pan6467

Sorry, to disagree, but OUR trade deficit is more than just importing more goods than we export. Name 1 major manufacturing industry we have here that isn't on the verge of bankruptcy...... name 1.

Steel..... all but dead
Auto.... dying
Aerodynamics.... dying and very close to death
Heavy equipment...... dying, the Japanese and Chinese own anything that is left here....
Clothing..... DEAD
Electronics..... DEAD
Textile....... on it's death bed

And what we do manufacture is of poor quality and below the standards of our parents and grandparents when they were our age.

We OWE these companies money. Mitsubishi, Toyota, Sanyo, Sony, Daewoo, you name it.

We are in extreme debt to these people and countries. When Wal*Mart purchases say 50,000 Mitsubishi DVD players that money goes to Japan. Wal*Mart keeps their profit but the rest is gone.

If GM buys steel from AK the money is gone, AK pays their workers in Mansfield or whatever plant, but the rest is gone overseas.

When we buy oil from Saudi the money is gone to Saudi.

When we buy shoes made in Malayasia the money is gone from our market UNLESS the purchases are equal and we have the same amount of their currency coming in. We don't therefore they OWN us.

Why do you think Daimler was able to buy Chrysler, or AK Steel is owned by Japan, and so on?

We are selling away everything because we have no choice anymore, we are far too indebted because of the trade imbalances.

If you are GM and I am Japanese AK Steel and you buy $2 million worth of steel from me, the money goes to Japan. I buy $100,000 worth of you cars and say, I don't want anymore cars I want my cash, pay me.

(And before you say.... oh well AK Steel has factories here, little story from a steel town in Ohio and my hometown, Mansfield. AK was told they were violating EPA and had some true health hazards around their land they needed to clean up. AK said "Fuck you, we're not a US company, we'll pack up and just go overseas." Guess who won? AK was told to negotiate with the labor in good faith, they said "Fuck you we're not a US company..... we'll go overseas." Yet, they collect $10,000" in US corporate welfare that is supposed to be to save our steel industry.)

China does not make steel any cheaper than we do.... their government subsidzes their steel because they know they will and are destroying our steel industry here.

In the 60's the Japanese said we'll build your transistor radios and your toys and they were able to get US dollars in and destroyed those industries here, but noone cared. Then they came in with their cars and took over the whole electronics business. Now, they and other countries call the shots and we manufacture hardly any electronics here.

The car industry is coming to a head also. The Right wants to blame the union. But the truth of the matter is the money IS GONE OVERSEAS. Trade deficits like we are running are suicidal.

Makle all the excuses you want, or need to live with. But the reality is the trade deficits are killing us with a double edge. First by taking OUR money out of the country and it's gone. Secondly, by destroying our industries.

The rate we are going we will be a country where the citizens own none of the land nor any of the businesses, because at the rate our money is leaving us that is what is happening. Look at how much of America our great ally China owns, or the UK or Japan, then look how much interest they own in our businesses, how much land they own or how much of our national deficit they own in the form of T-bills and if they ever decide to pull out...... we're done.

That is what the trade deficit has done. That is the reality of it.

Now for inflation.

I speak from the experience my father taught me.

I contract you to build a building for $1,500,000. You go and buy goods to work on it as you go, pay your labor and so on. Now, as you buy your goods you notice the prices have gone up, so you are paying more for the materials and maybe to even to rent or run your equipment.

So a year goes by your done (if you made it that far). You figure out your costs and whoa.... you spent $2 million, you lost $500,000. You come to me and you tell me you lost money..... I laugh and say sorry I am contracted to pay only this.

That is what was happening in the late 70's and early 80's in the construction business. My father worked for one of the biggest contractors in the nation at the time and they went bankrupt (along with many others) because of this. Interest rates went up so fast and without warning that many businesses went bankrupt and whole industries never truly recovered.

It's not a question of "IF", it's a question of when is inflation going to hit.

We can sit there and accept defeat and come up with a 1000 reasons why the trade deficit is good and the national debt is truly nothing..... and we can watch as we lose everything we own, and inflation destroying us. The leaders who are in power want us to believe that all these are ok, because they can stay in power that way.

OR we can start looking for leaders to change things and get our asses in gear and rebuild.

I choose finding solutions and not following pipe dreams and fairy tales. Ichoose wanting a country that is financially free of other countries and is in good economic shape.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"