That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back [Paperback]

Thomas L. Friedman (Author), Michael Mandelbaum (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 21, 2012

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
A Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2011

 

In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum analyze the four major challenges we face as a country---globalization, the revolution in information technology, chronic deficits, and our pattern of energy consumption---and spell out what we need to do now to preserve American power in the world. The end of the Cold War blinded the nation to the need to address these issues seriously, and China’s educational successes, industrial might, and technological prowess in many ways remind us of a time when “that used to be us.” But Friedman and Mandelbaum show how America’s history, when properly understood, offers a five-part formula for prosperity that will enable us to cope successfully with the challenges we face. That Used to Be Us is both a searching exploration of the American condition today and a rousing manifesto for American renewal.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“At once enlightened and enlightening...[American society] could use more of the generous responsible spirit Friedman and Mandelbaum recommend.”—The New York Times Book Review

 

“Thoroughly researched and passionately argued...That Used to Be Us is an important contribution to an intensifying debate, and it deserves the widest possible attention....Compelling.”—The New York Times

 

“Anyone who cares about America’s future---anyone planning to vote in 2012---ought to read this book and hear the authors’ compelling case.”—The Christian Science Monitor

 

“An important and eminently readable book.”—The New York Review of Books

 

“Touches a nerve...In a country whose politicians are partisan intransigents and whose commentators are more interested in zingers than solutions, it takes courage to be so baldly civic-minded.”—BusinessWeek

 

About the Author

Thomas L. Friedman is an internationally renowned author, reporter, and columnist—the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes and the author of five bestselling books, among them From Beirut to Jerusalem and The World Is Flat.

 

He was born in Minneapolis in 1953, and grew up in the middle-class Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1975 with a degree in Mediterranean studies, attended St. Antony's College, Oxford, on a Marshall Scholarship, and received an M.Phil. degree in modern Middle East studies from Oxford.

 

After three years with United Press International, he joined The New York Times, where he has worked ever since as a reporter, correspondent, bureau chief, and columnist. At the Times, he has won three Pulitzer Prizes: in 1983 for international reporting (from Lebanon), in 1988 for international reporting (from Israel), and in 2002 for his columns after the September 11th attacks. 

 

Friedman’s first book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, won the National Book Award in 1989. His second book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999), won the Overseas Press Club Award for best book on foreign policy in 2000. In 2002 FSG published a collection of his Pulitzer Prize-winning columns, along with a diary he kept after 9/11, as Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11. His fourth book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (2005) became a #1 New York Times bestseller and received the inaugural Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in November 2005. A revised and expanded edition was published in hardcover in 2006 and in 2007. The World Is Flat has sold more than 4 million copies in thirty-seven languages. 

 

In 2008 he brought out Hot, Flat, and Crowded, which was published in a revised edition a year later. His sixth book, That Used to Be Us: How American Fell Behind in the World We Invented and How We Can Come Back, co-written with Michael Mandelbaum, will be published in September 2011.

 

Michael Mandelbaum, the Christian A. Herter Professor and Director of American Foreign Policy at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, is the author or coauthor of twelve books, including The Ideas That Conquered the World.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Picador; Reprint edition (August 21, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1250013720
• ISBN-13: 978-1250013729
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (196 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

212 of 233 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Lists out the challenges and provides high-level suggestions September 6, 2011

By R. Pokkyarath VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I wasn't sure whether I should purchase this one. After all, what is it about these problems that is already not widely known, what suggestions/prescriptions can the authors come up with which has not been mentioned by someone or the other. I jumped in anyway.

I don't see a Look Inside for this book; maybe, they'll add it later, but I'll add a quick summary of the book. The book is divided into 5 parts:

