Questions for the Laureate

Here's a letter to the Financial Times:

Several questions popped to mind after reading Nobel laureate economist Michael Spence's essay in your pages today ("America needs a growth strategy").  Here are a few:

- What is his factual basis for accepting the claim that in the U.S. "manufacturing is vanishing"?  Data from the Federal Reserve show quite the opposite. [UPDATE: See also the Wells Fargo study linked in the previous post.]

- Mr Spence blames many of America's current economic woes on "a...