America’s Truth Deficit

With countless jobs moving overseas and a growing trade deficit amounting to 25 percent of GDP, the United States today is losing ground in global competition and becoming more dependent on its strategic rivals. Leaders in politics, business, finance, and the news media have long been reluctant to discuss these problems. Instead they have obscured the trade problems with debates about currency values and assurances on the benefits of free trade. A few brave dissenters have recently begun to call for significant policy shifts to address the “possibility that the United States can no longer afford globalization.” They call on governments to work together so that disparities in labor income do not lead to economic stagnation, especially recommending that the US resign its position as the open-armed buyer of last resort. Columnist William Greider, however, speculates that changes will be hard to come by. “The webs of mutual interests connecting government, corporate boardrooms and Wall Street,” he says, “are too deeply woven, as are habits of thought among policy makers and politicians.” – YaleGlobal