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What about this twist...
Instead of turning inward we mearly pull out of all continents of the world except north and south america which we take over with extreme prejiduce............
see these are the things i like to see a very good point made....but wasn't there a time in american history where the food you ate,the medicines you take,even the cars you drove were made here, we as a nation have become so dependent on corprate masters that we as a nation have lost all self reliance. and i did stipulate limited imports not a total stoppage. but most of the things you mentioned could very easily be made right here... we still have natural resources left. why can"t we build our nation strong instead of every other country?
Then Ken:
Quote:
Originally Posted by LordBalfor
That world is gone. The modern world is all interrelated.
I actually disagree with Ken. That version of the United States never existed, Southern Meltdown. This country was built on import and export of goods, and built by immigrants, from the founding fathers through the great influxes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
"Molasses to rum to slaves..." We were a major exporter early on in our history, both before and then as a country. In every era, the U.S. has been a provider of material goods to the highest bidder. In every era, we have been buyers.
Quote:
One key to the impressive development of both Japan and the United States has been their interaction with the global economy, especially through trade. Even the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Peace and Amity signed in 1854 foreshadowed this importance of trade. One of the key components of the treaty was the opening of two Japanese ports to American ships.
Yes, we made our own cars, our own food, and our own drugs, to an extent. Penicillin was a Scottish and an Australian development. Insulin was Polish, then Canadian. Eli Lilly Co. negotiated those rights. Aspirin was French, and then German.
Henry Ford was an American. His father, though, was an immigrant from Ireland. As American as Chevrolet? He was born in Switzerland, and came to the US from Canada. David Dunbar Buick was born in Scotland.
*********
As for your having stipulated limited imports, I did ask the question about where you would draw the line, if I am not mistaken. Indeed, I asked a bunch of questions, now that I think of it!
However, I suggest you check out the Embargo of 1807, in which Thomas Jefferson and his Sec'y of the Treasury, James Madison, banning American Trade with foreign countries. It was a dismal failure, though it did jumpstart some of the American manufacturing of goods they could no longer import. Embargo Act of 1807 — Infoplease.com
"most of the things you mentioned could very easily be made right here"
In what plants, where? Built with whose money, and employing which workers?
Yes, we could build plants to do that, if the financing is available, but it will take time and money to do so. This was the genesis of my question to you about transition time.
I actually disagree with Ken. That version of the United States never existed, Southern Meltdown. This country was built on import and export of goods, and built by immigrants, from the founding fathers through the great influxes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
"Molasses to rum to slaves..." We were a major exporter early on in our history, both before and then as a country. In every era, the U.S. has been a provider of material goods to the highest bidder. In every era, we have been buyers.
Yes, we made our own cars, our own food, and our own drugs, to an extent. Penicillin was a Scottish and an Australian development. Insulin was Polish, then Canadian. Eli Lilly Co. negotiated those rights. Aspirin was French, and then German.
Henry Ford was an American. His father, though, was an immigrant from Ireland. As American as Chevrolet? He was born in Switzerland, and came to the US from Canada. David Dunbar Buick was born in Scotland. *********
As for your having stipulated limited imports, I did ask the question about where you would draw the line, if I am not mistaken. Indeed, I asked a bunch of questions, now that I think of it!
However, I suggest you check out the Embargo of 1807, in which Thomas Jefferson and his Sec'y of the Treasury, James Madison, banning American Trade with foreign countries. It was a dismal failure, though it did jumpstart some of the American manufacturing of goods they could no longer import. Embargo Act of 1807 — Infoplease.com
"most of the things you mentioned could very easily be made right here"
In what plants, where? Built with whose money, and employing which workers?
Yes, we could build plants to do that, if the financing is available, but it will take time and money to do so. This was the genesis of my question to you about transition time.
What we really need to do is stop allowing companies here to export jobs oversears. I'm tired of calling tech support to get some person with an accent I can barely understand!
We also need to improve the quality of our own work so that our cars are once again as reliable and built as well as foreign cars.
And we need to also raise our MPG standard on our cars like they have in Europe so that we use less gas and find more alternative form of energy so that we may not cut our dependence on foreigh oil, but we can certainly cut it down (and thereby price of oil would decrease as demand decreased).
It would need to be somewhat of a moderate to milde embargo so that we stop looking elsewhere for some of the things we could do here , but we can't cut ourselves off from the rest of the world. It is just not feasable in this modern age.
Yeah, I know. I wasn't specifically referring to the USA, I was referring to societies in general and speaking of neolithic type cultures (and yes, I know, even they traded).
Clearly however, the US has gone from a major exporter of manufactured goods, to a major importer of such. One thing folks need to keep in mind about the "good old days" when America was "exporter to the world" is that to certain degree our position as such was somewhat artificial. People need to remember than immediately after WW II we were the only major power who was not devastated by the conflict - in fact, to the US the war was an economic and political boon. America was not always the major power that it is today - in fact, our reign as such has been very brief (60+ years or so). It was WW II that made America into the power it is today, prior to that, Britain was the "top dog". It was the massive ramp up in production for the war - combined with the fact that all our major economic competitors were bankrupted by the war - that placed America into a position of being the "salesman to the world" when it came to manufactured goods. It wasn't just that our products were superior to everyones else's (as some folks think) but that in many cases, no one else was in a position to even manufacture such goods since, much of Europe was wrecked by the war (as was Japan) and the "Third World" countries had not come into existances (they were mostly still backward colonies of the their European overlords).
As the rest of the world rebuilt after the war gradually our dominance in many areas faded - so while many folks here may complain about "unfair" competition from overseas, during the late 40's, 50's and 60's - and even into the 70's we really enjoyed a unique (and definitely temporary) advantage over the rest of the world.
