That's likely true, as we've been on a trend towards globalization for over 30 years, though there was some rollback in the last 3-4 years. I think its important to recognize what brought us to this state of affairs and how it has had only a negative impact on American workers, wages, and tax revenue.
We used to make things 100%in the US, and we were the only nation on Earth that had the natural resources to allow this. We have enough resources for almost 100% of our own demand. The only things we don't have in large enough quantities are oddball stuff like titanium. We used to pride ourselves on our companies being vertically integrated with operations inside and across the US. Henry Ford didn't just build cars. He owned the forests the wood for his car bodies were built from came out of, plus the sawmills, and even created charcoal to be able to sell the scrap. We produced out own steel, aluminum, oil, etc.
All this industry that built communities and gave people an income on which they could own a home, raise kids, and eventually retire started to get sold out in bad trade and tax deals in the late '80s. This is why so much material and now even manufactured products come from foreign sources. Greedy, shortsighted politicians allowed us to enter trade deals that made it advantageous for US companies to export jobs and buy materials from foreign sources.
Concurrently we were all sold a story that America was going to be the intellectual capital of the world. We didn't need to work with our hands anymore, because we were all going to college to learn to be computer programmers and communications experts. The problem is that this simply created a job market where there were too many chiefs and not enough indians. Ultimately it had the opposite effect where college diplomas in many fields now mean little without a masters or doctorate, and a high priced education nets a job that pays barely enough to pay off your student loans.
Meanwhile blue collar workers and those not cut out for college have seen wages stagnate as inflation and higher compound taxes on goods and services take more an more of their income to where now I don't see how they will retire, they can't afford to get sick, and their kids are just going to fall into the college loan scam.
Its a real shame, and its not going to stop unless we demand it. Politicians on both sides have had countless opportunities to fix it and haven't. Obviously they want it this way. The only way to change it is to demand it by making made in the USA mean something when we open our wallets. At this point I guess anything assembled or partially made in the USA is better than foreign sourced. If we buy only those and run the foreign stuff out of business hopefully more and more starts getting made in the USA and we can get back to a thriving middle class and people being able to elevate themselves out of poverty by securing a stable, good paying job that doesn't require an education that wasn't worth the price of admission.
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TKOPerformance wrote:
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