Asymmetrical Information

I agree. These are three areas where Bush has shined, even though I disagree with much of no child left behind. I think its designed to fail schools no matter what they do. But, at least he has done something.

He still is going to be defined by history by Iraq. Its his war, and whatever way it turns out, that will be his legacy.

Its entirely possible that Iraq will turn out well. Its not very likely right now, but possible.

The other elephant in the room is his dismal economic showing. Most americans aren't feeling the effects of the recovery, and the number of jobs created compared to other recoveries, is just horrible.

I agree the Millenial projects goals and many of its methods, but he will never get any credit for it, even if it turns out well in 100 years. Its just too far under the radar.

His record is mixed when faced with supporting/ignoring some pretty atrocious people and situations, so its balanced out by some bad policies as well. Its a long term project. Who cares?

I would disagree with mickslam23's characterization of the economy's performance as "dismal." We may not be going through quite as much prosperity as during much of the 1990's, and there are increasing worries of a housing bubble, but so far the economy's chugging along quite well. Of course there are some weak spots, such as the auto industry, but these are almost unavoidable.
Now Iraq's a different story. Bush could be presiding over the biggest economic boom in American history yet thanks to Iraq his presidency is likely to be branded a complete failure.

Wait a minute. Bush is doing something right? How is that possible? I thought that our current government was irredeemably bad and that everything they told us was an evil,lying plot to curtail our civil liberties.

Have I been misled?

Gaucho,
Everything you have read in the newspapers is true. Turn off your computer now and read no more of vile bloggers (yech). These are not the droids you are looking for.

Like Wow! Paeans to top-downism? The WTO, an anonomous supra-national sovereignty sucking trade abritration body, a Good thing? Who elected them? What about "...without representation" did we miss with that beautiful incarnation?

NCLB, a Good thing? Another layer of bureauacracy, this one even further removed from the user, will fix what still remains a geographic-based government monopoly served by an intransigent Union?

Have we been so successfully infantilized that we are no longer able to be trusted to learn how to read, let alone write(our own trade policy)?

Lastly, there's nothing like punishing the able and tying them to LCD(lowest common denominator) to illuminate the depths the State will stoop to to "prove" its worth.....Hello, Vonnegut? we need your Handicapper-General, send'm FedEx!

Does this mean that Jane has become an evil Bush Kultist? Is it time for an intervention? Maybe we should go all Clockwork Orangey on her and force her to watch nothing but CNN.

You shouldn't trust me on economic issues.

However, you should read David A Rosenberg 'Reassessing Hard Landing Risks' hes from Merrill Lynch.

Excellent post, Jane. I especially agree that NCLB gives schools much-needed pressure to help even special needs children reach their full potential. And the Millenium Project may help to improve the lives of millions, just as Iraq and the spread of democracy still might. At least Bush is trying to make things better, following plans that aren't foolproof but that have a reasonable chance of success.

Mickslam23's characterization of the economy is tilted, at best. The economy isn't overheated and unsustainable, like the Clinton/Enron bubble, but it's doing quite well.

And once you consider that the last time a housing bubble "burst," it was in the middle of everything else in the economy bursting (late '80s-early '90s). So the economy argument will not weigh down Bush 43 at all.

Iraq, however, is a classic case of what happens when you rely on someone else (the MSM) to help you interpret your policy/results when that someone else (also MSM) has hated your guts from Hour One, Day One. And make no mistake, it's personal with the MSM.

Let this be a lesson to one and all who seek the Presidency: Do not be like a Bud Selig (MLB Commissioner) and let the MSM do your PR/Sales pitch for you.

I worry about federal involvement in education more than you do. But don't forget that Bush has been overall quite good on immigration, though of course he may not get his way.

Everything you have read in the newspapers is true. Turn off your computer now and read no more of vile bloggers (yech). These are not the droids you are looking for.

Judging by the number of people already leaping up to declare Iraq some sort of failure, including evidently Jane, this has been going on to a large degree. Specifically:

Iraq, however, is a classic case of what happens when you rely on someone else (the MSM) to help you interpret your policy/results when that someone else (also MSM) has hated your guts from Hour One, Day One. And make no mistake, it's personal with the MSM.

Exactly; that, and people are interpreting the success/failure of the war according to pre-existing prejudices. Few, even among reasonable people, have the kind of patience necessary to see whether something productive actually does come out of all this. They have lived too long in peaceful, prosperous societies, perhaps, and think that all useful things can be done in a month or a year.

The reason job growth has been much slower than in prior recoveries, is that job destruction in the prior recessionary period was much lower.

Note the low current unemployment rate (4.7%) which I believe is below the average of the Clinton administration, and far below prior estimates of the natural rate of unemployment.

While the inflation and twin deficits are rightfully troubling, GDP growth, productivity trends and low unemployment all point to an economy in good health.

Also, you should never, ever trust anything put out by an investment bank. Their function is to sell things, not to provide objective analysis.

If schools have to cut music classes, gym, or field trips to make financial, physical, or schedule room for arithmetic drill, that's because they were failing to adequately teach arithmetic, and cutting out those classes is a very good thing.

Yep. And if they really value those classes, they can opt out of NCLB. After all, federal funding to local schools was only 8.9% of elementary/secondary school funding in 2004 according to the census bureau. Many regions in the US have seen property taxes go up by more than that per year for quite a while. They have the money - it's just not spent well. (Only 60.5% goes to instruction. Almost 8% goes to admin costs)

The reason job growth has been much slower than in prior recoveries, is that job destruction in the prior recessionary period was much lower.

Note the low current unemployment rate (4.7%)

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

But when is a job a job? This economy has purged itself of over 3MM Manufacturing jobs over the past 5 years-- so much so that the BLS now counts McDonald's burger flippers(literally) as Manufacturing jobs. We have more Americans employed by various Government agencies than we have actually making things(in Manufacturing).

For all those ready to pronounce that the "Services" economy is the salvation, ask yourselves why Bangladesh, or any other country, hasn't availed itself to such a miracle cure.

Foundational Economics requires that one must supply in order to demand-- the biggest value-add available to any economy is Manufacturing and it is that value-add and that alone that can sustain the standard of living that Americans have grown accustomed to. Peruse the history of the Asian Tigers from Japan, post WWII, onward---see a theme? Concentration on Manufacturing built up behind trade barriers. BTW, that was how this country was built, as well. Only 20thC., and now 21st C., Americans are stupid enough to engage in unilateral "Free Trade" with mercantilist partners( see China, as most recent example )

To paraphase: "A people expecting to be both Ignorant and Free, are expecting something that never was and never will be"

Other really good things he has done:

- He understood, from the start, that the enemy was not Bin Laden or Al-Qaida, but terrorism itself.

- He has given the country a picture of how a President should act, after two terms of counterexample.

Not really clear on the point of this post. This isn't baseball, and nobody thinks .300 is a good batting average for presidents. So what if he hasn't done everything wrong. What kind of idiotic administration would come in announcing their intention to do exactly the opposite of the previous administration on every issue? (Wait, don't answer that).

In our modern setup, Presidents have tremendous authority over two areas: foreign policy and the broad outlines of the budget. Both are in shambles. I'm not saying that the damage is irreversible or that the goals were dishonorable, but the execution has been atrocious. That's why the approval rating is so low.

So what if Rosalynn Carter brilliantly redecorated the oval office (I have no idea if this is true) or it Bush really wanted increased free trade (not much to show for this either)? The little stuff only matters if you get the big stuff right. They didn't. It sucks. Let's move on.

Call me crazy, but in my book free trade, immigration, aid to poor countries, and educating our children aren't quite on the same policy level as picking out drapery fabric.

"Foundational Economics requires that one must supply in order to demand-- the biggest value-add available to any economy is Manufacturing..."

Evidence, please?

If there are things this administration has "gotten right," they will always pale in comparison to to its crimes. Many personal liberties Republicans used to fight for have been stripped away. The government is spending in record amounts and driving this country into unthinkable debt, which Republicans should despise. The government, which Republicans used to be distrusting of, has been proven a liar and a cheat and even people like Colin Powell are confessing their sins.

Why stand behind these people? Why not stand up for the core values you _used_ to believe in, like fiscal responsibility, minimalist government, and so forth? The people calling the shots in this administration don't care about pro-life or pro-religion issues other than to secure votes. They are using you to corrupt everything else.

You can fight these people and still be a Republican. In fact, I'd argue it's the the best way to remain true to the party's value set.

Jane -

What a prompt reply! Of course, the interior decorating statement was a bit of hyperbole (If you can't have fun on Asymmetrical Information comment threads, where can you?).

And yet the bigger point remains. I'm a Kansas City Royals fan, so I've become very familiar with mismatches (we're on our way to getting swept by the Yankees as I write). Comparing good intentions in the area of trade, good results in the area of foreign aid, and a mixed record on education* against a budget mess and a very difficult foreign policy situation is no comparison at all.

I just don't get the point. 2 Columbus Circle is an ugly building. It may have great masonry details, but it's an ugly building because it gets the big stuff wrong (e.g. no windows). So why even consider the tilework?

OK, maybe that analogy sucked. I'll try to do better when I return.

*While I agree with you on education -- both the results and the intentions, it's fair to say that there's a lot of disagreement among serious people about whether the fed govt should be this invloved in primary and secondary ed and whether the results of NCLB have been positive, on balance. That's why I characterize the results as mixed.

Mark Hoffer says: "the biggest value-add available to any economy is Manufacturing"

How so? For most of human history the "biggest value-add available" was agriculture, not manufacturing. As the techonolgy of agriculture spread, the economic advantage of being able to grow, say, wheat, diminished. Would not the rent gains from being the first be able to manufacture some widget eventually be competed away in an open market? Isn't that exactly what is happening now? Why would manufacturing be special?

put differently: why is my current job in an air conditioned office less of a "value-add" than my grandfather's lower-paying job on the auto assembly line?

First a question, what is

"Foundational Economics",

I don't recall hearing that phrase in any of my econ classes.

As for the decline in manufacturing jobs, it is true that this has occured. However this is not a phenomenon that is restricted to the post-2000 economic period. America's de-industrialization has been going on for decades during which time average and median wages have been rising and productivity has been increasing.

It is hard to square these observable economic facts with a belief that manufacturing is the highest value-added sector of our economy.

