Robert Reich has a problem with manufacturing. At least he does when it's practiced in the U.S. For some reason, he thinks that actually making things has gone the way of the horse buggy and 45rpm record player.
It's not a new argument. We heard it all the time during the Clinton Administration. The problem is, the people promoting it could never come up with an alternative that wasn't some form of temporary bubble.
America still needs its washing machines and flat panel displays and we can't pay for them with CDO's and IPO's.
Reich seems to think that increases in productivity and greater automation are something new. This is America. We invented the assembly line. We've always had innovation -- only until now we never used it as an excuse to move our operations off-shore.
He talks about "Technophobes, neo-Luddites and anti-globalist" and warns against being on the 'wrong side of history'.
We've been living on his side of history for twenty years or more and all we have to show for it are vast areas of devastation as entire industries move off-shore.
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