[samuel_adams_us]

Have they ever leap frogged us in the last 200 years?

[JohnnyZ]

In the 1970s, General Motors and all other domestic automakers were able to get away with making shoddy cars because there were no alternatives.

In the 1980s, General Motors and the other domestic automakers quite rightly got their behinds smacked thanks to foreign companies that made better products cheaper.

To borrow a statement.

There are millions of skilled workers in the developing world now. To think that the US can jerk off in it's own little corner while 75 of the world is letting the free market efficiently allocate resources, more or less, is idiotic.

Protectionism would kill US competitiveness and exports and we'd have a bigger trade deficit than we have now.