Reason #44: How Can A World Leader Be Dependent on Foreign Manufacturing?!

We used to build things in this country. That’s what made us great. At the end of WWII, our muscular manufacturing capability was the world’s best. The problem is that we still think we’re Charles Atlas flexing on the beach, but in reality we’ve become the ninety-pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face. Manufacturing is now only 12 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. In 1953, that number was nearly 30 percent. Since 2000 alone, we’ve lost an estimated three million manufacturing jobs.

In other words, we don’t make anything here anymore. The only thing we produce now is consumer debt as we buy more and more cheap stuff from overseas.

To add insult to injury, we export tons and tons of our raw materials to places like China so that they can turn them into finished products. For much of our history as a nation we brought in raw materials so that we could use them for our manufacturing industries. We’ve shamefully reversed that. And let me tell you something: When you have to export raw materials to import the goods you need, you are a third-world power-definitely not the most powerful country on earth.

NEXT: Reason #45: Outsourced and Overspent