Imports are killing the US economy.

Imports as a percentage of GDP (2006)

Germany 39.62
Canada 33.72
South Africa 32.86
China 32.08
UK 32.01
Mexico 29.37
France 28.07
Turkey 27.58
India 25.24
Australia 21.79
Russia 21.04
USA 16.98

Honorable mention for zero growth Japan
14.82.

Source: OECD/World Bank
http://datafinder.worldbank.org/imports-goods-services-gdp

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So 17% of the US GDP is based on imports? That means only a puny 83% is based on domestic-made goods and services.

Unless I'm reading that chart, from 2006, incorrectly...

Its the Trade Deficit brought on by buying into the whole "Free Trade / Global Economy" horse crap that is running this country into the ground

And don't even think about the Working Class buying power. As the Trade Deficit increases the Working Class Standard of Living goes down "Proportionaly". But don't worry, CEOs of MultiNational Corporations are making a KILLING selling this cheap crap to working class citizens



Class Warfare - pure and simple

Trade doesn't cause or solve all problems. Working class buying power has been greatly reduced in the by union busting, tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of corporations and financial markets.

Class warfare, indeed, by trade is far from the only way to fight that.

GDP isn't "based on" imports. Imports reduce GDP.

That is, in fact, what the "DP" part means. :)

Exports minus imports. Germany is the largest net exporter in the world, they import a lot but they export a lot more. In the US, we import a lot more than we export.

Are you saying lack of exports is the problem. Free traders would agree with you.

What is the trade balance for those countries.

So that those bigger import percentages don't matter?

That's a free trade argument isn't it? Getting China and Japan to open their markets.

China doesn't like to let money go out of their country unless it is collecting interest.

I'm not wanting to be needlessly confrontational here, I found it interesting that the US is more self sufficient than generally acknowledged. Exports are part of the total GDP so the 16% figure is still relevant. I will start a separate thread on exports.

Which we have an abundance of with the exception of oil.

= scam.

Some complain that when Japanese, Korean, German and other nations' car companies build cars in the US that the profits go back to Japan, Korea or Germany.

Are we to be satisfied only if we get the jobs and the profits? If the Chinese think they get some of the jobs (even if we get half the profits) or Japan and Germans think they can get some of the profits (even if we get the jobs), we are to tell them that sounds like sharing and we don't do that. We want all the jobs and all the profits?

america"

I missed. Unless the point is that FTA's like NAFTA are meaningless because we would have "free trade" with Mexico and Canada anyway (like we do with China?) even without it.

The trade we do have with them has rules that allow any country with a large trade deficit with another country to take measures to make the trade more balanced. The problem is that over the past 8 years, as our deficit with China soared, we did nothing to enforce those rules. What good are rules if no one bothers to call other countries when they violate them? Obama has taken some "baby steps" in the direction of calling China on its exporting practices by imposing tariffs on several goods. China caved on one of them yesterday, but there is a long way to go.

What is the percentage of exports for each economy.

Is this only manufactured goods or does it include things like Food.

Hope that helps you out

gives the percentage. If there was any way I could post the map I would, but it's flash protected.

I'm not against FAIR TRADE - just the Horse Shit Called "Free Trade"

Here are the exports.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_exp_pergdp-economy-exports-per-gdp

Here are imports.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_imp_of_goo_and_ser_cur_us_pergdp-services-current-us-per-gdp

Trade balance with US
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_tra_bal_wit_us-economy-trade-balance-with-us

Its ALL about the Trade Deficit

Imports # 183 United States: 0.154 $ per $1 of GDP 2004
Exports = 179 United States: $0.08 per $1 of GDP 2006

The problem is exports.

It sure must take up a big chunk of GDP, though.

Then again, I don't know anything about economics. I just know we're not exporting enough, as you mention. We need to make things and sell them to other people, not just make planes and weaponry for the military.

The Bush Administration allowed tax shelters for companies moving off shore. Agreed to Trade Deals slanted toward increasing Trade Deficits. And above all place corporate interest above the well being of America and her citizens.

Not to mention : wasn't Neil Bush paid $Millions of dollars by the Chinese Government as a Semiconductor consultant (blatant lie) to increase electronics imports

such as NAFTA, GATT/WTO, CAFTA, etc.. Our current account will never be in balance until those agreements are trashed. Many of the countries on that list hit our products with 20-30% VAT, which is legal with our existing trade agreements. We will always have an import problem until we reciprocate.

