The U.S. is Happy to Serve You

One of the most under-reported stories these days is the rapidly burgeoning trade SURPLUS that the U.S. is currently racking up in services. Yep, that's right, the U.S. presently (2010) has a 144 billion dollar trade surplus with the rest of the world and, man, is it ever growing rapidly (up 92% from the 75 billion dollar figure of 2000).............................................................................................So, what exactly are these services that we're presently exporting? The major ones are legal services, medical services (doctors, nurses, and therapists can actually do procedures now using a joystick on people thousands of miles away), management services, architecture, financial services, entertainment (movies and television), patenting, and educational services..............................................................................................And, yes, to his credit, the President has opened up a lot of these opportunities through his free-trade agenda. Coupling this policy initiative with an ever expanding technology that allows for such off-site work opportunities, the benefit to the U.S. could in fact be inordinate................................................................................................The key, of course, is getting American workers the proper training to fulfill these positions of doctors, lawyers, nurses, therapists, paralegals, accountants, film-making personnel (camera people, cinematographers, hair and make-up people, lighting specialists, sound people, special effects people, animators, set designers, screen-writers, production assistants, stunt coordinators, costume designers, film editors, digital imaging technicians, etc.), teachers, architects, MBAs, etc.. Here's to hoping that Mr. Obama has a trick or two up his sleeve on this one, too.