[tcostell]

Unfortunately, I lack the time and enthusiasm for a rousing debate on Economics. Instead, I'd recommend that you read "Knowledge and Decisions by Thomas Sowell, or anything at all by FA Hayek. Services do add to the wealth of a community (in spite of what Ms. Browne and the few remaining keynesians might say) and unless you think the only value in a particular product is in the physical labor it took to make it, it's easy to see.

Local markets employ people and retain other services for their operation, but even if they don't, they consume resources (which are paid for)and engage in trade. The delivery men and manufacturers of the products they sell all benefit from the opening of a local market. And by the way, if it were a "fully developed economy" then it couldn't very well support another business could it? I mean where does their revenue come from if the local economy was, as you put it "fully developed".

The answer is, there is no such thing as a fully developed economy, and adding any trade at all increases wealth. How is it exactly that your "money circulates longer in a community" without doing so?

BTW, if you think my Economics education is somehow lacking, I'm sure the people that issued me my Masters degree, and all of my employers for the last 16 years would beg to differ.

[dennisw]

Take your pie in the sky free market economics and stick it. No one needs a lecture from you. I really tire of such stupidity from those who think they found the solution for all problems in the free market and free flow of people across borders. 

In nations like Scotland the pie is finite or growing slowly at best. Has been this way for decades. The place is depressed. Bringing in immigrants benefits the Scots not all unless they are educated and able to contribute to vital industries. Opening a shop, a laundromat, an ethnic restaurant or 7-11 does not help the Scottish economy.