Seven years ago I was starting a new job as a Software QA Engineer with Compaq Computers.  Three years later, my job went to India without me.  No matter how much more training I had, it is hard to imagine that I would have kept that job since the engineer in India had a salary that was only 1/3 of my own.  This is the brutal fact of globalization.  Everyone who loses their jobs lost them not because they were inefficient workers, but because the cost of labor overseas is only a fraction of our own.  How is this possible?  Because their cost of living is a fraction of our own.  How do we compete against their cost of living?  Now I have gone to graduate school and work in a completely different industry.  I almost earn the same amount of money as I did before I was laid-off, but now I have a school loan I have to pay off.  I am happy, but financially worse off.