Why doesn't the rest of the world do this?

It's quite obvious that a large number of nations dislike America, especially the old superpowers (eg. France, Germany, Britain). America basically streamrolls over them.

If America is slowly declining economically, why don't its enemies hasten it, by imposing 'sanctions' on the U.S? Why don't they just refuse to trade with the U.S? If all of the European countries, as well as Russia and China, refused to trade with America, America would suffer a huge blow economically. And while the Europeans/China/Russia would lose out in the short term, they would come out in top.

I'm surprised that they didn't think of this earlier! I'm just full of... good ideas.

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Because the economic blow that those countries would suffer from such an action would most likely hit them as hard as it would the US, harder in some cases as the US has natural resources that many of the countries you mentioned don't have (save enough oil). The present world economy is driven in large part by american consumerism. It is a much sounder policy for those disgruntled countries to simply bide thier time and wait for the eventual shift to asia.

 

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I agree with Path. Also you are talking about withdrawing of alliance. America will stop being allies with countires that impose sanctions and that country will be a sitting duck.

 

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Not anymore , basically the world ignores America especially the EU and Russia .

Dont need to American movies dont pack them in anymore , people are favouring local productions , likewise US global music sales have halved . Mc Donalds and other US fast food outlets are shutting down branches all over the world .

Yeah........

 

even if this idea were to work in theory (US pretty much has everything it needs except oil.. i don't consider the ANWR and the Texas oil reserves to be all that), the US could take the hits, while exporting nations would suffer tremendously.

with out US people willing to pay the extra price, and to buy the extra product, boycotters will have to settle for a lesser price and less units sold. while the US consumers will just buy it domestically. big deal. as for US exports, in case you haven't noticed, it's the worst period in history for US exports, but the effect on the economy is not that bad at all.

maybe in 20 years the EU will have a really big market that could provide a challenge to the US market... but for now it's not. and Milton Friedman doesn't think it will be, even in 20 years.

so in Bushspeak, bring it on
lol

p.s.
there's one product that could reek havoc if Americans did not have it: coffee. i see a stock-market crash if people don't have their morning coffee

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First of all America's economy is basically compromised of the packaging and distribution of "Bullshit", Pardon the grammar. But where else in the world will you find a market for selling a 24 hr singing electronic spoon holder? Thats America for you, the meeting point of the good, bad, and ugly. Basically, anything goes in such market, and hence it will take a heck of a lot of stupidity and negligience for such market to faulter. The politicians are also getting too greedy for the good of the economy, i mean how can the economy slow down because of the two weeks war in Iraq. This same country survived the gravious Vietnam war, and the world wars. Negligience can have a very bad effect, just ask the British. These funny looking guys fooled around their island on the premise that they could survive and dominate the world on coal alone while electricity was being developed by Zee Germans; just as Siemens. Slowly but surely electricity dominated the scene and our dear brits were left wondering what happened. Is America negligient? Well, the real question is what in the world is going on elsewhere? See you dude,

 

If the world tried to not trade with the USA the world and the USA would have another graet depression because no nation can abruptly change it's trading patterns.

The USA can not pay for all the stuff that it is buying; so the world will have to change the way they trade with the USA even if they don't want to; so global great depression is inevitable.

Every year that the world supplies America on credit, the American economy becomes a little more hollow as America loses it's ability to provide for itself. If the world really wants to hurt America they should keep propping up the dollar for twenty more years and then stop abruptly, but they would also hurt themselves more. If the world and America were capable of facing reality, then the would stop propping up America now and America would not allow itself to be propped up.

Another reason that the world will not confront America is that the overlapping global corporate welfare state / genteel organized crime syndicates have partial control over every nations government regardless of whether or not the nations are democracies. Destroying America's economy would create chaos in the capital of global genteel crime which might cause the overthrow of the corporate genteel crime global empire. When the common folk suddenly lose their standard of living they tend to revolt and nobody can predict what they will do. It all depends on which rabble rouser they listen too.


