The New Green Self-Sabotage

In the great civilizational clash between the West and the East, the West is apparently winning. But, not so fast. If we are to believe Joel Kotkin, and I have no reason not to, the West has been digging its own grave with its green Puritanism and environmentalist catastrophism.

We have been told that our goal in life should be to save the planet, even to save the environment. And we should do so by switching, as soon as possible, to green renewable energy, which means solar panels and windmills. No more fossil fuels; no more coal burning plants; no more combustion engines; no more nuclear reactors. No, we are going to replace it all with battery-driven cars and homes.

What is the result for those places where the policy proposals have been enacted? Kotkin explains the case of Germany. Prices for gas and electricity skyrocket. As though that did not suffice, the high cost of energy caused manufacturing to move offshore, to countries where energy was more plentiful and more economical.

In Europe, most obviously Germany, as well as California , the shift to “renewable energy” has led, as it usually does, to high prices that already are driving German industry off the continent. Although not nearly as well-endowed with energy as North America, the climate lobby in Europe makes sure to throttle anything, such as offshore oil in the UK — in pursuit of green puritanism.

And yet, despite the efforts to promote renewables, the truth remains that fossil fuels still reign supreme.

Yet, in the real world, despite billions in subsidies for “green power,” fossil fuels still represent roughly four fifths of global energy generation, just as it did twenty years ago. This is after expenditures of over one trillion were spent on solar and wind. 

The West has been reducing per capita emissions for years, but this is utterly subsumed by growth in developing countries, notably China, which not only buys huge amounts of natural gas but continues to open new coal-fired plants at a rapid rate.

For those who spend their waking hours worrying about the threat posed by our leading international competitor, China, Kotkin has a sobering thought. While we are reducing energy consumption and emissions, the Chinese are barreling ahead, building coal plants and nuclear reactors. That nation has no intention of running out of energy.

North Americans be forewarned that in imposing burdens on themselves, but not competitors, green governments are essentially guaranteeing their own decline. Already in the EU, nearly a million industrial jobs have been lost over the past few years, with investment shifting to countries like China and India, which freely use coal and fossil fuels to keep costs down.

Consider the case of Great Britain. It has chosen, often with the direction of a conservative government, to lead the world in green Puritanism. It is paying the price.

Britain’s path may give the starkest preview of the future Biden and Trudeau have in mind for us. Since 1990 the manufacturing sector’s share of GDP has dropped roughly 50 per cent along with several million jobs. This parallels a two thirds drop in UK energy production, while consumption has fallen by only one third. Three decades ago, a net energy exporter, the UK now increasingly depends on imports from the Middle East and other unstable regions.

And now, the rise of China. The winner in this madness is the Middle Kingdom. While it builds up its own coal and nuclear, it is perfectly happy to manufacture all the solar panels and electric vehicles the world wants. 

China has placed itself in the catbird’s seat on renewable energy, including utter domination of solar panels and electric vehicles. China already produces twice as many EVs as the US and the EU combined, and seeks to leverage its total domination of the solar-panel industry — its battery capacity is now roughly four times ours . China also exercises effective control of the requisite rare earth minerals and the technologies used to process them.

Of course, Kotkin recognizes that the tech oligarchs among us will fulfill their needs for energy by recommissioning nuclear power plants. The rest of us will be guilt tripped about our gas stoves and plastic straws.

Ultimately, the oligarchs will likely get their juice from sources like decommissioned nuclear energy, while the average family will take the economic hit in order to fulfill the agenda pushed by the likes of Steve Jobs’ widow, Lauren, Michael Bloomberg, the Rockefellers, Jeff Bezos and venture capitalist John Doerr. These, and other oligarchic allies, are waging a sophisticated and well-financed  media and institutional campaign to catastrophize the climate issue as a way to ban gas stoves, stop new LNG facilities, and crack down on plastics.

In the last analysis, green mandates are driving industry to China and India, among other countries. Dare we say that developing countries are not very willing to listen to lectures designed to produce policies that will maintain their status as underdeveloped.

The new green mandates, if adopted, presage yet another force to further reduce the industrial prowess of western countries, while driving more industries to China, India, and other countries who produce their goods with dirtier fuels and develop resources with less environmental care. At the same time, third world countries, for the most part, are not embracing “net zero,” as it is totally infeasible for them and will likely resist western lectures on climate policy.

So, we, enlightened Westerners that we are, have discovered a new way to undermine our efficiency and to sabotage our future. Way to go, team.