Part 1: The Diagnosis
Imitating the DHS's campaign message "If You See Something, Say Something", the authors say that the symptoms of America's decline is all around for us to see. He contrasts the Chinese gusto in completing a convention center in 8 months--which he visited for the WEF summer summit--to the lackadaisical attitude he sees at the Washington Metrorail; talks about his visit to the White House where a door handle came off while he was opening it, only to hear the Secret Service agent remarking, "Oh, it does that sometimes". The authors goes on to say that America as a country has failed to adjust itself to the post cold-war era and failed to address some of the biggest problems, including Education, Deficits, Energy needs and Climate Change; our ability to react and respond to challenges and opportunities has drastically come down. The worst part of this decline, according to the authors, is that it's slow in coming and hence, we fail to even recognize the existence of the problem. A depleted America will not just be bad for the Americans, but to the whole world as well because, according to the author, the US plays a constructive role in world economy and politics and that will be hard to replace.... Then they goes into a bit of a history about the origin of the public-private partnership, enumerating what he calls the five pillars of prosperity, and lists out the contributions towards this by the earlier US leaders, starting from from Alexander Hamilton, TR, FDR, Eisenhower down to Johnson. In short, the authors say that we misread the fall of the Berlin Wall while we exaggerated the effects of Al-Qaeda.

So that above is an overview of Part 1. Most of us would have heard about these points; the addition of conversations with business and political leaders certainly adds some meat to the diagnosis. The history part is also interesting in terms of knowing the decisions taken by the past presidents. Mostly I agree with them, though there are occasions where the points are debatable. They talks about how China's political system is inferior. I'm not sure about that though; having seen the cacophony and mess that is part of the democracy in India, I wonder if democracy is indeed the right choice for a developing nation, a vast number being illiterate. That, though, is a digression and a different discussion altogether.

Part 2: The Education Challenge
Here the authors talks about how Globalization and IT revolution has completely changed the global landscape and issues a call for better and more education. The first half of this part talks about how information technology has really brought changes in the business and political world (Arab Spring) and talks about the ramifications of being completely connected. The author divides the first half of the last decade--approximately--as Flat World 1.0 and the second part as Flat World 2.0. The 2.0 being a "hyper-connected" world with even the little villages now connected to the global network using cell phones and so on. I have to say, while describing all this, they sound like a Management Guru pacing animatedly up and down the stage. The job requirements, according to the authors, are more complex these days as employers look for critical reasoning, communication and collaboration skills--the three Cs--(I thought they always looked for those?). The authors talks about pumping more money/effort to raise the level of the poorly faring kids; the argument didn't convince me though. There is a great and interesting section on the role of teachers and suggestions/thoughts about teacher evaluation metrics--An interesting case study from Colorado is presented--and mechanisms to motivate/empower teachers.

This part, except the section on teachers and evaluation, is ... well, ok. The first part completely looks like business 2.0 speak and occasionally mixed in are some hype about the latest technologies. As an example, he talks about cloud computing, "The cloud is like this huge factory where anyone can come and produce anything." This, according to him, is a key difference between 2.0 and 1.0. Yeah, sure, Cloud is great and is the in-thing, but let's not be in the cloud while talking about Clouds. His classification of 1.0 was also interesting (PC revolution, Internet Revolution and AJAX/HTTP/XML/SOAP!). PV kannan then steps in to say how the job reqs have gotten more stricter and how his call center hires "army of PhDs" for data analytics. My feeling at that point was this: sure, all this makes sense, but let's not make all this sound more complicated that it really is. The author makes one very valid point: The notion that manufacturing can be exported while design can happen in the US is inherently flawed because along with the manufacturing goes bottom-up innovation. They also talks about how we should transform ourselves into creative artisans--instead of routine work--and that is certainly an interesting point. I recently read an interesting book and I would recommend it: Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford

Part 3: The War on Math and Physics
Here we go into the Deficit/Debt problems and Climate Change. The authors implicates both Republicans and Democrats for the situation that we're in today. Some financial history is covered, starting from Eisenhower onwards. Topics covered include: Bretton Woods agreement and how Milton Friedman got it wrong; effect of baby-boomers on Medicare and SS and so on. He blames the younger generation of repubs for lack of fiscal prudence and blames dems for big spending. Taking a middle ground, their suggestion is to raise taxes, cut entitlements and invest in growth areas. Without the last piece, we're not going to get anywhere. There's a humorous point he made: US is duty bound--by some treaty--to protect Taiwan in the event of Chinese aggression, but to go for that war, the US may need to borrow from the Chinese! Ignoring the deficit problem is the War on Math. Ignoring Climate Change, according to him, is the War on Physics. He quotes experts from the EPI and other institutions and confronts those who says it's a hoax. Even if it turned out not to be as bad as predicted, it still should help improve the environment, help us develop cutting edge green technologies that will reduce our oil dependence and make US the leader in those new emerging technologies (China and Germany currently leads)