As for the development of the east-asian countries, it is certainly true that they embraced an export-oriented plan in their initial stages of development. But they did not do this because they believed that this was the most value adding sector, rather they embraced this path because manufacturing is typically a low wage, low skill profession (at least prior to unionization) and as a low income country they could hold a comparative advantage in these sectors.

However, as the economies develop from low to moderate income, they also changed the structure of their economies to more service oriented. A prime example of this would be South Korea which initially engaged in significant manufacturing and as it became a middle-income country moved a lot of its manufacturing to China.

Most countries seem to follow this development curve where there is an intitial shift from a primarly agrarian to manufacturing based economy, as the country moves from poor to low income. A second shift as the country, moves from low to middle/high income occurs when the industrial economy is replaced by a more service oriented economy.

I agree with what lannychiu just said and would like to point out that Hong Kong (one of the 4 Asian tigers) got out of manufacturing even before South Korea - Hong Kong's prosperity was built mainly on trade, not manufacturing. I don't think that manufacturing has been crucial for Singapore, either.

And Taiwan has succeeded largely because it has been willing to take on projects that might only be profitable for a few years (i.e. chips that could quickly become obsolete). One of Taiwan's 'advantages' was the knowledge that China could kill them all at any time, which made them willing to do projects that stable Western countries avoided because there wasn't enough of a future. Plus, Taiwan has avoided the kind of government steering of the economy that was used in Japan and South Korea, and so it has many small, nimble businesses rather than a few giants.

And it's not clear that Japan's industrial policy has helped it for the last couple of decades.

So, I don't think your characterization of the Asian Tigers as proving the necessity of manufacturing was adequate even as a description of a few isolated past examples, much less as a path for a world-leader such as the US going into the future.

let's try this from our asiduous competitors who now have the single-handed power to tank the value of our currency---
Senior Advisors Stress Importance of Manufacturing



Members of the advisory Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee attending its annual session have stressed the importance of manufacturing to the economy.

"Some people thought that equipment manufacturing is no longer relevant in the information age. But the fact is, no technology, even in the age of the knowledge economy, could exist and develop without the equipment manufacturing industry," said CPPCC National Committee member Zhu Gaofeng, deputy president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

In his view, the Chinese economy, now halfway through its industrialization, will be mainly driven by the manufacturing sector in a quite long time to come.

His view finds support in the fact that industrial added value now accounts for over 40 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP), and usually outpaces the GDP growth by two or three percentage points.

Another CPPCC member, economist Li Jingwen, expressed concern over the status quo in the equipment-manufacturing sector.

He warned that the international competitiveness of China's manufacturing sector has declined sharply over recent years.

He noted that 68 percent of the equipment needed for China's fixed asset investment was imported, 95 percent of the market shares for wireless phones were taken by foreign companies, and most of the high-precision numerically controlled machine tools were imported. Chinese manufacturers have lost two thirds of the domestic market for equipment to foreign firms, he said.

Li said China should seize the chance of global re-division of work to upgrade its manufacturing industry.

A third CPPCC member Xu Xingchu said in developing the manufacturing sector, China should embrace technical innovations, encourage major enterprises to set up their own research and development centers, and promote cooperation between research and industry departments.

With policy and financial support from the government, China may build itself into a world-class manufacturing center in 10 to 15 years, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2002)

link : www.china.org.cn/english/archiveen/28533.htm

Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and gave them his blessing. Over the next twenty years, he gradually came to believe that he had been terribly wrong, that he had denied the very foundations of his faith by lending moral and religious support to the bombing. Zabelka, who died in 1992, gave this speech on the 40th anniversary of the bombings.
The destruction of civilians in war was always forbidden by the Church, and if a soldier came to me and asked if he could put a bullet through a child’s head, I would have told him, absolutely not. That would be mortally sinful. But in 1945 Tinian Island was the largest airfield in the world. Three planes a minute could take off from it around the clock. Many of these planes went to Japan with the express purpose of killing not one child or one civilian but of slaughtering hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of children and civilians – and I said nothing.
As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan.
I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to the men who were doing it. I was brainwashed! It never entered my mind to protest publicly the consequences of these massive air raids. I was told it was necessary – told openly by the military and told implicitly by my Church’s leadership. (To the best of my knowledge no American cardinals or bishops were opposing these mass air raids. Silence in such matters is a stamp of approval.)
I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights struggle in Flint, Michigan. His example and his words of nonviolent action, choosing love instead of hate, truth instead of lies, and nonviolence instead of violence stirred me deeply. This brought me face to face with pacifism – active nonviolent resistance to evil. I recall his words after he was jailed in Montgomery, and this blew my mind. He said, “Blood may flow in the streets of Montgomery before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood that flows, and not that of the white man. We must not harm a single hair on the head of our white brothers.”
I struggled. I argued. But yes, there it was in the Sermon on the Mount, very clear: “Love your enemies. Return good for evil.” I went through a crisis of faith. Either accept what Christ said, as unpassable and silly as it may seem, or deny him completely.
For the last 1700 years the Church has not only been making war respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have been brainwashed. This is a lie.
War is now, always has been, and always will be bad, bad news. I was there. I saw real war. Those who have seen real war will bear me out. I assure you, it is not of Christ. It is not Christ’s way. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. There is no way to train people for real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.
The morality of the balance of terrorism is a morality that Christ never taught. The ethics of mass butchery cannot be found in the teachings of Jesus. In Just War ethics, Jesus Christ, who is supposed to be all in the Christian life, is irrelevant. He might as well never have existed. In Just War ethics, no appeal is made to him or his teaching, because no appeal can be made to him or his teaching, for neither he nor his teaching gives standards for Christians to follow in order to determine what level of slaughter is acceptable.
So the world is watching today. Ethical hairsplitting over the morality of various types of instruments and structures of mass slaughter is not what the world needs from the Church, although it is what the world has come to expect from the followers of Christ. What the world needs is a grouping of Christians that will stand up and pay up with Jesus Christ. What the world needs is Christians who, in language that the simplest soul could understand, will proclaim: the follower of Christ cannot participate in mass slaughter. He or she must love as Christ loved, live as Christ lived, and, if necessary, die as Christ died, loving ones enemies.
For the 300 years immediately following Jesus’ resurrection, the Church universally saw Christ and his teaching as nonviolent. Remember that the Church taught this ethic in the face of at least three serious attempts by the state to liquidate her. It was subject to horrendous and ongoing torture and death. If ever there was an occasion for justified retaliation and defensive slaughter, whether in form of a just war or a just revolution, this was it. The economic and political elite of the Roman state and their military had turned the citizens of the state against Christians and were embarked on a murderous public policy of exterminating the Christian community.
Yet the Church, in the face of the heinous crimes committed against her members, insisted without reservation that when Christ disarmed Peter he disarmed all Christians.
Christians continued to believe that Christ was, to use the words of an ancient liturgy, their fortress, their refuge, and their strength, and that if Christ was all they needed for security and defense, then Christ was all they should have. Indeed, this was a new security ethic. Christians understood that if they would only follow Christ and his teaching, they couldn’t fail. When opportunities were given for Christians to appease the state by joining the fighting Roman army, these opportunities were rejected, because the early Church saw a complete and an obvious incompatibility between loving as Christ loved and killing. It was Christ, not Mars, who gave security and peace.
Today the world is on the brink of ruin because the Church refuses to be the Church, because we Christians have been deceiving ourselves and the non-Christian world about the truth of Christ. There is no way to follow Christ, to love as Christ loved, and simultaneously to kill other people. It is a lie to say that the spirit that moves the trigger of a flamethrower is the Holy Spirit. It is a lie to say that learning to kill is learning to be Christ-like. It is a lie to say that learning to drive a bayonet into the heart of another is motivated from having put on the mind of Christ. Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.
Now, brothers and sisters, on the anniversary of this terrible atrocity carried out by Christians, I must be the first to say that I made a terrible mistake. I was had by the father of lies. I participated in the big ecumenical lie of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches. I wore the uniform. I was part of the system. When I said Mass over there I put on those beautiful vestments over my uniform. (When Father Dave Becker left the Trident submarine base in 1982 and resigned as Catholic chaplain there, he said, “Every time I went to Mass in my uniform and put the vestments on over my uniform, I couldn’t help but think of the words of Christ applying to me: Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”)
As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang “Praise the Lord” and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar.
All I can say today is that I was wrong. Christ would not be the instrument to unleash such horror on his people. Therefore no follower of Christ can legitimately unleash the horror of war on God’s people. Excuses and self-justifying explanations are without merit. All I can say is: I was wrong! But, if this is all I can say, this I must do, feeble as it is. For to do otherwise would be to bypass the first and absolutely essential step in the process of repentance and reconciliation: admission of error, admission of guilt.
There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.
I was there, and I was wrong. Yes, war is Hell, and Christ did not come to justify the creation of Hell on earth by his disciples. The justification of war may be compatible with some religions and philosophies, but it is not compatible with the nonviolent teaching of Jesus. I was wrong. And to those of whatever nationality or religion who have been hurt because I fell under the influence of the father of lies, I say with my whole heart and soul I am sorry. I beg forgiveness.
I asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas (the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings) in Japan last year, in a pilgrimage that I made with a group from Tokyo to Hiroshima. I fell on my face there at the peace shrine after offering flowers, and I prayed for forgiveness – for myself, for my country, for my Church. Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This year in Toronto, I again asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas present. I asked forgiveness, and they asked forgiveness for Pearl Harbor and some of the horrible deeds of the Japanese military, and there were some, and I knew of them. We embraced. We cried. Tears flowed. That is the first step of reconciliation – admission of guilt and forgiveness. Pray to God that others will find this way to peace.
All religions have taught brotherhood. All people want peace. It is only the governments and war departments that promote war and slaughter. So today again I call upon people to make their voices heard. We can no longer just leave this to our leaders, both political and religious. They will move when we make them move. They represent us. Let us tell them that they must think and act for the safety and security of all the people in our world, not just for the safety and security of one country. All countries are interdependent. We all need one another. It is no longer possible for individual countries to think only of themselves. We can all live together as brothers and sisters or we are doomed to die together as fools in a world holocaust.
Each one of us becomes responsible for the crime of war by cooperating in its preparation and in its execution. This includes the military. This includes the making of weapons. And it includes paying for the weapons. There’s no question about that. We’ve got to realize we all become responsible. Silence, doing nothing, can be one of the greatest sins.
The bombing of Nagasaki means even more to me than the bombing of Hiroshima. By August 9, 1945, we knew what that bomb would do, but we still dropped it. We knew that agonies and sufferings would ensue, and we also knew – at least our leaders knew – that it was not necessary. The Japanese were already defeated. They were already suing for peace. But we insisted on unconditional surrender, and this is even against the Just War theory. Once the enemy is defeated, once the enemy is not able to hurt you, you must make peace.
Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.
As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan. I knew that St. Francis Xavier, centuries before, had brought the Catholic faith to Japan. I knew that schools, churches, and religious orders were annihilated. And yet I said nothing.
Thank God that I’m able to stand here today and speak out against war, all war. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke out against all false gods of gold, silver, and metal. Today we are worshipping the gods of metal, the bomb. We are putting our trust in physical power, militarism, and nationalism. The bomb, not God, is our security and our strength. The prophets of the Old Testament said simply: Do not put your trust in chariots and weapons, but put your trust in God. Their message was simple, and so is mine.
We must all become prophets. I really mean that. We must all do something for peace. We must stop this insanity of worshipping the gods of metal. We must take a stand against evil and idolatry. This is our destiny at the most critical time of human history. But it’s also the greatest opportunity ever offered to any group of people in the history of our world – to save our world from complete annihilation.
August 17, 2005

