Curiosities And Blunders That Affect Millions Election Eve Flattery Can Be Expensive by Charles W. McMillion (NAPSA)—The days immediately before an election are often called the Silly Season. This is the time when politicians’ pandering becomes most insistent and their trivializing of serious issues most maddening. This season, count the number of times you hear some variantof: “The American workeris the best worker in the world, the best edu- cated and most productive, capable of taking on any competition in the world.” In fact, it has now been almost 20 years since “A Nation At Risk” first described the “rising tide of mediocrity” in U.S. society that has allowed the workforce in other countries—most other countries— not only to catch us but to leave us behind. For a generation, every international comparison shows Americanssit near the back of the class in math, science and other skills needed to be globally competitive. It’s (usually) not that our public and private schools don’t value learning, but the affluent American culture, at every turn, force- fully emphasizes our appetites over ourintellect. What has allowed the U.S. to remain so powerful and so prosperous, despite the increased mediocrity of our workforce, is the superior infrastructure developed over many generations. This includes such things as our great transportation and communication networks. It also includes our industrial base with vast and vibrant networksof suppliers each providing its workers with superior tools to more productively produce superior products. These superior tools and networks, not any inherent superiority of our workers, are the keys to our current prosperity. And they are being traded awayrapidly. Just since 1990, the U.S. has paid $2 trillion more to buy im- ported goods and services than U.S.-based producers have earned from all experts. This hemorrhage is now running at about $1.2 billion of net current account pay- Evenin the technological sector, American manufacturing faces stiff overseas competition. ments every day as more of our best tools and more of our supplier networks are moved abroad. Unlike a generation ago, the main competition no longer comes from better cars or kitchen appliances made at comparable costs in Japan or Europe. Today’s competition is not driven by better products or more efficient producers. Rather, it is dominated by extremely low-wage, largely unregulated zones in China and by other populous countries that are now lowering their wages and living standards in a desperate, race-tothe-bottom attempt to compete with China. And don’t kid yourself. China and others are ending the old divide between low wages and high-tech. Indeed, since 1995, China has had a widening trade surplus with the U.S., even in the long list of items identified by the U.S. Commerce Department as our most advanced technology products. These include computers, cell phones, advanced radar and much more. So this season, when a politician starts to hyperventilate about the “great American worker,” ask him what he intends to do to assure that those workers have the superior tools and the vibrant industrial networks to successfully compete with China in the years ahead. Charles W. McMillion is president and chief economist of MBG Information Services in Washington, D.C.
