U.S. Trade Deficit 2nd Highest on Record

Yahoo! ^ | Tuesday, May 13, 2003 | JEANNINE AVERSA - Associated Press

[TaMoDee]

OK, domestic comsumption is included in my figures.
What does "domestic comsumption" have to do with your tax on imports? Your argument is based on tax on imports and how this tax will reduce the deficit.

OK, instead of oil put the words "Beanie Babies" into my example.

[TaMoDee]

Reference my Post # 21. Consumption=Production. Sorry.

[Willie Green]

What does "domestic comsumption" have to do with your tax on imports?
Reference my Post # 21. Consumption=Production. Sorry.

I assume you meant to ask "What does "domestic production" have to do with your tax on imports?"

If you rephrase it slightly: "What does the tax on imports do for domestic production?", the answer should be obvious.

[TaMoDee]

Please assume nothing on my part.

Forget oil as I stated before.

The only thing a tax on imports does is try to bring them to a par with domestic produced items.

See other posts to you which will tell you that your course is headed for the rocks.

FINI

[optik_b]

"and his own brother Jeb opposes Florida offshore drilling."

Smart move. The florida beaches are a far richer asset.

[optik_b]

"Using a weak dollar to boost exports is a very bad policy. It's not helping much either"

The reality is a weak dollar only makes our buying power worse, it won't boost exports much since we are not a manufacturing based economy anymore. Most of the manufacturing has been moved to China and other countries with cheap labor and low tax enviroments.

The dollar has slipped so much so fast it is surprising. Ask anybody who's travelling to Europe this year. The prices are way way higher than they were even last year.

[Moonman62]

The reality is a weak dollar only makes our buying power worse, it won't boost exports much since we are not a manufacturing based economy anymore.

I kind of agree, but for a different reason. We are the wealthiest nation by far, so it makes sense that we'll import more than we export. Trying to reverse that process, is like putting toothpaste back in the tube. We tend to produce more high margin goods and services that less wealthy nations can't afford as much of.

As to whether we are a manufacturing based economy, here's an article that disagrees. What we are is an extremely diverse economy. Old industry and agriculture take up less labor resources, because of productivity and technological improvements, but their output is still as big as ever. More people are employed in newer economic sectors, which is the key to healthy economic growth. Lower margin businesses tend to head overseas, but we can do without them as long as our economy continues to grow.

Most of the manufacturing has been moved to China and other countries with cheap labor and low tax enviroments.

We do need to lower our cost of production, and encourage new risk taking that creates new markets and new jobs, which is what supply side economics is all about. Unfortunately, our president prefers economic policies that are closer to FDR than Ronald Reagan.