One could write a pretty good economics textbook by just going through the various Chinese Communist Party 5 year plans. Every mistake that one could imagine, the Chinese have tried. In one cycle, they tried to increase output by rewarding state-owned enterprises for the volume of 'production' (they couldn't use the value of production, since that would require markets). The result, of course, was that the companies turned out huge amounts of low-quality goods that no one wanted but that counted in the current formula as output. I've forgotten the rest of the list, but they've been reinventing the wheel for a couple of decades or more.

China is hardly a world leader, except perhaps in the rate that it has been catching up with other countries. And it had a natural advantage at catching up, since it was so very, very far behind. What lessons does that have for developed countries?

(1)Friedrich List asserted in the 1820‘s, this productive capacity is at the root of nationalpower:The causes of wealth are something totally different from wealth itself. A person may possess wealth, i.e. exchangeable value; if, however, he does not possess thepower of producing objects of more value than he consumes, he will becomepoorer. A person may be poor; if he, however, possesses the power of producing a larger amount of valuable articles than he consumes, he becomes rich. The power of producing wealth is therefore infinitely more important than wealth itself…

and:(2)Some have said that other industries, such as financial services and trade will replace manufacturing in the future. An examination of the economic sectors refutes this argument. There are only four economic sectors that generate material wealth: agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and construction. Other sectors, such as services and trade, redistribute this wealth, and are built on the products created by the wealth generators. Of the four wealth-creating sectors, manufacturing plays a unique role because, unlike agriculture and mining, it is not directly limited by natural resources and, unlike construction, most manufacturing products are easily transferable across national and international borders. As a result, manufacturing is and will continue to be the fundamental base for the economic health and security of the United States.
(1) credit to Jon Rynn CUNY Ph.D. candidate thesis
(2) esd.mit.edu/WPS/wp-2003-06.pdf

Interesting comments Mark:

I might, however, say, that you might be taking List's comment a bit too literally. It is probably true that 200 years ago, the main value adding activity in economies was manufacturing/agriculture/etc.... This doesn't necsessarily hold today.

Take for example "Google". I would argue that the programmers and entrepeneurs at google have created something of tremendous value.

They have built a service (not in any way related to manufacturing) that massively reduces the cost for gathering information. Are the skills and abilities necessary to build a "Google" value producing for the economy? Or put another away does "Google" increase the output of our economy and therefore do the men and the women who work their have a value-adding skill? I do not think it bold to say that this is true.

I don't think anyone would claim that manufacturing is not a value-adding activity, it just seems clear to me in an economy as complex as ours there are lots of other things that add value.

Further, as the world economy develops, why is it such a strange concept that some nations will specialize in manufacturing (if that is where there comparative advantage lies) and some countries will specializae in other value adding services, all of which are valuable to the global economy?

The Chinese are good at many things, but I would not think that providing advice to more advanced economies is one of them. Before any ad-hominem/racist labels are attached to me I would like to point out that I am 3/4 Chinese and 1/4 Korean.

I think it was Paul Krugman (back before Bush Derangement Syndrome drove him insane) who pointed out that the most "value-added" industry in the United States was not manufacturing or high-tech but growing tobacco.

Enlist the good readers to help the bad readers.

lanny,

GOOG is a good example of a company, as you accurately describe, that has reduced many inefficiencies and thereby has created significant value by providing that service.
I will say, though, that the Economy with Google will not necessarily produce "more", but will produce more efficiently, or increase its productivity--lowering costs of production.
That is a great bounty of the Web, it's ability, when intelligently applied, to reduce Assymetrical information situations. In other words, allow for more complete dessemination of market information to more players in the marketplace.

Now, we see that Services do indeed have value. But, to whom? Back to List : A person may possess wealth, i.e. exchangeable value; if, however, he does not possess the power of producing objects of more value than he consumes, he will become poorer. And, the boys @ MIT : There are only four economic sectors that generate material wealth: agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and construction. Other sectors, such as services and trade, redistribute this wealth, and are built on the products created by the wealth generators.

If I am the a fellow in the first condition List describes, I can gladly use Google to expedite my self-discovery all day long and be all the happier for it. Though, the grand majority of us are in that second condition he sets forth, having to produce objects(these surely can be meta-objects) of more value than we consume. Again, Google can aid us in these endeavors, there again producing value.

Let's try this: A=L+E( accounting balance sheet equation ), everyday we began with a big L(liability) and we endeavor to produce enough A(assets) to wind up +E(equity) over a given interval-- the inputs we require are obvious, and account for the L, de minimus.

Information services (meta-objects) of any kind, be they Search engines, Data mining algorithms, or Insurance products, are servants to the distribution of goods that sustain are corporeal selves(true Demand).

Let's step into Microsoft's shoes and export our "thinking"--Services to China...works well?

Let's 1st World the Bangladeshi people by exporting Google to them...not so much, right?

I'll try to wrap this up--Manufacturing, largest value-add link in the Economy's chain, notwithstanding, is the key to self-sufficiency for an advanced society. Without it, we become dependent on others who might not know our name or care for our thinking, let alone, the color of our Greenbacks.
The idea that we are in a new paradigm of tranquil Globe with unlimited resources is a bridge to far, much like St. Petersberg was too far from Paris.
It's my hope you can stitch this together, I'll try to be more succinct/ coherent, later )

"I'll try to wrap this up--Manufacturing, largest value-add link in the Economy's chain, notwithstanding, is the key to self-sufficiency for an advanced society."

Why would self-sufficiency be a goal for an advanced society (or any society)? (Enter David Ricardo...)

Mark:

Fundamentally I don't disagree with List's argument, but I don't think that changes the fact that a non-manufacturing economy can be wealthy.

After all, the folks at Google are producing a value-adding service, it just is an information service. And in fact those folks seem to be growing wealthier all the time.

It is certainly true that we endeavour to produce enough assets, to pay for our liabilities and save equity. But why do these assets have to be physical? After all, if I can produce a non-material asset that my employer is willing to pay me for, I am still becoming wealther.

Also, I am a bit curious as to your characterization of the economics taught at MIT.

I attended MIT as an undergraduate and studied economics (I graduated in 2000) and it was certainly never taught to me that a return to heavy manufacturing was the key to a productive economy. Or some sort of industrial/economic policy that favored a return to manufacturing. Or that the only assets that counted were physical.

We were never taught that there are only 4 economic sectors that produce material wealth for the economy. In fact, given that MIT has such a scientific and research focus it seems an unlikely place for such a theory to flourish.

I'd actually agree with a lot of the original post, but on free trade, Jane writes "the Bush administration has pushed the ag subsidies issue farther and faster than any previous president has dared."

Bush has talked a good talk lately albeit without results. What he actually did though was increase them 80% in 2002.

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030609&s=trb060903

So he has pushed the issue further than any previous president but in the wrong direction.

Tom

I normally agree with your opinions, but not today. I think you are way off on your first two topics.

Free trade: Bush is inspiring? He supported tariffs on steel, sugar, shrimp, lumber, and textiles. He supported farm subsidies including dairy and sugar (though he talked big about phasing them out). It's hard to be inspired by this.

Education: I agree that schools need to focus on basic skills, but your attitude "Drill and kill may be boring for affluent middle class kids, but frankly, I just don't care." sucks. First, drill and kill is one of the stupidest ways to educate people. Yes, some things need to be memorized and learned by rote. But, rote learning should be a single, lightly used teaching tool. Second, teachers already disregard the brightest kids and focus on the bottom third of the class. Disregarding the needs of the brightest kids means that two of our most precious resources--intelligence and creativity--are being underdeveloped. You should argue instead for tracking: put kids of similar abilities together so that the learning pace suits most of the students. Finally, the federal government should have no place in education. (We do still have a federal government, don't we?)

Foreign aid: I agree that Bush's approach has worked better than those of previous administrations.

Lanny,

I wasn't characterizing MIT writ large, I was referencing a paper written by two of the faculty @ MIT esd.mit.edu/WPS/wp-2003-06.pdf

Please read it, it isn't very long, quite succinct, and you'll see that they are most certainly not talking about "low-tech" manufacturing (neither was I, really)

And, Lanny, Google doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists, ultimately, to facilitate trade--trade facilitation Is it's Value-Add.

Also, can anyone one name a wealthy country lacking a manufacturing base? Japan, is the antithesis of that, few Natural Resources, major Manufacturing, Major wealth.

Mark,

I read the paper. The first thing to note is that the 2 authors are not economists, they are engineering professors. Although they have some interesting insights I don't believe that their economic conclusions are correct.

Below is a list of the 10 highest per capita income countries in the world today, and for some of them I found the share of services as a fraction of their GDP.

While not comprehensive, it certainly seems that many wealthy countries have much of their economy based on services.

