Outsourcing The Production Of Virtually Everything Has Brought Us To The Brink Of A Nightmare Scenario For The U.S. Economy
Francesco Abbruzzino, The Uncensored Report, LLC
Many of the imbalances that are contributing to the nightmarish shortages that we are currently witnessing are not going to be solved any time soon. Ever since I started The Economic Collapse Blog, I have been warning that outsourcing the production of just about everything and running massive trade deficits year after year would eventually have very serious consequences down the road. Well, now we are officially “down the road”, and our incredibly foolish trade policies have put us in a very precarious position. During the “good times”, being extremely dependent on the rest of the world to make stuff for us wasn’t a problem, but now it is rapidly becoming a national security issue.
For example, without a steady flow of computer chips, our society as it is formulated today simply could not function. We need computer chips for our vehicles, for the trucks that transport all of our goods, for the farm equipment that produces our food, for the extremely sophisticated equipment in our hospitals and for the millions upon millions of electronic devices that connect to the Internet.
The global chip shortage has been a very painful reminder of how exceedingly dependent we have become on technology, and it has also shown us how unwise it was to outsource production of most of our chips to Asia.
Back in 1990, the United States produced 37 percent of all computer chips in the world.
Today, that number has fallen to just 12 percent.
Business leaders are now pledging to start ramping up production here in the U.S., but that will take an extended period of time, and Intel’s CEO is openly admitting that the current shortage of chips could take “several years” to be resolved…
Intel Corp’s (INTC.O) CEO said on Monday it could take several years for a global shortage of semiconductors to be resolved, a problem that has shuttered some auto production lines and is also being felt in other areas, including consumer electronics.
Sadly, there are many other industries where our outsourcing makes us extremely vulnerable.
Did you know that 60 percent of all apple juice that is sold in this country now comes from China?…
Taken together, these laws explain why the apple orchards near my hometown disappeared. Nearly 60 percent of the apple juice sold in the United States comes from China, even though most of America has a climate conducive to apple production. The problem is so bad that salmon caught in the United States is shipped to China for processing and then shipped back to the United States for consumption.
There is no reason why we can’t make our own apples. In fact, weather conditions are ideal for apple growing in much of the nation.
