In honor of Labor Day, and because the national unemployment rate stands at a disheartening 9.1 percent, I wanted to discuss this article in last week’s New York Times Magazine:
“Over the last two years, the federal government has doled out nearly $2.5 billion in stimulus dollars to roughly 30 companies involved in advanced battery technology.
For decades, the federal government has generally resisted throwing its weight — and its money — behind particular industries. As the former White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers put it, America’s role is to feed a global economy that’s increasingly based on knowledge and services rather than on making stuff. The conviction in Washington was that manufacturing deserved no special dispensation. Even now, as unemployment ravages the country, so-called industrial policy remains politically toxic.”