I’m re-releasing this blog post again, published in early February of this year – it’s required reading!

Was Ron Paul onto something? The now retired Congressman from Texas who spent 16 years in the House of Representatives. A Libertarian, Ron Paul distinguished himself from almost every other serving in Congress by his staunch belief in “isolationist” policies. It was an idea that many of us, myself included, balked at. But was Ron right in his thinking? Let’s re-visit the subject. He rejected notions of getting involved in foreign matters, including skirmishes with other countries, aggressions, invasions, atrocities – you name it. Ron Paul looked at these with no end game for the United States whatsoever. Was that wrong? One has to look back at how our foreign trading partners evolved and the way the United States had mostly encouraged the proliferation of emerging market economies across the past several decades (regardless of their evil regime forms of government). We welcomed all kinds of foreign trade with fresh U.S. dollars and even human capital dating back way before the 1970’s. Here’s a “did-you-know?” Did you know that it was America that re-built Japan from the rubble of the atomic bombs we dropped on them eventually ending World War II? Japan’s comeback is owed to the United States. It was also American technology that developed the oil production inside Arab countries that made them the wealthiest of countries due to their vast oil reserves. It was American engineering that empowered Islamic countries in the first place.

Now today we wonder what happened to our own American manufacturing at home? There were several reasons for American manufacturers and their manufacturing to leave their home country, the most obvious being astronomically high corporate tax rates that over-burdened American corporations. Public companies here having to show consistent profits proved too much to bear along with improved product quality by our foreign competition. Plus, foreign manufacturers never allow egregious leftist trade unions to infiltrate and hold their own companies hostage, but we do here. The result being over time, American manufacturers offshored a ton of what they used to do at home, and with that went all those paying jobs. By investing in infrastructure inside foreign countries American manufacturers were able to employ slave labor which greatly helped to increase their profitability. Plus, no more Leftist Democrat trade unions to deal with. But that’s not all, America also became a great importer of foreign goods as our economy by the 1980’s morphed mostly into a service-oriented monstrosity. All these factors changed the job outlook for most Americans. Service jobs became king inside the United States while manufacturing jobs mostly existed outside our borders. That’s still where we are today as most politicians in Washington haven’t a clue to the how’s and why’s of this occurrence. [I must put a plug in here for President Donald Trump, he was one of too few politicians advocating for bringing back all those American jobs and know-how.] This is how trades jobs here in America about disappeared from popularity. Taking it’s place were college degrees that were supposed to turn ordinary youngsters into professional experts in fields like medicine, engineering, law, accounting, and finance. How did that turn out? What I saw was mostly the majority of our college kids ducking out on math and science. [I will admit even I viewed anything biology-related with disdain.] 🙂 No instead, for decades our home-grown kids favored fluffier degree plans that unfortunately lead no where. Mainly because 70-percent of the United States economy was and is still located inside the “services” sector. For students not pursuing one of the five professions listed above, forget about finding meaningful employment right out of school. And with all that America was once again off to the races with only a service sector economy, and having to import just about everything else with the one exception being food… that’s where this discussion is going.

The period we are entering into here in 2022 reminds me of the 1970’s. A period marked by runaway inflation along with our energy needs being dependent on the will of unfriendly OPEC countries, who have the full support of our leftist progressive politicians at home. I won’t fail to mention the ’70’s was an era where American imports kept growing from Japan to South Korea in order to meet our needs for more reliable automobiles and steel. What followed was imports from China, especially in the household products category. With that, the United States has evolved into an exporter of “not very much”. Instead, we spent decades lifting up emerging market countries out of poverty, along with sending trillions in U.S. dollars and not to mention, jobs. Luckily our farmers and ranchers didn’t bail on us too otherwise we wouldn’t have had anything to eat! 😉

How did we get here as a country? Was Ron Paul’s “isolationist” thesis right all along? The U.S. economy is like this living breathing thing, moving with the times. It appears that where we find ourselves today happened over a long period of time. However, I would point to having the highest corporate tax rates of any developed country on the planet as probably what delivered the final death blow to American manufacturing efforts. You can’t blame only one politician or party for egregious federal tax rates and over-regulation as both sides of the aisle contributed to these job killing mistakes. I’m now wondering what might have been achieved had we outlawed and eliminated all trade unions decades ago. It’s funny what you get when you discourage business, business goes elsewhere. Funny how that works. The fact is that not everyone is going to be a lawyer, doctor, engineer, or accountant. No we need people that know mechanics, plumbing and electrical and all kinds of other things. We need to never punish ourselves again for being self-sufficient whether that means making widgets or drilling for oil or encouraging innovation in all things. No matter how small something may appear to be we need to do what we can as a country to keep it here, especially if it can create jobs, we need to protect it.

These days I feel I have morphed into the adoption of a more “isolationist” attitude [Ron Paul style] towards engaging foreign countries, especially in the category of foreign aid. I mean what the hell are we doing? Playing one country against another, and then depending on a foreign government for the consumption of things we need? All these notions sound ludicrous to me, but yet much of Washington, D.C. has apparently bought in? Looking back at history and how things have turned out it’s become quite clear to me that this strategy is anything but optimal – it’s become a detriment to American progress and now our freedoms. It seems Americans have a thirst for imports. Heck, we’re even importing Socialism these days! So choose your battles wisely my friends, and protect those things we find precious here at home.