Since this time last year, Congress has handed out more than $2 trillion to bail out our flailing economy, all the while telling the American public we are only facing a troubling recession. However, with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, could we be facing a new era of protectionism and a return to isolationism? Can we afford to, in our modern world of interconnected international investment?

According to the BBC, the National Bureau of Economic Research recently reported that the current economic situation actually began in 2007, and is projected to be the longest and worst recession since World War II.

Recently, the Federal Reserve released the results of the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial report on the assets and liabilities of American households.

As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote, “The bottom line is that there has been basically no wealth creation at all since the turn of the millennium: the net worth of the average American household, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than it was in 2001.”

Now, while we are still two years away from what is defined as a depression, according to the BBC, that doesn’t mean very much to most of America. What do mean something are jobs, and according to President Obama, his stimulus plan should create almost 3.5 million jobs by 2010.

The plan is simple enough: “Buy American.”

But the consequences of such a seemingly simple idea could have global repercussions, anywhere from a global trade war to a global depression.

Europe’s GDP, according to the BBC, has fallen at least one percent overall for the past two consecutive quarters, while Germany alone (incidentally the E.U.’s strongest economy) has fallen a staggering two percent in the same period. Will the President’s directive to “buy American” result in an even faster and tougher worldwide financial meltdown, or could we see a return to the New Deal era of national reinvestment?

While it’s accepted that the Great Depression ended because of the arms buildup just prior to World War II, the struggling U.S. economy was also helped out by investing in foreign markets, especially in Germany.

Some of the biggest corporations nowadays, such as Coca-Cola and IBM, made millions in the 1930’s off of the Führer. Ever wonder why Fanta Orange is so popular in Europe, or how the Nazis could have handled the logistical nightmare of incarcerating six million Jews?

Anyone notice how many corporations (i.e., civilian contractors) have a vested interest in Iraq? War is profitable in terms of manufacturing as well as marketing opportunities, yet what America needs is not more global investment, but local investment.

We don’t need multinational corporations, without ties to any nation or even a code of conduct, begging for billions of taxpayer money to pay for their own illogical fallacies: America needs more local investment. We need more investment in public works and transportation, investment in local agriculture and commerce, and most importantly, investment in small business. Without grounding our wealth in our local communities, we face a continuation of the vicious cycle of imaginary wealth versus very real debts.

Buying American may be a thinly veiled attempt at propaganda, but the root of the idea is anything but simple propaganda. It is an attempt to bring the public back from a life of abstract wealth generation, where a man can swindle billions from the rich on imagination alone, and no real established wealth generation.

We are no longer a nation of producers or entrepreneurs, but a nation of short-sighted, gotta-have-it-now narcissists; what we need is to reinvent the American Dream. At the moment, that hope rests on how the world reacts when America begins reinvesting in itself, and how President Obama reacts to the world.