There is a critical point that I fear the commentariat is just not getting. In my darker moments I fear that some of my fellow economists aren’t getting it either but we aren’t going to go there.
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I've been thinking this for a long time. For those who don't know, my dad was a defense contractor. During the Vietnam War, he had more work than he knew what to do with. He subcontracted to Grumman, Republic Aircraft, and several hundred machine shops that were working 3 shifts. His place was unionized and so were all the corporations and shops he dealt with. He went out in 1984, Grumman and Republic left soon after and now, I only know of 3 of those machine shops still in business and they're closed by 5 pm. Shit, these folks helped put a man on the Moon.
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This is a failure of our basic institutions of production. The job of the market is to bring together willing buyers with willing sellers in order to produce value. This is not happening and as a result literally trillions of dollars in value are not being produced.
Let me say that again because I think it fails to sink in – literally trillions of dollars in value are not being produced. Not misallocated. Not spent on programs you don’t approve of or distributed in tax cuts you don’t like. Trillions of dollars in value are not produced at all. Gone from the world entirely. Never to be had, by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Pure unadulterated loss.
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Not being an economist, or even good with money, I defer to experts, but to me it seems like we're turning into one big "unemployed nation". Everything we buy (nearly) is made somewhere else. I get parts from the Ford dealer and the box tells you where the part was made. Shit, I'd be surprised if the box itself was made in the U.S. Half of our military aircraft are made in another country. How do we get those jobs back when those in other nations will do them for less, with less benefits? How do we get the American people (as a whole) to pay a little more for "American made" when they can barely squeak by on their low salaries (or unemployment checks) buying Chinese or Vietnamese shit at Wal-Mart? I don't see how it can be done.
It's one of the reasons I fear this nation is in an irreversible decline.
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