1st Mar 2013, 22:15

I agree. The US will soon be a nation without real industry to keep it afloat. You can't have a sustainable economy when one group of people makes a crapload of money, while the other group makes just enough to get by.

I think protectionism is the way to go. Remember that by ruling out revenue tariffs on foreign products, governments must rely solely on domestic taxation to provide its revenue, which falls disproportionately on domestic manufacturing. Allowing foreign goods to enter domestic markets without being subject to tariffs or other forms of taxation, leads to a situation where domestic goods are at a disadvantage, a kind of reverse protectionism.

Of course, I don't think things will get better, as the G20 summit has stated several times that they are against it, and favor neo-liberal economics that completely favor corporate interests. I guess the old saying is true, that if you have enough money, then you have all the power.

As the 19th Century German economist Friedrich List would say, "It is a very common clever device that when anyone has attained the summit of greatness, he kicks away the ladder by which he has climbed up, in order to deprive others of the means of climbing up after him".

Also understand that the US government is destroying our industries by imposing no taxes on foreign goods, but heavily taxing domestic ones.