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Wednesday Potpourri

First, the words of Kamala Harris... just when you thought she could not become more incoherent:

What we see is so hard to see that we lose faith or a vision of those things we cannot see but must know.

Second, in the Middle East, for those who think that Hezbollah is dedicated to liberating Palestine, a bit of information from AG Hamilton:

Forget Israelis for a second. Worth noting that when Hezbollah was raping, murdering, starving, and enslaving Syrians for the last decade, UNIFIL forces that were supposedly responsible for disarming Hezbollah were just sitting by and doing nothing.

Those who are supporting these anti-Israeli groups have no real idea about what life is like when they are in charge.

Third, and then there is the great Harris plagiarism scandal Naturally, the media is covering up the fact that Harris plagiarized sections of a book she wrote. It is entitled, Smart on Crime.

JD Vance offered this:

Hi, I'm JD Vance. I wrote my own book, unlike Kamala Harris, who copied hers from Wikipedia.

Of course, the New York Times downplayed the story, but Chris Rufo responded in detail to the Times distortions:

The New York Times is lying about my plagiarism story and I have the receipts to prove it: 1. The Times claims that I only argued that Kamala Harris plagiarized "five sections" involving "about 500 words." But this isn't true. In my story, I wrote that Stefan Weber argued there are "more than a dozen" instances of "'vicious plagiarism.'" This past Saturday, I provided the Times not only with my written analysis, which argues that there are "more than a dozen," but with Weber's full dossier, which included 18 allegations of varying severity. So, the Times deliberately withheld this crucial contextual information from its readers and from the supposed plagiarism expert, who, based on this limited information, called it "not serious." They could have easily confirmed the "more than a dozen" point, but instead, lied by omission.

Tell me you are not surprised.

Fourth, Helen Andrews used to be a senior editor at a publication called The American Conservative. Then, she wrote a long review of the new book by Ta-Nehisi Coates, entitled, “Why Ta-Nehisi Coates Hates Israel.” 

Her publisher was so totally offended that he fired her. How dare she question the anti-Semitism of the saintly Coates.

Now Barton Swaim reviews the book for the Washington Free Beacon. Apparently, some precincts of the American right allow free expression of ideas:

Coates’s writing is consistently muddled, sometimes barely comprehensible, and full of cryptic turns of phrase amounting to truisms.

Of course, Coates is incapable of offering a reasonable appraisal of the situation in the Middle East and Israel. He traffics in juvenile analogies and only finds what sustains his thesis, that Jews are like slave-owners and that Palestinians are like slaves:

Coates is comically ill-equipped to talk about Israel and its conflicts with Palestinian terror groups and Arab states, and you quickly get the sense that he knows he has no idea what he’s talking about and doesn’t care. His authority to write on the subject derives from a 10-day visit to Israel in which, as an invited guest of the "Palestine Festival of Literature," he was plied with Palestinian propaganda. A more enthusiastic imbiber of agitprop the festival’s organizers, I imagine, could not have hoped for.

The book’s one-sidedness is all that is worth mentioning. And Swaim mentions it:

The scandal of the book—and the reason Tony Dokoupil of CBS wasn’t simply justified in challenging Coates in a recent interview but had a duty to challenge him—is that Coates never mentions Palestinian terrorism. An unobservant or gullible person could read The Message and have no idea that the Israeli soldiers’ vigilance is a consequence of Palestinians’ notable tendency to lunge at Jews with knives, self-detonate in crowded areas, and otherwise maim and murder innocents. Coates doesn’t mention the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, or any other act of Palestinian terrorism. Nor does he wonder why, although more than two million Arabs are citizens of Israel, few if any Jews are citizens of Arab countries.

Fifth, major American universities seem incapable of suppressing anti-Semitism on their campuses. The result, in Columbia and at Harvard, is sharply reduced fundraising. I trust that no one is surprised.

Sixth, remember smash and grab retail theft, a practice that infests certain stores in certain blue cities in America. Among those stores compromised are pharmacies run by Walgreens. As it happens, the robberies have caused the pharmacies to lose money, so more than a few people in more than a few neighborhoods will soon be without a convenient pharmacy.  

Megan McArdle wrote on Twitter:

A quarter of Walgreens stores are unprofitable, and the company plans to close most of them. Seems likely that the closures will include a lot of theft-prone locations that have gone into a retail death spiral: everything's locked up so it can't be stolen, which depresses sales as well as theft.