#1 Luxembourg $37,499.20 per person
#2 Switzerland $36,987.60 per person
#3 Japan $35,474.10 per person
#4 Norway $35,053.30 per person
#5 United States $33,070.30 per person
#6 Denmark $30,191.50 per person
#7 Iceland $27,473.80 per person
#8 Sweden $25,105.50 per person
#9 United Kingdom $24,486.70 per person
#10 Austria $23,824.10 per person

GDP Composition - Services
#12 Luxembourg 82.9%
#25 Japan 73.3%
#71 Norway 61.2%
#22 Denmark 75.9%
#51 Iceland 64.2%
#32 Austria 70.9%

The following are the countries with the highest percentage of their economies represented by industry. Aside from the obvious oil producing states, which derive their wealth from natural resources and not their industrial capacity, these all seem like very poor nations.

GDP Composition - Industry
(Top 10 Countries in the world)
#1 Qatar 70.8%
#2 Angola 67%
#3 Equatorial Guinea 60%
#4 Kuwait 59.5%
#5 Saudi Arabia 58.8%
#6 Algeria 56.5%
#7 Congo, Republic of the 53.9%
#8 Gabon 48.8%
#9 Botswana 48.7%
#10 Libya 46.1%

All of the information is from www.nationmaster.com

lannychiu,

Notice that each one of the other countries in that top ten list have a more extensive social safety net than the U.S. And while I can't swear to it I consider it a good possibility that none of them have the level of income inequality that the U.S. has that makes per capita income a questionable measure.

I'll agree that Bush has done some good things. But you know the first thing that pops into my mind when I think of this administration? We're nine trillion dollars in debt! Nine Trillion? I'm an independent voter who can't get excited about either the Democrats whose leadership is so rife with hypocrisy, or the Republicans who have perfected the dual arts of spin and corruption. However, aren't Republicans supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility? What happened there?

Mark E Hoffer, nobody elected the WTO, but so what? If you hadn't noticed, the WTO is a organization where the folks you elect meet (or send representatives to meet) with their counterparts from other countries. I'm not clear why you think this is a bad thing.

A perfect blog as we go into the Passover Easter weekend reflecting, as it does, the blessings of reflecting on meaning outside of survival, however fortunate. When you do this hence, you may give us what was the right answer on Iran, whose utter contempt for limiting it's authority to a 'defined territory,' e.g. the U.S. embassy takeover, bombing a Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, the fatwa on Rushdie and killing of people who were at a hotel he had been at, prophesies death, if it possesses nuclear arms, to make 9-11 look little.

meh: the fundamental premise is wrong, as we are only talking about creating something. agriculture is the creation of food, manufacturing the creation of jobs, mining the creation of minerals, construction the creation of structures. For a material culture, material is all that is really useful to people's lives. When we are so far beyond actual needs and focusing on desires/ self actualisation in Maslow's hierarchy, the creation of meta objects is much more important.

There are very, very many examples of where pure ideas make people better off. A great example is in proper sanitation methods: all you really need to do is to teach appropriate behaviours and you can greatly improve the health and life expectancy of a population. You can create great material well-being simply through teaching, a pure service

So developed countries dont produce material objects... we're focusing on meta-objects, which you touch slightly, and are greatly improving our well being simply by coming up with them. Our current situation requires that all manufacturing occur on the planet, but there is no tie between success/wealth and the actual location of manufacturing activities. Farming areas and milltowns were not the real rich parts of 1800s america, nor were the oil producing parts of pennsylvania in the early 1900s or the manufacturing cities of the 60s. Executive neighbourhoods, suburbs, cities were where the actual wealth and goodlife was. So we're now at a point where we can have executive countries, and at some point we'll likely have executive planets and solar systems. This kind of analysis is only true in terms of autarky, and even then it is trite.

hey, lanny,

Thanks for the posts~ it's no wonder ceateris paribus is so beloved by economists, these multi-varible discussuions are unwieldly, at best.

I'm not sure what it is I don't understand, but this: "For a material culture, material is all that is really useful to people's lives. When we are so far beyond actual needs and focusing on desires/ self actualisation in Maslow's hierarchy, the creation of meta objects is much more important.", strikes me as curious.

What about the timeline of human development don't we remember? Pre-Oog, when we were still travelling in packs, hoping to stumble across a watering hole during our search for the next ripening crop or migrating herd, meta-objects, in this case: memory, were no less important to our development, nay, survival. They have always been so since, Agriculture started with nothing more than the "memory" of "that grass grows pretty well, and that animal who's not very likely to kill me, will eat it." It is the Physical abundance created by our application of "meta-objects/memory/technology" in/on our environment that allowed Man the ability to break the grisly bonds of mere subsistence.

we can chicken/egg this point in development all we want, but the Fact of the matter is that it is Physical surplus that frees our minds to free our bodies---the cycle begins with things produced by doing.

As far as Autarky is concerned, that's not my point in the least. Trade Rules! , we just don't need trade rules, the Market really will figure it out( if we can still find one ).

Supply in order to demand is a given, otherwise, demand (legitimate) stops, then, shortly, so will you.

Someone was asking " why would we want to be self-sufficient? "-----what's the alternative??

Are we going to Bully the world into submission by withholding MSFT products? Or, maybe we can rely on the kindness of strangers? Here's a clue: that wasn't the idea(meta-object) that took us from trodding the Savanna to driving Savana(s) .

All this talk about service vs manufacturing beside the point. The problem isn't that we're losing manufacturing jobs, it's that we're also losing service jobs!

For this discussion, there are two kinds of services: exportable and non-exportable. Exportable services are ones you can readily perform in one country for someone in another country, such as taking telephone calls and computer programming[1]. Non-exportable services are ones where you and your customer have to be in physical proximity, such as restaurants and auto mechanics. India and other foreign countries have grabbed most of our low and medium skill exportable service jobs and are now going after the high-skilled ones. At the high-end, Microsoft has a huge programming center in India; I hear they are facing problems with getting the Indians to understand what American computer users expect software to do, but there are ways you can work around those issues if you get enough people working on them - and when Indians start buying software, their own programmers will have the cultural advantage. At the middle, if you call for tech support on your computer you will almost certainly be talking to someone in India. At the low end, if you get a sales call it is likely to be from India, and if you go through the drive through lane at McDonalds the order taker might be in India. India's advantage is more than low wages; you know what sort of morons, slobs, and children work for McDonalds here, but that Indian order taker is someone with a three-digit IQ that went to school to work on his accent and beat dozens of others out for what is a high-paid job with great working conditions by local standards, and he's going to be very polite to the customers in order to keep that job.

Then there are the non-exportable service jobs. Some of them are pretty well paid. The problem is, auto mechanics and plumbers cannot make a living just by fixing each others' cars and pipes. There's got to be money coming in to pay for everything else they need. If the USA is going to live off of services, we've got to perform services for foreigners so we can pay for the goods we import from them, as well as the foreign services we consume. It's not very often that someone will have their car towed across a border to get to a better repair shop.

The only non-exportable service jobs I can think of that bring in foreign exchange are in tourism - casinos, resorts, motels, restaurants, etc. I grew up in a town that lived off of tourism, and I know very well that these are lousy jobs. I do not want my grandchildren growing up in a country that lives off of tourism.

Of course, there is a hopeful side to this: we can only sink so low before India starts sending their worst exportable service jobs or manufacturing jobs here...

[1] Is computer programming a service job? It depends. When the software will be sold as a product, this could be considered manufacturing, but there are far more programming jobs in writing and customizing databases and applications for particular customers, and that's certainly a service job.

"But 100 years from now, it's possible that the Millenium Challenge will rank higher in historical memory than a minor war in the Middle East."

A $235 million aid program rank higher than a $500 billion war? Are you as corny as Kansas in August, Jane? I think you are, because you sound like a cock-eyed optimist to me.

"A $235 million aid program rank higher than a $500 billion war?"

The costs will be sunk costs by then. History is more likely to judge the two by their benefits. Of course, the aim of both ultimately is similar - to give poor and oppressed people around the world a chance to build better lives for themselves.

Mark E Hoffer,
Can you provide a link that says that BLS counts burger flippers as manufacturing jobs?
As far as I know, this meme came about with a question in a report to demonstrate how fuzzy the concept of manufacturing is. It did not offer an answer and did not say that they were henceforth counting them as such.
Maybe they eventually did conclude it was and did start counting them, but I did not hear of it.

Free trade: Bush is inspiring? He supported tariffs on steel, sugar, shrimp, lumber, and textiles. He supported farm subsidies including dairy and sugar (though he talked big about phasing them out). It's hard to be inspired by this.

Newsflash for you. Every President has supported some mixture of trade protectionism and liberalization oftentimes because it is part of the political horse trading necessary to get the votes for trade agreements and acts as a stick to get other nation?s to lower their trade barriers. Clinton did it initially when he took office when his commerce department signed on steel tariffs (which were actually higher than the ones Bush 43 agreed to) and got the votes for GATT and NAFTA. Later on when he refused to renew them, he (shocking) didn?t have the votes to renew trade promotion authority which stalled later attempts to expand trade liberalization. Bush 43 apparently learned from that mistake and agreed to steel tariffs (which as Jane pointed out seemed to be set up to be knocked down by the WTO) and got TPA renewed by a whopping one-vote margin and enabled us to negotiate several trade agreements.

As far as farm subsidies go, while many remember Freedom to Farm, what people who aren?t in the business forget (disclaimer: I was an agricultural economics major at the time it was drafted and one of my professors served as an advisor to the Senate Ag Committee) is that it phased them out with deficiency payments which were much higher than the original subsidies. In addition when the Midwest was hit by a drought and farms were hard hit, Congress and the President (who BTW promised to ?fix? Freedom to Farm within about a week of signing it) appropriated supplemental ?emergency? relief that ended up more than replacing the original subsidies. Bottom line: while eliminating farm subsidies is a good thing, by not holding fast and instead granting deficiency payments and emergency relief was that farms became more subsidized than before.

The other elephant in the room is his dismal economic showing. Most americans aren't feeling the effects of the recovery, and the number of jobs created compared to other recoveries, is just horrible.

On paper, the economy looks like it is doing great. Anecdotally, it also seems to be doing great in my case -- I'm a software engineer, and this last year has been the first time since 1999 that all of my friends in the industry have jobs. We're even having trouble finding good hires here, because things have picked up so much.

It may be that there are people out there who are truly experiencing a "jobless recovery". But none of my friends and family are in that category. We're all doing great, and judging from the economic numbers we're hardly alone in that.

A $235 million aid program rank higher than a $500 billion war?

