Points to Ponder

Thomas L. Friedman, "China and India have been catching up to America not only via cheap labor and currencies. They are catching us because they now have free markets like we do, education like we do, access to capital and technology like we do, but, most importantly, values like our Greatest Generation had. That is, a willingness to postpone gratification, invest for the future, work harder than the next guy and hold their kids to the highest expectations. In a flat world where everyone has access to everything, values matter more than ever. Right now the Hindus and Confucians have more Protestant ethics than we do, and as long as that is the case we’ll be No. 11"

Martin Peretz, "Why do not Muslims raise their voices against these at once planned and random killings all over the Islamic world?" This world went into hysteria some months ago when the Mossad took out the Hamas head of its own Murder Inc. But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse"

Steven R. Pearlstein - Since 2007, the manufacturing and construction sectors have each lost 2 million jobs, with finance, hospitality and retailing accounting for 2 million more .. For the past two decades we have allowed our industrial and technological base to deteriorate as talent and capital were grossly misallocated toward other sectors of the economy, even as other countries were able to attract the investment, the technology and the know-how to serve the U.S. and global markets

“Our community focused on education, not politics,” said R. Chandramogan, a Nadar entrepreneur who built India’s largest privately owned dairy company from scratch. “We knew that with education, we could accomplish anything.” Southern India has rocketed far ahead of much of the rest of the country on virtually every score — people here earn more money, are better educated, live longer lives and have fewer children

Two Streets of America

Mr. Robert Reich

" The real problem was on Main Street, in the real economy. Before the crash, much of America had fallen deeply into unsustainable debt because it had no other way to maintain its standard of living. That's because for so many years almost all the gains of economic growth had been going to a relatively small number of people at the top"."As long as income and wealth keep concentrating at the top, and the great divide between America's have-mores and have-lesses continues to widen, the Great Recession won't end -- at least not in the real economy". Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration

Main Street is hungry, broke, and in a bad shape that keeps getting worst as Wall Street bounces along.

The readers of this blog will know my belief that the Wall Street American Dream is the Nightmare on Main Street of America of outsourced jobs; capital without boundaries pitting personal and corporate gain versus patriotic national interest:

1. Wall Street self interests are in direct conflict with American quality of life interests - better wages, decent health benefits are costs which erode profits, therefore sending jobs abroad boost earnings, so damn the American worker is the evident Wall Street premise.
2. Wall Street earns billions creating bubbles - 80's real estate/ S&L crash, 2000 .com bust and recent/ current CDO and Toxic asset catastrophe - 3 cataclysmic events in less than 25 years pillaging America and pocketing billions in proceeds, and because frail, powerless governments have watched as impotent voyeurs, it likely will at will do the same anytime it can create a situation of profit.
3. Dow Jones highs do not meant more money in the average guy's pocket. Though it's lows equate to job losses and benefits cuts.

Reading The New Republic and Mr. Robert Reich in Salon express similar sentiment, albeit with less sentiment, is not a comfort to ego but a small growing assurance that if more people take umbrage at the rape of America there maybe a method of stopping the rapist.

Salon, The New Republic - keep talking as this is the gospel that will harrow our hell.

Why is Manufacturing Essential for American Well-being

Noam Scheiber - The New Republic

Noam Scheiber's "Why we should cry for our shrinking Manufacturing Sector" should be required reading for Policy Makers and All Americans - as many if not most (Americans) do not realize the impact of globalization and loss of manufacturing jobs on everyday life in America.

Since coming to the US in mid 80's I've personally experienced and observed a steady decline of income across mature industries. Each closed factory means not only displaced workers but also factory owners, who cannot or have not been able to make a transition from making towels and nuts to building a Google. I am not sure if there is an agency counting numbers like me who once were American middle class and now struggle to find jobs, but I know there are many treading bleak spaces, which will remain bleak unless we start making more things locally for our own consumption and ALSO sell in world markets because selling Boeing is not enough to offset the American trade imbalance.

Trade imbalance is a threat because in our case it equals shrinking employment base.

Wine, cheese, fashion, iPod, iPhone, small batch Bourbon prove that there is a whole lot of American enterprise and creativity creating products that China and India cannot make based on knowledge and cultural factors, therefor the key to is to develop small manufacturing across sectors to repair and rebuild the American Dream.

The proof that manufacturing and economic growth thus prosperity are related is India reporting 7.9% growth in its economy for 2009; and China going gangbusters, in these hard times - both large, diversified manufacturing nations.