Reliance upon foreign nations for our food supplies, is criminal! Our nation wide daily food requirements could be interrupted so simply. With foreign ships refusing to unload at our foreign controlled ports this will bring America to her knees in ten days or less. …
Men and nations lay down to die. Why are we laying down? Are we just relaxing or are we sleeping while our President and the Congress sign our death certificates? …
To All Americans: Do you want to see this movie or would you prefer to live this one event to the end? Is it time to stop globalization or shall we continue walking to our graveyards? … B4Ranch
Thank you for asking the tough questions that so many people are either not informed enough, or too afraid, to ask. And I know that your own personal answers to those questions are well considered … and are the result of research, born of concern, born of knowledge.
Not only are our economy and our trade policies no longer free, but what we have chosen as the focus of both is potentially deadly.
Frequently, during Alan Greenspan's testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, he would lecture -- condescendingly -- that we Americans need to get used to the fact that our 'new economy' is a 'cerebral economy’. He went on to explain that we have progressed to the point where we no longer have to rely on manufacturing tangible, nuts-and-bolts products in order to thrive as a society.
My reaction to that statement always bordered on terror. I had always considered this man to be simply inept. But then I grew to suspect that he was much more cunning -- and agenda-driven. And his agenda was not focused on benefiting America.
I am sick of so-called economic 'pundits' applauding the fact that we have evolved -- a term that generally connotes progress, or movement to a higher plane -- into a 'service-based' economy. They condescendingly make note of the fact that we no longer really have to manufacture or produce -- or compete in the manufacture or production -- of such mundane 'things' as food, steel, farm machinery, automobiles, construction equipment, heating/cooling equipment, electronics, and the like (i.e., nuts and bolts).
They are right about the fact that we have become a service-based economy. They are dead wrong about the fact that we should be proud (not to mention secure) about the fact that we produce/manufacture fewer and fewer of the necessities of life .... and liberty.
We have become a society focused on communication, retail and wholesale trade, finance, real estate, education, health and welfare, recreation, personal services, and accommodations. We talk, write, schedule, transfer money, bureaucratize, push paper, and arrange things.
We design and build very little anymore.
Yet we live in a world in which terrorism -- and the emergence, and increasing power, of serious ideological enemies -- is a real and present danger, and threatens to be so for the foreseeable future. We need to say to the average American: Imagine your own terrorist scenario -- i.e., What do you see as a horrific act, with long-term catastrophic effects, that could be perpetrated on this country? Now ask yourself, what would be needed in order to (1) recover from the attack, and (2) see to it that a recurrence is inconceivable?
Will talking, writing, scheduling, transferring money, bureaucratizing, pushing paper, and arranging things go a long way toward defending and protecting our liberties .... when the world finally acknowledges the fact that 'weapons of mass destruction' is not simply a political phrase of convenience -- and that regimes led by evil men will continue to barter with one another to obtain them?
Or will sophisticated technology, weaponry/intelligence/aircraft electronics, methods of transportation, methods of heating and cooling our homes, the means to repair infrastructure, the wherewithal to grow, harvest, and preserve our food, the means of transporting ourselves from one place to another, water purification methods, health/lifesaving devices, and communications equipment prove to be far more valuable in preparing ourselves to defend against (and recover from potential attacks by) the Kim Jong Ils/Osama bin Ladens/Ali Khameneis of this world (and their future ideological progeny)?
If the answer to the above is ‘yes’ .... and we are forced to depend on the likes of China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Brazil (or any of the endless list of other less-than-America-friendly countries that have wisely decided that a manufacturing economy is essential to survival in these troubling times) to provide us with the necessities of life (in the absolute literal sense) ... our glorious service-based economy will be the death of us (in the absolute literal sense).
We can survive economically for a time (England and Germany have), but our days of economic greatness are past. We have apathetically subscribed to the message of the elite leftist economic Pied Pipers, and sold our once thriving birthright in the process.
If the global credit system implodes, the world will turn to tangibles. After all, paper is only worth what one believes its future portends. A check from a rich man and a check from a homeless person can have the same amount printed on them, but who would value both of them equally? However, if the homeless man offers you gold (or another tangible commodity), how would your view of your two debtors change?
I have never felt more pessimistic about the economic (and therefore political/security) future of our republic. The fact that behind-the-scenes bankers, monetary policymakers, and power brokers have surreptitiously called the shots for decades used to keep me awake at night. It no longer does. It is an unfortunate fact of life that I, personally, now accept as such. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue to try to do what is within our power to change that state of affairs – even if what is within our power finds itself daily more limited by those same powers that be.
A nation gets the kind of behavior it tolerates and encourages .... The idea the game will one day end is beyond our comprehension. The foreigners are watching. The foreigners see our 44 trillion in government liabilities. They see our 700 billion dollar trade deficit. They see our 1.7 trillion dollars in personal credit card debt, our trillions in home mortgages, our weakening dollar, our Imperial arrogance and they make judgments. It is their judgment, not ours, which will decide the exact day the illusion called the United States economy will end. The day will come like a tidal wave on a beach full of sunbathing fools. The fundamentals of economic reality are not mocked forever. Consequences are coming .... Doug McIntosh
~ joanie ....