Meyerson's Got It

Spotted today in sunny Georgetown: The Rev. Al Sharpton, in front of Barnes & Noble, talking on his cell phone. Sometimes, living in this city can lead to good sightings indeed. Anyway, I think everyone in America today should read Harold Meyerson's column. He's got it exactly right:

Germany and China don't have a lot in common. Germany has a mature economy and is a stultifyingly stable democracy. China has a rising economy and remains disturbingly authoritarian. What sets them apart from the world's other major powers, purely and simply, is manufacturing. Their predominantly industrial economies meet their own needs and those of other nations, and have made them flourish while others flounder.

I would only add this to his thoughts of today regarding the importance of manufacturing and this country's gleeful willingness to toss it out with the baby and the bathwater: Manufacturing is, by definition, creating wealth. It is the process by which you take an otherwise useless raw material and convert it into something that people want to buy. A country that does not work at retaining its manufacturing sector does not work at retaining the economic sector which quite literally creates real wealth. We have been entirely too eager to sell out this vital portion of our national infrastructure. Read Meyerson today. It's damned good.