Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics How will the financial crisis develop?

While a lion won't become a vegan, the American version of top of the food chain has gone from being a quiet, self-possessed member of the international community to a creature that consumes anything and everything in its path, even plowing new paths to make more things available for the dinner table.

We are a nation that thinks might makes right, that our economic power will ensure our longevity at the top of the heap, while our industry is overseas, our jobs are being done by foreigners in foreign countries, and all could stop in a heartbeat. Were any nation that has accepted and welcomed our manufacturing plants were to nationalize these facilities, bar our exports from their ports, or banned us from keeping any employees in that nation, and the collapse will not be market driven.

We cannot make much of anything these days without foreign parts. Our Federal Reserve participated in bailouts here, and spread another $16 Trillion overseas. Using our money. And, they didn't get permission from the Congress, which constitutionally must approve any such action.

We are owned and run not by Congress or the Federal Government, but by the Federal Reserve. Our government is by, of and for the dollar, run by the Federal Reserve.

And, now that we are up in the top ten of most hated nations, we must be more careful of the sensibilities of others, or start bringing jobs home.

I wonder just how much more it would cost us to purchase things made in the US, if adding a mere 50 cents to a tee shirt can make workers assembling it able to receive a full living wage -- over the minimum, while working in a factory that meets worker and health and other safety standards.

If we taxed companies that manufacture overseas as foreign companies are taxed for their products made overseas, we'd provide incentive to bring jobs back to the US, and could get a lot of money into the US Treasury. Companies should be taxed on the value added to goods and the location of where that value is added.

We need to repatriate the jobs we've so industriously sent overseas. That would increase the US tax base, and would thereby, increase our chances of overcoming the bad fiscal policies of the prior 40 years.

We also need to take a step back to reality regarding our war funding, and stop perpetuating the various sacred cows of DC, most of which are related to those wars that we don't declare, needlessly borrow money needless conflict, and overall, we need to return to a policy of non-intervention in matters that don't concern the security of the US.