[central_va]

What crap. I believe the 300 million people occupying the better part of an entire continent can be self sufficient in just about every way. When you import goods, you also import the standard of living of the country you import from, for worst most of the time.

[kevao]

What crap. I believe the 300 million people occupying the better part of an entire continent can be self sufficient in just about every way.

LMAO!!! You are pulling my leg, aren't you? I mean, just one obvious example:

Tell your self-sufficiency theory to Singapore, a tiny little island country with basically ZERO natural resources, 5.5 million people, the third most densely populated tract of land on the planet. Yet, their standard of living is exponentially beyond the wildest dreams of many basket-case countries with fortunes in natural resources.

By the way, most of those resource-rich, yet scandalously poor, basket-case countries have one thing in common -- they're closed, protectionist economies....