People, especially young people in America, do not study their own history. In 1960, Detroit was the richest large city in America, had the highest standard of living of any large city. In 1960 85% of Americans had health care insurance. Most women could stay at home and be mothers to their children, be there when they got out of school, could go to school in emergencies or sickness, etc. Most men made a decent wage that could support a family. Yes we had segregation problems, but that was about it. Even 52% of blacks were middle class by this time. There were no federal welfare programs, no federal food stamp programs, we had a top notch military, we were preparing to go to the moon. We used the gold standard to back our currency. We manufactured EVERYTHING we needed. We only imported stuff like bananas, coffee, tea, cola nuts, cocoa, Brazil nuts, etc. Only metal we imported was titanium, and maybe some diamonds. We were an exporter, even at our higher wages. The import-export laws actually protected us.
Now, we import a lot of our food, we import a lot of our vehicles, clothes, shoes, furnature, watches, phones, computers, and half our oil. Good paying jobs are scarse, especially manufacturing jobs. Farms lie idle due to imported cotton, and other foods.
Maybe we should rethink our so called "free trade agreements" and start by lowering our taxes for MANUFACTURING companies, that can actually provide jobs here as well as health insurance. Maybe we should rethink attaching tarriffs on imported oil and manufactured goods at the same time opening up opportunities for Americans to drill here, and build PIPELINES to carry our oil and natural gas around. Alaska was promised a railroad via Canada when they became a state, via the Alaska highway, never happened. Also, there are/were plans to run a natural gas pipeline from Alaska via the Alaska highway back to the lower 48 through Canada. Alaska has tapped and capped about a 50 year supply of natural gas for the lower 48, not counting what we are producing in fraking in the lower 48. Japan is developing technology to drill and mine their natural gas hydrates underwater off the coast of Japan. We have a 30,000 year supply of natural gas hydrates in the Burmada Triangle we could tap. At some point natural gas will overtake oil as the leading fuel in America because it is cleaner and more abundant.
Anyway maybe we should look at the best times of America past economically and do the same things to emulate what they did to bring back our leadership in the world, our standard of living, less Federal control over our lives, and just keep the feds only for defence, highways, bridges, canals, space exploration, research and development money, but not throw it away on lazy people unwilling to work, and superficial disabilities.
When Johnson created the "Great Society" programs with federal welfare, he created a monster.
When Nixon did away with the Gold standard, inflation hit and got worse during the Carter years.
When Bush Sr, and Clinton got the "Free Trade Agreements" going, Ross Perot warned of the giant sucking sound taking our industry overseas. Happened just like he said.
These programs did not, and have not worked, they are both Republican and Democrat ideas. We need to get rid of what doesn't work, and do what works to actually create jobs, health care insurance, all without needing the Feds. Stop importing oil that the money is used against us in terroism. Stop bankrolling them by buying their oil. Let's produce all our own energy in North America. Lets make our own stuff in North American and not in China and other places. Let's learn to be INDEPENDENT, not DEPENDENT.
