Frightening

Question:  What is more frightening than a horror movie?

Answer:  A short video prepared by www.prosperousamerica.org

I was introduced to this video by Mr. Den Black of American Jobs Alliance. 

What are some of the frightening things in the video?

+  Destruction of millions of jobs in manufacturing and in service industries.

+  China recently proved its capability to shoot down satellites, and generally is greatly enlarging and upgrading its armed forces, using our money!

+  Chinese graduate students in U.S. research universities are likely to take our new technology straight back to China.

+  A Chinese company is the biggest operator of ports in the world.   U.S. west coast ports are not big enough to bring in goods as fast as China would like.  A new port is  under construction on the Pacific cost of Mexico.  Goods will be brought straight to a distribution center in Kansas, via a new "trade superhighway".


Ed Farkas comment

The video is excellent.  Every politician in Washington should be forced to see it.  But a further frightening aspect of the video is that no strong solution to the problem is presented.  The narrator even assures viewers that the organization behind the video is not "protectionist or isolationist". 

Why? What's wrong with a bit of protectionism?  The pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that we are about to destroy our economy completely. 

I believe the U.S. president, the U.S. government, and many Senate and House members, are completely controlled by China*.  Therefore nothing will be done to prevent the continued destruction of the American economy and America itself.   Nothing will be done to prevent China from becoming the owner of thousands of American companies, including ownership of coal mines, oil fields, gas fields, etc.

*or by groups of American companies active in China, amounting to the same thing


Some possible solutions

A million man/woman march on Washington asking for jobs and the cutting of all ties with China.  Might be enough to scare the people who control the U.S. government.

A million man/woman march on Washington asking for limits to terms of office, with maximum 12 years (or other suitable number) in Washington.  To apply retroactively to sitting politicians, and of course to future politicians.  I believe this is the only way to obtain something approaching rational and honest government of the USA.

(Our founding fathers made one huge mistake in their otherwise amazing and pioneering work of setting up the constitution and the new government and country of "USA".  They forgot to put in limits to terms of office.  The issue was discussed and was dealt with in early drafts of the constitution.  However, limits to terms of office were not included in the final version.  As a result, America has NEVER had rational, common sense, honest, government.)

If we could throw out hundreds of Senate and House members who are controlled by China, and bring in ordinary working men and women to replace them, we could get action to rescue America.

In some ant colonies, it has been observed that all the individual ants will suddenly act together to face an emergency.  My new dream (scroll down to see previous dream in previous blog) is that Americans will similarly act together, spontaneously, and stop buying goods made in China or other Far East countries.  The whole problem would be solved overnight.  The people in Washington who are controlled by China, and China itself, would be thrown into absolute disarray. 

If this dream were realized even in part, existing American manufacturers would ramp up, and hire additional workers, within weeks.  A whole new spirit would be seen in America.  We would tell China they don't have to bother completing their new port in Mexico.  Or the trade superhighway to Kansas.


A key economic issue

I took some economics courses in college.  That doesn't make me an economist.  However I have made more sensible comments about causes and solutions of our current problems than thousands of economists put together.

An important fact taught in economics courses is this.  If country X gets into real trouble because of  too many imports, and thousands or millions of its workers are unemployed, the currency of country X will go down in value.  As a result, imported goods will become very expensive; citizens of country X won't be able to afford them.  There will be an opening for domestic manufacturing to re-vitalize.  The problem will solve itself!

This mechanism is not working now.  Why?  Money managers all over the world who want to "park" money in relative safety look around and see the U.S. dollar as the best bet.  Despite the severe economic problems faced by USA, people still want to buy U.S. dollars.  The currencies of all other countries are worse!

For example, China a few years ago talked about the Euro becoming the world currency.  But look at the Euro now!  There is a real possibility that the Euro will disappear in the next few months.

Canada and Australia have severe unemployment due to sending manufacturing jobs away but have resources and raw materials to sell.  So their currencies are not too bad.  However the economies of these two countries are too small to allow "parking" of significant amounts of floating cash from around the world.

People appear not yet ready to park their money in India, China, or other "developing" countries.  So the money pours into good old USA, keeping the U.S. dollar high.

It is very important to remember another important economic fact.  Manufacturing provides benefits way beyond employment.  Manufacturing provides a wealth-creation effect, also referred to as value-added.  It is a subtle effect but a very substantial and significant effect.  If an item is manufactured overseas, we lose the wealth-creation effect.  That is why it is critically important to do our own manufacturing here at home.