The rest of the world isn't worried that much about imports, since they import at a much higher rate than we do, but concentrate on exporting as much or more than they import.

In most of the world, companies realize that the big markets are "out there" since their own country is relatively small or poor, so they tailor their production to meet the "out there" market. In the US we traditionally have been the biggest market in town, so our companies often used to just produce and market to the "in here" market without paying much attention to the "out there" market because is wasn't as big and involved more hassles.

1. Nominal Dollars - no accounting for inflation.
2. No imports or exports worth noting in the 60s ???
3. No accounting for GDP growth.

Since we are talking raw dollars here how about this gem
from the official US statistics

Fossil Fuel Imports ( US dollars )

1960: $450,000
2008: $488 Billion

That's more than half the trade deficit right there.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0307.html

Doesn't that suggest the problem is exports?

Chilling indeed

http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2009/05/60-of-chinese-exports-to-us-are-from.html

China;s laws are that way because that;s the way the exporters want it.

Build one area up, suck the wealth from the previous one.

They win both ways.

Using China as an example, why would they bother to buy goods from us that they couldn't manufacture themselves more cheaply?

This is true for all the low-wage countries from whom we import most of the goods that we buy.

Moreover, why would other countries buy our exports when they could buy the same goods more cheaply from China. So, who in the hell is the U.S. supposed to sell its exports? The illogic is staggering.

because of it.

The best comparison is on a percent of GDP basis... which is what the OP used.

...and only "an economy" if we're being charitable.

If we were counting the EU, then your original statement would be incorrect... since we don't lead them "by far" (closer to 1/3).

exports % gdp:

US: 11.7
Germany: 45.06
Canada: 36.28
Mexico: 28.08
France: 26.81
Japan: 16.06


US GDP Percent:

Medical: 16%

A millstone around the neck of everyone, including business trying to export, and compete with imports.

According to Wikipedia, the formula for calculating GDP is:

GDP (Y) is a sum of Consumption (C), Investment (I), Government Spending (G) and Net Exports (X - M).

Y = C + I + G + (X − M)

The definitions of these terms can be found at the Wiki web site.

It is noteworthy, that Consumption (C) includes medical expenses. Since the U.S. has the highest medical expenditures of any country, that number will bloat the overall GDP relative to other countries and therefore make the percentage of GDP that are imports look smaller.

Government Spending (G) includes salaries of public servants and purchase of weapons for the military. The military/industrial complex plus government bureacracy accounts for a huge part of GDP. This further bloats the GDP relative to imports. The Iraq and Afghanistan operations account for a big percentage of GDP.

However, the government component of GDP will be somewhat reduced when, for example, education is privatized (and we get rid of all those pesky "incompetent" teachers). :sarcasm:


A large percentage of the export amount (X) is devoted to very expensive high-priced items such as commercial aircraft and weapons systems. This further bloats the value of GDP. At the same time, a lot of imports are made up of a large quantity of relatively low-cost consumer items such as electronics, toys, clothing, etc., the kind of goods that people use in their daily lives. The quantity of goods, not their dollar value, is the significant factor.

When these kinds of goods are imported, most every dollar spent by Americans leaves the country, rather than being spent to supply other americans with income. This gets us to the really significant numbers, namely, the employment/unemployment numbers.

Last, but not least, the World Bank is a corporate-owned operation and any information they publish amounts to little more than corporate propaganda.

Imports as percentage of the economy for Germany: 39.62 vs 16.98 for the US? Yet Germany has a strong manufacturing sector and until the recent financial crisis at least a net trade surplus. So the idea that 'imports are killing the US economy' is nonsense, on the basis of those figures.

and try to draw a meaningful conclusion from it.

State economies are complex, with many moving parts. As AdHocSolver pointed out above, our GDP is high in large part because of bloated health care and defense spending, much of it fueled by debt. Out of control debt and leverage in the financial sector also contributed to a large I in the equation above (this is the reason the Government pumped so much freshly printed money into the economy over the last year, when the C and I started tanking).

The only way a nation can grow wealth is through exports (unless you believe that debt=wealth). That's been the case throughout history. Thus wars fought for strategic control of resources. Finished goods are more profitable than raw goods. Thus colonization, industrialization, slavery. We currently have an ownership class that feels no loyalty to the country and is practicing a form of colonization which benefits only them, at the expense of the rest of us.

but not the only way.

You seem to be saying that a country cannot grow through the efforts of its own workforce producing and consuming domestically. That would be an argument that poor countries will stay poor unless they create a successful export economy. They cannot develop their economy just by creating and consuming goods and services within their own borders.

