Tesla the badass that he was.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2787017788072677040


Watch the first 10 minutes of the movie...

If we new this, if the world new about this and many of his other inventions we would demand better.

He even levitated non-magnetic materials...

The man was a technical and scientific god and depending who you talk too, was killed or died early because of his work.

As for high frequency eletricity being used to promote healthly regrowth of tissue.

My bone regenerator that was used on my foot and saved my ability to walk, did EXACTLY this..

I suggest you read into him.

considerations

Some great suggestions within this book. If we can get an executive officer to admit that some of this vacuum is true, then maybe we have a chance to protect everything that we have built over the last three hundred or so years in this nation. What makes it so scary, and that it can change like this seemingly overnight, and is worsening daily, is because of the smaller world concept of globalization, the immensity of the momentum of the capitalist China, and the rapid multiplier of vast technological advances. All this, plus the blindness of economists and shareholders, suggests we are doomed. Only enlightenment can save us. Or can it?

Chapter XI Politics

The stark reality is probably just as the author proposes. No time soon will an American political regime tackle the highly controversial issues within this book. The most activity this book is likely to stir in Washington D.C. is nothing but some well-choreographed Potomac Two-Step. I agree with the author that I certainly hope that his expectations are overly pessimistic, yet as likely as these events are to coming to partial fruition, there is no chance of proactive measures (too late) and little chance of reaction short of a major devaluation of the dollar, likely from the swift withdrawal of foreign capital investment. Oh Good Gosh, as much investment as China has in our federal Treasuries, we better get somebody that is as adept at Asian and Chinese diplomacy as they are keen about the depth of these possible repercussions.

Chapter X Competing

I really like the recommendations that the author makes to compete in this awkward globalization landscape. "The barn door is open and the horses are already scattered all over creation." Nonetheless, although perhaps nearly utopian, a pro-American business government focus would enable us to re-integrate our manufacturing abilities. Create tax incentives. Start with government subsidy through a national healthcare program. This would lower labor costs. Tell the union to quit creating an environment that encourages offshoring our industries. Reign in insurance via tort reform. Establish multi-lateral trade agreements. All valuable ideas that may help stave off the hollowing effect. Focusing whole heartily on new energy programs, especially ramping up development of nuclear energy (France's energy independence is remarkable) would make huge contributions to the America that our children will inherit.

Chapter IX China, India, and Productivity

How disconcerting is the news presented by the author? Horror story after horror story, after horror story. From chips, to customer service, to pianos, and soon cars, we are doomed. China is graduating an astounding 350,000 new engineers every year. Remember early the Seventies and Eighties, oldtimers lamenting that we needed to buy American. Now, it seems like China (and India) against the rest of the world. Italy, wow, in five years has seen zero GDP growth, its vital tile and stone and furniture industries decimated by Chinese competition. Over the weekend I commented "Let's not buy anything else made in China." "But the Wii is made in China!" Wow, surenuff(sic), and so it was. I bought two new clothing items "made by" Polo, Ralph Lauren, on Sunday. One was made in India, the other in China. Maybe it is too late. What do we do now? And with the mind boggling innovation and R & D park in China. These things are troubling. What is worse, is that most of America is brainwashed by the pro-Ricardo economists, and the offshoring is deemed ideal by those who support specialization through globalization. America is indeed in serious trouble.

Chapter VIII 20th Century Innovation

I can keep this one short. But it does come with another wow.
Offshoring our production technology has been my fear. With Dell the babe of the flatlanders, and Schwinn gone the way of Giant, with its innovation. This is serious contention that I hope and pray that our next president will have his or her entire cabinet read.
I love the way someone in the DB discussion just assumed that we were opinionated, and that it was not possible to get an objective view of this book. I guess that is because the objective view is opinionated.