The USA could provide for itself. The USA would have enough oil and other fuels if the USA taxed fuel enough to alter the way people use fuel. The USA could find something to trade for any mineral or other thing that it could not produce for itself. Retirerees, those with a large amount of investment assets and those with highly specialized work skills would lose out if they were denied acess to the worlds cheap labor but about 70% of people who have jobs or want jobs would (eventually) see are larger rise in their income than they would see a rise in prices if the world stopped trading with the USA.

 

Never happen. American dollars pave the streets on which the European socialists protest us.

 

What are you talking about? The Marshall plan was a long time ago. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the only good that American defense spending has done for Europe is that it cripples America. The USA, Europe and Japan compete with each other to sell high tech to the world. They all want to buy Arab oil and America will buy anything the Chinese make.

So how do American dollars pave Europe's streets?

Maybe you just meant to say USA is number one, USA is number one Rah Rah Rah, go to hell all that bash USA, and don't forget to thank us for not flying a cruise missile down your throat.

 

Examine the world economy. The United States finanaces the worlds medical research and development, allowing the Europeans to install their strict price controls that make socialized medicine kind of almost work (we pay approximately 47% the total medical research expenditures of the Western world, or did you really think there was such a thing as a free lunch?). The United States finanances Western national security (to the tune of a half a trillion dollars a year). The United States is by far the worlds largest importer for foreign goods and services. Anually, the EU alone made nearly $300 billion off of us (that's roughly 3% of the total GDP of the entire EU, totally dependant on American buys ALONE). The figure as a percentage of GDP may reach 4% this year. The sad part is, we could import most anything aquired from the EU cheaper from developing nations. We don't, cause we're nice (though it sucks for those poor Columbian bannana farmers). That's not accounting for your tourism industries. either.

Sorry, guys. Without the United States, your broke. Fortunately for you, your leaders know this. Which is why any kind of economic attack on the US by Europe is an impossibility.

 

Considering the international debt of the USA, you're already broke.

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What is this thing you call "international debt?" Perhaps you meant our national debt, or the amount of money the United States government owes... to itself? Hardly an importnat measure of economic viability, except where it discourages foreign investment in the government (not gonna happen) or encourages rampant growth in inflation (of which we've had virtually none for over a decade).

 

These numbers are from http://cf.rrstar.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=4430&STARTPAGE=1 I assume they are accurate.
The U.S. has now run a trade deficit since 1976.

The accumulative trade deficit as of 2003 stood at $3.8 trillion and will top $4 trillion this year.

98% of foreign investment is the purchase of U.S. assetts.

Foreigners own 48% of the U.S. Treasury bond market.

They own 24% of corporate bonds.

They own 22% of U.S. corporations.

They own $8 trillion of U.S. assets, almost 1 year GDP of the U.S.

Foreign dollar reserves are approaching $1 trillion.
...................................................................................................................

I think the 3.8 trillion accumulative trade deficit + the past and future return on that loan to America translates into what we must pay back if we don't want to be paying interest on our total debt to foreigners.

Lets just say that each American has to pay foreigners more than $10,000 or pay or pay the interest on that $10,000 forever. Now who has paved who's streets? The world has paved America's streets but they are going to take that back with interest some day.

The 2004 current accounts deficit was $665.9 billion. That is over $2,000 borrowed per American in 2004.

If the USA is subsidizing the world's medical research the reason is not to be nice to the world. This "subsidizing" is done because the pharmaceutical industry has the political clout within America to screw the American consumers. The American pharmaceutical industry spends much more on advertising than they spend on research.

The "war on terror" is not a war on terror. The "war on terror" is really the PNAC wars to try to make sure that the world must take orders from the USA for the next 100 years. PNAC sees the fall of the Soviet Union as an opportunity to set up a world in which no alliance of nations will be able to form that could challenge the US global dominance. This forced obedience to America is supposed to be good for America and the world because America knows better, is fair and just, and NeoLiberalism is supposed to be good economic policy. In the mid 1990s the Neocon PNAC authors wrote about the need to invade Iraq as a means of cotrolling other nations like China and the Eropean Union. I think these Neocon thinktank people that Bush brought into government are unrealistic and don't understand history and don't understand human nature. The only people benefiting from the defense spending are the defense contractors. Anyway, scratch US defense spending off your list of things that America is doing for the world.

