Constructive gadfly
Published on April 2, 2006 By stevendedalus In Politics

The problem, dear Citizen, does not lie with the Dubai Crescent, but within ourselves.

Though I was for dumping Dubai, it was not owing to racism, national security, or post 9/11 anxiety, but rather to dramatize the need for limiting our selling off American enterprise. After all, the city ports have their duly municipal authorized agencies to oversee their security — not to mention the rugged American stevedore unions — and, of course, the Coastguard, though woefully shortchanged. Then again, we have no control over the foreign ports, and those in the Middle East are more likely suspect than other areas of the globe. Here lies the problem: the global frenzy to export to America is driven by our reckless need for cheaper goods — even to the point that outsourcing American industry is out of hand.


Hillary Clinton wants to focus on “critical infrastructure” concerning security, but narrowly limits it to ports; on the other hand, Republican representative Duncan Hunter rightly broadens it to economic security as well. However, it is unlikely that we have the financial resources to rollback the good old days of self-sufficiency and surplus exports because native investments in domestic industry is on self-destruct to the extent that substituting “what’s good for General Motors is good for the country” Wal*Mart, a cut-throat distributor, totally bereft of inducing domestic industries to prevail. The current paranoia or even euphoria over Wal*Mart will not in the end persist; eventually it will be subjected to labor laws and fair pricing and join the ranks of all other retailers engaged in fair competition.

The solution, dear citizen, is a long way off, but we can begin by getting our house in order through tougher regulation of, and incentives for, investors and industries. There is no greater threat to our national existence than permitting our industrial base to unravel: we must think in terms of national disaster and global conflict readiness to produce our own defense and economy.

 

Copyright © 2006 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: April 2, 2006.

http://stevendedalus.joeuser.com


Comments
on Apr 02, 2006
you forgot to mention U.S. Customs in the port security points.

Otherwise I am complete agreement with america tending to fix some homegrown problems.
on Apr 02, 2006
I think you have to look more to Rome's model, now. It has to do with will. We have the will to be self-sufficient, but we don't have the will to do a double-digit percentage of the jobs in question. The Dubai deal wasn't much different than the immigration problem, in that you can only validate the loss of these folks if there is anyone waiting in the wings to replace them.

We have around 5% unemployment, and the number of illegal immigrant-filled jobs is several times that. To fix our problems here at home, we have to have people here at home willing to do the jobs. In order to compete with other nations, we have to have a) companies willing to do the work they do for the price they do it, and people who are willing to pay more when the companies can't do it as cheaply.

Our industrial base will continue to unravel as long as it isn't competitive. In a free market there's no way to bring us back, in my opinion. Unions will not allow their workers to work at the wages foreign industrial workers are paid. If we close our imports and force the American people and companies to buy American, they will not tolerate paying the higer prices required.

So, we will be the head, and other nations will be the hands, and we can only hope our military prowess will be sufficient to keep the visigoths at bay. In my opinion we are in the last half of a failing empire, and we owe it to our success, and the standard of living that we've created.
on Apr 02, 2006

U.S. Customs
Yes, good note.

we are in the last half of a failing empire, and we owe it to our success, and the standard of living that we've created.
Sweet irony.

on Apr 03, 2006

In my opinion we are in the last half of a failing empire, and we owe it to our success, and the standard of living that we've created.

In the end, that is what toppled all the old empires (if you want to call us that).  It was not that one day everyone woke up and said "Gee, I think I will surrender".  It is that as the standard of living got better, people wanted the easy life, and could afford it.  But the enemies without were still hungry for power and land.