This part is interesting, but, remember, these are huge topics and if you want to genuinely understand these issues, you may want to read separate books/materials on them. The author does bring in his notes from those experts with whom he interacted, but, apart from knowing what we've already heard, I'm not sure if I found something totally new. Nobody is going to change his opinion on Climate Change by reading these points. What the authors are trying to do though is to refresh these issues in the national consciousness and, from that perspective, it's valuable.

Part 4: Political Failure
Here the authors talk about how political paralysis has lead to poor standards of education, shoddy infrastructure, Brain Drain, lack of investments in growth areas and research institutions, a lack of regulations (ex. credit-default swap) and how we ended up chasing the losers of globalization. To drive home this point, the author gives a few examples that included the fact that in 2009 US consumers spent more on Potato Chips that the Govt spent on energy research! What I found interesting about this part is the analysis he made about why the country is politically polarized. Their conclusion seems to be based on a limited data set; so I'm not sure if one can conclusively make this argument, but it certainly is interesting. He talks about gerrymandering--with the pics of a couple of congressional districts--and how over time the balancing elements in each parties migrated to the other, thereby eliminating the in-party discussions that used to be there. This I found to be pretty interesting. We've heard the rest of the points enough in recent times: how politicians are not doing their part, the role played by lobbyists, 24/7 news cycles, loss of values etc. etc.

Part 5: Rediscovering America
My opinion about this part is mixed. He does talk about things that are required for start-ups and business to find America attractive, but at the same time he talks about some nebulous things--nebulous in relation to the discussions we're having here--like American spirit and so on (girls in the Navy and a couple of Americans in Delhi). Earlier in the book they talk about how Americans should act like the soldiers who landed at Normandy and I was looking forward to hearing some of the hard things/sacrifices Americans make, but didn't really see much of that.

The book ends by explaining the virtues of having a 3rd party candidate in the next elections. Sure, he/she won't be able to become president, but can be a positive influence in getting the parties come to a more centrist view. To support this point he takes the example of TR (Bull Moose party), George Wallace and Ross Perot, and points out the positive influence they had.

Who would be this 3rd party candidate? Bloomberg, perhaps? Let's wait and see how it turns out. All in all it's an interesting book, though, I'm not sure if there's anything fundamentally new. It does bring the main issues to the forefront. The solutions suggested are the ones we have mostly heard about, but the authors certainly mostly makes cohesive arguments about the topics addressed. My interest waxed and waned as I went through the book; depending on where I'm in the book I would give a 3 or 4 star. Overall a 3.5

I'm not an American, but I'd lived there for close to 12 years (Loved it greatly, until a visa quagmire made me leave). So whenever I hear about America and all the talk about America's opportunities, problems and challenges, I get interested enough to get involved in it. Hence my presence here. Read more ›

278 of 308 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An important book that every American should read September 5, 2011

By S. A. Lee

Format:Hardcover

"That Used to Be Us" delves deeply into the major problems confronting America. The book is well-written and uses a journalistic style similar to other books by Friedman: it includes a lot of anecdotes and quotations. The book starts by comparing a six-month project to fix two small escalators at a New Jersey train station with an eight-month project in China that resulted in the construction of a massive and ornate convention center. That comparison underlies the book's title -- the idea that the U.S. no longer leads the world in its ability to innovate and to efficiently create new things and ideas.

The book is divided into parts that focus on the major challenges we face: (1) Educating our workforce in an age where globalization and information technology have merged into a force that is disrupting job markets. (2) Overcoming the "War on Math," which has led us to recklessly cut taxes and ignore the impact of deficits and the growing dept burden, and the "War on Physics" which has led to rampant denial of the realities of climate change science and energy policy. (3) Political failure, driven by gridlock and the overwhelming influence of money in politics, and our failure invest in basic scientific research, critical infrastructure and to implement and maintain rational regulation of markets.

