The Disemboweling of America
Though Bush 41 and Bush 43 often disagreed, one issue did unite them both with Bill Clinton: protectionism.
Globalists all, they rejected any federal measure to protect America's industrial base, economic independence or the wages of U.S. workers.
Together they rammed through NAFTA, brought America under the World Trade Organization, abolished tariffs and granted Chinese-made goods unrestricted access to the immense U.S. market.
Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services has compiled, in 44 pages of charts and graphs, the results of two decades of this Bush-Clinton experiment in globalization. His compilation might be titled, "Indices of the Industrial Decline and Fall of the United States."
From 2000 to 2009, industrial production declined here for the first time since the 1930s. Gross domestic product also fell, and we actually lost jobs.
In traded goods alone, we ran up $6.2 trillion in deficits—$3.8 trillion of that in manufactured goods.
Things that we once made in America—indeed, we made everything—we now buy from abroad with money that we borrow from abroad.
Over this Lost Decade, 5.8 million manufacturing jobs, one of every three we had in Y2K, disappeared. That unprecedented job loss was partly made up by adding 1.9 million government workers.
The last decade was the first in history where government employed more workers than manufacturing, a stunning development to those of us who remember an America where nearly one-third of the U.S. labor force was producing almost all of our goods and much of the world's, as well.
Not to worry, we hear, the foreign products we buy are toys and low-tech goods. We keep the high-tech jobs here in the U.S.A.
Sorry. U.S. trade surpluses in advanced technology products ended in Bush's first term. The last three years we have run annual trade deficits in ATP of nearly $70 billion with China alone.
About our dependency on Mideast oil we hear endless wailing.
Yet most of our imported oil comes from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria and Angola. And for every dollar we send abroad for oil or gas, we send $4.20 abroad for manufactured goods. Why is a dependency on the Persian Gulf for a fraction of the oil we consume more of a danger than a huge growing dependency on China for the necessities of our national life?
How great is that dependency?
China accounts for 83 percent of the U.S. global trade deficit in manufactures and 84 percent of our global trade deficit in electronics and machinery.
Over the last decade, our total trade deficit with China in manufactured goods was $1.75 trillion, which explains why China, its cash reserves approaching $3 trillion, holds the mortgage on America.
This week came a report that Detroit, forge and furnace of the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II, is considering razing a fourth of the city and turning it into farm and pastureland. Did the $1.2 trillion trade deficit we ran in autos and parts last decade help kill Detroit?
And if our purpose with NAFTA was to assist our neighbor Mexico, consider. Textile and apparel imports from China are now five times the dollar value of those imports from Mexico and Canada combined.
As exports are added to a nation's GDP, and a trade deficit subtracted, the U.S. trade deficits that have averaged $500 billion to $600 billion a year for 10 years represent the single greatest factor pulling the United States down and raising China up into a rival for world power.
Yet, what is as astonishing as these indices of American decline is the indifference, the insouciance of our political class. Do they care?
How can one explain it?
Ignorance of history is surely one explanation. How many know that every modern nation that rose to world power did so by sheltering and nurturing its manufacturing and industrial base—from Britain under the Acts of Navigation to 1850, to protectionist America from the Civil War to the Roaring Twenties, to Bismarck's Germany before World War I, to Stalin's Russia, to postwar Japan, to China today?
No nation rose to world power on free trade. From Britain after 1860 to America after 1960, free trade has been the policy of powers that put consumption before production and today before tomorrow.
Nations rise on economic nationalism; they descend on free trade.
Ideology is another explanation. Even a (Milton) Friedmanite free-trader should be able to see the disaster all around us and ask: What benefit does America receive from these mountains of imported goods to justify the terrible damage done to our country and countrymen?
Can they not see the correlation between the trade deficits and relative decline?
Republicans seem certain to benefit from the nation's economic crisis this November. But is there any evidence they have learned anything about economics from the disastrous Bush decade?
Do they have any ideas for a wholesale restructuring of U.S. trade and tax policy, for a course correction to prevent America's continuing decline?
Has anyone seen any evidence of it?
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Entries(RSS)
An excellent column.
I really respect Pat for going after the Republicans. Years ago Pat forced Pappy Bush to change his campaign rhetoric from "creating jobs" to "creating good jobs." Now folks wonder if the lieing republicans can really create anything other than more wars. I wish Pat would get in the early televised republican debates just so they would be worth watching. Looks like the stalwarts are going to run Romney against Barack Hussein in two years --- There are lots of ways to disembowel a country and several of the ways the republicans have tried and found wanting in the distant past, are now being resurrected by the New democrats. You just can't make this kind of twiddle- dee and twiddle dum stuff up.
About 6 years ago I attended a land use seminar where practicing attorneys listened to presentations of various law professors and environment activists, boasting that there were enough clean water and clean air violations in 6 major American cities to shut them down under federal law. Who needs the terrorists?
