Ahhh, good point.


>I was thinking about something while i was doing my errands a little while ago. I don't know how prevelent this was at the time, or anytime actually, as this might still be applicable today.
>
>I was watching a documentary on Tom Dowd, the legendary music producer, a couple months ago. He is a brilliant mathematician and excelled at physics also. He did a bunch of work on the Manhattan Project.
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>He told the story during the movie, that the reason he went into the music industry fulltime after the Manhattan Project, was because he couldn't talk about his prior work experience. So it made it difficult to land a scientific job.
>
>He ended up in music because of that. And his engineering training paid off handsomely.
>
>And the problems with the infrastructure go way back. When economists saw that the big military buildup during WWII was able to help get people back on their feet after the depression, it was too easy for the govt to continue down that path until today.
>
>So the infrastructure problems date back many years ago.
>
>>There are problems with your argument. First, the infrastructure. We do not have the infrastructure in place, not because of the military spending (which must, by law, purchase from U.S. manufacturers if the product is available), but because they have all been shipped overseas and goods manufactured overseas by U.S. companies still count towards our GNP. The average age of a qualified factory worker is now 51. Since the factories went overseas, there is no longer any shop classes in schools. There are no apprentices learning those trades. There are no engineers specializing in those fields.
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>>As to trade, it is difficult to manufacture here without the resources to do so. That, once again, is not due to military spending.
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>>Our trade agreements which due exist, are NOT equal. Study any of them. They are one-sided benefiting the other country. This is as it should be according to many here on the UT and elsewhere who feel that more advanced nations need to give a helping hand to the other countries. I disagree. We have dug ourselves a hole that is difficult if not impossible to get out of. The new trade agreement with Columbia, which may have to led to others, would have been a start in the right direction.
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>>There is also the problem of self-sustainment. Say what you want, if for any reason, supplies entering this country stopped, imagine the mess. This country could come crumbling to its knees.
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>>I have never advocated shipping all 12 million illegal immigrants back. I have advocated controlling the flow in and a guest worker program and a road to citizenship. I have advocated collecting taxes under their own identity (instead of mine) and contributing to the costs of their living here. I have advocated complete identification and vetting of every one and allowing those who contribute and are willing to do so under the law, remain here. I have advocated fining companies and businesses who hire outside the law. I have advocated rewarding those who work for citizenship within the law.
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>>Now, to change the subject entirely, does anyone see the creation of the EU as a step towards the apocalypse?
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>>>not necessarily. His point is that because of all the spending in military, we do not invest in our infrastructure. Because of that we lost our edge to compete in the world market for goods.
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>>>Obviously, one component of this is price, and our labor costs are higher. But the other component is that we do not have the infrastructure in place to produce world class goods. Other countries are able to trade their profits from trade surplus' and reinvest it. We no trade surplus, we have no funds to reinvest.
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>>>And I think that gets back to your discussion of trade agreements. It's kind of the same issue as immigration.
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>>>We have a massive base of immigrants here that because of their work ethic, and willingness to work for less, we depend on. To the point that, at least in LA, if you go into some ethnic restaurants of other then hispanic persuation, there will be hispanics working there. So things that we pay for that are produced within the US would become massively more expensive if the people who say we should round up the 12 million hispanics and send them home.
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>>>In trade, we have become dependent on foreign goods that we can not produce equivalents of in the US. Either because of cost, or quality. For example, the article I referenced mentioned the massive amounts of technical people the govt hired to put on nuclear bomb projects. I'm not an expert, but maybe we would have better qualified engineers in the US auto industry if they weren't working for the govt. And the US auto industry would not have the problems they have selling domestically.
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>>>
>>>>There is no question military spending is HUGE right now and much larger than we can afford. Yet this is not about military spending. It is about trade and the free market. Yet it amazes me that all I hear are complaints whenever the mention of changing trade agreements in order to improve the trade deficit is discussed. Sheesh...
>>>>
>>>>>And you wingnuts who brag that the US is great cause we got such a massive military get a special mention in this piece:
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>>>>>
>>>>>Such expenditures are not only morally obscene, they are fiscally unsustainable. Many neo-conservatives and poorly informed patriotic Americans believe that, even though our defense budget is huge, we can afford it because we are the richest country on Earth. That statement is no longer true. The world's richest political entity, according to the CIA's World Factbook, is the European Union. The E.U.'s 2006 GDP was estimated to be slightly larger than that of the U.S. Moreover, China's 2006 GDP was only slightly smaller than that of the U.S., and Japan was the world's fourth richest nation.
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>>>>>A more telling comparison that reveals just how much worse we're doing can be found among the current accounts of various nations. The current account measures the net trade surplus or deficit of a country plus cross-border payments of interest, royalties, dividends, capital gains, foreign aid, and other income. In order for Japan to manufacture anything, it must import all required raw materials. Even after this incredible expense is met, it still has an $88bn per year trade surplus with the U.S. and enjoys the world's second highest current account balance (China is number one). The U.S. is number 163 -- last on the list, worse than countries such as Australia and the U.K. that also have large trade deficits. Its 2006 current account deficit was $811.5bn; second worst was Spain at $106.4bn. This is unsustainable.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>http://www.alternet.org/story/83555/?page=1