 

Because all the other countries don’t like to think like Americans, we are not, all pro war and pro suffering like Americans.

We don’t dislike you because you are the economic super power, we dislike you because you go everywhere and destroy everything, because your scared of a country standing on its own two legs.

All the other countries would not like to see America become a third world country and be cut off from the rest of the world (seems like you have already doing a good job of that your selves anyway)

 

Dear friend,

Do you get the point of Relinquishing something for the better? Japan had the fear of China for manufacturing, look what happened? U.S. had similiar fear for Japan? look what happened? people in 80s said that U.S. economy will die its natural death, then came the Silcon revolution...
Outsourcing may have allowed people to loose their jobs, but do you know the numbers? i know between a decade from 1993, some 300,000-500,000 jobs were lost due to outsourcing...now let me give figure of job churn--> staggering 327.7 million jobs were created during the same period. this is natural in a dynamic economy, and its a trade off, since U.S. is an open economy so there cannot be any regulations.

People are just jealous of the truth : US still rules the world.

Do you know anything about free trade theory? if you dont please read it.all people are bound to agree that ultimately U.S economy will gain from these outsourcing deals. and remember control is still in their hands, Countries like India are still like puppets.

McDs are shutting down ? ahahahahahahahahah... its a joke a practical joke. Last year the sales of McD in India rose from a meagre 2 million to 50 M (source : Gartner Inc.)...
wake up...

 

What the Euros cant wrap their minds around is the concept of a world which has left them behind. Today, excessive regulation and a lack of hard work ethic have coupled to strangle the European market. Defensively, the Euros only add regulations, prohibiting their markets from exploting the globalization trends. While the United States is using the globalization trends to profit off of developing nations, such as India and China (yes, losing some jobs in the process, but creating vast amounts of wealth which will in turn create new jobs to replace those that were outsourced), the Europeans are running in fear of it, as has been there market mentality for generations. Fear of free trade. The need for the state to clad them in some sort of security blanket. And, befor anyone throws out the "exploit" myth-card, of course the developing world gains from this exchange with the US. The Chinese and Indians, for example, are making hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and seeing explosive GDP growth.

The net result?

The European economies are shrinking, the unemployment levels rising, and the world becoming increasingly disconcered. They're globally irrelevant, and they can't stand it. So they blame the evils of American capitalism, screaming it's strangleing the working man even as the American per capita income is the 3rd highest in the world. Screaming it destroys wealth even as the American economy continues to grow at the fasest rate among all developed nations. Screaming it exploits the worlds poorest nations, even as those developing nations most involved in the global market are seeing unprecedented levels of economic growth, thanks in no part to the protectionist policies of the EU but in great part to the free trade and open market policies of the US. Screaming it takes away jobs, even as the American unemployment level is almost half that of the European average.

Keep bitching. We'll keep making money. Just don't look around stupidly and ask "what happened?" when the US, China, and India are discussing how best to handle the humanitarian crisis that is a poor, starveing, third-world Europe.

 

David Ricardo's law of comparative advantage is the core of all free trade theories. Ricardo was clearly right in theory. Trade between England and Spain circa 1800 is not a good model for trade between the USA and China circa 2000.

The law of comparative advantage does not consider currency swings and the need for stability. The law of comparative advantage does not consider the temporary (say 70 years) effects of trade between vastly unequal nations.

Under free trade: USA wages of jobs that could be done in China or India will continue to fall until they are equal to the Chinese wages for the same job. Chinese wages will rise untill they are equal to the American wages.

The net investment into the USA has kept American wages from falling as they would have fallen but this will change.

 

<If America is slowly declining economically, why don't its enemies hasten it,...>

How does shooting yourself in the foot hasten your enemy's downfall?

Marti in Mexico

 

However McD completely left Lithuania in 2002 or so. But its' a cultural thing. People prefered healthy food to that junk to such an extent that McD started to lose much money.

 

I'm sure if we end up in too big of a debt, we'll end up with a president willing to bomb you to oblivion.

Everything always works out in the end for americans, at least

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