Again, Pat Buchanan makes far too much sense for the ideological gaggle of Neocons and Libertarians. No wonder they despise him as surely as do the cultural and economic Marxists.
"Do they have any ideas for a wholesale restructuring of U.S. trade and tax policy, for a course correction to prevent America’s continuing decline?"
OK. How about:
1. End all the wars and foreign occupations. Bring home all the troops -- and don't rest until the last galoot's ashore. Cut "defense" spending 80%, saving $800 billion wasted on armaments.
2. Turn our best engineers -- who are making weapons -- to making cars, computers, TVs, refrigerators, etc.
3. Restore the gold standard that Pat's boss, Nixon, broke in 1971 (against Pat's advice). Restore sound money. End the Fed.
4. Cut the income tax at least 50%.
5. Restore the high tax deduction for families that was destroyed by the Nixon inflation. Today it would be about $10,000 person, $50,000 deductible for a family of five.
6. End the capital gains tax, which is a double tax -- first on income, then on capital.
7. Reduce federal spending by at least 50%.
I wish Pat and others would realize that, if you bring back protectionism, you're just giving more power to the Obamaites; or the Romneyites, or whoever ends up running the federal colossus. The problem is not free trade, but the power of the central regime in Washington. NEVER give it more power. It is a devouring beast that will NEVER be satisfied.
Pat's previous column, right here on Chronicles, even described the immense salaries paid to our "servants" in D.C. and the state and local bureaucracies. You think a protectionist bureaucracy will operate on the salaries of hermits?
"Protectionism" will mean favoring "green" Government Motors cars, carbon emissions trading favoritism, and "green" socialized medicine. The whole scheme would be as corrupt as Obama's Chicago or the Bushs' oily Houston.
Mr. Morow # 3
I certainly agree with your basic thesis in this post but depending on which major cities you were speaking about, it probably would not be all bad if a few of them were shut down. Detroit, Houston, etc., some of these places folks really do need to flee without turning back, like Lot leaving his own ancient city. Paul, the Apostle, taught the practice of transforming ones mind while refusing to be transformed by the world. God, The Father, can be known through the things he created; The Son, through the things He said and did, while The Holy Spirit is more akin to that strange spirit of love described in the Symposium by the old woman, Diotima. Living a life of quiet desperation on concrete, in cubicles with artificial flourescent lighting, traffic jams, exhaust fumes, etc.,all while one is constantly surrounded by utter ugliness; such a life for a prolonged period of time I say, can blind one to seeing the goodness in simple reality which is the proper and normal nourishment for a man's soul. If one cannot avoid such decadence, he should at least attempt to transform his mind with a child like "garden of verse" a musical intrument, a quiet study, a small garden of flowers, a beautiful landscape with moving water, etc. Such soil is the proper place to cultivate a man's soul -- at one time it was called a culture. Today it is called a retreat, a sentiment, or treated as an unusual thing by those who believe that men should live on bread alone as when they say, "the business of life is business."
Mr. Seiler,
You have nothing to worry about. Pat's instincts are towards duty, honor and country for God and neighbor. The current conservative instincts are as mentioned in the following recent Tea Party article.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35849810/ns/politics-the_new_york_times Get the government off our backs, leave consenting adults to do what they will and jobs, jobs, jobs. It is at least a well established and recognisable notion of conservatism in America and this time around a political winner. It embraces the Clinton's idea of ever expanding freedoms, the Lockean notion that the pursuit of property is a sacred and indivdual right that should never be disturbed (or satisfied), that everything in life can be measured (but the common good) and everything can be bought and sold at a certain price. I predict Romney by a slim margin on the basis of bad democrats and the stalwart republicans buying a coalition of libertarians, conservatives, the neo-cons and half the 20% of Catholics voters. Only time will tell.
"Cut “defense” spending 80%, saving $800 billion wasted on armaments."
Why would you cut defense spending when China continues to threaten??? We need to invest in advanced weapons to stay at the top. Cut off the welfare parasites at the knees instead, cut the foreign aid to certain countries, begin to expel thousands of illegal criminals PER DAY from here, etc, etc, etc.
Ah, yes. Ending the 'Fed'. This will never happen. Buchanan lacks the balls and wits to say why this is so.
#7, Mr. Robert II: I was just writing about economic policy. Specifically, how it's maybe not such a great idea to give our enemies more power than they already have. Obama, Romney, etc. would use protectionism to smash their enemies while using exemptions to coddle their friends.
And, if you want to restore America's economic might, follow the seven-point program I outlined. Otherwise, get used to being a has-been economic power.