Seventh, as you have no doubt heard, ad nauseam, the problem with the federal government’s disaster response in North Carolina is not real, it is misinformation. Naturally, CBS News is on board with the subterfuge. When House Speaker Mike Johnson offered evidence to the contrary, evidence that suggested government incompetence, the network deleted his remarks.

He wrote on Twitter:

I recently traveled to NC and victims of Hurricane Helene told me nearly two weeks after landfall, the Biden-Harris Administration had STILL not provided them with all the resources they desperately needed. But CBS selectively edited OUT ENTIRELY this first-hand perspective.

And they think they are doing journalism.

Ninth, it’s election season, so the Biden administration is getting ready to punish Israel-- for conditions in Gaza. Humanitarian aid going into Gaza is normally stolen and distributed by Hamas, but, why not blame Israel when you can.

The New York Post reports:

The Biden-Harris administration is giving Israel 30 days to improve humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza or else the US could halt military assistance, according to a letter sent to the Israeli military.

The Oct. 13 letter, penned by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, threatens to pause the delivery of US weapons and aid to Israel unless the Jewish state provides assurance that humanitarian aid is flowing into Gaza unhindered, according to reports in Israeli media.  

The warning comes as President Biden has spent months voicing his growing frustration with the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which has become a major issue among Democratic voters — especially young Democrats — as Election Day looms.   

The American officials found that since April, there has been a significant deterioration in the amount of aid entering Gaza despite Israel’s vow to keep food and supplies coming back in March. 

Caroline Glick offers some sage commentary:

NSM-20 stipulates that if Israel doesn't satisfy US demands for resupply to Hamas, it will enact an arms embargo. Those are the consequences of non-resupply of Hamas. Also, we have proven beyond reasonable doubt that UNRWA is a Hamas-controlled terrorist organization. Hamas's top terrorist in Lebanon was the head of UNRWA in Lebanon. Yet the administration is demanding that Israel continue to treat it as a humanitarian relief group and provide it with the privileges of a diplomatic delegation. Likewise, the International Committee of the Red Cross has not visited, or condemned Hamas for barring its representatives from visiting any of the Israeli hostages. But it does insist that Israel permit it to visit the Hamas war criminals Israel holds who participated in the barbaric, sadistic day of genocide on Oct. 7. And here is the Biden-Harris team demanding that Israel let these terrorist apologists visit the terrorist rapist and murderers to prove Israel is being nice to them. There has never been a more hateful, anti-Israel administration in U.S. history. This is how they act when they feel somewhat constrained by the elections. Imagine what they intend to do to Israel beginning Nov. 6.

No one ever accused the Biden administration of being fair and balanced.

Tenth, if you have not decided who to vote for, perhaps you were waiting to hear what Dave Portnoy, of Barstool Sports, has to say about the matter.

Well, the New York Post has the story:

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy posted a six-minute rant on social media in which he blasted Vice President Kamala Harris as “the worst presidential candidate in the history of American politics.”

“I am so sick of being gaslighted like she’s some great candidate,” the multi-millionaire said in a video on Sunday.

“Look at the world stage. Afghanistan was a disaster, the Middle East is basically in flames, you got Russia,” Portnoy said. “Then on the homeland, inflation’s out of control, people burning American flags in the streets…law and order doesn’t even seem to matter anymore, you got border, immigration.”

Now you know.

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Transmania on the Ballot Box

Just when you thought that all they needed was another pep talk from Barack Obama, along with an insinuation that if they did not vote for Kamala they were sexist, along comes Scott Jennings, a conservative commentator on CNN.

Why are black males not rushing out to vote for Kamala? Jennings said this on CNN over the weekend:

A lot of men think Democrats care more about dudes who want to become women than they do about dudes just wanna be dudes. No amount of hunting cosplay or cringy videos is gonna change it. The bed is made.

Almost on cue, the Wall Street Journal followed up yesterday morning with an editorial suggesting that transmania was on the ballot in a number of senatorial races. And that it was a sleeper issue, one that no one had expected, but that was compromising the electoral prospects of Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin and Montana Senator Jon Tester.

As the transwinds go, so might very well go the Senate.

Now a recent poll. Center Square Voters’ Voiced has found that 59% of the population favors national bans on gender affirming care on minors.

Politically speaking, the issue involves whether the government can outlaw what is falsely called gender affirming treatments. It also raises the issue of fairness, should a biological male who believes he is a female be allowed to compete in women’s sports? Should he be allowed in the girls locker room?

I need not tell you, though the point is often obscured, that no one is militating for allowing trans males, who were born female, to compete in men’s sports or to shower in the men’s locker room.