It doesn't seem likely that the Iraq war will particularly stick out in the American consciousness. It is having virtually no impact on the lives of average Americans. Even the cost, while high, is trivial (as a percentage of GDP) compared to earlier wars.

It seems especially unlikely that future generations will care much about the war. The only wars that have really lasted in the American consciousness past the generation that fought them were the Revolutionary and Civil wars and World War Two. Few people born post-baby-boom give a rat's ass about Vietnam, and I find it highly unlikely that my kids will care about some trivial skirmish in Iraq that killed fewer Americans than a few months' worth of traffic accidents.

Nobody reports in the newspaper when a dog bites a man, except if it's a particularly vicious bite, perhaps.

By the same token, nobody remembers all those wars we won, except it they were particularly momentous.

However, when a man bites a dog, it makes the papers. By the same token, when the greatest military power in history loses a war, I think it's probably going to stick around in the consciousness.

The MSM is a political player and "plays" the news accordingly. It is surprising how many people--even people commenting here--repeat MSM truisms word for word, like myna birds. How tiresome.

The MSM is a liar of a particular type. To see the truth you have to know what motivates its lies. Don't regurgitate the garbage and expect people to admire you for it, you know who.

I believe it is time to coin a new phrase: "Trade protectionism is like nostalgia and sex; every generation thinks they're discovering it for the first time."

Meanwhile, well of course the Chinese technocrats want to maintain a manufacutring economy for a while: much of their population hasn't seen the good of it yet, and still lives at or near subsistence-level agriculture. Low-skill manufacturing labor is the next occupation available for a subsistence farmer, and the second or third generation will be desiring and prepared for skilled labor. If the Chinese cannot sustain a reputation as a manufacturing powerhouse for a while to come, it will be very difficult to get the other half of 1.3 billion people on the road to economic glory, ever.

Meanwhile nearby India has an economy that hasn't quite discovered its potential but would be capable of directly competing against Chinese industry on a manpower basis.

The decline in manufacturing has been inevitable for years now. How long does the average big-ticket consumer product last these days? My fridge was 10 years old before it died - the one I replaced it with stands a good chance at working for much longer than that. Materials technology means that the things we buy are going to last far longer than the old steel stuff our parents bought. We don't need the kind of large-scale manufacturing that we had in the 1950s because the technology has advanced to the point where manufactured goods last two to three times longer.

Less demand means less need for capacity.

Add to that the fact that the labo(u)r unions have ensured that the manufacturing sector is one of the most inflexible sectors of our economy and is it any wonder that the non-unionized auto plants in the South are eating the lunch of the GM plants in the Rust Belt?

Mark E Hoffer wrote--

" Without it, we become dependent on others who might not know our name or care for our thinking, let alone, the color of our Greenbacks."

Obviously Mark, You have never read or understood Hayek. This is exactly how the world really works. The Guy who " might not know our name or care for our thinking, let alone, the color of our Greenbacks" Can Manufacture all the stuff he wants as cheap or as expensive as he wants BUT if WE don't want to buy it what is he going to do with it? Your complete ignorance of the self regualting negitive feedback of the market allows you to make the ill concieved statements that you have above.

My company designs and sells very expensive high tech devices that use computers as peripherals. We design them in the US and sell them world wide for Dollars. We have them manufactured in Taiwan for about 10% of what it would cost to have them manufactured in the states and about 1% of what it would cost to manufacture them in house.

Although all our manufacturing and most of the components of our products are made off shore (not all, some high value parts are made in the US) the greatest value of the product is what it does and how it does it. ALL of that value was created by us in the U.S. using only our minds and typing on keyboards and fiddling with the mouse or trackpad. We are net Exporters even though 70% of the physical value (not the total value) of our products are imported.

With the exception of one person, I have never met any of the people I do business with in Taiwan.
"Without it, we become dependent on others who might not know our name or care for our thinking, let alone, the color of our Greenbacks."

And that is just the point, the only thing they care about is the the color of your Greenbacks and how many you are willing to give them for the junk (in their minds) you want them to make for you.

The following is an actual response I received from a manufacturer of controls in Taiwan.

noted your urgency, so we sincerely submit the best offer as following and attach spec. drawing for your further confirmation.   In our record we have been kept in contact since Y2005, so we do hope to have chance to cooperate w/ your company and even receive good news from you in Y2006.

 

-p/n. 9M2HB-B-15F-A10K-16Y

* spec.: with NUT and Washer; range : -40dB ~0dB +/-3dB

-u/p: US$0.45/pc

-term: Ex-work HK

-MOQ: 1K pcs / lot

-payment: by T/T in advance

-L/T: 3-4 weeks after receipt of payment and proof sample aprpoved

*validity for above offer is in 2 weeks after quote.

-sample: 2~3 pcs; in 10 days after receipt of request, but please advice the courier account for sample delivery.

 

Look forward to receiving new order from you.

 

This same part would cost 2 to 3 dollars made in the US, would perform no better and if not a stock part, would take 12 to 16 weeks to have made and the minimum order would probably be 10K peices.

If it were not for this ability to have my manufacturing done by hungry people eager to please and compete for my business I would not be able to add the true value I add to the products they build for me. I take advantage of the billions of dollars, others I do not know have, invested in plant and equipment required to manufacture the physical part of my products for pennies. If I don't need something manufactured this week or month it costs me nothing for the plant and equipment or employees that would be standing idle.

I suggest that you Mark, take up another line of discussion as you know nothing of economics or manufacturing or value or how things really work for that matter.

thedaddy

Obviously Mark, You have never read or understood Hayek. This is exactly how the world really works. The Guy who " might not know our name or care for our thinking, let alone, the color of our Greenbacks" Can Manufacture all the stuff he wants as cheap or as expensive as he wants BUT if WE don't want to buy it what is he going to do with it? Your complete ignorance of the self regualting negitive feedback of the market allows you to make the ill concieved statements that you have above.

If it were not for this ability to have my manufacturing done by hungry people eager to please and compete for my business I would not be able to add the true value I add to the products they build for me.
////
Thanks for making my point~ now, tell me again what happens if you choose to call his "bluff"---"BUT if WE don't want to buy it what is he going to do with it?" That's right---"I would not be able to add the true value I add to the products they build for me."

Thanks again, for, you know, the lesson..

Mark--

Still Clueless.

My fridge was 10 years old before it died - the one I replaced it with stands a good chance at working for much longer than that. Materials technology means that the things we buy are going to last far longer than the old steel stuff our parents bought.

Bad choice of product categories. It was not uncommon for the mechanicals of a consumer refrigerator or freezer from the 1960s or 1970s to last 20 or 30 years, so long as the interior liner wasn't chipped (if it was, then of course it was rapidly destroyed by rust). Some of them are still running today at 30y+.

By contrast, most modern consumer refrigeration appliances are nowhere near so reliable mechanically, even if the use of modern plastics has made the interiors marginally more durable.

Thanks for making my point~ now, tell me again what happens if you choose to call his "bluff"---"BUT if WE don't want to buy it what is he going to do with it?" That's right---"I would not be able to add the true value I add to the products they build for me."

Thanks again, for, you know, the lesson..

What lesson would that be, Mark? That you really and truly do not understand the dynamics of your sermon topic?

There is no "bluff" to be called here. The vendor very likely has hundreds, if not thousands, of simultaneous customers for that part; there is no incentive for the vendor to whithold from anyone willing to buy, nor will he dry up and die if one customer goes elsewhere. He MUST make his money on volume, not margins.

And even if he were to with-hold sales for purposes of spite or whatever, the competing shop down the street and the Chinese vendor across the pond will both be happy to undercut his sales.

Concomitantly, if all low-cost labor WERE to somehow dry up simultaneously, what is the alternative local option? If it cannot be obtained economically in the States, then either the company will find it is no longer economical to produce this product, or they will make it in far lower volumes, at higher prices, with thinner profit margins. Very probably, the "regained" jobs in manufacturing will be offset equally or more by losses in the R&D sector and elsewhere in the economy collective where said produce would have been beneficial, as well as a lower standard of living for all parties involved.

Wow...that's some impressive plan for manufacturing trade security. A shame you cannot see both sides of the coin, but whatever the case, count me out of your grand and ill-conceived plans.

"As far as Autarky is concerned, that's not my point in the least. Trade Rules! , we just don't need trade rules, the Market really will figure it out( if we can still find one )."

Supply in order to demand is a given, otherwise, demand (legitimate) stops, then, shortly, so will you."

+Someone was asking " why would we want to be self-sufficient? "-----what's the alternative??"

The whole point that I've been trying to communicate is that We-the U.S. Economy- cannot, ad infinitum, continue to demand more than we supply into a "free economic system" and expect no ill change.

Demand, in and of itself, is useless, unless you're into coercion, and it isn't met without consideration exchanged.

This website has been a good lesson in the power of MSM-- and, on that point--"Can you provide a link that says that BLS counts burger flippers as manufacturing jobs?"-- the idea started with a report by Mankiw in early '04, I haven't yet been able to ascertain whether or not that proposed change has been instituted. Sorry for my oversight, on that one.

It is true that others will not provide products to the US if we cannot provide something of value in return. However services are actually of value. They do not just move other value around. I work for a software company, as I understand it you consider that a service. Our company also sells what is more clearly services. We sell our products and services around the word for US dollars. I am paid with those dollars. I can take them to Walmart and buy products from China or elsewhere.

Google provides a service. They are paid through advertising. Some part of that advertising is bought by companies outside the US. They pay for that service using dollars which we in turn can use to purchase manufactured products.

There are many examples of services we sell outside the US. We can use that income to purchase manufactured items. How is it you act as though services are not "real"?

If we do run a deficit in the long term the value of the dollar will go down. Our exports will be cheaper and imports more expensive. We will adjust. However lots of dollars are coming back into the US in other ways than the purchase of our exports. Investments in US companies and real estate. Loans. Etc. There are limits on how far that can go, but again, if those inflows are reduced the dollar will fall and we will adjust.

None of this really has much to do with how much we manufacture. It has more to do with what we provide that others are willing to pay dollars for. That might be manufactured items, services, real estate, shares in companies, etc..

I consider software a capital good like a steel mill or an oil refinery.

