[GigaDittos]

Why can't you change your name to looscann or looscnnon? Anyway, no I don't live in a cave, but thanks for you concern. I think Japan had protectionist laws too, and look what happened to them. They ended up creating false impressions of their economy until the crap hit the fan, the truth emerged and they folded. The Japanese gave a false impression of superiority and the truth was that they were a bunch of inexperienced children with lots of money. It bit them in the end. The United States has been a free market economy since the beginning, that's a long time. Those who think they can quickly surpass us without learning the lessons will eventually fail. You have to go through the steps in order. You can't jump form agriculture to space age in one leap and expect to last. History proves this. Look at the Russians.

[null and void]

They ended up creating false impressions of their economy until the crap hit the fan, the truth emerged and they folded.

Good thing that would never happen here...

[looscnnn]

What happened to the Soviet Union, not Russia, has nothing to do with "from agriculture to space age in one leap". It is possible to do that, just steal technology from a country that has what you want. Just look at Soviet Union, China and Russia. Japan still use tariffs, see http://www.japantoday.com/gidx/news215257.html and http://www.abc.net.au/businessbreakfast/content/2003/s914919.htm If I recall, tariffs are considered protectionist.