When society degrades and deteriorates, those with the slightest bit of competence and promise start to look elsewhere. And although, this is not politically correct, nor popular (which should make it golden) anybody with any skill or game in the US should start to look elsewhere.
The US is collapsing.
Oh, I know, disregard that random, rouge, rugged blogger, he knows not what he speaks of, but yeah, I'm sorry, my heart felt opinion is that the US is collapsing and if you have any desire to actually produce something of worth for society or have a life for yourself, jump off this Titanic, parasitic socialist wreck and find something else in life worth pursuing, because we're going down.
I don't know how long I've suffered tolerating limitless numbers of "sociology" majors and "journalism" majors who no doubt are the rank and file of the Obama Messiah Saviours of us all, but in the end it will not deliver the results necessary to pull us out of this recession/depression. The sad, truth of it is that nobody in this country is willing to learn the necessary skills or trades required to produce the goods and services that the rest of the world wants, which would actually produce the wealth/value that would give merit to the US. This is a rotting carcass of spoiled brats who believe that since they exist they are entitled. And since they are entitled, why should they work. And since there is no work....well, you know where that childish philosophy leads.
Ergo, I tender a proposal to all the nations in this world. Though nations are governments, in the end, no matter how much you'd like to theorize otherwise, the free market and competition reigns supreme for it is reality. And if you wish to become a great nation, then you will realize that a nation is only as great as its people. And if you wish to be great, then you should by default, wish to attract great people. The question is how.
Do you tax the living crap out of them?
Do you punish them with corporate taxes and drive the Bill Gates away?
Do you parasite off of them, absconding with their producitivity to bribe the masses to vote for you knowing full well you've driven them, and real economy productivity away?
Or do you become a revolutionary and actually attract them by letting them retain the majority of the fruits of their labor?
Do you let people form corporations and entities by which THEY have deemed most efficient to deliver goods and services most cheaply and most affordably and stay the ef out of it?
Do you leave the them hell alone and as a government promise them the most basic of services without interrupting and interfering with issues that are of no concern not right of the government?
Ergo, let me tender a crazy, insane, revolutionary thought in the apparachicks of governments around the world;
Since a country is only as great as its people are, why don't you take advantage of the greatest opportunity in the world and pilfer from the United States all their productive and talented citizens?
Seriously, do you think the average productive American likes subsidizing scores of parasites? Do you think we productive members of America like paying for welfare bums, social security frauds and others who have never had any intention of producing the wealth necessary to support their own lives?
American producers, the workers, the toilers, the enterprenuers who created the largest, most powerful most successful economy in the world are simply there for the plucking. You could poach them and then instead of these hard workers slaving away to support the parasitic masses of the Obama world, work instead for your nation.
Oh, I know that would have to result in you lowering taxes and actually being honest with your citizens that they (GASP) have to support themselves, but think of the economic productivity and growth that would occur if you were to take the best from America with the simple promise that you don't indenture them to economic slavery and let them keep 90% of what they earn?
It is the simple concept that even though you are a government, you still compete in the international world. And any government smart enough to poach the talent and productivity of labor from other nations by (again, GASP!) LETTING THEM KEEP THE VAST MAJORITY OF THEIR LABOR, you will become the greatest nation on the planet.
The question is whether you want to punish productivity and reward stupidity (as Obama is doing with his bailouts) or reward productivity and punish stupidity (which I see no nation doing right now).
The simplicity of this strategy is so simplistic, only government bureaucrats couldn't see the low hanging fruit that is in front of them.
This morning, on the news, they were talking about companies trying to hire foreigners because they can get them at lower pay. The jobs normally pay an average of $91K so these aren't hotel cleaning jobs.
ReplyDeleteHigh tech was accused of doing this. They were only allowed by law to hire a foreigner if no American could be found. So they'd advertise a vacancy for a year, hire no one, and then claim they couldn't find a sufficiently quaified American.
Interesting theory, about our imminent collapse that is. Though I agree with much of what you said in your post, I think that there may be a silver lining here.
