Lazy Market Price Action... and More

As suggested in my previous posts, the market is lazily drifting upwards. The news out of GM today was quite positive, though I have a feeling one could almost see this agreement coming after Delphi's bankruptcy last week -- it seems like the GM management may have used that unfortunate event to "soften up" the UAW stance over a variety of issues such as health care and retirement benefits.

Longer-term, the jury is still out about the sustainability of GM's business while America is shifting from a manufacturing to a service economy. These issues are so political that it may take years for them to completely play out. But one can't help but fear for the competitiveness of the U.S. middle-class manufacturing worker in the context of global competition.

Does the U.S. have the necessary technological and, more importantly, EDUCATIONAL edge to fend off the ambitious, hungry, highly-educated and motivated Chinese and Indian workers who will be competing with Americans about these types of jobs? Some would say that we may be dealing with a small slice of those two Asian countries' population, but 1% of 2.5bn people is still 25mm people... Law of large numbers of demographics. The odds are America loses this battle in the long run.