I would think the vast majority of the "trade imbalances" would be explained by the fact that we are one of the highest consuming and most affluent countries trading with countries that have significantly fewer people and significantly less buying power. So when we buy X times more things from them than they buy from us, isn't that just the way it would naturally and logically play out? That is not some sort of "screwing" by the other country like it is being portrayed.
I could be off-base, but I have been reading a lot by people who would know these things and they seem to substantiate this being the case...
This is precisely the point. You've got it.
(Compliment intended - I know computer words can be provocative).
People from - if you'll pardon the cliche, "both sides" of the political aisle ON THIS BOARD have noted that there's a trade imbalance between (for example), ME and Wal-Mart. But we both get something out of it.
I'm going to need something a lot more authoritative than a claim by Donald Trump to even think "oh, these trade deals are terrible." I am FAR from an apologist for ANY previous administration, but the notion that "all these politicians sold you out" (which I have no real problem believing) and that DONALD TRUMP is the SOLUTION (which - show me), when he's employing the exact same Roman candles firing into the night to get my attention but not
actually changing much of anything that he claims is wrong that he employed with the USFL, Trump Plaza, and pretty much everything he's ever touched...I don't buy it. When the slimeball pimp has his miraculous religious conversion into a Christian, I'm not bad enough to say it's automatically a grift - but the tell-tale sign is that instead of sitting in his chair and learning doctrine and practice, he becomes an overnight TV preacher selling Peter and Paul salt and pepper shakers. At that point, his conversion can be viewed as opportunism.
By the way, here's something to think about: never in the entire history of America, probably in the history of the WORLD has the general populace ever thought things were "fair." I would guess that in the 1950s there must have been parents who worked in textile mills (like my grandparents) who scraped and scrimped to send their kids to college "so you don't have to work in the factory". The "system" was unfair, and you can see it in protest songs going back to Pete Seeger or Bob Dylan right through Springsteen and Mellencamp. "The system" has failed "the working man" was a common theme, esp in the 60s-70s-80s.
And yet the offspring of these same people want us to go BACK to that time that they were protesting about being unfair BACK THEN because.....wait for it.....things are unfair NOW. Amazing how the unfair days of yesterday get radically changed into "the good ole days."
