I'd like to make a couple of modest wagers, a la Julian Simon's bet with Paul Ehrlich.

WAGER 1: The Sunday Rome News-Tribune reprinted a Paul Krugman column (sorry no link). In that column Krugman writes:

The trade deficit isn't sustainable. We can run huge deficits for the time being, because foreigners ... are willing to lend us huge sums. But one of these days the easy credit will come to an end, and the United States will have to start paying its way in the world economy.

To do that, we'll have to reorient our economy back toward producing things we can export or use to replace imports. And that will mean pulling a lot of workers back into manufacturing.

My bet--let's make it $100 if Prof. Krugman will take me up--is that whenever the U.S. next has exports greater than or equal to its imports a smaller share of workers, not a larger share, will be employed in manufacturing. Two reasons why I'm confident in offering this wager: first, the rapid overall gains in manufacturing productivity. Second, a trade balance will probably be associated with a reduction of foreign investment in the U.S.; foreign investment (e.g., foreign auto plants built here) is a significant source of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

WAGER 2: The Jan 9 WSJ (again no link) had a feature on so-called corporate social responsibility (page R6). In an exchange with Ilyse Hogue of the Rainforest Action Network and Fred Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Benjamin Heineman of GE wrote:

Rough numbers: The life expectancy of a male in Russia is about 58 years, in China about 74. One (not the only) source of disease in Russia is poor environmental protection. With rapid industrialization, China has to make sure it doesn't go the way of Russia.

My bet for Mr. Heineman--again $100 sounds about right--is that if China continues to industrialize, it will have increased, not decreased, life expectancy. (This bet should probably have a time frame--perhaps over the next decade.) Continued industrialization, as Fred Smith pointed out later in the exchange, should be associated with rising wealth, better health, and increased longevity.