globalization & Pynchon?

[Jane Sweet]

calbert at tiac.net wrote:
> 
> Sweet J:
> 
> > What is the cause of this gap? Is it exploitation of the
> > developing world by the developed world? Globalization? Why
> > is the gap between US rich and US working class & poor
> > growing? What's the connection?
> 
> I'm not sure that spending time laboring over the causes is very
> productive....what is of FAR GREATER IMPORTANCE, is insuring
> that MOBILITY up AND DOWN such a ladder is unrestricted, hell,
> even facilitated.......
> 
> love,
> cfa

Well, my point is that the connection is not globalization.
The gap in both examples, involves growth on both ends, but
of course the rich can get richer quicker than the poor can
get a car in the garage and a washing machine. 

Also, I have stressed the very important fact that the USA
is a domestically driven economy. It's radically different
in Europe for example, where trade accounts for around 40%
of GDP. Again, I use Japan as an example because it too is
very much a domestic economy (although the outlook for Japan
is very grim imho, cartels and politics are the chief
problems) and it is still the model, although other
economies in the block are not following the
protectionist/cartel stupidity that Japan managed to grow
its miracle economy in face of through the "catch up." 
Japan, as you know was an agrarian society, it has a big
population for a chain of volcanic islands with, somewhat
like Germany, not much in the way of "natural resources."  

The history of US Japanese economic relations, bumpy and
wild, is a success story imho. 
The US did not gun-boat them into growth. I think US Japan
relations are a very good model. Problems of course, we have
short memories or selective ones, remember when the Japanese
were buying 70% of every US auction of government debt? They
even tried to coerce the US into issuing paper in yen.
Leaders in Japan called that gun-boat financing at the time.