Global Economics

In 1981, I was on the faculty of the Defense Systems Management College (DSMC), located at Fort Belvoir, Va. DSMC was an arm of the Deputy Secretary of Defense and was created as the main source for educating Senior Military Officers and Senior Civilian Personnel in Project Management. Various programs were provided in financial management, contract administration and project administration. Most programs were for O-4 to O-6 military officers, Major to Colonel. There were also programs for General Officer’s.

These folks were some of the brightest and well educated individuals that I have ever been associated with.

The programs were intensive, and involved outside subject matter experts, as well as in house Professor’s. Many courses ran for 6 months to a year, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. My area of expertise was financial management.

In the classroom, we spent a significant amount of time discussing “global economics,” and the impact it may have on countries military conflicts. It was possible to see that various countries around the world were becoming more dependent on each other through trade and other services. Economists, in this country, expected this trend to continue. They also predicted, that as this trend continued, we should see less and less tendency for military conflicts between countries.

If a countries economy was integral to another countries economy, it should decrease the chance of conflict between them.

In theory this makes absolute sense. Today, we do have a “global economy.” However, it appears that politicians don’t understand this. We all need to understand that we are never going to return to the “manufacturing state” that existed in the 1950’s and 1960’s. In that time period, the auto industry drove our economy, not today. Technology has changed that, and will continue to create change.

There are significant differences between what various countries can provide. We will never be able to manufacture products as cheaply as China or India. Much of the pharmaceutical industry is located offshore. It is not coming back.

Tariffs are not the answer. All that they do is create more costs for the consumer and impact our economy negatively. You would have thought that we would have learned our lesson. Apparently not!

I am not sure what the answer is. Somehow we need to hold all of our leaders to a “higher standard.”

Jess Sweely

Madison, VA.

November 1, 2024