Nice job Bush - record annual trade deficit

[SpeedRacer 1]

and what is an "American car" anyway?? Many cars with an American brand name have foreign parts, and many cars with a foreign brand name were manufactured in America.

fuck it, just look for quality at a good price & let the chips fall where they may.

Speed Racer
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[DaVinci 0]

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I heard on the news today that the trade deficit for last year was 76B, up 6.5% from last year.

And the economy is doing better than before.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070214/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street

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The Dow Jones industrials set new highs Wednesday when stocks extended their gains for a second day after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a Senate panel the economy should grow modestly this year and that he expects inflation will continue to ease....

Wednesday marked the first time since March 17, 1998 the Dow industrials, transportation and utilities averages have closed at simultaneous highs. Such an alignment has occurred only 20 times since 1929.

I REALLY like how you ignore any evidence that contradicts your personal opinion.

[martin-o 0]

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I think most economists don't see it in such black and white terms.

I bring it up because people frequently go all "chicken little" when they hear trade deficit. It's just one piece of the puzzle that should be considered in the context of how a number of other factors are behaving.

Of course they don't, but you will have a hard time finding one that believes that a big trade deficit is a good thing. I’m not arguing that it’s quite complex. I’m saying that in total it’s not a good thing.

[billvon 3,120]

>Many cars with an American brand name have foreign parts, and
>many cars with a foreign brand name were manufactured in America.

Yep. Toyotas are made in the US and Fords are made in Mexico nowadays, not to mention where their components came from.

[NCclimber 0]

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I REALLY like how you ignore any evidence that contradicts your personal opinion.

According to Lucky, interest rates were in the high teens when Clinton took office. Never mind that that national average mortgage rate was below 7 1/2 per cent. Everybody was really paying 10 points higher.

We all see what we want to see.

[Lucky... 0]

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I REALLY like how you ignore any evidence that contradicts your personal opinion.

According to Lucky, interest rates were in the high teens when Clinton took office. Never mind that that national average mortgage rate was below 7 1/2 per cent. Everybody was really paying 10 points higher.

We all see what we want to see.

Fortunatley for you, Bill deleted that thread. Credit card and vehicle interest was teens to high teens, houses were around 9% with good credit. As I wrote in that thread, my GF bought a house and paid 9% and she has a high credit score.

Shall we talk about the same thread and the high teens for unemployment rate you quoted me as saying? I'm thinking you would let that go, apparently we are in for another revision.

Perhaps the fact that we were just comming out of a recession had a lot to do with the high interest, the Reganomics were the reason for the recession.

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We all see what we want to see.

And some revise the facts.

[NCclimber 0]

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I REALLY like how you ignore any evidence that contradicts your personal opinion.

According to Lucky, interest rates were in the high teens when Clinton took office. Never mind that that national average mortgage rate was below 7 1/2 per cent. Everybody was really paying 10 points higher.

We all see what we want to see.

Fortunatley for you, Bill deleted that thread. Credit card and vehicle interest was teens to high teens, houses were around 9% with good credit. As I wrote in that thread, my GF bought a house and paid 9% and she has a high credit score.

Your example related to rates in '91, not January fo '93, when the average mortgate rate was as high as 9 1/2%. And you never showed any proof of the high teens interest rates, just rhetoric.

When Clinton took office, mortgate rates were at the lowest level in twenty years, yet you tried to make it sound like a negative.

When Clinton took office, the Prime Rate was 6%. When he left, it was over 9%. As you presented it, Clinton inherited a horrible situation and left a fantastic one.

The only reason I bring this back up it to point out how some people just see what they want to see, even if it's a ovbiously myopic perspective.

[JohnRich 4]

Quit buying foreign cars and other foreign products. That's not Bush's fault - that's the fault of the consumers - like you. It's also the fault of the business atmosphere which makes products here at home more expensive, due to things like the minimum wage law, health care coverage, litigation, and other things that companies abroad don't have to worry about.

Would you like to allow American companies to pay lower wages and quit offering health benefits? I'm sure if Bush did that, you would be the first to complain.

And if Bush imposed tariffs on foreign goods to help American companies compete on price, I'm sure you would be the first to bitch about that too.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

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Quit buying foreign cars

Which ones? The ones with the foreign names being built in the US, or the ones with the American names built in Mexico? Or the one with the American name, but owned by the Germans?

[martin-o 0]

Instead of being best at paying the least, wouldn’t making a better product be a possible way forward? The Japanese didn’t lower their wages a couple of decades ago, they started making better cars. I don’t believe that building a Mercedes, BMW or Volvo is paid very badly either… and still these companies seem to be doing pretty ok. More than anything else I believe that an inventive stagnation in the American automotive industry and an overvalued dollar is at fault.

[jumpinfarmer 0]

One of the biggest contributors to the trade deficit is oil imports. The price of a barrel of oil has doubled in the last few years and over 60% of that is imported. Reducing oil consumption and the use of alternative fuels will help some with this problem.

Another part is that a great deal of food products are now imported. Not so much the staple meat, milk, and cereals but, the higher end wines and speciality foods as well as fresh vegitables. This is due largly to the change in how we eat and that we now expect to have fresh fruits and vegitables in the supermarket 12 months of the year, not just seasonally.

[DaVinci 0]

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Instead of being best at paying the least, wouldn’t making a better product be a possible way forward?

It has to be a cost/worth balance. BMW's are considered "prime" cars and for that they can charge more. I know a guy with a Diablo and he claims it is a real POS. But an oil change, new tires, and a tune up cost almost 10grand. He paid it with a smile knowing he had a "prime" car he could afford.

American cars are not as reliable and cost more than the imports. I have several American cars and I have to say my next car will be an import unless Americans start to build better cars. My 2 American cars have been crap.

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More than anything else I believe that an inventive stagnation in the American automotive industry and an overvalued dollar is at fault.

I think it is the cost versus the return. I bought a Ford and it went into the shop in the first WEEK. My GF bought an import for about the same price and has had only one issue with it. The Leather on the seat "just looked wierd". They replaced it no hassle. The Ford dealer made me feel like a creep for taking the car back cause the check engine light came on.

Americans are not building quality cars, jet they are charging a bunch for them. I don't want to buy an import, but only an idiot would continue to buy cars that cost more and are worth less.

[billvon 3,120]

>This is due largly to the change in how we eat and that we now
> expect to have fresh fruits and vegitables in the supermarket 12
> months of the year, not just seasonally.

You can make an effort to still buy locally. Here in San Diego we get all our vegetables from a local farm that delivers them once a week. In more seasonal areas it's tougher, but even where my family lives (Long Island NY) there are farms that operate year-round (using greenhouses) and grow all year. More expensive to be sure, but I prefer paying local farms/farmers.