THE TTALK QUOTES 

On Global Trade & Investment
Published By:
The Global Business Dialogue, Inc.
Washington, DC  Tel: 202-463-5074
 
No. 59 of 2019
SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2019

Click HERE for Thursday's USCMA quote from the leadership
of the House Energy and Commerce Committee


ON LIFE AND LEARNING

 "[I]t is not at all obvious that the average liberal-arts graduate is more educated, more capable, more useful, and more rounded than is, say, the average electrician.”

Charles C. W. Cooke
August 12, 2019
CONTEXT
The August 12 edition of National Review is billed as a “Special Issue” devoted to “The American Worker.” It’s first article on that topic is by Charles C.W. Cooke, who is the editor of National Review on-line.  Not surprisingly, the article takes a few swipes at Democrats for reputed attitudes toward different educational tracks, but Mr. Cooke’s overall thesis is more fundamental than partisan and the issue as whole poses a number of important questions. 

The piece by Ramesh Ponnuru , for example, pointedly asks what the goal of secondary education should be. Should it be preparation for college, as it largely is today? “The alternative,” he writes “is to regard the end of high school as a capable adulthood.”
COMMENT
Obiously, the Context Section above could be much larger, and this is a topic on which we expect to have much more to say in the future, not the least because it has a direct bearing on trade and competitiveness. Still, we suspect that the few lines we have quoted will trigger in your mind the framework of the larger debate about education, work, and human development that surrounds us all. 


To take a case in point, Mazda and Toyota are investing $1.6 billion in a production facility in Huntsville, Alabama, where in time they could turn out 300,000 vehicles a year. The Mazda Toyota joint venture is going to need employees; so too will the several parts makers that are setting up shop in Alabama to supply it. Some of those employees will come from programs being developed at Alabama’s Calhoun Community College, which is working directly with executives from Mazda Toyota. We can’t say that we have a real feel for developments like this, not yet anyway. Our impression, however, is that similar initiatives are cropping up around the country, and our guess is that their effects, over time, will be felt far beyond the shop floor.

EDITOR’S NOTE
This is an odd time to take a break. There is so much going on from Hong Kong to the U.S.-China trade war, and from USMCA to Brexit – some of it hopeful and some of it very worrying. After Labor Day these pages will return to all of those issues. None of them, alas, is likely to be resolved in the next nine or ten days. In the meantime, we’ll watch the passing scene with concern as well as interest and squeeze every bit of enjoyment we can out of these last days of August. We hope you can do the same. 

Enjoy!  
SOURCES & LINKS
American Dreams is a link to the article by Charles C. W. Cooke that was the source for today’s featured quote.
 
A New Manufacturing Course tells of a course being developed at Calhoun Community College with input and support from Mazda Toyota.

An SUV From Huntsville i s an article about the new Mazda Toyota plant there discussed above.

TO GET THE TTALK QUOTES IN YOUR INBOX
Or Other GBD Notices, click below.