Superb post. China didn't steal any American jobs; American governments incentivized American corporations to outsource them to China in order to break labor unions to keep their labor costs down.
And they succeeded brilliantly! They never considered, nor cared, about the longterm consequences to most Americans and even to themselves. When "more profits soonest by any means necessary" is your motto, you are never going to make a longterm plan.
Clearly I’ve miscommunicated something important. I don’t think for a moment that America is a victim of China. Quite the opposite—we actively chose this path. Our corporations, politicians, and economic policies deliberately created the conditions we’re facing today. China worked incredibly hard to build prosperity and capability for their own people, and that’s exactly what a country should do.
My intention isn’t to blame China—it’s to highlight that they’ve successfully adopted a playbook America once used. They’re investing in infrastructure, technology, education, and industry. We once did the same, and we can again. My vision isn’t a zero-sum game—this isn’t Walmart vs. Kmart, Netflix vs. Blockbuster. The world has room for multiple strong, capable nations innovating, fighting poverty and disease, and tackling climate change.
But we can’t achieve any of that if we don’t first acknowledge what’s happened here at home and commit to doing the necessary work to rebuild our own capabilities. My goal with this Substack is to spark conversations exactly like this—to challenge the comfortable fantasy that everything is fine and to help us recognize what we’ve lost and how we might reclaim it.
Thanks again for engaging—your perspective helps clarify mine.
First, we dismantled our economic and production systems to benefit the few. Trump is dismantling our government system to benefit the few. Hopefully enough Americans will understand how policies work to hold politicians accountable for what they are doing to Americans. I agree with you the preceding analyses of the dispossession of the American people of what they built was incisive and on target. Today’s billionaires have corrupted our government including the Supreme Court, and only the people with leaders like AOC, Bernie Sanders, Tim Walz, Chris Murphy and a few others can change this.
Bernie Sanders and AOC are private sector duds that entered politics to escape their inevitable, mediocre path. If you're looking for these two to lead anything but a birthday song, you're in trouble.
P.S. These two socialists spent a few days traveling on a $15,000 a day private jet. You think they care about the serfs?
There became a point during Reagan’s presidency that shareholders became more important than workers. Up to then things were more or less on an even keel at least projected to be. Companies used to do research and development and focus on quality. Then they started plowing any profits into stock buybacks to reward management and shareholders. They laid off and disposed of their employees at the first hint of a downturn in order to maintain their stock price. Deindustrialization in the US is not the problem. It’s just a byproduct of capitalism run amok. It’s a symptom just like the oligarchs currently running things is a symptom of our capitalism without restraints. Labor unions are and were one of the major equalizers on capitalism. The GOP has waged war on unions for so long that they are now a shell of themselves. There are now few industries or crafts that unions have enough density to positively affect. Money and power is the age old scourge of capitalism. Most people dream about winning the lottery and how they could help people and their communities. Today we have selfish billionaires like Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Bezos. Are they helping their fellow citizens or communities? I don’t think so.
Do you understand that Biden was the most progressive president of your life and the first to challenge trickle down and the reaction from Republican voters was to double down on trickle down while the other side's voters refused to vote because Trump turned the eastern Mediterranean/Red Sea area into a powder keg?
I do indeed recognize that the Biden administration accomplished a lot of good, passing important legislation and genuinely challenging the old trickle-down dogma. In fact, I recently wrote about exactly why I think, despite good intentions, these efforts haven’t translated effectively enough into real progress (here’s the piece).
But my point isn’t really about Biden versus Trump. It’s about clearly understanding the depth of the collapse America has experienced over the last several decades. We’re facing a crisis that requires extraordinary effort and clarity—far more than most people realize. The reason I’m writing this Substack is precisely to articulate how deep a hole we’ve dug ourselves into, because recognizing the scale of the challenge is essential to figuring out how we climb back out.
I appreciate you engaging—it’s a crucial conversation to have.
This is a Very Good Post Corbin... I worked in Finance in the '80s... I came from a Military, and Manufacturing Background... I could see how Corrosive the Financialization of the USA would become... We are now experiencing the End-Stage of that Process....
Biden meandered around the White House talking to ghosts for 4 years. His puppet masters let 10-15 million illegals in that certainly added to depressed wages for tradesmen.
Even if he walked on water, collapsing our border has greatly imperiled economic and personal safety. Thumbs down on the Biden accolades.
This crisis is debilitating. What you are revealing here is stunning. It feels like a dead end.
How do we stop the tumble downward, much less reclaim Country's capacity?
Down to brass tacks with the question "will the midterms and 2028 election cycle change anything?" It is at this point a negative Sophie's Choice between dictatorial oligarchy or corporate dominance. Both are disaster. But unless there is a very large emergence of progressive candidates, we are really stuck with at least voting for the democrat candidate. That is, of course, if the elections are not completely compromised.
I believe more strongly than ever before that our lives, perhaps literally, depend on organizing. More people are seeing the crisis now and stepping up. I think a support campaign to those leaders like Bernie and AOC would engage massive organizing going door to door, just simply saying "we are here to talk about what is happening in our Country." And listening.
I actually think we're headed for a political revolution. Legit believe that. And while this is a very scary moment, that's exactly what makes it a moment where real change is possible.
We've already moved the needle in some pretty serious directions with both of Bernie's campaigns, with AOC, with the Green New Deal concept. These massive rallies they're holding are showing there's genuine excitement and energy for something new and different.
The status quo is crumbling before our eyes. The centrist model is failing. The far-right alternative is unacceptable. That vacuum creates space for something transformative to emerge.
I think that something new and different will emerge one way or another. So don't despair - I think something big is coming. The raw materials are all there: growing class consciousness, a generation that understands their future has been stolen, and leaders who are willing to speak truth to power.
The system can't hold much longer in its current form. The question is just whether we'll be ready with an alternative vision when it finally breaks. That's what I'm working toward, and I see more people joining that fight every day.
You didn't name names. Companies got what they paid for. It was Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton that gave away our independence and endangered our national security. It was Barack Obama who stole our vote, saved the bankers instead of the homeowners, and gave us Trump. Trump normalized stupid, lawlessness and grift.
