Joan: You forgot our leadership in medical instrumentation, pharmacology and biotechnology as well (we are behind in cloning, but I am not sure I mind that so much). We should also add that we are undisputed leaders in the building of weapon systems, sattelite and other space based communications systems. We are losing ground in areas were in my opinion we should lose ground, those basic industries that are more brawn than brains.
At the turn of the century (if memory serves) about 50% of our population worked and sweated on the farm with subsistence earning. Todasy, only 2 to 3% of our population works on the farm making a pretty good syandard of living. Then we barely fed ourselves, now we feed a lot of others. Those that left the farms (or at least their offsprings) have learned new professions with much higher value added (Marx would be proud of them), and the losses we are incurring now in steel workers and on line assembly people as well as in cloth making swet shops are fine with me, the displaced will learn to m,ake a living at, eventually better jobs: Tort Lawyers, ambulance chasers, financial engineering (I should have a big <G> after each of these new professions).
Zeev |
