I hope someone asks Gomory how the United States can encourage manufacturing when its currency is extremely overvalued. Under present circumstances, it will ALWAYS be MUCH cheaper to manufacture almost anywhere but the United States. Even new technology won't help much, because production of new products is off shored almost as soon as the product enters commercial production. Bush tried to compensate for the strong dollar by reducing business costs through reducing business taxes, regulations, and lack of enforcement on whatever taxes and laws remained. That did nothing for American competitiveness because of the degree of the dollar's extreme over-valuation.

The US government has a stark choice to make--the imperial dollar vs. exports and employment.

My guess is that imperial hubris will continue to addle the brains of the Washington elite for the foreseeable future, taking precedence over the needs of the economy and the American public.

JohnH,
You are very right about a number of your points you bring up - though I am not sure that everyone is as insistent on "imperial dollar" as you say. (Keep an eye out for work by New America on this issue.)

But, the larger point of this post and of the event tomorrow is that the Obama administration can't afford to write off the manufacturing sector. The administration supports large investment in the green economy, but does not provide any tangible support to making tradable goods more competitive. They have written off a very large sector (manufacturing) and plan to replace it with a minuscule one (green technology). The consequence on employment is, as we are seeing, devastating.

-Sam Sherraden

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As I said, Obama could take one big, tangible step to making America more competitive by abandoning the commitment to a strong dollar. I doubt that the conference can be serious about restoring American manufacturing competitiveness unless the strong dollar is addressed.

So why is the strong dollar not being addressed, if not imperial hubris? It has gone without saying for a long time that the dollar as a reserve currency is a symbol of American leadership and power in the world. Do you seriously think that any administration can take actions that would cheapen the dollar? If so, why is there so little discussion of it?

On our current trajectory, the dollar will eventually be knocked down, most likely at a time and in a manner that the US government will little control over. Why not start thinking and talking about it now--like tomorrow?

I would like to offer the concept of the transportation/goods movement sector as it applies to when it comes in or out of a port and the process of getting the item to and or from it point of origen or its destination.
The transportation/goods movement sector is a source of high wage jobs and has very good mulipliers. It seems to be under the radar when economic drivers are discussed. Any comments on this?

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Obama could take one big, tangible step to making America more competitive

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Hasn't anyone questioned where all of those "construction" jobs are supposed to be coming from? We have an enormous overhang in residential and commercial building and we're supposed to add 250K construction employees per year to the employment roles? I want some of the herbs the CEA must be smoking over lunch.

Further, I would point out that the total additions from this list come to only 7M new hires, over a nine year period. That averages out to about 800K new hires per year, with an economy which is adding 150K new potential employees to the workforce every month. For the mathematically challenged among us, that works out to 1800K potential new employees per year. What does the elite plan to do with the additional 1M potential workers being added to the workforce each? Just remember, each 1M unemployed workers translates into another 1% jump in the unemployment rate. I would call the CEA report a recipe for disaster and ruin. Are they just throwing up their hands and saying that they can't do anything? Keep this up and by 2020 the CEA won't need to worry because somebody will be throwing them up against a wall before they receive their just reward.

I think Germany is a good example of a country
which can continue to produce and manufacture very
high-value-added modern goods, in contrast to the
argument that the reason we should let our
manufacturing sector decline is due to comparative
advantage, higher-skilled and more creative work
replacing it, etc.

I would love to see a paper on the ways in which
Germany has stayed so competitive in manufacturing
while other countries have had to let
manufacturing fade into the past and replace it
with service sector jobs or jobs which require
advanced education.

[Not to be redundant]

Hey Steve, how about the latest TWN perspective on the CIA assassination program. Appears to be quite a bit here...........

Make sure to also read the “comments” section in following links, especially the one by “DLD” in the first article (tpmmuckraker) and the few by “Kurt” in the second article (rawstory).

Quite chilling. Would be interested in TWN/NAF positions on this.

Report: CIA Assassin Program Could Operate Anywhere -- Even Inside U.S.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/report_cia_assassin_program_could_operate_anywhere.php?ref=fpb

Report: ‘No geographical limitations’ on CIA assassination program
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/16/report-no-geographical-limitations-on-cia-assassination-program/