Since the U.S. dosen't manufacture anything anymore, should we concentrate on exporting insurance policies ?
140434
US manufactures tons of things, including many cars.
202771
What?  You mean they didn't?  Everything I own seems to point to them having won the war.  Maybe if they hadn't everything cheaply made in the 70's would have said, "Made in the USA" on it, then we would have created better work habits and built business world wide until we dominated the world economy.
839632
No. Not exactly. Infact, many of those protections are being stripped away in the USA. Most of those protections are frivolous and costly. I do think that they should legislate for such protections in their own countries. However, they have to do what they can in order to get the products in the first place and they don't have much bargaining power. In order for them to learn to be economically resourceful, they need to solve that problem themselves. By solving it for them, we only put them further behind.
520773
It would be good ole Democracy with two exceptions....There would be laws on profit margins. There would also be heavy tarrifs on imports! This is solely what is causing our economics to go downhill.
1146734
We always need jobs for our people.  If any american company moves to another country, we should stop buying thier products.  I would rather buy from a foriegn company whos factory is in this country, than from an american company with a factory elsewhere, because they would be giving our people jobs.
490733
Insurance is regulated at the state level and every state has a state department of insurance.  You are looking for a commercial policy.  Go to the phone book and find an allstate, farmer's, state farm, or independent agent in your area that does commercial insurance.  If you are a brand new start up business, you will typically have to find an agent that specializes in surplus lines.  Primary carriers will typically not insure brand new businesses with no track record.
567648
Someone already did invent an engine that ran on something other than gas.  It was covered up years ago and set on a shelf.  Because of the "financial repercussions of putting so many people out of business", so the excuse was at the time.\n\nObviously we should be spending more on becoming less dependent on oil and I certainly think the health care crisis in this nation is more important than seeing how much money they can possibly waste in the space program...good program, but other pressing needs are being ignored!
409202
no, the more we war with the middle east, the higher prices are gonna go. south america is laughing because they arent gonna sell to us either. we are alienating ourselves. by this, we'll choke off any oil contacts & grind our production, tranportation & economy to a halt. uk isnt gonna back us anymore, we lost any european alies with the last iraq campaign, the saudis have other customers & dont necesarilly need us & irael has always sabbotaged usa, obviously not our friend. we have 20 years of oil at best here at home. china & russia wont buddy up. who do we have left. we're wedging ourselves into a position of having to attack & steal. yeh, the global economy will change in the near future, for the worst.
845990
They are messing up.  The largest export of the USA is military materiel.  <Edit:There are schools of thought who think the ideal thing to do is stir up trouble between two countries and sell weapons to at least one side.  It is quite profitable.  We aren't supposed to be directly involved.  End Edit>\n\nWhat country are you in?  The USA doesn't have war debts, the accounting is different, because we finance our military expenditures from within the country, and yes, the old war bonds were paid off, but there may be a few out there that haven't been redeemed.  \n\nEDIT:  US Military expenditures are financed through general treasury bonds and debt securities, not specific war bonds, and there is no good accounting for how much a war really costs.  Before the war, we were spending an average of $80 per barrel in military and foreign aid expenditures to maintain stability and keep the price of oil down, which would have been better applied to developing alternative energy sources.  END EDIT\n\nWe have never BEEN repaid a war debt in full.\n\nAmerica really became great by staying out of the Great War and WWII until later, and selling materiel to our allies directly, and indirectly to our enemies, but that is an entirely different subject.  Yes we were paid for most of that materiel, but we weren't completely paid for that junk we sent over at an inflated price under the lend-lease program.\n\nPart of the reason the present wars are being fought is to inflate the price of oil, and increase oil company profiteers.  That is an obscure branch of economics, and I don't care to take thirty pages to explain it here.  A lot of factors play into fear of shortages, and a fixed percentage of co-production agreements, and hedge contracts that turn out to be phenomenally profitable for certain people.\n\nElectric Cars?  Good idea, but the big auto companies are locomotives, and it is difficult to change paths now, and they have serious internal problems, most especially with the legacy costs of insurance and retirement, which has been dramatically compounded by the exhorbitant inflation of the cost of medical care.  Perhaps you have heard of a company that produces the Tesla car.  It is an electric, designed by computer whizzes in Palo Alto, and at $100,000, can outrun a Porsche Turbo or a Ferrari Modena.  It is a little crude in the interior, but quantities of scale could dramatically improve costs, quality and amenities.\n\nYes, war will get Both more jobs AND more debt, but what everyone seems to be overlooking, is that we have been experiencing a dramatic devaluation of the dollar relative to other countries, and that will get worse as we increase our debt load.\n\nOrdinarily I sign off with Good Luck, but we need more than good luck in this situation, we need some serious non-partisan dialog to not only address these problems, but to fix the health care crisis, the educational crisis, and the quality of life crisis in the USA.  Regardless of any nationalistic fantasy, the USA is not in the top twenty of developed nations in any of those three categories.\n\nI guess we got to get to work, first by finding the facts and determining exactly where we are, and developing solutions to the challenges the USA is currently facing.\n\n\nSorry this was so long.