You’re right—I didn’t name specific politicians in this piece. I generally try to keep each article tightly focused and readable. But your points about Reagan, Clinton, Obama, and Trump are spot-on, and I’ve addressed them extensively in earlier articles.
I’ve written about how Reagan’s deregulation policies and Clinton’s trade agreements like NAFTA fundamentally altered our economic landscape. I’ve also examined how Obama’s response to the financial crisis prioritized Wall Street over Main Street, fueling the populist backlash that brought us Trump. And I’ve discussed Trump’s normalization of corruption, incompetence, and self-dealing.
Here are a few pieces where I dive deeper into these issues:
(How the party shifted from FDR’s builders to Wall Street’s partners.)
The story of our industrial collapse isn’t just about individual politicians—it’s about a deeper shift in how we view ownership, production, and America’s economic future. But you’re correct: specific policy decisions by these leaders accelerated our decline, and I appreciate you highlighting that context.
Thanks for bringing this up—I appreciate the thoughtful comment.
Corbin, You have done an excellent job analyzing the past 50 or so years of the decline in the lives of American people. I think you are on the way to a good book. Your writing is powerful, clear and easy to understand. People have also made incisive and helpful comments. Thanks for your work.
I am not D brand, and certainly no R brand. I dislike the political branches of 'murkan govt. to the max, including SCOTUS, but it has always been the Civil Service who kept the water running and the lights on. They are/were not incompetent, which is why TFG let Muck loose to destroy them. Biden was an ambitious statesman who became a corporate apologist because he had to if he was to stay in office. His age destroyed him, plus his fascination with his first born, whose death rattled him badly. Hunter became the poor cousin of the family, and it weakened Biden's effectiveness. There was only one prez who was beholden to no one, and who had the intelligence and compassion to avoid oligarchy - Carter, and the Bush Crime Family machine tore him to shreds. Biden tried to atone for his sins, and did some remarkable things for this time and place - Oligarchyville USA, but the long arm of Covid did so much damage to the fragile economy under govt. control -- maybe 40 percent -- that it was too easy for Putin and his puppet to befuddle a drugged up 'murkan population into believing in the tooth fairy of brash but empty capitalism.
Tsas, It seems you have pointed to a very complex problem in our political system. The propagandizing media has brainwashed people into accepting what has been done to them. Notice that they don’t focus on our economy and people’s lives, but on “cultural” issues. Bernie and AOC are trying to help people see that all people matter, and working together, we can “build back better.”
Not that easy. The Bush Crime Family proctored in Ray Gun, who was managed by Papa. J. Hinckley, who was handled by Neil Bush, made Ray Gun into a hero. Papa got only one election to prove his incompetence, but he, not Clinton, had the GATT/NAFTA legislation written in Congress, and then lost to Clinton, who signed it. Clinton did not outsource millions of jobs and thousands of companies. Dubya did that. Dubya also lowered the debt to savings ration in banks, and allowed Wall St. to start its own banks. Clinton did usher in Silicon Valley. Dubya then had to try and finish what the entire Bush Crime Family started forty years earlier - effective takeover of the ME oil/minerals empire. It backfired spectacularly. Obama stole no one's vote, but he was a protege' of the neo-liberal billionaire class, inherited Dubya's massive banking failure, Osama bin Laden and the ME trainwreck, took our money to fix it, but got some interest back, but prosecuted/jailed/impounded NO ONE or their personal FORTUNES. Dubya moved most of the 'murkan industry across the Pacific because Clinton balanced the budget, let loose the internet and was about to re-unionize the middle class via Gore, which the oligarchs of the time could not tolerate. Obama was not a great believer in armed confrontation, to his credit. Remember, Biden was VP, and Biden is a corporate, centrist D from, gasp, Delaware. Let us put blame where it belongs, the Bush family and the rumpfk grift show. TFG is good at two things - extortion and lying.
Corbin. Everything you say is true, but you omitted the white supremacy that allowed your sharecropping family to obtain generational wealth on some level and that actively prevented my sharecropping family from doing the same. We went to college and became mid-level professionals in mostly white spaces of condescension and emotional abuse but were squeezed out at some point before retirement age. We remain at square three, sometimes falling to two or one and climbing back up a step or two only to be kicked down again — and we are among the supposedly “lucky” relative few. Existence in what I know now is your country, never mine it turns out, is misery. I cannot love or believe in a construct that at best has only paid pretty lip service to me. From my perspective, this experiment is a complete failure. Of course, because it started with chattel slavery and made its protocols the foundation of all of its systems, the US was doomed to fail. Here we are.
When I was a kid, white people would praise me and call me a good one. As an adult, they slap me with “articulate” and “smart.” Apparently in 2025, it’s still surprising to some that those attributes can appear in a melanated person. It makes me physically, emotionally, spiritually sick. Every day.
For years now, I’ve existed in destitution despite following the rules and being the best citizen I could be. Imagine how things are for the ones they didn’t shame as being well-spoken, intelligent “good ones.”
I was sold a bill of goods to become a pawn for greedy oligarchs. You were too, old friend. Welcome to my reality.
Natalie, you're as right as rain. White supremacy, racism, whatever you wanna call it. It is baked into the foundation of everything I was writing about.
I probably don't talk about it enough in my writing, not because the history is too complex to cover, but because I'm never sure what lane a white Appalachian dude is supposed to stay in when discussing race. But that's a weak excuse.
When I talk about my grandparents building something, I'm very aware that for a huge chunk of Americans, their great-grandparents were literally enslaved human property. The American dream I'm mourning was deliberately denied to Black Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and many others - always has been.
That white flight shit was wild - towns literally filling in public swimming pools with concrete rather than have white and Black kids swim together. The New Deal was riddled with redlining. Unions abandoned solidarity to protect white workers' privileges. Our manufacturing decline came partly from white politicians and CEOs who'd rather offshore jobs than create multiracial workplaces with real economic dignity.