Chapter VII The Free Market

Wow. Okay, so this book has me saying that word quite a bit. Maybe, Ahh, or Voila, or some other contrivance used to denote amazing albeit scary perspective. The author's forensic analysis of "economist" David Ricardo's theories on Comparative Advantage is powerfully revealing. I have been studying economics since the late eighties. I had completely bought into the comparative advantage concept of specialization. Now, I have been convinced that it is based on entirely too many assumptions. And, I figured that NAFTA was definitely the right thing to do for all countries involved, you know, we got stick together with our North American brethren. Hmm, how much has it hurt Mexico to sell our expensive corn? All the country ridiculed Ross Perot to his obstinate opposition to NAFTA, and were all on the band wagon together as we derisively called him a lunatic. "You can't build a barn with one nail." What did that mean? You can't build an economic future with aerospace and military while you outsource everything else. I have had reservations about the effects of buying non-American for sometime, and now I am urgently concerned. I really like the quote from Abraham Lincoln, that shows his simple wisdom was clearly more simple and accurate then his contemporaries could have imagined.
"I don't know much about the tariff. But I do know that when I buy a coat from England, I have the coat and England has the money. But when I buy a coat in America, I have the coat and America has the money."

Finally, the example the author provides in Korea with respect to protectionist tariffs for developing industries drives a point home for me. Unfortunately, it drives the point home for me in a Hyundai Sonata.

FX 6

Okay, so, er, the World According to Dr. Cunningham is not flat. Or, if so, it is incredibly tilted. Tilted away from America, as all of our resources go spilling out, and exports and foreign investments come spilling in, whacking our current account harder and harder each year. Yep, based on his analysis, a devaluation of the dollar is bound to happen eventually. And then, all hell will break loose, and Fagin will round up all the sad little boys and give them hope and teach them how to pick BIG pockets by being sweet little social engineers. But I digress....

Energy V

I have always been afraid of nuclear power - having been a child during the Three Mile accident, and aware of the recurrent fallout from Chernobyl.
However, it is amazing just how much money that we have invested in a oil war (did I say that?) that could have gone into nucular(sic) development. Thirty-five years since last construction on a nuclear facility, and with process improvement, cannot we do better that a third of a century ago? Wow, what an industry, and the jobs, a boon to the economy, if we were to start a commitment to increasing nuclear energy. As long as we don't look the other way as illegal immigrants do all the construction work for next to nothing, we can provide our retiring and returning military, especially the SeaBees (Construction Battallions), with steady, lucrative, meaningful work. Plus, they could provide security for these facilities.
In the meantime, why not push for hybrid fuel transportation, like, yesterday.

NAFTA Ten Years later

The effects of NAFTA on Mexico. Hmmm...China sends $14B into Mexico, and $400M goes back to China.
Also, US-subsidized corn and other agricultural products flooded into Mexico, running 1.4 Million workers into 550,000 manufacturing jobs. Hey, where did all the other 850,000 people go, er, come from? Really? Interesting.....It seemed like the right thing to do according to almost everyone, including legendary economist Milton Friedman. "Now, wait just-a minute!" But not to Ross Perot, who we all were in favor of shutting up and shutting out like some sort of billionaire idiot. Hmmm...Would things be different if Perot had been elected? Or, even Gore, hanging chads and all, in 2000? I am afraid to say, I voted for NAFTA, and I voted for Bush. I was wrong. Now what do I do?

The Imminent Plunge of the Dollar

Last copyrighted in 1976, Professor Paul Samuelson's classic work Economics notes that current account balances for the US that approached the tens of billions were soaring, and lamented in fear of their effect. Today, our current account balance is over half a tr, tr, trillion, closing in on a trillion dollars per year. Capital inflows are matching our current balance, meaning OPEC nations, China, and other Asian governments were buying dollar-based bonds and deposits.
Economics Professor Martin Feldstein of Havard believes that the dollar must at some point fall at least 30% to correct the trade-weighted value of the dollar. Also, former Fed Chair Paul Volcker believes the "huge imbalances...seem to be as dangerous...as any I can remember...I don't know whether change will come with a bang or a wimper, whether sooner or later."-The Washington Post,2005.

