Virtual Genius or Exploitation?

Maybe the fates are trying to speak to me--just as I was lamenting about the fact that I haven't written any posts or anything else lately because I've been busy at my actual job, my friend emails me this article.

Apparently two recent books tout the idea of outsourcing both business and personal tasks to "virtual assistants" in India. As is often the case with my posts, I am recommending these books based only on their descriptions--I have yet to read them-- so for all I know my interpretation of their content may be totally off base. The books are The 4-Hour Work-Week:Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere , and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss and The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman.

From the two seconds I had to devote to thinking/writing about this topic right now it seems that the premise of these two books is the concept that outsourcing tasks both great and small to India is the path to success here in the good ol' USA. The beauty of this, apparently, is that you can pay these "virtual assistants" $5 to $10 to do as much of your job as possible, while you continue to keep the job that pays you way more than $5 to $10 an hour.

I am about as far from intellectual and/or PC as you can get--I barely read the paper or watch the news, I love Walmart and fast food, and I'm sure that the corn conspiracy laid out in The Omnivore's Dilema (again, as I gather from hearing other peoples' accounts of ) are sheer propaganda. Yet even I can't help but wonder about the ethics of the concepts laid out in these two books.

If it's wrong to outsource manufacturing clothes and products to low-paid workers in other countries is it really ok to outsource tasks like researching an article or ordering flowers for your wife? Or is $5 to $10 an hour a respectable wage in India and it's therefore not exploitation to farm out any possible task to these "virtual assistants" there? And even if it is a decent wage, is it wrong in the way using illegal immigrants here rather than giving those jobs to hard-working Americans is wrong? Or is that not even wrong, and if Americans are too lazy or too greedy to do work that others will gladly do for far less money, that's their problem, not society's?

At any rate, if you read this blog you already know that the concept of being paid as much as possible for doing as little as possible is near and dear to me, so I will definitely check these books out. I can't imagine what I personally would outsource but the concept is intriguing.