Old Wizard

Foreign Investment in the United States: Reverse Globalization?

I certainly agree with the point about trading oil for paper. I am not as pessimistic about the USA as you, kunst. Let me offer some concrete reasons why. First while it is true that our steel industrial firms like Bethlehem steel have gone by the wayside, Nucor has thrived and grown and are extremely competitive. They have no union, have not laid off a worker in over 20 years and their pay scale is competitive with US STEEL Every employee is on profit sharing, the company continually invests in technology, productivity is high and their employee s have voted against being unionized 5 times. Further, we have more than enough domestic oil, gas,coal and alternate fuel techlogy to reduce the negative balance of payments to virtually 0 in 5t07 years, if we have the political will to remove the rediculous self-imposed constraints in order to accomplish this goal. Further, the productivity of our work force is still among the best in the civilized world. Have you ever tried to do business in Europe in the last two weeks of july and the month of Aug? Some negative trends in our educational system need to be addressed to emphasize Math, physics and engineering, But again this cannot be done by pandering to special interest groups,unions or the touchy feely contingents in our society. It is well known that one of the major issues in the motivation of elementary students to be interested in these subjects is the qualifications of teachers to teach them and the other is the pop culture in our media who glorifies entertainment, communications,theatre... and the arts, sports, the financial wizzard and sociology as more important. Again this issue is easily addressable, if we as a country have the will to do so. Rather than curse the darkness, I'd rather be doing something positive to address the issues with specific corrective actions.

Foreign Investment in the United States: Reverse Globalization?

Free trade is a good thing because it is raising the standard of living for tens of millions of people around the world. Since I still believe that the US is the best and most altruistic country in the world, it behoves us to be less dependent on many of the countries who are less so. Accordingly it behooves us to fix the nearl 1 trillion dollar/yr negative cash flow which is driven primarily by importing 12million barrels of oil a day. If anything. the self-imposed,strangula... restrictions we have imposed on new domestic sources of energy are responsible for our present condition. Apparently the author didn't hear the Fed Chairman today. Our cheapening dollar was not at the heart of our problem, but iportation of oil was one of the two drivers he concluded. Oil,natural gas,nuclear, wind and solar new domestic supply have been restricted by our own pressure groups and the politicians who would rather appease them and stay in power over the last 20 years the solve the nation's most pressing problem.