PJB: Metrics of National Decline | Patrick J. Buchanan - Official Website

Pat Buchanan has it right.

Let me share some snippets from this insightful column.

From January 2008, right after Kudlow’s column ran, through January 2009, the U.S. economy lost 3.5 million jobs. The private sector loss of 3.65 million jobs was slightly offset by 148,000 jobs created by federal, state and local governments. Say what you will, the Bush years were boom times for Big Government.

Agreed. Big Government conservatism became the boon of the neoconservatives like Wolfowitz and Volcker.  The Furnace that once was the Forge of our Republic has now sucked up billons of dollars in debt and is seeking bailout from our Big Daddy Government. Here is more insight:

From Jan. 31, 2001, through Jan. 31, 2009, 4.4 million manufacturing jobs, 26 percent of all of the manufacturing jobs in the United States, disappeared.

With the onslaught of service and information industries, good paying manufacturing jobs are becoming a thing of the past. Most solid, blue-collar workers who know nothing but hard work and the fruits of their labors are slowly(or maybe not so slowly) being replaced by foreign voices at call centers around the globe thanks to free trade. Let’s proceed.

Last week, final trade figures for 2008 came in. They make for riveting reading for Americans who yet believe that manufacturing is an indispensable element of national power.

With China exporting five times the dollar volume in goods to us as she imports from us, Beijing’s trade surplus with the United States set yet another world record: $266 billion.

Let me put the so called “stimulus” in perspective. The $784 billion dollars recently signed as a dole out is twice the size of our trade deficit with China, which stands at $266 billion.  Let me put it this way, we’re losing jobs, we’re consuming more than we’re producing and we’re spending like there is no tomorrow.  In other words, America’s best days are behind her. PJB concurs.

These statistics, these realities — factories closing in the United States, manufacturing jobs being outsourced in the millions to China and Asia, enormous, endless trade deficits in goods — testify to a painful truth: America is a receding and declining world power.

However, there can be hope.

How do we correct those “trade-related imbalances” of which Volcker spoke? We must export more and import less, save more and spend less, produce more and consume less. We need to emulate the ants and behave less like the grasshoppers of summer.

Oh wait, those who work hard, save their money for a rainy day, and build the American Dream for themselves are old fashioned. The Left’s view of them is, “We must punish them for doing the right thing. We must punish them for providing for their families. We must punish them for not be socially responsible.” As a matter of fact, the American people, historically, are the most charitable people on earth.