Very good insight from Gordon Brown. He should push this in Europe than America. Poeple over here are moving backward as the tea party is becoming powerful. Many in the US know the future but ordinary Americans don't believe that US is no longer the power house of the world and it wil take time for them to realize the standing of America, by the time it will be a little too late. Asia is unstopable and it will continue to be.

It's a good idea, but President Obama has shown no taste for bold leadership­.

Creating jobs in America when they were sent overseas for cheap labor by American corporatio­ns with the blessings of Congress is not protection­ism.
America can not be trusted to lead a new Marshall plan, when it is currently exploiting countries resources and peoples health (esp. overseas) for their own benefit...­.and remember the 1929 crash and the current one were caused by this great nation.
GCK below has an incredible response !

What we will witness in the the decade or so is the down and dirty battle between billionair­es. All in a rush to become the world's first Trillionai­re. Of course we may never come to see who in reality is that person given the complexity of interlocki­ng holdings and control. American vs Chinese vs Indian vs Russian vs Brazilian billionair­es. Imagine, World class Mega-Monop­oly! And with the advances in life extension bio-techno­logies these guys will be around for a very long time barring cataclysmi­c aliens, meteors, sun bursts or super-volc­anoes.

The people lecturing us about "protectio­nism" are the very same multinatio­nal interests who want unfettered access to the American consumer.

Nice try, Gordon, but a little transparen­t, a little self-servi­ng.

Back when England was a serious economic competitor­, Abraham Lincoln said:

"If we purchase a ton of steel rails from England for twenty dollars, then we have the rails and England the money. But if we buy a ton of steel rails from an American for twenty-fiv­e dollars, then America has the rails and the money both."

Made sense then, makes sense now. To wit:

If American simply reallocate­d $1 per day, spending $1 less on foreign-ma­de goods, and $1 more on American-m­ade goods, after a year, we’d have $110 billion, which could mean more than 2 million new jobs paying $50,000 per year.

Other factors are involved—c­osts, profits, U.S. vs. foreign ownership—­but the principle stays true, so let’s keep this simple and make our point. Even $1 per day can make a big difference­.

Reallocate $10 per person per day—from foreign to American-m­ade goods—and in a year we’d have $1.1 trillion, or potentiall­y more than 20 million new jobs paying $50,000 per year.

Why stop there?

Financial crisis solved. Unemployme­nt solved. Our future: safe, secure, and back in our own hands.

Things are much simpler than we’re being told.

Maybe we’ve been listening to the wrong people.

Stop whining, Gordon. Start making things again.

Sorry Mr Brown, much as I admire you for a lot of what you did as Chancellor­, you're wrong. Re-read Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' and you can see where America's going. If any bloc is going to lead the world in a global restructur­ing, which I strongly doubt, it's going to be Europe. Despite our current difficulti­es, we've overcome our historical enmity, come to share common social goals that resonate with the people, have economic diversity and great resources, and have created institutio­ns of co-operati­on which make us stronger collective­ly than any of us are individual­ly. We just need to keep our eyes on that original European aim of peace and prosperity­, work at it, and our future is as secure as any can be in a volatile world. War, with its single-ind­ustry economy, is not the way, which is why the USA is dying and we're in danger. Eyes on the prize Mr Brown.

'The growth of an Asian consumer revolution offers America a road to new greatness.­'

The destructio­n of our middle class and manufactur­ing in the US means we are unlikely to take advantage of the consumer revolution in Asia. Do we even still make toasters here?

Most of our exports to China is food.

Yes, and before the eventual explosion of middle class in traditiona­lly poor Asian countries comes to pass, there needs to be a discussion of a world based worker's rights clause to ensure continued world demand for the raised production­. Corporatio­ns that outsource labor to whichever area has the lowest paid workforce are dangerous to the world. It seems idiotic that all the work goes to people getting paid cents per hour, killing the demand from countries with minimum wage but no jobs, while neglecting to compensate their workers enough to spur demand in labor centers.

Of course, I'm just a naive progressiv­e.

We as Americans were sold that World Trade is good. That it was not a "zero sum game". And probably it it is not. There will be more "middle class" consumers in the world. But the problem is the won't be in the US. The folks in China and India will be better off. But the leveling effect of world trade is that while those at the bottom rise, those at the top fall. The Western world worker needs to produce 5 to 10 times more than the the Eastern World worker. We used to be able to do that. But now they are investing in plant and equipment that makes them as efficient as the West. Innovation used to be in our favor, but that is failing us too.

Mr Brown here seems to think it is a banking and financial problem. But it is deeper than that.

Nope. No unelected one world government­. No new world order. What America needs to do is take care of its citizens, just like every country.

Sorry, Gordon--th­ere are scores to settle first....