Exactly what does America produce?

CW FISHER The winds of fortune blow around, but America's blown it, bigtime. Broke and in debt, its dollars aren't backed by gold or silver but by Japan. General Motors, staggering, says hello to its new neighbor, Toyota, whose house is bigger and smile is wider. While the rest of the world makes and trades "stuff," America makes hamburgers and trades "information." One thing every blogger knows is that information doesn't pay. Globalization was a word coined by annual report writers to fool their investors into thinking they were on the verge of world domination. The concept worked wonders for the world economy but left America with a trade deficit, meaning America buys while the world browses. Money flows out but doesn't flow in. Americans loll in luxurious bathrooms, but there's no water in the tub. America got into this mess because it bought its own information. Its best information said that you can make huge money on debt, that you can give anybody a piece of plastic and move the merchandise, and that while 30% of your cardholders will default--you'll still make money, gazillions of it. And because money buys power, you can write your own laws. You can make it so those deadbeat thirty-percenters have no choice but to pay you. You can make it so you can take their house, their car--not that you would, just that you could--and you'd be guaranteed at least another gazillion. And what did you produce? Mail! Just mail. Automatic mail. What we refer to as Information Technology. America produces nothing and serves no one. Ask, we'll tell you. We don't flip your patties, we don't mop your slop or stock your shelves, we don't work your factories--we ain't got no factories, we got houses in communities that were cornfields, because we don't need cornfields, or corn for that matter, because what do you think, we're farmers? We're educated and rich and we got here because our parents paid for it. You people do this stuff now. We have information to convey. Every day another group of Americans stands up and announces something else Americans don't do anymore. We don't solicit ourselves by telephone anymore. We pay the people of India to annoy us at dinner because they have better manners and speak better English. And because they work so cheap. While China builds cities, America laughs at what the Chinese paid for their old scrap metal. It didn't occur to America that metal was getting harder to come by in a country that no longer produces it. Maybe it plans to pick it up on credit as needed. Say there's a world war and they need it. Say their cities and roads are falling apart and they need it. Put it on the card. There are two kinds of Americans: those who say Americans never did like to work, and those who say they never said that. Those who bank offshore, and those who bank out of a change jar. Those who wait for business and government to make sense out of things, and those who know better. If those who knew better would only act accordingly, there'd be a third kind of American: the kind that built the country.