[William Terrell]

United States exports are over 1 trillion dollars a yr and you sneer at this? How many million jobs does this create?

What exactly does the US export at 1 trillion a year? And who produces it?

What percentage of US imports is petroleum?

You tell me.

If there is a "glut" of workers as you claim how is it possible to maintain higher wages here than what the market would produce?

Wages are obvious either down from what they were 2 decades ago in some sectors or the same, with prices higher. Whole sectors are missing and the technical work is going offshore.

You know this very well.

It doesn't matter why medical costs have escalated. The point is that they stay the same or increase when wages trend downward.

Why is so hard to understand that it's ok for prices to be high when they are still a reasonable percentage of wages in each, or most, commodity category? Then we would have a wide range manufacturing base in America.

We care because millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of exports are bought by the rest of the world and because we CANNOT provide all the oil we need which makes up the bulk of our imports. I have no idea what fantasy you indulge in to escape that reality.

We didn't used to, and we had a very healthy economy. When we had a healthy economy, we traded with each other. We don't need to prop up third world and slave labor regimes. The only reason we would, would be for the purpose of a world trade backdoor to a global government.

You a globalist, hoss?

My guess is that you are, otherwise would you have to sprinkle your theories with demeaning insults if your data could stand on their own.

I don't care to live in the world you envision, friend. It has been done the way I described and it worked. It has not been done the way you describe before, and the dissatisfaction spreading through the country directly and indirectly linked to it indicates that it will not work.

What you want to happen doesn't necessarily happen. Economists are wrong about each predicted trend in proportion to the number of them that make a prediction about the trend.

I'll stick with what works and keeps my family safe and prosperous. I am a conservative.

[justshutupandtakeit]

While I didn't check the composition of exports in general it is agricultural products, machinery, machine tools, computers etc. An odd combination of raw materials and ultra high tech stuff reflective of the incredible versatility of our economy.

An earlier poster calculated about 6.5% I had believed it was a little less than 10.

People's lives are better materialistically than they were decades ago. I reject the counter argument catagorically.

Medicine is expected to provide near immortality. How many billions and billions are spent keeping old folks alive an extra few yrs. Years filled with pain and misery for the most part. I am approaching the age where this come become an issue in my life and hope to God it is not prolonged without good reason.

We have the widest industrial base in the entire world. You are not viewing the world that is but the world the RATmedia paints.

Your comments wrt price and wages indicates you do not have a grasp of the fundamentals. Are you trying to make a distinction between real and nominal wages? Nor do you have a grasp of world economic history if you believe this nation EVER was not intimately involved with exports. Our entire early history was tied up with exports of agricultural goods, and imports were extremely important as well.

"Globalism" is a concept of the radical Left and its modern name for "Capitalism" thus I reject the concept in its entirity. I am a believer in capitalism and recognize that there is a World Economy. Though you claim to be a conservative what you advocate is vastly increased governmental control over the economy which would end in socialism.