"Ed Huntress" writes:

I hesitate to stir this hash up, because it gets complicated in a hurry...

I understand, but I'm not sure we have a choice. This may not be
the right forum for it, but I also need to find a new career, and
so far I haven't heard of one that's not scheduled to shrink.
(I'm open to suggestions.)

It's a little hard to tell because of where we are in the
business cycle-- right now *every* business has too many people
in it, but that will change in the short run. I'm more concerned
about retraining for a new career and then having it drop out
from under me (as happened to many people in the IT business).

some countries don't want to export more than they import. The U.S., for
example.

I'm not aware of any others. And I don't see how it's sustainable
(in terms of dollars, not necessarily manufactured goods). We've
minimized the effects via inflation in the past.

The trouble with our trade policy is not trade deficits per se, but (IMO)
overwhelming "surges" of trade deficits.

Nobody has ever seen a surge like that in
modern times. I don't think we can survive it without a hell of a lo
of dam
age to our employment structure and to our economy as a whole.

That's what happened to the farm economy in the 1920s, when there
was a huge jump in productivity. Most of those people found other
jobs-- *ten years later*.

In practice, I'm afraid that the job creation
they have in mind is a generalized abstraction, and that they have no
specific ideas about where these jobs will come from.

In theory, they're not supposed to-- it "just happens". The hole
in the theory is that we're supposed to be able to live off our
savings until the new jobs appear, no matter how long that takes.

There are big issues involved that are over the heads of most of us.

I'm not sure we have a choice about it.