ReplyDeleteMany of the folks in our country who have a clue realize that over the last 50 or so years, our country has de-industrialized. For example, in the 70's the Alaskan oil pipe line was built with steel from Japan because their steel was cheaper. Lately for example at the Anchorage International Airport, the new C concourse's main steel supports were built in Korea because there were no steel plants in the US capable of manufacturing them. Additionally, most of the computing chips used in this country, including ones that are critical for defense are manufactured in Taiwan. The US government mandates "buy American" on federal projects, well try and find a light fixture or other miscellaneous electrical equipment that's still manufactured in the US and that doesn't cost triple anything else. We gutted vocational education in this country 40 years ago and sold everyone on the notion that if they want good jobs, they have to go to college. I could go on, but those I recall right off the top of my head.
Now before I get to the silver lining part, let me say these two things.
1. Many of the folks who covet the good life we have here refuse to allow any manufacturing or resource extraction to occur in this country, no matter how much environmental responsibility its done with. However,
2. It was the so called 'free traders' who 20 years ago thumbed their noses at American industry when they warned that foreign countries were dumping their products on our shores and it was gravely hurting our industries at home. True, many such products, such as Japanese cars, were superior and we don't want to reward wasteful and stupid policies as we are going to do now under the 'anointed One's' leadership, but it seems to me that all any of these free traders really wanted was the most bang for the buck and nobody took a longer view about how this would affect us down the road. Many of those folks weren't free traders, but free lunchers. Now many theorize that the ship of state is sinking and our political caste's only concern is going down first class. Unfortunately this seems all too true, but once more let's not forget who elected these buffoons and not yelp too loudly when we get what we voted for, good and hard.
Well the silver lining may be this, just as Japan and Europe rebuilt their industries after WWII and created a more modern and efficient industrial base than the US had, the US now has a chance to re-build its industry too. We have a crumbling infrastructure in this country, yet less than $0.12 per dollar of the bailout money is slated to actually address these problems.
For all of the talk in the last few decades about appreciating speculative wealth (e.g. real estate and dot-com's) they have been as you have said here illusory, at best. At the end of the day, if you want real wealth, you still need to be able to use it, work it, touch it or kick its tires at the end of the day.
Our country may be hurt, but it is not fatally wounded. Yes it will take work and sacrifice to recover. Like financial advisers say about stocks and other investments, take the long view, so we need to do so with our nation. We are not dead yet. That is unless we loose our nerve and abandon it.
I'm not so sure the US is collapsing.
ReplyDeleteWe may be seeing the high-water mark of socialism in this country. Just as in the last depression, Americans will return to their natural self-reliance and become socially and fiscally conservative as they once again value responsibility. The last depression ushered in a conservative mindset among the working class that lasted for decades, until that generation of vipers, the baby-boomers, worked their evil.
Ok, assuming the US is on an unrecoverable collapse and assuming one has the same loyalty to the US as any multinational CEO (basically none), where should a hardworking, skilled, entrepreneur with capital go to maximize his opportunity?
ReplyDeleteOh, and wasn't it Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence that wrote "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."
Major alteration/abolishment is beginning to look better every day.
If you think things are bad now, wait until the payout of Social Security to the boomer generation peaks. The only way that mess can be handled is a severe devaluation of the dollar.
Think you can survive when the currency is devalued 10 to 1 and everything suddenly costs 10 times as much as it did?
Yes, revolution was called for ago a long time ago. The only problem is that it would be violating democracy. For better or worse, the masses have voted for socialism. It would violate democracy to foist the minority view on the masses, that is the definition of tyranny. Ergo, not only would it be undemocratic, it would be impossible as for revolution, the masses must be with you.
ReplyDeleteThe masses are ignorantly against us and anybody else standing for freedom.
Captain,
ReplyDeleteWow! You need to get out of the city and away from the yuppies and preppies for a while. They'll not only drive you nuts, but also give you a severely skewed vision of the U.S. population as a whole. While some overall statistics -- like household debt (as you've documented) -- are in the midst of very unpleasant trends, not all or even most of the people I meet are the soft-core liberal-arts graduates you describe.
