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A Response to "The Myth of Energy Independence"
U.S. News & World Report, March 17, 2008
by David H. Walker
davidwalker@westwindcorp.com

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

As co-author of an industrial resource analysis in 1990, I was compelled to assign critical risk to the manufacture of nearly all strategic minerals and high-tech components within the CONUS. Aghast at the findings, my government customer created new criteria and instructed me to reduce the appearance of an emerging problem.

In response to government laws becoming effective in the first half of 1990, a great portion of our raw resource refining and manufacturing was moving offshore or selling out to foreign interests. The existing high domestic labor costs looked marginal compared to those soon to be inflicted by the new OSHA and EPA regulations. As a result, our durable goods manufacturing base was literally dying for a domestic exit strategy. By the next Congress, corporate lobby for NAFTA, GATT, GATHS, etc. was at full steam, and the rest is history.

Americans still enjoy a significantly high standard of living compared to much of the world, but only due to our reliance on fiat and debt.

We're also among the most domestically regulated countries, requiring even more fiat and debt to maintain the status quo. Meanwhile, most durable goods that were once made here — and provided for real jobs — are now made somewhere else. Aside from looking the other way, the average American isn't responsible for the mess.

The United States of America is a paper-candy effigy of its former self. Rather than seeking riches from real manufacturing, our politicians, corporatists (not capitalists), social engineers, press, and lobbyists have demanded laws and industrial machines that pull money out of consumers' pockets to be sent overseas, but they refuse to uphold our real domestic product. They didn't care when the problem was developing, but were complicit and even enthusiastic as the average wary American stood horrified by the scene.

John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Hussein Obama are fitting politicians for a republic adrift with no rudder.