Reding
What is the source of the competitive advantage of the non-Ford and non-GM plants of the south over the Ford and GM plants of the rust belt? Is it the absence of the AFL-CIO, UAW, and Teamsters? Or the absence of the Ford and GM management?
Is it the cheaper imported parts for the non-Ford and non-GM cars due to the strong dollar? Is it the cheaper imported engineering techonology for the non-Ford and non-GM cars?
We will find out when the dollar renormalizes, I suppose. It has risen and then fallen against the Euro and the Yen over the last few years, but the Ford and GM problems have gone on for on the order of two generations now.
This is a very important controversy. Why has no industrial economist written a book about it?

The alternative to being self-sufficient is to live like you (likely) do today. You're probably not a farmer; without the 'charity' of your grocer, you'd be dead in two weeks. But it's not charity at all, is it? He trades you food for money -- money that you obtain somewhere else, by producing goods *or services* for yet other people. You and I live in a complex, interdependent network of individuals, and we are bound by relationships that involve mutually beneficial exchange, rather than submission or charity.

It's true that in the long run, you can't spend more than you earn. But spending and earning are measured in units of value, and can involve services or goods. My daughter's preschool teacher produces no corporeal goods whatsoever, but she provides services that I value enough to pay her for.

To see the folly in national self-sufficiency, ask yourself: Could the USA be self-sufficient in bananas? Of course it could -- construct a series of massive heated greenhouses, plant seedlings of banana trees, simulate a tropical environment, and there you have it: domestically produced bananas. Sure, they'd be $5 per pound, but they're American made! No, far smarter to trade with the fine folks in Costa Rica, exchanging bananas for a host of US produced goods and services that are in demand there.

"As far as Autarky is concerned, that's not my point in the least. Trade Rules! , we just don't need trade rules, the Market really will figure it out( if we can still find one )."

Janegalt wrote: "Drill and kill may be boring for affluent middle class kids, but frankly, I just don't care. If they're bored, and they already know how to read, then let them read while you drill the other kids. Getting poor kids the basic skills they need to make a decent lives for themselves is more important than keeping rich snots like the child I was stimulated."

I think that it is in the interests of the non-rich and so-called non-snotty future adults that the privilleged, so-called "rich snots" get an education consumate with their abilities. Society requires a class of gifted people. Who should sit on a court bench, someone who just barely passed reading or someone who had a better time of it and exerted himself or herself to get the necessary qualifications? A lot of the so-called "snotty" rich kids (most of whom aren't rich) just won't make it with policies that either neglect them or create a bias against them. That in turn adversely affects the non-rich, less capable future adults, who in the longrun depend on people who are gifted. It's wrong to reduce this thing to a simple matter of "haves" and "have nots".

Also, I think you have an unwarranted presumption of innocence among the less-privileged. Being lower class is also often representative of anti-social behavior that is counterproductive to learning. (It doesn't have to be, but in America it is.) Not only are bad cultural habits not only counterproductive for their own learning but are also counterproductive for other's learning. Some of that anti-social behavior is known as "bullying." While bullying is not limited to non-rich kids, they seem to met out more than their fair share of it. No NCLB program can fix that.

I've lived in countries that have far fewer resources for education than America does, and some of those countries consistently turn out better educated people--even among the poorer, less priviledged classes. That's partly why I think the NCLB program is money ill spent.

We're talking about elementary school kids here. Sure, they have antisocial behaviours--that's the definition of childhood. I was an appalling little monster, and lazy to boot. That doesn't mean that society is entitled to write me off.

Jane Galt (JG): "We're talking about elementary school kids here. Sure, they have antisocial behaviours--that's the definition of childhood."

That you believe bullying in elementary school is not a problem is a matter of your own judgment, and I'll leave that up to you and your readers. I stand by my own judgment on the matter.

JG: "That doesn't mean that society is entitled to write me off."

Being opposed to NCLB doesn't mean one is willing to write off children who are poor.

This is a discussion of policy, which is inextricably linked to ethics. Rather than stigmatize those who seem to be privileged (which may mean their families happen to have better cultural habits) as "snotty" and "rich", praising their good behavior may set an example that the underprivilleged can aspire to.

Deprecating the better off, just because they are better off (even if you happen to be one of them) is counterproductive in that it is a clear signal to the underprivilleged that they need not consider or look up to those who on account of their better habits happen to be better off then they are.

"...the Bush administration has pushed the ag subsidies issue farther and faster than any previous president has dared."

How about actually cutting ag subsidies instead of "pushing the issue"? You congratulate the Bushies for establishing steel tariffs that the WTO would overturn. Shouldn't you critiicize them for proposing ag subsidies they knew other countries would refuse to accept?

The U.S. would benefit from unilaterally cutting its ag subsidies. Yet early in his Administration Bush praised subsidies for cattle ranchers on the grounds that "folks have got to eat," a sophistry of truly Reaganite sweep. In fact, the Administration has done plenty to increase ag subsidies in the U.S., and nothing to decrease them.

I was hoping for a thoughtful explanation when you said unfunded mandates are stregths, not weaknesses, of NCLB - but then you explained the other two items and didn't come back to explain that one. Oversight? As an educator, I just don't see how mandates without funding are good for anyone.

By the same token, when the greatest military power in history loses a war, I think it's probably going to stick around in the consciousness

I suppose. But we've already won the Iraq war -- quickly, easily, and decisively. What we're trying to do now is occupation and nation-building. We may very well suffer a complete defeat at that, but we've done so many times before and it never really sticks in the national consciousness for long.

"Drill and kill may be boring for affluent middle class kids, but frankly, I just don't care. If they're bored, and they already know how to read, then let them read while you drill the other kids. Getting poor kids the basic skills they need to make a decent lives for themselves is more important than keeping rich snots like the child I was stimulated."

This is the most horrible leftist thing I've read in a long time. You're saying the educational system should just abandon children with above average skills because they don't need to be made any better off. Basically a redistribution of educational benefits. Punishing children for being smart.

To support his position, according to the Tribune, Chocola referred to an article written by David Walker, a Clinton appointee who serves as Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Walker wrote that the government was on an “unsustainable path”.

Speaking to a British audience last month, Walker said that the U.S. is headed for a financial crisis unless it changes its course of racking up huge deficits, Reuters reported. Walker said some combination of reforming Social Security and Medicare spending, discretionary spending and possibly changes in tax policy would be required to get the deficits under control.

“I think it’s going to take 20-plus years before we are ultimately on a prudent and sustainable path,” Walker said, according to Reuters, partly because so many American consumers follow the government’s example. “Too many Americans are spending more than they take in and are running up debt at record rates.”

“Too many Americans are spending more than they take in and are running up debt at record rates.”

David Walker has to be one of the few honest men left in the Federal bureauacracy.

The Truth in Accounting Act, sponsored by Rep. Chris Chocola (R-Ind) and co-sponsored by Reps. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn) and Mark Kirk (R – Ill), would require the federal government to accurately report the nation’s unfunded long-term liabilities, including Social Security and Medicare, a debt that amounts to $43 trillion dollars, during the next 75 years.

At least Bush had the Spine to tell the American people that SocSec wasn't going to be viable over the long-run, to me, that's his greatest accomplishment to date. Next, he should tell the similiar about a larger problem, Medicare and Medicaid, that, together, are roughly 3x the black hole that SocSec is.

"Those areas may not be enough to rescue his presidency. But 100 years from now, it's possible that the Millenium Challenge will rank higher in historical memory than a minor war in the Middle East"

i wonder if this is said with a real sense of irony? after all, no one will remember the vietnam war 65 years from now either--right? or what follows as a consequence of what we have done or will do in the middle east in the name of "peace."

i wonder if this is said with a real sense of irony? after all, no one will remember the vietnam war 65 years from now either--right? or what follows as a consequence of what we have done or will do in the middle east in the name of "peace."

Same question, only facing your direction this time.

http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/index.cfm?pic=1
"Congested highways, overflowing sewers and corroding bridges are constant reminders of the looming crisis that jeopardizes our nation's prosperity and our quality of life. With new grades for the first time since 2001, our nation's infrastructure has shown little to no improvement since receiving a collective D+ in 2001, with some areas sliding toward failing grades. The American Society of Civil Engineers' 2005 Report Card for America's Infrastructure assessed the same 12 infrastructure categories as in 2001, and added three new categories. "

The report said $1.6 trillion should be spent over the next five years to alleviate potential problems with the nation’s infrastructure.

Note that this $1.6 T doesn't include the cost of the time and resources wasted....sitting in traffic, for one example....that this deficiency adds to the costs of doing business, here, in the U.S. of A. .

"meh: the fundamental premise is wrong, as we are only talking about creating something. agriculture is the creation of food, manufacturing the creation of jobs, mining the creation of minerals, construction the creation of structures. For a material culture, material is all that is really useful to people's lives. When we are so far beyond actual needs and focusing on desires/ self actualisation in Maslow's hierarchy, the creation of meta objects is much more important."

"When we are so far beyond actual needs and focusing on desires/ self actualisation in Maslow's hierarchy, the creation of meta objects is much more important."

Funny how that during that during the Web1.0 boom that many people were surprised that FDX and UPS("Ooo-old economy") were major beneficiaries...

Man may very well not live by Bread alone, but Amazon still hasn't figured out how to deliver Water over co-ax.....maybe there's a new AJAX script for that, anyone?

"Drill and kill may be boring for affluent middle class kids, but frankly, I just don't care. If they're bored, and they already know how to read, then let them read while you drill the other kids. Getting poor kids the basic skills they need to make a decent lives for themselves is more important than keeping rich snots like the child I was stimulated."

This is socialism applied to the classroom: everyone must be at the same level. It's ineffective in the market and it's ineffective in school. In school it also borders on child abuse.

Mark,

You don't need to say 100 times that manufacturing is important. Duh, everybody gets it. What you are refusing to entertain is that because of our wealth, manufacturing has been decreasing as a percentage of our economy for decades. No president, or industrial policy, or anything else is going to change that. Relentlessly crying chicken little because some asian guys can make cheaper lighters is stale.

cb,

What about "World's largest debtor" don't we understand?
"because of our wealth, manufacturing has been decreasing as a percentage of our economy for decades."--- this may pass for the conventional wisdom, but it's exactly backwards.
Manufacturing in this country peaked in the mid-60's, funny how our currency went pure fiat('71) shortly thereafter and the inflation-adjusted median wage has been nearly stagnant since then.
We can continue to delude ourselves about "how wealthy we are", but the fact is we are literally dependent on the kindness of strangers to fund our massive overconsumption v. our productivity.