Back in the day, psychiatry recognized transgenderism as a delusional belief. Trans individuals believed, to the roots of their marrow, that they had been born in the wrong bodies. No physical evidence could convince them otherwise. 

Nowadays, we have dispensed with the notion of delusional belief and have declared the belief to be a person's truth. If you deny it, you are committing an act of violence against them, or against their beliefs.

Obviously, we are in the realm of disinformation or misinformation. Considering that there is no biological reality behind the assertion that one was born in the wrong body, any assertion to the contrary is disinformation or misinformation. In the vernacular, it’s a lie.

Amazingly, we are not dealing with people who have a constitutional right to lie to themselves. We are dealing with a cohort that arrogates to itself the right to force other people to believe that its lies are the truth.

They also insist on having the right to make up their own pronouns and force other people to use them. Totalitarian does it justice. 

Obviously, children are the victims of this mania. And yet, adults who try to persuade children that they can change their gender by changing their minds are culpable. They ought to be prosecuted.

The Wall Street Journal explains the political angle:

An ad in Wisconsin says Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin “voted to let biological men into women’s sports.” Republican challenger Eric Hovde gets spontaneous applause when he raises the issue at campaign events. In Montana, an ads says Sen. Jon Tester “voted to let men compete against our girls,” and “those aren’t Montana values.” The proliferation of these arguments against so many Democratic incumbents suggests it’s resonating with the public.

And then there is the question of mutilating children. It is not the least issue, and begins with offering puberty blockers to children. Among those who are offering such treatments are Planned Parenthood, of all groups.

You know that the British National Health Service has followed the recommendations of a report written by pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass. It has stopped offering puberty blockers to children and has stopped surgical attempts to play God.

In America some states have tried to pass laws banning what is called gender affirming care. As it happens, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio opposed such laws, because he wanted the decision to be limited to parents and doctors. So, if a thirteen year old girl decides that she wants a double mastectomy, there are no problems for Sen. Brown.

Do we really want it to be involving doctors when they have a considerable financial stake in the surgical procedures.

While Sen. Brown insists that he does not support puberty blockers and mutilating surgery, he does oppose banning them. It’s a distinction without a difference, well worthy of a politician.

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The Gender Gap

And then there was the gender gap, not to be confused with the thigh gap. The woke Democratic Party has a man problem. The Kamala Harris solution was to name a man called Tampon Tim as her vice presidential candidate.

Considering her husband’s track record dealing with women, we are not going to grant too much credence to the Harris choice. Besides, after railing and inveighing against toxic masculinity for these past few years, why did any sane Democrat imagine that America’s male voters would flock to Tampon Tim.

Worse yet, yesterday, man’s man Tim decided to show off his prowess at pheasant hunting. Unfortunately, he did not know how to load his gun and ended up looking like Elmer Fudd.

Batya Ungar-Sargon offered this intriguing interpretation of the Walz fail:

This "outreach" to men is actually outreach to women. There's a contradiction between what Democratic women expect aesthetically & sexually out of men and what they demand politically. The result is this uncanny valley of politically emasculated men LARPing as manly macho men:

For those who want to read a concise essay about manliness, I recommend my post entitled “What a Piece of Work is a Man.” It was written last Thursday.

As you doubtless recall, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is a far better shot than Tim Walz. In order to show off her manliness, and thus her qualification to be a vice presidential candidate, she bragged about shooting a puppy.

Of course, shooting innocent pets does not make you very manly and the Noem political career went up in smoke.

Which brings us to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a rising star in the Democratic Party. A couple of days ago Whitmer allowed herself to be filmed mocking the Roman Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist. It was certainly a new political low.

Decked out in a Harris cap Whitmer handed a supplicant a Doritos chip, which is not quite the same thing as a communion wafer.

To the best of my knowledge the Church does not allow for female priestesses. Thus, Whitmer might count as a drag queen, which would be even more offensive.

Ed Morrissey recounts the reaction in Michigan:

After participating in a weird submissive-porn version of Catholic communion, or just a demonstration of how Kamalites operate, the governor of Michigan has gotten a deluge of outrage and criticism. Catholic bishops in all seven dioceses in the state issued a statement demanding an explanation and apology for Whitmer's campaign video for Kamala Harris and its "offensive impact" in mocking the Eucharist.

