Growing trade deficit is selling the nation out from under us (2003) [pdf]

Post by thehappypm » Fri, Apr 04, 2025, 2:32 PM UTC

kymki wrote: post #66

As a European this whole debate i sickening. Trade deficit is a blunt and ineffective way to model international trade on this level, but it is easy to point at and say "look at this large bad number!" which is exactly what is going on. People are primed to interact with that through social media, etc. The American trend currently is that any trade deficit is bad. It simply isnt. It is idiotic to state so. The whole…

Post by graemep » Fri, Apr 04, 2025, 2:46 PM UTC

wiz21c wrote: post #99

graemep wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an individual you would own consumer goods. A lot of international trade is other goods. Think of how much the UK has paid for things like American aircraft, ships, machinery, or materials used in manufacturing. Our armed forces use a lot of American stuff, and often even British made things have American parts (and a lot of it is covered by ITAR, to an even greater extent than the rest of Europe). People also ten…

I certainly don't need planes, war stuff nor ships and machinery. The food I eat mostly come from my country, my car is made in countries close to mine and so are the materials used to repair my house... And my gaz is Poutine's. So I fail to see why I need America at all... Ah, yeah, one big exception: my computer. Argh!

Post by orwin » Fri, Apr 04, 2025, 3:10 PM UTC

zabzonk wrote: post #60

orwin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And USA get 30% (or 20% depending on the studio) of the price you paid. Do you use Android, windows or Apple, or any licensed software?

> any physical USA goods Do you see the word "physical" in my original comment? And me saying that I don't buy such things? I will admit to buying Intel CPUs, but aren't they manufactured in the Far East?

Post by tonyedgecombe » Fri, Apr 04, 2025, 3:35 PM UTC

tossandthrow wrote: post #150

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditional manual work has disappeared and isn't coming back. I was watching our water company lay new pipe outside my house recently and there were no people wielding picks and shovels. There was a ton of technology involved though. For rural employment to increase you would need to throw away all the technological progress from the last century. The country and economy would be unrecognisable from what it is now.

Same can be said about intellectual work. The question is how post-industrialism wealth redistribution looks like, when work does not seem to be a good key.

Post by tokioyoyo » Fri, Apr 04, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

xuki wrote: post #109

tokioyoyo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started believing that all these, are just side effects of Americans and their leadership not accepting the loss of their global leadership to China. They know they can’t pull a Plaza Accord like they did with Japan in the 80s to slow they down. Now hoping for some hail marys. In the worst case, a good chunk of people will be poorer, less women with jobs, which should result in a bump in birth rates. No data points…

I believe whichever party attempts to do this will be voted out in 2 years. It's really really hard to get people to accept a lower standard of living. The only scenario I can think of is during wartime, but the US is pissing off all of their allies.