Reply #4: Here the US is sitting on the richest piece of real estate in world history, and trying to live off [View All]

[nealmhughes]

our "reputation." Well, if one makes nothing that anyone wishes to buy (now we do have weps and aerospace and damned good HVAC), then is one surprised? And why do people not wish to buy US goods? Because we don't make them any longer! A southern textile industry made sense: the cotton is grown there, therefore by lessening transport cost, the thread can be spun close to the fields, and then to lessen costs even more, the thread woven into cloth and then cut into garments, then sewn all close to the source. That was the genius of US heavy industry: Pittsburgh and Birmingham and Youngstown had the iron ore, limestone and the coal for steel foundaries and even water, all conveniently located near one another, put the workforce near the source and the infrastructure will follow.
Now, in an attempt to save on labor, all is shipped that can be overseas to avoid those pesky labor and environmental laws. The greed of the US has been its own downfall of late. One could morally equate it nearly to the same cycle that led to slave labor fueling the industry of the textile trade in the UK in the Antebellum South -- cheap labor (captive, quite literally) and cheap labor in Lancashire (no more farm jobs, therefore economically captive labor): a capitalist's wet dream, add in railroads and steamships, et voila. . .
Of course, it didn't last for long. Nor can our present system: something will give and it won't be pleasant for a great many people for quite a while.