This is GPS, the Global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and

around the world. I'm Farid Zakaria, coming to you from Aspen, Colorado.

Today an extra special program with three, yes three, former secretaries of the Treasury.

First I'll talk to Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner about the state of American politics,

the downgrad of the U.S.'s credit ratings and the struggles of the Chinese economy.

Then Robert Rubin talks to me about how to make hard decisions and what a yellow legal

pad has to do with that skill. Finally David Byrne came to fame with his new wave band,

talking heads some 40 years ago. I talked to him about his latest wave of creativity which

includes a musical about former Filipina First Lady in Malder Marcos, performed in a Broadway

theater that's been transformed into a disco. But first here's my take. For years now American

politics has been shaped by the idea of the China shock. The term coined by three economists

in a 2016 paper captures the widespread belief that trade with China has resulted in the

deindustrialization of significant parts of the U.S. and the loss of huge numbers of

manufacturing jobs. It has fueled much of Trump's trade policy and Biden's new industrial

policy, all of which is premised on the notion that China presents an existential challenge

to America's economic position in the world. Now there are debates as to whether the China

shock was actually as strong as initially suggested. I wonder whether it should really

have been called the globalization shock. Many of the Western manufacturing jobs lost,

had they not gone to China, would have gone to other emerging markets. In any event, most

agreed that the China shock ended about a decade and a half ago. But its political effects

remain strong, even though the story in China today is completely different. China's

economy is in bad shape. The numbers that are being released all point to a sharp economic

...