Economics and Presidential Politics -- "It's Globalization, Stupid"

Presidential campaigns are not well-suited for rational or sophisticated discussion of economics -- and this year's race is not any different.

Already we have seen candidates blaming trade with Mexico or exports from China for the nation's economic woes, and for the decline of the middle class. In the Ohio primary, Senators Clinton and Obama have singled out NAFTA -- the North American Free Trade Agreement -- as the culprit in the state's economic troubles. In turn, President Bush and the editors of the Wall Street Journal have attacked both Democrats as protectionist, acting like global bullies who demand to unilaterally rewrite trade agreements.

As David Leonhardt, the New York Times economics columnist, pointed out it is not trade with Mexico or Canada that has decimated Ohio's manufacturing sector; rather, it is the rise of other international producers such as China, India and Russia. It is the competition from the post-Cold War global economy that has created both winners and losers in Ohio and elsewhere in the US.

In the past year, I have given lectures on globalization in a number of countries -- and in each I have been asked by government officials and business leaders if the Democratic Party has become protectionist and if a Democratic president would abandon future trade agreements. I have explained to the Treasury in New Zealand, to the foreign ministry in Kazakhstan, and to the business leaders in Chile that it is not trade and the international economy that Americans fear, but the prospect of economic insecurity that worries them. I pointed out that in the US, when workers lose their jobs they lose their health insurance. This makes a plant closing or office relocation a traumatic family happening.

Unemployment insurance is difficult to obtain, not generous, and not linked to retraining.

American workers like the low prices at Wal-mart and other consumer benefits of the global economy, but they don't want to sacrifice their family's overall well being to the altar of free trade.

In 1992, James Carville, a Clinton campaign operative, famously taped the phrase, "It's The Economy, Stupid" over his computer. His point was that the campaign should focus on voters' worries over the state of the economy -- and that his candidate Bill Clinton should make it clear every day that he felt their pain and shared their angst. Clinton was effective in displaying his concern, and incumbent President Bush was hapless. In one debate, a voter asked each to list the price of a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, and a dozen eggs, and Clinton rattled them off while Bush floundered.

While the campaign made sure that Clinton maintained his message focus, policy advisors, myself included, tried to spell out exactly how a Clinton administration might address and ameliorate economic anxiety. Three friends from university days -- Robert Reich, Ira Magaziner, and I drafted a campaign program that I titled "Putting People First." We put forward an economic strategy that accepted the reality of the global economy, but proposed ways that the government would help all Americans to prosper -- in Bill Clinton's words, to make globalization a win-win proposition. Clinton did support NAFTA, but he argued in a speech before a union audience that I helped to write that there would be strong labor and environmental standards, and a new improved safety net at home-crafted so that those adversely affected by trade would not be permanent losers.

The Clinton-Gore program of 1992 included such progressive measures as worker retraining and education, universal health insurance, an earned income tax credit for low wage families, revamped unemployment insurance, a more progressive tax system, stronger consumer regulation, and a new National Economic Council in the White House to oversee these reforms. It also included a progressive version of NAFTA -- and a plan for greater public investment in rebuilding the nation's infrastructure and support for development of alternative energy sources -- both potential sources of job creation.

Unfortunately, only a few pieces of this program were carried out. Robert Reich became Secretary of Labor, but he was not terribly effective and by his accounts was checked at every turn by Robert Rubin, the Wall Street banker whom Clinton named to head the newly formed National Economic Council. Ira Magaziner ran the health insurance reform effort for First Lady Hillary Clinton -- and as is now well known, that effort was handled ineptly by the White House political team and defeated handily by conservative forces. I was sidelined as an economics official at the Commerce Department, and soon left in frustration to become an ambassador in Europe and focus on security issues.

Clinton did pass the Earned Income Tax Credit, but had to focus on deficit reduction because of the budget mess inherited from the Bush administration. Rubin became his mentor, not Reich. And on NAFTA, the unions made a decision -- a wrong one in my estimation -- to oppose the agreement rather than to work with the Clinton White House to strengthen it. As a result, Clinton ended up passing NAFTA with Republican votes over the opposition of liberal Democrats in Congress, and of course, it was a much weaker agreement than we had proposed during the campaign. The loss of control of Congress in the mid-term election assured that the rest of the Clinton presidency would be one of damage control and guerrilla warfare against Newt Gingrich and his conservative forces rather an era of progressive change.

