The "Experts" Lied

And Sold Us All Out

Hindsight provides some level of clarity in most cases.

I have always known one immutable truth, that the United States of America is the economic engine that drives the world economy. As a population we have a voracious appetite for consumption. And we are a disposable society. Where other more traditional societies see a value in a broken tool, or object, and wish to restore and renew, the American attitude is to just throw away the old and purchase new.

Even if “new” isn’t as well made as the old.

There is something in the American psyche to want to reward ourselves with “new”.

Where even reliable, dependable, long-lasting products fall out of favor, even though they may have years of reliable and dependable use.

I recall my mother-in-law prided herself on having a Chambers oven. That damn thing weighed a ton, had burners that just worked over, and over. Had a broiler section, and an oven, and though my in-laws purchased the item in the 1950’s, and used it into the early 2000’s, had the wife not sold that home after her parents demise, the old stove going with the home in the purchase, I believe that Chambers contraption would still be working today in daily use. The bakelite finish was practically indestructible, and every piece of the product was made of heavy metal. I am certain that Chambers stove was better made than anything being produced today, and would out-work anything being made today. And of course, it was US made, those people from Indiana could do more than play basketball.

My in-laws had a fridge of similar nature. A General Electric. When I met my wife in the mid-1970’s it was already outdated. With a freezer a foot square. You couldn’t fit a damn thing in that freezer. But man, did that old refrigerator work. It didn’t hold as much product as a modern version, but then again it didn’t have all these computer connections to fail either. It kept food cold, or frozen. That is all, that was its job. Something tells me that somewhere in Baltimore that thing is still doing service as a garage beer fridge.

Somewhere back around the time I met my lovely wife in the mid-1970’s, we were all told that America needed to become a “service economy”, and we didn’t need to actually produce products here. There was no need for us to be factory-focused, our future was in becoming a “service economy”, with white-collar desk jobs, and no more sweating on a production line.

Leave all that to the third world and developing nations. Let the poor and indigent of those countries sweat making the products that America consumes. Our people here should be elevated into jobs of service, pushing paperwork at first, and later buttons on a computer. Cleaner work, easier than manual labor. Jobs that didn’t cause grime, sweat, and possible harm to the human body. Leave all those jobs to the Chinese, Japanese, the people throughout Asia.

And at that same time a parade of economists appeared on television to tell us all how much better our lives here would be if we just allowed all the manufacturing plants to close, have those workers move into service jobs in this “new economy”, and to let the lowly foreign poor to labor in manufacturing the products we use everyday.

And over time, the last fifty years, our US manufacturing base plummeted, Americans lost some high paying factory jobs, union jobs, jobs that came with benefits, pensions, and enough pay to put two cars in the driveway of the home the middle class worker owned outright.

Replaced with front desk jobs at the local three star hotel, which offered a cleaner, air conditioned environment, but lacked a pension, and lacked in pay. But hey, at least you didn’t need to shower off the grime before leaving the factory.

But, but, but, those “experts”, those economists, they all told us how much we’d all benefit as this change occurred in our own US economy.

And it dawned on me thinking about this of late, those economists were all part of the lie, they were all funded by the same Oligarchs we see who now own everything in sight, they weren’t independent “experts” in their field, they were part of the establishment, paid to make their economic model match the predictions, and not the other way around.

They were nothing but paid mouthpieces, gathering tenure at the same universities receiving large donations from the Oligarchs who had graduated from the same institutions, and who created “chairs” for these economists to serve their need.

During the time these economists appeared touting this new economy I actually believed. I figured they’d done the research, they’d looked at the models created, and were advising us all on our best course of action moving forward as a nation. It never dawned on me that educated professional class would mold their statistics to fit the desires of their paymaster. These were respected men of standing, they appeared on television, they had academic credentials. They could produce mathematical models that fit an entire blackboard, we all respected them as some form of genius.

I honestly didn’t think men operating at that level of success in life could be purchased. Would sell their souls and their life’s work, their “expertise” for cash and prestige.

I was wrong. Severely wrong.

Even men of achievement can be bought. In a world where there exists billionaires, millions become available to those willing to sell their integrity to the highest bidder.

And even men of wealth, intellect, and standing are willing to sell their integrity if the price becomes attractive enough. Enough for that second home, those regular European vacations, the prestige found in new and elevated titles at their University of choice.

After watching so many promote the lies of Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction, Russgiate, and Covid I realize that the extremely wealthy, the Oligarchs, have been buying up men who will front for them since the days of the Robber Barons.

All those economists blasted the idea of an isolationist America, all those economists insisted our survival as a nation was at stake if we didn’t pursue a global economy. They all insisted that to become isolationist would put us into a new ear depression, and wreck both our economy and our country. And oh, man, ask them about tariffs and they damn near had a stroke. Tariffs were complete destruction to our nation, to place new and higher tariffs on overseas goods entering the US was economic suicide.

Every “professional” economist from these prestigious universities said so.

Of course it turns out that what really happened is that these Oligarchs, the very rich, consumed a greater and greater share of our economy under this new global trade, and new world order.

What they accomplished was the destruction of the American middle class, the destruction of the high paying factory job that allowed a man to become self-reliant with his own asset value, and the hope of a few new generations of Americans to participate in the American Dream.

