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The relevant 'admission' date is when China was elevated, meaning given trade privileges it had not yet earned under WTO rules, in 2000. Manufacturing employment in the US was 17.2 million in 2000 and 11.5 million by 2009. Here is the link https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP The link that you left didn't work for me. Thanks for your comment.

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David, go to the nakedcapitalism link in the piece. Lambert Strether has written extensively on the politics of Covid and doctors joined the effort with research. I agree with Strether on all of the major issues he has raised.

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Great stuff. Many thanks!

One quibble: If we track manufacturing employment from 1945, we can see that China's entry into the WTO had no discernible effect on the rate of decline of American manufacturing, as this image shows: https://i.imgur.com/tlTfecw.png

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"However, no US president was willing to ‘lose’ Vietnam because of feared domestic political repercussions."

Only if you include the fear of the wrath emanating from the military contractors. JFK either didn't factor that in to its murderous ends, or was personally up for the challenge while understanding the stakes of the game he was engaged in. God rest his soul.

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What about the Covid 'response', as you call it, so concerns you? Please tell me you haven't joined ranks with the anti-vaxxers! Troubling as may be US News & World Report polls of obese Americans nourished on Flaming Hot Cheetos and Red Bull+(Ukranian) Vodka, football and pharma advertisements, at least we are all locked down, masked up, double jabbed and triple boosted. And still eager to heed the sagely diktats of our unimpeachable health technocrats. The safe and effective MAGA-jabs saved a hundred million lives, at least! That's one thing Donald and Joe (or whatever entity is handling the joystick) surely agree on, or at least demand that we believe. Just imagine how many more lives we could save if all the privileged racists stopped impeding vaccine equity!

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