Where are the jobs?
Democrats initially defended their poor jobs record with the refrain that employment is a lagging indicator. As unemployment continued to rise, they promised "green" jobs, which have the political benefit of marrying the desires of the working class with those of environmentally sensitive professionals.
Green jobs are surely needed. But green Democrats simply echo the Atari Democrats of the 1980s, who concluded that traditional manufacturing was disposable and high technology was the wave of the future. During this era, the young Barack Obama attempted - and failed - to find jobs for displaced steelworkers in Chicago.
China's approach
As it turned out, high-tech industries prospered or faltered on a nation's trade and industrial policy, just as autos and steel did. And the United States came up short in the new as well as the old industries. By 2004, China was exporting more information and communications technology than this country.
Whether a company was state-owned or private, domestic or foreign, the Chinese government offered a wide variety of financial incentives, subsidies, low-interest loans, manipulated currency - as well as its fabled low wages - to get results. China put green jobs in the same incubator, contrasting sharply with the American approach.
The U.S. government has invested millions in photovoltaics research, yet the country accounted for only 5.6 percent of global production in 2008, down from 30 percent in 1999. Despite the government's investment, the only leading American company in the field does its manufacturing abroad.
Chinese production in the sector during the same period grew from 1 percent to 32 percent of the global total. China has built the world's largest solar-panel manufacturing industry, requiring at least 80 percent of the equipment to be made in China.
East wind
