Thoughts on the Western Economy

I read somewhere today, in an American web forum that "in a rational, tariff-free economy, we would be importing all of our food." This phrase was used to argue that supporting the rural infrastructure (postal, telecom, etc) was not in the best interests of society at large (ie urban society). The individual that posted this considered themself to be a Libertarian, which is a political philosophy that dictates that the market will decide what is best for everybody.

Being a Canadian, I shook my head and laughed at the mentality. Even though I'm not from the good 'ol US of A, I feel that I'm allowed to have an opinion anyway, as North America is becoming more and more like one big country every year.

If the US started importing all their food, they would completely collapse. The American economy has becoming more and more hazardous with every passing year. As the years churn on, the Americans manufacture less and less, and import more. It's now at the stage where anything worth having is made outside of the US. Cars, gadgets, even the raw materials necessary to produce goods are imported from foreign nations. If the US was no longer an agricultural nation, they wouldn't produce anything at all of consequence, and even the service industry is being rapidly offshored, with call centers in India being the norm.

North America, including Canada needs to take a collective step back and reassess what is going on in the world markets. Our economies have been catching up for a long time with what happened in the late 80's in the Soviet Union. As soon as the USSR no longer had the raw materials to support themselves, they had to turn to importing oil, and waging wars of agression in Afghanistan to try to secure oil. As the Russians weren't making anything to EXPORT to generate money to support the wars and mass imports, they eventually collapsed.

Now, the US has been importing oil for almost as long as the Russians. The difference lies in the fact for most of the time, the Americans were exporting goods, services, and innovation. Major companies like General Motors, Ford, IBM, RCA, Westinghouse, and General Electric were creating goods that were cutting edge and in demand worldwide. NOW, almost everything is made abroad, with names like Toyota, Honda, Siemens, Sony, Panasonic and Philips replacing the North American monikers at the top of the business food chain. America is still importing, but not giving anything back.

These days, America's only obvious export is "democracy", in the form of endless war and violence, a resurrection of the colonial atmosphere that they claim their country was founded to combat.

Still, we must all remember that when the Russians lashed out into the middle east, trying to secure natural resources, the "evil empire" was in decline, a mere 12 years away from collapse. The signs are there now-where will they, and by entension, we be in 2015, 12 years after the start of the second Iraq War?