Iron Allies no more?

» SamAJPillay - Iron Allies No More

Thanks, Glenn, for a terrific piece. I had wondered at the seeming lack of any real explanation why Bush slapped on the steel tariff.

For what it's worth, it appears the US is now doing what the Soviet Union did to shoot itself in the foot: Pour more and more of the national account into the arms and space race at the cost of industrial and agrarian development. Reading your article seems to point in a somewhat similar direction in the United States.

The War on Terrorism dovetails with the apparent fact that the Defence establishment has the whip hand in the Bush Administration. So much is being poured into the military/intelligence apparatus that there appears little hope of any new impetus for the development of manufacturing and agricultural strategy. The only development appears to be in the armaments sector.

Wall Street, meanwhile, is not exactly sparking great innovations. The indicators all point to a floundering capital market, witness the Enron and GlobalWatch debacles, to name just a few, and Waren Buffet's recent warnings.

So, to come back to the thrust of your article, I am reminded othat the US manufacturing sector wears the shoes the British manufacturing sector wore pre-Thatcher. At that time, Cowley, one of Britain's greatest car manufacturers of its time, was found to be using the same outmoded equipment it had used postwar, while Brazil, for example, was churning out the Beetle at a rate of knots from its spanking new assembly plants.

Perhaps it is well and truly time for the US to practise the global economic policies it so ardently wants the rest of the world to embrace?

Thanks again for an informative piece.

Sam

-- posted by SamAJPillay

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» Glenn34 - Re: Iron Allies No More

In response to message posted by SamAJPillay:

Sam, hello again and thanks very much for your nice comment (also for resending the URL which I now bookmarked!).

Of course pointing out and questioning certain political decisions is normally not much appreciated and goes against the mainstream - but I will try to keep up just that through my work at the Suite.
Thanks again and more in June (this time something "geopolitical and strategic" about the G8!
Regards,
Glenn

-- posted by Glenn34

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