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Japanese and other foreign companies account for more than 40 percent of cars built in the United States, employing about 95,000 people directly and hundreds of thousands more among parts suppliers.

The United States gained these jobs through a combination of public and Congressional pressure on Japan, “voluntary” quotas on car exports from Japan and incentives like tax breaks that encouraged Japanese automakers to build factories in America.

The government could also encourage domestic production of technologies, including display manufacturing and advanced semiconductor fabrication, that would nurture new industries. “Instead, we let those jobs go to Asia, and then the supply chains follow, and then R&D follows, and soon it makes sense to build everything overseas,” he said. “If Apple or Congress wanted to make the valuable parts of the iPhone in America, it wouldn’t be hard.”

To train its new American engineers, Nissan flew workers to its Zama factory in eastern Japan. There the Nissan officials, assisted by English-speaking Japanese workers called “communication helpers,” imparted the intricacies of the company’s production techniques to the Americans.

Early on, Nissan guarded against quality concerns by not relying on parts from American suppliers. Most components were either shipped from Japan or produced by Japanese companies that set up operations nearby.

Gradually, American parts makers were allowed to bid on supply contracts. Even that came amid arm-twisting by Congress, which passed a law in 1992 requiring auto makers to inform consumers of the percentage of parts in United States-made cars that came from North America, Asia or elsewhere.

Solar and Wind Energy Start to Win on Price vs. Conventional Fuels

In Texas, Austin Energy signed a deal this spring for 20 years of output from a solar farm at less than 5 cents a kilowatt-hour.

Without subsidies, the firm’s analysis shows, solar costs about 7.2 cents a kilowatt-hour at the low end, with wind at 3.7 cents.

EU energy market: Pipe dream

A more competitive market also means importing new sources of gas from Azerbaijan and the eastern Mediterranean, as well as building terminals for liquefied natural gas.

France’s nuclear industry was also reticent about cheap renewable energy streaming into the French grid on an uncertain timetable.

Russia’s goal is not to create another North American Free Trade Agreement; it is to create another EU, with the Kremlin holding all of the real levers of power.

And, once members give up their sovereignty over fiscal, banking, and economic affairs, they may eventually need a partial political union to ensure democratic legitimacy.

But the first step is a customs union, and, in the case of the Eurasian Union, it had to include Ukraine, Russia’s largest neighbor to the west.

On Germany’s coast, for example, an estimated $1.3 billion went into revitalizing ports and factories to serve the industry, creating about 10,000 jobs. But demand frequently drops off when projects stall, at times leaving factories in coastal towns like Cuxhaven, on Germany’s North Sea, sitting idle with hundreds of workers laid off.

The Broken Model Of The Eurozone

The North is competitive. The South is 20% overvalued.And I realized that's all you need to know about the eurozone and about why it will fail. Or has already failed, to put it more accurately. There's no other information required. Other than a bit of context, perhaps, to clarify.Before the euro and the eurozone, countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, would perform 20% or more lower economically than Germany or Holland would. And that was kind of alright, because periodically, their governments and central banks would revalue (devaluate) their currencies down against;

Of course, Germany hated this to an extent, since it made it harder for its industries to compete against Greek and Italian companies. Which may, by the way, well be a mostly hidden reason for them to push the eurozone on the Mediterranean.

Although the Arctic provides a shorter route around the world than the traditional course through warmer waters, it is not necessarily cheaper.

The ships were expensive to build and operate,