The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system
"Instead of drawing down our gold reserves, however, we gradually draw down our domestic manufacturing base and it gets replaced piece-by-piece in foreign countries."<p>To me, this is the money shot.  I hadn't seen this expressed before and it makes perfect sense.  I'm baffled that we (the US) <i>caused</i> this to happen to the US.  I'm (unhappily) registered Republican but I argued vociferously to a Dem friend in 2000 that our inability to manufacture critical components was going to kill us.  Kind of literally: AFAIK, the last LCD panel manufacturer in the US closed around then and we could no longer manufacture LCD for our military vehicles...  (Even if this anecdote is untrue, the point remains valid...)  I argued that, even in the presence of free trade, a country should have the ability to tariff imports to the extent that that country could maintain a 25% (or something) domestic market share.