Of course, Whitmer did not accept responsibility. She blamed it on a misinterpretation:

Over 25 years in public service, I would never do something to denigrate someone's faith. I’ve used my platform to stand up for people’s right to hold and practice their personal religious beliefs. My team has spoken to the Michigan Catholic Conference. What was supposed to be a video about the importance of the CHIPS Act to Michigan jobs, has been construed as something it was never intended to be, and I apologize for that.

She apologizes because people misinterpreted her intention. Obviously, this is a non-apology, taking no responsibility for the offense given. And not recognizing that once you post such bile you are no longer the supreme authority on what it means.

Morrissey offers an extended interpretation, emphasizing the echoes of pornography:

Exactly how does placing a Dorito on Plank's tongue while she kneels before Whitmer present an argument about the importance of the CHIPS Act? How in fact is this a policy argument at all? The video looks more like a prelude to a WHIPS Act. To the extent it argues anything at all, it argues for submission to elected officials in the manner of idolatry, transforming Whitmer into some sort of goddess-queen to be obeyed, not a public servant with a duty for accountability.

The moral of the story is that you can toss out your Whitmer ‘28 buttons. The saving grace is that now Whitmer will be known for something other than her enduring love affair with Botox.

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Donation

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Obviously, it takes time and effort to write these posts. I have been posting on this blog every day for over sixteen years. It is not self-evident. I could not have done it without the financial support of you, my readers.

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I try to make my writing sound effortless, but, as the old saying goes, it takes a lot of work to make anything seem effortless. From where I sit, it deserves some compensation. 

The internet is awash in blogs. I am grateful to those who have chosen to spend a small part of their days reading mine. I have tried to be worthy of their confidence, by presenting reflections and analysis that are unlikely to be found elsewhere. 

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Saturday Miscellany

 First, just in case you have been wondering what bad thoughts can get you suspended from the U. Penn Law School-- tenure be damned-- consider these remarks from Amy Wax, who has recently been relieved of her teaching responsibilities for a year.

As you probably know by now, Wax got into trouble by questioning DEI dogma. Consider this:

"What's going on out there is that people who would otherwise get a high school diploma and really technically shouldn't be going to universities in the sense that...[they] aren't smart enough to get a real university education. They're being churned through these institutions and there they are getting an ideological education in lefty ideas. They're being propagandized with the most crude sort of unthought out lefty ideas and then they are going out into the world."

Evidently, this is beyond the pale, for institutions that claim to value diversity of opinion.

Second, on the same subject, we read this from a coddled affluent professional on Twitter:

Wokeness is a liberatory movement for midwits. It gives them *moral authority* over people who are smarter and more talented than they are. The power to scold is a major reason why wokeness became so popular.

Third, then again, you have heard it so many times that you  might even believe that there is something to it. Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy, or some such.

Bonchie redstate replies on Twitter:

Look, Democrats just want to protect our democracy and restore norms by packing the Supreme Court, getting rid of the electoral college, outlawing "misinformation," censoring their opponents, banning guns, and ending the filibuster.

Fourth, the Biden administration would have us believe that we have never had it as good as we have now. Anyone who thinks that the economy is not roaring ahead has simply failed to read enough Paul Krugman columns.

To that, famed statistician Nate Silver replies:

GDP growth last year was 2.5%. That's a nice number! But also almost exactly the long-term average. The idea that it's the "best economy in decades" is straight-up misinformation.

Fifth, the war against hate proceeds apace. Unfortunately, the anti-hate contingent has resorted to expressing their deeply held feelings by hating one presidential candidate.

Paul Joseph Watson reports from Los Angeles:

An “art exhibit” in Los Angeles designed to protest against Donald Trump “spreading hate” featured participants kicking around a soccer ball shaped like the former president’s head.

Sixth, Ta-Nihisi Coates, touring his new book encouraging anti-Semitism, has declared himself a potential terrorist. At the least he understands why terrorists did what they did on October 7. If he were not such a serious person he might have done the same thing:

And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty and the wall comes down. Am I also strong enough or even constructed in such a way where I say this is too far, I don't know that I am.

The great mystery is why major media outlets take this idiot so seriously.

Seventh, when you ask where Coates learned it all, he seems to have learned it from his father, Paul Coates, a man who believes that Jews were responsible for the slave trade.

Eighth, meantime for those gullible souls who have bought the Tommy Friedman swill about a two-state solution in the Middle East, Eric Dawe reports on an independent journalist by name of Zane Sage Fox who went to Gaza and the West Bank to ask people what they really, really wanted.