Those days are long gone now, as the rest of the world is now able to compete very well with the US. In part this is due to lower wages overseas - but not entirely so, the fact is many of the goods produced overseas are as good or better than those produced here. This is partly due (ironically) because of our earlier dominance. As mentioned, after WW II much of rest of the world was forced to rebuild - a process that was expensive and took a long time. In the final analysis there were distinct advantaged to having to do this - mainly because everything you built was NEW. A prime example is steel production. Whereas after WW II America was a top steel producer, over time those factories aged and as with any aging production system, as time went on, the cost to produce steel and the quality of the final product began to suffer. American steel producers kept raking in the bucks however and didn't reinvest in their plants they way they should have (feeling they didn't need to because they were already top dog). Overseas however, the steel industry rebuilt itself after the war - and since they were rebuilding anyway - took the opportunity to use newer technologies rather than just rebuilding the plants to use old methods and techniques.
Thus Japan and Europe were FORCED to rebuild and when they did so they had industries that were superior to those found in the US (the product was better, and yet cheaper to produce). Same thing was true with many other industries (most notably the auto industry) - the US simply became a victim of it's own success, with management seeing no need to reinvest and instead foolishly believing that they would always be "top dog".
So, much (though certainly not all) of what folks here may see as the "decline" of America is simply due to a return to a more natural balance - with many other countries besides the US now being able to do much of what previous "only the US" could do.
After 50 years or so, the long-term economic advantages the US derived from WW II have at last run their course and now (ironically enough) it is the countries that suffered from the war who have now finally rebuilt and are going strong.
What we need is fair trade. Free trade is not fair. When an American can buy an acre of land in Japan and set up a Harley Davidson dealership without interference we'll have fair trade with Japan. When we can exchange a bushel of wheat for a barrel of oil we'll have fair trade with Saudi Arabia. Right now Red China is buying all the scrap steel they can get because they figured out that it is cheaper to buy scrap steel than to mine iron ore and produce steel. We did the same thing from 1935 to 1940 with Japan and we got it back on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor. A famous quote goes, "Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it."
...."we could close the welfare rolls you either work in some capacity for the good of our nation or you leave, the free ride would be over.how do you guys think this would affect the nation as a whole?"....
And where would you have them go? Would you be willing to pay their way to another country, assuming you could find one to take them.
Nope, that wouldn't work either. The prisons are full of those that wanted a free ride at someone else's expense, and now are getting food, clothing and shelter at the tax payers expense behind prison walls.
George Bush stated the illegal immigrants do the jobs most americans don't want to do so if a person wants to sit up in section 8 houses and have babies then guess what their butts can pick produce....build housing or even pick up litter.....and with a drug testing policy that would guarentee the lazy yokes on the neck of society would do the jobs or have nothing....be a productive member or get out plain and simple....
George Bush stated the illegal immigrants do the jobs most americans don't want to do so if a person wants to sit up in section 8 houses and have babies then guess what their butts can pick produce....build housing or even pick up litter.....and with a drug testing policy that would guarentee the lazy yokes on the neck of society would do the jobs or have nothing....be a productive member or get out plain and simple....
I'm sorry, but what President Bush has to say on the topic of illegal immigrants has no influence on a) my sense of what the truth is, or b) the actual numbers or analysis of the situation.
One problem with your solution, even if we merely take Bush's version of the world as gospel, is that the places we have many illegal immigrants are not by any means the same places that have a lot of folks out of work.
Another is that the image you have of all these folks sitting around on welfare lazily and having babies is more myth than reality, in terms of the numbers.
Even assuming you could somehow identify and deport the majority of the 12 million illegal immigrants and the skills and locations of the unemployed matched the openings left, there are fewer unemployed people than there are illegal immigrants in the United States.
Wouldn't work. Economic and political isolation never did, in recent history.
Policies put in place in the early 20th Century such as the Hawley-Smoot Tariffs, further plunged our economy into depression.
A series of Neutrality Acts in conjunction with Lend-Lease agreements with Great Britain bought us valuable time to ramp up our infrastructure and manufacturing base for the impending fight against worldwide fascism sweeping Europe and the Far East.
We fell asleep at the switch after WW 1 and failed to see what was building up in Germany, once again. Hitler basically took over the Chancellorship against the better judgment of, the arguably insane, Von Hindenburg.
Now, if you want to seal our boarders from an illegal criminal invasion, be my guest. I would not only install the fence with mine fields, but armed patrols with gunships. Radio host and history professor, David Brudnoy, years ago advocated for a 50 year moratorium on all immigration. Legal and illegal. I tend to agree.
I do not buy the argument that, we are all immigrants, so what the heck? Previous immigration was tightly regulated because of the need for a huge workforce during the industrial revolution. Today, there is no assimilation mandated, nor do the new immigrants care. We can't provide jobs for the third world. It would be cheaper to arm them and let them take their countries back!
I'm sorry, but what President Bush has to say on the topic of illegal immigrants has no influence on a) my sense of what the truth is, or b) the actual numbers or analysis of the situation.
One problem with your solution, even if we merely take Bush's version of the world as gospel, is that the places we have many illegal immigrants are not by any means the same places that have a lot of folks out of work.
Another is that the image you have of all these folks sitting around on welfare lazily and having babies is more myth than reality, in terms of the numbers.
Even assuming you could somehow identify and deport the majority of the 12 million illegal immigrants and the skills and locations of the unemployed matched the openings left, there are fewer unemployed people than there are illegal immigrants in the United States.
The Father of the failed modern immigration policy that let the third world in here, Edward M. Kennedy, recently stated it would cost some $60 billion to round them up and deport them.
I would rather spend the money now, than the Trillions they will cost us down the road.
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