Today is the Fourth of July, and a dull, sullen day it is here in the northwest USA. It is much cooler and cloudier than usual, and people are quieter and more thoughtful, recognizing, perhaps, that we are no longer the great, infallible country that we once were. Most think the American dream has gone to India, or perhaps China. Oh, there are still a few chest thumpers who claim our greatness still, but they are generally of the white, upper middle class segment of the population. This is the group that blames our country's faults on 'government,' not realizing, of course, that they and we ARE the government. This group does not recognize that we are the ones who have put diabolical, greedy, and stupid politicians in office to manage our business, and, indeed, they have managed their own business to perfection, and left ours to founder and gasp it's last breaths.

We have lost a huge portion of our population to India, China, Mexico, Honduras, Malaysia...the working stiff class. These are the Americans who may not be geniuses, but would put in a full day of boring work so that they could have a nice 3 bedroom house, a newer car, a tv, a college education for their kids. They were mostly satisfied with their lot in life. They worked to live, not lived to work. They liked their 2 week vacation, but were glad to get back to work and have a friendly beer after work with co-workers.

This segment of our population is now largely unemployed and underemployed. We have nowhere for them to go. We have nothing for them to do. We have also lost a large part of our tax base for the country, and for the states.
We've also lost more intangible things, like the ability to observe production in action. Just from this simple act of observation, we lose the ability to innovate, to correct errors in manufacture, to improve our workforce.