China has obviously grown much faster because of its exports, but China and Russia grew after WWII until the 1980's with essentially no exports. I just won't agree that "The only way a nation can grow wealth is through exports".

though that is intrinsically linked to the export economy.

Actually, Russia had a huge export economy up until the 1980s, consisting almost entirely of raw goods. They were heavy exporters of oil and gas, grain, timber, diamonds, metals and chemicals. The collapse of the Soviet Union was fueled in large part by their inability to produce the manufactured goods that were in high demand in the world market, which severely constrained their economic growth.

I understand the point you're trying to make, but to give a simple analogy: if a family starts making wooden furniture from the trees that grow on their property and selling the furniture to each other, they may be able to live a more comfortable life and some family members may accumulate more wealth than others, but until they start selling the furniture to other people, the family hasn't technically gotten any richer. If they had been heavy buyers of furniture or wood to make furniture previously, their overall balance sheet would be improved by the reduction of "imported" wood and furniture. I'm not certain that this is a viable long term way to grow wealth, since the economic benefit of reducing imports is so limited.

Similarly, a nation doesn't technically grow any wealthier by producing and consuming domestically, though any investments to infrastructure and manufacturing that accompany the increase in production will make a country more globally competitive, which can grow their export-driven wealth and attract more foreign capital, all of which can be used to fund more research and development, leading to the creation of new industries and technologies, which create the most economic growth and attract the most foreign investment. As long as a country is only producing and consuming internally, they aren't actually growing overall wealth, though the quality of life of the citizens may be improving. That's one reason why Sarkozy, Stiglitz and others have http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2009/09/15/sarkozy-and-stiglitz-a-new-way-to-grow.aspx">proposed a new means of measuring GDP, which takes some of these quality of life factors into account instead of relying on the export and debt fetish model in place now.

Your example of the family that manufactures furniture is flawed. If the family in your example has a large estate and can grow its own food, as well as make furniture, and maybe has an oil well or two, then it can be self-sufficient, and be "wealthy" in the sense of living a satisfying lifestyle.

A country that has ample natural resources and has a population that can grow its own food and manufacture its own goods can indeed become wealthy in the sense of living a quality lifestyle without having to export its products.

A country such as Japan, which has to import its raw materials, has to export goods in order to be able to import more resources to manufacture what it needs.

The Soviet Union collapsed precisely because they sold off their natural resources, rather than producing the goods they needed internally.

China watched the Soviet Union squander its resources, and is using American greed to have the U.S. capitalists build up its infrastructure and train its work force.

Read my post number 52 in this thread.

The key factor is the amount of natural resources that a country has access to.

Countries such as the U.S., Russia, and China have easy access to large amounts of materials with which to manufacture goods, such as iron ore, coal, oil, wood, and large areas of land on which to grow food. These countries can produce lots of goods for internal use and produce wealth within the country without exports.

A country such as Japan has limited natural resources, and limited arable land. The only way that Japan can produce wealth is by importing natural resources and producing enough goods to satisfy local demand, AND manufacture goods for export, which will earn them the income with which to import more natural resources to produce more goods for export.

Wealth in this context refers to the ability to produce goods and services and distribute them within a country.

The oil rich countries of the Middle East make enormous amounts of money from exports. However, the populations of those countries are relatively poor because those countries produce practically nothing internally and their corrupt ruling classes squander the incomes on lavish lifestyles, rather than establish industries to produce goods locally by importing materials in order to provide jobs and incomes for their people when the oil runs out.

The wealthy classes of every previous empire destroyed their empires by confusing wealth as defined in terms of the production and distribution of goods with "wealth" defined in terms of lavish lifestyles for the ruling class and fighting wars to gain colonies for exploitation of labor and resources.

Wealth is NOT profit. Excess profit is antithetical to real wealth, and precludes a country from developing REAL wealth by siphoning off the income needed to obtain raw materials in order to produce real goods for distribution. Huge profits mean that a country is diverting its monetary resources from producing real wealth to support a lavish lifestyle for a parasitic class. This is the place where the U.S. finds itself today.

This is where the financial corporations, the "healthcare" industry, and the military/industrial complex have brought the U.S. today.

If the U.S. government doesn't deal with the profiteering in healthcare, regulate the runaway financial corporations, and stop squandering resources on the military/industrial complex, and wars-for-profit, then the U.S. economy is going to collapse just as the previous imperial powers collapsed.

No one had them.