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That kind of offshoring is definitely bad, IMO. We aren't talking about outsourced PHP web development sweatshops, but incredibly high-tech research. As one poster below mentioned, you are losing institutional knowledge & traditions. That has to have a negative long term effect on your economy.

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I don't think it's really all that avoidable. If you can outsource high tech work for less, why wouldn't you?

That being said, I've heard that wages for PhDs in China and India have gone up from 30% of that in the US to 70-80%. Combine that with the hassle of outsourcing (knowledge transfer, etc) it's become less advantageous than it was 10 years ago.

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