Sunday, May 16, 2004

Hello? Anyone out there? Has the entire world fallen asleep?

A little article in the Deseret News today comments on the skyrocketing prices in real goods, the hardware and materials needed to build or build on to houses or other buildings. Just about anything; steel, copper, lumber products and the like are included in this phenomenon. Cars are made of steel, most things made of anything besides plastic is made of metal or wood in our society. Remember oil prices? Plastic is made of oil fer crying out loud. Could that be next? Milk and beef have recently shot up in price, too.

The interesting part is found deep inside the article.

"They're hearing that China is draining our resources because China's economy is clipping along at 8 or 9 percent," Aldous said. "With interest rates as low as they are it's more easily absorbed, so they are not complaining terribly."

China is in the middle of many public works projects, including the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam project. The majority of the world's, yes, world's steel production is going into the rebar and other steel products in that dam. Just the dam, not other dams, public works, or even the "clipping along" economy of China.

Not only has the means of production been taken away from the majority of people in developed countries through "conservation" efforts, wilderness designation, and at the other end of the scale perhaps, corporatization, raw and many secondary products are in the process of becoming too expensive for people to purchase and utilize unless they are members of upper economic echelons of society. Those people don't really to worry about acquisition of products or their production, as they can pay others to produce and build for them.

A precious small percentage of these products are produced in the U.S. anyway, as that production has moved overseas, mainly to China and other similar markets. What danger does such dependence on other countries for secondary production hold in our future?

Doesn't anyone else see this? Don't these situations cause any consternation for anyone else?

Please excuse me. I know that these issues are discussed by others with more information and minds more apt to the subjects. Nevertheless, I had to get that out, I get very concerned about these such things.

You can go back to whatever you were doing. Sheesh. I can wax acerbic at times.

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