Got Problems? Yep, But We’ve Had Bigger Ones

Does America have problems? You bet. My wife, Patricia, and I were in Chicago the other day and experienced first hand the mobs in the street. But not too long before that we were on the battlefield of Gettysburg (I cannot even think of that battlefield without welling up in emotion for what they went through).
Gettysburg and the Civil War in general demonstrate to us the glue that holds our nation together is much stronger than the forces which would divide us. There is nothing new under the sun, and certainly the strains we are going through in these times don’t exceed former strains and strains to come.
It is usually instructive to stand back and look at any given situation from a broader perspective. It is all the more encouraging to look at ourselves as outsiders see us. Our son, Benjamin, passed to me a piece written by Ambrose Evans-Prichard, the International Business Editor for the Telegraph newspaper in England.
The piece, dated Oct 23, 2011, is entitled, “World Power Swings Back to America.” One reason cited for this is that we have reemerged as the world’s number one producer of natural gas, founded upon technologies we developed for extracting it from subterranean shale.
We have also made a quantum leap in extracting oil from shale. A decade ago we produced only half of the oil we use; today we produce 72 percent. As we become less dependent on Middle East oil, our security is enhanced.
“Made in America Again.” The Boston Consulting Group reports that Chinese wage inflation has been running at 16 percent annually for a decade and it has closed much of the cost gap between American and Chinese workers. “China is no longer the ‘default location’ for cheap plants supplying the U.S.”
“Boston Consulting expects up to 800,000 manufacturing jobs to return to the U.S by mid-decade.” According to my cousin Fritz Hall, who employs 300 workers in his iron foundry in northern Pennsylvania, that turn-around has already begun.
He told me that a number of American foundries have gone broke as the work headed overseas, but because of Chinese quality issues, lack of accountability, time delays and rising prices, some of that work is already heading back home. His foundry is humming again.
VW is investing $4 billion here in a new Passat plant, and Samsung $20 billion.
Among other of our strengths is our higher education; “Sixteen of the world’s top 20 universities are in the U.S.”
Unlike “Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Italy, and Russia,” with aging populations, which draw down the vitality of a nation’s economy, America has a 2+ percent fertility rate.
While our future is bright relative to the others, the global depression will grind on, and so don’t expect a healthy U.S. recovery soon.
The America people have made enormous sacrifices in order to create a nation, the likes of which have never been seen. Moving forward it is important to reflect upon our strengths so we neither overestimate our difficulties nor underestimate the value of our faith in who we are as a people.
Unlike Europe, the Telegraph recognizes us as a “genuine nation, forged by shared language and the ancestral chords of memories over two centuries.” Uppermost in the creation of these ancestral chords are the sacrifice of our soldiers, whom we honor this Nov. 11th.
Art Hall, publisher