Tuesday, October 6, 2009

How did we get here?

How did we get here?

1. We rebuilt industry in Europe and Japan after WWII as a vanguard to stop communism and as a place to sell our goods and services
2. For 40 years we ran our steel industry into the ground ( no preventive maintenance)The mills closed and the rust belt was born.
3. In the 1970s we decided that some industries steel , chemicals, oil production were too dirty so we outsourced the production of those products overseas. We were going to be a service economy and an information economy.
4. In the early 1970s there were two oil embargoes. The American automobile industry was unprepared to produce fuel efficient cars. The American consumer found higher quality and value in Japanese autos and then proceeded to buy their electronics and appliances for the same reasons.
5. There was a plan to turn our vast reserves of coal into gasoline. Our good friends in the middle east talked us out of it.
6. In the late 80's we stopped enforcement of antitrust laws and as a result company's were bought and sold with junk bonds. This produced less competition among fewer companies and many American firms were sold to multinational corporations. Divisions of corporations were sold for the sole intent of a short term profit to the shareholders.
7.In the 90s the Internet and the personal computer industry blossomed as well as the American economy. The bubble was short lived as investment capital was invested in projects with no thought to profit.
8. In the late 90's we began to outsource our customer service jobs to countries like India. We also shifted jobs like computer programming and engineering overseas because it was cheaper. Hundreds of thousands of US manufacturing jobs moved overseas where they don't have to worry about the EPA, OSHA or other burdensome state or federal regulations.
9. In 2000 we elected an inarticulate idiot for President who poured over one trillion dollars into the sands of Iraq and in conjunction with the Republicans and Democrats allowed a financial house of cards to be built on the mortgage industry.
10. In 2008 we elected a new President this one being eloquent; charming; a socialist; and also an idiot. We have spent over 3 trillion in nine months. Now OPEC in conjunction with Japan and China does not even want to use our currency as the standard for procurement of oil.

How do we get out of this? Pray for our leaders and pray for our county. Everything else will follow.

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