Fast forward to the present -- Democrats are in danger of repeating this history unless they think strategically about the international economy and frame the issue of trade in a progressive context.

As my friend Bruce Stokes, the leading trade journalist in Washington, D.C., writes in the February 28 issue of Congress Daily, only a comprehensive social safety net of universal healthcare, universal retraining and education, and universal unemployment insurance -- will assuage Americans' rising economic insecurity and stem the anti-trade sentiment among the American electorate. It is an important piece and I reprint it below. The message is clear -- and one that the leading Democratic candidates should heed. A win-win globalization requires strong domestic programs at home.

February 28, 2008

BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

Homeland Insecurity

Americans are struggling against a rising tide of economic insecurity that engulfs them from all sides. To date, the debate in this year's presidential election has addressed this insecurity piecemeal, with proposals to expand healthcare coverage or improve retraining.

Republican and Democratic presidential candidates have failed to recognize that a patchwork of measures will not provide the comprehensive social safety net Americans need in a world of intensifying economic competition and rapid change in which individuals feel increasingly on their own.

With the nominees likely to be preoccupied with Iraq and recession fighting between now and the November election, it will be up to individual members of Congress to frame the public policy response to the economic stress their constituents face.

Congressional candidates must articulate a broad new social compact that creates for Americans a safe harbor in an increasingly turbulent world.

Such a vision is good psychology because it will reassure an increasingly insecure people that they are not alone.

It is good practically because it would strengthen the threadbare American social safety net. And it would be excellent politics.

The looming recession has brought the economic struggles Americans face into sharp focus. Over the last generation, 95 percent of wage earners have seen their wages decline, after adjustment for inflation, according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research last year.

Forty-seven million citizens already lack health insurance, nearly one in six Americans. And the fear of losing their healthcare coverage is the principal concern people express when they face unemployment. To add insult to injury, when people lose their jobs, they have only a one-in-three chance of qualifying for unemployment insurance.

Struggling to maintain their standard of living in the face of these challenges, Americans have borrowed more and more money. Living beyond their means has finally caught up with them.

The ratio of household debt to disposable income, which between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s was fairly stable at a little over 60 percent, has reached 130 percent.

Moreover, Americans' faith that however bad times are today, the future will be better for their children, now seems tragically misplaced.

A man in his 30s today has 12 percent less income, after adjusting for inflation, than a similarly aged American male did a generation ago, according to a study last year by Isabell Sawhill of the Brookings Institution and John Morton of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The rags-to-riches Horatio Alger success story is little more than a myth. Only six percent of children born into the bottom fifth of the income distribution now make it to the top fifth. And a third of Americans are actually downwardly mobile, making less than their parents.

Compounding people's sense of instability, a job in America is hardly a security blanket. In the early 1990s, it was thought that the average American held six or seven jobs in his or her lifetime.

An ongoing Labor Department study now suggests Americans hold between 15 and 18 jobs over their lives. That means coping with a new job, a new boss, a new work environment and a risk of making less income every three years, on average. Twentysomethings thrive on such change. Fortysomethings -- with children and a mortgage -- crave job stability and, absent that, need help weathering the constant flux in their work lives.

But the economic safety net America affords its citizens is weak and porous. The United States is the only major industrial country not to provide universal health care. Unemployment insurance replaces only about 30 percent of the lost income of low-wage jobless workers in the United States.

By comparison, the average low wage unemployed worker in other industrial countries gets benefits totaling 55 percent of their lost income. And Washington spends a fraction of what Germany or Great Britain spend on retraining.

All of these issues -- especially health care -- have been raised in the presidential campaign. But no candidate has attempted to allay voters' fears about the future by offering them a comprehensive vision of what can be done to help them deal with their economic insecurity.

Growing competition at home and abroad is a fact of modern life, generating great economic benefits through added productivity and affording Americans a range of goods and services their parents never dreamed possible.

The economic cost of inhibiting that competition -- through some "stop the world I want to get off" protectionist trade barriers or onerous regulation -- would be doomed to fail. But government can help Americans endure inevitable ups and downs in their pay, help them mitigate the costs of ever more frequent shifts in their careers and help them weather the overwhelming costs of medical emergencies.

This requires a new, comprehensive, three-pronged social compact: universal health care, universal unemployment insurance and universal retraining.