461873
Why are so many things made in China?\n\nManufacturing, especially the mass production of assembly-line goods, is in constant flux.  Companies in every country are looking for the cheapest place to manufacture goods.\nThis trend has accelerated by the pursuit of Free Trade agreements throughout the world.  These agreements create simultaneous reductions in barriers that nations use to protect their native industries.\nThe reduction of tariffs and customs, taxes which are paid on products or raw materials being imported or exported, the goal of trade agreements.  \n"Globalization" is the name of this trend: the constant search for low cost and high quality production regardless of national borders.  Thus, Japanese car makers build some assembly plants in the US, because the raw materials (steel, electronics, tires) are nearby, and the cost of shipping the vehicles to market is very small.  \nMany United States corporations contract to have their products made or assembled abroad because labor costs are much lower than they are in the US.\nChina has profited from this trend because it has an unlimited work force and wages are very low.  So, the production of thousands of products is awarded to Chinese companies.  If you visit any of the low-cost "dollar stores" in this country, you will find that virtually every item is made in China.\nOpponents of globalization argue that this trend is very unhealthy for workers.  By sending business only to the labor market that pays the lowest wages, wages are kept depressed for all other workers.  And, the reason that costs are so low in China is that workers don't have any benefits like vacation, health, or retirement.\nFor now, China has a huge work force willing to work for low compensation, great ports and railroads for the shipment of goods, and local resources of coal and iron for steel making and fuel.
1055103
Walmart used to have a slogan on their paper sacks: "We buy American whenever we can."  I don't think they use it anymore, I'm not even sure they still use paper sacks.  Anyway from what I understand Walmart's practice in "buying American" was that they would squeeze all the profit out of the manufacturer and force them to sell low if they wanted to do business with Walmart.  Then as soon as a foriegn company showed up with the item at a lower price they would quit buying the American produced item leaving the American manufacturer to fail.  I have heard that American manufacturers know that the quickest way to get a foriegn company to start producing cheap knockoffs of your item is to stock it in Walmart stores.  So what drives all of this carnage?  WE DO!  The American public is frantic to save a few pennies.  If we weren't there wouldn't be all of the store ads in the newspapers and on television.  "We won't be beat on price", "Your value leader", and "Garuanteed lowest prices" are all slogans far more valuable in the marketplace than "American Made".  Your question is a little like asking people to stand on the beach and join hands to stop a hurricane.  We Americans are far better served by entrepenuers who acknowledge market trends and exploit them than by those who would cling to archaic systems based on protectionism.  Find a way to create jobs in your community.  If you want my advice look outside of manufacturing anything that can be made overseas and shipped for less than you can do it here.  Information, Service, Tourism are all good areas to look into, although now a lot of Information jobs are being done in India.  I appreciate your thought, but trust me you are wasting your time.  You seem intelligent so use your brain to deal with reality instead of fantasize about a revolution that will never come.  Faster, cheaper, better has always been the battlecry of the marketplace and we aint never going to change that.
78809
The first thing to do is to have the US manufacture things.  We have a trade deficit because we import nearly everything that we buy.  Americans have traded quality for quantity.  \n\nIf we raise the price of exports, foreign countries won't buy.  \n\nIf we lower savings, well, we can't lower it from pretty much nothing.\n\nPushing the value of the dollar won't work because that's how we fund our government deficits.\n\nWe can't really raise consumption in the US because that's the same as lowering savings.\n\nWe seem to be okay with buying junky plastic toys from China just so our kids can have a house full of stuff that they never play with and that we throw out after 2 years to make room for more junk.
1005840
Handicrafts arnt the best example, to be honest. They are a very niche market and wouldnt be worth exporting. Think about cars or machinary parts or something big and worth a lot. Then just describe why other countries might buy them, how you would compete with the existing market in those countries, if there would be a sufficient market to make the export worthwhile and so on.
382550
To a degree yes, particularly in the case of China. Considering they have been taking advantage of us for years, we should impose trade restrictions on chinese goods, this could either include quotas or tariffs. However, with the advent of the WTO it has become more difficult to unilaterally impose trade barriers. Also, on the domestic front, we should invest in our industries, such as autos, steel, consumer goods, etc. This would provide jobs and also reduce the demand for foreign goods. We could make these industries more competitive, by investing in automation and reducing labor intensive activities. Eventually, countries like China would adjust their policies to eliminate our trade barriers, by then either we would have become more self-sufficent or the importation of goods would have stabilized. An another note, we should press that markets be opened to our goods, it is extremely unfair that other countries take advantage of our open markets while they close their markets to our goods, one prime example is Japan.
389124
I'm generally for free trade.  It makes the world more "efficient" because each country is specializing and exporting its excess.  Using protective tariffs to get foreign products more expensive just makes the consumers of the country pay higher prices overall.  The country will eventually fall behind the other countries of the world.\n\nProtectionism might save some jobs in the country overall, but the extra wages are going to be offset by a higher cost of living.  It might be slightly different if you have an obnoxious country completely undercutting and taking a loss to drive out competition, but I'm more talking about the normal case.
996042
Decline in some areas, maybe (manufacturing comes to mind)...but in terms of research, development, and especially services...these are what will buoy the US over the next fifty years.\n\nThis is what happens during the development of a one-world economy. The idea of the nation is, in some ways, obsolete.
337234
The answer to most of the US's problems is our dependency on oil.  Not only for automotive fuel but also for energy generation and heating.  We need to find cheaper and more efficient ways to handle these issues and soon.