That said, I do agree that our tax & legal structures currently punish thrift and ethical ambition. And that those systems will have to change.
------
Robert,
The issue of foreign tech workers is more complicated than most tv news stories are willing to talk about.
I have a friend who graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering from a Montana college in the mid-90s, as did I about six months later. I went to work for a not-for-profit regulatory agency in the Portland, Oregon area, and then a small and fast-growing design and manufacturing firm in the same general area. During that time my friend worked for one of the larger high tech firms in the Portland area.
Based on what we both saw, yes, there are companies that will hire foreign tech workers specifically because they are cheaper and, in the case of those applying for H1B visas or "green cards", the application process is long and involved and the employee will have extra incentive not to leave their firm during the application process because they won't want to re-start the (sometimes years-long) application process with a new employer.
But I would say those types of unscrupulous employers are about as representative of all tech employers as spree-killers are representative of all gun owners. And those unscrupulous employers get about as much sensationalist and overplayed coverage as the spree-killers do.
On the other side, I am sad to report the grade-inflation and short-sightedness which has infected American liberal arts programs has now started to spread to some of the American technical degrees. The last company I worked for had a simple thought test for prospective engineering candidates, having to do with a hypothetical building and a number of common items (a protractor, phone book, stopwatch, and tape measure were some of them, I believe) and the job candidate had to come up with as many ways as possible to find out the height of the building from those items. During some of the interviews that took place the last year I worked there, the engineers conducting the interviews were stunned to see multiple candidates, with Bachelors degrees in Engineering from local universities, who could not come up with even one or two ways to solve the problem. Around the same time, my friend who worked for the larger tech firm said she conducted a number of second-round phone interviews and had talked to an alarming number of candidates (also degreed engineers) who were equally lacking. My friend said it got to the point she would call the candidates a day ahead of time and give specific details on the topics she would be asking them about -- and still dealt with candidates who knew very little about pretty fundamental EE concepts, even when given 24 hours in which to prepare. Both her company and mine also saw a number of engineering graduates whose education had been overly specialized in current fads -- my company saw a lot of engineers who knew about building transistors at the chip level and programming processors, but knew little about power-conversion circuits like full-wave rectifiers; my friend's company saw a lot of engineers who knew tons about FETs, which are transistors commonly used for digital switching circuits, but almost nothing about BJTs, the FETs' older and more complicated cousins that are used for amplifier circuits -- rectifiers and amplifiers both being things you might not encounter if you are R&D at a chip fab, but which you probably will encounter if you work most any EE job that isn't fancy digital R&D.
And I had co-workers from my first employer call me up four or five years after I had moved on because I was the only EE they could find who understood and could explain three-phase power; and these were people who worked around EEs all day. Three-phase power isn't used in digital circuits (or even analog circuits that much) but it's only been around for about 100 years, so it's not like it's new technology, and three-phase is still used in most power transmission and large industrial applications.
So, yes, there are some employers out there who play games with the job postings so they can hire foreigners cheap. There are at least as many job positions filled by foreigners because the company really did look and honestly had no one apply who could fulfill the technical and common-sense requirements. And what I have seen and heard of far more in larger corporations (more than the other two combined) are positions which are quietly opened and then quietly closed because the manager for that position has already decided who he/she wants to hire before the posting is written; once no one applies, the job can be given to the manager's predetermined winner with all the legal requirements being nominally met. Cronyism, nepotism, and favoritism are far more common than shutting out American workers so foreign workers can be hired for cheaper -- but evil corporations screwing over decent Americans because of greed is a simpler and more sensationalist morality tale, so that's what gets all the attention.
------
Tim & anonymous,
I think both of you make some very good points, and like both of you I am a bit more optimistic than the Captain.
Coincidentally, I've recently been attending some short community classes at a couple of the regional Montana two-year colleges. I have been surprised to see the number of vocational programs that have been started up (and well-received, both by students and by the local tradesman communities) within the last few years. While NIMBY attitudes and hyperactive environmentalists are ongoing problems, I think the number of students willing to go into the trades and manufacturing (as opposed to soft liberal arts) is going up.
