 Yeah, by America. I mean, Joe Biden's speech, State of the Union address, was entertaining primarily because of the back and forth with Republicans and the clown show that Republicans created there. But other than that, it was just the standard State of the Union address. But one of the things that really came out in the address was how similar it was in certain respects to Donald Trump's agenda and Donald Trump's State of the Union addresses. There's a huge impact or huge emphasis by Biden and, of course, by Trump in the past on this idea of buy America, on this idea of cutting out, quote, dependency on imports, on forcing Americans to buy America, the idea of bringing the jobs back, to increase production in America by forcing and enforcing a buy America strategy. Now, this is just an awful idea. And as Harry Binswanger wrote in an essay years and years ago, it's an anti-American idea. It's clearly an idea that is not fit for a country of individualists, for a country of individualists pursuing their own happiness. But if you still get the economics of it, it is an insane idea. But let's first make the best argument you can't forward. Well, the argument forward is basically that, look, we've discovered how fragile supply chains are, particularly from China. We discovered what can happen with a global crisis, like what happened in Russia, where we have to de-link from other countries, that we really want to put ourselves in a position where we are dependent on countries that are authoritarian, and we might have to cut ties with and maybe even go to war with. And how then do we get all these important supplies? There is an issue about national security, particularly with regard to things like chip manufacturing. We're taking American technology and giving it to the Chinese, and then they build it, and they become the sole producer of these technologies. And then we, in order to put it on ourselves, have to buy it from China. And they, of course, have an edge over us. So yes, you can see the chip technology maybe in other places, telecommunications. And of course, manufacturing in the United States could be higher, theoretically. Some people claim, some people argue. If not for cheaper, I'll add, better manufacturing overseas. So let's bring it all back home. We'll be safer. We'll have more jobs, and we'll be richer. And that was, I almost said, logic of Donald Trump, but logic is beyond this argument and beyond Trump, certainly. But that was the argument that Trump made. That is the argument Biden's made. It's truly astounding that Biden has really completely embraced the Make America Great Again agenda when it comes to economics. There was very little difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And there was a real commitment to this by America. So part of the speech, Biden said, we're spending a lot of money in infrastructure. We passed the infrastructure bill. That's going to create a lot of jobs. That's great. But one of the things we're going to emphasize, and one of the things we're going to nail even harder that was in the bill, we are going to require that all of this infrastructure be made with everything built in America, Timber and steel and everything. It needs to be fiber optics and glass and drywall and everything should be made in America. Now, this is insane. It is insane for a variety of reasons. But just on the basic, simple, straightforward economics of it, let's go through another reason. Now, I'm going to give credit here to an article by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic, who goes through these arguments. These are just some arguments, some economic arguments why buy America is not a good idea. They're not all the arguments you can make. They're not even necessarily the best arguments. They're certainly not the only of the moral arguments and the limited role of government arguments. And Derek Thompson is generally, I would believe, center-left, generally a center-left guy. But this is in the Atlantic. So cool. I'll go for articles like this more in The Atlantic, making the case why buy America is a bad idea for good, solid, economic reasons. For example, Derek identifies the fact that buying America typically raises costs. It raises costs. It makes stuff more expensive. And at the time where we need to build, and this country needs to build, it needs to build homes, it needs to build infrastructure. I don't think the government should do it, but it needs to build infrastructure. We need to build tunnels. We need to build desalination plants. We need to build a new and modern electrical grid. We need to build nuclear power plants. We need to build power plants generally. We need to build, build, build. This country needs infrastructure, real infrastructure. And yet you're going to build it? You're going to build it? By buying stuff, not the cheaper stuff, but the stuff that's in America that's more expensive. There's a reason why it's imported today. It's imported today because it's cheaper. It's imported today because it's of higher quality. It's important today because you might be able to get it on time versus American producers might be limited. For all those reasons, buying domestic is going to increase cost and delay projects. In a new report, there he calls it a disgraceful new report. I agree with him. New York's metropolitan transit authority found that it spent $4.5 billion on the first leg of the Second Avenue subway line, just the beginning of it. Now, this is insanity. If you think about how quickly the subway was built 100 years ago, over 100 years ago, by private enterprise in New York, how quickly it was built, how efficiently it was built, how