Had a minor scare just now that I had either lost or had my wallet stolen, although fortunately I found it in an unlikely place after it had fallen out of a pack I was carrying. In the meantime I had called to cancel my credit card, which was no big deal because I rarely used it anyway. My phonecall of course was directed to India where a woman in a cubicle tried her best to mimic an American accent and took some information to freeze the account. I would have missed my drivers license and bank card the most, for I regularly go to Mac machines and would have needed the license to fly to Minnesota in two weeks. In any case replacing all that paper would have been a hassle and fortunately was not necessary.
As I think about them,outsourced phonecalls do not bother me, for I think that it is about time we Americans spread some of the wealth around, and workers in China and India and other countries finally are inching towards a middle class. $5,000 a year overseas is comparable to $40,000 here, and has lifted a lot of people out of poverty. In truth Americans had better prepare themselves for more shocks to come, for the next two decades are going to see increased outsourcing and competition for jobs and resources...Political and economic instability are not certain, but if the 2 billion people looking for a better way of life do not get it, wars and/or economic depression are always a possibility. Personally I think we all can downsize without affecting our quality of life, but it is hard to convince the typical citizen of that...