The Hollowing : Chips, Apparel, Mfg et al

Wow.
I am still in the lengthy Chapter IV. Pages 56 and 57 really pound the point of the poignant book title well. So, for years we have been exporting apparel all over, and by 2010 apparel laborers will be nearly extinct in the US. However, the BLS -Bureau for Labor Statistics - shows productivity increases for the disapating apparel industry of 3.1% per year from 1987 to 2003. Hmmm...this all began before China was even a capitalist threat. So it all started slowly, innocently, how can we unlock shareholder value by utilizing cheaper labor, creating bigger margins, and larger profits.
Then, the US pioneered the semiconductor chip, and we were again on top of the world, dominant in manufacturing and exporting of the silicon wafer. Wait...bigger margins and larger profits if we outsource, exploiting cheaper labor markets. And then...
It started as a pop, then a pow, and then a boom, boom, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!!!! China is a capitalist competitor of the nth degree, using bargain basement labor and now exploiting us, exploiting us for our appetite for material goods, goods which we have exported our desire to produce. We are just now starting to see the effects of price competition, diminishing margins, and the foreign monsters are running us out of the businesses that we pioneered. Why? Because we gave them the technology and processes when we exported the production to them for the sake of better margins then, and shrinking profits and industry now, and our debt related to the current account just ratcheting ever so higher and higher....Free Trade, or is it? Like a regal water oak, beautiful and strong, elegant and nimble, but not a live oak that lasts several centuries, a water oak that looks like a live oak but rots from the inside out, and after nearly a century of prosperity, it can be dead in a mere couple decades....

VII The Free market....

Free trade isn't free.
It costs us dearly.

So how will we do better when it comes to maufacturing.

By decreasing out wages and/or by just not doing it.

Thus our 23 dollar an hour average maunfacturing job will be sent overseas to 2-4 persons whom are working for 3 dollars an hour total.

Also our government now allows the factories to simply be picked up and move to these countries and sometimes subsidizes it. Thus we have setup a system where it is safe and profitable to chase the lowest wages. WE have no advantage but wealth that we can transfer to others in order to pay for goods that were once made in America...

Sounds like a plan.

Long live Walmart.

I will see you in Europe.

Hollis

VI The Effects

The Effects of the coming collapse.

He comes up with many things in the chapter that I didn't think about.
One was the flight from the suberbs in orders to cut commuting costs.

And since many of the jobs in teh service sector will be located there America will become more centralized. In the mean time all of the things we will need to change our future are being bought up by the Chinese and other goverments. Copper, steel, coal, concrete are all increasing in pice. And our average pay is actually going down.

This is really scary and when this is coupled with the American people not trusting the Government anymore, when we the people wake up and realize what was intentially done to us there might be revolution.

This can be a good or bad thing but I believe it is what certain powers may want. This is the way hundreds of countries have gone, why can't America. Truly a scary thought, god help us.

Hollis

V Engergy...

Energy:

I have no real comment on this one... I think in terms of long term survival.

And lets say we don't come up with a gravity drive, we waste our nuclear fuel and then our oil what then??

Our energy policy should be looking ahead 2000 years and not worrying about our economy today. Thus we should incurr any costs to have all of our energy resources be re-usable.

Oil is and has never been the option we should choose and it only enriches countries that have made it clear that we are not thier friends. (nigeria, the middle east, venezula etc) thus is doesn't even make sense to make it the option we used.

Corn isn't an option.

Nuclear power, is the wave of the future. I agree with jack on this one. However, some of our best fuel (by the thousands of tons) is now in the iraqi desert. Depleted Uranium rounds.

Hollis

IV: The economy after 1981

WOW what can I say about this chapter.

I have always known something shifted at that time in America. Because all throughout my childhood people were complaining about imports (IE: my grand complaining about those "GOD DAMN JAP CARS") When I asked them if this was happening before I was born they would always tell me it began just afterword. Not knowing how it was before I just hummed along and paid no mind to the ramifications of President Reagon's economic policy. I do remember however at my (happened on my birthday) year family reunion, in 1987, my family talking about how Reagon was giving up the ship and that unless things changed America was doomed, they also railed about MTV quite a bit as well.

That being said my economic memmory really started going at around 1990 when my gifted class started learning about supply and demand and how to work the stock market. At that time and shortly thereafter, I heard Ross Perot speak about the giant sucking sound and how nafta was going to kill America. Welp, he didn't win political office, the power that be all but eliminated the possibility of a 3rd party canidate, by changing debate rules and then passing laws to codify those rules under penalty of criminal prosecution (even though it is a private company that runs the debates).

Jack was right, as was most of America in saying that we were going to and did hear the giant sucking sound. And Ross Perot's run in 1996 showed just how true his original statements were. (and he was not allowed in the debates under the new rules)

Since than the giant sucking sound has continued, giant American companies went overseas to avoid the taxes and Executives started getting massive bonuses by screwing over the people they own workers. Meanwhile the average American would be none the wiser, because they would by buying cheaper goods and then after the war started 2001 they would enjoy record low interest rates, from which they will fuel even more debt by the average person.

