"American companies morphed into global companies and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China, and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers. As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP [gross domestic product], we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad."
CLEAN SLATE
"If people could vote on whether to keep or replace the entire Congress, just 17 percent would vote to keep them and 59 percent would throw them out and start over."
- Rasmussen Consumer Index, Oct. 6
OFFSET AL GORE
When it comes to curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, Al Gore is eating more than his words.
"He continues to eat meat," notes People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), even though Mr. Gore's Live Earth concerts' companion book, "The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook," says "refusing meat" is "the single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint."
So if the former vice president won't walk-the-walk, PETA asks volunteers to "offset Gore's greenhouse-gas emissions" by pledging to go vegeterian for at least 30 days.