And you're dead right about being the "articulate" one - that condescending bullshit in 2025 is still happening. The system demands perfection from folks like you while giving endless second chances to people who look like me.
This country has never fully confronted what it was built on. We can't fix what we won't face honestly. I don't have neat solutions here - I just know you're speaking truth, and I appreciate you calling it out.
That’s the thing. YOU have to call it out. I’ve been doing it for six decades. Experience and reality prove: They will listen to someone who looks like you LONG before they even consider me human.
Have always appreciated what you do. Fled Tennessee and headed north when Bernie lost in 2016. Got to be too terrifying (not that it’s much better up here). But then, even “liberal” Nashvillians began displaying their true colors and guns started appearing with the frequency of lies told at CPAC. My Tennessee friends have warned me that it’s far too dangerous for me to consider moving back. I’ll be visiting Knoxville briefly this summer. Feeling anxious already.
Corbin. I admire your energy, knowledge and faith in the 'murkan system. I do not share your optimism. The timing to 'rebuild' Camelot is long gone, and it was never more than arrogant fantasy. 'murka became the poster child for Malthusian social Darwinism long before Darwin found the Galapagos. The Constitution is so full of holes you could shoot Muck rockets through it without tearing the parchment. It was founded upon enslavement and genocide and religious fanaticism. This is the emotional roller coaster engine that TFG is employing to destroy the nation. He is ancient history embalmed and re-invented as a cyborg. Obviously, it operates very poorly. It is a product of the failure of said Constitution. Representative democracy is neither, it is the mole inside 'murka, first crafted probably by Monroe, leading to O'Sullivan's manifest destiny nonsense. This is the koolaid that TFG and its ilk drink by the gallons per hour.
Only problem is, the nation and the planet are teetering over the cliff created by two centuries of rape and ruin, mostly due to disaster capitalism and its techno-savagery of utter irresponsibility to the health and sustainability of Earth ecology. This is way bigger than any political/communal band aid that might be slapped on a skin cancer. I agree something huge must be undertaken if we regular citizens are going to live another 20 years, but re-inventing the wheel of industrial production/consumption will not hack it. Thanks to the massive insanity of TFG, we now have zero alliances outside our borders, and half the nation hates the other half.
People are supposed to be mad that they didn't get to force all the "dirty" work onto others? Why did anyone want that to begin with? Why not just be a slave owner?
Hey, maybe capitalism is the problem and needs to be abolished with a revolution. How did that goal get ruled out? It got ruled out by shooting, lynching, bombing, starving, imprisoning, tricking, and otherwise destroying the workers who fought for it.
Yes, the answer is ownership but collective, actually democratic ownership, not more capitalist private ownership. The US government clearly doesn't work for the masses, and it never has.
Ownership is the control of access to resources through force. Whose force? Whose access?
> This land is our land.
The ownership of this land by European settlers was enforced through the genocide of the native people. It continues to be enforced through the economic, political, and physical domination over workers inside the US and across the world. The whole system is bad.
The article “From Makers to Takers: America Surrendered Ownership of Its Future” by Corbin Trent presents a critical perspective on the United States’ industrial and economic policies, particularly concerning its reliance on foreign nations like China for essential resources such as rare earth minerals. While the article raises valid concerns about deindustrialization and supply chain vulnerabilities, it does not fully account for the economic factors that have influenced these developments.
Economic Drivers of Outsourcing:
The shift of manufacturing jobs overseas was largely driven by the pursuit of cost efficiencies. U.S. companies faced higher labor costs due to a higher standard of living and expectations for wages and benefits . Outsourcing allowed these companies to reduce production costs by up to 60%, enabling them to offer goods at more competitive prices . Additionally, access to cost-effective raw materials and economies of scale in countries like China made offshore manufacturing an attractive option .   
Challenges in Reshoring Manufacturing:
Efforts to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. face significant challenges. For instance, the CHIPS and Science Act aims to boost domestic semiconductor production, but a report found that each job created under the act would cost taxpayers about $185,000 annually, raising questions about the efficiency of such investments . Moreover, the U.S. lacks the labor supply, cost advantages, and supply chain efficiency that make countries like China dominant in manufacturing .   
Conclusion:
While the article highlights important issues regarding America’s industrial decline and reliance on foreign manufacturing, it presents a somewhat one-sided view. The economic realities that led to outsourcing—such as cost savings and global competitiveness—are complex and cannot be solely attributed to policy failures or a loss of national will. A comprehensive understanding of these issues requires considering both the economic incentives that drove outsourcing and the challenges involved in reshoring manufacturing jobs.
Ending consumerism is the answer. One subdivision, electrified with solar and back up batteries. Gardens. Livestock. Each abode houses a different craftsman. Carpenter. Mechanic, etc. Pool financial resources, work on inventions, brainstorm newsletters with the saved time from shared burdens. We are the solution we are looking for. The world has always been changed by small groups of people with a singular focus.
What small group of people has ever changed the world?
Social systems don't get overthrown or changed by small groups. It takes the masses. Yes, workers have the power to solve their own problems. The question is how to do it.
You don't need to brainstorm. People have been fighting for their liberation for centuries. Learn lessons from them.
When the members of this small commune all get fired from their jobs, what then? When you are labeled evil communists or terrorists, what then? When corporations refuse to sell to you, what then? When the police or military come to kill you or throw you in prison, what then?
We can solve this. Self sufficient communes that draw in craftsmen with disparate backgrounds. Innovation, manufacturing at a micro level. Maybe set up as a subdivision. We should have a national do not buy anything day to let everyone know who is in charge.
Dear Mr. Trent, President Clinton and his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, formerly Co-chairman and member of the board of Wall Street investment giant Goldman Sachs, sold America the bill of goods about which you wrote with such authority and clarity. Sadly, Sam Walton, founder of Walmart stores, needed cheap labor and limited environmental regulations available from The People's Republic of China, as the means by which they could make our disastrous fall come to fruition. If one could add up the number of Americans who benefitted from these massive changes since the late 1980s compared to those who suffered from them the larger group would surely be the latter, as you pointed out. AI and industrial robots in and of themselves do not guarantee cleaner air, water, and soil. America needs a new deal, not a new fascist oligarchy that sustains a consumer-based economy.
