ARTICLE: “China’s growing pull puts Brazil in a bind: South American nation swamped by imports,” by David J. Lynch, USA Today, 21 March 2006, p. 1B.

ARTICLE: “In Car Junkyards, Scrap Haulers Find a Surprise: Healthy Profits; Facing Global Metal Shortage, Recycler Schnitzer Buys And Modernizes Operations,” by Joel Millman and Paul Glader, Wall Street Journal, 21 March 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “For the Danish, A Job Loss Can Be Learning Experience: Ambitious Retraining Program Keeps Unemployment Low, Even Amid Mass Layoffs; A Drawback: Very High Taxes,” by Marcus Walker, Wall Street Journal, 21 March 2006, p. A1.

China’s growing impact on the global economy is a fascinating historical process to witness, in large part because it spares no one: not the Gap, not fellow New Core, not even the most established of Old Core. It reorders industries, revamps bilateral political and military relationships, redefines strategic interests in places like Africa. I mean, if you had told me growing up that the most profound capitalistic influence in the world in 2006 would be rapaciously market-driven China … hmmm, that would have been a bit hard to swallow.

And yet here it is.

China is flooding fellow New Core Brazil with the same cheap manufactured/assembled goods as it is America, and guess what? What China shoves with one hand, it simultaneously grabs with another: decimating some local industries (low-end manufacturing) while reviving others (typically, commodities and raw materials). So, broom makers of Brazil, beware, but agricultural exporters--rejoice! In the U.S., old-line manufacturing, beware, but recyclers of scrap metal--rejoice!

Isn’t this a losing proposition, though? Don’t we end up buying low-end stuff and selling even lower-end stuff? Aren’t we dumbing down our economy while they’re growing up theirs?

Well, of course it all depends on how we handle the challenge of China’s very rapid rise up the value chain. They’re replicating the strategy of the several Asian tigers that went before, from Japan to South Korea to Singapore, etc., none too subtly inserting themsleves in their supply chain system by becoming the assembler of final resort. But what that forces upon fellow Asian states isn’t the same great leap backward that seems to threaten the manufacturing jobs of a more developed nation like the U.S. So what’s our answer?

It probably should look something close to what the Danes are doing.

I have to admit, the more I learn about the Danes, the more admirable they become in my eyes. They really work at it, whether it’s competition in the global economy, taking on “culture clashes” head on, being key leaders on SysAdmin peacekeeping jobs in the Gap. It’s really an interesting country.

So the WSJ story details the rather ambitious and comprehensive way that the Danish government guarantees job retraining for workers who suffer the dislocation of globalization. That allows Denmark to allow “liberal hiring and firing as in the U.S.,” even as it imposes firm limits on the duration of jobless benefits. It calls this aggressive approach “flexicurity”: you’re expected to seek out government help to get retrained and then get your ass back to work. During your downtime, the government will pay upwards to 90 percent of your former salary.

The result? “Even though Danes are among the most easily laid-off workers in Europe, polls show the country’s workers are the most secure about their future. The European Commission now holds up Denmark as a model for other countries to try to follow.”

Hmm, seems to me that a CODEL to Denmark might make some sense for Hill Dems and Republicans.