How Do You 'Buy American' Something That Ain't Made In America?

This is an absolute classic example of the fundamental ineffectiveness of government activity/directives in/on the economy. Seems that the porkulus bill that was so bloody urgent that they've spent only a fraction of to date, has a program to build out $7.2 billion dollars worth of high-speed Internet infrastructure. The porkulus also has "Buy American" provisions supposedly to help create jobs here at home. Let's put aside the fact that this protectionist measure has no solid economic grounding and acts to tick off our trading partners. Let's get down to raw practicalities. Turns out, certain bits and pieces of the things that enable Internet access aren't made in the US at all. You simply can't build certain pieces of high-tech telecommunications equipment today unless you sourced globally. So "Buy American" in this case means "Buy Not At All." Doesn't bother me. I'd prefer they not spend the money afterall. But if you go on the assumption that spending the money and spending it quickly is the best thing for the economy, this is, as the British would say, a royal cockup.

I'm going to borrow a phrase here..."the country really is in the very best of hands."