Reply #7: We agree on the need to build our economy and demand.

[jtuck004]

But we have already given away the store. There is nothing to protect. There is no demand, and we have already moved our manufacturing elsewhere. Go ahead and create a tariff. That stops sales overeas, and with nothing to pick it up here, it just accelerates the decline we are in.

I disagree about Mexico. The reason the lobbyists (American, btw) were able to influence this was because of the drop in our sales after Mexico put in the restrictions. That gave them money and power. If we had kept the restrictions in place Mexico would have continued to buy those products elsewhere (Brazil is doing some amazing work, and China is investing billions in that arena) while American farmers and others got nothing. There was no reason for them to back down - they had what we needed, and they could get what they wanted elsewhere. People in the U.S. are fooling themselves - they have made themselves quite dispensable to most of the rest of the world.

We agree about putting Americans back to work, but just exactly who is going to do that? Companies have NO incentive to do this. Their money is coming from sales overseas and outside of our borders because that is where the demand is. All the laws and tariffs in the world can't _create_ demand here. The only thing that does that is disposeable income, and without trillions of dollars being put into a jobs program there is and will be little to no money to spend. We are still paying off debt, replacing good-paying jobs with clerk jobs at Dollar General, watching our houses drop in value, all while 10,000 people a day are turning 65. The only real jump in demand going forward will be for medical care, and that is an expense of rather than a creator of wealth. The government is the only entity of a size that could put up the resources that could change this, but we are cutting off the heat to people with no money, not building up the country. We put an administration into place from a party that used to represent the most vulnerable, yet look what we have. We should realize there is a much bigger threat from our lack of ability to generate wealth than we face from any Afghanistan or other such conflict, but we are too busy scratching that itch to feel the saber ramming through the heart of the economy that we depend on.

It is as it has always been - those who own the assets control what happens. If people want control and power, they need to figure out that they need to pool their resources and begin to learn how to control and use the assets. It's doable, but so far most seem more likely to watch daytime tv and depend on someone else to do the heavy lifting. As a country we are still in excuse-making mode, still blaming all the wrong things, still living as if it is 1950.

The dollar is going to collapse along with our economy. It started that process when we started giving away the store 40 years ago, and there is nothing that is going to stop it. But it's our own fault.

Your mileage may vary, of course.