The Orchestra Continues To Play As The Titanic Is Sinking

In 1912 nobody could have fathomed that the RMS Titanic, a purported unsinkable luxury liner, could have met its demise in an iceberg. As the Olympic-class passenger vessel descended into the sub-zero waters, the orchestra remained calm as they continued playing.

Today, like the oblivious orchestra players, most Americans remain blissfully unaware of how emaciated our economy has become. We continue to live under the fallacy that the United States is still a superpower. Now burdened by stifling debt, stymied by an obsolete industrial infrastructure and invaded by economic predators, we have somehow developed the same blinders the orchestra possessed, prohibiting us from seeing our imminent demise as we sit idly by, playing.

Americans are overlooking the rapid sell-off of our best wealth-producing companies; over 16,613 U.S. companies have been siphoned off by foreigners since 1978 alone. Many of these enterprises took over 100 years to develop, and everyday foreign acquirers spend over $200 million scooping up U.S. companies and landmarks.

We have already lost a huge percentage of our producing capabilities and our wealth generating companies in the midst of the Great American sell-off. Within the past five years alone, the U.S. has most notably lost Anheuser-Busch to Belgian-based InBev for $52 billion; Alcon, the world leader in eye care was usurped by Swiss pharmaceutical maker Novartis’ for $39 billion and KeySpan Corp. was bought out by British energy distributor National Grid for $11.8 billion.

The U.S. is currently fighting and losing an economic war that is prohibiting us from producing enough to support ourselves. We are being forced to live on imports and debt.

In June 2009, our own government will stop publishing a key report tracking foreign direct investments (FDI) into the U.S., essentially burying the problematic fact that America is for sale. Through the discontinuation of the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ (BEA) “New Investment Series,” the U.S. government and the American public will no longer be able to distinguish between FDI used to acquire existing U.S. assets from FDI used to establish new U.S. businesses. With the U.S. hiding the foreign money trail, the American public will no longer have the ability to track the rapid sell-off of the America’s best companies to foreign interests.

The U.S. is indebted more than $9.4 trillion. With each passing minute, the debt grows by almost $1 million or $1.4 billion a day. The top-four foreign holders of U.S. debt are Japan, China, Britain and Saudi Arabia. Together, these four nations hold around $2.3 trillion of national debt; Japan holds $517.2 billion while China holds nearly $405.5 billion. These numbers speak for themselves. Independence will be lost forever unless America becomes a productive exporting nation, backed by a strong industrial and manufacturing base.

Our foreign competitors have acquired much of their burgeoning wealth through our “free trade” policies. These countries have become our bankers. Now we can only afford to maintain our standard of living through the good graces of Japan, China, Britain and Saudi Arabia. Our foreign servitude has allowed us to live under the façade that we are wealthy. But it should be obvious that our former paradise has become a fool’s paradise as we produce less each year and watch as our best companies are ripped from our grasps. We currently sit on a massive pile of debt and imports. Our past glory days are distant memories, as the orchestra continues to play.

Click here to contact your Representative in Congress.

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