The problem for American businesses isn't globablization, per se. If anything, that opens up new markets.
The problem is that the USA is NOT business-friendly anymore. They are regulated, taxed, and sued until they quit or move. Labor unions, like the Longshoremen, resist technology to make the industry more productive.
I'm not suggesting that there should be no oversight. Enron proves that.
But what I am saying is that we can't keep sticking it to businesses in this country and then lament the fact that they that foreign companies take their market share, or that they disappear entirely.
Actually, I think Enron proved something quite different. It was because of their incestuous relationship with goernment that they got so far along. They operated in a market structure distorted by the fact of civic oversight. Had Andersen been financially responsible to shareholders for their audits (via insurance), Enron would never have been able to construct the bubble they did. Instead, all AA had to do was to audit to the standards of the SEC and the FASB, and as we know Enron had aquired considerable latitude from the Clinton Administration at the SEC. Remember: the power of civic oversight socializes the risk that the verification is inadequate and increases the leverage of political manipulation (corruption). For a minor proof of that assertion, guess who was the first commissioner of the SEC? (The answer to this quiz is at the bottom of this post.)
But what I am saying is that we can't keep sticking it to businesses in this country and then lament the fact that they that foreign companies take their market share, or that they disappear entirely.
Agreed.
Joe Kennedy. QED.