Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review of" Caught in the Middle", February 21, 2008
This books tells more about what's going on in America today than anything I've ever read. Longworth's descriptions of the economic upheaval in the Mid-West
apply just as well to other areas such as New England
where I live. Most valuable are his analysyes of the
the communities and the companies that reside in them that have learned to thrive in the new global economy -
Chicago, Ann Arbor, Peoria, Columbus (Indiana), and
Madison (Wisconsin). His comments on education are right on target - the community colleges are providing the training needed by the new workforce. This is must
reading for anyone who is concerned about the country's
prosperity.
William Saunders
Whately, MA
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Global is to Ghetto as Education is to Unemployment, April 11, 2008
I found this book interesting, because I was Senior Economist and Deputy Director of Economic Analysis for the Indiana Department of Commerce in the 1980's for the Administration of Governor Robert Orr. During those years I was also co-chair for the Economic Development Task Force of the Great Lakes Commission, an interstate compact with a charter from the U.S. Congress like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. One of Longworth's theses is that the Midwest manufacturing region must be treated as a whole region, and that the individual States cannot address the economic adjustment to globalization in isolation from one another. I can agree that States stealing employers from one another cannot make the needed economic adjustments imposed by globalization; this is merely a zero-sum game for the region, and is not a remedy. While with the Great Lakes Commission I found that the Economic Development Task Force benefited its participants to the extent that we shared our research findings. But the Commission could take no action on economic development. Contrary to Longworth I found that effective action is possible with the State governments, and that the best instrument for the State government action is the fiscal budget's public investment sectors. The Indiana's budget is about nine percent of its gross state product, and about half of the total budget is public investments: i.e. higher education, primary and secondary education, highways, airports, and water ports. These public investments facilitate development of the State economy's tax base and thus yield increases in tax collections independently of tax rates. In 1986 I made an econometric model which exhibited an employment-maximizing allocation of public expenditures for Indiana's budget, and found that the optimal allocation implied very large increases to Indiana's primary and secondary education. These findings supported Governor Orr's "A+" legislative agenda for a $300 million increase in primary and secondary spending, which was enacted. Longworth advocates improved primary and secondary education in Chapter Ten of his book. And former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan also advocates improved education in Chapter Twenty-One of his recent book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. Global is to ghetto as education is to unemployment, because education is the means for supplying the needed enhancements of human capital that turns globalization into opportunity instead of unemployment due to a ghetto economy. On balance I think that this book written by a journalist is well researched in many respects and is informative about Midwest economic history.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great Start, Not a Great Finish, February 15, 2010
This review is from: Caught in the Middle: America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism (Paperback)
Caught in the Middle is how I felt in reading Richard Longworth's book on the economic future of the American Heartland, so in that sense I believe that Longworth has succeeded. But, it would have been more satisfying, and ultimately more helpful if the strengths and weaknessness of the book had been reversed. Longworth starts out with a great analysis of how the Midwest did not change when the world changed around it, resulting in the collaspe of the economic stability of the region. However, half way through the book, Longworth changes gears and starts preaching the gospel of immigration. This is his solution for cities large and small in the Midwest. If this has been one chapter, then perhaps I wouldn't have had such a negative reaction, but it is in nearly every chapter and endless. Further, it shows a disconnect with the first part of book. The problem is that he shows convincingly in the beginning that factories have left many a Midwestern town. The success stories, the reinvention of smaller towns that he points to are where factories still exist, but have had an influx of immigrant workers providing vital energy and resources to a community. Fair enough. But, you need the factories still standing for that paradigm to work.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
