Exporting jobs undermines U.S. economy

There are no "expert" psychiatrists, lawyers or economists because all of them like consultants offer only subjective opinions based on little other than ethereal visions, seemingly popular opinion or, all too often, simple personal financial gain.

Their disciplines are dangerously unstructured; founded more on wishes, illusions and dreams than any hard scientific formula or data. Of course, that doesn't stop them, whether in the White House or on the staff of a news magazine, from voicing their "expert" opinions.

Most recently, one of them (from a national magazine) wrote at some length to explain why, although U.S. jobs are rapidly disappearing from these fruited plains, to relocate in Mumbai, India, or Chengdu, China, there is no reason to be concerned because those thereby suddenly enriched Indians and Chinese will simply buy more from us, thus creating new jobs here - and so all is well.

Hog wash! Very thin hog wash.

Yes, there is indeed a rapidly growing group of new consumers in places such as China and India; but are we producing what they will buy? I think not. They do increasingly want beef, cars, ships, trains, trucks, tanks, aircraft, corn, computers, fashions, wine, electronics, wheat, fruit, coal, coffee and energy - all offered at attractive prices.

Are we meeting that demand? Not in any way!

The few things we still produce are priced too high, largely because of criminally careless management that has been easily manipulated by greedy labor unions aided by corrupt politicians. We have paid workers more for doing less, closed our mines and steel mills, bought raw materials and finished parts from foreign suppliers and moved more and more of our production facilities offshore.

The inevitable result is that what we do produce is priced unattractively high on the world market, so it doesn't sell, while our international debt grows explosively.

When an automotive worker loses his job to Mexico, Mexicans do not then buy cars made in the U.S. Foreign nations generally buy their beef from Argentina, cotton from Egypt, coffee from Brazil, television receivers from Japan, oil from Arabia, ships from Norway, steel from Japan and aircraft from the European Union.

There's precious little left for the U.S. to attempt to sell to those "new, emerging markets" that will, so it is wishfully imagined, create new jobs here. No, jobs shipped offshore are simply jobs lost, with no imaginable associated financial benefit to us. When that loss is added to that involved by illegal migrant workers in the U.S., we are hemorrhaging billions, which adds menacingly to our looming national debt.

The simple, unarguable, undeniable facts are that unless we take immediate action to convert our economy from one devoted to unproductive services (e.g., entertainment, sports, management, law, advertising, consulting, lawyers, beauticians, physical trainers, salable IT, psychiatrists, plastic surgeons, etc.), to one focused on production of things (e.g., miners, engineers, scientists, mathematicians, machinists, mechanics, professors, farmers, ranchers, laborers), and unless we are willing to fight the very significant political influence of labor unions, we are apparently destined to become a fourth-rate world economy - most likely a bankrupt one.

Will my pessimistic prediction hold true? God, I hope not! But the way things are going, the future looks most bleak. A couple of generations of unrealistic wage and benefits packages, as extorted by unions, have priced nearly all U.S. products out of competition on the world market. There appears to be little chance in the foreseeable future of those wages being adjusted to make our products competitive.

Then also, we have gutted our work force. Some 70 percent of our workers are now employed in nonproductive services, when to be safe, no more than 30 percent should be.

Apparently, few of us want to "work" in these hedonistic times. We have even dismantled manufacturing facilities, paved over agricultural fields, closed mines, and abandoned ship yards. We don't have the workers to build ships, even if we had the facilities and materials needed for the job. We have essentially destroyed our ability to produce and sell much of anything - other than clearly questionable advice on how to succeed in business or fast-food franchises to China.

President Barack Obama's unjustified and wasteful "stimulus" packages may give temporary encouragement to unknowing and thoughtless masses, but they cannot, and will not, do anything to correct the underlying problem. Unless we act now to right the wrongs that we have heaped on our national economy, we will possibly experience a few cosmetic up-ticks in the economy during the next few years, but inevitably we will decline into something far worse than the Great Depression of the early 20th century.

The nation can be saved, but it surely won't be by Indians or Chinese rushing to buy things we produce. Unless we make immediate and traumatic changes to the way we do business, it seems that our fate is sealed.

We must become a nation of producers; not managers, advertisers, entertainers, lawyers, professional athletes and other camp followers. And labor must accept wages that make their products salable on the world market. All of this implies sacrifice, but such is vital, if we are to survive.

Which road do you suggest that we choose: sacrifice or disaster?