#8, Mr. Tarkin: America now spends 48% of total global "defense" spending, China 5.8%. This is retarding our country's ability to compete. Our economy shrinks under the heavy weight of excessive military expenditures while China's economy grows by 10% per year. We pour our treasure -- and the blood of your young troops -- into the sands of Mesopotamia and the mountains of Afghanistan, while China invests and builds consumer industries.
Mr. Seiler,
I was not disagreeing with you as I have no problem with much of your seven points. I was simply describing the current predicament as I see it, and my impression of Pat's vision.(which I think is much too large) I used the West Point motto because it is a familiar one to Americans and not because it is one I advocate in these times. In fact given the current state of politics and as a
former Marine Officer and father of nine,I think one should become familiar with the motto, Ora et Labora,or Dominici schola servitii, and forget about national politics completely. I always read and enjoy your comments so don't mind me,just keep up the good thoughts.
#8, Tarkin: If we were really worried about China, we should have never given them most favored nation status (something I'll wager was payback for all the illegal campaign contributions they give Clinton) to sell their toxic trinkets at Wal-Mart. It's all that lucre they've amassed selling poisoned food and toys now enabling them to buy that shiny, brand-spanking new blue water navy.
Before we can have a proper national defense we need to have a proper nation.
Or better still a loose alliance of regional confederations that can be proper nations.
Come on now. Worry about China? Sure they "own" us, but if we go down the tubes now they will too, until they totally develope their domestic markets that is. We need each other til that happens or we decide to have a nasty little war with them so as not to have to repay them anything. And their grand little blue water fleet isn't anything compared to ours, nor will it ever be. We spend more on defense than both our allies and adversaries combined. It is a joke that the American people are led to believe that these 3rd World hellholes are anything resembling a threat. Shoot the Russian now need to buy crap from France because their own defense contractors are worthless anymore(Algeria recently returned a lot of MIGs to Russia due to airframe flaws). The next nation on the hitlist, Iran, has the second lowest per capita defense spending in the entire Middle East. Not much of a threat to Israel with or without nukes, as Israel just purchased 2 German Dauphin nuke attack subs. Those things are even more 'silent" than our own subs, and they could nuke Iran without anyone knowing what happened. We help foment strife, build up an "enemy", blow the enemy's military capabilities totally out of proportion, furthering the justification of them being a threat, them take them out, just to allow the bankers to screw them over like they have been screwing us over since God knows when. Like Smedley Butler said War is indeed a racket. THe only racket the US empire knows how to play.
#11, Mr. Robert II: No offense. I like a good discussion. Also, I'm not a Lockean, but a Thomist. "Former Marine Officer and father of nine." Bravo!
All I'm trying to do here in some of these posts is to get people to think of the practical consequences of the policies they advocate.
#15, Mr. Bruce: Currently, here's the lineup: U.S. aircraft carriers: 11. Chinese: 0. The Chinese are building two non-nuclear carriers, of 50,000-60,000 tons. Ten of the U.S. carriers are Nimitz-class of 101,000 tons, and nuclear-powered.
But actually, none of this matters. The Fourth Generation theorists, such as Bill Lind, are right: carriers are just sitting ducks. And nuclear-armed countries like China and the U.S. are not going to fight one another. Conventional wars are in the past. Nuclear war is unthinkable.
That leaves Fourth Generation war: the war of non-state entities, involving a matrix of religion, ethnicity, economics, family, culture, media, "lawfare," and politics. Such wars are usually low-intensity and asymmetrical.
"Like Smedley Butler said, War is indeed a racket. The only racket the US empire knows how to play."
Yes, but Smedley Butler knew war. The latest leaders of "The Hawks of Empire" have been Clinton and Gore, Bush and Cheney, and Obama and Biden. Cheney and Biden have ten draft deferments between the two of them --five apiece. President Clinton stayed away from all of it as best he could but his wife, Hillary, said she tried to join the marines in 75' but was too old. Her husband says it was the Army she attempted to join not the Marines --who knows what to believe with those two. Obama said he thought about joining for armed service, but in 79 the Vietnam War was already over so he never pursued it. Gore did receive a deferment but enlisted anyway and was defeated. Kerry received the silver cross and was defeated. Romney received a deferment for missionary work in France so should be eligible to lead the Empire in 2012.
"Republicans seem certain to benefit from the nation’s economic crisis this November. But is there any evidence they have learned anything about economics from the disastrous Bush decade?"
"Do they have any ideas for a wholesale restructuring of U.S. trade and tax policy, for a course correction to prevent America’s continuing decline?"
The answer to both questions is: there is virtually no evidence that Republicans have learned anything.
My libertarian friends are all big on free trade. I guess republicans and democrats are, too. Oh I am familiar with all the von Mises type arguments. But the reality is that free trade with China has destroyed our manufacturing. I join Pat in favoring protection for our manufacturing.
Most people find disdain towards the global economy -- bigoted. Those that find bigotry to not be a virtue, fall to equality's vices.