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To: ARCADIA
"But, what would happen to consumer prices at that point? We no longer manufacture much of anything within our borders and new industries will be years in the making."

Oh please. Imports to the U.S. amount to 9.5% of our annual GDP. Exports from the U.S. amount to 5.5% of our GDP.

That's our world trade. That's oil. That's $110 Billion per year of trade with China. That's all the cars that we import from Japan and Europe. That's all of India, etc.

Add it all up and the sum of imports and exports is 15% of our GDP. Yet you are screaming like Chicken Little about the sky falling as if the U.S. no longer made anything (GM alone makes more cars per year than all of the companies in Japan, combined) now that we are an information society.

Well, where do you get that other 85% of our economy if we aren't importing it?! Do you think that Boeing is importing aircraft or rocket motors?! Do you think that entire homes are being imported from Thailand?!

Anyway, my point is that you are missing the big picture. The big picture is that 85% of the U.S. economy is domestic. It wouldn't matter to that 85% of our economy if all foreign trade stopped altogether. It certainly doesn't have much impact on consumer prices if 4% (the difference of imports and exports) of our GDP goes up 40% in cost (especially considering the domestic alternatives that will replace foerign imports as prices on such goods and services increase).

The U.S. has an internal economy. Nations like China and India have external economies. Very different things happen to such different economies based on foreign exchange values.

130 posted on 04/09/2004 4:52:11 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Southack
Yet you are screaming like Chicken Little about the sky falling as if the U.S. no longer made anything (GM alone makes more cars per year than all of the companies in Japan, combined) now that we are an information society.

It is not as simple as comparing GDP and Imports. The GDP number includes a number of intangibles. If I import a component for 10 cents, brand it General Motors and sell it for a dollar; the GDP reads $1.00 and the imports $0.10. Yet the dollar worth of GDP will go to zero if the imported component gets expensive enough. GM might make more cars here, but a quick peak under the hood will quickly undermine your exuberance.
137 posted on 04/09/2004 5:13:20 PM PDT by ARCADIA (Abuse of power comes as no surprise)
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