On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 19:25:23 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:

There are few countries that could afford those huge purchases without a
stable, insured, low-interest loan. The only ones of those that exist
are government-supported ECAs (export credit agencies), like our Ex-Im
Bank. That's why they exist. If private banks could do it, they would,
and they'd be screaming to get the ECAs out of the way.

Ed, I always wondered why the argument suddenly changes when you start
crossing national boundaries. I mean, if the textile or shoe factory
moves out of Massachusetts to Georgia, we don't bemoan it as much as when
it moves to Mexico, even though the effect on the original employees is
the same. Similarly, while you say that international trade requires
government financing, intra-national transactions manage to find
financing without government assistance---there are no state-based EXIM
funds AFAIK.

Of course I do appreciate that as long as the business stays within the
US we benefit as a nation, from taxes, overall employment, etc., and I do
see the negatives of globalization. However, the flip side of
globalization is that when we do manage properly our trade with the other
parts of the world, they end up being less of a problem for us, and even
boosting us back. Take China---clearly their fantastic bounce-back (I say
bounce-back because historically, China used to be the wealthiest nation
in the world up to the end of the 18th century,
https://mondediplo.com/2004/10/04asia ) was the result of US policy
started by Nixon. Do you regret that it happened? Do you think that in
the future it will make US better off or worse off? I happen to be
optimist on this count---it'll free us to do new things, like clean
energy or biomolecular technology, while mundane things like steel,
staplers and computers will be made elsewhere.

We are uniquely positioned to do those new things---we have the technical
skills, educational system, financing, entrepreneurial tradition. We
should concentrate on doing them, not regret that we lost the textile
mills of Lexington. BTW, DEC headquarters was in an old mill in Maynard,
so here you have a triple flip: from textiles to computers to Monster.com
and Gold's Gym ( http://www.boston.com/business/technology/gallery/
dectimeline?pg=20 --- hmm, maybe that's not a good example