Category Archives: Technology and innovation

As I mentioned in a Labor Day post, I grew up in an America where manufacturing was still the backbone of the economy. I may be more aware of that than most in my age group by virtue of spending much of my childhood in small towns where the local paper mill was the biggest employer. Similarly, when I went to business school, many of my classmates had worked for major manufacturing firms, and the ones who had been in finance (for the most part, two year credit officer programs at major banks) weren’t seen as having better backgrounds than their classmates.

While as other economies developed, the US share of global production was bound to decline, I’m disturbed by the assumption that labor costs are the sole determinant of success. My contacts is that it is an article of faith in Washington is that the US can be competitive only in finance (and presumably in commodities businesses like agriculture). This story line is terribly convenient, since it gives diseased, greedy, and incompetent American managers and policymakers a free pass.