Re:Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working
by endorphone on Sunday February 25, 2018 @10:26AM
(#16459359)
In the last 50 years, not once has it been positive, and it's systematically gotten worse.
The US must be a 3rd world country then, right? 50 years being apparently looted like that. Oh wait, it is actually right at the pinnacle of strongest economies in the world.
How can that be?
Because maybe, just maybe, it isn't zero sum. As I mentioned the trade balance is largely a myth (Apple brings hundreds of billions home, while China nets tens of dollars per iPhone, yet the whole gets attributed to China. This goes across every major US manufacturer), and the US has been an enormous beneficiary of it, not only in economic power but in quality of life.
US trade balance: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-trade
How to read that graph: if the line is above zero, it's a net benefit to the US to allow free trade, if it is below, it's a net cost. In the last 50 years, not once has it been positive, and it's systematically gotten worse.
TLDR: free trade is a massive cost to the US economy. It is in fact clearly at a level where if it wasn't for the dollar's status as global reserve currency, it would be completely intolerable.