A social safety net built on those three pillars will provide Americans with the reassurance they need to go forward in an increasingly uncertain world. And it could be a winning theme in the fall election.

Comments

[retarius]

It seems to me that globalization/global trade certainly improves the economy on the macro level....there is more trade, there are more goods being created, more profits etc etc The big question is who benefits from the expanded economy. The answer in the US as of today, is that 99% of the financial reqards go to the richest 1% of the population...and while a plurality see no real (inflation adjusted) income growth, but see a modest benefit in cheaper goods at WalMart...a sizable minority lose their jobs and get screwed royally.
On the other side of the equation, we have workers in China, India et al that undoubtedly see an improvement in living standards with wages increasing..but they are moving from desperately poor to a bit less poor, while the owners of capital in China and India become fabulously wealthy....but the workers assembling the cheap tv's and sewing the cheap clothes more closely resemble the Okies from the 'Grapes of Wrath' or some Dickens novel than first world workers.
One wonders how long the rewards and pains of globalization can be divided so disparately without some form of social upheaval. This is why it is so important for the elite to break the trade unions in America since they can be the focal point of action and can provide the organization required to bring about change.

[glitzqueen]

So right. This is a system designed to rip off almost everybody, for the benefit of grillionaires.

Beyond that, we also need to oppose the transnational judicial system that holds nations in thrall to corporations -- and to realize we're seriously at risk without enough manufacturing and local/regional food production to survive a real war or fuel cost crisis. Every country needs a minimally self-sustaining economy, before thinking about trading things off. That's what we had before Reagan, Clinton and the Shrubbery destroyed it.

[Herrington]

"A social safety net built on those three pillars will provide Americans with the reassurance they need to go forward in an increasingly uncertain world"

Well how about making the world less uncertain rather than trying to mitigate the uncertainty caused by what? Caused by globalization. The public does not want reassurance, they want America back. They want the high paying jobs, the improving prospects and the "safety net" of job security.

The unending stream of apologists for globalization signifies that the world of economists is absolutely certain that globalization needs apologies, excuses, and rationalizations. Give us a break.

How is an intricate program of interlocking tax based assistance programs better than high paying jobs that would make such an exquisite labyrinth of government programs unnecessary?

Tariffs now.

[FightingTheRight]

When companies talk about the "Global Economy", what they really mean is the "Global Workforce".

When G.M. started moving factories to Mexico, they weren't planning on selling their products produced in these same factories to their low wage employees. They planned on selling these products to customers in high wage countries.

The people working at call centers in India aren't calling their fellow citizens and interrupting their dinner to sell them credit card protection or a new cellphone plan. They are calling people in high wage countries.


Henry Ford knew that if he paid his employees enough to allow them to purchase the products that they made, he would have a loyal customer base.


The years since G.M. has decreased their domestic workforce, have seen a drop in their domestic market share.

Coincidence?

I don't think so!

[FightingTheRight]

When companies promote the idea of a "Global Economy", what they are really talking about is a "Global Workforce".

When G.M. moved plants to Mexico, they weren't looking to sell their products to their own low wage work force in that country. They still wanted to sell the vehicles produced to Mexico to people in higher wage countries.

Call center workers in India aren't interrupting the dinner of their fellow citizens, to sell them credit card protection, or a different cell phone plan. They are calling people in high wage countries to sell to.



Henry Ford knew that if he paid his workers enough to be able to afford the cars they produced, he would have a loyal customer base.

As G.M. has moved their factories to low wage countries the "Domestic Sales" have dropped.

I wonder why?

[speakeasy]

That's the vicious cycle that permeates our country right now. WalMart says they are helping, but all they are doing is aiding in the race to the bottom. The sheeple eat it up thinking they are getting a great deal, but wonder why they aren't making more money or that there aren't any well paying jobs out there anymore, then they go to WalMart again to shop to save money, starting the cycle over again...
Where are the American patriots? Isn't WatMart a treasonous company by its philosophy alone? Aren't we personally financing the second largest military build up outside our own in China by sending our manufacturing base there? Does anyone care?

[Chewelahboy]

It's about being competitive stupid. It is about helping our businesses, workers, and government to be competitive. And it is about being an effective leader and fighting for fair trade and ending the free ride for the long list of freeloaders in Asia, and Europe especially who benefit from but do not pay for the maintenance of the conditions that favor global trade; access to the high seas, air routes, etc.