cheaply it was built, this is stunning how long it's taking to build the Second Avenue subway, how expensive it is. And now, they're going to have to build the rails, and they're going to have to make sure the timber, and they're going to have to use the notes for the concrete or whatever. All of it has to be made in America regardless of cost. Even if America is more expensive, have to buy it in America. It's insane, insane. Shouldn't we be building cost-effectivity efficiently, quickly, productively? Now, granted, a lot of the $4.5 billion have gone to God, have gone to design and engineering and some of it to the construction of the tunnel. But the regulation, the bureaucracy, the slowness of the whole thing. Again, this is the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, not exactly a profit-driven, cost-driven private company. Buy America can also make supply chains less resilient. Look what happened to baby food. You remember the whole baby food thing? Well, there was one Michigan plant where bacteria was found. In America, Michigan plant, so they shut it down. That created a massive shortage. Now, European companies make lots of baby formula, good formula, formula that passes by their own regulatory standards, but it's illegal to import it. It's either very, very expensive because of tariffs or just illegal because the FDA hasn't approved the specific companies in Europe, their formula. So suddenly, because one plant in Michigan shut down, the whole American supply chain collapsed and we couldn't benefit from the global supply chain in baby formula. It's insane. Now, it also turns out that the government also awards money for baby formula because a lot of people get their baby formula subsidized and they only allow them to spend the money on a baby formula for three companies, therefore creating a very concentrated American baby formula industry so that one plant shutting down completely disrupts baby formula supplies in the United States. But just think about if we had a global supply chain, a baby formula. I mean, one of the amazing things about the global supply chain during COVID is that everything was indeed available. As soon as there was a real need for masks and all this other stuff, it arrived. The only thing restricting supply chain to work properly was price controls, in a sense, the inability of people to charge higher prices in a time of shortage that disincentivize supply to meet demand, but it's stunning how quickly masks and all the other equipment arrived. Arrive from where? Not from other plants in the United States, some, but mostly from other countries. And when, you know, and you want a wide diverse supply chain, which will not crumble when one particular company or one state or one factory crumbles. So this makes it a lot less resilient. You know, he uses in the article, uses an example of a different example to show the resilience of a global supply chain. He says when a Baltimore facility that made Johnson and Johnson vaccines, and don't worry, they're not mRNA vaccines, so I think they're okay to take. Go, don't worry, be happy. When a Baltimore facility that made Johnson and Johnson vaccines reported a catastrophic failure, the company could rely on a global network of factories that picked up the slack. So if you wanna be less reliant on Russia and less reliant on China, okay, then maybe we should become more reliant on India and more reliant on Canada and more reliant on Mexico and more reliant on Brazil and more reliant on other, in Europe, on countries that we don't think we're gonna be in a position where we're boycotting their products because of a war, because of some massive violation or war like in Taiwan. Let's think strategically, but let's not just, you know, blindly follow this need of a strategy of bi-America. Bi-America policy is also hood innovation because they would use competition because they make America and companies insulated from foreign competition, which makes them far behind their foreign competitors with no incentive to catch up. So there are a million reasons, primarily cost, quality, competition, efficiency and resilience that suggests that bi-America is an awful strategy. It's an anti-individualist strategy. It's anti-individuals buying the best product they can for themselves, the best product that they will enjoy the most for themselves and instead looking at the label and seeing, oh, it was made in America. Who cares about the quality and the price? I'm gonna be patriotic, which is unparallel. Because it's actually harms the United States in the long run. All right, I'm for zero tariffs. Bring it in for anyway. Boycott enemies, but otherwise bring it in for anyway. And companies don't become over-reliant on China, not the government, companies. US companies should not become over-reliant on China. And defense department makes sure that the stuff you need to build sophisticated weapon systems you can build in the United States without reliance on supply chains from overseas. Make those supply chains solid. So I have some mouth-balled steel plans. Have, make sure that there is at least one facility in the United States that makes really, really high-quality chips. They don't have to make it a high quantity. High quality, so defense department, pay more for the chips to create an incentive for somebody to build that facility in the US. There's so many good solutions to how to solve the national security problem that doesn't inflict pain on the rest of us. But the whole point is to inflict pain on the rest of us. So why would they stop? Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. 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