I think you should probably spend more time listening and thinking and applying Chesterton’s Fence before writing a lot more blogs like this. There’s a germ of truth in here (owning our manufacturing is a good idea) however you’re really not advocating anything worth picking up. There’s a really good reason why we don’t mine rare earth minerals in the US and why the red tape exists. There’s a really good reason we can’t innovate at the pace China does. There’s a lot of very good reasons for most of the things you paint as negative here. I don’t think you actually have enough lived experience right now to understand what the true costs of your positions are. People bought into the “my kids will be managers” because they saw their own lives and their friends lives were awful. They didn’t want you to have to do that for a living because over the years of doing it, they broke themselves and saw friends die or suffer.
In addition, you’re doing the exact thing you’re accusing others of doing: you’re not creating anything or helping anyone with these long-form articles. You’re simply talking to a thin audience.
You probably don’t want my advice but here it is anyway: if you want to help people see the value of bringing manufacturing into the US, lead by doing. Use any privilege you have and use your obvious intellect to help people - whether that’s by learning the skills necessary to build microchips in a factory or learning the actual ability to construct things in the 21st century (coding outside of vibe coding).
America needs fewer intellectual think pieces and more leaders on the left in the trenches showing that the work is worthwhile and lifting others up around them.
It's deeply ironic you'd invoke Chesterton's fence here, because that's precisely my argument: We dismantled our manufacturing base without understanding the ramifications. We tore down the "fence" of industrial capacity that previous generations built, without appreciating why it was there in the first place.
Your assumptions about me are way off base. I've spent my life building things with my own two hands. I ran both a furniture components manufacturing facility and a custom drilling machinery facility. I've built food trucks from scratch, and I'm currently a general contractor who remodels entire houses and builds new projects. I'm not writing from some ivory tower - I'm writing from workshop floors and job sites.
As for China's rare earth dominance, they're not primarily mining on their own land. They've strategically acquired mining rights and set up operations globally. This wasn't an environmental choice; it was an intentional strategy to control critical supply chains.
The idea that any industry must be inherently destructive is a false premise. If environmental concerns and equity are foundational to how we rebuild manufacturing, we can do it differently than before. The binary choice you're presenting - between environmental devastation and no domestic production - is precisely the kind of limited thinking that got us here.
I'm not your traditional intellectual – I'm an Appalachian hillbilly with a GED and a culinary arts degree. I'm just bringing my perspective as an entrepreneur and Appalachian to the discourse, but go off.
I'm advocating for us to be makers and owners again, not just consumers and renters. That's not just an intellectual exercise - it's drawn from decades of seeing what happens to communities when production leaves and nothing replaces it.
Wow, I was way off base then. I don't think industry needs to be destructive. There's probably a way to run factories that don't ruin people's bodies over decades of work - but doing that in a cost effective way is going to be difficult.
I think it's important that we build space for people to be both though. Makers, owners but ALSO consumers. Right now China is makers but they don't really get to consume the high end stuff. We're the opposite.
I just hope that as we reshore manufacturing we do it in a way that allows for people to not have to sacrifice the ability to enjoy the work they're doing. Right now I don't see a lot of that - personally I'm almost 100% certain that the SE will gain manufacturing by lowering labor cost (Through lower labor wages and decreased employee protections).
Also I don't really care that China is dominant in rare earth materials. I think a robust supply chain is important and them being a bottleneck is a problem but what's your thought about how we do that without the horrible health related problems that come from those extractive jobs for the people working them?
Or are you advocating that we just have it done by people that aren't "American", like China does? I honestly have no idea how that would work.
I hear ya. I appreciate the more nuanced questions.
On rare earth minerals, there's a middle path between unchecked extraction and doing nothing. Modern mining techniques can dramatically reduce environmental and health impacts compared to how mining was done decades ago. I don't advocate for offshoring the environmental costs - that's the mistake we've been making. We need to develop clean manufacturing methods here, under proper labor and environmental standards. Will it cost more? Yeah, but that's a price worth paying for sustainability, sovereignty, and dignified work.
I agree that a robust supply chain is useful and having elements of a globalized economy isn't necessarily a problem. But what I'm advocating for is a strong enough manufacturing and industrial base that we can build the things we actually use - infrastructure, medicines, buildings, water filtration equipment, solar panels, or whatever the hell else we need.
Some of the best moments in our ability to build things were when companies didn't compete with each other - when IP was disregarded and they just advanced their efforts together. The synthetic rubber industry during WWII was one of those times. Vaccine development was another.
As we go forward with industry becoming more automated and AI-driven, the question of ownership - who owns the productive capacity in this nation - will become even more damn important. Imagine a future where everything was produced by automation and people had nothing but free time. In this particular structure we have today, it would be a hellscape where a handful of people owned everything and the rest of us owned nothing. So it's probably better that we start fixing that shit now.
Your concern about a race to the bottom on wages is valid. That's why we need strong labor protections and unions alongside reshoring. The New Deal wasn't just about building things - it was about ensuring working people shared in the prosperity they created.
I'm not arguing for some austere manufacturing state where people toil without enjoying the fruits of their labor. The goal is balance. Right now we're so tilted toward consumption that we've lost the security and fulfillment that comes with being productive. My grandparents' generation understood ownership in a way we've forgotten, and we're paying the price for that amnesia.
Superb post. China didn't steal any American jobs; American governments incentivized American corporations to outsource them to China in order to break labor unions to keep their labor costs down.
And they succeeded brilliantly! They never considered, nor cared, about the longterm consequences to most Americans and even to themselves. When "more profits soonest by any means necessary" is your motto, you are never going to make a longterm plan.
Clearly I’ve miscommunicated something important. I don’t think for a moment that America is a victim of China. Quite the opposite—we actively chose this path. Our corporations, politicians, and economic policies deliberately created the conditions we’re facing today. China worked incredibly hard to build prosperity and capability for their own people, and that’s exactly what a country should do.