-Camille
"Oh, I know, disregard that random, rouge, rugged blogger"
ReplyDeleteThat's "rogue", not "rouge", captain. ;)
"Many of the folks in our country who have a clue realize that over the last 50 or so years, our country has de-industrialized."
That depends on how you're defining deindustrialization. US manufacturing output has been on the rise since the 50s, actually shrinking for the first time in a long time due to the current mess. Manufacturing employment has been declining for decades, with automation taking over where human labor used to be required. That's not a bad thing.
"well try and find a light fixture or other miscellaneous electrical equipment that's still manufactured in the US and that doesn't cost triple anything else."
Duh, that's how comparative advantage works. Other people can do some things for a smaller opportunity cost than we can. That's why we trade in the first place.
"but it seems to me that all any of these free traders really wanted was the most bang for the buck and nobody took a longer view about how this would affect us down the road."
Seems to me that I can buy light fixtures for 1/3 the price, as you so helpfully pointed out.
"Many of those folks weren't free traders, but free lunchers."
You're being stupid for the sake of turning a phrase. Specialization and trade with those who have a different production possibilities curve than you have allows for a standard of living far beyond what either could produce alone.
I say, the more countries trade, the wealthier they become and the more specialized they become. Co-dependence makes for
You've got a bizarre fixation on manufacturing. Not only do you fail to realize that US manufacturing output has been growing for the past half-century (recent dip in everything notwithstanding), you decry that the US is not manufacturing low value-added goods like steel, light fixtures, or some types of consumer electronics.
Here's a clue, since you don't seem to have one: if you can make something with the education and capital available in China or India, it's not a good idea to try making it in the United States. It'll cost a fortune for us compared to them, because we actually do have better things to do with our time and capital.
This actually reminds me of one of the greatest American failures of the 20th century: the failure to bring over the millions of highly productive, educated, and intelligent Russians left without a decent living in the ash heap of the former-USSR. Look where importing all those German scientists after the collapse of Nazi Germany brought us... just imagine where we could be now...
ReplyDeleteInstead, we're importing an illegal and permanent underclass of third world minorities.
Also, I hate to say this, but the more democratic and richer we become, the more socialist this country will become, as well.
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere once that the democratic protesters at Tiananmen Square weren't true democrats and were, in fact, mostly Maoists who were opposed to Xiaoping's free-market reforms. Maybe capitalism *is* incompatible with democracy. I think if China became a democracy, it would also become a radical, anti-capitalist, anti-Western and anti-Japanese populist state. I think the governing Communist Party has to run the place as a dictatorship, because if they didn't the whole country would collapse and capitalism would never take root.
Maybe, just maybe, capitalism truly is incompatible with democracy. It's time for us to start moving back to a more republican, less democratic form of government.
Captain, that's why our founding fathers rejected democracy (or as they called it, "mob rule") in favor of a constitutional republic. Remember, their motto was "no taxation without representation", not "one man, one vote".
ReplyDeleteAlthough seats in Congress were allocated by total population (men, women, children, and 3/5 of each slave), state laws limited the vote to free white men at least 21 years old who owned real property and could pay a poll tax.
One by one, those restrictions were abolished by constitutional amendment, with predictable results.
Here's a thought.
ReplyDeleteWe split into two groups. One heads south and invades Mexico and the other heads north and invades Canada.
Wow, this is the most lively and intelligent debate I've seen in a while.
ReplyDeleteThanks csgoodthings for your insight into tech. I understand the media is melodramatic and it's more complicated. Our average job market candidate also has to compete with the top candidates from overseas. I agree education in this country has been diluted with a lot of nonsense. I'm not an engineer, but I would stand at the top of the building with the stopwatch, and time the fall of the protractor, compass, pencil, etc and then estimate the height by the average fall time at a constant acceleration due to gravity of 10m per second squared.
Ryan raises an excellent point about manufacturing output, automation, comparative advantage and trade. We need to stop blaming ferners for our lack or competitiveness. Some of it is due to artificially raising our own costs for 'social' reasons.