The whole point of the Manufacturing v. Services discussion(at least from my POV) has been within the frame of "supporting our current standard of living".

The current mix of our economy isn't paying for itself over Any timeframe you'd care to think about and the imbalances keep growing.

No probs, just trying to the fill-out the picture.

Thanks for adding those two trees to my picture of the forest.

Dan -

By the same token, when the greatest military power in history loses a war, I think it's probably going to stick around in the consciousness

I was talking about Vietnam here.

We've already won the Iraq war -- quickly, easily, and decisively. What we're trying to do now is occupation and nation-building. We may very well suffer a complete defeat at that, but we've done so many times before and it never really sticks in the national consciousness for long.

We haven't already won the Iraq war today any more than we had already lost the Revolutionary War in December 1776. Just like the Brits in that conflict, we've won all the military battles, occupied the major cities and driven the opposition leadership from its headquarters. But the enemy is still in the field and retains fighting power.

Beyond supporting morale, I don't really understand this distinction in Iraq between the 'war' and the 'occupation.' It seems that either we're reserving "war" as a term for things we're good at, which is odd, or for big clashes between opposing armies, which means the word is obsolescent. I thought that "war" was before the fighting stopped and "occupation" was after.

Also, I may just be one of today's kids totally ignorant of history, but I can't think of any previous attempts at what you desecribe as "occupation and nation-building" that failed. I can think of very few attempts at all. Just a partial list of our "so many" failures would be enlightening.

"As an educator, I just don't see how mandates without funding are good for anyone. " Posted by Emily

NCLB is about making educators teach what they are ALREADY paid to teach. That is the problem. The core education is being ignored and teachers complain that they actually have to be accountable.
NCLB is about schools doing what they are already supposed to do.

hi anony-mouse,
"Same question, only facing your direction this time."

sorry, mate. you're too deep for me to follow...

I was talking about Vietnam here.

Ah, my mistake.

I don't think the Vietnam War has "stuck in American consciousness". It is stuck in the consciousness of older Baby Boomers, but it doesn't matter much to people under 40. In another 75 years Vietnam will be no more important to Americans than the Spanish-American war is today.

We haven't already won the Iraq war today any more than we had already lost the Revolutionary War in December 1776

Last I checked Saddam Hussein wasn't ruling Iraq and the Iraqi army had been completely destroyed. So yes, we won the war. Mission accomplished.

But the enemy is still in the field and retains fighting power.

*An* enemy is in the field. But we're not fighting the people who used to run Iraq. The enemy we're fighting now is primarily targeting Iraqis themselves; we're basically assisting one side in a low-key civil war.

I thought that "war" was before the fighting stopped and "occupation" was after

Well, you were mistaken. The term "occupation" refers to just that -- military occupation of a territory by a foreign force. It may or may not involve continued fighting. A case in point of a post-war occupation that features regular fighting is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

Also, I may just be one of today's kids totally ignorant of history, but I can't think of any previous attempts at what you desecribe as "occupation and nation-building" that failed.

Haiti, Somalia, China, Cuba, the Philippines, Lebannon, and Liberia.

Also, if we look at attempts at nation-building that followed US military action but did not involve a US occupation, post-WW2 France and Greece both represented significant failures -- governmental collapse and near-coups in France's case, civil war and dictatorship in Greece's.

"We haven't already won the Iraq war today any more than we had already lost the Revolutionary War in December 1776. Just like the Brits in that conflict, we've won all the military battles, occupied the major cities and driven the opposition leadership from its headquarters. But the enemy is still in the field and retains fighting power."

While it's fun and transgressive to compare the Sunni/jihadi insurgency to Washington's army, the fact is that Washington and his generals did eventually win some battles. The Revolution would have failed if they had not done so.

In contrast, the idea that the Iraqi insurgency "retains" the ability to engage the US military in any significant way is horseshit of the highest magnitude. The insurgency is not "in the field", it is unable to inflict meaningful damage on US forces, and it is unable to form coherent armed units of any kind.

The insurgency certainly "retains" the ability to suicide bomb various markets and mosques, and to plant IEDs -- but theoretically I retain that ability right here in the USA. So maybe the Revolution failed after all.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f7a20110-cefe-11da-925d-0000779e2340.html

"Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, on Tuesday endorsed his government’s plans to take a 51 per cent stake in foreign-owned mining companies – a decision likely to anger firms active in the country. "

Anyone care to posit what would happen to a good chunk of Euroland's "Services" income if this trend continues?

sorry, mate. you're too deep for me to follow...

And you may very well be too shallow for ME to follow. Check out Dan and DRB's posts immediately following your most recent one -- then, if you don't mind, stop making ridiculous comparisons between the present day adventures/misadventure in the Middle East, and Vietnam.

anony-mouse:

I think you intended to direct that last bit of vitriol my way, or maybe Dan's, since he brought up Vietnam as a basis for comparison. Either way, you'll have to come up with a different pithy remark to slam cas with.

I'm not really invested in comparisons between our Revolutionary War and the Iraqi insurgency. I have no fear that Zarqawi is a modern-day George Washington.

I was simply trying to illustrate the point that war is over when both sides stop fighting. The American forces wintering in Pennsylvania in 1776 had lost something like 95% of their fighting strength (my memory from high school is something like 1,000 remaining from a high of 20,000, but I don't have a source) but they hadn't quit fighting. Thus, the war wasn't over.

I'd think that the siege and assault on Falluja in late 2004 would qualify under any definition of war, but, theoretically, the war had ended 18 months before. Does that make Falluja a separate war?

In contrast, the idea that the Iraqi insurgency "retains" the ability to engage the US military in any significant way is horseshit of the highest magnitude. The insurgency is not "in the field", it is unable to inflict meaningful damage on US forces,

Although I willing express a certain fondness for DRB's HOTHM phrase here, I have to disagree. Fatalities and casualties inflicted are far from a perfect indicator of armed strength, but, if memory serves, the month of armed conflict against the Iraqi Army in the field produced fewer casualties among U.S. forces than at least a dozen months of the "occupation." The current enemy is inflicting meaningful damage far more successfully than the Iraqi Army ever did.

and it is unable to form coherent armed units of any kind.

I agree pretty much completely. However, in order for "war" to retain any meaning in the present and future, I'm not sure that it can be limited to conflict between two sides with sustaining coherent armed units. It seems that the orgnaized killing of one's opponent is the essential element.

The insurgency certainly "retains" the ability to suicide bomb various markets and mosques, and to plant IEDs -- but theoretically I retain that ability right here in the USA.

I'm not really sure what the point is here. Obviously, one of the key elements of a war is the presence of two enemies. You can have the ability to fight and not be at war. When the 1st Armored and 82nd Airborne Division conduct maneuvers together, nobody suggests that they are at war. I don't know you well, DRB, but I suspect that you don't consider yourself an enemy of the USA. The Iraqi insurgents do. Thus, the distinction.

More on Dan's post in the morning.

I was simply trying to illustrate the point that war is over when both sides stop fighting

Then the war is over. The two sides of the Iraq war -- the US government and the Iraqi government -- are no longer fighting.

Local insurgents are fighting the Iraqi government and, to a much lesser extent, the US occupation, but that's a separate issue from the war, just as the occupation of the West Bank (and the Israeli-Palestinian violence connected with it) is a separate issue from the Israel-Jordan war of 1967 that led to the Israeli occupation.

That is somewhat moot, of course. Wars have never been defined as continuing until all fighting stops -- which is why, for example, England isn't still considered to be at war with Ireland.

I think you intended to direct that last bit of vitriol my way, or maybe Dan's, since he brought up Vietnam as a basis for comparison. Either way, you'll have to come up with a different pithy remark to slam cas with.

I think I might have one for you instead, centered around reading comprehension. Cas very much did make that comparison, in his earlier post.

I frankly find the comparison knee-jerk and ridiculous, especially when given without even an attempt at our ever-munificient friend in such cases, the Relevant Supporting Context. My expectation is that there isn't any of merit: both were foreign-soil wars fought by the US against an enemy that was partially ideological, but that's about it. In terms of American casualties, foreign casualties, duration, re-establishing of infrastructure and institutions, particular motivations, starting positions...well, it is quite the exercise in contrasts, not comparisons.

And unless something truly stunning occurs between now and final withdrawal -- Bin Laden rides into Baghdad on a one-horse open sleigh and levels the entire Green Zone by the word of his mouth, for example -- it will very likely fade from the memory much faster than Vietnam, which in the younger generations is already merely a history-book item, and not much in the way of a living memory.

"The current enemy is inflicting meaningful damage far more successfully than the Iraqi Army ever did." So the Iraqi army was a joke, but does that make the current enemy any more effective? American casualties over there are tiny compared to most wars, even Vietnam. We've lost a little over 2,000 troops in Iraq, something like 60,000 in Vietnam. In most wars since flintlock muskets became the primary weapons, there were many battles where the winning side lost more than 2,000 men in a few minutes.

The damage the terrorists are inflicting on us is meaningful only if we are too wimpy to take it. What they are doing to Iraqis might be much more important, but our role is just to get the Iraqi government to the point that it can take them on itself.

If you want a historical analogy, don't look at Vietnam, look at the Moro insurgency in the Phillipines about 100 years ago. We won that and it's pretty much forgotten now, but it was a nastier conflict than Iraq.

This is wandering far afield from my original point, so I'll simply restate it and move on:
It makes no sense to split a military operation into two parts and reserve the term "war" exclusively for the far-safer portion. To do so, even if technically correct, focuses too much on the trees at the expense of the forest. E.g. Nobody calls the Battle of the Bulge the "Reoccupation of the Bulge," even though that's technically what happened. So, if there ever was an Iraq War (maybe this operation doesn't rise to that level), I think we have to say that it's still ongoing.

Brendan,
You're clinging pretty hard to the "still at war" thing even though we are not technically at war. We are fighting the occaisional group of insurgent.

A person may think an armored personnel carrier like an m2a3 bradley is a tank when they see it (http://www.army-technology.com/projects/bradley/bradley7.html), but that would be their misinformed opinion.

That example serves no other purpose than to point out the difference between what you perceive and what is. "War" may be a little more subjective, but our troops are not at war.

