My Personal Side

By Craig Hastings
President Trump announced this afternoon his administration’s three phase plan to reintroduce “We the people” back into society not after, but while still enduring the world’s COVID-19 pandemic. Just how is this plan supposed to work? The plan has been painted with just about as wide a broad stroke as could be imagined. All three “phases” and how they will be interpreted have been left up to the individual governors of each state and our territories. Oh yes, in case you’ve not heard the President decided to back away from his position of ultimate authority over the governors as to any authority pertaining to when, how, and why the states restart their individual economies. A wise decision and well calculated back pedal for sure. Of course this restarting of the economy is a direct correlation with where people can travel outside of their own homes. After all, the only reason the economy is suffering is because people were ordered not to go to work unless their jobs were those randomly decided “essential”. Of course occupations related to medical fields and first responder positions were without debate; essential. My own interpretation of essential occupations are those that provide a family’s/individual’s means of income to feed and provide medical care to them. But I guess I flunked that test question because our government’s definition was far different from my own.

There are many opinions as to how long it will take for America’s economy to rebound and prosper to a level of that of the first week in January of this year. I’m a bit more optimistic than most. I think in six to eight months our economy, as it reads on the Wall Street market graphs, will have fully recovered by the numbers. I predict this with one provision; COVID-19 will be able to be successfully treated if contracted by Americans. By this I don’t mean that a vaccination will have been made available. I predict that if the virus can be treated and the likelihood of survival is great, people will have confidence to carry on as before all of the upheaval we are experiencing now. However, and this is a big however, how, when, and at what level will the individual states recover? This is where I predict a very large fluctuation in the market graphs. Again, I think America as a whole will be in good shape by October if…  but, some of the states hit the hardest by this virus and it’s financial consequences i.e. New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, and Louisiana, may fall well short of where they were financially before the onslaught of COVID-19. Not that New York and Illinois were then, are now, or will be soon any time in the near future, in even fair financial shape anyway. If these two states were conducting themselves as private businesses, both would have been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy court years ago. Not because both states are not great states with great people living in them either. Years of elected politicians of poor abilities to govern but great abilities to sell themselves to the voters have gotten both states in the financial distress they are in today. I worry Illinois will never, at least in my lifetime and that of my sons, recover to the poor financial state it was in even before COVID-19.

I believe there will be some good to come from this pandemic. Now and forever before, America will only build/buy in America weapons for military use. Our planes, ships, tanks, small arms weapons, bombs, technology used for and in the development of all of these things, are accomplished by Americans in America. Now do add to our arsenals any weapons and technologies developed in another country; sure we do. What I mean is that we won’t buy our planes for instance from Boeing if they moved their manufacturing facilities to say China, because Boeing could manufacture cheaper in China and pay their workers less money while doing so. This is because of the obvious reason of supply on demand. We wouldn’t want to be at war with a country that is building our offensive/defensive weapons!

I believe as many others believe that the manufacturing of many of our goods currently being manufactured in China will either come back to America or surely be bought from another country that is less a threat both economically and militarily to our own. If this pandemic doesn’t reveal this trade flaw what else could? My god! Through all of this we’ve discovered that nearly ninety-eight percent of our medication ingredients come from China! Most of our medical personal protection equipment comes from where!?…China! So many, too many, of the goods it takes to keep America safe and prosperous come from China! Because of all of this manufacturing and trade it requires many Americans and Chinese to fly and travel in and out of China every single day in mass numbers! This has to slow to a crawl or at least a casual stroll!

America needs bold and aggressive leadership right now! People in office that are not afraid to be criticized and ridiculed by other world leaders. America has to once again become self sufficient to itself and then and only then tend to the needs of as many other countries that it can. How did Americans become so complacent that we’ve come to trust the rest of the world not to stomp on us? Why would Americans ever, ever rely on another country, any country, for our medical supplies and medicines?! This is so egregious on the part of our past leaders both Republicans and Democrats. Our eyes have been opened wide and our brains stunned with the developments over the past eight weeks. I trust our government will come together just enough to figure this out. It’s simple enough…Americans in America come first. We’ll share the leftovers of our accomplishments! Buy and build American from now on and forever more!