One more point to Mr.Ehrig,
In the past 2 decades policymakers in the first world have given
strong support towards free trade and laissez faire economic reform.
The engineering of the WTO and other international accords to insur
global free trade have been the work of policy-makers both in the private
and public sectors dilligently working to (in their view)
optimize trade conditions and maximize comparitive advantage.
Meanwhile, US
corporate leadership has pursued a strategy of extreme short term
investment due to the reliance US companies have on speculation-driven
stock market which greatly shapes corporate decisions. Japanese and
European companies that are partially owned by large banks provide the
stability necessary for long-term corporate planning.
The two tendencies: long term-planning by policy makers in national
governments, international financial institutions, etc, and short-term
planning in US corporate borad-rooms are fundamentally unrelated.