This new global economy placed so much money in the hands of the few that it has destroyed the upward mobility of the masses. And given these Oligarchs the ability to gather up so much cash that just a few hedge funds now control the entirety of Wall Street, and are having a deleterious effect on the ability of the young in America to own a home, as these Oligarchs purchase up all available housing stock, and run prices up beyond the ability of the young couple in America to compete to purchase their own home. To own their own slice of the American dream.

We were all sold a lie.

“Experts” sold us lies. They sold the American people out.

And after over fifty years of living in their version of our new “service economy” the results of their lies and deception have become readily evident.

Even a college drop-out from Parkville, Maryland can view the country and our economy, come to the realization that we need to have a manufacturing economy, that we need to produce product here with good paying factory jobs, that we can afford to be an isolationist economy because we are the engine that drives the world economy, and that by putting ourselves first we’d end up with better made products, higher paying jobs, a thriving middle class, and less billionaires siphoning off so much cash that it is inevitable they just buy up everything, including all our politicians so that they can keep grabbing more, and more, and more, until we are all subservient to their wishes.

They will make us all their paid lackey “economists”. They will own us all. They will control us all.

This was by design. In the planning stages since the days they claimed that our survival was dependent on a “global economy”.

All my life I’ve heard about how bad tariffs were, how awful their impact, how their implementation would just devastate our economy.

But we were paying tariffs into every country where our goods were sent. Somehow this “badness” only flowed one way. If we implemented tariffs they had a negative effect. But when European or Asian countries place tariffs on American goods, it is just the cost of doing business in that nation for American firms.

I have always, since my earliest days, thought that we should increase tariffs, become isolationist, build our manufacturing base, creating a circular flow of dollars inside our own nation that serves to benefit us, the American people. And I was correct.

I have always thought that it made complete sense, if indeed we are the economic engine of the entire globe, to keep the flow of our dollars here, circulating for our own benefit.

I might not be a university trained, tenured professor of economy at Harvard or Yale, but I know that they make these Nike shoes overseas, and we don’t see any “savings” due to low cost production. What we see is a high price, with the company just making more for who? The shareholders, the rich, the Oligarchs. There are no “discounts” on Air Jordans. No matter how cheap they make them overseas.

So where is this idea that making product overseas will save the middle class money, and give us extra spending cash? Oh, wait, you mean all that poorly made crap at Wal Mart, you aren’t talking about Nike shoes. Or Prada bags. Or luxury goods that still command an extreme price tag while being made in sweat shops overseas.

Have you seen the price of the new and best iPhone, the 17? I hear it costs two grand for the biggest and best model with all the bells and whistles. So where is this “savings” we are all going to experience because Apple manufactures all the parts overseas?

Oh, wait, those profits accrue to Apple, and who are Apple’s biggest shareholders? Wait, the hedge funds, controlled by the Oligarchs? I think I’m seeing a trend here.

What we got was a global economy that serves the few at the expense of the many.

And a lecture by our “betters” on how this was going to be good for us all.

Like the Covid shot. The one that didn’t prevent us from getting the disease or spreading the disease. The one we were told was a “Vaccine”, except it didn’t perform like a “Vaccine”. But the pharmaceutical firm purchased politicians mandated the shot, bringing in billions and billions of dollars to the drug companies. Which greatly benefitted the shareholders. And the biggest shareholders? The Hedge funds.

This new global economy benefits the few. At the expense of the many.

The middle class shrinks, the middle class share of our net worth shrinks. Fewer Americans can afford a home, can afford to live the same lifestyle their grandparents did in 1955, when they owned their own home, a car, and appliances that never broke down, that were anything but disposable.

This is our reality. This isn’t conjecture. In a global economy, under TPP, the few have managed to exert full control over the money supply. While the masses share has shrunk.

Trump has now placed tariffs on all goods coming into our nation, and we are seeing billions in added tax revenue. And no apparent increase in costs, or at least one that is negligible.

Could it be that we’ve been lied to by the “experts” for years, and years? On behalf of the Oligarchs?

I watched as that factory worker making over forty dollars an hour with benefits was forced to leave the factory for a job as a parking lot attendant, a front desk clerk, a bellman, or a cubicle dweller, pushing paperwork and buttons at a greatly reduced hourly rate. Sure the job was cleaner, and safer, but there was a huge sacrifice in pay and benefits. And prestige. There was something about a factory worker leaving the job after making durable goods that held its own prestige. That allowed for some personal pride.

And even in those jobs that can’t be sent overseas the Oligarchs found a way to replace the US employee. In home building and construction, where you have to hire a US based worker, they just replaced them with illegal labor, allowing a flow through the border of lower income workers so that the Oligarchs still benefitted from third world labor costs, only here and not in Asia.

Those Oligarchs won every which way. Even in the place where manufacturing here is an absolute necessity, construction. They just allowed illegals to flow into our nation in such large numbers, and requiring minimal pay, that they basically pushed the American worker out of the construction industry. In favor of illegals who would work for a fraction of what Americans demand.

For over fifty years the Oligarch wins, the American people at large lose.

We didn’t just lose jobs, prestige, pride, and self-sustainment. We lost quality, we lost value, we lost companies that took pride in making a lifetime product.

If you don’t believe me, find someone out there who is still using a Chambers stove.