Out of many friends I have over in Iraq, most of them have not even fired their weapon or seen an "insurrgent". And theys guys just have 1 or 2 months left. These aren't clerks, but are in the infantry and are sitting around board out of their minds. Which to me suggests there is no war, nothing for them to go and smash. It also brings into question people demanding more troops...what would that accomplish when we have so many sitting around doing nothing already? Granted not all units experiences are like this, but there is no active war to speak of that I can see at least.

About the "reoccupation of the bulge" comment, that's a huge stretch. If the insurrgents mass together, and then attach a major city and attempt to cut our army in half, then maybe we can talk, but we're talking about some disastisfied lunatics sitting around the dinner table about how they're gonna strike at the great satan in two weeks by sending some kid to blow himself up.

Fly -

I don't really understand your response. I've given a rough definition of war and some statistical evidence to support why this meets it. You counter by saying that it's not war and giving a couple anecdotes.

While I certainly am glad to hear of your friends' safety and I pray for their safe return (my cousin returned just this week), that doesn't change the fact that our troops have suffered something more 15,000 casualties over there, with only something like 500 of those during the "war."

If I think a Bradley is a tank, I'm wrong but I'm wrong for a reason. Either 1) I've mistaken it for an Abrams or some actual tank; or 2) I can't tell from its shape that its primary purpose is to carry infantry; or 3) I don't know the definition of "tank."

I'm suggesting a broader definition of war because I think that the old one may be becoming antiquated. I suspect that, in days of yore, a "battle" required two armies arrayed in formation across a field. As tactics changed, the definition did as well in order to retain its relevance. That's what I'm suggesting here.

If it just comes down to a disagreement over the definition, we can agree to disagree. If I'm misunderstanding the circumstances over there, I'm open to changing my mind. However, I prefer statistics to anecdotes. One of my best friends was flying F-15Es over there at the same time my cousin and old pledge trainer were serving on the ground. Suffice it to say that their perspectives differed greatly.

Brendan,

The problem as I see it is that you're trying to expand the definition of war to the point that it essentially has no meaning. You are concerned that the existing definition is becoming obsolete or antiquated -- it is not. What is true is that under the existing definition, very few nations on earth would last long in a war with the United States. But that doesn't mean the existing definition is obsolete, it just means that the United States is now very, very good at fighting wars.

That's why I jumped so hard on your analogy to the American Revolution. It's true that Washington spent much of the Revolution losing battles, retreating into the wilderness, and dodging the British army in order to keep his own army intact, but he eventually did engage in and win army vs. army battles with the British. If he had failed to do so, the Revolution would have collapsed.

There is no similar situation in Iraq. The suicide bombing terrorists of the Sunni/jihadi "insurgency" will *never* win battles against the US military. They are not conducting a Washington-style campaign of conserving forces for the moment when the odds are in their favor. They don't have any forces. The odds will never be in their favor.

There is no Battle of Yorktown or Saratoga or Cowpens in the Iraqi insurgency's future. That is to say, there is no upcoming battle where they will militarily defeat an American force. It's simply not going to happen. The war in Iraq, versus first the Iraqi army, then against the various militias of the insurgency, Moqtada al-Sadr, etc. is over.

What is going on in Iraq is a terrorist campaign similar to the one the IRA waged on Great Britain. That's quite different from a war and we need to recognize that if we are going to oppose such a campaign effectively.

It makes no sense to split a military operation into two parts and reserve the term "war" exclusively for the far-safer portion.

What makes no sense is your attempt to lump conflict with local and foreign insurgents on behalf of the Iraqi government, with the assistance of the Iraqi armed forces, into the war WITH the Iraqi government and AGAINST its armed forces.

We went to war the Iraq. We won, they surrendered, and now we're at peace with Iraq. Ergo the war is over, QED. The assistance we are now providing the Iraqi government with against Iraqi, Saudi, Iranian, and other insurgents and terrorists is not part of the war we fought with the Iraqi government. Go look at the authorization for the use of military force against Iraq. There's nothing in there about occupying the nation and setting up a democracy there. It's all about dealing with Hussein and his regime. Congress separately authorized the subsequent occupation, aid, and nation-building.

E.g. Nobody calls the Battle of the Bulge the "Reoccupation of the Bulge," even though that's technically what happened

It isn't called "the reoccupation of the Bulge" because "the Bulge" isn't a location. The "Bulge" the nickname refers to is the bulging of the Allied lines under German assault; the battle took place in the Ardennes forest. And the reason why the Battle of the Bulge is considered part of the war with Germany is that it took place before Germany surrendered, whereas the current conflicts in Iraq that we are assisting the Iraqi government with are taking place years *after* Iraq surrendered.

If the notion that a war ends when one side surrenders is really so difficult for you to grasp, I suggest you take a moment to try to reconcile your view of war as "not being over until the fighting stops" with the fact that the Civil War is considered to have ended in 1865, but Southern partisan terrorism against US government targets continued for over a century afterwards.

Thanks for the replies.

Unless I missed it, the Iraqi government never surrendered. It simply ceased to exist. The parallel I'm considering is the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. Did the war there end in 1979?

The difference between the US experience in Iraq or the Soviet experience in Afghanistan and Great Britain during "the Troubles" or the American South after the Civil War is only one of degree, but it is a huge degree.

As long as we are pursuing a "clear, hold and build" strategy and are suffering 500 casualties/month, I submit that we don't effectively control all the territory. Neither does the Iraqi government.

I understand where you're coming from in separating the war against the Iraqi armed forces and the conflict against the insurgents. I just disagree. It's a distinction without a real-world difference. If our troops are fighting and taking casualties more or less continuously in an area, then we're at war in that area.

Maybe the easiest way to summarize is this: the number of U.S. casualties in the Iraq War is either 18,000 depending on what you mean by "War." I think when people say the Iraq War, they're referring to the past three years, not the six weeks in March and April 2003. They do that because it makes sense.

P.S. The Battle of the Bulge (or Battle of the Ardennes) was a reoccupation by the Germans of foreign territory. I agree that it is nonsense to characterize it that way. I suggested it as a counter-example to the definition you provided, Dan.

I understand where you're coming from in separating the war against the Iraqi armed forces and the conflict against the insurgents. I just disagree

Look, you're welcome to invent whatever silly-ass definition of "war" you like and apply it to whatever you want. But there's no getting around the fact that it is ridiculous to view our fighting *alongside* the government of Iraq as part of a war *against* the government of Iraq. If the difference between fighting against a country and fighting alongside it as an ally is, as you put it, "a distinction without a difference" to you then there's no point in trying to have a rational conversation with you.

The Battle of the Bulge (or Battle of the Ardennes) was a reoccupation by the Germans of foreign territory. I agree that it is nonsense to characterize it that way

You missed the point. I wasn't criticizing your description of the BotB as a "reoccupation", I was criticizing your use of the term "reoccupation of the Bulge" -- there was never a "Bulge" to occupy, let alone reoccupy. The reason why calling it "the reoccupation of the Ardennes" would be inappropriate is that the German forces never managed to reoccupy the Ardennes -- they just fought the Allies (primarily American troops) there. The Soviet reoccupation of eastern Poland, on the other hand, IS referred to as a reoccupation, as the Soviets actually chased the Germans out and reoccupied the land previously controlled by the USSR.

How did we go from a pro-WTO, pro-NCLB, pro-UN(Sovereignty-sucking, and Sustainence-sapping all, btw)-post to an interneccine discourse over the definition of "war" and the cavalier dismissal of lives of thousands of our Servicemen?

Believe me, the mind that can conceive the former will birth the latter.

Yeah, what I'm saying is that which side the almost-completely-ineffective military of Iraq is fighting on makes no real-world difference to whether or not it's a war.

I know it matters for your defintion. I just can't tell that it has any effect on the intensity of the fighting. That's what I mean by "real world."

We're fighting a war to take control the territory of Iraq. To do that, we have to fight groups opposed to it. I think most people recognize that that fight is still ongoing, and that's why the whole three years is referred to as The Iraq War.

I can prefectly understand why you would disagree. Some people might refuse to recognize that there had been any war at all because of the absence of a declaration of war. However, I find it odd that you seem to regard this concept as totally made-up or manufactured out of thin air when I think it's in common usage every day throughout the country.

Maybe it is all an esoteric, how many angels etc.
discussion. But around my neck of the woods, the
popular bumper sticker is "Stop The U.S. War Against Iraq." Against Iraq? This is why a lot of the anti-war rhetoric makes no sense and many of them have no plan, no coherent foreign policy
except "more diplomacy."

"We're fighting a war to take control of the territory of Iraq."

Sorry, this is just wrong. We already control the territory of Iraq. There are no enemy forces we need to push out of the way to obtain that control, just as Great Britain didn't need to push any IRA forces out of the way to obtain control of the territory of Northern Ireland.

The fact that, despite British control, certain citizens of Northern Ireland were willing to plant bombs and kill innocents in no way means Northern Ireland was not in British control. It just means there were terrorists operating on that British-controlled soil. Similarly, the fact that jihadis are willing to blow themselves up in mosques and plant IEDs in no way means we are in some kind of military conflict over control of Iraq.

The reason I think it's so important to make this distinction, Brendan, is that if you don't make it, and if you insist on calling what is going on in Iraq a "war", you will end up making the wrong decisions about what should be done. For example, you might find yourself believing that if we're in a "war", then throwing more soldiers into the "battle" (what battle?) will somehow help. It won't. Soldiers can do plenty of useful things in a war. But they can't do much in a terrorist campaign (as is going on now in Iraq) except serve as targets.

Terrorist campaigns require political/cultural/intelligence/law enforcement solutions. Wars require military solutions. Iraq used to be a war. It is now a terrorist campaign. If we keep insisting it's a war, we'll try the wrong solution, and we will fail.

Why Jane bothers to call her self a libertarian is beyond me at this point.

During the very peak of the Troubles, the IRA was killing about 170 people per year. The Iraqi insurgents are killing far more than that every week. The US Army has lost far more soldiers in the last year than the British Army lost in the 25 years of the Troubles.

Like I said before, the difference between the American experience in Iraq (or the Soviet experience in Afghanistan) and the British experience in N. Ireland is only one of degree, but it is a huge degree.

As for what to do about it, I think the military is re-learning and expanding on the lessons learned by the British in the Malayan Emergency.

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