It's a bit ironic, but right after a good friend of mine lost two highly-educated buddies to the eternal mistress - America, AlterNet.org publishes "Creative Class War," a material about American "reversed" brain drain. Based on the fact that he met Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, article's author Richard Florida (professor of economic development at Carnegie Mellon University and the author of The Rise of the Creative Class) expresses concerns that this kind of movie once used to attract creatives to Hollywood-- now attracts them to New Zealand.

« Think about this. In the industry most symbolic of America's international economic and cultural might, film, the greatest single project in recent cinematic history was internationally funded and crafted by the best filmmakers from around the world, but not in Hollywood. When Hollywood produces movies of this magnitude, it creates jobs for directors, actors, and key grips in California. Because of the astounding level of technical innovation which a project of this size requires, in such areas as computer graphics, sound design, and animation, it can also germinate whole new companies and even new industries nationwide, just as George Lucas's StarWars films fed the development of everything from video games to product tie-in marketing. But, the lion's share of benefits from The Lord of the Rings is likely to accrue not to the United States but to New Zealand. Next, with a rather-devastating symbolism, Jackson will remake King Kong in Wellington, with a budget running upwards of $150 million.

Peter Jackson's power play hasn't been mentioned by any of the current candidates running for president. Yet, the loss of U.S. jobs to overseas competitors is shaping up to be one of the defining issues of the 2004 campaign. And for good reason. Voters are seeing not just a decline in manufacturing jobs, but also the outsourcing of hundreds of thousands of white-collar brain jobs – everything from software coders to financial analysts for investment banks. These were supposed to be the "safe" jobs, for which high school guidance counselors steered the children of blue-collar workers into college to avoid their parents' fate. »

Let the rich worry, but why is this filed in the 'Romania' section then? you'll ask. Read the excerpt below: for the first time I see Romania placed next to the jungle-to-Google national rebranding miracle which is India:

« The present surge of outsourcing is the first step – or if you will, the first pincer of the claw. The more routinizable aspects of what we consider brainwork – writing computer code, analyzing X-rays – are being lured away by countries like India and Romania, which have lower labor costs and educated workforces large enough to do the job. Though alarming and disruptive, such outsourcing might be manageable if we could substitute a new tier of jobs derived from the new technologies and ideas coming out of our creative centers. But so far in this economic recovery that hasn't happened. »