“Isn’t it great? We buy lots of stuff because we’re wealthy.”
We won’t be if we continue to get screwed by bad trade policies that benefit the other parties but not us. That will have a big impact; it already is with off-shoring, shrinking U.S. manufacturing base, cheaply made products that bust or wear out in two seconds, lower wages for our workers, illegals replacing our workers further lowering wages, our car industry going down the tubes to foreign competition, undercutting of our own U.S. industries by foreign businesses propped up by gov’t subsidies, tariffs on our goods, closed markets to our products, ad nauseum. Oh, but everything is just fine, isn’t it. Free trade is wonderful. Pie in the sky my dear. Open those peepers and see the reality, not the fantasy.
What do you propose we do? This crap has been going on for years. I’ll give you a reading assignment. Go look at the “Hawley-Smoot Tariff” and get back with me.
If I posted a thread about the fact that U.S. companies pay the highest corporate income tax rate in the world (or second highest, depending how you calculate), and the fact that they must pay it on their world-wide income actually encourages them to offshore their operations the thread would skyrocket to seven replies . . . and your typical paleo-isolationist would be afraid to show his face there. But post a thread with a suitably-negative headline, and they flood here to whine. You don't have to be very smart to realize what's going on.