The Great Recession is Just Beginning

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072103052.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

"From the point of view of humanity, these nations' rise has been fantastic news. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted from poverty" Tell that to the Foxcomm workers who keep jumping off the roof to their death. These workers are still very much in poverty. Slave labor is not something to be applauded.

But for workers in advanced countries, the wage strains were inevitable, as it became feasible to locate more work with low-cost (and, increasingly, high-quality) labor anywhere on the planet. High quality??? Does he mean like the lead paint covered toys? Or does he mean the tainted dog food. Or the tainted acetaminophen. Or the tainted tooth paste. Or the tainted sheet rock. Or the Dreamliner with the tail that might fall off. I am not seeing the quality that he is seeing. I am seeing cheap work done for cheap. Big deal.

U.S. elites simply don't think in terms of a national economic strategy I agree they could care less.

former Intel CEO Andy Grove argued in Bloomberg Business Week recently, it's not enough to do the product innovation in the United States; we need to do the manufacturing, too. That's the only way, Grove says, to gain the hands-on experience with products that leads to all subsequent innovations. Surrender the manufacturing and you lose this virtuous cycle -- a logic that leads Grove to call for protectionist measures if need be to make sure America keeps this innovation-to-manufacturing-to-good-jobs link here. Wow the former CEO of Intel agreeing with me. Protectionism is the answer. Ironic that Intel manufactures everything in China. Ironic that Intel has laid off thousands of American workers. I guess the key word is "former CEO". Now that he is no longer actively lining his own pockets he can state the truth. How nice.