Unions play the biggest part in the decline of American manufacturing employment. That said, we do train too many sociologists who answer phones at nonprofits after graduation. We could use more people with technical trade skills.
Mark Steyn would agree that we are on the verge of a precipice. But he also says everywhere else is worse. France is having riots over their bailouts. Russian abortions outnumber live births with a growing muslim population. Germany has twice our unemployment rate and higher deficits. China has 40 percent of its population in poverty. So America is the best of the worst.
Ryan F,
ReplyDeleteArrogance, presumption and ad hominem insults don't make for an effective argument.
You say, "US manufacturing output has been on the rise since the 50s."
Really? Well let me be more specific. Basic heavy industries like steel for instance have been in a long decline. I don't know where you live but in this country that's a fact.
To wit, my citing for an example of, the fact that there was not a steel manufacturer in this country capable of manufacturing certain structural steel members for a sizable project. I was working for the engineering firm involved and would be in a position to know. And you?
You said, Manufacturing employment has been declining for decades, with automation taking over where human labor used to be required. That's not a bad thing."
Agreed about automation, but manufacturing has also gone down. To say otherwise is incorrect (I'll refrain from hurling juvenile insults at you here). If you don't agree, I suggest that you drive through Cleveland, Detroit, Gary, Pittsburgh, yada, yada, the list is long. I suspect that you are not old enough to remember what real industry was or looked like. We are at a point where if we had to, we could not replicate the war effort of the 40's.
You say, "You've got a bizarre fixation on manufacturing."
Just where do you think that all of the goods you so take for granted come from? It starts with basic industries, which provide the material and goods for the more specialized industries further down the chain. Everything that you own and use I'll bet was brought to you by a ship, train or truck. Can you spell steel? Smaller stuff might be flown to you if you need it in a hurry. Lord knows you probably wouldn't stand for being inconvenienced.
You decry the example of buying light fixtures, saying, "Duh, that's how comparative advantage works. Other people can do some things for a smaller opportunity cost than we can. That's why we trade in the first place."
First, as I said, these are examples that simply came to mind as I typed. There are plenty more. As an electrical engineer who has worked on designing and specifying electrical equipment from utility distribution to light fixtures (not bulbs) for sizable projects for the feds, I can tell you first hand how confining that is.
Second, you need to ask yourself, what cost for a cheap price. I'm all for minimally restricted trade, but I am not for virtual slave labor producing it, as in China. Did you ever wonder why some (not all ofcourse)of these countries can under sell us? I am not for a country's government making a policy decision to dump goods on our shores.
Evidently, from your tone, that doesn't bother you as long as you get the cheapest price. You seem to embody the 'free luncher' attitude I was describing. You want stupid? Look in the mirror.
You see, the driving engine of our economy for the last couple of decades hasn't been industry, it's been borrowing and consumer spending. (Feel free to jump in here Captain, if I'm wrong on that)That's why we have a trade deficit, get it? That's why were in the deep sh*t that we are in now economically. I simplify, but I don't have time to write you a book.
The other major thing you fail to understand is that economic laws, like the laws of physics are real, but they do not exist in isolation.
We can not expect and take for granted our freedoms, while excusing other regimes that oppress their citizens, just so we can have cheap consumer electronics or other goods. Sooner or later, that attitude towards people comes home to roost. It's all tied together.
Neither am I trying to tar all foreign manufacturers with the brush of political oppression, many countries have a well educated hungry work force that is willing to work hard, for less and produce quality goods. I have no argument with them.
However, back to my earlier point, the American consumer can not continue to be the driving force of the economy, ours and the world's.
This all circles back to the original thrust of my comment, which you seem to have missed in your zest for hurling smirking insults, that the up side of this is that we have an opportunity to re-invigorate industry in this country. We have an opportunity to also re-invigorate technical and vocational education. This would produce real manufacturing jobs paying real wages. It would also help to break the ideological strangle-hold that the universities presently have on education too.
The back and forth of ideas is great and we can all learn something, I like it and have often learned something. However, save your simpering little insults and supercilious attitude for the DU or Koz.
