PMs in Valley

Don8217;t be blue

The bellyaching continues unabated in the columns of liberal America as George W Bush recasts his team further in his own image. Travelling through blue America, British writer and columnist Timothy Garton Ash encountered the insistently outraged, who say that the Diebold automatic counting machines were programmed to undercount Democratic votes. And the persistently apologetic, like the young American holding up the handwritten placard saying 8216;8216;Sorry World we tried8212;Half of America8217;8217; to visitors at the website sorryeverybody.com.

The Economist tried to poke holes in the heavy gloom. There really is no moral majority in the US. In this election, the moralists8217; share of the electorate was only 22 per cent, only 2 percentage points more than those who cited the economy and three points more than those who cited terrorism as the top priority.

But, most of all, the Economist8217;s silver lining hung on to faultlines within Bush8217;s religious support. This support consists not of a homogeneous bunch of right-wing evangelical Christians but also of traditionalist and observant church-goers of every kind. The variety in the conservative religious opinion will ensure that Bush is not trapped by any one wing of his religious base.

Indian takeover?

The Economist had reassurance for the free-traders as well. Here, the spectre is Outsourcing. It is also, as The Washington Post titled it, the impending 8216;Apparel Apocalypse8217;. In both bleak narratives, India is Villain.

As globalisation begins to do to white collar work what it has done to manufacturing jobs, the magazine served up a pointed reminder: the agents of change are the same as those that brought about the 1990s boom8212;new-economy communications and computer technologies are combining with globalisation to bring down costs, lift profits and boost growth. For obstinate worriers in the west, the consolations are: it is still more difficult to outsource work in the services than it is in manufacturing. And in the long term, India8217;s success lies in improving its 8216;8216;awful8217;8217; infrastructure. Better airports, hotels, roads, schools, power supply stand in the path of an Indian takeover of the world.

And in The Washington Post, Fred Abernathy and David Weil of the Harvard Center for Textile and Apparel Research explained why America8217;s textile industries won8217;t die when the international quotas on apparel and textile exports are eliminated at the start of next year. Their reasons for not fearing a flooding of the US retail market by Chinese and Indian exports: One, a large proportion of American apparel imports originate in countries that are geographically closer. 8216;8216;Costs remain a driving factor, but the proximity advantage will grow even greater in a post-quota world as retailers raise the bar ever higher on the responsiveness and flexibility required of their suppliers.8217;8217; Two, quotas may end but the elaborate system of tariffs between countries will remain, giving an advantage to countries covered by regional trade agreements that eliminate tariffs, as NAFTA does for Mexico and Canada.