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My critique of Mr. Dobb's article is based upon statistics involving Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the US over the last 20 years. It is well known among economists across the political spectrum that FDI has created a positive net number of jobs within the US economy. This number of net new jobs over the last 20 years includes the jobs that were lost to FDI by US companies in foreign jurisdictions.

I think Mr. Dobb's analysis trivializes the entire issue by focusing his analysis on statistics derived from the last few years. FDI in the US does consist, in part, in the acquisition of existing assets from US companies but the majority of FDI activity consists in the creation of new plants and facilities in the US. As bad as our economic climate is, in some respects, it is still relatively healthy compared to Western Europe's. We have benfitted from European policy mistakes.

If Mr. Dobb's could demonstrate a systematic pattern of disinvestment in the US economy over the last twenty years I would take his position more seriously; absent such an analysis his position could simply be founded on statistical noise.

Let's talk about FDI in the US over 20 years. Got numbers?

Recognizing that these are merely 'incidental,' I can show you FDI in Racine, Wi., where a Dutch company bought an old hydraulics plant, moved it a few miles, and dumped most of the employees.

How about the Swedish purchase of Milwaukee Electric Tool, which has now closed its Milwaukee production facility entirely? Or the British purchase of Rexnord (they recently sold the shell to Carlyle) which resulted in not only workforce reductions, but the end of R&D? Or the Swedish purchase of Consolidated Papers which resulted in a significant reduction in operations in Northern Wisconsin?

I seriously hope that your 20-year example shows a better track record than that of Siemens' purchase of Imperial/ITE, which is now famous for offshoring their IT operations from Florida...

RE: "Mr. Dobb's analysis trivializes the entire issue by focusing his analysis on statistics derived from the last few years."

Thank you for your informative and broader view. It provides important information.