(05-18-2020 08:04 AM)ken d Wrote:  Higher education in America was already on the brink of a major restructuring even before COVID-19. Closings, mergers and reduced course/degree offerings were going to escalate sharply over the next decade or so. This pandemic has only accelerated the timetable for this trend. Ironically, it also gives schools and states political cover to do what they knew they needed to anyway.

The challenge will be for our economy to find ways to adjust to a new reality in which many students will be entering the workforce sooner. Nationally, we may need to rethink our strategic needs. The idea that we didn't have the manufacturing capability in place to quickly produce something as simple as protective masks and gloves is scary. How many other strategically important items are no longer manufactured in America? Maybe we need to accept some higher prices to be sure we aren't at the mercy of a potential adversary like China. I'm not sure America has the collective will to do that.

Let's lay blame where it is due shall we. We outsourced everything in the name of global trade to just take advantage of nations with no minimum wage, no retirement systems, and cheap child and female labor. It will cost more to bring it home, but it should. We had the higher standard of living than just about anyone at one time because we were self sufficient and our economy was inflated by what was provided in the work place, but that also sustained the consumer end of the equation. We may buy more cheaply now, but the quality has been lacking for quite some time. I miss American textiles! The clothes lasted longer, were better made, and fit my typically American physique.

The issue here Ken D. is that we either manufacture all of our defense parts and equipment, all of our medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, and all things needed to meet standards of weight tolerance for infrastructure within these United States, or we are doomed. If the U.S. had been dependent on these goods coming from overseas in 1940 our children would be wearing a lot of brown and speaking German. To entrust your potential adversary with your pharmaceuticals is patently insane on so many levels that it boggles the mind, and yet that is what we do.

I've been advised by one friend in position to know that we could face shortages on maintenance drugs by the Fall due to the frosty nature of relations with a country which may have attacked us, and at the very least did nothing for 30 days while a deadly virus spread to Europe and he U.S.

But we can't blame our politicians alone here. It is the myopic quarterly statement focused Wall Street report generated Corporate approach to everything that has created it. I'm all about free trade and a pro business stance, but at some point what's good for the nation has to come first. And that my friend is what must change to make us a bit more secure.

The next shoe to drop is pension investment in Chinese companies that are nothing more than a front for Chinese military projects. The Washington Post did a fine, and uncharacteristically non pro China piece on this in the past week. One major Wall Street Pension Fund manager is 70% overexposed in these kinds stocks. They estimated that 1.2 million Americans could lose their pensions over this and that it could be far worse than the Mortgage Derivative scandal of '07-08.

We'll see.