I have known this for years, however James put it all in perspective and more eloquently then I ever could.

Hollis

NAFTA, Outsourcing, and Chips Ahoy!!

It is disturbing that our high profile economists, not to exclude Ben Bernanke, that I was beginning to respect, can craft their words to exude positive meaning from our current economic situation. I am still in the fify page Chapter IV, America after Reagan. It is amazing how the ironic simultaneity of NAFTA in 1993 and the silicon wafer outsourcing revolution that began in earnest thereabouts have contributed to a rapid shift in our import-export balance. It is scary that we have been willing to outsource our prized wafer technology to developing companies. Granted the labor economies of scale, it almost seems foolish to argue that this could be detrimental to long-term economic metrics for our country, as it unlocks American shareholder value and brings the cost of information and communication technologies (ITC) down to ranges that eliminate the prohibitive cost barriers for most American businesses and families as well. This, you would think, would contribute to an overall accelleration of productivity. But an acceleration of what? Our economists numbers our skewed by failing to offset these improvements for the changes in the constants that are not constant at all.

Immediate Gratification "The World is Tilted"

I am still in the middle of the chapter titled "America After Reagan".

China has a substantially lower cost of labor than the US and other developed countries. If the yuan were pegged to the dollar, it would be skewed maybe six or eight times less, but still major labor "efficiencies" would tilt the industrial production to China, as this lower labor cost transcends all levels of business and management for industrial production. American companies, in haste to maximize shareholder value, and management's resultant bonus income, have exported all of our industrial capital overseas, where, quite possibly, it might be held hostage one day. We were in such a hurry to "realize" savings by producing overseas that we have cut our middle class off at the knees. Only the American industries that our highly automated can survive in a highly competitive global economy.

I also took the political leanings test. I took it realizing that my views were now affected by the first section of the book that I had read. I was amazed how far from the right my views had shifted, as, I too, found myself slightly left, near centrist. My views have changed drastically towards free trade and international competition, as we have already let all the air out of our sails, and we will be left to drift, a target of mockery for all the world to hound for its derisive amusement. Or, we can pull our heads out of the sand and take charge of our economic future.

Original post consolidated into one blog

Thursday, November 08, 2007, 2:12:26 PM Cliff
I thought that I was a liberal Republican, until I read the Intro and the first 22 pages of this book, the Hollowing of America. Wow, I may not be a full-on left wing democrat, but there is no way I can classify myself as a Republican in light of the political implications exposed in the first of chapters of this book. America is exporting its industrial capital, intellectual capital, and financial capital. We are exporting our competitive advantage. We are rotting from the inside out, and we will continue to unless we drastic measures to reverse course.

Initial post. Intro 1/2/3

The author says basically what I have been thinking for a very long time. That America on its present course is doomed to serious economic collapse. He also states that there should at least be a debate on this subect before we proceed with the direction we are taking. Unfortunaely, this debate is not taking place... For instance this book which was written barely 2 years ago is currently out of print and one MUST buy it through used book warehouses.

He does however, grant his opposition some breathing room by saying the current system will work temporarily but to the benefit of the economic elite and not the average american.

Apendix 1:
He gives you a political questionaire to see where you lie in your political leanings. I took my lense (see below) and answered the questions. My answers gave me a score of being leftist/centrist but have slight leanings towards the right. These were all in the areas of gun control, crime, war on drugs and the military.


That being said my idealogy is by far the furthest left wing of all of my classmates. However, I am a realist and thus can see the proper choices that need to be taken with the current systems to achieve the greatest economic gain for America. Thus though I am extremely socialist in my personal views, I can looks through the lense of capitalism and see appropiate proper course.

Consequently, I feel it proper to explain the lense through which I will examine this book.

1: Good for 'America' means the the good for the MOST Americans not the economy as a whole.
2: Socialism and controlled economies are not the answer to this problem.
3: The current state of the economy can change.
4: Laws setup the means for businesses to work in thier environs, thus for any change to happen in our economy, the laws have to change.

As time goes on these posts will be written better as I find the template that I will use.