He reported:

What the diplomats, politicos, and pundits in the media refuse to recognize is that the majority of Palestinians are far from being the helpless victims of a repressive Hamas regime that thwarts any two-state solution. Rather, the mindset of the Palestinians themselves absolutely forbids any two-state solution with Israel. Israel would accept it; Israelis have been amenable every time it’s been proposed. To our western, civilized thinking, it seems only logical that Palestine would prefer peace over the endless fighting and death they have experienced under Hamas rule. But that’s exactly where we ‘civilized’ westerners go wrong. It’s not just Hamas that hates Israel and all its people; the Palestinians themselves hate Israel and the Israeli people with an intense, even self-destructive hatred we cannot comprehend.

Zach Sage Fox discovered this:

He took a cameraman with him to record his ‘man on the street’ interviews and document the actual opinions and perspectives of ordinary Palestinians. What he learned -- and what you can view for yourself -- was that far from wanting a two-state solution where they could live in peace with Israel, every Palestinian Zach interviewed -- without exception, both men and women -- did not want peace with Israel. They voiced a uniform wish to see Israel ‘deleted’. They want a one-state solution, with that one state being Palestine.

Ninth, just in case you missed it, Ta-Nehisi Coates is going all-in on anti-Semitism. Speaking on the Ezra Cohen podcast, he said this:

 “I don’t know how you’re different [than the evil Zionists].” On 10/7: “I don’t care what their leadership [Hamas] did.”

Tenth, a University of Kansas lecturer, by name of Phil Lowcock, told his class that any man who does not vote for Kamala Harris should be taken out and shot.

Lowcock has now been fired from the University.

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Manufacturng Renaissance?

The least I can say is that the topic does not lie within my ken. And yet, why not present some contrarian views about the coming manufacturing renaissance, from a seasoned economist by the name of Rebecca Patterson. 

Her essay appeared in the New York Times. The thrust of her argument is that engineering a manufacturing renaissance, not to mention a revival of the American middle class, is more of a pipe dream than a real possibility.

The problem is human capital. We do not have the people needed to man these industries. The people we have available are largely incapable of doing the jobs. 

So, we are going to be obliged to import foreign workers, which is well and good, except that these workers in most cases will be required to hold a bachelor’s degree from university.

How many of the subliterate masses who are coming into the country from the third world can read, write or count, not to mention, do algebra at college level.

Begin with the demographic problem:

In 1950, when manufacturing was near its peak as a share of total employment, the mostly male working population was growing at a steady clip, thanks in part to a fertility rate of 3.1 children per woman.

The complexion of the working population and its growth rate has since changed. While women and immigrants helped offset the slowing growth of the native-born population, it hasn’t been enough: Two-thirds of respondents to a National Association of Manufacturing survey this past spring said that their biggest challenge was attracting and retaining employees.

Aside from the fact that Americans are not reproducing enough, they are educating more females than males. More women receive college degrees than men do. But, ask yourself this, how many of said women want to work in manufacturing? And, how many of them have majored in fields that qualify them for such work.

By now, we have fallen behind and depend on foreign countries for too many products:

While the United States is working to reduce its dependence on China, particularly in certain strategic sectors, it cannot succeed in its national security goals by doing so alone. In numerous industries, such as semiconductors, where key parts of the supply chain are dominated by one or a small handful of companies in countries including Taiwan and the Netherlands, the United States has to partner with companies overseas. It doesn’t have the needed expertise at home, at least for the foreseeable future.

Now, Patterson notes that some of these jobs can be taken over by automation. This is true. And yet, considering the rancorous strike of the longshoreman’s union, among whose issues is a refusal to automate, and ask yourself whether American unions will ever allow such a thing to take place. Otherwise, the solution will be to move factories out of the country. 

But, Patterson notes, we can try to deal with these problems by imposing tariffs on imported goods. Everyone loves tariffs. They sound like a great idea:

Tariffs are likely to spark a trade war that puts at risk needed overseas’ investments in the United States — which would likely work against manufacturing employment. A 2019 Federal Reserve research paper found that U.S. tariffs levied under Mr. Trump in 2018 and 2019, along with retaliatory tariffs from foreign countries, led to a 1.4 percent reduction in manufacturing employment, or roughly 175,000 jobs that would have otherwise been created.

This assumes that the tariffs on foreign manufacturing open shelf space for American products that are of equal quality and that are not overly costly.

The moral of the story is that we should not take what politicians are promising at face value. It will take more than some new legislation, even a new industrial policy, to bring us back from that brink.

A little skepticism will do us well when thinking through these issues.

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