The US is the world's only economic superpower, and no country even comes close. Microsoft's GDP would rank higher than the country of Spain. The only way to increase the manufacaturing base in the US is to bust unions, and restore wages/benefits to market-based levels instead of union pay scales.
You know, this is true in theory but I bet if you think of the actual reality around us you will see that reality is something different.
1) The US government and the Fortune 500 (or 1000) are completely separate things. They often see themselves as in conflict with each other. Therefore US policy forms no comprehensive "front" with US business interests.
2) The US Fortune 1000 are each separate, competing entities. The do not coordinate in detail with each other regarding foreign investments & policies, etc., therefore US business overall has no comprehensive "front" in regard to foreign competition.
3) The US Fortune 1000 have steadily made themselves global in that they have come to depend on foreign suppliers, foreign producers and all manner of transportation infrastructure.
If you compare the US to, say, Japan or France or even Britain, it is easy to look at raw numbers and say we surpass these countries in this or that statistic. But where we act and respond like 1,000 (or more) individual units, those guys have a defined (and, more importantly, believed in) cultural identity and national policies which direct them in acting as single units.
In a military campaign, a well-disiplined unit of small numbers can often cut right through a vastly larger force of unpracticed, uncoordinated rabble... Business is war...
We've seen, over the last few years, that America as a "super power" militarily has been something of a joke. We're seeing in Bush's stumbling around the Middle East that the US as a political super power is a joke. Looking at the fragmented nature of US business and government, I think a person could make the case that as an economic super power the US is a joke.
Mark W.