Salvaging The 'Stimulus' Package
By Christopher G. Adamo
March 6, 2008
Nobody should be surprised to see side-by-side headlines proclaiming that oil is hitting record prices while the dollar is dropping to new lows against foreign currencies. The pieces fit. As America is forced to expend ever more of its monetary supply in order to procure basic commodities from other countries, foreign powers gain greater and greater control of our wealth and our destiny. Consequently, our bargaining position on the international economic scene grows weaker.
Much of the inflated price of crude oil directly results from the looming threats of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, both of whom have hinted at the prospect of cutting supplies in the event of adverse policy decisions by the United States. In other words, our dependence on their product, in this case petroleum, will leave us at their mercy if hostilities flare.
The situation would be entirely different, had the U.S. pursued a wise energy policy that recognized the importance of strong domestic energy production, instead of kowtowing to the radical environmentalists who diligently endeavored (with disturbingly great success) to put virtually all new American oil drilling and refining off limits.
Where America once dealt from a position of strength, and might still be doing so, it is now indefensibly vulnerable to the likes of Ahmadinejad and Chavez. And at some point, this current generation or its posterity will either fix these blunders or pay dearly for such shortsightedness.
Things are much the same on the manufacturing front. During his run for the presidency, Congressman Duncan Hunter (R.-CA), perhaps the only true conservative to have entered the race, told of a critical component of American "smart bombs" that has been purchased from Switzerland.
At some point during the Iraq war, the Swiss decided that as a result of their opposition to U.S. actions, they would no longer sell the part. From a military perspective, this act was no less effective or devastating than a surgical bombing of an American munitions factory, rendering it incapable of further production.
Posing comparable risks, but on a far wider scale, American refineries and mills are no longer building, growing, and modernizing to the degree necessary to maintain an ongoing production of day-to-day commodities, but are falling instead into disrepair and eventual ruin. As such, they will eventually be in no condition to suddenly ramp up production in the event that a truly large scale conflict emerges on the world scene.
Americans can hardly imagine the degree of hardship and deprivation that could befall them from a full fledged trade embargo conducted by hostile foreign powers. Many have already shown an ominous willingness to flex their economic and political muscle against us. And the only defense against this fate is to ensure that American industry stays sufficiently vibrant to respond to such a blow.
It is crucial to recognize that none of this should be interpreted as a pitch for "protectionism." Wall Street types understand all too well the ravages on an economy that is hamstrung by self-serving bureaucratic interests whose only real goal is to enrich and empower themselves by constructing arbitrary and artificial trade barriers.
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