Free Republic

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Number of training hours lost at Barry M. Goldwater Marine Corps Range, Arizona, from dealing with incursions by illegal immigrants, 2004: more than 1,250 Number of training days this figure represents: more than 50 Source: National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2006, Report of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives on H.R. 1815, Report 109-089, 109th Congress, 1st Session, May 20, 2005, p. 309. Special thanks to William R. Hawkins, USBIC

Lori Wenzel lives in a nice house in a nice subdivision in Grand Blanc, Mich. She's worked hard to get there. She hired into an auto parts plant, now Delphi East, in 1977 when she was 18 years old, some 28 years ago. Now the Delphi bankruptcy, the largest industrial meltdown in U.S. history, threatens to shatter her world and the world of her coworkers. Delphi's skid into an economic ditch raises a fundamental question: How do U.S. firms compete in an increasingly rough-and-tumble global economy? Historically, U.S. firms have succeeded through innovation and high productivity, not low wages. Indeed,...