My intention isn’t to blame China—it’s to highlight that they’ve successfully adopted a playbook America once used. They’re investing in infrastructure, technology, education, and industry. We once did the same, and we can again. My vision isn’t a zero-sum game—this isn’t Walmart vs. Kmart, Netflix vs. Blockbuster. The world has room for multiple strong, capable nations innovating, fighting poverty and disease, and tackling climate change.
But we can’t achieve any of that if we don’t first acknowledge what’s happened here at home and commit to doing the necessary work to rebuild our own capabilities. My goal with this Substack is to spark conversations exactly like this—to challenge the comfortable fantasy that everything is fine and to help us recognize what we’ve lost and how we might reclaim it.
Thanks again for engaging—your perspective helps clarify mine.
First, we dismantled our economic and production systems to benefit the few. Trump is dismantling our government system to benefit the few. Hopefully enough Americans will understand how policies work to hold politicians accountable for what they are doing to Americans. I agree with you the preceding analyses of the dispossession of the American people of what they built was incisive and on target. Today’s billionaires have corrupted our government including the Supreme Court, and only the people with leaders like AOC, Bernie Sanders, Tim Walz, Chris Murphy and a few others can change this.
Bernie Sanders and AOC are private sector duds that entered politics to escape their inevitable, mediocre path. If you're looking for these two to lead anything but a birthday song, you're in trouble.
P.S. These two socialists spent a few days traveling on a $15,000 a day private jet. You think they care about the serfs?
There became a point during Reagan’s presidency that shareholders became more important than workers. Up to then things were more or less on an even keel at least projected to be. Companies used to do research and development and focus on quality. Then they started plowing any profits into stock buybacks to reward management and shareholders. They laid off and disposed of their employees at the first hint of a downturn in order to maintain their stock price. Deindustrialization in the US is not the problem. It’s just a byproduct of capitalism run amok. It’s a symptom just like the oligarchs currently running things is a symptom of our capitalism without restraints. Labor unions are and were one of the major equalizers on capitalism. The GOP has waged war on unions for so long that they are now a shell of themselves. There are now few industries or crafts that unions have enough density to positively affect. Money and power is the age old scourge of capitalism. Most people dream about winning the lottery and how they could help people and their communities. Today we have selfish billionaires like Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Bezos. Are they helping their fellow citizens or communities? I don’t think so.
Do you understand that Biden was the most progressive president of your life and the first to challenge trickle down and the reaction from Republican voters was to double down on trickle down while the other side's voters refused to vote because Trump turned the eastern Mediterranean/Red Sea area into a powder keg?
I do indeed recognize that the Biden administration accomplished a lot of good, passing important legislation and genuinely challenging the old trickle-down dogma. In fact, I recently wrote about exactly why I think, despite good intentions, these efforts haven’t translated effectively enough into real progress (here’s the piece).
But my point isn’t really about Biden versus Trump. It’s about clearly understanding the depth of the collapse America has experienced over the last several decades. We’re facing a crisis that requires extraordinary effort and clarity—far more than most people realize. The reason I’m writing this Substack is precisely to articulate how deep a hole we’ve dug ourselves into, because recognizing the scale of the challenge is essential to figuring out how we climb back out.
I appreciate you engaging—it’s a crucial conversation to have.
—Corbin
This is a Very Good Post Corbin... I worked in Finance in the '80s... I came from a Military, and Manufacturing Background... I could see how Corrosive the Financialization of the USA would become... We are now experiencing the End-Stage of that Process....
Biden meandered around the White House talking to ghosts for 4 years. His puppet masters let 10-15 million illegals in that certainly added to depressed wages for tradesmen.
Even if he walked on water, collapsing our border has greatly imperiled economic and personal safety. Thumbs down on the Biden accolades.
This crisis is debilitating. What you are revealing here is stunning. It feels like a dead end.
How do we stop the tumble downward, much less reclaim Country's capacity?
Down to brass tacks with the question "will the midterms and 2028 election cycle change anything?" It is at this point a negative Sophie's Choice between dictatorial oligarchy or corporate dominance. Both are disaster. But unless there is a very large emergence of progressive candidates, we are really stuck with at least voting for the democrat candidate. That is, of course, if the elections are not completely compromised.
I believe more strongly than ever before that our lives, perhaps literally, depend on organizing. More people are seeing the crisis now and stepping up. I think a support campaign to those leaders like Bernie and AOC would engage massive organizing going door to door, just simply saying "we are here to talk about what is happening in our Country." And listening.
I actually think we're headed for a political revolution. Legit believe that. And while this is a very scary moment, that's exactly what makes it a moment where real change is possible.
We've already moved the needle in some pretty serious directions with both of Bernie's campaigns, with AOC, with the Green New Deal concept. These massive rallies they're holding are showing there's genuine excitement and energy for something new and different.
The status quo is crumbling before our eyes. The centrist model is failing. The far-right alternative is unacceptable. That vacuum creates space for something transformative to emerge.
I think that something new and different will emerge one way or another. So don't despair - I think something big is coming. The raw materials are all there: growing class consciousness, a generation that understands their future has been stolen, and leaders who are willing to speak truth to power.
The system can't hold much longer in its current form. The question is just whether we'll be ready with an alternative vision when it finally breaks. That's what I'm working toward, and I see more people joining that fight every day.
It's not a given, but I am very hopeful.
You didn't name names. Companies got what they paid for. It was Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton that gave away our independence and endangered our national security. It was Barack Obama who stole our vote, saved the bankers instead of the homeowners, and gave us Trump. Trump normalized stupid, lawlessness and grift.
You’re right—I didn’t name specific politicians in this piece. I generally try to keep each article tightly focused and readable. But your points about Reagan, Clinton, Obama, and Trump are spot-on, and I’ve addressed them extensively in earlier articles.
I’ve written about how Reagan’s deregulation policies and Clinton’s trade agreements like NAFTA fundamentally altered our economic landscape. I’ve also examined how Obama’s response to the financial crisis prioritized Wall Street over Main Street, fueling the populist backlash that brought us Trump. And I’ve discussed Trump’s normalization of corruption, incompetence, and self-dealing.
