Who is capturing what? What data is there supporting it? People have been raising such alarms for generations (and usually the 'key industries' alarm is from a vested old guard trying to prevent economic change, and the industries were 'key' in the past).
However, there are several industries which have been decimated domestically. Off the top of my head, the US has lost its competitveness in the following industries:
- Shipbuilding
- Photovoltaic manufacturing
- Wind turbine manufacturing
- Cell phone manufacturing
- Pharma manufacturing
- Book binding
Lots of industries has moved since the dawn of time. Generally, lower-paying, lower-margin, lower-skill business moves to places where that can be done more cheaply, and new high-skill, higher-margin businesses form here.
'Creative destruction' is essential to capitalism (and the economy); it reallocates resources from less efficient to more efficient uses. Otherwise, you get stuck in stagnent, less efficient uses.
Foreign capital seems like a great thing to me: It's a larger pool of finance to support Americans. Would it be better of someone needing investment to start a business or build a house had less financing available?
Honestly, it all seems xenophobic: Why are people on the other side of political borders somehow bad to do business with?
For the later, well, Chinese shipyards can now build aircraft carriers at at comparable rates and at lower price than the US. Loss of US Navy power has not happened yet, but if China keeps innovating the writing is on the wall. Loss of US Naval monopoly would imply that the Pax Americana and the petrodollar itself are in jeopardy. Maybe that's a good thing if 'creative destruction' is the goal, but I would personally not be better off under a Chinese-led global order than under an American one.
This article is similar. Free trade is a good thing, but right now we're seeing an influx of foreign firms and capture of key industries and supply chain stops by foreign authorities. Rebuilding a strong American private and public sector and re-diversifying our economy by not having it based solely on the service part is a fairly noble goal, and I do agree with the author that OWS is a massive success story that offers some elucidating details that could help rebuild our infrastructure and lead to more effective public-private partnerships.