Viewing that complex relationship one-sidedly from the aspect of manufacturing and the impact of Chinese imports on the United States makes sense from the point of view of the Rust Belt of the United States. It may even make sense as a political strategy for a candidate running for office.

There was a bridge to the 21st century, and yet, somehow, for very large number of Americans, it was unclear how you got from one place to the other, from being a manual working-class man to being some part of a Brooklyn-based sharing economy.

Election Day now has become the last day to vote.

One can understand the politics of that at this moment. It's an effort to buy time for a constituency of workers who have really been suffering in the last 20 years, and who need to be prepared and be given time to prepare for a transition to a very different type of employment that we may moving on to in the coming decades.

Politics is in my blood. I'd love to be involved in 2008, maybe even '06.

The heyday perhaps of American public infrastructure is the Sputnik moment of the 1950s, the [Dwaight] Eisenhower administration, for instance, which rolls out the modern interstate system. The highway system of the United States is built during this period.

The president-elect Donald Trump moved a bit closer to getting his Cabinet in place with another round of confirmation hearings. The most contentious was for his treasury secretary pick, Steven Mnuchin, a billionaire banker who worked at Goldman Sachs and owned a hedge fund. There was important news that came out during the hearing. Mnuchin said that he would support raising the debt ceiling sooner rather than later, and not risk the country defaulting.