Please watch:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/
This is very well done. Great explanation.
"Really? Well let me be more specific. Basic heavy industries like steel for instance have been in a long decline. I don't know where you live but in this country that's a fact."
ReplyDeleteYou're talking about low value added industries that don't require much in the way of high tech capital or a highly educated workforce. That's why it's best to leave the grunt work to countries that can't do what the US does. For example, the US is almost the entire global pharmaceutical industry. Patents per capita are sky-high compared to the manufacturing-based economies that you worship so much. You can't develop new drugs with hordes of workers with no more than a high school education, but you can teach them to make steel. That's why China can do it for cheaper.
"To wit, my citing for an example of, the fact that there was not a steel manufacturer in this country capable of manufacturing certain structural steel members for a sizable project. I was working for the engineering firm involved and would be in a position to know. And you?"
http://cafehayek.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/10/manufacturing.jpg
Read the chart, idiot. You're telling me to drive through some union-infested wasteland and telling me that because Detroit fails, US manufacturing fails? Here's a hint to get you started: bigger bars mean more output.
Here's another one while you're at it.
http://www.swissbusinesshub.com/photos/news/Presentation_02_William_Strauss.ppt
"Agreed about automation, but manufacturing has also gone down. To say otherwise is incorrect (I'll refrain from hurling juvenile insults at you here). If you don't agree, I suggest that you drive through Cleveland, Detroit, Gary, Pittsburgh, yada, yada, the list is long."
I see you're not actually citing a source. The data's out there and it's easy to find. I found the Economic Report of the President from the Board of Governors of the Fed in like 30 seconds on Google. Seriously.
"I suspect that you are not old enough to remember what real industry was or looked like. We are at a point where if we had to, we could not replicate the war effort of the 40's."
I direct you once again to the first chart.
"Just where do you think that all of the goods you so take for granted come from?"
They fall from the sky. Or we trade for them. Unbelievable, I know.
"It starts with basic industries, which provide the material and goods for the more specialized industries further down the chain."
That's just great. You do realize that raw materials production isn't very profitable for an educated country because we have better things to do, right? You've just got a hard-on for primitive economies.
"Everything that you own and use I'll bet was brought to you by a ship, train or truck. Can you spell steel? Smaller stuff might be flown to you if you need it in a hurry. Lord knows you probably wouldn't stand for being inconvenienced."
Did you build a truck yourself? No? Then what were you wasting your time doing instead? You're acting like everything that isn't directly related to manufacturing is a waste of time. I suspect it's because you couldn't tell me what comparative advantage is to save your life.
"You decry the example of buying light fixtures, saying, "Duh, that's how comparative advantage works. Other people can do some things for a smaller opportunity cost than we can. That's why we trade in the first place."
First, as I said, these are examples that simply came to mind as I typed. There are plenty more."
It doesn't matter what the example is or how many there are. Specialization and trade happens because different groups of people have different production possibilities curves. Sure, we could be 100% self-sufficient in all of our manufacturing, but we'd have to give up far more productive pursuits in order to do it. We manufacture a lot of stuff; more than any other country, but we leave the lower-profit stuff to the countries with lots of uneducated workers, since they don't have much else they could be doing instead.
"As an electrical engineer who has worked on designing and specifying electrical equipment from utility distribution to light fixtures (not bulbs) for sizable projects for the feds, I can tell you first hand how confining that is."
Oh, I'd just love to listen to your sob story, really I would, but my give-a-damn is all broken right now.
"Second, you need to ask yourself, what cost for a cheap price."
Prices communicate the sum of all available information regarding the supply and demand of a particular good, including alternative uses for all the inputs that went into its production. I'm not just talking raw materials either; human capital is a rather huge component. When something is cheaper for someone else to make, it's cheaper because it's more efficient for them to make it after all factors have been taken into account.
"I'm all for minimally restricted trade, but I am not for virtual slave labor producing it, as in China."
Hyperbole and stupidity. The manufacturing centers in China are far, far more prosperous than the agriculture-based countryside.
