01 April, 2008


My roommate brought this to my attention -

In BusinessWeek's article Dollar Daze in Europe, the following sentence appears:

"Since EADS was awarded a contract to manufacture refueling tanker planes for the U.S. Air Force, Airbus plans to build civilian and military aircraft in Alabama."

EADS is the parent company of Airbus, the subject of one of yesterday's posts.  

The significance of this is two fold:

1)  Isn't it interesting that this tid-bit was omitted from the articles that 
expressed outrage when Airbus was awarded this contract?  These articles
argued that awarding Airbus the contract would send more jobs overseas 
and accelerate the decline of manufacturing in the U.S.  Clearly, it is not a 
given that foreign contracts will lead to additional outsourcing.  This way the 
government pays less for the product and employs Americans.  It appears 
through the magic of globalization it is sometimes possible to have our cake 
and eat it too, as long as the government gets out of the way.

2)  Guess you can't depend on the media to give you the full story.  
The moral here is be informed and question what you are told by
others.  This doesn't mean what you read is always untrue - just that we
need to be able to think for ourselves and not depend on others to do
our thinking for us.
  
    

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