An important angle which demonstrates how obtuse the Bush gov't is on outsourcing. It's an embarrassment that we are not promoting the development and manufacture of such technologies at home. The Germans and Japanese still manage to retain manufacturing at home while our own middle classes are lacking decent work. The White House would likely reply that Americans just don't want to make light bulbs. Does it have a point?

Excellent sourcing and information with a lot of informative links. The story resonates because it's located at the confluence of two high profile issues: green technology (good) and loss of US jobs (bad). I'm not quite sure how this is any different, in reality, than the hundreds of other industries that have moved or are moving around the globe. The often problematic nature of government subsidies are not discussed, and the comparison with government subsidies for the energy industry is problematic. For all sorts of reasons (strategic, national security-based, logistical), we can't outsource power production right now. Outsourcing the production of goods has been an integral part of the globalized economy for literally ... More »