If Wal-Mart’s retail expansion into China comes to a grinding halt, I would dance for joy. If China stops Caterpillar from selling earthmoving machinery because only local manufacturers can be considered for government contracts, too bloody bad. If Google finally gets booted out of China, what were they really expecting in the first place when they entered the market? The world has known for sixty years, there is no such thing as freedom under communism. Crying foul, when even little guys like me have always accepted that China is a barbarous nation of cheaters, liars and stealers is nothing but laughable.

China is never going to open up and now that we have handed our technology advantage to them on a silver platter, the simple fact of the matter, there is nothing much more they need from us anymore. They can probably make a Caterpillar D10 bulldozer cheaper and better than Caterpillar thanks to Caterpillar moving some of its manufacturing/supplier base to America’s greatest enemy. The Chamber of Commerce and many of its members have sold their souls to the devil. Now the shoe has been firmly planted on the other foot, there is no going back. To all those ass-wipe who took glee is selling America down the river, you’ve made your bed, now lie in it! My only recommendation is the quicker we place tariffs on all the Chinese junk still flooding into our market, the better. We need to be shot of our so-called dependence on a country that in reality is the antipathy of what America stands for in every way.

Unfortunately for our industry, international trade is no longer the engine of growth. Globalization and all the nightmares it foisted upon our society will never be the same once we pull ourselves out of this recession. The old saying, “What is good for General Motors is good for America” will be as poignant a statement tomorrow as when it was coined in 1953 by GM’s CEO Charlie Wilson as he was being grilled by Congress for the position of Secretary of Defense. President Obama has stuck firm to his policy that the stimulus plan is about American made goods topping the priority list. Good corporate governance is now about importing jobs back to America, not exporting them.

In spite of all the advice to the contrary, both ports are continuing to spend hundreds of $millions expanding and improving their facilities in the cause of “meeting” their customers’ needs. The one thing I can tell Californians is the shipping lines won’t be parting with a single dime in all this expenditure, the taxpayers will however provide every cent. Just like the airline industry, but more so, 50% of the current vessels afloat or under construction will not be sailing the seven seas for many years to come because international trade will start playing second fiddle to domestic production. It is so sad that men elected to powerful positions can make or break the man in the street’s pocket book. They invariably decide against the good of those they were elected to represent and depart leaving the tax payer holding the baby. The ports of Southern California are already half dead. Even spending money on consultants who end up $millions later telling them the obvious, is a case of throwing good money after bad, let alone continuing with expansion plans in the face of collapsing trade for both ports.

Until President George Dubbya took office, the definition of a job was the holder of that job was employed for a full working week. As full time jobs were exported to lands far away, he and his crooked band of right wing “visionists” decided that part-time workers, who were never part of the employment numbers in previous years, should now be included in the statistics of people with jobs. The fact is if we exclude these part-timers, e.g. restaurant workers, hotel workers, $10/hour bank tellers given a three day working week (all who receive no benefits from their employers), the actual unemployment rate is closer to 17%. I cannot understand why President Obama did not revert back to the correct and accepted method of measuring unemployment, because America and the world would then know the dire straights our country is in and it would prove how bad a job Bush accomplished for America. My only fear is with the immigration amnesty about to take place, our house cleaners, gardeners and even the Mexican entrepreneur selling oranges and peanuts at freeway exits will be regarded as full time workers even though their earnings are below minimum wage and in my opinion cannot be classified as labor actually contributing to the economy.

I am still confused how the $trillion stimulus plan is going to pull us out of this continuing downward spiral we are in. Handing us money to trade in old “clunkers” for a new car when the owner of that clunker is probably out of a job and given that he is working, if he thought about going ahead with the deal, he would have to turn it down anyway because of the high interest payments. This solar/wind power investment to me is worthless. Every time America experiences strong winds or cold weather, power poles by the thousands collapse causing all sorts of catastrophes; fires in California and blackouts on the East Coast. Isn’t it time we started to place the power lines underground? Instead of Chinese-made solar panels, how about giving the greenies the flick and start building more nuclear power stations? If nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers are anything to go by, the myths that have been created by these left wing tree-hugging nuts need to be put to bed. We aren’t Russia for goodness sake! Instead of illegal labor pinning ugly Chinese-made panels to government buildings, underground reticulation creates huge benefits and truly test our resources of skilled labor and sophisticated excavation equipment.

All in all, the only way we can get the wheels of America turning again, is to bring back the jobs from overseas and tell the rest of the world, especially China, to take a hike until we get our house back in order. That is the solution. We certainly don’t need foreign born Ivy League university professors with hidden agendas continuing to tell us it is all about globalization. Globalization helped get us into this mess in the first place and patriotism, coupled with a buy America only policy will be the only route to get us out of it.