On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:15:48 -0600, "MikeWhy"
wrote:

wrote in message
...
[... snipped "buy USA" for bailout ...]
This is just starting to get worse by the day. The arrogance and
stupidity of this whole bailout situation is getting ridiculous.

Your anger and ire are misplaced. We're in the situation we're in by
spending our money overseas. Our largess with our neighboring countries,
through NAFTA, brought only the beneficients' scorn and disdain, while we
suffered loss of jobs and loss of capital. Hell, even our marijuana comes
from Canada and Mexico. It's true; we can't compete with their smaller
economies on a level field.

As for the stimulus money, the simplest analogy is with pipes and plumbing.
In a closed system, the money makes several roundtrips through the economy
before petering out, multiplying its effectiveness each time through. The
money goes to workers in your community, where they spend it on goods, and
they in turn spend it on more goods. We pay taxes on the money. The money
comes back out to pay for more work and more product. There's a name for
this economic theory. Keynesian, I think, but I might as well try to do
integral calculus as remember the fine details.

So, what about the import tool restrictions? Why cut NAFTA partners out of
the pie? First, our dear neighbors don't pay taxes or tariffs in the US.
Money leaves, and doesn't return.

Oh, it returns all right, when Canadians buy US goods and services.
Because we ARE a small economy we cannot afford to build EVERYTHING we
need. Particularly when your (protectionist) industries pull their
plants out of Canada . And they buy up our plants and then pull them
out so if we want, say, a medium duty truck we need to buy AMERICAN
International or Freightliner trucks because you have shut our plants
down. Our steel industry is almost 100% American owned now that
American Steel has bought out Stelco.

You get your money back from Canada. How'd you like if Canada decided
to say "you won't buy our steel, see how you do without our natural
gas too"?
We wouldn't be STUPID enough to do that (I dont think even Harper
would do that - Dion might have).

The status quo is exactly why we have a
problem. So, what to do about the lack of domestic tools and suppliers? This
is secondary money, funding US industry, making more jobs, opening a market
for manufacturing. Manufacturing builds a long supply chain, opening more
domestic markets, developing still more jobs, and circulating the capital to
more corners of the economy. Or something like that.