Here are a few pieces where I dive deeper into these issues:
“Our System: Broken or Working as Designed?”
https://www.americasundoing.com/p/our-system-broken-or-working-as-designed
(How bipartisan decisions contributed to America’s decline.)
“Why Millions of Americans Are Cheering the Undoing of Their Own Country”
https://www.americasundoing.com/p/why-millions-of-americans-are-cheering
(The institutional failures of multiple administrations leading to today’s crisis.)
“Democrats Can’t Stop Trump—Because They Don’t Really Want To”
https://www.americasundoing.com/p/democrats-cant-stop-trumpbecause
(The bipartisan consensus that hollowed out American manufacturing.)
“Democrats Become What They Once Opposed”
https://www.americasundoing.com/p/the-democratic-party-has-become-what
(How the party shifted from FDR’s builders to Wall Street’s partners.)
The story of our industrial collapse isn’t just about individual politicians—it’s about a deeper shift in how we view ownership, production, and America’s economic future. But you’re correct: specific policy decisions by these leaders accelerated our decline, and I appreciate you highlighting that context.
Thanks for bringing this up—I appreciate the thoughtful comment.
Corbin, You have done an excellent job analyzing the past 50 or so years of the decline in the lives of American people. I think you are on the way to a good book. Your writing is powerful, clear and easy to understand. People have also made incisive and helpful comments. Thanks for your work.
And Joe Biden tried to undo that damage and you folks sat on your hands or worse because he was an old white dude.
Ended a war - no one cared
First president in history to join the picket lines with workers - no one cared
first president in history to openly challenge the trickle downers and got couped for it- no one cared.
US voters like to point to decades old history for why they shoot us in the foot today.
I am not D brand, and certainly no R brand. I dislike the political branches of 'murkan govt. to the max, including SCOTUS, but it has always been the Civil Service who kept the water running and the lights on. They are/were not incompetent, which is why TFG let Muck loose to destroy them. Biden was an ambitious statesman who became a corporate apologist because he had to if he was to stay in office. His age destroyed him, plus his fascination with his first born, whose death rattled him badly. Hunter became the poor cousin of the family, and it weakened Biden's effectiveness. There was only one prez who was beholden to no one, and who had the intelligence and compassion to avoid oligarchy - Carter, and the Bush Crime Family machine tore him to shreds. Biden tried to atone for his sins, and did some remarkable things for this time and place - Oligarchyville USA, but the long arm of Covid did so much damage to the fragile economy under govt. control -- maybe 40 percent -- that it was too easy for Putin and his puppet to befuddle a drugged up 'murkan population into believing in the tooth fairy of brash but empty capitalism.
Tsas, It seems you have pointed to a very complex problem in our political system. The propagandizing media has brainwashed people into accepting what has been done to them. Notice that they don’t focus on our economy and people’s lives, but on “cultural” issues. Bernie and AOC are trying to help people see that all people matter, and working together, we can “build back better.”
Not that easy. The Bush Crime Family proctored in Ray Gun, who was managed by Papa. J. Hinckley, who was handled by Neil Bush, made Ray Gun into a hero. Papa got only one election to prove his incompetence, but he, not Clinton, had the GATT/NAFTA legislation written in Congress, and then lost to Clinton, who signed it. Clinton did not outsource millions of jobs and thousands of companies. Dubya did that. Dubya also lowered the debt to savings ration in banks, and allowed Wall St. to start its own banks. Clinton did usher in Silicon Valley. Dubya then had to try and finish what the entire Bush Crime Family started forty years earlier - effective takeover of the ME oil/minerals empire. It backfired spectacularly. Obama stole no one's vote, but he was a protege' of the neo-liberal billionaire class, inherited Dubya's massive banking failure, Osama bin Laden and the ME trainwreck, took our money to fix it, but got some interest back, but prosecuted/jailed/impounded NO ONE or their personal FORTUNES. Dubya moved most of the 'murkan industry across the Pacific because Clinton balanced the budget, let loose the internet and was about to re-unionize the middle class via Gore, which the oligarchs of the time could not tolerate. Obama was not a great believer in armed confrontation, to his credit. Remember, Biden was VP, and Biden is a corporate, centrist D from, gasp, Delaware. Let us put blame where it belongs, the Bush family and the rumpfk grift show. TFG is good at two things - extortion and lying.
Corbin. Everything you say is true, but you omitted the white supremacy that allowed your sharecropping family to obtain generational wealth on some level and that actively prevented my sharecropping family from doing the same. We went to college and became mid-level professionals in mostly white spaces of condescension and emotional abuse but were squeezed out at some point before retirement age. We remain at square three, sometimes falling to two or one and climbing back up a step or two only to be kicked down again — and we are among the supposedly “lucky” relative few. Existence in what I know now is your country, never mine it turns out, is misery. I cannot love or believe in a construct that at best has only paid pretty lip service to me. From my perspective, this experiment is a complete failure. Of course, because it started with chattel slavery and made its protocols the foundation of all of its systems, the US was doomed to fail. Here we are.
When I was a kid, white people would praise me and call me a good one. As an adult, they slap me with “articulate” and “smart.” Apparently in 2025, it’s still surprising to some that those attributes can appear in a melanated person. It makes me physically, emotionally, spiritually sick. Every day.
For years now, I’ve existed in destitution despite following the rules and being the best citizen I could be. Imagine how things are for the ones they didn’t shame as being well-spoken, intelligent “good ones.”
I was sold a bill of goods to become a pawn for greedy oligarchs. You were too, old friend. Welcome to my reality.
RESIST
Natalie Davis
Natalie, you're as right as rain. White supremacy, racism, whatever you wanna call it. It is baked into the foundation of everything I was writing about.
I probably don't talk about it enough in my writing, not because the history is too complex to cover, but because I'm never sure what lane a white Appalachian dude is supposed to stay in when discussing race. But that's a weak excuse.
When I talk about my grandparents building something, I'm very aware that for a huge chunk of Americans, their great-grandparents were literally enslaved human property. The American dream I'm mourning was deliberately denied to Black Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and many others - always has been.
