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Here’s a story about two important industries. Both industries are vital to our existence.
It is the semiconductor industry. This sector is essential for everything computer- and digital.
The other is food manufacturing — farming. It is essential for humans to exist.
The US has driven the semiconductor industry nigh completely out of domestic existence — through titanically stupid over-tax, over-regulatory, and America Last, one-sided, fake “free trade” policies.
And we’ve sleep-walked through the whole thing — right up until the giant alarm clock that was the Joe Biden supply chain shortages ended our slumber.
Supply Chain Challenges and Semiconductor Chip Availability
The US Produces Just 12% of the World’s Computer Chip Supply. Here’s Why It’s Trailing China
For behind Communist China we are just where we need to be.
Asia Has the World’s Chips. America They Want Them:
“The region produces a staggering 80% of outsourced semi-conductor manufacturing worldwide. Taiwan’s TSMC alone produces 50% of the planet’s semi-conductors: every electronic device you can think of uses them.”
Have you ever heard someone mention Taiwan and China?
China’s Quest to Take Taiwan:
“If Taiwan became embroiled in a protracted military engagement with China, global supply-chain turmoil would ensue.”
You mean EVEN MORE “global supply-chain turmoil would ensue.”
At which point we’ll be WAY behind Communist China. This is precisely where we want.
So now we’re left scrambling to build a semiconductor industry — basically from scratch. Which ain’t easy — and ain’t cheap.
The cost to rebuild the US Semiconductor Manufacturing will continue rising:
“As Washington debates spending $52 billion to start regaining America’s former role as a leading semiconductor manufacturer, experts say the public and private cost over the next two decades may exceed 10 times that much – and some worry such spending may still not achieve the goal.”
How can we create the right environment to encourage this kind of huge investment? Lower taxes. Fewer regulations. And ending once-and-for-all the fake “free trade” policies which DC has for decades imposed.
Fake “free trade?” Many of the world’s nations severely limit what we can send them. We also heavily tariff the items we send to them. They do not receive it.
The worst part? They titanically subsidize their domestic manufacturers — which allows them to charge WAY less than global market prices for their stuff. These mass-subventioned goods are then allowed into the country virtually unrestricted. There are almost no restrictions. There are virtually no tariffs
Importing Government Subsidies: The Worst of Fake ‘Free Trade’:
“(O)ther countries’ subsidies – are stealth weapons killing us from within. They are an innumerable armada of Trojan Horses – which we have been willingly bringing inside our gates.
“Because cheap stuff. Because the Free Trade Uber Alles Crowd thinks nothing is more important – than cheap stuff.
“But we are a nation – with an economy. Not an economy – with a nation.
“I’m all for free trade. Right up to the point that it harms our nation.
“When the health of free trade and our nation are in conflict – the nation must prevail.
“Importing government subsidies – undercuts our domestic producers of…everything that is subsidized elsewhere.
“So millions of domestic producers – have been thusly driven either overseas…or into extinction. They have taken with them many millions of jobs in the domestic sector.
“That ain’t good for our nation.
“Oh – and importing government subsidies…isn’t free trade.
“So this murder of tens of millions of jobs – isn’t the result of free trade doing its worst. It’s all a giant fake ‘free trade’ lie.”
It is on the government’s-razor’s-edge that our food manufacturing sector teeters. On the verge of suffering the semiconductor sector’s fate of domestic oblivion.
Farmers protest high taxes and bureaucracy
High taxes hurt agriculture
Overly restrictive regulations are a problem for many farmers
Yet again, how terrible are high taxes and the crippling regulations? For US farmers, the most fatal foreign subsidies that we import are those from abroad.
Agricultural Subsidies: Everyone’s Doing It
Canadian Agriculture: Subsidies and Cartels
Mexico Farm Subsidies Are Going Astray
EU strikes a deal on huge farm subsidies
Russian Farm Building Subsidies
Brazil May Raise Farm Subsidies Despite Belt Tightening
India’s Farm Subsidies Lead to Waste but Support Millions
Thailand’s Farmers Hooked on Subsidies
Ah: Did someone mention Communist China?
Why China’s Dependence on Farm Subsidies Is an Obstacle to a Trade War Deal with the US
China’s Cotton Subsidies Immiserate Farmers in the World’s Poorest Countries
China Offers Grain Planters Subsidies of 20 Billion Yuan
If we kill our domestic food manufacturing industry? Are we going to drive all our farms out of business and the farmers who work for them? Things like this will continue to happen….
China is buying up American farms
What’s even worse than being behind the behind of Communist China? It’s being under Communist China’s thumb.
Thankfully, we haven’t yet entirely done to our farming sector what we did to our chip manufacturing sector. So it’ll be a much easier lift to rebuild and re-bolster.
This is something we must do. Before you can view your chipped TV or check your iPhone/Samsung Galaxy, or even your phone’s chipped screen? You gotta eat.
And it’s much easier to maintain a domestic industry — than to try to rebuild one.
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