News that the last factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States closed this month is being played in some quarters as proof that the green economy is a doubled edged sword and the deck is stacked against American-based manufacturing in favour of China.

Yes and no.

This type of news plays into the Great American Unease that is gripping the United States.

Today, a slew of fascinating articles about the structural nature of the current downturn, Obama's hard line stance on extending the Bush tax cuts, infrastructure investment, and the nativism that is redefining American politics captured in one image.

A fabulous Michael Lewis piece about Greece, and not good news about China's relationship with India and Japan. Back in Canada Prime Minister Harper playing to his base gets him over his skis, but then maybe not. An article on Hawking's Universe where there can be no natural justice and a companion piece on living with the grief of a child's death.

And guys, the Economist explains why dancing matters, a lot.

The Washington Post's take on the last light bulb factory closing in the United States. 

The last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month, marking a small, sad exit for a product and company that can trace their roots to Thomas Alva Edison's innovations in the 1870s.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706933.html?wpisrc=nl_most

Ken Rogoff reminds his readers that the US is facing a structural downturn.

We have been arguing for some time that the shadow credit system founded on securitisation grossly inflated the real economy in the finance, real estate and consumption sectors for a decade.

With the permanent collapse of that alternative credit source and the inability (and unwillingness) of the traditional credit businesses to extend credit back to pre-crisis levels, that puffed up economy cannot survive in its old form, the well paying jobs that epitomised that era are forever gone, and the adjustment to something different will take a generation.

As the US economy limps toward the second anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, anemic growth has left unemployment mired near 10%, with little prospect of significant improvement anytime soon. Little wonder that, with mid-term congressional elections coming in November, Americans are angrily asking why the government’s hyper-aggressive stimulus policies have not turned things around. What more, if anything, can be done?  http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rogoff72/English

Related.

Old jobs gone.

Somewhere between the rantings of the Republican right, which is peddling the nonsense that excessive government spending is to blame for high unemployment, and the Democratic left, which clings to the false hope that another helping of fiscal stimulus is all that is needed to get millions of Americans permanently back to work, is this stubborn reality: the loss of 8 million jobs reflects problems that are largely structural, not cyclical, which means they won't be brought back by fiddling with a magic dial in Washington that controls how much the government spends.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706644.html?wpisrc=nl_most

Small houses.

How has the collapse of the housing market changed people's attitudes toward homeownership and their expectations for how they will live? Is the yearning for a McMansion on the edge of a corn field really dead?  http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/07/redefining-home-in-a-depressed-market?nl=opinion&emc=tya3

The challenge will be to create the conditions for a productive economy while not making the situation worse by piling on public debt which is why the current debates about extending Bush's tax cuts and the call to invest in infrastructure are so vital.

President Obama throws down the gauntlet. Thanks to Ken of Tokyo/Hong for sending this in.

President Obama decided this week to raise the stakes in this fall's election by making the choice about something instead of nothing but anger. http://www.truth-out.org/ej-dionne-jr-its-not-over-till-its-over63077#1

Related.

President Barack Obama speaks in Cleveland Ohio about taxes, the economy, the state, and a better future   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN9pUGcw9sU&feature=related

Brookings research on the cost of the Bush tax cuts, who benefits, and the impact on the deficit. Pdf file below has full article with very powerful charts. 

The Economist.

EARLIER in the year, as debt worries wracked European financial markets, one might have thought that the expiration of most of the Bush tax cuts was a foregone conclusion.  http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/09/fiscal_policy_3

 

Brookings on infrastructure.

http://www.brookings.edu/topics/infrastructure.aspx

A great infrastructure lobbying website with a failing American report card. Details many areas where America needs to invest. Civil engineers to the rescue!

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

(ed's note: we wonder which private equity firms have figured out that private funds can finance public works like Professor McMillan's funding strategy for the Confederation Bridge.)

The great divide in America being played out in the tax and immigration debate is captured by the image below. The kind of service you get wearing the hat and badge will tell you much about how the people serving you sit on that divide. Thanks to Ross of Toronto for this.

Greece is a disaster. Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair. Thanks to David of Victoria.

As Wall Street hangs on the question “Will Greece default?,” the author heads for riot-stricken Athens, and for the mysterious Vatopaidi monastery, which brought down the last government, laying bare the country’s economic insanity. http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010?printable=true

Over in Asia, and two stories about niggling territorial issues that China has with India and Japan. Small stuff that can become big.

China and India squabble over Jammu-Kashmir.

We must understand the implications of China's denial of visa to General Jaswal, heading India's Northern Command, for defence talks in Beijing on the ground that he came from the "sensitive location of Jammu and Kashmir" and " people from this part of the world come with a different kind of visa".  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6520389.cms

Jammu-Kashmir.

China and Japan bumping boats in the East China Sea.

Beijing has made a “strong protest” to Tokyo after Japanese authorities arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing boat that collided with Japanese coast guard boats in contested waters of the East China Sea.  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a09e651a-bb04-11df-9e1d-00144feab49a.html

Meanwhile back in Canada, the long gun registry debate, which to date Michael Ignatieff has handled very well, is flushing out Harper's lunatic fringe.

Silencing the shrillest Conservative voices has long been a Stephen Harper problem. They cost his party votes and credibility back when Cheryl Gallant was still allowed to fume publicly about gays and abortion. Now Garry Breitkreuz is threatening to turn the Prime Minister’s win-win gun registry strategy into lose-lose by ranting about a police plot.   http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/858192--travers-rogue-conservatives-wreck-gun-registry-strategy?bn=1

Including the Prime Minister on another issue.

Did he really need to do this? According to PBS the idiot pastor's congregation totals about 50 people.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has used his Christian faith to “unequivocally condemn” a Florida church that plans to burn 200 copies of the Muslim holy book.    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/stephen-harper-condemns-koran-burning-my-christ-is-a-tolerant-god/article1700607/

Anyone who plays golf knows that part of its charm is how quickly you get to know people you play with. It is pretty reasonable to ask the most personal questions somewhere about the 3rd hole.

Many summers ago I was played with an older man who seemed to have the world on his shoulders. Somewhere around the 13th green -- tough par 3 over water -- I must have mentioned some minor travail that my then seven-year old son was having.

"Nothing like mine" he said softly and then for the next few minutes he me told the very sad tale of his son failing at school, getting into a bad crowd probably with drugs, and at 22 dying in a car crash where the young man was the driver.

He finished the story by saying that everyday he woke up "into a nightmare".

This story in the Boston Globe recalled that strange and sad conversation.

FIVE YEARS ago, I found my 17-year-old son dead in his bed. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/09/08/a_mothers_grief__without_time_limits/

No justice then in Hawking's universe other than what we make ourselves.

Physicist Stephen Hawking has done it again. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703946504575469653720549936.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

And on a lighter note why neck flexibility for men is very important when comes to meeting women.

THE need to identify a suitable mate is such a strong biological urge that the animal kingdom has spawned a bewildering array of courtship rituals.  http://www.economist.com/node/16984701?story_id=16984701&fsrc=nwl

Michael Jackson.

The best dance moves  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6515268175500430312#

Related.

You Should Be Dancing (Yeah!)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB27HiYSvmc