The residents include bricklayers and stonemasons and high-technology executives.
Not all high-technology executives ignored the risk of a ripple effect abroad this time.
Now high-technology executives are more willing to talk about building and buying more secure technologies, he said.
But high-technology executives say unions have no place in their industry, asserting that unions usually resist the characteristics the industry thrives on: innovation, flexibility and entrepreneurship.
For them, hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake -- including millions in the personal net worth of many high-technology executives.
After dinner, Mr. Burbage pulled out an oversize mock cover of Fast Company, a new-era management magazine favored mostly by young high-technology executives.
Still, many high-technology executives, politicians and development experts insist that without Internet access, thousands of poor communities are speedily falling into the global economy's wake.
Mr. Mori, who acknowledged this week that he is a computer novice who has only recently learned how to use a mouse, appeared today with an international group of high-technology executives to underscore his nation's commitment to the proposal.
For months now, Mr. Gephardt, prodded by a group of technology friendly moderate Democrats who call themselves New Democrats, has been working to solidify his relationship with high-technology executives and embrace many of the issues important to them.
He invited a much smaller group of business leaders and high-technology executives here to his hometown and sought their counsel in a room closed to the press and cameras.
Mr. Salvemini, who works with many high-technology executives in northern Virginia, said he had other clients "who decided to roll money back into other companies" and ended up with losses when the Internet stock bubble burst last year.
