“This was a difficult but necessary decision to improve the company’s competitive position,” Dell (DELL) spokesman David Frink said. “It is not a commentary on workers in North Carolina or workers in the United States.”

Of course not. As Dell CFO Brian Gladden said during the company’s last earnings call, “Our cost reduction programs have never been more crucial than during this weaker demand environment.”

Still, it’s unfortunate to see the company forced to shift work once done in the states to lower-cost contract manufacturers abroad. This is, after all, Dell’s third big closure in recent memory. The company stopped desktop manufacturing in Lebanon, Tenn., earlier this year, and in 2008, it shuttered a desktop plant in Austin, Texas.

What’s larger than the gross domestic product of Sri Lanka, Lebanon or Bulgaria and, when divided by 186,000, more than four times higher than the median U.S. household income in 2006?

The $39 billion in bonuses Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs (GS), Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley (MS) doled out in 2007.

Congratulations on a job well done, folks. You’ve really gone above and beyond the call of duty here.

“To many people, it will be shocking and questionable,” Jeanne Branthover, managing director of Boyden Global Executive Search, told Bloomberg last year. “People in New York in the world of investment banking will understand it. It’s critical that pay is still there or you’re going to lose really good people.”

Of course. God forbid Wall Street’s five largest banks lose any really good people. Who’d be left to manage the government’s $700 billion rescue plan for the financial markets?

Something to think about during this period of “rapid and profound change” on Wall Street.

What’s larger than the gross domestic product of Sri Lanka, Lebanon or Bulgaria and, when divided by 186,000, more than four times higher than the median U.S. household income in 2006?

The $39 billion in bonuses Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs (GS), Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley (MS) doled out in 2007.

Congratulations on a job well done, folks. You’ve really gone above and beyond the call of duty here.

“To many people, it will be shocking and questionable,” Jeanne Branthover, managing director of Boyden Global Executive Search, told Bloomberg last year. “People in New York in the world of investment banking will understand it. It’s critical that pay is still there or you’re going to lose really good people.”

Of course. God forbid Wall Street’s five largest banks lose any really good people. Who’d be left to manage the government’s $700 billion rescue plan for the financial markets?

Something to think about during this period of “rapid and profound change” on Wall Street.