Universalism, however you want to define that, has nothing to do with being competitive in today's high stakes global economy.

[mmckinl]

It is time for Tariffs ... No serious economist will tell you that these trade deficits are either sustainable or reversible.

We have a choice:

- Tariffs that will protect American jobs, pay down the debt and protect the dollar.

- Or ... Doing nothing that will lose American jobs, increase the trade deficit , trash the dollar and eventually the entire economy.

The authors plan for more entitlements is unsustainable. America needs to put people to work, at real jobs , not retrain them for jobs that will be outsourced ... The only antidote to currency manipulation, product dumping and hidden trade barriers are tariffs , plain and simple.

[glitzqueen]

Even setting aside the vital issue of work that pays enough to live on, what hardly anybody seems to recognize is how dangerous it is for any society not to be reasonably self-sufficient .

If, god forbid, there were a "real" war -- like the one that had to be waged in the 1940s -- or such further increases in fuel costs as to make long-distance transport unaffordable, how the devil could we cope without the manufacturing facilities that were so foolishly moved elsewhere and without adequate local/ regional food production and distribution capacities?

To serve the greed of transnational corporations, our government has thrown us on the mercy of "trading partners" who could turn enemy or, even with the best will in world, simply not be able to get their products to us.

Providing a decent social safety net, while we certainly deserve to have one equal to any other nation's, won't do a solitary thing to restore essential self-sufficiency.

[Herrington]

Right on Glitz. I think the powers that be were hoping no one would notice that we have allowed a strategic security blunder to unfold for the sake of profits. That may well end up our epitaph.

[WASanford]

I know this is a heresy, but I think that if some "transnational corporation" won't manufacture its products here; maybe our government should step in and do it. The profits could be used to pay down our national debt.

[PacificGatePost]

DEREK,

Domestic programs may have perceptible and actual benefits, however it is the establishment of Rules Of Engagement that will bring reason and balance to the international playing field.

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/02/america-for-sale.html

- Implement rules, then enforce them..... with Attitude. Let's get the confidence back.

[BatedBreath]

What goes around comes around. I hear the Chinese are moving some manufacturing to North Korea because the cost of labor and production has become too expensive. That means the jobs are heading back toward the west. Once salaries and the quality of life in the U.S. fall far enough, North Korea may be booming and send the jobs back to us. It's round and round we go.

[MrsWakely]

I assume, given your cited history, you lean hard left, which is fine. Rubin - Wall Street, Reich - liberal economist, etc., etc.

It seems to me the solutions are thin and somewhat unrealistic. Although I favor Liberal solutions, what you propose would bring us close to western-European style semi-socialism. Again, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, but it would be fought to the death by Republicans, and, even in a minority position, I think they would win that argument with the American people. We either, as a nation, embrace the whole, or we embrace the individual, and the theme of American history is one of rugged individualism: a single man, or woman, who can go where he wants to go, do what he wants to do, innovate, be entrepreneurial, take huge risks - that is the spirit of Americanism. Americans aren't going to sit by if the government asks them to pay 50-70% in taxes (like in the '70's) so everybody is taken care of in terms of health care, old age, social security, education, including college. Americans aren't wired that way, and wouldn't agree to that minus a cataclysm, such as the Great Depression leading to the New Deal, which Republicans are still hopping mad about to this day. My sense is we are founded on principals of throwing off governmental oppression, whether perceived or real - it's in our DNA. And the Darwinian market is un-killable, it's a genie long out of the bottle, and if American corporations see opportunities for growth: translation - lower costs - in some hellhole with no environmental or worker protections, they'll be there in a heartbeat, American workers be damned. Retraining for what, exactly? "Retraining" is the single lamest lip-service word in American politics. If you are unlucky enough to be the auto-worker son of a son of an auto-worker in Detroit, whose plant just closed, you've been caught in a shit-storm, and "retraining" aint the answer - just go into any bar in Flint, Michigan, and ask around. They'll tell you all about "retraining." We either decide our priority is this country and the American worker, or our economy is going to the lowest bidder overseas - and why? Because money talks, bullshit walks, and shareholders want results, and they don't give a damn if it's out of Cleveland, Ohio, or Viet-fucking-Nam. The solution? Who knows. Let's face it - we may have peaked folks - we came out of World War II - for the first time in our history - with a massive manufacturing base, which led to a real middle class, and now all that is essentially gone. It's the very rich, and the rest of us. My guess is it will take a massive event to allow the U.S. to take advantage, in that unique way America has been able to do throughout our history, of world events, to reclaim a manufacturing base, and jobs that stick. A war. Not this one. One that makes this one look like a rugby match. A depression, like the '29 depression, where EVERYBODY is fucked. A natural disaster so huge, we have to essentially rebuild the country. I'm sorry, but I see THAT happening before I see Americans voting for, or agreeing to, what will be labeled, rightly or wrongly, socialism-lite.

