The Lie Of The Celtic Tiger

If you were conscious and paying attention from about 2000 to 2007-ish, you heard of the 'Celtic Tiger,' the economic miracle that took Ireland from one of the poorest European countries to one of its richest. At least on paper. The same thing happened to Iceland, though there wasn't a catchy phrase for their boom, probably because Icelandic names are much harder to pronounce than Murphy or Fitzgerald. At least that's my guess.
   As we now know, the Celtic Tiger was just another aspect of the huge financial bubble that took over the globe during that time. Ireland didn't make money by selling more goods or services that the world suddenly needed, Ireland made money by selling money. Its citizens fueled the boom by buying more and more stuff they didn't need and by paying for it with money they didn't really have, provided by jobs that should never have existed in the first place and were only there to perpetuate the bubble.
   Sound familiar?
   The same thing happened here, a housing boom that expanded beyond all reason and a populace eager for more junk to fill their garages before the next subdivision yard sale. The same boom, the same bust. And, currently, the same malaise, with a bunch of people who had been employed finding it impossible to get the same kind of pointless jobs they'd spent years being bad at before. Ireland's economy hasn't 'recovered' because the prosperity was a lie in the first place. So was the United States's. For thirty years we've shipped jobs and cash overseas to have foreigners do things we should have been doing ourselves all along.
   How do we get out of it? How do we put people back to work, how do we get back what we never should have given away? I'm not an economist - which I think is a plus in my favor - but it seems to me that the United States has done very well when its citizens do something. Make something. Create something. No more making money by selling money, because ultimately that's a fraud and a sham and doesn't provide anything of value. And, yes, Goldman Sachs, I'm looking your direction when I say that.
   We need to manufacture things again.
   Before you get all eco-friendly on me, there's absolutely no reason in the Twenty-First Century that manufacturing has to be the kind of thing the Lorax would rail against; we can do things better, smarter, faster, and cleaner than our grandparents did. Easily.
   But how do we compete with China? They can do things far cheaper than American companies, right? I submit to you that is also a fraud and a sham. Of course China can produce mardi gras beads cheaper than we can, if they use what is essentially prison labor and compromise quality*.
   But save that whole can of worms for another time. The United States needs to become a net exporter again, of physical goods that the rest of the world lines up to buy. We need citizens throwing caution to the wind and starting their own businesses, and we need banks willing to back those visions. And we need a government that isn't in the pocket of a few large multinational corporations but instead supports the people it's supposed to be working on behalf of.


* arguably quality is not all that important for mardi gras beads but you get the idea