Originally Posted by rickholio

I don't. Protectionism is generally bad, although there are areas where CONTROLLED trade is useful. I certainly don't recommend it as a panacea. The snark in my 'executive summary' is mostly just mocking the FA article's attitude of "Keep moving, nothing to see here" which really does noone any good.

There's lots of things that COULD be done, but they're all "commie" things.

Stuff like seriously improving public education so that even the poor kids stand a reasonable shot at busting into the "new economy". Noone with an IQ of 150 should have to purge propane tanks at $5.25 an hour, but god only knows how many are out there doing that due to being born into unfavorable circumstances. It's a double shame, because those people are denied the ability to reach their full potential, and we're denied the benefits of their productivity and ingenuity.

Things like re-funding grants to post-secondary education, which have been ruthlessly pilfered to spend elsewhere (pick a wastrel spending program of your choice) and offering incentives to help get people 'retooled'.

Things like stopping governmental incentive to outsource. Right now there's serious financial advantages to keeping capital circulating and hiring people outside the country. Close the loopholes.

Things like finding ways to have these huge multinationals put back at least SOME of the money extracted in the whole outsourcing endeavour. Even if that means INCREASING TAXES. This, of course, will never happen... money has no patriotism, and if Microsoft can save 'n' billion a year by moving its head office to senegal, sure as fuck they're going to do it... but perhaps there are things what can be done.

Just a few suggestions off the top of my head.