David Cay Johnston, formerly of the New York Times has a list of valid questions on the Wall Street bailout. Definitely worth a look. Hat tip to Talking Points Memo.

To put this plan into perspective, at $700 billion, that puts each American — man, woman and child — on the hook for about $2,300. And it may be even more than that. I think it’s worth taking a step back and a deep breath, and asking what the taxpayers get for if they make such an investment. Is it really necessary? If so, are there unintended consequences? Could the medicine, in time, prove worse than the disease?

Sweeping policies changes made in a rush seem to beg for trouble.

Business Week has a feature up now on MIndworks Global Media, the company outside of New Delhi doing copy editing for the Orange County Register and Miami Herald. The headline: Company officials say they can do the job for 35-40 percent cheaper than I can.

Ouch.

(Thanks to Romenesko for the link.)

I’m in the middle of Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston, and it’s as gripping and scary as a horror novel. Call it economic-horror nonfiction.

Johnston goes into a lot of detail about the commodification of labor, and how that trend works through a kind of outsourcing osmosis. To break it down to Duplos: Labor, including that done in front of a computer screen, will naturally move from high-cost countries (e.g., the U.S.) to low-cost countries like China and India. That process amounts to a third Industrial Revolution.

Here’s a scary passage:

“The first two jobs revolutions had in common one trait — people of average or even below-average intelligence could do many of the jobs with no more than a high school education. Will that be true in the digital, high tech third wave? And if it is not, what will be the consequences of living in a society where the brightest and hardest working are rewarded and almost everyone else is reduced to servant-level jobs and wages?”

Ponder that.

I generally consider myself a smart guy. I thought of copy editing as a safe career choice for a long while. Specialized knowledge of an area is critical to what I do. But then, a lot of what I do at work involves Googling this fact or that fact. As much as I hate to admit, that could be done from Bangalore. Is there value in a copy editor living and working where the copy originates? I’d like to think so.

But then, a friend caught up in the recent McClatchy layoffs tells me her job is going to India. She’s a page designer, but if a media company can outsource design positions, copy editing isn’t far behind.

I don’t want to be “reduced to servant-level jobs and wages,” but what happens when what I do evaporates?