Ah, the sweet drone of American English. It’s nice to travel, but it’s nicer to be home.

The conference in Bangkok was useful in many ways. For the most part, it gave Th’ Gaussling some needed perspective in an important segment of the Asian chemical market. North America is far from doomed, market-wise, though it is critical that we curb the rate of chemical de-industrialization going on here.

Manufacturing is the bedrock of our economy and one of the major pillars of our culture. I think that the notion of clean telecommuting promoted by the computer industry leads to the expectation that the country can become one large bedroom community, with dirty heavy industry left to banana republics and Asian tigers.

This notion is absurd and self destructive. If paper mills, refineries, and coal mines are too polluting, then industry needs to collaborate better with the chemical engineering departments around the country. If semiconductor and pharmaceutical manufacturing is too costly in the states, then industry needs to collaborate better with our research institutions.

We have too many non-technical MBA’s driving the country and it has to change. Ruthless finance manipulations must be replaced by ruthless technological advance. Delicate, abstract investment contrivances should be superceded by robust scientific and engineering achievement.