The part of the book that will perhaps be of particular interest to many readers is the discussion of how technology and globalization are impacting jobs and careers. The job market has been "polarized" so that routine, middle skill jobs have been eliminated, leaving only high skill jobs requiring lots of education and lots lower wage jobs that so far cannot be automated or offshored.... There is a good discussion of the issues, again with lots of examples, but, as someone who works in developing these technologies, I think the authors actually underestimate the future impact here. They do not focus on the fact that information technology is accelerating and that the capability of computers and robots is going to improve dramatically over the next decade -- almost certainly threatening many jobs that we now think are safe.

For a much more in depth look on the future impact of technology on the job market and economy, I would recommend reading this book: The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future.

"That Used to be Us" is a very important book that will hopefully initiate a much wider and much more honest discussion about the challenges we face. To be sure, not everyone will agree with some of the solutions advocated (for example, increased immigration for skilled workers and a viable third party presidential candidate to deliver a shock to the political system) but the discussion of the major issues and tradeoffs we face is very well done and illuminating. Read more ›

539 of 663 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Important Topic, Confused and Misleading Analysis September 5, 2011

By Loyd E. Eskildson HALL OF FAME

Format:Hardcover

Thomas Friedman is one of my favorite columnists, and I looked forward to 'That Used to be Us' because it addresses America's #1 problem - our sagging economy. However, Friedman and co-author Mandelbaum's analysis of the causes and cures for our economic malaise is confused and often erroneous.

The book begins with Friedman comparing two projects - the six months required to repair two D.C. Metro escalators with 21 steps each near his Bethesda home, and China's building its new Meijiang Convention Center (2.5 million square feet, with gigantic escalators) in eight months. The comparison symbolizes how China's economic dynamism makes 21st-century America seem sickly and inept. Unfortunately, the authors attribute our current state of affairs to a loss of intensity and purpose after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Reality, however, is that our relative decline vs. China began with Premier Deng Xiaoping's 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' in 1979, and intensified after 9/11 as the U.S. became preoccupied with terrorism and paralyzed by increasingly partisan politics, while the Chinese began moving, largely unnoticed, up the economic value chain.

Continuing, the authors contend that America faces three other major challenges - the IT revolution, our chronic and growing deficits, and our world-leading energy consumption. The 'solution' - reviving the values, priorities, and practices that we have used to succeed in the past. The remainder of the book consists of underlying details and their blueprint for doing so.

Globalization (and the hollowing out and weakening of the American economy) was largely initiated by American firms transferring American technologies and management skills while seeking lower-cost production.... (So much for 'What's good for American business is good for America.') However, it has since produced a new variety of 'capitalism' largely led, funded, and protected by China's government that has become more successful than our version. A byproduct is that the strength of much of our middle-class, government regulation and finances, and world stature have deteriorated.

Unfortunately, the authors see America's two parties as so sharply polarized by competing ideologies that they are incapable of arriving at the compromises required. Their solution is a new third-party, and a return to sensible policies on education, immigration, infrastructure, risk/capital management, and scientific research. Meanwhile, we stagger forward (?) with budget-ballooning tax cuts, trillions of dollars (and thousands of lives) wasted in the War on Terror, and raising denial of the physical sciences (Global Warming, evolution, stem-cell research) and math (spending increases should be matched by cuts, but tax cuts don't need to be matched by spending cuts - Senator Jon Kyl) to a qualification for high office.

Reality, however, does not entirely support their case that improved education (read 'more money') is key to our future. Americans have nearly tripled per-pupil, inflation-adjusted spending since the early 1970s, with little or no change in pupil achievement or graduation rates to show for it; even 'Let No Child Be Left Behind' has done little to close racial achievement gaps. Unfortunately, Friedman and Mandelbaum give little emphasis to the large and consistent superior performance by most pupils from Asian and Jewish families, dismal Hispanic high-school graduation rates, the common denigration of academic achievement within African-American youth, and the fact that Michelle Rhee's education reform efforts within D.C. were undone by the largely African-American electorate in that city. (Similarly, a recent poll in New York City shows minority parents particularly unhappy with Mayor Bloomberg's reform efforts.)

