… helping to outsource U.S. jobs, as Mark pointed out:

The U.S. Agency for International Affairs (USAID) is funding development of Sri Lanka’s offshore outsourcing industry, with the goal of creating some 3,000 jobs. … The U.S. embassy in Sri Lanka on Friday posted a press release announcing a number of initiatives, including a joint program with business process outsourcing and IT companies “to establish professional IT and English skills development training centers” in the country’s Northern Province.

Computer programming used to be a great job for an American — “creative labor,” Ray Duncan called it. Often the best person to go to for understanding of a firm’s inventory management (say) was the guy who’d cut the code.

Then it got foreignized, outsourced, and over-managed. A smart young American nowadays would be nuts to go into programming.

It still seems a bit shocking to me, though, that the U.S. government would be spending taxpayer dollars to help the process.