Bear Left!: In the Grip of a Permanent War Economy by Seymour Melman.

My brother and I were talking yesterday about Welch's retirement and perks funded by G.E. Here is how he earned it.

We can learn something from the experience of the General Electric Company, in particular from the autobiography of Jack Welch.

He hailed the profits brought to GE by locating their largest R&D labs in India. From a careful biography of Jack Welch's stewardship of General Electric we learn that "GE has either closed or sold 98 plants in the United States during the Welch era, 43% of the 228 it operated in 1980."

More recently we learn from Business Week that General Electric will have 20,000 workers in India alone by the year's end, and is moving towards a "big China R&D center." The type of work which is being moved by GE to the India and China facilities includes finance, information technology support, R&D for medical, lighting, and aircraft.

The article discusses this relative to the U.S. economy moving beyond post-industrial to what I call imperialist, only geared for war.

There is no doubt about the main effects of a Permanent War Economy on the present and prospective production of consumer and capital goods in the United States. Myths, like a hoped-for inherent superiority for American-made goods, are simply melting away—daily.

The United States economy may now be geared for world wide imperialism - we are the best in the world in war machines and have by far the best military.

No wonder there is no establishment opposition to this war except in Hollywood, geared to export to friendly foreign markets. The establishment is the military-industrial complex and their politicians.

The United States is now a species of State Capitalism. The top federal government executives are a partnership of top political and corporate managers who operate a war economy to enlarge their power as their main continuing goal. The idea that the U.S. can afford guns and butter without limit is proven false every day. Unemployment levels that are the hallmark of deep depression are now visible as additional millions "leave" the labor force and are not counted as unemployed by the Federal government even though they are actually jobless. Hence, an 8% "unemployment" rate as counted by the Federal government actually refers to 16% jobless. Meanwhile, the infrastructure of American society shows decay that can no longer be concealed despite the practiced showmanship of leading public officials.

U.S. industrial manufacturing has been replaced by war manufacturing and even our service economies are relocating overseas with the new fast stable communications

With the failure of the state capitalism of the soviet union and the continued liberalization in China, is the United States the remaining dinosaur of a failed political philosophy?