[WASanford]

Dear Mrs Wakely;

While I'm certain that your heart is in the right place, your comment is evidence the right wing Kool-Aid we've all been exposed to has had its effect. All of this talk of how individualism is part of the American DNA is nonsense! Even wolves realize the advantage that ganging up on their prey gives them. Our communities and institutions have been under assault since the inception of our nation. The idea is to dismantle those that give countervailing power to this countries lower classes. As an example, the first proposal to solve California's budget shortfall was to take the money from our public school system. I doubt that its just about the money, our governor is, after all, a Republican!

This nation's rich want a poor, broken and exploitable working class. In their avarice, It hasn't yet dawned on them that in creating it they are reducing their own market base and destroying our economy.

About that Kool-Aid, the MSM needs to understand that "Fair and Balanced" is not what they are about, journalism has to be about the truth! Someone will always call it unfair, and the truth is anything but balanced.

[DietrichMoody]

Mr. Ambassador under the Bill Clinton Administration, Derek Shearer


You write, "Presidential campaigns are not well-suited for rational or sophisticated discussion of economic" Let me take it a step further, "Presidential campaigns are not well-suited for rational or sophisticated discussion of ANYTHING significant. All this talk by the Sen Clinton about specifics, in campaign speeches is malarky. She knowns rational and reasonable discussion have never and not happen in stadiums, arenas or even coffee diners on the campaign trail. That is disingenuous on her part. But disingenuousness is quickly becoming a hallmark of anybody in the past Clinton Presidential Administration or the Present Clinton Presidential campaign.



Competition from the post-Cold War global economy is a fact of life, as you remark, just like ones experiences and judgments in a post 9/11 era. You think they are not related , they are - where are enemies - become entrenched and are a allies, resolved , and those in between, like in China, Africa, and in India, deciding where to go. Then how to we strategize and compete?



Agree, blaming competition and growth global capatlism is not the answer but Obama proposed a lower tax rate for US companies that maintain or increase their US workforce relative to their overseas workforce. And as Paul Craig Roberts pointed out, Robert Gomery, a possible Secretary of Treasury under an Obama Administration, wrote in "Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests." - " that corporations break the link between their interests and America's interest when they offshore their production for US markets. By producing abroad, they raise foreign GDP and lower US GDP. By producing abroad, they raise the productivity of foreign labor and lower the productivity of US labor. By producing abroad, they increase the productivity capabilities and trade position of other countries at America's expense".
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02232008.html



The problem is that Republicans , since 1980, have been able to frame, the Democrats as anti-Global. This is a practicality of who got to frame the issue FIRST. Getting into , how it was the Clinton Administration that pushed NAFTA or as a candidate for president Bill Clinton supported NAFTA with the proviso that side agreements, won't help here. You can read more of it here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner02282008.html


But, Democrats have always thought strategically about the international economy but hopefully now, they will frame the issue of trade in a progressive context FIRST. But as Roberts points out "American hubris produces gigantic delusion not only among the people and the politicians but also among the economists. President Obama and his Secretary of the Treasury, Ralph Gomery, are our last best hopes."

[altohone]

Arguing NAFTA was a good thing before it got watered down is the worst defense of it I've ever read.

It should have...
It was supposed to...
If only...

Bill signed it as it is, not as it should have been, and Hillary was there with Rahm twisting enough arms to help the GOP version pass. They stabbed the unions in the back, and to blame the unions for opposing it instead of fighting to make it better is the worst kind of revisionist blaming the victim mentality.

