RE: US high-tech manufacturing base erosion breaks 'chain of experience'
'msds' with the "Canadian perpsective" has hit the nail on the head: the problem is not "free trade", it is not NAFTA or the like, it is the very UNFREE trade being subsidized by the dishonest Chinese monetary policy of keeping the Yuan (or RMB) at an artificially low exchange rate.
It was incredibly stupid and wicked for President Bush to push for accepting China into WTO while they were still carrying out this policy. Now that that precedent has been set, even the recent announcement of a very slight rise was very hard to get, it was like pulling teeth. And it is clearly still not enough!
Until China practices free market principles with the price of their own currency, they have no place in the WTO, they should be punished with tariffs and the like just like any other protectionist.
That said, let's not forget that the high tech boom in America was not bought by purely free-market principles either. Rather, leaders in both government and industry realized the need to maintain a sound knowledge/skill base by keeping people with valuable skills employed.
A major example: the "space race" kept all the various skills necessary to build and maintain a ballistic missile fleet from atrophying by employing the same people in the space race.
