Weak Economy Feeds Impulse to Turn Inward - WSJ.com

REFUSING TO BAIL OUT A BOAT TAKING ON WATER: Weak Economy Feeds Impulse to Turn Inward - WSJ.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

It would seem as though we need leaders who recognize that the existing industrial economy has to change and that the US would be better off being globally business-friendly rather than old-fashioned industrial protectionist.

People who are tied to the old industrial economy are jealous of those Americans that have found prosperity in the developing technological, information based economy. And leaders, rather than helping those left out find ways to join this new economy, are pandering to the fears of those left behind in ways that are inhibiting, if not killing the ability of the larger economy to move ahead.

Donlan wrote a good piece on this a couple of weeks ago in Barrons. He compared the 19th century movement of farm workers into factories to the need to move ahead today with more education, rationalization of jobs and work, etc.

One can only imagine the technology first written about carefully in the 1960's where instead of having centralized factories, technology advances to machines that can make any product and factories become decentralized - requiring even fewer workers without highly advanced skills.

Obama and Pelosi and their supporters and union members may be hoping to hold back the tide of the future, but so far the results have been ominous. Tax receipts are down, unemployment is way up and the US is eating up the capital and equity it has to make the needed changes.

Will the Republicans be able to come up with a coherent set of policies, let alone have the ability to advance them come November? It's like watching a group of people sitting in a boat taking on water and wondering why they refuse to start trying to bail the water out of the boat. Somehow it's like those on the Titanic who thought the boat unsinkable. They are deluded by their beliefs.