That white flight shit was wild - towns literally filling in public swimming pools with concrete rather than have white and Black kids swim together. The New Deal was riddled with redlining. Unions abandoned solidarity to protect white workers' privileges. Our manufacturing decline came partly from white politicians and CEOs who'd rather offshore jobs than create multiracial workplaces with real economic dignity.
And you're dead right about being the "articulate" one - that condescending bullshit in 2025 is still happening. The system demands perfection from folks like you while giving endless second chances to people who look like me.
This country has never fully confronted what it was built on. We can't fix what we won't face honestly. I don't have neat solutions here - I just know you're speaking truth, and I appreciate you calling it out.
That’s the thing. YOU have to call it out. I’ve been doing it for six decades. Experience and reality prove: They will listen to someone who looks like you LONG before they even consider me human.
Have always appreciated what you do. Fled Tennessee and headed north when Bernie lost in 2016. Got to be too terrifying (not that it’s much better up here). But then, even “liberal” Nashvillians began displaying their true colors and guns started appearing with the frequency of lies told at CPAC. My Tennessee friends have warned me that it’s far too dangerous for me to consider moving back. I’ll be visiting Knoxville briefly this summer. Feeling anxious already.
Corbin. I admire your energy, knowledge and faith in the 'murkan system. I do not share your optimism. The timing to 'rebuild' Camelot is long gone, and it was never more than arrogant fantasy. 'murka became the poster child for Malthusian social Darwinism long before Darwin found the Galapagos. The Constitution is so full of holes you could shoot Muck rockets through it without tearing the parchment. It was founded upon enslavement and genocide and religious fanaticism. This is the emotional roller coaster engine that TFG is employing to destroy the nation. He is ancient history embalmed and re-invented as a cyborg. Obviously, it operates very poorly. It is a product of the failure of said Constitution. Representative democracy is neither, it is the mole inside 'murka, first crafted probably by Monroe, leading to O'Sullivan's manifest destiny nonsense. This is the koolaid that TFG and its ilk drink by the gallons per hour.
Only problem is, the nation and the planet are teetering over the cliff created by two centuries of rape and ruin, mostly due to disaster capitalism and its techno-savagery of utter irresponsibility to the health and sustainability of Earth ecology. This is way bigger than any political/communal band aid that might be slapped on a skin cancer. I agree something huge must be undertaken if we regular citizens are going to live another 20 years, but re-inventing the wheel of industrial production/consumption will not hack it. Thanks to the massive insanity of TFG, we now have zero alliances outside our borders, and half the nation hates the other half.
This argument sounds credible. I would like to hear more.
So true!
People are supposed to be mad that they didn't get to force all the "dirty" work onto others? Why did anyone want that to begin with? Why not just be a slave owner?
Hey, maybe capitalism is the problem and needs to be abolished with a revolution. How did that goal get ruled out? It got ruled out by shooting, lynching, bombing, starving, imprisoning, tricking, and otherwise destroying the workers who fought for it.
Yes, the answer is ownership but collective, actually democratic ownership, not more capitalist private ownership. The US government clearly doesn't work for the masses, and it never has.
Ownership is the control of access to resources through force. Whose force? Whose access?
> This land is our land.
The ownership of this land by European settlers was enforced through the genocide of the native people. It continues to be enforced through the economic, political, and physical domination over workers inside the US and across the world. The whole system is bad.
The article “From Makers to Takers: America Surrendered Ownership of Its Future” by Corbin Trent presents a critical perspective on the United States’ industrial and economic policies, particularly concerning its reliance on foreign nations like China for essential resources such as rare earth minerals. While the article raises valid concerns about deindustrialization and supply chain vulnerabilities, it does not fully account for the economic factors that have influenced these developments.
Economic Drivers of Outsourcing:
The shift of manufacturing jobs overseas was largely driven by the pursuit of cost efficiencies. U.S. companies faced higher labor costs due to a higher standard of living and expectations for wages and benefits . Outsourcing allowed these companies to reduce production costs by up to 60%, enabling them to offer goods at more competitive prices . Additionally, access to cost-effective raw materials and economies of scale in countries like China made offshore manufacturing an attractive option .   
Challenges in Reshoring Manufacturing:
Efforts to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. face significant challenges. For instance, the CHIPS and Science Act aims to boost domestic semiconductor production, but a report found that each job created under the act would cost taxpayers about $185,000 annually, raising questions about the efficiency of such investments . Moreover, the U.S. lacks the labor supply, cost advantages, and supply chain efficiency that make countries like China dominant in manufacturing .   
Conclusion:
While the article highlights important issues regarding America’s industrial decline and reliance on foreign manufacturing, it presents a somewhat one-sided view. The economic realities that led to outsourcing—such as cost savings and global competitiveness—are complex and cannot be solely attributed to policy failures or a loss of national will. A comprehensive understanding of these issues requires considering both the economic incentives that drove outsourcing and the challenges involved in reshoring manufacturing jobs.
Ending consumerism is the answer. One subdivision, electrified with solar and back up batteries. Gardens. Livestock. Each abode houses a different craftsman. Carpenter. Mechanic, etc. Pool financial resources, work on inventions, brainstorm newsletters with the saved time from shared burdens. We are the solution we are looking for. The world has always been changed by small groups of people with a singular focus.
What small group of people has ever changed the world?
Social systems don't get overthrown or changed by small groups. It takes the masses. Yes, workers have the power to solve their own problems. The question is how to do it.
You don't need to brainstorm. People have been fighting for their liberation for centuries. Learn lessons from them.
When the members of this small commune all get fired from their jobs, what then? When you are labeled evil communists or terrorists, what then? When corporations refuse to sell to you, what then? When the police or military come to kill you or throw you in prison, what then?
We can solve this. Self sufficient communes that draw in craftsmen with disparate backgrounds. Innovation, manufacturing at a micro level. Maybe set up as a subdivision. We should have a national do not buy anything day to let everyone know who is in charge.
