Embrace Ally-shoring, Instead of Off-Shoring

Joe Biden @JoeBiden

Tonight I’m announcing new standards to require all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in America. On my watch, American roads, American bridges, and American highways will be made with American products.

A lot of Americans will appreciate President Biden’s sentiment, but there is a problem. We will build less because American construction materials tend to cost more. So we can have American jobs in the materials business until the government money runs out, or we can build American infrastructure with American jobs until the money runs out. The latter will go further to then provide more economic activity than the former.

Near me is the Middle Georgia Regional Airport. With some federal infrastructure dollars, the airport will add 500 feet to its runway. That will open the runway to larger jets. Larger jets allows more cargo and more economic development. If the local authorities have to use American infrastructure materials for runway construction, those materials cost more. That higher cost makes it harder to add the runway length necessary to create a more vibrant local economy. If you want a more vibrant local economy, the local government needs to buy cheaper products to put more of the money into the length of the runway instead of the cost of materials.

There are, very critically, some components of the American economy that should be re-shored or repatriated to the United States. But not everything we have outsourced and offshored needs to be repatriated. I’d like to suggest an alternative.

I call it ally-shoring.

Instead of having so much offshored to China’s cheap labor, there are plenty of other nations with cheap labor and materials costs that want to be our allies instead of our adversaries. We should prioritize working with them. Instead of global trade deals, let’s do trade deals with these countries. We help them set up to produce for the American economy. They side with us over China. We reshape the global landscape.

China has been providing high-interest loans to nations, hoping they default, so China gets their rare earth minerals or military bases. The United States could, instead, help get infrastructure and training going for these nations to make high-quality products with lower labor costs. We provide jobs. They provide cheaper materials for domestic American products. We’ve leveraged our economic size and heft to create new allies. We ally-shore our economy and shore up our international alliances.

Both parties should embrace this. The reality is we need other countries to make materials for us because labor costs are cheaper, and it keeps prices down for Americans. No one wants a $5000 iPhone. Repatriate production, and that’d be the low-end cost. But help Apple move to India, Mexico, or another ally or incentivize Apple to do it itself — get out of China and provide prosperity elsewhere. We provide economic stability to other third-world countries that then solidify their ties to us.

We need to embrace ally-shoring to not just compete with China but outmaneuver it on the geo-political landscape.

God’s Pronouns

There has been some conversation in the Church of England about making God genderless. Theologically, God is an eternal spirit without gender. But when it comes to his anthropomorphism, God chose he/him pronouns and came to Earth as a baby boy who grew into a man, died, and rose again as a man and will return as a man. The second person in the trinity called the first person in the Trinity “Father” and used he/him pronouns for the third person in the Trinity.

In an age where we are told to respect people’s gender identity, it really is impressive that the same people who tell us we must not “dead name” Elliot Page (Ellen Page) tell us God can be she/her, they/them, or any other variety of pronoun.

Scripture says God made us male and female. He created gender. It is the height of selfishness to demand the right to create your own pronouns and deny the actual Creator of genders, God Almighty Himself, the same right.

This Thing Speaks For Itself

I have no comment here. These two tweets really do speak for the mindset of many a die-hard Trump supporter who’ve headed off to Crazytown.

Erick Erickson @EWErickson

Okay then.