Jarod Farrow
Economics A3
Mr. Reuter
02 March, 2016
We’re Not Going Up Anymore
We like to pride ourselves by saying we’re the greatest nation in the world. We delude ourselves that we are a superpower that can’t be taken down. The plain truth is that we aren’t anymore. We aren’t the rising power we used to be. We are on the fall, and we are falling hard. Our first problem is our tendency to outsource jobs and import much more than we export. Secondly is our national debt level and it keeps on rising because of government spending. We have to change if we want to stay a superpower.
We outsource too many of our jobs to third-world countries like China, or Mexico. The fact that these countries don’t have the same laws concerning welfare and wages that we do means that big companies can make a much larger profit. If we were to make an example of this fact, if a company had to hire employees at $10 an hour in the U.S., but could employ the same quality of workers for only $5 an hour somewhere, their production possibility curve would veritably double. Since third world countries don’t have the same laws within their economies that we have they have much easier to fulfill factors of production. After looking at the cost/benefit analysis most companies choose to move to other less strict companies and then import their goods to the U.S. which only makes more problems for our economy.
The fact that America now has to import most of our goods has also racked up a large debt. This is another problem facing our once great nation. Our debt has grown way too large because of our reliance on foreign goods and government spending. Our national budget has grown to over $19 trillion and it’s only growing. It doesn’t help that our military spending budget allocates the third highest amount of money in our budget, and the amount we spend on Military puts us in 1st place and dwarfs the next 20 countries for military spending; it is also 4 times the amount China, the number 2 spender on military, spends on its military. Much of that spending can easily be reallocated to try and cover some of our national debt.
These are the problems we are facing today. If we want to stay as great a nation we believe we are then things need to change. First the outsourcing of jobs has to stop, we have to make more factories and produce more goods here and export them to other countries instead of importing them. Secondly if we can bring the national debt level down we will be able to do so much more for the people who are suffering in poverty in our own country. There are so many agencies and companies that are trying to help the less fortunate, but it only seems to be in other countries. We have to take care of us before we can take care of them.
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"U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time." U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time. Web. 03 Mar. 2016.
"Wake Up, America! American Companies Are Being Sold To Foreign Interests." America, Wake Up! Web. 03 Mar. 2016.
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This is a great piece of information here, it throws reality at the reader. I love it! One thing I wanted to add was regarding the Military spending and the overall economic status of the US; I never really put the two together. It seems obvious now, but not only are we outsourcing jobs to other countries because it’s cheaper but we also are in no way attempting to improve the economic status. The amount we are spreading on the military would make sense if we were currently at a major war, but we aren’t. There is no reason for us to be throwing so much money at the development of weapons and other military related products. They are building up an army to protect us but, they are preventing us from being protected economically. Too much protection in the wrong area.
ReplyDeleteWhile America may not be the best nation in the world anymore, we are still a superpower. Nations still look up to America be it our economy, our politics, or our trends. Economies around the world base their growths on the American population. We may not be the best, but we'e still up there!
ReplyDeleteOne of the few things holding us up is the fact that the US Dollar is the reserve currency for much of the world. Most of the money we spend to import things is kept in government treasuries, and if countries like China were to take back all the money we owe, the US would go bankrupt and the money they already have would be worth next to nothing. A currency for a country that no longer exists is only worth as much as the paper it's printed on.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of this. It seems crazy when you put it into numbers the amount of dept we are in. Especially when you look at the numbers and you are only making $8.50 at your current job. It seems impossible for any one nation to reach such a dept. In the past we got more powerful we slowly got weaker letting that power over come us and take us over thinking we are invincible and we would never be hurt by spending so much money. I really like your last statement about how we need to help our own poor and sick people before we help those in other countries. As noble as it maybe to help other countries it also seems rude to forget about those within out own borders.
ReplyDeleteI think America can make a good turn if the government refocused investments. For example spending less on military things and more on education. There isn't something like a cold war going on, so what's the point of all the spending? I think it's a waste of money. Or maybe contribute some of the money they spend on the military to something else besides the military like agriculture.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the United States is not doing as well as it once did, in it's prime. We should be more like the Scandinavian country's. Instead of having a huge military we should invest in a better education, healthcare and ect. While I do still sport our military it does not need that much of our budget.
ReplyDeleteThis topic is one that people really like to exaggerate and blow out of proportion. Even though our national debt is rising it really doesn't effect our position in world rankings of superpowers as a large majority of our debt is actually owed to ourselves. If you were to look at other countries you would see that there as of 2014 there were only 5 countries that were without debt, and all of these countries were nowhere near superpowers. We also can't say that China and Mexico are still third world countries as they are both fairly developed countries. Also the outsourcing of jobs hasn't really had to harsh of an effect on employment if you were to actually view stats. Yes, you could see underemployed people in America, but they are working and making a living. Now, while the spending on military may seem like a large amount it is smaller than what your graphs show in fact defense spending is only about 24% of the governments budget, and considering that goes to pay for wages of soldiers, veterans programs and retirements I would say that amount is not all that high. With all this being said I would say we are not really falling behind, more people are pursuing a higher education than in the past, more people are employed, and poverty is on the decline.
ReplyDeleteAmerica is and will always be the greatest country on Earth. Period. I do agree that the US has to decrease the number of outsourced jobs. To do so more protective tariffs should be implemented. I don't understand how you could argue that the US should decrease it's military spending right now. Look at the international community. We are faced with the largest most well funded terrorist organization in history. There is an insane dictator with anti America sentiments who is in the process of developing nuclear weapons. There is an imperialist world superpower. Aside from times of full blown war, now would be one of the worst times to reduce military spending.
ReplyDeleteIt is a shame that we are outsourcing so much to other countries. Hopefully, the new president will change that. The debt we have in our country is staggering. We must work on eliminating that. Until our debt is eliminated, our country will not be the superpower we once were. Countries will not want to deal with us or will take advantage of us.
ReplyDelete