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INDUSTRIAL POLICY FOR THE UNITED STATES

WINNING THE COMPETITION FOR GOOD JOBS AND HIGH-VALUE INDUSTRIES

A stimulating call for government action to restore America’s standing as an industrial powerhouse.

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It’s time for the government to reenergize American manufacturing and other industries with a determined program of subsidies and trade barriers, argues this sweeping economic manifesto.

Investment banker Fasteau and economist Fletcher, both members of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, present a wide-ranging critique of the economic orthodoxy that holds unfettered free trade as alwaysa blessing. In reality, they argue, America’s pro-free trade policies have led to the offshoring of crucial industries, including the production of military equipment and medical supplies that are critical to national well-being, and the replacement of stable, well-paying manufacturing jobs with low-wage service and retail jobs. They call for a comprehensive, protectionist industrial policy that would nurture “advantageous industries” that underlie an innovative, high-tech, high-wage economy, and for a monetary policy that would end the overvaluation of the dollar that produces trade deficits by making American products artificially more expensive than those of foreign competitors. The authors flesh out these ideas in intricate case studies of industrial policies around the world; they discuss China’s ruthlessly effective program of boosting exports through unfair trade practices as well as the evolution of various American industries, like the decades-long saga of the Big Three automakers’ loss of market share. They conclude with detailed policy proposals, which include leaving the World Trade Organization, raising tariffs on imports, and providing manufacturing companies with a raft of government loans and tax breaks. Fasteau and Fletcher synthesize a wealth of data and economic history into an incisive analysis of the workings and pitfalls of free trade. They convey all of this in lucid, accessible prose that manages to turn complex technical arguments into pithy, down-to-earth aphorisms. (“Growth is about turning Burkina Faso into South Korea, not about being the most efficient possible Burkina Faso forever,” they write in a tour-de-force debunking of the theory of comparative advantage.) The result is a lucid diagnosis of America’s economic decline and an ambitious, hopeful program for reversing it.

A stimulating call for government action to restore America’s standing as an industrial powerhouse.

Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2025

ISBN: 9781009243070

Page Count: 836

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2024

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THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.

“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

Pub Date: May 27, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...

A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.

The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011

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