Very interesting article. I was especially struck by this:
"But if the U.S. economy is not generating jobs, then those bright Asian graduate students who fill up the engineering and computer-science departments at Stanford University and MIT will return home in larger numbers. Fortune's latest ranking of the world's largest companies has only two American firms in the top 10 -- Walmart at No. 1 and ExxonMobil at No. 3. There are already three Chinese firms in the top 10: Sinopec, State Grid, and China National Petroleum."
When you think of the long term, this trend is chilling.
Maybe I just feel like being optimistic right now, but there is a reason that the United States was built around a non-centralized government: things do not work as well as needed for a sustained period when run by far-off controllers. After all, isn't the drive for central control the main reason why things are as bad off in the US as they are right now?
We need to get the right people to get government out of the way. We need to get people to feel that they are responsible for themselves -- not that the government will take care of them.
The United States has the framework to make things work again. We just need to implement it.
Matt - Our problem is demographics, and the international situation (in addition to the financial and political mess).
In the history of our nation, most of the time Europe was actively colonizing the ancient civilizations of the world (China/India/Persia/Indonesia) and/or violently destroying each other.
For the first time, neither of these things is going on.
The ancient civilizations - plus decent chunks of South America, e.g. Brazil and Chile, and maybe even Argentina now - have recovered not only from colonial rule* but their own self-imposed idiocy. And all in rough synchronicity.
So - while I agree that our "game" is pretty good, we best "bring it", because the other players are bringing a better game than we're used to them showing up with. And some of them have a few inches and a few pounds on us.
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* BTW realize colonialism was a complex phenomenon and not the unalloyed evil represented in progressive "history", but for the present discussion my point is that colonialism did prevent these countries from becoming world powers in their own right. In China's case, IMHO, their narrative of a "century of humiliation" has some merit (right up until Mao, of course, who industriously and efficiently took only a couple decades to set them back another hundred years... etc...)
Very interesting article. I was especially struck by this:
ReplyDelete"But if the U.S. economy is not generating jobs, then those bright Asian graduate students who fill up the engineering and computer-science departments at Stanford University and MIT will return home in larger numbers. Fortune's latest ranking of the world's largest companies has only two American firms in the top 10 -- Walmart at No. 1 and ExxonMobil at No. 3. There are already three Chinese firms in the top 10: Sinopec, State Grid, and China National Petroleum."
When you think of the long term, this trend is chilling.
More on the same topic.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I just feel like being optimistic right now, but there is a reason that the United States was built around a non-centralized government: things do not work as well as needed for a sustained period when run by far-off controllers. After all, isn't the drive for central control the main reason why things are as bad off in the US as they are right now?
ReplyDeleteWe need to get the right people to get government out of the way. We need to get people to feel that they are responsible for themselves -- not that the government will take care of them.
The United States has the framework to make things work again. We just need to implement it.
Matt - Our problem is demographics, and the international situation (in addition to the financial and political mess).
ReplyDeleteIn the history of our nation, most of the time Europe was actively colonizing the ancient civilizations of the world (China/India/Persia/Indonesia) and/or violently destroying each other.
For the first time, neither of these things is going on.
The ancient civilizations - plus decent chunks of South America, e.g. Brazil and Chile, and maybe even Argentina now - have recovered not only from colonial rule* but their own self-imposed idiocy. And all in rough synchronicity.
So - while I agree that our "game" is pretty good, we best "bring it", because the other players are bringing a better game than we're used to them showing up with. And some of them have a few inches and a few pounds on us.
---
* BTW realize colonialism was a complex phenomenon and not the unalloyed evil represented in progressive "history", but for the present discussion my point is that colonialism did prevent these countries from becoming world powers in their own right. In China's case, IMHO, their narrative of a "century of humiliation" has some merit (right up until Mao, of course, who industriously and efficiently took only a couple decades to set them back another hundred years... etc...)