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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
America's Engineered Decline, November 21, 2005
Proponents of the full integration of North, Central, and South America have targeted 2005 for the culmination of a sneak attack on America's independence. Under the guise of promoting prosperity through free trade, globalists hope to entice the United States into a revolutionary trap - known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
If adopted, the FTAA would lower the living standards of the United States to meet that of the least fortunate in this hemisphere. Still, few Americans are aware of where the FTAA is designed to take us.
Most of us are perhaps aware that our nation faces huge problems threatening serious long-term consequences. Out-of-control immigration and the decline of American industry are but two of the problems examined in America's Engineered Decline.
We have learned to look to government for solutions to the larger problems that face us; yet, despite a lot of posturing by our elected officials, these problems have only worsened.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there has been a clear demand for better enforcement of our immigration laws, yet the response is a proposal for amnesty and less control over our borders.
Why?
William Grigg answers that question in America's Engineered Decline.
Despite an inventive use of statistics that are intended to suggest otherwise, about 1.3 million manufacturing jobs have moved abroad since the beginning of 1992, most of these within the past three years (2000-2003), and unless the American people wake up, they are not coming back.
It's not just the paper industry, and its not just the Katahdin area of Maine. The American textile and furniture industries have been decimated in uneven competition with low-wage nations such as Communist China. In fact, most traditional American industries are rapidly moving out of the country, leading to what the author describes as a race to the bottom - the sudden precipitous decline of an entire population from the middle class to near-subsistance living.
For most of its history, our nation's manufacturing sectors have been the gateway to the middle class for its hardworking citizens, resulting in unprecedented national prosperity.
No more.
"We're killing ourselves," laments Jerry Skoff, owner of a Wisconsin manufacturing firm. "Bombs are falling, but people aren't paying attention. We're being reduced from a manufacturing and hi-tech economy into a service economy - and if things continue the way they are, the service sector will eventually go the same direction."
Once our manufacturing jobs have been outsourced to low-wage countries, they almost certainly will not be coming back.
"Once tooling capacity is lost, manufacturing simply has to move," observes John C. McCroy, owner of Omnitech Technical Associates in Washington State. "People running companies in this country generally don't want to go offshore. But once the process got started, it snowballed, because the specialized tooling capacity started to shut down - and it takes a long time to re-tool, too long to remain competitive in this globalized economy."
As the United States become de-industrialized, the author points out, China is being set up as the center of global manufacturing. With significant assistance from the United States, China now has, not only a supply of cheap labor, but inexpensive power and modern production facilities.
Many examples are given.
As American firms set up shop in China, there is a steep price, one that doesn't bode well for a return of American industry. Every firm that sets up production in China has to turn over its technology, and even our defense firms are moving to China.
The United States industrial base is being taken apart, piece-by-piece, and relocated to other countries, and in the process, much of America's industrial and military production base is being sold to foreign countries, including China.
The author predicts that, as our manufacturing base is stripped away, Americans may find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to emigrate in order to find work.
If Americans aren't making anything, how will we be able to earn a living? Can we maintain a middle-class standard of living in a service-based economy? Given that we are importing a third-world population through illegal immigration even as we outsource our jobs, will there even be service-sector jobs available for Americans?
The answer is obvious.
Not long ago, within the lifetimes of most of the people who now live in Millinocket, it was quite possible for one American worker with a high school education to support a family comfortably. Before the 1970s, each successive generation was better off than the one before.
Now most people find it impossible to support a family on one income. Educated people find it difficult to find work. Veteran workers no longer enjoy security in seniority, or even in their pension funds. Employers treat their employees like equipment - with minimum maintenance, lower operating costs, built-in obsolescence, and cheap off-shore replacements.
When pink slips appear, retraining and counseling are the only solutions given. Those fortunate enough to keep or regain their jobs are willing to work for less than previous generations. This has been the trend since 1973, all over the nation, not just in Millinocket.
Something is dreadfully wrong. How did our once great nation arrive at this point? Is our decline the result of irrepressible historical forces, or is it intentional? If it is by design, who is responsible, and what do they want?
How can they be stopped?
