>> we in the US cannot continue to insist on cheap and readily available everything without being involved in the key places that source all that stuff to us. <<
perhaps we should reevaluate our priorities then. perhaps consume, consume, consume, is not so wise if it means we must entangle and embroil ourselves in numerous foreign conflicts.
>> It's just that simple. If the US people are willing to go without some stuff, and pay lots more for stuff, and wait for some stuff, and make some lifestyle sacrifices, then we could do what you say re being isolationist. <<
i never advocated being isolationist. it's quite simple. there is interventionist on one extreme, isolationist on the other, and right in the middle there is independence. my argument is that we have swung way too far to the interventionist side and need to head back toward the middle of independence.
>> No inflation and good GDP are/were not all domestic, there's a lot of foreign inputs to that, and I know you know this. <<
oh really? we engaged in "protectionism" for 50 years after the civil war and our economy did just fine. we ran budget surpluses the majority of the time, we stayed out of foreign wars, our GDP grew over 4% on avg and inflation was not an issue. national debt was reduced by two-thirds. there were no income taxes except a brief one to pay for the civil war. between 1870 and 1900 commodity prices fell 58%. real wages rose 53% despite a doubling in the population. by the end of this period we became the great industrial power on the planet and we emerged as the new global superpower.
"We lead all nations in agriculture; we lead all nations in mining; we lead all nations in manufacturing. These are the trophies we bring after twenty-nine years of a protective tariff"
--President William McKinley |
