It’s time once again to Ask A Bitter Man:
Today’s letter comes from Miss Dolly Dagger of Hendrix, MA
Dear Bitter Man:
Is America in decline, or what?
Thanks for the letter Dolly, you’ve come to the right place for the answer because I’ve been in decline myself, since the early 60’s.
The simple fact is, when you see the writing on the wall, you just know it’s going to happen. Blockbuster got too big for their britches and tried to sell Cds, magazines, candy, dolls, posters and everything else under the sun, rather than concentrate on their DVD rentals and, big shock, they filed for bankruptcy last week.
German scientist develop a ‘pink Viagra’ supposedly to boost the sex drive in postmenopausal women and then pull it off the market because, while in does make women want to have more sex, it doesn’t make them want to have any of it with egghead German scientist.
When I lived in China they had roughly 700 miles of paved roads and skinned cats hanging in the market, now they have 30,000 miles of highway and 105 McDonald’s with drive-through windows. What does this have to do with the decline of America? Everything.
While we’re making the shift to those ticking bomb Toyota Prius silly hybrid cars the Chinese are buying up our muscle cars, loading up on Big Macs and taking over the world. Have you see that commercial where a guy that looks like Robin Williams dressed up as George Washington drives a sports car towards the advancing British army and they flee in terror, while the announcer makes some jingoistic claim about gas guzzling and freedom?
Well, the Chinese have no use for freedom, but they sure have bought into the idea that the road to world domination is littered with Shelby Cobras and Dodge Vipers, and we tree-hugging Americans strap on our cycling helmets and peddle our way to the back of the line.
Think I’m lying? What do you think you need to make those hybrid car that are being jammed down our throats, as well as the computers, cell phones or solar panels that we can’t seem to live without these days? Rare Earth Metals. Your bastbaesites, cerites, monazites and the likes. And just where are these earth friendly minerals ripped from the Earth? China, that’s where.
97 percent of the worlds supply of rare earths is controlled by China. They sit on top of roughly one third of the world’s reserves. The US sits on the second largest volume of known rare earth deposits, but we stopped producing it years ago because it was cheaper to import it from China. Now they have cornered the market!
So how do we fight back? Revamp the Indiana plants and end our dependency on China’s rare earth metals? Sure we could do that, but it would cost untold millions of dollars and some hard work. My solution is simpler and involves something we have at hand.
We already control the world’s corn production. Next year’s crop will be one of the largest in history, but if we pretend that there is a shortage of corn, even a simple 4% reduction would cause wide spread global panic. Russia, with her wheat crops wiped out by wildfires this summer, is no longer a grain market player. The gullible and hungry North African and Middle Eastern traders would start to hoard supplies and poor little China would be left out in the cold.
Sure, hybrid cars and superconductors are nice, but try getting along with the corn based antibiotics, textiles, dyes, flour, cheese spread, Coke, soaps or whiskey.
Look, we’re no longer a world power, we got to come to terms with that reality; but if Ping Pong Bob wants his corn dog, he still gotta dance to our tune. Thanks for the letter Dolly, it’s time for me to say Later On Croutons…. A nice corn-based crouton at that.
