Part III of Interview with Chrystia Freeland on the Global Elites

Part III of an interview with Chrystia Freeland on The Rise of the New Global Elite and the rapid disappearance of the Middle Class in America.

Read the full post here at Forbes.

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Part II of Interview with Chrystia Freeland on the Global Elites

Part II of an interview with Chrystia Freeland on The Rise of the New Global Elite and the rapid disappearance of the Middle Class in America.

Read the full post on Forbes here.

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Part I of Interview with Chrystia Freeland on the Global Elites

Part I of an interview with Chrystia Freeland on The Rise of the New Global Elite and the rapid disappearance of the Middle Class in America.

Read my full Forbes post here.

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America: Wake up! How are we going to compete with China?

By Eric Jackson, Senior Contributor03/02/11 - 06:00 AM EST

Former GE(GE_) CEO, Jack Welch, was on CNBC Tuesday, saying, "This is still the best country in the world."

Those words make us all feel warm and fuzzy. We're the best. We have been and we always be. Politicians like to invoke these same feelings in their speeches.

But the words are hollow. We're not the best anymore. Our time at the top is coming to a close, unless we take drastic actions which we seem unwilling to consider. China is about to pass us. The Chinese work harder, for less money and benefits.

We need a wake-up call.

I had a long car ride last weekend and was listening toSirius(SIRI_) satellite radio with an endless loop onCNN and Fox News Channel. If you only got your news from these two channels and the politicians and pundits speaking on them, you would assume our leadership atop the global is unassailable.

The biggest question facing our country, according to the talking heads, is whether we should have more or less government and more or less taxes.

These debates miss the big picture: China is eating our lunch economically. Are we, as Americans, going to come together as a cohesive team and think about how we can better compete with the Chinese or are we going to keep fighting ourselves?

Americans have had it good for a long time. Our standard of living is the best in the world. We borrowed money over the last 20 years because our expectations of continued prosperity were assured. But the party is over. We've collectively maxed out our credit cards. It's time for us to look at ourselves critically in the mirror.

We don't need politicians who act like polite Saks(SKS_) sales clerks telling us that our butt doesn't look fat in a new pair of jeans we're trying on when it does. We need politicians who talk to us like a personal trainer at the gym: We're fat and out of shape --- and we need to get on a program.

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[** This post is an excerpt of the full article, which is available on TheStreet.com by clicking here. Free Site.**]

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Orlando Cabbie's Strange Tale

By Eric Jackson, Senior Contributor02/02/11 - 06:00 AM EST

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - You meet all kinds of strange characters in life but this is a story I had to tell.

Last week, I flew to Orlando to attend a governance conference at Disney World. My cabbie at the airport was overweight, with a scruffy beard, and didn't bother to help me throw my bags in the trunk when I got it. However, he was immediately polite and engaged me in conversation. And he was a little aggressive. Before we'd even got out of the airport grounds, he was asking me when I was going back to the airport and if he could come and pick me up for the fare.

His name was Dave. I have only his first name and his mobile number, which he scratched out on a piece of paper before he dropped me off at my hotel. He was clearly worried that I wouldn't meet him the next day, so I also gave him my cell phone number.

As we kept talking on the ride to my hotel from the Orlando airport, I could hardly believe Dave's story. He'd been driving a taxi for only four months, with a few vacations included in that time. He didn't make much.

On good days, when he worked 18 hours straight, he could pull in about $100 net. He always had to make about $160 every day just to cover his costs for gas, credit card fees, airport fees, and taxi commission fees. On the day he picked me up, he had only one other ride in the morning that was a $30 fare. I was going to bring him about $70 going to Disney. He said he would probably knock off for the night afterwards.

He'd been laid off two years before he started driving a cab. He had had a senior marketing job for a high-end kitchen cabinet-making company. "See all these houses and condos," he said, as he waved his arm across the suburban sprawl landscape of Orlando. "All these havemy cabinets."

When Lehman Brothers collapsed and sent the stock markets diving in 2008, the Florida housing boom was over, ending the demand for high-end kitchen cabinets. He was among the first of the company's 173 employees to get a pink slip. The company now employs four people, including the founder. "How's Orlando doing?" I asked him, trying to politely change the subject from his own personal tale of woe. "Terrible," he said. "Our unemployment is 16%, higher than the state average of 12%. More and more foreclosed homes get dumped all the time on the market. It will take at least six years for real estate to start coming back here. I pick up guys all the time who I know are in trouble. I know they lost their jobs. General Electric(GE_) just laid off a bunch of people in town. I'll pick them up and their cards will all bounce trying to pay for a $16 fare. I could call the cops on them but why do that for $16?

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[** This post is an excerpt of the full article, which is available on TheStreet.com by clicking here. Free Site.**]

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