We live in scary times. This song calls attention to the danger with a note of hope at the end. Please pass it on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqgYbYcprqo
Dear Mr. Trent, President Clinton and his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, formerly Co-chairman and member of the board of Wall Street investment giant Goldman Sachs, sold America the bill of goods about which you wrote with such authority and clarity. Sadly, Sam Walton, founder of Walmart stores, needed cheap labor and limited environmental regulations available from The People's Republic of China, as the means by which they could make our disastrous fall come to fruition. If one could add up the number of Americans who benefitted from these massive changes since the late 1980s compared to those who suffered from them the larger group would surely be the latter, as you pointed out. AI and industrial robots in and of themselves do not guarantee cleaner air, water, and soil. America needs a new deal, not a new fascist oligarchy that sustains a consumer-based economy.
I think you should probably spend more time listening and thinking and applying Chesterton’s Fence before writing a lot more blogs like this. There’s a germ of truth in here (owning our manufacturing is a good idea) however you’re really not advocating anything worth picking up. There’s a really good reason why we don’t mine rare earth minerals in the US and why the red tape exists. There’s a really good reason we can’t innovate at the pace China does. There’s a lot of very good reasons for most of the things you paint as negative here. I don’t think you actually have enough lived experience right now to understand what the true costs of your positions are. People bought into the “my kids will be managers” because they saw their own lives and their friends lives were awful. They didn’t want you to have to do that for a living because over the years of doing it, they broke themselves and saw friends die or suffer.
In addition, you’re doing the exact thing you’re accusing others of doing: you’re not creating anything or helping anyone with these long-form articles. You’re simply talking to a thin audience.
You probably don’t want my advice but here it is anyway: if you want to help people see the value of bringing manufacturing into the US, lead by doing. Use any privilege you have and use your obvious intellect to help people - whether that’s by learning the skills necessary to build microchips in a factory or learning the actual ability to construct things in the 21st century (coding outside of vibe coding).
America needs fewer intellectual think pieces and more leaders on the left in the trenches showing that the work is worthwhile and lifting others up around them.
It's deeply ironic you'd invoke Chesterton's fence here, because that's precisely my argument: We dismantled our manufacturing base without understanding the ramifications. We tore down the "fence" of industrial capacity that previous generations built, without appreciating why it was there in the first place.
Your assumptions about me are way off base. I've spent my life building things with my own two hands. I ran both a furniture components manufacturing facility and a custom drilling machinery facility. I've built food trucks from scratch, and I'm currently a general contractor who remodels entire houses and builds new projects. I'm not writing from some ivory tower - I'm writing from workshop floors and job sites.
As for China's rare earth dominance, they're not primarily mining on their own land. They've strategically acquired mining rights and set up operations globally. This wasn't an environmental choice; it was an intentional strategy to control critical supply chains.
The idea that any industry must be inherently destructive is a false premise. If environmental concerns and equity are foundational to how we rebuild manufacturing, we can do it differently than before. The binary choice you're presenting - between environmental devastation and no domestic production - is precisely the kind of limited thinking that got us here.
I'm not your traditional intellectual – I'm an Appalachian hillbilly with a GED and a culinary arts degree. I'm just bringing my perspective as an entrepreneur and Appalachian to the discourse, but go off.
I'm advocating for us to be makers and owners again, not just consumers and renters. That's not just an intellectual exercise - it's drawn from decades of seeing what happens to communities when production leaves and nothing replaces it.
Wow, I was way off base then. I don't think industry needs to be destructive. There's probably a way to run factories that don't ruin people's bodies over decades of work - but doing that in a cost effective way is going to be difficult.
I think it's important that we build space for people to be both though. Makers, owners but ALSO consumers. Right now China is makers but they don't really get to consume the high end stuff. We're the opposite.
I just hope that as we reshore manufacturing we do it in a way that allows for people to not have to sacrifice the ability to enjoy the work they're doing. Right now I don't see a lot of that - personally I'm almost 100% certain that the SE will gain manufacturing by lowering labor cost (Through lower labor wages and decreased employee protections).
Also I don't really care that China is dominant in rare earth materials. I think a robust supply chain is important and them being a bottleneck is a problem but what's your thought about how we do that without the horrible health related problems that come from those extractive jobs for the people working them?
Or are you advocating that we just have it done by people that aren't "American", like China does? I honestly have no idea how that would work.
I hear ya. I appreciate the more nuanced questions.
On rare earth minerals, there's a middle path between unchecked extraction and doing nothing. Modern mining techniques can dramatically reduce environmental and health impacts compared to how mining was done decades ago. I don't advocate for offshoring the environmental costs - that's the mistake we've been making. We need to develop clean manufacturing methods here, under proper labor and environmental standards. Will it cost more? Yeah, but that's a price worth paying for sustainability, sovereignty, and dignified work.
I agree that a robust supply chain is useful and having elements of a globalized economy isn't necessarily a problem. But what I'm advocating for is a strong enough manufacturing and industrial base that we can build the things we actually use - infrastructure, medicines, buildings, water filtration equipment, solar panels, or whatever the hell else we need.
Some of the best moments in our ability to build things were when companies didn't compete with each other - when IP was disregarded and they just advanced their efforts together. The synthetic rubber industry during WWII was one of those times. Vaccine development was another.
As we go forward with industry becoming more automated and AI-driven, the question of ownership - who owns the productive capacity in this nation - will become even more damn important. Imagine a future where everything was produced by automation and people had nothing but free time. In this particular structure we have today, it would be a hellscape where a handful of people owned everything and the rest of us owned nothing. So it's probably better that we start fixing that shit now.
Your concern about a race to the bottom on wages is valid. That's why we need strong labor protections and unions alongside reshoring. The New Deal wasn't just about building things - it was about ensuring working people shared in the prosperity they created.
I'm not arguing for some austere manufacturing state where people toil without enjoying the fruits of their labor. The goal is balance. Right now we're so tilted toward consumption that we've lost the security and fulfillment that comes with being productive. My grandparents' generation understood ownership in a way we've forgotten, and we're paying the price for that amnesia.