I'd add that the whole point of this "lecture to the left" uses the same framing as the GOP.
Neither Obama nor Clinton are advocating protectionism.
They've both called for a fix to NAFTA, and implementation of some of the reforms you list.
Those reforms are called protectionist to stop them from being implemented, and having a supposed Democrat offering friendly advice that follows this path is hardly helpful.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

Good introduction and clear insight into the psychology, i.e., "framing," by which the massive manipulations of the U.S. econ. are wrought. "Globalization" was and is merely a fig leaf for the scam played by U.S. corporations to outflank and SUNDER U.S. workers.

ALSO, this "author" ignores the decades in which the Chinese have been allowed to peg the renminbi to a fixed exchange rate with the dollar. Accordingly, the shrinkage of U.S. manufacturing has subvented the now-egregious growth rates of China. In any circles but those which embrace the flabby rhetoric of "globalization," this would be considered ECONOMIC TREASON!

[wyorange]

I think a lot of legislation is signed into law with the thinking that it is not what we want, but it is the best we can get at this time and we can go back and make it more in line with what we want later. Seems over the past several years I have heard and read quite a bit about how if the environmental, worker's rights, etc. contained in these trade agreements were enforced they would work they way they were intended and provide American workers a far more level playing field in the international market.

I am not concerned about having trade agreements reviewed to see if they can be improved to place American workers on that more level playing field. In no way to I look at the review process being protectionism.

I am glad to see both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama expressing a desire to address all trade agreements. NAFTA seems to have taken center stage on the campaign scene. Admit that I am somewhat concerned about Sen. Obama's sincerity in this regard when I read articles like the CTV story: http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/02/ctv_sticks_by_story.html

There must be an effort to protect American workers against the downside of globization but I think that these agreements should only be agreed to only if they place American workers on that level playing field which is also going to require some enforcement mechanism to see that the various clauses and requirements in the agreements are adhered to by the parties involved.

[LeeNYC]

Unions were right to oppose NAFTA and every other trade agreement that came along. Of course there needs be a real safety net, but retraining is a pipe dream. What jobs are available when one is 'retrained'? What retraining would have worked for the vast number of IT workers/consultants, who found themselves training their South Asian replacements just before they were fired. My hats off to Sheila for laying it all out.

P.S. VAT tax is hugely regressive. Lower income people pay a larger % of their income in taxes than wealthy people. Income tax, with rich folks paying their fare share, is the only equitable answer to paying for a solid safety net.

[starboymikey]

It all begins with health insurance, or the lack thereof. It's what keeps us chained to otherwise meaningless jobs way past the age when people in other countries are enjoying retirement. You may have a great idea for a new product or service and want to start your own business, but how can you leave your job when it means you have to give up even reasonably affordable health care for your family?

The price of perscription drugs alone can break a middle class family where one or more members suffers from a chronic illness. I could go on and on about this, but it's just easier to recommend that you watch Michael Moore's Sicko if you haven't yet seen it. Call it left-wing propaganda if you will, but the facts Moore presents are easy enough to verify.

Conservatives, mostly financed by handouts from the insurance industry and drug companies, love to scare with visions of "socialized medicine", which they tell us will limit our choices, limit treatment, cause long waits for service and all sorts of unimaginable horrors. But anyone who's had to deal with an insurance company denying them life-saving treatment because it's "experimental" would have to ask, how are these "horrors" any worse than what we're dealing with now?

One of the main things that is making American companies loose their competitive edge is the constantly soaring health-care costs for employees, a burden far greater than that born by companies in other industrialized countries, where single-payer, universal health care is the norm. It will only be when American corporations (other than the insurance and drug companies) wake up and begin to pressure congress to provide real solutions, that we will see some meaningful change.

Our politicians will promise us anything for our votes, then deliver more of the same old nothing. But congress always listens to the big corporations, because these are the guys who hand out the largesse, the perks that are at the heart of why politicians will do anything to acquire and stay in power.

[dgscol]

The idea of industrializing the world is a utopian myth. It cannot be done, materially, or culturally.
US workers are superior, period. They are shackled by unbalanced trade agreements, promotion of slave labor, violation by people who cares not one whit for people's rights, and the sharing of energy with the the enemy. We are further shackled by the government not protecting our government and academic system from foreign intruders (shall I say insurgents?).

The US worker believes in fair trade, has pledged allegiance to the flag of democracy and freedom. There is nothing that matches that out there.

We should produce jackets with the American flag on their backs, and tell the Chinese to buy them.