Quote from PocketChange:
China, India, Japan are not free trade economies. They are each tightly controlled by their respective governments and institute policies that would be illegal in US.. ie. Anti-Trust / Price Fixing etc. They never make a deal unless its to their economic advantage... One way trade streets.
Military spending for the US is greater than the next 20 countries combined. Unless we go out and pillage the countries we conquer in these wars exactly who is gaining the benefit from our tax payer expenditures? Who is ultimately paying the price for all this puffery?
The US can not even self sustain at present time. My real point is we need to bring back core manufacturing and intellectual human resources here first to rebuild. Double digit unemployment is a huge obstacle to overcome.
The high military spending means that we can project force anywhere in the world at anytime and no other country in the world can enforce its will against the US. This is extremely valuable for our economy, it ensures we can trade with the rest of world freely.
Figure out why the US first created a Navy, it was not to start wars, it was to ensure our ability to trade with the rest of the world. We do not want any other country to rival us, the strength of the US Navy (and rest of the military) is the one of the most important aspects of our economy.
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Core manufacturing??? Look at Nike, their designing and marketing of their shoes/brand is done by people in the US, very high paying jobs done by very smart people. The making of the actual shoes and apparel is done by third world/developing countries, low wage mindless work. As the world opens more and more to free trade, the highly skilled people in highly skilled countries will make more and more, the low skilled people in low skilled countries will make more and more. The low skilled people in high skilled countries will either need to raise their skill level or move to India to make shoes. Its called "comparative advantage."
I, for one, like sitting in an office figuring out how to do things better, make systems run more smoothly, make my product sell to more and more people. If you want to dig ditches or make shoes, you can move to India.
5yr
