As to the economics, remember that when it comes to deficits and debt, the real issues over the long term are (1) the ratio of debt to GDP (we’re still under 50 percent, which ain’t bad, considering all the spending that’s been going on; at the end of World War II it was substantially above 120 percent). And (2) whether and when we’re back to growing the GDP, which is the most reliable way of improving the ratio.

“Obama’s Goal: Halving the Budget Deficit by 2012. Really?” Monday, February 23, 2009, Robert Reich

If Obama is mostly successful, then the epistemological skepticism natural…

In the late 18th century, the Industrial Revolution started the transition from a manual-labor based economy towards an economy based on using technologies, tools and machines to significantly improve the manufacturing of physical goods. Over the next two hundred years we have seen the industrial sector of the economy achieve major improvements in the productivity and quality of manufacturing, ranging from very simple to highly complex physical objects.

A major step in that remarkable story of innovation occurred around thirty years ago. Before that time, most manufacturing plants were fairly inefficient by almost any contemporary measure, and were turning out products of varying quality. Then, driven by the huge success of Toyota and other companies around the world,…