Victoria wrote:
"China can kill us anytime they want - just stop sending us what we need to live. We don't make anything - what we have is money to give them in order for us to live. We gave them our lives."
And yet there are those here who will tell us that it doesn't matter that America's loss of manufacturing capacity in certain sectors is of no consequence, that we can continue forever as "a service-oriented" economy.
Rubbish.
Nations that no longer make everything they need (well, almost everything) decline.
Nations that are ascendant are those like China, where everything is produced.
Granted, there's more smoke and pollution there.
But that can be controlled.
Back in the 1940's when Altoona PA was a center of the Pennsylvania Railroad, folks had to wash the walls inside their homes once or twice a year to get the coal dust off. The whole town had a smoky aura about it, because back then it was coal and steam that powered the locomotives, the railroad, and the economy.
In time, the steam engines were gone, the railroad went into a long period of decline. It's come back somewhat since the 1980's (during the Conrail era and now Norfolk Southern), but it ain't what it used to be.
That missing smoke... was the smoke of prosperity. Behind it lay a good future.
Now the skies there are clear. And the country's future remains uncertain.
