There’s an article by Thomas Friedman in the NY Times today, where he talks about the need for America as a country to start “making stuff.” In other words, we need more manufacturing, rather than a reliance on financial instruments, many of which are faulty. This is the exact same point that Kevin Phillips makes in American Theocracy a few years ago, but Phillips takes his analysis a bit further by indicting law and accounting, as well as finance, as industries that don’t produce anything of real concrete value. Services are much harder to sell in the international market as other countries generally have their own laws and accounting rules.
My question would be whether we can export the green technologies that Friedman discusses. There is only one way to make money and pay off debt in a global economy, and that is by selling or exporting goods or services to other countries. If there is no money coming in, then there is no way to pay off debt. It’s the same for countries as it is for individuals. Something that Friedman doesn’t mention is that if there is no international demand for green technologies or any other product we sell, we’ll always run a deficit, and our federal debt will go up. Of course it is possible that green will be popular in other countries; after all, it was George W. Bush–not the other developed countries–who declined the Kyoto Protocol.
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I also wanted more rice than what could fit inside the wrap....