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In spite of a flawed dinner strategy, I was happy to support America's new manufacturing sector. President Bush had truly demonstrated his commitment to making sure that every American who wants work can find a job. Unwilling to ignore the export of manufacturing jobs to the unregulated havens of the third-world, the president vowed to create more manufacturing jobs at home. This began with 2004's famous Economic Report of the President, which asked the hard question, "What is Manufacturing, Anyway?"; and continued with exhaustive scientific inquiries into the qualitative difference between a fuel-injector and a big mac. The findings confirmed what everyone in the administration already suspected: Americans still make big macs. And because the government had subsidized the export of real manufacturing to other nations, the report rightly notes that "the definition of what constitutes manufacturing is far from clear."

Millions of new manufacturing jobs could be generated instantaneously, if only we as Americans were prepared to let go of our outdated ideas about high-wages and good benefits, and embrace a new epoch of "productive flexibility." Unions are an anachronism--appropriate at one time, perhaps, but no longer needed in a post-industrial economy in which all antagonisms between corporations and their employees have been transcended, under the guiding principle of not thinking critically, and that success "is an attitude!"