issue in China and Kerry is.  I forgot when was the last time the President said that we can get or raise a tariff so that we can protect some of the job here.

[The unProfessional]

Believe it or not, thankfully, many corporations are bringing much of their software work back to the US after getting burned overseas.  Cross-language management, co-location, and lower quality of work are amongst many of the reasons "cheap" overseas labor can actually cost more.

Unfortunately, though, there are still plenty of companies who are still too greedy to face the facts.  

There's work for software engineers, but you really have to be above and beyond.  There are tons of programmers out there who claim an entirely different level of skill and experience than they possess.  Far too many...

[pug_ster]

Well, it still can't help those software engineers who just graduated with little or no experience.  Unfortunately, the software engineers who has been been in the field and laid off are the ones usually to get the jobs first.  If you just graduated with a CS degree and looking for a programmer job, I would say 'good luck.'

As for the jobs.  The cost of labor is typically around 20% of the company expenses.  So increasing it will hurt business a little in the short run but I think it will be good for low income people in the long run.