"Did you ever wonder why some (not all ofcourse)of these countries can under sell us?"
That's because we have a highly educated workforce and a technologically advanced economy, which means the cost of labor is going to be high. We're more efficient at producing high tech goods, research and innovation, and professional services. It's comparative advantage again, idiot. You really ought to strike a blow at your own ignorance and crack open an Intro to Economics textbook. It's not that scary, and I'd be willing to bet that it's easy enough even a guy who designs light fixtures for the government could understand it if he tries really hard.
"I am not for a country's government making a policy decision to dump goods on our shores."
God forbid we get more for our money. Oh hey, I know what we should do! We should outlaw using the sun for illumination, that way jackasses like yourself who make a living on light fixtures would have a huge increase in demand for their services! This is a great idea. If only someone had ever thought of it before.
http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
"You want stupid? Look in the mirror."
Haha, you might have been able to guess that I'm fine with throwing insults, but what you need to learn is that you can't throw insults and claim to be too good for it without looking like a hypocrite.
"You see, the driving engine of our economy for the last couple of decades hasn't been industry, it's been borrowing and consumer spending."
Borrowing can't drive an economy. Keep in mind that the statistics you see on savings don't count money that goes into 401ks, although I suspect you're not actually misinterpreting the data, but rather you're just making shit up. Seriously, you claimed that US manufacturing has been on the decline, and that we manufacture less today than we did in the 1940s. You fail economics forever.
"That's why we have a trade deficit, get it?"
And a capital account surplus. Gee, I wonder how that happens. Oh, I know how: the US is an awesome place to create and sell businesses, and we use that money to finance imports. That's how we can run a $176.5 billion deficit on goods and services in Q3 of 2008 while foreign direct investment in the US increased by $125 billion, plus the capital account surplus. The US government makes up the difference selling bonds to foreigners; accumulating government debt is a stupid move to be sure, but it's hardly the result of not enough manufacturing to finance the multi-trillion dollar pork project that we call the Federal government.
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/transactions/transnewsrelease.htm
"That's why were in the deep sh*t that we are in now economically. I simplify, but I don't have time to write you a book."
You mercantilist troglodyte.
"The other major thing you fail to understand is that economic laws, like the laws of physics are real, but they do not exist in isolation.
We can not expect and take for granted our freedoms, while excusing other regimes that oppress their citizens, just so we can have cheap consumer electronics or other goods. Sooner or later, that attitude towards people comes home to roost. It's all tied together."
Productivity does not come from oppression. The Chinese economy is allowed degrees of freedom that would be unheard of 20 years ago. Attempts by the government to micromanage their economy (such as by having backyard steel furnaces, I'm sure you'd love that one) failed spectacularly.
"However, back to my earlier point, the American consumer can not continue to be the driving force of the economy, ours and the world's."
What are you, some kind of Keynesian? Consumption doesn't drive the world economy. Production is the essence of purchasing power. It doesn't matter how far into debt you go, you can't increase purchasing power beyond that which has already been produced.
"This all circles back to the original thrust of my comment, which you seem to have missed in your zest for hurling smirking insults, that the up side of this is that we have an opportunity to re-invigorate industry in this country."
Awesome; a bold step back to the late 19th century. Those were the good old days, eh?
"This would produce real manufacturing jobs paying real wages."
Find me a country where manufacturing accounts for more than half of GDP that has per capita GDP anywhere near that of the United States. There's a couple of them out there if you're not too dumb to look, and they all have one feature in common. Here's a hint: it's oil. The fact of the matter is that nobody approaches the prosperity of the United States just by building crap. Everything that the US does instead of manufacturing is done because it's more profitable than manufacturing. Try applying the equimarginal principle to the entire economy and you'll be pointed in the right direction.
If you leave things alone, people tend to do things with a higher return over things with a lower return. Manufacturing is a smaller share of our economy than it used to be because more often have better things to do than we used to. We still have a huge manufacturing base, but making it bigger would only come at the expense of more productive uses of time and capital. That's what prices tell us, but you seem oblivious to even that basic function of prices in an economy.