Trade is already down substantially even in our current "free trade" environment. We're seeing the ongoing saga of Hanjin Shipping as it plunges into insolvency, with ships floating out in the ocean because no port wants to take them (the ports are afraid they won't get paid for unloading the cargo).
The bigger issue we have to deal with is a U.S. consumer who has completely run out of gas and doesn't have the same disposable income he had five or ten years ago.
Awake enough this AM to notice your tag line :-) Allman Bros. Now crave to Eat a Peach for breakfast; good song, that!
“Trade is already down substantially even in our current “free trade” environment. We’re seeing the ongoing saga of Hanjin Shipping as it plunges into insolvency, with ships floating out in the ocean because no port wants to take them (the ports are afraid they won’t get paid for unloading the cargo).
The bigger issue we have to deal with is a U.S. consumer who has completely run out of gas and doesn’t have the same disposable income he had five or ten years ago. “
Excellent larger picture analysis.
A few random thoughts. Countries try to develop car exports because those have historically been a big winner in trade. But US car sales have declined steadily because, as one of my car magazines reported, there are four point something registered cars per registered driver. The market is saturated. The newer cars are too small for the American market, hence the increased sales of trucks and SUV’s.
The same may be true for toasters, TV’s, cell phones and other gadgets. I no longer know anyone with the latest cell phone or computer. The only place you see the latest technology is with students and once they have their iPhone and the next one is thirty percent more with no real change in capability, they too may sit pat.
The US economy would be much better off with less trade and more exploitation of our own resources. We have a huge percentage of the world’s oil. We could drop grain prices if we stopped adding alcohol to gas. We need much less regulation and much less government. Just do those things and the US economy will again become the dynamo it once was.
--and that's a good thing. On average, the U.S. consumer has $4,000 more to spend every year than he did ten years ago (from here).