As I may or may not have mentioned in a previous entry, I believe everyone should have to take an economics course at some point during their education–and I don’t mean the crappy run-of-the-mill economics course we all take in high school. Case in point: Bill Stone. He writes a letter to the editor of the Rapid City Journal like clockwork. I can pick this guy’s letter out from 50 yards away. His latest act of brilliance (eck) was to be found in the July 4th edition. Here it is entitled Put Americans First, as copied from the Journal website.
After 25 years the myth of globalism is unraveling. Every day we import $1.5 billion more than we make. That’s $547 billion American workers should be producing every year and still maintain our trade balance. That’s more than all the monetary stimulus passed by Congress.
Interest rates are at 45-year lows. Deficits are at least $400 billion already. The money supply was increased 6 percent last year to mitigate deficit spending.
Americans consuming American-made products are the engine for economic recovery. Plugging our landfills with Communist Chinese goods is foolish. Creating jobs in Communist China merely highlights our hypocrisy.
There is nothing sensible about creating Chinese jobs while American workers draw unemployment. There is nothing cheap about foreign imports, which are being paid for with deficit spending. There is nothing logical about tax policy that creates jobs in foreign countries.
Supporting our troops is a given. How about supporting those same people in civilian clothes, who are the economic troops in peacetime?
Let’s do more than wave the flag. Let’s put Americans first.
BILL STONE
Rapid City
How many things are wrong with this? Where do I start?…
First of all, this guy obviously has that overzealous, overused, and overemphasized buying American will fix everything attitude. I see in this attitude a vast failure to see the big picture. The picture that is outside of Rapid City, beyond South Dakota, and encompasses all the economies that integrate throughout the world. Has he ever thought that by purchasing Chinese goods that we are helping increase their standard of living and putting money in their pockets that they could use to buy (gasp) American goods?
Also, yes, we have a deficit. But, given the non-saving nature of the American people and the fact that the dollar was very strong until less than a year ago, this is to be expected. When the dollar is strong, people buy goods from countries with weaker currencies–that’s just how it is. And quite rational if I may say so. Further evidence of this rational tendency has been backed by recent data that show our deficit has decreased because it is now cheaper for Americans and foreigners alike to buy American.
So, in conclusion, it really irks me when I see people form an overzealous ‘Buy American’ opinion without really understanding how all the economies of the world work together, how the various strengths and weaknesses of various currencies lead our purchase decisions, how quotas and tariffs and other protectionist policies injure or completely disable the dynamic of supply and demand, and even worse–forget that it’s alright to ‘allow’ the bettering of life for people around the world just through the simple means of purchasing their cheaper, sometimes better and more efficiently produced goods. Well, I’m off to get dressed in my Chinese made clothes, whistle a merry tune as I work on my laptop made with Taiwanese parts, and putter around in my Malaysian flipflops.