The author makes a strong argument that America has been led to the brink of disaster by design. That's the bad news. The good news is that they can still be stopped.
America's Engineered Decline is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the larger picture of why we're in the position we're in as a nation.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
4.5 Stars-The loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs is a major disaster, December 21, 2005
The other two reviewers have hit all of the major points and are dead on target.Another good book on the topic would be the recent book by Lou Dobbs.The most important point made in the book is the loss of 3 Million industrial-manufacturing jobs in the last five years(2001-2005) AND the corresponding loss in industrial capacity.The job losses are permanent.The downsizing and outsourcing are permanent.Good current examples are GM,Ford,and Boeing.It took America 28 years to lose 3 million jobs in manufacturing from 1972-2000.Masking the eventual decline of America as a major economic power is the strictly short run flow of borrowed money being provided by Japan and China (we buy their products and they turn around and buy our bonds.The funds are then used to partially cover the huge budget deficits created by the Bush administration)that supplements current deficits being run up by the Bush administration as a combined result of tax cuts and increased spending.All three deficits-trade deficit,current accounts deficit,and the budget deficit-are completely out of control.There is a minor flaw in the book that could easily be corrected.The author does not clearly explain that the globalization movement rationale directly contradicts the theory of comparative advantage.The pro globalization argument is not based on conservative thought(Smith,Washinton,Hamilton,Madison,Franklin,etc.).The globalization argument is based fundamentally on anarchistic libertarianism which the Founding fathers rejected in 1787. The free trade argument is built upon the theory of comparative advantage as stated in literary terms by Adam Smith and David Ricardo.Globalization essentially involves a repudiation of the theory of comparative advantage.The theory of comparative advantage allows a national firm or corporation to invest financial capital in the construction of plant and equipment in a foreign country as long as the output produced from that plant is used to supply the foreign market(for example,Toyota,Honda and Volkswagen produce cars in America to sell to Americans,not to send back to Japan or Germany for sale).The goods cannot be sent back to the home country(a la Walmart).You would no longer have comparative advantage but absolute advantage.Under comparative advantage ,every country gains something by trade(or does not lose).This is not the case with absolute advantage.Under absolute advantage,some countries gain and some countries must lose.The losses that are currently being created, eventually leading to a substantial decline in the standard of American living, have not yet become apparent as the deficits are masking the inevitable decline.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sobering statistics showing America's engineered decline, December 2, 2005
If you're like me, you are puzzled after every election when all those promising politicians almost immediately renege on their promises to "change" and go right on voting just like their predecessors. They spend more and more money on programs that are less and less helpful to you and then try and make you feel guilty when you squawk about your taxes and their spending. You look at your extended family and realize that other than a few high-earners the majority are now in two-earner families working harder and harder just to stay even. You look at your parents who could afford to buy 40 acres of land just outside of town on a middle-class salary and realize that you can hardly afford a 1/3 acre lot on the poor side of town. You see your neighbor's basements full of their married children's families looking for a decent job. You notice that most of the really well-off in town no longer do anything useful or produce anything. They make money by taking percentages from others through their real-estate or title companies, or their loan-sharking businesses (now called check-cashing stores). You wonder why you have to press several buttons when you call your bank before you can get a pre-recorded message in English. You wonder why it is so hard to understand the guy on the computer help line and you turn the boxes of your newly bought pruchases around and around until you can find any words or instructions in English.
Well, if you have ever had any of the above thoughts or just want to read an entertaining, but scary, synopsis of the future American economy, this is the book for you. In it's 137 pages with 16 pages of footnotes, you will understand that the elite interests of this country are, and have been for a generation or more, doing everything in their power to destroy the American Middle Class.
Much of the book revolves around the various trade agreements that have lost millions of good-paying jobs permanently. Also included are chapters on the escalating damage done by illegal immigration. Short chapters on the loss of American Morality and the perpetual wars that we seem to be always in are included also.
A short chapter on what we can do about it and a call to oppose these assaults on America ends this short volume. I recommend heartily that you read it. Pat Buchanan's "Decline of the West" is also extremely pertinent and useful.
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by William Norman Grigg
by William Norman Grigg
