Arfa Daily wrote:
snip
sets, VCRs, motorcycles, cars and so on. The Koreans already manufacture
pretty reasonable cars at very cheap prices. A few visits back, I hired a
car on-airport in the US, and it was a Korean KIA Sedona. I drove it around
for two weeks and, although it was not the 'smartest' car on the block, with
the most features or top notch finish, it was never-the-less perfectly
adequate and comfortable, and did exactly what it said on the can. Certainly
no worse than some bottom end Fords that I have driven.

I rented a Hyundai Sonata last year in San Jose...drove it on a winery
tour in the San Jose Mountains, an up through San Francisco and on north
from there. I took that car on almost every conceivable kind of road
from one-lane gravel in the mountains, to the freeway, and back down the
coast to SJ.

I must say, I was *very* impressed...so much so that if I were ever in
the market for a new car (not likely), I'd certainly consider this
one...quiet, comfortable, nimble, with oodles of trunk space.

This year I rented a Ford Fusion for a week. It was not even in the
same class, IMHO. It was noisy and felt unrefined and
underpowered...yet costs more than the Hyundai.

It is possible to imagine an inverted world in which the "third-world"
countries do most of the manufacturing, while the "first-world" and
"second-world" countries produce most of the food. (Notice I said
"imagine".)

It's not difficult to imagine, 'cause it's happening now. Despite my
admiration for the fruits of Asian labor, I still wish it wasn't so. I
long for the almost lost tradition of skilled workers in this country,
producing quality goods that the rest of the world covets. Partly it
has to do with prestige, I suppose. More than that, however is the
affinity to the production of tangibles, stuff one can hold up and
admire...tradition, I guess.

And that would be bad because ... ?

I'm not enough of an economist to understand the ramifications, but it
seems to me that we can't buy 'everything' without selling *anything*.
Perhaps I'm naive, but we send a lot more money out of this country than
we take in. Some day that's gotta come to a bad end....

jak
Arfa