The Selling of the American Economy
How Foreign Companies Are Remaking the American Dream
Chapter One
Above and beyond the question of how to grow the economy, there is a legitimate concern about how to grow the quality of our lives.
—PAUL WELLSTONE
Americans would like to think of this country as the most self-sufficient place on earth, able to feed, clothe, employ, and educate its citizens—and those in need elsewhere—with no help from anyone else. To the most patriotic, there is no country on a par in any way with the United States, no matter the economic traumas it may encounter. "I do believe in American Exceptionalism," Senator John McCain said in September 2008, even as our credit system had collapsed, some of our biggest investment banks had fallen, and unemployment had reached a new high. If there was ever a time foreign investment was needed, it is now. Today, when the business world has lost its borders and companies are no longer bound by the nations in which they were founded, no one nation—no matter how exceptional—can sustain itself through homegrown investment alone. ...
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