The authors also undermine their credibility by first claiming Chinese education smothers creativity (no evidence provided), and later reporting that Chinese computer programmers took 1st and 3rd place in the 2011 IBM-sponsored world championship of programming. (The U.S. took 2nd, its only placement within the top 12, while Russia took five of the top twelve positions; the U.S. spends far more on education than both China and Russia.) Friedman and Mandelbaum, when alleging that Chinese education stifles creativity, also seem unaware that the Chinese recently built the world's largest dam and hydroelectric facility, largest network of high-speed rail (admittedly having early problems), longest sea bridge, HVDC transmission line, and irrigation project, and have passed the U.S. in supercomputer speed. Militarily, they've largely neutralized American naval and air power in the Pacific with relatively low-cost missiles, torpedoes, attack boats, and quiet submarines.

Meanwhile call centers in India are now adding PhDs, programmers, and statisticians, showing how losing even low-technology jobs can lead to the loss of high-technology jobs as well. (Outsourcing our manufacture of low-tech CRTs also led to losing out on the R&D and manufacture of high-tech LED and plasma screens, and a handicap in the nanotechnology and solar film races.) The authors also confuse the enormous impact of single individuals (eg. the revolutionary Toyota Production System was essentially the work of one man - Taiichi Ohno), and the much more limited impact of widespread employee involvement, contending the latter augers for more higher education. Need more convincing? Consider the relative impact of Steve Jobs in Apple, vs. its hundreds of thousands of manufacturing workers in Japan and China, Bill Gates within Microsoft, Sergey Brin and Larry Page within Google, Michael Bloomberg within Bloomberg, etc.

Comparing incomes between various levels of education in America creates confusing results. Some researchers report higher incomes for those with a college education (Friedman and Mandelbaum quote from them), while others assert that the coming decade will see much high levels of offshoring high-level jobs (eg. extensive R&D in China is already occurring, and software, legal, and financial/accounting offshoring is predicted to quickly increase, then there's the fact that even prior to the Great Recession about one-third of college graduates ended up in jobs not requiring a degree, while a fourth group has found that after taking into account the costs and foregone earnings associated with college, it is not a good investment. I have an MBA and work as a cross-country truck-driver; one of my college friends (PhD in chemistry) for H&R Block preparing taxes. You figure it out. Regardless, the authors also ignore the glaring need to roll back the cost of college education to 1960's levels before it began rocketing upward at 4X the CPI.

On the other hand, they're 'spot-on' in reporting that effective teachers can make a big difference; strangely, however, they fail to mention that reducing class size and paying teachers according to experience and number of graduate courses completed are both enormously expensive and have very little, if any value (except for the first two years of teaching experience). Worse yet, it would seem that decades of education research findings since the mid-1960s on how to improve pupil achievement, and innumerable reforms, fads, and 'improvements' have accomplished nothing except prove that our colleges of education are vacuous.

The need to reduce health care expenditures rightly receives considerable attention in 'That Used to be Us.' The authors, however, strongly infer that AARP/Medicare is the problem and that the elderly should receive lower subsidies. Simply cutting Medicare, however, would cast many seniors deeper into poverty - by themselves they are unable to counteract providers' demands for high reimbursement and unneeded care. Regardless, America's health care cost problems disadvantage everyone, especially businesses competing with foreign producers. We spend so much more (17%+ of GDP, vs. 9% or less for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) because our much less regulated fee-for-service reimbursement encourages over-utilization and overpayment, compared to other nations. Unfortunately, efforts to control the problem have been met with 'death panel' and 'government interference' demagoguery.

'We need to keep America's doors to immigration open so we are adding both the low-skilled/high-aspiring and best minds in the world' is another recommendation from 'That Used to be Us.' Common sense, however, says it is not possible to add some 12 million low-skilled, high-birthrate illegal aliens who, on average, value education little (very high dropout rates) without harming Americans already here. (I had a job taken away last year by an illegal.) As for adding the 'best minds' - I would agree; however, our weakening economy is becoming less attractive to those Asians.

