It’s an interesting exercise to consider just how much national economic policy shifts can impact U.S. workers and industry. Only a few years ago the ‘best play‘ for auto executives was shifting manufacturing overseas or to Mexico.

Today, with the advent of a comprehensive energy policy, enhanced U.S. investment incentives, re-prioritized trade expectations, focused tariffs, lowered regulations, and expanded economic freedom allowing consumer demand to drive investment decisions, the entire landscape of a massive industry shifts.

Now the ‘best play‘ is for multinational firms to focus on expanded investment directly in the U.S.A. Simple, yet stunningly consequential:

CHICAGO – Ford said Thursday it will hire 500 workers and invest $1 billion in its Chicago assembly operations to help keep up with booming demand for sport and crossover-utility vehicles.

The announcement comes on the heels of cross-town rival GM axing 4,000 workers, and is part of the $11 billion restructuring Ford announced last fall that includes dropping all passenger car models except the iconic Mustang. It is shifting resources to light trucks, like those it is building in the Windy City. […] The investment plan will allow Ford to expand capacity for the Explorer as well as the new Explorer Police Interceptor it is launching. Ford has traditionally dominated the market for police vehicles and expects the Interceptor — which debuted last month at the Detroit Auto Show — to expand its hold. Also scheduled to go into the Chicago Assembly Plant is the all-new Lincoln Aviator, a big, three-row sedan that is winning early praise and could become a critical part of Ford’s drive to revive the long-struggling luxury brand. The $1 billion investment will be used to add “advanced manufacturing technologies,” according to company sources, and also to train workers to both boost plant efficiency and improve quality. (read more)

This decision by FORD actually becomes an example of what CTH was predicting prior to the 2016 election. Specifically about FORD; and specifically about the auto industry.

FLASHBACK TO 2016: […] This key distinction is the heart of the Economic Patriotism argument.

An argument that Bernie Sanders has made effectively, Donald Trump has also recognized, and one which through the course of time -and history has empirically evidenced- creates terrible long-term consequences for the rapidly diminishing middle class U.S. worker.

The economic patriotism distinction is also where traditionally minded conservatives, like myself, have reevaluated the bigger picture and accepted the following: In a global world the concept of traditional economic models (for free-market capitalism) are no longer working on behalf of the United States of America – because there is no national pride or incentive attached to the end goal, profit.

Paul Samuelson, the Nobel laureate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recalled that John Maynard Keynes once was challenged for altering his position on some economic issue:

“When my information changes,” said Keynes “I change my mind. What do you do Sir?”

While I have never agreed with Keynesian economic theory, Keynes attributed quote itself is never more apropos than today’s 2016 American economics argument amid various conservatives. What good is Mark Levin’s definition of conservatism, when there’s no middle class America left to conserve?

What good are George Will’s free market theories when the end result is the outflow of American wealth into poorer, less economically developed countries, while we EBT ourselves into a national debt crisis because we are trying to sustain the diminished value of the American worker?

Not only is this historic approach now rapidly becoming the pathway into an unrecoverable American economic death spiral, it is also global wealth distribution done by Wall Street, not Main Street.

The result, our result, is an ever expanding, seemingly impossible to stop, wealth gap, creating an unnatural and profoundly unhealthy class system, in America, between the “Rich” and “Poor”.

We do not need socialism to fix the problem, we need economic patriotism from industrial giants, Main Street, who value the principles behind putting American-workers-First. (link)

Thankfully, two-months after writing everything above, the American electorate voted to put a Main Street President Trump into office. Today U.S. jobs are plentiful, wages are growing, inflation is low and entire industries are recommitting to the U.S. worker.

Ironically, a few days ago that same economically patriotic president just said “We will never be a socialist country”…

Funny how that happens.