America has become addicted to cheap foreign baubles and easy money (i.e., fake fiat currency) at the expense of its long-term economic health. We allowed ourselves to be transformed from a cast iron economy that made things into a largely paper economy that depends on the good graces of foreign nations for its survival. This is a recipe for civilizational suicide.

We don’t make our own weapons, food, machines, vehicles, plastics, medicines, or computers. The whole Covid insanity, with its shutdowns and shortages and supply-chain chaos, was a blaring alarm warning us that the economy we thought was so strong was shockingly fragile.

Imagine a prosperous farmer, now surrounded by enemies and competitors, who, over time, outsourced most farming activities to his neighbors because they could do the work and provide the materials more cheaply than he could. He sold off his equipment and laid off his farmhands because it was just easier and less expensive for others to do the work and maintain the machinery.

But one day, his neighbors said, “No more,” and now he finds himself unable to fertilize his land, plow his fields, or harvest his crops. Even if he had kept his old tractors and implements, he sold off all his welding equipment and spare parts and raw materials, so repairing anything would be impossible. On top of that, he doesn’t remember all that much about repairing the equipment anyway because he hasn’t done it for years.