Research is essential to America's revitalization, claim the authors. Seems logical; actually, by itself more research support is of little benefit because most subsequent manufacturing (the big dollars) now takes place in Asia (think Apple). The authors also fail to mention that the vast majority of research dollars in the U.S. are wasted, eg. on some 300 new books and 3,000 articles on Shakespeare each year, picayune managerial theorizing that ignores strategic and global issues, economics professors telling us 'we benefit from getting rid of manufacturing and low-skill jobs,' market regulation is not needed/bubbles are self-correcting, etc. Further, '99% of (important and useful discoveries) are made by 1% of researchers,' per Julius Axelrod, Nobel-winner in medicine. The authors also fail to note that Chinese researchers are even more productive because they are encouraged to focus on implementation (not pure research), do less writing of papers, and utilize outstanding college students in lead roles (eg. Zhao Bowen, age 17, leading a genetic analysis of IQ at Beijing Genetics Institute) instead of their having to wait until completion of a PhD and attainment of years of experience as a research understudy. (Note how they are also addressing an important topic head-on, while U.S. research in this area has largely been blocked by political correctness.)

Friedman and Mandelbaum tell us that "Thirty years ago, 10 percent of California's general revenue fund went to higher education and 3 percent to prisons. Today nearly 11 percent goes to prisons and 8 percent to higher education." The implication is that opening more colleges would shut prisons. Reality, however, is that that nationally during that same time period the proportion of 18-24 year-olds enrolled in higher education has risen from 32% to 49%, while imprisonment rates also rose - from about 130/100,000 to 500. A better approach to lowering prison costs would be to rethink the War on Drugs ($1 trillion, over 40 years, and about 40,000 lives - mostly in Mexico).

One final area - Friedman and Mandelbaum contend our political system is much superior to that in China, but again offer no economic evidence of such. China's government has taken a consistent, long-term, fact-based forward-looking perspective; U.S. government, if it acts at all, has been much more reactive, and ideology and short-term focused. Further, if the authors talked to the Chinese they would learn that most of the middle/upper-class fear allowing the lower class voting rights, and that overall the Chinese are much more satisfied with their economy and government than Americans are (Pew International Poll - 2010). Citizens simply don't have the time, knowledge, or interest to become as knowledgeable as required to make intelligent decisions in most areas. Regardless, China has broadened membership in its Communist Party to recently include leading intellectuals/academics and businesspeople.

Bottom-Line: The recommendations in 'That Used to be Us' will not return America to its former glory. Instead, we need to stop off-shoring millions of jobs ('Free Trade' benefited the U.S. greatly - when we had no strong competitors; China continues to benefit from protectionism, as did the U.S. previously) and R&D (over 1,200 multinational firms in conducting R&D in China, mostly U.S.) activities, and tolerating the millions of illegals within the U.S. We don't need more money for education (returning to 1970 levels would save nearly %500 billion/year) or R&D - just greatly improved effectiveness. We don't need more immigration of unskilled labor - just those with strong science abilities. Our reaction to 9/11 has cost nearly $4 trillion - so far. Improving our posture towards the Arab world (less bias towards Israel, leaving Iraq and Afghanistan, stop threatening Iran and Syria), reducing our military (equal the rest of the world, combined), Homeland Security and intelligence (vast duplication - 'Top Secret America') expenditures, returning to 1970 education expenditures/pupil, and eliminating incentives for excess health care utilization and overly generous provider payments ($700 billion/year for just the federal government) would save nearly $2 trillion/year - we could afford to substantially reduce our deficits, and rebuild/update our infrastructure.

Common sense is all that's required to solve America's economic problems, aided by analogy, thinking, and a little data. Treatment for serious bleeding always involves immediate use of a tourniquet or bandage to cut off the flow of blood - nobody instead tries to increase the victim's ability to manufacture blood. Why should we treat serious job losses to outsourcing and illegals any different? Simply stop the losses! Alternatively, ask yourself how could nearly three decades of large trade DEFICITS possibly improve employment in America, as claimed by many CEOs and consultants? And as for contending that Smoot-Hawley tariffs (Free Trade impediments) extended and deepened and extended the Great Depression - how could that be, given that net trade activity was then less than 1% of our economy? We can quickly cure our economic malaise by replacing 'Free Trade' with 'Balanced/Fair Trade' (Europe has done this for years), and no longer allowing millions of illegals to work in the U.S. Read more ›