If you look at the back of your iPhone it reads: “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.” And there in a nutshell you have a fortune cookie sized explanation of our service/design vs. China’s manufacturing/assembly economy. Which one is more perishable? How long will it take for a call center in India to turn another U.S. service into a commodity? For the U.S. to compete on a global scale she needs to be able to compete in a way that protects her self-interests. Donald Trump gets this as does Pat Buchanan where he explains:
Yet, with the exception of Trump, none of the GOP candidates seems willing to debate, defend or denounce the policies that eviscerated America — and empowered the People’s Republic.
Workers, however, know what our politicians refuse to discuss.
They are being sold out for the benefit of corporate elites who pay off those politicians with the big cash contributions that keep the parties flush.
Politicians who play ball with Wall Street and K Street know they will be taken care of, if they are defeated or when they retire from public office, so long as they have performed.
Free trade is not a zero-sum game. The losers are the workers whose jobs, factories and futures are shipped abroad, and the dead and dying towns left behind when the manufacturing plants shut down.
America is on a path of national decline because, while we have been looking out for what is best for the “global economy,” our rivals have been looking out for what is best for their own nations.
